Jaunt (jônt, jänt) n. A short trip or excursion, usually for pleasure; an outing
Plain and Simple’s roving reporter/man about town and clubbing addict Jammy brings you his eye view of the events he was partying at in the last week… This time he spent his jaunts at The Boiler Room and The Blueprint Records Showcase.
Hello and welcome to Jammy’s Jaunts! Your weekly clubbing review of London! Last weekend consisted of the very special Boiler Room Avian session with John Heckle, MPIA3, Shifted and Ventress, followed by the Blueprint Records night with Mark Broom, James Ruskin and Detroit legend Robert Hood! So the first jaunt began on Thursday in a top secret location in East London. It was pretty exciting as this was my first Boiler Room and I’ve always wanted to go to one. Boiler Room has been known to be notoriously difficult to get on the guestlist and only a select few get a chance to attend. Its guerilla like pop up nature has been around for a while now broadcasting live video streams of DJs playing with the crowd in the background. It started at 7 and lasted till 11pm. By the time I arrived, we were led through a door and past some heavy black curtains into a pretty small room; I would say about 80-90 people capacity with massive speakers at one end and the Boiler Room projector beaming out their own video/graphics at the other end.
Ventress was up first, part of Avian Records (with Shifted) and was good to see him playing again, the first time being at the Coma party a few months back. His selection was pretty much spot on and there was a real rawness and edge to the techno that he was playing! Being in an intimate climate just made things sound even better! Slowly but surely more people started to come and the Boiler Room was starting to live up to its name and a real techno sweat was beginning to form! I was aware that it was a school night and it was cool to break up the week like this and you don’t really get an opportunity like this, so had to grab it with both hands! Ventress played loads of really quality tracks and there were loads I didn’t recognise which is cool, it just makes you think, that there is so much good music out there and amazing producers trying to refine their sound and ‘Avian’ is a great example of this.
After Ventress came Shifted, only seen him play a few times, notably when he was hammering the room 2 Fabric soundsystem to bits! Originating from a Drum and Bass background and currently releasing on Mote Evolver and Our Circula Sound, his Avian imprint only a year old has been very successful so far with the top techno players week in, week out playing their releases. His hypnotic, tough and experimental sound and edge was very clear to see during Boiler Room and shame he wasn’t playing for longer as I really enjoyed his set. Those pulsating beats and deep and thudding drums were a pleasure to hear and if you ever get a chance to hear the Avian pair of Ventress and Shifted, I very much recommend you try and catch them playing out somewhere. If it’s heavy, stripped back techno you love to hear, then you will not be disappointed. Last but not least was the pretty incredible MPIA3. He last featured in my VOID jaunt a few weeks back and now he was up to his old tricks again at Boiler Room! Let the acid overflow commence! By now, the room was packed and incredibly busy with everyone building a decent sweat! From start to finish, he was exceptional, such a treat to have all three of them playing during a midweek in London. The music was tough, acidic and powerful. Three great components of quality techno and we were seriously spoiled when we were hearing this sound. Everyone was having an amazing time and the Boiler Room was absolutely rocking! What a great Thursday jaunt!
Next up on Saturday was the very special Blueprint records night at Cable with special guest, Detroit legend, Robert Hood! Another one of my inspirations and an incredibly talented DJ/producer. He was one of the first DJs’ that I saw play and every time I have see him play, he totally blows me away. First up were The Fear Ratio, then Mark Broom, James Ruskin and Robert Hood playing 2 sets, his live one first and his DJ straight after. Broom was good and Ruskin was class as always, an extremely talented DJ and he ripped apart Cable’s impressive soundsystem. Raw, driving techno and the 2 hours that he played for went extremely quickly! This is always the case when you’re listening to great music on a night out! It was nearly time for the main attraction and Hood started off with his live set which was slightly in front of the main DJ booth. This was the first time I have seen him play live and he as you can expect, he was exceptional, and you can never go wrong with a bit of Hood! He played live for an hour from 4am-5am and he played his DJ set straight after. In my opinion, I much preferred his DJ set and he really took things to the next level! As they say, it was proper banging! A true highlight is when around 5.30 am, when he dropped Spastik – Plastikman. What a classic! Do I really need to say any more?! What a great weekend for techno again in London! We really don’t know how good we have it here! Same time, next weekend? 🙂