London Funnnnn

Some Freak vs Brut 33… aaaahhh

So I just had a nice few days in London – Pixar 3D movies and LOADS of Pop Art thanks to the Tate - goddam their recreation of Keith Haring’s Pop Shop is AMAZING! Obviously the place is like standing inside Haring-world but the MUSIC!

Keith Haring in the original Pop Shop in Tokyo

They have a little sound system CRANKING out the tunes of the day… ‘One For The Money’ by Sleeque was playing when I went in (the acapella version too!), and then Adonis’ ‘No Way Back’ kicked in… boy I wanted to stay for ever but there were huge lifesize statues of Jeff Koons fucking La Cicciolina to go and perve over so I bought some goodies and off I went…

Koons’ Big Bunny

Some other great LDN business – going to a great club called Village Underground to check Harmonic 313 x Daedelus, the delight of meeting up with Brut 33 and BBK for some Lamb’s Testicles in Dalston (they actually taste great, but I couldn’t get past the ewwww factor), subsequent killer market action with the Brutal one at the FANTASTIC Columbia Road Markets and also some quite nifty finds on a digging mission around Soho.

A rare weekend in MCR coming up; we have Brennan Green playing in town on Friday night and I ordered a bunch of crazy legal designer drugs, is all very cyberpunk, should be a funnnnn weekend!

Return to Amsterdam: A photo essay of the last 24 hours…

YES!

Get me MTV on the phone NOW, is time to start playin fuckin music videos on that station again…

Check THAT out! Have been keepin this on the DL for a little while but now it’s on Vimeo so is time to tell the WORLD!

Richard hooked it all up with his crazy Austrian connections… I have no idea how we get this fucker onto the TV, dunno if we even could get it on the TV. Ah, who cares! I HAVE A FUCKIN MUSIC VIDEO YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

There is just TOO MUCH to update you all on I’m afraid, I just got back from Amsterdam which was RADNESS here have a picture or 4

This is where we stayed. Our houseboat! Nice in the morning to get up and sit on the deck and watch the world float by.

Better believe it

Fucking. Purple. Weed.

Nice to see ol’ Ronnie representin’ for SITP

WHAT ELSE well a few weeks ago I saw Paperclip People at a really shit festival in London, later on that night ended up at a KILLER club called the Corsica Studios, is behind Elephant and Castle, two rooms, warehouse vibes, beautifully tuned Funktion 1 rigs in both spaces. We were at an Innervisions/DFA party which was wonderful, great tunes and nice vibe.

Yeah just super busy with Ruf Dug stuff mostly though, working on a new EP, I finally got me some decks and have been getting my DJ skills back… there will be some fresh Ruf Dug DJ mixes coming through, as well as the long-delayed (and delayed again cos I spunked a load of cash in Amsterdam) edit 12″ and then I think it will be time, finally, to start hustlin’ for some gigs.

I’ve never really done it before – hustled – my policy in Sydney was to NEVER ask for a gig and I pretty much managed that, I think I asked maybe 2 or 3 times early on if I could play somewhere but everything else I did was always by invitation. I liked it better that way, it took a while but eventually the gigs came and I never had to feel like I was whoring myself.

But here it’s different – there are more nights, more DJs and I am nowhere near as connected as I am in Sydney. So I need to pimp myself out, and I’m not sure exactly how to do it and it’s doing my head in a bit grrrrrrrr… we’ll see though!

Bloooody long one aka HELLO STRANGERZ!

Invisible Motorbike

GODDAM it has been an AGE since I updated this fucker… jeez… ok let’s go chronologically…

Right then, June saw quite a few trips around; I was in Leeds for the RBMA info session which featured Joe Bataan and James Pants, both having some pretty interesting things to say. The gig that followed was a scream – Joe backed by a full band, with Mr Pants on cowbell. No shit.

Joe Bataan and James Pants

The week after I was back in London for a couple of special gigs – first up was Four Tet and Steve Reid playing live together at the South Bank centre, supported by Dorian Concept and none other than Moooooooooken who kindly stuck me and Tiago on the door (what a man, he put us both on the door PLUS THREE I mean seriously I have NEVER been +3 before, not even at my own parties) and so we invited some beautiful ladies and went on down, boy it was a great show. VERY chinstroky/wire-reading crowd – everybody was sat down on the floor cross legged! HIGHLY appreciative mob though – I was really enjoying Dorian Concept (this being the first time I’d seen him live) and was a little anxious that the crowd wasn’t feeling his twisted business, but at the end of his set he got some major applause.

Dorian Concept @ South Bank Centre

And then it was the Kieran and Steve show, again first time for me witnessing old Four Tet and boy what a great show it was. To be honest, Hebden’s electronics were completely upstaged by the drumming of this living legend. That being said though, the sound system at the SBC was pretty pants and the acoustics of the space not so great and that doesn’t really help electronics but you see some dude banging on a drum kit doesn’t matter what the acoustics are like, does it? Reid had himself a couple of natural advantages I guess. Hopefully I’ll get to witness the whole thing again in a better sounding environment. And maybe with less people sitting on the floor!

ANYWAY

After this mega show it was time to hotfoot it to shoreditch via chinatown (yum) to a carpark on hearne st where the BRAINFEEDER party was goin down. Oh yes, my dear old friend Flying Lotus was having a little party there with fuckin mad lineup – Dorian Concept once again, GLK, Joker, Kode 9 etc etc etc etc etc etc

Headz at the door @ Brainfeeder

Got there quite late and so missed samiyam which upset me a little cos I haven’t seen him before but Kode 9 was nearly over when I arrived. Got to meet up with Dorian Concept after years of emailing which was cool… Flylo came on and played a pretty good set, quite tough and ravey, he is definitely gettin into the UK sound a LOT… he played that mad DMT tune again, it’s just these beautiful big chords that sound like they were played on that crazy synth weapon out of the He-Man movie. Hmmm… should sample that.

Then Dorian jumped on and jammed with Flylo for a bit which was actually pretty exciting… they were clearly both playing/sequencing live and at first it was a bit wobbly but they found a groove soon enough and then it was pretty fun for a while… and they finished it before it got TOO noodly which was smarrrt.

Dorian played a KILLER solo set, DESTROYING the crowd and potentially upstaging FlyLo to be honest, and then it was time for Joker to take the carpark massive to a dark, ravey place, not as synthy or as purple as I was hoping for so we left…

Phew, this is a LONG recollection…

Well, after that weekend I stayed around in the south schlepping from here to there and THEN I went to goddam GLASTONBURY…

Yes, that there is Blur having it on the main stage… what a great show they put on!

Not really sure what to say about Glastonbury really. It blew my mind, I really like it, I will be going back. It definitely holds that alternate reality vibe that Burning Man has but in a different way, in a very English way. And you can buy stuff. NIIIICE food. But you also have to hike fucking miles with ALL your gear to get from car to campsite. And I can see how a really rainy one would be fucking oppressive. And Jeeeesus Christ I have never seen so many bulbs being nailed, non-stop. It is a fucking nangfest. So I fit right in obviously. 

Musically, well, fuck, who knows where to begin… good shit was Nick Cave, Blur, Spinal Tap, the whole of Shangri-La and Trash City, Easy Star All-Stars doing Sgt Peppers, Horace Andy, Little Boots DJing, Four Tet DJing (yes I saw him twice in a week!), fuck… so many good ones…

BUT

The standout for me was ANIMAL COLLECTIVE. Shit yeah it was. I have never seen them live before and they are fucking excellent. It was pretty much the best hour of music I’ve experienced all year. Serious. Their set was recorded and is downloadable – I am gonna make a separate post after this with the link. IT’S AMAAAAAAAZING.

So yes, Glastonbury chewed me up and spat me out oh yes it did… I took another 10 days off work and was originally going to hit spain for the nowhere festival but ended up staying at home – bought some monitor speakers, made some tunes, rode my bike and cooked nice food… it was a great time…

And now we’re here, a fucking wet cold Sunday in Manchester – it is slap bang in the middle of summer and it’s 14 degrees and we have the central heating on. This is why I am finally writing in the blog! Last Friday Theo Parrish came to town and I went along with a mate, oh boy what a fucking party that was – totally sold out, rammed, GREAT crowd – older, knowledgeable but plenty of pretty girls and party folk too, sense that it’s a lot of the old electric chair crew.

And Theo played all night and he was as dependable as ever and he played that LCD soundsystem remix and ohhhh he’s bloody good…

And now to the future… next Saturday is a great party – Hoya:Hoya VS Space Is The Place, with non other than DâM-FunK all the way from fuckin LA to come join us… me and Mooken and Ryan and Jonny and bloody DAMFUNK YEAH YEAH YEAHHHHHHH…. very excited about this, the Roadhouse is a special place for me, so it’s an honour to be playin there…

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is THAT… 

Exciting…

A VERY cool thing just happened…

I got an email from Chris Duckenfield with a link to a yousendit.

Clicking the link brought me a zip file with remixes of a track I’d made.

Remixes were by Chris himself, Leozero and the motherfucking Unabombers!

I am a happy man. More info soon enough…

In other news, Budapest is one of the coolest cities in the world… I was lucky enough to go there last weekend where I met up with the always wonderful Vanessa, part of my gorgeous Sydney family… ahh, was so good to connect with the fam once again, especially in such ace surrounds. Beautiful warm weather, breathtaking architecture, dope thermal bath action and the coolest squat bars in the whole wide world… oh and it’s cheap as chips and the goulash is amazing. GO TO BUDAPEST NOW IF YOU CAN…

ALSO here is a video from the squat party 2 weeks ago… what a great night that was (feels like a lot longer than 2 weeks ago also) – witness the bike-powered light sculpture and dancefloor, and plenty other weird stuff…

eeeeeeeee

Yes, it’s been a little while since an update, has been a busy little time… Mad roadtrip around England and Scotland over Easter weekend, fuckin clocked up the miles bigtime… since then been sort of relaxing but checked out two very different and totally brilliant shows – last night was Mark E at Cutloose – plenty of great 108-bpm loopy techy disco-ey club PUMPERS, quite a fresh sound, sort of bangalter/balearic/kompakt all smashing up to one another in a sexy way on loads of drugs.

Tonight was very different, went to check out Earth. Wowzers they are great live… these guys were post-rock before rock got post-ed and 20 years down the line (with a reasonably different lineup) they are playing LOOONG, SLLLLOOOOWWW, HEAVVVVY rock music. It’s REAALLLLLY SLLLOOOOWWWWWW and at that slow speed, everything becomes amplified – each lick and beat is separated, frozen in time, demanding total attention on account of being so isolated… and of course, mistakes become amplified (not that there are any; these guys are TIGHT AS FUCK)…

Earth blew my mind – I was taken away to mystical places, rode on some bizarre trains of thought, the lack of lyrics serving only to enhance the journey experience by removing any sense of narrative to get in the way of this most epic shoegaze…

Yep, I liked. I even bought a poster.

GASLAMP KILLER next week! Can’t wait to finally check him in le flesh…

My Trip to London… a Photo Essay

Thank you London, you were fantastic once again xxx

the white stuff

Northern Europe got hammered by snow yesterday… not a huge dump and the weather wasn’t cold enough to keep the snow around for long but everyone was reduced to 6-year-old status for a while. It was so quiet and beautiful and white, and every 100m or so we’d find a bunch of people having their first snowball fight of the season.

Jonny was beside himself, getting full Narnia vibes – for most Aussies there isn’t much real-world childhood association to be had with the snow but for me it was all snowmen and tobogganing on Derbyshire hills and school getting closed (and some not so pleasant memories also of course), and all these feelings were being evoked strongly for the first time in a long time.

I have missed the snow! It is so wonderful to be properly reunited after such a long absence.

This is something just as beautiful as the snow. Jacaszek’s Treny album is I think my favourite album of the year so far – it is just delightful. Even my mum appreciated it. This is a snippet of a staggering live performance from the group. Nice snowy vibes.

BERLIN!

 

These big pieces are everywhere...

YES goddamit it’s time to write about this fuckin place!

I’ve been here almost a month now and am starting to get a little bit of a feel for the place. I like it here!

Everything you’ve read about this place is probably true, but it’s also only scratching the surface of what this place is wholly about. For the first few days I was in total shock – life is kind of different here, and a lot of my preconceptions were blown away – and then slowly the city revealed its beauty to me, and continues to do so.

It’s starting to get quite cold now, and I’m in a great building on Falckensteinstraße with a wonderful view. My room is enormous. Space is NOT an issue in Berlin. Not yet, anyway.

 

My building (on the left)

There is lots happening in this town. LOTS AND LOTS. For the most part, however, I have been staying in, working on little schemes here and there – have finished an EP, am starting work on a live set now and the Sound Artist within me is starting to emerge which I’m quite happy about. Everyone in Berlin has schemes, everybody’s an entrepreneur – and it’s a city where there are lots of opportunities available. It has immense inspirational power, or so it seems – I’m full of ideas at the moment, as well as the energy to work toward manifesting them. And so is everybody I meet!

All these crazy folk here, interacting, sharing ideas, enthusing and building the vibe… I have yet to meet any people who are particularly jaded or elitist or too cool for school but then I haven’t really been out a massive amount.

The parties are mad here in that they always seem really well supported and go on for ever. And it’s totally true about the Germans not even going out to the club till 2 or 3 in the morning and then staying out till 10. These guys are fucking MACHINES.

I still haven’t found a totally amazing party yet – the Berlin Dub Club does come closest to being the juice. There’s a locals only dubstep night on this thursday just up the road from me – perhaps that could be the one…

Actually, my favourite thing is at a place called Madame Claude and it’s every Monday and it’s called Experimontag and I just remembered it’s on tonight. You pay between 1 and 7 € to get in (you pay what you can afford) and the bar is this tiny little basement joint that used to be a go-go dancer bar but now they have all kinds of mad shit on there. Experimontag is pretty weird – last week it was strange interdimensional folk-country courtesy of Daniel Higgs and the week before that they had a crazy electronic trio, with one of the group using cassette tapes and effects. I made a short video of them…

Anyway, this talk of madame claude has got me all itchy to go out and check it out, so I think I will… more posts soon about this mad place; I idiotically thought I’d just write one post and that would be Berlin all wrapped up. Heh.

Highlights

 

Deep Space at Cielo. Oh how I love thee

OK, I thought about doin loads of different reviews of all the stuff I’ve seen in the 4 months (!) since leaving Sydney but instead here is a list, which I recognise puts this more in the category of boasting than anything resembling critical analysis but I need to get this out of the way so I can then start bangin on about the present and the future.

So in a vaguely chronological order, here goes…

NICE THINGS SI REMEMBERS FROM LAST 4 MONTHS

• Hearing ‘Voodoo Ray’ on my first night out in Manchester in nearly 10 years
• Going to FWD at Plastic People
• Playin with Tiago at the ICA in London
• Catching up with my old dear friend Mike in Brighton
• Playing in the Smoochdome at Burning Man. My first ever residency!
• Motherfucking.Deep.Space.At.Cielo (both times)
• DJ Harvey and Gerry Rooney playin weird shit at Love
• High Places in some dirty warehouse in Williamsburg
• Back to Plastic People to check out Theo killing it (and our eardrums you fuckin maniac)
• All the fucking ART
• Paris. All of it. The people, the place, the shows, even the smell of piss that permeates the place. Aaahhhh. Definitely gonna live there at some point.

So there we go. Has been a great trip so far, and now it’s time for Berlin… here’s the view from my window:

 

Lookin out my window...