The Welcoming World Of Wiggle

 

The Welcoming World Of Wiggle:

As I’m sure everyone already knows, Nathan Coles passed away recently. Nathan was half of Wiggle’s engine room, alongside Terry Francis. There is, of course, also the considerable involvement of Eddie Richards to take into account. However, when all is said and done Wiggle was Nathan and Terry’s party I think. I first heard of it when I was living in Paris during the mid nineties, and Terry won the ‘Best New DJ’ award in Muzik magazine. For me, at this point Nathan’s involvement was under the radar. Eddie Richards had just scored an excellent Essential Mix, while Terry’s star was very much on the rise. In any case, after having heard Eddie’s mix via a cassette sent over to me, and sensing that Terry’s new found fame was well deserved, going to Wiggle was a priority. I was also fortunate to call Pete Hurst a friend; someone I had since the early eighties, Pete and me both come from Wallasey. Pete is a bit of a studio genius and had moved down to London towards the end of the eighties, getting work in various musical hotbeds, culminating with falling in with the Swag Records crowd in Croydon, the birthplace of “tech house”. Pete worked on various releases, and generally got to know everyone who mattered in that scene. Anyway, Christmas ‘95 or ‘96, I really can’t remember. I came over from france to travel back up to Merseyside, but stopped in London in order to go to Wiggle. Unfortunately, while at Pete’s flat in Camberwell, (17^th floor of a tower block), I came down with such an awful bout of the flu that I couldn’t go, and watched everyone I had planned the night out with bugger off without me. Worse still, as they were coming back, I was getting up to walk with my suitcases to Oval tube, get to Euston and then take the train up. It was intensely frustrating to hear about how good the night, and the drugs, had been. Christmas wasn’t great as, due to being ill the day of Wiggle, I had made it up to Charing Cross Road and bought everyone in my family books, because I didn’t have the energy to drag my carcass any further. My mum was really pissed off. God knows what she expected, but there was no way I had the strength to think, or physically buy anything else. In any case, it would be a year at least until I was to experience Wiggle for the first time. I moved back to The UK from France in August 1997, getting driven over by my partner’s dad and arriving at our house on St. Matthew’s Rd on a Saturday afternoon amidst the overspill from a gay pride festival taking place in Brockwell Park. I say at least a year because although know when I actually went to Wiggle for the first time, I really can’t remember when my flu-ridden trip was. It was 1995 or 1996, but when? Anyway, December 1997, myself, John and Jim (at least I think Jim was there), went to watch Palace play Liverpool. Liverpool won 3-1, played in an all yellow away kit and we got there due to a combination of trains and taxis. Once back in Brixton we started looking forward to what was going to happen later. Wiggle was at Happy Jaxs/Jacks; housed in an arch under London Bridge station. I can remember queueing to get in: cylindrical brickwork, beans coursing through the system. I remember it being pleasantly full, but not at all overcrowded. There was a girl from Ipswich who said she cam all the time and had a tattoo on her stomach or thereabouts (a scorpion?). It was a rave in microcosm. All social types were represented, almost stereotypically. Council estate rastas, footie hooligans, those who, like me, were first timers but looked like they’d taken more of a risk than me. Obvious club types, less obvious club types, dealers, pill heads, drinkers, music lovers, insomniacs, and so on. Anyway, the party had been in existence since 1995 I think and during that time a self-governing after hours ecosystem had been created which answered to nobody. This is not an easy thing to bring about, and my overriding impression was that it had been a completely spontaneous evolution, the beauty of which lay within its total lack of pretence and warmth. This was an aspect that was personified by its organisers and resident DJs, Terry and Nathan. And while I’ve taken the high road to get here, first impressions are never easy to shift. In this case they were another example of a life-changing instance. Something that is always alive on a level of my subconscious and, along with countless other nights that I went to, something that breaks through the surface tension of my mind daily. I had already met Terry a few months before, so of course I bumped into Nathan and he instantly struck me as one of the most genuine people I’d ever met. Of course I can’t remember what we spoke about, probably the music and the atmosphere. What do recall, however, is that he was a force of nature an amazing DJ and producer and an immensely likeable person. And the whole crowd was like this. Down to Earth with zero bad vibes. The outpouring of grief on social media confirms the high opinion that everybody had of Nathan, and the tremendous hole his loss will leave. It’s some comfort to know though, that he contributed so much to the enjoyment of so many, and he leaves a legacy that is untouchable on so many levels. From the artistic to the social.