Australia Day Weekend - Redux

Its rare that I get a quiet moment nowadays to write out my thoughts. Everything at work has been crashing down at once like a wobbly stack of cards built a little too high.
4 weeks before our project goes-live and honestly from my point of view I can see things going pear shaped. However, leadership are pretty good at showing powerpoint presentations to repackage the pear as an apple to the businesses.

Nonetheless, my whinging aside, life has been great of late. I did have an amazing Australia Day long weekend (yes, I know its been that long since I last posted).

My 72hrs of hedonistic pleasure started on Saturday evening where we packed ourselves picnic baskets loaded with food and bubbly, walked down the street to the Fitzroy gardens for a picnic in the park with the night's entertainment provided by 'The Soul Connection' a funk and soul band playing music from the 60s.
It was absolutely brilliant stuff, people old and young were running around barefoot on the grass and dancing in the twilight as the sunlight faded into the city skyline in the backdrop.


Sunday we celebrated Emily's 28th birthday during the afternoon at our apartment. Drinks and a BBQ were the order of the day and it stretched into the night when we all headed down to the Nightcat; a salsa club on Johnston street. A live latin band and couples showing off their slick dance moves on the floor.

A shot with Sam, Emily's cute friend from Sydney

After a rather interesting night out, the next day I went to the Alumbra on docklands. Miguel Migs and Julius Papp (Both whom I had the pleasure of catching in Singapore 2 weeks earlier) were playing, with live vocals by none other than Lisa Shaw!

The club is situated right in the middle of the pier and standing on the dance floor inside, I realised that the dance floor was made of glass and you can see the sea below your feet.

Me and Greg




Sam got persuaded heavily by me to come for the party, as no visit to Melbourne is complete without a party with class...



Enjoying the sunshine in the outdoor area



Marika dropped by late to the party, but in time for the main acts

The music was incredible, the crowd was great, this was one of those unexpected parties where everything was unplanned and you have one of the greatest nights of your life!

The end of a great holiday

1.30am on a Monday morning / Sunday night (depending on how you're looking at it)

I am dreading having to face waking up for work in a few hours.
I had a fun Wednesday night at this club/bar - Thumper @ the Goodwood Park Hotel.
Kyo was teaching an hour of basic beginner's salsa and there was such a big turnout that I took the lead and led the men's side of the class in the basic moves while he led the ladies.

It was good fun and when the class ended, the social Latin night started with a live Latin band playing some seriously sexy music for everyone to dance to. These people on the floor were amazing! Doing some beautifully executed salsa moves left, right and all over the place. I took a chance with this cute girl, Eugenie but warned her that since I was a beginner, any mistakes made would only be her fault

Lina the air hostess from last week came by as well for a dance and we had an instant group of new friends made there. After the gig, the lot of us went down the road to Emerald Hill for some drinks at an outdoor wine/bar.

Following that we adjourned to Pure, the white side room of Ministry, Singapore. It was a one off party in the middle of the week with local DJs Has and Angela Flame. I've known Angela for a while now since she visited Melbourne in 2006 and it was the first time I've actually heard her play a gig. Damm, not only is she hot looking, she's an awesome techno DJ!

Had an overnight flight on Thursday and arrived in Melbourne bleary eyed and exhausted on Friday morning. Pat & Emily were my official welcoming home committee at the airport. I love my housemates! =)

The Cure and the Cause

I spent Saturday night dancing away at Velvet Underground, the classy house sideroom of Zouk club. Miguel Migs and Julius Papp were at the helm of things, playing a delicious selection of deep house tunes. Happy times indeed, as I caught up with various groups of friends scattered all over the club.
I totally lost the plot when Julius Papp dropped the track "The Cure and the Cause" by Fish Go Deep.
My god!!! I really LOVE this track and it was the first time I heard it out in a club, and no better club than Velvet with its new sound system designed by Gary Stewart himself.

So, I cannot resist but to post up the video of this track to share with you all below....



Kyo was teaching Salsa at the Xenbar on Monday nights. I came along with the intention of getting some lessons and met the lovely bar owner, Emma who let me in for free!
It was a pretty slow night, so I had 2 hours of practice with another girl, followed by an additional hour of private lessons from Kyo to correct the minor flaws that I'll never be able to detect while taking group lessons.

I have much to learn about this dance, the weekly lessons I have been taking with Nic, Lisa and Kylie will never be enough to learn this dance effectively. I'm considering increasing that to twice weekly lessons now if time permits back in Melbourne. =)

2 more days to go in Singapore, I feel like there isn't enough time to do everything I'd like to accomplish here!

Stereosonic

2 weeks ago I made a last minute decision (while still up working in Brisbane) to go for the Stereosonic festival at the melbourne showgrounds.




My friend had a spare industry ticket so I asked my trusty sidekick - prog girl to drive down during the week to Dan's workplace and front the money to help me buy a spare ticket as she and her friends were going too.


Prog-girl with her friends Kerry and Rita


It was a brilliant day spent in the sun with a venue that was big enough to accommodate the 15,000 strong crowd.


I'd say as with most outdoor raves and parties nowadays, there were still a large percentage of wankers, idiot kids and power muzzas; but not as much as what I experienced earlier this year at a string of events run by Future Entertainment.


The view from the grandstand overlooking the massive main outdoor arena. Notice the panels of 2 storey tall video columns showing trippy visuals.


Bumped into Liz, a party acquaintance I knew from some mutual friends


Big blow up gorilla casting its shadow over the crowd.


Some pretty cool 20yr old kids, Cameron and Spanky whom I struck up a random conversation with. They exclaimed that it was 'way cool' that even at my age I was rocking it hard at these events. Seeing that I'm only 27 and definitely have heaps more partying to do in my lifetime, I cracked up laughing so hard that my sides hurt.....


Mr Stacey Pullen from Detroit city, Michigan. One of the pioneer's of Techno in the early days!


A view of the sun slowy setting in the horizon and a cool breeze wafting into the grounds to replace the heat from the afternoon as people are still dancing


Stacey Pullen performed one of the best sets I've heard in recent times, considering the fact that he was playing outdoors in a pretty small stage in the corner.


Giant pie in the sky towering above the Hardware arena. I don't know why I took this shot but I felt compelled to because it was the best landmark there telling people to "meet me below the giant pie!"

Jimmy van M !

I've finally recovered enough over yet another massive weekend of clubbing at a Sunny party.

This time, it was none other than the American Progressive House extraordinaire - Jimmy van M!

His rise to fame came from his endless work behind the scenes in the American dance music scene. He was the official warm up DJ for Sasha and Digweed when they toured America and a resident at Twilo from 1996 - 2000.

I've always wanted to catch Jimmy play ever since I first got exposed to his music when he did the second Bedrock album on Digweed's label. Its a long 6 year wait before I did!


My friends from New Zealand; Sarah and Dave who were at my house earlier this evening for a BBQ before we headed out clubbing.



Jimmy van M taking over the decks from my friend Dean Millson who had the warm up set honours.



Van M hard at work



This slogan says it all


Sarah and Me tearing down some serious booty on the dance floor.

On hindsight, I only realised after the first hour of dancing that wearing my long sleeve dress shirt while fashionably spot on in most other social scenarios, clubbing wear it was not.
I was the proverbial frog getting heated up in a slowly boiling pot by the 2nd hour of the night and was sweating buckets under my sleeves by 3am in the morning.
(mental note to self for future reference: do not wear dressy clothes if intention is to dance non-stop for 7hrs)


Random girl in a pretty dress


Erin and Irene, the latter whom which I haven't seen for ages!



Overall, the best part of my night was actually the final set from 3.30am - 5.30am. It was a versus set between Sydney's Kaybee and Melbourne's Ozzie LA.

Words can hardly describe what I witnessed aurally that morning, I can only say that it simply was one of the best tribal house and progressive sets I've heard two great DJ's play back to back this year. By then the club was a seedy sort of environment with barely 20 people on the dance floor, the lights were all dimmed, the speakers were booming and the first slivers of dawn were starting to creep in through the windows of the venue.

That dark and sweaty afterhours moment to me was the ultimate nirvana of clubbing.

I can't get no sleep......

Ok, I thought I'll detract from my regular posts to leave you with a very rare video from 1993.

This is one of the early house music classics from Masters at Work, with the lovely vocals of La India; who IMO has one of the most beautiful voices in the world.

House music and La India were a match made in heaven.

Enjoy!

Lee Burridge

I have a confession to make: I'm totally in awe of Lee Burridge at the moment.

Anyone who's been in the club scene for as long as I have would have had their fair share of disappointing nights and know never to really expect much for anything. Especially when its in a tiny venue like Ffour.

However, just once in a while it is the rare gems that sneak right up behind you unexpectedly like a thief in the night, suddenly surrounding you in a sensual and intoxicating melting pot of tech-house and techno that leaves you sweaty, gasping, pleasured and still craving for another hit.

The most memorable gig I had with Lee had to be back in 2001, Zouk club, Singapore where he played back to back with Craig Richards as the indominatable tech house duo known as Tyrant. That left a really high benchmark which subsequent solo gigs by Lee would never again quite seem to cut it.


Incidentally, Saturday also happened to fall on the birthday of Prog-Girl.
If any of you have been paying any attention, you'll recognize that Prog-Girl popped out of the darkness of Sunny into my photos and my world during the Anthony Pappa gig in July.

How did the nickname come about? Well I haven't exactly figured that one out either, but somewhere between saying hello and hitting it off like peas and carrots; realising we both love progressive house, she must have entered her number into my phone under that alias, and so it stuck.



A major milestone that I managed to achieve that night was polling and getting more people to join my initiative of starting the "We hate Phil K" club. Vicky (pictured above) and Prog-Girl are the newest members to join Di and myself. No doubt this initiative will grow rapidly once people out there realise that Phil K seriously kills the vibe on any dance floor as attested in my last visit to Sunny.



It was a fair sized crowd who lapped up everything Burridge was throwing out at them


The sweet spot of sound at Ffour that night for me was standing right about here, near the front and next to the speaker column to be able to feel the bass kicking your heart around in your chest


Burridge hard at work


Both of us clearly having a great time


and with that, I'll leave you with a parting shot of the night.....

Boring boring boring

Cheese and Wine session at Katie and Chops' place was fun earlier this evening.

After knowing them for more than a year, we finally meet up outside of a clubbing environment!

I met Katie in the weirdest of ways a year and a half back when I was standing at the door of the Seven nightclub in South Melbourne for a 9hr Stacey Pullen gig. Katie was the unfortunate one standing in between the club doors and was nice enough to hold them open for people walking in and out while still in the queue herself. I complimented her on that and the rest is history as we just didn't really stop yakking since then.

I love these random friendships that just happen out of statistically improbable odds. =)

So I did end up popping my head into Sunny.
For a very brief 2 hrs.
In that time I was wandering around in the dark, I bumped into my mad wog gym buddy, Milan and his crew. Was good to catch up with these massive blokes and his brother, Dragon.

I also bumped into Ben, an old friend I used to roll out to parties with and haven't seen in almost a year now.

However, as predicted, the music was boring as bat shit all thanks to Phil K.

Anthony Pappa did have some good moments up his sleeve but apart from that, it was all the weird break beat broken record broken rhythm minimal tech click zip zap wank fest sound served with a side order of boredom.

The vibe from the crowd was kinda off too tonight, definitely no love was felt when a fight broke out between 2 group of drunk retards on the floor around 3am.

I've been to enough bad nights to know when one is not really gonna improve and knew it was time to cut your losses and make a tactical retreat home.

Said my goodbyes to a few people and in 25mins here I am sitting at home, showered and changed, listening to nice grooves in the background of my room thanks to Ricardo Torres whom I reckon plays pretty awesome house.

Visit his site to download some great mixes.

http://ricardotorres.net/mixes/mixes.html

Dance music for adults. =)

Good night.

Jungle Night !

Bring it on!

The fantastic crew at Sunny has yet once again outdone themselves!
2 weeks ago we had 5hrs of Anthony Pappa, this time they've got him back for another round playing back to back with Phil K!

Andy is very very tempted to go and misbehave badly again come Saturday night...... with or without usual group of clubbing friends (they're just soft-cocks and haven't recovered enough from the last outing)

Admittedly, I seriously hate Phil K's DJ'ing style, as he tends to get too experimental with the sound and at times it seems like he's playing just to himself. Seriously, why bother clubbing when the music seriously isn't that fun to listen to and wannabe dance music aficionado posers are just having a chin stroke about how eceletic-minimal-space-negative space-white sound-black noise and all the bullshit in between to describe weird music that sounds like breaking glass and electric clicks? Sounds like a wank fest to me.

Screw that, dance music to me is all about the emotions that get invoked just by the combination of baselines, rhythms and layers of complementary sound. You know you're listening to a good tune when in the absence of any external chemical assistance, you're brain is already rewarding you with good feelings just from that tune alone.

If the Victorian government has ever done something right, it is passing the new legislation on 1 July 2007 that bans smoking inside all indoor venues. Victoria now joins the list of countries with smoking bans.
Hurrah!
No more coming home after clubbing at 7am in the morning smelling like cancer.
No more getting burnt on the dance floor because some fuck wit was waving a ciggie around.

Now back to the dilemma at hand. To misbehave on Sat night or not to misbehave? I'll be catching up with Katie and Chops for a cheese & wine session at their house in the evening. Will play it by ear and see where the night takes me after that. =)

Anthony Pappa is da Man !

Awesome !


That's all the mental capacity I have left now to describe how Anthony Pappa's set was on Saturday night. The music was deep and the beats were phat. Prog house like you never heard before since 1999. 5hrs+ of aural ecstasy which at some peaks felt like your ears were having sex with your brain and the music from the speakers were providing the ambiance.



I remembered that it was dark and sweaty




I remembered talking to heaps of strange people




I remembered finding long lost friends I haven't seen in a while



I remembered making a new friend



I remembered Pappa dropping the Saints & Sinners track - Pushin Too Hard



I remembered making more new friends






and that's all I can remember....... from that awesome night.

Martinez !

Wow! Is all I can say right now, I had an unexpectedly awesome Saturday night when I went out to my favourite underground dance music party - Sunny

The guest DJ was completely unknown to me, save for the fact that he's named Martinez and he's from Sweden.

The venue was dark, the sound system was booming and the crowd was up for it. In fact, it was so dark in there when I walked in around midnight it took a while before my eyes adjusted to the lighting (or lack thereof) and I could walk the spiral staircase downstairs to the dance floor of The Colonial.

The music was a thrilling mix of tech house, progressive and just really deep bass lines, which I just cannot get enough of these days.

We definitely need more non-commercial club gigs like these.

I already bought tickets for a Day Party featuring Anthoy Pappa on the 21st July, run by the Sunny and Darkbeat boys.
So if anyone is in Melbourne that weekend, bring it on !