Oh hi,

Yes it has been a while. You’re going to get the standard answers…busy, blah, blah, blah, but hey, I’m here now, so stop complaining...

I wanted to try to be a bit proactive by doing a quick review of what has been going on this year, based on some reflections from earlier this year.

Djing --  I said that there would be large developments in that area, but they didn’t really happen. I have actually had several DJ gigs in Hollywood and other places in LA over the last few months or so…but I’ve just been too damn busy to blog about it.  DJ RiSC and I decided to stop the Vinyl Pirates radio show that we were doing on the eve-online radio network, and had periodically done some stuff on Second Life instead.  With the huge influx of digital dj technology here…I’m continuing to keep my eyes on the next tool on the horizon…for now, I think I will settle for Native Instrument’s Traktor Pro. Stanton has a few cool gizmos I may pick up to make the process of presentation a little more lively. 

Work Work Work --- Work has been a mixed bag, I did, in fact, switch departments in the hope that I wouldn’t be under so much pressure. Unfortunately, I chose to join a group that still seemed to end up in the spotlight, and therefore has a lot of pressure. Work prevented me from going to both WMC and Burning Man. Getting stiffed on Burning Man by my work set something off in my brain, though, something very deep seated…And that, I believe, has started the slow revolution that may ultimately end up with me working someplace else. I’ve finally begun to tire of this corporate job practically owning most of my waking hours. Call it burnout, call it perspective, I don’t know…but change is on the horizon.

Personal – Well, I’d say that personally, most of the first half of the year had me so focused on work that I could barely do my laundry and pay my bills. The last half of the year has been a different beast altogether. I've got some great reasons to be thankful, though... Some old friends from the Northwest have joined me here in LA. Under a series of events that no one could have predicted, two of my very good friends now live in LA. So I'm very much looking forward to tearing up big chunks of the city, heretofore untouched, and devouring them whole in a blaze of hedonistic debauchery (in the most of esoteric senses).

But wait, there's more. 

The major changes that I was hinting at in the beginning of the year are finally in the pipe. After about 10 months or so of struggling…the Westside Record Crew has finally booked some studio time to work on producing exclusive music from said members, (including yours truly). It’s pretty exciting, and I’m looking forward to seeing some releases soon. I don’t want to give anything up just yet, but some music has already been submitted for release…and been approved! So start looking for releases next year by Westside Record Crew members.  It’s my goal to launch Westside Records as an actual label in 2009. Details on that are very sketchy right now; embryonic at best, but I’m confident that some incarnation like this will manifest itself next year!

Anyway, the scoreboard looks like this:

-        WMC – Missed it due to work (damn!)
-        Burning Man – Missed due to work (TRIPLE damn!)
-        OODE, FNF, Chillits (missed FNF, will get it in 09)
-        SF, Vegas, And Oregon (all on the motorcycle) – (missed all three)
-        Bats day in the fun park (aug 23 or 30th, all are invited)  - (missed it, but they moved the next bats day to the spring…so that’s cool)
-        The advanced rider courses at willow springs racetrack – (missed it due to budget reasons – will probably do lee parks course first)

So overall, not so good on the schedule of stuff I wanted to do. The only difference is that I'm a lot more optimistic about the things that are coming up in the next year. So from that point of view, I was just a little pre-mature in my predictions...yeah, that's it!

Like a wishlist to Santa, here are a few items that I'm developing/hoping will come around in the ought - nine:

- Vegas - I know for sure that there is one trip to vegas that I will take for sure, but the bike trip is still on the radar.
- I'm developing some connections with the grammy museum, and hope to be involved in some community outreach there, involving electronic music and children.
- A new musical project is forming, which I'll be a part of (this is all super secret so don't tell anyone).
- For those of the Oregon Country Fair persuation (you know who you are) keep your eyes peeled for the "Techno Cart".

That's all for now.

I meant to do this earlier, but really didn't have the time.

I'm in India for a short work-related trip.

After 30 some odd hours in transit, I'm at le Royal Meridian in Chennai, India (formerly Madras.)

The jet lag is kicking in and my brain isn't functioning too much right now. Here are some notables from the trip over:

1 - hello kitty 747's at Taipei airport (pics to follow)
2 - fully armed guards strolling through the shopping centers in Singapore
3 - The air has a suspicious blue haze at night here in india, pollution probably...
4 - People decorate their cars here...will try to get some good photos.

That's all for now.

I know, I know, I’m late in my year-end summary…so sue me, I’ve been busy.

Ok -- let’s see, 2007…

Motorcycle

-- I’ve consciously tried to keep from posting every single detail about my recent purchase. Needless to say that I’ve been bitten by the motorcycle bug pretty badly, I’m guessing that it will probably take another whole year to get over how much fun I’m having on it; blasting along the coast, blasting through the desert, roaring through the canyons (it’s like I’m in a video game), setting off car alarms, and generally discovering the inner hellion I never really knew I had. I just finished making a lot of improvements to the engine, upgrading its power, performance, as well as the suspension...in short, it’s like riding a cannon.

DJing

-- This kind of had to take a back seat to my work as of late, but look for large developments in that area within the next two months or so. More work on the eve-radio show that djrisc has, more podcasts, and more live appearances. DJing using Ableton Live definitely has some serious clout, and my explorations with the new controllers from Evolution and M-Audio are really making it idiot-proof. If you are a DJ, and you haven’t looked at Ableton’s Live, you are officially behind the curve. Production stuff is on hold right now, pending some additional knowledge work. But I’m hell bent on getting something out this year.

Work

-- Work, work, work...I kind of hit a plateau in terms of where I work now, I would like to maybe look at working in another dept, but the spotlight is really on the dept that I’m responsible for, so this year will provide me with a chance to really shine (or flame out, either way it’s going to be interesting.)

Personal

-- Well, things are about where I could hope them to be, I guess. I’ve met some really cool folks in the last year, and hopefully, that will help to expand my still rather limited social circle. I’d have to say that the new digital age has really allowed me to continue to expand my friendships and stay in touch with all my friends, no matter where they are, and for this, I’m truly thankful.

On the whole, I’d say that 2007 was a real coming out year for me. LA started to really show it’s good side… everything from the mind blowing sushi in little Tokyo, the raucous LA Kings hockey games, and the super-fun mainstream and deep underground dance scenes (which, by the way, keep making the headliners pick LA over other places to play.) My developing connections in “the industry” down here are beginning to perk my interest in actually pursing some avenue in film, TV or internet entertainment. And of course, the road.

The upcoming year has some great stuff in the works. I’ve got a lot of plans, so money is definitely an issue. I don’t know how much of this I’m going to get done. Stuff on the short list includes:

• WMC


• Burning man


• OODE, FNF, Chillits (will not miss these!)


• SF, Vegas, And Oregon (all on the motorcycle)


• Bats day in the fun park (aug 23 or 30th, all are invited)


• The advanced rider courses at willow springs racetrack

I’m going to follow the advice of some of the lifehacker sites that I’ve been reading and limit my new year’s resolutions this year to one:

Be More Productive
(god knows, I’ve got plenty to do)

Top tracks of 2007
(in no particular order, and may have been released earlier, but were big this year)

• Morgan page remix of 'Hide and See' by Imogen Heat (holy crap—what a breakout!)


• 'Put your hands up for Detroit' by Freddy Le Grand (WMC anthem that exploded and put electo-house on the map this year)


• 'Chained to the Bed' by The Girth (Theodore Girthkins telepathically summoned a classic)


• 'I’m sorry' by Kaskade (his tracks have the freshness of the ’07 with the sound of the 80’s)


• 'Beautiful Thing' remixes by Chuck Love (That guy’s got enough funk to power the planet.)

I just recently got back from a 3-week bender in the northwest, jam packed with Christmas baking, weddings, and new year’s insanity. It was great to be able to get quality time in with nearly all my friends and family.

Briefly:

- Attended a good friend’s wedding, making sure that the proper amounts of whiskey made it into the hot chocolate bar, with a special post-wedding photo shoot with dangrmous

- Fired up ye-old “rave cave” and helped my good friends remember why they bought houses with basements.

- Freaking snow on xmas day!

- Partied like a rock star during new year's, demonstrating the awesome firepower of this fully operational laptop dj setup (well, not really, but I got the tunes out and bumpin’).

- Got all updated on the family situation and made some nice stops at all my old haunts.

- All in all, a great yuletide.

While the rain in the Northwest was a nice change of pace, it’s good to be back in LA. I hate to admit it, but the weather here is really worth a lot of the headaches of SoCal lifestyle, I can’t really explain it unless you live here.

Once again, many apologies for the long delay in posts. I find that time spent riding my motorcycle around LA seems to have a higher return value than sitting in front of a computer.

I'll be adding photographic evidence of said trips here.

On the work front...
Despite the current software cycle, I’d by lying if I said I was as stressed as the same time last year. Our department has more staff, and I find that I don’t have to do everything to get all that I’m responsible for completed, which is nice. Today we are finishing up the majority of our beta testing, and our test-complete day is today. I can already feel the urge to take off early, suit up and put some more miles on the triumph. I’ve managed to keep the flow of data from our group to the management contained to a web site, which has really made things run much more smoothly.

In other news I haven’t really been posting too much about the events I’ve been to lately, mostly just by phone post. a quick re-cap:

- Doc Martin’s 25th anniversary of acid house with DJ Pierre was off the hook! amazing show.

Movie Reviews in One Sentence:

- Transformers -- The Ultimate Summer movie; Humor, Action, and Gigantic Explosions; very entertaining.
- Ratatouille  -- Another slam dunk by Pixar; Stunning animation, and a great story.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix -- The Darkest HP yet; pre-pubescent angst meets ultra-baddies; tweens shall swoon.
- Wizard of Gore -- Another dynamite performance by Crispen Glover, strange, twisted, and very LA.
- La Vie en Rose -- Ultra depressing and tremendously sad, a must for francophiles; a rental for the rest of us.


Hot Track: ”Behind the Moog” by The Girth - Theodore Girthkins telepathically summons another funky house banger on Funkfield
Cool Site: pownce.com - Kevin Rose (of digg) new project site

Hitting the white peach tobacco hookah at Cafe Dahab, watching the sun go down...

Bumpin Hard Chicago-style house music with DJ's James Curd and Diz at Keniesic in downtown Hollywood.

Waiting in line for "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" (in 3-D!)  at the Midnight Movie in West L.A.

Enjoying a Cigar at El Segundo Beach, watching the last of the sunset.

On Saturday morning, the calm serenity that lay over my neighborhood was shattered as I sparked 900 cc's of British steel to life!

After a great deal of planning and scheming, I'm now the proud owner of a Triumph Thruxton motorcycle. It feels good to finally fufill the promise I made to myself that I would own a motorcycle if I lived in Southern California.

( You are mine! )

A few details:

1) I had the rear fender removed and re-positioned the turn signals.
2) I replaced the back wheel with a larger Metzler performance tire.
3) I installed Predator exhaust pipes and re-jetted the air box.

This has resulted in the following:

1) A very unique looking bike!
2) 14 Extra hp from the engine (around 83 HP total)

I look forward to diving deep into LA's true underbelly. Expect several posts regarding a few adventures from  the road.

Closer, Closer...very soon.

are what the SMS messages I keep getting from those happy few who made the cross country flight to rub elbows with all the who’s-who at the Winter Music Conference in Miami.  The Ohm Records Party in will be one I will particularly miss going to.

Lucky for the rest of us, the promos are flying everywhere with great music coming into circulation like gangbusters.

In other news, The hockey game was enjoyable, and I had a few celebrity sightings:

Celebrity Sighting: Sandra Bullock in a box seat.
Celebrity Sighting: Ryan Seacrest, getting boo’ed by the crowd (classic).
Celebrity Sighting: The Stanley Cup itself, sitting front row with the play by play guys
Celebrity Sighting: Wayne Gretzkey (don’t know if he counts at an ice rink)

I'm going to a Laker game this weekend and so, I'm looking forward to seeing how the two events match up.

Hot Track:  'Go Deep, Go Underground' by the Groove Junkies Featuring Robert Max – Part of the WMC Promo parade, this one is a great funky deep house banger, check it out on Swank recordings.

Cool Read: The Wisdom of Children - Fun and quick read.
Cool Site: tumblr.com - The jury is still out on this mini-blog web 2.0 app; I can't tell if it's cool or it's distracting.
Cool Media: Ira Glass on storytelling - Brilliant commentary for all creative types.

I don’t really choose to get on the political soapbox too much, however, in this case I think something needs to be said regarding the Copyright Royalty Board and their latest decision regarding pay rates for internet radio stations.

In a nutshell, they are toadies for the RIAA, who are greedy bastards, and if they have their way, no one will be able to afford to broadcast audio over the web.

To learn more about this and to do something, Visit savenetradio.org.

If you are a web broadcaster, vist webcastersunite.net for additional resources.

Please act! Thanks.

In other news, I’m headed out this evening to downtown LA to partake in a little blue-collar action…The LA kings are playing Chicago in the Staples Center. While I couldn’t be called a hockey fan, per se, I am learning more about the game. I hear the Tix are good, so hopefully there will be blurry cam-phone pics to follow.

Hot Track: “So Far” by Miguel Migs  - The first release from his full-length album, “Those Things” out on his own label, Salted Music. The album tour kicks off in Miami at WMC with Aya and Lisa Shaw.

Cool Media: Neave Strobe - interesting retinal calisthenics.
Cool Site: If you dig straight down, where do you end up? - Finally, an answer to the age-old question.

Oh yes, you will be mine...