I must admit that at first the thought of sitting down and writing a blog entry was not very appealing as I have just gotten back to my room after a day at the beach here in the south of Portugal. Since the beginning of August I have been on my honeymoon with my wife Irena, so far we have enjoyed time in Barcelona, Ibiza, Madrid, at Boom festival, Lisbon and now Faro. Since this is my first time in Europe I am still fascinated by all the old architecture, and my ears really enjoying constantly hearing Portuguese, Spanish, and so many other languages.  All in all it has been a great experience with only a few minor odd moments; so far I have realized that a line-up is not quite as orderly as it is in Canada, and you need to simply get to the front in order to be helped or served.

My time at Ibiza was intense, and although I had two nights out in the clubs, I was not able to experience Amnesia, so I have something to look froward to the next time I am there. Catching Tiesto at Privilege was a big night out and at least now I can say I have been to the biggest nightclub in the world (I had been told that many many times while we were there). The price tag for our stay there was incredibly steep however, water in the clubs was about $14.00 CAN for a mini bottle, and entry was $90.00 - $150.00 CAN, so a night out was a small fortune. The villa Wes and Sarah had rented was sweet (thanks for all the hard work organizing the details guys!!), with a dj set-up and a jetted pool for the roasting hot daytime hours. A few of our crew were chefs and they fed us a kings meal on two nights, sitting down with the whole group to such great food was the highlight of my time in Ibiza, Jason and Eric, you guys rock.

Boom was a and adventure just to get to as we missed our artist shuttle on the Monday from Madrid and had to sort ourselves out which ended up not being quite as hard as we initially thought. We ended up arriving on Friday and although we missed a big part of the festival, we still managed to have a really amazing time there. Once we were settled into our tent in the performers area (a massive city of tents all crammed under a shade structure) we did a bunch of adventuring and managed to catch Shadow Fx's set at 4 pm which was the last music to be played on the main stage after which it was shut down until later that night. He had the crowd freaking out and one woman jumped on stage naked and was dancing up a storm until security kicked her off, it was a pretty amusing sight. The crowd cheered for over 5 minutes when James was done his set, if anyone in the crowd of over 7000 people did not know what the Zenon sound was all about, they sure had an idea when he was finished. James' brother Pete (Tetrameth) ended up playing the same slot the next day and again ripped open the heads of the crowd, it was a very impressive performance by both of them and I have a feeling that BOOM was a huge boost for Zenon. Norris and I were slated to perform a dowtempo set on Sunday at 1 pm on the chill stage, which ended up being a 4 hour set. The setting was beautiful and along with the main sound system there were also speakers flown in trees surrounding the stage. We had a bunch of visitors from hoe and abroad who came by to say hello and enjoy the tunes, and once we were done a very warm round of cheers and applause rang out, all in all it was a fully rewarding experience and as usually Norris worked his magic in making sure the tunes were top-notch. We will be posting the set in the Sons Of Aurora section soon, and I will also be working on the Sons Of Aurora Motion Set while I am traveling and hope to have that up soon as well. I wanted to say thank you to Nilza, Naasko, and all the rest of the BOOM crew for all their effort and assistance, it was truly an honor to take part in such an incredible gathering. I have also uploaded a bunch of photos into a BOOM 2008 gallery in the Sons Of Aurora section for everyone to enjoy.

Next Irena and I are heading to Sagres in the South West of Portugal, and then we head to Greece to catch some serious beach time and bump around amongst the ruins. Before I go I also wanted to mention that  my Zenon compilation will be released in mid September, you can watch to see by checking out the listing here on Psyshop: http://www.psyshop.com/shop/CDs/zen/zen1cd013.html

Peace and light!!!

After slacking and not writing an entry last month, I am back to report that the summer is heating up in all ways possible as the rain seems to have finally stopped here in Calgary, and all the major projects/events are in full swing.

The Anahata release has been sent off to the distributor for reproduction and hopefully we are looking at the beginning of August for sales to begin. As well, my dj mix / compilation on Zenon Records is 99% done and will hopefully be on sale at the same time.  Both projects have been a huge learning experience... people who work in the music industry full-time have my respect.

On the personal front, Irena and I are madly preparing for the first of two weddings we are having. This first one is to take place at sundown on the summer solstice in five days time. We have rented a private and remote campground and will be having a celebration afterwards with some great music and lots of amazing friends. Our second wedding, the more formal of the two, will be held on July 26th in the mountains also and will be the tux and gown affair with family and friends. Having two weddings seemed like the only way we could fit everything we wanted into our wedding experience, plus we get to double up on all the fun. I am not nervous yet but I know it will hit me like a ton of bricks on both wedding days...  I can't wait to see Irena all done up and looking stunning!!!

To start off our newly wed life together we have also decided to go travel for 12 months and see the world. We will be leaving Calgary and heading to the Eclipse Festival in Quebec (Aug 1 - 4) to play a show, then off to Ibiza for three days to celebrate a close friends birthday, then next we travel to Portugal to perform at the legendary Boom Festival (Aug 11 - 17). Norris and I are fully pumped to be performing at Eclipse and Boom... we have heard nothing but great things about both gatherings. Then the rough plan for Irena and I is to stick around in Europe until the end of November, then head to India for December, then Thailand for January, then Australia from February until the end of April. At this point we may stay longer in Australia or we may be coming back to Canada and touring the Yukon and Alaska from May until the end of July.

There are literally 100's of things we need to get done before we can leave Canada and the days are flying by.

I can say one thing for certain: I am going to have the biggest grim on my face once we are on that plane heading off on our huge adventure.