decoded_ Something for your mind… Something for your mind…

Club nights/events with international techno, minimal, tech-house, deep-house, house DJ/live acts performing in Sydney…

I made it out to the red ones. Thoughts and comments to be posted soon.

APRIL 2010…
02.04.10 : Seth Troxler, Paul Woolford, Mark E @ AGWA Yacht Club – MV Starship
03.04.10 : Darren Emerson, Fergie @ The Club Club – Chinese Laundy (Garden Bar Afternoon)
04.04.10 : Oliver Huntemann, Oliver Koletzki @ The Likes O’Ye Afloatin’ – MV Bella Vista
04.04.10 : Phil Kieran [Live], Daniel Steinberg, P.Toile, Bjorn Wilke @ Likes Of You & Top Notch (After Party) – Home – Terrace
05.04.10 : 2 x Internationals @ Spice – Home Terrace
17.04.10 : Agoria @ Disconnected (Balance 016 CD Launch) @ Civic Underground ++
17.04.10 : Chymera [Live], Phil Kieran @ The Club Club – Chinese Laundry
17.04.10 : Maurice Fulton @ Picnic, Dan Cares! & Niche Productions Present… – Gilligan’s – The Oxford Hotel
18.04.10 : Derrick May (5 Hour Set) @ Picnic Presents… – 202 Broadway (4pm-12am)
23.04.10 : Spektre [Live] @ DownUnder – Ladylux ++
24.04.10 : Apparat [Live], Marc Marzenit [Live], Chymera [Live], Hernan Cattaneo @ Música Presents… – The Forum ++
24.04.10 : Redshape [Live] @ HaHa Industries… Under the Radar #08 “The Mask-Air-Raid” – Warehouse ++
25.04.10 : Burnski @ DownUnder – Civic Underground

++ Cancelled, due to the Iceland volcano ash cloud issues over U.K/Europe air space, cancelling flights. Agoria will now be playing Sydney in September 2010 (When I’m in Europe, bummer).

MAY 2010…
01.05.10 : Dave Clarke, Green Velvet, Joris Voorn, Steve Rachmad + More @ Creamfields Australia – Entertainment Quarter
01.05.10 : Justin Martin, Worthy @ Chinese Laundry
07.05.10 : Joris Voorn, Riva Starr @ Chinese Laundry
15.05.10 : Woolfy @ Adult Disco – Civic Underground
22.05.10 : Maetrik [Live], Clive Henry (Peace Division) @ Shrug – Civic Underground
23.05.10 : Alix Ouellet + More @ Bunker – Plantation
23.05.10 : Clive Henry (Peace Division) @ Spice – Home Terrace
28.05.10 : Oxia @ Nocturnal Presents… – Civic Underground
28.05.10 : Autechre [Live], Rob Hall @ Civil Society – The Forum

JUNE 2010…
05.06.10 : Harri @ Co-Op First Birthday – Warehouse
12.06.10 : Seth Troxler, Underworld [Live], Ellen Allien, Paul Ritch [Live], Tiga, M.A.N.D.Y [Live], Zombie Nation [Live], The Revenge + More @ We Love Sounds Winter Festival 2010 – Entertainment Quarter
12.06.10 : The Revenge, DJ Spun @ Picnic – Civic Underground
12.06.10 : Tom Trago @ Mad Racket “Royal Flying Dutchman” – Marrickville Bowlo
12.06.10 : Ellen Allien, M.A.N.D.Y, Paul Ritch + More @ We Love Sounds Festival After Party – Plantation
12.06.10 : Ron Carrol @ Pure Ivy – The Ivy
13.06.10 : Seth Troxler (4 hour set from 5am) @ Bunker – Plantation
19.06.10 : Goshva @ [The Box] – Plantation
20.06.10 : Goshva @ Spice – Home Terrace
26.06.10 : Robert Hood @ Disconnected Audio Presents… – Plantation
26.06.10 : Prince Language (DFA) @ Adult Disco – Civic Underground
27.06.10 : Goshva @ Bunker – Plantation

Great news, Surgeon is finally coming down to play in Australia in October, and will be playing Sydney for the first time, thanks to the Index/Void crew.

21 Oct 2010 – Brisbane @ White Rhino – Step In
22 Oct 2010 – Melbourne @ Likes Of You – Roxanne Parlour
23 Oct 2010 – Sydney @ Index Presents… – The Forum

The last time he played in Australia was in September 2000. We went down to Melbourne to see him play at the ‘Pure Flow 5’ party. James Ruskin also played at the same party, check out the flyer front | back.

My partner Joanne, is a massive fan of his techno music, and has seen him perform live every trip to Europe, quite a few times now. She even travelled to a Spaghetti Western town in the desert of Tabernas/Almeria in Spain to see him play at the Western Music Festival in 2003. She’s met and spoken with him and his lovely wife a number of times now too.

The last time we saw him play live was as part of British Murder Boys with Regis, at Fabric in London, July 2007, it was brutal, as was going to the airport straight after for our flight back to Sydney.

Between us we have vinyl and CDs of just about everything he’s released on labels like: Tresor, Downwards, Dynamic Tension, and CounterBalance, plus a heap of his remixes on various other labels.

We have many favourite Surgeon tracks and remixes: Magneze, Badger Bite, (Intro) Version II, La Real, Sleep Ultra Violet, The Advent – It One Jah (Surgeon Remix), to name a few.

I’m not as into these sounds these days, but for quite a few years there in the early 2000s I had a big passion for them, bedroom banging away with them.

Surgeon moved to digital DJing many years ago for his live performances, using Ableton Live on a laptop, with external controllers. He’s really perfected the technique, blending together a varierty of sounds, styles, and tempos, making for a fantastic listening and dance-floor experience.

His sets are no longer all storming techno, surgically layered, he’s quite eclectic musically now, covering all kinds of electronica, industrial, EBM, experimental, noise, dubstep, slowed drum’n’bass, wth beautiful melodies, with some layers of his signature Birmingham techno sound, and nods to past prototype techno and classic electronic music. Check his site, for some recent mixes.

I’m really looking forward to hearing him play. May get to see him in Europe in August too.

He has a Fabic mix CD due out in August.

http://www.fabriclondon.com/label/fabric/53

New interview in Sydney’s 3D Magazine…
http://streetpress.com.au/online_mags/3D/3D_1018/ (Page 25) *
* Ignore the live date on that article, it’s wrong.

More data:

http://www.dj-surgeon.com
http://twitter.com/Tony_Surgeon
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Surgeon

Photos by Matt Costain from his Flickr album.

I finally got to see Orbital play live, and they were awesome!

It’s been almost 20 years since I first became a fan of their music, introduced to their ‘Orbital – Orbital’ (Green Album) in 1991 via friend Mike Mesissner (Bliss guitarist). The sounds on that album really inspired my own electronic music making and first techno productions.

Their live performance was fantastic. Much fun jumping around to their sounds on the dance floor. Hearing ‘Chime (Live)’ and ‘Belfast’ brought back a flood of fond memories, big smiles. I used to hear these tracks at clubs and parties in Adelaide in the early-mid 1990s, ‘Belfast’ holds some special memories. I would have loved to have heard ‘Midnight’, one of my other faves.

I’m so glad they got back together and are still touring and performing live after all these years. Huge thanks to the Playground Weekender crew for bringing them down under, and to all involved in making their side-show at The Forum happen. It was a fun Tuesday night, great crowd, lots of fans, lots of appreciation for their music/live performance.

Awesome to see the Hartnoll brothers wearing their iconic dual light glasses, bopping away behind a huge mixing desk, controlling all the kit around them.

Visually it was a great show too, nice oldschool, trippy graphics on a wall RGB LED screen behind them, some intelligent lighting and smoke machine! I miss smoke machines, you don’t come across them out in clubs these days, why is that?

And most importantly, it sounded awesome, great sound system in The Forum.

Here’s what they played… Thanks to MrBadger on InTheMix for the exact track list.

Time Becomes
Out There Somewhere (Part 1)
The Moebius
Out There Somewhere (Part 2)
Lush 3/Eurotunnel
Impact
Remind
Satan
Belfast
Chime (Live)
Chime Crime
Know Where To Run
Halcyon
One Perfect Sunrise

The Box
Doctor ?

The only moment that I didn’t like was the Belinda Carlisle and Bon Jovi samples during Halcyon, obviously tongue in cheek, but I felt it spoilt the magic.

For the nerdy gear heads, here’s what Matt Costain and I spotted them using on stage…

? Mixing Desk
Apple – MacBook Pro (Laptop) with Ableton – Live (DAW Software)
Jazzmutant – Lemur (Control Surface)
Novation – 25SL Mk II (Controller / Keyboard)
Alesis – Andromeda A6 (Synth Keyboard) x2
Macbeth – M5N (Semi-Modular Synth)
Roland – Jupiter 6 (Synth Keyboard)
Roland – SH-2 (Synth Keyboard)
Moog – Voyager RME (Synth Rack)
Roland – TB-303 (Bassline)
Roland – TR-909 (Drum Machine)
Roland – TR-808 (Drum Machine)
Elektron – Machinedrum (Drum Machine)
Yamaha – A5000 (Sampler Rack)
Ridge Farm Industries – Boiler Solid State (Limiter / Compressor)
TC Electronic – FireworX (Multi-Effects Processor) x 2
Behringer – Composer Pro (Compressor)

More data:

http://www.loopz.co.uk
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Orbital

So, there’s another one to tick off my list of early pioneers and legends of electronic/dance music I’ve seen play live. Let’s have a quick think about who is on that list:

Kraftwerk [Live] *
Depeche Mode [Live] *
Nitzer Ebb [Live]
New Order [Live]
The Orb [Live]
Derrick May *
Juan Atkins
Kevin Saunderson *
Jeff Mills *
Kenny Larkin *
Underground Resistance [Live]
Daniel Bell
Robert Hood *
Richie Hawtin *
Francois K *
Carl Craig [Live]
Laurent Garnier *
Laurent Gariner [Live]
CJ Bolland
Sven Vath
Joey Beltram *
Danny Tenaglia
Sasha & Digweed
Autechre [Live] *

* = seen multiple times.

Yeah, very happy with that! I think I need to see some Chicago house legends though. Should have seen DJ Pierre when he was out here.