NEWS
EVENTS
What is Wicked 7 all about?
Wicked 7 specializes in various services such as events, radio shows, music productions and management, with a focus on electronic music.Their next event is Friday 26 August during bank holiday weekend at Café 1001 in Shoreditch, east London, from 6pm till midnight, where they will showcase Seminor Lab, run by Julien Amour. Check the Facebook event and RA event for more info. Wicked 7 is an Art movement originated from the sub culture of the electronic music industry.
They aim to create an association that can protect and defend all sub culture heritage, including their own of electronic music club culture, which is under threat and in extinction, by introducing new strategies and services to support our artists, creative businesses and clubs. Two of the main services they are planning to introduce are the unique KoK-oc Award and an advertising Wicked 7 Festival. While they grow their brand to reach their goals, they run Wicked 7 network radio show on Ibiza Live Radio every Saturday from 8pm till 9pm, along with various Wicked 7 events.
In London they have done parties at Egg, Fire, Union, Cube, amongst others. We chatted with Wicked 7 to get the full picture.
How did you meet Julian and decide to work together?
Julien Amour is one of our wicked 7 shareholders and owner of 1% of Wicked 7 ltd. I met promoter, DJ and producer Julien Amor thanks to my agency's constant networking on the club circuit in London and I was immediately interested to make him part of the Wicked 7 business network because I found out he was born in Ibiza, where he grew up doing parties in the main clubs and working with Ibiza’s main resident DJs, who are now some of the pillars of the Ibiza club circuit. Eventually he decided to relocate himself in London where he lives now with his family. Here in London he has been running his Seminor Lab for quite few years in renown clubs such as Egg where he has often collaborated with DJ Mag etc. His last party was done in Egg during one of Familia's best parties to date which had Markantonio, Luigi Madonna, Harvey Mckay side by side with residents Fabio Ferro and Anthony Castaldo to name but few. Seminor Lab has also been hosting events in other clubs such as Fire, Ministry of Sound, Mcqueen, etc, and they are quite popular for their boat parties done in collaborations with other event organizations such as A-List sub promotions Amor, Move and many more.
So you guys have been doing parties in ibiza?
We had the pleasure this summer to run Seminor Lab, featuring Wicked 7 events, at Eden club in Ibiza and we decided to carry on our collaboration in London throughout the winter. This year our work in Ibiza was mainly done to get our brands on the Ibiza event map and we aim to carry on next year bigger and better. Ibiza is a tough market, there is so much going on and events need to be done in a completely different way from how we are used to do them in London so all in all ,was a great experience.
You have an event coming up on the 26 August. Tell us more about that.
“Wicked 7 featuring Seminor Lab at Café 1001” is an event that is the reverse of this summer event that me, Angela Caruccio (Wicked 7) and Julien Amour (Seminor Lab) have done in Ibiza titled “Seminor Lab featuring Wicked 7”. We thank Spencer Wyatt and Darragh O’Meachair who have kindly authorised us to make Egg our official after party. We will be handing out Egg wristbands that will guarantee concession price, all night entry at Egg after our party. Our flyers will be handed out around Shoreditch on the day which will give opportunity to enter a prize draw just by filling out some details. One winner will be selected and rewarded. Cafe 1001 event managers Dominic Mitchener and Sean Hitchings kindly invited me to host some Wicked 7 events there and I was very happy to accept considering that Wicked 7 was born as Wicked event in Shoreditch back in 2006 so 10 years later we are back in our birth place, all grown up as Wicked 7.
The cool thing about Café 1001 is that has a great sense of community and offers many services. It has a fantastic outdoor area and inside lovely creative interiors; all the way up and beyond where it explodes into a 500 capacity event space with a fantastic Funkion One sound system with original brick walls.
Joe Le Groove, DJ, producer and a great friend of mine and was my main partner and DJ resident of our initial Wicked events and 10 years after I have the opportunity to invite him again as headline DJ. He needs very little introduction, he’s one hell of a DJ and is a signed artist on Defected, Moon Harbour, KMS, Heidi (Radio 1) Jackathon and has done collaborations with tINI, DJT and more. He's got a vinyl only label coming out in 3 months with a full live project called Jack On Black which he has been working on with his partner Jib Rafill. Joe is multifaceted and also comanages Quenum, Cesare vs Disorder, their Azimute project, and vinyl only label. Keep an eye out for a series of Joe Le Groove solo EPs landing later this year, he will also be part of the 10 years of Serialism world tour.
Monica Soldan is our international guest that by coincidence already knew Joe Le Groove from years back and they were ever so happy to join in a back to back closing set. Brazilian born and now relocated in Berlin DJ/producer Monica Soldan is an unstoppable musical life force. Deep house and techno is what keeps her melodies crafted from a vault of inspiration across her travels and diverse music history.With her mix of Brazilian and German DNA, Monica is blessed with the best of each culture, her hybrid of influence permeating into her music. Infectious rhythmic grooves and deep atmospheric melodies blend together to craft a deeply introspective series of moments that speak to the very depths of your soul.
Other djs in this line up are from London underground events. The duo DJs Groove Agents made of Ed Martinez and Carlos Martinez residents of La Divina and one of our favourite Warrick from Brace Yourself. We also have a debut of one of our newest DJs and his name is Chris Columbas.
What inspires you on a daily basis?
What is truly inspirational is the community work that I am doing with the Westminster Resident Associations; I am part of the committee and it's better known as Grosvenor Voice Resident Association, which has been recently created to help us residents to do something helpful for the community where we live.
I am bringing to the Resident Association my service agency strategies and advertising company Wicked 7 to help not only my club community, but also my neighbours community to take advantage of many job vacancies and career opportunities. We will also be doing some Wicked 7 events to help kids at risk and to raise awareness and fund raising for mental health, creative business and climate change.
I am now also a member of other existing resident associations known as Vincent Square and Millbank which are all based near Parliament Square and Victoria, the location where I plan to do the Wicked 7 Yin and Yang Lifestyle Festival, which is an advertising festival for all organisations and businesses selected from music, arts and culture.
What other events do you have in the pipeline?
We aim to carry on our parties at Café 1001! For now, I am really just focusing on this format to make it right, aiming to link up eventually with Traffik and Egg club. I aim to carry on our Wicked 7 parties at Fire club as a follow up to our successful party we had in May when we had Circo Loco resident Cirillo as special guest, who is also resident DJ of the number one Italian club Cocorico. We also aim to carry on a few parties at Fu Manchu which is a restaurant, cocktail bar onClapham High Street.These are the main winter events we are working on and we are always open to new opportunities.
If you could change one thing in the industry what would it be?
I think a lot needs to be changed in the club industry to preserve it but I believe that sometimes we can’t always expect others to change what we are not happy about, but sometimes we just need to do it ourselves. Artists tend to be lazy and don’t have a business sense. These days DJs are forced to be producers, ticket sellers and promoters, when we all know that artists in general are quite shy and reserved while sales agents are confident and outgoing, so quite the opposite...so how can they be forced to be the same?
At the moment DJs are pressurised to be producers to have some sort of value and this is causing overproduction of music which is hard to sell, while at the same time the DJ is disappearing because I feel DJs alone don’t have any value at the moment.
I am creating an agency, Kok-oc, that will have a number of different departments such as: social media, marketing, sales, accounting, secretarial and distribution, where DJs can have certain kinds of services (according to their needs) for a little membership fee so they can make use of proper sales & marketing representatives.
We aim to create a Wicked 7 social media service, something like Facebook but only for DJs, clubs, events and creative business without restriction in advertising.
So this and more are some of the strategies that I am introducing in the industry with my KoK-oc agency and Wicked 7.
Wicked 7 are on Mixcloud, Twitter and Soundcloud. They have a radio show, network, events page , artist page and RA page.
