A Vinyl Club is launching in Liverpool where you can DJ your favourite records

A new vinyl club night is launching in Liverpool city centre where music fans can bring along their favourite records and get on the decks to play them.

Vinyl Club is the idea of DJs Ivan Thunders and Pete Martin who are better known as Coffee and Turntables.

They want people to be able to share the tunes they love and, even if they’ve never DJed before, they can get a quick lesson and have a go.

Ivan explains: “We always have friends asking to do a set and we also thought it would be great to have a night where random people we don’t know show up and we discover new records as well.

“We love to find new music and different artists and that’s what we hope will happen at Vinyl Club, a chance not just to hear the music you love yourself but to share it with other people and maybe hear things you’ve never heard before or not heard for a long time.

“We used to do a bring your own record night at Hobo Kiosk in the Baltic and people would always bring stuff that we’d never heard of before, so it’s a similar concept but with Vinyl Club we’ll actually have proper turntables and decks and mixer.

“Having open decks will be a good opportunity to let people who have maybe never done a DJ set before have a try. They can just bring their records – 5 tracks, 15 minutes, either 7inch vinyl or 12inch album tracks – and if they’ve never DJed before we can show them how to do it.

“It’s not super-complicated, you just need to know how to cue the track and fade one to the other. I think it’ll be interesting to teach people and just say ‘have a go, it’s fun.’ And, of course, if they don’t want to DJ, they can let us play the records instead.”

For the Coffee and Turntables pair, Vinyl Club will be the latest gig in what’s been a very busy couple of years.

After seeing a big increase in their bookings after lockdown when venues started to open up again, they’ve now got a diary of residencies including at the Good Market on Penny Lane, monthly at Tempest on Tithebarn and a new one at Newington Temple just off Bold Street.

On the first weekend in August they’ll also be bringing back BALTICFEST, a Saturday and Sunday festival of music, art and culture at three Baltic Triangle venues.

Coffee and Turntables started out in summer 2018 playing daytime sets in cafes and coffees shops around Liverpool, mostly in the Baltic, when they spotted a gap in what the city was offering.

“I noticed walking around Liverpool that people seemed to always play the same kind of stuff everywhere, hits or Scouse house or if there was live music there were a lot of acoustic acts playing covers. It felt so samey, so if you offer something different people appreciate it and they enjoy it,” says Ivan.

“We started in the daytimes, in coffee shops where people didn’t really expect to find DJs, and everywhere we went the reaction was always the same – people were surprised but they loved it and we’d see all kinds of people digging the music.

“I was DJing at a Good Market event and we had old ladies dancing and kids, it was such a good vibe.

“You don’t have to be in a club or a pub, you can enjoy music with a cup of coffee in your hand in the afternoon, that’s just as good.”

Vinyl Club launches on Friday July 28 at the recently opened Artefact coffee shop and bar on Roscoe Street off Hardman Steet.

“It starts at 7pm until about 11pm, we’ll do a Coffee and Turntables set first and after that it’ll be like an open mic for DJs, people can come and bring their records, put their names down to play and do a little set,” says Ivan.

“Hopefully then it’s something we could make a regular night, once a month would be nice, and maybe we’ll also attract a new audience who’ve never been to a Coffee and Turntables event before.”