First Floor

Just before I took off for Vietnam at the beginning of last month, I became aware of a new magazine ‘First Floor’, put together by stalwart scribe Tim Gibney. Now I hadn’t been in touch with Tim for a long time, but remember him from such websites as . . . errr, one that I bought an acid house t-shirt from when my youngest son was about three. He’s eleven now. Like many friendships born online, we’ve never met, but that option is still open. In any case, I felt emboldened enough to get back in touch and was very kindly sent a mag in exchange for these few words.

It’s a labour of love. This is apparent not just because of its physical format, but in the lack of advertising. The inside cover at either end is reinforced by the presence of Deep Explorer, but this doesn’t really count, as it’s cover star Dubbyman’s label. Dubbyman looks refreshingly un deep house on the cover, more like one of the Ramones minus the speed or smack. And of course it’s the interview with him which occupies pride of place in the magazine. It’s a long and entertaining read in which Dubbyman’s words are never subordinate to the questions being asked, as it should be. There are other lengthy chats too, with, amongst others,Jonno and Tommo, Johannes Albert, Arnheim and Sensible Soccers, which ends on the not unsurprising note that “Now we don’t play sensible soccer anymore.” 

Well that had me welling up as I recalled my forays into the earl days of gaming and my encounters with Sensi. Almost as affecting though, was the use of an ‘s’ on an uncountable noun, which gives me sleepless nights just thinking about it. 

All in all though, ‘First Floor’ is a fine read and will, I hope, go from Strength to strength. It’s nice to have and to hold something. You can only convincingly sip from fine crystal while holding printed underground dance music media, so lets have the second issue pronto please. Well done everybody involved.