Tough at the top

Another week, another set of blurs - Here are some of the highlights. When we weren't eating, we were drinking. When we weren't doing that, we were working. Hard times...



Voting babes



Creepy freaky nostalgia



A man grating a courgette



Chilli business

Slugabed is the motherfucking man

Slugabed was a completely new name on me until last night but this Brit producer/DJ has got stylez in bucketz. I reviewed his debut EP for Hyponik - it's mint and got a tune on it called Nu Krak Swing...

Slugabed Moonbeam Riders EP review

Even more exciting is the Roots Manuva rework which went missing earlier in the year - He's managed to polish perfection. Which suggests his talent is real...

I love donna (meat)

Sometimes a tune pokes its tweeter up which has just the right balance of beat, wonk, stupidity and sheer bangingness to make you fall for it before you've even heard it. So it was with Erik & Fiedel's Donna - According to this past FACT interview, the pair were attempting to come up with a rough neck, contemporary take on the squelchy acid b-line at the close of Donna Summer's Our Love. Which is a majestic aim - that tune has been to the soundtrack to getting out of the box for the past 12 months. Here's their tribute...



And here's the Summer/Moroder original - Goosebumps every time...



MMM, who are part of Smith'n'Hack and DJ regularly at Berlin's palace of techno pleasure, Berghain, have a new record out - you can check it over via the FACT webpage...

Wave yer flag

Saturday after the wedding must have been one long hangover for much of the UK - We were feeling rotten enough to only be capable of once again mounting the horse and drinking high quality premium lagers from 3 in the pm until about 4 in the am. As per, it was a long mucky day which had numerous highs, lows, peaks and troughs.

Tings kicked off with a greasy motherfucking fry up - plus numerous pint pots of berocca did the rounds. R'n'b bangers got dropped for most of the afternoon. Once we left the gaff, a Union jack flag was stolen off the front of the house and almost set fire to in the street. Which could be classed as high treason, although I'm not totally sure what the legalities involve. Someone was sick. We bought some rum. And drank it really, really quickly. We tried to go to a dance hall night but it was fucking dead as a bucket of door nails. The lack of anything regarding a 'mandem' in the basement of this restaurant prompted us to head back onselves in terms of aesthetic. The musical U-turn we embarked on saw us heading into central London to G.A.Y Late - which is where things really got tasty.

I'd never previously had the experience of visiting this late night emporium of dance, drinks and sexuality before, but, if I'd been drinking for 8 hours again, I'd definitely make a reappearance. They don't have a DJ - just music videos beamed in from a "state of the art video juke box", which makes the whole vibe well fucking left - This is way more car showroom than club. Although there aren't many car showrooms where dancing on a small stage is encouraged - and the drinking of numerous over-priced shots is mandatory - You're egged on to get fully involved with this shit. At one point I found myself contorting my body into ever weirder and more wonderful shapes to Rihanna's Rude Boy. We got talking to some other punters while outside gasping down hard on our tabs - there were some lonely souls out there in the dark, who were only made to feel lonelier by our cuntish character acting. The way home involved going for a gargantuanly overpriced Chinese takeway, then trying to board a bus back up to Hackney. The first bus wouldn't stop - so that bus got a severe kicking. The bus which let us on had to endure the three of us dribbling poisonous egg fried rice down our collective fronts. The next day waking up and feeling poisoned to the very core. Classic Binge Britain at its finest...


G.A.Y late - the entrance



Guts of the chicken shop - where the dirty magic happens



Flag down - but not singed



Dreams die fast round our way



Dins dins



A pleasant afternoon getting sozzled



Berocca - man's best friend



Ballast



The afternoon's work - part 2

Kiss it. Go on. Kiss it...

Unless one has spent most of the year underneath a massive stone, then it was obvious summat big was going on the other Friday. Yep. That's right. The Royal Fucking Wedding was taking place, which, whether you're a royalist or not was totally and utterly mint. Not only did it provide us with an additional day off but gave the whole country and excuse to begin binge drinking heavily from around breakfast time. I missed the actual ceremony as we went hard on the Thursday eve and was in the process of 'losing' some rank fried chicken we'd picked up the night before while the vows were going on. But the afternoon was a different story - the street party on Wilton Way in Hackney was summat else - Some of the punters were absolutely munted which made for a real mixture of sights. Children painting shit crossed with men who'd consumed so much 'K' that they couldn't walk straight.

The day was topped with Kiss the Royal Fist, which went down in the evening down at the London Fields. The vibe was off the chain mainly cos of the sunny drunken vibes of the day. Plus the amazing mixing skills on show behind the decks. One of the highlights was smoking a cig in the kitchen of the pub and thieving a tomato. It was that sort of day. Big.



At the controls



Delicious - can I have 50 more?



In da mix



The Roots Manuva soundsystem



Token gesture towards the wedding bash

Big up yourselves each and every time

If you're a lover of all things bass, then you'll probably have been locked into the Boiler Room at some stage over the last 12 months. It's a club night held in the capital running between 8 and 11 on a Tuesday evening - with the killer ting being it's streamed live on the internet. The concept is tent trousering for those sausages turned on by watching DJs in action. Plus the bibbles in the audience make for some uplifting/depressing sights depending on how much you hate the sight of men with haircuts in plaid shirts having a knowingly good time...

We had the opportunity to check out the Red Bull Music Academy link up that the Boiler Room had organised last Tuesday. Typically for RBMA, who seem to have pockets sans bottoms, the line up was fresh as fuck with Diplo and Jackmaster both present and Dillon Francis repping the Moombahton side of tings. However, fate conspired against us as we were misinformed over the location of the party. We ended up in Elephant and Castle banging on the doors of Corsica Studios - while the actual bash was taking place in an old furniture shop somewhere in Dalston.

Instead of opting to rush back across the river to try and get in, we gave up and instead headed to Wetherspoons located on the Elephant and Castle roundabout. We sat outside and had some pints while shooting the shit, which felt very much like being on holiday. It wasn't exclusive but was arguably more enjoyable than standing listening to the Boiler Room's nob head MC deploying his favourite catch phrase: ould say: "Big up yourselves each and every time". Arguably.

Beam me up

It could be too much exposure to the sun but ears have been veering between these two tunes for much of the past 24 hours. Permanent Vacation style house and overblown alt rock from the Raspberries. ? Go down south on these two...