The Hebe Week In Pics (and there is a video!)

ICS Playing Back to Basics 20th Birthday Bash Last Weekend (Sound is not great but enjoy!)

Howard Marks playing some 50's music in Basics!Pritch (Dirty Sanchez) having a laugh @ BasicsSTP and PritchCoffee and Christmas trees at Out Of The WoodsAwesome libraryMore of Lee's toys!Trip to London!Awesome print from Thought Bubble

Happy 20th Birthday To Back To Basics

On this day in November 1991, and in an attempt to find an antidote to the whistle blowing, white glove wearing rave culture that saw in the nineties, a group of friends opened a club night in Leeds called Back to Basics.

It was, and has remained dedicated to good times for the "discerning clubber". Twenty years on it's the world's longest running weekly club night and continues to be an underground driver of our city's music and culture.

We love Basics, we love Dave... hell we even manage a band together who are playing the party tonight and just did an amazing project in Barcelona together! And of all the things people talk about in this city as being 'awesome' 'legendary' etc, this is something that truly 100% lives up to those words.

Here's a retrospective mix by Ralph Lawson, the first resident DJ and the first person to play a record at the club:
The Music Factory Years 91-94 part one by ralphlawson

We'd say Happy Birthday but what's another year when you're timeless (and, we suspect, immortal)? Instead, we salute you and look forward to partying with you tonight and for many years to come.

The Hebe Week In Pics: Leeds In Barcelona

On the metro in BarcelonaDom @ San josé market on La RamblaDave trying all the smoothies in San josé Market on La RamblaOur hotel Vincci MaritimoMatt getting papped for a change ;)Deaks ready to board the plane!Deaks has a pre-flight drinkMore Deaks travels coming next week!IED Classroom'Angel' Pizza, Gracia. BarcelonaChoosing toppings!Before the conference, Can you guess who Mr Lego is on th projector?Freaky hand in Angel PizzaLee's new skins!ICS after the conference

Leeds in Barcelona: Spotlight on BacktoBasics & Dave Beer

Later this week we are heading out to Barcelona for Leeds in Barcelona: A Creative Encounter. Part of our showcase on Saturday evening will be a BacktoBasics DJ set. We checked in with Basics founder, driving force and all-round Leeds legend Dave Beer to talk about the project (and loads more!)

Why Basics

With this project we wanted to give the people in Barcelona an authentic experience of Leeds nightlife and BacktoBasics was and still is a trailblazer when it comes to the Leeds scene. Basics is one of the treasures of the Leeds 'cultural' sector and is one of the things we have here that is truly world class with serious pedigree. It has a history and story that further enhances it's mystique and legend and most of it revolves around 'Beero'. Dave and the awesome Tristan Da Cunha will be performing on Saturday night and the buzz in Barcelona is already building among our Catalan hosts!

BacktoBasics also fit really well with another massive Leeds brand involved with the project: Nicholas Deakins. Both with celebrate their 20th year this year and we are delighted that they have both decided to get involved in this project and want to represent Leeds in front of an international audience.

The Story

BacktoBasics will this year celebrate it's 20th birthday in the form of an exhibition and series of events (more to come on this project in the coming weeks) and further cement it's place in house music history. Their place in the record books is already confirmed as Basics is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest running weekly club-night. 

Check out this video feature on the BBC and hear what Pete Tong feels when playing Basics, how JoJo met her husband there and how John Galliano nearly didn't get in one night!

Leeds in Barcelona: A Creative Encounter

This week we are heading back to Barcelona for what we are sure is going to be an awesome project. We are teaming up with Marketing Leeds and LeLook to create Leeds in Barcelona: A Creative Encounter. We are really excited about this project, we feel it fits perfectly with what we are trying to achieve with Hebe and can't wait for everything to kick off.

What Is Going Down?

There are two main parts to this event. The first is a discussion to be held at the European Institute of Design (IED) on Friday evening, during which creatives from Leeds and Barcelona will discuss what they are up to and the creative ‘scene’ in both cities. There will be some really cool people involved in this discussion including Jürgen Salenbacher, Imran Ali, Dominic Al-Samarraie, Juan Antonino Ávalos, Guiseppe De Luca and Chidy Wayne. The discussion will be chaired by our very own Lee Hicken.

The following evening a showcase event will be held at the amazing Hotel Me. The event will include live fashion shoots with designers including James Steward, Dom, Dick & Harry, Kitschen Sink and we are delighted to say the awesome Nicholas Deakins. There will also be a live performance from Leeds band ICS (formally I Call Shotgun). Then we will give Barcelona a small taste of the Leeds house music scene in the form of a showcase from legendary Leeds club night BacktoBasics with Tristan Da Cunha and Dave Beer. 

The Story Behind The Project

Last year we kind of gatecrashed an event already taking place: Marketing Leeds were heading out to Barcelona with a massive delegation (around 120 people) to meet with their Barcelona counterparts from various sectors. We heard about the event by chance and asked them if we could do something with ‘our crowd’ in Barcelona. Our crowd is made up of fashion designers, DJs, bands, journalists, bloggers, photographers, artists etc. We have this network in Barcelona because 3 of our team studied there for 3 years at the Institute of Design. 

The event we put on was a great success... so much so that lots of the people we invited to the event in Barcelona wanted to come and visit Leeds. A group of these people then visited Leeds a couple of months later. During their visit we held a reception where the Barcelona gang met some of our favorite Leeds people, They also toured the city, held photo-shoots at Temple Works, drank in Nation of Shopkeepers and we generally showed some of the Barcelona ‘cool kids’ that Leeds had stuff going on. 

So the first stage was complete: Some of the main opinion leaders in one of the world’s most creative cities had been introduced to Leeds and what was going on here but obviously you can not just leave it at that and expect suddenly for Leeds to be spoken about in the same way as Barcelona, or for all these people to start booking their summer holidays here. We needed a new project, something that would take the relationship between the two cities one step further.

Our Aims

We feel this project definitely takes things a step further for a number of reasons. First of all there is the sheer scale of what we are doing. The first event we did in Barcelona last year was for around 50 guests. The two events this year will be attended by around 1000 people. Last year we showcased Leeds talent with a video on a big screen. This year we are taking out Leeds' fashion talent and products, in addition the entertainment will be provided by live musicians and DJs. If we are serious about impressing and establishing relationships with European opinion leaders this is what we need to do.

There are lots of opportunities for the talent involved in this project. There will be buyers, writers, tour-bookers, DJs, producers and others who will attend, so there are some great opportunities for new business and personal relationships to be formed. There will be international press including TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, bloggers, photographers and general opinion leaders who will get their first taste of Leeds during this event.

Stacey checking in with ICS to talk about the project Our Head of Fashion Shang Ting will judge at the showcase event

Why Hebe

This is the type of project that suits us perfectly. We are really passionate about promoting and marketing Leeds based on the talent, stories and brands we possess. We have a great  connection with Barcelona because we have lived there, so it feels great for some us to go back and bring some of the experience that we spent 3 years telling people about while studying there.

Our areas of both expertise and love are fashion, music and art and this project provides a great chance for us to put some of the talent out there that we have been championing and pushing for a long time now. We really believe that the group we are taking out are of a really high standard and will generate international interest. 

This event and project is innovative, interesting, is packed with interesting names and ideas and bottom line... is just plain cool, something that I think we can sometimes lack in the eyes of people not from here. 

Stay tuned to the site over the next couple of weeks for loads of videos, reports, photos and much more about the project and the people involved.