Having stumbled upon the excellent interview of Ade Fakile by Benji B (link below), this stirred up some happy memories of the seminal club which became a weekly temple for many of us for the best part of the 00s.
In early December 2000, on my very first weekend in London (having just moved from France) I went solo to Plastic People after reading a listing in Time Out. The night was called ‘Balance’, the DJ was Abdul Forsyth and my life was about to be turned inside out. Or rather shall I say Upside Down as this was the (Fela) record which was playing when I entered that magical basement on Curtain road. The full fifteen minutes of it. Could hardly have been a better sign of things to come. I don’t remember much else about the night apart from the fact that I was hooked. Dark intimate room, heavy sound system, incredible music played in very unique fashion.
I went back a few weeks later for NYE, this time accompanied with my friend Pierre “Momo” Rix, and I still remember Ade dropping ‘What’s Going On’ just before closing time and the feeling of unity in the room that followed. I wasn’t aware (sic) that you could drop this in the club, that it would sound like this (little did I know at the time that the sound system in that room was the first ever four stacks Function One system to be put in a club) and that it would bring such a reaction – what a revelation! This was the start of my weekly pilgrimage pretty much every single Saturday after that, up to some time in 2007 (true story). First on my own then quickly with a growing family around me. It was literally like going to church.
I feel so privileged to have received this education from the man like Ade Fakile. In the 2000s PP was by far the most important spot for nightlife in London. Ade had designed a sound temple where he could play all his favourite records in hd, loud and clear, and shaped a whole generation of music heads and dancers alike in the process. Many a seminal nights happened over the years (KDJ, Joe Claussell, FK, Baldelli, Rhythm and Sound, Metro Area live in the middle of the room, not forgetting FWD, Co-Op or my very own Voices night alongside Alex Pewin and John Alderson) but for the our crew it was all about the weekly “Balance” night hosted by Ade himself.
Over the years the regular Technics 1200s were quickly modified with Origin Live tonearms (a move I proceeded to follow soon after as I witnessed the A/B test in direct the night these OL tonearms came came in – it was a simple and yet spectacular upgrade in sound) then there were replaced by the EMT 948 broadcast turntables which brought a whole other dimension to the sound. You could hardly mix on them and no one really knew how to fix them when it was needed, but oh boy how heavy did they sound. Records made in the 60s or 70s would suddenly sound like the freshest, dopiest music ever made. Old 7″s and album cuts included (which is the majority of what Ade was playing). I still remember the feeling of listening to Tm Scott’s “Today” on that system. So heavy! I haven’t heard it like that since, and that’s true for many records. Hear it from the man himself, in a great interview with Benji B:
For a whole gang of us Plastics had become our second home. A real community hub where Ade’s visceral dedication to his craft, his music tastes and radical approach to programming influenced a whole generation of DJs and music lovers. We had our dedicated little corner on the left hand side of the DJ booth (where we could conveniently hide and skin up behind the humongous bass subwoofer). We would invariably be there between 11pm and 4am week in week out, losing our minds. Immersed in sound.
That’s where I learned that you could play Donovan at peak time on a Saturday night, right next to Mos Def, Atmosfear, Pharoah Sanders, Herbert, Pepe Bradock, Lorez Alexandria, Jay Dee, K Frimpong, Soulful Strings, Willis, Jorge Ben, Morgan Geist, Al Green… the list goes on (see link below). In my shelves at home I arrange records by styles, genres or formats, and one of them is simply dedicated to ‘Plastic People’. No filler!
Perhaps even more important than the records, what I learned from Ade is that what matters isn’t just WHAT you play but also and most importantly HOW you play and present those tunes. And how impactful each record can be individually. Ade was the master at playing the most unexpected tune at exactly the right time. That’s what I’ve been striving for ever since.
Hopefully someone will write a book about this club!
One of Ade’s biggest record was undoubtedly Pharaoh Sanders’ “You’ve Got To Have Freedom”. It got played almost every week and rapturous reactions would always follow (interestingly for a nerd like me, this is one of the very few records I can think of which were also played by David Mancuso (alongside “Life on Mars”, “Dancing In Outer Space” and “Expand Your Mind”. These records sounded radically different at both parties, clear and flowing at Lucky Cloud, impactful and physical at Plastics ). So when Ade decided to go large for NYE 2001 (watch the YT video above for the whole story), he built a whole line up around Pharaoh Sanders whom he wanted to play “My Favourite Things” at midnight. And what a line up that was!
The event took place in a disused warehouse (?) at the southern end of the Shoreditch triangle (we’re still talking of a largely pre gentrified Shoreditch) and featured, amongst others, Pharoah Sanders and E.S.G. (both live), Rhythm & Sound, Little Roy, Madlib, Andrew Weatherall, 4 Hero, ?uestlove, Theo Parrish….
”The whole thing is a simple idea, my very own personal musical playground”
Just like Plastics, only on a (much) bigger scale.
Mind you, as impressive as this looks today, at the time only the heads knew who Madlib or even Theo were. Turns out Ade wasn’t even halfway to breaking even that night and lost close to 100K…
The night was quite eventful to say the least, and though I don’t remember much else outside of falling in a dub hole in the On U Sound room and Gilles ending the night with Al Hudson’s ‘Spread Love’, the highlight was, inevitably, Pharoah playing ‘My Favourite Things’, one of the most uplifting and life affirming song there is, live at midnight. On NYE. Legendary!
Some time in 2002, after living in a hostel in Bayswater then a flat in Bayswater, a bunch of us moved into a flat on Pitfield street (conveniently a five minute walk from Plastics) then a year later to a big house near London Fields. This became known as the deep house. Three floors, Tannoy sound system in the lounge, big garden, eight people living permanently and friends coming from everywhere every weekend. During all these years, until 2007, we carried on going to Balance almost every single Saturday, usually a huge gang of us, and the party almost always continued at home until morning. Halcyon days.
We ended up knowing everyone in Plastics, from the doormen (including the legendary Winston) to the staff (Bernard, Charlotte, and also my friend Emilie whom I had met in that hostel in late 2000 and was part of our crew), to half of the dancers. It was like an extended family, a true community. We didn’t realise it at the time but it was such a privilege. There hasn’t been anywhere like it in London since Plastic’s closure.
Whether you were a FWD or Non Sense or Co-Op or Voices or Balance or Blueprint aficionado (each of these nights drew their own crowd), the one common thing between everyone was the sense of freedom and community that the club offered.
From 2007 onwards I became increasingly busy with Beauty & the Beat (and triathlon!) and couldn’t attend Balance that often anymore. In 2010 following noise complaints the sound system had to modified (ie tamed down) and it soon became clear that Plastics was past its golden years. But how lucky we were! On the emotional scale, the closing night on the 3rd of January 2015 was right up there… What a school it had been – never to be forgotten.
A couple of interesting links:
– An Oral History of Plastic People (as collected and published in Fact magazine by Tom Lea and Mr Beatnick)
– Plastic People remembered by people who shaped it (Vice magazine)
– “The State of Democracy Feels Spatial”: the Meaning of Plastic People (Melissa Bradshaw, Boiler Room tv)
And a few pics to wrap this up (from our Voices night, which happened monthly on Sunday then Thursday for a few years)
Interesting fact: at the end of 2002 (Winter solstice to be precise) I even got married in PP (and earned the Woo nickname in the process). Sushi and Saint Nectaire on the counter and my folks pouring champagne to the fam. Legendary party that was. True story 🙂