Mr & Mrs Calamity reveal their stories of disco silliness from years gone by…
First up, Dan Prince and his first tale of shame…
The Summer of 1999 was a fabulous year for DMC’s Club Country company. We put on parties at Space, Eden, Amnesia, Privilege, Pacha, Mambo, The Base Bar and a few cheeky beach specials. However, what will always stick in my mind are the first days of the season. So get ready for a week of, well, just headfuck road shit and disco bedlam on the Balearic isle of bonkerness…
Day 1 – Off to Mambo to meet the then manager Miguel to speak about one of the pre-parties I was doing there. So, early start at Heathrow, not really with it after a session at The End with Lottie – free beers on the flight not helping – and then, leaving my hire-car keys on the Mambo bar. Yeah, nice free car then to whoever lifted them.
Day 2 – Driving legendary Mixmag photographer Rob Farrell from the airport runway to our villa, having a chat whilst listening to the new Cream compilation – and then smashing right into the back of a guy’s brand new Land Rover that he had just bought for his wife’s 21st birthday. That went down well.
Day 3 – Leaving the handbrake off a convertible Renault by the beach at the Cafe Del Mar and seeing it plop into the sea. I am not making this shit up. It happened – and we legged it. Off our rockers…
Day 4 – Renting a villa from someone who we discovered after a few days was a junkie – who decided to pop round to our plot at 10am after we’d been working all night and drove his jeep into our new rental car sitting on the driveway. Then lying by the pool and offering us Class A’s whilst cracking open a San Miguel from our fridge. Only in Ibiza…
Day 5 – Picking up your best mate and his gorgeous girl at the airport and then thinking it funny to drive onto the Departures Lawn and park in the fountain – so everyone would get drenched by the water in the 90 degrees sunshine. Cue then, an irate airport manager, a crane to remove the car, police, a laughing crowd of onlookers, a team of gardeners with their spades, a phone call to the owner of Pacha saying you’d be late for a meeting, soggy suitcases and passports plus a £300 fine. And two REALLY, REALLY pissed off passengers who didn’t speak to me for three days.
Day 6 – Your mate Louis deciding he’s had enough off the stupidness of the island after a sneaky 6am off-your-tits-golf game with Seb Fontaine and Tall Paul and then nicking your car – after we’d broke into one of the owner’s chest of drawers and finding hundreds of photos of people with really bad sexual diseases. Then Louis zooming off and parking my fucking car somewhere where, after all these years, we still don’t know where the nobhead left it…
Day 7 – Coming out of Privilige at dawn wanting your bed after kicking it on the dancefloor to DJ Sister Bliss like a loonybin – and finding someone has pissed in your open-topped car, absolutely fucking everywhere including the steering wheel, glove box and seats. What a sticky drive home off my chompers that was…
Welcome now Miss Miranda Cook – and the beginning of her folly of dancefloor fuck ups…
Ibiza has a funny way of showing you who exactly is boss. My first ever trip over to the white isle in ‘97 wasn’t exactly a bed of roses. Me and my mate Mandy in our hurry to get off the plane and get on it big time and had agreed to spend all my cash at Space found ourselves on a 24-hour magical mystery tour with an A&R guy from Positiva, who we found later resting his teeth in the corner of the club.
So far so good – until the next morning when Mandy’s credit card got swallowed by the hole in the wall machine. We had no other cards, no cash and no food. So we had to tuck into tins of mouldy old asparagus and tuna we found on the roof of our apartment. Several frantic phone calls to my colleagues at Mixmag HQ later and thankfully they arranged for the promoters of Miss Moneypenny’s to come over and lend us some money – how embarrassing.
At Moneypenny’s at El Divino later that night, myself and Mandy had an almighty row and I stormed off. I managed to fall head first down the stone steps at the club and fracture both my shins – the rest of the week was spent hobbling around with both legs purple and black – a lovely look.
The week didn’t get much better after that. I fell down a drain in the middle of Amnesia, Mandy lost the only pair of shoes she’d brought with her in the club car park and then we ended up at a certain superstar DJ’s villa absolutely off our tits with myself fighting off the hands of said DJ – whilst Mandy puked in his pool. Nice holiday all in all.