I went to London last weekend (2nd to 4th of May).
This is what happened:
Friday Afternoon
I left my house 30 minutes before my train to London, my plan was to hop on one of the e-bikes littered around the place, and cycle 15 minutes to Bristol Parkway station. The closest e-bike-parking place is 3 minutes from my house, but this time (typically) there wasn’t one there. I located the next nearest bike on the app and started walking quickly up the road. With backpack including records to get stocked in shops in London!
5 minutes later I got on a bike. It wasn’t working, the bike wouldn’t kick in to electric mode so I was struggling to go more than 3km/h! I was getting annoyed, you can never find a bike that works when you need one. Just then I saw another parked bike and switched out my borked bike for the other one – this one worked! Thank god, I pedalled and started flying along at 22km/h, whoosh.
It was a lovely afternoon. I got to Parkway with 5 minutes to spare, bit too close. Train was on time, and quiet. The train driver was insanely cheery, he came on the intercom for around 10 minutes with his insanely cheerful banter which I recorded for later use in tracks.
An hour and 15 minutes after leaving Bristol we arrived at Paddington. I was in London mate! I started walking to find the Elizabeth line which links Paddington with many handy tube stations. I changed at Whitechapel for the Windrush Line (formerly London Overground) which heads up through Shoreditch. I was heading to Dalston Junction to meet my friend Void Complet.
It was a hot day as I stood on Kingsland Avenue in Dalston waiting for VC. I remembered how my sister lived in Dalston for 7 years many years back when she was studying. It’s a neighbourhood with many Jamaicans, record shops, cafes, there’s an edginess to it, it’s a real London neighbourhood, as if it’s resisting full gentrification, clinging on to the scruffy vibe it used to have before rents started skyrocketing.
We went for a coffee and cake at Eastern Curved Garden, a lovely sanctuary garden cafe, and caught up before heading to 4 record shops. I’d brought 6 of my album with me and wanted to see if I could get them stocked.
Eldica – all 2nd hand, classic electro and hip hop. Digging here is an education! I bought Planet Rock by Afrikaa Bambaataa and Rock It Out by Maximus III (1982). I didn’t ask if he’d stock my album because there were no new records.
Recycle Vinyl – very cool shop with 3 rows of airplane seats with decks in front of them for listening posts! Crazy good collection of 2nd hand records, easy to find a bargain. I bought Catch The Break by Jedi Knights on their Evolution Records label. I asked the guy if he’d stock my album and he said he would if it was busy, but he had no money in the till that day! At this point I had 3 additional records and hadn’t gotten rid of any yet, whoops haha.
Next Door Records – nice selection of jazz and house records. I thought it’d be a good match for ZOiD Vs Musicians Vol 2. However, the guy listened to it online while I browsed and politely declined as it was too techno and he didn’t think it would sell. He suggested Phonica which I’d be going to the next day anyway.
Kingsland Records – These guys took 2 copies and ZVMV2 is now stocked in Dalston! Head down there and buy one 😀
After that it was time to head over to Battersea to meet Caroline and Jon and hang out with them for the evening. Dalston Junction, Windrush Line back to Whitechapel, change to District line, change to Northern at Monument, then Northern Line south to Battersea Power Station (change line at Kennington). Took about 25 minutes.
Saturday
In the morning we took the dogs for a walk around Battersea park, saw the London Peace Pagoda and some monks teaching Dhamma outside it.
We also checked out Battersea Power Station which is now probably the coolest mall in the world and Apple UK headquarters and an apartment building (someone buy me an apartment there please, only £1.3mil for a small one). After walking for an hour and a half it was time to head to Shoreditch for lunch with a student at Savoy Cafe, a quick browse at my favourite clothes shop SCRT on Redchurch St (bought a pair of white shorts with a tree print, saving up for the matching jacket hoodie with same print, gonna look cool at the festivals this summer. Actually I’m not sure I’m going to any festivals, but I’m gonna look cool in the garden )
After that I met up with Tape Twelve, a fellow Bristol-resident Irishman and techno producer / club promoter. He’d lived in London for 9 years before moving to Bristol. he hadn’t eaten so we went to Franze and Evans cafe – I had a chai latte and a large piece of banana loaf with salted caramel icing.
Then we headed to Soho on the tube, I still had 4 records to get stocked. We went to 3 well known record shops:
Phonica – the buyer wasn’t working today, come back midweek! ok
Sounds of the Universe – the buyer wasn’t working today, come back midweek! ok
Restless Records – they don’t do sale or return.
Somehow i managed not to buy any more records, despite Phonica having about 14,000 I really wanted to buy.
At this stage I was feeling decidedly ropey, with major headache forming from all the traipsing around London and eating banana loaf. We went to Elephant & Castle to meet up with Eomac, who was playing later at the Planet Mu 30th Anniversary Party at Corsica Studios, the gig we’d planned the weekend around.
Before we met Eomac, we were standing near the venue and 2 guys with Eastern European accents came up to us and said “nice t-shirt” (Tape Twelve was wearing an Artifical Intelligence t-shirt) and “oh you’ve been to Phonica” (Tape Twelve had a Phonica bag) “are you going to the Planet Mu gig tonight?” Turns out they were both going to the gig after flying in from Dublin and Barcelona (althought they were both Polish) and were gonna head straight to the airport when the gig finished at 6am! We met them later at the gig, very sound lads, the Barcelona one was big into making music and doing that live coding stuff, making music with Tidal Cycles for example.
After that those guys headed off and we had a lemonade at the Elephant & Castle pub with Eomac – it was great to catch up with him, hadn’t seen him in several years, since 2022 in Dun Laoghaire. Then he went off to the venue to soundcheck for his set with Mo from Saint Abdullah, and Tape Twelve went to meet another friend.
I went back to Battersea, just a couple stops on the tube from E&C, and was seriously reconsidering going to the gig! I was wrecked after the whole day. The gig started at 11pm. Got back to the apartment at 8.30pm, said hello and went for a lie-down, took a couple of panadols, fell asleep for an hour and then got up slightly groggy but feeling better. We went out for dinner to a foodcourt in Vauxhall, I had a Caribbean chickpea and plantain curry with roti, and felt a million times better! Gig time 😀
The Planet Mu Gig
I now realise I have made this email so long that almost zero people are gonna read the whole thing. If you made it this far – hit reply and let me know, I’m genuinely curious!
Anyways no point in stopping now. I hit the queue for Corsica Studios around 11.30pm. I could see straight away these were my kind of people. They were just wearing normal clothes. Jeans and jumpers and whatever, not like dressed up, just normal. I asked the middle aged couple at the end of the line, “Is this the queue for Planet Mu?” and the woman replied “Yep” to which I answered “Yay!” and she laughed.
10 minutes and a rather detailed search later during which the security took my Uniball pen (but said “you come later, I give back”), and I was in.
I caught Meemo Comma’s set. Room 2 was not open yet so everyone was crowding into Room 1, there was no room to even get in or out or get to the bar. The set was great though! Next Eomac and Saint Abdullah started up. Whoop! Excellent stuff.
i don’t know what this is doing here, see video below 🙂
Next I headed out to Room Two, on the way bumped into Paul (another Irishman based in London) and Tape Twelve, and we met the Polish lads and had a chat while waiting for Room Two to open.
It did and for a short time we had lots of room in there but gradually in filled up. Think Nik Void was playing.
Back in Room One there was a little more room to move, for Ikonika which took a while to get going, but the second half of the set was stonking. Meanwhile Luke Vibert started playing Room Two which was jam packed and like a furnace. Seriously, .you could feel the heat blasting out of the room whenever the door opened. I didn’t go in! Every now and then someone would come out, drenched in sweat and looking stunned. I listened to the set from the hall outside the room. It was an amazing set from a DJ at the height of his powers, and hour and a half of acid, in techno and electro flavours, which gradually became faster and faster and more and more frenzied until it was 1000% mentalness. BIG.
After that I went back to Room One for Planet Mu boss Mike Paradinas’s Mu-Ziq liveset, which was tasty and musical. Around 3am I’d had enough and went up to the beer garden smoking area to say goodbye to a couple people (Had met Dion, another Irishman recently relocated to Bristol!) but ended up meeting more people and chatting until 4am.
Upon leaving I made sure to ask the security guard for my pen back, he pointed me to a box on the ground which was full of pens (mostly bics), packets of jellys (no food in the club?) and whatnot. Took a minute but we found my Uniball, yay!
Jumped in an Uber, 10 minutes later was back in Battersea, and 5 minutes after that I was asleep! Very rare to be able to sleep so quick after a gig, feeling a bit wired, but i’d racked up 30,000 steps that day and was exhausted.
Next morning we went to local spot Darbys for breakfast and relaxed. I headed for the 2pm train back to Bristol and arrived at Parkway at 3.30pm.
Jumped on an e-scooter to get home. Unfortunately after around 3 mins on the scooter i hit a bump, and my iphone which was in the holder/charging place on the scooter, popped out and hit the ground hard. It was in a case and that has happened before and been ok, but this time my phone’s luck ran out and the screen cracked all over the top of it. It still works and I have not yet replaced it after one week because my bank SUCKS so i have to change bank before I can get a new phone. Boo hoo. WHYYYY. Oh no. No No No. AAAAAArgh. It’s ok. I don’t care. Yes I do.
This is why if you follow my socials I haven’t been posting much. Need new phone!
Thanks, bye, ZOiD
PS If you want to do Music Theory Course, Early Adopter package is available:
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