London

Cutting-edge cut-price clubs

If you’re thinking that you’d better make the most of cheesy Freshers’ Week nights, where beer bellies jiggle in time to the Baywatch theme tune, because a pint is only £1.50, then think again. Didn’t you come to London to escape the perpetual cringe-a-thons in the student union?

Fabric (image © Tom Stapley)

Instead, get navigating your way around the gaudy metropolis via some choicer nightspots. Multi-roomed dance Meccas like Fabric and Turnmills attract the keenest of newbie clubbers with their all-star line-ups. But at £12 a pop (and that’s with an NUS card!) you’ll be living on tinned tomatoes on toast to afford more than the entry each week. More and more club nights nowadays, especially in the West End, may offer free entry before a certain time to lure students in, but often the drinks prices more than make up for the few quid spared on the door. Instead head to Shoreditch for a myriad of nights that keep clubbing cutting-edge without strangling your purse strings.
Fabric, 77a Charterhouse Street, EC1M 3HN (020 7336 8898/www.fabriclondon.com). Turnmills, 63 Clerkenwell Road, EC1M 5NP (020 7250 3409/www.turnmills.co.uk).
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First stop is the T Bar for world famous DJs on the Funktion One soundsystem. Lasermagnetic launch their new monthly residency here on September 20 with their cosmic breed of electro disco, and established nights Ditched Disco (Fridays) and Dig Your Own Rave (Sundays) still cause roadblocks every week. They are also hosting the first in the free series of ‘San Miguel: Hidden Depths’ events: on September 26 DJ Yoda performs his ingeniously kitsch DVD-scratch set alongside pals Sinden, Eclectic Method, Dixie, Mr Wrec, The Nextmen and Dan Greenpeace, with an interactive touch wall making an impression, too. The following two weeks see Warp Films (the camp behind ‘This Is England’) take over Punk in Soho with talks and screenings, and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly and friends curate the live music at Industry back in the ’ditch. To win tickets visit www.hiddendepths.tv sharpish!
T Bar, 56 Shoreditch High St, E1 6JJ (020 7729 2973/www.tbarlondon.com). Punk, 14 Soho Street, W1D 3DN (020 7734 4004. Industry, 1 Curtain Road, EC2A 3JX (020 7422 0958/www.industrybar.com).

Foreign at Bar Music Hall (© Billa)

Bar Music Hall is where the gender bending fashionistas flock for nights like Foreign on Saturday, where flamboyant hosts and DJs Scottee and Jodie Harsh whip up a fluoro-splashed, polysexual storm. It’s the friendlier, messier alternative to BoomBox at Hoxton Bar and Kitchen on Sundays, where you’ll have a task getting past the door whore if your ‘look’ isn’t up to DIY scratch. Other nights of note at Bar Music Hall are Film Noir (September 21) – an ‘electro-disko for femme fatales, underworld heroes & fallen angels’ – and Slipped Disco, a discerning electronic night run by Ben Osbourne, which feeds into an after party at the Mother Bar around the corner. All are free entry if your hair is triangular enough. Gay girls and boys and their mates will also love Nag Nag Nag at the Ghetto in Soho with cheap vodka mixers and ace electro rockin’ live bands (Dead Kids on September 19) for £4 NUS. Or for somewhere to wind down for free, make for Kamikaze Karaoke every Sunday at central London’s other gay budget spot Trash Palace. Play Russian roulette with the tracks, but beware – there’s a chance you’ll get Meatloaf on the screen, not Mika! Vodka sushi shots at £1.50 will help eradicate any embarrassment.
Bar Music Hall, 134-146 Curtain Rd, EC2A 3AR (020 7613 5951/www.hellshoreditch.com). Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, 2-4 Hoxton Square, N1 6NU (020 7419 4696). Mother Bar, 333 Old Street, EC1V 9LE (020 7739 5949/www.333mother.com). Ghetto, 5-6 Falconberg Court, W1D 3AB (020 7287 3726/www.ghetto-london.co.uk). Trash Palace, 11 Wardour St, W1D 6PG (020 7734 0522/www.trashpalace.co.uk).

Trailer Trash

Back in Shoreditch, stroll up to Catch, where there’s a diverse range of freebies. Get Rude, run by New Era-cap toting nippers Zombie Disco Squad, drops a dose of Baltimore club, electro and baile funk every second Saturday of the month, while every fourth Saturday is Meat Raffle, with its vodka-lubed mix of live acts and DJs creating a leftfield dance soundtrack. For those feeling flashy, £5 nets you the cream of the über-cool DJ crop at either Ditch Bar, where Aussie indie electro label Modular takes over every week (it’s the unmissable Count of Monte Cristal, aka DJ Herve and Sinden, on September 21!), or On the Rocks for its booty bassy outing Trailer Trash with scorching top jock Hannah Holland, every Friday.
Catch, 22 Kingsland Road, E2 8DA (020 7729 6097/www.thecatchbar.com). Ditch, 145 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6JE (07946 706 837). On the Rocks, 25 Kingsland Road, E2 8AA.

Rock'n'save

If you fancy an evening of live music with no frills and less hangover warnings turn up early for hip music rag Artrocker’s Tuesday night at Islington’s Buffalo Bar. They showcase garage, art and dance rock acts before they become two-minute sell outs on Ticketmaster; it’s free to members (sign up via membership@artrocker.com) or £5 to everyone else. Bloody Awful Poetry at The Enterprise in NW3 on September 21 offers a similarly value deal: five bands for just £4 with our Night Pass (available in Time Out London magazine), and the Windmill in Brixton boasts the best value gigs down south. See the feisty Fight Like Apes, who have been all over John Kennedy’s XFM Xposure show, there on September 20 for only £3 if you print this article out.
Buffalo Bar, 259 Upper St, N1 1RU (www.buffalobar.co.uk). The Enterprise, 2 Haverstock Hill, Camden, NW3 2BL (020 7485 2659). Brixton Windmill, 122 Blenheim Gardens, Brixton Hill, SW2 5BZ (020 8671 0700/www.windmillbrixton.co.uk).

Old Blue Last (image © Dom Tunon)

Northbound, it’s Nambucca on Holloway Road that attracts the grubbiest unsigned bands and rickety soundsystems to their dingy yet brilliant surroundings. If you can’t bear to leave the east, however, the Old Blue Last pub is where all the scenester sweatdowns take place (an unsigned Klaxons once played there!) for next to nothing. Underground, caustic rock promoters Upset the Rhythm and rocking ‘n’ raving club night Adventures Close to Home are ones to watch out for if you want something more boundary-bashing than the average pub indie bands you get in the Dublin Castle. 7 Year Glitch DJ around live bands Ida Maria and The Sticks on September 20, Motel Nights’ club night has the Computer Blue DJs on the decks spinning wacky electro after bands Ungdomskule and Dead Pixels the next night, while the forward-thinking label 1234 Records take over on September 27 with Out, Trafalgar, Peter Glam, Arcadia Party Program and Noise For The Passive live, plus DJ Sonic McLusky. All are a grand total of… free!
Nambucca, 596 Holloway Road, N7 6LB (020 7272 7366/www.myspace.com/nambucca). Old Blue Last, 38 Great Eastern St, EC2A 3ES (020 7739 7033/www.theoldbluelast.com).

Or skip the late nights altogether and relax at a free afternoon gig, either at cool hotspot Notting Hill Arts Club (Rota is on Saturdays) or posh boozer the Lock Tavern in Chalk Farm (Sundays are great here), where the acoustic acts range include Ali Love and Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit.
Notting Hill Arts Club, 21 Notting Hill Gate, W11 3JQ (020 7460 4459/ www.nottinghillartsclub.com). Lock Tavern, 35 Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8AJ (020 7482 7163/www.lock-tavern.co.uk).