Clubbing & Gigs « decoded

June 25, 2007

Grie Soss

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Food,Travel — decoded_ @ 12:32 am

Traditional Frankfurt-Am-Main food

Guten Tag! Last day in Frankfurt for a week or so. I forgot to mention we went and saw the movie “Oceans 13” at the only English (Original Version) cinema here the other day, we really enjoyed it, very snappy, slick, funny movie, loved the out of character banter between Brad and George near the end of the film.

Last night, Saturday night, before heading off to the Robert-Johnson club, Andreas took us out for some traditional Frankfurt drinks and food.

We went to a very well known, old, original Äpplerkneipen (apple wine inn) called Zum Gemalten Haus, over the river Main in Sachsenhausen, a quite trendy part of Frankfurt.

As you would expect, we drank a lof of Frankfurt’s national drink, Ebbelwei (apple wine), which is poured from a huge grey ceramic jug called a Bembel, and then drunk from a Gerippte, a special apple wine glass. We drank it mixed with sparkling mineral water, as it can be a bit sour and acidic drunk pure. It goes down as quick/easy as sparkling apple juice and you get drunk very easily.

For eating we had some Frankfurt specialties, I had a huge thick pork chop (salted and boiled) served on top of sauerkraut, with boiled potatoes, usually you have mashed potato, but they had run out, as we were eating late at 11pm (just after sunset!). Joanne had a traditional large Frankfurt beef sausage, also served with sauerkraut and potatoes. Andreas (who is vegetarian) had the traditional Frankfurt eggs with green sauce, served with boiled potatoes. The eggs are hard boiled and sliced, and the green sauce, Grie Soss, is a thick, creamy sauce, always made from the same seven herbs; parsley, pimpernel, chives, water-cress, chervil, garden sorrel and borage. Much eating and drinking, we rolled out of there, and then headed to the much hyped Robert-Johnson club in Offenbach.

On arriving and walking upstairs, once inside my first thought was… This is it? This is a club? It’s a little room with white walls. It looks like an art space, with make-shift bar and DJ console. It’s small, capacity 250 people. A couple of coloured neon tubes are the only lighting. It’s very loud in there for such a small space, using 6 large speakers suspended from the ceiling, 3 on each side of the dance space. There’s benches all around the walls to sit on. There is also a balcony outside, looking over the river. Lots of smokers in this club, all ignoring the ‘thank you for not smoking’ signs. We saw one guy wearing a t-shirt with “I Love Myself” written on it, which err… said lots about the type of crowd, very different to the Cocoon crowd.

We had to ask the DJs who was playing. I think I may have asked DJ Ata the guy who runs Playhouse/Robert-Johnson. It was DJ Stephen Kürtz (sp?) from Frankfurt who warmed up with some nice deep-tech-house and minimal sounds. He was followed by the main act, two guys playing back to back, known as Optimo. Google tells me they are DJ’s JD Twitch and JG Wilkes from UK/Glasgow. They played a lot of funky, chunky house, electro-house and old-school analogue/acid techno, a few old classics. They got the room jumping. It was loud/busy music, and I wasn’t really in the mood for it, struggling to stay awake, too much apple wine earlier.

Their set was split up with a live set from Max Mohr, a Playhouse artist. He performed on a small stage opposite the DJ console. Another Apple laptop, Ableton Live live set. His music was ok, simplistic tech-house/minimal stuff. It was really obvious he was just turning clips on/off in Ableton Live and not doing anything else.

We left around 3am, which seemed to be the time a lot more people were arriving. Andreas tells us the club sometimes keeps pumping until 10am the next day! It would be a sweat-box! I really don’t understand the attraction of partying that long in a small club.It was cool to check out Robert-Johnson, but wasn’t anything at all like we were expecting.

On the move… We’re off to Paris tomorrow for 4 or 5 days, so this is the probably the last long post for a while. We’ll be back to using Internet Cafes again. It’s been handy having a laptop and Internet to use whilst here in Frankfurt… We may go check out John Acquaviva at Rex-Club in Paris whilst we’re there.

Thanks for reading… Speak to you again from Paris, au revoir.

Comments (1)

June 24, 2007

Köln & Cocoon

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Music,Travel — decoded_ @ 1:29 am

I Love Köln

This morning I’m suffering the effects of too much Red Bull and Jägermeister at Cocoon during the early hours of this morning, can you say dehydrated?

I hope you’re all well and all is going well. We’re doing great, enjoying our time in Frankfurt muchly. The weather has turned though, it’s been cold, wet and windy the past couple of days with many isolated thunderstorms. Nowhere near as cold, wet and windy as we’ve heard Sydney has been! We’re keeping tabs on home via SMH too. Great to hear Sydney’s water supply has had a boost though.

We had a busy day yesterday. Joanne and I did a day trip to Köln (Cologne), catching an ICE (Inter-City Express) fast train there and back, 1 hr 15 mins each way, wow, they really go very fast!

Köln was great. It’s a lot bigger city than Frankfurt. We visited the huge Köln Dom Cathedral, where I climbed the 500+ narrow spiraling steps up to the highest point, 153m, and back down again. Awesome views of Köln from up there.

We also visited the Lindt Chocolate Museum. Joanne loved that, especially the large chocolate shop at the end, with 1000’s of different types of chocolates to buy. I had to drag her out of there, as she did me at Kompakt Records.

Museum Ludwig was excellent, lots of pop art, minimal art, and surrealism paintings and installations. Some really abstract stuff there, fantastic works by Roy Litchenstein, Andy Warhol, Max Earnst, Salvidor Dali, Pablo Piccasso and more.

Being into techno a visit to Köln must also include a visit to Kompakt Records HQ. It’s quite far from centre/main shops area of Köln. It’s a nice, large spacious shop, heaps of vinyl as you would expect, but lots of CDs too, everything sorted mostly by label, a few specific artist sections. Lots of label’s back catalogue vinyl, and it’s all techno/tech-house. I found a few old techno things I had been hunting for in years gone by, but they looked in second hand condition, and I really don’t have the same burning desire for them anymore. I’d hate to think how much money I would have spent there, having visited during the peak of my vinyl buying addiction 5-7 years ago. I couldn’t visit without at least buying something though, so I picked up the new Johnny Future out on Perfect World 03 picture disc 12″ (mastered and cut by Andreas). Joanne bought a great DVD about Köln’s techno scene, artists, labels etc.

I liked Köln, would be cool to spend a few days there next time. Cool shops in Köln. We discovered a massive Lego shop, where you can even buy every individual Lego brick/part if you want… I could only dream of that possibility as a kid!

There is so much more choice/stock/brands in all the shops here in Europe, it’s really quite overwhelming, a head-spin! The amount of different alcohol available in all sorts of shops here is amazing too, so cheap!

Cocoon Club - Frankfurt-Am-Main

Cocoon Club…

After returning from Köln, we rested our sore feet, had some home cooked pasta, took a nap, woke up, showered and freshened up, and around midnight Andreas picked us up and zoomed us off to Cocoon Club near Offenbäch. We went via Club Monza in Frankfurt city hoping to also see Matthias Tanzmann play prior, but he wasn’t arriving/playing till very late, and was yet to submit the guest-list we were on. Access denied, so on to Cocoon…

We were really lucky to be able to see Frankfurt legend, and all things Cocoon, main man Sven Väth (pronounced Swen Faid) DJing for us in his own club.

Cocoon is a really impressive nightclub, probably the coolest club I’ve ever been in. It’s like being inside an alien space ship.

The club is the ground floor level of a boring multi level office building. Inside it’s a large rectangular space and within that is an oval (pod/cocoon) shaped area as the main room, separated/surrounded by white honey-comb walls. It’s all organic shapes/curves and alien… decor, forms/shapes, displays, pulsing lights, and projections everywhere (and I mean everywhere!). Every Sci-Fi fan’s dream come true! It sounds tacky, but it’s far from it. Someone has watched a lot of great Sci-Fi movies to put that club together! There are cool little green lit pods for groups to sit in around the walls. The outer spaces have lots of areas to sit and chill, there are large, clean, modern toilets, an all night hot food bar, a couple of restaurants (for earlier in the night), another (more chill) dance area, and a Cocoon merchandise shop. Lots of bars to get drinks from everywhere too. Great air-conditioning, It’s the perfect club, nothing to complain about! The main dance floor area consists of organic shapped multi-level spaces to dance on, there are also a couple of podiums with strangely dressed performers ‘doing their thang’ on them. The DJ booth is in this elevated white pod above the dance floor, branching out of one wall. It looks like the command centre of an alien space ship inside, with all the lighting, projection, and DJing gear inside. We got VIP wrist straps and spent a little time in there, watching Sven up close, very cool. There are huge speaker stacks suspended from the ceiling all round, and heaps of bass you can feel from the floor. It’s loud! The intelligent lighting is full on, very disorientating (in a good way). They also have a couple of those Ibizia super-club style smoke machines in the ceiling, that pump out a massive high pressured blast of freezing, ice cold, thick, white smoke, with a loud whoosh (timed to the music), quite a shock when they go off, they fill the club with smoke instantly, you can’t see your hand infront of your face! but then seconds later all smoke has vanished. They always bring a big cheer, and they don’t use them very often, which keeps them exciting. It’s a really unique feeling to experience, makes you tingle with cold for a few seconds.

Music?

Sven played a mixed up range of techno styles/sounds, quite varied intensities from track to track, some harder techno, some electro-house, some chunky house, some minimal, some trance-ish stuff, even a breaks track. I knew a few tracks, but didn’t know a lot of what he played, either did Andreas. I surprisingly liked pretty much everything he played, some really nice tracks. His mixing was super tight, and he’s fun to watch, he’s all about the vinyl, always waving records around, they’re a big part of his performance, he refuses to go digital.

We also got to see… Sleeparchive perform live

Roger behing his laptop was joined on stage by DJ Pete (Hardwax Berlin) helping out with knob twiddling, and live 909 jamming (Jeff Mills style; he was even wearing an Axis T-Shirt). Lots of simplistic 909, 808, RZ-1 drum patterns, static/noise loops, reverb washes, bleeps and not much else, apart from the odd repeated vocal phrase occasionaly, for an hour and a bit. It’s cool, but so simplistic, minimal, rigid, and lacking in any kind of melodic data that it cleared a large number of people from the dance-floor/club. Joanne had a chat with them after whilst we were in the DJ booth, doing the VIP thang. Sven played before/after them.

Crowd is really mixed, lots of shirts mixed with lots of clubbers, lots of different social groups, quite a range of ages too. It’s quite a commercial club, but still has an underground feel for us. It was funny seeing Sven’s mum doing the ‘hands in the air’ at the front of the DJ booth for a while earlier on, which Andreas pointed out to us. There was a really good friendly vibe in the club I thought, it really lifted you up and put you in a good mood, or maybe it was all those drinks I had! Lots of people dancing, but still with space to groove as well. The club probably holds around 1500 people, there was probably half that there I guess. We left around 5am, had it not been overcast and raining it would have been full sunlight.

We’re having another chill day today, then we’re heading off to the Robert-Johnson club with Andreas tonight, no idea who is playing, as they don’t advertise it, will let you know who we saw tomorrow…

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June 16, 2007

Sore feet! Steps, steps and more steps…

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Music,Travel — decoded_ @ 11:56 pm

I forgot to mention we flew right over Ayers Rock on our way out of Australia, and the captain pointed it out for all to see, looked amazing.

We´ve been so busy here in Barcelona, this place is crazy! We´re having so much fun, have not had a chance to Internet/Blog much at all.

This is going to be a bit rushed, so apologies for gramer, and spelling errors. I´ll fix-edit this all later, and add more detail.

We´re staying in/on La Ramblas in a great little place, right opposite the big La Boqueria St.Josep Mercat, a huge fresh food market, with the most amazingly fresh seafood, meats, fruits and vegetables, cheeses and gourmet foods. We´ve been eating a lot of fruit, bread and slices of cured ham, as well as tapes/tapas, paella and glasses of sangria, have found some great little places off-away from La Ramblas.

Over the last few days we´ve been doing a lot of site-seeing. We went to Gaudi´s ‘Park Guell’, the amazing ‘Sagrada Familia’, the ubercoolishe ‘Pavello Mies van der Rohe’ pavillion, and we went on a day tour to North Catalunya, which had a walking tour of 2000 year old Girona, and then onto Dali´s city Figueres, visiting the ´Teatre Musea Dali´ the Salvidor Dali museum, which was fantastic. Taking lots of photos. Barcelona is an amazing city! Really enjoying this.

Sonar 2007

The music…

Went to the first day of Sonar, and saw James Holden play, lots of ´My Bloody Valentine´ type sounds, drones, ambient soundscapes with glitchy beats. Sonar by day is nothing like I imagined, nowhere near as big, but still very cool/happening, reminds me of the Freaky Loops parties in Sydney in size, numbers, vibe. The modern art gallery spaces in the venus are fantastic. It´s all very well organised, quite an older crowd too, which is great. We bought a heap of Sonar merchandise, cool little bags and t’shirts.

At night we went to the Raum Player festival, which was about 15 minutes out of the city, and 3 small tents close to the water in an industrial/dockland area, close to the Park Del Forum. We saw Audiojack and Matt John (advertised as live but was only DJing) and possibly Glimpse, Herve AK, and Berg Nixon/Ryan Crosson for a bit. Hard to tell who is playing, not knowing what these people look like, and time-tables not being stuck to, because of technical troubles. Great to see Matt John, but the party was pretty average, maybe 500 people.

Went to the first Sonar by night, HUGE!!! imagine the biggest aircraft hangers you can then double that, tripple even. We missed Beastie Boys (as we were at Raum Player), but arrived to see Narod Niki… 8 guys on stage with a heap of Apple laptops, and various music gadgets-units all jamming away together, featuring Ricardo Villalobos, Richie Hawtin, Luciano, Zip, two Rhythm & Sound Guys, and 2 other guys (possibly more Perlon or Cadenza crew). A very stripped back minimal/techno groove with many dynamics for hours. Richie and Ricardo took it in turns of composing-directing the music live, selecting whose parts are used together to form the music at the time. It was one of the most amazing things I´ve ever experienced. Ricardo has an amazing stage pressence. The sound was amazingly loud-clear, glad I have muso ear-plugs, the bass shakes your insides!

We missed Sonar by Day, day 2, as we were off site seeing yesterday, at night we hooked up with Andreas Kauffelt & Iris, and Thomas Heckmann & Natasha, and went to Moog Club to see Stephan Bodzin, Oliver Huntemann & Goldfish Und Der Dolz. Then later went to Club Fellini and saw Matthias Tanzmann, Ripperton, Robert Babbicz, and surprise DJ T. (who replaced Thomas Schumacher who cancelled). These clubs are just around the corner from each other, and about 5 mins walk from where we´re staying, as is Sonar by day. The Sonar by night, is a 15 min taxi or bus ride away.

This afternoon, we´re going to the last day of Sonar by Day, I´m looking forward to seeing Claro Intellecto. Then we´re off to Sonar by Night, for Devo, Jeff Mills, Dave Clarke, Ame, Chateau Flight, Tadeo, JPLS, and much more…

Speak soon.

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June 6, 2007

Off to Europe…

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Music,Travel — decoded_ @ 10:13 am

Awakenings

It’s days away… My 6 week holiday in Europe with my girlfriend Joanne. I’m really looking forward to it, very excited! I’ve only been overseas once before (UK, Amsterdam, Paris), way back in 1993, so I’m well over-due for another visit.

Via Singapore we’re going to Barcelona, Frankfurt, Cologne, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and London, plus a few other little side trips…

Music is a huge part of our travel plans, we’re heading to these events, tickets already purchased months ago.

Sonar 2007 – Day & Night (+ Various Club Nights / Beach Parties)
Barcelona (Spain) : 14-16 June 2007
http://www.sonar.es

Raum Playa Festival 2007
Parc Del Forum Barcelona (Spain) : 15 June 2007
http://www.raumplayafestival.com

Awakenings Festival 2007
Festivalterrein Spaarnwoude (Amsterdam) : 30 June 2007
http://www.awakenings.nl

Love Family Park 2007
Mainwiesen Hanau (Frankfurt/Germany) : 1 July 2007
http://www.lovefamily.de

Melt Festival 2007
Ferropolis Gräfenhainichen (Berlin/Germany) : 13-15 July 2007
http://www.meltfestival.de

And we hope to check out many of these clubs/club nights…

Some of the DJs, live acts, bands etc. performing at events/clubs/club nights in the cities we’ll be in at the time, that we hope we get to see many of, in no particular order…

Richie Hawtin, Magda, Gaiser, Troy Pierce, Ambivalent, Marc Houle, Tractile, JPLS, Paco Osuna, Marco Carola, Pan-Pot, Exercise One, Audiojack, Jay Haze, Matt John, Sian, Audiofly, Dapayk, Axel Bartsch, Ryan Crosson (Berg Nixon), Benno Blome, Glimpse, Quenum, Lee Van Dowski, 3 Channels, Herve AK, Arnaud Le Texier, Matthew Dear, Narod Niki (Ricardo Villalobos & friends – Laptop live jam session), Ricardo Villalobos, Autechre, Alex Smoke, Sleeparchive, Phage, Ruede Hagelstein, Elektrochemie, Lunca City Express, Will Saul, Sebo K, Efdemin, Loco Dice, Ada, Martin Buttrich, Thomas Schumacher, Robert Babicz, Ripperton, Marcin Czubala, Claro Intelecto, Luciano, Onur Ozer, Mathias Kaden, Dominik Eulberg, Gabriel Ananda, Oscar Mulero, Oliver Huntemann, Goldfish Und Der Dulz, Tigerskin (Dub Taylor), Mike Shannon, Roman Flügel, Dan Berkson & James What, Tadeo, Andrew Weatherall, Samim, Matthias Tanzmann, Steve Bug, Guido Schneider, Martini Bros, Chardronnet, Ame, Woody, Chateau Flight, James Holden, Agoria, Anja Schneider, Wighnomy Brothers, Swat-Squad, Green Velvet, Sven Vath, Christian Smith, Funk D’Void, Tiefschwarz, Joris Voorn, Steve Rachmad, Ivan Smagghe, Chloe, Jennifer Cardini, Rolando, Oliver Koletzki, Plasmik, Zombie Nation, Slam, Cosmic Sandwich, Tobi Neumann, Jussi-Pekka, Adam Kroll, Markus Muller, Ost & Kjex, Valentino Kanzyani, Marko Nastic, Rekleiner, Marco Passarani, Estroe, GummiHz, Sleeper Theif, Pier Bucci, Butane, Barem, Vince Watson, Mark Henning, Reynold, Mathew Jonson, Konrad Black, Ellen Allien, Apparat, Sascha Funke, Jake Fairley, Jesse Rose, Oxia, Superpitcher, Reinhard Voigt, DJ Koze, Daniel Stefanik, Martinez, Adam Beyer, British Murder Boys (Surgeon & Regis), Secret Cinema & Coming Soon, Dave Clarke, Cari Lekebusch, Miss Djax, Altern8, Jeff Mills, Bart Skills & 2000 & One, Jay Denham, Dan Curtin, Dan Bell, Robert Hood, Abe Duque, The Advent, Joey Beltram, Neil Landstrum, Stephen Bodzin, Miss Kittin, Radio Slave, Booka Shade, DJ T, M.A.N.D.Y, Heidi, Marek Hemmann, DJ Hell, Pig & Dan, Michael Mayer, Hot Chip, The Presets, Trentemoller, Beastie Boys, Mogwai, Devo

…And, that’s just listing the one’s I’m keen on seeing, the majority being minimal, techno, tech/electro-house sounds. That’s really insane isn’t it! Music over-dose! My musician’s ear plugs are never going to leave my ears!

It’s going to be tough deciding who to see, with many all on the same night at a bunch of different venues.

I was really hoping to see John Tejada and Depeche Mode on my Europe travels, but they’re not playing anywhere this time. I don’t think Heartthrob is playing anywhere during our travels either, which is strange as just about every other M_nus artist is playing.

I’m also really looking forward to all the travels and adventures, new experiences, meeting new people, different foods/wines, art gallerys, museums, tours, heritage, architecture, history, new sights & sounds, catching up with old friends and family, and generally having an amazing time, sharing it all with my love Joanne.

It will be fantastic to catch up with my German friend Andreas Kauffelt and his mate Thomas Heckmann for some crazy fun in Barcelona and Frankfurt too.

I’m really excited!

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May 31, 2007

Robert Babicz (Rob Acid) [Live] @ Civic Theatre – Sweet Chilli : 08.06.2007

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Music — decoded_ @ 6:57 pm

Robert Babicz [Live] @ Sweet Chilli

I’m thinking of going along to this. Here’s a link to a recent promo mix. I’ll be seeing Robert in Barcelona the week after as well, at the Intergroove party.

More info…
http://www.sweetchilli.com.au
http://www.robertbabicz.de
http://www.myspace.com/robertbabicz

Psst! Big w/end! Detroit techno legend Derrick May is playing at Chinese Laundry the following night.

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May 7, 2007

Nathan Fake [Live] @ Chinese Laundry : 28.04.2007

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Music — decoded_ @ 6:09 pm

Nathan Fake [Live] @ Chinese Laundry : 28.04.2007

Nathan Fake [Live] @ Chinese Laundry : 28.04.2007
Photo by: a_N_t from ITM

So I ended up deciding to go see Nathan Fake [Live] at Chinese Laundry, and forget Inxec at Beware The Cat @ Yu. I believe the BTC people are the same people who took over Pulseradio.

The night didn’t start well for me with public transport problems delaying getting into the city, followed by being held up in a queue for ages outside Chinese Laundry waiting to pay to get in. Not because it was full, or trying to appear popular, but because… get this, not enough people from the guest list had arrived and been checked off yet, as informed by the bouncer. WTF! Don’t clubs/venues prefer paying customers?

So, by the time I got in I wasn’t in the best of moods. Actually I think I was pre warmed up for the annoyed bad mood I usually end up with after spending time packed against ‘that’ crowd in Chinese Laundry. If you’ve been there you’ll know what I mean, it’s the reason so many friends refuse to go there anymore regardless of who is playing.

I was prepared for what to expect musically from a Nathan Fake live set having downloaded and listened to a recent one a few weeks prior.

The live Nathan Fake experience is a very glitched up, digitally manipulated, continually evolving one; full of twists and turns, sonic contrasts, stops and starts, tempo changes and rapid shifts of intensity, all with that trademark Nathan Fake fuzzy, melodic beauty running though it. The chaos is held together with layers of electronic ambience/noise, and abstract, synthetic, melodic sequences morphing between tracks.

During his live set you rarely get the chance to latch onto anything repetitive, beats and dance floor moments come and go, and never seem to sustain for long. “Was that music for people with A.D.D?” I heard someone comment afterwards.

I’m a fan of his music, especially his single releases, however the versions Nathan Fake performs live now have mutated far from their released versions. It’s like he’s never stopped developing/remixing them, then he further digitally manipulates them during live performance. He loves that beat-repeat effect.

I’m not sure, but I think I may have heard versions/elements of his tracks ‘Grandfathered’, ‘The Sky Was Pink’, ‘Dinamo’ and his remix of Remy’s ‘Scrambled’, along with lots of unknown, unfamiliar, new? material.

I was surprised when he got a lot harder and more intense than I was expecting with a brutal, banging version of his formula 303 and 909 acid-techno track ‘Undoing The Laces’, which was probably the best part of his set, some great intensity.

He ended his set with my favourite Nathan Fake track ‘Outhouse’, however it was stripped apart, live-remixed, with each element manipulated and messed with for ages, until finally everything was brought together, but then minutes later it was all over, finishing up with some abrasive, speaker destroying, digital audio/noise. I guess he’s ‘over’ that track now.

There seemed to be a lot of Nathan Fake fans amongst the 150-200 or so people crammed into the hot and sweaty cave, lots of cheers and frantic jumping about. Being right at the back near the entrance to the cave all night, I got good laughs seeing the ‘cave tourists’ entering, attempting to ‘get down’ on the dance floor, becoming confused by the musical chaos and then doing a quick exit back to the other room/s, all within a minute.

Mark Dynamix played prior, he played some good minimal/tech tracks, but also a lot of generic MOS style electro-house stuff that didn’t do much for me. It was all a bit too full on for what I’d consider a ‘warm-up’ set too, but the dance-floor loved it, and you can’t fault his mixing/track flow.

I stayed to hear a few tracks mixed up from UK’s Audiojack who followed. I got to hear that great Ito & Star ‘Sudoko Kid’ track. The cave emptied almost as soon as Nathan Fake finished. I agreed with what Wowky said at the time, how strange that was, as Audiojack were playing much more accessible and dance floor friendly music than Nathan Fake did.

Anyway, I’m happy I got to experience a live Nathan Fake set, but once is enough I think. It felt too self indulgent, too far into the ‘glitching everything up because you can’ side of live laptop performance for me, which kind of spoilt his music for me. I’ll stick to the recorded versions. Yeah, I’m difficult to please. I think Alex Smoke does a much better job of performing his music live, keeping it close to the released versions sounds/arrangements, whilst also satisfying his own desires to manipulate things live in clever ways.

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April 24, 2007

Inxec [Live] or Nathan Fake [Live]

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Music — decoded_ @ 6:28 pm

Inxec

Inxec

Nottingham UK minimal/techno producer & DJ Inxec, B-Pole (Chris Sylvester) with releases on Jay Haze’s label Contexterrior and also on Four:Twenty Recordings is currently in Australia, and performed both a live set and DJ set at Minimal Fuss @ Civic Theatre last Friday 20th April here in Sydney.

Here’s a feature on Inxec from http://www.inthemix.com.au.

Jay Haze was to be touring/playing around the same time, but cancelled his Asia/Australia tour dates due to injury, I hope he’s ok.

Inxec’s – Main Restraint released on the 16.5 EP on Contexterrior was one of my favourite minimal tracks released last year.

My favourite Sydney DJ’s Matt Aubusson and Dave Choe part of the team behind the Minimal Fuss parties, also played. A cool YouTube video was done to hype the night (see below), that’s Matt and Dave in the background, not sure who the girl is under the teddy-bear head doing a nice imitation of the Bob Dylan ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ video.

Anyway… I didn’t go… I had planned to go, I was looking forward to going, but when the night came along it just didn’t come together for me, sorry Matt & Dave!

More data…

http://www.myspace.com/chrissylvester
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Inxec
http://www.contexterrior.com
http://www.fourtwentyrecordings.com

However, I believe we have a second chance to see Inxec performing live again in Sydney, at Beware The Cat @ Yu this coming Saturday 28th April. Not sure if he’s playing live and/or DJing. I’m trying to find out more details…

However… Problem… Guess who else is also performing here in Sydney on the same night?

Nathan Fake

Nathan Fake

UK producer/live performer Nathan Fake is performing live at Chinese Laundry in the cave, also playing is Audiojack (UK).

I’m a huge fan of some of Nathan’s productions: Outhouse and The Sky Was Pink (Icelandic version) released on James Holden’s excellent Border Community label in 2003/2004. James Holden’s remixes are fantastic as well. My favourite Nathan Fake production would probably be Dinamo released on Traum Schallplatten in 2005.

I didn’t buy his album Drowning In A Sea Of Love as the quick listen I gave it on release didn’t grab me at the time. I’ve never really been a fan of those ‘artist albums’ with songs/tracks in music genres completely different to what the artist is renown for. Although from what I’ve read, the sounds on Nathan’s album are actually closer to his true musical passion/style; ambient sound-scapes, emotive, fuzzy, melodic layers (think My Bloody Valentine), with indie-rock/rock and broken-beat drum patterns, songs as opposed to tracks, and that his popular techno/minimal productions have been more so ‘experiments’ outside of that. As far as I know he’s not released anything new since that album in 2006. He could be very interesting to check out…

More data…

http://www.nathanfake.co.uk
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Nathan+Fake
http://www.bordercommunity.com
http://www.myspace.com/nathancake (No, that’s not a typo)

So, I’m still yet to decide which one I’m going to… I was thinking Inxec today, but this evening after listening to and posting those Nathan Fake track samples, I think I’d be crazy to miss seeing him. I hope he still plays the tracks that introduced him to us. I just fear the cave in Chinese Laundry is going to be very hot and rammed full of people, most following the hype. Hrmmm…

* EDIT : 26.04.2007 *

Nathan Fake [Live] @ 3rd Class - Melbourne : 24.04.2007

Nathan Fake [Live] @ 3rd Class – Melbourne : 24.04.2007
Photo by: Scootie from ITM

Oh no! Just reading reports about Nathan Fake’s performance in Melbourne, in this thread on the ITM – Melbourne Forum. His performance didn’t go very well. He had troubles with his laptop at sound-check. Another laptop was brought in, hours of installing software, transferring data etc. right up to performance time, and then that laptop had problems during his performance, a lot of drop outs, and stop/starts, and he only got about 30-40 minutes of music out during his 3 hour set. I liked this comment from that ITM thread “The sky is pink, but the screen is blue”.

There’s talk of him buying a new laptop, and getting his live set back together, with the possibility of another performance tonight Thursday 26th April in Melbourne. He’s performing in Brisbane on Friday, and then here in Sydney on Saturday. It was mentioned he uses a PC laptop, it reminds me of the troubles his Border Community label mate Petter had in Sydney last year, with his PC laptop based live performance, maybe they should be using Macs.

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April 13, 2007

Happy Friday the 13th!

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Films,General — decoded_ @ 10:51 am

Jason Voorhees

Jason Voorhees wishes you a Happy Friday the 13th!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Voorhees

I’m not really a fan of these films, never been much of a horror movie fan.

‘Friday the 13th’ brings back memories of the ‘Black Friday’ techno parties at the Metro in Adelaide in the early-mid 1990’s… Big M Memoirs indeed.

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April 8, 2007

“Ostern Schläger” Mad Racket – Marrickville Bowlo : 07.04.2007

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs — decoded_ @ 4:52 pm

Mad Racket - Easter 2007

I had a fun night, nice to be out with friends. It’s been a long time since the whole ‘gang’ has been out together. Tom Clark was good, but I felt much more musically inspired last time he played Mad Racket a couple of years ago. I hardly knew anything Tom Clark played this time. Not much train-spotting to report, I’m pretty sure I heard these…

Martin Buttrich – Well Done
Martin Landsky – Let Me Dance (Sebo K Remix)
Matthias Tanzmann – Procon
Grindvik – Surface
Paul Ritch – Winter Ceremony
Gaiser – Bukl
Samuel L. Session (Feat. Paris The Black Fu) – Can You Relate?
Future Beat Alliance – Remember
Audion – I Gave You Away

The last few there may have been played by Jimmi James who stepped up and mixed a few back-to-back towards the end of Tom’s set.

I think there may have been a couple of Phage & Daniel Dreier tracks, and another Gasier track played during Tom’s set as well, can’t remember the exact titles at the moment. I’m sure a lot of what he played was probably new/forthcoming releases, possibly some from his Highgrade label, he was using mp3s via a Serato Scratch or Final Scratch setup with an Apple notebook.

I personally felt much of what Tom Clark played wasn’t that memorable, not many tracks with hooks. There were only a couple of those ‘wow, what’s this track?’ moments. Not enough melodic elements for me, but it was good dance-floor minimal tech-house/deep-house grooves. I would have liked some tougher intensity, a splash of techno, a little variety, it was all pretty deep, nothing too challenging. To be bluntly honest I felt a little bored. I probably would have liked DJ T. @ Kink musically better, but was turned off by the venue.

Sydney’s Stick Figures who played live prior were great! They have some great minimal/tech tracks/sounds now, and have mostly moved on from all the electro-house/clash sounds they had last time I saw them, years ago at the Spanish Club.

Jimmi James was the only Mad Racket DJ I got to hear for 10-15 minutes before Stick Figures started up, I liked the tracks he played, nice to hear some more tech/techno sounds, he loves that Heartthrob – ‘Golum’ track, as do I.

Attendance wise, there were probably half as many people as were at the previous Mad Racket with Claude VonStroke, which made it more comfortable and less hot this time, but I felt a bit of a vibe/energy lacking from the crowd, a lot of people sitting, and the crowd thinned rapidly after 3am.

For those who missed Tom Clark If you’re up for it, you can catch him again in Sydney this Friday 13th at Bread & Butter @ Ladylux.

http://www.madracket.com.au
http://www.highgrade-records.de
http://www.myspace.com/tomclarkhighgrade

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April 6, 2007

Booka Shade @ Killer – The Metro : 05.04.2007

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Music — decoded_ @ 11:23 am

Booka Shade

Phwoaaar! That was awesome! These guys put on a fantastic live show! The live drumming really adds to the performance.

Heard these tracks during their hour and 15 minute live performance, not in any order:

Booka Shade – Mandarine Girl
Booka Shade – In White Rooms
Booka Shade – Night Falls
Booka Shade – Pong Pang
Booka Shade – Triple Identity
Booka Shade – Darko (Le Grand Noir mix)
Booka Shade – Tresspass 06
Booka Shade – The Spectralist
DJ T. Vs Booka Shade – Queen Lucid
DJ T. Vs Booka Shade – Played Runner
Telegraph (Booka Shade & M.A.N.D.Y) – Oh Superman/Saved At Sunset
M.A.N.D.Y Vs Booka Shade – Body Language/Cha!
Depeche Mode – Martyr (Booka Shade Dub)

There were a few new/unknown tracks as well, the one they played as their encore was a killer! Some of these tracks were teased in briefly, others were played in full, some with extended parts. The production/music quality was awesome, maybe too perfect, if that’s possible.

Huge crowd reaction to their performance, hands in the air, big smiles and cheers. I’ve not seen the Metro that packed and ‘going off’ for a long time.

http://www.bookashade.com
http://physical-music.com/artists/booka_shade/booka_shade_bio.php
http://www.myspace.com/getbookashade

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