Keele Students’ Union Discos In the Mid 1980s When John White And I Were Jockeying The Discs – Two Slamming Playlists

A DALL-E image based on my 20 word description of our Keele scene

I have written a few times about John White’s and my exploits as DJs in the Keele Students’ Union Ballroom throughout our sabbatical year 1984/85. For the initial story, which explains how we ended up as DJs that year click here or below:

“John White The Only One Dancing”, Learning How To Do The Keele SU Disco And Other Late August 1984 Happenings

Over the last few months, forty years after the events, John and I have been corresponding occasionally about those discos and the music we played. Our favourite type of gig was our “60s soul discos”, which I shall write up later/separately. We had no trouble agreeing playlist material for those as we both remember our own favourites and the results of our crate digging.

I have already written up and published a playlist of the sort of material we would play at Bust Fund Discos – click here.

But what of the more regular type of disco in the ballroom? There our memories took slightly different paths. John’s strongest memories were of his favourites from the early 1980s, that he would regularly want to play at those discos regardless of whether or not students wanted to dance to the music. There was a reason why the Geordie Mag symbolised John as “the only one dancing” sometimes – especially the early stage of the discos, before the main bar closed, when there would be few punters anyway.

My memory took me more to tunes that I remember specifically from around our sabbatical year that would often be requested by attendees and that I felt would fill the dance floor. I believe the modern parlance is “bangers”, m’lud.

Hence, two YouTube music playlists below, neither of which represent a complete disco set, but from a combination of which 1984/1985 John White & Ian Harris discos would mostly have comprised. The first is about four hours long, the around second half that length. Click either the description link or the picture below it for the playlist.

• Keele SU Disco, Early To Mid 1980s, John White & Ian Harris DJ Mix;

• Keele Students’ Union Disco 1984/1985 Dance Floor Fillers.

John & I would love to hear some student memories or thoughts on these playlists. Not only from students who were around at that time but from more recent or current Keelies. I wonder whether you could fill the SU dance floor with any of these grooves now? If we get lots of belated requests, I might even make up a fresh playlist based on requests!

Below, a small sample of tracks from the above playlists in video form. Enjoy.