Hola hombre! Long time no speak! It’s been a while since our last posting… But this one is going to put that right, just in time for the weekend. And quite a weekend it is to be reopening the blog post account. So lets get down to it…

Basically if your head has been in the ground for the last month or so, or you happen to be a Chilean miner, then you’d be hard pressed to have bypassed the monstrous weekend happening at fabric. The Chilean miners amongst you might have checked the calendar and realised its October. This obviously brings the fabric birthday instantly to mind – mainly due to the fantastic review that we wrote last year. Well for this year they’re following up the phenomenal party with what looks to be another phenomenal party. Part of the magic last year was the three Villalobos sets spread across the Saturday to Monday marathon. This year they’ve got RV back in again. You might ask, are you not fed up with the prospect of RV for another marathon session so soon after the On&On session the other month in August? The answer is no. Literally RV can do no wrong at the moment. I hate to gush, but the guy is just on fire. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Supporting through the weekend will be dOP, Floating Points, Move D, Trus’Me, Ryan Crosson – all people who have been brilliant this year. Plus established firm favourites like Ame, Lazarus, Dixon, Tobi Neumann and Lee Burridge along with the trusty residents Richards and Francis to make the whole weekend a mouth watering melon of a session. If last year was anything to go by you want to buy your tickets right now if you already haven’t… The top tip from earPIPE is go for a bit of a posho breakfast at Smiths or the Modern Pantry, all nearby, followed by some bloody marys down the road from fabric at the Fox & Anchor. Then arrive at fabric around 10am to spend the day in the dark cavernous rooms. If I were a Chilean miner just back on the surface, this is exactly how I would want to celebrate life. FACT.

Get your tickets at TICKETWEB or you can get some interesting ticket CD combos at the Fabric Website.

However if waking up to rave on Sunday just sounds a bit too civilised and you want to bash through from Saturday night, then you might be interested in the following two nights. It’s a toss up between A Night With or Shake It. The former has the always brilliant Ivan Smagghe for the whole eight hours. Smagghe plays a fair bit in London, but he rarely plays for eight hours. Personally I think this will be one of the standout A Night With nights. However… Shake It have brought in some Minus folks in the form of Magda and Marc Houle – two DJs that I do thoroughly enjoy hearing out. Its though. Maybe Smagster just sways it, either way they should be both entertaining. But please do get yourself down to fabric, after the tough year they’ve had, they’re bound to be blowing off some major steam. You’ve been warned!

A Night With… Ivan Smagghe (Tickets)

Shake It with Magda, Marc Houle and Layo & Bushwacka! (Tickets)

A few bits and bobs going on this weekend with the big elephant in the room being the Lovebox weekender. Now extended to three days featuring the likes of Roxy Music, Grace Jones, Hot Chip, Hercules and Love Affair to name a few stellar names. Saturday looks like a hot tip with Roxy Music headlining the bill along with Mark Ronson. The terribly named Relentless Energy Stage hosts a solid line up consisting of Bookashade, Jesse Rose, Henrik Schwarz and personal favourite Dixon whilst Grandmaster Flash rounds off the Rizla arena on a old skool hip hop tip. A few tickets are left at Ticketmaster here.

On the Sunday Grace Jones will impose her diva stylings on the crowd whilst Hot Chip will be doing their thing in a more nerdy way. From the dancey side of things, Kubicle will be warming up for their birthday marathon with all their favourite DJs from Craig Richards and Jamie Jones to Lee Foss, Clive Henry and Lee Curtiss. Horse Meat Disco and Disco Bloodbath will be taking over the seedy derelict hotel of the NYC Downlow fresh from its outing at Glasto for a colossus disco hoedown. It is quite the temporary structure with a taxi crashing through the roof, plus what happens inside is so camp that your retinas will never be the same again. I’m not sure how the king of middle class bling – Westwood will handle the campness when he plays on the Saturday. Also the big gay bear from Chicago Derrick Carter will be in the house, or more so the Rizla arena with Larry Heard and the Hot Chip DJs. Tickets for Sunday are also still available but going quick at Ticketmaster here.

You can also get the both days for a cool £80 here.

All this daytime festivallng also means there will be swarms of people lost for things to do in the evening. Luckily though there are also swarms of DJs playing at Lovebox also lost for things to do. So conveniently there’s a few after parties happening to mop up the stragglers. Saturday sees Magic & Medicine make use of Dixon and the Bocking Street warehouse for a little post Lovebox shindig. I say little but probably mean massive as the pimp Seth Troxler and The Revenge will be joining in. Tickets are available from Ticketweb here.

On the Sunday Kubicle will be on after party duties with their entire Lovebox line-up heading back to Metropolis in Hackney to play eclectic sets to an intimate crowd of 500 jobless souls. With Craig Richards, Jamie Jones and Clive Henry on the bill its even worth quitting your job to be there.

If you’re not in the Loveboxing mood then A Night With… Cassy might be for you. The Berlinette will be smashing the back doors out of The Basement in Hoxton to a small and dedicated crowd. The atmosphere will no doubt be reaching fever point for this quality DJ. Tickets still going at RA here.

Finally on the Sunday Bread and Butter will be doing a day party at Light Bar’s roof terrace. Yep, turns out they’ve got a roof terrace… Ryan Crosson of wolf+lamb/M_nus/Wagon Repair fame will be keeping the rain at bay with house and techno records. Tickets available at RA here.

Not a bad weekend all in all. Lap it up, we’re half way through the summer.