Entry
One Hundred Eighty-Nine.
Saturday, 2015.02.28, 3:05 AM CST.
AN
OLD SCHOOL TECHNO NIGHT is coming - March 28th!
Current Mood: Kind of tired, kind
of apprehensive, kind of excited, and kind of... yeah, back to kind
of tired.
Current Scent: Higher Energy by Christian Dior.
I
hope
everyone's doing well out there. It's tough to believe that we're
already at the end of February! Here in Tulsa, it's very snowy
outside, and I have no intention of leaving the house today.
February 13th was the TWENTY-SEVENTH anniversary of that fateful first
gig with Dave French. I didn't publicly perform that day (or any
day for over a year and a half afterward), but it was the first of many
event experiences that really geared me up for my DJ career. As
I've said numerous times in the past, Dave changed my life by bringing
me into the DJ industry, and I'll always be thankful for that.
So,
I've now been in the industry for 27 years, and that's insane.
---
I
haven't been that great about posting updates on events HERE lately.
I've posted plenty of stuff on my Facebook
page, but I suck at posting event information here on my own site.
I really, really want to get better about it. I'm trying.
However,
I have a NEW EVENT coming up, and I am thrilled about it. It's
called "An Old School Techno Night." It's pretty much
going to be exactly what the title says - a huge assortment of techno
(along with some "techno by-products"), mainly from the 80s
to mid-90s, spun by DJs Khayyim,
J3ZZ,
and myself.
The
event will take place on SATURDAY, MARCH 28TH, starting at 9:00 PM,
at the FUR SHOP downtown on 3rd Street, just east of Frankfort.
It's a nice place at which I have DJed numerous times in the past year...
with TONS of very easy, very free parking right next to the venue.
There
is NO COVER CHARGE, but you must be 21 or over to get in. The
Fur Shop is a non-smoking venue, but vaping is allowed, plus I'll have
a fog machine running - hopefully with some coconut fog. :)
The
official address of the event website, packed with photos and LOTS of
details, is www.oldschooltechno.com.
(In
case that link dies someday, the site can also be found here.)
Also,
the Facebook page for the event can be found right
over here.
---
Now,
some of you might wonder: "Why would you bother doing a night
full of old techno and rave music?"
Three
main reasons:
1)
I happen to love that music;
2) I know there are a LOT of other people who love that music;
3) It's a type of event that nobody else in this area has ever
presented before.
A
BIT OF PERSONAL HISTORY:
Back
in early 1992, I was fresh out of a breakup with my girlfriend Teneya
(pronounced like "Tonya"); she was a sweet girl, but we were
just too different and she was kind enough to call it quits.
Soon
afterward, I had a date with one of my fans from the "Edge of Insanity"
radio program - a young lady named Stephanie. Brunette, blue-eyed,
cute... and obviously a big fan of music.
I
showed up at her house and she was all geeked about the new video for
the Cure's single "High." Soon after, she drove us to
the theater to go see "The Lawnmower Man." (At the time,
nobody had warned us that it sucked.)
During
the drive, she told me about a song that I just had to hear,
and she shoved a tape into her car's tape deck so I could hear it right
away. The track was "Charly" by the Prodigy, and even
though I'd obviously invested in lots of different electronic music
beforehand, I had never heard anything quite like this song. The
main synth line was just SO intense, and with that rhythm behind it...
it was just amazing.
Stephanie
was really nice, but we never went out again. I still think of
her every time I hear "Charly." Hopefully life has treated
her well.
---
Once
I knew about this great new music called "techno," I started
buying new techno music left and right. Obviously, I snapped up
a vinyl copy of "Charly" right away. I was one of the
lucky individuals who was able to get the Apotheosis "O Fortuna"
12" when it had first been distributed, before it got pulled back
due to legal problems with the estate of Carl Orff. MANY more
techno purchases followed.
I
started going to Ikon (Tulsa's legendary techno/industrial club, which
closed in 1997) on a not-quite-regular basis, and I heard LOTS of great
stuff there. I probably ended up building up one the biggest techno/rave
selections in the Tulsa mobile DJ market... and I wasn't even doing
any club performances of my own at the time!
As
the years went by, I noticed that Tulsa started embracing "retro"
nights. "80s nights" became a big deal, and after the
90s passed, "90s nights" became a thing. One would occasionally
see other genres getting a "classic" night (like old-school
hip-hop nights), and some of the old techno/rave stuff was played at
the 90s nights... but nobody, in my memory, ever just came up and said,
"Here's an entire night of nothing but stuff that will take you
back to the days of the old-school raves."
So,
I decided to be that person.
I
started planning "An Old School Techno Night" at least five
years before I ever scheduled a date and venue for it. I recently
found a spreadsheet that I had started in early 2010 as a list of tracks
to make sure to remember if I ever got around to doing this thing.
So,
now we're one month away - exactly four weeks away - and I'm geeked,
plus a little terrified. :) I haven't presented/hosted my
own event like this since autumn of 2012. At the time of this
writing, the Facebook event has allegedly "reached" over nine
thousand people. One hundred twenty five have RSVPed as "going,"
and the Facebook event page has been abuzz with interactions from classic
techno fans.
This
could very well end up being the biggest public event that I've ever
personally presented.
---
Of
course, I'll be primarily spinning from vinyl, using CDs when necessary
and mixing everything manually. I'm going to bringing some intensely
rare remixes to this event.
The
other two DJs that I've chosen - Tulsa's Khayyim
and J3ZZ
- will both be using laptops and associated digital gear, which is totally
cool by me. They're both legit DJs, and I have a lot of confidence
that they're both going to make this party even more awesome.
---
There's
something very important that I want to note, because someone suggested
this a few weeks ago and I want to make it very clear:
This
will not a regular monthly thing.
If
you miss "An Old School Techno Night," you can't show up a
month later for the next one, because a month later, there won't
be a "next one."
If
it's successful, I'm quite confident that I'll present another one...
but odds are it will be at least a year before I do it again.
Events like these tend to be rather exhausting for me (physically, mentally,
and financially), so they won't be a frequent thing.
So,
if you love old school techno/rave tunes... You'll need to be
at the Fur Shop on March 28th. The party starts at 9:00 PM, and
I recommend showing up a little early. It will very likely get
packed very quickly, and we're not going to be playing a bunch of lame
"filler" in the beginning as we wait for more people to show
up. You're going to hear awesome stuff, all the way through -
so be there for the beginning and dance 'til the end.
All
right... that's it for now. I have more big news on the horizon,
including some pretty significant life changes I've recently made that
are surprising even to myself.
As
usual, thanks for checking out my site and reading my stuff...
I appreciate the support!
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