Electric Chair saved my life
A Manchester basement party in the 90s and 2000s with an amazing atmosphere.
Luke Una met fellow Yorkshireman Justin Crawford in Manchester in the 1980s. In 1995, they formed the Unabombers DJ duo and started the Electric Chair club night. The Electric Chair ran from the mid 1990s until 2008 and it was very influential musically, both in Manchester and in the UK as a whole. I was lucky to catch the final few years in person at the Music Box.
Luke and Justin weren’t the best DJs technically, but they played the best records. They came from a culture of musical open-mindedness and somehow made very disparate records fit together. Be it Soul to Techno. Some people complained they were crowd pleasers and played the same record too often. However, they were crowd pleasers because they made obscure records their own. The atmosphere at the Electric Chair was unrivaled. The night was built on the music that Luke and Justin played as residents and they brought many of their heroes to play at the club. Everyone from Larry Heard to Lindstrøm played in their Manchester basement. And they ended the party whilst still on a high in 2008.