Each month I’m delighted to have to wrestle with a careful selection of events to open your mind and distract you as effectively as possible from your day-to-day. October is as promising a month as we could possibly hope for, with the return of an old friend, a special record fair and an incredible out-of-town get-down.
Joseph ‘Amp’ Fiddler has one of the most impressive musical CVs on the planet. Collaborating with Parliament and Funkadelic in the 80s and 90s, not only is he is responsible for introducing J Dilla to the MPC sampler but also counts Moodymann and Prince among his contemporaries. The 2004 album Waltz of a Ghetto Fly is a classic of modern soul, and last year he went full disco with a comeback long player, Motor City Booty. Do not miss this Detroit legend at Marula on October 21st. Buy tickets here.
Discogs have the online record resales business on complete lock, and their Crate Diggers fair comes to Fabra i Coats on the 28th. A collector’s market is the main attraction during the day, with local selectors providing the soundtrack, whilst in the evening the charming building hosts a party with Detroit soul boy Andrés, UK fiends Psychemagik, and local hero Angel Molina. The whole event is free and is frankly unmissable.
And the month terminates with one of my favourite nights: Halloween. This year someone has had the good sense to put on an event worth its salt, and that someone is no less than the club-voyeur squad Boiler Room. Setting up in the wonderfully weird Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya in Girona, the juggernauts of streaming have assembled an absolutely deadly lineup, with Kenny Larkin, the third Detroit OG to feature in this column, plus autochthonous artists S. Moreira and Dosem. I fear the event may be sold out by the time you read this, but big up yourself if you’ve got a ticket.
