About Us
What we do
Seven by Seven is a friendly Leeds-based open decks vinyl playing session. You can bring along and play us seven of your 7” 45rpm vinyl singles – hence Seven by Seven – or just come along and listen.
The 7” 45rpm format is our only restriction. Individual tracks off 7" 45rpm EPs are fine – but there's definitely no 10", 12" or 33⅓ rpm stuff allowed! Other than that, we don’t dictate the type of music – you can play whatever you want to, and we relish that variety!
Please get there early to put your name down. We draw names out for the running order and later arrivals may be too late to be drawn. We try to fit in as many seven record sets as we can – but if we have high attendance we do reduce some set lengths to five records or fewer. Unfortunately if we have very high numbers we can’t guarantee that everyone will get to play.
No pressure – no competition – no egos
That's our ethos. No previous DJ experience is needed – we’ll help you to get started and will make sure you’re all set to play us your records.
We aim to create a welcoming and non-judgemental space for people to come and play. Our focus is on people who might otherwise not have the opportunity or confidence to do this. If you are an experienced DJ we ask you to park any advanced mixing skills at the door and just play us your records. Displays of technical wizardry can be intimidating for others and are not why we are here!
Seven by Seven is a non-commercial operation. We run our sessions purely for the joy of playing and listening to records as a shared experience.
“Never for money, Always for love”
– Talking Heads
Seven by Seven
Seven by Seven was started in July 2019 by Rich and Quest. It was inspired by Quest's experience of taking part in South London Vinyl Experience events in Tooting (run by Garfield Bailey) - and he had the idea of doing something similar when he moved North to Leeds. Rich was keen and Inkwell was initially up for hosting it. The name comes from the B-side of the Hawkwind single Silver Machine - which features in our posters and publicity material.
Rich and Quest
Rich and Graeme (aka Quest) are old school friends from Maryport in West Cumbria. Their unlikely alliance was founded in the late 1970s on a common love of music and drinking. Rich was a punk and was the lead singer in legendary Cumbrian group Counter Attack. Quest was a hopeless prog rock fan and Bob Dylan obsessive.
Some history...
Photo by Quest c1981
Managing busy sessions
1. We draw names from the pot to decide who plays and in what order.
2. We can’t guarantee that everyone will be able to play.
3. We only add names to the pot for people that are physically present.
Assuming a six hour session (eg Wharf Chambers):
4. At the start of the session we draw names out for the first 5 sets.
5. At 1 hour 30 minutes into the session:
- we stop adding names to the pot, and then
- we draw remaining names up to a maximum of 20 sets.
6. Sets 1 - 7 play seven records each.
7. Sets 8 - 15 play five records each.
8. At set 15 we calculate how many records sets 16 - 20 can each play based on the time remaining, and they play their sets.
9. Rich or Quest (as organisers) always plays the seventh seven records set and the other one plays a five record set.
10. If time allows, Rich or Quest plays a ballad or slow one at the end to close the session.
