Derrick Carter, Melbourne '06

After changing my mind a couple of times, eventually I decided to see Carter instead of Chuck Love. Carter played at the Atlantic South Wharf, which was located at the Docklands, but it wasn't the easiest place to find! After driving around the Docklands for about 30 mins I finally managed to stumble into right place.

The venue was perfect! It's located right next to the Yarra, with a small more layed back bar called Alumbra right alongside the main venue, for those after an occasional 'break' from the main act. Lots of nice Buddha statues in the Alumbra made it look very appealing.

Carter was in the main room, which had a large enough area to easily be able to hold 1000. He was supposed to start at 2am but started about 30 mins later (which was good for me as I was late too!), and played a techy/jackin' set, which I thought had a pretty similar beat right throughout. It seemed like most people were just standing around talking and moving their heads than actually dancing. There was a bit of a vibe right infront, but the rest of the crowd didn't look like they were enjoying themselves, including myself! There were a couple of good tracks after 4am, and I heard a couple of backspins and acapellas (e.g. Sexual Healing -- see video), but other than that I couldn't really get myself involved on the dance floor, which was a bit dissapointing. When I saw Carter up-close, I noticed him pitch riding both the turntables and the CDJ1000's with ease, using the eq's well, and I didn't notice any hiccups in his mixing, so he has definitely got some excellent technical skills!!

I was looking forward to catching Clint Hargreaves who was supposed to play at Alumbra next door, but unfortunately, probably because there were fewer people than expected, Alumbra closed before Clint's set.

Overall a bit dissapointed, but I didn't really expect to enjoy the Carter gig as much as a Farina gig anyway, as I prefer the slightly less techier/jacked-up version of House. Some pictures below, and a video coming soon!

ParkLife 2006 Melbourne

The wait was worth it! ParkLife turned out to be the best event I've been to. Everything was perfectly organised -- the location, the DJs, the date, the time. Val and I got there by 1.30PM, and we went to the 'Water' tent, where Mark Farina would be playing.

Before Farina, I got to see some local talent -- Derek K. and John Course, although their music wasn't really my cup of tea. Derek K. played very hard electro-ish tunes, and John Course played his regular, commercial tracks. The tent started getting very packed when John Course came on, and it stayed packed for Mark Farina.

Mark Farina played a good House set -- the longest set of the event (2 hrs). His mixing was flawless and it looked like he was having a good time. The tent was packed and everyone was dancing to some good (real) house music, which was fantastic!!

After Farina, I went and checked out Peter Hook (New Order) at the 'Air' (open air)stage. Peter Hook turned out to be a bit dissapointing. It's not the fact that he played some cheese that was dissapointing, but the fact that he couldn't mix. He had plenty of audience interaction though, which I think was all he had going for him.

Next I saw Cut Chemist at the 'Earth' tent, which was the largest tent and also where John So (Melbourne Mayor) had given a short speech on the same day (videos of speech are doing well on YouTube!). Cut Chemist was impressive -- at one point he seemed to be scratching a record with his elbow (see the 10 min ParkLife video on this blog)!

I couldn't get to see MixMaster Mike or Krafty Kuts, who I heard were very impressive, but it was still an excellent day out. See the ITM thread on ParkLife for more reviews and pics.

25 Minute Mark Farina ParkLife Video

Here's around 20% of Farina's 2 hour set at ParkLife (Melbourne), for those interested in analysing his set ;-D

Pretty much unedited and straight from a digital cam (hence the distortion in the sound). Enjoy!

ParkLife Melbourne 2006

Here's a 10 minute video clip of ParkLife! The focus is on Mark Farina, and the DJs in the video are in the following order:

Derek K
John Course
Mark Farina
Peter Hook (New Order)
Cut Chemist



p.s. change the size of the video window to make the video smaller and clearer. You can only do this by clicking on the video and viewing the video directly from YouTube.

Joey Youngman @ F4, May 7th

oh boy did he rock it!!!

that place was so banging my ears are still blocked

im pretty sure most of his tracks ( at least past the halfway mark) were running at between 135-140 bpm

i would have thought a venue like F4 would make sure their turntables dont skip. it was skipping so badly at one point he just did a backspin on the skipping record and moved onto the next -- he was pretty upset...would've put me off if i was playing for sure ..he had the club going so well

the next time the record skipped a beat, i was closeby watching him so he asked me to call the manager he wanted people to move away from the decks

anyway was an awesome night..he said he's not sure when he's coming back to melbourne -- hope that had nothing to do with the skipping

Tsunami Fundraiser -- Pool Party!

Held a pool party as an effort to collect money for the Asian Boxing day Tsunami

Overall, the numbers at the pool party were very low, probably because many people bought tickets just as a donation, without having any intention of turning up! :-) Another reason could have been that it was not hot enough for an outdoor event.

However, with a total of 150 tickets sold before the event, and around 30 sold on the day, we have raised a total of AUD $2,700 for OXFAM! OXFAM will use this money for long term Tsunami Relief. The money was sent to OXFAM (can be confirmed by calling OXFAM Australia) and we're waiting for a receipt.

Despite the low numbers, the entertainment at the Pool Party was top of its class, with DJs playing a variety of tunes covering House, HipHop and even a mashup of Rock and HipHop! Thanks to Al Mac,LUKO, Dave Chestwig, Clint Hargreaves and JulesPLees for putting on an awesome display of skills!

Thanks also to the many volunteers, without whom we would not have sold all those tickets (and without whom there would not have beena BBQ!). The volunteers who made this fundraiser possible were; Dronan Atkins, Lasantha de Silva, Valerie Raffa, Nuwan Malawara Arachchi, Gaya Jayatilleke, Suranga Hewagamage, Tharanga Madurapperuma, Sheilina Geerdharry, Asiri Wanigarathne, Sanjay Reddy, Dakshika Nawaratne, Sanjaya Wickramasinghe, Thish Muthukudaara, Hashan Kodituwakku, Nalaka Gooneratne, Claire Barratt, Ivan, Nayoma, Angelika Widjaja, Nadhi Jayatilleke, Alex Mckenzie, Clint Hargreaves and Dave Chestwig.

A big thank you to all our sponsors who provided us with much needed resources and facilities. Bar Altitude allowed free entry for the Afterparty and gave us funds for the event, YMCA gave us free useof their pool area, the Leader Community Newspaper gave us free advertising space on their newspaper, X-Treme Entertainment gave us all the DJ equipment for free, Lustre Lounge gave us funds for theevent as well as a free glass of champagne for everyone with a ticket, DRUIDS Cafe and Bar gave us two large platters with cakes and nibblesfor free and Village Curry House gave us a platter full of Samosas for free.

Thanks also to JB HiFi for giving us many DVDs to give away as prizes, and Fox FM for letting us advertise the fundraiser on their website.

Last but not least, thanks to the two bouncers, life guards for theirhelp and entertainment, James Phung for helping with poster design and a huge thank you to everyone involved in making this a fun and charitable event! :-)