Jeff Mills: Let there be techno

The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH

I’ve never really been a fan of electronic music, of any kind of it to be fair. Very likely the reason for this might very well be the fact that there is no tradition of this kind of music in Getafe (my hometown, recently famous not just because of the football team but because of the corrupt-but-funny Mayor we have), and even If there had been any I’d always stuck to the Rockn’n Roll thing. I’ve always considered myself as a quite open minded guy when music is concerned, and so it never really was a problem to a house music club if that was the plan. Never enjoyed it too much, never suffered too much either.

This is starting to change. There are several facts that may explain my recent approach to electronic music. The first and main one is that, as opposite as in Spain, here enjoying electronic music and clubbing is not a synonym of wearing sportswear, have a shaved head with a dodgy crest and being an aggressive moron. In other words, you can be a normal chap and enjoy techno clubbing in huge places where yes, maybe everybody is having drugs, but that’s just the only point that makes any different if compared with any other type of place. And, bloody hell, everybody takes drugs everywhere here in London (easy mate, I don’t), so really that’s not a point at all.

The second, and more plausible one, is the quality of the music. It’s not the same Paco Pil than Carl Cox, and it’s not the same thing Garnier than Chimo Bayo, no matters how funny the latter is. There is no bakalao here in London, the closest thing is just Trance music, but fairly well edited and recorded. Also, it seems that almost everybody is able to spot a whole bunch of differences between techno, house, acid house, techno house, trance, drum and bass, hardcore, electro and God knows how many more different styles. I can’t, but I’m starting to improve on this as well. And when you start to pay attention, you realize that not everything is just ’chunda chunda’, but that as it seems fairly easy to tell the difference between Ska, Grunge, Brit Pop, rock or Industrial music, the same thing is in the electronic side.

Anyway, all this is about yesterday. Jeff Mills presented in ICA in London a new mix of a classic, ‘X-102 Discovers the Rings of Saturn’. And was a really amazing night, I have to say.
First, let’s frame Mr. Mills. This guy is one of the most revolutionary DJs in music. He and some friends of Detroit invented Techno music as it is understood today, something as 25 years ago. He is 45 now, and in person he really looks like more like my father than like a techno DJ. Altogether with Mike Banks he founded Underground Resistance, the foundations for pretty much all the techno we listen today. And he is an absolute gentleman and a professional of the music, indeed a musician would be the most accurate world. He does not take drugs, he rarely drinks and while performing live he doesn’t behave as a stupid overexcited clown, focusing on the music and the performance instead.

Second, let’s talk about the project (and all this was said in the Q&A chat we had later). X-102 was a project accomplished by Robert Hood, Mike Banks and Jeff Mills (the three of them alive techno legends) on 1992, and, willing to immerse themselves in an unknown world, the used the solar system and more concretely Saturn (because of the analogy of its rings and a vinyl shape) to create new sound and a concept album, one of the firsts in electronic music ever created. As the physical reality of the planets was so overwhelming that it was no possible to translate it literally into sounds, they opted for imagining what kind of sounds may hear someone who went to Saturn for the first time. As at that time no images or solid information about the planets was available, they just created a composition using the geometries and inspirations they had at that moment. It took them 3 months to create it, and I can promise it’s a lovely piece of art.

Some years later, Nasa Cassini/Huygen probe got amazing pictures of the whole solar system and nebulas, including some impressive ones about Saturn. It handed an incredible opportunity to Mr. Mills to reedit the original work and add images to it, creating an impressive effect.
And finally, he decided to go in a limited tour to show his work. Just four cities (Barcelona, in Sonar last year), Milan, Berlin and London have been lucky enough to enjoy it. And the venue he decided to do it in London was ICA.

ICA is a contemporary arts centre in London. It is one of those places that make you think how differently is culture understood here an in Spain, for instance. The opportunity of go to the cinema, enjoy live music in an amazing bar, enjoy modern painting in a museum, or attend to any type of interesting event, all of it in the same venue in Trafalgar Square and opened seven days a week until 1 am… well, that’s not the sort of thing Gallardon, Aguirre or Zapatero think about when they have culture in mind, is it? It’s more like: let’s make it boring, so they will not come, so they will not think, and so they will stay on their places watching Factor X or Big Brother. Fuck off!!!

So put it altogether, add my friend Cesar into the mix, and get an amazing night as a result. A projection of Mill’s X-102 images and music in a cinema, with the volume at maximum level in the dolby sourround system, and with a small crowd (around 300 lucky chaps) respectfully listening it and enjoying an unique experience… well, what else can I say.

On the top of that, add cheap beer you can drink while watching paintings or even watching the movie, a Question and Answers chat afterwards with Jeff Mills (as the group was small it was really interesting to interchange opinions and experiences with the man, even if I obviously not participated actively), and the afterparty in ICA’s bar, hosted by him with his always incredible Detroit techno and an also amazing guest… well, what can I really add?

Yes, the morning after the hung over was horrible. And yes, we paid 3.50 for a small glass of pistachios. And yes, you cannot do that everyday simply because at that music volume you would finish deaf off in a couple of weeks.

An incredible experience.

PS: I'll add some pictures later, and some linking as well. But I wanted to post it before the weekend, now I remember it :)

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!

The trendy Foundry

84-86 Great Eastern Street, Shoreditch, EC2A 3JL

What an unexpected surprise. Right in the middle of Old Street (not just the area, but the bloody street itself), the Foundry is one of those places you may have passed besides quite a lot of times in your life, specially if you live in London (as I do), you go out frequently in Old Street (as I recently do, as most of my friends live in that shithole) and you fancy trendy looking buildings (as the Foundry one is).

Of course, from the outside it looks just as another Shoreditch dive, with the aggravating point of looking ´modern´ (in the worst meaning of the word). Back in Madrid, when you have to decide if you wanna live for long or if you wanna die early and leave a nice carcass because all the booze you are having is just piss, well, at that time you (I) decide that going out in Malasaña is not an option anymore. When you are asked for a preposterous amount of money for a drink, and right after you get the first sip you are paying for as fucking gold and you realize it is pure biohazard stuff… well, then you, again and again, decide that going out in Malasaña is not an option anymore. And that place, the Foundry, definitely looked like from the outside as one of those again and again places.

By no means. Luckily, London is not Madrid, and Old Street is not Malasaña. In fact, Old Street is more the ´Huertas´ type of area, with an incoherent of bars mixing techno (Aquarium, opened until 11am, but that´s another history), rock, brit pop or whatever you have in mind without involving Bisbal (if you are planning commiting suicide just visit his fan club and jump) or Spanish crap. And luckily too, I can assert the Foundry is a great place, and for quite a lot of different reasons, indeed. And I am quite sure that I am (funnily) not too sure which one would I select, if I had to. Maybe its so cool deco, completely stuffed with second hand furniture randomly distributed around the place. Or maybe its so many old screens and ancient monitors and computers, playing random images sometimes poetic and sometimes just absurd, but funny and interesting nevertheless. Or maybe, just maybe, the toilets, where graffiti is allowed and everybody seems to help themselves: not a single inch of floor, ceiling or wall can be found without a clever message or a smart drawing, or, hell, the same bullshit about racists and punks blaming each other you may find wherever loo in the word you end pissing in.

The lecture room is also pretty good stuff. The poetry room they call it… well, whatever they want. Just because it has some shelves and books on it is not a good reason enough to call it a poetry room, but, hell, who am I to complain? With plenty of places to sit down and enjoy a drink and a good conversation with friends, the Foundry is, as a conclusion, a great place to go.

As I´ve said before, this place looks right this sort of place you overpay for everything. Not the case, though. A pint of Carling is just 2.60 quid (an awesome price in London in a late opening pub), and Stella is only slightly more expensive than that, 2.90. Top up that with a good looking and nice waitress who seems to enjoy her job more than she should, and you have the perfect cocktail. At least, the most perfect one you can afford with 2.60 :).

About the people, well, an incredible mixture of the classic trendy crowd and bike couriers outside enjoying a well deserved pint. Thankfully, not too pretentious any of them, and some even funny, as the self styled DJ who asked silence to everybody just to wish all of us to enjoy a great night. Everybody wears whatever they want, which by the way is not really something special anywhere in London , and everybody seems really pleased to have met themselves. Good for them all, long life for the Queen, and good for me while I can have a big mouthed laugh about how crazy sometimes they are.

Finally, the music. Sometimes is hard electronic stuff, I´ve heard, which doesn´t make much sense under my opinion as most people is just sit down and talking. Both days I´ve been there the music was sort of chill out, quite aloud but bearable all the time.

I´ll be back.

Congratulations!!!

We have another potential twitter/bloger in the world (thanks to sbs and Elena), and this is something to celebrate!! Congratulations my friend, I'll have a pint on you three!!

And my best desire is Jorge will comply with this quote I read yesterday:

"The cure for unhappiness is happiness, I don't care what anybody says!"
Elizabeth McCracken, Niagara Falls Over Again.

Spot the differences

It will not be possible to spot the differences... I was trying to find a picture of 'Castellana 45' (my former job colleagues back in Madrid know quite well what dodgy place I am talking about) and my new desk... 7 differences would be too many, I´m afraid:



1. Now I have light and sunshine (yes, even in London)
2. My own desk. Everyday.
3. My own PC (I hate laptops everyday a little more)
4. My 45'' wide screen (yes, it is actually mine and nobody else's :D )
5. Snooker Gran Prix semifinals in my 45'' wide screen
6. My mug, my plant and my telephone. Even if I´m not a manager
7. Leaving it while it is still daylight outside (again, yes, even in London)

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...

Armani Metal

Remember how excited I was about the Metallica gig I went to in the O2?
Well...