Contrasts bedside selection - scrambled or smashed?
Haven’t posted for a hot minute due to moving house and a rather long engagement in Brest, France, where I played at the very enjoyable Astropolis festival last weekend. I never seem to take pictures of, you know, people I meet and regular human stuff, I always seem drawn to abstract images I randomly spot, so you get the tenuous egg pic and bad pun above in lieu of some lastnightsparty shit. But here’s what I learned in France anyway:
1. Don’t try and get into a conversation about nihilism at 6 in the morning in the back of a cab with a drunken Frenchman (who thought I had a bottle of vodka and then said ‘I zink you ARE a bottle of vodka!’)
2. French trains - ils sont fantastiques! I thought I’d be clever and go for the train instead of flying to France, not realising to get to Brest would take 9 and a half hours each way. But thankfully, the trains in France are way better than in the UK (leg room, lack of odours, lack of headphone bleeds, no football chants, no abusive drunks) and the whole journey felt like something out of a Renoir movie with passerbys chipping in with some (I assume) witty remarks to what ever business was going on in the carriage.
3. House people are very nice. Met Erol Alkan (who dropped some Welsh on me, gwaan) and also The Proxy, who sang the bassline of Return of Forever to me. Awww. And there I was thinking Proxy was gonna be some dark, aggressive character, based on the facemelting electro smashers he makes. But actually he was a very pleasant and down to earth guy who revealed he got signed after sending out a cut&paste message on MySpace to Tiga without even knowing exactly who Tiga was. It’s that easy, kids. As long as your tunes bang.
4. French cops are packing some serious heat. Are machine gun patrols really necessary at Montparnasse station?!
Tags: Cops, France, House, Paperbacks
Welcome back, I’ll take the abstract images any day. I seem to have a lot of pictures of apartment buildings in Beijing for the same reason. Something about the symmetry of all of those massive buildings that looked identical to each other drew me in.
Thanks, man. The attraction/repulsion of symmetry is always fascinating.
Hi,
I have been a follower of yourself now for about 3 years and have seen you at many festivals and gigs. After looking you up on myspace trying to track down that Holiday remix i have stumbled upon this interesting and random blog which in my opinion beats the shit people write on twittter; smart move. So back to the main point Holiday remix, when?, where?. See you at V and Creamfields this year. Where abouts at v are you gonna play it shuts at 11.
Adios
Cheers for the support – I’m playing at both V Festivals next weekend from 9.30pm – 11pm. I don’t know what you mean by the holiday remix though?
Sorry, i ment “ready for the weekend”
Ah , the Calvin Harris remix – it’s actually in stores now, just check http://www.juno.co.uk or http://www.catapult.co.uk for vinyl and I guess iTunes and such will have mp3…
the train ride sounds, well..enticing. it is what i hope a train ride around Europe would be….
and i find it funny the house djs/producers are more…um..pompas here in the states