Be an artist, be Shunt

London Bridge, London, SE1 9RL

So far so good, no club has blown away me in such a way as Shunt did when some weeks ago I went there for a random Saturday night. I had heard about the place before, true, but you know how it works, you don’t believe everything you hear, people tend to go on the exaggeration side, and so on. But they were totally right. This place is amazing.

Shunt is located in London Bridge station. Nope, not besides, either close to. In. Inside the station, in its underbelly, completely hidden. Capisci? So follow the insider tip: as you cross the barriers in order to leave the tube station, if you follow the indications toward the train station you will find a small door with a bouncer besides it, checking IDs. There may be a small queue as well, depending at what time in the evening you get there. And that is it – a tiny door, and a bouncer. And £10 to get in. And a closing time at just 2.30 am, which is not late enough at all for the price. So it doesn’t seem tempting enough, let’s be fair.

But as soon as you get in, everything changes. The place is built up behind the station vaults, which means they have lot of space. Actually, they have a massive space available, and they make use of it all – just imagine Fabric, but with wider spaces and less people, and more corridor like instead of room like. Yes, you are getting it…

There is a very big corridor (about 8 m broad and about 10 m high) with small corridors/rooms on its sides, with several artistic performances on them, each one more different and more surprising. Actually, Shunt is not so much a club but an artists space, as you can easily perceive if you browse their website. All the shows and works change on a weekly basis, so you may be surprised with something new almost everytime you go there if you want.

After all those corridors, there are two massive rooms where the party takes place, and besides them there is an additional space used as a venue room, where gigs take place. It has even several stands with chairs where you may enjoy the gig from if you feel like doing it. The day we were there we didn’t pay a lot of attention to the bands, but I’ve read in several blogs that some good ones have performed there. So maybe it is a good point to check out from time to time who’s playing in order to make the experience completely rounded.

The big room has a pool table, a football table, a couple of pianos, and several tables and chairs scattered around the place. This is so big that you may have chairs and people chatting up or directly kissing and also people dancing, or just drinking. The place fits all. It has even a little terrace where you can show up your dancing skills, if you like that, or check out someone else’s.

A cooler place to pot balls? I don't think so...

And you can also walk through the infinite small corridors coming from this big room and discovering small places with small pieces of art work too.

On the negative side, they don’t have draught beer. They have cans, though, at £3.50, which is alright for a night spot. They also do cocktails, but they seemed a bit pricey for me… anyway, I’ve never been to much into the mojito way of life. They don’t accept debit cards, either, and you may have to queue at some point to go out to smoke a fag, if you are one of them. Finally, the music is quite eclectic, and from time to time I felt lost about what that was about. Trendy and alternative places have this, I’m afraid: they don’t do the Strokes or Bruce Springsteen, or any pop music, at all. Anybody’s perfect.

The main bar

The gigs room

And another negative point: you have to get there early enough. At 11 they close the doors, while you can stay inside, so going fairly earlier than that is compulsory. 9 is a good time to be in the door, but don’t risk to go much later than that unless you are up to a potential b plan.

A really different place, this Shunt. Maybe a bit too artistic, and maybe not the cup of tea for everybody, but always worth a visit. Or two.

PS: ah, I forgot it. Mixed toilets!!! :)

Sonar in London

25 Chalk Farm Rd, London, NW1 8AG

As I wrote once in this blog before, one of the issues I had no clue before coming to London is electronic music. Extending my trainee period in this matter a bit more, last lesson was a little piece of taste of what is according to quite a lot of people one of the best electronic music festivals in the world: Sonar in Barcelona. Before that big event some of the bands/DJs performing there did an appetizer show in London, in the Roundhouse, Camden.

The roundhouse is a former engine shed reopened three years ago as an arts hub. This is a New Labour project –even while the theatre existed quite a lot of years before - owned by the local council and this means that you will not be ripped off for gigs that otherwise might be terribly expensive, as it could be the case of the gig I’m writing about now. A fairly big space for about 3,000 people, the building is a little piece of art with all its columns, its iron work and its vibe. In three words: A Fantastaic Venue.

That specific day, I have to say that decoration was very good, with quite a lot of psychedelic stuff, lights and all the business as usual Ibiza paraphernalia. The only flaw I could spot was that the music came from the stage only, as they didn’t set any speakers in the back side of the venue. That wasn’t a real problem, and can be even considered a positive point as the place wasn’t too packed: you could go to the stage border line if you wanted to, or you could step back in order to have a chat with someone while enjoying a drink.

Talking about drinks, 3.50 for a pint of Becks is a fair price given the bands playing and the quality of the venue. No complains about that, at least from my side.

The first guy to perform was Angel Molina, a DJ from Barcelona fairly famous for experimenting with different sounds and trends. He developed a fairly progressive session, starting very chilled out and ending a bit more energetic. The problem of his show was pretty obvious, though: it started at 20:00, so no more than 20 people were attending from the very beginning – I was one of them – and no more than 100 at the end. Obviously, you can do whatever it is in your hands, but in such an empty place it is very difficult to generate the party mood that this type of music requires. So I’ll spare this one as his failure, as it really was the audience’s – or lack of- one.



Second one was Jeff Mills – more about here in this post-, and obviously, that is a completely different story. The place got completely packed for his session, and he didn’t deceive at all. He started the session with fairly innovative sounds and images on the big screen – yes, there was a massive screen – that lasted about 15-20 minutes, and after that he just played what he knows how to do better: pure Detroit techno. You could see the faces of everybody on the front line enjoying the experience really a lot, and it was real and healthy enjoyment at that point, as it was still 22.00 and not enough time to get hammered had passed yet. The vibe was incredible at that point. Obviously the classic queues in the toilets you get in these gigs were present, but I don’t think people were more fucked up that in any club any weekend.

Anyway, Mr. Mills session ended with a flash experience – we were literally flashed from two big flashes that appeared in two gaps in the middle of the screen – and everybody dancing and enjoying good techno. My lack of expertise in the matter does not allow me to give a more precise description of the music, but that is not what this post is about, you can always go to somewhere else if you want to check that.



After Mills it was time for Plaid DJ. A guy that comes up to the stage just with a Mac is not very promising- how are you mixing music then: pushing ctrl+F2? Fuck off!!!. Anyway, sort of cheese drum and bass that I didn’t particularly liked at all. A good chance to have some drinks and chat up a bit, though.

After that, my personal discovery of the night: Moderat. Those German guys know what their racket is, and they know it well. They covered the stage with DJ sets, screens, visual effects and all sort of junk you may imagine, but, at the end of the day, their music was just great. The three guys altogether mixing sounds at the same time, they generated an experience that at some point remembered me Holy Fuck, but in a harder way – stronger beats and more revolutions.



Everybody went crazy at some point of the gig, and the guys were really friendly with the crowd, more like rock stars than the classic cliché about a DJ with his earphones and ‘this is my business’ pose. Greatly enjoyable, those guys, and a personal recommendation if for some reason they come around to your town.

Finally, Erol Alkan, a fellow Londoner DJ that became famous in The End playing electro, did a good electro session. At that point everybody was quite drunk – the Moderat experience pushed us to do it -, so my opinions about it may not be very precise. I enjoyed it, that’s all I can say.


And finally, at 3.00, curfew. A great band they were… :). This is just a joke between Vlad and myself, as I asked what curfew played, and, well, if you check in your dictionary what curfew means as I did, you’ll get the meaning to the joke – and by the way, you’ll feel as depressed as I did about how many fucking different words are in this in the other hand lovely language.

Mojinos Escozios in The Jamm, London

261 Brixton Road London, SW9 6LH

Well, this should be clear enough for everybody: I do not particularly like or appreciate the music Mojinos Escozios do. Even when they moved through covers to their actual songs, I cannot say they are good musicians, or that their songs are really appealing. But mate, if it is for party for what you are up to, they are the band. And they proved it, oh, how they proved it.

The party was organized by rocksinsubtitulos, which I ever had about before - they will perform the same party in the end of April with Def Con Dos, but I'll be unfortunately in a wedding in Spain that weekend. They promised a Londoner ‘Feria de Abril’, with folk music before and after the party. That is pretty scary if you think seriously about it – it easily may have been a ‘Sevillanas’ party, with everybody in stupid southern Spanish fancy dresses, sweet wine and all those other things that – sorry all the Andaluces over there – I really despise. Add to that £18 for the gig, which I thought it was quite expensive, and you really think if this is the way you actually want to spend a Friday night. Indeed it is.

The party was in the Jamm, in Brixton. Brixton is one of those former dodgy areas that used to be completely stuffed with all sort of townies, chavs and crackheads but that, for some unexplainable reason, has become a bit trendy on the last years. Just a bit, take me well: you shouldn’t get lost over there, specially on the Stockwell side of the area. But it is not as bad as it used to be, and plenty of venues are blossoming around lastly, some of them quite good. The Jamm is one of them – I had been there before a couple of times as Ana recommended me the ‘How does it feel (To Be Loved)’ parties they do on a monthly basis. The gigs were always quite good, while to be honest never too impressive.

The club itself is quite good. It has a couple of rooms, with space for about 600 people. The main one, where the big bar is, and the venue itself, where gigs take place. The bar has several sofas and coaches really comfy for doing the first beevies of the night, and after that you can always stand up and enjoy the 80s atmosphere – classic mirror lamp included. Beer is not pricey for a club – about 3,20 the pint. And it usually closes at 4 am, which is good for those tired of early closing clubs.

In fact, they closed at 6 am in Mojinos party, but let’s go through that later on. I arrived there about 8 pm with my brother, and we met quite a lot of good friends and new ones – Alberto, Reiko, Belendi, Rima and Nico, Isaac, Cesar ‘jevi’ and his friend – hell, I always forget his name… Javi?, and some other Alberto’s friends from Guildford. On the top of that, we met Neus, a crazy girl from Barcelona – all the videos in the post to her credit – , Montse, Inma and I suppose more… sorry to be that bad with names. Nevertheless, we were a lot of people there, something as 90% of us Spanish. And as soon as I arrived and I got my first Guinness I knew the nite was going to be one of those: Extremoduro, Marea, Platero y Tu and this kind of music started to sing in the pre-concert party, everybody became crazy singing, everything was all good.

Alberto 'The Clown', with Inma, before the gig

And after that, the gig. Well, the comedy show, I may say. Not because they didn’t play good music – they somehow achieved to perform – but because the intervals between songs were even better than the songs themselves. El Sevilla presenting a ‘El Puto’ – the drummer, on the pic on the right – and his son, ‘El Hijo del Puto’ – guitarist. El Sevilla stealing the wig of the other guitarist. El Sevilla drinking shots of Anis del Mono, and the crawd shouting BEBE BEBE BEBE. The classic ‘Alcohol Alcohol Alcohol, hemos venido a emborracharnos, el resultado nos da igual’ . Hell, they even played a song in English… well, sort of. And everybody, absolutely everybody there, had a great laugh, forgot for a moment they were leaving in the perfidious Albion – not that I have anything to complain about, to be honest – and felt instead like if they have a couple of Mahou beers and an Spanish omelette in the table.

Probably the best beer of the World?

They played for a long time, they recorded it for a Canal Sur program – skip it until the end, where the gig is… the rest is quite lame – and they had everybody drunk, happy and relaxed at the same time.

Here go some videos courtesy of Neus…

Mojinos in English

Shakira Shakira!!

And the remarkable Alcoooooooohoooooooooooooool!!!

And the gig finished. And it was still about 12 o’clock at night, and almost everybody stayed for the after party. Which, I have to say, was the most Spanish party I have ever been in London. No Sevillanas, thanks to God, but plenty of Rodriguez, Loquillo, pop rock, and even a bit of Reggeton. Yes, it is a shame, but in London sounds better… homesickness, I reckon. And loads and loads of pretty Erasmus girls, and Erasmus guys, and Spanish Londoners, and everything and more, and more. Almost everybody flirting – not me, I HAD a girlfriend at that point-, and some of them even being successful –that was obviously the less Spanish thing of the night. And absolutely everybody completely drunk at the end of the night, namely at 6 am in the morning. A couple of fags in the door, another ‘Alcohol Alcohol’, and everybody to the tube to sleep and tomorrow will be another day.

Really a remarkable night.

And nothing else Matters

Peninsula Square, London, Greenwich, SE10

I already wrote a post about Fabric, which is very likely my favourite club in London at the moment, at least for late crazy nights. Last year, as plenty of classic clubs as the Cross were closing all around the city – and they are still closing down some others, I’m afraid – the owners of this club decided to open a new venue in the Dome, the big mall in front of Canary Wharf where the O2 Arena is.

Did they improve the original? Well, I don’t think so. Let’s go point by poing.

Let's go in...

1. The music. We went to a Bugged Out! Nite – a classic party that previously used to take place in The End - , hosting Tiga, Josh Wink, Satoshi Tomiie and Matt Walsh. I didn’t know any of them, to be honest, but in the pre-party at Cara’s place Cesar performed sort of a demo of the stuff the may play afterwards, so I didn’t go blind. Satoshi Tomiie is the coolest by a mile, but we forgot a slightly little think: don’t drink too much if you go to a gig. Even if it is a techno gig. The real thing is that between Jagermeister, Vodka, Martini and Scotch, all of them watered the night down a bit. So I cannot really say I enjoy the music a lot, even if it wasn’t the venue’s fault.

2. The sound. Well, this is just the only fact anybody can deny this is the best place in town about. Pretty aloud sound, maybe, but that is what this sort of thing is about, I guess. The Fabric’s ‘bodysonic’ dancefloor –designed to vibrate to the frequencies of the bass speakers built in directly below it – is even stronger here, as there are as many as 10 times more of those specific speakers. Indeed, if you go into the middle of the dancing area the club dances for you, which is quite cool for the shy guys in the tribe ;)

3. Visuals. Quite cool, ci-fi at some point, but I do really love the green laser of Room 2 in Fabric. So close, but not enough.

4. Venue. Really big, about 2,500 people fit on the main room – compared with 1,500 in Fabric. The problem here is the ceiling is too high, so the somehow claustrophobic clubbing feeling you get in Fabric is not replicated again here. On the top of that, the old electric plant look of Fabric cannot easily be replied, no matter how many new materials and flashing lights you use.


5. Transport. Going to a club at 1.00 am by boat as we did is a real Mastercard. The River Thames Boat services works till late, so I strongly recommend to do it this way. You feel like fucking Rockefeller.

6. The atmosphere. Here is where Matter really loses the battle. Fabric is a place to dance, and that’s it. Some call it a meat market, but what I really appreciate whenever I go there is that absolutely everybody is up for dancing and, maybe some of them, taking drugs. At some point, Matter seems more about chatting up – even a the incredible volume the music is in –flirting and, finally, fishing. There are plenty of places for that in town, and I reckon it was something different what was really needed.

Flirting or clubbing? That is the question

And all does not mean the place is not very good. I reckon it is. But I just don’t think it is better than Fabric, which is how they advertise it almost everywhere. A second try with less booze on my veins, though, might be a pretty good idea…

Techno on the other side of the wall: Berghain

Last weekend I paid a visit to Dave, a friend who is leaving in Berlin. I hadn’t had the chance to visit this city before, and I was really willing to do it as everybody talked very good stuff about it. My opinion about the city:

1. Very cold :)
2. Very different to some other big European capitals as Madrid, London or Paris. It doesn’t seem at any point to be a huge metropolis, and the reason for it is it is very quiet. Not too many people in the streets, not too many cars in the roads, and absolutely not too many noise anywhere. For this sometimes you really need to have a deep look in a map to realize that, yes, indeed it is a very big city.
3. The monuments over there were cool, but not as cool as London or Paris might be in this sense.
4. Former Soviet buildings are really very ugly. I liked the only remaining III Reich building, though.
5. Everything is really very cheap, even cheaper than Madrid and, obviously, shamefully cheaper than London.
6. People don’t drink beer in huge pitchers all the time. That is Bavarian stuff.

Of course, I did some tourism, pictures in the Wall and in Brandeburg Gate, and so on. So far and so good this blog is about pubs and bar, and actually the best of the weekend were, on the top of meeting back Dave after a fairly long time, pubs and clubs in the city.

a) Stäv, Schiffbauerdamm 8, 10117 Berlin

A quite illustrious and historic place, this is a german bar where you can drink Cologne brewed beer. This type of beer is quite light and easy to drink, and they serve it in small 20cl glasses… at some point you feel like you are having ca;as, but without food. The guys in the bar were quite friendly and they wrote down in a beermat a stripped mark per every drink you had, quite like I saw in Seville several years ago. Nice music and a nice place to enjoy a good conversation and a nicely furbished bar.

b) Die Tagung, Wühlischstraße 29, 10245 Berlin

Ostalgie is the term Germans use to refer to East-German nostalgia or, in other worlds, nostalgia about the Soviet times, and that is what this place is about. The pub is a nicely decorated pub with this sort of themes: communist staff, posters, paraphernalia, etc. We had Red Oktober beer, at the incredible price of €2.30 half a litre (at 2 o’clock at night, in a pub!), and music was really very good and very British. Indeed, apart of all the memorabilia the place really looked like a pub in Camden, but even better. I really liked it.




c) Berghain, Ruderhorfer St., Berlin, Germany

The name "Berghain" is a composite of the names of the two quarters, which flank the building south and north: KreuzBERG (former West Berlin) and FriedrichsHAIN (former East Berlin). It should mean TECHNO in capitals, though, as it is what it really means.

This is one of those massive clubs you cannot find anymore in Madrid. The huge building is a former power plant that currently hosts two different clubs, Berghain (main floor) is about techno and Panorama (top floor) is about House and Electro.

And it had to be good, dear, as we waited for almost 40 minutes to get through, at 2.30 am on a below zero degrees night. The bouncers seemed to be quite selective, and indeed we were quite lucky as a nice blondie jumped the queue just in front of us. As they asked to two Spaniards to leave the queue just as they were going in (and after their good share of the 40 minutes), we were really scared, as they didn’t look like particularly different or dodgy to us. No matter how, we passed the bouncer scrutiny and we were inside.

First thing: a bottle of becks was just 3.10 €. I cannot imagine any other city in Western Europe where it might be possible – maybe just in Lisbon. And the music was aloud, and good, and tequila was good as well, gold or silver.


The mood of the club is gay – friendly, this is, plenty of gay people on it but straight is also welcome. That didn’t really mind, mainly for two options: 1. I have a girlfriend. 2. The music was so good everybody was just thinking about dancing, and chatting up wasn’t really an option.
Really a very good techno club, one of the best I’ve ever been in. The only flaw… well, it was so good we arrived to Dave’s place about 9.30, and obviously there was no real chance to make any more tourism on Sunday. A good reason for go back to Berlin sooner than later, then!

Crhismas Dream

Hiya!! Quite depressed after Christmas back in Spain, I have to say… of course, the reason for that is not (only) how nice all the people were over there, but also, and maybe this is a bit obvious, for the fact itself that it was holidays. I have a quite scientific theory about how a place may look like crap when you work on it, and incredibly nice when you are just on holidays (Barcelona is the biggest example I can think of about this).

Anyway. Let´s go with a quick briefing of the most knackering Chrismas holidays I can remember, emphasizing, obviously, the bars/pubs visited (yeah, this is pintofcarling, did you actually forget?)

Friday 19th: Arrive to Madrid at 10 pm and go straigth to party with former colleagues (and current friends) as Sebas, Albert, Pedro, Roquer, Sarriu, Ira, Silvia, Tere, Chema, etc etc etc. Places visited: Tatum (7) and a little dive (4) in Avenida Brasil (cannot and don’t want to remember it’s name, so bad it was. Good fun, though).

Saturday 20th: Beer with Pedro and lunch and drinks with Susana, Yago and Cristina in Ñeru (9), very close to Arenal Street in Madrid. Amazing Asturian food for a fair price, I recommend it very strongly, particuclarly if you have the chance to go there a week day and get the day menu. After that, drinks in Café Real (9), in Opera, a quite pricey place sort of the ones you might expect in Latina, but without that cool atmosphere I sometimes find so annoying. Also they serve one of the best carrot pies in Madrid (again, for a stupidly high price). Later on drinks in Pozuelo in Brujas (7), a Flemish bar in Avda Europa with a good mix of Belgian, German and British beers.

Sunday 21st: Early arrival (8am) to Lisbon. Lisbon day 1 (I’ll write a different post for the Lisbon trip).

Monday 22nd: Lisbon day 2.

Tuesday 23rd: Lisbon day 3.

Wednesday 24th: Lisbon day 4 and lunch with family. Drinks with my brother and Olsen in Getafe, in Taberna del Filibustero (9), a very nice place in Madrid with no special feature but a great atmosphere even at 8 pm the 24th of December (those guys don´t have a family, do they?). One of the best places to have some beers in Getafe at the moment, and a recent discovery. Late night, party with all Getafe friends first (Lali, Ana, Silvia, Vero, Ruben, Ivan, Angel, Maite, etc etc etc) at Chapeau (1), one of the worses clubs in Getafe if not actually the worst. Obvioulsy I left as soon as possible to join my brother and his friends (better known as Los Bolitas, somehow a myth in Getafe) in New Rot (6), where the party carried on til late. Incredible party mood til very very late, and cheap drinks. Can you ask more?

Thursday 25th. Wasted. Playstation 3 and a couple of drinks with my brother, Dani, Chaparro and Oscar.

Friday 26th: Here we go again. Coffe in Marta’s place, beers in Chus’ place, and beers&drinks in Don Jamon (8), one of the best places for ‘tapeo’ in Getafe. The tapas served there acted well enough as dinner, and, after that, we went again to la Taberna del Filibustero and late at night to Un Buen Dia (8), a nice club in Getafe where booze is absolutely horrible but music is quite enjoyable.

Saturday 27th: Friend’s official Crhistmas Lunch with Santi, Paco, Ruben, Adri, Chus, Angel and Ivan (obviously, one more year no girlfriend was allowed, for the sake of the party ;)). Beers in Casa del Jamon (3) and Ca;as y Tapas (4) in Gran Via, Madrid, and lunch in Friday’s (3), again in Gran Via. Very bad value for money, and particularly my steak was horrible. After that, drinks (quite a lot) in Cafeina (8), in Calle del Pez, and more drinks in Molly Malone (8), and more drinks in Tupperware (9) until 4 am. Tupperware is a classic alternative club in Malasa;a, and it’s main flaw is that it’s usually packed. Not that day. Even the spirits tasted properly, which is quite surprising over there… (a great example of the Spanish Garrafon). We forgot to have dinner that day.

Sunday 28th: Beers in Don Jamon and movie with Susana. We watched Changeling (8), the last one from Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie. It’s like one of those movies based in real facts you watch in Antena3 on a Saturday evening, but much better produced. Angelina is beautiful but, in this movie, too skinny.

Monday 29th: Brunch with Susana, and Bowling. She broke one arm in an ill-timed fall while bowling, and we had to go to a hospital. Unfortunately I had to cancel on of the main milestones of the week, the dinner planned with former Erasmus friends (former Erasmus, they are still friends all of them).

Tuesday 30th: after getting Susana to Burgos, Guitar Hero session with all the instruments (guitar, bass, drums and singer) in Chus’s place + Burger King + Fifa09 sesion in Santi’s place until late. One of my favourite days, I gotta say.

Wednesday 31st: Beers with my brother’s friends in El Boli (7), a nice tapeo bar in Getafe. After that, more beers and tapas with my friends in La Barrica (5) and Chilaba (10), an incredible bar where you can ask for almost anything as tapa with your beer (including burguers, hot dogs, montaditos, etc.). Later, mojitos and drinks with my brother friends again in Taberna del Filibustero, until 9. Dinner. Party in Angel’s house, where obviously PS3 and whisky where the main attractions until churros time.

Thursday 1st: Wasted (again). Quiet day in Getafe, with coffe and beers with Santi in the evening in La Cibelina (5), La Vinoteca (5) and eventually Don Jamon. After dinner, drinks with Marta, Gema, Angel and Chus in Canto Redondo (6), a fine bar in Getafe. Adrian joined us afterwards and so the Franciskaner party, until roughly 3 am.

Friday 2nd: Crazy night, starting in Mala Vida (9), one of the best pubs in Getafe where the best music blends perfectly with a nice Guinness or Murphys. Jack Daniel´s shots and Un Buen Dia later. Garage (9), my second house and the pub I´ve wasted more hours in my life, topped up the night with several calimotxo litres. Finally we went to Buen Dia again, until 5.30, when we were too tired to carry on.

Saturday 3rd: Visit to Susana in Burgos

Sunday 4th: Depression.

Carling Academy: anything more to say?

Carling Academy Islington N1 Centre 16 Parkfield Street London N1 0PS

There is nothing more exciting and entertaining that unplanned nights. It´s been a while since I realized about this for good, but I´m nothing but confirming it here in London. You may have a huge pub crawl organized with your best friends and their she-friends and, of course, the outcome of the night will be a bloody pain in the ass. In the other hand, meet some but not too many friends in a pub for a chilling evening with nothing else than having some Staropramen in mind, and you end up discovering there is a club in London called as your nickname. And with good music, good mood and fairly cheap priced beers.

So we started, Juanfran and me, in a pub called the Camden Head, but not in Camden, but in Ingliston, an area I didn´t know at all before coming to live here and that fortunately is an endless source of Pintofcarlingplease posts. When you meet in a Friday at 7pm you know what the outcome is going to be, of course: a more blur and funny world, at least for that night. And so far so good, with several drinks and another five friends on board conforming a fairly international crew (four Spaniards, a French and Welshman), we started that such a Spanish thing consisting in wasting half of the night in order to try to decide which is the next place to go. Not this time, as Juanfran proposed a club he remembered wasn´t too bad around the corner: the Carling Academy. Of course, with that name it was a compulsory thing to try, even if it was just for a one-off. And I reckon it will not be a one-off, as we all enjoyed the place all the way through.

Carling Academy, unfortunately, is a chain... yeah, I know, this is supposed to be an authenthic blog and bla bla bla bla. You see the cross, there, in the explorer, up in the right? Just press it, is it such a complicated thing? Hehehe, just kidding... there are Academies in Oxford, Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, and so on. I´ll talk about the one I know: the Islington one (there are another two in London, in Brixton and somewhere else).The club is just a typical London club, with two different rooms: an 80´s and a 90´s one. The 80´s, smaller, is more like a bar and they play classic 80s stuff: Van Allen, Aerosmith, etc etc etc. Packed with nice looking chicks, it is good fun.

However, the one I liked more is the 90´s one. Bigger, this is a real club indeed, with DJs playing music and random groups of people scattered through all over the place. They play classic 90´s stuff, that is, the kind of music they used to play on the radio while I was a teenager and I started to go out. Oasis, Blur, Green Day and all the usual suspects altogether, those guys up there know how to make you shake your ass with the music. The place is big enough (800 people is the official capacity, but I guess more people than that can squeeze there) to allow you to lose your friends for a while if you are interested on that, and, just in case you feel the music is becoming a bit cheesy, you have always the pretty enjoyable 80´s room. A good deal, hence. And if you are lucky enough, you may assist to a great gig as well. Bands as The Cure, Prodigy, Franz Fer or Muse have played there since its opening at 2003.

About the drinks (and we had quite a lot), there are obviously spirits and two beers: Carling and Carling Extra Cold . Just joking, but almost everybody drinks Carling over there. They give you custom Carling Academy glasses with just one problem (but a big one): plastic glasses. I know this is a common thing in most clubs in London (while you don´t get straight the can without glass), but I still can´t get used to it.

Prices fair, cheap even. A Carling was less than 3 quid, which is very likely the cheapest you may find in a Club in London. Not too sure about spirits, but I guess those were quite overpriced, as the cloak room (2 pounds to leave your coat there). I cannot remember how much was the door cover, but I want to remember it was around 6 pints. Again, affordable. And enjoyable, which is the actual point!

Que viene el Koko!!! (Koko´s coming :D)

1A Camden High Street, London, NW1 7JE
I know it´s been a long time since the last post. I have been busy (and you know what I mean ;)), sorry about that.

So Koko. This is just a great place to enjoy a night out. Apart of the problem that going to Camden involves if you are not around (we spent quite a lot of money going and coming back by cab), the real thing is it worth it the trip. And I can effortlessly recommend it to everybody who comes to London, for a month, a week or just a night out.

It didn´t look like it was going to be an amazing night, though. A friend from Madrid came to visit me, and we spent the best part of the evening having some drinks in the City (you know I love Fleet Street, don´t you)? After that we went to a pub in Old Street, where we were supposed to meet Oscar&Oscar, and so we did. And luckily for us, they where in the mood for a long hard party night, and we were too. And Victor, and some of his Portuguese and English friends as well… where to go? Koko. Just remember it. Koko.

It is an old theatre that opened for the first time on 1900 and is located just in front of the Purple Turtle (a Reading´s classic that has its bigger sister here in Camden). The queue as we arrived was certainly scaring and discouraging, but you know how it works here in the UK: everybody keeps the line, nobody jumps the queue and in a fairly civilized way you are in. You pay a quid for the wardrobe, you try to get cash from the ATM (and you are not successful at it), and you go deep in it. And as soon as you get through the main corridor, you are right in the middle of an amazing old fashioned theatre, with its 7 different floors (where the stall seats are), with several bars scattered around them.

Of course, as proper tourists, the first thing we did was going til the very last floor, so we could say ´aaaaaaaalaaaaaaaaa´ (ghossssshhhhhhhhhh, if you wanna translate it in a quite poor way). It is really impressing the view from there, even more if there is a gig going on the lower floor, as it was the case. For those who read this from Barcelona, just imagine La Paloma, and add 7 floors with seats, bars and people partying around it. Just enjoyable.


I cannot remember the band playing that nite, but they were good enough to enjoy a couple of songs and bad enough to realize at the third one that what we had to do was moving forward to the bar (any of them) and get some drinks. I had to queue quite a lot to get’em, but sometimes it seems you are supposed to wait. The waitress was nice, but clumsy. And I am one of those who prefer an efficient waitress to a good looking one… but that´s another story.

This is quite probably the only reasonable problem the club has: prices. A can of Red Stripe is 3.50 (fair enough), but spirits are clearly not affordable: over a fiver the double. Therefore getting fucking pissed before getting there is quite a good option. Listen to me: just enjoy for a while the different stalls and boxes, be a naughty guy if you have a nice chick in your side and, if you don´t, go downstairs as it is right there where the party is. And the girls. And the music. And the drums the drums the drums the drums the drums the drums the drums…

As Susana reads this blog now I will not be too explicit :). But I have not ever been in a place with such a good nice-to-not ratio girls. Quite a lot of Spanish and Italians (it was bank holiday back in Italy), but also Nordics, English and wherever you wanted to select. As I am in a relationship the experience was just like being in the theatre (again)… admiring a very good piece of God´s work.

Between all this, Victor´s always crazy friends (I cannot ever remember their names) helped to contribute to a reckless night. Nevertheless, it seems to me this is one of those clubs you can have a good time whoever you go with. Again, while you don´t drink in the bar, but before you get in…

The music helped as well. Not the most famous songs, but mostly indie and indie-electronic music, with an DJ evolving from Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers to more Britis stuff, like brit pop and so on, and, of course, the always colossal closing for a night the ´Last Nite´ (Strokes) is. Can you really ask for something else? Yes, an Euromillon winning. That was an obvious one, dude...

Astoria II: This is London!!

165 Charing Cross Road, london WC2H 0EL

One of the very few things I may have missing since I arrived to London has been a place I could say: uau! I´ve been in great pubs, great clubs, and great venues, but... not that one you can be absolutely sure it will be a cracker that night you need to pary hard.

Last Saturday I did :D. It´s name is Astoria (II).

Astoria, in Soho, is one of the most famous clubs/venues in London. Great for it´s concerts and for it´s G-A-Y Nights, my brother told me once the place was quite too gay for my taste. And I do trust my bro in these kind of pieces of advice, you know... so it have been loads and loads of times I´ve gone through the door, thinking it was such a pity that such a great place had to bee so overwhelmingly gay too. Astoria II came as the perfect solution.

The venue, next to the original Astoria, has a main room where concerts take place. It is a fairly big one, with a sound quality quite good, at least for my not-expert-at-all taste. The first floor, surrounding the main one, has open spaces where you can watch the concert from. And around that, a pretty big bar with bloody good music, at least the last weekend (Prodigy, Daft Punk and that kind of stuff).

The place was formerly known as Mean Fiddler, and both Astoria and Astoria II can be joined for special events. Both were supposed to be converted in flats, offices, shops, etc. in order to cash in on the Olympic Games in 2012. As there is a housing bubble burst here as in Spain, it is not quite clear what the future for both venues is... as a new train station is also planned in the area. But stop talking about the future, let´s talk present tense...

It is very true that the reason I was so positively surprised with the venue had very likely quite a lot to do with the gig I had the chance to enjoy. From a boring night, and a 'I´ve got a friend who´s going to a gig in Astoria II, anybody wanna join?' (by Victor), to one of the best bands I've ever seen performing live: Holy Fuck (that's not how I felt, it's the name of the band indeed :)). Just a live performance:



Those guys are really good. They are something between Radiohead and Massive Attack (more of the latter than of the former), and for just 10 pounds gave a great show. I´ll go to watch them again as soon as I´ll have the opportunity. By the mean time, buy or download their two cds if you have the chance. You will not regret it.

Astoria II is not just the live bands, though. There is a great mood, scotch is just 2 quid per single (yeah, it is quite an unknown brand the one they hit you with, but, mate... 2 quid in London!), you can go out and inside again without queuing (quite useful if you friends go for a fag), and, as I said, DJ music is great too.

Problems? Well, a can of beer is 3.60, quite expensive. And single scotch in a preposterously small glass makes easy to spend loads and loads of cash in here. No credit/debit card accepted, and the cash machine inside broken (that was a pain in the ass, indeed). Not perfect, then. But close... quite close... and Millencolin are playing there in a couple of weeks. Difficult to say no!

Let there be party: Fabric

77a Charterhouse Street London EC1M 3HN

Everybody who knows me is pretty aware I am not really a fan of electronic music of any type, whatever you wanna call it: drum&bass, house, electro, progressive, Spanish 'bakalao' or any other imaginable variant. I don't like huge clubs, where everybody is completely drugged and the favourite drink at bar is just water.

But I do like Fabric. Oh, yes, I do.

What does it offer? Well, three different rooms, better known by the light colours performed in them: the blue (and main) one, green and red. Let's go after every single one...

1. Green room. If sound could be defined with an object, this one would be a huge screwdriver. Every single clubber here is dancing a weird mezcolanzza of drum&bass and some other stuff. The craziest one, so my favourite one. And the green colour effect is great!



2. Blue room. The main one, where concerts take place. Usually too crowded, good fun anyway.



3. Red room. You can avoid it if you want... they EVEN sing sometimes... what kind of club is that? LOL

But Fabric is not just the rooms... but:

1. People. Surprisingly, and really opposite to what you frequently get in Spain, people are truly friendly. Everybody is in a high mood (well, yeah, maybe some pills around have something to do with that), and you really feel you can enjoy the party the way you prefer and annoying nobody while doing it. That's basically great.

2. The toilets. Good fun. Guys and girls almost together, and in the central corridor a nice fountains collection pouring water in a non stop downloading into everybody's bottle, of course, just in order to drop thirst.

3. The sound. In their website they say they broadcast in low frequency and around the floor in order to make you 'feel' the music. Not too sure if that's true, but friend, you feel it... I've been twice and the first time my ears were burning when I came out. That bloody green room...

4. The venue itself. Built up in brick with some narrow corridors, it looks like an old maze/factory. It's brilliant, indeed.

Of course, it's not perfect. A 330ml Stella bottle is 4 quid (still, cheaper than in most clubs in Spain). Last time we had to wait two hours to go in, hence you should avoid arriving there on Saturday between 1 am and 3 am, as it is when everybody's on the queue. By the way, if you are lucky enough (as we were) to go in just after 4, you get half price cover (from 16 quid to 8 quid, again, cheaper than most Madrid clubs). And finally, there's no off licence around the queue, so, if you wanna drink there, you should bring your own booze in advance.

Some other things about Fabric are just odd. As the sectioned queue which allows to maintain all the shops doors free of people. Or the superb respect to the queue itself, as anybody jumps it (again, the bloody-prof-bouncers have something to do with that).

Anyway. Last Saturday I fabric-ed til 8 am. And it will not be the last one. Quite sure about it.

Live London: The Good Ship

289 Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR

As I've posted before, I currently live in Cricklewood, a North West district between Brent, Barnet and Camden borough.s Well, in fact, my place is located there... I do actually LIVE in Kilburn. Ten minutes walking down Cricklewood broadway, this originally Irish area begins, and... well, I have to say it was a nice success to select this place to live in! A multicultural feeling, but not just the pakistani and polish communities, but a quite appetizing melt including those and Irish, Spaniards, Brazilians, Italians... Plenty of shops, pubs, even some clubs and a cinema, you don't really feel like going to Central London that much once you've found out what's going on in here. And, of course, you can cash in on the beer lower prices you have in zone 2. And of course, you can enjoy The Good Ship.

First thing I did when I arrived here, I checked what kind of clubs we might have around. You know, sometimes you don't really want to get the bus to go to Central London, and you don't want to spend the huge money going out out there costs. Apart of that, you can feel cheerful a Tuesday night, and... well, you aren't going to go to Fabric a Tuesday night, are you? So I checked what we had in Kilburn, and The Good Ship, on the web, looked fine.

Yet, much better than fine, I have to say. We've been there a couple of times, and some facts surprised us. Gladly we discovered they have live bands every single day but Tuesday (Comedy Club) and Sunday (acoustic crap). Every other day you have 3-5 live bands playing between 8pm and 11.30 pm, for a 5 quid cover. 5 good bands in a cover for 5 quid is actually a good deal, depending the quality of the bands, of course... well, mate, you can be quite sure you won't be deceived. We have seen four different gigs by now (as Spanish, we never go there before 10 pm, so we systematically lose the first 2-3 bands), and three of them were awesome (in capitals). The other one was lousy, that's true, but it gives you a 75% chances to enjoy a great concert. Not that many in most venues in Madrid, I have to say...

Of those three bands, the best one, no doubt about it, was Cherri Prince (their space and songs here). A black soul singer performing absolutely great, I really can't understand why they don't have a proper contract with a big discography. Maybe their lyrics are stupid (my English is STILL not good enough to get'em :D), I can't find any other likely reason... I drop a video found in you tube, with the usual bad sound quality... nevertheless, it gives you a tip about how good they are (she is, if I'm fair).




Yesterday night the best one was Capisce? (their songs and space here), a pop-rock band with the best amateur drummer I have ever seen. That was very likely their only flaw... as the drums sounded so aloud it was pretty difficult to hear any other instrument, the singer neither. But still they were quite good, and helped us to enjoy a good nite. By the way, their songs in their space sound much better than live... they have a quite good producer, I guess.

Anything else to say? Well... they have a great site on myspace where you can check which bands are playing every night, and, going to their own spaces, decide yourself if you feel naughty enough to go there. Ah, yes... another thing I forgot... just a tiny one... they close at 4 pm every weekend, and at 2 pm every other day. Luckily I don't have much money to spend at the moment... if not I would be there every fucking single night, can be sure about that!

And beer is fairly priced (3 pounds per pint). Talking about beer prices... if you have a look on the earlier posts on this blog, don't give a shit for the prices I told you pubs had. They were ok at that time, but a recent booze tax rise (6 percent above current inflation this year and 2 further points in the following ones) has changed it everything. An average pint in the UK costs now 2.64 pounds in the pub... but that's another history to talk about (yeah, sure I'll find some V-for-Vendeta quote to stand my opinion there :D). The thing is the Good Ship charges 3 pounds per pint, whatever you have (Pride, Carlsberg, Stella or Guinness, the ones I remember now), and that's a fair price for a club closing at 4, particularly if they are served by barmaids as cute as they are. No idea about spirits or bottled beer prices, though.

Finally, the DJ. The live bands eventually finish, and after that you have a pretty good DJ playing a cool mixture of electronic/pop/rock cocktail, were Kaiser Chiefs or Chemical bro. are melted with stuff for sure you haven't heard before. And you'll enjoy it... promised.