Armin van Buuren Photos

This past Sunday night, I got a chance to see Armin van Buuren in Halifax, Nova Scotia, courtesy of Underdog Productions. I wasn’t actually playing on the bill that night, I just went to relax and take some photos. It was my first night using a new camera (a basic Canon XSi digital SLR), but I managed to get a few decent shots. Here's the link:

http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_armin2009a.html

I owe a big thanks to Armin for being so accommodating with the photography.



Armin has been ranked by DJ Mag as the #1 DJ in the world for the past couple of years. To lend credence to this assessment, consider this: his signature A State Of Trance radio show is listened to by thirty million fans - every single week. Wow. I’ve had my website online for about seven years and I’ve only had around fifteen thousand mixes directly distributed during that time (although I’m sure with pass-alongs, the number is probably a lot higher).

Armin is Dutch. He’s got a law degree, but wanted to give up that career to pursue his love of music. He’s a producer, who has a number of huge hits, both as singles and from the several albums that he has self-produced. He doesn’t use an engineer – he does all of his own production work. He loves his fans, and is always happy to sign autographs and shake hands at the end of his shows.

Some of Armin's well-known hits include Love You More, Blue Fear, Exhale, This World Is Watching Me, Communication, In And Out Of Love, Burned With Desire, Serenity, and Yet Another Day (and a few of the older tracks in this list have only been officially released on YouTube very recently, so they haven't had a lot of views yet). But that's only a very short list of tracks that I could quickly find videos for. For a full look at his portfolio, check out Discogs. The list of work that he has produced is simply staggering.

Check out his website at www.arminvanbuuren.com

Record Pool Picks, January 2009

Here are my picks from the smaller Richmond Record Pool shipment in January. Now that Christmas is over, I hope that we'll start seeing a flood of new music in the coming months.

Live Progressive Sets:
- Elsewhere, “Stay Tuned” (Original Mix)

Mainstream Club Sets:
- AFTC, “Give Me Love” (Ocean Trench Mix)
- Pussycat Dolls, “Bottle Pop” (Dave Aude Club Mix)
- U2, “Where The Streets Have No Name” (DJ Preach Remix)

Studio Mixes:
No suitable tracks in this shipment

Warmup Tracks:
- AFTC, “Give Me Love” (Ocean Trench Instrumental Mix)
- Expected Reaction, “Feeling” (Carlos Lopez & Luigi Rodriguez Mix)
- K-Scope, “Star Kissed”


It’s hard for me to pick a favorite track for this month’s shipment. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed in the shipment this month. There was a lot of techy, glitchy, minimalistic stuff, which I don’t really play. There were several good trance tracks, but I don’t really include those in my lists because trance does not go over well in Atlantic Canada, unlike most of the rest of the world. There certainly wasn’t a lot of normal progressive house of the type that I prefer.

Anyway, despite that, there were a few good tracks. For instance, it’s really hard to do a good remix of a conventional rock song, but Preach did an admirable job with the old U2 track. And I’m impressed with the Pussycat Dolls remixes, because there were several other remixes in the shipment that crossed into radio/urban formats, and which were well done. I find that it isn’t often you find a track that translates successfully across several formats, especially when they are at significantly different tempos.

Record Pool Picks, November 2008

Earlier tonight, the power went out in my hometown (Sackville). Actually, a transformer exploded up the street and the power pole caught on fire, and NB Power ended up turning off the downtown grid for about four hours while they replaced it. During this time, I actually continued to cook at the Olive Branch. However, without electric power, I was limited to the propane stove and candlelight. At one point, I was trying to do dishes with a flashlight nestled between my head and shoulder. The light was shining into the dishpit, so between shining it into the slightly murky middle sink full of water, and then shining it into the left compartment where I was spraying steamy water, I suddenly realized that I should write a blog posting about the diffraction of light, and about how much I hate movies that purport to show laser beams in space.

However, I then remembered that I am weeks behind in my work, so a post like that should wait for Christmas Day, when I'm full of wine and sarcastic wit. So instead, once I was done cooking, I finished listening to the November shipment from the Richmond Record Pool, and here are my top picks of the month ...

Live Progressive Sets:
- Kurd Maverick, “All Over The World”

Mainstream Club Sets:
- Dfuse & Hiratzka, “This Is Our Time” (Obama Bootleg)
- New Order, “Faith” (Bootleg)
- Solange, “Sandcastle Disco” (Club Mix)

Studio Mixes:
- Addex, “Night Life”
- Benjamin Leung feat Amanda Sampson, “Don’t Care” (Original Mix)
- DQ’s, “I Want You Here” (Original Mix)
- Hibernate, “Feeling” (Original)

Warmup Tracks:
- DJ Borra, “Black Sun” (Andrez Remix)
- Duvar, “Parameter” (Bjoern Stolpmann Remix)
- Fei Xue, “Flying Snow”

My favorite track from this month’s shipment was unquestionably the “This Is Our Time” track. When I put together the first mix on my website ("I Await The Morning") about six years ago, I mixed a lot of political quotes over the top of some laid-back house tracks from Hooj Choons. Most of the samples that I used were from the immediate aftermath of 911, because they were the easiest ones to find at the time. Back then, the internet was a much sparser landscape than it is at the present time, at least for people looking for wave quality sound bites. “This Is Our Time” was done a lot better than my original demo mix was, and it was ironic to hear it, because when I was watching the US Election results and Obama’s victory speech at the Pub, I thought it was a very well-written speech and thought that it would be interesting to overlay samples over a track of my own (which is what happened to create this track). As one recent CNN interviewee said, Obama has what is arguably the first pop culture presidency. Unfortunately, the Pub was (and is) a bit of a disaster from the move that had happened four weeks prior to that night, so I never did have time to put this project into motion myself. Luckily, someone else did. Click on this player to listen (the player is not visible in facebook, only in my original blog):



I should also applaud the individual who put together the bootleg of REM’s “Nightswimming.” You would think that it would be impossible to successfully combine REM, a trebly version of the Amen Break, and vocal samples of a guy who sounds like he’s sticking his tongue out at you. Well, you’re probably right. However, for a few brief moments, I almost thought that this bootleg could work. I thought that it was "a good effort under duress," even though the bootleg definitely didn’t make my best tracks list. However, I'll let you be the judge ...

James Sadoway Artist Album Released

A friend of mine, James Sadoway, has just released his first full-length album of self-produced electronica tracks. And for a limited time, he's offering free downloads of the entire album here on my website:

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

The album itself has quite a bit of diversity, from deeper house to faster breaks-influenced tracks. For those who like remixes, he's got four tracks remixed from Holden & Thompson (Nothing), Ace Of Base (Cruel Summer), Gabriel & Dresden (Tracking Treasure Down), and Plummet (Damaged). Of those, I'm especially fond of the energy that James put into Tracking Treasure Down.

Of course, James also has a number of his original tracks on the album, many of which feature the vocals of Vancouver pop vocalist Armstrong Jr. Two that I enjoy in particular are "Shut Up" and "Float Like A Butterfly."

Anyway, if you enjoy electronic dance music, I suggest you download the full album and check it out. To listen to "Float Like A Butterfly," click on the player here (visible in the original blog only, not in the Facebook notes feed).

Record Pool Picks, October 2008

This was a smaller shipment, only about two-thirds the size of most months, but there were several really good tracks in here that stood out for me:

Live Progressive Sets:
- Deadmau5, “Ghosts N Stuff” (Original Mix)
- Neon Stereo, “Rock This”
- Nigel Richards, “I Will Make Party” (Original)

Mainstream Club Sets:
- Deadmau5 & Mellefresh, “Attention Whore” (Original)
- Monolythe, “Don’t Break It” (Original Mix)
- Pussycat Dolls, “I Hate This Part” (Dave Aude Dub Mix)

Studio Mixes:
- Deadmau5, “I Remember” (Original)
- Deadmau5 & Mellefresh, “Attention Whore” (Phil Chanel Mix)
- Pussycat Dolls, “I Hate This Part” (Dave Aude Club Mix)
- Rezo & Emannuel, “1749 De Emotii” (Moshic Remix)

Warmup Tracks:
- Ad Brown, “I Just Do”
- Chris Drifter feat Ronyo, “Disconnected Illusions” (Original Mix)
- Lea D, “Urban Soul”
- Moti Brothers, “Exposure” (Original Mix)
- Retroid, “Chasing Rainbows” (Retroid Remix)
- Snake Sedrick, “First Lie” (Original Mix)

You can see several Deadmau5 tracks on the list. Deadmau5 (Toronto DJ Joel Zimmerman) recently caused a bit of a scandal in the DJ world when he gave this interview criticizing DJ's. But love him or hate him, his tracks are invariably well-produced, even though his sound from track to track is fairly consistent. Of course, some people would argue that's a good thing, and others would argue a lack of growth and creativity. Anyway, I'm not sure why "I Remember" is on this month's DVD, since I thought it was released back in February. Not that it matters - it's a great vocal track, which I love.

To hear "I Remember," click on the player here (visible only in the original blog post, not in the Facebook Notes feed). Sorry, no downloads are available.

Record Pool Picks, September 2008

As you can see, I'm still behind in my music ratings. I skipped August - not trying to get ahead, but because there was no DVD of music for August. Anyway, here are the September ratings from the Richmond Record Pool, and hopefully I'll have my October picks online within a day or so.

As usual, these are my top picks out of well over three hundred tracks, and I've broken them down by the style of event that I'd probably play them at.

Live Progressive Sets:
- Aaron Joseph, “Memory Test” (Original Mix)
- Benny Maze, “Breathe” (Heck Vocal)
- Freakquencer, “Trouble & Pain” (Club Booster Burn Dub)
- Jonas Steur feat Julie, “Cold Winds” (Original)
- Maslow, “Drive”
- Vortectral, “Round The Block” (Reaky Remix)

Mainstream Club Sets:
- Alex Garelli & Anthony Nardone, “Summer ‘91” (Main Mix)
- Barclay & Cream, “Groove Is In The Heart” (Mike Misar Club Mix)
- Jaimy & Kenny D, “Keep On Touchin’ Me” (Funkerman Remix)
- Jon Pegnato & Thee-O, “Small Talk” (Original Mix)

Studio Mixes:
- Albert Keyn, “Save One Love” (BRT Remix)
- J-Soul, “Tidal”
- Neon Stereo feat Marcie, “Poses” (Original)
- Nick Detti, “London” (Original Mix)
- One World, “Isla Blanca”
- Proper Villains, “Put Me In A Box” (Faskil Remix)
- Roland Clark, “Black In My Soul” (Tiger Stripes Main Remix)

Warmup Tracks:
- Ame, “Rej” (ATFC’s Twin Cherries Edit)
- Che Dubois, “Told You” (Original Mix)
- DJ Shog, “Feel Me Through The Radio” (Inpetto Remix)
- Jarius Miller, “The Seventh Gate”
- Nick Detti, “London” (Electric Mix)
- Santiago Nino, “Invent” (Original Mix)
- Santiago Nino & Ronxxx, “Tell Me” (Original Mix)

I can't really say that I have a favorite track out of this batch, but I will admit that "Groove Is In The Heart" is a timeless classic. Yes, I know, it's cheesy mainstream club pop music, but a classic nonetheless. Love it.

To hear "Groove Is In The Heart," click on the player here (visible only in the original blog post, not in the Facebook notes feed). Sorry, no downloads are available.

Thanksgiving in Toronto

Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada (last weekend) was pretty interesting for me. I’ve been completely swamped for the past six weeks with my bar moving, so this was my first chance to get out of town in quite a while.

On Friday morning, I flew up to Toronto. I flew on Sunwing this trip, instead of the usual Air Canada. I was curious to compare the two airlines. Ignoring all the unimportant things, like the plane and the ticketing process and customer service, I focused on the really important differences: the drinks on SunWing were only $5, instead of $6 on AC. I was quite happy with this, especially after having several mini-bottles of rye. It’s not that I care about the cost of the drinks – I just feel bad for all those AC flight attendants who have to make change all the time for a $6 drink. There aren’t a lot of places to go to find some extra change when you’re at 37,000 feet.

We got to Toronto and spent a couple hours in the airport, working on the laptops and having more beverages. After that, my host (Drew Dudley) took us to Hemingway’s. We met a few MTA alumni there, and the night was mildly entertaining. Actually, that’s the understatement of the year.

On Saturday, we went back to Hemingway’s for the afternoon, to continue the festivities. I didn’t want to get too exuberant, since I had to “work” that evening. After supper, we went to Filthy McNastie’s for some beverages and to watch the hockey game, then finally we headed off to Circa for the rest of the evening. Dave Dresden was playing at Circa that night, and the whole point of the weekend was to get some more video footage of him for a short promotional project that I’m putting together for him. Click here if you'd like to check out one of Dave's promo DJ mixes.

Circa is a pretty decent club, although I wasn’t that impressed with the clientele. It was too much of a “club crowd” for my taste, and not enough of the “party” crowd of people who pay more attention to the music than to their own appearances. Regardless, the staff at Circa were pretty cool, and the club itself was set up nicely. The layout was certainly confusing, but the number of unique rooms and themes was good. The only thing that I really disliked was the DJ booth itself. The booth was very, very dark – it was really difficult to get good footage. They did bring a portable light into the booth eventually, which helped, so the night wasn’t a complete loss. However, as usual, all sorts of things were happening around us. One of the girls that we went to the club with managed to slip in some vomit and break her arm. She wasn’t too impressed with this development, needless to say, but I think she’ll look back on the incident quite favourably. It will be a great cocktail story for her a year or so from now.

On Sunday, we drove off somewhere to the middle of nowhere in Ontario for Thanksgiving Dinner. On the way, Drew stopped by a random church for photos. Now this might sound ridiculous, but I was a bit curious about this particular church. I used to be a church organist. Don’t judge me – I don’t consider myself to be particularly religious, but it was an interesting job. And someday, I’d like to buy an old unused church and convert it into a massive recording studio. Anyway, this church was a six-seater. Yes, you read that correctly. Maybe twelve if you squeezed two thin people into each pew.

On Sunday night, we had to head back to the airport, but I was really tempted to go back to Circa before we left. The lineup was good, and since I didn’t have to think about filming, I thought it would be pretty fun. Victor Calderone, Roger Sanchez, and John Acquivava all played. Thank goodness that I decided to stop into the club before heading to the airport. I have literally wanted to see John Acquivava play for about fifteen years, but have never been in the right city at the right time. As far as electronica goes, Acquivava is probably Canada’s top historical DJ, thanks to both his solo work and his work with Richie Hawtin. Well, let me say that it was well worth the time. Unquestionably, Acquaviva played one of the most enjoyable sets that I’ve heard in a long time. Here's a photo of him, looking very relaxed behind the decks:






The trip home was fairly uneventful. I was looking out the window as we were about to land and was a bit surprised to see trees about twenty feet below us as we were still descending through the fog, but the pilots quickly jerked the plane up in an emergency manoeuvre and announced on the loudspeakers a few minutes later that they had a missed approach, and would try again. Lucikly, I don’t think that many people were looking out the window at the time, because I think that some of them might have had heart attacks. Anyway, the second attempt was perfect, so I made it home in one piece, and just in time for a second Thanksgiving Dinner with my own family in Nova Scotia.