Humans of the Sesh – Mike McGrath-Bryan

Leeside music has always benefited from community and common goals, but never before has the importance of pulling together been so evident, than in the post-recession environment. In part one of a two-part special, Mike McGrath-Bryan talks to some of Cork’s electronic music collectives about how they joined forces, and what’s been happening since.

“The process is natural. I was on the bus from Cork to Limerick once, and I was listening to a guy from Charleville speak to a man from Nigeria. I overhead the (latter) state, in his beautiful accent, that ‘a drop of water makes a mighty ocean’. I don’t know why that stuck with me, but that is what it is like. We collectively become something more ocean-like, something larger than ourselves.” No more articulate a man to convey the virtues of collaboration, and sum up the current climate in Cork’s music community, than Humans of the Sesh man Brown Sauce.

The past few years have seen profound change for music on multiple levels. As macro-level changes like the transition to streaming have affected how artists release music and garner wider attention, Cork city’s venue situation has been in flux, amid the churn of the property boom and the usual attrition to which small venues have been subject over the years. Three years, DJ and record-slinger Justin O’Donnell, better known as JusMe, took notice of the changes affecting Cork hip-hop, and set about co-founding the Cuttin’ Heads Collective with other like minds, identifying the needs of genre enthusiasts in the city and the people best-positioned to play a role in addressing them. “I think it was borne out of necessity for us. Running gigs on your own is difficult. You need help, just from a practical standpoint. Cuttin’ Heads came together fairly organically. It’s just a group of mates, really, mostly people I’d worked with on other projects, over the years.”

Celebrating three years together last week, the collective set about running gigs, but also weekly club nights, workshops and a supportive online presence for the genre, providing non-commercial hip-hop with an infrastructure to build upon. On the topic of online presences, social media magnates Humans of the Sesh were brought together by a mutual love of electronic music and its culture. It wouldn’t be long at all, then, until the people behind it leveraged their numbers into SESHFM, an online platform and label run and curated collectively. Brown Sauce explains the rationale behind creating the entity, and its support of leftfield electronica. “We are a collection of people that are aware that our singular efforts are not enough to make an impact in a country like Ireland. Because of a general lack of support, we must support ourselves by collectively promoting SESHFM. It’s the raft that (we have) all chipped in on. When we started building the raft, it was made out of wood, now it’s made out of carbon fibre and has a spoiler, and on this daycent raft we’ll trail the sea of the internet, fishing for venue bookings and more shipwrecked artists.”

Rallying their efforts around a short-notice release and finding their roles as the need arose, HAUSU Records has quickly established itself as a port of call for electronic pop in the city, platforming polymaths like Ghostking is Dead, Automatic Blue and Mothra, among others. With an emphasis on consistent branding and accessibility of material, the collective set out to shoulder a shared burden, according to PRO Colm Cahalane. “When Ghostking is Dead was getting ready to finish Sweet Boy, and with releases coming up from Actualacid, Automatic Blue and (label band) Repeater, we were all really conscious that there was going to be a lot of repetitive work in branding, designing, reaching out to press etc. We knew that by making each of the release phases a group effort, we’d learn something every step, and over time we’d have a process and a shared set of press contacts and such. The idea behind Hausu’s a bit bigger than that – we want to do more events, share more of our process with the public and give more opportunities to our visual artists and designers – but it started with needing to get the music we have to the audience it deserves.”

Working together on a shared goal makes sense, especially with a paucity of resources and a city still smarting from the loss of community arts centres and more eclectic small rooms over the course of the recession. The day-to-day experience of running a collective, accentuating individual strengths and moving forward with like-minded people, has driven the phenomenon to prominence locally, but also benefited individuals hugely, allowing them to expand on their abilities and experiences, such as the case of SESHFM’s DJ Numbertheory. “I’m a lot more of an organizer, and someone with an eye for detail when it comes to piecing a project together. I can contact a very disparate community of musicians, engage them with the idea and get them involved, preaching to them the vision of what’s to come. I can then hand some of the creative reins to Brown Sauce to whip up some aesthetic choices, and come up with some mad tale for promo. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Along with (SESHFM members) Papa Floral and Grand Feen, we all offer different perspectives and come from various musical and philosophical backgrounds so it meshes well. Although I do have to crack the whip sometimes (laughs).”

Where artists and producers are involved, having a skeleton crew of people together to bring coherence to different releases not only makes sense, but is a support system that provides help and feedback at every turn, according to Cahalane. “It’s definitely brought the whole process forward in a new way. Mostly we record together, we post drafts for feedback, mix and master in-house, go through those masters on different speakers and verify them. Every artist has creative space, but everyone chimes in about the way our press is written, our social media is run, our design, the way the music is progressing. We’ve seen a bit of a rise in how press and radio interacts with our work, and it’s given us a banner to use for events and online stuff; we want to step beyond that and get our designers more of that spotlight too.”

The benefits of collaboration are only beginning to make themselves apparent in the larger scheme of things, with collective infrastructure acting as a measure of independence, a means of circumventing restrictions, and fostering a sense of community. For JusMe, the impact of these moves can be seen in the changes in city-centre events. “A lot of the most exciting things happening in Cork at the moment are definitely coming from bigger crews like the Garden Collective, or the metal scene, bands like Bailer, God Alone, Worn Out, etc., who essentially work as a collective. The huge team that make Quarter Block Party possible, that’s a collective. I think it’s the way forward.”

For Brown Sauce, as well as much of the city’s younger musical cohort, working together is not just a boon to the scene, but a lifeline in the face of the legacy of the crash, and the impersonal nature of the city’s impending expansion. “Collective endeavour will save this city from its capitalistic tourist-based hell. Every collective we know, as well as being a group themselves, reach out to other groups from day one. It’s necessary to stay alive. One group might have an issue, another might have a solution. The role of individuals such as Stevie G in knitting these collectives together, and promoting us all as having the one goal, is indispensable as well. Up and down the country, we’ve collaborated on almost all of our projects. (Other groups like) Wriggle, Glacial Industries, Flood – it’s a small scene, and we definitely need each other to come up with creative ways of bringing the people of Cork, and Ireland, this music.”

Next week, we take a look at how collectives have benefited indie, metal and experimental music in the city, and talk about how organisation has helped artists adjust to the current housing and practice-space situation.

From stories of the horrors of student house parties, to closing the show at Electric Picnic, the lads behind social media sensation Humans of the Sesh have come a long way, and on their terms. Co-conspirators Grand Feen and Brown Sauce talk with Mike McGrath-Bryan about Facebook, lad culture, and finally having a homecoming gig this weekend.

It’s become a cultural phenomenon, one of the first major Irish cultural reference points of the social-media generation, and one that speaks to the great leveller that is the debauchery of a terrible house party somewhere in suburban Ireland. And yet, for its distinctly Irish voice and sense of humour online, Humans of the Sesh has proven to have a phenomenal international appeal, beginning as a Cork-based Facebook page recounting a range of amusing and misfortunate stories from house-parties before gaining massive traction across a number of platforms, including approaching 600,000 followers on Facebook. Fuelled by a love of cheap cans and Amber Leaf rollie kits, the duo behind the page, Brown Sauce and Grand Feen, have expanded its reach massively into other media, but for Grand Feen, their ascent initially came as something of a surprise. “Seeing the huge numbers of people who were liking and viewing our content felt really strange at the start. An average of about four million people see our stuff each week, and it’s hard to grasp the thought of that.”

It’s difficult not to broach the topic of social media reach with the pair without talking about how they did it in the first place and what advice they’d have: after all, past all the humour, theirs is a presence most marketeers and PR people would hand their firstborns over for. “It seems to be getting harder and harder to get a good amount of reach. Recently Facebook is pushing people more and more towards paid advertising. They’ve cut the organic reach that pages can get without paying money. For anyone starting out, I’d suggest just making content that’s unique. People are more likely to engage and share posts that aren’t the typical drivel you see on Facebook day in day out”, says Grand Feen. Brown Sauce seems to have an amount of ennui for social media and the direction in which it’s headed, and speaks frankly on the matter. “I’m sick of Facebook to be honest. It’s a load of sh*t. It’s mostly advertisements these days, even then, if it’s not an advertisement, it’s a “tag a mate who” post or something else along those lines. But if you really want to get reach, and I suppose this theory translates to all aspects of doing anything slightly creative, get a concept, something you know, and just run with it. That might sound oversimplified, but because so much stuff is so contrived these days, I’ve been noticing a lot of stuff lacks a strong basic concept.”

More so than its reach and cultural import at home among the “millennial” crowd, now almost fluent in the page’s injokes and idiosyncrasies, the page and the aforementioned Irish sense of humour has fared incredibly well further afield, with examples of homegrown slang being popularised among non-Irish audiences easily found on social media. The lads are still very curious about their crossover appeal. “Yeah, it’s really interesting seeing where the people who like our page are from”, says Grand Feen. “For example, we have about 60,000 from Australia and 20,000 from America. I post our merchandise myself, and I always seem to be sending them to mad places like Luxembourg, or something. I’m not sure to be honest. I think people abroad have a liking for Irish people in general so that helps us a lot.” Media interest was always going to follow, as has usually been the case when a social media presence begins making serious noises in the newsfeeds of its contributors: such organs of record in the world of electronic music as Noisey and Mixmag, among others, have profiled Humans of the Sesh in recent times. Grand Feen has no idea what to make of the increased scrutiny and experiences behind these features. “Yeah, it’s really strange! Like, VICE (Noisey’s parent mag) once flew us out to London to meet them, and that was mad. We’re just two lads who talk bollocks and make memes on the internet, so it’s felt weird to have people like them take such an interest in us.”

The most remarkable aspect of the page’s content in recent times is how egalitarian it all is: in character, the page has advocated for social issues such as sensible drug policy, reproductive healthcare, intersectional feminism, and transgender right. At a time when influence and speech are being ever-democratised, at least on the outside of it, there have of course been contrarians to the page’s message of inclusivity whilst on the lash. “So many people have messaged us to say that they’re un-liking the page because we’ve spoken about trans rights or the Eighth Amendment”, according to Grand Feen. “It’s mostly your typical ‘LADS’ who give us hate for that sort of thing. They just want their memes delivered to them without any, as they put it, ‘social justice warrior feminist crap’. I really don’t mind getting hate for speaking up, because I believe it’s important for us to use our page’s reach to spread a good message every now and then. We often get messages from people thanking us for speaking out about trans rights, repeal, etc. and it makes it feel worthwhile.” Adds Brown Sauce: “Yeah, the internet is full of pricks. The worst kind of pricks, like, even worse than coked-up feens in a nightclub who haven’t gotten the shift. A lot of our humour is satire, so, like, on one hand we have the people who are in on the joke, and then we have the people who are reading the joke at face value, so there’s a load of eejits. But it’s the internet. What’s new there?”

At the heart of the page’s humour and reach is a love of electronic music, including a running gag of taking aim at both elitists and casual music heads attempting to take the reins of the tunes at parties and wrecking each other’s heads. It seemed destined to transition into music, and Messrs. Sauce & Feen, alongside other co-conspirators, have embarked upon live, in-character DJ sets, a live theatrical show, and most recently, a weekly podcast curated by friends of the page, SESH FM. The results have been phenomenal, including sellout shows in London, closing the show at Electric Picnic’s After Dark stage, and reaching thousands of listeners independently of the Humans range of pages. “It’s just like, ‘f*ck it’, we were willing to sell the page to advertisers and click bait etc., etc., so I was like, ‘why don’t we make SESH FM?’ We were all into music already, so it seemed like a natural step. It hasn’t been too hard maintaining the original idea because SESH FM has always been a bit separate. It’s like, ‘what’s the craic, just like us? Just like music? Then check out SESH FM.” “It’s been a bit hard, but as Brown Sauce said, I see it as the natural progression of the page. We love music, we’re friends with a lot of producers/DJs, and we just wanted to use the page’s success to get involved in music. We haven’t seen it affect the original idea of the page too much, from what I’ve seen, the people who have no interest in our live stuff or SESH FM just ignore those posts, so there was never too much hassle really.”

The lads are playing the Amp venue on Hanover Street tomorrow for pre-holiday bash, with support from Humans affiliate, producer/DJ and SESH FM regular Numbertheory. It’s finally an official homecoming for the group after accomplishing international success in between fits of activity at college and on their day jobs, and Grand Feen keeps us appraised of how they’ll mark the occasion. “They’re just a bitta craic, really. We don’t take ourselves so seriously that we’ll spend the whole night playing deep, Berghain residents-only techno. For example, I started my Electric Picnic set with Skepta, the mid-point song was by trap artists TNGHT, and I finished on L’amour Toujours. Loads of bangers.” “Myself and Grand Feen are from Cork”, says Brown Sauce with a pointed Leeside accent, “and we still haven’t played a gig there, which is sad considering we’ve sold out shows in London. It’s partly to do with the fact that Cork has a real lack of dedicated venues that support the kinda stuff that we do, but the lovely lads at Generic People sorted this one out for us in Amp, so we’ll be going all out for our hometown crew.”

Grand Feen is optimistic about what lies ahead of the holiday glut of activity, with the page’s steady progression being complemented by an expanded content offering and more shenanigans on stage and via SoundCloud. “It’s looking good. We want to continue making content, hopefully returning to the UK for another few shows, and we’re looking to get more designs onto our online store. Video content is something we want to start working on for 2018 so look forward to that.” They seem to be edging closer to the dream of becoming full-time pintmen, and Brown Sauce’s priority now is making life on the sesh a sustainable endeavour. “We will hopefully have more time than ever to dedicate to it, hopefully, can put more time into podcast things, doing gigs and just making cool sh*t and having a laugh.”