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January 2008 The first of my overseas jaunts for 2008 came on Saturday 5th. This wasn’t for a gig, however. I took advantage of one of the quietest weekends of the year for a quick trip to to Italy to catch an exhibition of interiors, props and artefacts used in the films of Stanley Kubrick. As a hardcore movie fan, I’ve long been into Kubrick’s distinctive style, and his mindblowing masterpiece ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ is possibly my all-time favourite film. The expo, at Rome’s Palazzo Dei Espozizoni, (which is a lot easier to spell than it is to say,) included a number of gems, including the ape suit and space helmet used in ‘2001’, axes, a knife and the twins’ dresses from ‘The Shining’, a rifle and helmet from ‘Full Metal Jacket’, and the Moloko Milk Bar interior featured in the opening sequence of ‘A Clockwork Orange’. Fascinating stuff, and a highly worthwhile way to spend a rainy January afternoon. (Sadly, the Palazzo’s non-photography rule means I can’t offer any pics of the exhibition here, but here’s a picture of Rome itself, at least…)
Rome. I can’t think of many reasons to recommend a visit to my hometown of Bicester. A drive through the market square at 2am on a Friday or Saturday gives you an insight into what life in the caveman era was like. There is at least the Bicester Village outlet centre, however, a retail park consisting of upmarket clothing brands like Dolce & Gabana, Versace, Ted Baker, Tommy Hilfiger, Timbaland, etc, all at wholesale prices. The Village attracts visitors from as far away as London, causing logjams on the A41 into town every weekend. During the week I checked out a few sales, ending up with a massively padded Bouncer-style puffa jacket, and I had a good opportunity to test it out at the weekend. While the big dog DJs hit sunnier climes like Asia, Australia, South America and the Middle East in January, I always seem to end up in the most freezing corners of Europe. Not that I was complaining in the case of my debut gig in Tallinn, Estonia on Friday 11th, as it’s a place I’d long wanted to visit. As predicted, it was totally Arctic.
Tallinn Old Town, Estonia. I Easyjetted from Stansted, and the only flight of the day was one of those inconveniently-timed crack-of-dawn departures. This resulted in an annoying case of having to set off for the airport immediately after finishing my gig at G’s in Bicester on Thursday night. I’m someone who usually finds it impossible to sleep in anything but a bed, but I was so knackered that I managed a kip of about 45 minutes on the flight, getting picked up and taken to the Reval Park Hotel & Casino by Tallinn key player DJ Quest on arrival. Despite the tiredness, I set off straight away for a look around Tallinn’s fascinating medieval-style Old Town, getting a few photos while it was still light, and only then heading back to hotel to crash out. The gig was in the plush two-floored Seduction Discotheque, where I span on the classily-lit lower level for close on three hours. The crowd were of the ‘mature’ variety, ranging from mid-20s to mid-30s, and this allowed for a far greater scope of throwbacks than is the case with the usual teenage clientele. I recorded my set, and there’s part of it available to download for anyone that’s interested; check my Myspace page for the links – www.myspace.com/therealmarkdevlin.
DJ Quest & resident at Seduction, Tallinn. Thankfully, the fog and sleet over Tallinn hadn’t caused any flight delays, and I flew back at lunchtime on Saturday, setting off later that night for my set at The Second Bridge in Bath. Having stayed closed the previous weekend, the place was impressively busy for the time of the month. The most bizarre aspect of the night was a monitor speaker being ripped off the wall at the back of the Vaults area where I was playing during the course of night. It was certainly there at the start of the session; when the crowd cleared, just a broken lead was left dangling. Seemingly, nobody had noticed a thing, including me. From my vantage point at the DJ booth, my view was obscured for three hours by a sea of heads. It reminds me of a situation at a club in Oxford a few years ago where management made the mistake of leaving the front door unlocked one afternoon. An hour later, two turntables and a DJ mixer had disappeared, never to be seen again. In total defiance of the January blues, The Apartment in Swindon was rammed as I arrived at the front door on Saturday 19th. It’s one of my favourite UK club spots because it prides itself on offering some musical credibility, leaving the cheesefests to the many other venues in town. Of course, not all punters understand this, so the occasional dumb request still gets received, (‘can you play something funky/ something we can dance to/ if you play such-and-such a tune everyone will dance/ ‘ere mate, got any techno, etc, etc.) But by and large, Saturday’s gig was hugely satisfying. There were some old-school groovers in the place, so in the last hour, I was able to drop some hip hop classics like ‘Planet Rock’, ‘The 900 Number’, ‘Don’t Scandalize Mine’ and ‘The Message’, which led some spontaneous head-spinning and body-popping. Not something you can often get away with at peak time on a Saturday night!
MD with Vince M at The Apartment, Swindon. Arriving home at 4.30am, it struck me how much I’m loving getting back from clubs these days and not stinking like a year-old ashtray. Prior to the smoking ban, I’d fling my clothes straight in the wash basket. Now, I can happily lounge around while unwinding with a drink in front of the TV, without worrying about making my sofa stink! A lot of good music had found its way through during the second half of January, mainly as a result of mp3 e-mails and downloads, (and check out Lethal, aka Harry Shotta’s new single ‘Digi’ for a very eloquent summing up of how the digital age has forever changed the way people absorb music.) My long-standing residency at The Bridge in Oxford gave a great opportunity to road-test a few. Assessing tunes at home or in the car is one thing, but you only really appreciate their sonic qualities when they’re booming out of a club’s powerfully-amplified system, and answerable to a busy dancefloor. Missy’s ‘Ching A Ling’, Janet Jackson’s ‘Feedback’, Rick Ross’s epic ‘Speedin’ Remix, Chris Brown’s ‘With U’, Pitbull and Lloyd’s ‘Secret Admirer’, Snoop Dogg and Lil Kim’s ‘Sensual Seduction’ Remix, Styles P’s ‘Blow Your Mind’ and Timbaland’s ‘Scream’ all got touched, and most found favour with the clubbers. My long nights at The Bridge, and the fact that I’m familiar with the crowd, makes me more confident to do a spot of experimentation which I wouldn’t necessarily try during a guest spot at an unfamiliar club. A couple of days later saw the end of an era – and a lot of hard work – as Parveen and myself helped her parents move out of their long-standing home in Middlesex for a new place out of the area. The Northolt crib has served as a convenient sleeping-over spot after many a late night in London, not to mention offering ideal car parking facilities in the case of overseas trips out of nearby Heathrow Airport! It’ll be missed.
Funky DL was my live studio guest on ‘Just Buggin’ on Wednesday 30th. While his name’s not always instantly brought to mind when reeling off a roll call of prominent UK MCs, he’s certainly consistent, having been putting out albums regularly for over ten years. We first linked when he contributed a freestyle to my ‘Blaze’ mixtape in 1999. On Wednesday, DL dropped several off-the-top-of-the-head bars, which reminded just why I love the spontaneity of live radio so much. … and that was January.
Diary Archive 2008 2007 2006 2005 |
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