Rave rave, techno techno! I mean, studios are fun and all, but for me the real point of all this stuff is the dancefloor. Something deep inside keeps making me want to unhook all the gear, pack it up, drag hundreds of pounds of flightcases (ok, more like 250lbs total) into a car, and into a club or party, hook it up, play the techno, then do the whole thing in reverse. There is nothing finer than seeing a dancefloor moving to beats you've made, and the feeling you get guiding the techno up and up and up into a huge whirling vortex of sound, then DROPPING it... can't be adequately explained, but the rush is the most addictive thing ever. :)
Trancemission this year was lovely - a new stage configuration, more people than ever (the Burner party nearby was easily twice the size of previous years), and no shortage of awesome techno. Our crew represented gloriously.
No recordings, unfortunately... I managed to get a recording of nearly every other set but my own! The main generator broke down just before my set, knocking out the Edirol R4 recorder - apparently having backup batteries is enough to save it from a *loss* of power, but it conveniently powers itself down when the regular power is restored. Bah!
Five months in the studio, and the new 2006 liveset is ready to go!
My boys over in Alberta, the Rebel Sound System, booked me to headline a small rave for them, so off we went to Calgary, so I packed up the gear and the girl and headed over the mountains. This was the first show to use the new 2006 live rig (the mixer flightcase is gone, replaced by a closed laptop running Ableton Live). The new rig gives me a *lot* of flexibility, but of course, with growth comes growing pains. :) There were three technical issues during this set; a broken FX unit, a non-functional microphone, and at the end of the set, the power went out. Between the three problems, I managed to screw myself out of playing the two best songs in the set, and got shut down halfway through my "big ending" song. At that point I just said screw it and got DJ Anx to throw on a record.
Oh well, the reviews of the techno that *did* work were pretty good, tho I'm quite disappointed with how it went.
Booked for another "Lotus Long Weekend" show - these are always a wicked time, and this time was no different. The only downside was that we were supposed to go until 3am, and at 1am the manager came up and told us that we had to shut it down at 2am. Not so good, since I was playing last, and Ricardo Almeida had only started like ten minutes earlier. We both ended up cutting our sets short, but I felt pretty lousy about it - since I knew before I started, I could cut down my set to only the best few tracks and swing a 30-minute set. Ricardo had to cut his down live though, and didn't end up getting to play his harder faster stuff. :/ That sucked, I'm a big fan of Ricardo's livesets.
Fun set - apparently it got recorded very well, but I slacked too long on retrieving it from the guy who recorded the show, and he lost the recordings in a hard drive crash. :/ Oh well. Win some, lose some.
The Listening Room 2005 was a blast this year, as always - my third year in a row playing the Van Listening Room. This time was especially interesting, as it had a space/sci-fi theme; one of the "features" was a troupe of local Star Wars cosplay enthusiasts. It was kinda surreal partying with Boba Fett and Darth Vader, but people seemed to dig it. We got to hear excellent livepa sets from Pleasure Frequency, Evil G, the Frazzletones and GI Jody - that dome is by far my favourite place to hear live techno, expecially from those guys.
Trancemission 8 was very much like Trancemission 7 - similar awesome vibe, same location, same burner party a few hundred feet away, same wicked fun. I got to share a stage with my close friends again, and rock a crowd at one of the most beautiful partyspots on the planet. My set was at three am, and went very well. I have a short video clip from 'Rocker' that I should really put online.
These pics (taken by Erin) are sized at 1400x1150, to make for good wallpaper for my ThinkPad.
