Halifax Classics Reunion 2009

This past weekend I played at a private event, held in Nova Scotia at a private camping site with a number of cabins and chalets. Approximately a dozen DJ's played in total, and the sets were a lot of fun, because I was playing with a bunch of old friends. Essentially, the guest list for the event included a lineup of DJ's who have all been playing in Halifax and throughout Atlantic Canada & beyond for at least ten years or more, and the attendees at the Reunion (a little under 100 people) were all people who partied a lot in Halifax in the 1990's.

The rules were simple. Each DJ got about an hour to play, and the goal was to try to play on all vinyl, and to use only tracks that were produced in 2000 or earlier. There were some legendary Halifax DJ's playing: Tommy Knuckles, Jorun Bombay (possibly my favorite set), Charife, Nick Nonsense, Mad Mike Mathers, and half a dozen others. In addition, legendary house DJ Terrence Parker flew in from Detroit to play a two hour set as a headliner for the evening.





I recorded my set, and if anyone is interested, it's available now for downloading. Be forewarned: this is old music! And not just old songs, but old vinyl, so the sound quality isn't quite as good as most mixes that would be released nowadays. Some of the tracks that I played were definitely big favorites many years ago, and I've played them so many times that the vinyl was almost worn out.

Here's a track listing:

   01. Echomen, "Substance"
   02. 16B feat Morel, "Escape (Driving To Heaven)" [Omid's Dark Dub]
   03. Trancesetters, "Roaches" [Peace Division Remix]
   04. Halo Varga, "Future" [Original Mix]
   05. Tilt, "Seduction Of Orpheus" [Tarrantella vs Redanka Remix]
   06. Datar, "B" [Tarrantella & Redanka's NYSC Mix]
   07. Jason Downs, "Cherokee" [John Creamer & Stephane K Remix]
   08. Killahurtz, "West On 27th" [A Tribe Called KHz Mix]
   09. Jimmy Van M, "ECIPS" [Medway Remix]
   10. Art Of Trance, "Madagascar" [Cygnus X Mix]


As you can see, the set was mostly very heavy and darker progressive/tribal stuff, although I did end things off with a trance classic, in honour of a good friend of mine, Darin Lee (Thrills), who couldn't make it for the weekend.

Click here if you want to see a small photo gallery from the event.

Enjoy!

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!

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

DJ'ing at the Photosynthesis Festival in Seattle, 2009

The set that I played at the Photosynthesis 2.0 Festival in Trout Lake, Washington (on August 7th) is now online.


The set is a little over two hours long, and it was a spontaneous show. I showed up at the festival on Friday night, just to relax for the weekend and help my friend TProphet, who was running the Techno Barn stage for the weekend. However, five minutes after I arrived, someone asked me if I would be willing to play since the scheduled DJ was stuck in traffic and couldn't make it in time for his set. I ended up playing in that slot, plus the one immediately afterward (for the same reason), which gave me a completely unexpected two-hour set. I wasn't really mentally prepared for this, so my programming & mixing was a bit disjointed for the first half hour, but then I got into a groove and had a lot of fun with the set.


 

Here’s the track listing from the set:

   01. Arnold, "Am I."
   02. DJ Wope, "My Generation."
   03. Artificial Dreamer, "Dusted."
   04. Audionova & Electrobios, "Pacific."
   05. Prospect, "Tok."
   06. Wawa & Thomas Gold, "Latin Thing."
   07. Dfuzhion, "Unidentified."
   08. Carl Jurgen, "City Lights."
   09. KT, "Riders On The Storm."
   10. Sensorica & Omen, "Another Day."
   11. Mark Ronson, "Oh My God."
   12. Danny Teneglia, "D'Ibiza."
   13. Nicholas Van Orton, "Evil Forces."
   14. Etienne Osborne, "Drums Of Afrika."
   15. Creamer & K, "Forget The World."
   16. Reead, "Nobody's Innocent."
   17. Basement Jaxx, "Raindrops."
   18. Kurd Maverick, "All Over The World."
   19. MattLok, "Rock The Box."
   20. Heaven & Earth, "And Let's Disco."
   21. Bailey & Fauvrelle, "Pushing Beatz."
   22. Cedrick Gervais, "Electro Therapy."
   23. Maska, "Late."
   24. Chris Scott and Dmitry Bobrov, "Too Much Is Not Enough."

You'll notice that I didn't list the exact remix that I used for each track. That's because none of them are conventional remixes. I've started taking every track that I play in sets and doing a "Bolivia's Edit" on the track. I usually cut out the major breakdowns entirely, to keep the dance floor moving. Sometimes I mix and match between a couple different remixes of a particular track. For mid-volume breakdowns, I often increase the volume a few decibels. I add one or two effects throughout the track, or drop-outs on key beats. And then finally, I boost with a hard limiter so the volume ends up being fairly consistent throughout, even through the breakdowns. All in all, that keeps the dance floor a lot more aggressive and energetic. If I ever want to give the dancers a quick break, I can reduce volumes on breakdowns on the mixer. I find this keeps things fresh and higher energy. I'll keep a few originals with breakdowns in my crate, so I can play to a lower energy level early in the set if necessary, or so I can give the dance floor a real break late in the night, but 90% of the tracks that I play are ones that I've modified before the show.

This was the second year for Photosynthesis. The festival was organized by Kyle Bove, a friend of mine from Seattle who is a talented musician himself. It featured some really amazing acts over the weekend, including the Lawn Chair Generals, Amon Tobin, Daedelus, and Kid Koala (and about fifty other talented acts). In addition, a big highlight for me was getting introduced to the music of Bryan Zentz, who played a set starting about an hour after I finished. To put it quite simply, he rocked. It's probably been about three or four years since I've enjoyed a set as much as his, and I've seen some pretty top notch "A-Class" DJ's in the past few years. I think that a lot of the tracks he played were his own productions, and I was thoroughly impressed. If you like progressive house, check out his work.

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!

Anyway, please email the link to the mix to any of your friends who might like listening. It's not quite as professional as the set that I recorded in Vegas the week before, but there are a lot of good tracks in here. Only eight of the twenty four tracks in this set were also in my recent Vegas set, so the two mixes don't overlap much.

Enjoy!

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

Best Live Rock Concerts

Although the name "DJ Bolivia" probably makes most people think of dance music, I've got a much broader musical background than just electronic beats. I probably listen to more classic rock and indie rock than dance tracks, and I also listen to classical and jazz music fairly often. Anyway, I was asked a few weeks ago what my favourite live album would be, and that was a really tough question that got me thinking. So I came up with a list of my top seven picks for live rock albums.

I also have to comment on one thing that's always bothered me. Quite often, the soundtracks to live albums have very little resemblance to videos produced from the same shows. Bands have frequently remastered the soundtracks, adding overdubs, combining parts from multiple performances, and even adding studio tracks into the middle of the albums. And almost without exception, I've preferred the soundtracks to the videos. I know that they are usually less "true" to the original show, but the sound quality and content is usually a lot better, in my mind.


Top Pick:

01. Genesis, "Seconds Out" – Genesis released several live albums, but this one has got to be my favourite. This album was recorded after Peter Gabriel left the band and Phil Collins took over as lead singer, but still contains many older tracks that were originally sung by Gabriel. "Three Sides Live" is another great Genesis live album, but I prefer "Seconds Out" because it focuses more on the band's more complex older material, before they started writing shorter mainstream tracks. Strangely enough, of the top seven live albums that I'm listing here, I think this is the one that most people would enjoy the least. But personally, I like it a lot, so there you go. Sorry, there is no film version available.



Other Favorites:

02. Dire Straits, "Alchemy Live" – I listened to this album hundreds and hundreds of times before I ever knew that it was also available on film. You don’t need to see the film. Put the album on, close your eyes, and enjoy. Now you’d know where "Romeo & Juliet" (The Killers) originally came from. Incidentally, I just noticed a couple days ago that the film version is going to be re-mastered and re-released next spring.



03. Pink Floyd, "Delicate Sound of Thunder" – This album, more than any other, turned me into a Pink Floyd fan, and this is one of the rare picks where I prefer the film version rather than the album. This was recorded in 1988, and was not received as well as their 1994 live album/film, "Pulse." I’ll admit that the production and film quality of "Pulse" is a lot better. However, there’s something about "Delicate Sound Of Thunder" that just stands out for me, even though it’s quite a bit shorter than "Pulse." I think it might be because of the recording for "That Great Gig In The Sky." The version on "Delicate Sound Of Thunder" is far better than the "Pulse" version, and the video shot of the girl in the crowd fluffing her hair always blew me away (this was maybe at a live show at Versailles Palace, if I recognize the background correctly). I think that for a long time I was in love with Rachel Fury, the first of the three singers in the "Delicate Sound Of Thunder" version, although admittedly the next two singers gave better vocal performances during this track. Unforgettable. Watch the movie, don’t just listen to the soundtrack.



04. Talking Heads, "Stop Making Sense" – If you don’t know this one, you’re missing out on some classic Rock 'n' Roll history. But first of all, let me admit something embarrassing. I have listened to this soundtrack for twenty years, and I only saw the film for the first time ever this week. And that's crazy, because I've known about the film for twenty years. The premise is simple – the show starts out with just the lead singer (David Bryne) performing "Psycho Killer" on an acoustic guitar with a synthesized drum track. As the concert progresses, more and more band members and equipment are slowly added to the stage. Anyway, the soundtrack only contains nine songs, whereas the film contains almost twice as many. And the soundtrack was heavily re-edited, so when I saw the film last week I thought it must have been from a completely different concert, but it wasn't. My recommendation is that you stick with the soundtrack here, although you need to watch the film at least once to understand it better.



05. Tom Petty, "Pack Up The Plantation" – This is classic summer cottage rock at its best. Apparently, a video exists to accompany this album, but you don't need to watch it. This is all older Tom Petty material which some people might not recognize, but it is great stuff. Do you remember the "American Girl" sequence in the movie "Silence Of The Lambs"? This soundtrack has, in my opinion, the best recording that I've ever heard of "American Girl."



06. Neil Young, "Rust Never Sleeps" – It's hard to get excited about such a short cross-section of Neil Young's career, as he is probably my favourite singer/songwriter, with hundreds of great songs to his credit over about five decades. But this album is great, especially the acoustic hits like "Thrasher" and "Pocohontas." Don’t worry about seeing the film – the album is good enough as a standalone product.



07. Allman Brothers, "Live at Fillmore East" – Classic, classic blues rock. From the opening licks of "Statesboro Blues," to the epic 23 minute long "Whipping Post," you can't go wrong. Grab a case of beer, head to the cottage, and start the party right by throwing this onto the stereo. I don't think there are film versions of this.




There you have it. A great selection of live shows, and almost without exception, you can focus on the albums rather than on the video recordings. Track some of these down and give them a listen today.

Now it's your turn. List some of your favorite classic (or indie) rock concerts in the comments below ...

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

DJ'ing in Las Vegas at DefCon 17

The set that I played at DefCon 17 in Las Vegas (on July 31st) is now online.


 

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!

The set is about 77 minutes long. I actually played about fifteen minutes longer than that, but I cut the last couple songs out from the recording so it would fit onto a CD, for those of you who listen to mixes in CD players instead of on mp3 players or on computers.


Here’s the track listing from the set:

     01. David Jones & Aqua Diva, "Thriller."
     02. Electrixx, "Tetris."
     03. Creamer & K, "Forget The World."
     04. Sandy Rivera & Andy Daneill, "Whatever."
     05. Jean Elan, "Killer."
     06. Basement Jaxx, "Raindrops."
     07. Mark Ronson, "Oh My God."
     08. Reead, "Nobody's Innocent."
     09. Bailey & Fauvrelle, "Pushing Beatz."
     10. Chris Scott and Dmitry Bobrov, "Too Much Is Not Enough."
     11. Dextro, "My House Is Your House."
     12. DJ Wope, "My Generation."
     13. Heaven & Earth, "And Let's Disco."
     14. Leron Yves Eaux and Luke Star, "Fashionized."
     15. Felguk, "All Night Long."

For people who were at the party and who are wondering what the last tracks (not included on the download mix) were, I finished the set with:

     16. Levan, "Miau."
     17. Milk & Sugar, "Let The Sun Shine."

You'll notice that I didn't list the exact remix that I used for each track. That's because none of them are conventional remixes. I've started taking every track that I play in sets and doing a "Bolivia's Edit" on the track. I usually cut out the major breakdowns entirely, to keep the dance floor moving. Sometimes I mix and match between a couple different remixes of a particular track. For mid-volume breakdowns, I often increase the volume a few decibels. I add one or two effects throughout the track, or drop-outs on key beats. And then finally, I boost with a hard limiter so the volume ends up being fairly consistent throughout, even through the breakdowns. All in all, that keeps the dance floor a lot more aggressive and energetic, and if I ever want to give the dancers a quick break, I can reduce volumes on breakdowns on the mixer. I find this keeps things fresh and higher energy. I'll keep a few originals with breakdowns in my crate, so I can play to a lower energy level early in the set if necessary, or so I can give the dance floor a real break late in the night, but 90% of the tracks that I play are ones that I've bastardized prior to the show.

Please email the link to any of your friends who might like listening.

Enjoy!

---

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

Armin van Buuren Photos, Halifax Nova Scotia

This past Sunday night, I got a chance to see Armin van Buuren in Halifax, Nova Scotia, courtesy of Underdog Productions. I wasn’t actually playing on the bill that night, I just went to relax and take some photos. It was my first night using a new camera (a basic Canon XSi digital SLR), but I managed to get a few decent shots. Here's the link:

http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_armin2009a.html

I owe a big thanks to Armin for being so accommodating with the photography.

Armin has been ranked by DJ Mag as the #1 DJ in the world for the past couple of years. To lend credence to this assessment, consider this: his signature A State Of Trance radio show is listened to by thirty million fans - every single week. Wow. I’ve had my website online for about seven years and I’ve only had around fifteen thousand mixes directly distributed during that time (although I’m sure with pass-alongs, the number is probably a lot higher).

Armin is Dutch. He’s got a law degree, but wanted to give up that career to pursue his love of music. He’s a producer, who has a number of huge hits, both as singles and from the several albums that he has self-produced. He doesn’t use an engineer – he does all of his own production work. He loves his fans, and is always happy to sign autographs and shake hands at the end of his shows.

Some of Armin's well-known hits include Love You More, Blue Fear, Exhale, This World Is Watching Me, Communication, In And Out Of Love, Burned With Desire, Serenity, and Yet Another Day (and a few of the older tracks in this list have only been officially released on YouTube very recently, so they haven't had a lot of views yet). But that's only a very short list of tracks that I could quickly find videos for. For a full look at his portfolio, check out Discogs. The list of work that he has produced is simply staggering.

Check out his website at www.arminvanbuuren.com


-----

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

The Tragically Hip

I saw the Tragically Hip playing in Halifax last night at the Metro Centre. It was packed, not surprisingly. And since my blog is read by a lot of music fans who live outside of Canada, I need to do a bit of promotion here. If you’re Canadian, you can pretty much stop reading now, because you’ll already know a lot about this band. But if you want to learn more, carry on.





First, you need to know that “The Hip” are Canada’s greatest rock band. The drummer, Johnny Fay, was once interviewed by Billboard, and when the subject of being in Canada’s best band came up, he said it was, “kind of like being the world’s tallest midget.” In 1989, the band apparently did a show where they opened for Nirvana, and less than a hundred people showed up.

The group has ten studio albums to their credit at the moment (disregarding their first self-titled album, which was only an EP). If I had to pick my favorites, I would recommend their first five albums, starting with “Up To Here,” and with “Fully Completely” probably being my top choice. Unfortunately, I haven’t spent a lot of time listening to any of the albums that came after “Trouble At The Henhouse.” I need to go out and buy the others though, because I know a few of the songs on them, and I know that I'm missing out on other gems.

I’ve seen the Hip perform dozens of times. The first times were in Banff in 1990. I had a few weeks off from my summer job planting trees, so I decided to hitchhike to Banff to wash dishes in a restaurant (The Magie & Stump) to pass the time for a week. During that week, I went with a couple friends to the Silver City nightclub every single evening. There was a band playing, and I thought that they were pretty good. Nobody else seemed to agree, because except for Friday and Saturday night, there were only about ten people in the bar each night. Anyway, after seeing them the first night, I was hooked. I kept coming back, and I watched them from about ten feet away, five or six nights that week. It wasn’t until about four or five years later, when they were starting to get famous and I saw them play at Mount Allison University, that I recognized them and realized that it was the same band. Since then, I’ve seen them in quite a few full concerts, and I also saw them in a small venue in Edmonton when they did their album release for “In Between Evolution,” with just a couple hundred people invited. I have photos from that night online here:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_hip.html

An interesting thing about the Hip is that if I had to pick my favorite five songs, I couldn’t. Not a chance. I might be able to get away with my favorite thirty, but even that would be hard to narrow down. Their music and sound are solid, and even though I’m not usually one to pay a lot of attention to lyrics, Gord Downie is brilliant. The funny thing is that I don’t even know if he writes all the lyrics. I’ve always assumed so, because he is their lead singer, but that’s not necessarily true. His improvisational abilities in live shows though, are legendary.

“New Orleans Is Sinking” was one of their earliest songs, written a decade and a half ago, and it’s one of their best-known songs. However, after Katrina, many radio stations stopped playing it in deference to the residents of New Orleans. The Hip are actually playing a show in New Orleans on October 20th of this year.

Anyway, so if you like rock music, and haven’t listened to this band before, take a Canadian’s advice and check them out. If this is the first you’ve heard about them, you’re missing out on one of Canada’s best-kept secrets.

Tokyo, Japan - DJ'ing at Velours

After visiting Osaka, I spent a few days in Tokyo. While I was there, I stayed with Kevin Snedker, a good friend of mine who used to be the Assistant Manager at the MTA Pub while he was at university. Kevin has been teaching English into Tokyo for the past couple of years.

We took the Shinkansen (the bullet train) from Osaka on Monday morning, and ended up having drinks on the train to get the trip started. When we got to Tokyo, we didn’t have anything planned until supper, so we mostly relaxed for the afternoon. After supper, we walked around the city for a while, then we spent several hours having dinner and drinks at The Lockup, and I met several of Kevin and Danielle’s friends. Several of them were Canadians or Australians who are working for a company called Nova, teaching English in Japan, and I also met Danielle’s friend Yuka.

 

Naturally, I didn’t get to sleep until about 7am, so I got nothing accomplished on Tuesday morning. However, in the afternoon, I walked around Tokyo, and Kevin took me to the Meiji Shrine. This was a large park area in the middle of Tokyo, with a large Shinto shrine in the middle. After Meiji, we spent several hours walking around the Electronics District, then went for dinner on the 49th floor of the fourth tallest building in the city. The view was incredible, and I was lucky enough to get some really good time-exposure photos of Tokyo at night. After dinner, we went to a couple bars, and again, stayed up pretty much all night.

On Wednesday, I slept for most of the morning and afternoon. I played at Velours that night, which was a fashion bar with a very high-class clientele. The venue was gorgeous, with chandeliers and comfortable couches everywhere, and the place was full of fashion models and other notable people. I played from 1:30am to 4:00am, and it was probably the most fun I've ever had playing a show, just because the venue was so different than most of the several dozen other places that I've played in.

Here are some photos from the trip:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_tokyo2007a.html

Unfortunately, on Thursday, I had to get ready to move on. The four-hour trip to the airport in the afternoon was a bit of an adventure, but I made the plane with a little bit of time to spare. The neat thing about the flight was that I left Tokyo on Thursday at supper, and I was booked to DJ in Seattle on Thursday evening. However, flying across the International Date Line moved me backwards by a day, so I arrived in Seattle at lunch on Thursday.

More notes to come shortly about Seattle and Vancouver …

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!

-----

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

Osaka, Japan - DJ'ing at Oasis Lounge

I flew to Osaka (Japan) this past weekend for a show. Although I’ve travelled pretty extensively before, this is my first time in Asia, so it’s been a great adventure so far.

I started by trying to fly to San Francisco for a visit on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, I flew through Montreal and then Chicago. I got to Chicago with no problems, but when I arrived there, I found out that there had been a huge snowstorm there the previous day, which had cancelled over a thousand flights. It was really nice outside at the time, with very little snow on the ground, so I didn’t really think that there were going to be any problems. However, when I got onto the plane, the airline eventually said that they couldn’t fly us to San Francisco because there were no pilots left in the airport – the pilots for our flight had been diverted to fly another plane earlier, to help catch up on the backlog of stranded passengers.

This didn’t seem like it would be a problem – they said that they were going to fly in a different crew from New York to take our plane to San Francisco, so the delay would only be a few hours. However, by this time, the storm had moved so it was over New York, which meant that it took a couple hours longer than expected for that crew to get out of LaGuardia. By the time they arrived in Chicago, the airline decided that those pilots couldn’t take our plane to San Francisco, because it would put them over their daily flight time limit. Our entire flight ended up getting cancelled, which was a disaster because that put all of us into the huge pool of people waiting to fly stand-by. I then ended up getting bumped off or passed over for the next four flights to San Francisco, as the airline tried to slowly catch up on the backlog.

In the end, I did get to San Francisco, but not until after midnight (about twelve hours later than expected). I was a little disappointed by that, because that was the stop on the trip that I was looking forward to the most. However, on a positive note, it was the one night on the trip where I could mostly easily deal with not showing up. Hopefully I’ll be able to reschedule for a visit later this spring, or maybe right after the summer ends.

The rest of the trip went smoothly, and the flights to Vancouver and then Japan were uneventful. We crossed the International Date Line, so it suddenly became Friday afternoon instead of Thursday afternoon. I was a bit nervous getting into the airport because my passport was only valid for two more months and Japan requires a foreigner’s passport to be valid for six months from the time of arrival. However, I had the itinerary to prove that I had a flight already booked to leave the country a week later, so that didn’t turn out to be a problem. Dan Elliot from the Oasis Lounge picked me up at the airport, and took me directly to his club, where I started to orient myself to the Japanese culture. A few hours later, a friend of mine (Ian Warney) showed up. Ian is a DJ and is living in Osaka teaching English. We went out for a night on the town, and I met a bunch of people that evening.

 

On Saturday, I spent the day touring around Osaka, and taking photos. That evening, I played at Oasis, which turned out to be a very fun night. Ian found me again on Sunday night and we went out for more sightseeing, and then we ate at a nice restaurant in a skyscraper overlooking Osaka.

So far, Japan has been great. There are far fewer foreigners here than I had imagined, but that’s about the only real surprise. The only big challenge so far has been trying to figure out the subway system. I’ve been on subways all around the world (London, New York, Paris, Moscow, and a ton of other smaller cities) but the Osaka subway has been the most confusing that I’ve seen, by far. The fare varies depending on how far you are going, and you have to buy a ticket getting on, then electronic gates scan it as you leave your destination station and don’t let you out if you didn’t pay the right fare. If you didn’t pay enough, you have to go back to another machine and do a “fare adjust” on the ticket. The Osaka (and Toyko) subway systems are not one large system, but instead are a whole bunch of separate lines run by different companies, so transfers can get complicated with ticket changes. Finally, there are very few signs in English, to make things even more confusing. However, after a few days, it was starting to make sense to me. Some of the stations are incredibly busy though – there is one station which has an average of three MILLION people per day passing through it. That’s pretty impressive, considering that the subways shut down at 12:30am and don’t start again until 5:30am.

A few other interesting notes so far:
- The cities are very clean compared to North American cities.
- There is apparently very, very little crime in Japan, and people feel completely safe and comfortable walking around anywhere in the cities.
- I have only seen a few children in the entire time I’ve been here – the Japanese must hide them away somewhere.
- I thought that I might get away with not running into anyone I knew during my visit, but on Sunday night a friend who had gone to university (Kyohei) saw me downtown and luckily had the time to spend an hour or so touring with us. That was an interesting coincidence, considering that Osaka is pretty big (nine million people, I think).
- There are far fewer Western chains than I had expected (lots of Starbucks & MacDonald’s and KFC, but that’s about it).
- A small but noticeable percentage of the population wear face masks in public and while working, either to limit the spread of diseases, or to protect them from smog & allergies.
- The amount of seafood is astounding – it is available everywhere, even as snack food in convenience stores.

Needless to say, I’ve been able to take a ton of interesting photos so far. I’ve got two photo pages up on my website now from the Osaka portion of my trip, and I’ve tried to add many more observations about Japan in the captions to the photos. Here is a link to the Osaka photo pages:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_osaka2007a.html

After I left Osaka on Monday morning, I had three days scheduled in Tokyo, so I’ll write more about that part of the trip in a few days.

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!

-----

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

Benny Benassi

I went to a Benny Benassi show in Halifax last night, at Club Rain. This wasn't really a DJ-oriented trip; I took a bunch of the Pub staff with me and we went down to enjoy the show. Here are the photos:

http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_benassi2007.html

I've been pretty slack with blog posts lately, since I've been so busy in the past four weeks. I'm leaving on Wednesday morning for a short tour, and I'll be visiting San Francisco, Osaka, Tokyo, Seattle, and Vancouver. I'll try to get as many photos as I can at each show, and hopefully I'll be able to take the mini-disc and record all of the sets for my website.

In the meantime, here's a random stupid JPEG:

  

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