ok kids, here’s the report from CYBERFIRE#8 party in Ostrava.
First, music. Here’s the MP3 player of the Dnb+reggae mashups I made for the party. You can listen to them while you’re reading and if you want to download the pack, here’s the link.
Ostrava is all the way east of Czech Republic almost in Poland, a big industrial coal mining and steel town. It’s blocky and very rugged looking, especially at night in the blue snow light.
The people there like superhard tek beats as in 190bpm KOOM KOOM KOOM stuff. The sound system was a home made stack of speaker boxes from PROTOSS. Nice, nice, nice sound for this music.
Picture eight washing machines stacked up with two massive horns as wide as garbage can lids on top. That’s one side and there were a pair of these stacks. The power cable was a one inch thick hunk going over to the 220 wall socket. There was a rack on wheels for the amps and they were using something like six power amps all mono bridged and if there ever was a stack drawing a one ohm impedance that would be it. Maybe two ohms. Flyer said 50 kilowatt sound system.
The bass was so loud that it vibrated the turntables and made feedback into the needles. To solve this they took the couch cushions off a couch somewhere and put the turntables on top of them. Excellent style plaid fabric.
Speaking of vibration when I got home my white mac keyboard looked like somebody had shaken a pepper shaker across it. Black specks. Here’s a flash picture of the cieling and the crap floating in the air reflecting off the flash.
Around 4am some people were laying on the floor making out down to the bra and panties and it was a concrete floor so their skin must have lots of black specks on it too.
The way you know you’re doing well at a party like this is that people stand up front with their heads in the speaker boxes and they bop up and down on their heels. It’s like headbanging to ozzy, really.
I spent all week making reggae+DnB remixes but they wanted hard tek. Confusing because the DJ before me was playing drum and bass with reggae voice samples and people were loving it so I figured hey, I hit the nail on the head with the right sound for the right people on the right system, etc. Here’s Michal playing before me.
Turns out the guy who built the stacks in his garage wanted hard tekno not more DnB. He told me this as he was cancelling my music in the first five minutes, oopsie! To buy some time I told him NO GO GET THE PROMOTER and then I loaded in a bunch of other tracks.
I happened to have some pounding grooves techno from my vinyl converted to mp3, so I salvaged the hour and a half by making tek beat loops with mindbeam originals [highpass filtered] on top and that worked pretty well. Actually the people were totally dancing it was just sound system homie who was mad.
Seriously in my world as of late it’s completely normal to show up for a gig and find that all my prep was completely wrong, I have thirty seconds to improvise a new show, this thirty seconds takes place during my non-existant “sound check”, and all the time there’s a guy standing next to me yelling about “Where are all the people look there is no one dancing your music made them all leave.”
[actual fact: I went on at 12. The midnight fire spinning show took the people away outside for 15 minutes and then of course they all came back in.]
Finally after my set the next DJ came on and said, “Now I will show you what they wanted” and he started banging the KOOM KOOM beats of all kick drum, no bassline, no melody, of course nothing harmonic, some minimal tikky tikky slowly changing and then visits from percussion break patterns. The sound man took my arm since it was too loud to talk and he made “come here” motions very seriously.
He led me up to the front and parked us in front of the bass cabinets. He pointed to them with both arms outstretched and a big smile like, “this is what we meant.” It was a beautiful moment.
It’s music to trance your brains out, kind of fun and actually you can take a nap to it because it’s soothing if you have your earplugs. I did this around 5am.
After him came my favorite music of the night from Alex of GIMMEAPILL. He plays original tekno on PC laptop running Linux, that’s all I may divulge of his masterful techniques. Super cool music that was also BOOM BOOM BOOM but interesting with lots of swooping filters.
Here’s some of the art and space inside Club Marley.
The DnB room and main bar
lots of neon and people wearing day-glo construction worker vests
projections
why you bring your LED flashlight
more neon
Pictures of Ostrava: train station, snowy day, sunrise on the way out.
The End.
Thanks to Jahrider Bwoy, PROTOSS and Alex for a great adventure, see you next month!
love, stevie weenie.
DEERLENA vernissage DJ set
2010jan19 @ Czech Inn
stevie weenie
track list:
1. Django Reinhardt & Stephen Grappelli “Limehouse Blues”
2. David Grisman #1
3. fourtet “Alambradas”
4. David Grisman #2
5. Cat Martino “Albert Cashier”
6. John Coltrane “Soft Lights and Sweet Music”
7. fourtet “As Serious As Your Life”
8. Christopher Berg “Fire”
9. Hotel Costes trk8
10. Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong “Summertime”
11. stevie weenie “Tarantula”
12. dZihan & Kamien “Airport”
13. Seal “Crazy”
14. Django Reinhardt & Stephen Grappelli “Old Man River”
15. Francoiz Bruet
16. Francoiz Bruet
17. Edmundo Ros “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps”
18. Edmundo Ros “Carnival”
19. Edmundo Ros “It Happened In Monterey” (1967)
20. Jimi Tenor “Barcelona Sunrise”
21. Orange Blossom “Anaconda Girl”
22. Lena Brabcova “Coooool Man!”
Do what thou wilt.
Ahoj!!! Ja jsem DJ Stevie Weenie z mindbeam music (NYC).
Pořádám nové free party KOSMONAUT: originální dubtekno a BASS.
Bude vždy v Pondělí večer ve sklepu Chapeau Rouge: Live Underground
Párty začíná 2. Listopadu
!!!BASS = SVOBODA!!!
každý pondělí
Vstup Zdarma
@ Chapeau Rouge
“Live Underground” sklep
Jakubská 2, Praha 1
www.chapeaurouge.cz
MAP LINK
KOSMONAUT on facebook
_!_
Hey wake up!!
KOSMONAUT is a new free weekly party in Prague
it’s DJ stevie weenie of mindbeam music (NYC) playing original dubtekno+BASS
at Chapeau Rouge
all the way down in the sub-basement
free! free! free!
every Monday night
No dress code, no entry fee, no stupid shit.
YES original beats, YES illegal remixes, YES trance-your-brains out trippy sounds
The First KOSMONAUT party starts November 2nd.
Chapeau Rouge
“Live Underground” sklep
Jakubská 2, Praha 1
MAP LINK
www.chapeaurouge.cz
www.mindbeammusic.com
“Planet Earth is way, way, way out in space, yo.” — Stevie Weenie
Love is the law, love under will.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Hey Everybody!!
We’ve got some great shows coming up in the next few weeks, take a friggin’ look with your eyeballs.
First, Stallion Grip is playing this Friday night at Druhe Patro, YIPPEEEE!!!
For those of you who haven’t seen them live yet, Stallion Grip does a soon-to-be-legendary set of all-original songs about sex&death, live&love, blues & ballads. Stevie Weenie commits piano assaultery while Dangling Damien beats down the infidels on his travelling drum kit! This one is supporting us to keep stayin’ alive so please come out and enjoy.
Club 2.Patro.
37 Dlouha
100Kc
www.2patro.cz
Next up, mindbeam music and DJ stevie weenie are very extremely delighted to present a new weekly party at Chapeau called KOSMONAUT: original dub-tekno
KOSMONAUT will blastoff in the experimental live music basement at Chapeau Rouge where you can come dancing for free every Monday night.
Q: Why is there snow at the North and South Pole?
A: Because Planet Earth is a cool place, HA HA HA HA HA!!
This is what it’s all about: Every human being is a kosmonaut and Planet Earth is a living spaceship that gives us everything we need. Isn’t that amazing?!!
KOSMONAUT is funky dub-tek beats for human space travelers to celebrate LIFE LIGHT LOVE and LIBERTY.
You will hear influences from house, tekno, breakbeat, reggae & ska, with original remixes of music from all over the world.
The music is positive and uplifting with awesome bass, sounds from Nature, illegal remixes, and super energy!
KOSMONAUT will be happening every Monday night, starting 2 November. See you there!
Love is the law, love under will.
Stallion Grip played a live set at NOD for the Summer Solstice party.
Click HERE to see the album of shots from the party and related travels across the night.
