i got two of my photos outputting on 18" x 24" matte, and i framed them tonight. they look awesome. i need two nails to hang them with. one of them is the stone lady and the other is the wasp.

when all is said and done, it's $50 a pop for the framing and the large print. Expensive for a photo, cheap for a decoration.

i think the air in my appartment is making me sick. or the cold weather. i am going to sleep as early as i can tonight..

you know, there is something so awesome about bowling in surrey. on saturday night jason introduced me to his friends that he grew up with and i was privvy to this unique surrey phenomenon that most outsiders could not understand unless they were in on it. indeed, as they called it, crazybowling in surrey was an experience..

The last tear that you cried
Was your last wave goodbye
The first arc of the sun
Appeared in the sky
To light up the room
And all who stand round
Holding your hand

She gave you a flower
To plant before dawn
And gave us this house
With a wild green lawn
The longer it's been
The deeper it goes
No one can live
On this much sleep

If I let you in, you'll ruin my day
If I let you out, you'll look back and see
That I'm tired beyond belief
And I'm scared to fall asleep
I thought that I lay awake in my room
Until I woke it slowly seeped in
She beats on my chest, I've been here before
I thought that I heard feet in the hall

--
by The Zephyrs, remix by Ulrich Schnauss .. incredible tune, just stupidly good. i took the long way home tonight.

i am on the north shore right now, but basically if you could see it from downtown right now it would look something like this. clouds are over the city centre offices (hehehe) and it's clear and brilliant here, an usual juxtoposition but it seems to happen once every couple weeks. no arguements here, yesterday it was dark at 3 PM with cloud cover and all.

i am talking to rishi on msn about inevitabilities and we have agreed on a few, which is kinda a neat thing to share.

today is the day i get lots of work done. oh yeah, a tonne has already been done. i got a headache so i didn't go to carrie's b-day bash at sonar last night, instead i went to sleep at 10:45. 10:45 on a friday night! who's the party man? oh yeah! but i feel great today.

speaking of inevitabilities, i am just about done a second remix of charles' ultra cool "ghosted" track and he just finished up a remix of justin's enormous "voice of qi". remixes of prominence and dreamcache are being worked on and the wheels are in motion.

i guess this is a production post but i have been doing so many of them lately that i'd rather just make this a blog post. i mean this is my life, and it would be a blog post anyways, but posting pictures blows the crap out of the layout on the AFK site, a minor oversite on my part but easy enough to deal with.

lots to do, gotta go, see ya on the other side. it's definitely a pro-fit baseball hat day.

listening to live - throwing copper

every week for the last looong long time, the fabulous seattle dj chloe harris (whom i happen to have a huge crush on, shhh, don't tell) has been putting together mixes of the latest and greatest from around the world for the ever-up-front progressive-sounds.com website. so it is fair to say i am pretty stoked that she started this week's show off with my newest track, "emily's china."

if you're curious as to what emily's china sounds like, take a listen to the newest sound bytes. here is the tracklisting:

1. AFK - Emily's China [Unsigned]
2. Derek Howell - I Was Just Leaving [Bedrock]
3. Space Manoeuvres - Quadrant 4 (Dousk Terran Mix) [Lost Language]
4. Leama & Moor - Fact Of The Matter [Lost Language]
5. The MFA - The Difference It Makes (Superpitcher Mix) [Kompakt]

ps: last night turned out really good.

i am working away furiously at this new remix -- it is one of charles' tracks called "ghosted". though i am way behind my own schedule, i find myself working at an incredible pace, certainly faster than most times that preceed this. i think when you get inspired something cool happens.

i am inspired.

full of hope and wonder.

my life in black and white

my life in colour

the second release on pacific front recordings comes from justin humber, aka formulate. if you've been attending certain all night events and club nights in the victoria and vancouver area for the last few months, you've likely heard this blasting at the peak hours of the night.

"An eight minute dancefloor-igniting groover backed by a bassline that refuses to be ignored. Packaged with a fitful, punchy breakbeat mix courtesy of AFK."

• Formulate - Rising Edge (Original Mix)
  
• Formulate - Rising Edge (AFK remix)

my point of view: this is justin's first official release (if you don't count the PFRX releases, which are quite good) on Pacific Front Recordings. since plotting for the label began, a lot has changed, including me moving from victoria to vancouver, and possibly justin as well, and definitely charles. what hasn't changed over the last several years is justin's amazing talent for writing quality progressive house, and i am honoured to run a music label with him -- and also honoured to remix a track i lost it to on the dance floor earlier this year. how cool is that? so cool.

enjoy!

haa haa, woo hoo victoria! good times central.

friday night someone asked me something bery bery special and i said yes. omg. more on that later! *suspense*

after, i hung out with jenlucy, adrian, jen, ryan (dave), miguel and some more at the alibi room .. cool place in the east end.

saturday i made the 1 pm ferry, a feat of making a reservation for en-route pickup by PCL and seabus mastery. scheduling skillz. no main street bus for me. hah!

in the afternoon met up with charles, he gave me two records .. wicked. proggy breaks. mm. then we had dinner at my parents place and went to meet james pezguy at qv's. we ran into mike ph0ng and leah there, and then me james and charles went to go photoshoot the arena in construction. some neat shots were taken but we were both suffering from dead camera batteries.

thanks to erik starting things off right, i had a great night last night. home by 6:30. AM. i'll definitely leave it at that.

today i had lunch with new-hair jason and i guess it was actually breakfast. bluefox was full and with a lineup even at 2 pm so we went to avalon which was an unexpected and welcome delight. yummy breakfast food; i recommend their toast. then it was over to windrim's for some grey cup action. what a disappointing game. i remember why i don't watch the cfl anymore. besides not having a tv...

text messaging is working well this weekend. no long distance calls so far. thats what i expect. 3 photoshoots tomorrow.. very cool.

at 1:42 am on a cool friday night.

junkieXL .. unfortunately .. has been hospitalized .. and wont be able to make it to vancouver for the show tonight .. that's awful news, but the good news is that he's going to be okay. ph1 will reschedule when they can.

here are the questions i was going to ask him in the interview, please feel free to add any you think of (the interview will happen at the later to-be-determined date):

• what are you currently working on?
• favorite artists / influences
• any planned collaborations?
• what's it like touring places that DJ's usually play, what's it like doing a Live PA, how do you find the reaction?
• what changed for you between big sounds of the drags and radio jxl? the sound changed quite a bit.. where and when and how did the progressive house sound start for you?
• what is your creative process like? where do your ideas for tracks come from?
• how was it working with all the vocalists on radioJXL? were they collaborative efforts? are you planning other collaborations? how do you work together creatively, if that is the case?
• the producers corner on your website is already shaping up to be a great resource. the FM7 article was very informative. what else are you planning to do with producers corner?
• where are the junkiexl dancers from the giant photogallery?
• why did you move from the Netherlands to the United States, Los Angeles?
• is there any soundtrack work on the way that you can tell me about?
• are you DJing? i hear you are DJing on your Mac in public. is that true? tell me a bit about that and your views of the modern DJ experience, and how would you compare it to the LivePA experience.
• some comparisons are being drawn between you and BT after your last album, radioJXL came out. how would you say you are different than BT?
• what do you see happening next for junkiexl?

so, i'll be going to town tonight to meet up with a friend, and then maybe after that i'll check out alibi because it's miguel's birthday and adrian is over and making an appearance. woo! tomorrow daytime i am going to take the ferry to victoria. it'll be nice to go in the afternoon instead of the morning or evening. i'm looking forward to the relaxing ride. i work monday in victoria on a photoshoot and it's got me thinking -- well, besides doing some photoshoots at WMC in Miami early next year, i think i need to step the camera situation up a few notches. the g2 is awesome and i can take many SLR-like shots but at this point it's the lens on the camera that is limiting me. that and a speedlite. if i get a new canon 20d and a speedlite .. i know i could put it to full use. i just don't have the money to do it. yet. the g2 will last me a good deal longer but i know that i have mastered every piece, every function and nuance of it. i want a new challenge; the challenge lately has been getting out with the g2 and shooting. i have scoped out a few locations but haven't had the opportunity to go down and shoot the stuff. i am thinking mostly the dry-dock at lower lonsdale and the train tracks and all the trains. i don't really have anyone to go shoot with, it turns out, in north vancouver. heather's busy with her new job and i don't know anyone else who is a fiend for photography like i do in victoria. which makes me look forward to the weekend trip just a little bit more.

trance drive!!

here are some shots from joel's nikon d70. deadly camera. even some low-light action in here!

i am posting from the time warp zone, the time between 10 PM and midnight, the part of the night where i invariably have the most energy and time flies and i don't know what happened!

woah! this post took 1 minute.

got tonnes done tonight. i took a cue from work and made a to-do list for what i wanted to accomplish tonight. i have only EMAIL left to do. so that ain't bad. but i can spend an hour on an email if i get into it; when i was writing to dave this past year i would spend as much as 5 hours on a single email. granted, we were talking about heavy heavy stuff, but i was in that zone. that occurred from 1-5 AMish usually. it's just those times.. that's the same kind of time range when i am completely and totally creative. but i can't do that on a weeknight..

i took back the insider to blockbuster and told them the movie stopped half way through. which is true. i had to hack at the player to get it to start 30-45 seconds after the unplayable part of the DVD. they gave me a store credit. i didn't use it tonight. maybe later.

i payed all my bills, i talked at SOCAN and VISA, returned misaddressed mail, have looked at possible message board solutions for Pacific Front Recordings v2, and am listening to some Tuesday Night Music Club on a Wednesday evening. how sweet it is.

oh look, yeah 15 minutes disappeared whilst writing this. i think this might be the time of night that most of the people who i need to talk to are online. it just happens to be that way with the people i really want to talk to and they want to talk to me. or maybe it has nothing to do with that. but i am doing some talking here. this is what i am saying.

i am going to something super coor on december the 4th.

*excites*

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

into the dark
what happened
can't see you anymore
can't feel you anymore

i thought you might be
here to stay
where did you go

left behind
one more

time

i am tired .. so i am going to go have a nap for .. 1 hour .. yeah. i just wanted to post this pic i took on friday.

i am sooooooooooooooo tired. it's like. the weekend of no sleep. so.

after having dinner at my aunt and uncles on friday i went with anand to go see josee allard at the nelson st. cafe .. we met up with leah there. it was part of the new music west conference and it was a great show in an intimate venue. super, awesome! thanks for the guestlist action.

after that we went to lotus to check out cary chang and kevin shiu. more guestlist action. really good show as usual.. kevin even played the new Hi Fi Bugs track which i love. the edits are crazy and it's great to hear it loud. cary finished his set with grayarea's gravity and it rocked. hey -- it costs $23 to take a cab back to north vancouver from downtown.

now i know that. heheh.

josee mentioned that she had one extra wristband for the conference so i decided to go. i was originally going to skip it [on saturday] but i am really glad i didn't. so .. i was hoping that i would meet some key people in the industry that which could help pacific front recordings ..

as a joke i suggested that i attend with josee as her remixer / engineer and then we started talking about it.. she is interested in having one of her tracks remixed and it's a tune i quite like, so we'll be trading multi-track masters soon.. woohoo!

i want logic audio platinum. *pine*

cool conference bits: funding seminar, management seminar

it was great to finally get answers to some questions i have been asking for the last year or so. i knew the answers were out there, i just wasn't talking to the right people.. until now. i think this is part of the reason i moved to vancouver.. there is a lot happening in the music industry. i mean, nettwerk is based from here. i haven't inundated them with Pacific Front Recordings propaganda yet but it is shuffled somewhere into my deck for certain.

not as cool conference bit: a&r seminar

hearing one the a&r folks from a certain major label completely trash on band demos was a bit disappointing. he sounded so tactless.

* * *

leah and anand were over last night and we watched "the insider." i attemped to watch this movie a couple years ago but my attempt was thwarted by something. i am not sure what, i can't remember. however, i do want to say this right now: it was incredible. what a great movie. 9/10. that's my rating scale.. the only point it got off for was the borrowing of music from heat, another michael mann movie. come on michael! cinematography .. incredible. story .. even better. and the soundtrack was quite good anyway. acting was top notch .. russel crowe and al pacino. and, i mean, michael mann directing, so you know there are going to be some good scenes where the actors do their thing well.

i went for lunch with denise and jay today at browns. they have the best soup i have ever had (except for mom's chicken noodle soup). yummmy.

today is a day of cleaening up.. did laundry .. started at 3:30 pm and was done cleaning and doing laundry by 8:30. boring. i am totally pooped so i am going to sleep early after i am done chatting with one of my australian buddies about choons and producing. i think they are 7 hours behind but a day ahead. woot, i finally get it!

"hey want a drink?"

"sure"

[bird flies over]

[makes insane alien-like noises after listening to us drink]

"holy crap what was that??"

"china makes this noise.."

"i sooo want to sample that and put it in a song.."

* * *

"hi i brought my minidisc recorder.."

* * *

"so you're going to make a song out of this?"

"yeah.."

* * *

"you don't use the black keys on your keyboard very much. you need to use them more, i can tell by the dust sitting on them."

"yeah i don't know why i am always in a major key. i should try something different."

* * *

- a month later -

"hi i don't know if you're into this kind of stuff but the northern lights are going crazy right now."

"what .. what time is it .. 1:30 am.. woah .. there they are .. i'm going to try and take some pictures of this.."

* * *

-the next night-

"i like arpegiations that jump octaves."

"yeah those are cool."

"the pictures didn't turn out. all it looks like is a glowing sky. not unusual. but it was."

"come hear this ambient tune i did last night.. i made song elements to match the two different types of visual activity in the sky last night.. the green curtains and the white pulsating light.."

"wow. this is amazing."

[it was.]

* * *

- walking home at 1 am, looking for more northern lights.. seeing none, but seeing the city underneath a bank of fog.. wondering why i haven't made a completely ambient tune yet. inspired by something new.. -

* * *

i wrote the song between 1:30 and 5:00 AM and finished it off today..

i went to the ubc museum of anthropology on tuesday night to check out a lecture by patricia vickers. along the way, being lost in the fog, i took a few shots on the way in and the way out..

it's funny .. out of all the valuable things i have photographed in vancouver .. my favorite picture so far is this one of this garbage can.. worthless except that it keeps the quay clean and really knows how to clean up for a photo.. haha.

last night in the depths of whatever it is you want to call it, i told richard about how me and devon were listening to a bunch of switchgear tunes last week. she has a bunch burned on to CD and she put them on without telling me who it was.. and i was like "damn.. this is good .. what is this.. i know this.."

and then and there on msn i realized that me and richard have written two songs together and.. so i pulled them out. one of them was almost complete -- it was just in need of an ending and some polishing and bits and bats. so i got on it -- the first time i had really done any work on any music since i have been here in north vancouver. i plowed through it, making adjustments and tweaking -- and adding a whole new arpegiation complete with unique instrumentation. i loaded on a stack of new effects to various parts and voila. there it was!

i sent it to richard and he put it through some massive compression unit he's got over at his studio, and then he sent it back to me. huuuuge. i sent it to justin, he likes it so much he wants to do a remix of it (!) and made a couple helpful suggestions which i used on the second stab at it. i axed a bunch of reverb and i also put in two new percussion units which just slaaaaaay and the song is tite now. we don't have a name for the tune yet but i think "forgotten robots" is kind of a neat one, since we almost forgot about it. i sent it to richard and he engineered the compression on it once more, giving it a similar feel to my Nine Inch Nails remix in terms of ducking and such.

that felt really good to finish off a tune in the new place. part of the reason i felt awful yesterday was because i was thinking about how my new place was so perfect for making music, but i had not even attempted to make anything. rad.

update, 5:00 PM: maybe forgotten robots should be our alias? we don't have one..
update, 5:01 PM: i should mention that richard = switchgear. that makes this a bit more significant!

my phone bill is horrendous. and i feel like garbage and i can't concentrate on anything. i can't see myself napping either. it's time for something new. i just realized today that i spend 2 hours a day commuting. that includes 15 minutes walking to the bus stop, leaving another 5 minutes early so that i don't miss the bus, 25-30 minute busride up marine drive, and 10 minute walk to the office from the bus stop.

and reverse again.

i guess i am realizing that things aren't as peachy as i thought they would be here. or could be.

i look every day for a letter in the mail but all i am getting is misaddressed mail and correctly addressed bills.

sigh.

i am going to eat chocolate for dinner.

this wont be a kryptoblog windtalking post.

i got a complaint letter from building management about the noise on saturday night during my hauswarming party. i feel bad that i was responsible for keeping some folx from enjoying their saturday night 11 PM tea (??). (that's a joke.)

in all seriousness, i would have preferred to not have disturbed my neighbours, however, they did not phone or knock on my door -- therefore i didn't even have a chance to turn down the stereo or tell people to talk quietly on the deck. i don't even know which actually caused the complaint -- the building manager doesn't know either.

wow, this feels shitty that my neighbours wouldn't knock, the assistant building manager on duty wouldn't phone, but instead preferred to stay disturbed and write a letter.

THAT SUCKS.

maybe it's just the way i deal with things, but i don't feel like this was dealt with appropriately. i can appreciate it if they didn't want to disturb us in the middle of disturbing them.. but that makes no sense. so .. what?

so that is that. a letter really isn't so bad, but it's just so impersonable. i guess. and i would've preferred not to disturb them. i didn't know.

grrrrrr.

the hauswarming was über last night. the white cave was broken in .. in style. thank you to all who could make it. my place feels better with people in it. so much better. now i feel like i am here. having visitors and all. awesome.

anand and soren put together my new futon whilst i got ready for the party and sorted things out. i took care of them with gin and tonic and a fine selection of sleeman's best. the new futon pwnz and today i got a an external firewire dvd+rw drive, so i can watch movies. first one i popped in: the extended version of LOTR. niiiiiiiiice! i have to admit that i had to haxx0r OSX to let me play a DVD off of an external drive. apple disabled external drives from playing video due to some 'legalities' which they don't explain. anyway i haxxed it and now it works dandy.

i love this. i mean i think it's smart, but in an intelligent way. not smarmy-smart, but more like good intelligent communication. there's some thought here which goes a long way:

www.sorryeverybody.com

basically the site goes ahead and apologizes to the rest of the world (not america) for the election results. they claim to speak for the other 50% .. so they're not pretending to represent everybody.. just the democrats really. and the nader supporters. yeah. anyways the site explains itself fairly well and i think it's a fabulously simple but effective use of the internet.

the second picture is taken from the site. the first one was election night at jenlucy's.

thanks for that link jordan. if the site is slow it's because of a tonne of traffic. i mean that site. this site too, actually. davin.ws did a gig of traffic yesterday and would have continued .. krishen had some rad videos from ultimate on the server, but they became too popular and so he took them offline a few mins ago, which immediately made a huge difference in my download speed .. i am moving a bunch of files from work to home since i am working at home today.. and possibly monday as well.

reminds you of.. this is my list .. idea from someone..don't remember who.. you take this list of what reminds you of what and so on.. it's an association game.. i originally wrote this on 2002-09-20 22:21:06.. wow. it's been in draft for over two years..

Cranberries - Linger (reminds you of an ex-lover)
U2 - Until The End Of The World (reminds you of an ex-friend)
Legend B - Lost In Love (makes you cry)
Adam Sandler - Ode To My Car (makes you laugh)
Hybrid - Theme From Wide Angle (makes you wanna dance)
Our Lady Peace - Starseed (makes you wanna run and jump)
Longview & Ulrich Schnauss - Will You Wait Here (reminds you of the one you love)
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy (reminds you of the one you want)
U2 - So Cruel (you wish you wrote)
Coldplay - Amsterdam (you want to get married to)
Filter - Hey Man Nice Shot (makes you wanna mosh)
The Offspring - Bad Habit (helps you vent your frustration)
Pet Shop Boys - Being Boring (sums up your teenage years)
Dead Can Dance - The Host of Seraphim (you like to wake up to)
Live - Lightning Crashes (you love but you wouldn't know about it if it wasn't for a friend)
Lucas - Lucas With The Lid Off (you love the video more than the song)
Sarah McLachlan - Posession (reminds you of your 1st crush)
Moby - God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters (you love from your favorite movie)
Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up (you love to hear at clubs)
Global Communication - Alpha Phase (makes you think of the moon)
L.S.G. - Netherworld (makes you think of the stars)
Fresh Prince - Summertime (makes you think of the sun)
Lamb - Gorecki (makes you think of sex)
U2 - Mothers of the Disappeared (makes you think about death)
Depeche mode - Enjoy the Silence (makes you think of being alone)

i suppose it's 2 am. but what the hay! i redesigned the whole thing from start to finish tonight. thanks goes to jim for diligently testing it on the windoze side the second it arrived on the web. there were a few issues, but we ironed them out in pretty short order. now i just gotta redux the photo gallery and then we're set. i'm going to upgrade to the new version of gallery first tho. i'll save that for tomorrow night.

the photo is from begbie st. in victoria. emily pointed out the weird light from a nearby traffic light bouncing off the manhole cover.. since everything else is non-reflective, its pretty cool looking on its own!

i also (finally) have an "about" page. what should i put on there? whadya wanna know that you don't already know? this site was originally only intended for a few of my friends to have a boo at, but i see that there are a few more folks reading that i don't know. so here you go, this is your chance to ask me whatever you want and i'll answer it in the "about" section. whirred.

what a fabulous weekend. i got to hit the radio show up on friday night, go coffee with ria, met up with justin and james to move the pacificfront project forward, went on a little photoexpedition with james, went by gurton's with jim to put together the costume, and got dressed up for saturday night.

the cowboy.

the cowboy picked up his special friend the chinalady and they went for pre-halloween eats at the med grill, then went to upstairs cabaret, temple, a haus party, and then finally hush, wandered the streets of victoria for a bit, and then hit paul's motor inn diner and wrapping it up for the night.

it occured to me whilst wandering the streets of victoria with gurton on sunday that it was, then -- now at the time, still and actually hallowe'en. so we should still be in our costumes. but i had returned the goods and really saturday night was plenty. we had bronsh (brunch) at demitasse and then off to put together the rest of gurton's costume. i was to spend actual hallowe'en on the ferry. not that i trick-or-treat anymore, but it's more the thought that was sad.

the ferry was noisy, and i was tired. i bought a note pad and started writing my thoughts out so i could avoid spinning my thoughts in circles. on the trips back from the island it always happens. so i wrote it down, tried dozing for a bit but i couldn't because of the noise..

i used to travel back and forth between the island and vancouver a lot about 5 years ago four about half a year straight. it was actually a lot of fun, but what i remember most about that period of time was that music became my companion while i spent a lot of time traveling on my own.

when i got into downtown vancouver, the PCL let me off at burrard and robson. i don't remember the PCL ever going that way before but it did last night. it was about 9:30 PM .. having read earlier in the day about Ulrich Schnauss' latest remix work being Depeche Mode, it got me thinking that it would be a good time to pick up one of their older albums that i really like called "Songs of Faith and Devotion". instead i found the new Depeche Mode remix compilation, a triple CD of full length remixes, including the new Ulrich Schnauss remix of "Little 15". wow. what else should i really expect though? ulrich is amazing.. i hope he enjoys his music as much as i do because i want him to continue making it...

i told the chinalady that there are some entries on this blog that never make it past draft status .. meaning i can see it but no one else can, no friends, nobody. just me. the point being that writing helps me figure out my thoughts and the blog serves a nonobvious purpose..

there are entries that are somewhere between being a public blog post and being an unpublished one.. and those are usually edited and categorized as windtalking posts.

so there you have it. if you have ever thought about starting a blog, and have not because you don't want to tell everyone everything -- well, the news is that you don't need to *publish* everything.

the scrawling i did on the ferry on the notepad i bought is the closest thing i have done in terms of a personal journal in years. i don't know if i am going to write any more. maybe on road trips, maybe it'll be my travellogue. i am not even sure i want to read what i wrote in there, it's all raw thought expressed for the purpose of not holding it inside. maybe tonight i'll read it and see what i wrote..

sorry about the server being down today. this server is a hot puppy with its dual processors and my appartment's heat wont shut off. bad combination. it's been a month and the promise from the landlords is tomorrow.. FUCK! they better do it. i don't want my computer to melt.. besides that .. it's so warm all the time.. paradise for fruit flies .. but i wiped the last of them out over the weekend with the juice-in-cup method combined with the cd-slap-on executed with ninjalikespeed.