You’d think having an extra day off would be a god send but in all honesty it’s a bit of a ball ache. This weekend, Landan Taan will swell to a beachball sized glut of party tourists keen to get their third dose of fun for the year (the other two times being Easter weekend and new years eve). You can expect the clubs, streets and parks to be packed with an assault of people forcibly trying to have fun this weekend. If you’re not too much of an idiot to spend £50+ on a bunch of half assed trance and yesteryear prog DJs playing to a crowd of baying halfwits non the wiser they’ve been fleeced, then I guess these could be a few so called suggestions for the weekend…

LED Festival – Victoria Park (Tickets)

The alternative to paying over the odds for standing in a Clapham park full of idiots is to pay nearly over the odds to stand in a park full of different idiots who weren’t quick enough to shell out for SW4 tickets before it sold out. If the festival hasn’t imploded through poor ticket sales and artist cancellations it might not be such a loss to attend with the main draw being Leftfield, who have dusted off the kit since the Guinness royalties have run dry. You’ll also be able to see Alison Goldfrapp tottering around on stage like Florence and The Machine’s grandma, and if you’re lucky Aphex Twin might play some nonsense. Unsurprisingly tickets are still going for this one.

Carl Craig at Fabric (Tickets)

In terms of evening line ups I guess you can’t really do any better than fabric. They’ve got their typical techno carry on consisting of one part Detroit (Carl Craig), two parts Berlin (Sebo K & Ben Klock) and a token UK techno head to make your balls go up inside yourself (Ben Sims). It’s a reasonable choice if you haven’t already spent half your waking weekend moments there this month.

Superfreq at Paramount (Tickets)

Across town at Centre Point, Mr C and friends are back at Paramount with their Superfreq brand. They’ve somehow commandeered another floor for their ingeniously named disco sister Superdiscofreq. DJ Three headlines the main room with the “not so evil in his old age” Eddie Richards, whilst DJ Garth and James Priestly will be playing up to the new spat of disco fashionistas. If past Superfreqs are a trend to go by, this one will be the best superfreq ever to date as boldly claimed by Mr C every month.

Dollop at The CAMP (Tickets)

If a night dancing with a bunch of geriatrics in a tower doesn’t sound that great, you can go to the other end of the spectrum and dance with some of the unwashed youth in a basement. Dollop are down from Nottingham for a London jolly at The CAMP. They’ve brought in the Parisian turned Dalstonian Ivan Smagghe to headline. Also on the bill is some bloke from Turbo (Thomas Von Party), that guy who plays at Bugged Out (Matt Walsh) and Nathan G Wilkins who for some reason reminds me of a presidential assassinator. Expect scruffy hair cuts, drain pipe jeans and a lot of garish noisy electronic sounds.

Carnival at Notting Hill

On to Sunday. For the day time you might as well be herded around the streets of Notting Hill whilst running the risk of being caught in the middle of some yoot gang warfare or getting poisoned by some chancer selling what was supposed to be curried goat out the back of his car. If you get there early enough and the police haven’t cordoned off the area you might be lucky to catch some chap (Norman Jay) play cheesey records off the top of a double decker bus. But hey its all free so you can’t complain about this shit.

Secretsundaze at Rich Mix (GList Requests – info@secretsundaze.net)

You might not have heard, because its secret, but Secretsundaze are at the Rich Mix loft. Daniel Bell heads up the main room with Tevo Howard, whilst Jacques Renault makes room 2 all disco glam. If you can get past the fashion police on the front door (in this case the face of authority is a guy with an achingly ironic styled tache) you might enjoy a nice dance inside. Just make sure your shorts are rolled up high enough on your deck shoes and denim shorts combo.

Eastern Electrics at Union Street Car Park (Tickets)

Evening wise Eastern Electrics is doing their predictable shindig at the once secret, but now standard affair Union Street Car Park. Their line up I must admit is pretty balanced. Fehlmann, Wruhme and Mayer fly in for Kompakt, whilst Von Stroke and Martin get fidgety in another arch, and to round things off Resident Advisor have got Joy Orbison, Scuba and Harri & Domenic, all of which they’ve brain washed you to think they’re good through their podcasts. The 10 early bird tickets and 5 saver tickets have sold out, so all you mugs left are gonna have to buy the standard price tickets at 20 quid a pop. Unfortunately your young person railcard doesn’t work on these tickets.

Lo*Kee at Cruffix Lane (Tickets)

Another special one for Sunday is Lo*Kee. For one night only they’ve scrapped their exclusively closed members list and open their doors to tom, dick and harry. This will give the riff raff a chance to really see what goes down at Lo*Kee – basically a bunch of “cool” kids that haven’t been to sleep for a few days rolling around to whatever DJs that haven’t been to sleep either. However on Sunday they’ve got a bunch of Cadenza folk over and they’re going to make a proper night of it, so I guess it’s not quite as Lo*Kee as the name suggests.

I could go on about the weekend… But you might as well read all about it at RA.. They’ll probably be a bit more cheery too with the extensive DJ biogs and promises of amazing parties. I’ll be at home having a good moan about SW4 thanks. Have a good weekend!

Red bull Music Academy at South Bank Centre (Buy Tickets)

This weekend sees the start of the Red Bull Music Academy which is taking place over the coming weeks in London. The academy brings together prospective musical talent from across the world to work and share ideas with help from established and successful music industry types. In conjunction with the academy, Red Bull have a series of events lined up for the general public. This Friday sees Red Bull team up with Resident Advisor at the stunning Royal Festival Hall in the South Bank Centre for a head on collision of experimental electronica, Jazz and techno. There are two acts in particular that have us foaming at the mouth. We have a showcase from SHAPE, a collaboration between Detroit heavy weight Carl Craig, the classically trained pianist and Innerzone Orchestra member Francesco Tristano and minimal dub techno innovator Moritz Von Oswald of Basic Channel/Maurizio fame. The other act will be another massive collaboration between Innervision’s Henrik Schwarz and Nordic Jazz sensation Bugge Wesseltoft. Their recent showing at Giles Peterson’s Ronnie Scotts takeover was supposedly incredible, so it will be a privilege to see these too jamming out in the distinguished Royal Festival Hall. Don’t expect danceable 4/4 beats, this is going to be a proper sit down affair. There are still some tickets available at TICKETWEB.

Egyptian Lover at The Big Chill

Probably a little less serious for a Friday night will be a live show from 80s rap legend Egyptian Lover. His early rap records of ballsy 909 beats and distinctly electronic synths helped pave the way for the hip hop movement in the 80s. He’s even had a bit of a comeback after his Egypt track was sampled/covered by Jamie Jones on his recent track Galactic Space Bar. Fun beats and straight up classic 80s rap. What’s not to love?

Musiq Concrete 2D at The Lightbox (Buy Tickets)

Saturday brings us a selection of equally solid nights. Down south at Vauxhalls Lightbox, we see Musiq Concrete return for their second night with a well rounded lineup. The dazzling lights of the Light Box will play host to Get Physical’s Thomas Schumacher who’s techy sound will give London its very own slice of pseudo Berlin Watergate. Whilst Simon Baker and Alex Cellar will provide some worthy London based support. In room two Brighton’s Cagedbaby and acid house legend Justin Robertson will show us another side to electronic dance music. Also if you print out this flyer you get a free drink!

Phonica at T-Bar

T-Bar are now running a new freemium business model. No more are the fall back nights where if all things failed you could always end there for a relatively cheap one. They’ve gone and started asking for some money on the door now. However to back up the asking they’ve bumped up the quality. This Saturday the record selling folks from Phonica have brought over Sascha Dive. Him and Anthea are sure to lay down some deep groves into the early hours of the morning.

James Priestley at The Horatia

Disgusted at the fact that T-Bar want to charge? Well there are new free options out there. New venture The Horatia have some solid nights lined up over the coming weeks. This Saturday James Priestley of Secretsundaze fame will be digging out his disco records and showing the masses that he’s not just about playing deep house outdoors with ironically tashed friends.

Superfreq 8^th Birthday at Centre Point (Buy Tickets)

Finally if you didn’t have enough of the birthday celebrations last weekend, then there’s one more for you. Those sycophantic slags Adultnapper and Mr C celebrate 8 years with original London tech houser Dave Mothersole. They’ll be wiggling their way until sunrise 31 floors up at the glamorous Centre Point.

London at sunrise, 31 floors up, with Jamie Jones at the helm? Yes please… where do i sign up?

right here – Buy Superfreq Tickets

Get em fast… The last one was probably the party of the year so this is bound to sell out fast.

Superfreq @ Paramount – 8th August
Jamie Jones
Mr C
LukeVB
Dollz at Play

Just a quick note on weekend manoeuvres. I’m not going anywhere as my life is in tatters after the last few months of being massively on it, all of which I will litter these pages with the details. But if I were to head out I would probably be looking at these things:

Saturday
The decks have barely cooled down from the last party, but pappa Sven is already back at matter for another Cocoon party. Even if Sven isn’t your cup of tea there is still the highly talented Onur Ozer who will finally be gracing London with his visa in hand, not to mention Reboot loaded with his hotly anticipated tune of the summer.

Even though pappa Sven is a veteran on the scene, nothing gets more veteran than Kevin Saunderson one of the birth givers to the techno sound. He’s dusting off the old Inner City moniker which gave us Good Life and Big Fun. This is definitely going to be a special show. But just for kicks Kevin Saunderson is going to play a few tunes and they’ve also brought in Claude Von Stroke to sweeten the deal.

Aside from the two heavyweights there is Tom Middleton in the East Village basement doing an Electro Funk set or there is Superfreq doing their final party at Cable with Adultnapper, Chloé and Tolfrey along with the ressies Mr C, Luke Vb and Dollz at Play.

Cocoon at Matter tickets HERE
Eastern Electrics with Kevin Saunderson tickets HERE
Superfreq tickets HERE

Sunday
Well, I don’t really need to say much about Sunday. I’ll just spell it out plain and simple.
Prosumer – Light Bar – Secretsundaze. Done.
If the weather holds out its going to be a stellar party.
Get your tickets HERE!.