Ten years of fabric, giant robots, Ws and other bits

In an attempt to stop the tumbleweed and cobwebs from overtaking the blog, and considering I don’t see the point of starting a Tumblr or Posterous as I have this blog I rather like despite not having time to look after it properly, I’ve decided to try and do more quick posts to reflect the constant stream of links and various content that appears through my twitter, facebook et al. And plus it’ll continue to add to the rather random nature of the blog.

First up a random aside (see it’s already starting), I’ve uploaded a whole bunch of random iPhone pics on Flickr. See embeds below, or view them on my Flickr page (latest two sets).

Next up is a celebration of sorts. Turns out Fabric, the famous London nightclub, is turning ten this year. This first occured to me when I went there in January to see Mark Pritchard. At that point I also realised that: a/ I’m way too old for this big club malarky b/ the Fabric crowd hasn’t changed much over the years c/ I still think modern drum n bass is too fast and d/ the system sounded better than I remembered. Despite any of this, Fabric has a special in my heart. I went there when it first opened, it is the club I’ve spent the most time in, both willingly and not so willingly (I used to kinda work with the press guys there for a few years), and it is where I’ve seen some of the best live shows and DJ sets, including Ian Brown, Jazzy Jeff, the Perverts and Roni Size to name a few.

To celebrate their ten years the club is putting on all sorts of crazy shit, including four days of parties with some of the club’s most well known DJs. None of which remotely interests me if I’m honest. However their promo email included a rather interesting and amazing facts list which needs to be read for anyone who’s been there more than once:

- Number of hours of music = 18,000, based on about 35 hours a week average.
- Number of fabric couples = That we know of…3 couples that met at fabric and married, countless couples that have hooked up and not remembered the next day.
- Number of people through the doors = over 4,186,029
- Number of slipmatts used = 65
- Number of broken needles = about 1600, roughly 3 a week.
- Number of microphones broken by MCs = 53
- Number of cases of beer = about 160,000
- Number of bottles of wine = about 50,000
- Number of shots necked = over 1,300,000 pure shots
- Number of glasses = 312,000
- Number of limes/lemons = 350,000
- Number of tonnes of ice = 1 x glacier
- Number of rewinds = not enough yet.
- Number of tunes played = loads
- Number of bartenders hired = 600
- Number of toilet flushes (rank) = 8,299,200 flushes!!
- Number of people that have got lost in fabric = everyone
- Number of flyers given out = 30,000,000 (yes, thirty million) flyers
- Number of artists = over 20,800 acts between Friday and Saturday night
- Furthest cab ride home = Cardiff
- Number of Joe Beades = 1. Our handyman extraordinaire – the only reason fabric is still standing today.

Only 65 splimatts in ten years? And the lost thing is oh so very accurate. For those of you still keen on partying at what is most likely the last of the ‘real’ big clubs in London, it all goes down between the 15th and 18th of October. Peep the site for more.

Elsewhere I found this rather amazing link today, courtesy of Adamukun. Looks like there is some sort of giant robot showdown going on in East Asia. The recent Gundam robot in Tokyo (sadly already being dismantled) was enough to get the geek in me overly excited, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this robots race progresses. It’s only a matter of time before they man one and send it across the sea to prove the point once and for all.

As for the Ws, it was a rather cunning reference to the recent release of Raekwon’s ‘Only Built for Cuban Linx 2‘, an album I’ve waited nearly 15 years for – something that only made me realise just how we (the 80s/90s rap generation) are actually getting old. I guess all the talk of reminiscing about the golden days should have been a hint. The biggest surprise though is that the album is actually good, and a really worthy successor to the original. So go cop it.

The other w is the dreaded w*nky word. Beatnick twitted this link yesterday – an article on the always interesting, Australian-based Cyclic Defrost magazine about w*nky and how it can be seen as a stylistic attempt to replicate what made Dilla’s beats so great. While it makes some good points, and for once actually anchors the debate in its hip hop roots, I agree with Nick that ultimately the whole debate has run out of fresh ground to explore and really what we should be seeing more of is people just arguing/talking about the music being made by the new generation of producers on its own terms. Referencing and anchoring it at times in the roots, be they hip hop or electronic, is fine. But the constant mention of w*nky, or glitch hop or trip hop, is really starting to grate. I’ll be ending my boom bap continuum theory on that subject very shortly with some music, and a few words. Stay tuned.