.Zero gets Zogged (2004-2005)

As seem to be the way of Zogg, an unexpected twist when things seemed bleak led to a new venue. Scotty and Adele had recently taken over the club on Matilda St formerly known as Area51 and Capitol. It didn’t have the best of reputations but was a great space with an awesome sound system. The pair had been trying to turn the club around and change it image and were on the look out for credible nights. A few conversations later and Zogg was lined up for its launch in a new venue. .Zero was a great venue with a great PA, nice interior and professional management, and the first “proper” club that Zogg had been in. The first Zogg, featuring a strong local line up was a roaring success and .Zero was rammed.

The Valentines Zogg saw another large crowd with the return of the Zen Terrorists. The guitar & drum driven acid trancers had intended performing their last ever gig at the (cancelled) November Zogg, but agreed to come up and perform whenever Zogg got a new venue. The place was rammed when they came on stage and everyone went mental – we even had the head of security up on stage headbanging… Come ON!! The next month saw the release of Planet Zogg Records 001 – from Propulsion – double Come ON!!

About this time we also had one of the more unusual chapter in the Zogg tale when a slightly “dramatised for tv” story about Dill in India that John had sent to the Sheffield Star club page ended up on the Star front cover! The part about Dill doing a party in India was true, we’re not too sure about the satellite link up or the Dali Lama possibly turning up though…

Zogg continued with a new lease of life at .Zero attracting some new Zoggers to the faithful, including some ex-Gatecrasher kids who were looking for something a bit beyond hands in the air trance… This period also featuring one of our quietest parties to date when Nuw Idol was booked for the second Saturday in April... great, except nobody had realised that was Easter Saturday, not a night know for its partying… ‘twas still a good laugh though! Lots of good stuff around this period though, including Fabry, Pod, Ed Tangent Kristian and a rare Sheffield appearance from Pendragon’s Mark Sinclair.

The summer was a good one for Zogg with Greg & Dill asked to play the new Glade Festival (on at the same time as Hallucinogen…) and JohnnyM playing the IDSpiral stage. A series of events led to a rerun of NTA v Zogg as part of the first Shefstock – an amazing big free party/festival out at Edale –a truly magical night.

The fourth birthday party featured another line up of family and friends though other commitments abroad meant that Beamish & Oberon weren’t able to make it. October brought Weirdo, the man behind many of the early Zogg anthems, to .Zero for his debut Sheffield performance. Reinvigorated from their gig earlier in the year, the Zens decided to soldier on, and once more rocked .Zero in November. December brought all round diamond geeza Darren Shambhala to Zogg plus a full show from the Dangerous performance troupe. Pete and co are regular visitors to Zogg in their full costumes, but it was nice to able to feature a full show from the crew.

A rollercoaster year (2005-2006)

Fortunately .Zero had given reasonable notice that the June party would be the last one there, which gave Dill & Greg plenty of time to look for a new venue. Stars & Mayfair were two function suites above an ice rink just outside the city centre that various underground parties had been using on and off since the late 80s. While not ideal, having more than a little of Phoenix Nights about them, the two rooms had a decent capacity and party goers knew where they were. So the July Zogg was lined up for Stars & Mayfair with a strongly techno influenced line up featuring Rafael from Brazil and Sheffield’s own Mobile Dogwash and Ben Fraser, plus a funky room. The night was hot, busy and a reet laff! A date for the 5th Birthday in September was lined up and everyone went on their hols.

The Glade was running for second year with JohnnyM playing the ID Spiral stage and Greg & Dill line dup to play Saturday night on the Liquid Stage. Sadly the slot was changed at the last minute, without Greg & Dill knowing and so they never played... boo… but Col & Sarah’s Hobgoblin stall, a regular feature at Zogg, meant that the two  ended up playing pretty much all weekend to whoever wondered in looking to buy some hippy consumer goods! Every cloud has silver lining though as Dill & Greg played later in the year on the Liquid stage at the massive multi roomed Synergy project in London. Other features of the summer included an expanded Shefstock in a new location though with a slightly less fluffy feel than the year before.

Sad news struck during the summer when a party goer tragically died at another event at Stars. The inquest brought the venue into the public spotlight and the Owners decided to stop doing club nights, reverting to weddings and 21st which had been its previous staple. Once again Zogg was without a venue.

What next?? It looked at that point that Planet Zogg had run its course and the general consensus was that if a one off venue could be found for the 5th Birthday – that would be the last party. There were no more venues and the crew had been doing monthly parties for almost six years (including Dionysus), which is long time. There was only one Sheffield venue that was free and that was the Adelphi in Attercliffe. This was a converted cinema with a great epic feel to it, but most nights never seemed to last long there. Headcharge had tried the venue when the Arches shut and only lasted a few parties due to low numbers and only Uprising the veteran happy hardcore night, seemed to manage to do well up there. But beggars cannot be choosers… So a date, the day after the original party, was hurriedly booked and a frantic labelling of flyers and postering was done to get the news over – though it was really the wonders of email, and all those hours collecting email addresses at parties, that got the news to all concerned.

Despite the date change, the line up more or less remained intact with the Zen Terrorists playing live. The night went well, though with quite possibly the most over the top security we’ve ever had at a night. Even DJs were having their CD decks searched and there was a wire cage outside that party goers were *very slowly* let through…Still, every one had a rocking night and there was much sadness that this could be the last Zogg. Once the dust had settled, Dill & Greg discussed things with the owner and both agreed that the Adelphi wouldn’t really work as a monthly venue but would be good for one off parties. So a Christmas party was booked in featuring LAB4, regulars at Destination Venus many moons before. This party was great with most of the problems of the previous event being ironed out. Another one off was booked for Valentines in February.