White Mink's Triumphant Return to Brighton

At the Vintage News, we've long been fans of the Brighton club night White Mink.  What started out as a compilation cd has spawned brilliant nights in both Brighton and London as well as many copycat nights all round the country.  The Vintage News filmed at one of the last White Mink nights in Brighton before they went gallivanting round the country over the summer.

 

Nick Hollywood on the decks

 



White Mink: Black Cotton, the cd that kick-started a more mainstream knowledge of electroswing, brought together the finest of the then emerging genre and the original tunes from the '30s and '40s that inspired the contemporary artists. I've been to White Mink in various venues around Brighton, but I think my favourite was the opening of the Brighton Festival a few years ago when the Correspondents played and I was one of a few dancers that did a little display beforehand.
 

Interviewing Nick Hollywood

Anyway, that's enough background, onto White Mink's homecoming to the Brighton Ballroom.  To those of you familiar with the Brighton Ballroom (especially dancers) it was a pleasant surprise that the supper club that usually precedes club nights had been scrapped - I think owing to the popularity of White Mink.

 

We were fortunate enough to be able to interview all of the performers as well as the director of Freshly Squeezed records and head honcho of White Mink, Nick Hollywood.  Oh and did I mention he's a brilliant DJ too?

As we entered the Brighton Ballroom, the self-proclaimed World's tallest DJ Will, was on the decks.  He later joined us for an interview - when I say 'us' I mean Kieren, because I couldn't fit in the same camera shot as Will!



 



We were immediately drawn to Bart and Baker - well they were both in tailcoats and top hats (white and red respectively).  They are a producer/DJ duo from France and seemed very excited to be back in Brighton (in the balmy summers of the mid-90s, Bart studied at Sussex University).

  

Swingrowers performing

We conducted our first ever interview in Italian (via Giulio the translator) with the duo Swingrowers. All three of our Italian interviewees were rather excitable as you can see in the footage.

 



 

 I was wearing my fail-safe '20s style black lace dress that seems to be making an appearance more and more.  Prohibition Speakeasies are all well and good, but I really don't have enough 1920s dresses!  I have one original flapper dress, but it's pale pink with cream lace and very delicate - more for reclining on a chaise longue than dancing! 

 

I didn't have time to wave my hair, so I went for a strange structural, exaggerated kiss-curl style.  Also, apologies for the picture - it wasn't posed for, I just turned round and Les took my picture!

We had a really good time, especially with the quality of the acts that appeared that night.  We'll definitely be back to White Mink and hopefully we'll be interviewing Nick Hollywood in the near future.