Jesse fucking Lewis Evans.

Jesse is a top man and a good friend. But no matter how highly I already thought of him, I think better of him now. Me and Jesse both met in our infancy in the visual effects world. And what what can I say. I like the little guy. He is awesome.
Anyway he was working at Weta in NZ, but has since decided that he wants to spread his wings in The Big Apple.
Deciding that he couldn't leave Weta and Wellington without a bang, (and probably cause he wants attention so he can show off to the ladies) he made this video to send to the employees at Weta on his last day.
Enjoy. I sure as hell did.

The best thing I have ever heard.

 No shit. Its like a musical map of my childhood. I love it.

http://soundcloud.com/maddecent/blood-bros-first-blood

World famous in the arse end of nz.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/entertainment/southern-arts/3722004/Kiwis-hoping-for-Bafta-win

Zippo throwing.

I was sick like a month ago and spent the day watching trashy action films. You know the kind. Rambo, Delta Force 1 and 2 and Out for Justice.
It seems to me, if you're either a good guy or a bad guy, when you go to the shop to buy a zippo lighter you must buy them by the case load.
Because man was there a lot of throwing zippos in fuel to cause explosions. Probably like 7 in those movies alone. What weirds me out though is that no one smokes in any of these movies so why the fuck are they all carting around like a hundred zippos each. At least John Mclean smoked in Die Hard. He does a fuckload of zippo throwing.

Erasing David

So I was interested in seeing this documentary. The trailer looks good right. Well this is the biggest shit pile of a film I have seen. For starters the guy is a total pussy. He spends 1 night by himself in the wilderness and begins crying into the camera about how lonely he is, so then he goes and checks into a hotel. He is basically the biggest whinging fuckwit ever. His experiment is ridiculous. He seems to deliberately leave clues for his team of crack private investigators to find. The whole thing feels staged, and I can't help but think if you're gonna stage something you should add some gunfights or boobs or something to make it even vaguely interesting. He also decides to do this experiment whilst his wife is seven months pregnant which seems like a bit of a douche thing to do. And he gets caught on day 14 whilst attending a doctors appointment with his wife that they had booked before the documentary was filmed. Way to go David. Your nearly un-trackable.
I mean if his idea of smoke and mirrors to make himself disappear from society is to go to his dads house, then a hotel, then go home to an appointment with his wife, he obviously hasn't watched too many spy thrillers.
Some of the stuff he found out about what information various companies have on you was interesting, but that made up about 2 mins of the film. Also the soundtrack was by Michael Nyman, who is fucking awesome.  The rest of it was watching this big blubbering douche cry into the camera. The funniest thing as well, is he is constantly going on about keeping a low profile and acting like he is sneaking around train stations etc, but he is walking around with a camera on a rig attached to the side of him or a person blatantly sticking a camera in his face. He seems to think that the audiences suspension of disbelief will set in at some point and make us forget the camera is there.
The crack squad of PIs was funny too. They just looked through his rubbish and at his facebook really. They hardly used any super secret government sources of information to catch him. They didn't fucking need too. I mean he seriously would have had more luck  if he had just stayed at home in bed with his head under the covers. They never would have found him.
What scared me the most about this film wasn't government keeping information on us, but whether or not the male population of earth had all become super soft girly boys. I mean, this guy surely couldn't have survived if he was in a war? What would his father think?  I know my dad would kick my ass if he caught me crying like a little baby girl and being scared of noises in the dark. Maybe I will make a documentary about how males are becoming soft due to being spoon fed Sex and the City and told we have to be more in touch with out feelings. I mean seriously, David needs to cut down on the cupcakes and get himself a steak or something. I am not usually this pro manliness, but this guy honestly gave me an allergic reaction or something. I mean as I was watching it I could feel extra chest hair growing.  Men should be like this.

This guy is killing 2 lions at once. He would stab government surveillance. Right in the nuts.

Bear in Heaven at the Lexington.

So last night I went to this gig at the Lexington in Islington. If you haven't been to the Lexington and you live in London I highly recommend it. As it's kinda rests on the periphery of the centre of London it's in a nice quiet-ish area which is nice and it also has a mad selection of American beers and whiskeys which are fun to try. Its over two levels, a more standard pub downstairs and the area for gigs upstairs.
Anyway there were three acts on, Chad Valley, Visions of Trees and Bear in Heaven.
Chad Valley is a single dude standing on the stage who who sounds exactly like Panda Bear when he sings. Which, I guess could be a compliment but it felt like I was just listening to Animal collective. The same intense use of noise and strange key changes in his voice and all. It was just a little too close to the bone really, and I felt uncomfortable listening to it because I didn't feel like it added anything to the Animal Collective style of sound (Lyndall called this guy the Animal Un-collective) and it just seemed like the guy didn't have anything new or vaguely interesting to add. Still he is obviously talented so maybe he'll find his own voice one day.
Next up was Visions of Trees. I have to say the first time Lyndall sent me one of their tracks my immediate thought was, this is indie Enya.
Now I have seen them I feel more like summing them up with a question.
What happens when three cars all smash into each other, one car containing Girls Aloud, one containing Enya and the other a pretty talented electronic producer/musician. That's right. Visions of Cheryl Cole....I mean trees.
I mean it wasn't that bad I guess. It's just the lead girl was so damn grating. She gyrated and did all the kind of terrible bullshit on stage moves you would expect of a bad girl band. Also her voice isn't really anything special. I mean it's a voice, like anyone else on Britians got talent has a voice. That stock standard I can sing voice. You know. The one you don't give a shit about.
Luckily they kind of pulled it back with their last track "Sometimes it Kills" which was the first one Lyndall sent me (Indie Enya) and goes to show I either have shit taste and and can't make my mind up about stuff or the band had just suitably lowered my expectations of music. No I take it back. That track is good............. I think.

So on came Bear in Heaven. And I have to tell you, if you like droney, minimalist, psychedelic, pop with massively catchy hooks, then you'll like this.
The poor bastards were pretty tired because of the volcano cloud of death and having to drive everywhere instead of catch planes around Europe, but they put on a hell of a show. The music is so perfect for listening to at higher volumes as it seems perfectly constructed to fill every single inch of space in a venue. You know what I mean? Like certain music feels like a blanket of sound wrapping itself around every inch of your body? So you almost feel like you're drowning in it. Well this did that. Something about the strange key changes in the droning basslines and the way they beautifully offset that with a drummer that was playing high hats and snare patterns which were really complex in a way you usually associate with overtly busy drum patterns from programmed electronic music. He was seriously good.
Factor in on top of that a lead singer with a comforting voice to guide the way through the mist of sound and you have a great band.
Seriously guys to look out for.

New Mix

http://soundcloud.com/gregatronix/

This one is partially inspired from the Michael Mayer evening a month ago, and also just cause I was bored. Not particularly well mixed as it was more just for me to put these tracks which I have been listening to lately into a single for mix for my own pleasure. Hope you like it.

A Night with Matt John

Well to say I was looking forward to this after the last party may have been a bit of an understatement. I say "was" looking forward to, because after a particularly techno heavy 4 days in Berlin last week I was feeling somewhat jaded all this week and more like sitting at home on the couch watching whatever shit was on TV, feeling sorry for myself, stuffing my face with food and drinking a year old bottle of red wine mainly used for cooking because I can't be fucked dragging myself to the shop.........Which is about a one minute walk from my house.
As it turned out though, London turned on some nice sun rays during the day and after throwing a frisbee around in a park for 3 hours and gorging myself on BBQ food I felt surprisingly up for it. I was also going to a friends birthday which was right around the corner so it felt kind of like fate that I should go.
Who am I kidding? After the last one and being told by people that Matt John plays a wicked long set, I was always going.
The venue this time, although still not in the place they originally stated all the parties were going to be in, was in Hoxton. I don't really know what happened this time because the promoters stayed pretty quiet leading up to this event, but be it a licensing issue or whatever it didn't really matter. There is something cool about skipping around venues and I have to say that I liked this one a lot more than the last one. Something about having proper toilets instead of port-a-loos. Though that was somewhat ruined by the massive shit some guy had taken upstairs which had attached itself to the side of the bowl, stank, and no matter how much you tried to piss it away down the bowl, just wouldn't budge. Fuck knows what that guy had been eating, but whatever it was, it was stupidly adhesive.
Anyway less about shit and more about the party, which wasn't. Shit I mean.
Yes, yet again it was very good. The venue was one of those abandoned office space type affairs which are awesome to walk around because there are lots of hallways to wander around and dark little areas you have to search through which is vaguely disorientating and adds to the experience of being transported to some strange techno world where all that matters is music and dancing.
The equation for a good party is so simple it seems criminal that hardly anyone else in London is working it out. A room, plus a good sound system, plus a wicked DJ equals fun.
There was a smoke machine at this one as I am sure there was at the last, but it had much more of a workout this time which equated to some fucking cool fogged out madness where time and space seem to stop and you're not really sure where you are, which direction you're facing, who you're standing next to and where bass drops sound like an apocalypse. Cool. People should go crazy with fog monsters more.



They had the now familiar "This must be the place" red neon sign up on the wall, and the really cool granny standing lamp as a DJ light again which added a feeling of continuity carried over from the first party.
Overall the impression is of a really well organized house party.
Again the funktion one was in attendance. This time there was a little bit of a flat spot in the sound towards the front where the DJ was, but that is being excessively picky. Generally it was a great sounding system, and when you consider they have changed venues twice now and how hard it is to tailor sound for specific places it's incredible how good it sounded. As long as you stayed towards the middle or the back it was perfect. Also maybe my ears are being overtly picky after spending a good stab of time at Watergate last week.
The music was an entirely different kettle of fish to last time which was to be expected, with Mr John playing music exactly like the aforementioned weekend in Berlin provided.
You know it, much more stripped back, with that straight beat and plenty of percussive elements.
It had less obvious flow than the month before, which is no bad thing, although he did build it really nicely to a massive centre section where beats would drop out in a haze of sharp percussion and noise and slam back with a huge amount of force. This generated genuine hands in the air moments with plenty of crowd appreciation in return. The dropout mix to a Doors sample of Break on Through to the Other Side if I remember correctly, got lapped up by the crowd and got plently of cheers.
There were a couple of super tight loopy tracks that he used as great builders right before the more slamming middle section. I think I enjoyed those moments most. Where your brain almost makes up a melody for you and you could look around and see people getting lulled into a false sense of security before the onslaught was about to happen. Fun, fun.
I think one of the best things to say about Matt John is his ability to connect with a crowd. He looks genuinely happy to be there and this rubs off on the audience. Its hard to be cynical about someone when they look like they are having so much fun.
His technical skill as a DJ is pretty staggering as well. The music more or less passed me by in a blur because watching him work two turntables, plus Traktor scratch pro and whatever midi controller he was using was so impressive. It was the jumping between Traktor playing tracks internally and then mixing standard vinyl over the top and then back into Traktor I found so impressive, whilst covering 3 channels at once sometimes. I also appreciated watching his skill as a beat matcher. I know, I know, anyone can learn it, but having been DJ'ing for over 15 years I know I don't generally slap a track in without listening to it and pretty much work the pitch over the club PA to get it in time. Its nice to see someone still giving standard DJ'ing a good nudge as well in this internally beat matched world we live in these days. I think no matter what anyone says, playing when the need to mix is taken out of the equation changes the way DJs choose music to play and therefore ends up changing the way they play. I think mostly to the detriment of a decent flow. Less thought about how they are going to get somewhere in a set and how to bridge the gaps to get there as you don't need to think about it as much anymore.
This is of course, just my opinion. But I do own Traktor and have pretty much stayed away from the internal mode since working out it completely changed the way I play.
Whatever. I was just happy to see he still had standard beat matching skills mashed in with his internal beat matching set up. Call me old fashioned.
Anyway, Matt managed to avoid any issues with flow and provided a damn solid nights entertainment. So thumbs up there. I think it was the perfect follow up DJ to Mayer's night of Cologne style fun. (which for me still shades Matt's set, but that's not an insult as Mayer was totally on and totally wicked the month before) And it is so nice that the promoters aren't totally raping just one sound for this series of parties.
As with the last time, the door staff, bouncers and bar staff were exceedingly polite, helpful and even smiled. Again, so rare for a night out in London, and a very important part of what makes these nights great.
And again. A total lack of cunts. So a good crowd then. People that looked like they were there for the music.
So. A solid thumbs up from me. As a party it totally stood up to anything I have experienced in the world, and it gets a tip of the hat from me.
That's two for two. See you at the next one.

Berlin love.

So it was my birthday last weekend, which happily fell on Easter.
Anywho, I decided that I would go to Berlin as one of my best mates, Simon Beeston-a-ding-a-ling-a-ding-dong was playing at Watergate. Which is a seriously cool club.
I was thinking it would be cool if I got some of my friends from London to come over too, as most of them hadn't been to Berlin and thought maybe they would like to see what the fuss was about.
I wasn't expecting anyone to come really, but I started a facebook group inviting a bunch of peeps.
Now either A: I am way more popular than I thought I was or B: People just wanted to go to Berlin, but heaps of people came. Which was wicked. And made me feel loved beyond belief so that was pretty sweet.
Anyway. I can only describe the weekend as damaging and a hell of a lot of fun.
Watergate was heaps of fun and Simon knocked out a cracker set. Way harder than I expected him to play, which was a nice surprise.
I drunk heaps, ate a lot of sausage, managed to even get a private walking tour from two of the best tour guides out (hats of Simon and Teresa) and danced my arse off.
All in all it was a fucking rad time.
I just wanted to say a big thanks a give a massive hug to all involved.
You know who you are.
Cheers guys!

A Night with Michael Mayer.

Lets get this out of the way first. This was an awesome party.
The idea behind the party (or parties, as there is going to be ten of them this year) is to have one dj play 8 hours. In a warehouse. With an amazing sound system..........This sounds good.
Still, I was slightly skeptical about the sound system because in my experience with London warehouse parties, they usually suck. I was also skeptical about Mayer a little bit. Don't get me wrong. I used to be a massive fan. He came out to New Zealand and Dj'd there in 2004 I think it was, and I was totally gutted I had to go to a wedding that weekend. I did briefly meet him in Auckland on the Friday but didn't see him play a single record. Gutted. By all accounts though, that party was one of the best Auckland had ever seen. Unfortunately this didn't hold up when Superpitcher came out 2 years later and played to virtually no one because of Aucklands dying techno scene.
Anyway, I was following him pretty heavily after that and went to a few of his parties over here and in Spain and at C/O pop.
He blew me away the first couple of times, but lately when I have seen him I have been a little bit disappointed. Now I think about it though, its always the short sets where this happens because when I saw him play in a junkyard in Cologne after the Kompakt party at C/o pop 2 years ago he killed it. I guess he just needs time......and he had time here. I'll get back to that though.
The other reason I had low expectations was that I guess the general feeling around the place is that Kompakt has dropped off the boil in the later 2000s. Something I sort of agree with. On the other hand, it just seems to me that in a scene based on ever changing trends Kompakt has stayed a bit more static of late than most of the other labels. But not really in a bad way. I think (this is talking about the 4/4 stuff or course) that when you hear a Kompakt record, you can tell its a Kompakt record. And this is important. So many labels have been losing their identity at the moment by covering their bases and releasing records that are hip and now. The problem being, by the time the record comes out it's neither of those things. Anywho. The party.
The venue itself, was not the one it was supposed to be in (licensing issues made sure of that....and being that I like a drink I am glad they moved it), but it was really good none the less. It was a standard London railway arch type of warehouse and it was a perfect size for the 350 people that were allowed to go. Oh yeah did I mention that? They limited it to 350 people. And 350 fucking great people to be clubbing(warehousing?) with by the looks of it as well, because the crowd was great. It was like they had a no cunts allowed sign up outside. Amazing for London. So people good. Check.
The next thing that hit me was the sound. It was great. Perfect even. That kind of loud that hits you in the guts, yet you can talk over at a pretty normal volume, then you get home and your ears are not ringing at all. So sound. Check.
Service for the bouncers and bar staff. Also very good. Not something that people usually write about but it does help a lot.
So the music. Well. It was kind of like seeing Mayer in 2005. Which I enjoyed. He started a bit slower and ended up pushing it relentlessly into the Speicher-ish territory as the night went on. You know the sound. Brilliant for a warehouse. (correct me if I am wrong but doesn't Speicher mean warehouse or storehouse in german?)
He went through a few hits too. Most memorable for me was the remix of Baxendales - We Built this City. I used to thrash this at my radio show so of course I jumped up and down like a little school kid when it came on.
But the overwhelming feeling wasn't so much for the tracks themselves but more for his ability to play for 8 hours and seem to have a plan of the way the arc of the night is going to go. The way he wound it up, then wobbled around in the middle and slowly wound us all down from about 4.30 so we could go home and sleep. I thought it was brilliant. Sure I didn't find the music as cutting edge as I have found other gigs. But you know what? I didn't give a flying fuck because I had one of the best nights dancing I have had in years. I danced all the way to the end in fact. Something I was beginning to think my 31 year old body just didn't want to do anymore.
And you know what else. He did it on 2 turntables. Not on 4 turntables on a laptop that is making you a coffee and placing 20,000 fx over the top of all of it at the same time. I think this helped with the arc thing. More concentration on the tracks and what they are doing and how they will shape the night and less snap, crackle and pop over the top.
Anyway. As I said. brilliant night. Congrates to the promoter for giving me faith in London clubbing again. And I will be at the next one with bells on for sure. Bells the size of houses. Roll on Matt John.

Double J and Once the O takes nice pictures

......that's Jeremy James O'sullivan to you. These are just a few from a goldmine of favorites.

Carl Craig, Francesco Tristano & Moritz von Oswald @ the southbank centre.

First up, let me get it straight out the way, that going to what is basically a techno gig and sitting in seats and listening seemed like a weird idea to me. But I was willing to have a go.
The whole idea was about having techno artists perform live accompanied people playing other instruments and try and have this free form jam kind of thing.
Fortunately, there were warm up acts for the above three, who had more planned out sets. I will get to why it was fortunate shortly.
Ok so first up was Henrik Schwarz and his buddy on a piano, inventively called the Henrik Schwarz duo. This was wicked. Easily the highlight of the night for me. Basically really melodic and beautiful tracks, where the piano didn't over crowd the laptop twiddling or vice versa. Think Eric Satie with a beat and weird and beautiful electronic noises in the background and you wouldn't be too far off. They managed to have an interesting concept, but it wasn't just concept music if you know what I mean. It had the ups and downs of emotion that music should have, and managed in parts to be genuinely beautiful. The second to last track may have even made my eyes wet a little. Wow, I thought. This sitting and listening to Techno is rad.
Next up was Matmos. They began and for the first fifteen minutes I was waiting for a dwarf in a red suit to walk on stage backwards and say "Garmonbozia".
Disturbing visuals with disturbing noise to boot was the name of the game, until it became a pretty standard beaty affair in the middle and then returned to weirdness. I enjoyed them on reflection....at the time my brain hurt a little though.
Next up was the three we had come to see. The good things. Moritz Von Oswald certainly looks cool. So much no moving charisma. He took minimal to the extreme. I think I saw him move once. He also stayed on stage behind his laptop after everyone else had finished making us wonder whether or not he thought he was still going and had a whole bunch of silent loops still playing or sub bass so deep only animals could hear it. Funny.
Apart from that though it was a bit of a mess. Sometimes I think techno artists are so caught up in their "we are actual musician" hurricanes of self doubt that they feel they have to over compensate by trying shit like this. Bands with real instruments don't generally go and play a gig without practicing some songs first, and if they did it would sound like a me and my friends in the late 90s early 2000s, drunk and fucking around with noise and instruments we bought from the 2 dollar shop. Example here.....yes we recorded it.
The thing is, our stuff is supposed to be formless, because, well, we are shit basically. But that adds a dimension of fun to it. You can feel the fun leaking out the headphones can't you?
But if you try and make a jam session have form, and also be pretentious about it, and on top of that have the levels all fucked up whilst looking for this form, so like an interesting melody will start coming from Craig, and he seems to be looking around going come on guys follow my lead, but Sax man goes, Nah I am gonna play something different and louder than you, and then piano man does the same, and then Moritz goes, my bass is lower and ignores everyone....take a breath Greg. Well anyway it was a fucking mess. Like a pre-school concert you got dragged to or something.
There were moments where I thought it would come together and that just made it more frustrating.
You wanna know what weird is though?
This is weird!

The endless loop

So last night after upgrading one of my laptops to windows 7 (I'm a PC and a Mac, and have 2 laptops.....how much of a wanker does that make me?) I decided that I should try and hit the music production again. Having never really finished anything up to a decent standard, and never really felt the need to make anyone elses ears bleed with my musical meanderings, mainly because they are so diabolically shit or weird, or weird and shit, I felt it was about time I tried to finish something.
I sat down with Ableton, and cracked open an old file, lovingly called, Greg_Edit_Fucked_v020. Thats right version 20.
I was amazed, that when I opened it, I actually liked it.
Hit the fast forward button to hours in the future, and I am left holding my hands in my head. (I meant holding my head in my hands but I am gonna leave that mistake in because I like the visual imagery it brings....plus my head is massive so its perfectly feasible)
I hate that creativity involves computers so much these days.....or at least that mine does.
I spend so much fucking time looking at fucking computers and trying to solve problems during the day/night, that as soon as I get posed with a problem that is computer based on the outside world, I flip several hundred shits all over the place and then go watch some pile of shit on TV whilst necking spiced V8 juice and taking intermittent smoke breaks, where I wander round outside in the cold giving myself shit for being such a failure.
Anyway. One day I will finish something.
Here's a mix I made.
http://soundcloud.com/gregatronix/greg-dec-09