You Set The Scene Sunday afternoon DJ sessions at The Habit in Goodramgate, York

4:06pm Friday 26th February 2010

By Charles Hutchinson

You Set The Scene, the family-focused Sunday afternoon DJ sessions at The Habit in Goodramgate, York, will be expanding from this weekend.

Resident DJs Dan Guest and Mike Harrison have been playing 1960s and Sixties-influenced pop, psychedelia, garage rock, girl groups et al from 2pm to 6pm on the last Sunday of each month for six months at the Goodramgate café bar.

“Up until now, we’ve just been upstairs and it’s always been packed out with a real family vibe,” says Mike. “As of February, we’ll be taking over the whole venue for our monthly sessions.”

Dan has been collecting music for ever and has run various music nights over the years, most notably being the original DJ at Brighton Beach, where he set up and established the club. He owns six Lambrettas and loves a multitude of musical styles, as can be witnessed whenever he plays his selections at The Habit.

Mike is not a DJ (he just plays records he likes) and has spent “far too much time” in California where he is known as Ringo. He owns cowboy shirts galore and plays mainly American bands.

“Entry is free, kids are welcome, and The Habit serves good food, beers and various non-alcoholic drinks, so come and say hello,” says Mike.

Just A Quickie with…Mike Harrison, co-host of You Set The Scene

How did you and Dan decide to set up You Set The Scene, and why run it on a Sunday afternoon, the Small Faces’ favourite time for lazing?

“Dan and I had spoken for a while about doing something but nothing really happened until I was asked to DJ in London at The Hangover Lounge, a weekly Sunday session of chill-out music held at The Lexington pub in Islington.

“This sparked the idea of doing something similar in York. We both have kids and it seemed obvious to try to do a more family-orientated event, where people can come down, hang with their friends, and all the kids can play together and dance around.

“We get a good cross-section of people coming along; some have families and some don’t. There aren’t really any rules; it’s very chilled and relaxed.”

“It’s a cool little independent venue with a great vibe. We didn’t want to do it in the back room of a pub or choose a typical music venue. We wanted somewhere that had a good atmosphere.”

“We have people with babies, through to teenage kids. The music is played at a respectful volume so that people can chat too.”

“We’ve done six of them so far and they’ve all been really busy and people have ended up going downstairs, so we thought we should look into piping the music down there to double the capacity. Simon at The Habit was happy to let us do this and has invested in a long cable to link up to the stereo downstairs. I just hope it works okay!”

Give a snapshot of what music your typical You Set The Scene set list might feature.

“Dan’s current faves are Sonic Youth’s Dirty Boots; Syd Barrett’s Late Night; New York Dolls’ Personality Crisis; I Got A Loneliness by Time Rose; Chuck Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me; The Cribs’ I’m Alright Me; I’m Ready For Love by Martha Reeves; Big Star’s In The Street; PF Sloan’s Halloween Mary; and Tim Buckley’s Buzzin’ Fly.

“My faves are The Cake’s Baby That’s Me; Elvis’s (Marie’s The Name) His Latest Flame; The Shangri-Las’ Give Him A Great Big Kiss; He Did It by The Ronettes; The Beach Boys’ Girl Don’t Tell Me; The Seeds’ I Can’t Seem To Make You Mine; The Box Tops’ Cry Like A Baby; Revolution Blues by Neil Young; Guided By Voices’ Fair Touching; Vivian Girls’ Can’t Get Over You; and Merry Go Round by The Sorry Kisses.

“And of course we always play You Set The Scene by Love. If there’s something particular that people want (and we have it) then we’re always up for playing requests.”

“I’ve always been into American bands on the whole. My uncle Nick used to do tapes for my parents when I was a kid. There were no pictures or info, just names on the boxes, so I’d listen to them and the ones I got into the most were Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, The Ronettes, stuff like that. They just happen to be American.

“It’s always appealed to me more than the English stuff. But saying that, you can give me Nick Drake any day; he rules and he’s about as English as it gets. That is one thing that works well, I play a lot of American tunes and Dan plays a lot of English stuff, and we crossover somewhere in the middle, so there’s always a good mix.”

“It came from when I was living in California. There were too many Daves and Mikes and it became my adopted name, given to me by Mike and Rusty, who I was living with at the time.

“Surprisingly, it’s not a Beatles thing (despite being an English guy called Harrison). It came from the movie Pulp Fiction. It’s what Samuel L Jackson calls Tim Roth at the end of the movie in the coffee shop when he’s pointing the gun in his face.”