From the airport

Ok, I only have 3 minutes of WiFi left to write this, so it's going to be very concise. I made it to the airport Charles de Gaulle OK and managed to check in, despite getting in the wrong line at first.  I passed through a duty-free shop that had all sorts of wines and cheeses and foie gras and paté, but I made the wise decision of leaving the bad-for-you stuff in France for now.  I'll be back anyway. Now I have about 20 hours of travel ahead of me.  Paris-Chicago, then Chicago-Toronto, then Toronto-London, Ontario.  It's gonna be AWESOME. LUV, LMGM

You know you're Parisian when...

I've clearly been in Paris for a while, because today I was on my way from Pigalle to Bastille, taking the 12 line, and I decided to take 8 line instead of the 1 line to connect to Bastille, despite being roughly the same number of stops, because the 8 platform at Bastille is closer to the north-east exit of rue de la Roquette.

When you have memorized the layout of the subterranean warrens that are the main métro stations here, you've clearly been here for a while.

WE #2: Triple R, Franck Valat, and Be My Chose

[So, my mom is still in town and I've been still hanging out with her, so I'm continuing my practice from last week and not blogging about her visit. Things were a lot more relaxing when I didn't have to stumble home after every evening out to blog about it. Anyway, one thing that IS worth mentioning is that my mom, DJ and I all went out to La Gueuze for beer and mussels, and I ordered a beer that apparently was supposed to be served flambé. The took a huge stem-and-bowl glass and covered the interior of the glass with liquor, then lit it on fire and poured a bottle of rather sweet Ayinger beer over top. It was pretty amusing, although not all that tasty.]

0h00-2h00: Franck Valat

It was show-and-tell night for me and DJ. The idea was that I would take DJ out to a dance club night to show him my "workplace," and DJ would take me out to a jazz club to show me his scene as well. There seemed to be no better opportunity than tonight, as the evening was organized by the good folks of La Petite Maison Electronique, it was two days after my birthday (June 20th; send me presents!), and it was probably the last opportunity I would have to go out before I return to Chicago.

We ended up running a bit late (my fault), so we arrived at the club just under the 1h00 deadline. This got me in on the list, and got DJ in at a reduced rate (8€). As I was waiting for DJ to pay at the door and chatting with Nathan, the bouncer next to me said something to me that ended with the word "vestiaire." OK, I thought, I'll check my jacket. When I came back downstairs and tried to get into the club, it quickly became clear that what the bouncer wanted was for me to check my bag. I was frankly surprised, since I've been in La Scène several times now without having any difficulty entering with my bag.

I was pretty miffed about having to check my bag; my camera is a bit too large for a pocket, the combination of my cellphone, wallet, coin purse, keys and transit pass are too bulky to stick in my jeans, and my bag has useful things like pens and papers--which are sort of essential when you're trying to make connections with people. Anyway, as I was muttering testily about this while preparing to check my bag, the coat check guy pointed out that, if I was supposed to be taking photos of the event, I should be allowed to bring in my bag. "You need to ask to the left and to the right," he said, implying that I need to pull some strings.

So off I went to find someone I knew. Thankfully, Fantô was still at the front door helping with the guest list, so I grabbed her and told her that my photo-video-blogging coverage of the event was in jeopardy. Immediately she said we needed to talk to the owner, Bruno B. He happened to be standing right next to us, so we stepped over and Fantô explained the situation to him. Bruno recognized me from previous events and quickly agreed. Bruno walked over to talk to the bouncer and tell him I'm all right, while I thanked Fantô profusely. A moment later, we were finally in the main room.

DJ and I made the rounds of the room, which was still pretty empty (it was only 1h00 after all), and then settled on one of the banquettes to chat and comment on the surroundings. It was a lot of fun having DJ around, as he would notice things that I took for granted, or ask for definitions and explanations of things that I had never thought to work out. Even a simple question like "Is this considered a big club?" elicited a long and interesting response.

I actually don't have a great deal to say about Frank Valat's set. His tracks were generally quite good, but very low-intensity and difficult to engage with. He was properly fulfilling his role as a warm-up DJ, so his choice of pleasant but unobtrusive tracks created a sort of background. There wasn't a direction or feel of trajectory to the whole set; it was as if he was simply linking together an un-ordered set of records to kill time until the headliner came on. Having said that, the mixing was mostly fine and I was never inspired to complain about the overall sound of the tracks.

2h00-4h00: Triple R

I was in mid-conversation with someone when I noticed that the overall sound of the music had shifted. I looked up, and realized that a Triple R had come on. It was rather odd for a headliner to start his set without some sort of fanfare. Often, there is a pause between sets as one DJ takes over from another. Even when the following DJ mixes directly into the set of the previous one, there is often some relatively dramatic manipulation of texture and/or volume to articulate the switch. Either way, a signal is usually made to the crowd. And the crowd can usually be counted on to alert each other through cheering and clapping. At least a few people close to the stage would notice the change in DJs, and both applaud the previous DJ and cheer the next one. In this case, instead, Triple R just quietly took over the turntables.

Some of the quiet shift may have been due to the technical issues he seemed to be having. At first there were some routing problems with the mixer, and later it seemed that the pre-cue channels weren't working properly. Either way, he may have been avoiding drawing attention to his arrival until the technical difficulties had been resolved.

I don't know whether the issues were fully resolved, but Triple R's mixing was a lot rougher than I remembered from the time I saw him in Chicago a year or two ago. There were two undeniable trainwrecks in the set, but they were pretty clearly technology-related. For the rest of the set, however, transitions between sets tended to be either short and abrupt, or long and increasingly out of sync. All in all, it sounded like he was having a hell of a time beatmatching.

That much said, his selection was great. All of the tracks that he played I really enjoyed, and there were a few that I thought were amazing. To use an expression that Anatoly passed on to me a few months ago, good selection and bad mixing is tolerable, but bad selection and good mixing is intolerable (insupportable). Despite the technical issues, the music was great.

As DJ would later point out that night, this is sort of situation where, in jazz circles, you would say "Great set! That didn't swing at all." In other words, the musical/sonic content was there at some level, but the "feel" that is associated with the style is absent.

Also, among the pictures and videos below, check out the second and third videos. The video artist working for tonight's event had several rather interesting loops of video that he used. The first of the two was a rapid and rhythmic flow of faces, apparently chosen to be as broad and diverse as possible. I couldn't help but assume that this was resonant with the title of the soirée ("WE"), and the ideal of the eclectic, mixed crowd. The second video loop seemed to involve some sort of mash-up with Twitter, the "what are you doing right now?" website. I thought the videos were interesting, and I especially enjoyed the twitter mash-up, which had had this mix of intimacy and voyeurism that I will probably have to write a paper about sometime.

4h00-6h00: Be My Chose

Well, Nathan and Fantô have just been getting better and better, ever since I first saw them spin. Much like their performance at the first WE event, their set was well-chosen and well-paced. Be my chose managed to "work" the crowd in a way that the previous DJs had not been able to do.

I think the most important thing they did differently was that they created more points of articulation within the set. They played with the EQ's, cut and dropped the bass, used filters and effects, and generally did their best to create moments of departure and arrival that helped to engage the crowd. These punctual moments of arrival both entrained the crowd and synchronized it, both manipulation and prompting.

Regardless of the precise mechanics and causality, Be My Chose very clearly got the crowd moving. Although the club was never packed during the night, the dancefloor filled out quite nicely during their set, and the crowd danced and cheered with great enthusiasm. Considering their set started at 4h00, I was pretty impressed with the reaction they were getting. Admittedly, I did run into one person that night who found the changes in texture and intensity to be excessive and ultimately static. But aside from her, everyone I spoke to was really impressed with their set.

Just before 5h30, DJ was getting tired and I had managed to give myself a vicious stitch in my side, so we decided to start heading home. I did the rounds and said my goodbyes, we reclaimed our jackets, and then we headed off to the métro. The métro was the usual mix of odd creatures that one finds at 5h30 on a Saturday morning, which provided us with enough entertainment to stay awake until our stop. From there, we dragged ourselves through the hallways of our building, past those !@#$ morning people who were all getting ready to !@#$ing productive and chipper and sunny, and collapsed into bed. (In the interest of DJ's flawless reputation, we collapsed into separate beds.)

With Love, from Nantes

So, I managed to collect my mother at the airport the next day, go down to Le Mans to meet our friends there, have lunch, and then head off to Nantes. Nantes has been great so far, but I won't be blogging for it because I'm on vacation, dammit.

On the other hand, Blogger now has a Draft option that allows you to test new features, and of course I'm totally on board. Currently, they have a new video-posting capacity that is in the testing stages, which I'm going to test out right here. Yay, new gadgets! I'm a total gearwhore, sometimes.

Hmm. On preview, I see that this video-posting thing is convenient, but loses some of the utility of YouTube posting. I can't tag the video sample with useful keywords, nor can I add metadata about the time and place of the recording. But I suppose those are features that can be added later....

Blogging from Widget

Hi!  Apparently, Google has created a Mac OSX Dashboard widget for Blogger, which allows you to write blog posts from your Dashboard.  I'm writing this post on that same widget.  It's pretty neat, you can post to any of several blogs or save as draft and you can make use of bold and italic typfaces, BUT you can't edit the HTML tags directly nor add links and such.  Limited, but I suppose useful when you want to make a quick post.

Day, Compressed

My mother's arriving tomorrow. I'll be in Nantes for the rest of the week. I'm moving back to Chicago one week after my Mom leaves Paris. My apartment is a cluttered mess of crap that previous students have dumped on me. I've mailed home all of my books, but I still have a shitload of stuff to put into two suitcases. I have a pile of household goods that I want to hold on to until the last minute, but need to be passed on before I leave. Also, I'm the child of immigrant parents, so throwing anything away violates all sorts of deep-seated rules; therefore, I must find a way to re-use, store, or gift everything that I can't take with me.

These were all things that were on my mind today, along with the usual go-to-work and OMG-I-have-a-thesis-proposal-to-write stresses. So, my day was spent mostly panicking about these things and trying to be as productive as possible, while also getting ready for my mother's visit. I know I won't be very productive while she's in town (which is to be expected when entertaining visitors), but I only have 7 days between her departure and mine. So, yes, a bit of hyperventilating. C'est normale.

Selfkiss

My day was busy but rather straightforward. I headed out before work to drop off more boxes of books at the post office (almost done!), then to work to take care of several projects. From there, back home and leftovers for dinner. Yay!

However, what I want to talk about today is something I found last week, called SelfKiss. First, a sample:

Selfkiss is a photography project by Pupsam, a studio run by David Puel and Thomas Libé. The idea, put simply, is to create photographs that explore the possibility of kissing oneself. Some of the pictures are sort of funny and cute--like the older guy, Hilton, holding himself in the pouring rain as if he were in an old-fashioned melodrama--others are a bit creepy, and others are rather sexy (or sometimes, creepy-sexy). Mind you, none of these pictures go beyond a kiss, although my favourite one is rather sexually intense (warning: man booty!). From the main page of Pupsam site project, you can click on a link to get a slideshow (diaporama) of all the photos they've taken so far.

Anyway, I find the whole thing vastly interesting. Like most things bizarre, I found Selfkiss on MetaFilter, where there was a lengthy comment thread about the topic. The person who posted the link asked whether the other readers would want to kiss themselves, and the responses and reactions were rather interesting. Some people found this photo series frankly sexy, some people found it profoundly disturbing. Some people loved the idea of kissing themselves and occasionally went so far as to express interest in "selfsex" as well, while others were completely horrified by the idea. Ultimately, for me, it's both uncanny and sexy, and that's what makes it so fascinating. Also, certain pictures are just amusing novelties, while others are far more compelling to me.

By the way, here's a translation of the explanatory text from the main page, for those of you who don't speak French:

The marvelous thing about a photo is that it captures a look, a gesture, an instant, a fleeting reality from which emotion springs. However, what is presented here does not exist, has never existed, and will never exist. But this technique puts us there, in front, like a tightrope walker on his rope, in an unstable balance between I believe it and I don't believe it.

These instants were invented by Pupsam. And yet, indeed, this is a record of real events (reportage), since long searches and deep internal journeys were necessary to arrive here:

Starting from one consenting individual, imagine together his encounter with himself (not another, but his double), to create a couple that will embrace each other, then trace their posture, the spark in their eyes, and finally the abandon to the other that is me, to make visible the impossible kiss, monstrously shameless. And so? moments that are desired, dreamed, hidden at the bottom of us, denied... taboo! Perhaps the fleeting reality from which trouble springs.

Louis Samaria

I've also noted that when the page was first posted on MetaFilter, the slideshow was a series of php-enabled pages that served the images with a simple previous/next button on the bottom corner. This allowed you to link directly to specific images, and therefore also to copy and download the images if you want to. A week later, I'm preparing to write a blog entry about it, and I find that the introductory photograph on the main page has been removed, and the slideshow has been converted to a Flash movie. The Flash format makes it very difficult to extract images, and it's impossible to directly link to it or "hotlink" (insert images in your own webpage that are actually references to the original image source, which adds unexpected bandwidth to the original image provider's server). Also, now every page on the Flash movie has a bunch of text in the corner that says "All rights reserved" and then the Pupsam company info.

While I can understand the desire to prevent hotlinking and clarify ownership of the images, I think that making the images impossible to download or link to is kind of silly. The images are small thumbnails of what are probably very large and detailed images, and all of the internet word-of-mouth advertising that they've enjoyed in the past few days has been largely thanks to the previous ability to take a sample image and post it elsewhere on the web. Either way, I would totally pose for one of these (but maybe not naked, thank you).

Crashing HARD and Sunday dinner

Well, after three consecutive nights of partying, I was TIRED. I slept in like crazy, and then eventually dragged my butt out of bed to do laundry. In between loads of laundry, I also tried to make some advances in the Blogging department.

As evening rolled around, DJ had a bottle of champagne to take care of, and I had leftover ají de gallina, as well as some cauliflower and potatoes to deal with. My mom was coming to town on Wednesday and we were going to spend the rest of the week in Nantes, so I needed to take care of anything that might go bad in my absence. For the cauliflower and potatoes, I cut them up into medium-sized chunks and then prepared them in a sort of curried fashion. I toasted some cumin seeds, brown mustard seeds, and lovage in a pan until they were fragrant, added oil, and then tossed in the cauliflower and potatoes. I gave them some time to brown a bit, and then I added some tumeric, a bit more oil, white wine and stock. I covered the whole thing and let it braise itself until the cauliflower was soft and the potatoes were cooked through. The results were surprisingly tasty, especially in combination with the ají de gallina.

Anyway, once we polished off the bottle of champagne, we also finished off the bottle of white wine, as well as a half-bottle of red wine I had left over from last Thursday. And then, unsurprisingly, we were rather sleepy.

Rex Trilogy III: Dinner, Urban Athletics, Sleeparchive and Onur Özur

I got home rather late Friday night, so I slept in pretty late and then crawled out of bed. I took to transferring the interview I had recorded the night before and doing a bit of organization, then did a whole lot of catch-up blogging. I had a pass that would get me into the Rex tonight before 1h00 (thanks, Fantô!), so I had plans for a leisurely and somewhat early dinner, a short disco nap, and then off to the party.

However, midway through the evening just as I was getting ready to fetch some groceries, I get a call from an old friend living in Paris. This was the same one that I hung out with only a few days after arriving in Paris last September, who had once stayed with me in Toronto back in the early 2000s. Anyway, she was having a get-together of all the girls that had been in the Ottawa (Canada) program with her back in the day, so she called me to invite to join them for dinner. I was thrilled to get another chance to see my friend before leaving, and I was curious to see what the rest of the girls were up to, so I accepted. The only problem was that we were supposed to meet to start cooking dinner at her place around 20h30.

So I quickly did my grocery run, frantically did as much blogging and correspondence as I could, and then dashed off to her place. As it turns out, she was running late, so by the time I got to her place, she was just getting back from the market. The rest of the group arrived shortly thereafter and we started cooking up dinner. Some of us chopped up chicken breasts into large chunks to pan fry with some herbs, while some of us chopped up onions and red peppers as a base for a tomato and wine sauce. In the meanwhile, we also set a large pot of basmati white rice to cook. The rice took the longest to prepare (the 1.5 litres of water were too much for my friend's little electric plates), but once it was ready we placed a base of rice on each plate, placed some of the chicken on top, and then covered it with sauce.

So dinner was great (mostly thanks to my host and her friends; they did a good job of keeping me out of the kitchen), but we had started late and the rice had taken much longer than we had anticipated. By the time we had finished the main course and had a small cheese course (with the stinkiest cheese I have ever smelled), it was already 0h15. I had 45 minutes to cross Paris, get in the guest line, and make my way through the door if I wanted to get in for free. After having messed up and missed the door last night, I was determined to get there on time. I skipped dessert and said my goodbyes, and bolted out the door and toward the subway stop (which is actually a rather far from her place).

Now, keep in mind that I had just finished a rather heavy rice dish. As you rice-eaters of the world probably know, rice expands in your stomach and makes you feel more full 15-30 minutes after you've stopped eating. So there I was, trying to run (or at least walk briskly) to the subway station, is a belly packed tightly with ever-expanding rice. I made it to the Rome métro stop, caught the next train and transferred to the 4 line at Barbès-Rochechouart, then transferred and caught the 9 at Strasbourg Saint-Denis, getting off one stop later at Bonne Nouvelle.

Through the miracle of good timing and a great deal of running down subway station corridors, I made it into the guest line by 0h51. I had nine minutes to make it past the front door. There was a group of six people near the back of the line who seemed to be both waiting in line but also waiting for another person or people to join them. I took advantage of the ambiguity and stood behind them...then beside them...then in front of them by the time we had reached the front of the line. Mercifully, things were still pretty quiet in the cash lineup, so the guest line moved quickly. At 0h57, with three minutes to spare, I made my way past the front doorman and down into the club.

Correspondant @ Le Rex: Sleeparchive, Onur Özur, Jennifer Cardini

0h00-2h30: Jennifer Cardini

Of course, there's a reason why passes expire at 1h00 and guestlists close at 1h30 here. The place was virtually empty when I arrived. There were barely 50 people in a space that usually holds hundreds. I took advantage of the sparse crowds to check my coat and get a drink, and then wandered around the floor to see if I recognized anybody. I sat down for a bit and waited, and eventually I saw Fantômette come in. Fantô and I chatted, wandered about the room people-watching, and waited for the rest of the crew to show up. S. and D. were supposed to be showing up with a bunch of friends; it was past the deadline for the guestlist and they still hadn't arrived.

S. and D. and their crew eventually showed up around 2h30 (having paid full price at the door), and we hung out at the back of the club and chatted as we waited for Sleeparchive to set up for his set. Jennifer Cardini's set was actually very good (she even dropped that old "helicopter" track by Plastikman!), but I have to admit that it wasn't the main attraction for me. Cardini's sets are always consistently good, but I have rarely been blown away by them, either. I suspect part of this is that I've almost only seen her spin as a warm-up DJ, so I don't know what she would offer as a headliner. Nonetheless, it was a far sight better than most of what I heard last night, so I was pretty happy.

2h30-4h00: Sleeparchive

If Nathan Fake's live set last Thursday was a bit abstract and pointillist, Sleeparchive's set was two steps closer to the dancefloor-oriented minimalism of the Berlin scene. The set was great, with a punchy sound that occasionally departed into distorted or nebulous episodes, but mostly remained throbbing. There was a great deal of forward drive to the whole thing, I felt, which is rather hard to do in a live set. Part of what might have made his set the more coherent one was that it sounded like he was mixing together both individual loops and entire tracks in whatever software he was using (I'm pretty sure it was Ableton Live again). Either way, I really enjoyed the set.

The place was PACKED from the moment his set started, so I had trouble being able to physically enjoy his performance much beyond nodding my head. As it was, I still had a belly full of rice, so I wasn't feeling very nimble. Add to that an overheated, smoky room packed to capacity and squashed near the front, and I just wasn't in the mood. I still really enjoyed the set, but I can't help but feel that I would've had a better time if I had had room to move.

D. and her friends got sick of the press of the crowd and moved off to the side of the room for a breath of fresh air, leaving S. and I to hang out. Fantômette disappeared and reappeared from time to time throughout the set, although she mostly hung out near the stairs and railing the the left of the DJ booth. A little while later, I split off from S. to move to the front and take pictures of the set. Something about the intense red lighting prevented me from taking any good photos, but I managed to get a lot of video.

4h00-6h00: Onur Özur

I had heard a bit of Onur Özur's set at the Watergate in Berlin early in May, but I missed most of his set that time, because I headed off to Berghain / Panorama Bar. I was able to stick around for about half of his set this time (I left just after 5h00), and was really glad I did. The set was a bit less intense than Sleeparchive's, but more danceable. Many of the tracks had a house-y feel, and a lot of his set seemed to traverse the space between minimal techno and minimal house.

The video that I got of him doesn't do the set justice, as it remember it as more dynamic and more spatialized. Of course, this recording is from a simple mono microphone that doesn't pick up anything in the low ranges, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Also, Onur is clearly not very photogenic; he's actually quite cute in a way that I don't find to be true for very skinny men like him, but none of the photos of took of him came out well. Similarly, every photo I find of him on the net is similarly unflattering, even if it's a professional job.

So, the lesson here is that you should trust my taste in music and men, even when the evidence I provide isn't so compelling...

Rex Trilogy II: Interview and Jack de Marseille

After sleeping in a bit to recover from last night, I spent a large part of my day running errands. Perhaps most importantly, I finally dragged those three boxes of books and sweaters of to the nearest post office. Each one of them was a bit over the 7kg limit, so I was carrying somewhere between 23 and 24 kilos in total. I slung them into a combination of hefty bags and then nearly killed myself getting them 1 block down the street. By the second block, I came across a bus stop that was in the direction I was going. I waited for the bus, rode it for only one stop, and then got off right in front of the post office.

I picked the main post office in Les Lilas, technically in the banlieue outside Paris, rather than the post office closer to me at Porte des Lilas, because this was was big and open and generally less miserable-looking. After waiting in line for several minutes, I noticed that everyone in front of me was waiting to cash social security checks, money orders and so on, while a "boutique" selling pre-paid envelopes was also weighing and posting packages. Since my boxes were ready and pre-packaged, I switched to the much shorter boutique line and waited a few more minutes.

Thankfully, I had chosen the right line. Just as I was being served, a man came from some other line and walked up the front and demanded to be served. He was obviously angry about having to wait in another line, but this is how French bureaucracy works, and the post office is in many ways its platonic ideal. When the woman at the desk told him to either wait in line or go speak to a supervisor, he marched off around the corner and starting yelling up a storm at some very unimpressed-looking man with a clipboard. I took the opportunity to commiserate with the woman at the desk, making clichéd comments like, "Some people are just poorly-raised," and "I used to work in retail, I totally empathize." This seemed to have the desired effect, as she was very patient with me as I dropped of three packages, bought three more packages, and also bought three pre-paid envelopes for some other stuff I have to send.

With everything taken care of and three new boxes under my arm, I headed back home. I spent most of the afternoon and evening catching up on blogging and emails (I was almost a week behind on blog entries since Carla's visit). By about 22h00, it was time to head over to my friend S.' new apartment to interview him. He had been kind enough to give me a bit of his time before tonight's outing to Le Rex to let me pick his brains. I headed over to his place and hung out with his roommate, his girlfriend and their friends; after a little while, the rest of them headed off to a nearby bar while S. and I sat down to the interview.

As is often the case with interviews, I came with a set questions that I promptly deemed insufficient and abandoned; nevertheless, it was useful to have a set of general questions that I could fall back on during lulls in conversation. Indeed, the interview turned into a sort of extended conversation, as I would ask him a broad question, he would say something interesting, I would focus on what I found interesting, and then we'd chatter about it for 20 minutes. An additional challenge to this whole endeavour, however, was the fact that we were conducting it in French. My French may be good, but it's hard enough to articulate my thoughts about my project in English; it's a whole other struggle to translate the po-mo jargon and the specially-chosen English terms into French. There were many moments when I had to pause and re-start my train of thought with a new set of terms. If anything, I suppose, it was a good lesson in just how much our thought is shaped by the languages available to us.

Thankfully, I caught all of this on my iPod, so I didn't have to worry about taking notes. I bought the Griffin iTalk a long time ago, which is this little accessory for iPods that records sound through it's own internal microphone or through any mic that you plug into it. I had bought a cheap electret cavalier mic to record the conversation, but when I ran some tests the night before, I discovered that the internal mic actually worked better than the electret mic. I think part of it is that the mic is internal to a rather resonant casing (the accessory is shaped to continue the form of the iPod, so it probably has a lot of empty space). Either way, I only had to take occasional notes that would later serve as guides when I had to transcribe this.

We managed to put in nearly 1.5 hours of conversation before we had to leave to meet the rest of the group at Le Rex. S. now lives close to the Rex, so we headed off on foot; wandering through sidestreets that we hoped would serve as shortcuts. A few blocks away from Le Rex, we got a call from S.'s girlfriend, saying that they were running late and just hopping into a cab right now. S. was feeling rather peckish, so we stopped at a kebab stand for a bit. As it turns out, we took too long to eat; as S. was finishing his fries, he got a call from his girlfriend, asking him where the hell he was. The rest of the group was already at the front of the line, apparently, so S. told them to go inside and we would catch up with them. By the time we were on our way over, I checked the time on my cellphone and realized that it was already 1h30. Aw damn.

So we had to pay our way in that night (13€), which made things all the more bitterly ironic when the music for the first 2/3 of the night was pretty...well...bad.

Automatik vs. Technorama: Slam and Jack de Marseille

1h30?-4h30: Slam

I've been overwhelmed by DJ sets before; at times, such as during Kraft's set last night, I've been underwhelmed; but this time, I was just whelmed. I didn't love Slam's set, but I didn't hate it either. I didn't clap my hands over my ears and run screaming, but I was having a really hard time getting excited about this duo's set. I will acknowledge that they were indeed spinning techno of some sort, and they were indeed capable of mixing records together (or, in this case, mp3's of records run through Final Scratch). But they were missing the hard-to-articulate extra stuff that makes a good set not only functionally danceable and stylistically recognizable, but also fun and exciting.

For one thing, the set felt very flat. There were regularly-spaced moments of climax and breakdown, but they totally failed to entrain me in their movements. Some part of me recognized that, "Oh, now is the time to be excited," but my body just wasn't resonating.

Also, the track selection didn't really surprise or excite me. All the tracks were certainly techno, but of a very generic and and slightly dated sound that made me feel as if they had done all their music shopping in the "Electronica" bins of the Virgin megastore in 2002. Again, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't...well...much of anything.

I'm actually surprised at my own ineloquence at pinpointing what was wrong with the set. It's like I had absentmindedly skimmed a novel for a grade-school literature class, and now I'm trying to improvise a book report on it. I may add on some more commentary in the comments section of this post if I can think of a better way of articulating my (non-)feelings about this set.

Either way, they were a hit with the crowd, although they rarely acknowledged their fans. Much like last night during Kraft's set, we all kept on checking in with each other, curious to see if one of us would start to like it. S. and his girlfriend, D., gave up and left about halfway through, but the rest of us stick it out for all 3 hours of their extended set.

I only managed to get a couple of pictures, but I got three pretty decent videos, including one taken a higher spot in the club, giving a nice view of how the lighting system works at the Rex (see last video).

4h30-6h00: Jack de Marseille

I had never heard of Jack de Marseille, but Fantômette told me that his was the first DJ performance that really surprised her and drew her attention to the genre. His set was great, with very much the sort of sound that I would expect from someone that has been spinning (successfully) for many years. There were a few older and "classic"-sounding tracks, but mostly new stuff that probably fell somewhere between the techno and progressive house streams. I'm usually not a big fan of progressive tracks (they seem to be obsessed with 10-minute-long buildups and little else), but he made it work. It also helped that he sped up the tempo of the music in comparison to Slam. Overall, there was something more intense and driving about his set that I quite enjoyed.

At 5h30, as I was heading out to catch the first métro train, I walked up the steps from the basement-level club toward the exterior door. As I turned a corner between flights of steps, I saw a young woman sitting on the steps and leaning on the railing, looking as if she planned to spend the night there. "I wonder what she's doing over here when the party is still going on downstairs?" At that point, I stepped in a puddle of something warm and chunky.

Oh.