RIAA Decision Matrix

This was on one of my favourite website BoingBoing today and is the supposed decision tree used by the DRM evil overlords the RIAA when suing people [read generally unrelated minors, parents etc.]

Click on the image to see the full glory of its logic tree!

Thought for the day

... in a conversation with a friend of mine:

friend - well life always has it's ups and downs, I'm fine
me - yeah but when it's like a bucking bronto that's kind of hard work

Wikimedia Picture of the Year

What's all this fuss about Rapido?!

So the buzz has been growing about this club in Amsterdam called Rapido. A few weeks ago tickets were released to it and some chap I knew was genuinely distraught about not getting a ticket, I thought something serious was up: his ashen face, slightly choked words as he broke the news to me!!

As it turned out I was in some other party called Fresh a few weeks back that was promoted by the same guys and ran into my old pal Jack Chang who was over from London and spinning there, he was also booked for the Rapido party. I was set on going and when I got into work next week I made a few MSN chats and eventually managed to secure an invite thanks to my friend Oliver M.

I turned up at the party around 1700 on Sunday which was club Paradiso, a venue used by stars such as Skin, Robbie Williams et al when they have concerts in Amsterdam. Both queues were gigantic and as my mates had already gone in ahead for the sound check I was left facing a hairy wait; fortunately rescue was sent and my entrance expedited.

First impressions were as I walked through the hall and into the dance hall were wow, this place is pumping! Another London DJ Fabio White was on the decks when I got there and there were some good choons coming out of an impressive speaker system. The bar man served me my JD & Coke with fantastic alacrity (and continued to do so the rest of the night I may add) and before long I was on the stage meeting Jack and his boyfriend Paul and then subsequently the people behind the event. The promoter Edgar was looking quite casual and amusingly had a pair of ear phones dangling from his T shirt, I had a few words with him before being introduced to Doug Gray and his Bulgarian b/f Stef who were also involved in a musical capacity: they were great fun and I continued to party with them all night.

After an hour or so the place filled up to the rafters, the lights got lower, the dancing got sexier and I could see row after row of virtually naked boys gyrating on this huge scaffolding behind a black awning on the stage. Clearly the party was starting up ... there was a moment of confusion where the awning kept falling off the edges slightly, before collapsing completely to the ground: in true 'show must go on style' no one seemed to mind, quite possibly the opposite actually. An extremely cute VJ then appeared and proceeding to co-ordinate my, I mean the attention of six lasers of varying configurations upon the dancefloor bathing the whole party in this awesome unearthly light, which by this stage was just reaching fever pitch.

Then I toured the rest of the club with my friends and took up residence upstairs, where there was a little tinsy bit more room to actually move. Doug played a great set consisting of some cool grooves with a deep compelling beat behind each of them, (thank god for my snake hips). Jack then took over and started to lay down his harder more industrial sound which had the whole floor letting loose. 2200 hours rolled on by, and with enough vodka, redbull and the inimitable influence of the Gay Walt Disney party american promoters Ray and James saw me dancing away shirtless and grinning over what was a truly great evening.

















Now I know what all the fuss is about ;-)

Puck me tender ...

I think one of the highlights of my trip to Davos was the night out to the ice hockey playoffs. I hadn't been to an ice hockey match since I lived in the states (my little brother was in the bantam league) and this was a serious game we were going to: violence was expected, anticipated and in the air. We (that being Daniel, Rui, Nik and myself) were thoroughly searched upon entry, so thoroughly that Nik's box of matches was opened one way and then the other! Anyway we arrived early and made our way over to the home side standing area which was already thronging, after beering up (conveniently served in trays of 8 - see below) there was a sudden stroke of genius to head over to the less heavily populated neutral supporting area. We got seats :-) the night progressed and Davos totally dominated. Beer flowed continuously, Zurich's supporters lit sparklers ... and Davos erected the most enormous flag you've ever seen:


The game moved very quickly and whiplash was a distinct possibility if following the game was your goal. Players literally appeared out of no-where! We were unfortunate in that we were the other end of the rink when the first and second goals were scored within a few minutes of each other (I confess I was beering up during the second) and irritatingly the third one was also scored at the other end. still there was a nice camera man on hand to give us the pixilated version.

The match continued and we all got fairly thrashed, the pictures are vague and messy but worthwhile so I'll include them to give you an idea. I even came back with 8 beer and a bratwurst at one point, my waitressing skills have never been so capable!















... that was the 'extended' last interval's drinking















and look what it did to us!!!

Davos or Bust

Travelling to a destination has seldom been more amusing than the trip I took to Davos. I met my friend Nik at Zurich station where we confidently boarded the train that would (after two changes) deposit us bags and all in the exclusive alpine resort of Davos.

No sooner had we arrived at Zurich HB and ensconced ourselves in the dining car when the train pulled back through the airport. Realising the extremely detailed instructions given to us by CBB / Swiss rail monopoly were flagrantly incorrect we scarpered off the platform and had to take the round trip again, arriving just in time to miss our connecton to Landquart. Tempers simmering we found another dining cart not only with spare seats for us, but an attractive swiss conscript in uniform.

By fluke both of us had bought hip-flasks filled with our favourate tipples and quickly got stuck in to irish coffee ville. Landquart was a blur as we drunkenly dashed across platforms and got into the rather more crowded, but equally attractively populated compartment.

A carriage awaited us at the station courtesy of our diggs: the sophisticated yet still pleasantly alpine Hotel Waldhuus. Our arrival, or rather Nik's, was greeted ecstatically by the staff remembering him from last time and the swift appearance of two very welcome Lynchburg Lemonades.

The restful night's sleep that one would expect from such luxurious quarters was not had by all. I awoke the next morning to find Nik asleep and mumbling in the bed beside me looking stressed and rigid like he'd licked a light switch. It would seem that his room had some strange static / electrical disurbances that had plagued him all night ...

We're not sure what it was, but needless to say, we requested an exorcism (Catholic) via room service the next morning before breakfast where we then met fantastic ski instructor mate Daniel who had kindly taken his day off to spend with us and hang out.

More later, particularly on the fantastic experience of attending the ice hockey play-offs between Davos and Zurich.

Oh, did I mention we were there to ski?!

Quote for the Day

Roger Thornhill: Why are you so good to me?
Eve Kendall: It's going to be a long night.
Roger Thornhill: True.
Eve Kendall: And I don't particularly like the book I've started.
Roger Thornhill: Ah.
Eve Kendall: You know what I mean?
Roger Thornhill: Ah, let me think. Yes, I know exactly what you mean.

Absinthe

Man it's been a few years since a certain legal loophole allowed Absinthe to grace the streets of Europe again. I remember when it hit London back in 98 there was a special training staff were supposed to go on due to the liquors strength and its alledged propensity to make you hallucinate (I say alledged, although I distinctly remember someone climbing onto the scafolding above the DJ booth in The End nighclub one night swearing he saw a dove up there).

Most of the absinthe that is sold commercially is actually liquorice green coloured generic rubbish, only a few of the better brands (and mostly from CZ, CH or FR) actually have anything resembling the distillate of Artemisia absinthium. I was gratified to stumble across an article on Wired about the lifelong endeavours of a man named Ted Breaux to chemically recreate the original absinthe that was produced the late 18th century in Switzerland and southern France. He's so far managed to produce several highly rated absinthes Jade PF 1901, which is his analogue of the original Pernod Fils brand, and Jade Verte Suisse 65 which was only recreated thanks to an extremely rare bottle of C. F. Berger absinthe (first created in Switzerland in 1830) resurfacing.

More interestingly he's just released a liquor created from a very exclusive tobacco (alledgedly the world's rarest, and grown only in Louisianna) known as Perique. You can buy most of his stuff online, I have an order rushing to me now ....

Updated Wikipedia

Hey: some fascinating trivia I just updated my first wikipedia page ever on Kenneth Tynan to include the following information about his second wedding ....

"After Tynan's divorce he persuaded Kathleen Halton, daughter of famed wartime CBC correspondent Matthew Halton and sister of contemporary CBC journalist David Halton, to leave her husband and live with him.^[1] By 1967 he married Halton, with Marlene Dietrich and a tramp as their witnesses. During the ceremony, Dietrich backed towards some doors to close them, and the judge, in the middle of his oration, said: "And do you, Kenneth, take Kathleen for your lawful wedded I would not stand with your arse to an open door in this office lady wife to have and to hold?"

Hey they do call me Wilkipedia :-)

Shooting People

Last summer I was chilling on Sa Trinxa beach, cava sangria in hand and having a great time chatting with my mates having just watched the latest running jump by a naked man who is trying to raise funds for a new titanic when two women abruptly sat down on our (unusued) sunloungers and proceeded to make themselves comfortable. There was a certain amount of indignancy and I pointed out that the loungers had to a) be paid for and b) had been by us.

The cheeky response came back, well you're not using them right now are you?!

It was the beginging of a beautiful friendship: less than 10m later we were all huddled together chatting, it turned out one of them was a wandering reporter / producer and the other her accompanying photographer.

Anyway, Paula, who is in London now working for the BBC financed a video in the Robbie Williams 'Shooting People' competition and won, you have to check it out, it's so slick.

Recovery Sounds - New Track

I spent Saturday afternoon with DJ Recovery Sounds from ADHD Sessions. He kindly invited me over to his apartment and we hung out with a few beers in his studio chatting and pulling together a new track. I also got to hear him arrange his next few gigs and find out what a smooth talking dude he really was.

This was a very cool experience for me (it's been a while since it's been my first time doing anything!) and very interesting to see how far the computer has brought making music: the software is just incredible, with just a small synth (maybe an octave long) and plenty of mouse action chords can be created, distortion added, filters places over filters. Anyway, check out the track it's fairly minimal but gets chunky later. Watch this space is all I can say.

The track is called License Key and you can listen to it here.

Found this on Digg today. You have to laugh.

Epiphinal Moments

Just found this in my phone - the epiphinal moment when I realised after acting sommelier for my family at Christmas that red wine should never ever be served straight from the bottle.

Post skiing

By flying from Amsterdam to Barcelona and then catching a coach I think I took a more circuitous route than strictly necessary to Andorra this weekend but it was worth every mile. I have to say the experience of traveling with teen-aged students on a bus made me a) appreciate how annoying I was and b) feel old and vaguely responsible. Oh if only they could capture that feeling and sell it, school masters everywhere would breathe a sigh of relief. (Note to self what else makes me feel like that?!)

Jane a great friend who I met when I was just a wee slip of an 18 year old lad accompanied me. She spent last season teaching English in BCN and then snow boarding every weekend in the mountains of Andorra. Oh the life!

I was only in Andorra, well Pal actually, for two days but the weather was almost perfect: it dumped thick wet snow the whole of Saturday while I was getting back into the groove. Viz was pretty poor but we knew the next day would be worth the pain upfront.

I had an amusing lesson with an Argentian guy who didn't really show me very much but laughed a lot, had cute italian teeth (don't ask!) and showed me round some of the mountain. I got a few blues under my belt and was cruising by the end of the day.

Sunday morning in true turnover day style the pistes were empty, and we had almost 15cm of powder - perfect! I did a blue run first thing, stumbled a bit but before I could say Nancy Reagen - I mean no - Jane pushed me onto the lift up to the top of Pic du Cubil. We could barely see 15m in front of us when we got there and the prospect of a difficult red run terrified me. As it happened I shot down enjoying the more challenging faster, thiner pistes, it dumped us onto the blue that was irking me earlier and I just breezed through finishing a la the Olympics in a spray of victory.

On the way back up we noticed there was this beautiful open slope off piste covered in untouched powder. A quick look around and we surreptitiously crept under the fence (bloody hard when you're in skiis - thank God for my limbo skills) and I had my first powder off piste experience. I tumbled, I fell, and then I switched my music off and concentrated on form: boy what a feeling, tight turns on fresh powder, the whole vallye below you and no one else around. Bliss.

I finished the day going back up to the Pic du Cubil and flew down the whole red and blue run listening to KT Tunstall's "Suddenly I See" stopping for no one and takng no prisoners. Man I wished I was staying for another day when I got to the bottom.

Still I'm off to Davos in a few weeks :-)

Thought for the day:

Once you have learned to love and accept yourself you will never waste your time again because you know how valuable it is.

Thought for the day ...

"I never met a man I couldn't drink handsome."

Judging Amy

So I was at the dentist last week and as she was peering over into my mouth, she asked do I watch Judging Amy? bit of a strange questions to ask, but I said I do actually (it's a cool program lots of deep issues and current themes while still being able to make you laugh, shame it just got cancelled). Anyway apparently I look like one of the characters - Kyle, who ironically is a recovering alcoholic.

Go figure, but the resemblance is kinda scary ....

We will fight them on the beaches ...

Over the last year or so I have been reading the biographies of the great leaders of the 20th century, I started by chance in LAX when I picked up the recent copy of Mao's biography by Jung Chang (Wild Swans) and her partner Jon Halliday. Being a historian myself I started reading the book with a fair amount of scepticism, there were far too many subjective comments or what i felt to be personalised interpretations. However one day as I started getting towards the end of the book I checked to see how many pages were left: well I'd almost finished because about 300 pages are references! I saw that this was such a detailed account of this man's life it startled me, the accounts of his duplicity, his wanton disregard for the value of human lifeand his cruelty have made me wonder if this is one of the most despicable human beings ever to have lived.

I moved on to Robert Southampton's account of Stalin's life, again riveting and then to John Toland's Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Hitler which amazingly I felt the need after a week of comments everywhere I went (trams, cafes, restaurants, convent, swimming pool, ECT treatment centre) to cover with some innocuous paper (actually the inside of my ABN AMRO bank statement envelopes - inpenetrable!).

The mechanics of despotism are strikingly similar across all three nations: the essential planks of revolution are fear, uncertainty, and doubt (A.K.A. FUD). All used propaganda and violence to great effect, rallying people and pushing party membership as a method for building a power and money base. The violence and the terror machine deployed by each of the tyrants were all militaristic in nature and gained their mandate through force of arms (the Red Army, the Checka - later the NKVD - and the Gestapo along side the SS).

More interestingly International diplomacy also played heavily in all of their journey's to the top: Mao would never have got in if it hadn't been for the Russians intefering with Chiang Kai Sek and the Americans bumbling into the Korean war. Stalin would never have been able to halt the German progression without signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and constantly playing the Germans power-block off against the Anglo-French governments, and how about the Yalta Conference where the world was literally carved up on a piece of paper?! Hitter was the master of manipulation, famously pushing the British PM Neville Chamberlin into the Munich agreement and making them betray Czechoslovakia, something that they remember still unto this day.

Anyway I have read the 'bad guys' now and have started on the first William Manchester's three volume history of Winston Churchill, entitled Visions of Glory. It's easily the best written biography I have ever read, hugely engaging, and also manages to include an exceptionally astute sociological analysis of the times which really aids the reader to understand the behaviour of the main characters. I'll write more when I've finished, but will leave you with my favourate quote to date,

"Criticism may not be an agreeable feeling, but it is necessary; it serves a similar function to pain in the human body: it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things."

You go Winston ;-)

More on Luke Slater

So Saturday night descended and my smile of expectancy grew, I'd gotten a few friends of mine together who I know appreciate some good music, had a big meal of sushi and medicinal sake, and rocked on down to Studio 80 just after midnight. The crowd was already enjoying themselves, the resident DJ called Mark / aka Recovery Sounds was really laying down a deep carpet of sexy dark techno and I just knew I'd come home. This was the first time I've been in a club since Ibiza last year that I wanted to just motherfucking dance! (Cue song from Jerry Springer the Opera)

Recovery Sounds played a storming set before Luke Slater came on (with a slightly unnerving bottle blond look) laying down his first tracks and taking no prosoners at all. His favourates came out through the course of the evening - Planetary Assault Systems, All Exhale, there was even a minimal mix of Freak Funk. After the first hour there was a bit of a let up and he moved more into his techno pop experimental sound, people took this as a natural break to grab an extra few drinks, get to know those around them, before the tempo picked up again. The rest I can't report on accurately, I left around 0530, feeling like one lucky sated bitch!

Good music / lack thereof

Without descending into a rant about the state of music *yawn* in the club scene I have recently been despairing about the good ol' days. I spent a week in London in December and if it hadn't been for the steady supply of strong liquor chasers and Magners cidar that has suddenly become de rigeur I wouldn't have made it through the clubs. The music is garbage, re-cycled 4x4 beats with a lame voice over by [insert dragqueen / diva name here].

Completeley by chance I was in a club in Amsterdam called Studio 80 recently, and was leaning against the wall in the toilets waiting for the multiple people in one locker to exit when my eyes were caught by a striking poster of one Luke Slater. I used to listen to his music back in 97 and 98 and was blown away by his mind fuck progressive futuristic blaze of beats. It turns out he was playing there the next week. I spent that week digging out my old CDs, getting them on my iPod and working out to them / cycling to work remembering how much fun they were.

He's got a huge body of work since I last bought anything, and I see also that he's now signed a contract with Fabric London to play there 5 times a year - next gig is on the 25th March. I'm so there :-) I can recommend the first disk of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's the best workout CD ever .. more later when the rest of my amazon container arrives, oh and more on the night as well!!