Meet North East Social Club, The Culture Crusaders Throwing Pop-Up Gigs & Markets
Culture takes centrestage in the vision of North East Social Club (Credit: Photo by Jaya Khidir, artwork by North East Social Club)
You might’ve landed at one of their New Year’s Eve gigs with stacked musical lineups that’ve included Subsonic Eye, Blush, Carpet Golf and Saints Amongst Sinners. Or perhaps you’ve wandered through their pop-up marketplaces featuring local vendors peddling handcrafted accessories, vinyl libraries, tattoo art, tarot readings, independent zines and much more. Such is the multifaceted portfolio of North East Social Club (NESC), an impassioned unit of creative mavericks and mavens who have built a platform for niche expressions and left-field disciplines. Now rising back with post-pandemic dynamism, they are locked in as a nexus for culture, even the ones you haven’t discovered yet. Just follow their direction.
NESC currently comprises the motley crew of Chris Sim, Natasha Hassan, Jerome Chong and Esther Goh, whose individual fortes lie in the spheres of photography, design, music and events production respectively. Bonded by a devotion for the scene they all grew up in, the quartet now wishes to help it flourish with NESC as their collective love letter. Aside from the aforementioned events they pulled off, they’ve also promoted album launches for acts like Xingfoo&Roy and BGourd (they happen to manage the latter) and organised various culture fairs promoting a plethora of fellow creatives at Projector X. NESC’s endeavours brandish the truth that culture is a chimeric beast that can assume countless forms, and that it can sustain its existence even in a relatively restrained metropolis like Singapore.
In this interview, all four members share their unified intentions behind the culture-conscious crusade of North East Social Club. You’re welcome to join them.
NESC is Chris Sim, Jerome Chong, Esther Goh and Natasha Hassan (Credit: Jaya Khidir)
So how did the crew first come together to build this from the ground up? What does each of you bring to the table?
Chris: Nat and I knew each other from going to gigs and stuff and we both share particular tastes, so putting on a gig together was organic. I remember pushing out the socials for that when I was in Japan.
Natasha: Esther and Jerome joined later on when the scale of our activities got bigger. Again, we all knew each other personally from being around so it made sense. This ended up fitting the NESC acronym: Nat, Esther, (Chris) Sim, (Jerome) Chong.
Chris: There’s a stone tablet somewhere in Defu Lane with our names inscribed on it.
Jerome: When I first heard of NESC, they already had a few shows under their belt. I went to their early events to hang out, but then I started volunteering to help. Eventually I joined them because I thought what they were doing was really cool and I guess my contributions were appreciated too.
Esther: Nat pulled me in when NESC had multiple events lined up at once and needed help with planning. We worked together back in 2016 at Bandwagon where I was an events coordinator, and since then I’ve been working as a freelance events producer (mainly arts festivals and live show management), so NESC’s projects were totally up my alley.
(Credit: Courtesy of North East Social Club)
NESC organises gigs, backs local musicians with marketing expertise, and sets up multi- disciplinary events that cover the canvas of local culture. Clearly, you do a lot of things. What would you say is the ultimate role or core purpose of NESC?
Chris: You said it man, NESC is for the culture. For now, at the core of it, what we do with the collective really just serves to scratch creative itches. We’re still relatively new so we’re taking time to figure out what niches we can fit into, and what we can bring to the table as a whole. It’s great to see other groups leading their own initiatives as well.
Jerome: NESC gets off on getting people to have a good time. If the artists and creatives we work with have a good time, attendees and audience members will have a good time too.
(Credit: Courtesy of North East Social Club)
What can you tell us about the gigs that you organise and how do they stand out from other concerts? Were they inspired by the gigs that you grew up with or other experiences consumed during your adolescence?
Natasha: When we started this, Chris and I agreed on the importance of showing consistency and building credibility in the industry, which sets a solid foundation for any creative team to thrive in. The people, brands, and other stakeholders you engage with are so crucial to this! The effort required to slap an event together is considerable, but what sets you apart is being fastidious about things people consider minor, like lineup curation. Developing trust with our audience in terms of our taste palette helps us stand out from other events. Though we’ve had missteps over the last three years, these learning experiences have been super valuable and never had at the expense of anyone else.
Like most ‘indie Millennials’ that grew up in Singapore, I had the privilege of experiencing festivals like St. Jerome's Laneway Festival and Mosaic Music Festival. They provided opportunities for sentimental experiences; things like anticipating and agonising over seeing Beach House for the first time. What these festivals do – from stellar line-ups to unique brand activations – these help influence our decisions and thought processes when planning events.
Jerome: The artists we work with for our events come from very diverse backgrounds and express their art sincerely. We try to make our events stand out by keeping the programming as fresh as possible. If we repeat an act or artist or vendor, it’s because we personally love their output and understand there is demand for them.
Chris: We try not to take ourselves too seriously and express that through our marketing and online presence. Our audience seems to enjoy that so I guess that’s something we have going for us too.
Esther: I think our gigs have been intimate enough to allow our community to interact with one another, which continues to grow as we diversify our lineups. And it’s heartwarming to see that a majority of our community is as open with their music tastes, embracing anything new that we bring to our programmes.
An EP launch show for BGourd whom they help manage (Credit: Poster by Natasha Hassan)
NESC manages artistes like BGourd. How do you choose the acts that you support, and what is the full suite of services that you provide?
Chris: Only Natasha and I are working with BGourd. I’ve worked with some of our collaborators on producing press photos; mostly the musicians, but also for one of our art market vendors.
Natasha: We are proud momagers of dear green darling, BGourd. Here are some of the services we provide(d): art direction, firming up brand identity, pitching to media outlets, occasional sync deals, fixing grammar mistakes in his captions/emails, and a few other things. Sometimes we decide which coloured shorts he should wear.
As mentioned before, NESC also does non-music events like art markets featuring all sorts of vendors and creatives. What drives NESC to support these subcultures? And how do you go about organising these affairs?
Jerome: I guess it started out with collaborating with creatives we’ve previously worked with, or who are our friends or friends of friends. By leveraging this growing network, we’ve had the opportunity to programme more unique experiences. We feel privileged to have the means to provide a platform to support subcultures, and that is what drives us to continue doing what we do.
Chris: We personally are interested in what our collaborators do; that’s a huge factor in influencing our programming decisions. Even if we start out just being lightly acquainted with an artiste or vendor, by virtue of working together, we do end up knowing each other better. On working with creatives from other disciplines, we strongly believe that art does not exist in a vacuum, so seeking inspiration from each other only serves to grow everyone’s practice.
Esther: Yes I think “collaboration” is the right word here. For us to be able to do what we do, and do it well, we can’t just exist in our own bubble. As creatives, I think we all enjoy the challenge of being able to push our boundaries and see how far we can go with NESC.
“Right now, post-pandemic-ish, everyone is putting in their efforts to increase opportunities for the arts.” (Credit: Courtesy of North East Social Club)
All four of you have been in the scene for a while now. What do you think it’s currently lacking? Does it need anything to shake up the status quo?
Chris: As with any arts practitioner, room to iterate. The spectre of overheads haunts every stakeholder, which can lead to creatives being more conservative with their efforts. This generates strong self-inflicted pressure for artists who are just starting out to make things palatable to a wide audience in order to recoup costs, which can stunt creative growth down the line.
Jerome: It can be hard to pinpoint anything specific that’s lacking, as the ‘scene’ is changing and developing so quickly. Also, different subcultures have issues that are specific to their discipline. For example, independent musicians have limited dedicated spaces to perform at. Having said that though, it is inspiring and also very encouraging to see creatives take these limitations in their stride to deliver remarkable results.
(Credit: Courtesy of North East Social Club)
Natasha: I think we could do with a lot less paperwork, and unnecessary surveillance that only serves to placate people who don’t know anything that’s not on free-to-air channels or Facebook. And more medium-sized venues that actually last through the year.
Esther: I think right now, post-pandemic-ish, everyone is putting in their efforts to increase opportunities for the arts – whether it’s at the government-level or enthusiastic support from audiences (shout-out to everyone who has been buying tickets to shows). So I guess it’s whether or not we can continue to sustain at this pace, or if we will burn out from too many things going on too fast.
What can we expect from NESC in the year ahead? Any big things planned down the line?
Chris: There are a couple more gigs for 2022, so keep a look-out for those. Definitely planning to close out the year with a bang again! We’re also going to take time to refocus and lay out plans for the next couple of years.
Natasha: A BGourd hologram gig would be sick.
The artwork of the upcoming NESC event (Credit: Poster by Natasha Hassan)
Follow North East Social Club on Instagram for more information on their upcoming events. You can catch their next event on 17 September 2022 at Projector X; get your tickets here.
