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.