Photoblog from this weekend in Ravensburg

A few photos from my iPhone on the trip to Ravensburg this weekend. It was down in the deep south of Germany so I actually flew into Zurich in Switzerland where the fabulous promoters Lars & Chris picked me up in the Merc. We took a little ferry over a huge lake on the way, only a 15 boat ride but pretty cool - couldn't see much though cos it was the middle of the night! Just enough time for a nice glass of wine and a few pirate jokes though...

Chris' A-Ha tape - the ORIGINAL, 'Hunting High & low'. BOH!


Nice tree by the railway crossing somewhere in Switzerland...


Yummmm.


Feasting with Lars & Chris


v800 Amps in the club. I used to have one of these driving my subwoofers in the old studio when I lived in my parents' house!


Luke slater graffittigram


Sign outside the club!


Excellent chips!


In the surfmobile on the way back to Zurich




Got some new shoes this week, the PAIN!

Photos from Ravensburg this weekend...

Hot off the press, we've got a brand new photo set from John B's gig this weekend for the Reclaim the Beats party @ Club Douala in Ravensburg, Germany.

Photos taken from www.ifidi.de and tillate.com.

You can see the whole Gallery on John B's Flickr page, myspace & Facebook. There's also a few behind the scenes photos up on John B's iphone photoblog gallery here.

Greetings from RAVEnsberg

Yes, I'm in a town called RAVEnsberg (in Germany)... Flew into Zurich which is the nearest airport you can get to from Heathrow, and then the lads Chris and Lars drove me over here, a couple of hours across the border and bizarrely on a ferry across the biggest lake in Germany too. Nice. Just had a killer dinner, the hotel here's pretty posh for German small city bizniz, had duck liver with prunes and potato crepes starter, and a wikkid filet steak with potato croquettes. And local wine. Nice one!

Bought a cool cable for my iphone/ipod at the airport today - its a charger but also takes the composite video out so you can output all the video to a Tv etc - currently watching 'brotherhood' in the background. Not a touch on 'The Wire'. I don't think anything ever will be :-( hehe.

Ok, well off to go play to some crazy South German Ravers in Ravensburg. Hurrah!

Repainting the bathroom

yes I am

phase one. it used to be super orange. basecoat tonight. then mocha 2moro. with pebbles I stole from miami beach. nice.

NEW PODCAST!

Copied in from the podcast feed for you lazy blog reading gits out there! ;-)

The first John B podcast of 2009 - recorded live at the Palladium club in Freiburg for the 7 Years Jungle Club Birthday Party! 3 hour mighty John B set with MC Fava on the mic, German Dry reisling white wine flowing (as you can hear by the end!). Respect! Photos are up on John B's flickr page. Enjoy!

TRACKLIST:

1. Bloc Party - One Month Off (John B Re-edit) [FULL OFFIAL REMIX ON THE WAY!]

2. John B - Dancing in the dark
3. John B - When the time comes (ReEdit)

4. Klement - Sirene (John B Re-Edit)
5. John B - Disco Hoho Mashup
6. DJ Rashad - Get Down (John B SpeedUpMashUp)
7. John 'Booty' B - Whoomp
8. C4C - Droidz
9. Culture Shock - Kronix
10. John B Vs Iowatest - Timelapse
11. Shockone - Polygon (Viper)
12. ?? - Chaos

13. Grossstadtgefluster - Haufenweise Sheisse
14. The Locarnos - Make Up Your Mind (Alex Metric Remix - John B ReEdit)
15. Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Love Missile F-111 (CounterStrike '03 Remix)
16. Receptor - Rhyno (Breed)
17. Justice - DVNO (Petits Pilous Remix)
18. Presets - This Boy's In Love (LifeLike Remix)
19. Rainer Werner Bassfinder - Roses are Red
20. Alavi - Smells like Rerox
21. Sebastian - Dog
----MINIDISK CHANGE GAP------

22. Chase & Status - Pieces

23. Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl (Body&Soul Bootleg Remix)
24. NIN - Hand that Feeds (Zardonic Remix)

25. Simian - We are your friends (Silver Remix)

26. Phonat - Learn To Recycle (John B Re-Edit)
27. John Rolodex - Amenism
28. Cybotron feat. Dillinja - Light Years (Prototype)
29. intstra:mental - The Dead Zone (Darkestral 005)
30. Receptor - Kurchatov
31. Klement - Result (John B Re-Edit)
32. John B - Red Sky

33. John B - German Girls
34. John B - Numbers
35. John B - The Journey (v1.0 Unfinished!)
36. Klement - Check the this is

37. John B - Memorabilia
38. WIT - It Kills (John B ReEdit)
39. Sub Focus - Timewarp
40. John B - Up All Night (Epic Mix)
41. Bloc Party - The Prayer (John B remix)

42. Noisia - Stigma (Vision)
43. Shalamar - Disappearing Act (John B Remix)

----2 BOTTLES OF DRY REISLING DRUNKEN BANTER--- 

44. John Bourke - What is Love?
45. John B - Stalking you on Myspace (Electrohouse Mix)
46. Steve Mac - Have Some Fun
47. Dibaba - In Your Face Is The Place (Gigolo)

---- "Meine Leiblingsessen ist Schwartzwalderkirschtorte..." -----

48. Phetsta & Shockone feat. Grant McCulough - Cyclones
-----"Make some noiseeeeeee. Danke Schone. Auf Wiedersehen. THE POLITZEI ARE HERE"

49. Kelley - Shoes
-----"The Politzei REALLY are here"
-----"Ich mochte Kebabs"

http://www.john-b.com/podcast/JohnB_Live_At_7yearsJungleClub_Freiburg_28Nov2008.mp3

New Year Update!

Greetings all! First post of 2009 so it really ought to be a good one...

I guess the kind of thing you'd probably like to hear about is a NEW PODCAST! Well - you're in luck... Just posted up last night the full 3 hour live set from my gig in Freiburg at the end of November... Click the podcast banner on the right here, or go to http://podcast.john-b.com to download it - its best for me if you do it through iTunes and subscribe - that way I get the stats (& fame) hehe!

Really excited to get back into the studio today, and for the next week or 2 - I had piles of admin to do over Christmas which I finally got finished on Monday, so I'm rarrrrrring to go. This time of year I have to do the big mammoth year-end tax return accounts stuff, and my quaterly VAT return to send off to my accountant. Not glamorous I know, but important to do properly - have heard far too many stories of DJs not doing that stuff, not paying taxes and then getting stung for gazillllions of £££ and having to go bankrupt and all sorts. Badass. Anyway, nice to have it out of the way and dealt with, I find when I have that sort of stuff hanging over me I can't concentrate on being creative at all!

So, will be having a bash at the new Bloc Party remix today I think, then making a start on the 4/4 mixes of my track with Kirsty Hawkshaw 'Connected' - which is meant to go on my new album, but I think we're also going to try to license it to Armin Van Buuren's label, Armada, or maybe Black Hole, Anjunabeats, or Perfecto. I really like making decent, deep trance, and the last ones I did for Perfecto a few years ago did really well so I think one of my plans for 2009 will be to move in that direction a bit more (not at the expense of my DnB output though!).

Anyway, hope you like the new podcast - I'll be doing the tracklist for it later today so keep an eye on john-b.com

LIttle Christmas gift for you....

So - I popped in to my mate DJ Linus & Smuntee's Pirate Radio show on 87.5FM - 'UKSFinest' on Sunday afternoon, still totally mashed up from the trip up to Manchester and back the night before... Did a guest mix and then just generally pratted about taking calls & texts on the mighty TEXTUSINONTHENOKIABIZNIZ cellphone. Totally clanged the guest mix and talked a load of rubbish in a very hot, sweaty, smokey studio but all in a fabulous Christmas spirit of joy and junglistness... They recorded it. You can now re-live the pain by listening to the mp3 below...

http://www.ilovejohnb.com/87.5_28Dec_JohnBguestmix.mp3

I've got a whole bunch of new live recordings from recent gigs to put up for you all soon too - am just stressing out trying to get my year-end accounts off at the moment, so all that has to take a back-seat till I'm done!

Oh, and if you're not already following me on Twitter - time to join up now - I'm gradually using it more now, just for mini-microblog thingies. CLICK HERE FOR JOHN B ON TWITTER. My mate Cooper was over the other day and reminded me to get on it more... So I Shall.

Oh, check out my .mac photo gallery too - new pics pop up there all the time too...

Enjoy!

Quick voting request...

Sorry to ask this of you again, so soon after the DJ mag vote - but I need your help again...

This time it's the Annual IDMA awards in Miami, Dance music awards stuff. Dnb NEVER gets a look in at all, let alone little ol me...

http://www.wintermusicconference.com/events/idmas/ballot/nomineeballot.php

Thats the link there to fill in the nominations - you only have a week before that's closed, so any nominations for me in as many categories as you like would be most excellent - hopefully we'll get enough nominations in one of the categories for it to stick, then we can get on it with the voting and maybe be in with a chance...

http://www.wintermusicconference.com/events/idmas/ballot/nomineeballot.php

Boooyahhhh! Thanks!

Freiburg Photos now up

Taken from www.john-b.com

http://www.john-b.com/site/2008/12/08/photos-palladium-club-freiburg-november-2008/

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John smashed it last weekend for the 7 years Jungle Club party in Freiburg, in the Black Forest region of Germany, with MC Fava - also the promoter for the night. We've collected photos taken from the event and posted them up on John B's Flickr page, you can see the whole lot if you click here. Big thanks to the photographers!

We also have the audio from the night all recorded, a 3 HOUR SET!! Keep an eye on the John B Podcast page for the whole thing as a free mp3 download in a few days!

Ho Ho Ho

I sit here a bit fuzzy after mistakenly drinking 3 quadspresso coffees this morning - so I'm a cross between tired and high!

Been listening to Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder all morning, managed to pick up a bunch of CDs recently and have been assimilating them all into iTunes. Very Christmassy.

Decided I'd take photos next to Christmas trees on my travels last weekend - the one above was in the hotel in Freiburg. 2 weeks ago. There's lots of photos from my iPhone up on my .mac web gallery now, uploaded them all this morning too.

Didn't mention last weekend in Germany on the blog yet, but you'll be seeing the pics soon enough, and we managed to record my mighty 3 hour set in Freiburg ok, I have the files, so just need to chop them together and get it all nice and loud, then the podcast will spurt the mix out for you lot - so keep a look out! Was a fun set, you can hear me and the MC getting progressively drunker in the last hour, and the last 30 mins is just random encore chaos! Haha!

Oh, and shouts to the Landau guys - SEND ME THE PHOTOS!!!

This weekend just gone I was over on another Rusky mission, did Rostov on Friday (which they later told me has the highest concentration of gangsters, AND is also the most famous Russian city for serial killers & phsychopath types!! YIKES! - everyone I met was totally cool though!) and then Tver on Saturday. Both gigs were a great laugh, I managed to get enough sleep and avoid super snowdrifts so everything was pretty much clockwork and stress-free for a change... Had funtimes backstage in Tver before I went on - turned out the club owner collected videos recorded off TV of real OLD 80s italo pop/disco performances... While everyone outside was raving we had a little italo-disco party back there. I managed to copy off a few of his super-rare cds too so all good indeed!

Got a lot on this week, I have to record my mix CD for the Radio Records Pirate Station guys, do some radio jingles for them, then get on the case with the new Bloc Party Remix, and finish off my latest new track, AND get loads of my old computer equipment I've since upgraded from up on eBay! ARGGgggg. AND get my hair cut, and get new tracks sorted for next weekend's gigs, one of which is a hardcore anythinggoes electro4/4 & 80s set... AND go into London on Thursday to Hayleys English department Christmas party... John B + Middle English Professors smalltalk = WIN!

IMPOSTER!!

OK, so this was from Halloween, so she's off the hook... My friend Gin, from Pacific Jungle Promotions in Hawaii dressed up as MEEEE hahah! Good effort! I'm flattered! Wish I could get my hair that white too ;-) Love you guys!

20 Bras in 1 Minute... Hahah!

Randomly found this on youtube... Sure I could beat that ;-)

Nice one Utrecht! (and London!)

Thanks to the Black Sun Empire guys for having me and DJ Fresh over to play their 'Blackout' night in Utrecht on Friday night, and also to the DEF:INITION guys for having me over at Bar Rhumba in London. Both really fun nights indeeed!

Got the whole gang together in London and hit a few bars before the club. Brought back so many memories being back in Bar Rhumba, with Storm playing a Classic Headz set. Mighty! Piglet blew most of her student loan on champagne too haha!

Utrecht was nice and easy, not as stressful travelling as I can sometimes get, quick zip over to Amsterdam, didn't bump into many innovation nutters (meant affectionately!) then a quick dive to Utrect. I think we were lucky though, there were some serious snow & hail things going on. The hotel was so cool they leant me an umbrella to protect my hair on the way to the club! Hah! Stayed at the Court Hotel in Utrecht which has an ACE restaurant, and fabulous espressos the morning after too. You heard it here first...

Here's a few photos from the gig (if you stalk my iPhone photo gallery you've already seen them) ;-)

Got a busy week ahead, a new track to finish ('The Journey') and a couple of remixes to start, and finish (did anyone say the new BLOC PARTY!?), and pile of stuff I've been meaning to eBay for ages so I actually have some space in here...

Just taken a last minute extra gig in Rostov for December 5th so stick that in your diary too...

Siberian expedition...

Thought it merited a mention - my trip 2 weeks ago to Murmansk & Novosibirsk. Honestly I was dreading it. I knew the gigs would be great, but becuase of the location of the cities I was going to, the flight times & durations were always going to be pretty harsh, and meant a fair few on domestic Russian airlines, which don't exactly have a reputation for safety and comfort...

Anyway, it all turned out well, they got me on business class on a few of the internal ones and S7 airlines was actually really nice - they flights I was on had nice new 737s, not those scarey skanky old planes they normally use for domestic flights on Aeroflot etc, that have signs for the 'escape rope' and let people bring a gazillion carry on bags etc...

(Although apparently the last Russian air crash WAS a 737 and the pilots had forged documents to say they were trained to fly 737s when really they weren't - http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1010/42/372073.htm & http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4198399/

Anyway, S7 airlines was really nice, flights totally cool, and the lounge in Moscow was lovely and I actually got some sleep there in a nice big chair! Might make me rethink my current strategy towards gigs in far Russian cities - and accept MORE!

Big thanks got to go to the Radio Records guys for helping set the gigs up, and sending the lovely Irena to be my guide/interpreter. I managed to get her to watch an episode of 'The Wire' on the flight from Novosibirsk to Moscow so hopefully it'll be the start of a viral networking phenomenon out there and I could be responsible for it breaking into Russia! Hah! MCNULTYYYYYYYYY!

Got MAJORY delayed on the way home, so S7 isn't ALL that good. The flight home from Novosibirsk to Moscow was delayed 3 hours, so I missed my BA flight back to London and had to spend the night waiting in Moscow airport waiting for the first flight back to London - think I spent almost 8 hours there, £40 at the cafe on wine and caviar-ish sandiwiches, walked about 2 miles round and round inside, and watched 6 episodes of the Wire. Hah! BA were nice to me - they didn't charge me to change my flight, and the crew recognised me again from last week and brought me a blanket. Oh, wait, they give everyone blankets. DOH! Hah.

Stalactites on the Merc in Siberia



Just before the EPIC journey home from Novosibirsk. COLD.

Gig this Saturday cancelled...

Hey guys! I write u this from my iPhone in the BA lounge at Heathrow Airport...

I'm just about to get on the plane over to Vienna so I can do the gig in Linz tonight - but thought I should let u know that the gig tomorrow, on Saturday got cancelled at the last minute! :-( Not my call at all - my agent tells me the promoter just vanished and hasn't been answering any emails or phone calls - so it's off basically. If u turn up at the gig on Saturday and he's there pretending I'm coming u can tell everyone he's a big fat liar! Hehe

Shame about that - at least now u can maybe come to Linz instead!

Photos from Murmansk on Friday!

Taken from www.john-b.com/site

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Here's a new photoset from the John B gig last weekend in Murmansk, Russia. John had a seriously heavy weekend, flying out of London early on Friday, and not getting to sleep in a proper hotel bed until about 4am on Sunday morning after the 2nd gig the other side of the country in Novosibirsk, Siberia!

Murmansk is a 2 hour flight North of Moscow, right on the coast, really close to Finland - and used to have the biggest Submarine base over there during the cold war. Its also very cold there in November!

Thanks to the guys on vKontakte.ru who sent the pics over!

If you want to see the whole photo set just head over to John B's flickr page. You can check them out as a slideshow by clicking here.

Photos from Novosibirsk on Saturday

You see the whole post over at www.john-b.com/site by clicking here.

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Thanks to the guys at nightout.ru for sending these over so quickly!

You can see the whole set on John's Flickr account.

Photos from my gig in Donskoy City back in August

Taken from www.john-b.com/site

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Photos taken from the John B gig in Donskoy City, Russia on August 31 2008. Big thanks to the photographers and Julia from Radio Records for getting the CDs over to us! Felt quite spy-like picking them up in Siberia!

We had a great time over there, Donskoy City was a really cool city and the organiser looked after us so well - lots of blinis & caviar!! It was a shame that the weather was so bad - you can see from the photos just how wet it was - the city got hit with a huge rain & thunder storm all day long... ;-(

You can see the whole set on John B's flickr page, or view a full page slideshow by clicking here.

Also we have a video from the gig here.

Big Rusky Weekend coming up...

Feeling pretty mashed from last night in London - met up with my friends Andy, Candyce & Kirsty Hawkshaw (who I worked with on one of my new tracks 'connected') at the Sanderson Hotel, and had some very posh and VERY expensive Sancerre - then got on a crazy rickshaw cycle over to swerve, well, we got 2 of them and raced down Oxford Street... Video coming later via Kirsty hopefully!

Swerve was fabulous as usual, we arrived at the same time as Bailey so caught all of his set, and Fabio after - both smashed it! Pretty messy night really - my mate Marcus from the RCA was there with his sister, the mighty DAN! was in the place, Paul from Pendulum, MC Stamina - and LOTS of drinks. I virtually carried Hayley up the stairs on the way home...

With Bailey & Hayley at Swerve. Drunkenly...

Anyway, just thought I'd check in and let you guys in Russia know I'm looking forward to the gigs this weekend - I'm playing in Murmansk on Friday night, and then Novosibirsk on Saturday. The flights are HORRIBLE and I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep in a bed until I get to Novosibirsk on Saturday, and then only for a few hours before the show! So, if I look a bit like a ZomBee that's why! 

So, see you guys this weekend! SPASIBAAAAA!!

Officially 129th Best DJ in the World!!! Thanks!

Wow!

I'm thrilled to see I made it into the DJ mag top 100 DJs chart (well, the top 150 I suppose!).

John B - officially 129th most popular Dj in the world! (Might have to make me a Tshirt...)

Just check out some of the other artists/legends I came in above too! Dave Clarke, Jeff Mills, Felix Da Housecat. Hurrrah!

Its also pretty cool to note that the only other DnB Djs that came in higher were Andy C, and Hype - so I'm theoretically the 3rd most popular Drum & Bass DJ in the poll - even Pendulum came lower! Double Hurrah!

According to DJ mag there were 350,000 total votes cast from 167 different countries so this really is a big deal - I'm ecstatic to say the least!

So yeah - before I go and crack open a bottle of Tesco's finest Sancerre and do a little dance...

I want to thank every one of you guys & girls that took the time and effort to vote for me in the poll - it really means a lot. And also just thank everyone generally for the support out there in the clubs & tour dates, enthusiasm for my releases & the podcast etc. I work really hard to provide lots of free, engaging content on the web, all the podcasts, mixes and videos etc - and endure some pretty rough flights and sleep deprivation to get to the dark depths of Russia or wherever - so its really great to get some recognition & props. 

We're working on some really cool new things to hit the web soon, and of course the new album(s) and more and more tour dates so lets keep the ball rolling and hopefully break into the top 100 next year! More electrostep! Thanks again!

xxx

John B 

RIP NT2. Hello SE2200A

So, in my haste nipping in and out of the studio (I move at super-speed when I'm working this hard...) I tripped over my microphone cable last week, which pulled over the mic stand, which had my very expensive Rode NT2 on the top of it, which smashed out of the shockmount, broke the elastic bands in it, and dented the mic, and buggered the condenser or whatever so its basically broken.

 :-( Gonna have to eBay it off to someone who whats to try to fix it. Keep an eye out...

The good news is it meant I had to order a newer mic, and got a neat little desk stand for it too, so I won't be tripping over it anymore, unless I decide to walk on my desk. Got a really cool second mic for when I'm Djing too - it plugs directly into the mixer and has a pointy goose-neck thing, so it looks a bit like a vocoder mic - used it in Budapest last weekend - RoooBotttikk.

And here's an excuse for some studio pr0n with the new mic in place...