It's hard not to get emotional writing a feature on the 10th birthday of arguably the world's greatest club. I've been to Space, DC10 and Amnesia in Ibiza; Womb, Ageha and (the extinct, legendary) Yellow in Japan, as well as Twilo in New York. But fabric [yes - it does have a small "f"] is without a doubt better than any of them.

 

Starting Thursday 15th October and ending the following Monday morning, fabric is celebrating a decade in the business with a dreadnaught of a line-up. Let's chat to the people who make fabric what it is, that have helped to define the lives of music lovers of all walks of life.

 

THE DRUM & BASS DJ: Hype

 

 

DJ Hype is the embodiment of the underground DJ, whose covert work sends shock waves into the mainstream. Needing little introduction, Mr. Drum & Bass himself sees fabric as a critical part of his career.

 

"I've been playing there since the beginning, and next year will be our Playaz residency's ten-year anniversary too. Fabric was perfect for drum & bass in the sense that it was the first cosmopolitan "superclub" to give our music an outlet. It's not glitzy - it's four walls and a floor - the system is dirty and grimy - everything is done in a professional way.

 

"There hadn't ever been anything like it before. It helped to give drum & bass exposure. I don't think people realised how big a drum & bass night was in those days. Journalists took a while to clock onto the fact, and they were a bit cynical when, during interviews, I told them how huge it was. Having a regular night in London that allows me to showcase what I do ... I can't ask for more.

 

"Overall, there's not a better venue. Before, I was at The End. Don't get me wrong - The End was fantastic - but it was much smaller in comparison to fabric. When I made the switch I was a bit paranoid. We were given room one. No drum & bass night had headlined yet. But I thought that if I don't do it then someone else will.

 

"What I liked was that fabric seemed more confident in me than myself! I sometimes talk big but I'm not always as confident in everything that I do, especially when making a big change. But it was the best move I ever made. The downside is that I don't do many nights anywhere else, because they pale in comparison."

 

DJ Hype is the only DJ with two mix CDs in fabric's 100-CD roster - an achievement that speaks volumes:

 

fabriclive.03 - DJ Hype [Mix CD]

 

fabriclive.18 - Andy C & DJ Hype [Mix CD]

 

Playaz @ fabric - next night 30th October 2009

 

THE LIQUID DJ: Marcus Intalex

 

 

The respected pioneer of liquid drum & bass and creator of various genre-defining classics, Marcus Intalex is unequivocal in his branding of fabric as a pivotal entity within underground music.

 

"In the whole of the UK fabric is definitely my favourite place to play," Marcus reveals. "I have to say that the hospitality that they show towards the DJs is second to none by a considerable margin. When you play in there - and I'm sorry if this sounds clichéd - it feels that you're part of the family. Far more people work in fabric than at any other nightclub I've been to in my life and it's quite interesting that they do the mix CDs as well.

 

"It's a full organisation that's geared up to promote what they do and not only that but what the artists do. I like their philosophy - it's a similar one to mine - that they want to do what they're into. They're not necessarily going to jump on something because it's popular. I know for a fact they've turned quite a lot of DJs down from playing just because it's not their thing and I just like that attitude. From practically the owner right down to those that actually work behind the bar - everybody has been great to me.

 

"You go to fabric and you know you're going to get looked after, so it allows you to perform more easily and comfortably. I guess what I'm saying is that it's probably one of my favourite places to play in the world, if not the favourite.

 

As you will soon discover in this feature, there is a continuity in Marcus Intalex's comments that channels right through everyone involved with fabric. "To think that drum & bass is good enough to be a weekly fixture in London," Marcus continues, "in such a big club, gives the DJs backing and regular work. It's helped me to support my thing, which isn't the most popular and commercial, but still they gave me exactly what I wanted. They let me do the fabric CD which helped improve my profile, and profiled the music that I play. That CD is one of the highlights of my career."

 

Fabric isn't just a place for dancing - it's a social hub - significant partnerships have been forged over the years there. "I remember a fabric party way back with Fabio and Grooverider," Intalex thinks aloud. "I'd just heard of Calibre's stuff from Fabio - right at the beginning of his career. I managed to track Calibre down. I spoke to him a few times on the phone and he told me he was going to fabric. I arranged to see him there and that's basically the first time we met in person."

 

This meeting would go on to spawn a partnership that would bring the drum & bass scene some of its defining modern work.

 

fabriclive.35 - Marcus Intalex [Mix CD]

 

Soul:utions @ fabric - next night 20th November 2009

 

THE DUBSTEP DJ: Caspa

 

 

Described on the fabric website as "part of the furniture here", the lovable Caspa is a figurehead of the new media darling dubstep. It comes as little surprise, then, that his stock is currently on the rise in east London.

 

"When people ask me what my favourite place in the world to play is, I say fabric," Caspa says, clearly excited by the prospect of tomorrow's ten-year anniversary bash. "It's just a real quality night. When you play in there, you never question whether it will be empty. It will always be either busy or super busy. The sound system is solid. And for me, it's the best to play on and engineered really well. They put a lot of money in. Many clubs put cash into the interior - making things look nice - and then buy a shit sound system, which is completely backwards. But fabric has been built around the sound ... it's what they're known for. So, you can play any dubstep tune there and it will come across how you want it to."

 

Did Caspa visit fabric before he played there? "Strangely enough, no," he states. "Never. The first time I went was as a DJ. So, that was kind of mad. In between then and now I've been loads. Friday is usually drum & bass, breaks and dubstep and then Saturdays is house and techno. Every night I've been to has been good. If you don't like what's in room one, you can go to room two. And the same goes for room three. You can't get this in any other club ... you can always find a wicked DJ in fabric."

 

Caspa and Rusko's fabriclive mix CD is clearly one of the highlights of the catalogue. "Fabric are very artist-friendly," Caspas explains. "They don't control you. They like to work with artists and give them the opportunity to be who they are. They just said, 'we want this CD, please give us a track listing'. They rolled with whatever we gave them. At the time, there were no CDs with straight dubplates like that. It did really well for us and for them. For fabric to put a lot of time, money and effort into it - and believe in us - was important. It showed me what they were about straight from the get-go."

 

It's as if the powers that be at fabric share the same enthusiasm and respect for underground DJs as the people that go to their club.

 

fabriclive.37 - Caspa & Rusko [Mix CD]

 

Dub Police @ fabric - next night 15th October 2009

 

THE DJ BOOKER: Shaun

 

 

The first night ever at fabric was a drum & bass night - Bryan G's Movement. One of the guys handing out flyers at this event was to become, in the years ahead, the DJ booker for fabric's Friday nights. Shaun has been instrumental in establishing fabric's reputation.

 

"The opening night was indeed a drum & bass night," says Shaun. "The actual opening had to be postponed, so the first night we opened the doors was the one in question. During the build up I was the flyer guy for fabric and there was a hell of a lot of hype about the night. My colleague Michael Mastomic and I had been out delivering flyers all day and evening so by the time we got to Charterhouse Street it was insane. In those days the queue went the other way down Charterhouse Street.

 

"On this particular night it stretched the length of the street, back along Farringdon Road and into Cowcross Street where the tube station is. Next time you come to the club take the walk. That's a big queue. The crowd was about 15-people deep around the barriers in front of the main door and I had no idea how we were going to get in, but Steve Blonde [ex head of promotions at fabric] spotted us and managed to send some secuirty over to get us through the crowd. All he had to say about the queue was 'oops!'.

 

Exactly how integral was drum & bass to fabric's success? "It was always part of the plan," Shaun reveals. "Steve Blonde had been running a night called Passenger Royale at the 333 for some time and the format there was D&B on the main floor, breakbeat in the basement [the Plump DJs were residents] and hip hop upstairs in the mother bar. Fabriclive was pretty much Passenger Royale moved to a new venue. It was monthly to start with but soon became a weekly affair. We were all fans of the scene and had no hesitation in bringing it into the fabric fold. Not many other quality clubs were doing that at the time. The End is the only one i can really think of to be honest.

 

"Drum & bass has been an integral part of what we do here at fabriclive. Playaz has been with us since Carnival Weekend in 2000; Hospital, Breakbeat Kaos, Prototype and Metalheadz are just some of the other label nights we have worked with alongside the regular fabriclive."

 

Fabric has clearly served as a lofty platform for drum & bass music. "I gave High Contrast a residency very early on in his career because we all collectively thought that he was going places. That enabled him to play two hours in the same room pretty much every Friday at the start of the night, which allowed him to find a real sound of his own, experiment a little and become comfortable playing through a big sound system. It's great to see him up there with the top boys now."

 

What next for drum & bass at fabric? "More of the same," Shaun finalises. "D&B is always a core element of the event. It's not going to be every week, as we are having a lot of fun working with RAM and Hospital at our sister venue, matter, so we shall try some different things on the first Friday of each month. We're all looking forward to that. As usual we will be pushing the best in the scene, that we admire, whilst looking to support new talent emerging from beneath them.

 

"I have to stress that fabriclive is very much a collective effort. I have a great team here and they are all a constant source of amazement to me. You would not believe the flood of great music that they generate. It's a passion for us all and a real honour to be in a position to bring these artists together in such a great venue every Friday night. It's not your average desk job!"

 

THE MANAGER: Cameron

 

 

Now let's hear it from the MD himself - Mr. Cameron Leslie.

 

"It was always a long-term project," Cameron begins, in reference to the significance of fabric. "It's quite a hard thing to sit here and believe that it's ten years. Birthdays are always an interesting yardstick or benchmark for you to measure against your own personal ambitions of what you wanted to be, what you're doing and how you're doing it. The tenth birthday of fabric is really only another year, but that another zero has been added.

 

"However, when you're using the word 'decade', it suddenly has a slightly different resonance. In terms of us as a business, or as a collective of individuals, I think that fabric is incredibly significant because it's such an important part of our lives. Some of us have been working with fabric for 12 years, and as for Keith Reilly [fabric's co-founder] nearly two decades. Keith's plan and desire to start a venue was pretty much the first decade in itself.

 

"I think we've only ever judged ourselves (and I know it's a bit of a cliché) on last weekend. I don't mean financially or numbers-wise, I just mean in terms of how we felt we presented the shows, what we can do and how we can do things better. I think that's always been the driving force. We've got such a good group of individuals that put great events and parties on every Friday and every Saturday; week-in, week-out; month-in, month out; year-in, year-out. I think their ability to do that so often has been one of the significant things.

 

"It's inherent in us. This business has always been a magnet for attracting good, like-minded people. We're fortunate enough to have surrounded ourselves with characters who are very passionate about what they do. As I said, I can only talk about the significance for us, but obviously it's everything for us, so it is significant.

 

Fabric has become so loved over the years by DJs and partygoers alike, that it's easy to get lost in its aura.

 

"I see it as just being very normal," Cameron gives us an inside perspective. "I think the beauty of it is that you can find a brain surgeon in the venue, when you can also find an unemployed youngster from the Eastlands. There's a story that Keith likes to tell about some kid who cycled down from Colchester, which is like 100 miles away! But, the point is, this club's never been about who you are and what you've achieved or anything like that.

 

"The foundation of why fabric has done well is that it literally is for everybody. You won't find people from Big Brother strolling out at 2 a.m., or style-magazine celebs quoting it as their favourite venue. Passion for music doesn't dictate what you do for a living. On different nights, you can find some of the most peculiar characters but they're as passionate about the music as the next. That's the defining point."

 

THE AUDIO ENGINEER: Sanjeev

 

 

The man that makes the magic happen - sound engineer Sanjeev Bhardwaj - has more passion for fabric's sound system than most parents do for their children. "We're waiting for the madness to start!" says Sanjeev, barely able to contain his excitement. "Bloody big week mate! I'm one of the only staff that's been here the full 10 years."

 

Sanj is clearly fully qualified to give us a rundown on what's been going at fabric over the past decade. "It's been mad, mad, mad!" he laughs. "There have been a lot of changes. The sound; the way DJs work. Now everything is getting more computer operated. It's also more MP3-based, which is quite sad for me, but I can see why, because carrying six record boxes round the world isn't fun, especially when half the airlines are losing your records.

 

"We've got the Pioneer CDJ-2000 coming into fabric, which you can now just plug your hard drive into and play. They can function off the same HD. I must say though, that, having worked in fabric for a decade, the DJs with the most sound problems use MP3s (which cut off a quarter of the quality), and the ones with the best sets use WAVs and vinyl."

 

What equipment has been and gone at fabric? "In the old days, when we first opened, we had JBL Sound Power speakers," Sanjeev remembers. "We also had Vestax PMC-55 mixers and Vestax turntables, but there was just so much argument going on between us and agents that we resorted to Technics 1210s simply because they were industry standard. We even possessed CDJ 500 decks in 1999 but hardly anyone used them. I don't think the drum & bass guys were even touching CDs in that era. All of that equipment is gone now ... it's just memories. I think there's still one Vestax mixer lying  around somewhere, but it's in pieces.

 

Fabric remains a magnet for current technology. "We had to upgrade the sound system a year after we opened. The new Martin Audio set-up became a household name after we installed it ... those subs and speakers nearly blew the walls apart. We've also upgraded our Soundweb system [a digital technology controlling all of fabric's processing and levels] to the "London" version recently. I can walk around and EQ in the middle of the dance floor ... I can go down to individual Hz on each driver."

 

What does Sanjeev have in store for fabric's birthday weekend? "We changed all of the subs in room one three weeks ago. We put new drivers in, so that they're all fresh. They've been in there for nine years. Every night I do a speaker check. I warm everything up gently, then whack them up. One or two weren't sounding the same, because of general wear and tear. We blew the original JBL ones left, right and centre and they took eight weeks to replace. All of the monitors in this club are now brand new. In conjunction with Soundweb London, it's like, 'oh my God!' The bass is just unbelievable, mate."

 

Which DJ over the last 10 years has pushed fabric's sound system to its limits? "Andy C," says Sanjeev immediately. "But he's not a pain. I know his style well, now. He just mixes so fast and furious and runs all over the decks. Hype can get shit-hot out of it too."

 

PARTY ON

 

Now that fabric's sound system has been replaced and upgraded, it's time to dust off those sneakers and saddle up for another round of debauchery. The year 2000 was seen by many as a time of change, and as far as underground music goes, fabric helped to define a future generation. With 2010 nearly upon us, only a crazy man would bet against this club continuing to define music, fashion and culture for another decade.

 

• Fabric

Related Links:

• Appleblim Fabriclive Promo Mix
• Cosmin TRG FABRICLIVE Promo Mix
• Kasra Mixes FABRICLIVE 62
• Fabriclive 56 Album Launch Party
• Toddla T Interview

Like it? Share it!
Sign up for more with the Kmag weekly newsletter.