Lots of tasty techno sounds to be had this coming w/end in Sydney…
Stacey Pullen & Steve Rachmad @ Rubix – Yu : 30.11.07 Adam Beyer & Joel Mull @ The Club Club – Chinese Laundry : 01.12.07
How were they?
Steve Rachmad was good, I enjoyed what he played more last time (even though there were only 12 people there). Stacey Pullen was meh, although we only stayed for the first 15mins of his set. Joel Mull & Adam Beyer were excellent! Lots of great sounds, lots of energy. It was great to catch up with them again too. I think I’m going to be getting back into the more techno side of minimal…
Awesome! Extrawelt had a really huge sound! They got quite intense at times, some great ‘techno’ moments. It was very loud, glad I had my muso earplugs in! Really glad I checked them out.
I didn’t get a good look at the gear they were using to play live, saw a couple of Apple MacBook Pro’s up there, Ableton no doubt.
It was rammed full in the Civic Theatre whilst they were playing, no space to move and groove! It was so much better with no cigarette smoke in there now though.
I really enjoyed their live set. It was fantastic to hear… Soopertrack, Titelheld, Fernweh, Drehfehler, Doch Doch, 8000 and their remix of Minilogue’s The Leopard, plus some other tracks, I wasn’t familiar with, new stuff perhaps? I really like these guys sound. Their live set sounded as good (if not better) than their releases.
DJ’s playing before and after played some tasty tracks too… Dubfire – Ribcage!
Ben Klock the other week… Glad I checked him out, heard some tasty deep minimal techno sounds. I didn’t know much of what he played. They had him playing in a tiny bedroom sized room upstairs at the Abercrombie. Hot! Not many people there. I didn’t make it to his later set at The Bunker. Heard he only played for 10 minutes before management closed up…
Yeah, I’ve been neglecting my music side of late… I should give the gaming a rest… But I’m enjoying it too much.
I’ve been out to quite a few parties over the last couple of months though, here’s some of the ‘names’ I’ve seen/heard play and some thoughts…
Ame – Mad:Classic:Fuss party at the Metro. Frank (1/2 of Ame) played quite a lot tougher and darker than I was expecting. Some great tracks. I wasn’t so into the house/vocal stuff he played. No “Rej” *sad*.
Justin Martin – Also at the Mad:Classic:Fuss party at the Metro. Some great tracks, some not so great tracks. I was pretty dissapointed in the sound quality at the Metro that night.
Matthias Tanzmann – Cool sounds, knew many. Free beer and pretzels whilst squished into the Goethe-Institut Australien as part of the German Arts Festival – Sydney, a fun couple of hours.
Stephan Bodzin – InTheMix BBQ at Slip Inn Sand Bar. Loved his dark, deep, minimal, techno sounds, DJ set.
M.A.N.D.Y – Fuzzy Killer party at The Gaelic Club>. I found these guys a bit too ‘all over the place’ musically to enjoy. Mark Murphy’s warm up set was great.
Dixon – Minimal Fuss 1st Birthday at Oxford Art Factory. Great new venue, needs more air-conditioning though! Dixon’s t-shirt said it all… “House, House, House And More F**king House”. Liked Phil, and Matt’s sounds in the little room.
Ewan Pearson – Also at the Minimal Fuss 1st Birthday at Oxford Art Factory. Only heard his first 30 minutes, didn’t really like what I heard.
Vince Watson [Live] – HaHa Industries Sub Tub (Sydney Harbour cruise aboard The Lady Rose). A fun few hours on the harbour, at night, during heavy rains and thunderstorms. After years of listening to deep minimal techno Vince’s epic, melodic techno (live set) sounded like progressive/trance. A very wet night being silly with friends. Great sounds from the locals.
Looking forward to… Ben Klock, Dusty Kid [live], Extrawelt [live], Adam Beyer & Joel Mull, Andrew Weatherall, Moodymann, and John Tejada [live] all coming up…
I’ve been a fan of The Cure on and off for more than the last couple of decades, discovering them initially through high-school friends in the 1980s, shouts to Rebecca Penberthy. Disintegration would have to be my fave album by The Cure, followed closely by The Head On The Door. I’ve had quite a few chances over the past couple of decades to go see them live, but never made it happen. Over the last couple of years I’ve listened to The Cure more than I ever have, thanks to iTunes and my iPod. So… I jumped at the chance to finally see them live when our friend Rozie offered to get tickets for us whilst we were still OS. Thanks Rozie!
Even though I was seated far from the action on stage on Friday I really enjoyed their 3+ hours live show. I was very happy to hear heaps of my fave songs: Fascination Street, A Night Like This, Pictures Of You, The Walk, Lullaby, High, Love Song, Push, Hot Hot Hot, Inbetween Days, Kyoto Song, Just Like Heaven, Primary, Disintegration, Never Enough, Friday I’m In Love, Let’s Go To Bed, Close To Me, Why Can’t I Be You, A Forest, Boys Don’t Cry and The Kiss… which sounded massive, I love how intense that song gets!
They also played quite a lot of other stuff, much that I’m not so familiar with, maybe some of the songs from more recent releases, or stuff from when I was too absorbed in dance music to pay any attention at the time. There were quite a few slow, dark, deep songs, that really brought the mood down, things you wouldn’t really expect to hear during a huge concert performance, but respect to them playing what they wanted to. I would have liked to have also heard 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing An Arab, and The Caterpillar, but you can’t please everyone. I heard they played a couple of these on Thursday night. We got Friday I’m In Love, with it being a Friday night, Thursday missed out on that.
Their whole show was full of musical contrasts, much like their music/releases. It was quite a roller coaster ride of up/down moods and varying intensities, all with a fantastic light show and projections to match. Some very clever lighting programming, each song having it’s own unique look. At times the lighting and music together was hypnotising and mesmerising. I was absorbed in it deeply, I was seeing spots for hours afterwards from that light-show too.
My only dissapointments were that there were no keyboards on stage/no keyboardists. They did have some programmed synth, keyboard, percussion parts backing many of the songs, which sounded great, but they chose to use lead guitar to play all the main string, piano, synth, brass keyboard lines in many of their well known and much loved classics. How can lead guitar replace the lead synth line in The Walk or the brass/trumpet lines in Why Can’t I Be You?!? Why didn’t they just program those keyboard/synth parts as well, or get in a session keyboardist? I’m glad they didn’t play Love Cats, it wouldn’t work without the piano. I played keyboards in a live band called Napoleon Goes Solo in Adelaide in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s which used to perform many covers of songs by The Cure, so I knew those keyboard parts/sounds very well. I was dissapointed to not hear them. Shouts going out to Neville Hill from NPG, I hope all is well.
The concert sound was great, very loud! I’m glad I was wearing my musicians ear-plugs. The mix was very well done, some very cool mix-wide effects used during some songs, making for a huge, thick, wall of swirling, dense sound, and at other times a thin, fragile sound, reflecting the lo-fi production of their earlier work. At times I felt the mix needed more bass guitar, and shortly after thinking that the bass guitar level would rise, thanks sound engineer. Roberts voice sounded great the whole performance, and everyone played really well I thought, great drummer! You could feel/tell they were getting a little tired during the last encore after 3+ hours! They must have done 3 or 4 encores, I lost count!
I enjoyed their performance. I’m glad I’ve seen them live now. I just wish I had seen them live before their keyboardists/guitarists left. Might have to hunt down some older live DVDs. Any recommendations?
Here are all the techno/minimal DJs and live acts my girlfriend and I saw during our travels in Europe/UK, on our fantastic 6 week holiday during June/July 2007.
Some of these people we saw for hours, others we only saw for minutes. We often found many of the people we wanted to see were all on at the same time in different rooms/areas. This isn’t the full line-ups of these parties/events/club nights, I’m just listing the people who we saw play.
Sonar Festival 2007 – Day 1 – Barcelona : Thu 14 June 2007 James Holden
Raum Player 2007 Music Festival – Barcelona : Thu 14 Jun 2007 Matt John, Audiojack, Ryan Crosson/Berg Nixon, Glimpse [live] Herve AK, Ripperton
Sonar Festival 2007 – Night 1 – Barcelona : Thu 14 June 2007 Narod Niki [live] (laptops based live band featuring… Ricardo Villalobos, Richie Hawtin, Mark Ernestus
…Moritz Von Oswald, Dandy Jack, Zip, Luciano, Thomas Melchoir)
Plantage 13 Night @ Moog Club – Barcelona : Fri 15 Jun 2007 Goldfish Und Der Dulz [live], Oliver Huntemann, Stephan Bodzin [live]
Intergroove Party @ Club Fellini – Barcelona : Fri 15 Jun 2007 Robert Babicz [live], Ripperton, Matthias Tanzmann, DJ T. (Replaced no-show Thomas Schumacher)
Sonar Festival 2007 – Day 3 – Barcelona : Sat 16 June 2007 Claro Intelecto [live]
Sonar Festival 2007 – Night 3 – Barcelona : Sat 16 June 2007 Devo [live], Cristian Vogel [live] JPLS [live], Tractile [live], Tadeo Vs Damien Schwartz [live] Dixon (Innervisions), Mathew Dear’s Big Hands (live band) [live]
Poker Flat Night @ Razzmatazz/The Loft – Barcelona : Sat 16 June 2007 Patrick Chardronnet [live], Guido Schneider, Agoria Vs Oxia
Minus Night @ City Hall – Barcelona : Sun 17 June 2007 Magda, Rebekah Auf
Cocoon – Offenbach (Frankfurt-Am-Main) : Fri 22 Jun 2007 Sven Väth, Sleeparchive (w/ DJ Pete) [live]
Robert Johnson – Offenbach (Frankfurt-Am-Main) : Sat 23 Jun 2007 Max Mohr [live], Optimo
Awakenings ‘Awakefest’ Festival 2007 – Festivalterrein Spaarnwoude (Amsterdam) : Sat 30 Jun 2007 Martin Buttrich [live], Joris Voorn [live], Anja Schneider, Polder [live] Mathias Kaden, Loco Dice, Richie Hawtin, Marc Houle [live] Magda, Marek Hemmann [live], Agoria, Wighnomy Brothers Bart Skills & 2000 & One, Pig & Dan, British Murder Boys [live], Green Velvet Cari Lekebusch, Adam Beyer, Steve Rachmad, The Advent [live] Dave Clarke, Joey Beltram, Robert Hood, Jay Denham
Love Family Park 2007 Festival – Hanau (Frankfurt-Am-Main) : Sun 1 Jul 2007 Sven Väth, Richie Hawtin Vs Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano
LFP 2007 After Party @ Cocoon – Offenbach (Frankfurt-Am-Main) : Sun 1 Jul 2007 Andre Galluzzi, Karotte Vs Dominik Eulberg Vs Andre Galluzzi
Minus Night @ Week12End – Berlin : Fri 6 Jul 2007 Paco Osuna, Marco Carola, Marc Houle [live], Troy Pierce Ambivalent [live]
Perlonized @ Panorama Bar (Berghain) – Berlin : Fri 6 Jul 2007 Fumiya Tanaka, Zip
Poker Flat Night @ Water-Gate – Berlin : Sat 7 Jul 2007 Argy, Steve Bug, Phonique, Martin Landsky Martini Bros [live], Patrick Gräser, Guido Schneider
Electronic Waves #2 @ Spindler & Klatt – Berlin : Sun 8 Jul 2007 Matt John, The Dose [live], Daniel Dreier, Marcel Dettman
Melt Festival 2007 (Day 1) @ Ferropolis – Gräfenhainichen (Germany) : Fri 13 Jul 2007 Onur Ozer Vs Mathias Kaden, Alex Smoke [live], Magda Marc Houle [live], Troy Pierce, Richie Hawtin, Autechre [live] DJ Koze, Tiefschwarz, Abe Duque
Tresor – Berlin : Sat 14 Jul 2007 Daniel Bell, Stewart Walker [live], Suzi Wong, Liquid, Dry
Club Maria – Berlin : Sat 14 Jul 2007 Dan Curtin, Jeremy P. Caulfield
Panorama Bar (Berghain) – Berlin : Sat 14 Jul 2007 Jesse Rose
Berghain – Berlin : Sat 14 Jul 2007 Ben Klock [live], Len Faki Vs Ben Klock, Paul Brtschitsch [live]
Fabric – London : Sat 21 Jul 2007 British Murder Boys [live], Vex’d [live], Digital Mystikz, Monolake [live] Craig Richards, Ricardo Villalobos, Omar S
Love your comment Paul! I have to say… Heathrow Airport Terminal 3 was a shocker! We’ll never depart from that airport ever again, warning… rant coming up!
We only just made our plane, due to depart at 12.30pm and we arrived at the airport at 7am! We processed our tax refunds, checked in our baggage, and then it took hours to get through all the security screening/x-ray areas. The new security measures in place at Heathrow are extreme. Some people got screened/x-rayed 3 times! It’s all random depending on what queue you chose to line-up in. So many people, so many queues!
What most annoyed us is now you’re only allowed to carry one piece of cabin baggage if you depart from Heathrow. No other airport has this limitation.
Joanne and I both had very full back-packs plus I had a record bag, and Joanne had another bag (sack) full of Europe’s finest chocolates. Our multiple bags didn’t agree with the one piece of cabin baggage policy. The solution (as advised by staff)… stick them together in a large plastic bag, and carry it as if it’s a single item until you’re through the security screening/x-ray areas. Stupid huh! How much fun do you think carrying a full back-pack and record bag together in a plastic bag in your arms is, for the hours it took to get through security?!?! Not very much! My arms were killing me!
Once we got through all of that drama we then only had about 10 minutes to look around the food, shops, and duty free area (with the other 1000s of people) until our flight was due to board.
However… the actual gate our plane was departing from had not been advised, and then was only indicated 10 minutes before the flight was actually due to depart! and it instantly showed ‘Flight Closing’! Panic! Oh, and how convenient that the gate we needed to get to was right over the other side of the terminal! We did the mad dash, then hit another queue, as every other passanger for our flight did the same mad dash. Then… another security check at the gate/lounge. But wait that’s not all… Now we’re going to cram you all into a bus to take you to the actual plane, which is… over the other side of the airport! Arghhh!
Once we were borded, we were further delighted at being delayed for 50 minutes before the plane could taxi and take-off. Arghhh!
You can imagine our mood after all that. Dark, very dark. Oh, I forgot to mention, to add to this… we also had had no sleep prior, having gone stright from Fabric (club), via a confusing early morning drive out of central London in the pouring rain, to quickly freshen up/shower up, pack up at Sandra & Mall’s place back in Lee/Greenwich, then had to drive to the airport car hire return, return the hire car, then onto the airport terminal via a shuttle bus, which was delayed by a road accident.
I sound like a whinging pom hum!
Anyway, all good now, we know for next time… avoid Heaththrow! Deep breath… rant over.
Fabric
Beta, if you’re reading, I now know why you dislike Fabric so much. The club is awesome, great spaces, excellent sound and lighting, but the crowd… is horrible. The push/shove on the dance-floor was even worse than what we had had to deal with across Europe at many clubs. Fabric has a very ethnic/mixed crowd too. B.M.B were great, very punishing, with relentless beats, a different sound to their Awakenings set, which had more broken beats, and changes of intensity, they played 4am-6.30am. Heard a little of Ricardo Villalobos on the way out, but the main room was way too packed, so packed I don’t know how people actually dance in there! He didn’t start till 5.30am! At one point we bumped into Jamie from Infusion there, which was a laugh. We heard many of the other people playing around the club for the couple of hours before B.M.B started up, didn’t like much of what we heard… nasty drum’n’bass, funky house, and grime. Dinner and drinks prior with… AC & DWC 🙂 was very nice, a fun night, lovelly to meet and chat to their guests/friends too, shouts to Rony and Maggot! It was really nice to have been invited out and to meet them. Whilst on the way out from dinner and drinks we bumped into Marc Houle and had a nice chat too.
Thanks to Sandra & Mal’s laptop I’ve had a chance to finally catch up on some Internet music stuff, iTunes, Juno, Beatport etc. Confirming some track ID’s, finding some of the music we’ve been hearing on our travels. Nice to grab some new tracks, podcasts, and mixes for my entertainment on the flight/s home.
Some of the new minimal/techno tracks we’ve been hearing out during our travels, that we’ve been loving, confirmed…
*EDIT* : Found a bunch more since getting back, added them to the list
Argy – Unreliable Virgin [Cocoon] Sascha Dive – Down Edit (Argy Mix) [Raum…Musik] Blackstrobe – I’m A Man (Audion Donation Mix) [Playlouder Recordings] Rejected – Lost [Rejected] Simon Baker – Plastik [Playhouse] Einzelkind – Spam Bot [Playhouse] Jesse Rose – Itchy Dog [Dub Sided] Troy Pierce – Lost On The Way To DC10 (Berlin Version) [Minus] Mountain People – Mountain003 [Mountain People] Curtiss Lee – 3 Fingers [Dumb Unit] Joris Voorn – Decay [Green] Pele – Childhood’s End [Connaisseur Superior] Tadeo – Eclipse [Apnea] Anja Schneider – Belize [Mobilee] Phonique – Bang [Dessous] T.G – Cave The Speakers (Konrad Black Remix) [Four:Twenty] False – Fed On Youth [Minus] Bart Skills & Anton Pieete – The Running Man [100% Pure] Holger Zilske – Enduro Disco / Aura [Leena] Dominik Eulberg – Grunschenkel (2000 & One Remix) [Traum] Marcin Czubala – Consigliere [Mobilee] Dennis Ferrer – Son Of Raw (Loco Dice Remix) [Objektivity] Martinez – Land-Crab/Angvault [Re:Connected] Vinyl – The Weasel [RebelOne] Robag Wruhme & Rolf Oksen – Dopamin [Freude-Am-Tanzen] Petre Inspirescu – Sakadat [VinylClub] Samin – Heater [Get Physical Music] Paul Ritch – Messene [Get Physical Music] Skoozbot – Next To Monchhichi [Plus 8] Simon Baker – The Fly (MyMy Remix) [Connaisseur Superior] Italoboyz – Viktor Casanova [Mothership] Shlomi Aber – Freakside [Ovum]
Mornin’ It’s our last full day in London today. We fly back to Sydney tomorrow around noon, sad our holiday is over, it’s been fantastic.
We ventured into the chaos that is central London yesterday, travelling on the train from Lee, near Greenwich, where we’re staying. We took a double-decker bus ride, not really having a plan of where to go/what to see, and wanting to escape the insane amount of people in Victoria Station and ended up near the Tate Modern art gallery/museum. We were delighted to find that a Salvidor Dali exhibition ‘Dali & Film’ is currently showing.
‘Dali & Film’ was an excellent exhibition, fantastic to finally see many of his most well known surrealism pieces, like the “Persistence Of Memory” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persistence_of_Memory the one with the melting clocks. It was really small though, it’s only about 30cm across. I love how the closer you get to his works, the more things you see, so detailed! Many of these works were not at his museum in Figueres Spain at the time we visited, although that museum was amazing regardless. The exhibition at the Tate Modern also had a number of films that Salvidor Dali was involved with, like the dream sequence in Hitchcock’s ‘Spellbound’. We saw the most amazing short animated film, called “Destino” a creation by Dali & Walt Disney animator John Hench, made in 1946. The project was abandoned as it was too controversial at the time, and has only recently been digitally brought to life. It was like a living Salvidor Dali painting, very surreal, amazing! There are some YouTube clips of it if you hunt around. We’ve seen some amazing art on our travels.
We had a fantastic time last night, catching up with a big group of old and new friends at an excellent Tapas restaurant in Islington. A really fun night! Much love to you all, was fantastic to see you all.
We also had a few journeys on the tube, packed in like sardines, sweating it up. Heavy rains and flooding caused chaos on the tube lines yesterday. I think we might try check out the Portabello Road Market, or have a look around Covent Garden/Soho, and Oxford Street today.
We’re off to see British Murder Boys [live] at Fabric tonight. We’ve been invited out prior to dinner with… 🙂 as well, excited. Also playing are… Ricardo Villalobos, Craig Richards, Omar S, Monolake [live], Vex’d [live] and more… across 3 rooms.
Much love and huge thanks to our hosts during our travels… Andreas & Iris, Gino & Carmen, Bec & Greg, Sandra & Mal. Also sending out much love to all our friends around Europe and UK. We’ll see all you Aussie friends down under very soon…
Sorry this will be quick, only got 20 mins Internet time.
Melt Festival 2007… OMG! What an amazing location for a rave/dance party, out in the middle of nowhere, amongst a heap of gigantic, massive, old, rusting, industrial, mining, digging, steal processing machines, all lit up with fantastic lighting, excellent sound and lighting everywhere, market stalls, diverse music line-up, lots of food and snacks, and cheap drinks. We stayed in a nice little German country hotel, and managed to get our own personal taxi driver Frank to take us to/from Melt, and to/from the hotel, and train station, he spoke no English, and we only know about 20 words of German, but he gave us his mobile number, and we managed to organise pick up and drop off times. The area where people camp for the Melt Festival must be at least a 6km walk away from the event, 1000s of tents! We passed it by on the way to the entrance.
Awesome music from Onur Ozer Vs Mathias Kadan, Troy Pierce, Alex Smoke [live] (I had a nice chat with him before he played, great guy!), Tiefschwarz, and Richie Hawtin as the sun came up. Autechre [live] were very abstract, and very drum and bass, and played in the dark, requesting all the lighting off, sorry couldn’t get any photos of them. Magda was all throbby bass and bleeps, not very interesting sounds. It was a very cool event, so much better than Awakenings, and we thought that was fantastic.
Worst DJ set award of our travels so far goes to… DJ Koze at Melt, who in the 15 mins we watched him… made a mess of each mix, took the needle off the wrong (playing) record twice, attempted to cover it with bad skipping needle/record scratching, and track flow was all over the place, quite dull sounds sorry to say.
Anyway… We decided to only do day 1 of Melt, and came back to Berlin yesterday to go to the new Tresor, where we saw Suzi Wong, Stewart Walker [live], and… Daniel Bell on the Batterieraum Floor, as well as Liquid and Dry in the damp bunker/underground Tresor floor.
Tresor is inside that huge industrial building, but with the renovations/fit out they have done, it feels like they’re using only about an 1/8th of it. Really dissapointed with the sound there. Crowd was very mixed, ethnic, lots of young excited kids who looked like they were hearing techno for the first time, we felt like we were in Sydney’s Gas or Home clubs. Enjoyed the music though. Berghain is a much better venue for that huge industrial building vibe. The new Tresor would have been so much better if they didn’t do anything to the building! How it was originally…
Around 4am, we went to a club called Maria, and saw Dan Curtin playing… to about 30 people (this club got raided by Police the weekend before, so maybe that’s why it was empty). We stayed for an hour and a bit, and got to meet and chat with… Jeremy P. Caulfield, we were dissapointed he had alraedy played, but… he’s coming to play Sydney later this year, woo! Great sounds from Dan Curtin, nice tough minimal and techno, great mixing and track flow.
Around 5.30am, we went to Berghain/Panorama Bar for the last time of our Holiday and saw… Ben Klock, Paul Brtschitsch [live], and then Len Faki Vs Ben Klock playing in Berghain, and upstairs in Panorama Bar… Jesse Rose. Such a fantastic vibe in this place, awesome venue, the sound systems are amazing. Lots of man love in that place, we’ve been warned, don’t venture into the dark corners/rooms you may see some very strange err…acts. The boys in Berghain banged it out with some hard techno sounds, and cleared the floor in no time at all. Upstairs in Panorama Bar Jesse Rose had a packed room jumping to his electro-house/minimal-tech-house sounds, a bit too cheesy for us at times.
Arghh, Internet time is running out… We went to the Zoo today and saw Knut, such a cute playful little polar bear. Berlin Zoo is awesome, very green, lots of shade, and you can get a lot closer to the animals than any other Zoo I’ve been to. Heaps of baby animals too! Cute!
Well… we’re off to UK tomorrow to catch up with family and friends… Hope everyone is well, thanks for reading and all your comments. Can’t believe this is the last week of our holiday.
Oh and sorry for complaining about the wet and cold, it was actually a hot 35-37 degrees in Berlin our last 2 days there.
![Simon Baker - Plastik [Playhouse]](http://users.on.net/~dmccann/images/plastik.jpg)
