Clubs

If you were asked to imagine what could improve Shoreditch you might suggest pedestrianisation (to avoid the inevitable raver road kill), fewer swaggering ‘suits’ throwing their weight around (it’s not just wallet envy, honest) and free drinks and drugs dispensed by nubile virgins and handsome young bucks at every street corner (hey, it’s called blue-sky thinking). It’s likely that the last thing on your mind would be a new venue, as Shoho (Shoreditch + Hoxton) has hundreds of bars and clubs already. Yet such is the dearth of medium-sized spaces with quality sound systems in London that East Village should be an instant hit when it opens this weekend.

Strictly speaking it’s not a new space, as it takes over the venue formerly known as Medicine Shoreditch on Great Eastern Street. But music programmer and resident DJ, Stuart Patterson, is ensuring that East Village will be a clubbier, more dedicated dance space. He’s best known as one of the Faith crew of DJ/promoters which has run house-music-all-day-long parties across London since 1999, but he was also DJ and host at The Lodge, which brought world-class nightlife to NW10.

Patterson said The Lodge closed in December as ‘we couldn’t go any further with the venue.’ He had grown used to hearing first-time visitors
to The Lodge exclaim ‘Wow, I can’t believe this is Harlesden,’ but after nearly four years there were still not enough people prepared to make the journey to find out how good it was. Even so, running The Lodge was a great learning curve. ‘It didn’t make anyone rich,’ he says, ‘but we’ve got lots of useful experience.’

That experience, together with Patterson’s great reputation in the industry and his aim to help create a club with a system ‘to rival Plastic People’s quality of sound’, mean that he’s not been short of enquiries about a venue they’ve dubbed ‘London’s small club with big ideas’ (the capacity is just under 500).

They’re currently installing the latest EV Shuttlesound system, moving the bars to open up the space and revamping the decor. It’ll be easier filling a club in EC2 than NW10, but Patterson emphasises that ‘we want to attract people who’ve come to hear a certain DJ or music rather than just join the nearest queue.’

‘The most exciting thing, as a DJ, is to have the opportunity to design and programme a club,’ says Patterson, who will be resident DJ at Friday’s eponymous East Village ‘real house music’ night, welcoming soulful American house producers through to the techier European DJs, while the Bar upstairs goes all cosmic disco with the likes of Disco Bloodbath and Lasermagnetic.

A host of established nights move in on Saturdays, from James Priestley’s electronic excursion Go!Zilla this weekend to Black Rabbit, Warm, Inspiration Information, DDD and Need 2 Soul in the coming weeks. Our Disco launch a fortnightly Sunday session on March 9 and Gilles Peterson kicks off a new monthly night on February 28. His club, Brownswood Loves… Bass, is set to showcase his label artists (like Ben Westbeech) alongside dubstep star Benga, and guest DJs Ross Allen and Moni (New York).

Talking of New York, why is the venue called East Village? ‘Well, obviously because of where it is and the parallels between Manhattan’s East Village and Shoreditch,’ says Patterson. ‘But mostly it’s because I love New York, where therre are clubs like Cielo and APT which have something good on every night of the week, and that’s what we’re aiming towards in our club too.’

East Village opens on February 22 and Go!Zilla is at East Village on Saturday 23.