As a duo, JJ Flores and Steve Smooth have produced a half-dozen of the biggest club hits in the past several years. You may not recognize their names, but DJ's like Bad Boy Bill and Jon Carpenter spin Get Naked, Deep Inside These Walls, Freak You, Release, and Time for Love.
JJ and Smooth, however, didn't really drop any of their own hits during their Buzz set, they just spun gay house.
But as you can see, they had a lot of fun doing.
Corey and Tammy joined me on this trip, but the only horrible photos seems to be of me (natch).
If you look very closely, you'll find a blog author wearing a brown dress shirt. Banana Republic made 5,000 of them, and the other 4,999 are buried in the closets of Persians all over the US.
In addition to Kristin, both Charlie (George's brother, a.k.a. "Mini-football") and Corey came along. We did run into the gorgeous ladies of Winchester (who now live in Silver Spring). Pregame involved too much vodka and too little cranberry, but somehow we all survived.
On Friday, September 21, 2007, Buzzlife Productions and Fur Nightclub will join forces to create a new home for BUZZ, Washington DC’s legendary Friday night event.
We cordially invite you to be a part of history in the making as we enter an exciting new era of Capitol Intensive Clubbing. Our goal is to continue to raise the bar and to set the standard in nightlife experiences. We will be booking the hottest, freshest and most forward-thinking electronic dance music artists. Our belief is that music is only one piece of the puzzle, creating an intense visual experience is nearly as important. We will host nationally acclaimed video-animators, decor installation experts, hand picked dancers and performance artists to create an atmosphere that must be experienced first-hand.
Buzzlife's philosophy is that YOU are the most important part of the party. You are strongly encouraged to express your individuality through fashion, costume and attitude; creatively adding to the visual excitement of what we call "BUZZ."
I met Aundrea and Tammy at Five on Friday to see Oscar G. Aundrea and I ended up closing the place down -- great show.
We took a break around 3:00am, and wandered upstairs to the deck. Some guy who's a producer/promoter/iPhone owner tried to run some sorry game before the photographer came by and snapped this:
This entry is post-dated, because I was a dehydrated disaster on Wednesday.
Corey, Kirsten, and her friend Onseya joined me for a bangin' evening at Firecracker. Corey and I had a brief pre-game in the parking lot, then made our way inside. While I was in line, a lass named Andrea and I discussed DJ Icey's performance a few weeks ago in Chicago, and that she was there to see Starkillers (who I was also excited to see live for the first time).
Apparently there are four DJ booths in Fur, but before Tuesday night I'd only found two. We wandered into the Mafia room so I could catch part of Bob Jong Ill's set. He was spinning what I would call progressive house, which isn't my favorite, but I really enjoyed what I heard.
Kristin and Onsaya finally showed up, so we worked our way into the main room to hear the end of Icey's set. As I've said, I'm not the biggest break-beat fan, but he really pushed that sound system to the edge; I'm glad I wore ear plugs. We worked our way toward the booth and ran into Andrea and her friend Tammy; we ended up dancing together for most of the night.
In talking to Tammy after the show, it turns out we were just a few feet from each other during Paul van Dyk's show.
Andrea and Tammy:
Sweaty Mess:
...
Back to Fur: at one point last night, I got pissed that my shoes kept coming untied, to I kicked them off and danced on the disgusting dance floor without them.
In short: Bob Jong Ill kicked ass, Icey spun a good set, Starkillers rocked the house, and DJ Dan crushed the crowd at the end.
DC showed his trance-spinning, German ass an amazing time.
WillDelphi, a pair of DJs I had not heard of before, opened for PvD. I can't find their website, but their set was very tight. One guy is up front spinning on a pair of Technics, and the other guy is behind him diddling his Powerbook to make the room go boom.
Once they closed out their set, it was time for ::untz untz:: robot dog:
!!!
PvD got about 2 minutes into his first song before I got my ass off the mezzanine and down into the crowd. I made my way up front in less than 30 minutes.
Since 930 is more of a live music venue than a club, there isn't a DJ booth. The "booth" was setup in the front-center of the stage with rails around it. "Why" you ask??
For when 1/3 of the floor crowd climbs up on stage and starts dancing:
Fucking nuts. I must have danced for three hours non-stop. I was a disgusting, sweaty mess when I left. I could not have been happier.
I played several roles last night: bad frat dancer (when you're shoulder to shoulder, all you can do is work those arms), beat setter (because if you're frat dancing, you might as well be the human metronome), screamer (like I do at every live show), and several times I acted in loco-parentis ("Sweety! Get down from the front of the stage." "Dude are you ok? You are rolling balls and crashing into everybody.").
I'm still scouring the Internet(s) for more pictures. One of the photographers must have taken half a dozen with me in them. If so, then I can remove all the text from this post and let that speak for last night.
So yeah, today frowny face has turned into :p
UPDATE: While my own camera phone videos sucked, some fine folks on YouTube saved the day:
You can definitely hear me scream in that clip.
Also, this is an awesome clip from the second encore:
Nothing that I'm doing in school is particularly hard, but trying to stay ahead of what's due is a challenge.
Tonight I have an MIS quiz, then tomorrow I have my midterm for SOM. Friday my webpage is due for MIS and I have a Marketing experiment I have to do before that class. Monday I have an exam in Marketing and another quiz in MIS.
The only good news is that my group project for SOM is due next week and the one for MKTG is due the following week.
In other news, if you need to find me on Saturday, start your search at Starscape 2007 where I and 5,000 of my closest friends will be blowing off some steam. (fizzle! fizzle!) I sent an email to everyone earlier this week:
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 16:00:42 -0400 From: Alpha Douchebag To: My millions of Friends Subject: Your Friendly Weekend Reminder
I know most of you already have plans to go to Glow@FUR on Saturday (June 9th) for Ferry Corsten's CD release party, but this is your reminder of a far more important event:
http://starscapefestival.com/
That's right dawg...16 hours of "untz untz robot dog". Dig out your baby jewlry and take your hello kitty backpack to the cleaners. If anybody needs a ride, I've got room.
The gorgeous ladies of Winchester will make a surprise appearance.
--- Voted "One of the Top 10 Summer Nights" by URB Magazine also voted, "The 2nd best party in the US" by URB Magazine Readers
STARSCAPE 20:07 9th Annual Starscape Festival June 9, 2007
The legendary Starscape Festival returns for its ninth year, to bring you a day and night of music and entertainment under the stars, culminating in the sunrise over the Chesapeake Bay. This year's event has four areas of music:
The Main Stage features live bands, a crushing sound system, and top notch visual production.
The Buzz Area will be under a 10,000 sq ft tent, focuses on electronic dance music and features an audio visual assault on the senses.
The Drum n Bass area takes place under a 6,000 sq ft tent, and features a bass heavy sound system sure to make your insides shake.
The Beach Stage features bands all day until midnight, then djs from midnight to the sunrise.
...I doubt any of them are going to Ferry's release party.
I should also note that Thursday, June 14th, Paul van Dyk will be at the 930 Club:
Which is where you're likely to find me.
Please don't feel neglected if you haven't heard from me, I'm still trying to figure out when I'm going to buy a new lawn mower so I can cut my grass!
Tonight was the final Buzz/Cubix event at Nation. After a concert on Monday night, Nation will close its doors forever.
Almost the entire crowd danced until the sun came up:
Buzzlife founder, DJ Scott Henry addresses the masses at 6:00am before spinning the final Buzz record at Nation night club:
Scott promises that Buzzlife will still be holding events here and there until next year when we meet them in their new incarnation. Rumors of a Buzzlife move to another DC club were squashed, so we'll have to keep listening to the Buzzcast until we find out what's next.
When his speech was over, Scott and two other DJs in the booth (I assume one was Joe Kopecek) spun up "Last Dance" by Donna Summer, and the booth went dark while the record played.
Above: two UPS trucks attempt their own kind of clandestine hump day activity
It's been a few days, and your feed burners have been quiet, so I guess I should post a little update before I get back to my workday (already in progress).
I attended a happy hour last Thursday for Lisa's last day at FELD as well as Jennifer's last days in Virginia. Lisa took a job at BAH and Jennifer and Justin are moving to their beautiful new home in NC.
I spent some time working on the house this weekend. I bought (what I think is) the rest of the molding for the living room and family room. Mike helped me put the handles on the french doors, so I guess they are officially done. We actually spent a fair amount of time together this weekend -- his wife is out of town for a few weeks, and we split time between working on his house (I hate painting) and my place. Since I've been talking about puppies for weeks, we made a few unsuccessful attempts to go look at puppies. One attempt was foiled by July 4th traffic, and two others (the Fairfax and Loudon shelters) turned out to be closed on Monday. I suspect the universe is keeping from me puppies for some reason (perhaps I am their messiah, or perhaps the entire puppy race is afraid of me?).
On Cory's recommendation, I checked out Urban Retreat in Reston this weekend. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but there may finally be furniture in my future. Now if I can just get my color samples, measurements, and favorite cousin to take a trip there with me we'll be all set. ;)
I got turned on to the BuzzlifeBuzzcast from a handout I snagged leaving Starscape this year. Something from the Buzzlife archives is added every week, and so far I've been very impressed. From that, I have also started listening to DJ Jon Carpenter's podcast, which is a collection of older mixes he was involved in. The mix I'm listening to now (2Rip VS. Jon Carpenter @ Wednesday Night Mayhem) has everything from Sublime to DJ Icey in it.
School is definitely heading in the right direction, though not quite where I'd like it. There was an issue regarding admission to Mason and having to wait for my transcript from NVCC which had my degree posted to it which has been taken care of. Admissions has agreed to accept and re-eval my NVCC transcript once the degree is posted. I was hoping to get a time ticket to register for this last summer session (which started this morning), but apparently everyone in the Registrar's office is on vacation. I'm looking at a CLEP exam to get out of one class I need, if I can't get into summer session I may study for that and get it done before August.
Yesterday, freak weather swept through our area for about 10 minutes. Local trees still in shock, residents thoroughly apathetic:
The 8th annual Starscape at Ft. Armistead Park in Baltimore, MD was held on Saturday, June 24th, 2006. When those Ultraworld fuckers say "rain or shine", they mean it.
Jim (George's friend I met on Thursday night at DJ? Acucrack) joined me since our mutual Starscape-going friends bailed on us at the last minute. We got as far as the parking lot before asking Google SMS where the nearest Walmart was (4.7 miles) and going to get some ponchos, umbrellas, and other wet-weather essentials. As it turned out, the umbrellas were important to keeping a gaggle of 16 year old girls from Bethesda dry before our "sex offender" alarms went off and we left them to their own devices.
There were quite a few complaints from people about this year's event:
The Graffiti Wall was too small
The lack of tents to protect from the rain (like in past years)
The quality of the sound system from the Drum and Bass stage
The delay in getting the various stages up and running
Be that as it may, The rain did not stop us.
The lack of electricity did not deter us.
Haters found a spot on the wall to plant their tag:
BT performed on the Buzz Stage (even if it was for only about 12 minutes):
The Disco Biscuits rocked the main stage for over two hours.
While it wasn't really my scene, one of the coolest things I saw while wandering around was that the Progressive House stage was setup out on the newly rebuilt pier. Two of the stages were setup above the beach in the park, two were setup down on the beach, and one was on the fucking pier (and the people who were rocking to it literally rocked the fucking pier). Had they put the D&B stage out on the water, that pier would certainly have broken off into the harbor.
And something special just for George: guess who I ran into?
"After you reach a certain level of success, you get put on a pedestal," Digweed said. "The trick is to remember to let the music do the talking. After all, that’s what drew you in to begin with, right?"
Music is what Digweed’s latest project, "Transitions", is all about. Named for his seamless DJ-ing technique, "Transitions" started out as a globally syndicated, weekly satellite radio show and now has evolved into a wildly successful podcast as well, with more than 100,000 subscriptions in five months. It’s also spawned a new series of CDs, the first of which arrives Tuesday.
"The whole idea is to premiere fresh tunes on a weekly basis," Digweed said. "It’s very rare that I’ll play the same song twice on my show, so each week is a new experience. For the corresponding CD series, I think two releases a year gives an accurate snapshot of what the show is all about.
The music I’m choosing needs to be a bit hypnotic and trancelike with a fundamentally good groove, but it also needs to be a bit quirky. A lot of DJs fall into the trap of only mixing the big records and selling familiarity. I’m looking for the opposite, stuff that people haven’t heard that doesn’t sound at all bland."
Bland is the last word you could use to describe Digweed's Friday return to Buzz. DJ Chloe opened for Digweed and built the crowd into a frenzy before her handoff. It was an evening of break beats on the club-side, and the breaks took over the main room when Digweed called it a night.
The crowd was immense -- I haven't seen Buzz that busy for some time. Many people commented on the message board that they haven't danced like that for years.
22-25 Jun :: Gaian Mind @ Four Quarters in Central PA
Sat 24 Jun :: Starscape @ Ft Amistad Park in Baltimore
Along the same lines, I was trying to explain the "Ecstasy Dad" to Annie last night, and I found this link to buy the video. HBO used to run it all the time, a fucking riot.
