Sarah Kendell gets down and dirty at The Russian's forward-thinking house night.
I have not had a night out like Colony at the Russian Bar for quite a while. If ever. A little bit like an old-school university house party, a little bit down-and-dirty East London techno bender, a little bit Eurotrash bar in the Amsterdam red-light district, this place exudes a character that seems to literally draw people off the street, despite being in quite an out-of-the-way part of Kingsland Road. Unfortunately having only jumped on the Shoreditch/Hoxton bandwagon once the glass-fronted trendy cocktail bar brigade had already moved in, I haven't seen as many of these grungy, unpretentious venues as I would like, despite being a local to the area for almost six months. But tonight, arriving at the Russian Bar's tiny, dark, hole-in-the-wall entrance, I sense this is my chance to revel in proper old-school East London style. And revel I do.
We arrive when things are still in a fairly chilled out stage, with sparse groups of people gathered around the bar, nestled on the worn sofas and lingering around the cosy front dance space, where resident DJ TBLB is already hard at work. Spinning lusciously lazy beats with a loungey, almost hip-hop feel to them, he encapsulates perfectly the early-evening mood of easing into the action with our first drinks, preparing for the electro onslaught ahead. The moderate intensity of the music gives us a chance to scope the quite colourful characters of the crowd, from suitably blinged up Russian mafia lookalikes, to unshaven, arty-looking locals to some particularly off-their-tree-looking Spanish lads who, when they find out my friend is South American, seem to think 'no' means 'si'.
The night kicks up into second with the arrival of Chicago deep house maestro M50, who delivers a brilliant set for his debut performance in the UK. Taking stock of TBLB's tasty mid-tempo beats from the previous hour, he slowly builds on the intensity whilst mashing in his own experimental style, which includes everything from tribal influences to straight electro whine. The anything-goes style intrigues the crowd, and within minutes the dance floor is twice as populated as before. The previously isolated groups at the bar begin to chat and introduce themselves, united by the building energy in the room, and more people seem to pour in as if from nowhere.
Somewhere in between fending off the crazily-dancing Spaniards, watching the mafia men conduct a suss-looking conversation in the corner and admiring the vibrant '50s hairdoes of some Shoreditch trendsters who just walked in, headliner Al Tourettes comes on and the debauchery really begins. His DJ pseudonym, while not being the most PC name in the world, is quite apt – he serves up a slab of old school, hard-dancing techno that has the crowd twitching to and fro in no time. By this hour, the old Russian is practically bursting at the seams, the trendy Hoxton kids having abandoned all pretence at sophistication and decided it's time for some good old-fashioned thrashing around in the darkness.
Every inch of the tiny upstairs bar is filled, and no-one is standing still – it's one of those late-night crowds where you wonder where these people have possibly come from and how they managed to all converge in this one tiny, cavernous space. Complete with lasers and dry ice, which I believe I haven't seen since I snogged a boy with braces after sneaking into a night club in Sydney with a fake ID under the alias of Julia McKenzie, I feel like I've definitely achieved my aim of an old-school clubbing experience. There's only one thing that could possibly make this night more seedily authentic – a trip to the kebab shop across the road on the way home. Done and done.
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