The Pondering Blonde

The Afterparty Bug Bites- and We Like It!

Sunday sessions have long been stealing from what used to be serious Saturday Night Fever, and the After-party Sunday rouse has progressively developed a whole life, soul and body of its own, effectively making Sunday a whole new Saturday to begin with… and Monday? Well, it seems a vast majority of rock ‘n revelers are happy to worry about Monday, on Monday!

You know that feeling, you’re out and about on a Saturday night; you either planned a big one or whimsically got caught up in one. Come on, did you really think you were just meeting up for a quick dinner and wine? You know how these things happen, forget rubber arms, I’m talking bendy knee’s here! So it’s now 4am, the dancefloor is clearing and you’re collecting your coat- or dusting it off, after it found its way to the floor a few hours back, depending on how the recession’s treating you… And someone, there’s always bloody someone!, says; ‘Where to next?’

After debating houses with grumpy roommates, who has a decent pair of decks and cab fares across town, you understand why the Afters make so much sense! It started with the Early Morning Afters, you know; the good old days of Breakfast At Egg- before Egg lost its Nuevo Pop Art shine, and long before that… After Parties at Turnmills and The Key saw the likes of Tim Sheridan’s Veryverywrongindeed, Formula’s Formulate, Believe at Hidden and Twist at Factory, all carry the determined clubber like a deviant stage dive, well into Sunday’s shine!

Determination now, by way of Sunday club culture, knows no boundaries. No longer an after-thought; welcome to the main destination! Many a clubber, myself included, have hopped up funky and fresh at the crack of dawn to catch the first tubes in- that’s right, and I even had a cup of coffee before heading out and nibbled some grapes on the way over!

The London club kids run their own gamut, and should you ever have the balls- and bearings- to give it a bash your day could take you from Jaded at Ghost in Farringdon (4.00am- 1.00pm) to Fuse at 93 Feet East in Brick Lane (12.00am- 10pm), and a much need Retox at Sosho in Shoreditch (9.00pm – Late Monday morning!). There’s also Family Affair at Platinum and Sundays at The Horse and Groom to spoil you for choice.

Each has its own vibe and pace, and with exclusive late weekend line-ups which have included John Tejada, Tiefshwartz, Terry Francis, Clive Henry, Hector, Geddes, Bushwacka, Mr C and Superfreq- to skim the surface and name a very few- there’s no questioning religious dedication to Sunday club culture!

P.S. In is so not the new out!

Little Lexi x

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Nu-ravers

BPM Magazine 2009

I like to think I’m not a romantic; that I could give any marketer a run for their moneys-worth and that I would all but revolt before joining the i-pod generation- simply because I enjoy being fickle towards popular culture. However, a series of events; a black cab ride from Heathrow Airport to the most perfectly quaint red-doored house, a perfectly soggy weathered pub lunch and amble down Oxford Street- and a perfectly proper ‘avin it large’ night on the town, and London had me; heart and sold and on the i-train to ‘innut bruv’dom.

It’s possible I’m still just flushed, The Big Smoke and I are more than likely still in the Honeymoon phase of our journey, but this is one sexy little city! Scratch that… Huge-ass mother fucking city! Don’t gasp, the Chavs made me do it!

London really is everything everyone tells you it is; silently miffed Englishmen and women, reading the paper on the tube; excessively graffiti’d walls- well, any flat surface really! Stodgy as hell food- they love their smokey bbq’d bacon, mash and peas- and I hate peas! ‘Heathrow Injection’ is not a myth; it’s a freak of friggen nature I’m evading like the plague! The sky is always a different shade of grey, everyone wears black and bad sneakers to work, the Polish have officially taken over and you really do have to mind the gap between the train and the platform. But it’s art if I ever saw any! This is thee most diverse and cutting edge place in the world… The culture, lifestyle; extravert people and pace of living in a first world city are enough to woo any hardened sunshine lover!

And all this before I’ve even mentioned what we’re all here for: The variety of music to see, hear and shake your ass to is unimaginable! There is so much music in London I have seriously considered pitching for a national sponsorship to fund me to live the EDM lovers dream! Hey, I strongly believe someone should try listen and dance to it all- why can’t it be me? If The Queen reads this; “Lady, I hear you have a very big stone of ours in the royal jewelry box- its time to show some Saffa love!”

Seriously, the Nightlife here is beyond incredible. The chaos-inducing mix of Guy Richie meets Irvine Welsh for an all-weekend boogie binge could be an apt description of the situation. There are enough loyal lovers of every music genre to fill up the Wembly Stadium. From the faux-classy but nasty Chav culture bopping to Speed Garage and Nu Ravers who take Hard Dance to a whole new level in fluffy boots and swatches of Neon lycra- to the Drum and Bass massive, Psy-trancers, Techno-logists and the Punk Rockers of Camden Town- there is a beat to suit your mood every night of the week!

Queues to get into nightclubs snake around the block and some guest lists are 500 names long! Bouncers discreetly- or not so- watch over the proceedings and keep the walkways flowing- you have to take the safety of 5000 people in a big dark room seriously, and so, don’t think twice about riddancing with a vengeance any unsociable beer-breed behavior. And the beer- for you connoisseurs- comes in 65 varieties- and the boys from the Bokyard still drink Amstel!

Fabric, took everything I thought I knew about clubbing, threw it on the dancefloor (which has speakers imbedded underneath), moshed it to the sound of the Scratch Perverts remixing ‘Jump’ and made me enjoy it. This Club Capital of London goes 4 floors underground, has a vending machine that pops out Minimal Techno albums- have you ever?- and is famed for it’s casual line-ups of the worlds top artists and performers. Did I mention I’m looking to marry a nice Pom so I can stay here forever?

The Big Smoke was recently put out however, when Mister Brown- the Queens trusty sidekick- declared no smoking in all restaurants and clubs. Whilst I’m happy to go home without my hair smelling like Camel breath- Patrons now have to collect their jackets from the dedicated coat checks before stealing a quick puff in the icy night air and returning to thaw-out with a few excessively priced Tequila’s! This is the reason people hit the bottle before hitting the clubs- drinking in public is legal! Good thing no-one is driving ye?

A good night-out doesn’t end until the sunrise session- if only because waiting for the tubes to start around 6.30 will save you 50 Quid on a cab home! Or you can march on to ‘breakfast shots’ at The Egg or The End- and commence another beginning- Sunday clubbing is huge! Somewhere in the middle, I might have stopped and wondered if I’d lost the plot- but then my favourite track came on and I realised, in London, I may have just found it! Have your next cup of tea on me!