BASED in Wickham Way, Downbeat Records celebrates its first birthday this Saturday August 9 with a day-long party at Record Room on Catherine Street. The celebrations kick off at 2pm and run until closing. On the bill for the day is an eclectic and quality of record selectors – T-WOC; MYNAMEISJOHN; B+; FRANKIE DOWNBEAT; ALI DALY; MACCA; MICHELLE W; HYAWNEEN.
The Downbeat crew have been building their own soundsystem and the party will be powered by Sibin Soundsystem and admission to the club is free.
Frankie who owns the record store has been running reggae record labels for the last 15 years and with the help from the local community in the city centre, such as Fab Lab and Limerick Screen Printing the new sound system is built and ready for its debut at Record Room this Saturday.
Back in the mid 2000s Frankie ran Roots Factory with friends in Limerick putting on reggae nights in Baker Place and Dolans before moving to Bristol and getting involved in the thriving music scene there. Roots Factory became a record label producing and releasing new reggae music. And played a lot of festivals across Europe.
“This Saturday, first and foremost, it’s the shop’s first birthday. We are going to launch the soundsystem and we are going to run it for the first time.”
Now a year into running Downbeat Records, Frankie reflects that it was a culture shock to move back from Bristol which has a strong reggae industry to Limerick where the scene has been non existent since the Root Factory days.
“It was a struggle, Frankie admits, culturally, musically, I miss much about Bristol’s independent culture and independent city vibes. So I came to the realisation that if I want all that shit, it’s just gonna have to be me bringing it to the city, rather than the city having it for me.
“But it really has paid off. When I opened the door of Downbeat Records, it became a beacon, and people started coming through. So I’m just meeting really cool people all the time.”
The record shop ran an event last week for Twilight Thursdays to bring legendary hip hop photographer B+ to the shop for a public interview about his career and his record label.
More events are planned in the future using the Sibin Soundsystem.
