Doing Record Store Day our boozy way

Record Store Day was perhaps the first properly hot day of the year - and was suitably ridiculous as a result. It was a 24 hours in which we drank a lot and didn't do a single bit of record shopping. 

We kicked off proceedings in Soho for the Sounds of the Universe street party. It featured the skills of Floating Points and Thristian from the Boiler Room and allowed us to let our inner nerd out. This proved to be a right riotious sunny vibe and a mint place to spot celebs, in particularly Jarvis Cocker who mooched past with his young son (who looks exactly like him) and his wife (or sister - who knows). We caught some of Steve Mason performing Dry the Rain on Berwick Street and managed to sink a proper skinful before wobbling off on our bikes. 

After narrowly avoiding death on the roads, our next stop was Nando's where we saw a whole set of cops getting their chicken on (why are they always in Nando's?) and I managed to prove just how pished I was by losing my piece of poulet. The slippery, greasy bit of bird shot off the plate and straight onto the floor as soon as my blade touched it. 

After blowing the hair off and noshing the lot, we did one to the sanctity of the Kingsland boozer. Here things began to become unhinged. We witnessed a ferocious dance off between two old gentlemen who were completely out of their fucking minds. They boogied like true gents half their respective ages before we got locked in an hour-long conversation about football. It's indicative of just how daft the game is that we were able to keep up the pretence of being avid fans without or fellow conversationee/victim having any inkling to our ignorance. Phew.

It was then on to more familiar territory by heading down to Concrete for the evening's Bugged Out! session with Oneman and Martelo. These two are perhaps London's finest party starters and provided a suitably energetic display to ensure we danced and drank until the very end. The following Sunday was one full of confusion and random wandering in a desperate bid to sober up and regain brain cells. Standard businesssssss....

Sounds of the Universe street party

The cops discuss chicken

Slippery chicken business

Old dudes dancing

Drop down and get your eagle on old man

Word

BO

Bugged Out! Weekender

Ooooooooooooh Bognor Regisssssss. At the fag end of January we got a great little group of guys together for a ravey trip to the seaside. The Bugged Out! Weekender was the first big festival of the year and we were foolish enough to take it on only weeks after the arrival of the new year. My guts were already quaking in the days running up to it - and with good reason - the affair was as debauched as you'd expect. My phone captured a few moments but it's a measure of how much of a dangerous time was being had that these are the only ones. You can read my Hyponik review here.

There were shitloads of highlights outside of the aural menu - speaking to a painfully shy Hudson Mohawke while being totally on one in the amusement arcades. Smoking cigs inside the chalet. Getting locked out of the chalet on the first morning, then being forced to have a piss in a bush. Fried breakfasts. Having an internal, sweat-based meltdown. Playing the grabbers while being totally on one. Finding an unconscious old guy outside our chalet on the last night. It was bigger than big. And the festival season can't come soon enough. Bring on the sunshine motherfuckers...



Fake Blooooooooooooooooooooooooded



Joy Orbison and a pint



Darkness brothers



The 2 Bears



Life saving




Rave piff



Inner City



Spoons + Bloody Mary + shithead = perfection



Post rave Monday breakfast

The first Bank Holiday mash up

Word up. At last the Bank Holiday weekend season is bearing down upon us like a pirate with a cutlass made out of booze.

It can be an extra day to put some shelves up, polish the dildoes or make sure the allotment weeds are aligned. For us it meant an extra evening of getting drinky with it.

Thursday was the wife's birthday bash which saw our crew crawl across east London and stay 'out' (not necessarily 'up') til the alarm for work went off. Friday and Saturday were more domestic if no less abusive affairs. And Sunday was the final nail in the coffin of sanity at Bugged Out!'s All Dayer. Located in the mildly salubrious environs of the Old Queen's Head in Islington, it was a day of strong looks and even stronger stares.

When we arrived at 4ish there were a number of trendies eyeballing each other waiting for tings to the party touch paper to be lit. Kate Bush, Toto and Fleetwood Mac cut through the comedowns and wrapped the room up in a placenta made out of 80s soft rock. Then Dan Beaumont from Disco Bloodbath played this...



...and everyone went ape.

As it was still light outside someone shut the windows and Johnno Burgess wheeled out his yacht rock selection which encouraged a brace of enthusiastic jigging. Apparently the secret guest was Mylo but by the time he must have appeared we were long gone. We ended up in Macdonald's in Bethnall Green. I had my camera on me all day but neglected to take any piccies of the Bugged Out! chaos. For some reason I did snap these beauties of the toilets in Maccy D's. I can't remember why...



Full to bursting