The Dirty Hearts Club Ready to Celebrate 20 Years

We all have our favourite club night from Back in the Day. The Dirty Hearts Club is one of those classics, running every Thursday Night at Snafu between 2006 and 2011. These things rarely start out as a phenomenon. Nick Mailer and Steven Milne, who organised it together, remember how close it came to folding in its first year. Each week they split a small fee, nervous that it would be the last.

But growth came. It was slow, and for a long stretch the crowd was a mix of friends, people in bands and a few others who liked live music. It took a couple of years before the room filled out reliably and queues became the norm.

Up-and-coming bands and touring acts

Booking started local. Young Scottish bands alongside Aberdeen regulars. As time went on it widened to include touring acts from further afield. Frightened Rabbit, The Twilight Sad, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Errors and Admiral Fallow all played over the years.

Door prices were kept low and sets could be brief, so if you didn’t like a band, it hadn’t cost you much, and you’d hang around for the next one. The indie and electro wave, now nicknamed indiesleaze, brought a wider crowd and they started sticking around after the bands for the DJ set.

“People tended to phone in sick on a Friday,” Steven told us. “The bands who played would stay and party with the crowd, which always felt like a nice thing and made band keen to play the night.”

DJ sets mixed indie, disco and electronic staples with newer or lesser known tracks, and the crowd were carried along on the wave. It was, in the end, a room full of people with like-minded tastes.

The twentieth and definitely the last

Of course, Snafu closed its door years ago, and it’s still missed by many, so Tunnels takes its place this time. Steven explained why Tunnels was chosen to stand in:

“We did a party for ‘10 years’ there which was amazing and up there with one of the best nights I’ve ever had, and again it feels like a natural place for this definite last one.”

The marking of the twentieth anniversary wasn’t set in stone, but it came together when they saw just how much goodwill was there for a night that last opened its doors a decade ago. “The most important feedback I got was that what made DHC different was the live element,” Steven said.

Taking the stage this time are Zoe Graham and The Neutral Joy, both acts Steven says are bound for bigger stages. DHC DJs and HomeAlone take over on the decks later on, playing old favourites from the first time around with newer tracks thrown in to keep things fresh.