Scene Report: Gribs @ Loadley's Busthouse
I went to the club — what happened next is I had a good time 👍
I’m seeing London-based DJ and artistic multi-hyphenate (her words) Gribs at Loadley’s Busthouse tonight.
I pull up looking seditious, emancipated. My pheromonal waft is so pungent you could cut it with a knife that would subsequently want to make love to me. I’m at the club.
And now I’m in it. I’m in the club and I’m swaying. I’m in the club and I swerve. I’m on the club I feel something. I’m down the club and I lurve. I lurve it, I love it. It’s Gribs. It’s Gribs playing music. Gribs is playing songs at the club, it’s undeniable. It’s for sure the case.
The songs hit me square in the mind, overwhelming my physiology the way the pong of raw and uncut sewage storms the novice gutterdweller’s sinuses. The songs sound good. The sound of these songs casts my mind back. The songs remind me of feelings I've felt. Or rather, they remind me of feeling itself. I feel the scooped out and hollowed shadow of a feeling I’ve felt more fully previously. I think this and congratulate myself on the fluid poetry of my interiority. I bask in the radiance of my big cognition.
“Mmmm.. ouuhh… yess… yummy”, I muse. The assortment of sliders, canapés and fingered foods here is chill. Divine, even. No skimping on the gold leaf, just how I like it. Just like pops used to commission, before the Culling. The service does leave a lot to be desired, but I’ll take it up with Gribs later. Catering was never her strong suit.
Speaking of strong suits, I’m clad in one right now. I’m glad I dressed up. I’m looking snazzed out; I strut around like a hopped up Pleather Daddy. Velvet on velour. Snakesin detailing. More tassel than garment. My ensemble is moisture-wicking but also water-repellant. This causes a springboard effect, where every bead of perspiration seeping from my cavernous pores is flicked from my person in a graceful arc. As a result, I am constantly trailed by a mist of wick’d and repelled sweat droplettes clouding me like a mosquito swarm. This makes me despised.
Oh well. Que sera, sera. Whatever will be — will be. The future, she's not ours to see. Que sera, sera.
Back to the Gribs set, wherein she’s playing music. She’s playing a tune that hits me hard. It’s bombass, and furthermore good. “Pfffffwooaarrr”, so think I. What is this, UK funky? Chiptune? Is this pornogrind-inflected turntableism with a dollop of alternative? I’ll leave it to the poindexters at AQNB. Whatever it is, I’m in the pocket. I’m fiending. I feel an urge to make my move.
I make my move. I descend from the skybox and stride onto the roiling dancefloor. I corner strangers at random, yelling “PLUR! PLUR!!! PLUR!!!!!”, until they agree. I quickly tire of this vacuous small talk, but at least the tunes are intoxicating. It’s time to work the DJ booth. It’s time to pull a hover.
Picture a Fabergé battering ram. Therein lies the essence of a DJ booth hover. Getting to that fabled soundstage demands a quality I term brute forceness (a portmanteau of “brute force” and “finesse”). I sophisticatedly berserk my way through the undulating wall of revellers and nightlifistas, coughing violently on my approach. I do a few reverse pickpocketings en route, slipping my business card into the clothing and openings of anyone I deem to have C-Suite Potential. “I’VE STILL GOT IT”, I think to myself. “I’VE STILL GOT IT”, I yell to myself.
Having successfully barrelled my way to the front of the stage, I arrive at the Gribs-occupied DJ booth. I scrutinise the decks. I squint critically to the point of blindness. I cross my arms sternly around my torso, wrapping them ever more tightly around my back until my hands clasp betwixt my spine, crushing one of the more cosmetic vertebrae. The more constricting the arm-cross, the more critical the scrutiny. Textbook body language. The pressure mounts, and I can feel my internal organs beginning to seep out from various orifices, which is why I unwrap my arms before they become necrotic from lack of circulation. Foresight tells me these trusty appendages will come in handy later.
Sure enough, they do. I use one of my arms and the associated hand to pull out arguably the loudest blunt ever rolled. I brandish the blunt in the direction of Gribs and her attendant entourage in a display of magnanimity. I receive no daps, recognition, or even basic human acknowledgement. I play it off. I play it off real smooth and hit the blunt au solitaire. Inhale. Deep drag. Pure Exotic Zaza. Bluntforce Trauma. Grotto-fermented Gelaterini. Pol Pot. Jamaica Homophobic. Real Ass Shit. Calabasas Alabaster Blast Cheese. Marijuahatma Ganjdhi. Sextuple OG Thrush. It’s weed.
It makes me high.
And now I’m reeling. I’m flailing and careening. I’m hacking up bile. Some kind of long-festering corrosive fluid jets from my tear ducts like the defence mechanism of a primitive reptile. I play it off with a knowing smirk. “I’m not crying”, I clarify. “It’s long-festering primitive reptilian corrosive eye fluid.” I turn my back to the booth and proceed to make unrelentingly reassuring eye contact with every single person facing the stage, smirking all the while. I make sure they all drink my smirk in fully, glorp it down, snorkel in it.
I stumble over my body-length bolo tie in the process, and Lady Gravity does what she does.
*SCHLOOMPF*
I hit the ground like a pile of barf. Using my mind, I think quickly. I play it off and pretend like I’m daggering. Yeah, it’s that kind of show. I really sell the bit. I thrust savagely into the floor like an engine piston, with no regard for penis — or balls. I sneak a glance at the crowd around me, pretending my eyes are rolling into the back of my head as if I’m attaining climax. “THIS DAGGERING HAS MADE ME ATTAIN CLIMAX”, I remark, barely stifling a wry chuckle. Gullible neeks. Cretins, stupid moron dipshits. They fall for it completely (probably).
I get up and dust myself off. I pretend to wipe down my genital area as if soaked in that famous fluid: cum. I play it off. Tonight’s a good night. Tonight we dance.