GREG Evans is a serious man. He references the likes of Larry Levant, Theo Parrish and Sadar Bahar. He has a collection of rotary mixers.

Greg grew up in Wolverhampton and bought his first record when he was nine, later spending his musical adolescence touring the country via his girlfriend’s car - experiencing London’s mid-80s rare groove scene, then hitting up spots like Shoom in London and Manchester’s infamous Hacienda, witnessing the golden years of acid-house first hand.

Disco Voodoo is Greg’s monthly night at Baila Coffee & Vinyl. Having been active as a DJ, first in the midlands then in Bristol during the 90s, he “moved to Swindon, typical story, had children, and very much put all that sort of thing on ice for a few years”.

In late 2013 he started doing a few things around Hackney with a friend but as the travelling and venues got harder to deal with he recognised, having watched Baila evolve over the last few years, “it was suddenly obvious that there was this gem of a venue that was five minutes’ walk from my house”.

The ‘Voodoo’ is in part, a reference to some less-familiar sounds you can expect to hear should you patronise one of these events.

This “potion of things that are slightly off the beaten track” is orchestrated around a steady build; “things that might be a little bit playful, a bit of humour or a little bit dark…early on will be some quite slow dance stuff, funk type edits, there might be some Japanese animé soundtrack occasionally or a little bit of Balearic kind of sounds... quite eclectic early on, then just gently warm things up a little bit so that as you get further through the night it is very much around the dancefloor”.

This Friday sees the return of Disco Voodoo to Baila, with a ‘Juju’ twist for Halloween and guest Bristolian veteran selector Mike Shawe from Hot Buttered Soul joining the party.

Matt (DJ Baila) coined the name for this Friday’s event having come across a 45 called Voodoo Juju in his considerable collection.

Musically, they’ve got plenty of interesting thematic stuff lined up in the crates as well as some extra-special guest audio equipment courtesy of Greg’s rotary collection, and the team behind the bar will be mixing up creepy cocktails and spooky shots all weekend plus prizes for best fancy dress.

The party kicks off from 9pm this Friday at 85 Victoria Road and as with all Disco Voodoo events, entry is free.

Also, Greg and Matt dropped some heavy hints that things are looking strong for next year in terms of bringing some big names to the intimate Old Town venue, so watch this space…

l Next week: History Lessons