Sweet, merciful, crap. Where have I been the last month and a half?
The more astute followers of this blog probably noticed the following over the last couple of weeks:
1. I posted a notice about Trancemission 13 - Soundproof's annual outdoor party - set to occur on August 7 and 8 and promised that more details would be forthcoming in short order;
2. Short order came and went, marked by a conspicuous silence regarding T13 from my blog and a complete lack of an event listing on Area709's main page;
3. The number 13 is not a particularly auspicious number. In fact, it's viewed with an incredible amount of paranoia as being downright apocalyptic in terms of heralding tides of ill fortune.
So, what happened?
Well, first off, almost three weeks later, people are still raving (no pun intended) about how awesome the party was. This is pretty amazing, considering there was a period of time leading up to the party I wanted to hide in a deep hole and not deal with all the things that were going off the rails. The week following T13, had the same other-wordly feeling I remember after compressing myself back into society following Burning Man; well, perhaps more along the lines of post-event afterglow as opposed to any urban integration angst. Best. Weekend. Ever. So, if the party went so well, why the silence on my part?
Well, for starters, about a week before the T13, my laptop crashed. Some of my trusty computer's hardware components (specifically the logic board) baked itself into fused mass of silicon and plastic. I made the leap to a computer-based DJ set-up about a year and a half ago; prior to this, the worst thing I'd had to deal with before a show was misplacing some vinyl or mislabeling a CD. Having your computer give up the ghost is kind of like losing all of your records and then having your decks and mixer set on fire. The week leading up to the party was spent getting the problem diagnosed, retrieving information off of my old undamaged hard drive and back-up drive, buying a new MacBook Pro and then time-machining all my data onto the new computer 24 hours before the actual party. I also updated my software of choice with a new patch, which would be running on a new operating system I'd never tested before.
Take heed of everything I mentioned above, as it's basically a list of everything you're *not* supposed to do as a digital DJ before a big show.
With all of the running around - for the computer alone - updating Area709 was put on the back burner. Numbers for attendance seemed to be coming in at a decent level, so I didn't think we needed any extra promotion. As it turns out, we needed every spare iota of energy compensating for all the other things we ended up breaking - other than my computer - the weekend of the party. While 13 may have proved to be an unlucky number for us, the crew somehow managed to prevail over a staggering number of near-epic fails and flails that weekend. It took several hours of people coming up to crew members, congratulating us on a job well done until I took a subjective step back and realized how well everything turned out. Just goes to show you really do forget to pay attention to the big picture when you're busy keeping all the little things on the rails.
As opposed to past Trancemissions, we invited everyone up to the site for early Saturday afternoon instead of the evening. The plan was to have workshops during the afternoon in tandem with the first wave of music, have a short break from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, and then start up the music again and go until Sunday at noon. In the end, everything came together beautifully, but with a two hour delay at the front end. We started the music at 4:00pm and went straight until 12:00pm on Sunday - 20 DJs and/or live PA acts back to back. While the weather looked ominous during Saturday afternoon, by the evening all the clouds vanished, the insane wind finally died down and we had nothing but clear skies overhead. By Sunday afternoon, we'd all broken out the sun screen, shorts, t-shirts and tube tops. A lot of us stayed an extra night and the after-party ended up being outdoors, under the stars for a another night running.
So, I know I'm going to miss a couple of honorable mentioned here, but I thought a couple of people deserve some props after-the-fact:
- Everyone who came out - Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm so psyched that the drive didn't deter anyone, and that everyone had such an awesome time. Someone asked me recently what I get out of all the effort into one of these parties, and well, all the positive feedback has definitely charged me up for the coming year with Soundproof.
- The land owners - Massive, massive props. Everyone loved the location and you made possible what ended up being one the best Trancemissions we've held to date. Thank you for welcoming us into your home and rolling with the punches - And, we were all thrilled to see the two of you ripping it up on the dance floor late in the evening.
- The DJs and live acts. First off, thank you for all of your patience for all the epics during our stage management over the course of the evening. Second and most importantly, thank you for all of the inspiring music, super solid mixing and keeping your games faces on whenever anything went a bit south. Special mentions go out to Kurtis, one of the new additions to our crew, who opened up the evening with a hour of driving house and electro and set the bar high for the rest of us to follow for the remainder of the night. Oh, and extra special mentions to Yo on the first time - ever - that all of his live PA gear worked!
- Special props to the Saturday afternoon DJs. These were all people that have been coming to our parties for quite some time, and for many of them this was their first time playing out on a big system. Dimitri, Ehsan, Clint and Mike all impressed me immensely. I can honestly say I wish I had half their talent when I first started playing out; it was really humbling. None of them had any egos, were super psyched to play and I heard nothing but super solid mixing the entire time. John Tennant - Thank you for a solid, live PA set of dub techno and mid-tempo breaks which - as usual - completely blew my mind.
- To the three guys that para-glided off the neighboring mountain range and into the party at 7:30am... holy crap. Mike Lee provided some appropriately epic stadium trance for your entry into a neighboring field. I have no idea how you're going to top that for next year, but I'm looking forward to it.
- Our sound guy. You get points docked for providing us with two out of four bass bins which happened to be missing their cones. Points given back for driving in from Whistler and installing the cones - in the middle of a packed dance floor - at 10:00pm *and* lending us needles for the turntables after our back-ups crapped out.
- Colleen, thanks for keeping us organized and motivated. We'd be totally and utterly screwed without you.
- Geoff B - For rescuing some critical data off of my old MacBook that I failed to back up and for providing me with a loaner laptop while I sorted out my technical issues. For the curious, the new machine performed like a dream. For the curious DJs out there, I used Traktor Pro controlled by two Kontrol X-1s and an Audio 8 sound card. Audio was routed and mixed externally through 4 channels on an Allen & Heath Xone 92. While I've logged a fair number of shows in the last year using Traktor time code vinyl and turntables, I think this is the set-up I'll likely be using in the months to come.
On a personal note, one of my highlights this year was playing a peak time set (2:00am) at a Trancemission party. The last four years with Soundproof, I've built myself a niche - happily - around playing morning sets at Trancemission and starting or finishing our indoor parties. I've had the chance to branch out and play a bit harder in similar time slots at our indoor parties over the last year, but it was pretty awesome finally getting the chance to do it outdoors. Midway through my set, a train passed by an adjoining field (the tracks were directly behind the main stage) and for about two minutes the rumble of the wheels and the blasting of the conductor's horn magically synced up to the tracks I was playing. Awesomeness.
* * * * *
What comes next? Well, the next Soundproof party is going to happen on November 27. I'll be coming back from a month of climbing in Kentucky so this will be a great little homecoming of sorts.
Before this happens though, it looks like the Anza Club night we've been participating in has turned into something more regular. As a lot of you know, Soundproof DJs have ended up playing at the Anza every second month over the last 2 years. We've always had a great turn out, and I guess as a result of that, as of September we're going to be playing the first Saturday of every month! Obviously, we're pretty thrilled.
The Anza has been a pretty key part of introducing new people to Soundproof, due in no small having a regular gathering place where there's no cover charge and the venue itself aligns well with the smaller scale of our main events.
Other than this Saturday being the first regular Anza night, it also happens to be a birthday celebration for myself and an opportunity to say goodbye to Ehsan before he moves to Montreal. Okay, so that last bit chokes me up a bit. Other than being a skilled DJ with a keen sense ear for great tech house, Ehsan has been one of Soundproof's strongest supporters and an absolute machine on the dance floor.
Ehsan, Chris, Drew David and I will be playing from 11:00pm to 2:00am. We also host an open decks portion of the evening from 9:30pm to 11:00pm. If you're so inclined, bring some CDs or your laptop and controller and snag one of the half hour slots at the start of the evening!
Today, I am officially older and wiser. Here's to looking forward to another rotation around the sun with Soundproof, and I hope to see many of you out on Saturday night!
kpd
- Jones
P.S., I'll buy a drink for the first person who comes up to me on Saturday and can correctly attribute the quote I used for the subject heading of this blog entry.
