2006.08.09.1721 :: we were somewhere around barstow, on the edge of the desert, when i stopped for a fountain dr. pepper

ok, i finally have enough time to sit down and do an update, thought it looks like it's going to have to be a huge one, because it's been quite a while.

i guess the easiest way to start is with a progress map, and then i can describe from there:



i left berlin on the 7th of july and headed to london in time to catch the first ever fwd on a friday, which was wicked. i dragged my friends along and i think they even liked the dubstep a bit, which was cool. i guess it's hard to hate it when some of the best people in the genre are playing (skream, n-type, hatcha and geeneus, i believe).

saturday we hit up the barbican for the future city exhibit, which was awesome. one of the best architecture exhibits i've been to since kristoff took me to transit raeume at the bauhaus kolleg. i particularly liked rem koolhaas's cctv headquarters. god i want to see that building.

saturday night was even more dubstep when i hit the dmz summer blazedown, which was massive. i went to dmz in may with rob, which was the one that got moved from 3rd bass upstairs to mass. i was worried it was going to be in the mass main club again, but they had it in a sort of side room thing that was huge but still had a lot better vibe than the cheese-club thing that the other mass room had.

the sets at dmz were absolutely wicked. dmz, loefah, hatcha, skream, n-type, youngsta, distance, vex'd, benga and chef-- practically everybody you could ever want to see. i wasn't feelin dropping $15 a beer (i knew i shouldn't let myself do the pound-dollar conversions when i was partying, but it's hard to ignore), so i stayed sober the whole night, which meant i did get a little sicker of hearing the same song ever 50 minutes than everybody else there did, but i can't complain because it's not like i really hear any of those songs almost anywhere else.

i stayed in london for a few more days and kristoff took us to the modernism exhibit at the v&a, which i, once again, loved. the dude has taken me to consistently amazing exhibits-- all the ones i've mentioned, plus two great things at the tate modern, some more stuff in berlin... best host ever, seriously.

after london i headed to chicago for my first trip back to america in what had been over five months. i dropped my stuff at j20's and my first act upon returning was to drag julia along to meet rob at lunch at taco bell. hahaha. it was every bit as yum-yuck as i remembered.

i basically just hung out in chicago for a few days and partied with old friends, which was exactly what i wanted to do. unfortunately my german cell phone doesn't seem to work in america, so it was kind of a pain to meet up with people, but the whole incommunicado thing was kind of a refreshing change for somebody who's had a cell phone since high school.

that next week, rob, erica and i headed up to minnesota for a few days to hang out at rob's family's lake cabin and chillax, which was nice, because i totally needed a vaction from my stressful life of, uh, vacation. we mostly chilled out at the cabin and boated around, though i did get a wicked sunburn (while reading "the plague" by camus on the beach in jeans and a black t-shirt. i felt like a eurotrash character in an 80s movie. "oh, that silly dieter comes to america and doesn't even wanna ride the jet ski. he just reads his fancy books on the beach and wears all black." haha)

after the lake we went to minneapolis for matt and kim's wedding, which was amazing. i went to junior high, middle school and high school with matt and i went to college with kim (and hung out with her in high school), so it was basically a high schoo/college reunion, but with only the people i wanted to see. it was great to get to see so many people i hadn't seen in such a long time and drink a lot of scotch with them. haha. it was too bad that we only got to hang out in minneapolis for two nights, but i guess i did do enough partying in that short time to make up for it.

after that i headed back to chicago for one night before i flew to lovely islip airport on long island. i'm not sure exactly how i talked myself into booking my flight into islip instead of newark, laguardia or even jfk, but i'm pretty sure it was really late at night and i convinced myself it wasn't a bad idea. in the end it wasn't so bad to fly in there, it was just kind of annoying to tack on a shuttle bus and a 1.5 hour lirr ride, though i guess monetarily it was cheaper than a cab from laguardia to manhattan and time-wise i've definitely been stuck on the bqe or fdr in a cab for about that long. plus it was really funny to land smack-dab in the middle of a stereotype. hamptons long island massive times one million.

there was even a girl sitting across from me on the lirr in baby blue sweatpants with pink writing on them and a wifebeater who was telling her friends how good the food was at margaritaville. it runs out she ate there in key west a few weeks earlier when they were hungry after they got out of the carrot top show. jesus chirst. carrot top is still alive? there is no justice in this world. how did mitch hedberg die but carrot top's still tickin? it's like that old bill hicks skit (speaking of a comedian that should be alive instead of, say, dane cook): "Jesus mudered; Martin Luther King mudered; Malcolm X murdered; Gandhi murdered; John Lennon murdered; Reagan.... wounded." not that anybody killed mitch or bill, but you know, if something were to happen to carrot top...

anyway, new york was awesome. jeff and emily picked me up at penn station and we headed straight to the upright citizen's brigade theater for a hipster comedy night, which was hilarious and awesome... and then we headed straight over to the only 7-11 in manhattan, just like old times.

i got to party down with all my friends, which was great. hit some wings, hit subtonic, got dragged to crobar by derek, etc.. it was awesome.

that thursday i played a show in new brunswick, new jersey, for machine. the only problem is that the night before i'd broken my glasses at barcade (actually i was just sitting there doing nothing and they kind of snapped), so i had the pleasure of navigating the subway, manhattan, nj transit and the streets of new brunswick at night in a thunderstorm without the privilege of seeing. it was kinda awesome.

the show itself was great. i played for three and a half hours, which is by far the longest i've ever played. i started out with a 45 minute breakcore set, which is pretty standard, but when i was done everybody just kind of stood there waiting for more. machine (the promoter) was like "do you want to keep playing?" so i said fuck it and played an hour-long dubstep set and people totally brocked out, except they didn't leave again when i was done, so i played a one hour grime set. i thought that was finally the end because it was starting to thin out, but then a bunch of weirdo gravers showed up (being total twas, mind you) and i decided once again, "fuck it," and played some techno for a while before the heat and the not seeing and the standing in one place in a basement for too long all got to me and it was luckily over.

and by over i mean we once again went to a stereotype. some keg party in a college house with tapestries on the ceiling and stoned dudes playing street fighter ii on the super nintendo. usa #1!

i headed back to chicago on saturday so that i could play at vision with eliot, dan bell and marco carola. this set ended up not going quite as well. i played for a little over a half hour, but i had some weird sound issues during my set. it seemed like it was gettingn really compressed or something and finally when i played "slim jim riddim," the bass was just coming out like farts. eliot went on and saved the day with an awesome set and i did manage to play a whopping two song set after him. i guess i owe chicago one.

i'm currently in las vegas chilling with my parents and i've been here for a few days. i've mostly been hangout out with my family and trying to catch up on all the stuff i haven't been able to do for over a month like reply to emails, finish up some songs, etc...

last weekend we drove down to big bear lake, about an hour north of los angeles, which was cool. i mostly just like driving through the deser between vegas and la because it's been in so many awesome movies. i was kind of dying to take some mescaline and get in a bus accident then have wicked desert sex.

i'll be flying back to berlin on the 20th, which means i'll be in vegas for a while, though i plan to drive down to los angeles to see the eye-d, with whom i only got to briefly kick it in chicago (though we did rock some hot doug's).

america has been awesome, but i am super excited to get back to europe... especially because i have a few shows that look awesome coming up in the near future. it's weird that i'm back to being really excited about breakcore shows, but i've played so many awesome ones lately (including bristol, which is probably the best show i've ever played).

one thing berlin doesn't have, though, that i really need to hit before i leave (probably multiple times): the pinball museum/hall of fame. hell yes.