kraftwerk in manmachinechester 2nd july 2009

well its been a long time waiting to see the (slighty rusty) robots, around a quarter of a century since i didnt get in to glasgow apollo on the computerworld tour (though my sisters did !) not showing my age or anything am i ? still well worth the wait . although they didnt totally blow me away - what did was the setting and the evening ..........manchester home of the raver, the e dealing joe blogg wearing capital of perties , baked in sunshine like it was the med, a velodrome on the outskirts , steve reich and the biggest asda / walmart i have ever seen !!!!
I arrived stressed and tired from oh so trendy berlin , clubbing capital of europe , where i had performed admirably at a rooftop party for evian water . things we do for money , and it was wednesday ( a school night as we say) .
london - berlin - london - manchester and we arrive .......like sorted mate ! sound ! on one matey ! etc etc .....
as we baked in the heat (very unusual for manchester) devouring becks bier and latte machiattos. we missed the start of steve reich , but caught the last half an hour which was very nice but not perhaps the intestity i had expected . although steve was on the mixing board with a mac , and we were trying to guess what plug-ins he had !!!! i reckoned 'fruityloops:) matt asked him for his autograph but didnt have a pen . and steve set about looking for a pen !

whilst waiting for ralf and florian (oh hes gone too now) i was checking out the vintage teeshirts , the cycling jerseys and the average punters age ( around 45) . i saw a heaven 17 shirt , a brigade rossi shirt , a new order movement shirt, maxell (pete murphy), then the jerseys : motorola (circa sean yates), la vie clair , PDM , a few kraftwerk tricolor jerseys , and some local madchester teams ! thankfully no rapha ponces from london !
i wish i had adorned my vintage peugeot or roland electronics shirt , though both a little small for me these days , but a cut above todays jersey designs !!! or my bright yellow "once" which rich still has ??????
of course a few elderly portly chaps in black and red shirt /tie combos , but not quite helmut lang more like mr byrite .
The kraftwerk merchandise was lame beyond belief apart from the free 3d glasses that would come in handy at 9.30pm .........

when the (neon) lights went down there wasnt a huge roar , just a gentle mumbling of anticipation . The sound of a lone (probably) korg synth cut through the night , and the mobile phones went in the air :( this was it . time for another drink ?
I felt a bit tired and as it was super hot inside the dome i needed a drink , but i really felt the sound was too quiet and the opening tracks a bit flat , massive compression over the mix but a crisp and defined sound...unlike swayzak though we at least improvise pretty good !

We knew what was coming , the visuals were superb and when the moment came , the breaths "ah hi ah ah hi ah " a great roar went up , not for the band but for the velodrome itself , was lit and 4 futuristic cyclists appeared on the track . adorned in the adidas skin suits of germany but in GBR colours , an amazing moment to see the british team in harmony with the german rhythm machine ......as the wound up their speed around the track , of course riding terry dolan bikes ( made in manchester ) no hoy , cavendish or wiggins but this was good enough ! as ralf went through the names of the riders it was as if he was proud too ! as if he had somehow contributed to british cycling (which he had) and we british punters had made kraftwerk what they are (which we did :) pure trans european harmony ........

tour de france :

I was for sure more excited by the the british (yes british) cycling team , as if they were the stars we came to see as they eclipsed the finest electronic band in der welt ! were we here for cycling or for music ? who cares it was great from then on in , and when the 3d visuals appeared big tasty pills dropped out the sky , lcd numbers rained on us and the robots came to life !
not many jokes from ralf or his clones , they were left to the curtain that got stuck between set changes , and a robotic hand came out to pull it . an excellent moment of british comedy . Not much improvisation and no encore was a bit sad but the beats were tight as if they were pre -recorded and of course they were but that didnt matter , this was kraftwerk and they are man machines .....on a sobering note a special "radioactivity" was all about sellafield and how much waste it dumps into our backyard .
at the end of the evening we headed for asda , where it seemed a "perty" was going on , everyone was getting a carry out , and i mean everyone , this is manchester . A man with a giant tennis ball was being chased by security, quite surreal to the eye the neon lights flickered and we headed home in a taxi who didnt know where he was going . I enjoyed manchester and thought would be a nice place to live , until i woke up and typically it was pissing down ..................i could now see where "shameless" gets its scripts , there is a friendly chaos in madchesta loike no other place . but still enough menace to make you wanna leave ! neon lights is still in my brain .

tbar 25/06/09

a big night for london town ......first swayzak night since 1998's legendary wonky on kilburn high road . this will be bi-monthly til end of summer then monthly therafter at the Tbar , london town innit ......

fete de la musique

So i finally get orf me lazy ass and blog something.....yes we need more random bullshit in this electro world..

Last gig was in Berlin at the lovely Rechenzentrum. Probably the best sounding club ive been in, housed in a former radio studio next to the river. Every sound from our live set was clear and stereo imaging was excellent. Piss off hifi Dad! But the records sounded AMAZING.. maybe it was the help of booze, but man they were liftin'!!!

So this weekend im off camping with the kids and my mate charlie (person, not powder).. Its a little tradition of midsummer hairdown that goes back 1500 years..the simple pleasure of sky, beer, bullshit and frisbee... Then back on sunday for a mini DJ set outdoors at 7pm, how civilised is that? Im gonna play some wonky hiphop for the dayglo bleeders, then jump up dancehall. super mario right up..

Purchase of the week _ game boy camera €7. some original japanese electro culture in glorious lofi.

chin chin
jt

is this worth writing i am not sure , but five readers all the same !
life is tough in the whatever world we exist in , music of whatever genre you choose to call it . house , techno, tech house , deep house , minimal house , minimal techno, techno pop, electro pop, electro, meenemal (if your spanish), whatever it is its tough .......but not as tough as say living in central africa or the high plains of pakistan ! now that is tough . taleban is coming and i am playing music , i am a dead man . no beard - dead man , etc etc - dead man .......
still i get really fucked off , yes i do ! misunderstood , confused, lost , depair, all spring to mind over the current state of music !
the other night i went to see me old mate peter doherty play (hes not my mate but that sounds cool), he showed up two hours late and then played a blinding set to what may have well been his mates in his bedroom aged 15 . he stumbled about the stage and even played drums (out of time , mind you so was everything) . The people sung along and it was a kind of beautiful chaos and the kids, the kids they loved it . they really loved it . i mean if i had played that shocking it would be all over resident advisor blah blah track 3 18 seconds in is out of sync this guy cant beatmatch !!!!....... but cos peter is a famous drug addict its ok ! and that was his charm , and actually i liked it , it was innocent . he was joined on stage by a guy who looked like columbo , who played guitar ok, all the gear was borrowed and apparently this is babyshambles line up !!!! mental two junkies in stage but they have something i dont ....maybe i need to get hooked on something stronger than herbal tea ?
anyway my old mate kenny (he is) is their guitar tech and i was given the responsibility of looking after the borrowed gear while he nipped out for a draw on a B&H (ten packs were always his speciality)
here i met some real oddballs , hanging out waiting for the enigma that is peter doherty to stagger in . there was a brian jones lookalike, a paul weller lookalike , a big rasta called "the general", an apparently famous tall model type superhuman ( who certainly perked up when pete arrived ) and a Pete doherty lookalike ! lots of image concerned people trying too hard to look cool when the only cool way to be was wasted and not give a fuck , like a glasgow junkie in a skip (check youtube)
or was it him ? no it wasnt cos you know what pete is getting fat .......as frank from shameless says "more drugs now" !

but peter has quite a following and i am impressed by his chaos that somehow is working for him . he is kind of modern day punk to all this safe coldplay college music . which take me nicely to brian eno , i am halfway thru his biography and i am thinking he was a poseur but maybe everyone was in the 60s?

well summer is upon us and people are twittering here and facebooking there, myspace spamming is in full effect (hey am dj crankshaftenhausen,from botulism records buy my tunes on beatport !) as if . of course living in london the sky is grey as usual and the music as moody as the days :) sales pitch - we got some new product coming on our 240 volts label and some new swayzak mixes to come including one from troy pierce aka louderbach. which brings me nicely up to todays rant article:

i fucking hate digital promos , i hate digital djs , i dislike intensely the system that has been created , however you gotta go with it somewhat :( our super deep deep house mix of louderbachs "shine" on minus records ? (can you call them records?) should really be on vinyl but it only appears digitally ......this is all fine and well for richard hawtin and his digital empire taking over the techno world and making super mega bucks $$$$$ . but for lovers of vinyl like me it sucks ......
having been brought up on the joys of linn sondek , naim , rega, nakamichi , quad , thorens, b +W , A+R, revox, i just cant get my head round this non hi-fi world!
looks like we will have to make a new album before the end of the year , but of course we will make it digitally so there lies the juxtaposition !!!! although all the ideas in our heads are strictly anal - og . if i could only live in a anolog world , somehow hark for simpler times like 1930's and the black and white days when nothing was in colour , we all smoked, looked cool , had big tashes and brycreem (andy weatherall) , bring back the 1930's and tweed suits , guys called roger ,binky , and women called diptheria. "last train to paddington is at six darling , i got to rush , cant call later cos i dont have a cell phone they dont exist but i can send a letter . ok love - write soon" . see simple !
eeeeeeeeenough bull , cut to the crap , buy our records we are broke . digital has killed the dj culture of buying RARE vinyl and wowing yer mates . not that any of my mates liked techno, they were into meat loaf and marrilion - jesus help me .............one of them was called ac/dc man . techno wasnt invented then either so what the £$$k am i going on about ?
on a lighter note we are not going to mexico end of this month , i however would like to , i have no fear of flu killing me , just of becoming a digital dj !
please see the noticeboard inside tesco metro n1 for upcoming dates .....and 3 for 2 on the cheese counter this thursday only @_@

podcast

we did a podcast . its at www.swayzak.com..........

MIAMI WMC - THE REALITY CHECK (out) 09

we lounged around miami for a whole 48 hours . i felt the time was well used , had expensive dinner , did a gig and left ! after checking into the philip starcke designed 500 floor 10 star luxury hotel we headed for the hotspots, and discovered men with breasts walking the street , posers driving rented lamborghinis, several 100 roger sanchez lookalikes and and some ladies that the taliban would have trouble with their dress sense. Though we actually got a decent recording of our live set thanks to chahe (the man from SF) recording onto his laptop . i sat on a stool and francesco sported a new haircut .........the crowd was sparse , but "awarehouse" was a great venue and a great sound ! so perfect for a relaxed evening of deep house music .......
of course we were tempted to visit the wild parties (which all got shut early) and the stars but franky we didnt bother and had a nice time chilling , the only other djs we saw were ewan pearson and sasse ......and that was quite enjoyable !
you can check the live set at little white earbuds soon ........
then i flew directly to belgium and liege ......now from philip starcke and sunshine to holiday inn circa 1978 and belgian weather (similar to scottish) ! i hooked up with james and we hung around all evening waiting to play , enjoyed the set of chloe and the beer ......but avoided PERET a local rocket fuel ! our show as ok but i was so tired i dont remember much :(