Tim Sheridan describes himself as a “shed” dj. By that he means that a “house” dj like Erick Morillo gets paid enough for a new home every time he plays, whereas his remuneration would get him four walls and a roof at the bottom of a garden.
The issue of real estate is an extremely important one for the man behind a year’s worth of nastydirty parties. As always, it's about location, location, location. He and partner Smokin’ Jo started off last year in a beach bar, and are now putting on gigs at Space Ibiza and Ministry of Sound in London, both of which must surely have among the highest price per square metre of floor space in the world.
Given its current position, we asked him if NDSM can still be considered “underground”.
Tim Sheridan: Can anyone? What does 'underground' mean? It seems to be a word that unpleasant and dull people use to set themselves apart from everyone else. To me underground is something that doesn't need to attract any customers or become any larger than it is. Commercial means that your motivation is commerce and 'growth'. Money. So by those criteria we are truly underground and spectacularly so, because we have all the attributes of being underground but also do it loud and proud and don't do the bad side of underground, which is to slag off others or be holier than thou. The famous Greek allegories of Aesop, particularly of 'The Fox and Grapes' explains it better than me.
A hungry fox spent hours leaping up to some sweet plump grapes. After a few hours he couldn't reach them, gave up and told anyone else who tried "those grapes are sour, I had some earlier, don't bother".
Thus of course the disease that regularly affects all 'underground' things and you and me....sour grapes. People may diss us because we are playing in a different room sometimes, but they are tossers aren't they? The sound of the underground is unfortunately muffled by dirt.
Will you be selling some nastydirtysexmusic soon or will you continue to give it away?
We have a single out. These days what's the difference between us giving it away or selling two copies and it going straight on the internet? Never made any money from the music industry, never will. Only the companies make money, the artists never do. I don't have time here to explode all the myths here but in every 'contract' the word that crops up most is 'recoupable' which means they don't GIVE you anything until the money they spend is recovered from sales. You don't realise that the artwork, the taxis, the posters, the CD case, the pressing, the wages of the staff...EVERYTHING is paid by YOU until you cover costs you never even knew existed, never mind agreed to. Why do you think so many 'acts' just disappear so quickly? It's an unknown fact that you can be a UK chart number one and still owe 'your' record company lots of money, while all the time everyone thinks you are made of gold. We recorded on Saturday April 10 LIVE at Ministry - it will be a global release double CD. All the genius artists who make the records we play will finally get some pay. Ministry will too. We won't get very much if anything. People aren't buying like they used to. It will cross the globe, just not necessarily as a retail item.
Does taking the disco mafia's money make you morally culpable?
Are you saying Space is Disco Mafia? Pacha denies it even exists. We are all of us morally culpable every hour every day. The thousands of things we never do or never speak up about make us all as guilty as Judas. If I get a proper wage I'll worry about it.
Do drinking and djing mix?
Depends if you are a DJ or punter. How seriously do you take it? When I get paid the price of a small house to DJ like Eric Morrillo does I'll take it more seriously. I find that a rather pointed question as it was intended. Put it this way, if it affected my djing a lot, do you think I'd have a 24 year long career? I did the last Ministry gig straight after a serious 10 day detox and was Smokin' Jo's birthday. I spent a whole week preparing surprises for her. I mistakenly drank two glasses of wine at the dinner before and was very sick. When you detox you are like a child internally, that was the only time I can remember drink not mixing with djing.
Complete this sentence: Smokin' Jo has been so good for so long because ...
...she's perfectly preserved in alcohol.
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Tim Sheridan is an extremely charismatic man whose love for the music he plays shines forth like a beacon. By his own admission he turns into a performing nitwit at the stroke of midnight, so you should do yourself a favour and be there next time he does. On May 6, the day the British general election results are announced, he’ll be making his Playtime debut at the Egg in London. Additionally he and Jo will be gracing Space with their presence on Sundays this summer.