Time Warp

3 April 2014 | 9:02 am | Cam Findlay

"The Hot Dub Time Machine is a bit of a response to dance parties that might’ve gotten a little bit stale."

More Hot Dub Time Machine More Hot Dub Time Machine

When someone gives you the opportunity to travel through time, you don't say no. That's pretty much Tom Lowndes, aka DJ Tom Loud's, mantra; once you enter the Hot Dub Time Machine, there's no stopping. “The Hot Dub Time Machine is a bit of a response to dance parties that might've gotten a little bit stale. The whole idea is to give everyone a licence to dance and go crazy. We spent a lot of time setting up the concept: It's everyone dancing, everyone has to dance and sing and stuff. And people do that, they just lose their inhibitions and go crazy. I'm an old clubber, and I really love the feeling of community you get on a dance floor for a couple of hours. And part of that feeling is making sure no-one gets left out.”

So what is the Hot Dub Time Machine, exactly? Part club night, part greatest hits party, HDTM is a journey through the history of music, from the '50s to today, all orchestrated by Lowndes, his decks and “Time Lord” LuLu Loud. The premise is actually pretty simple: a big clock initiates the countdown in the background, LuLu advises you to be ready to enter the time warp, and Lowndes starts dropping beats like the timeline depends on it. As you can probably tell, the sheer amount of time jokes available keeps the joviality high. “Hot Dub Time Machine is a time-travelling dance party, in essence,” Lowndes says. “Rock Around The Clock was released in '54, so that's our starting point, obviously. And then powered by the dancing, drinking and good times of everyone, we dance and party our way 2014. It's almost a song a year, but not quite.

“In that chronological journey is every great song ever recorded. Probably,” Lowndes laughs. It's songs that everyone remembers and ones that people have forgotten about and hear again and really get into it. It has a wonderful sense of momentum that builds up during that journey through time, and it ends up being the best party ever.”

Of course, any dance party that embarks to journey through seven decades is going to cause arguments over which period of music is best. “It changes all the time,” Lowndes offers. “It depends on where you are and who you're playing to. It's always a very interesting cross-section of people at every show, and it's usually really varied because, you know, it's a lot of music. But as a DJ you have to gauge your crowd, so at the start of every show I generally walk around the venue handing out glowsticks, and then I get a sense of who's there and what they'll be into, so I can tailor the experience for that. Not a huge amount, but enough to ensure that everyone enjoys themselves as much as possible.”

Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter

There are a lot of standout moments in Lowndes' show; the '90s are peaked by the rollercoaster of Smells Like Teen Spirit parlaying into Bjork's It's Oh So Quiet, before House Of Pain's Jump gets it all going again. “People sometimes look at you, like, 'What are you doing?'” Lowndes laughs. “But it's so much fun to mess with everyone's preconceptions like that. They freak out for a moment, but then they realise how much sense it makes.”