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Alan Fitzpatrick


Fri, 20 Jan 2012  /  1 Comment
The Southampton (UK) techno producer talks to Basic about the scene on the south coast and working with Adam Beyer, ahead of his debut New York show this weekend.

Tue, 18 Jan 2011  /  Post a comment
Ahead of his first scheduled appearance at the club this coming weekend, fabric's blog chats with the UK techno producer who also provides them a with a 15-track mix.

Sun, 05 Dec 2010  /  5 Comments
Please see below, a little something i typed up to share the crazy weekend myself (Alan Fitzpatrick & Dustin Zahn) had last weekend. I feel it needs to be shared haha! thanks. Al
Well, where to begin.

Ok, so 26th November I played Tripod in Dublin with DAVE Clarke. Dustin Zahn was also playing in Dublin on the same night but at a different club. Both gigs were great and all was going perfect.

I leave the club and to my surprise there is snow on the ground and thunder and lighting in the sky. Immediately I get nervous thinking about my early morning flight to Berlin for the biggest party of the year - drumcode total @ Berghain.

A short walk from the club and I arrive at my hotel and get my head down for a few hours before my 9:30 wake up call.

Phone rings, it's 9:30am. I stumble over to the window and guess what.. White pavements and slushy roads, great.
So I try not to think the worst and jump into the shower. Shortly after this the hotel reception call again and say they have a call for me, it's the driver phoning to apologise and say that he can't make my pick up time of 10am due to the snow and road slush blocking him from getting into the city. Great.

I then call the lobby and hope hey can get a cab from the city to me for 10am. They can...

Meanwhile I should mention that Dustin is also playing at berghain with me for Drumcode and we are meant to be on the same early flight from Dublin to Berlin. While I am in the process of waiting in the lobby for my 2nd attempt with a driver, I just assume I'll call Dustin when I get to the airport so we can hook up.

Cab arrives on time, I jump in and head to the airport 10:05am. Traffic seems crazy but I'm hopeful that things will be fine.

I'm 5 minutes away from airport and my phone goes. It's Dustin. He tells me that he's arrived at the airport and has just been told at check in that our flight is 2 hours delayed. I panic and advise I'm on my way.

I arrive at the airport and meet Dustin. Assuming our flight is 2 hours delayed, despite the boards saying nothing, we go for food.

After 30 minutes chatting and finishing our breakfast we wander back to the check in area to see some info on our Flight. To our horror, the boards are full of delayed notices and just as luck would have it, a load of cancelled ones too. And yes..our Berlin flight was cancelled. And better still, it's the only flight to Berlin on this day.

We both curse and look at eachother like "what the fuck do we do now"

Glancing to the left of us we can see the aer lingus ticket office and in front of it, a long barrier streching back a good 100 metres filled with at least 300 angry confused passengers. Our only choice was to join this queue and try to speak to someone.

Everyone in the queue has their own agenda, stuck, cancelled, wanting to get home, go on holiday or travel for business. Me and Dustin are just thinking of one thing, how can we get to berghain. ?

An hour passes and it's now nearly 12pm and we get to the front of the queue. We approach the desk and explain we need to get to Berlin. The lady at the desk says it's not happening. Weather has delayed and cancelled flights so we need to wait until at least Sunday. We explain this simply cat happen so she suggests a couple of options. 1, we fly to Amsterdam and 2, we fly to London to see if we can get to Berlin from there. So after a quick think and a call to our agents/mangers, we decide London has more flights so we get a ticket on the 15:30pm flight to London. (3 hours time).

Our plan then is to get a lufthansa flight at 19:45pm to Berlin.

So we then set up camp on a couple of plastic chairs and basically clock watch for 2 hours until 14:30. Then we have another check of the board and nothing has changed, so good news our 15:30 flight looks to be on time.

With this info we decide to go through security and onto our gate. At this point some hope is restored as we are actually through security with what looks to be an on time flight.

We get to the gate, chill out and watch the screen. Another hour passes. It's not 15:30 so yes, as you guessed our flight is intact delayed, the board shows 16:30. So we sit there almost another hour and finally some crew arrive and we start to board (16:30).

We both sy and are glad to get on the flight. Eagerly watching the clock in order to make sure we have time to get to heathrow and over to the lufthansa desk to buy 2 last minute tickets.

We get on the plane and sit down. Again happy to be in the warm and on the flight.

Then along comes our bad luck again. The captain announces the main runway has been closed for de-icing and we need to wait 30 mins on the plane before we move.

I start to panic again and Dustin puts his head in his hands. Will we ever get out of Dublin ?

30 minutes passed just sat on the stationary plane and the captain announces more great news. We are now able to make our way to the runway but we are 10th in the queue. He expects it to be another 30 minutes.

So it gets to 17:25 and we finally get to take off. By this point we both thought the mission had failed and that we would be to late into London.

I'm clock watching the whole flight until we land. 18:35 and we land. I jump up and get bags from the locker and wait to leave the flight.

We charge through to baggage reclaim where Dustin waits for his bag that aer lingus made him check in...

Meanwhile I run on to try and get through arrivals and up to departures to a lufthansa ticket desk, where I pray I can buy me and Dustin a ticket.

I finally get to a desk and 18:45 and I ask the lady for 2 seats on the 19:45 to Berlin. She asks where Dustin is as she needs his passport. I explain our situation in as brief terms as possible, and that he's waiting for his bag. She sympathises and asks for my credit card. Then I get the two tickets and I'm told where to check in. I rush round the corner offend terminal and toward zone B. My phone is in hand and I ring Dustin to tell him the good news de the tickets. Be isn't to impressed and you can guess why.... His bag didn't show up, it's still in Dublin, along with his laptop charger, clothes, toiletries and CDs.

I try and put a good spin on things and get Dustin to rush to meet me at zone b and check in. We now have 35 minutes to get through security and to our gate.

Once at the gate we both make various phonecalls and SMS messages to those already in Berlin. We explain we need a charger for Dustin and that we need a driver pick up at 22:35 when we land in Berlin.

Crossing our fingers that we can get Dustin a charger so he can use traktor, we board the flight and breathe a massive sigh of relief to actually be on our way to Berlin.

Finally the captain says we are due to land in 10 mins and I can see berlins lights from the window.

We land and make our way through passport control and through to the exit where stephan the berghain driver is waiting.

After a few minutes we are in the car and on route to pick up q charger that stephan previously bought for Dustin on our request. We were very lucky.

13 hours into our journey now and we arrive at berghain 11:50pm, there is already a queue.

Dustin starts to set up and we check things are working. So far so good...

I then head off with driver to my hotel as Dustin gives the thumbs up.

I arrive at hotel and receive an SMS from Alexi delano asking to share a cab at 2am to berghain. I agree, get into my room.. Shower and have a little chuckle to myself about how crazy the last 13 hours have been. 13 is a. Unlucky number right ?

So now I'm at hotel and sorting music for tonight. It's been one crazy day but it's all been worth it, and I'm happy I made it here finally.

2am comes around in what felt like 5 minutes, I've only been in the room a little over an hour. Enough time to have a shower, sort some music and a little time with my fiancee; who has been waiting for me at the hotel in Berlin since 6pm wondering if I'll actually make it there ;)

Together we head down to the lobby to meet fellow 8 sided dice artist Chris Colburn and Alexi Delano, and jump I'm the taxi to Berghain. Suddenly the fact that I have been stressed and awake for the last 17 hours doesn't seem to matter now, as the buzz of Berghain has jolted the life right back into me.

We get to the club and I part ways with Alexi as he heads up to Panarama to play. I make my way into Berghain with the others and Dustin is rocking it. There is always a great vibe about the place and im super excited to play.

Again time shoots by and I'm ready to play at 3am-6am. I get my headphones from Dustin as he drops his last track (Aer Lingus lost his...)

A quick look at my watch and it's already 5:45am, I wish I could play all night as the sound system blows Me away every time. It's by far my favourite club to play and is also special to me as I did my Album launch party here in May. I play my last 15 minutes and hand over to Cari Lekebusch.

All that's left for me to do now is party and spend time with my friends and the rest of the DC family. It's amazing when we all play together and get to hang out.

6pm Sunday 28th November. Joesph and Adam are tearing it up. I've been in the club for the last 14 hours yet it feels like half that. Cari, Joel Adam,joesph, Ida and Slam totally smashed it, but now my body is starting to give up and it's time for me to submit. I think being awake for the last 36 hours is seriously good going though.

Once back at the hotel and my head hits the pillow I'm out...

Monday morning and it's time to fly home to London, what a fucking crazy weekend,and despite the travel problems, it's been the best and one I'll never forget.

Roll on next weekend when we do it all again, hopefully without the cancelled flights. ;)

See you soon.
Drumcode forever!


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