After various nights of playing at a friends house and continued bedroom djing, Smallkutz was approached by a friend of his girlfriend and was told about a nightclub which was at its early stages and needed various dj’s. 

The Ice Lounge, as it was known, was a snooker club and licensed bar/club venue.

Smallkutz spoke to Antoninus about the club and its potential, which lead to them heading there to speak with the club manager. They gave in some demo mixes to see what he preferred as the demos consisted of Drum n Bass, Hip Hop, Soul RnB and Reggae.

 

The news was good and so started the day after, which lead to advertising on social media and putting on free nights to get people through the door. 

On the first night, they met up with two of Antoninus’s friends from the “old skool days” who also shared the same passion to make something out of the club.

The venue wasn’t that popular as it hadn’t been reopened that long, so ideas and plans to make the club work was very much needed asap. Drum n Bass nights was the plan to help launch the club so the nights needed a name. A few names were suggested, and Antoninus came up with ‘Club Amen’ followed by Smallkutz saying “yeah CLUB together, to celebrate the AMEN” perfect!!

 

Agreeing with the name to be Club Amen on Drum n Bass nights, improving the club with a better sound system and decor set the foundations. What started as just a handful of friends, became friends of friends and plenty of more new faces. The numbers increased from 10/20 to 40+ on good nights, the numbers may be low for some club standards but for a club with an alleged bad reputation and starting off with just a handful of people through the door, the four Club Amen boys saw this as a success.

This then lead to them meeting (now two very good friends) H2Flo and Banshco, they themselves MC’d on occasion to make the nights more varied.

 

The four lived & thrived on their weekend venture, putting on other music nights and trying to bring in more people & revenue to the club.

But this was soon to become no longer for a certain two members, as their ideas were starting to make someone feel slightly overpowered and threatened by their enthusiasm, but this was soon to become clear.

Only ever wanting more people to play to and putting the club on the map for drum n bass nights was not seen by the manager, yeah, the insecurities of the manager lead to Club Amen nights to be put on hold until further notice, allegedly to help the club introduce and focus on other varied types of music……… which it was doing anyway!

Mysteriously the previously mentioned old skool members weren’t aware of this conversation and continued at the club, leaving Antoninus & Smallkutz feeling that all their hard efforts and planning was screwed up and thrown in the bin and then felt kicked out on the street.

Despite the annoyance of this, Antoninus new of a Drum n Bass night that was being held in Redditch (West Midlands) this was to be the start of another part of their journey which will lead to The Club Amen Story Part 2.