Under The Bridge

I spent this past weekend in Seattle and Vancouver. Originally, I was going for no good reason, just because I wanted to go to a party at the Pacific Science Center on Saturday night and to visit a friend (TProphet) in Seattle. I know, that’s a unique name – but it's a long story.

A couple weeks ago, he emailed me and said that as long as I was coming out for Saturday night, I might as well DJ somewhere on Friday night. Since he is a Seattle promoter and has a full sound system of his own, he said he was going to set up an event for me. I said that I’d definitely be willing to play if he got anything together, and I asked where I might be playing. He said, “oh, maybe under an abandoned bridge.” Hm.

I got to Seattle on Thursday evening and we spent most of the night getting things organized, and doing a little bit of touristy stuff. Then, on Friday, we started getting ready for the bridge party. I won’t lie, I expected something pretty low key - maybe a pair of speakers, a dozen people, and the chance to annoy or entertain some homeless people, or to get into a fight with bikers. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The party that he and his friends pulled off was one of the most entertaining evenings I’ve ever had. After we convinced the K-9 unit at 10:30pm that the entire cube van full of sound gear we were loading up wasn’t stolen, and said that we were preparing for a nice responsible folk music concert, we hit the road. Upon arriving at the bridge, there was a flurry of action, and within about half an hour we had two full sound stages set up with power generators, propane heaters for the crowd, a small kitchen selling drinks and snacks, and an art display/sale. The equipment and sound system was better than what I’ve played on in a lot of clubs in Atlantic Canada (five bass bins for my stage alone). A couple hundred people showed up, even though it was a totally unadvertised renegade party. It was pouring all night, but we were completely dry under the bridge. With two stages, and a total of ten DJ’s playing throughout the evening, Friday night alone was worth the trip.





On Saturday, TProphet’s sound system was being used at the main stage of the party of the Pacific Science Center, so he went off to set that up while I went exploring the Seattle social scene for several hours with a couple of his friends. One of his friends in particular was quite entertaining. TProphet introduced him by saying, “this is possibly the sketchiest guy you’ll ever meet, but I mean that in a good way. Try not to end up in jail before the show.” This person, who I will leave unnamed, was quite entertaining. He was discussing his plan to take out a life insurance policy on himself, fly to Zambia to buy a death certificate in the black market, then buy a Zambian identity and passport in the black market, then come back to the States as a different person and cash in on his own life insurance policy, and then use the proceeds to tour the world as a Zambian. Or something like that. Anyway, it was an entertaining start to the evening.

When we got to the Pacific Science Center, I was extremely impressed, once again. They had a full blown party IN the Science Center. There were four stages with DJ’s from 10pm-4am, three or four full bars, and best of all, all of the exhibits were open. I had a few drinks and went straight to the planetarium, where I spent the next hour and a half looking at the stars. The butterfly exhibits were open, and there was a bar in the dinosaur room, and basically the whole place was interesting. The best thing was that the tickets were moderately expensive, which meant that there weren’t a lot of street kids, so it was a very clean and respectful crowd. This, of course, is good when you have several thousand people partying in a museum.





Seattle now ranks near the very top of my list of fun cities to visit. Click here to see more photos from the trip.

Marc Carnes in Edmonton

Last Thursday night, I was in Edmonton for the evening. I was supposed to be DJ'ing at a house party with Marc Carnes, but since I didn’t want to lug my vinyl records across the country, I suggested that he should rent a pair of CD players. I recorded part of the evening on my laptop, and I finally got around to compressing it this afternoon and figuring out all of the tracks that he played.

Marc has DJ’d for about a decade but has always used vinyl himself, so this was his first chance to try mixing with CD’s. To make things a bit more challenging for him, he had to use my music (which he was unfamiliar with), since all of his music was on vinyl. Luckily, mixing on Pioneer CDJ’s is very similar to mixing on Technics decks, because the pitch control mechanisms are designed to be almost the same. In fact, I think that CDJ’s are even easier to mix on than turntables, because you never have to worry about the needle skipping, and they hold their speed more consistently (although I can’t manipulate my placement within the track nearly as fast on the CD players).

Anyway, right-click here and choose the “save target as” option to download an mp3 recording from the evening. It’s a little over an hour long, upbeat dance music. You’d never know that it was the first time Marc had ever used CD players to play a set. Here’s a track listing:

01. Emjae feat Marcie, “Loaded Gun.”
02. Javith, Salazar, & Gil, “Kukenan.”
03. Deepologists, “History Of Electronica” (Original).
04. Marzetti, “I’m Just A DJ” (Shawn Jacobson & Jeremie Voillot Clubstompers Remix).
05. Levan, “Miau.”
06. Hedkandi, “Boogie 2Nite” (Haji Big Love Remix).
07. Tom Leeland feat Vivian Tate, “Feel My Love” (Sven Waschinsk).
08. Thee-O, “Tribal Dreams” (Original Mix).
09. Dan Sampson & Jhreal, “Solid Gold” (Thomas Penton & Jerome Remix).
10. Alibi vs Rockefeller, “Sexual Healing” (Freemason’s Vocal Mix).
11. Piece Process, “The Preacher” (Partial Vox).
12. Mike Kings, “You Want It” (Original Wanted Mix).
13. Victor Gonzales, “Better Step Up” (Bitwise Remix).
14. Dial Freaks, “28157” (Iceland Spar).

Naming Songs

I'm just going through the latest Richmond Record Pool DVD, and I'm getting a bit annoyed at the way some record companies promote themselves. Let me cut right to the chase. If you're going to name a song, use the following format:

        Artist - Song Name (Specific Remix).mp3

It is not that hard. Now I can understand someone coming up with a somewhat unconventional naming protocol if you're maybe playing around with something, or naming stuff in a hurry, or drunk. But if you're a Record Company, you need to pay attention to a simple concept. It's called MARKETING.

Let me give you an example of a "bad" job of naming a track. This is an actual example from the DVD that I'm reviewing this evening:

        drop_54_b1be_bop_DOWNLOAD.mp3

WTF? This is just ridiculous. Who is the artist? What is the track called? Why is "download" in capital letters, and what does it mean, since it's from a physical DVD? Now to assauge your curiousity, I spent a few minutes trying to puzzle it out, and the only thing I can figure out so far is that it is probably the 54th release on the Drop Records label, side B1, and the song is probably called "Be-Bop." But to be honest, after I got that far, and couldn't assign any degree of certainty to that guess, I dragged that puppy right over to the Recycle Bin (where it will not be recycled).

I'm sure there are DJ's out there who like to spend their time checking out mysterious, nebulous tracks. There is certainly a subtle appeal to a "white label" track for some DJ's. However, if I'm personally trying to quickly sort through and review 250 songs in an evening, you've just lost all hope of getting any air time from me if you don't name the song properly.

On a positive note, I'm glad to see more people starting to trade and distribute WAV files instead of 320 kbps mp3's. With the way hard drives are growing these days, it's worth the extra storage space to improve the audio quality.

Cambridge Punk Rock Show

I flew out to Vancouver last night. I’m here to do some work on “When I Grow Old,” a track I’m recording with Mike Allison, at FaderMaster Studios. One of the sound engineers and owners at FaderMaster is Shawn Cole, an old friend and roommate, who is now teaching at the Pacific Audio Visual Institute in Vancouver, helping to run FaderMaster, and doing work at a number of other studios in his spare time.

When I got into town, Shawn immediately thrust a couple beers into my hands, and said that we were going to a punk show that evening. That kind of took me by surprise, but he said he wanted to go to the “Pub 340” to see an album release show by Cambridge. It sounded good to me, so we had a few more drinks and went to the bar.





Upon getting to the bar, we had a few more rounds of drinks, and Shawn gave me some background on Vancouver’s punk rock scene. Shawn actually produced the Cambridge album, so he knew a lot of the people in the bar. Shots of Jagermeister were only $3 each (ridiculously cheap for Vancouver), so before long, I knew a lot of people too.

There were actually four bands playing, although I only saw two of them. I think Loose Tooth was on stage when we got there, and they were singing a song that went something like, “America can suck my dick, Canada’s gonna make you her bitch.” I’m not entirely sure about the lyrics – things were already getting a bit hazy by that point. And for any Americans reading this, you shouldn’t worry that this was a sign of anti-American sentiment in your northern neighbours – I think this was actually a song of affection (after all, it was a punk rock show).

I was outside while the third band played, so I missed them entirely, but we got back inside when Cambridge was about to start. Shawn got right up into the mosh pit, while I tried to stay a bit more restrained, and took photos. The band was tight, and the crowd was into the music (and seemed to know the songs very well). It was pretty amusing seeing people getting thrown onto the stage, then back off the stage into the crowd, and dancing and smashing into each other. One of the highlights was when it looked like the head of the bass player’s instrument swung around and smashed into a bottle of beer that someone was taking a drink from. I wonder if it was a member of Loose Tooth? As Monty Python once said, “Now you see the violence inherent in the system.”





The rest of the night was fairly chaotic. We ran into two guys who were getting into a fist-fight on Hastings Street, and one of them had dropped a box of pizza on the ground just before they started fighting, so I went up and asked them if I could have the pizza. I also seem to remember Shawn trying to climb onto the roof of the Price Waterhouse building, so I could get a photo of him up there, although that memory is kind of vague. Anyway, it was an interesting start to the weekend.

Looking At The Stars

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
- Oscar Wilde

It’s time for another demo mix for my website. I had meant to do this a couple weeks ago, but some other Cubase & Ableton projects got in the way. As with my last project, I mixed this one entirely on CD players - I used a Pioneer CDJ-200 and a CDJ-1000MK3 for CD players, a Pioneer DJM-600 mixer, and I recorded the audio into Adobe Audition 2.0, with mastering & compression done in Cubase Sx.


The title is very appropriate, considering what today’s date is. Today is the 50th anniversary of the launching of the Sputnik I spacecraft, which started man’s exploration of space. Ironically, there were several tie-ins to this album title. Not only did I record this mix on the Sputnik Anniversary, but the graphic that I had chosen for the mix (earlier this week) was actually titled, “Looking At Stars,” from the Exploding Dog website. As usual, I owe thanks to Sam Brown for his artistic design – his website has a ton of funny drawings on it.

All music was sourced from the Richmond Records Pool, but in contrast to the last mix, I tried to use a few more selections with story-line vocals (as opposed to short, random vocal samples). Not all of the tracks are vocal-based, but there are certainly enough to make many of the individual tracks stand out, even to people who don’t normally listen to electronica. I also tried to mix this one at a slower tempo than I usually do (127 bpm) so it seems more restrained, and less aggressive than usual. It's almost got a deep-house feeling in a few spots.

Track 01: Medway, "Trauma." [Benz & MD Mix].
This is actually an older track, which I think might have been first released in 2002 (or before?) Medway became well-known with a series of EP albums on the Hooj Choons label in the late 1990’s, and then really hit it big with their track “Release” (which I actually included on the very first demo mix that I ever published on my website). This particular mix was done by two awesome Canadian DJ/producers, Greg Benz and Marco Di Carlo, from London (Ontario). I really liked the introduction for their version of this song, so it was a perfect track to use at the beginning of “Looking At The Stars”.

Track 02: Girl Nobody, "Hello, It’s Me." [Marc Mitchell].
Girl Nobody is a Vancouver band featuring singer Marta Jaciubek-McKeever, whose works range from pop to trip-hop to dub and beyond. This particular remix was done by Mark Mitchell, a well-known UK producer. I’ve featured Girl Nobody in the past, including their “Why Am I Alone?” track on my “Dancing Baloney” mix. This is another female vocalist whose voice I love. I’m flying out to Vancouver tomorrow morning to do some mixing and mastering work on an audio project that Mike Allison & I are collaborating on, so I’m going to see if I can track down Girl Nobody while I’m there.

Track 03: Noel Sanger feat. Dauby, "My Prayer." [Original].
I think this is probably the first time that I have ever mixed two tracks on a demo without bothering to beat-mix them properly. The ending of the previous track and the intro of this track just merged so well due to the ambient noises that I did a “radio-style” mix. Noel Sanger is certainly not a new name in electronic music, having toured with BT for years, and his tracks are getting regular play from DJ’s such as Tiesto, Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, Judge Jules, and Marcus Schultz. This is the second time that I’ve used a Noel Sanger track on a mix, after using “One Drop” on “Partisan Scream Fest.”

Track 04: Neil Quigley & Nick Muir, “Feedback From The City." [Spin Science Remix].
Neil Quigley has been repeatedly tagged by John Digweed as one of UK’s top emerging talents. Nick Muir is the “other half” of Bedrock, along with Digweed himself. In this track, they’ve put together a track that I really like, which seems to be very organically deep-house influenced, in my opinion.

Track 05: Gustavo Bravetti, “Sail With Me." [Ariel Perazzoli].
Gustavo Bravetti is a Uruguayan performer/producer who is very well known in Montevideo and around South America for his live performances, not just as a conventional DJ. I’m not sure who is doing the singing for him on this track. Ariel Perazzoli, also of Montevideo, did this particular remix for Bravetti.

Track 06: BS As Deep, "The Finder."
BS As Deep is Diego Sebastian Colquhoun from Argentina. “The Finder” became a pretty big hit after it was played by Hernan Cattaneo at the Creamfields festival.

Track 07: Mike Mucci, "On & On." [Evolved Mix].
Mike Mucci is of course still well known in his hometown of Miami as a DJ, but he is increasingly spending more and more time in the studio dealing with production work for Amplitude and other projects.

Track 08: 4Mal, "Red Dust." [Dust & Ashes Dub].
4Mal is a pair of Russian producers, Anton Guzev and Evgeny Svalov. A couple of their other well-known tracks are “Where I Belong” and “Twilight.”

Track 09: Pagano, "Marvellous." [Pagano In Heaven Mix].
Pagano is an Italian DJ/producer now based out of London. The list of clubs that he has played at this year (see his MySpace page) is rather impressive.

Track 10: Deepsky feat. Jes, "Ghost." [Joe Bermudez & Klubjumpers].
Deepsky is Jason Blum, based out of Los Angeles. Ghost was a popular track earlier this year, and is certainly not Blum’s only major hit. However, I first became aware of his talents due to several remixes that he did for other artists (including Madonna, Oakenfold, The Crystal Method, and others). Jes is none other than Jes Brieden (of the group Motorcycle - with Gabriel & Dresden), and anyone who reads my blog regularly knows that I love her voice.

Anyway, go here to see the web page where you can download the mix. This is an MP3 mix, 123 megabytes in size, 67 minutes of audio, encoded at 256 kbps.

Record Pool Picks, September 2007

For those of you who follow electronic dance music, here are my favorites from the September 2007 Richmond Record Pool shipment:

Warmup Tracks:
- Alexander Miguel, “I Ol Be Back” (Original)
- Alexander Miguel, “Speed” (Original)
- Diogenes Club, “Jaunt” (Harry Peat Remix)
- DJ Bia, “Dennumarstant” (Original)
- Frangellico, “Hammelin Tales” (Original)
- Frangellico, “Sherwood Forest” (Original)
- Hyperia, “Blue” (Original)
- James Sadoway, “Never Suspect” (Stellar Mansion Remix)
- Jondi & Spesh, “I Drank It” (Real Sugar Mix)
- Openair, “Anticlimax” (Jay Cox Remix)
- Openair, “Anticlimax” (Mark Leroy)
- Paul Kwitek, “Black Ocean” (Paul Kwitek & Jonatan Tesei Remix)
- Tyler Michaud & Define Crazy, “Rock Is Dead” (Tyler Michaud Remix)

Studio Mixes:
- Adam Byrd, “Time Machine” (Original Mix)
- Elfsong, “Twisted Souls” (Downkill Remix)
- Francis Blaid, “Tweak” (RCFC Remix)
- George From The Jungle, “Rodeo Winner” (Original)
- Pavel Pryde, “22” (DC Project Remix)
- Openair, “Anticlimax” (Luke Porter)
- Paul Kwitek, “Black Ocean” (Retroid Remix)
- Python, “Cult” (Original)
- Voltek, “Babylon” (Original Mix)

Live Sets:
- Adam Byrd, “Time Machine” (Machine Mix)
- HiJackers Space, “Take My Hand” (Original)
- Pavel Pryde, “22” (Original Mix)
- Interstate, “I’m Waiting” (Tyler Michaud Remix)
- Jay Kaufman, “Bright Light Keep On Fading” (MattLok’s Darkbeat Mix)
- MattLok, “Rock The Box” (Original Mix)
- Openair, “Anticlimax” (Original)
- Victor Gonzales, “Better Step Up” (Bitwise Remix)

The Tragically Hip

I saw the Tragically Hip playing in Halifax last night at the Metro Centre. It was packed, not surprisingly. And since my blog is read by a lot of music fans who live outside of Canada, I need to do a bit of promotion here. If you’re Canadian, you can pretty much stop reading now, because you’ll already know a lot about this band. But if you want to learn more, carry on.





First, you need to know that “The Hip” are Canada’s greatest rock band. The drummer, Johnny Fay, was once interviewed by Billboard, and when the subject of being in Canada’s best band came up, he said it was, “kind of like being the world’s tallest midget.” In 1989, the band apparently did a show where they opened for Nirvana, and less than a hundred people showed up.

The group has ten studio albums to their credit at the moment (disregarding their first self-titled album, which was only an EP). If I had to pick my favorites, I would recommend their first five albums, starting with “Up To Here,” and with “Fully Completely” probably being my top choice. Unfortunately, I haven’t spent a lot of time listening to any of the albums that came after “Trouble At The Henhouse.” I need to go out and buy the others though, because I know a few of the songs on them, and I know that I'm missing out on other gems.

I’ve seen the Hip perform dozens of times. The first times were in Banff in 1990. I had a few weeks off from my summer job planting trees, so I decided to hitchhike to Banff to wash dishes in a restaurant (The Magie & Stump) to pass the time for a week. During that week, I went with a couple friends to the Silver City nightclub every single evening. There was a band playing, and I thought that they were pretty good. Nobody else seemed to agree, because except for Friday and Saturday night, there were only about ten people in the bar each night. Anyway, after seeing them the first night, I was hooked. I kept coming back, and I watched them from about ten feet away, five or six nights that week. It wasn’t until about four or five years later, when they were starting to get famous and I saw them play at Mount Allison University, that I recognized them and realized that it was the same band. Since then, I’ve seen them in quite a few full concerts, and I also saw them in a small venue in Edmonton when they did their album release for “In Between Evolution,” with just a couple hundred people invited. I have photos from that night online here:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_hip.html

An interesting thing about the Hip is that if I had to pick my favorite five songs, I couldn’t. Not a chance. I might be able to get away with my favorite thirty, but even that would be hard to narrow down. Their music and sound are solid, and even though I’m not usually one to pay a lot of attention to lyrics, Gord Downie is brilliant. The funny thing is that I don’t even know if he writes all the lyrics. I’ve always assumed so, because he is their lead singer, but that’s not necessarily true. His improvisational abilities in live shows though, are legendary.

“New Orleans Is Sinking” was one of their earliest songs, written a decade and a half ago, and it’s one of their best-known songs. However, after Katrina, many radio stations stopped playing it in deference to the residents of New Orleans. The Hip are actually playing a show in New Orleans on October 20th of this year.

Anyway, so if you like rock music, and haven’t listened to this band before, take a Canadian’s advice and check them out. If this is the first you’ve heard about them, you’re missing out on one of Canada’s best-kept secrets.

Danny Is My Friend

I just got a new music demo mix put together for the website this weekend. This is the first one that I’ve had time to do in over half a year, so it’s long overdue. This one is also pretty unique. Every other studio mix that I’ve done in the past was recorded using a pair of turntables, with vinyl records, but this is the first mix that I’ve ever done using music on CD’s. For equipment, I used a Pioneer CDJ-200 and a CDJ-1000MK3 for CD players, a Pioneer DJM-600 mixer, and I recorded the audio into Adobe Audition 2.0, with mastering & compression done in Cubase Sx.



The title is kind of random. I went onto the Exploding Dog website to find a graphic to use for the front cover of the CD case, and the very first one that I looked at was called “Danny Is My Friend.” Usually I go through hundreds of files before I find one that I like, but this one had an interesting graphic, and since two of the tracks on the CD are by producers whose first names are Danny, I thought I’d use it. Thanks to Sam Brown for his artistic design – his website has a ton of funny drawings on it.

All music was sourced from the Richmond Records Pool, so it's a mix of tribal and progressive house music, not top-40. In the past, if I made a studio mix, you could count on hearing most of those same tracks if I played at a live show. However, I’m trying to get away from that trend, so my live shows will be a little more interesting for people who have already heard my mixes from the website. Accordingly, this mix is a bit more abstract and less danceable in some places, but great for listening to when you’re going for a drive, working out, cleaning up around the house, or anything like that. I’m going to try to focus on saving the more danceable tracks for sets that I play at clubs and parties. The track listings are below, with a little bit of info about each producer, where I could find it:

Track 01: Matt Cerf, "Clearwater."
Matt originally went to McGill for agricultural engineering, but decided to move into music production instead. Now based in Los Angelos, Matt has had tracks in play on Quebec’s Music Plus network, and has released productions on labels such as Baroque, Armada, Somatic Sense, DeepBlue, and Sirup. More info about Matt can be seen at www.myspace.com/mattcerf. I like this track because of the slow and quiet introduction, which builds pretty slowly with a sporadic breakbeat until a steady 4/4 beat finally comes in with just a couple minutes left in the song. A good track to use as an opener.

Track 02: Chiba Unit vs David Phillips, "Unforgettable Time." [Desert Dwellers Remix].
Chiba Unit is a collaboration between producers David Phillips (www.thedjlist.com/djs/david_phillips) of Germany and Marcel Best (www.thedjlist.com/djs/marcelbest) of Switzerland. This track is very unique due to the vocals and the strange timing syncopations.

Track 03: Alejandro Rado, "The Dream."
Alejandro is a DJ and producer from Argentina with a regular radio show on www.tribalmixes.org. You can check out his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/alerado. This track has some trance influences, and it reminds me of an older tracks from the late 1990's, which I think might have been called "Arms Of Orion" by the Tea Freaks.

Track 04: Christian Duran, "Madreselva" [Roman Lieske 2007 Remix].
Christian is a Spanish producer who has DJ residencies at a number of clubs in Madrid & Valencia. Madreselva was originally released in 2004, and enjoyed quite a bit of chart success at the time, but I enjoyed this 2007 remix by Roman Lieske. MySpace: www.myspace.com/christianduran. Another memorable track due to the vocals. Incidentally, there are a lot of Spanish vocals on this mix, although that was more by accident than design.

Track 05: Javith, Salazar, & Gil, "Kukenan" [Tribal Remix].
Venezuelan producer Eduardo Javith (www.eduardojavith.com) has worked on productions with well-known names such as Chus, Marcello Castelli, and Bob Sinclair. I really don’t know much at all about Salazar & Gil.

Track 06: Zur-Face, "Manhattan Grooves" [Original].
Zur-Face is a pair of guys living in Bogota, Columbia, with a residency at that city’s well-known Theatron club. They’ve worked alongside other producers such as Jose Acosta, Eduardo Perez, and DC Project, and recently had a track, “Cosmopolitan Drink,” appearing on Global Underground’s Paris mix by Nick Warren (GU30). MySpace: www.myspace.com/zurface. I really like the work that Zur-Face has done, both on their own tracks and on remixes of other people tracks. I’ll probably be using their remixes in my sets fairly often.

Track 07: Danny Tuval & Vic, "La Caress" [Zur-Face Enchantement Spagnol Mix].
Danny Tuval is one of Israel’s most well-known DJ’s, having residencies at clubs in Eilat & Tel Aviv, and has shared the decks with notable DJ’s such as Junior Vasquez, Paul Okenfold, Nick Waren, Satoshi Tomiie, and Tarrantella. More info here: www.dannytuval.com/index6.htm.

Track 08: Mentalman, "Sick" [Original].
I can’t find any information about this producer. I like the track though.

Track 09: Danny Teneglia, "Dibiza" [Chus & Ceballos Midnite X-Press Mix].
I don’t even know where to begin. Danny Teneglia is unquestionably the biggest name on this demo. Originally from New York, Danny has held residencies at some of the world best-known nightclubs, and has two Global Underground mixes to his name. If there was one DJ that I could ever see performing live, it would be this man. Go to his website and look at his personal discography, and you’ll be blown away by the work that he’s done over the past two decades. Website: http://www.dannytenaglia.com.

Track 10: Tarot feat Kasey Ryan, "Conscious."
Tarot (Taro Fujita) grew up in Tokyo, but studied audio engineering in New York, before he moved back to Japan. He has collaborated with Kasey Ryan on other works too, such as “Simple Things,” a track he produced with Bob Marbach. MySpace: www.myspace.com/tarotrecords. This is the only track on the mix with any significant amount of vocals in English.

Go here to see the web page where you can download the covers or the mix itself. This is an MP3 mix, 116 megabytes in size, 64 minutes of audio, encoded at 256 kbps. I hope you enjoy it ...

Richmond Record Pool

Being a DJ, one of the things that I am constantly doing is looking for new music to play in my sets and mixes. One of my best sources for new music these days is the Richmond Record Pool. For those of you who aren’t familiar with how record pools work, what essentially happens is that a director for the pool works full-time to collect new tracks from various record labels all over the world. Each pool is targeted to a specific target audience or genre, so for example, the director for a pool specializing in house music wouldn’t be looking for new tracks from rock bands. And this is a two-way operation – the record companies work with the pool directors to distribute the right music to the right people. Anyway, each pool has a group of members (DJ’s) and every month, the director of the pool sends copies of all the new music out to all of the DJ’s in the pool. These DJ’s pay a small monthly service fee for belonging to the pool, to cover pool expenses and a small remuneration for the director. The DJ’s then review all the new music and provide feedback to the record labels about each track. The labels benefit from getting useful feedback about the production on each track, from people who are experts in the field. They also get the benefit of having the DJ’s promote their favorite new tracks in the clubs, which eventually means better sales for some of these tracks once the general public starts hearing the music. The DJ’s benefit too, because it gives them a big advantage in getting new music (at a very low cost), usually long before it is available to the general public. Not everybody is allowed to become a part of these pools. The whole point isn’t to distribute the music to the average Joe-on-the-street; a pool’s goal is to get the music to the most influential people in the industry.

The Richmond Record Pool has about thirty DJ’s as members. All are Canadian, and this particular pool targets “progressive house” and “club house” music (my description), and they're also quickly expanding the amount of "tech house" and "electro" that they service to members. The DJ’s live in various urban centers across Canada (except for myself). Nick Nonsense and I are the only Atlantic Canadians that belong to the pool, and there is at least one DJ from Montreal, but most of the rest are from Ontario and the West Coast. The pool is administered by director Josh Bowman, who usually sends out between 150 and 250 tracks to the DJ’s in each monthly shipment. Here’s a link to the pool website:
http://www.richmondrecords.com

Incidentally, I’m actually a member of the Pool East organization too, which is a Halifax-based pool that distributes music to thirty bars & DJ’s around Atlantic Canada. The music that I get from that pool is more geared to a Top-40 crowd, which is good for the university Pub. There is some overlap between the pools, and I sometimes use music that I’ve learned about from Pool East in my own sets at other venues.

Anyway, since I’m reviewing the RRP music every month, and since my main blog (disregarding the Facebook feed) originates from my DJ website, I’m going to try to put a posting up every month with a listing of my favorite new pool tracks from the month. After all, I should talk about music occasionally. Most of the Facebook readers may not be interested in this info, but a lot of my normal blog readers will be. In these posts, I’m basically planning to separate the tracks that I like into three categories:
1. Live Sets – Tracks that I would play in a live set in a club or at a party, to a busy dancefloor. A fair number of them will have vocals, and I’ll usually be playing them at speeds of between 130-134 beats per minute.
2. Warmup Sets – Tracks that I would play earlier in the evening, before the dancefloor gets too crowded. There will be less energy to these songs, and I’ll usually play them around 126-129 bpm. Not many vocals, but interesting music nonetheless, with a consistent back-beat.
3. Studio Mixes – Tracks that I would put into studio recordings that I make to hand out as demos, or to put on my website. Some of these songs might be tracks that could be included in a live show or a warmup set, but I tend to pick more unique songs for my studio mixes nowadays, with more frequent breakdowns in the middle of the tracks, etc. If I’m listening to a studio mix, I’ll usually do it when I’m working out or driving someplace by myself, so I don’t mind the breakdowns. In contrast, I try to avoid playing too many tracks with long breakdowns when I have a crowd on the dancefloor, so they don’t lose their energy.

Since I normally play progressive house tracks in my sets, with a little bit of house if it isn’t too frivilous and bouncy, my monthly favorites will fall into that style of music. There are often songs in the monthly listings that I think would be great house hits in a top-40 oriented club, but I might not pick those for my own sets. Also, sometimes there will be more than one mix for a particular song. For the non-DJ’s, a different “mix” just means a different version of a song. Sometimes, mixes can be very similar to each other, and other times, they can sound like almost entirely different songs. You’ll eventually notice that sometimes, I’ll pick one mix of a particular song for use in a live set (maybe a vocal mix or “vox” mix), whereas I’ll use a different mix of that same song in a warmup set (maybe an instrumental or “dub” mix, which doesn’t have nearly as much for vocals).

Anyway, here are my picks from the August 2007 Richmond Record Pool collection:

Warmup Tracks:
- Avalon Superstar, “So Alive” (Boston Thunder Instrumental)
- Cadatta, “Waiting For T” (Original Mix)
- DJ Chus meets Pete Tha Zouk, “There Is A God” (Original Stereo Productions Mix)
- Jay Cox, “Panda Ear Muffs” (Original Mix)
- Masque, “Cafe Amargo” (Original Mix)
- Masque, “Moon Bathing” (Original Mix)
- Mindskap, “Twist ‘n’ Shout” (Original Tribal Mix)
- Medway, “Trauma” (Chris Micali Mix)
- Mikel Curcio, “Pain” (Nino Anthony Remix)
- Paul Bowen, “Dirty Weekend” (Disclosure Project Mix)
- Squash 84, “Neon” (Original Mix)
- Neil Quigley & Nick Muir, “Feedback From The City” (Pacemaker Dub)

Studio Mixes:
- Medway, “Trauma” (Benz & MD Mix)
- Neil Quigley & Nick Muir, “Feedback From The City” (Spin Science Remix)
- Ogi Gee Cash & Synchronized, “The Hype” (Original Mix)

Live Sets:
- Avalon Superstar, “So Alive” (Playmaker Dub Mix)
- Karl G, “Crossfire 2007” (Original Mix)
- Levon Yves Eaux & Luke Star, “Fashionized” (Original Mix)
- Nick Fiorucci feat Kelly Malbasa, “Every Time You Move” (Jerome’s Mix)
- Neil Quigley & Nick Muir, “Feedback From The City” (DJ Meri Remix)
- Ogi Gee Cash & Synchronized, “The Hype” (Nicholas Van Orten Remix)

Some Favorite Songs

I guess that a lot of people reading this know that I'm working in northern Alberta right now, on a contract for a pretty large pulp/lumber company (West Fraser Hinton). I worked the same contract last year, and it wasn't a great one at all, so I wasn't completely keen to come back again this year. The prices were low, the weather was poor, the information provided about the blocks was disorganized, and we lived in a world of mud for two months. But I'm back again, and things are going FAR better this year. I didn't think I'd like it here at all, but I swear I'm on the verge.

Someone asked me the other day what my favorite songs were. That’s a pretty hard question to answer, since it depends on my mood. When I’m DJ’ing, I usually play progressive house/electronica dance tracks. But if I’m listening to music on my own, I rarely listen to dance music, except as research. If I had to pick my favorite upbeat music to listen to, and I was limited to something like a set of five bands that I had to listen to over and over again for the next twenty years on a deserted island, I’d go with Led Zeppelin (first four albums only), Rush (early albums up to Power Windows), The Tragically Hip (from their second album up until Phantom Power), Neil Young (acoustic and electric both), and Genesis (from the “Foxtrot” to “Abacab” albums only). You’ll notice that those five picks have a tremendous amount of music released, and a huge variety of styles, both individually and as a group.

However, the question wasn’t what my favorite bands are; it was to pick a list of my favorite songs. That list changes all the time, but for today, I’m going to come up with a top ten. These songs are mostly acoustic – it’s not that I like quiet music more, but if I’m going to pick a song by any artist that stands out, I find it is usually the quieter songs that really make an impact. For instance, the Hip and Led Zeppelin have dozens of unforgettable rock hits, but I find it hard to pick a “best track” from either group. So here’s my list. I’ve picked some songs for their specific lyrics, some for their guitar or piano work, and some that aren’t even really outstanding songs, they just happen to be ones I like to listen to over and over:

1. Motorcycle, “Imagination” – the first couple picks are easy, trying to find the songs I love listening to the most right now. This track is actually by Gabriel & Dresden (of dance/electronica fame) with Jes Brieden singing. The acoustic version of this song is has an extremely simple musical backbone, but if you listen closely, the production work behind it is fairly complex, and I absolutely love Jes’ voice. I haven’t actually met her in person, but I’ll never forget her voice. This track is one that I’ve only known for about a year.

2. Blue Rodeo, “Dark Angel” – this one is sung by Greg Keelor, with Sarah McLachlan doing backing vocals. From the “Five Days in July” album. Very moody, very introspective, very free-wheeling timing and chord changes on the piano.

3. Neil Young, “Crime In The City” – there are a ton of quieter Neil Young songs that I could have picked, such as “The Old Laughing Lady,” “Thrasher,” “Needle & The Damage Done,” and “The Campaigner.” The reason I like “Crime In The City” best right now is partly because it is a long song (eight or nine minutes, I think), and partly because of the way he intermixes the acoustic guitar and sax solos (I’m talking about the acoustic version from the “Freedom” album, not the electric version from “Weld”), and mostly because of the sexy drum beat.

4. Snow Patrol, “Chasing Cars” – another Gabriel & Dresden tie-in, since they’ve done a dance remix of this (I think it was them) which I’ve heard them play in a few of their sets. I think this was also featured in Gray’s Anatomy. Anyway, it’s a pretty powerful song (although to be honest, I like the G&D remix better than the original).

5. Kansas, “Dust In The Wind” – this is the first “adult” song that I consciously ever remembering hearing on the radio when I was young, if you disregard children’s songs such as “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “The Candyman,” and disregard Christmas music. I remember a friend (Douglas Killam) and I riding in the back of my father’s pickup truck, moving a bed from my grandmother’s house in Tatamagouche to our house in Truro, and the two of us trying to sing this song. Gabriel & Dresden did a dance remix of this one too, but I’ll be honest – I didn’t really like it, and much prefer the original. The lyrics for this song are the type of lyrics that are hard to forget because of their outlook on life. This is the kind of song that I wouldn’t normally pick to listen to anymore, off the top of my head, but when I hear it, I definitely say “that’s going on the top ten list.”

6. Mike Allison, “Leavin’ In The Morning” – yes, I’m including a song by my friend Mike Allison, because I’ve always thought this track should be known internationally. I’ve even thought about trying to buy the rights to the song from him and re-recording and releasing it, but I could never do the vocals justice.

7. Matt Minglewood, “Can’t You See” – this song was originally by Toy Caldwell, I think, and has also been covered by Waylon Jenning, but I like Matt’s version the best. Matt Minglewood is from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (not too far from where I grew up), and I’ve heard him perform this song live several times at the local tavern in my town. Someday, I’m going to record an entire album of covers of some of my favorite songs, and with multi-track recording I can play the drums, bass, guitar, and piano on each track (although I will probably ask someone else to do the lead vocals). This song is definitely going to be on that album. This song was originally written as a country/Deep South song, but the way Matt sings it, it seems like it was originally written about “a farm boy from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.”

8. Jonathan Clark, “When I Grow Old” – I may be cheating to put this particular song on my list, since I wrote it myself. Usually, with songs I’ve written or DJ mixes that I’ve put together, after I’ve recorded them, I never want to hear them again. This song is an exception. I wrote it back in February, and Mike Allison recorded a version for me, and I still can’t forget it or get it out of my head. There are no public recordings of this track available yet, so you won’t be able to listen to it for another two months, but in August I’ll make a version available here from my websites, once we re-record it properly. You’ll probably see more info about this particular song in my blog in a few months, since we’ve already started filming a video for this song, for professional release within Canada and on the Net.

9. Stan Rogers, “Forty-Five Years” – well who doesn’t like Stan Rogers? Stan was from Ontario, but he’s a Maritimer at heart. It seems that if you really want to go down in musical history, you need to die in an airplane crash (think about them all: Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, some members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jim Croce, Ritchie Valens, Patsy Cline, Aaliyah, and John Denver). Stan Rogers died in an airplane accident, although the plane was actually on the ground at the time (I guess most planes eventually are, if they crash). Anyway, his plane caught on fire at the Cincinatti Airport – he was 33 at the time. Stan is also famous for his recording of Barrett’s Privateers, a fine Nova Scotian drinking song (I think I first learned this while heavily intoxicated on a Saturday afternoon at Peddlar’s Pub in Halifax).

10. Eagles, “Wasted Time” – I think Don Henley wrote this after he ended an affair with Lorree Rodkin, if I remember correctly. Anyway, it’s one of my favorite piano tracks of all time, with pretty complex chord changes and progressions, and it’s a song I’ve always loved to play on the piano as an instrumental (I find that I can’t sing the words properly at the same time, for some reason, because my mind wants to go in two different directions with the timing). And it’s a good bit of advice – even experiences that don’t turn out the way you expect can usually teach you something positive, which means that they weren’t really a waste of time.

Well, that’s my “top ten favorite songs” list for today. Some of these tracks will remain on it for years, and others may be replaced next week ...

Seattle and Vancouver

I spent a few days in Seattle last week, and then a couple more in Vancouver.

On Thursday afternoon, I arrived in Seattle. Tim Carstons picked me up at the airport, and got me to a friend's place that I was staying at. Unfortunately, that friend (Robert Walker) was in New Zealand at the time, so I didn't get to see him.

On Thursday evening, I played a full show (three hours) at En, a nice Japanese bar & restaurant that has an outlet in Seattle and another location in Tokyo. I usually play in clubs that don't serve food, so it was an interesting change get a good meal while I was playing. On Friday night, Tim took me sight-seeing for a bit and I got a chance to go to the top of the Seattle Needle, which had a spectacular view. After that, we went back to En, and I played again. However, Friday night was just a short set, and two other DJ's played too, so I actually got to sit down and enjoy someone else playing for a change.

On Saturday, I flew to Vancouver, where I spent the weekend with Shawn Cole. Shawn now owns the Lab Monkey recording studio, and he also teaches a few courses at one of the sound engineering schools in the city. Shawn used to be my roommate quite a few years ago, and was a DJ at the MTA Pub and my Assistant Manager for a while. On Saturday evening, we hit the studio and had a little bit of a party. On Sunday, Shawn had to record a group (Bend Sinister) at the Mushroom Studio, so I spent the afternoon and evening at the studio with him.

I had a flight back to Toronto late Sunday night, but unfortunately, that plane got delayed coming from Mexico, so I missed my connection in Toronto. There was chaos at the Toronto airport. Air Canada had overbooked several flights, and people were getting bumped everywhere. Now I can't fault Air Canada for overbooking a flight slightly, because that's a reasonable business decision since there are usually a couple of no-shows on each flight. However, some of these flights had apparently been over-booked by several dozen people, and a lot of the people in the airport were extremely pissed. Add to that the fact that it was snowing, and the airport was also having problems de-icing enough planes, and it turned into a generally bad day for air travel. Luckily, I am the most patient traveller in the world, so I just bought a couple books and hung out in the corner.

Throughout the day, I managed to get bumped off seven different flights. The last one was a bit of a disappointment - I was actually given the very last seat on the plane, on standby, and I was a couple feet through the gate when the passenger who owned my seat showed up at the last second and I got called back. I was a little annoyed at that, since there were no flights open on Tuesday, which meant that my choices were either to spend another day and a half in the airport, or to take a flight to Saint John and hitch-hike home in the middle of the night (since the bus station would be closed by the time I arrived). I had asked for a seat on the Saint John flight earlier in the afternoon, just to be safe, and my luggage was checked for that flight. However, after I got pulled away from the seventh Moncton flight, the agent said to hold on, because there was one more flight to Moncton that I hadn't known about. When that flight finally got ready to go, once again a bunch of standby people got the first half-dozen empty seats, then my name was once again called for the very last seat. How's that for luck?

Now I just have to wait for my luggage to arrive from Saint John, although I always take my records as a carry-on so I don't have to worry about losing my music or headphones.

Tokyo, Japan

After visiting Osaka, I spent a few days in Tokyo. While I was there, I stayed with Kevin Snedker, a good friend of mine who used to be the Assistant Manager at the MTA Pub while he was at university. Kevin has been teaching English into Tokyo for the past couple of years.

We took the Shinkansen (the bullet train) from Osaka on Monday morning, and ended up having drinks on the train to get the trip started. When we got to Tokyo, we didn’t have anything planned until supper, so we mostly relaxed for the afternoon. After supper, we walked around the city for a while, then we spent several hours having dinner and drinks at The Lockup, and I met several of Kevin and Danielle’s friends. Several of them were Canadians or Australians who are working for a company called Nova, teaching English in Japan, and I also met Danielle’s friend Yuka.

Naturally, I didn’t get to sleep until about 7am, so I got nothing accomplished on Tuesday morning. However, in the afternoon, I walked around Tokyo, and Kevin took me to the Meiji Shrine. This was a large park area in the middle of Tokyo, with a large Shinto shrine in the middle. After Meiji, we spent several hours walking around the Electronics District, then went for dinner on the 49th floor of the fourth tallest building in the city. The view was incredible, and I was lucky enough to get some really good time-exposure photos of Tokyo at night. After dinner, we went to a couple bars, and again, stayed up pretty much all night.

On Wednesday, I slept for most of the morning and afternoon. I played at Velours that night, which was a fashion bar with a very high-class clientele. The venue was gorgeous, with chandeliers and comfortable couches everywhere, and the place was full of fashion models and other notable people. I played from 1:30am to 4:00am, and it was probably the most fun I've ever had playing a show, just because the venue was so different than most of the several dozen other places that I've played in.

Here are some photos from the trip:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_tokyo2007a.html

Unfortunately, on Thursday, I had to get ready to move on. The four-hour trip to the airport in the afternoon was a bit of an adventure, but I made the plane with a little bit of time to spare. The neat thing about the flight was that I left Tokyo on Thursday at supper, and I was booked to DJ in Seattle on Thursday evening. However, flying across the International Date Line moved me backwards by a day, so I arrived in Seattle at lunch on Thursday.

More notes to come shortly about Seattle and Vancouver …

Osaka, Japan

I flew to Osaka (Japan) this past weekend for a show. Although I’ve travelled pretty extensively before, this is my first time in Asia, so it’s been a great adventure so far.

I started by trying to fly to San Francisco for a visit on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, I flew through Montreal and then Chicago. I got to Chicago with no problems, but when I arrived there, I found out that there had been a huge snowstorm there the previous day, which had cancelled over a thousand flights. It was really nice outside at the time, with very little snow on the ground, so I didn’t really think that there were going to be any problems. However, when I got onto the plane, the airline eventually said that they couldn’t fly us to San Francisco because there were no pilots left in the airport – the pilots for our flight had been diverted to fly another plane earlier, to help catch up on the backlog of stranded passengers.

This didn’t seem like it would be a problem – they said that they were going to fly in a different crew from New York to take our plane to San Francisco, so the delay would only be a few hours. However, by this time, the storm had moved so it was over New York, which meant that it took a couple hours longer than expected for that crew to get out of LaGuardia. By the time they arrived in Chicago, the airline decided that those pilots couldn’t take our plane to San Francisco, because it would put them over their daily flight time limit. Our entire flight ended up getting cancelled, which was a disaster because that put all of us into the huge pool of people waiting to fly stand-by. I then ended up getting bumped off or passed over for the next four flights to San Francisco, as the airline tried to slowly catch up on the backlog.

In the end, I did get to San Francisco, but not until after midnight (about twelve hours later than expected). I was a little disappointed by that, because that was the stop on the trip that I was looking forward to the most. However, on a positive note, it was the one night on the trip where I could mostly easily deal with not showing up. Hopefully I’ll be able to reschedule for a visit later this spring, or maybe right after the summer ends.

The rest of the trip went smoothly, and the flights to Vancouver and then Japan were uneventful. We crossed the International Date Line, so it suddenly became Friday afternoon instead of Thursday afternoon. I was a bit nervous getting into the airport because my passport was only valid for two more months and Japan requires a foreigner’s passport to be valid for six months from the time of arrival. However, I had the itinerary to prove that I had a flight already booked to leave the country a week later, so that didn’t turn out to be a problem. Dan Elliot from the Oasis Lounge picked me up at the airport, and took me directly to his club, where I started to orient myself to the Japanese culture. A few hours later, a friend of mine (Ian Warney) showed up. Ian is a DJ and is living in Osaka teaching English. We went out for a night on the town, and I met a bunch of people that evening.

On Saturday, I spent the day touring around Osaka, and taking photos. That evening, I played at Oasis, which turned out to be a very fun night. Ian found me again on Sunday night and we went out for more sightseeing, and then we ate at a nice restaurant in a skyscraper overlooking Osaka.

So far, Japan has been great. There are far fewer foreigners here than I had imagined, but that’s about the only real surprise. The only big challenge so far has been trying to figure out the subway system. I’ve been on subways all around the world (London, New York, Paris, Moscow, and a ton of other smaller cities) but the Osaka subway has been the most confusing that I’ve seen, by far. The fare varies depending on how far you are going, and you have to buy a ticket getting on, then electronic gates scan it as you leave your destination station and don’t let you out if you didn’t pay the right fare. If you didn’t pay enough, you have to go back to another machine and do a “fare adjust” on the ticket. The Osaka (and Toyko) subway systems are not one large system, but instead are a whole bunch of separate lines run by different companies, so transfers can get complicated with ticket changes. Finally, there are very few signs in English, to make things even more confusing. However, after a few days, it was starting to make sense to me. Some of the stations are incredibly busy though – there is one station which has an average of three MILLION people per day passing through it. That’s pretty impressive, considering that the subways shut down at 12:30am and don’t start again until 5:30am.

A few other interesting notes so far:
- The cities are very clean compared to North American cities.
- There is apparently very, very little crime in Japan, and people feel completely safe and comfortable walking around anywhere in the cities.
- I have only seen a few children in the entire time I’ve been here – the Japanese must hide them away somewhere.
- I thought that I might get away with not running into anyone I knew during my visit, but on Sunday night a friend who had gone to university (Kyohei) saw me downtown and luckily had the time to spend an hour or so touring with us. That was an interesting coincidence, considering that Osaka is pretty big (nine million people, I think).
- There are far fewer Western chains than I had expected (lots of Starbucks & MacDonald’s and KFC, but that’s about it).
- A small but noticeable percentage of the population wear face masks in public and while working, either to limit the spread of diseases, or to protect them from smog & allergies.
- The amount of seafood is astounding – it is available everywhere, even as snack food in convenience stores.

Needless to say, I’ve been able to take a ton of interesting photos so far. I’ve got two photo pages up on my website now from the Osaka portion of my trip, and I’ve tried to add many more observations about Japan in the captions to the photos. Here is a link to the Osaka photo pages:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_osaka2007a.html

After I left Osaka on Monday morning, I had three days scheduled in Tokyo, so I’ll write more about that part of the trip in a few days.

Benny Benassi

I went to a Benny Benassi show in Halifax last night, at Club Rain. This wasn't really a DJ-oriented trip; I took a bunch of the Pub staff with me and we went down to enjoy the show. Here are the photos:

http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_benassi2007.html

I've been pretty slack with blog posts lately, since I've been so busy in the past four weeks. I'm leaving on Wednesday morning for a short tour, and I'll be visiting San Francisco, Osaka, Tokyo, Seattle, and Vancouver. I'll try to get as many photos as I can at each show, and hopefully I'll be able to take the mini-disc and record all of the sets for my website.

New York City

I just got back from a weekend in New York City. I went down to visit a friend of mine, Polly, who works in Research at Mount Sinai. I had been asking her questions a few weeks ago about a club called Pacha, and she suggested that I come down and see it myself. We figured that the 27th/28th would be the best weekend for me to visit, and ironically, it turned out that Gabriel & Dresden were playing at Pacha on Friday night. Small world.

I got to the airport on Friday afternoon, and since Polly was at work until 5pm, I just hung out in the airport for a few hours, listening to music and doing some work. That's when the next coincidence happened - I ran into Gabriel & Dresden at Laguardia. I talked to them for a few minutes, then headed downtown shortly afterwards.

I met up with Polly and the first thing we did was to get some alcohol for the weekend. After that, we ordered sushi for dinner, then went out to a pizza place to meet up with one of her friends. Later that evening, we eventually we made our way to Pacha. Pacha was a decent sized club - it had four levels, and I would say that it probably held about 800 people, as a guess. I'm not sure, but I think that the cover charge for regular guests off the street was $30. Drinks were $9 for bar shots like rum, and $7 for beer, so it was quite a bit more expensive than most Canadian bars, but not out of line for a big club like that. The lineup at the coat check was huge, which I laughed at because I didn't bring a coat. Of course, being a bar manager myself, I spent quite a bit of time looking at the logistics and operations of the club. I was pretty surprised to see that they had (I think) six bartenders working at each of the two main bars. My place would have two bartenders, or sometimes three, for the same volume of alcohol that was being served at each bar. But at least those bartenders looked a lot more relaxed that we are when we're serving.

Needless to say, the lighting systems were incredible, and the sound was decent throughout the entire club, not just on the dance floor. Gabriel & Dresden played from about midnight to 5am (I think the bars stop serving alcohol at 4am, but then they can start again at 8am). I was talking to Josh for a bit up in the DJ booth during his set, and they looked like they were really having fun playing that night. Their set was quite a bit different than when they had played in Boston - to me, both nights sounded great, but this set sounded more tailored to a dance club crowd, with more vocal tracks and mainstream tracks, whereas at Rise it had seemed more like a set for an afterhours club crowd (not surprisingly).

On Saturday afternoon, Polly took me for a partial tour, including Ground Zero, the ferry to Staten Island, Wall Street, and around other parts of Manhatten. Later in the evening, we went to a place called Crocodile NYC. This bar was insane. It had a crowd about the same size as my bar on a Saturday night (250 people), but it was less than a third the size. It was absolutely impossible to move around, or to get drinks quickly. To make things even more interesting, they gave out a free pizza with every beer, so for $20, we eventually got four large glasses of beer (two Stella & two Guiness, I think) plus three 12-inch cheese pizzas. It was a minor fight for me to finish the two beer and two pizzas, but I managed eventually, and was hungry for more. The bar was ridiculously warm, probably partly due to the crowds and partly due to the 700-degree pizza ovens in the back of the bar. Anyway, it was a pretty neat place, and obviously a lot of other people thought the same thing, considering the crowds.

After Crocodile, we went to a venue called Shelter, which was more of an after-hours type of club than Pacha had been, although they did serve alcohol. Cover was $25, bar shots were $8, and beer was $6. There were a whole bunch of good DJ's and producers performing that night, including D:Fuse, D-Formation (I used a couple of his tracks on my last mix), and Tone Depth (from Montreal). There was also another DJ who I had never heard of before, Chloe Harris. I was quite impressed by her set, so it was good to learn about her. The lighting system upstairs at Shelter was pretty impressive too. I wish that I'd been able to get some decent photos, but it wasn't possible with my camera.

On Sunday, we went for Chinese food in the afternoon, then did some more touring after dinner. We met a couple of my old friends from university in front of Virgin Records in Times Square, and we went up to the Marriot Marquis for drinks with them. After that, Polly took me to a fantastic Mexican restaurant for dinner. I've eaten Mexican food in a lot of places (including Mexico), but this was definitely some of the best that I've had. Of course, I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but I'm not going to forget the food.

I have photos from the trip on this page:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_newyork2007a.html

The only sad part about the weekend was that there was so much more to see that I didn't have time for, so I'll have to go back as soon as I get a chance ...

Tour-Tech Trade Show 2007

I was at the Tour-Tech show this weekend in Halifax. The show itself was ok. I didn't see as many revolutionary computer products as I did last year, but then again, I concentrated on the conventional audio seminars all day, rather than going to any of the video seminars, which is a field that is arguably advancing much more quickly right now. For instance, I went to seminars on topics such as microphone placement, PSM's (personal in-ear studio monitors), designing sound systems for churches, etc. Nothing really that exciting, but useful sessions.

Here are a few photos from the show:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_tourtecheast2007.html

Anyway, even though the trade show itself was fairly uneventful, we had an interesting time the night before. We went out to visit a few bars and have a few drinks. The bar that I work at is being rebuilt in 18 months, so I was asked to take some photos of other venues, to help come up with some design ideas. One of the guys I was with (Darren Wheaton) runs a couple of the other bars in my hometown, so he was equally curious to go on tour.

We walked past a bar downtown called the Seahorse Tavern. Several people had mentioned this place to me before, but I could never think of where it was. When I saw it, I figured it would be a good place to visit, so we went inside. I was pretty surprised to realize that I had actually been in it before, many times: it was the first bar that I was ever in, many years ago, although it was operating under a different name at the time. In fact, I have many funny stories from that very bar. For instance, one night, a few of us got more intoxicated than usual, and I woke up the next morning sleeping on the Bluenose II, in the Halifax Harbour. I have no idea why I was there - maybe an RCN press gang? Luckily, it was still tied to the dock.

Anyway, the bar wasn't exactly hopping that night, but there was a blues band playing, so we stayed for a while. The band itself wasn't bad, although I have no idea who they were. The lead guitarist looked like Wolfman Jack, and played pretty tightly. The drummer was consistent, and made funny faces throughout the show. The bass player looked sort of like Mr. Clean, and he was pretty quiet and unobtrusive in the background, but he was very, very tight in his timing, so I was pretty impressed. He also played on a fretless bass. The rhythm guitarist, however, was the really interesting character. During his first few songs, he didn't seem that notable. His timing was so-so, but he looked a bit nervous, and played some fairly uninspired solos when given the chance. However, after four or five songs, he suddenly warmed up and honestly ended up stealing the show.

What really got me laughing was the fact that he had a wireless pickup, so he was able to walk around the crowd while he was playing. He also had so many effects on his guitar that he didn't really have to strum the strings while he was soloing - he could just push the strings up against anything, such as a nearby table, and get decent sound. As he wandered around, he came up to this "crusty old seadog" - an aging weather-beaten sailor with a greyish-blond beard and a cap slung down low - who was pretty much passed out with his head on the bar. Anyway, the guitarist started playing by wildly rubbing his guitar against the crusty old seadog's head, while the guy was still passed out! The crowd went wild. It was definitely the funniest thing I've seen in quite a while ...