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.
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.
great to hear about sonar Dave, I’ve always wanted to go to it. glad to hear you’re having fun over there!
Comment by kath — June 20, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
oh, I tried to comment on Joanne’s page but I don’t have a login on wp, so say hi to her for me too!
Comment by kath — June 20, 2007 @ 8:13 pm
hmmm Mercat de la Boqueria, so delicious.
interested to hear how intellecto was. i likes.
what did you think about the vibe at sonar by night? was it a bit lacking? i think it’s a better line up this year. we had friggin goldfrapp last year. *yawn*
say hi to joanne for me 🙂
xx
Comment by bekk — July 6, 2007 @ 10:37 am