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

 

Mix: Bolivia, "Live in Las Vegas, 2011-08-05"

As promised, here's the set that I played on Friday night at DefCon. This is a lot more upbeat than the four-hour deep house set that I played the following night at the Castle. Unfortunately, it's also a lot shorter at only an hour and a half.

To download any of my studio mixes or recordings of lives shows, visit:

djbolivia.ca/dropbox 

Then go into the folder called "Bolivia's DJ Mixes & Live Shows"

Thanks for your support!

Here are track listings for the set:

01. Timo Garcia & Amber Jolene, "Lady Luck City Lights" (Matt Lange Remix).
02. Tuccillo, "Mathematics" (Original Mix).
03. Stefano Noferini, "Fucking House Musik" (Original Club Mix).
04. Kamisshake, "Dark Beat" (Deadmau5 ReEdit).
05. Bart Skils, "Dust" (Original Mix).
06. Truelove Italy, "Rock The Casbah" (Original Mix).
07. Ray Foxx, "The Trumpeter" (Chocolate Puma Remix).
08. Gary Caos, "Let's Play, Na Na Na" (Original Mix).
09. Milk & Sugar, "Hia Ma Pata Pata" (Milk & Sugar Club Mix).
10. Oscar Cano & Freddy Marquez, "Can't Stop" (Dario Nunez Remix).
11. Joey Negro & Z Factor, "Keep On Jumpin" (Luigi Rocca Remix).
12. Zedd, "Dovregubben" (Original Mix).
13. Avrosse & Louie Cut, "The Pink Panther" (Original Mix).
14. Biboulakis & Nina Zeitlin, "If Only Alarms Didn't Ring" (David Jones Remix).
15. Mattias & G80s, "We Gonna Play" (Original Mix).
16. Avicii, "Sweet Dreams" (Cazzette Meet At Night Mix).
17. Swedish House Mafia, "Save The World" (Zedd Remix).
18. Afrojack & R3hab, "Prutataaa" (Original Mix).

Technically, this is not exactly the set that the crowd heard. This is the direct recording from my computer, but the EQ'ing and effects tweaks that I did on the mixer during the show were in the signal chain after the recording, so there was a bit more variety in EQ'ing during the live show.

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

Mix: Bolivia, "Live at Ninja Party 2010"

I'm really starting to feel like I'm getting caught up on the backlog of old projects in the past week or so. I now have the mastered version online of the set that I played at the Ninja Party in July. The levels were a bit up and down during this set, so I ended up compressing it quite a bit - unfortunately, the compression degraded the sound quality a bit (but it's still pretty good).

The Ninja Party is the most prestigious party of the annual DefCon hackers' convention, held in Las Vegas every summer. This was the eighteenth year for DefCon (and the third that I've played at it). Estimates for the number of people overall at DefCon vary, but reports are usually between about ten and twenty thousand attendees. The Ninja Party, however, has strict limits on attendance. Only one thousand "badges" are given out, and the badge acts as an official party invite. Each badge is also allowed a +1, so in theory, two thousand people should attend the party. tProphet (one of my good friends, who set up the sound system and show) and I didn't use our +1's, but probably every other one of the 998 badges did, so attendance was probably just shy of two thousand people.

The party was held at a boutique hotel just off-Strip, and since it hadn't yet opened to the public, the Ninja Party was sort of its christening. I played in a large open courtyard, with swimming pools. The shuttles that were taking people from the Riviera to the venue were mobile parties in themselves. When I climbed aboard, someone was dispensing vodka from a large pesticide spray container directly into peoples' mouths. The party itself was open bar, and playing in the warm weather under the skyline of the Strip was pretty surreal.

Here's a photo of my "badge." The badges were pretty high-tech (after all, it IS a hacker's convention), and change from year to year. This year's badge featured a sort of D&D type multi-user game, with the badges communicating with other nearby badges via wireless. Characters could fight each other, or solve challenges or go to certain locations to fulfill a set of ten goals. I saw one of the badges listed on eBay (lame) before the party for $2,000.





Here are track listings from the set:

01. Matteo DiMarr feat Dashka - Blower (Original Mix).
02. Laidback Luke feat Jonathan Mendelsohn - Till Tonight (Bolivia's Edit).
03. Philip Whirlpool - Time Has Come (Bolivia's Edit).
04. EDX - Thrive (Bolivia's Edit).
05. Victor Del Guio - Americano (Bolivia's Edit).
06. Bolivia - Highway 22 (Ninja Party Instrumental).
07. Peter Punck - The Mix (Bolivia's Edit).
08. Maurizio Gubellini feat Mia Crispin - Getting Personal (Bolivia's Edit).
09. Adam Beyer - Filthy Lobster (Bolivia's Edit).
10. Nick Muir & John Digweed - Tangent (Bolivia's Edit).
11. Stefano Noferini - Ghuroom (Bolivia's Edit).
12. Quivver - Boom Boom (Original Mix).
13. Phunk Investigation - Dark Floor (Bolivia's Edit).
14. Harry Choo Choo Romero - Phuture (Bolivia's Edit).
15. Saints & Sinners - Pushin Too Hard (Bolivia's Edit).
16. ALCA - Calling Africa (Bolivia's Edit).
17. Kid Culture & El Mundo Satori - Around You (Bolivia's Edit).
18. Mark Knight & Wolfgang Gartner - Conscindo (Bolivia's Edit).
19. Crazibiza - Spinning Around (Bolivia's Edit).
20. DJ Chus & Gonzalez Gonzalo - One Night In Havana (Bolivia's Edit).
21. DJ Josh Blackwell & Miss Babayaga feat Rachel - Professional Widow (Bolivia's Edit).
22. Peter Brown - I'll House U (Bolivia's Edit).
23. Spencer & Hill - Housebeat (Bolivia's Edit).

To download any of my studio mixes or recordings of lives shows, visit:

djbolivia.ca/dropbox 

Then go into the folder called "Bolivia's DJ Mixes & Live Shows"

Thanks for your support!

Overall, I was really happy with the set, and the venue and event was incredible. The first half hour was pretty good, but after that, I felt like everything was flowing better than any other show I've ever played. Here's a couple of photos that Pinguino took at the event. You should be able to click on either photo to go to the full photo gallery, or click on the direct URL link below:






Penguino's DefCon 18 Photo Gallery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinguino/4865105991/in/set-72157624667002016/lightbox/

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

Las Vegas Mix from July 30th

I've got a mastered copy of the set that I played on July 30th, 2010, at the Defcon 18 Hackers' Convention.

A bit of background about the set:
- I was pretty reluctant to post this at first, because I didn't think it was that great. But after listening to it this week, I realized that it didn't turn out that badly.
- The first half hour has some rough mixes - the show was the first time that I had touched a pair of CD players in four months, so I felt a bit rusty. After realizing that I was a bit wobbly, I played extremely conservatively for the rest of the night, and just focused on making sure that the timing was good.
- I was playing on a mixer that I wasn't entirely familiar with, so there are no effects or filters in the set.
- Yeah, I screwed up a bit just before the 18:00 mark. I started to bring a track in, and faded it out quickly.
- The track of my own that I played during the set (Highway 22) was not mastered properly (I was working off a laptop and headphones all summer), so it sounded pretty lacklustre compared to the other tracks from Beatport and from other producers. I mixed out of it well before the end of the track for this reason. I won't apologize though, since my mastering of the full set this week masked some of that weakness.
- The end of the set was slightly distorted, I don't remember why I cranked the levels too high on that very last song. Not major, but noticeable to the trained ear.
- The mastering sort of tamed all the levels down for the version that you're downloading, but if you're a producer and looking at the audio file closely, you'll see where tProphet's announcements at the start were pretty peaked, so I ended up hard limiting them even after massive compression on the rest of the set.

The crowd was pretty much perfect for my first set in four months. About maybe 250-300 people by the time I finished playing, but it was more of a socializing crowd than a dancing crowd, since the event was a mixer party first and foremost. However, I was surprised to get quite a few people on the dance floor by the end of it.


  

I've played some of these tracks on my radio show in the past couple of weeks, and if you listen to both, you'll notice the ones on the show are different than the ones in this set. On the show, I don't edit any of the tracks, and leave all the breakdowns alone. For the live sets, I chop out almost all of the breakdowns and do a bit of other editing before I burn the tracks to CD, to keep the dance floor sweating. However, based on my positive experiences with making my radio show in Ableton lately, these could have be the very last two major live house/trance/techno shows that I ever perform using CD's. By the way, if you want to know which remixes I used as the basis for these edited tracks, you should be able to figure out most of it from the track listings of my Subterranean Homesick Grooves episodes from the past three weeks. If not, email me and I'll let you know which mixes I started with.

I played again the following night at the Ninja Party, off-strip. The Ninja set was amazing, in my own opinion, and one of the best shows that I've played. I'll be posting the mastered version of the Ninja Party set here in a few days. I have a radio show to make first though, for Friday night, and a show on Saturday night, so I probably won't have time to get the Ninja set online until Sunday. So think of this set as a warmup to the Ninja set.

To download any of my studio mixes or recordings of lives shows, visit:

djbolivia.ca/dropbox 

Then go into the folder called "Bolivia's DJ Mixes & Live Shows"

Thanks for your support!

And finally, here are track listings from the set:

01. Human Beans, Manambros, & Vidaloca - House Of The Rising Sound (Original Mix).
02. Edo van Asseldonk - Fly To The Moon (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
03. John Acquaviva & Ramon Zenker - Dot Bomb (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
04. Marco Bros - I Hook U Up (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
05. Helvetic Nerds - Mistaken Identity (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
06. Patrick Hagenaar - Work It Till Ya Pass Out (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
07. Basti M & Brockman - Sweet Sexy Housemusic (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
08. Marc DePulse - El Lobo Loco (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
09. Erick Morillo & Eddie Thoneick feat Shena - Nothing Better (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
10. Promonova - The Rhythm (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
11. DJ Ortzy - Infected (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
12. Horny United - Lady Of Ice (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
13. DJ Groover & Jelena Milosev - At Night (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
14. Stereofunk - Happy Piano (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
15. Bolivia - Highway 22 (Vegas Instrumental Dub).
16. Oliver Garcia feat Dilek Taskin - House Wa (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
17. Slava Flash & Alena Lvova feat Alena Lvova - Her Jogging (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
18. Technotronic, Dimitri Vegas, & Like Mike - Pump Up The Jam (Bolivia's Re-Edit).
19. Tune Brothers & Anthony Locks - I Like It 2010 (Bolivia's Re-Edit).

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