:::PHILOGRESZ:::
myspace.com/philogresz
AUSTRALIAN / Sydney Tour BLOG
10 Jan,
First day in down-under started oh so amazing, having lunch with local dj / friend Selen Parman & Altay Altin. Neighbourhood nearby Drummoyne, an amazing location with again ...an amazing view looking towards the ocean and the Gladesville Bridge. We've had the full on swimming pool / barbecue session with Turkish cuisine, yes you've heard it good - yet another back-to-roots yummies.
Talking about Sydney's club scene as we bite the first bits of our freshly grilled meatballs. Altay says ' actual European club sound is in Melbourne , Sydney became real commercial and mainstream past years..but still good things are happening every now and then - making plans to visit Melbourne in the next weeks…if everything flows as we planned...
Around 10 pm, we have headed back Selen's home - where I stay, located in Darling Harbour, close by China Town!
Top Notch First Day!!! Let our worst day to be like this. A 'Saying' in where I come from...
12 Jan,
As first thing, visited SAE Sydney:. School of Audio Engineer - how can I miss that...It was a pretty old school, huge facilities eventough the school does not look that large..a bit like a labyrnth...Follow up a school tour guided by my Dutch college Arno from SAE Sydney.. Marketing guy of the entire SAE Australia. Apparently, he was a good childhood friend of Chris ' Jeng Do ' from Alphen a/d Rijn…So Chris if you are reading this hit me back - gotta tell you some important stuff...and no it wasn't him bro, it wasn't him...
Just after a nice decaf nearby SAE premises - I 've visited the mecca of techno, techhouse in Sydney: Spank Records! Mark Murphy, the store manager has welcomed me wholeheartedly with his full enthusiasm..
*Spank Records is a record store mainly selling records; good selection of techno, techhouse... and music production gear, they are very active in Sydney and participating with schools and workshops...
After some chitchat, Mark has asked me if he could interview me for their infamous blog.…So I said sure...
Here is the link for the full interview: click here
13 Jan,
Everyday waking up with the best breakfasts there is, thanks to my lovely host Selen...Fired up for yet another down-under day....
During the daytime I was preparing Philogresz live set and I must say that it turned out to be a productive day, realizing the variety of the tracks to be presented on my gig on Friday at the club 202 Broadway.
In the evening we had a night out with this die-hard clubber bloke Kim, visiting his place located nearby Kingscross...He's been explaining his continuous passion about music production and hardware addiction.TL Audio Mixing Desk, Manley, SPL Exciter, Fireface Sound Interface, Numerous outboard gear, and monitoring system Dynaudio BM6 with subs (I use the same monitoring system actually) some to name a few of his equipment selection.
Playing some tunes as we go downstairs - to the living room, where there was a very neat setup with Allen&Heath Zone 3D, usual cdj's and 1200's...After calibrating Final Scratch, we are ready to go and hit some tunes…a short dj set which I've barely enjoyed…but still enjoyed.
After the tiny djset which took attention of Kim - looking with admiration on his face towards his new discovery, he asks ' so this is the sound of Neo Techno, Tech house…the sound of Europe?. I said, maybe it's more broader range which can be tagged as ' organic, musical techno…; Reading his face as he shows a thoughtful facial expression and smiles - and that's the moment of touche - …let's drink over it….:)
Conversation strikes up to the scene of Sydney once more…commercial and reserved attitude of the people towards the new / innovative sounds coming out of Europe. All they say is Melbourne, here in Sydney ' You got to go there adds Altay Altin; local Turkish dj, continuously. Let's find out if that is really so….
15 Jan,
Discovering Sydney every single day, the living style, 'saturday everyday' kind a chill mode, people's attitude always asking ' how are you ' , even tough you've seen them for the 5th time on a day, same questions wonders around. Same thing happened as I pick up my phone, hearing Dane Austin: the promoter of the event I'm playing tonight.' How are you mate, will pick you up, I will be downstairs in about 10 min, can you get ready for the soundcheck at the club ' .
Taking the way to Broadway 202, arriving and a good impression at the first sight - the place was an old bank and the area which I was going to play was the Bank's Vault with a capacity of max 150 people with an enormous p.a system for the actual space - didn't check it thoroughly but looked like minimum 5 - 7 KWatt.
Soundcheck was smooth and fast, headed back home, ate something quickly, picked up my host Selen and headed towards the club.
It was ashame that it wasn't crowded but still enjoyed myself and got kind appreciations of local boys, as they came by and introduced themselves, telling ' first time I've heard about you was when Luciano (cadenza) was here, i went up to him asking the track he was playing, and it was your ' Gibber Takes ' on Ware '. It was real nice hearing these specific appreciations, kept me motivated even-tough the night wasn't commercially successful...
Dane; the promoter boy tells me that ' all the boys in our crew are very familiar with your music and know most of your catalogue ' which made me more than complete as a musician, and kinda made me say ' yeah this feels good ' .
Listen to the recorded live set of this night via this link: click here
Leaving Broadway 202, we found ourself in this club called ' Civic Underground ', nice location, with ' not bad ' sound system. However the vibe inside wasn't that inspiring, meeting people, mostly over-drugged (what you expect) huh, but i had the idea that it was all about drugs and musically speaking ' consciousness '(in terms of quality music) wasn't the main deal…but still, the last part of the live set of Christian Vance kept me in the club somehow..good tunes to get good vibes. Pity i've missed most of his show, realizing that I would have stayed here longer if he would have extended his show little longer.
'So where and when this afterparty is taking place' I've asked to Selen...I'm suppose to play there...some local promoter / dj girl has invited me when I was actually in NL...feeling this deal would go nowhere but down the drain...here is my very first down-under dissappointment..Voila...
17 Jan,
First beach visit, Bondi beach Sydney...at the bus trying to text Marcel Janovsky - Treibstoff for our meet-up ...' Hi mate, what time we catch up today for dinner and the clubnight? Friday I was at the Civic Underground and you will like it there..' .Couple of minutes late , text back from Marcel ' Jo man, we (Gabriel Ananda & Marcel Janovky) have already played at Civic yesterday, tried to call you several times but your NL mobile was off, we had the restaurant and the gustlist taken care...' And I was totally confused and realized that I've mixed up the days. Too bad..maybe jetlag was showing it's signs. Once more sorry Marcel! I owe you a dinner..
22 Jan,
Day has started with listening tons of promos, for tonight's house small get together play out…Sorted out some real good stuff, things like, the new remix by Roderick Fox on J.Nidecker's Stroom records, Jay Tripwire's latest goodie on 1trax, and some own discoveries on TEAM: Simon Hinter, totally into this guys music past months…watch him closely.
Heading towards the Broadway Road with my local dj friend Altay Altin, we've passed by Broadway 202 club; where I've played on the 15th..straight down the road, we have arrived to a resident of a good friend of Altay, a Lebanese dj and electronic music admirer ' Ziad ' …welcoming us warmly to his ' club look a like house ' : a proper dj set up with bar on the right and a cosy atmosphere, it didn't took us long to get the music playing loud and make discussion about current tastes: likes and dislikes!
Ziad has a strong progressive-house background, promoted events in Abu Dhabi 4-5 years ago, he made quite a fame with being one of the main men who's introduced house and progressive to United Arab Emirates.
Tunes on top of tunes, before we know it we are 4 djs: german, turkish, australian and lebanese doing a spontaneous back4back thingy as we sip our drinks slowly but surely…Feels like an afterparty vibe but it's just 19:00
An enjoyable evening, one to remember...
23 Jan,
A day started with my lost hope for my Melbourne gigs, it's so hard to fix last minute arrangements at down under..Quite frustrating…
Reading the following quote from Get Physical's DJ T: Quote DJ T "Every time I play Down Under, I notice a very peculiar, strong and determined competition between the local promoters and bookers – somehow, it’s very different to the rest of the world. More often than not, it goes far beyond the ubiquitous badmouthing: in some cases, people even resort to deliberate sabot...age of a fellow promoter or booker’s business. Personally, I find that pretty shocking and a huge shame. Nothing good has ever come from envy, resentment and sabotage. If everyone spent a little more time on shaping their own business profile with some TLC and real passion instead of looking over their shoulders, the scene would be thriving even more"....Should I agree on this?
But still thanks a lot to Lance Harrison and Christian Vance for doing their best to fix me gigs in Melbourne…maybe next time guys!
Tonight we are eating kangaroo................
.
26 Jan,
It's Australia Day
...and we are Heading to the Camperdown - for the gig of Altay Altin... I've mentioned his name earlier at the blog...the bloke who invited me to his house at the first day for barbecue...
This location is appears to be a bowling club with the some fine sausages and booze…not to mention the sun and some interesting beats of my buddy Altay…we have been having some music discussion the day before and apparently our time together was very inspirational to him, he's literally played most of the tracks I've suggested...
So far...so good... have seen one of the best dj sets in Sydney, treating some fine: Agnes, S.Tretau, Lee Burton tunes...he calls it, tribute to Philogresz - hah:) he was kinda following the track-listing which I had in mind if I would have played …
After his set, surprisingly it was time for Dub step! yes yes, it's also getting very popular in Down-Under and for me it was extremely pleasuring while playing australian style bowling to get myself in the holiday mood…Booze after booze…and suddenly where am I?
As I drink some fine Aussie lager ' Carlton Drought ' , two blokes from club Broadway 202 night stroked up a conversation about music and one of them literally told me that his favourite record of the year 2009 was a TEAM release ' Shirazi – Morning Drive – Vince Watson Remix ' which was something totally motivating to grab another beer...
31 Jan,
Darling Harbor is the destination of this afterparty which Treibstoff's Babicz suppose to play this morning… Robert was very kind to put us on the guestlist..When we entered the club, the entire crowd was outside; smoking and preparing themselves for the 'one and only' Robert Babicz. While waiting, I took my time to look at the beautiful view of the harbor side, so called Darling Harbour. Later, I wanted to check out the dj who's playing before the headliner, and it was really not appealing at all…usual fastfood techhouse, so I decided to go outside to do some drinking and smoking and more than that....socializing...
The location was pretty inspiring actually, the sound was not bad even-tough everywhere was surrounded by glass windows / doors…The reflections were not that uncontrolled and there was a nice balance between mids + lows...
R.Babicz started with some deep emo synthline, which got swiftly and yet cleverly blended into the funkiest groove you could ever imagine..I'm more than convinced he will rock Utrecht in 17th April. We are doing a Treibstoff evening in Poema Utrecht with Sarah Goldfarb, Philogresz, Bas Struik and ofcourse Robert Babicz!
In between some conversations, some local promoter came next to me and introduced himself, apparently he was the man behind this afterparty concept.
Drink after drink, we have only stayed at the party 1 and half hours and headed back home to get some sleep and get charged!
5 Feb,
Tonight is the night, is the night for a local club event in Sydney called: Thank Techno It's Friday. And my Australian host Selen Parman is playing this night alongside local djs Ben Dunlop, Leah Thomas, Ziad Zeino.
Heading to the neighbourhood Kings Cross, we have entered the Copperlily Hotel and went straight up to the 4th floor….entering the room while the ' so called headliner ' was playing. The club is empty…hmm not a good sign..
In about 30 min Selen Parman took the control of the decks and within no time, she blows everyone's mind away. Bomb after bomb but still intelligent and subtle stuff… Don't know how it happened but all of a sudden small group of people got together and start admiring this cat and her thick beats…I guess this is how ' she puts a spell on people' . Bravo! It's such a shame she doesn't play records that often in sydney - The city is definitely missing something here..hey..hey...heeey!!!!
Smoking is prohibited at clubs so we went upstairs to treat our lungs, where there was this ' Saint German, dum dum' coming out of the speakers, deep house and bossa nova helped us to relax before another dancing session with my favorite djane from downunder..
6 Feb,
My latest gig on Sydney was suppose to be a poolside party but the weather was so somber and greyed - up past 2 weeks, this very day was still suffering from that...So, the dj set has been set up in the house with couple of familiar faces and a greatest view you could get in Drummoyne….the place where I had this great barbecue on my very first day in Sydney
Enjoyed myself and enjoyed the moments as I knew the tour was coming to and and an it was almost over, yes - the tour is over...
Australia didn't treat me that good musically but still can't hide the great times within a month of time...So...Thank you: Selen, Altay, Dane, Shahin, Christian, Nico, Robert, David, Ziad,
Sydney is promoting pretty commercial minded beats and there is unfortunately not a alo of room for underground sonics. I had the impression that, they all wanna fish for those 10 – 20 European headliner dj, easy come easy go...However I've met some die-hards of underground, organic, musical stuff so there is still a potential...
They said, Melbourne is place to be – but extreme politics keeps the will and motivation away...still heard good things about the quality of club nights and the events...maybe next time I can literally kick some beats...Christian, man I was almost coming to play at that afterparty in Melbourne, haha– taking the last minute plane from Sydney to Melbourne, 1 hours before the actual gig takes it's place...naaa, didn't think so...as I said....next time people, next time.
Just before we end this blog, I want to take this opportunity to present you some press photos, taken by English photographer DavidJackJones: click here