four straight days on the sauce has given me a painfully sore throat. was it all worth it though? very much so...saturday night was shunt, a club that is made up of a sprawling labyrinth of caverns and tunnels underneath london bridge. the club is ran by a collective of artists who take it turns to curate a uinque event based around a certain theme. everyone bailed on me so i ended up going down on my own to dj a three hour set from 12midnight-3am, when i got there i was instantly stopped by a barrier and two men dressed in full militant attire adorning pig noses, who were refusing to let some customers through and even giving them some (in charachter) grief, luckily i told them i was playing and avoided their totalitarian ways. after being propositioned for gay sex by one of the workers, which i politely declined, i moved through an impressive corridor scene scattered with authentic looking props, dancing woman, men with accordions and all sorts of other atmospheric goings on. the vibe, all though was meant to be that of shunt-state control felt to me more like i'd stepped into the middle of a military
coup détat with everyone around me behaving in an fun, inspiring and friendly manor.i went and set up in the humid, dark, sweaty corner of one cavern in front a dancefloor that already consisted of around 150 people and after the national shunt anthem i began my set. i quickly learned that the crowd weren't into guitar based music and were here to dance their shoes into heelless oblivion. i of course complied. after warming it up the dance floor consistently had 300 or more people on going for it all night and when i finally managed to run off for a toilet break i realised that i wasn't just djing to that room but the music i was playing was in fact being played through the whole club, which had to stop letting people in at 12 because it was so busy. daunting to say the least, but none the less it was easily the most receptive crowd i've ever played to and by far the best experience i've ever had as a dj. i recommend you all go to shunt at some point. they've invited us back to play again, so i'll let ya'll know when that happens.
the rest of the four days of abuse and lack of sleep consisted of the last ever tuck shop in birmingham, the no shows forever house gig and the rolo tomassi album launch party. all were incredible but a special shout out has to go to banjo or freakout who played the house gig on sunday, who totally stole the show for me (gentle friendly teamed up with ponytail to the tune of a huge super group improvisation and while it was very impressive and exuded talent it didn't quite capture my attention like either of the bands actual music would have). the focus of banjo's set for my was on the enchanting drums played himself and dan from gentle friendly, i've not seen such a captivating display of drumming since i saw duracell play in the middle of the crowd in the middle of drained out pool last year at supersonic, it had me hooked from start to finish. unfortunately i missed all but 2 songs by pens because we were outside and hadn't realised they had started by which time the room was so packed full of immaculately dressed beautiful young people that we couldn't even see anything anyway.
i've got a job interview in a bit too, wish me luck.
