I met a monster, a computer, but best of all sleighed a ninja. And a huge pile of killer techno.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Jean (B) Luc Picard does not approve of your Chatroulette
So last night I had to do some serious tune hunting and sort out all my non-dnb music to get loaded into my new Serato set up ready for the US Tour & Miami WMC sets - figured I might as well drink some wine, dress up in my Star Trek outfit, with a Picard Shrine, and go on Chatroulette.com at the same time.
I met a monster, a computer, but best of all sleighed a ninja. And a huge pile of killer techno.
I met a monster, a computer, but best of all sleighed a ninja. And a huge pile of killer techno.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Photos from Matter on Friday & details of my glorious but failed quest to Dresden!
Greetings blogosphere folks. Quick update of the weekend's activities just gone! Friday was ace - did the Hospitality Q&A&E seminar/demo thing at the British Music Experience in the o2 early on - although a bit late starting as Danny Byrd's vocalist locked their car keys in the boot!
I talked/mumbled my way through a quick demo of the Logic Project file of the last track I'd been working on in the studio - my remix/rework of Tritonal's epic trance track 'Suede', the original of which has just come out on Gareth Emery's Garuda label. I couldn't beleive I managed to get it to run on my MacBook (minus the nice TC Powercore reverb plug ins and a few others I didn't have installed on it) considering it has about 35 audio instruments running and over 40 other audio channels etc. One for the geeks to appreciate there anyway! Had fun answering questions from the audience too - there should be a video posted soon, so I'll get it up here when I find it.
Played Hospitality at Matter after a great dinner & catchup with everyone, including a very old friend of mine from University who now works in the City, but is still a big electronic music fan, and actually helped me move into DJing when we were at Uni by setting up the Uni Radio Station "Purple FM" when I was up in Durham. Nu:Tone was there too - and at Uni the same time as me so was great to get the old gang together. Oh and congrats to Mr. & Mrs. Nu:Tone on their THIRD baby! Building a mighty clan!
Was great to finally play at Matter - was really impressed at the organisation and set up - and oh my god the crowd! I'd been a bit miffed to get such a late set (4-5am) but man, it was HEAVING in there right till the bitter end, so respect to everyone that came out and were going so nuts!
Quality signs backstage at Matter:
My view from the stage at Matter:
Projoesnaps from tillate.com kindly sent me over his photos from Matter - you can see the whole gallery on my facebook here, but here's a few of my favourites:
Saturday wasn't so great, I ended up missing my gig in Dresden because of flight disruptions. :-(
Got a cab from the hotel in London to Paddington station (£35 - almost an hour) then the Heathrow Express to Heathrow T1 (another £20) checked in OK, but my flight to Munich ended up being delayed almost 2 hours, meaning I had to leg it across Munich Airport to make my connection in time, which turned out to also be delayed (waiting for crew to come in on a delayed flight from Cologne), so hung around another 1.5 hrs, then once we boarded, the bus to take us to the plane was late, so by the time we'd all got on the plane the pilot announced that as it was 11pm, we'd be arriving in Dresden when the airport was closed to flights, so we all had to get off the plane, onto the bus, get to the Lufthansa Service centre to get rebooked, hotel's sorted etc.
Sounds worse when you write it down than it was really, I just take these things as they come and do my best to storm it through the airport fast and efficient ninja stylee and at least get as near to the front of the lines as possible & deal with things calmly and efficiently. Was just a bit random to have been travelling all day to essentially just spend the night in the Munich airport hotel and gobble some nice room service and actually get a good night's sleep on a Saturday for a change! So apart from the hanging around, which wasn't too bad as I have business lounge access, it turned out OK for me really! hah! Anyway, we're rescheduling the gig, and I filmed this video below so all the fans know what was going on - I think they might have even projected it in the club in my absence ;-)
Here's a few of my iPhone photos as the day progressed - if you follow me on twitter you'd have seen them LIIVVVEEE. Woo!
Brunch at Heathrow:
With Mistabishi's inspiring face at the BMI lounge at Heathrow, waiting for first delayed plane (and drinking free wine!)
Storming it through Munich Airport with the determination of the terminator baddie in terminator 2. Except with a roller suitcase carry on & Adam Ant jacket.
Another airport, another lounge. Recording my (unused) VIP intro for the Dresden gig:
Snowplough Ballet at Munich Airport - on the bus to the plane:
Guys behind me at the Lufthansa Service centre freaking out about the cancellation in loud German:
Finally, at the stroke of midnight, my 12819281th Hotel Club sandwich room service & laptop movie. Never gets old ;-)
Nice Tunnel in Munich Airport:
Finally back home to Miami packing & sunglass selection session!:
I talked/mumbled my way through a quick demo of the Logic Project file of the last track I'd been working on in the studio - my remix/rework of Tritonal's epic trance track 'Suede', the original of which has just come out on Gareth Emery's Garuda label. I couldn't beleive I managed to get it to run on my MacBook (minus the nice TC Powercore reverb plug ins and a few others I didn't have installed on it) considering it has about 35 audio instruments running and over 40 other audio channels etc. One for the geeks to appreciate there anyway! Had fun answering questions from the audience too - there should be a video posted soon, so I'll get it up here when I find it.
Played Hospitality at Matter after a great dinner & catchup with everyone, including a very old friend of mine from University who now works in the City, but is still a big electronic music fan, and actually helped me move into DJing when we were at Uni by setting up the Uni Radio Station "Purple FM" when I was up in Durham. Nu:Tone was there too - and at Uni the same time as me so was great to get the old gang together. Oh and congrats to Mr. & Mrs. Nu:Tone on their THIRD baby! Building a mighty clan!
Was great to finally play at Matter - was really impressed at the organisation and set up - and oh my god the crowd! I'd been a bit miffed to get such a late set (4-5am) but man, it was HEAVING in there right till the bitter end, so respect to everyone that came out and were going so nuts!
Quality signs backstage at Matter:
My view from the stage at Matter:
Projoesnaps from tillate.com kindly sent me over his photos from Matter - you can see the whole gallery on my facebook here, but here's a few of my favourites:
Saturday wasn't so great, I ended up missing my gig in Dresden because of flight disruptions. :-(
Got a cab from the hotel in London to Paddington station (£35 - almost an hour) then the Heathrow Express to Heathrow T1 (another £20) checked in OK, but my flight to Munich ended up being delayed almost 2 hours, meaning I had to leg it across Munich Airport to make my connection in time, which turned out to also be delayed (waiting for crew to come in on a delayed flight from Cologne), so hung around another 1.5 hrs, then once we boarded, the bus to take us to the plane was late, so by the time we'd all got on the plane the pilot announced that as it was 11pm, we'd be arriving in Dresden when the airport was closed to flights, so we all had to get off the plane, onto the bus, get to the Lufthansa Service centre to get rebooked, hotel's sorted etc.
Sounds worse when you write it down than it was really, I just take these things as they come and do my best to storm it through the airport fast and efficient ninja stylee and at least get as near to the front of the lines as possible & deal with things calmly and efficiently. Was just a bit random to have been travelling all day to essentially just spend the night in the Munich airport hotel and gobble some nice room service and actually get a good night's sleep on a Saturday for a change! So apart from the hanging around, which wasn't too bad as I have business lounge access, it turned out OK for me really! hah! Anyway, we're rescheduling the gig, and I filmed this video below so all the fans know what was going on - I think they might have even projected it in the club in my absence ;-)
Here's a few of my iPhone photos as the day progressed - if you follow me on twitter you'd have seen them LIIVVVEEE. Woo!
Brunch at Heathrow:
With Mistabishi's inspiring face at the BMI lounge at Heathrow, waiting for first delayed plane (and drinking free wine!)
Storming it through Munich Airport with the determination of the terminator baddie in terminator 2. Except with a roller suitcase carry on & Adam Ant jacket.
Another airport, another lounge. Recording my (unused) VIP intro for the Dresden gig:
Snowplough Ballet at Munich Airport - on the bus to the plane:
Guys behind me at the Lufthansa Service centre freaking out about the cancellation in loud German:
Finally, at the stroke of midnight, my 12819281th Hotel Club sandwich room service & laptop movie. Never gets old ;-)
Nice Tunnel in Munich Airport:
Finally back home to Miami packing & sunglass selection session!:
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Mr. B your blog is dead! Bring it Back to Life!
Shame shame shame. Used to update this blog a lot more frequently - but I guess I let all the other stuff, like living life, get in the way! Hah! Don't worry it was only temporary!
I guess twitter has been one of the main reasons why I haven't updated the blog much too - now its more simple to do quick, instant mini-blog things from wherever I am in the world it seems less important to do big brain-dumps here - and a lot of the photos I would post here I've already done as tweetpics. So, yeah I'm plugging my twitter already... its here: twitter.com/johnbbeta
Right now, today I'm just pushing out the new podcast, episode 75 which just went live last night, and I think is one of the best so far! You can download all my previous podcasts at www.johnbpodcast.com and on iTunes here - if you subscribe in iTunes it automatically downloads the new episodes as soon as they are published. Woo!
Had too many gigs recently to mention all individually but I've been impressed at how well everything is going - I played Bournemouth in the UK for the first time in my career last week - at the Opera House, nice big venue and a really good, long running night - came on after some ruffff dubstep courtesy of mr Rusko, and was followed by Friction - good times, and still rammed till LATE. Thought I'd got a puncture on the way down so could have been a disaster but turned out to be a false alarm - wasn't much fun pulled over on the side of the motorway in the dark/rain trying to check if I had a flat tyre using my iphone as a torch! (Just got a new BMW and the puncture indicator light had come on - turned out to be becuase they hadn't reset it after replacing a tyre last week!).
The weekend before was one of the most intense I've had in a while - flew to Prague on the Friday and played a huge rave to about 4000 people (photos here) then back to London next day to play a Formation Records event at the Den, then flew to Moscow on Sunday, then was driven 5-6 hours to Yaroslavl (in -15 degrees, blizzards and all sorts!) did a gig there, few hours sleep, then the same long drive back to Moscow the next day, in the snow, and a gig in Moscow on the Monday night! Made it back late Tuesday and yes, was pretty whackkkked. But the gigs were great and you could tell it meant a lot to the people that had turned out to the club - especially in Yaroslavl which just felit like it was in the middle of nowhere!!
Anyway, enough blabbering on, I need to get on with stuff... I guess I'll post up a load of the random photos I've taken with my iphone over the last few months so you can see what I've been doing in a more entertaining way ;-)
I always think the escalators in Zurich airport are pretty handsome.
My usual Friday/Saturday night room service/last minute Laptop bizniz combo meal.
The wonders of Moscow DME Airport's immigration area when you arrive at the wrong time. I ninja'd it through following some pilots - would have been there hours otherwise!
Transaero Airlines' idea of safe stowage of cabin luggage. I emailed BMI customer services about this as it was a BMI ticket I was travelling on - they didn't seem to give a stuff. Luckily the bag didn't hit me in the head. Or the old lady it belonged to...
Russian attempts at gogo dancing in Samara
When I'm feeling flush this is the John B airport lunch
Visited my Grandma up in Newcastle in December. This is me on her couch with the cat "Billy" - named after my late Grandad
By St. Mary's Lighthouse in Whitley Bay - just up the road from my Grandma's - always gotta visit this when I'm up there - Love it!
Grandma had my old graduation photo up on the bookcase ;-) DODGY HAIR OMG
Tax Return bizniz
Trying to get home from Cambridge in the first night of the mega snow we got in December
With Aphrodite and our improvised window replacement for the 2 hr drive from Prague to Brno in Czech Republic - the cars rear window just fell down into the guts of the car. It was -8 or something. COLD BIZNIZ
Hayley on top of a big hill in Cornwall at Christmas
Leaky gutter + ice = STALACTITES!
Champagne & Top Gear on the flight to DC in January
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
