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February
2005
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'MD and Burj-Al-Arab, Dubai' Whatever the criteria, Dubai is a pretty damn impressive place. Frequently described as the Las Vegas of the Middle East, it’s the sort of location that leaves you dumbstruck at its sheer overblown scale, and the awesome amount of money there. It’s highly cosmopolitan, and distinctly Westernised for part of a Muslim country. Naturally, this makes it a winning contender when it comes to nightlife. I first visited in August ‘02 when the temperature was so stiflingly humid that even at 3 in the morning you wouldn’t want to be outside for a minute more than you have to. On Tuesday 1st February, I flew out of Heathrow on Emirates Airlines arriving in a much more pleasant climate. This was my re-scheduled appearance at Mix, the nightclub part of the stunning Hyatt International Hotel. I was originally due to play before Christmas, but all programmes got postponed when Sheikh Zayed, ruler of United Arab Emirates passed away. Ahead of the gig, I had two full days to revel in the five-star luxury of the hotel, as well as a sightseeing trip along the Jumeirah Beach stretch. This is the corner of Dubai that leaves visitors dumbstruck. Such is the demand for new land, developers have started building way out into the desert on one side, and into the sea on the other, via a host of manually-constructed islands. You can buy one – for a cool £20 million. This is also home of the mind-blowing Burj-Al-Arab, the world’s only seven-star hotel, where even the taps are gold-plated. Even more impressive was news of the imminent Hydropolis development – a hotel to be built entirely under the sea, and accessible by submarine. This place is something else! Anyway – on to the gig. As expected, Mix was full of rich and beautiful people who like to party late. As such, it was well past 1.30am by the time things got into swing, leading to a highly enjoyable last hour. Unsurprisingly, I can’t wait to get back. The downer was that in order to get back to the UK in time for Friday night, the only flight option available was departing at 7.30am, so it was another of those straight-from-the-club-to-the-airport situations, with just enough time for a shower and change of clothes. Annoyingly, the flight also landed at Gatwick, calling for a coach transfer between airports. I spent the afternoon at the In-Laws Hotel in West London - always a good place to catch some rest - before setting off later that night for Brighton. Ice, at the famous Zap Club, is now top contender in the town’s urban music scene, and my 12.30-3am set turned out to be a raw, gritty, ghetto-style affair, with a livewire crowd and two hyped up MCs – just the type of set-up I like! The energy levels were off the hook, and I left convinced this must be one of the number one urban nights in the UK. Everything a meaningful club session should be! My experience on Saturday 5th was just as rewarding, but was in stark contrast to the previous night’s proceedings. I played for the first time at The Apartment in Swindon, which was a far more upmarket, dressy affair, that naturally called for a more soulful, funky approach, with plenty of revivals.
'MD at The Apartment, Swindon' No lack of energy as a result, though; the joint was heaving and buzzing throughout, with a bunch of travelling soul boys from Reading jamming near the front of the stage all night. The weekend had thrown up three totally different gigs, all enjoyable and fulfilling for different reasons, and not for the first time, I found myself reflecting on how lucky I am to be doing the job I do. I don’t stand to see much of the wife between now and July, though – and it’s not all my fault! She’s embarked on a five-month journalistic training course at Harrow College, meaning we’re apart in the week. Only linking at weekends takes me right back to our dating days. My strategy has been to use this time to cram in as much overseas travel as possible, and there’s quite a lot of it over the coming weeks. This has coincided with me finally hooking myself up with a new Apple iBook laptop, enabling me to get much of my writing work done on the move, so more and more of the words you read on this site are likely to have been composed at 35,000 feet. We got there in the end. Friday 11th was to have involved a re-visit to Booti Call in Athens. Sadly, this had to be re-scheduled for 11th March when the venue announced it was closing for as refurb. As a result, I ended up playing both Thursday and Friday at G’s in Bicester in a last-minute rejig. This just left Saturday 12th for the weekend’s guest slot at The Escape Club in Swansea, exactly a year after I’d first appeared.
'DJs Kai & Evo at Escape' Escape is one of the most progressive and celebrated dance music venues in the UK, but is less known for its urban input. Residents Evo and Kai hold down the R&B/ garage room weekly, however, with occasional guests. The night’s main room guest was the disco house don Joey Negro, and I made sure to check out a portion of his set. It was a strong night, certainly helped by the fact that the club knows how to look after its guests, (slack promoters take note!) The accommodation for my Valentines Night wasn’t the most romantic – alone in a Travelodge at Knutsford Services on the M6. But there’ll be other nights! I was in the North West to play another Vodka Island party at Tiger Tiger in Manchester, fast becoming one of the favourite nights I play. The place is always packed to the hilt, and the atmosphere is incredible – all the more impressive considering it’s on a Monday! I was in a different room to usual, which ended up full of nothing but girls as far as the eye could see. All good. I arrived at The Fez Club in Bristol on Wednesday 16th to find Honey resident Kid Blaze spinning Yvette Michelle’s ‘I’m Not Feeling You’. I’d forgotten what a strong track this was! Don’t be surprised to hearing me blazing it one of my club sets soon! The night was a late filler, but was suitably busy by the time I went on at 12. An adventurous crowd let me get away with a lot, and it was all highly enjoyable. Thursday was spent in a blurred haze as I dashed to get my latest set of radio mixes finished for Metro FM in South Africa. This lot are important, as they’re helping to publicise my DJing visit next month. Once finished, it was my weekly session at G’s, before I finally had a chance to pack ready for my looming Eastern European weekend. Croatia is one of those locations that would have been unthinkable as a tourist spot as recently as 13 years ago, when the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and all the ethnic warring was in full effect. It’s turned itself around incredibly in the intervening years, however, now becoming one of the most popular leisure destinations in Europe. The country’s experiences have clearly helped to bring about a vibrant homegrown hip hop scene, too, which laps up the US stuff, but which also produces its own impressive output. Much of the achievements can be attributed to DJ Phat Phillie and his Blackout Entertainment group, who run club events, live shows, put out releases and remixes, and have a strong weekly show on Radio 101 Zagreb. This lot are strong. On Friday 18th, I flew out to spin at the Blackout Lounge party at Club Aquarius in Zagreb. With budget airlines not yet having arrived in Croatia, direct flights to Zagreb are notoriously expensive, so to keep the costs sensible, I flew to Ljubljana in neighbouring Slovenia. Phillie picked me up, and we drove across the border, arriving in Zagreb a couple of hours later. Driving from country to country in a day is nothing to mainland Europeans.
'Welcome to Slovenia' We first hit the radio station for a quick interview, helping to promote the night’s gig. Aquarius is situated in a leisure park next to a lake, which was totally frozen over. The place was rammed with an enthusiastic and noisy crowd who showed me love right from the off. My two-hour set was electrifying, and I was surprised by the amount of proper underground sounds the hungry crowd were letting me get away with. It quickly became clear that this was my best party of the year so far, and it’s going to take some beating. A few enthused fans kindly bought me some drinks, and after getting sufficiently wrecked, I was taken back to the luxury of the Sheraton Zagreb. There was a price to pay for such excesses. The following day, I awoke with the hangover from hell, and it took until the evening to fully shake off the accompanying migraine. When will we learn? The trip was a double-bill, and Saturday night’s venue was in Split, further down the Adriatic coast. Apparently, there’s a fair bit of rivallry between Split and Zagreb, largely down to the football scene. As a result, Zagreb DJs are pretty much unmarketable down there. Although Phillie plays the spot we were at, Club Metropolis, it’s always on the anonymous tip. Split was just as freezing as Zagreb, if not moreso. Once we were picked up by the promoter, we headed to a dockside restaurant for a good feed and a warm up. Our schedule in Split was restricted by the flights available. We took the last flight down on Saturday, arriving around 9.30pm, and had no option but to take the first flight back at 6.50 in the morning, meaning my entire experience of Split was in the hours of darkness! Metropolis fills out late, and it was almost 2 before it was deemed busy enough for me to go on.
'MD & Phat Phillie, Split' I played for an hour and a half, and the surroundings called for a much safer set than the night before – pretty much all the hits. We left the club at 5 and headed straight back to the airport, by which time we were pretty knackered! After touchdown in Zagreb, there was a window of around three hours to catch some rest at Phillie’s crib before setting off again. We hit the road back to Llubljana after
1pm, Phillie being joined by a crew of six who were all heading
to Berlin to
catch the Snoop Dogg and Game concert.
I was headed to Berlin too, but sadly not to catch the show;
it was part of my flight routing back home. By the time we hit
the train from Schonefeld Airport into
the city, the Croatians were nicely tanked up and rowdy, and
were scaring old ladies on the train. There’s so much more to being a DJ than just turning up and playing gigs. Promotion is vital, and an important part of it for me over the years has been my ongoing series of mix CDs. The latest, ‘Unleash’ is due imminently, and the last section of it is devoted to Part Three of the Mixmasters series, this time shining the spotlight on the productions of DJ Premier. I caught Premo’s DJ set in London a couple of years ago, and the first 45 minutes consisted solely of his own creations, such is the extent of this guy’s track record. Inspired, and after a conference call with Kid Fury to settle on the best ones, I spent several hours burrowing through my archives, including a freezing hour in the garage, trying to dig out as many old joints as possible. As any DJ/ collector will tell you, when you own several thousand records, locating specifics can take literally hours, and finding that one elusive tune that you know you have can prove obsessive! (In this case, Royce Da 5’9’s ‘Boom’.) I eventually settled down to putting the mix together … and it took me right into a zone. Group Home, Das EFX, Heather B, Jeru That Damaja, OC … some classic hip hop moments. The experience set me in good stead for Thursday night’s gig. Bad Apple at Three in Bristol has one of the most interesting music policies of any event I’ve played. It focuses purely on the urban music output of New York. Although the DJ on before me was playing the likes of Usher and Lil’ Jon, I ensured my two-hour set consisted solely of artists from the East Coast. It’s tougher than you might think! The set seemed to go down outstandingly, with a far better crowd than when I’d played before Christmas. The red-eye drive to Bristol and back was no fun, with snow and ice everywhere, and I was distinctly unimpressed to find my shiny black BMW coated from top to bottom in grit and salt the next morning!
'MD at the offices of Blues & Soul' Friday 25th was manic from start to finish, consisting of a day of runnings in London. Firstly, an interview with UK MC Lethal at the offices of Blues & Soul in Paddington for the forthcoming volume two of my DVD, then some record shopping around the specialist shops of Soho, (not that kind!), running into DJs Woody, Diggz and Bigger in the process, then the Ludacris concert at Hammersmith Apollo, (which hip hop fiend Phat Phillie from Croatia had also come to London to absorb!) Despite Luda’s lateness, the show didn’t disappoint, crammed full of classic bangers. Watch out for my review in the April issue of Touch magazine. The final port of call was that night’s gig, Black Moth Connection’s Mothematics night at NYT, near Leicester Square. Although not as hyper and full of true heads as previous sessions, it was still busy and enjoyable. The weekend ended with my monthly spot at The Bridge in Oxford, a slow starter, but ultimately as satisfying and enjoyable as usual. The final gig of the month involved another long-haul return trek to Manchester on Monday 28th, for another Vodka Island student party at Tiger Tiger. The promoters are to be applauded for packing this massive venue out with several hundred heads every week in term-time. It has the effect of making the night feel more like Saturday than a dry Monday, and it’s always a lot of fun as a result. Diary Archive 2007 2006 2005
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