Tuesday, October 20, 2009

friday night fun


to be honest, i don't really like london. i know a lot of people love it, not me. but last friday i had a fantastic night there. it started out with me checking out the 'genesis' exhibition at the chapter one gallery in soho. i was there to check out some of stefan marx's works, which are showing as part of the exhibition. for many of our readers, stefan maybe better known for his illustrations for smallville and mule. i love his drawings. they have a very open and genuine feeling of warmth. i like that. so it was nice being able to see some of them up close. if you are in london, i'd definitely suggesting heading down. a nice space run by some good people.

i wasn't done with visual pleasures, as i then headed over to the barbican to see GAS. i was very lucky and somehow managed to find a spare ticket only days before the event. i was incredibly fortunate i was able to be able to go. i am not really sure how to describe GAS. it was what you'd expect - powerful, intense, beautiful. i don't know exactly how much voigt was doing up on stage, his setup was minimal and the focus was on the visuals. regardless he did more than enough to keep me happy. and this was more than just music: it was accompanied by a specially made movie, which did an amazing job of visually recreating the sounds of GAS. for almost ninety minutes we all got lost with herr voigt in a deep, dark german forest. the music and visuals were in perfect harmony, shifting from light to dark, and back again, some times generating a feeling of peace and rest, at other moments creating an oppressive and ominous atmosphere. the whole thing built to a climax that was the clear highlight of the show. despite all the various VJs and other artists, more often than not i've been left unsatisfied with attempts to integrate audio and visual components. at least from what i've seen, GAS is a very rare and important exception.

i'd already achieved more in one night than i would in a month or six back where i live. but there was still one more thing left on the agenda: scuba... he was playing at the new T bar. i was a fan of the old one, so was interested in checking this out. my feelings are mixed. one good thing is that you can go see first calibre artists for absolutely nothing. the advantage of this is that on friday we got to see scuba deliver a high quality set, one which effortlessly jumped between BPMs as if they meant nothing. the bad part of the free entry is it meant that the crowd was well, completely fucking awful. it was full of people who just shouldn't have been there. without getting into a big berghain style of discussion, my feeling was that the door policy was such that the crowd mix made no sense. there was no vibe, people were more interested in pointing at themselves than listening to scuba (if they even knew who we was). it is a shame, because i actually really like the space at the new T bar and it has a good funktion one system. anyway, scuba killed it and i was happy enough. and it confirmed a feeling i already had: if there was a techno situation like in the bond film 'moonraker' (kind of like noah's ark), scuba is definitely one of the guys i'd be saving. this guy is the future. exciting, exciting stuff.

so i must give london its props. i had a really excellent friday night. i decided not to risk it by heading to the fabric birthday celebrations the next night. the idea of having to 'enjoy' DBX live in a ridiculously over-crowded club did not appeal to me. if anyone went i'd be interested to know how jam packed it was... and i think i am probably going to head back to london for the plex birthday party on 30 october, for a lineup that kicks the hell out of the fabric one: scion live, ancient methods live, scorn live, plus norman nodge and rene lowe on the decks. now that is a fucking ssg party! and it is at corsica studios, a venue that really impressed me when i saw dozzy back in june. so i think i might make the journey over for it. nice space, killer lineup, sounds like it will be worth the trip.

23 comments:

  1. Have to say that the Fabric handled the normal complaint of overcrowding really well. I was in the club from 12am Sat until 4pm on Sunday afternoon, and the club never felt too busy to dance.

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  2. thanks for this wonderfully awesome weekend/london review. but whats the 'songs from the beehive' cover got to (directly) do with it ?

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  3. but last friday i had a fantastic night there. it started out with me checking out the 'genesis' exhibition at the chapter one gallery in soho. i was there to check out some of stefan marx's works, which are showing as part of the exhibition. for many of our readers, stefan maybe better known for his illustrations for smallville and mule.

    "songs from the beehive" is on smallville. he went to an art opening by the guy who does the illustrations for smallville.


    2+2=___

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  4. agree with your sentiments on london chris, having lived there for three years. although i'd rather say I have a love/hate relationship with the place. can be a cesspit or the the greatest place on earth.

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  5. oh and ancient methods live?? does that mean their identity has been exposed, have been out of the loop for some time now...

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  6. @eric cloutier:

    thought so far that Donato Dozzy was the "professor", but now...

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  7. that cover is one of the paintings being displayed at the gallery. it looks beautiful in full size.

    and the identity of the ancient methods guys has been half known for a while, and they've been playing live gigs for about half a year. my sense is that they were never too worried about being anonymous, it is more they wanted to prioritise the music. there is a new interview (with their ids) here:

    http://earwiggle.blogspot.com/2009/10/ancient-methods-interview.html

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  8. glad to see you enjoyed GAS. i got to see him for free - ;-p - although the sound could have been a better. and voigt's live setup was indeed minimal, if i recall correctly it was only a laptop and a small keyboard/midi controller. "powerful, intense, beautiful" is a good description; i can still remember those sustained, horn-like drones. i'd love to learn more about the visual art, which was at times intensely psychedelic... and i might as well ask, does anyone have any GAS recordings they'd like to share?
    -brian

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  9. can't wait to hear the new scuba ep. mutual antipathy is so great.

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  10. @ Jack: the new Scuba EP is fantastic... parts of it crop up on his recent SCB mix and his own Scuba podcast on Hotflush, I think...

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  11. Not related to London, or this post really - but any new Cio D'or set MUST be shared immediately, Goddess that she is. Just over two hours of great music for our weekend ears.
    Enjoy !

    http://soundcloud.com/klickklackklub/cio-dor-klickklackklub-15-08-2008

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  12. @ srdic: you need to pay closer attention my friend...

    http://mnmlssg.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-set-you-up.html

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  13. @ Chris - how the hell did I miss that ?!
    Well at least she's groovin' me now.
    I first saw Cio on one of those Slices DVD's a couple of years ago. That had me wrapped even before I heard her music. We need more Cio types.

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  14. @ srdic: cio is most definitely one of a kind... and her first ep on prologue just dropped. definitely check it. the original and the dozz mixes are great.

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  15. nice post chris, can't say I'm surprised at your comments re the new T-Bar. That place always had a terrible crowd on Fri/Sat nights.

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  16. @ T Bar (and fabric, and almost anywehre else in London): Brits + alcohol + cocaine = yucky people...

    ...cocaine is just like the automobile: when you're the only person who's into 'em, it's great... as soon as everyone else is doing it... AWFUL!

    :)

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  17. brits + alcohol + cocaine = yucky people? as opposed to anyone + alcohol + cocaine = yucky people? bit of a silly comment. love / hate indeed, but there is plenty plenty to love about london inside and outside of this scene.

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  18. @ Jonny: it's true, I can't 'vouch' for Australians... but there is a particular aggro in most parts of Britain, the tangible possibility of violence starting in the pub/club which you don't get in, say, NZ, in general... same with Berlin... I never felt like people, MJ style, 'wanna be startin' somethin''

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  19. @PC: I read in the Economist that in London an alarming number of people sustain non-serious injuries in fights during the weekend... meaning a lot of drunk fights break out that get broken up after about 10 seconds. I think the article was called "Island Savages" or something cheeky like that. In other words, you're right that Londoners "wanna be startin' something" a bit more than people other cities.

    About the Fabric birthday: I just have to say, I'm lukewarm on Fabric for a lot of the same reasons as you guys, but I REALLY can't imagine being in London that weekend and just choosing to sit that one out... i mean, Villalobos on a Funktion 1 in one of his favorite clubs, with DBX to boot... how bad could the rest really be???

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  20. If you can land a spot in the upstairs VIP room Fabric can be ok, but even that gets rather icky as the night wears on. I once sat next to a horribly cocained man, throwing wads of money around (literally), swilling from a bottle of champers and doing lines on the table. He'd then shout how his dad was a Brazilian millionaire and he could do whatever he liked. He did share though...

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  21. There is more to London than Fabric and T Bar. If you make the effort to go to the To The Bone parties, or Sud Electronic, or most things at Plastic People, or any number of smaller parties around the city, you won't find much cocaine aggression. Fabric itself is a compromise: it's a big club, and lots of people not 'in the know' want to go because it's famous, but it's all worth it when the sound is on form. For the record, the birthday wasn't unbearable busy, the sound was good, and there was some fantastic music.

    You should try going out more before judging.

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  22. @ ewan (and others): the bit i think i excluded from the story is that i had a work commitment all day sunday and then was on a flight sunday night. so it would have been difficult to get there, and was only willing to make the sacrifices if i was sure it would be worth it.

    i have been to quite a range of parties in london and most havent appealed. but one of the best nights i went to was the 1st dial party with sud.

    and i am trying my luck in london again this friday with the plex party at corsica. see you there!

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  23. re: beehive cover.

    oh, how could I have missed that. nice !

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