BGC on the Roof starring Keb Darge

On FRIDAY JULY 13TH, the Beirut Groove Collective hosts living legend, tastemaker, master digger, legendary DJ and compiler KEB DARGE (UK/BBE) at another edition of their warehouse rooftop vinyl dancing party series at KED - BGC ON THE ROOF! 

Mr Keb Darge will be serving up a wild set of heart-stopping, hair-curling 45-vinyl rarities of '60s Garage, Rockabilly, Raw Grimy Punkers and Surf Rockers to the BGC dancefloor. 

Also on the line up are the BGC familia DJs - Ernesto Chahoud, Natalie Shooter and Jackson Allers - with eclectic 45 sets covering everything from '60s and '70s Ethio, Arabic Funk, Armenian Soulsters, Soul, Northern, Deep Funk, Lebanese Stompers and R&B. Join the oldest and only strictly vinyl DJ collective in the region for an All Night Underground Dancing Party like no other! 

ABOUT KEB DARGE:

The legendary out-spoken Scotsman has been around the Northern soul & funk scene since the start and began his career as a dancer. As soon as he had enough money together he started collecting and buying Northern Soul in the UK, during regular trips to the US and was starting to play around the Wigan area at the heyday of The Casino. By 1981 he had gained a respectful reputation as a DJ.

He moved to London at the age of 22 and decided to start living a normal life and quit DJ'ing, but was quickly playing Northern-soul again due to heavy demand by old Wigan promoters. He brought the scene to London and drew the Northern punters that had moved to London after the Wigan scene dissolved. After a few years, the Northern scene faded, Keb sold his music collection but he still had a loft filled with 'junk' music (according to himself) that he had picked up in the states that was to-be classified as "Deep Funk" later on.

So in 1989 house music arrived in the UK, and Keb decided to play the funk grooves after a trip to Japan. He managed to get a regular night at an acid-jazz club called 'The Wagclub' and he finished there after a period. And around 1992/93 he met fellow collector Snowboy on the first funk-only night in London called 'Deep Funk', named by Keb (that he later used as a name to describe the sound) but arranged by the owners of the club (Club Ormonds). After a while Snowboy and Keb wanted to push the funk sound further and they decided to start their own night in an old restaurant. The nights failed due to the domination of house and shut down after a few months.

Not so long afterwards Keb got a tip for a new location that was a strip-club in Soho called Madame Jojo's. The location was perfect and he managed to arrange a weekly night to start with. The nights took off fast and are today it is the leading funk night in London. Later on the strip nights closed and the venue became a full time music club. In 1996 BBE and Keb Darge teamed up to start releasing the now infamous Deep Funk and Funk Spectrum series that spawned a whole host of imitators.

Today he regularly DJs across the UK and around the world, focusing on his current passion - underground 50's music. He has well over 20 compilations to his name from the Wild Rockers series with Little Edith and an R&B and Soul comp with Paul Weller to the legendary Deep Funk series.

He has achieved legendary status by far with a 40's to 70's musical knowledge second to none that is perfectly reflected on his BBE compilations.

ABOUT THE BGC:

The almost decade-year-old Beirut Groove Collective combines the DJ efforts of BGC co-founder Ernesto Chahoud (***and his record store/label Darsko), filmmaker and BGC turntable veteran Jackson Allers, and longtime collector, digging connoisseur, writer and super smooth DJ of all things soul Natalie shooter. Together with their BGC cohorts, they run the only Strictly Vinyl weekly club night in the Arab world - featuring the finest 60s and 70s floorshaking music - Ethiopian Bangers, Northern Soul, Deep Funk, 60s Garage, Soul, Breakbeat, Prog-Rock, Mod, Lebanese stompers, Arabic psychedelia, Motown.

Entrance fee: LL12,000