Born out of the January 2009 closure of The End & AKA, Shake It was the warehouse party project run by Layo & Bushwacka! and the team behind the much loved and missed legendary West Central Street site. Launched in 2009 with Laurent Garnier headlining. Shake it’s name went on to become synonymous with quality line-ups.. Featuring the likes of Richie Hawtin, Carl Cox, Dubfire, Reboot, Magda, Dinky, Paco Osuna. The parties were always held in new amazing spaces, with crisp, heavy sound systems and what had to (genuinely) be one of the best crowds in London.
Taking all this into account you can understand why we gave a collective “Nooooo!” this afternoon when we got the news that the team are deciding to call it a day. This is simply owing to too many other work commitments with everyone in the team. Gawd just even talking about it is making us wish there was 1 on this weekend!!
We’d like to thank Shake It for keeping it real and giving us such great parties and also big respect for bowing out on a high, rather than disappearing with a fizzle… Best wishes for the future to you all! You can read the full statement from the team below:
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“Hello there one and all, we trust these past few summer months have been treating you all well. As we mentioned back in May, the Shake It team have all been busy doing our own things this summer. What with volunteering at the London Olympics as a Games Maker, setting up the Red Market up on Old Street and bringing together a whole load of delicious food stalls and with Layo & Bushwacka! finishing up their fourth studio album and touring non-stop, it seems like we’ve hardly all been in the same room, city or country long enough to touch base until very recently.
Last week we finally all met up, where upon we took the decision that it was time to permanently wind down Shake It, bid you all a very fond farewell and pass the party-baton on. It has been an amazing three years, and these parties felt like the right thing to do after The End closed it’s big silver doors – bringing together some of the old West Central Street team. However we all have other projects and interests outside of dance music (yes, hard to believe, I know) and over the past year it has become harder and harder for us to pull it all together, and so with some inevitability we feel it’s time to call it a day.
We have met some absolutely amazing new people through Shake It, and continued to forge stronger relationships with those older faces who followed us on from The End. We sincerely hope that you all enjoyed it as much as we have, and we’re more than certain you’ll be bumping into a few of us on a dance floor somewhere very soon.
The website www.shakeitlondon.com will be fading into the digital ether very soon, along with the Facebook, Twitter and Soundcloud accounts. So if you still would like to continue to receive information about Layo & Bushwacka’s tour dates and album and single releases you can find it all on their website, Facebook and Twitter.
But wait, wipe away those tears I say, it’s not all doom and gloom around here… just because Shake It is finished, doesn’t mean Layo & Bushwacka! are. They’re still going strong and are releasing LP number four “Rising and Falling” on Monday 22nd October and are hosting the album launch party on Saturday 6th October at Egg. There will be an announcement next week about who the special guests will be, in the meantime Leading Astray will once more be hosting the second room with Layo and Matthew in the main room.
So from all at Shake It, adieu. x”
