Update – Check out the earPIPE Sonar Disco Map Here.

This weekend Barcelona becomes the centre of attention as Sonar festival rolls into town. The festival itself is a jam packed 3 days and 2 nights of music and art featuring the likes of Plastikman, The Chemical Brothers and Roxy Music. However its not just the festival that garners all the attention, as for the same weekend Barcelona turns into a thriving party city with what are now known as the Off Sonar parties. This year we’re spoilt for choice in terms of party venues. We’ve got parties on beaches, on rooftops, on terraces, on boats and at secret villas. There’s even a few parties happening in them there nightclubs. There’s a lot to pick from so here’s what we think is looking pretty hot for the weekend.

Wednesday

Ovum at Boulevard Culture Club (Tickets)

If you’re arriving in the city before the festival starts, then you can start your sleepless campaign from Wednesday night. Josh Wink takes over Boulevard Culture Club with friends Shlomi Aber, David Squaillace and Luca Bacchetti from his Ovum record label. The clubs conveniently located on La Ramblas, so there’s no hassle in getting there.

Warehoused  at Mephistos (Tickets)

Warehoused is a new night for Off Sonar and it opens at Mephistos, a heavy metal club in Barcelona. So i’m not sure what the venue has to offer, but the line up looks pretty solid with Konrad Black and Stimming heading the bill. Not bad to warm things up for Wednesday night.

Thursday

RA by Day at Hotel Diagonal (info)

RA host one of the parties of the weekend. They’ll be getting things into motion with their Thursday daytime party at the beautiful Hotel Diagonal rooftop pool. A minor distraction from the views will be the stunning lineup they’ve got planned – Michael Mayer, Steve Bug, Jesse Rose and Eric Duncan from Rub n Tug!! All for free!! But before you dust off you deck shoes and rolled up denim cut offs, entry to the party is by invite only. So you either need to know someone who knows someone, or you might have been one of the lucky 50 that won tickets.

Desolat Experience at Ghoa Beach Club (Tickets)

Sub Club at BeCool (Tickets)

Moon Harbour at Discotechque Club (Tickets)

Moon Harbour will be celebrating ten years with its sister label Cargo at the imaginatively named Discotheque Club. Matthias Tanzmann, Martinez, Boris Werner and Ekkohaus will be playing the labels’ blend of bumpy techno and house.

Friday

Watergate and Beatport Secret Villa Party (info)

Hot Natured at W Barcelona Hotel (info)

BPitch Beach Party at Playa de El Prat (info)

Cocoon at Ghoa Beach Club (Tickets)

Kompakt at Nitsa (info)

Kompakt have a pretty tasty party at Nitsa. You’ll be able to catch Michael Mayer, if you weren’t invited to the RA party, as well as Superpitcher, Gui Boratto and DJ Koze. That’s a huge lineup to celebrate 10 years of Off Sonar parties.

Circus Company at Oshum (info)

Saturday

Mobilee Rooftop Party at Hotel Diagonal (info)

BPitch Control Boat Party (Tickets)

Cadenza at Ghoa Beach Club (Tickets)

Crosstown Rebels at Oshum (info)

If you’re still alive then Secretsundaze will be taking up its traditional position at La Terrazza. They’ll be out in the picnic area from 5pm and then in the usual club from midnight. For music, they’ve got the cream of their DJ agency from Patrice Scott, The Mole, Trus’me, Ethyl, Flori and of course the two residents Jamie and Giles. Great club, great tunes, always a must on the Sonar weekend.

Minus Beach Party at Playa de El Prat (info)

If you fancy something with a rougher edge, then Minus will be for you. They’re throwing their beach party at Chiringuito Calamar out by the airport and have got everyone off the label to get involved, from Marco Carola, Troy Pierce and Heartthrob to Ambivalent, Fabrizio Maurizi and Hobo. They also say they’ve got some special guests, which means its highly likely the two Minus names not on the line-up but are playing at Sonar will probably turn up for a few tunes!

Playkula & Wilde Boat Party (Tickets)

Two of Berlin’s biggest DJ agencies join forces to set sail for the high seas. Tiefschwarz, MANDY, Pig & Dan, Thomas Schumacher, Matt Tolfrey, Heidi and INXEC will be entertaining a packed catamaran of ravers finding their sea legs after a weekend of fun. Let’s hope the seas aren’t too rough.

Just a heads up for an upcoming mammoth party – Fabric On & On & On & On…. The folks at fabric are going to throw another 30 hour marathon since the 10th Birthday was so well received. The last one was definitely one of the legendary parties of 2009. It had the perfect crowd with the most eye watering of line-ups ever seen and an unbelievable atmosphere that validated why the club has been around for 10 years. We certainly gushed about it in our review the other month.

On the 6th March Fabric will be doing it all again, just for shits and giggles. The line up isn’t as stratospheric as the birthday, but it is by no means light weight. There’s a nice selection of heavy weights with Dave Clarke down to annihilate a room, Radioslave will be bringing his cloak of darkness as will Patrice Scott and Ellen Allien will add her touch of wonky Berlin. But backing them up will be a fine selection of strong DJs that know how to get a party going. You’ve got the unexpected sounds from the Wolf and Lamb camp featuring Seth Troxler, Soul Clap and Gadi Mizrahi, plus Trus Me kind of falls into their category too. Then you’ve got the German techno brigade from Cocoon to BPitch and Minus with Onur Ozer, Dinky, Konrad Black and Thomas Muller. A great mix of talent there.

The format stays the same as last time. Tickets at varying prices can be bought for entry on the Saturday night, Sunday morning and Sunday evening, all of which will allow you to leave and re-enter up until the close on Monday morning.

Tickets are now available at TICKETWEB and are priced as follows:
Saturday Entry – £23 General / £18 Fabric First
Sunday entry after 10am – £15 General / £10 Fabric First/Students
Sunday entry after 10pm – £10 General / £8 Fabric First

So there you have it a great line up for what is shaping up to be another masochistic weekend.

Image by Paul at Vision7Media

All things exciting seem to point to Clapham Common on the bank holiday weekend. But in all honesty, it’s not really all that it’s cracked up to be. Here are some reasons why not to waste your time on the common and some canny alternatives.

Rubbish Soundsystems

Being stuck in the heart of Clapham means you’re in the middle of a massive residential area. Residential area equals people with dogs, children, twitching curtains and a massive thirst for pissing on any parade. Call me crazy but these people hate it when their windows are vibrating during afternoon tea. Unfortunately they also pay taxes and actually have a say in how the world is run. So despite the soundsystem probably having tens of thousands of watts bottled up at its disposal, you can probably expect that the local council has it capped to a dreary cesspit tap drip. So the only way you’re going to hear anything of worth is if you’ve camped out inside the bass bin like some free party crusty.

What you need is some grotty warehouse space where you can crank it up a few notches. It just so happens that Eastern Electrics will be holed up in some grotty warehouse space where they will be cranking it up. Eastern Electrics staple Mulletover will be hosting the main room and they’ve got the Mobilee mistress Anja Schneider to headline. A so so DJ headliner in my opinion (great producer not so great DJ). But don’t worry as Damien Lazarus, fresh from recording a new album, has got Anja’s back. Glimpse will also bolster the support with one of his fantastic live sets too.

But what is really hitting the mark is the Need2Soul second room. They have Patrice Scott fresh from riding in on the recent wave of Detroit techno. He’ll be serving up deep techno cuts alongside the purveyor of dark pummelling beats – Ben Klock. These two names alone should be enough to hit this party for the measly £8 that they’re asking for. Instead they decided to chuck in a Claude Von Stroke and a Trevor Jackson in a third and final Resident Advisor room.

Great deal…. Get those tickets from HERE….  whilst you can!

Short DJ sets

On paper it looks great having every conceivable big name DJ on the bill. But the problem with having them play in one afternoon of raving is that the laws of time only permit a DJs set to be shorter than the time it takes to piss out a tinnie of luke warm festival cider. With only a few hours for prime time DJ sets you’re likely to get a Sasha and Digweed set consisting of half a monster prog record played and tweaked between them. Richie Hawtin will be barely through a bass filter drop before his set ends; and Zabiela would have only had half a fumble of an EFX knob before being kicked off.

What you really need is one amazing terrace and five quality DJs for the day. Who else can do that but Secretsundaze. They return to THAT, the site of this year’s opening party. Hopefully any niggles from last time involving sound and turntables will be sorted. If they get blessed with sunshine then the THAT terrace should bring back some of those happy Space/DC-10 terrace memories of yesteryear. There to invigorate happy terrace times will be the man who is all things insect in house – Steve Bug, a firm favourite of the Secretsundaze bunch and now an annual occurrence. With record labels in every pocket, his extensive electronic tastes are sure to ignite Sunday. In support is Doc Scott, one of the old guards of dance and making a much fabled Secretsundaze return. Like riding a bike, once you know how to rock a crowd you never forget and Doc Scott has been doing so for over a decade and a half. Finally on a live tip is the Canadian born Guillaume and The Coutu Dumonts. They’ve released a string of fantastic tracks on uber-cool labels Oslo and Circus Company and they feature heavily in the Secretsundaze sound. Their brand of percussive house should smoothly go down with the SS crowd.

Don’t miss out. Earlybird tickets are still going at RA.

Tourist Clubbers

Photo by Nick Ensing

The weekend is sure to lay prone to thousands of clueless clubbers that have rolled in for the one weekend of their lives. They’ll be lapping up the big beats as they come flying out the speakers like bricks hitting them square between the eyes. They’ll be saving their biggest “whoops” for the one with the hair on the Loreal advert or the other one that had the hot aerobic fitties in his music video. I mean how can you enjoy and dance to the music when you can’t recall when it was released, what label it was on, what mixes it has featured on and who was the assistant engineer in the second breakdown.

What you need is a versatile crowd open to the unheard boundaries of music. Warm tend to get a good crowd in for their underground house shindigs and the Innervisions showcase at Corsica Studios should be a bit of a roadblock, especially when you’ve got Henrik Schwarz, Dixon and Marcus Worgull on the bill. A massive one for the heads!

Get your tickets from RA.

Despite everything I’ve just said, all these recommendations all take place on a Sunday. So if you are heading down to Clapham Common, I guess it would be rude not to check out a bit of Hawtin, Danny Howells and Sasha & Digweed. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!!

DISCLAIMER: I’ve never actually spent an August Bank Holiday weekend on Clapham Common. So everything i’ve said is completely unfounded and might well be complete bullshit.