since weeks. met a friend and his 2 year old, and I joked before, just you watch, this little petri dish is going to infect us…and guess what followed. been sleeping 20 hours a day too much. finally went to doctor and got antibiotics, which I just fucking hate to do, but there’s a damn limit.
had a great set last Saturday, though i was barely in my body at all. limped home and practically fell asleep on living room floor.
have a ton of work all of a sudden, but last weekend was starting to feel sick. Against Bhu’s firm advice, i thought I would work late Sunday, and get to a good place on one job, thinking then I could sleep in, knowing I wouldn’t have any news from US until around 3pm. Bad move. Have been so goddamn sick all week, raging cough, 24 hours of fever (including stupid stupid over and over banal dreams, here cough for this board in the pile, now cough to make sure that one is at the right angle…for 24 fucking hours.). Even better, the anticipated pressure to finish on all three main jobs never materialized; one hasn’t even been heard from, and the other gave me an extra week, so it was all for nothing. Grrrrr. But I’m almost back. Healthy days, I always take them for granted, forget just how easy it is to burn off a sheaf of them.
usually January, like August, is a pitiful joke when it comes to finding work, I just sleep through it the best i can. Somehow this year is different, got several projects live. One more big one and i can not only pay my bills, but maybe get my long-overdue new computer.
a fun one: film titles for a movie about digging up Michael jackson and making him into some leader of an army against bad guys or some such, a silly indie thing that’s low budget but surprisingly well shot. Not paying much at all, but if I wanna do film titles every piece in my portfolio adds up. They showed a trailer for it at some film festival, and in 10 days there were over 100 thousand signatures from crybaby Jax fans trying to stop it from being made. Awesome, count me in!!
second meeting with Bhu’s band went ok. skillful mediation to the rescue; don’t remember where I learned how to do this but it seems my mojo was up to the task. so, onward. Tickets are booked for a big show they’re doing in Geneva Switzerland early March, including one for me. finest. back to the rehearsal room, get this machine running again. They are expecting a huge audience for the show; they are the headlining act at a festival, and perhaps 2,000 people could be in the audience! hoping they can get some kind of CD together by then to sell. This is not made easier by the fact that we decided Bhu is going to re-take most or all of the vocals, oops. She was nervous and stressed when she did them before, and she can do better, and therefore…what the hell.
I took the dwindles of my last paycheck and bought a few small pieces of plywood and a basic set of acrylic paint. fucking hate acrylics, but in the current situation it’s the only realistic option, unless I want to wait even longer. There’s a technique i want try, easy with acrylics, first you build up a texture, then you work on the values, then you add transparent glazes to finish up with the color. With oils, building up any kind of texture means days or weeks of waiting for it to dry enough, but with acrylics, it’s more like a few hours tops, but probably not even that. then the value layer is dry in minutes, and yeah. Also, can cover it all with a matte finish later, without waiting months like you’re supposed to with oils. So, five letter-size pieces and 10 half-that await; this small, i can easily make high res scans. And then maybe finally get on with that online shop action I started ages ago.
did a marathon of DJ set editing on Sunday night into Monday, almost 5 hours of them. still wanna make one more final pass, then will toss them to y’all wolves.
Bhu’s band had some big drama the last few eeks, seemed unresolvable, and she sure wasn’t in the mood to deal with it. I offered to mediate a meeting, and last Wednesday it came together, and after nearly 3 hours, well whaddya know, i pulled it off. It was about putting the past to bed, stage one. Next meeting will be about shaping up the future, hope it goes as well, or shit’s gonna up-shake. shit. Too bad, as she got them a booking for a festival in Geneva Switzerland early March, for an expected crowd of about 2,000…headlining! So, time for a wee bit more magic.
A friend of the guy who throws the parties i am a resident at has been wanting to set up a label. To do that, you need to set up distribution deals and various permits and licenses and jerk this and that, so he said fuck it and just bought an existing label, walla. First up will be a four artist vinyl, one track each, and i am invited. A nice chugging techno thumper is requested; my constellations just got sorted. Cough of the new year almost went away, then came back. Goddammit, just piss off, papa gots work to do!
in German they wish you Guten Rutsch! which translates to “(Have a) good slide!” We slid. Bhu worked a long and very hectic shift, banging hard. I waited too long for my set to start, then i guess came on with too much enthusiasm and played to noisy…or i don’t know, the room emptied out and the bar owner turned on the lights to close my room. Fuck that place, never setting foot in there again. Didn’t bother going to Berghain, just pissed off home to crash. Monday early, my favorite DJ was scheduled to play at Berghain at 2am, so clever me took my disco nap and got there 8am, expecting the second half of his usual marathon set. Oh, he had two other gigs before, and was exhausted, played a few hours and then took off? Happy Fuckin New Year. We’ve both been in bed all week, sleeping off bad coughs and stuff, but I think today we can finally rally. On the 6th.
Whatever, I got a warm house, some cash in the bank, and a girl who loves me very much, should be able to work with this. Liking my new mix, hoping it will lead to some real bookings this year. No DJ gigs til mid-Feb, so lots of time to do the winter productivity thing.
apparently i have decided to celebrate the end of the year with a raging cough, just great. had a bit of a hack earlier in the week, but I guess after a late night waiting for my DJ slot last night (which ended a half hour in, shitass), the body just bit tight the anchor and dove. At least I’ll get a midnight hug and kiss for the first time in like ages. Supposed to play again at this club we’ve been trying like hell to salvage, but after last night it’s fine with me if I never set foot in there again. so much wasted hope. It’s been great to have the opportunity to develop my dancefloor sets on a semi-proper system, no complaints there, but dammit, it stings to pour your heart into a set for 8 body-sprayed knuckleheads and their chicken-dancing scrawny babes. We gave it a good go, now it is SO time to kiss it goodbye. Already lining up other places; had a good party at the epic dowager of a squat Tacheles, in their little bar; small but super enthusiastic crowd. Three or four more shows lined up there.
new set online, Chromaphage. starts mellow then goes full on, 90 minutes. time to alert the entire goddamn planet, book me bitchez!
anyway, thanks for playing the home version, I’m going to go slip into the slowly warming place between the blankets and wait for midnight. Give your 2012 a nice warm hallo for me.
I guess it’s just stress. last fall I ran out of cash, and was still damned heartbroken. have had a few sessions of major stress lately, i supposed that was it. the coffee i had to take to get through the job last weeks didn’t help. did a cool ultrasound thing, saw no non-contracting tissue, though my BP is a little high. will see about how to reduce that and get back to living otherwise badly ; ) was looking good after a few months at the gym, Bhu approves of any promises to get back to that. She used to swim regularly until she got sick of greasy dirtmen drooling at her, but I’ve pointed out to her how much and well she loves to spit “fucckkoff” at such things, so maybe she’ll start up again too. just gotta stabilize my income a little better. very liking a mix I made last month, just gotta make the time to edit it and get it out there, get that little spark top catch a breeze. project I made for last job is gorgeous, will put that out as soon as they say sure.
last fall, started to notice the occasional twinge in my heart, and once in a while an unexplained pain here or there in my left arm, but never saw a doctor about it. last couple of weeks, things have gotten more distinctive, and I finally made an appointment with a cardio specialist. or, at least found when walk-in hours are, lady said bring a book. fingers crossed. a couple of friends say they have “valve issues”, for which there isn’t much of a solution except do enough cardio and avoid stress. Had an on and off freelance job the last couple of weeks, for which caffeine was required to keep from bruising my forehead from repeatedly falling asleep against the monitor. I fucking hate caffeine, and am guessing that’s what triggered it. We shall see.
but the project I was working on (and am still tweaking) is going to be damn lovely, a shot of a girl in an insufficient wee boatlet in big stormy waves. studio did the 3D of the girl and newspaper sack watercraft, bobbling along, and I did everything else. will put it up as soon as I’m allowed.
Buh’s band has four members, three of which are in another band, and the fourth has a small record label and a little bit of cash to play with. Despite his reluctance, they cajoled him into producing an album for them, which he would release, and as predicted, the project went all fuck you, no fuck you, no you shut up, etc., and now there is tension in Bhu’s band. they have been trying to resolve, but it doesn’t really seem to be settling down, so sometime soon everybody, including Bhu, is gonna have a sitdown together, and i am going to mediate. Bhus is stressed, but i am trying to keep her positive.
Will start thinking more soon about doing a project together with Bhu; if we put out an album, my friend will gladly release it. he has gotten the crew 3 days/week access to a decent little audio project studio, so i am going to try and make a lot of time to get my ass up there and work on shit, my own tracks to start but it could go anywhere. For all the security and stability I have had this past most of year, I have been pathetically uncreative. Bahhh.
will teach a one day ~8 hour workshop in After Effects around Feb 3 I think, that’s exciting. then start the proper course in maybe April. will be good to get back into that.
have been waiting forever for a box to be shipped from my sister; first effort was a slovenly clusterfuck of incompetence, but attempt number 2 seems a definite maybe. it’s at customs, let’s see if the sticker notice gets to my door okay. what a joke.
I was sitting at Bhu’s bar the other night, and she said oh you should talk to this guy. Turns he’s from NYC too, and was often at Twilo, the big shrine to all things debauched, especially techno, that I used to frequent. He said were you there the night of the fire? Oh yes, i especially was. Back in 2001, a big DJ was scheduled to play there (Digweed, if you must), and he insisted they have a chillout system/DJ, so the club built a little chainlink booth in the men’s room, with sound in the hallway as well. Pretty cool; everybody pees, so everybody had to be subjected to my devious mischief at least a few times during the ride. A little hard to see more than a foot into the dark beyond the front-lit fencing, but no matter. Good fun. Soat one point, i had a couple few tracks layered together, and it was somehow too creepy even for me; i actually felt this cyliner of greasy nastiness roiling in the far top corner of the room, and decided I better get that shit off and put on something safer, just ewwww, done. whew. Moving right along. Five minutes later a friend stops in and says we’re clearing the club out, there’s a fire in the ceiling on the other side of the far wall. You know, right behind where i was generating the creepy roil. Oopsie! So, yeah, 2,000 rolling ravers out into the February cold. Most of my friends have heard this story,
But here’s the kicker: this guy even had a picture from the street! Behold!!
how damn cool is that!
in other news, I am getting a license to Maya soon; this is a brilliant thing. It is THE hot platform for high-end 3D, and one does not meddle in cracks of it unless one wants very much to have it phone home and tell the police where to send the bill. And it happens, in fact it’s almost guaranteed. So damn excited about this!
starting some woodworking; thinking i will make my desk a standing desk, not sure how that will work. will have a stool with a back on it for some tasks, but will try to be up off my ass as much as possible. At my age, the risk of heart disease increases radically when you let the ass parts go numb.
went to DJ last night at a party, expected to open for two hours then dawdle around and see about maybe closing the party for maybe another hour or two. opening set went almost 3 hours, and the closing set….nearly 4 hours. Holy shit, I DJed almost 7 hours of boomers yesterday. In the second set, a few came up behind the DJ booth to ask for requests, or to tell me it needed to be much harder and faster (not my least favorite request ever, but you don’t need to come back a second time and express your disappointment). Lighting on the dancefloor is very dim, so it’s hard to see the dancers, not that there were much more than a dozen or so anyway, sigh, so it makes it very hard to connect, which is what dancefloor DJing is kind of all about, which kind of messes with the energy thing, pouring hard and not getting the loop to know how it’s hitting. Was a blast, but I was sure glad to see the lights slowly come on this morning just before noon.
meeting last week went well, just a tentative budget but if their client bites it will be a lot of work, and included in the budget is enough for me to get a new system, NEED and WANT. When I got home, there was one rush job waiting, and an offer to teach a class next semester, and also a request to meet with that woman about a project. Well my oh scooty my! Rocked out the rush job, client totally jazzed about results, will pay fast, niiiiice. Went to meeting today about other project, will go again next week to see their better-resolved plans and then give estimate, but it should go ahead i think. Damn it’s nice to have paper in my pocket that I earned myself.
Did a fun mix at the party last Friday; was asked to bring in as much acid as possible (ie tracks featuring a TB303, the classic acid sound), and it went great. Und zo, ElfElfElf, 2 hours of bent.
Just bought a thick folder of new tracks, lots of prep work to do tonight, then tomorrow i go rent some time on a big system and go work on a bunch of new mixes: one deep dark techno, full late hour psychedelic rage-on, then a warmup-to-bumpinish mix, then a mix to maybe get a few gigs at bars, bubbly house. Thinking around 5 hours total. I got some work to do tonight getting it organized.
anybody other than Patrick still reading this damn thing? Hi Pat!
mooof. hell i dunno. stuff going on but at this point whatever. this isn’t much of a travel blog anymore, mostly just a scattered record of my mundane here and there struggles and lameouts. maybe I’ve just had little more than false starts lately and it shows.
been trying to get together a couple of new mixes for, ding, the bell: too damn long. went Tues to the club where we do our parties, set up on the main system but the bass was super muddy and I really just didn’t feel connected, big busy mix with too many elements trying too hard. The monitoring was not so clean, would cut out a part and not even hear the difference. went two hours and at end felt no victory, want better. so went back yesterday to try again on much better system in smaller room, but my friend was busy with it recording a couple of people jamming on a potential track together, so I am making other plans. Going to a meeting in a bit with client from last big job, a big job appears to be flirting us up, and we are going to talk about how to budget it better this time. Hoping for a REALLY big one to end out the year. We shall see, but if there’s time next week I’m going to rent a day at a space near here, where there’s a pretty solid system, and make both mixes. goddammit, I wanna play! but the other obvious problem is that I am not living this, not spending enough time getting to know my tracks, feeling out ways to work them off each other, and mainly am certainly not anywhere near exploiting the capabilities of this wild software I use. Not even sure I’ll get to play this weekend; hope we can crack the curse, and get enough people to justify opening the second room.
a couple of weeks ago was at Bhu’s bar, and saw a friend, and he says oh do you know Zack? and around my shoulder comes my number one favorite DJ, DVS-1. The two times I’ve seen him here, i always give him big smiles around the DJ booth, and huh, he recognized me, and then we ended up chatting for about an hour, how about that.
I could really use a few unimaginative dreams. I seem to wake up every day on the far side of some excruciating epic, drained and in need of a big break. Recalibration, i need one. suppose it would help not to watch big splashy movies just before lights out. Fine, you try it.
time to warsh and get on the train to SW Berlin. Where I live, in Germany! That’s still MAD AWESOME!!!
when DJs/producers “make it”, the process can begin and get air rather abruptly. One of the main ways it happens is by someone charting one of your tracks someplace significant, adding it to their top ten for whichever month. Dr. Walker, the promoter I work with, used to be one of the kings of the German techno scene, then went away to Crete and points beyond for several years, and faded off the radar. All of a sudden, his blip is back and beeping loud. He has a track on the new Berghain mix/compilation (someone had to tell him, the label that licensed it never contacted him), and now Resident Advisor has asked him for a new chart. And I’m going to be on it. Righteous! Psychedelic Kitchen is his netlabel, meaning stuff will only be released digitally, at least to begin. Next step is to get the shit mixed down and officially released! Eh, better make some other tracks, I have two but more would be damn fine. I guess he’ll chart jundiev or firkof, both on my site.
Still pushing to finish my two new mixes, one for bar, housey, not so dancey, and the other full on raging dark trippy techno. The bar one seems to be organized and about ready to go; bought a few new strong tracks for the darkfloor, but will probably leave that loosely sorted so i can be spontaneous. Hopefully going to get to mix that one on the actual mainfloor system at the club we do parties at, can’t wait!
Bhu’s remix track seems to be ready to go to mastering; they did a really great job, and hopefully we’ll get to deliver it to the label in person, we both really want to see their faces. I don’t think anyone was expecting it to come out this good. It’s really something, very proud of her!
Bhu’s club’s label (Ostgut Ton) invited her to do a remix of one of the tracks on their label, Steffi’s “Sadness”. Seeing as it basically has about six words sighed over and over, wasn’t much opportunity for her to soar vocally, so she and i worked out about 20 lines of lyrics, and her band came up with a gorgeous simple riff that’s quite moving. It should be released as a 7″ around the end of the year; the other side is a rather comical character that does a stiflingly cliche grind of noisy indu-rawk, with that ridiculous wolfman-teeth raspy growl, haven’t heard what he’s done but let’s just drop that subject right now. Today there was a photo shoot for the two of them, up on the roof of the club, which was previously a huge heat-generating plant. I had heard of the vast room in the back that they are fixing up to be a concert hall. Holy fucking shit, that thing is insane! Concrete hopper chutes in the 100′ ceiling 20′ on a side, ventilation holes just as big, everything 5x bigger than normal. Whuh. Roof was unremarkable but it was still pretty cool to be up on top of my shrine.
She’s got a show coming up next weekend, and she’s a long-standing favored/special child in the club’s family, so we went up to the office at the top of the other building, i was umgawd so verklempt! she passed out a few flyers to the various people there, got to shake the hands of the two bosses, didn’t show it but i was totally gassed. It’s also nice for them to see us together in the daytime, makes her look good; we are ten months together now, and we look great together, very affectionate and playful, and they’ve seen her through plenty of tough times.
Her show is in a great room, wood-panelled with nice acoustics, but so far the guy running the place seems to be a no-show, which is stressing her. Just trying to gently coax her in the direction of promoting it as best she can, and hope her bandmate running the technical-issue side of things can get the shit at least to adequate. We shall see.
Finally got paid from the second job last round, so nice to have cash in pocket. i could easily spend it four times over so it’s not that lasting a change but we’ll see. time to hustle the fuck out of the world of possibilities. i have doc i made of all my contacts in the music world, goes on to about four columns of 10 pt type, so maybe something will splash ashore for my efforts. wanna do CD covers, flyers, etc. Would really like to finally start getting a nice chunk of my income from the dance music world. Still never got paid for the flyers/poster i did in August, and i doubt that fucking worm will ever come up with anything but attitude and self-pity, so it’s up to me to exploit the hell out of it into something lasting.
and the other clock hasn’t moved: it’s still well fucking high time i fall off my thumb and make some tracks already. right now mostly focussing on a couple of mixes, one spacey but positive house/light tech for bar gigs, and the other a deep hard dancefloor mix, have found so many incredible new tracks to fold into a 4D thrall. The promoter I’m working with is really into where I’m going, and seems up for helping me land some gigs. His name carries major weight with anyone who’s been around the scene for long, so the ball is in my hands. Ready set…fucking hell just get on with it.
Friday gig, was hoping for a late set and a full crowd. got the late set. sigh. went on around 8.30am to an almost empty club, played almost a half hour before fade to boohoo. whatever. the new tracks are fucking killer! the good news is when I get my new mix sequenced out a bit, my buddy the promoter is going to arrange for me to go the club and mix on the big system, wayyyy fuck yeah. so, time to arrange. there’s a link to the set on my soundcloud page, haven’t put it up on my site yet. starts a bit bumbly, but the last half is as solid as it gets.
shoutout to awesome friend Patrick, who lost a longtime friend, since childhood, this week to a heart attack. He’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, and must be having a hell of a time with this. Big group hug in his general direction.
put in some time this week on beatport, where i buy all my tracks, or at least used to when i occasionally had disposable income. really dug long and hard, and if you put in the time, eventually it pays off. Sometimes you go through 50 or 100 tracks (or much more) before you find one for the hold bin, and then suddenly you find 5 out of 20 for the cart. Found one amazing new producer, named Quantic Spectroscopy (look him up on soundcloud.com), who is extremely prolific, and alarmingly consistent in quality. Wrote him on soundcloud, and he responded enthusiastically, think i made a new bud. So, anyway, feeling tentatively confident that i have a good bag of stuff now. Hold that thought.
Go to Berghain. Totally floored by Dino Sabatini’s live set, massive. Go upstairs, hear Monika Kruse do a set that is not only massive and all that, but even groovy, too, something even harder to pull off than energy. Then go downstairs and hear Marcel Fengler (my favorite of the Berghain residents) tear up a massive expert set. Goddammit people, I am trying to contrive some valid confidence here, did you have to pick this weekend to raise the damn bar so high yet again? Wankers, thanks a lot.
but back to beatport. at the moment, my severely-culled cart is twice my budget, and i still have a couple of heavy names to check the catalogs of. One way or another, i want to make the cuts, and work out a new mix before end of week. We’ll see. Playing Friday night, like to have a new one in pocket. Good problems, let’s step up.
tried not to get hopes up too much for DJ gig Friday night, and a good thing. attendance was o-kay, but didn’t really reach any kind of critical mass. here and there i got a tiny crowd of howling dancers going in my room, but I couldn’t seem to keep them. the club has a deep repuation as being a bunch of dumbasses from the suburbs, all body spray and proto-gay tight clothes, what are called douchebags in the US, and that stank is hard to shake. i hope my buddy Ingmar, who does all the work of hustling us into existence, will diversify to other clubs, he seems to understand it’s probably needed. but i got to play big and rugged, and recorded the set; will edit it up into something presentable this week. next.
today we are going to Berghain at 4pm (!) for a set by one of my faves. pretty comical to go out to a flea market, walk in the sunshine…then go into a big dark room full of raging bass and dance a few hours. hell why not.
woo hoo, our party this Friday is currently ranked the third most popular party on Resident Advisor, that’s not nothing. We are above a couple of pretty damn good parties, i am quite pleasantly surprised. We have permission to go late, like, into the following evening, so let’s see how it goes. going to take a stack of flyers out tomorrow for a long walk, and see what we can do to make it a success. Well hell why not.
Got paid today, what a nice change from being brokeass. paid the rent, put some cash in Bhu’s hand, and went shopping for a bundle of tasty eaty. Now to get back on it and make the next damn jobs materialize.
Bhu’s band went into studio this week to record. I was busy Monday with a 16 hour day dragging that damn job over the finishing line, but went with Tues, Th, and Friday, being support crew and a bit of vocal coach. She really has some damn pipes on her, quite something. Band is pretty tight, but the guitarist in particular is a real gem. can’t wait to hear the finished product, which probably won’t make it to mixdown for at least a month or so. I’ll probably be doing the cover art for it.
just hanging low waiting for the money from the jobs to land. how much longer, can it be…
just finished a project for a small studio, working for a pretty huge client. was wayyyy underbudgeted, got paid for 6 days and worked 12, but hopefully it was a good investment; the company is a big composites research group, part of a very large research group, so tons of manufacturers of all flavors will be seeing the video, and the guy did a good job, so…yeah, glad it’s over. Friday I was there 17 hours trying to finish up, then yesterday it was 16. guh, get in the damn box already. tomorrow is the big tradeshow or conference or what the fuck ever, so hopefully it won’t be long before my client’s phone starts ringing with work for us. we shall see.
in the meantime, here’s a little taste of the work, a design for a futuristic lightweight electric car, cute, huh?
went to see the new Planet of the Apes movie tonight, mostly a lot of fun, other than the usual few bubble-poppers (they did so much with facial expressions, but when the apes jumped, sometimes the physics were so off, and this is just inexcusable). A pretty good gee-whizzer to sit near the front for. But watching movies in Germany is a little different. We were laughing and wowing and reacting to the movie, and that was clearly not deemed appropriate by the viewers around us. Fucking drones. And the funniest thing, when the movie is over, nobody budges until the credits are finished. Nobody. Lots to love about living here, lots that is just mind bogglingly stupid.
Bhu is a sleep talker, very amusing. and she drops off to sleep so fast sometimes, I’ll be talking to her, and all of two seconds later, bah pfff, ahhh bbfffffff, and a bunch of half french gibberish. Sometimes she’ll even open her eyes and you can kind of talk to her, but all that comes out of her mouth is nonsense, very amusing. Honey you’re asleep, aren’t you? ahh bffff???? my favorite is when she’s asleep and I kiss her shoulders, she emits these rumbling laughs and chuckles of satisfaction, not even close to awake. pretty charming.
and I just never know what charming thing is going to come out her mouth when she is awake. Today i turned her onto the incredible 2 season series Party Down, a real blast. Ed Begley comes on and she says “I don’t like pink people”. We are two retarded children, so incompatible in so many ways, but just so right for each other in many others.
But she can also be a real joy of divine cuntiness at her bar; last night she told someone to go to the other bar, she didn’t want to serve him, so he said fuck you, and she says go ahead I’m already lubed up it won’t even hurt. Such golden nuggets.
ok, finished 11 day work run, and then to my surprise was asked back in for today, helping generate things for a pitch for a large large project. That’s how I like to end a job, with the client going so ok, let’s talk about the next job. Yesalright.
was let hang in the real world until 3 today, arrived ehhpppsalittle closer to 3.30, then pushed through a long tutorial of a seriously incredible After Effects plug in, called Plexus. If you go there, check the demos near the bottom. And also the new OBJ Sequence exporter there, for Cinema 4D-to-Plexus 3D animation export, just released. Go, watch the videos.
so, Shambhu’s set at Berghain is up on their soundcloud page; give a look if you somehow haven’t yet. Walking Blues, such an eerie bit of loveliness at the beginning.
saw Bhu’s first show with her band back in March. was very much biting my tongue, because I thought they had a long ways to go. Well, they worked hard, and went all that long ways. They played tonight at Berghain, and o, m, g. She did it. She did it SOOOO incredibly well. I was hoping it would be adequate enough that my compliments wouldn’t seem too strained, but holy fuck, they really laid it on hard, deep, and wide. And best of all, the room was packed, and they exploded with love after every single song. I, am so motherfucking proud of this fabulous unit right now, she truly rose to the occasion, and the band was right there with her the whole way. Just like that, it is Friday morning, the day after, but I am still laying it on thick. And people are going to be telling her about it for a long damn time. And she deserves it!!
maybe next time…
after a MUCH too long dry spell, am working again. am making decent money on an 8-10 day project, very damn welcome. and even better, the next job i was going to do was going to advance me cash to buy a new Mac Mini, but after further research it seems like an inadequate machine, and current client is going to rent me his new screamer of an iMac in exchange for future work. Win all around. Also second client is advancing me cash to cover my huge quarterly health insurance payment. Yee hah, a relief.
Now if I could just do better with these damn mornings, no more sleeping late for me.
going to meet a buddy in a bit, maybe go out of town to DJ this weekend, camp out at some underground party, go big on the techno system. we’ll see. Still waiting to get paid for the flyers, don’t want to have to ask Bhu for any money for it. Hard enough she has to steel herself against her insecurities to let her bf go off miles (eh, km) away to a crowd of lit-up hungry strangers, wouldn’t add insult to that to ask her to fund it. poor thing, no matter what i do, she’s still so afraid of losing me. frustrating for me, very, but her feelings are what they are, not for me to judge. this summer has been all but non-existent as far as gigs, so I gotta jump on what I can. The promoters of the party also do the main afterhours sunday all-day party here, so it’s doubly good to get in with them. we’ll see.
when i see him, he will have just picked up the flyers and posters, man I can’t wait!
am doing a little graphic design job for an acquaintance in exchange for massage and holistic advice. so goddamn frustrating. I spent a fair amount of time and energy trying to get them to sort out their end, and they came back with such lameness, mainly in choosing the image of a dry dandelion head about to blow off into the wind for their front image. What are the first three things you think of? Dry, itchy, end of life. Way to sell it. Whichever, i am done pushing, going to just line it up as they asked for and move on. I swear, sometimes working with a group of women can be such a damn drag, everybody more concerned with constantly checking in on each other’s feelings than actually making an intelligent statement. Durrr.
built a freestanding shelf unit for the bedroom; was a big shelf screwed into the wall, laden with clothes, but it was drifting towards the floor. Nice to actually do something non-digital for a bit.
where did summer go? i what? gotta get the fuck out and throw the damn frisbee. this is pathetic. that is all.
had an opportunity to make a flyer and poster, decided to just go for it and make something special. 10K flyers going out around into the whoever? and posters around Berlin? Was sure not doing anything better with my time. Totally sucked down my time though, have been all but locked to the computer since Saturday night, mostly waiting for my 3D app to ungag the machine again (yeah, reeeally need to update my hardware), but just shipped them off, and take a look:
went to a free 3D model site, and grabbed a bunch of any shape/model that looked fun: chandeliers, bath tubs, whichever, and just striped and duped em and tossed em into strands. Client wanted black white and red only, so that simplified the coloring. Kind of making a sculpture out of random elements to make a drawing. Me likey. Me sleep now, long time. I guess this was my birthday present to myself, I approve!
And oh, yes, it is in fact at Berghain’s smaller club next door. Yes, my first cool graphic design job here features a Berghain logo. Also likey.
we’ve been worrying for a couple of months about a pending possible eviction proceeding. German law says, late two days twice in a year? papers served. no late fees, just straight to fuck you. We had visited an experienced lawyer who combed over the possibilities and details, and she told us that technically, sure anything could happen, but seriously to not get our hopes up. Bhu always tends to default to the worst possible outcome anyway, so…we’ve been less than positive. I knew the meeting with landlord’s agent was today, but assumed Bhu had ditzed on it (and: true), so didn’t remind her. She was VERY happy when the lawyer called and said it actually went well: we’re staying!! will still be the considerable matter of court fees, which could be, who knows, a grand, but so fucking what, moving would be a hugely massive-r hassle. A year ago, the Berlin real estate market was still fairly wide open, but it’s clamped up tight since. So, YES!
also, just got a wee job to do a flyer for an upcoming party, which will cover my next month’s rent. have been wanting to do graphic design for clubs/labels, and normally it’s work-for-free to get into the market, but this one’s paid, so…fuck yeah.
perhaps our luck is breaking? believe!! hell why not.
yeah, not much to report, but you’ve heard that. playing Friday night at a club for Liquid Sky, four hour opener on the second system, asked not to play too hard, so it goes. Happy to play with this gang, hope it leads to bigger things…where I can play FUCKING HARD. Caught the beginning of DVS1′s *11 HOUR* closing set at Berghainlast weekend, and he was seriously raging, so intense, and everyone LOVED it, so…I don’t know where these club owners get their info, but I just wanna play, so I’ll take it.
thought I was playing a name club this month, but it seems that won’t happen. so it goes. but we signed to do six parties at a lesser club that I actually like way better.
hustled a bit for work this week, have two interviews next week, one with a freelancer agency, fingers crossed. we really need to put some money on the books, it is well past old as hell being a kept boy. My girl works hard for her money, I am grateful for her generosity of course, but I wanna give it back big time. We’ll see.
we still friends?
have had only a small desk set up in the living room here, waiting to get the proper hookup so i could have internet access in kitchen where the desk and all is supposed to be. Desk was there, but it’s just been a parking spot for miscellaneous slop, not at all active. We’ve had some nice days in the living room, working semi-together in our respective tunnels, and while of course we need privacy at times and all, in general we like to be near each other (yeah, go ahead: awwwww), so Bhu said hey, just bring the desk in the living room, what the hell. Was a bit of a haul, lots of futzing to arrive at the end, but…yes, I like. Got a big shelf to go across the top, screwed together three pairs of wood boxes, with a shelf below it on the left half, whole thing nice and rigid. Haven’t even taken keyboard out of box since arriving here, but now there’s room for it, and it is parked just above the left shoulder, yoy.
A friend of Bhu’s runs the kitchen at a pretty chichi place uptown, and invited us up for a private meal tonight. was pretty sweet, they have a small table in the kitchen, and we got to chat with the cook (wasn’t busy), then hang out and drink a few with him after it all closed. A little twinge of luxury to reward our busy day.
Also, they have a nice room there, with acoustics and a stage, and Bhu might get a show there, sounds great. If I hadn’t mentioned it, she sings old gospel and blues, has a loyal hard-working band. Looks like maybe in the fall she can do a surrrious proper show at this place, that is fantastic news. Especially seeing as this other huge show she had been promised has steadily dwindled down to maybe kind of a jerkoff, she has been very disappointed watching it fade lower, so yeah, this is good news. He also suggested we figure out how to DJ together there, which is a very interesting proposition. Huh.
man, I hardly ever have anything to say anymore, but things do happen here.
and at that note, Bhu yells out on her sleep on the couch. Wakes up for 2 seconds to say she’s tired and then is asleep again. some bell rang just then?
went to the hardware store yesterday, going back in a minute. am moving main desk into living room, open up kitchen. fiddling with other things too. make a list of everything needed, and then triage, and then go do it. the list part is fun, but the rest is ok too. I am a good influence on this space.
main projects right now are to set up two online shops, one for Tshirts and whatever else they have (except fine art prints), and the other just for prints. trying not to make it too epic of a project, want it done and up asap.
Liquid Sky just signed us up with a new club, sounds loud, looks dark, excited. go see it with Ingmar on Friday. He’s been working hard, and is hoping to do an open air or several this summer, he can make that happen and i hope he does. Good man.
two pieces of good news, both via my buddy Ingmar, of Liquid Sky:
July 23, day after i turn 52, we will do a party at Tresor, which to people in the know, is an annoying shadow of a once-great club, but still a very nice name to have on your resume. They are known to book damned good people, so it’s hardly a hollow win, but they tend towards a rather white sneaker body spray crowd, plus the goddamn strobe light/smoke machine thing, not my fave. But enough with the neggins, I’m playing at Tresor! woo hoo! about damn time!!
also, in October, he’ll do a big art show, and i will be able to put in whatever i wanna contribute, so time to start making eyes at some tubes of paint.
there. finally have something good to say.
also, this afternoon, about 50′ i ahead of me, a car drove up onto the sidewalk. If I’d been walking a little faster today i might have timed it very badly.
makes three good things today, by my count. Oy!!
fishing for brilliant schemes to make money, and I realize i still have never made a proper effort for any kind of online shop presence, so am starting with prepping a few drawings, vectorizing them (a super tedious process) so they can be printed at any size. should actually take them a step further and do some digital colorway weirdness, but first things first. then, see what i can do with the power of social media, and friends of friends, etc.
starting with these 4:
drw004, one of my favorites
T2wall, which was one of my best pieces, will be a ton of work but then whams.
drw070
and maybe drw029, just to round things out
now to make several hundred thousand points and handles, and then on to the next part.
lots of places where you pipe in some images, set up pricing/etc., and they do the printing, shipping, billing…and moneying. hell why not, it’s just a question of marketing. at least I’ll have it off the do list.
not so much to report here, and the way the allergies are hitting, as they do, might not be much else for a bit. god they just grind me to a halt. and the stuffed nose drills its way into my dreams too, was trying to eat a sandwich but couldn’t breath well enough to swallow it, or the ever-popular parched throat and trying like hell to squeeze water out of a bottle, no go. it just kills motivation, at a time when I’d really like to be setting up a busy summer. Turns out most of Germany is on vacation from early June until mid August, so any hopes of generating some work here are probably a laugh.
I can probably never really give up on the techno DJ dreams, but I am beginning to wonder if it might be time to push painting to the front. it’s kind of my only hope for longer-term income, so i might as well get started.
for now, the plan is, Bhu knows a ton of people, so we are going to discuss in what way she is willing to use that network to find me work. Told her i would give her a proper cut of whatever income I make, plus the obvious fact that i would then be able to chip in on rent and expenses better than I have been, so we will see. fingers crossed.
finished up a job, invoiced, and invoiced for older job, took two tries to get them both in accord with every-damn-detail as required by the local sticklers. this means it appears i will make my quarterly do-or-die insurance payment, though I will believe that when the money is in my account. whew, can stop freaking out about that, at least for the next three months then it’s on again.
many transactions here are done with bank transfers. my invoices contain my bank account number, and that’s it, no checks, no waiting.
good night at Berghain saturday. A well-established DJ, Dave Clarke, played second, and started out with older-sounding acid tracks that were too fast but not really hard enough, whatever. expected more. came back a bit later and it was super crazy dark weird shit, so fantastic. DJ after, wouldn’t want to be in his shoes to try and follow that, but he did great. I thrashed but good.
after-club Sundays with Bhu are always so great, we just luxuriate in bed, watching movies and snuggling.
god, after too many false starts and dead ends (like, more than none), i got my Anmeldung (residential registration, CRITICAL for all things here) sorted yesterday, and then today went to see again about tax number. Had applied in March, but it never came, assumed it was the Anmeldung thing. They couldn’t find the application, then did, then said ok, will take a couple of weeks, I gently asked if um, maybe, possible, ein bisssschen mehr schnell? The stamp showed i had applied two months ago, nobody ever told me any problem…so, she’s typing, and then writing, and then i hear the printer, and she’s signing…and what’s this in my hand? my new official German tax number? which means i can work here and get paid? gawd. so numb from trying to extrude this pearl out of reality’s little gnurls…but, hey! wheee! JA.
health insurance is up for renewal. haven’t made a single claim, but it’s going up almost 400€/year anyway. hey unnamed fuckers, you are so not invited to my birthday party. Jesus, rent on my body is about 2/3 what i pay for a room. fffffffuck.
in good news, we are about to run out for a round of frisbee. let’s just focus on that instead.
and a wonderful track from the 80s, by a band Bhu turned me onto, Les Rita Mitsouko, Someone to Love.
walking to market with a monday-hangovered Bhu today, and an extremely wobbly drunk trundles by badly nearby, and she says “oh honey i so hear you”.
that is all.
was happy to get to play again on Sunday, but was starting to wonder how much time I would have. at first i was promised the whole night in the second room, then another act got added, no prob…but then another, and another, until it seemed like 4 or even 6 of us were sharing it. Ok, an hour each, I’ll fill my time, hope it’s not a crap slot. Turns out, hardly any of them actually made the trip (from out of country), so i got to play 3 hours. then the girl playing after me, who was playing off iPods, ie no beatmatching possible, who I thought was rocking the crowd pretty good, though every single mix was a hopeful failure of clunky, well, management didn’t like the taters in a dryer technico, so i was asked to bump her off. Not something a DJ wants to get done to him(/her), but hey, orders is orders. So, hell yeah, played another two hours. Just grand. Lots of smiling faces, lots of groovin, huge success. Fuck I can’t wait to do it again.
The earlier plan had been to make a bunch of new tracks and parlay that into a busy summer, but so far this year has been a colossal fuckoff. At this point my hopes are very diminished. It is getting time to get off my thumb here, make some stuff happen. Hopefully tomorrow i will sort out my anmeldung (official residential registration) and can finally wangle the required tax number. Yeah, we’ll see. Fuck my life.
finally, the too-clever mouse resident of our kitchen is on its way to dust. sometime this afternoon we heard a snap, and looked at each other excitedly, so i went out to check and hell yes, little grey mousey body with a trap where the head should be, cute little claws curled in empty grief, once-chipper tail just a limp grey filthy spaghetti on the floor. We called him/her Einstein, because she wasn’t fooled by the traps, jumped over them, stole cheese out of them, whichever, and as much as i hate taking a life, turds on the counter are a dealbreaker. What a relief. Can’t find glue traps here, was going to have some sent from US; that would be an awful thing, see two shiny eyes looking at me in crushing fear, and have to drown the fucker. Did NOT want to do that, so I’m glad he managed to choose the sudden crush option, thanks little one, for both of us.
going to just stay home tonight, get some rest; Bhu goes into work soon, super busy night at the club planned, hope she does well. Going to go in around 9am, have beers for a couple of hours, then ride home with her around 11am. Got her out for some frisbee yesterday, her first time, only played a half hour, which i knew would be plenty, so she wouldn’t be too destroyed for her two nights of work. Today she is plenty surprised at how much an ass can hurt from just half hour of light scooting, but I showed her some good stretches and she’s ready to go. And says Monday or Tuesday we go play for an hour. Niiiiiice.
a little low on energy here these days, have been taking it easy hoping to regroup but it goes slowly. however, it is still far better than the next best alternative, and i have so not lost sight of that. Bhu is wonderful, so affectionate, so happy to have me here. So we spend too much time snuggled watching movies, that’s not the worst thing.
But this mouse in the kitchen, getting on my nerves. we put out traps a week or so ago and got a little one, but the smart fat one just jumps right over them, and at night is always on the counter. gonna have my sis send me some glue traps from the US; they don’t seem to be available here. Nasty way to kill a clever little creature, but sorry fucker, you shit on my cutting board, i am done with your heartbeat, there is a limit.
going to DJ this Sunday night, probably for several hours, finest. maybe even outside in the open air room at the club, under the stars, hope so.
other than that, just going down my do list. Today we go and see if i can myself registered at this address, the all-important Anmeldung, around which all bureaucracy orbits. Have heard tales of it being a big hassle for some people; my last one I had a woman who just didn’t feel like dealing with the grind of translating, so she just took me at my word and hit the paper with a stamp and a smile, and that was it. Tried for this place once and got the wall, going again in a bit with Bhu and hopefully the right form, and we’ll see. Need that to get my tax number, which i need to get the two checks due me. Would be nice to go and buy a fuckton of groceries.
I really love to watch Bhu when she works at her bar, but this weekend i have to go without. Saturday is a massive party at the club, super crowded, and downstairs where I prefer to go is a super-pig gay sex party, thanks no. Oh well. Tomorrow she works at the other club across the courtyard, for an all-gay party, so i may go for a few drinks early on, but then I’m out. She looks so great when she puts on her full makeup, and so graceful yet master-in-charge. She often finds the job a bit of a grind, ten hour shift of serving drinks, alone in her cage, to increasingly-fucked up people on the hunt for stimulation, but nobody handles this bar like her. She’s a bit of an institution.
got the parts needed to run a line of Ethernet to kitchen, via hole in wall to neighbor’s, but he doesn’t seem to be so available, so Bhu said fuck it, we moved her sewing machine table to the kitchen, and moved the kitchen table to the living room, and i set up the monitor and hard drives and stuff, and am now on the web, on the full system. just on a smallish table (just about room enough leftover for a sheet of paper), but it can work until we are fixed proper. i have been pretty useless the last few days, eagerly running errands and shopping just to stay busy, but other than that a despondent lump. It’s nice to be kept and bestowed with generosity, but it’s also a little hard to loft into when I can’t muster enough productivity in my own life…us guys need our feeling of effectiveness. So, cross that excuse off, i have enough setup to work. To it.
been turning Bhu onto Firefly, such a treat. The other night she had her first pass of Public Enemy’s “Fear of a Black Planet”, which is kind of a bible, so dense with so much creativity, one of those things that seems so complete it’s hard to imagine it was created, just always existed somehow.
not sure what’s up with my tax number, was due end of last week or so. fingers crossed. only money I own is waiting for those digits, none in my hand until.
all moved in at Bhu’s. got a late start on the move, so I just dropped off stuff here and went to return truck, then rush back to do the four long flights of stairs…only to return to find our friend Richard had loaded it all upstairs, god i was thrilled! then it was the weekend, and then…got a bad cough, just the stress of moving into an unknown situation and the move coming to a head. and now Bhu is down coughing and weak too, so we are just chilling in a dark room having weird dreams by the bushel. getting better, but still not back in the game. I was definitely anxious about how successful this move could be, but she is so damn sweet to me, and can be pretty damned adorable, and is quite insistent that there is no pressure for me to get out of here, just dig in and make some music and enjoy the lack of stress. We are now officially boyfriend and girlfriend, which makes her just as happy as can be. Nice to make her happy.
borrowed a friend’s audio box for my wee gig this coming Monday; the RCA outputs of my old one long ago died, headphone jack still works but wtf good is that. This is a much higher quality box, and holy shit, what a difference in sound! Presonus Firebox, if any geeks are reading. Wish I had cash, he’s selling it, and would even let me make payments, but i am not going to make a promise i can’t keep. But damn! as soon as i plugged it in, can these be my shitty little computer speakers? night and day. and the headphone amp, i can’t even turn it up to 5, wayyy too loud (it actually goes to 11, silly fucks). anyway, another incentive to earn some damn money. though the one I had my eye on (Echo Audifire2, now up to 4), has even better reviews on Amazon, so whatever, shut up and find the damn money.
gonna be the DJ all night at a club, but it’s only a Monday, and i doubt anyone there will give a shit. hope i get some money! when I’ve been there before the sound was horrible, but hey, drinks, and another notch on the bedpost.
finally fell off my thumb and went and applied for my tax number Thursday. they sent me to a different office, and I had one mistake, so I went home to adjust the form and went back to second place yesterday. Lady was nice, looked it over, stamped it, should get it in a week or two. Me likey when German bureaucracy says yes. still have to sort out my Anmeldung, ie residential registration. Will keep my studio set up where i am for the next month, so registered here for now, but we shall see if they let me switch the Anmeldung here. Weird, when you move apartments, you have only 7 days to update the records or could face a 40€ fine, even for Germans i think.
my kingdom for a damn nail. got a small gig Monday night, fairly trivial in the scheme of things, but my audio interface is still dead. my buddy says he can probably swing me a free one soon, but it won’t be in time. hustle hustle, who’s got one i can borrow.
back to Berghain tonight, missed the last two weeks. i need a bit of dancing, hope the sounds are good.
how you doin?
long couple of days of some weird intestinal thing, still getting my strength back. damn, tiny things can make big problems. I think mainly it’s stress over my living situation; both main US clients have said the well is dry for at least two more months, maybe more, and I am feeling rather under a pile of poop. have been talking about moving in w/Bhu, which on some levels could be a nice thing, but it could also turn into a clusterfuck fast; she’s still wrestling w/attachment issues, and if i say the wrong thing it could get unpleasant, and then we’re trapped. I think i may be able to work out a compromise, keep just my studio set up where i am now, take all my clothes and stuff to her place and just sleep there, that way my buddy’s landlord can’t really complain so much. here is on the north of town, there is down south, so there’s some commuting time involved, but whatever, so I read a little. one good benefit is that i will get a transit pass, and then have one less reason to miss the gym, which is at a good transit transfer point.
now just gotta hustle and get the damn tax number so’s I can get my next paycheck in the boat.
was thinking of going to Amsterdam April 2nd for a gig at a big squat party, friend of Bhu’s, but it’s on such short notice, we couldn’t find cheap enough tickets, and she says it just seems too dodgy, so why risk it.
heehee, just heard whimpers from the bathroom, and my name called…roommate’s GF was blowdrying her hair and some got pulled into the intake, scissors, stat! so cute…
went to play my party Saturday, opening set 12-1, easy peazy, success. packed up my gear and grabbed a beer, hanging out w/friends, introducing cool people to each other, finest. then my friend say so you’re playing later too, yeah? um, what? checked, and whaddya know. went on again 5.30, played 2+ hours, lots of arms in the air, nice and chunky. went fairly hard a lot, then backed off and gave them a little house, then right back in. total success. even got slipped 50€, which i so wasn’t expecting. and in my opinion, i was the best DJ of the evening; two acts after me were quality taste-wise, but just not as hard as the room seemed to want. guy before me did better, but i think i took it up from there. attendance was good, club was happy.
hanging out at ‘Bhu’s on Sunday morning, we heard some weird screams coming up from the courtyard, but didn’t think it sounded like a problem, heard lots voices, assumed it was just some strange party. Not exactly, there was an arson fire in the next courtyard over, 4 people died. The fuck? No building here have fire escapes, haven’t seen a one anywhere.
got home today, turned to put down heavy bag of DJ stuff and ping, pinched nerve in my back. should go away in two days like it usually does. goddamn. but at least I’m in better shape than my poor sister, whose delusions-of-godlike pain doctor is dicking her over, cut her meds by 2/3, and is being a fucking ass about it. stuff he insists she take isn’t working for her at all, and is messing with her bad. the pain doctor she had in the hospital gave her great stuff, quality of life was just dandy, but she doesn’t handle patients after they leave the hospital. poor thing, feel so bad for her, her life is a horror these days.
time to hustle, make some work happen. gotta get a tax number, so i can get paid. probably going to move in with Bhu for a month after this place, could probably stay here another month but it would be too expensive. not sure being at her place is a good idea, but hell with it. only temporary, and she’d be on cloud nine to have me there every night.
thought I was DJing this weekend, then when i went to promote online, noticed i wasn’t mentioned on the facebook page. double-checked, and fuckfuckfuck, it was just a miscommunication, not booked until late April. Then today he surprised me by offering to let me do opening set on the main floor, 12-1, woo fucking hoo!!
I am excite! opening sets are a little different, you have to start low, for whatever the energy of the room is, ie casual and mostly empty. then slowly amp it up so it’s ready for the next DJ, nothing too big too soon.
also this means i am officially the first DJ for this crew, Liquid Sky Berlin.
YES.
