OPINION: Fabric || 20 Years Championing What’s Good
Ahead of fabric’s Australian tour, we revisit the importance of the brand’s enduring legacy…
1999 was a real watershed moment for electronic dance music. That year it became undeniable it saturated the very... um... fabric of society. ‘Superclub’ and ‘Superstar DJ’ were terms recently added to the cultural lexicon, both highly informed by the high-riding DJ Mag Top 100 DJ list. The Chemical Brothers released their seminal album ‘Surrender’, and Moby took charge of the radio with ’Play’ (which went on to become the highest-selling electronica album of all time). Other full-length efforts that year came from Underworld, Basement Jaxx, Orbital, Nightmares on Wax, Groove Armada and Leftfield, all adding to dance music's domination of radio playlists. Not to mention the outdoor festival scene which evolved from illegal raves to full-blown professional operations featuring tens of thousands of party-goers. Indeed, the UK was bumping, and London was legit the Berlin of its time.
Superstar DJ’s, here we go!
The buidling formerly known as Home Nightclub
It’s fair to say when fabric opened its doors, it did so to a 1999 drunk on dance music’s newfound popularity. There was money to be made, and promoters clambered over themselves to feed the new cash cow. Nowhere was this more obvious than the short-lived Home Nightclub.
Home featured the vintage hallmarks of a ‘superclub’: a seven-storey, 2400 plus capacity behemoth. Their resident DJ and ‘Director of Music’ was Paul Oakenfold, who according to the DJ Mag Top 100 poll was at the time the world's ‘biggest’ DJ - or to rephrase that, the world’s most marketable DJ. And being based in the middle of Leicester Square, Home acted as a huge tourist trap, many lining up in hope to be seen rather than listen. It literally was the yin to fabric’s yang. In the end, after two years of continuing issues with the local council, Home Nightclub folded, a victim of its own ambition. The echoes of its legacy is still reverberating in Sydney today.
Then there was the clubland alpha, Ministry of Sound, a legitimate destination for many international clubbers heading to the UK. MOS became one of the first brands to really commodify the global glitz and glamour of clubbing culture, not just through the flagship UK club, but through world branded events and, of course, its monopoly over the thriving DJ mix compilation. Ministry of Sound was literally dripping in models and sex appeal. Oh, and funky house.
The hallowed grounds of fabric’s main room…
Location, Location, Location
It’s in this climate that Keith Reilly and Cameron Leslie decided to do something different. They found a very inconspicuous building opposite the Smithfield Meat Market in London’s more weathered East End. It is in a blink-or-you-miss-it location that, in a very allegorical twist, is literally built underground in an old abandoned meat locker, its maze-like layout perfect for getting lost in. And as Keith Reilly explained to Resident Advisor, if you need more proof of their indifference towards mainstream dance music culture, just look at the brand’s name:
‘If anybody else had named it (the venue), it would have been The Arches or The Vault—or something blindingly obvious like that. I wanted something that had no prior connotations or associations with any other club, and I wanted it to be almost meaningless. You can make it anything.’
Fabric took the ‘superclub’ blueprint and reworked it into something more palatable. Whereas Ministry of Sound and Home felt like something straight out of a Hollywood movie, fabric felt edgy and was, literally and figuratively, underground. The club’s understated interior design was matched beat by beat through cutting-edge bookings. When fabric arrived, it was like the cool new kid in school who smoke cigarettes and listen to that band you personally don’t ‘get’ right now but probably will love two years from now.
Craig Richards
The fabric resident since its inception…
It’s all about the music
Fabric opened its doors with a selection of resident nights and DJs focused not on who was hot, but on what was good. Friday nights were handed over to the fabriclive crew who indulged in all that is broken beats. They regularly booked artists like James Lavelle, Ali B and Adam Freeland, and gave a nurturing platform for emerging producers from Plump Djs to Meat Katie to really cut their teeth. Fabric was also one of the first clubs to give drum n bass a decent platform. In no time Fabriclive became a barometer for what was popping in the global beats scene.
Saturdays were all about the flagship fabric night which favoured all shades of house - especially the heavy underground tech-house permeating the more savvy clubs. And we’re not talking the current crop of Beatport tech-house inhabiting USB sticks, we’re talking proper rolling and hypnotic tech-house pushed by DJs like Tyler Stadius and Doc Martin. We’re talking music to get lost in played by DJs who would rather stand unacknowledged in the dimly lit booth of fabric’s dark main room than worry about top 100 popularity lists.
And at the heart of it all was the fabric residents, Craig Richards and Terry Francis, who gave the famed fabric sound system a healthy rinsing and steered the club’s bookings. Notably Richards, the beating heart of fabric, quietly educated a whole new generation of clubbers towards heady 4/4. He encapsulates the club’s ethos of staying true to your creative core.
Villalobos is back
This year fabric celebrates 20 years of changing the game and enduring the superficial bullshit that led to the downfall of many others. As part of their celebrations, they will head to Australia for the very first time. Everyone’s favourite DJ, and current TWTMEGP meme sensation, Ricardo Villalobos, will headline proceedings - and he is a fitting headliner too. He has walked a long road with the club, some of their biggest and most popular events included the unpredictable selector. His fabric 36 compilation from 2007 is heralded by many as the definitive statement when it comes to modern, minimal techno. He will be joined by Craig Richards, Mathew Jonson and new fabric resident Bobby.
Fabric isn’t just a club, it’s a glowing example of staying true to yourself even if that means going against the grain. It’s a testament to shaking shit up, a celebration that being a glitch in the matrix is way more interesting than the matrix itself.
