The event is held in Shoreditch Park (head North from Old Street towards Essex Road junction with New North Road and you’ll see it on the right hand side before Gainsborough Studios/Gainsborough wanky flats).

Thanks to 1234shoreditch.com for the photo of their scenester-fest of 2007.

25th July is the date and with early bird tickets still worth a peck at £15 (including entry to 10 afterparties – obviously all running concurrently so not as ideal as it sounds) – so what you waiting for?

With the Horrors and Final Fantasy both at Field Day this year, I might be going for the East London high-jinx hattrick of Lovebox, Field Day and 1234.

This will eventually be a permanent link somewhere on the site.

Best Bars & Clubs in North & East London

Image courtesy of Paul Stott’s blog (which we have now linked to on the sidebar).

The Hackney Post was set up recently by some post-grad Journalism students from City University and I quite like it. It has a slick design and ultimately bringing Hackney news and issues into the internet age.

I am currently in self-enforced exile from East London, as a consequence, I am going through a new wave of appreciation of all things East.

So congrats to all involved, we’ve hooked up a permanent link if you should ever feel inclined to get the latest in Hackney goings on.

Oh yeah, and Simian Mobile Disco are rocking up as well. If you haven’t already got a ticket, get one because I guarantee you’ll be dancing all day and night finding “your new favourite track” on an hourly basis. Here’s one to get you started:

[See post to listen to audio]

If you can’t make it today, here’s Skull Juice latest radio installment which puts you half way towards having your own little house party.

[See post to listen to audio]

Away from the DJ side of things, there are some interesting acts playing. Regular readers will know that Mystery Jets and Laura Marling are firm favourites of ours, so it’ll be good to see them again. The NME hype machine will be in full flow as Lightspeed Champion, Foals and Wild Beasts roll into town, if I’m honest, none of which do a great deal for me (aside from Foals – French Open). By the time Rob Da Bank takes the stage at 7pm, there will still be 12 hours of partying to be had considering the afterparty ends at 7am at the End! Expect to bump into characters like this…

If the sun comes out, I predict Of Montreal will have an epic set with their unique brand of camp experimental rock.

As a sucker for a generous helping of scuzzy guitar, my one to watch is New York rockers Les Savy Fav and ask yourself; what would wolves do?

Let us not dwell on our shortcomings, as life is simply too short to indulge in such a lengthy endeavour. No, let us turn to the events of the weekend just past and revel in the sheer brilliance of what was the Paradise Gardens Festival held in the abundant greenery of Victoria Park, Hackney. I take my bobble hat off to the councils involved and those who helped to deliver such a breathtakingly enjoyable and feel-good event.

Take my hand and I will recant my experience of the sensory odyssey that was the event.

It’s not often you’re greeted in a park by a Knight riding a 10ft tall Troll or watch a precession of 12- foot butlers with musical instruments for heads (see below) trot eerily past you but this was the very start that we encountered upon entrance to Paradise Gardens.

Whilst we gathered our bearings after this surreal beginning we wandered the stalls offering wares from bongos to helicopters (made out of reclaimed tin cans) then moving on to eats from all corners of the globe from fajitas to falafel, from chicken tangine to jerk chicken with hardly a morsel of World food missing in between. On the first day we plumped for chilling on the grass and listening to the tunes from the main stage which proved to be an excellent choice in retrospect considering the first day (Saturday) had the best weather. After lying down for a long period of time reading Culture Jam, it felt pretty amazing to stand up and look around at the swelling crowd to see a sea of smiling, happy people to quote the oft-derided REM. Scensters pruning next to liberal 30-something parents being painfully smug next to hippies who were tuned in next to punks who were skanking next to rastas…the list goes on. The common denominator of all the diverse people there was that they were massively enjoying partaking in some of life’s simpler pleasures.

The Irregulars themselves can testify (after playing both a hotly contested game of Chess and Swingball) that maybe this neo-luddite thing has some legs after all. I also have to admit that there was a fairly broody smell in the air when we checked out the “bongo school” where little kids from all parts of the World were getting some pretty good beats out of the assorted instruments under the unbelievably enthusiastic direction of the dude in charge.

The tea dance tent provided some old school lulz in terms of classic showmanship and theatre whilst also providing some unconventional lulz when we caught sight of some of the folk trying to learn to Charleston. We nearly ran out of Victoria Park during the Avant Garde Dance group’s performance in one of the wooded area of the Park when their tribal-influenced performance came running straight at the assembled crowd!

To put the icing on this wonderfully diverse cake, there was also Carter’s Steam Fair in attendance which had your usual selection of favourites from bygone years. The Irregulars showed the World that they weren’t quite as good at shooting/playing darts/throwing balls/throwing baseballs/catching ducks as they may have made out previously. However, one thing we were immensely good at was getting our teacup to spin round at near-physically impossible rates, much to the admiration of the onlooking crowd.

All-in-all, sublime fun for all. Bravo you council folk – perhaps I will give you less grief going forward. However, if you think you’re going to get a rooftop bar on the top of Industry Bar on Curtain Road you’ve got another thing coming!

The Dolphin – open late, pretty big, massive smoking garden and fairly bohemian clientele. A current favourite to end a night out in purely on the basis that it’s bigger than Dalston Jazz Bar. I’ve met some real space cadets here and I mean that in the nicest possible way. If you’re tired about talking about getting on the property ladder and the fucking smoking ban come out to these parts and talk about Russian peasantry and its impact on future fashion trends – yep, this happened.

Dalston Jazz Bar – This place is pretty much like having a party in a storeroom cupboard – it’s miniscule. The bar is pretty weird and the DJ box looks like it was made for Bilbo Baggins. There are two toilets in the literal sense of the word, therefore expect some serious queuing. Last time I was in the queue I pitched a book idea to some publishing dude and he gave me his card, so it’s not all bad news (the bad news for him was that I made the book up on the spot and couldn‘t remember it the next day when he called!). Although don’t let the lack of space fool you – you know that wise soothsayers believe that we built this city on rock and roll? Well the jazz bar is built on VIBE. It is the kind of place that due to it’s intimate nature and music policy that when the right crowd is in there it ends up like some apocalyptic hedonist party and you then go back to some house in Stoke Newington and have really kinky out-there sex with a Dutch cartoonist only to wake up and realise she’s actually Welsh car radio tunist.

Broadway Market – Eclectic wares to be uncovered around here, plenty to keep you occupied on a cold winter afternoon. Warm up with a strawberry beer in the toasty and inviting Dove and if you really want to push the boat out, check out Santa Maria Del Buen Ayre for the best Argentinean steaks around.