Gabriel & Dresden

Yesterday was the birthday of one of my old roommates, and a former DJ at the club that I ran, so I ended up taking him out to a Gabriel & Dresden show in Las Vegas. It was at the Lavo club at the Palazzo. Nice place.




Gabriel & Dresden took a slight break from touring together in 2009/2010, but they've been pretty busy the last eight or ten months, with appearances in more than a dozen countries. I've seen six or seven of their shows in the past. I was even supposed to see them and do some filming at a show in New York that turned out to be their "last" show before their break, but I missed a flight connection by ten minutes due to snow in Canada, and lost that opportunity. That was one of my most disappointing moments in a long time.

Last night's show at Lavo was the best one that I've seen. They are definitely on their game these days. They've got a pretty versatile set-up - Josh works predominantly on Ableton Live (where he can create unique remixes on-the-fly), and Dave occasionally uses Ableton but is completely at home with CDJ's. The only thing that I thought was odd last night was that they shared the same pair of headphones. Dave usually had them on, but Josh occasionally borrowed them. I would think that they'd use a headphone splitter cord and each have a set of their own. Anyway, I saw the entire set (about three hours) and it was tight. I especially enjoyed the remix or layering of the Eleanor Rigby vocals in their set. The only regret about the show for me is that I didn't think to write down a set list, since I recognized just about every song they played.


G&D are so influential that two of their productions are in the top ten of the 2010 edition of the Trance Top 1000 tracks of all time ("As The Rush Comes" at position #3, and their remix of Above & Beyond's "No One On Earth"). They were also voted as America's best DJ's a couple of times. If you want to learn a bit more about the duo, check out this article on wikipedia, which also has a pretty impressive discography.

Here are YouTube videos for a few of their more well-known songs that have real videos (many of their other hits don't). You'll notice that Dave and Josh sometimes work with other vocalists under different names such as Motorcycle, Andain, etc.






















If you're interested in checking out some of their other music, look for classic tracks such as "Zocalo," "Arcadia," "Summer Calling," "Around You," and more. Or check out some of their many remixes of other artists' tracks, which you can find on their discography page on Discogs (or in the list below).

Also, Dave has a popular SoundCloud page that sometimes has G&D sets on it, such as this one:

Gabriel & Dresden Live at Nocturnal Wonderland 09-24-11 by Davedresden




If you get a chance to see them anywhere, I really recommend that you check out their show!

Partial List of Their Remixes:

2001 - New Order, "Someone Like You"
2001 - Way Out West, "Mindcircus"
2001 - Groove Armada, "Superstylin'"
2002 - 4 Strings, "(Take Me Away) Into The Night"
2002 - Medicine8, "Capital Rocka"
2002 - Balligomingo, "Purify"
2002 - Andain, "Summer Calling"
2002 - Paul Oakenfold, "Southern Sun"
2002 - Tiësto, "In My Memory"
2002 - Weekend Players, "I'll Be There"
2002 - Roger Goode, "In The Beginning..."
2002 - Ils, "Music"
2002 - Jewel, "Serve The Ego"
2002 - Beber & Tamra, "Travelling On"
2003 - Annie Lennox, "A Thousand Beautiful Things"
2003 - Lili Haydn, "Anything"
2003 - Motorcycle, "As the Rush Comes"
2003 - Nalin & Kane, "Beachball"
2003 - Andain, "Beautiful Things"
2003 - Three Drives, "Carrera 2"
2003 - Sarah McLachlan, "Fallen"
2003 - G&D vs. Coldplay, "Clocks"
2003 - G&D vs. Depeche Mode, "Here Is The House"
2003 - Dave Gahan, "I Need You"
2003 - Deborah Cox, "Play Your Part"
2003 - Evanescence, "Hello"
2003 - Jewel, "Intuition"
2003 - Britney Spears feat Madonna, "Me Against The Music"
2003 - Duncan Sheik, "On A High"
2003 - Annie Lennox, "Pavement Cracks"
2003 - Grayarea, "One For The Road"
2004 - Above & Beyond, "No One On Earth"
2004 - Nelly Furtado, "Try"
2004 - Kristine W, "Save My Soul"
2004 - The Engine Room, "A Perfect Lie"
2004 - Dido, "Don't Leave Home"
2005 - Rachael Starr, "Till There Was You"
2005 - Perasma, "Swing 2 Harmony"
2005 - Motorcycle, "Around You"
2005 - Özgür Can, "Changed"
2005 - Nicol Sponberg, "Resurrection"
2006 - Gustavo Santaolalla, "The Wings"
2006 - Robbie Rivera, "Float Away"
2006 - Markus Schulz & Departure with G&D, "Without You Near"
2007 - D. Ramirez & Mark Knight, "Colombian Soul"
2007 - Monochrome, "Pearl"
2007 - 68 Beats, "Replay The Night"
2007 - The Killers, "Read My Mind"
2007 - Shiny Toy Guns, "You Are The One"
2008 - Faithless, "A Kind of Peace"
2011 - Enrique Iglesias, "Tonight I'm Loving You" (D&J)
2011 - Andain, "Promises"

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

 

Gabriel & Dresden's final DJ set at WMC 2008

If you know anything about dance/house music from the past decade, you’ve probably heard of Gabriel & Dresden. They won dozens of IDMA’s from 2005-2008, releasing a couple dozen #1 hits on the Billboard Dance charts, either as their own releases, or as remixes for other top artists such as Armin van Buuren, the Killers, Jewel, Way Out West, Madonna, Markus Shulz, Rachal Starr, Paul Oakenfold, New Order, Tiesto, Annie Lennox, Nalin & Kane, Sarah McLachlan, Coldplay, Deborah Cox, and Britney Spears. Well, maybe not all of those didn’t make it to number one, but many of them definitely did. Their music has helped define a generation of dance floor fans.

G&D’s last official show together happened at the Winter Music Conference (WMC) in Miami in 2008, at The Pawn Shop. Dave Dresden recently released a recording of that set, which is the whole point of this post. 

 

I was really disappointed to hear that they had stopped collaborating together. Their last live show together outside of WMC was (to the best of my knowledge) a night at Pacha in NYC. I was actually supposed to videotape that show, because I was working on producing a short video promo for them. On the flights there, I got delayed by a snowstorm in Toronto and missed my connection by about two minutes, so I didn’t actually make it down to that show. Needless to say, it was one of the most disappointing moments of my life. At the time, I thought that I could make it up at a future show. In retrospect, it was one of those opportunities that you never get to have a second time.

Perhaps it is better that they started working independently? Both are incredibly talented, and I'm pretty confident that after a bit of experimenting and reassessment, both of their careers will benefit from the new direction. There is no doubt that their work as a team was incredible, but like anything, change is inevitable, and people who embrace change can benefit. My take on their partnership was that Josh was always a strong producer first and foremost, and Dave’s strength was always as being a superb DJ who could read a dance floor. But that would be a gross over-simplification - in the past twelve months, Dave has already charged head-first into churning out dance-floor anthems, and Josh Gabriel has been confidently exploring his own space both as a DJ and producer.


Dave is now working on a new collaborative project with Mikael Johnston (formerly of the California trance/house group Mephisto Odyssey). Already, they’ve done some major remixes for Nadia Ali, BT, JD Webb, The Crystal Method, and Lily Allen. Their remix of Lily Allen’s “The Fear” is great, and I’ve really been enjoying that remix for some time since I first heard it on one of Dave’s monthly promo mixes. Here’s a link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wGoglwhTh4
Embedding has been disabled for that video, so you won’t be able to watch it directly through this blog post, but you can check it out on the YouTube page. Also, if you're reading this on my Facebook feed, remember that Facebook doesn't import embedded videos so you'd have to click on the direct links anyway.

Here’s a link to the Dresden & Johnston remix of “Love Story.” If you are trying to figure out where you’ve heard Nadia Ali’s voice before, it was probably when she was the lead vocalist for iiO, with dance hits earlier this decade like “Rapture” and “The End.”

Nadia Ali, “Love Story” (Dresden & Johnston Official Vocal Remix)



Direct link to video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BEtZnfK-To


Josh has also been very busy lately. I believe that he relocated from California to Amsterdam this year, to continue his work with Different Pieces and other projects. Here’s a link to one of his releases from earlier this year:

Josh Gabriel present Winter Kills, “Deep Down”



Direct link to video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT9qMTX6c9k


Anyway, although I am very excited about their new independent careers and the tracks that they'll both be producing, I'll have to admit that it's nice to listen to another of their sets from back in the day. I was lucky enough to have seen them performing in several venues in 2006-2008: Phoenix, Boston, Edmonton & New York. But of course, their last set at The Pawn Shop will go down in the history books.


Enjoy ...


ETA: And here's a partial track listing, or what's been identified so far:

01. Donald Glaude & DJ Dan - Stick'em (Original Mix)
02. John Acquavida feat. Oliver Giacomotto - Sofa King (Fresco Remix)
03. Catz 'n Dogs - A Chicken Affair (Vinyl Version)
04. Francis Preve - Caboose (Original Mix)
05. System 7 - Space Bird (Dubfire's Deep Space Remix)
06. Faithless - Kind of Peace (Gabriel & Dresden Remix)
07. ID
08. James Holden - A Break In The Clouds (Beat Tool)
09. Josh Gabriel - Azora (Original Mix)
10. Gabriel & Dresden - Like An Enemy
11. Dirty South - Let It Go (Axwell Remix)
12. ID
13. Josh Gabriel - River
14. Junkie XL - Stratosphere
15. Deadmau5 - Not Exactly (Dave Dresden Remix)
16. Gabriel & Dresden - New Path (Dave Aude Remix)
17. ID
18. Sander van Doorn - Sushi (Edit?)
19. Rachel Starr - Till There Was You (Gabriel & Dresden Remix)
20. JF presents Smokecream - Retox (Wendel Kos Remix)
21. Sia - The Girl You Lost To Cocaine (Sander van Doorn Remix)
22. Josh Gabriel - Crosstalk
23. Just Jack - Writer's Block (Remix)
24. ID
25. Gabriel & Dresden - Tracking Treasure Down (Remix)
26. Mescalkid - Magic
27. Depeche Mode - Little 15 (Gabriel & Dresden Remix?)
28. ID
29. Jude Sebastian - Rubberman (Miles Dyson Remix) (Krafty Kuts Re-Rub)
30. Gabriel & Dresden - Mass Repeat
31. ID
32. Marco V. - Sessions (Robbie Rivera Remix)
33. Gareth Emery - More Than Anything (Christopher Norman Dub Remix)
34. The Killers - Read My Mind (Gabriel & Dresden Remix)
35. ID
36. ID w/ Motorcycle - As The Rush Comes (Acapella)
37. ID w/ Paul van Dyk - Let Go (Acapella) w/ Gabriel & Dresden - Let It Go (Acapella)
38. Josh Gabriel - Summit
39. Josh Gabriel - Tone Program
40. ID
41. 68 Beats - Replay The Night (Gabriel & Dresden Remix)
42. Big Bug & Bastard Beat - TI 1.0
43. Martin Eyerer feat. Namito - Quipa (Etienne de Crecy Remix)
44. Eric Prydz - Pjanoo
45. ID

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

New York City, Pacha, Shelter, Gabriel & Dresden, & more!

I just got back from a weekend in New York City. I went down to visit a friend of mine, Polly, who works in Research at Mount Sinai. I had been asking her questions a few weeks ago about a club called Pacha, and she suggested that I come down and see it myself. We figured that the 27th/28th would be the best weekend for me to visit, and ironically, it turned out that Gabriel & Dresden were playing at Pacha on Friday night. Small world.

I got to the airport on Friday afternoon, and since Polly was at work until 5pm, I just hung out in the airport for a few hours, listening to music and doing some work. That's when the next coincidence happened - I ran into Gabriel & Dresden at Laguardia. I talked to them for a few minutes, then headed downtown shortly afterwards.

I met up with Polly and the first thing we did was to get some alcohol for the weekend. After that, we ordered sushi for dinner, then went out to a pizza place to meet up with one of her friends. Later that evening, we eventually we made our way to Pacha. Pacha was a decent sized club - it had four levels, and I would say that it probably held about 800 people, as a guess. I'm not sure, but I think that the cover charge for regular guests off the street was $30. Drinks were $9 for bar shots like rum, and $7 for beer, so it was quite a bit more expensive than most Canadian bars, but not out of line for a big club like that. The lineup at the coat check was huge, which I laughed at because I didn't bring a coat. Of course, being a bar manager myself, I spent quite a bit of time looking at the logistics and operations of the club. I was pretty surprised to see that they had (I think) six bartenders working at each of the two main bars. My place would have two bartenders, or sometimes three, for the same volume of alcohol that was being served at each bar. But at least those bartenders looked a lot more relaxed that we are when we're serving.

Needless to say, the lighting systems were incredible, and the sound was decent throughout the entire club, not just on the dance floor. Gabriel & Dresden played from about midnight to 5am (I think the bars stop serving alcohol at 4am, but then they can start again at 8am). I was talking to Josh for a bit up in the DJ booth during his set, and they looked like they were really having fun playing that night. Their set was quite a bit different than when they had played in Boston - to me, both nights sounded great, but this set sounded more tailored to a dance club crowd, with more vocal tracks and mainstream tracks, whereas at Rise it had seemed more like a set for an afterhours club crowd (not surprisingly).

On Saturday afternoon, Polly took me for a partial tour, including Ground Zero, the ferry to Staten Island, Wall Street, and around other parts of Manhatten. Later in the evening, we went to a place called Crocodile NYC. This bar was insane. It had a crowd about the same size as my bar on a Saturday night (250 people), but it was less than a third the size. It was absolutely impossible to move around, or to get drinks quickly. To make things even more interesting, they gave out a free pizza with every beer, so for $20, we eventually got four large glasses of beer (two Stella & two Guiness, I think) plus three 12-inch cheese pizzas. It was a minor fight for me to finish the two beer and two pizzas, but I managed eventually, and was hungry for more. The bar was ridiculously warm, probably partly due to the crowds and partly due to the 700-degree pizza ovens in the back of the bar. Anyway, it was a pretty neat place, and obviously a lot of other people thought the same thing, considering the crowds.

  

After Crocodile, we went to a venue called Shelter, which was more of an after-hours type of club than Pacha had been, although they did serve alcohol. Cover was $25, bar shots were $8, and beer was $6. There were a whole bunch of good DJ's and producers performing that night, including D:Fuse, D-Formation (I used a couple of his tracks on my last mix), and Tone Depth (from Montreal). There was also another DJ who I had never heard of before, Chloe Harris. I was quite impressed by her set, so it was good to learn about her. The lighting system upstairs at Shelter was pretty impressive too. I wish that I'd been able to get some decent photos, but it wasn't possible with my camera.

On Sunday, we went for Chinese food in the afternoon, then did some more touring after dinner. We met a couple of my old friends from university in front of Virgin Records in Times Square, and we went up to the Marriot Marquis for drinks with them. After that, Polly took me to a fantastic Mexican restaurant for dinner. I've eaten Mexican food in a lot of places (including Mexico), but this was definitely some of the best that I've had. Of course, I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but I'm not going to forget the food.

I have photos from the trip on this page:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_newyork2007a.html

The only sad part about the weekend was that there was so much more to see that I didn't have time for, so I'll have to go back as soon as I get a chance ...

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca