Tagged: Clubbing

A year isn’t a year unless I have danced to Papa Sven and it is my 10 year anniversary since I saw the Cocoon light, ditching the likes of David Guetta, Paul Van Dyk and Erick Morillo for a far more sonically satisfying, albeit at first a rather confusing form of dance music.  Where is the drop?! I really wanted to go to Sven’s 50th birthday in Mannheim, I deeply felt I should given how much Sven means to me but the finances didn’t allow (plus I don’t like the music that the two main supporting DJs play – Richie …

A night out in London used to be amazing, guaranteed.  I have had about 6 nights out in London this year, none of them have been amazing, all have been slightly or significantly spoiled by crowds, and sometimes even disappointing music. So I took affirmative action and booked a ticket for the daytime Secretsundaze party the day I found out about it, taking no notice of which DJs were playing – I had only been to one Secretsundaze party before and the crowd there seemed really nice.  Decisive. I arrived early on, it was very quiet to start – but …

I last went to a Cubed night around a year ago, Eats Everything was playing and he smashed it. However I wasn’t keen on Disclosure and the other resident DJs played music far too heavy for my brain to cope with. However I have noticed with interest over recent months the bookings in terms of headliners and also resident DJs has veered more towards my liking – or maybe my tastes are broadening a touch – probably both. The booking of Duke Dumont was enough for me – as I love some of his latest releases such as the immense …

I bought my ticket in June for this.  I like to be prepared.   A mini-disaster nearly struck during the week when my wonderful clubbing partner announced that she would not be able to make it however I had bought my ticket so long ago that there was no pulling out for me.  I didn’t want to go by myself but I was up for the adventure.   A slight side-track perhaps but beforehand I went to an all you can eat buffet place for dinner, and had lots of gravy.     Yes, even on dessert.   You can …

To have a truly awesome night out, it takes more than just one’s favourite nightclub, favourite international DJ and favourite resident DJ.  There has to be the initial idea, finding a dancing partner, the week-long build-up of excitement, the over-excitement leading to an accidentally messy night a day or two beforehand, something of a mission to get there/get in, interactions with randoms, the odd hot chick on the dancefloor always helps, the beautiful distress of the journey home, the Sunday afters, a big smile on the Monday along with a caffeine overdose, oh and a review on the blog. Ricardo …

I spent Friday evening lamenting my very poor financial situation and the host of excellent nights I was going to miss the coming weekend. Fabric’s birthday was the one I really desperately wanted to do as I had been to most or maybe all fabric Saturday night birthday parties since the 7th one I think (forgive me my lack of memory, goes with the territory I suspect). Story goes I went out for a beer with a very good friend on Saturday afternoon, it ended up many beers, we had a discussion about going to fabric on the Sunday but …

I was really looking forward to fabric on Saturday, having just got back from Ibiza that morning in very good spirits, and the evening started well with a few local drinks for one of my dearest friend’s birthdays. However it quickly went downhill upon arrival at fabric, and seeing the ridiculous queue, the likes of which I last saw at Jamie Jones night last year, around the same time of the year. The security assured us that we would only have to wait 25 minutes. As a long-time member I am used to this on exceptionally busy nights and this …

Yes it has taken me two weeks to get round to doing this review…I moved house and then went to Ibiza so I am kind of a little bit behind at the moment! January was the last time I went to fabric.  I went rather a lot between last September and January, almost every other week for a while which is quite a feat for someone not living in London, as this requires a 9-10 hour commitment in London. 8 months without going to fabric is an unusually long time, one of my longest ever stints without a visit since …

In no particular order, these are the 10 DJs that I really want to see before the end of the year.  Possibly too ambitious.  If anyone wants to join me on my quest, I would be most honoured. tINI – Loco Dice’s protégé which I guess says it all, but I had only heard the name until this year when I downloaded a couple of sets by her and she has an excellent underground house style that I am a big fan of, really knows how to construct a set and this young woman is going to go far – …

I like things to be organised in my life, I appreciate function and efficiency.   On the flip side though, I do enjoy a bit of chaos theory.   Ahh…Eastern Electrics.   It is good to try and have contrasts in life – the last festival I went to was Cocoon In The Park – both are from within the general area of underground house/techno but both experiences could not have been more distinct from each other.   Difficult to know where to start to review it.  I will start with the location – London, Greenwich to be exact.  I …

I received a very kind offer by e-mail today from a representative of Easyjet, who after having read my review of Cocoon In The Park thought that a competition to win a holiday in the clubber’s paradise of Magaluf.  Which for those of you less geographically knowledgeable is on an island called Mallorca (or Majorca to some of us).  It is near Ibiza. **** Hi James, I hope you don’t mind me emailing, but I came across your recent blog post where you mentioned that you love clubbing (http://jameswinfield.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/cocoon-in-park-2012-or-monsoon-in-swamp.html) and I thought you might like to know about a competition …

It is hard to know where to start this review.  It was my third time to Cocoon In The Park.  This time we were staying in a hotel in the centre of Leeds.  This trip there were four of us.  It has been raining quite a lot recently, hasn’t it?  However, I recall last year that it had also been raining the week before, albeit not quite as much, and heavy showers were forecast last year for Cocoon In the Park but magically missed us, so I assumed that was all down to the magic of Sven, and assumed he …

I really, truly loved it.  The only thing which puts more of a post-weekend glow on my face and in my head on a Monday is a trip to fabric, etc. Though at 7pm on Saturday evening I was getting a little subdued, there were less people there than I was expecting, and that I was hoping/dreaming for – only just scraping into double figures, and I was having those thoughts that it was going to be a waste of my efforts. But once I got on the decks at 8pm I was truly loving it, I had a fantastic …

You very likely know that I adore Cocoon, and Sven is my ultimate life hero.  Even more than Peter Andre.  Unless of course you have never read my blog before in which case these two ideas must be implanted into your head which I hope I have done.   I wasn’t sure how it was going to work at a venue like Electric Brixton, but I wasn’t going to let any unfair judgements put me off going – this was the first time Sven has been to London in 2012, and the first Cocoon event I had attended in 2012. …

I saw this on Thursday night and e-mailed my most regular clubbing partner on the off-chance that she might be up for it…even though it was supposed to be my first proper chill-out weekend of 2012. She said yes.  So I put our names on the guest-list, and it being a Saturday day-time party I decided to stay up all Friday night.  Will I ever learn? Saturday day-time clubbing is the way forward.  Whenever I go clubbing in the evening I tend to have spent about the past 8 hours drinking as I get too excited too early.  On Saturday …

From Disco To Disco. So I braved another night out in Reading, this time on the basis of the name. It is in the relaxed Up The Junction bar in Cemetery Junction. Quite a basic looking place but this is dance music and elegant looking places tend to be full of tossers. And it is free entry and very reasonably priced drinks too.  What more do you require? Oh yeah, music. Musically I am delighted to announce that it was most definitely up my street…about time! A mix of disco, new and old, house, garage and electro (nothing too painful) …

After going to fabric 3 times in 5 weekends not long ago, I did promise not to go again in 2011.  I like to think that I am a man of my word but somehow my arm got twisted quite easily into conveniently ignoring said promise. The crowd wasn’t quite up to it’s usual recent standards at fabric, probably due to the lack of a Jamie Jones type figure and generally a lack of anyone well known for house music – it is also office Christmas party season and clubland does generally suffer from the usual clubbers having to sacrifice …

As much as I love going to see my heroes like Sven and Ricardo, and going to amazing nightclubs like fabric – there is something almost equally satisfying as going to see very good friends DJ, especially when they pull off an absolutely superb set. Three good friends of mine were playing on Saturday, Matt and Dan first for a very pleasing three hours, and a superb warm-up of really good quality house music – exactly up my street and I absolutely loved it!  Honourable mention also for Rick who played some really good tunes in amongst possibly a few …

Just in case you don’t know from previous blog posts – I love fabric and I go here more than every other nightclub put together. There was no way that I was going to miss their birthday, having missed their birthday last year. Even if it meant going by myself. Thankfully that was not the case as my new dancing partner was for the third time in five Saturday’s up for the mission. For some reason I was a little apprehensive on the way there and quiet, I was trying to save energy as I wasn’t quite as stocked up …

Another weekend and another trip was required to fabric. It really is becoming like a second home now, I have lost count of the amount of times that I have been this year, and I think that is quite good going for someone who doesn’t live in London. There are so many good things about a trip to fabric, the music, crowd and sound-system are quite obvious (I hate that word as whenever anyone says something is obvious, it is rarely actually obvious, but cannot think of a better one right now, sorry), but it is when I get to …

I have been wanting to see Jamie Jones for 2-3 years now and have consistently failed to persuade any of my many clubbing friends to join me, and my frustration got to the point where I decided that I was just going to go by myself. However, I did in the end have some excellent company. I was fully aware of the amount of hype that had built up around him in recent years, especially as he is one of my favourite producers over the last few years with countless fantastic tracks, a super album and so many amazing remixes, …

  This is kind of what it looked like – we were all stood or sat inside that circular curtain of tubes where the film was projected on.  Photo stolen from Time Out.  My camera is shit, forgive me. Allegedly the first ever film to feature a twist, a 1920’s silent film. At first I didn’t think I was going to get it, it seemed a bit too avant-garde for someone from Hull, but I did end up really enjoying it. I need to start getting organised for my weekend so I don’t really have the time to write much …

I have become far too accustomed to music with around 126 beats every minute.  And I have never gone into London on a midweek night and then had to go to work the next day (granted I took a half-day so only working 1pm-5pm). So this was kind of unchartered territory but I like to get out of my musical comfort zones into something more challenging from time to time, and Nicolas Jaar really did catch my ear a year or more ago, with his track, Time For Us, buckets of emotion and more twists – far away from my usual …

These are the best videos kindly uploaded by other Cocoon In The Park folks to Youtube. It is a pretty reasonable description of my best day of 2011 which has put me on such a high all week. I hope you enjoy. I will also compile a list of the tunes played at some point. The ones with stars are my particular favourite moments if you only have time for a few. Oh if you want to watch them all continuously, they are on my Youtube channel – this link should work – let me know if it doesn’t as …

Yes it was. (I hope Cocoon In The Park don’t mind me stealing this photo from their Facebook page – I am terrible at the best of times taking my own photos) I have that big warm glow in my heart that I do every time I go to Cocoon (or fabric). Surprisingly though, there was a negative in that it wasn’t as well run as last year.  One of the comments many said last year was just how ridiculously well run and efficient it was – German standards rather than English…this year it was English standards! It wasn’t bad, …

Last November, Sven Vath was to play fabric – my favourite DJ at my favourite club, the first time for about 6 years I think.  I left having had a fantastic night but Sven hadn’t been the star of the show – which is what I am used to, so perhaps I was a tiny little bit dissatisfied. A couple of months ago I heard Sven was due to play again at fabric on 21st May, and I have seen him countless times over the years, and I always think he is at his peak in the months before Ibiza …

The night started off at Mango, which was probably the first time I had enjoyed a night out there for about two years – no unbearably loud sound, a good reasonably friendly crowd with no sign of dickheads, some good underground music in the garden and some good looking girls (though not a patch on those at fabric!). Then to fabric.  We were lucky to get in at 08:30 – went to the front of the queue to be told members have no priority – went to the back to be told the queue is closed but they saw my …

I have decided against disturbing my vocal chords today, or at least my brain has decided not to activate them.  It appears that I have limited resources so I fear my review of the excellent night out on Saturday may be a little limited in descriptive vocabulary compared to what it deserves, I appear to have used more resources than I originally anticipated and therefore I need to conserve my limited resources for more productive matters. I remember putting in a lot of effort to try to persuade my delightful collection of friends to come to fabric with me almost 5 years ago when …

This weekend just gone was one of those fairly rare weekends where everything looks so exciting, and everything and everyone comes together as planned quite spectacularly. The highlight was always going to be my trip to fabric, only my third this year – for Cocoon – also my third Cocoon event of the year. I did expect that my favourite club night at my favourite nightclub with my favourite DJ playing should be the most amazing night ever.  So much was my expectation that I was a little apprehensive on the way. Alas, it was not the most amazing night.  …

I didn’t make it to either fabric or Mango on Sunday or Saturday respectively – but I’m not so fussed as I had true disco satisfaction after an excellent night at the Warehouse Project on Friday night! The night takes place in a car park underneath the train station, and is very basic and rather dirty – musically and well, it is in dirty Manchester. I say it was basic as it was simply a couple of thousand people there for the music and a damn good party – no messing around, no poncing around, no leaving early. The star …