Greco Roman  Berlin, Germany

A collective of like-minded musicians, DJs, record label people and artists who get together once in a while to throw aside the constraints of London’s increasingly suppressed clubscene by throwing shambolic, impromptu, hot, sweaty parties on the sly. Taking inspiration from the homo-erotic Olympic wrestling format favoured by Eastern Europeans and frat boys, they pitch musical styles head-to-head in one long sweaty grapple for supremacy. Wrestlers include XL A&R Alexander Waldron aka Half Nelson / Full Nelson, music manager Dom Bastyra aka The Great Mentsh, long time South London vinyl troubler Raf Rundell aka Raf Daddy, cartoon illustrator Lorenzo Fruzza, revered producer Joe Goddard aka Joe Hot Chip, legendary radio DJ and A&R man Ross Allen and fashion label owner cum Portobello Market vinyl pimp Jeremy Dade aka The Boston Crab. Yes it’s a strange mix, but then London’s a strange place sometimes. In the past 3 years Greco-Roman has evolved from its initial musical experiment in a North London warehouse into a record label, DJ outfit, fledgling fashion range and traveling party:



Greco-Roman Records draw on the sharp and wide-ranging music policy of their parties by releasing records from a number of the nascent artists that have played them – a cult electro banger from David E Sugar, a sugary disco pop song from Grovesnor, a Kuduro ghetto record from Buraka Som Sistema, bouncey festival house from Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and an assortment of rather agreeable rave noises from Drums of Death whose album they release this year. And Joe Goddard’s solo material.



Greco-Roman Soundsystem rotate DJs and artists in improvised back-to-back sets with recent headline sets at Glastonbury, Bestival and Fabric’s new superclub Matter under their belts. Each DJ line-up and set completely different to the last, the eclectic nature of their sets is well-represented in Full Nelson and Joe Hot Chip’s blogged-to-fuck “Grecoromania” DJ mix from Nov 2006 and encompasses literally everything except deep house and minimal techno. In short they draw widely on the myriad sounds that made dance music great in the last 20 years - Wookie’s 2-step boink, a stab from Outlander’s Vamp, Super Sharp Shooter’s drop, the stuttered funk of fidgiteer Jesse Rose or the forward-thinking growl of Skream… all with a handful of surprise guests and airhorns thrown in for good measure.



Greco-Roman Parties are ramshackle, speakeasy affairs in random venues in random cities, advertised solely by SMS and myspace in order to keep undesirables – namely non-discerning clubbers and the police – at bay. The littlest hobo of the international clubbing circuit, over the last three years they have lured cult names to bizarre venues around the globe: a boat in Berlin, a backyard swimming pool in Texas, a mill in Manchester, a cinema in Berlin, a church in Brighton, a Spanish restaurant in Sydney, the 8.36 train from Victoria, a taxidermist’s bar in New York, a couple of festival tents and numerous sticky studios, railway arches and warehouses in London. Once or twice they have even ventured inside a conventional nightclub. 2009 saw Greco-Roman spreading its wings with nights in Paris, Sydney, Melbourne, Moscow and its second home of Berlin.



…so let’s wrestle! http://www.myspace.com/grecoromanmusic