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Plague; October 2, 2009
Briefly since this is so late...
FUN! And I do so enjoy getting to spin with DeHuman8! We tagged the last part of the night.
Not sure when I'm back, though I hope soon!

Here's my playlist from Plague:
( 1st set: )
( 2nd set: )
( Tag with Dehuman8: )


JADED; October 10, 2009
Also briefly:
Had some trouble with the equipment and I couldn't bring my rig because I couldn't guarantee I'd be there early enough due to a private party I was committed to spin. So it was a night to focus on song selection more than technique.
Haven't worked with LasciViouS in a while and we had a lot fun keeping things moving!
We ended up tagging the end of the night, which was again, quite fun and I hope he and I can do it again soon!

Here's my playlist from Jaded:
( 1st set: )
( 2nd set: )
( Tag with LasciViouS: )

PLAGUE; March 6

Plague was amazing, as usual! It was a special treat since my lady GZ joined me on a trip there for the first time since Halloweek 2006! (To be fair, it's a long drive, we've dogs to consider, and there was a whole episode with a wayward canoe in in a rain storm on the drive back the last time we went to Plague together...)
I hadn't been back since last November, so I was missing it and it was great to see friends I hadn't seen for a while. Plus it had been 15 months since I last spun with DJ Dehuman8, so I had a lot to look forward to!
Neith opened the night with a lot of great song choices that gave both GZ and I a chance to dance before I jumped in for my first set. I feel pretty good about both of my sets and only one risky track failed me, but I made a quick recovery and all was back to good!
Dehuman8 wanted to include Neith in our last hour tag team, which I happily agreed would be fun, and it was! Not only because of a great mix of music, but also because with 3 of us it made it easy to jump from the booth to dance a little bit myself! I have to say though, I was shocked to see the floor empty down to 4 or 5 people when DeHuman8 played Loretta Young Silks! WTF!? Are people just getting tired of that song? Is it getting too much play? It's often requested so that reaction was quite surprising and I really hope it isn't fading away. I still love to dance to it myself.

No word on my next Plague date yet, perhaps in May if availability allows.

This week however, Tuesday, March 10, I head back to HAVEN in Northampton MA to spin along side the indefatigable DJs Znuh and Static.
I imagine I'll be mixing in the swirly and down-tempo to counter point Static's definitive THUD-edged style of industrial! Something for everyone, as they say.
My lady GZ joins the party as well (I'm really loving all these days off from work she's finally been able to take to join me on these adventures!)

Here are my sets from Plague.
( set one: )
( set two: )
( Dehuman8 (D) vs. Xero (X) vs. Neith (N) Tag Team: )

This was the month of October. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

PLAGUE; October 3

I had fun times at Plague; seeing friends and spinning beats for them to bounce to. Gabriell and I got to jam again, which was super! I think we were both sharing a bit of frustration though, because music we kept expecting to impact didn't, and the music that DID impact surprised us. Or me at least.
As I say, I'm always learning.
I played some variants on the requests that were made... one (a Snow Patrol/Police mash-up) worked REALLY well. The other (a Soulwax remix of Sit on Acid)... well, not so much.

I have to get better organized with my CD library. I played a lot of requests in the second set, however, this is the second time that I've gotten a number of requests for songs that I could have played, if only I had my gear and music organized so that I could bring it all. There's a bag I've been meaning to get. Guess where my pay is going.

On November 14, I spin again at Plague with The Reverend Benjamin Powers and the mysterious Doomsday Jones for Old School Night! I haven't spun with the Reverend since March, so I'm very much looking forward to the night!

Here are my sets from October 3:

( set one: )
( set two: )

HAVEN; October 7

Saints and Sinners Ball was as silly, sexy, and super-fun as you could imagine!
I started the night with a track from an old friend's project that sampled The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" (again with the Police!) on a pseudo-rap track called "Heaven Meets Hell." First hour set was just fun and sexy down-tempo from then on! Later, after the costume contest I got on for another short set and was struggling to get to a smooth place to drop the The Azoic or I:Scintilla into the mix to familiarize the music before Haven's show with Cruxshadows in November. It didn't happen this time, but still it was a solid set.
"Sister P" is super-pleased (even though I'm plagued by my own self-criticisms) and the people I rely on as allies on the dance floor didn't let me down! Damian Plague told me, "you gotta take risks," during a brief exchange I was having with him about one of his song choices. That's true and as I think back, that is what I've been doing. The other side to that philosophy though is that taking risks means accepting that anything can happen, sometimes not what you expect. I should note I am proud of a couple of simple but effective technical tricks I used to segue a few songs without beat matching that sounded better than I imagined they would!

My play list from the Saints and Sinners Ball follows:

( 9-10p set: )
( After Costume Contest: )


HAVEN; October 28
Haven's Halloween was incredible! I spun along side Azrael, Mothra, and Znuh! And it was lots of fun, (if only because Znuh DEMANDS that I have fun! or.. well... he firmly suggests it... 8p)
My lady, GZ, dressed as a senior scientist in the field of human-animal genetic hybridization and I was her man-fish experiment!
She came up with a different and awesome costume idea that we just ran out of time trying to get it put together this year. I mean, I just resort to superheroes; her idea was much more elegant and subtle. Hopefully we'll get our act together next year. :)

The music was non-stop awesome all night! Mothra & Znuh jammed an amazing tag at the end of the night! And I was thrilled that the dance floor was moving from my first hour straight through! (Also "thrilled" I got to play the "Thriller" track I've be sitting on for a while.) I could break down some of my FAIL moments, and there were a couple, but suffice to say I learned from them and no matter what those mistake were, they didn't take away from me or anyone having fun. That's what's important in the end, right?
Znuh was talking to GZ at some point and gave her some sweet compliments about working with me; gotta love that guy!
I can safely say that I've graduated to the "next level" at Haven and I'm super grateful to Penelope for the tremendous opportunities she's given me to grow by working with Haven! I'm very much looking forward to more time there, which, as it happens, begins next week on Election Day!

Here are my sets from Haven's Halloween:

( 9-10p set: )
( Before Costume Contest: )


Note: As I recap these nights, I realize I may sound really negative about myself sometimes. I'm just critical of myself because I want to improve, and I use this as an opportunity to review myself. Honestly, everyone seems fairly happy with what I'm doing even though I'm not easily satisfied with myself. What I see in my reflection may not be what others see, so I'm grateful for anyone enjoying what I'm doing out there for them!

Plague
I am not ambitious.
Really I'm not. Yes, I do want to be one of the scene DJ's that people enjoy and will dance to, and get paid reasonably for that. But I'm not of a mind that I'm all that important (which could beg the question of who I expect might read this) and mostly I'm just constantly seeking approval (which really isn't all that different from anyone else.)
And I'm constantly learning. Which is why, for the simple fact that it was "Old School Night," I felt the need to prepare in a way I'd never done before. I did some deep music research, practice spins with a lot of unfamiliar tracks, and consultations with my DJ peers just to feel like I had a strong enough sense of what might be expected of me for an "old school" setting.
So, though it turned into an advantage, basically I over-prepared. And as it turns out, "old school" may just not actually mean anything by itself to the people who come to a night.

So it is, I can't even take credit for the fact that Plague had nearly a full house, with the "Goth-Fly-A-Kite" weekend being (in my mind, at least) a huge draw. I simply can't conceive that all that many people came specifically because I was one of the DJ's. It might be true, but how would I really know?
Regardless, it is SO rewarding to have a crowd that size respond to what I spin! I'm very grateful to Amy and Gothic Maine for offering me the opportunity to spin there so frequently.

One of my favorite moments of any night is playing my last track and feeling I can drop something a little outside format without making the floor run away. I tend to reserve my Spitgloss mash-up for that but I really wanted to go another direction and give it a rest.
Now I have been aware of this superb industrial cover of White Stripe's Seven Nation Army for a while now but could never find more than half of the track anywhere and have been astonished that no one has ever played it in our scene to date.
As the song started I saw a few people pause momentarily as recognition set in (in almost no time, DJ 8-Bit was up to the booth to find out who it was) but no one left and the floor swelled just that little bit more; it was a hit!

One other favorite moment of the night: mounting Bunny's chest on the couch and having her scream that I got my junk "in her hooter-titties" was excessively funny!

I'll be back at Plague at the beginning of August. My playlist is posted at the end of this entry.

Pride Parade
Supermark was my hero, giving me a safe place to lay my head for 2-3 hours afterward.
(Thank you sir!)
I was up and at the parade registration exactly at our designated time, which is good, because the team manager wasn't and might not have shown up to secure our registration on time if I hadn't been there to call him and get him there.
So on approximately 2 hours of sleep and in the course of waiting around for 4 hours for the parade to start and wearing an old pair of white overalls that have, in several years of disuse, become a little tight on me, I started to get a little high-strung. I'd never driven in a parade before so I didn't know what to expect and I was more than concerned someone was going to walk their kid under the car I was driving. It was pretty chaotic, after all!
Our promo team for KOOZA from Cirque du Soleil and our drag queen, Ms. Demeena, were nice enough though I sensed a certain dismissive attitude from most of the GBLT folks I came in contact with, as if they had some sort of "radar" that recognized I wasn't really one of them. Maybe that was my imagination and some amount of the energy drinks I had drank to stay conscious.
One the parade started I had a good time, playing the same two tracks (a Depeche Mode mash up of Policy of Truth & Enjoy the Silence and my Spitgloss mash up, officially celebrating its one year birthday as of the parade) over and over might have driven our team a little crazy, but it's not like the people we paraded past would know.
It feels like it was a tremendous success, as we gave away practically everything we had stored in the car, but who knows. It was fun nonetheless and the team manager sounded happy enough with me that he'd hire me for other projects.
All that and my car didn't get stolen from where I'd parked it, so it was a great and exhausting couple of days, only further rewarded by coming home to find the Halovox CD in my mailbox (Thanks Frank!) I only wish I had gotten it in time to drop his Fly on the Windscreen cover... next time.
:)

Oh and here's that playlist:

PLAGUE; June 13
( set one: ) ( set two: )

NOKTURNAL; February 26

It's great to be working with Nokturnal (or "the Fellowship of Nok", as I like to call the team) again.
I meant to post this much earlier than this but I was waiting for Decay & Gabriell to post the audio stream from the night. Apparently there have been some technical issues because of the size of the digitally recorded file. Once that get worked out and it goes online I'll post a link here with an edit of this blog.
They have invited me to join them behind the decks on the last Tuesday of every month, so I will be spinning there again on March 25! Can't Wait!
Here are my sets from Nokturnal last.

( set one: )
( set two: )

PLAGUE; March 14

While one might expect that on the night of the opening of Blacksun Festival, any running night might suffer for attendance, the patrons of Plague proved that to be flawed thinking! What a GREAT group of people showed up and we had a fantastic time! The Reverend Benjamin Powers, Doomsday Jones, and I did a 3-way Tag Team that made for a really interesting blend of styles. And yeah, we had a couple of technical glitches, but the floor kept moving through them and everyone had a great time; as they say, at least they knew we were there!
I go back to Plague with DJ Gabriell on April 4.

Here's my set list and as much of our Tag Team List as I can decipher (our faithful Reverend was having QUITE the good time as you might have seen if you were there, or be able to tell from the set list. heh heh.)

( 10p set: )
( 11:30 to Close Tag Team: )