howdy people,
nice meeting some of you in Detroit for the shirt pickups. sorry I
didn't get there until LATE on Saturday [missed first flight of the
day by 5 minutes, which made us get into Detroit by 7:50 PM]..
As a result, saw only half of DBX, and the first song of Moby ..
after I realized it was a ploy for him to keep it real, I left..
Dan's set was dope, a little different than expected - I heard that
the 'preview' he did at Bunker / Galapagos was flooring people and
it's brevity made it much sweeter. Still, nice to see everything on
stage, being used like it should. Rarely do things get this "live"
anymore.
Sat. night I did a video / photo loop for the Hi-Tek Soul party w/
Derrick May and Quentin Harris. Rick Wilhite was actually the opening
DJ but it was unannounced - I think the turnout would have been
different if the heads knew ;) he played some good jams, but I was
running on fumes [2 hrs of sleep] and the smell of bad pizza cooking
made for an early night. I should have went soul-skating. :(
After a late Sunday brunch at Inn Season [vegan brunch, yum,
Ferndale], set up camp finally at the Hi-Tek Soul / Spectacles booth.
Being relived by the BluBuni crew [thanks guys!!] finally got to see
Magda for a bit, everyone seemed pretty out of their mind already.
Ran into Rich 'no more turntables' Hawtin [didn't see it, but not
surprised, either]... and a few others from Toronto as usual when a
M_NUS artist is on. Headed back to the main stage to hear the
beginning of Mr. Craig's set. After some interesting, yet repetitive
synth burblings, "Throw" kicked in.. then a few random sax / synth
solos, a PROGESSIon into the next song, I found myself moving on.
Granted, the last time I saw him live, along, was as BFC 1992. If
only we had a time machine.
We got out of there fairly quickly -- picked up my gear and headed
over to Juan's loft. I wasn't sure what to anticipate because
honestly, the party got bumped around.. there was an earlier
incarnation of the event which would have featured Egyptian Lover,
Buzz Goree, ana+one, and a few others. Then another variation with
Lauren Flax, Kimyon, John Arnold, and more. Then the flyer that went
to print was Juan, Terrence, DeepChord, myself, Titonton & Archetyp.
The day of the event, the lineup unveiled to me featured Juan,
Titonton, Archetyp, myself, Kimyon, Kenny Black, ana+one, "DJ
TrainRek" and some other guy playing Electro in the other room. No
sign of Rod from Deep Chord.. A bit of a whirlwind so we had to keep
it all short. I kinda flew through my set after I had all the
channels working then proceeded to drop the .xtrak stuff - a little
stressed since Dan Bell, Shawn Rudiman, Aaron Bennett, Juan and the
crew were all right there.. played some new stuff that will be out
later in the fall, including some new vocal / .xtrak things.. Juan
went on, I took a breather, came back, listened to Kimyon, then
finally took off around 6 am or so. was so out of it I drove around
in circles for another 30 min trying to get back to the Motor City
hotel.
Monday - started the day off with a visit to the crackden known as
Old Miami. Wow, what a sight.. people in various stages of ecstacy
[literally] and fatigue as things were wearing off or kicking in.
Ryan Elliott, Ryan Crosson and Troy Pierce were at their usual
duties, saw a bunch of other heads as well, some people definitely
looked like they were up past their bedtime... After listening to
various drum patterns run through Live's Delay plugins for hours,
finally moved over to the fest.. got the shirts to some more people
[thank you Bonnie, Jwan, Kim, Fred, Monica, Thomas, Tim, et all for
passing the word along!] They were still a hit amongst the non-nerds
like us.. ;)
Harassed Sam Valenti VI for a good hour, tried to find his
helicopter's on switch to give some much needed circulation in the
Ghostly tent, meandered over to Cobblestone Jazz which actually lived
up to their rep for the name [unlike the records]... Missed Derek
Plaslaiko and what I heard was an amazing set by Josh Wink.. heard a
few minutes of Dubfire [a certain public enemy song comes to mind],
then checked out Kevin Saunderson for a while. Despite the ravers
[does anyone know what these people do for a living, aside from
raving professionally?], he played some tough tunes, yet I have no
idea what the interface was [guessing Traktor, but I never saw his
hands on the decks or CDJ - just the mixer only]... regardless he
seemed to be having the time of his life.
Around 12 AM motivated out of the hotel to The Works, for a few hours
of Dan & Zip dropping one dope track after another.. there were
rumours of some guests but the first room didn't open up.. An
enjoyable time and great place to recap with a nightcap. ;)
I left at 4 AM, on a plane by 6:30 AM. Ugh.
But well worth it.
some documentation.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sines/sets/72157605321938749/
PS. if you're on Facebook, Ed Luna has some photos of the loft party
as well - maybe I'll be able to share them on Flickr soon.
PPS. Shirts are packed and are going out this weekend... sit tight!
+odd
