July 2007

24-Jul-2007 - New years resolutions update

Well its been a while since i've posted about my new years resolutions. They have been progressing, albeit quite slowly.

Lose 5kg / 5% body fat

Well a couple of months ago I weighed myself and I had actually put on 5kg!!! Woops. Too much junk food. Since then i've now lost about 3kg, but that still leaves me 2kg higher than what I started with. So I guess you could say my progress is -40% :-)

Make a music video

I've done all the filming for the video, so all I have to do is put it together. No idea how long that will take, so i've marked this as 40% complete.

Swim a total of 50km

I was determined to get to 25kms by the halfway point of the year. So I had to do a lot of swimming to catch up. But I finally did and now i'm about 52% complete. I'll have to do a kilometre a week to stay up to date.

 

As far as the rest of the resolutions, nothing much has happened with them. Still a long way to go! Wish me luck :-)

19-Jul-2007 - DJ gear

I've wanted to do it for a long time and I thought I should finally go ahead and do it now, or i'll never do it.

Learn to DJ! hahaha..

Thats right about 3 months ago I went all out and bought this:

All the DJ gear I bought

And it wasnt cheap. Thats 2 Technics sl1210 turntables + 2 slipmats, a Urei 1601-e mixer, a Stanton 500v3 and a Shure M44G cartridge, a set of headphones, a Technics record bag, and Final Scratch 1.5.

Not to mention a whole bunch of records to play with.

I only found out about products like Final Scratch and Serato Scratch Live this year when I read it on Nik Fish's website. It allows you to play a special record (which sounds like a modem if you listen to it), and the output goes into a little box which is connected to your PC or laptop. It then "plays" an audio file from your computer (like an mp3 or something) through the little magic box, and outputs into your mixer as usual. Pretty damn cool. So you can load an mp3 up on your PC, and then mix and scratch it, speed it up, slow it down etc... using the vinyl record just as you would any other record. It all happens by the power of Magica (tm).

The mixer I got is a special effects mixer which allows you to do different effects like filtering, flanging, cutting etc.. while you are DJing. It has an internal beat counter and synchronises the effect with the BPM. It doesnt work 100%, but its pretty fun to play around with nevertheless.

It has been lots of fun playing around with it, but i'm not going to get serious with it until next year. Already have all those New Years Resolutions to work on this year :-)

17-Jul-2007 - Rave season

Yep its pretty much rave season at the moment. There is a rave almost every week. Here are the ones i've been to lately...

Anthem

23rd June, 2007

The Gaelic Theatre, 64 Devonshire st, Surry Hills

Front and back of flyer

Like Once Upon a Time, this was also a rave to celebrate the old skool style of early 90's rave music. It was held at the same venue and turned out to be a pretty good night. But for some reason they seemed to play one old skool track, then one old top30 dance track, then one old skool track again. Hmmmm...

I have to say I didnt enjoy the music as much as I did for Once Upon a Time, but it was a good night anyway.

Cool photo

Paul Holden on the decks (I think)

 

Utopia

30th June, 2007

Warehouses at Sydney Showgrounds, Homebush

The flyers for utopia are getting weirder and weirder. I gotta say that I cant stand looking at them anymore :-). And this one was no exception.

The party however was quite good. There were two large rooms separated by an outdoor area. The outdoor section has a big spinning ride thingy, plus some food shops. It was an absolutely freezing night, so there was very little hanging out outside for me.

Both rooms were large warehouses and it was refreshing to see a powerhouse party where there was actually plenty of room to dance, rather than being overcrowded like they often are. All up a very good night. This must be the 20th utopia that i've been to by now!

 

Dream Universe "The Fourth Quest"

14th July, 2007

100 Marrickville rd, Marrickville

This party was located at the same venue as the last dream universe. I remember that at the last party there was policies designed to remove the lads from the party. It didnt work then and heaps of lads turned up and there was a lot of fighting throughout the night.

This time the rules were much stricter, security was tripled, and the policies were strongly enforced. Before the night, the following message was going around:

Well the time has come for the rave scene to enforce a code of conduct to all parties. on the weekend Dream Universe will take place and the following entry rules will be enforced.

- Management reserves the right to refuse entry
- No Striped T-Shirts
- No hats
- No Shorts above the knees
- To Nike TN's
- No Anti Social Behaviour
- No Aggressive Dancing

The amount of security has been tripled for this event including Carpark security and dogs and Police will be onsite to handle any trouble makers.

This event is for the raver the true raver only.

They might have well just gone out and said it... "NO LADS". And "No Aggressive Dancing" was originally worded "No Backwards Dancing" - which is a style of dance called Gabbering, done only by lads. But after lots of protests it was altered.

At the last dream universe my car got keyed all over. But this time as soon as we turned up, the security was already questioning our presence in the car park. The extra security was much appreciated - and the night ended up being fantastic. Hardly any lads, virtually no trouble and everyone was having a great time.

Funnily enough, a lot of lads ended up at this other party. A quote from the article:

Officers from Hawkesbury Local Area Command attended the event; however, extra police from Penrith, St Marys and The Hills Local Area Commands, the Public Order Riot Squad (PORS) and the Dog Unit were deployed to restore order.

Yep. It highlights the point that the rave scene has become one scene, two cultures.