Steve Macri has become the driving force behind the legendary London club Bar Rumba. This central venue has been home to the many facets of the London’s underground music scene as well as keeping their regular and ever popular Salsa nights on Tuesdays. Steve tells us about the trials and tribulations of club promotion and his evident love of music. Read the interview

Name: Steve Macri

What do you do?
My job description is extremely vague . Anything that needs to be done is probably the best way to describe it.

How did you become involved at Bar Rumba?
I used to hang around one of the company’s other venues, The Social, rather a lot. In fact, I hung out there so much Sarah, the general manager at the time is now my lovely wife. Anyway, so I knew the team down here for a while before I started . Then at some point the club needed a manager and they kindly offered me the gig

Describe Bar Rumba in one sentence.
Soundsystem, bar, dancefloor, feeling.

What can we expect to hear there?
Just about everything. Latin, hip hop, dubstep, drum and bass, house, electro, indie, ska, psychedlic. Pretty much everything except rumba

How would you describe Bar Rumba regulars?
Its hard to be specific as the crowd can vary dramatically on any given night of the week depending on the music we’re playing. I would hate to have to put a demographic on it because there really isn’t one. On the whole they’re just regular type people with regular type jobs. No one is here to meet a footballer or get their picture taken or to be treated any different to anyone else. They’re just nice folk with an ear for a good tune who enjoy what precious free leisure time living and working in London gives them.

What’s the best thing about London?
Music. It’s what drew me here in the first place. Whether your into techno, morris dancing, dub, whatever … then there is a scene here for you. One of things I feel most proud of with Bar Rumba is that we contribute to the sum of London as a music hub for people all over the world. I really enjoy seeing people from abroad or out of town come through the club. I’m always really impressed when people have traveled a distance just to come and see us. It reinforces a romantic notion of London to me as destination city for musically minded people.

And the worst?
Men digging up the pavement outside the club, builders outside my flat, moody bus drivers.

If you could invite anyone (dead or alive) to come and perform, who would it be and why?
I hate these kind of questions. I’ll give you an answer then half and hour later I’ll probably think of someone else and call you back up and try and get you to change the answer. But right now, at this moment , I would say to DJ ….. Larry Heard aka Mr Fingers. An amazing producer and just as good a DJ. I listen to his Mr Finger’s music mixes religiously, some of those mixes are over 20 years old now but the stuff on there still sounds like its from another planet
And the band: hmm, ….. Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Who’s set to be hot in London in 2009?
The hottest things in london to me are the more established things. DJs like Craig Richards, Andrew Weatherall , parties like Faith , clubs such as Fabric . But so as not to sound like an out of touch old man….. Bullion and Mitch are my producers to watch in 09. The Electric Riot is my band to watch. Electric Sheep is the new record label to catch and Nish Nish is my up and coming club night. DJ Sharma’s club night Work should also get a mention for championing some mental, next level house music.

Some advice to anyone visiting the city for the first time?
Bring your dancing shoes, our discos need you.

What’s the secret behind the popularity of Bar Rumba?
Simple things really. Good quality music on a good soundsystem, good quality drinks, reasonable door and bar prices, no dress code, and friendly staff . Once you are in the club, there is no VIP area, no table service, no minimum spends, nothing like that. Everyone is made to feel equal, the focus is on the party,- the dj or the band. I think that makes people feel comfortable here.

Most memorable experience at the club?
Modymann played last November at one of our World Wide Underground nights on a Monday. This in itself was a massive thing for me as he is one of my favourite producers. At the very last minute Rick Wilhite asked us if he could come down and play on the bill. No money, just wanted in on the party. . The guy played the best straight up US house set I think I’ve ever heard. He stole the show from KDJ big time. It was the best I’ve ever heard the club’s soundsystem. I don’t know what the guy did to make it sound so good, but it was brilliant He ’s also a true gentleman. A really lovely guy with no pretensions or hang ups. A real joy to have had him the club . For the record, Moodymann also rocked it big time and was equally as nice a guy, very down to earth and happily hung out in the audience before and after his show. But we were kind of expecting him to rock the place . Rick came out of nowhere at the 11th hour and smashed it.
An honourable mention must also go to Bobbito Garcia’s performance last year - another gentleman and an amazing DJ

A moment you would rather forget?
Some time ago one of our promoters booked a once quite famous British soul vocalist to do a PA, for the sake of this story let’s call him O*** , who insisted on performing just one AND A HALF SONGS . How do you perform half a song? Or more to the point how do you perform half a song and expect people to take you seriously? His agent refused to let him take the stage until the promoters had paid his fee in full. I could see why they needed all the money up front as the quality of the show (if you could call it that) was atrocious. There’s no way a sane person would have paid them after the performance. The poor guy warbled his way through his 1.5 tunes over a backing track which sounded like it was recorded on a short wave radio. Meanwhile his entourage of yes men and women stood backstage at the ready, waiting to tell him how good he was . It was terrible. Musical banditry of the highest order. In the end though, I guess we should be thankful it lasted only 1.5 songs. It was shocking behaviour though. I still get really angry thinking about it.

What are you listening to on repeat at the moment?
Kenny Larkin - Keys, Strings Tambourine, Bullion - Pet Sounds In the Key of Dee, Waxman - Aminatas and Laphroig 10 yr old single malt whisky.

Your hopes and fears for the music industry for 2009?
Same as every year. I hope for a lot of good new music and I fear bad music.

What’s the most exciting thing in your life right now?
Easy one. My wife and my 2 year old daughter Lucia.

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Tags: bar rumba, Club, DJ, London, Steve Macri

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 10:44 am and is filed under Awdio Sources, Interviews, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.