from last tuesday:

had to get that out of my head.

it is true, there is this song that i don't usually like, but when i .. um, apply it to someone, i like the song. interesting.

wonder how that works.

say the words for me. yeah.

i am playing tennis tonight! that i am excited about. i gotta go do some stuff now. bbak.

yeehaw!

also, another song just came on and if i think of that same person it makes the song unbearable. music is powerful, for me. association. . also powerful.

hey it is my dad's 60th birthday tomorrow. holy! i've been telling people he's 60 for several years -- now people will see that i'm actually right!

i saw this well off woman on the bus the other day. actually i see her all the time. she appears well off. unless you see her run each day to the bus stop to light up a smoke. i wonder who she is hiding that from. maybe no one. anyhow, she appeared to be a bit nutty while standing at the front of the bus yesterday, flirting with the bus driver. and then i wondered if insanity is a luxury.

from right now

well, after a week of thinking about it, i am not so sure about insanity being a luxury now. i think maybe i was on to something there. but mostly i think insanity and creativity are not that different. i think the difference is simply whether or not you use the people around you as a canvas for your creation. oh but some use people as a canvas and aren't insane -- so it's still just a matter of perspective. hmmm. what are your creative outlets?

blog update: the dns servers (dns1.lefty.ca through to dns3.lefty.ca) have stopped functioning, so i am not sure when i get my domain name back on the site. oh lefty! have thou forsaken me..

i am addicted to Secret Agent Radio. "The soundtrack for your stylish, mysterious, dangerous life. For Spies and P.I.'s too!" very much so. they have, as described, mysterious and quirky music. and very stylish. my life is now a David Lynch movie! bring on the weird shit.

i have a ton of pix from the weekend that i will post really soon. that weekend was good for unforseen reasons which i now see and am experiencing. interesting. hmm! that pic at the top, you can click on it for biggie version. yes.

Posted by davin at 1:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

hi. ya. it is friday night.

party up in duncan, there is also a party on saturday night. maybe i will save myself for that nite. i dunno what saving means. i want to play tennis tomorrow, but weather may prevent that from happening.

too. much. coffee. today. what!

i watched huckabees last night with The Amalia and jen. what a weird movie. good though, i recommend it. a bit different. i like that.

so i met with james roy and bruce beil today, and we are plotting for this years Victoria Electronic Music Festival. although i have no specific details to tell you at the moment, i can tell you that i am excited because we are looking to do some really cool stuff. and i am excited about that. woot!

our impromptu photogroffee proved to be a bit too improptu but i did get some cool shots regardless. in any case, it was good to catch up with james, adrian, and gurton.

going to go have a bath and then i am going for a drive with richard. after that i may drop by deep to see yoseff / maria / josh because i have not seen them in some time and i miss them. i may also go to duncan to see braeden spin, but that depends on who i get to go with me. i am feeling a bit tired right now (coffee burnout) so it is looking dubious. maybe i'll go and hang out outside the entrance.

cool.

not.

Posted by davin at 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

yes!

Posted by davin at 6:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

so i was reading this article on a photographer who was in iran during the revolution of 1978-1979, and it had this real cool bit on photo grain that i wanted to share with joo all:

-- bill jeffries on akbar nazemi's photo exhibit currently showing at the North Shore's Presentation House Gallery until April 17th.

Posted by davin at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

clicky on the bottom one for bigweed. haha.

Posted by davin at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

me and khan first met liam 7 years ago in victoria. he had come up from seattle to see a dj named john digweed (dave seaman was there too). he got in touch with me because i had made the website for the event and i gave him a bit of info on victoria.

over the years we all became dj's (ariz0na, liam sevier/ellusion, djkhan), never losing touch, keeping up with the latest music, and eventually bringing eachother to gigs and whatnot. we've hit a good chunk of the major progressive shows together in the pacific north west over that time and become really good friends.

on friday night, it was fitting then, that it was John Digweed DJing at a club in Seattle -- the day before Liam was to move away to Phoenix, Arizona. so we went down Seattle this time to say good bye.

every thing changes .. nothing stays the same ..

Posted by davin at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

you guys are all sooooooooo yesterday. TRANCE RAP is the way of the future. Just ask John Digweed who recently changed his name to J-Digs and now raps over his latest Bedrock Trance Music. "Sasha thought that he'd be all sophisticated with his remixing but I found the way to really take everything to the next level."

J-Digs [left] poses with TRANCE RAP mastermind A-Rizz [right]

Some of J-Digs latest rhymes:
WALK UP TO THE DJ BOOTH
COME CLOSE AND RUB MY TOOTH
MADE OF GOLD,
IT'S TWO YEARS OLD -
WHAT!

N*GGAZ WILL SEE
J-DIG'S OUTTA CONTROL
I WILL TRANCERAP
INTO YOUR SOUL
WHAT!
WHAT!

J-Digs - T-Rap 001 forthcoming on the new Bedrock Sublabel B-Rock T-Rap. "J-Digs does bring it every time. A verbal ninja with rhymes to spare, this is something you need to experience to truly understand. Damn.." A-Rizz said in an exclusive telephone interview, while simultaneously breakdancing in an undisclosed North American urban location.

okay I may or may not have completely made that up with Quentin over MSN a minute ago. the picture is real and from about 7 years ago. i am going to seattle tomorrow night to see my good friend Liam off as he is moving to, of all places, Arizona, and I wont see him for a while. The irony. Oh, and John Digweed will be there too, and he may or may not be rapping.

Posted by davin at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

somnambulistic while remaining blameless
and combusting sounds from the devil's playlist
technics would call me a turntable sadist
leave your head feeling all cumulous nimbus
beatmix your soul till you're cross and faded
lost in the breakdown turn, feel less jaded
you spin the tune backwards to hear what was said
voodoo grooves that will raise the dead
crawl into your brain then i cut and paste
making beats from the nightmares then we'll turn them into breaks
we'll make the bassline oscillate
as we fuel it with your anger and inject your hate
we'll extract the essence of the grimace on your face
give it low end fury to make it so bass
so we leave and by weird example
i'll pillage your village then loop it as a sample
play back your life in a tune
you'll all be affected 'cause no one's immune
we're motherf*cking twisted
distort the frequency

words: hybrid - sleepwalking

Posted by davin at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ohnoes!

ohnoes!!!!!!111
+ lollerskates
+ roflcopter

Posted by davin at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

i did not know this, but oranges make me crazy! i sliced up a big one today and it is not super flavourful but there sure is a lot of it. and eating an orange is a truly satisfying thing if it is not messy. this is not messy. i learned from somewhere that if you use a knife it makes things better in the orange world. i am here to tell you that it is true! yes, knives can make your lives better. and other things that rhyme. what!

i am beginning to think there is some more value to the livejournal approach as spam becomes more and more annoying. they have some built in measures to prevent spam and they were bought out by 6 apart, the same company that makes typepad and most notably, moveable type -- the product that they made and now has made them.

i signed up for an account under the name "davinzona" so if you are on there, add me in so when i click on friends i get to see your entries automagically. integrated systems baby. i think it is safe to say that the whole pinging / blogspam has kind of tainted the blog experience for me and i am not certain how to deal with it really. there is money in spamming, there is no money in anti-spamming. so it will not go away. urggggggh!

well okay bye.

Posted by davin at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

The first collaboration between myself and Anand (the other half of Tiebreaker) came as an ambient tune that Anand wrote while watching WWE Raw is War. I recommended a few blippy ambient noises and then they were all there. I did a breakbeat remix that got a fair bit of play from the prog breaks community. Steve May did a progressive house remix which Sasha and Digweed spun at WMC during the American Airlines arena party. Still one of my favorite releases on Pacific Front Recordings.

1. Tiebreaker - Prominence (Original mix)
2. Tiebreaker - Prominence (Steve May's Doing It For The Digital Slut remix)
3. Tiebreaker - Prominence (AFK's Mah-seev Breaks mix)

Listen and Buy (beatport.com)

Posted by davin at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

there was some confusion about MSN shutting down its support for Mac. what they actually shut down was support for the client side software for MSN, which is not MSN messenger, though one might wonder, hence confusion.

here is some clarity:

msn messenger is a piece of crap.

<rant mode="on" style="techbot: neonerd_rage;">

about .. randomly, every so often (one to five times per hour), msn decides to disconnect me. and sometimes not deliver messages as illustrated above. i have 150 people on my contact list and msn says that i can't add anymore because my list is full. i have deleted many contacts but this is it, 150 is the smallest it can be. really, 200 is, okay!? so this means if you are not already on my MSN list, you're not going to be in the forseeable future unless i go on some random deletia rampage.

the reason i use msn messenger is because most of my friends and contacts are on it -- some are for work. the problem is, everyone is on msn. that's both the problem and the selling point of the damn thing. it is broken. BROKEN! most of the time file transfers do not work in msn, yet they work in iChat (ariz0na at mac.com if you want to add me - on the AIM network; i am finding it much more reliable) just swimmingly. grrr. icq is like a ghost town and has its own set of problems.

the other problem i have with MSN messenger is that MOST people on the windows side of things are using the Beta version of 7 (i hear), and it, by default, treats the newest version of Mac MSN Messenger as an insecure version and doesn't let the windows user engage in file transfers with the mac user BY DEFAULT. this can be changed but most windows users haven't got a clue about how to go about doing it and it's not as if i am set up on a mac to do tech support for a beta windows piece of sssssssss ... oftware.

at other times, the application becomes incredibly cumbersome and wont speed up unless i quit and restart the damn thing.

</rant>

have a look at gurton's photos from the weekend! i am actually in some of them!

Posted by davin at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

out of all contexts and scenery
it shows laughter rings inside of me
aching paths don't cross so easily
break my back to see things differently

so glow
we've held off the cold
low and behold
turns winter spring and fall

the business photo by jaime. bidness. click on the photo above for bigger, and the two ducks one as well. :)

music: u.n.k.l.e. - glow (hybrid remix)

Posted by davin at 1:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

pwned hankerchief by the ginger ninja, photo by teh gurton. bidness.

Posted by davin at 1:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by davin at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Posted by davin at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

it's raining out today and i am relieved by this for some reason. I think it could be because i am relieved whenever something changes. i get antsy. the weather was nice yesterday and it spooked me for some reason.

hey this morning they were testing the fire alarms at 7 AM in this building. is that sooooooooooo cool or what!?

umm i am going to do an Argonauts - Sommertag edit. it is going to be huge, it's been in my head for the last couple years! last night i worked several hours on Emerald Green - Reach Out and i think it is done. music's been on the down-low production wise in the last little while as myself and Justin take care of some of the music-label-exec type stuff, but I have a feeling .. you know the feeling when you know you have the creative juices in you because you can feel the change in the air. and it is inspiring.

i am also thinking of doing an edit or complete remix of the Pet Shop Boys - Being Boring. i think i fell in love with this choon and it became a huge part of my credo in or around 1990 -- flying high in the sky from Calgary to Toronto on the way to Trinidad. this was the one standout tune that Air Canada was playing on their in-flight radio rotation and myself or Krishen would notify the other whenever it came back on and we'd enjoy the tune as we gazed out over the infinite expanse of the great Canadian prairies. when Krishen took the plunge and bought a CD Ghetto Blaster not long later, his first CD was the Pet Shop Boys - Discography and it had Being Boring on it. we regularly pointed the ghetto blaster out the front window of the kitchen or living room and play basketball in the driveway. i listen to it now and it is really progressive house from 15 years ago. it hard marked, at the time, a departure (surprise surprise) for the Pet Shop Boys from their previous Disco style into a more sophisticated contemporary sound, one which they would take with them and evolve into their trademark sound for years to come.

still hearing the opening pads reminds me of elevating in a plane, clouds and land far beneath and awesome blue skies above. and those pads are in a lot of the progressive house and progressive breaks and progressive trance that i play and continue to produce..

for a lot more information on this track, check out www.10yearsofbeingboring.com. for now, here are the brilliant brilliant lyrics, especially humbling to one who is writing lyrics now:

I came across a cache of old photos
And invitations to teenage parties
Dress in white one said, with quotations
From someone’s wife, a famous writer
In the nineteen-twenties
When you’re young you find inspiration
In anyone who’s ever gone
And opened up a closing door
She said: we were never feeling bored

And we were never being boring
We had too much time to find for ourselves
And we were never being boring
We dressed up and fought, then thought: make amends
And we were never being boring
We were never being bored
’cause we were never being boring
We were never being bored

in my opinion, this is one of the best songs ever, by anyone. lyrics in bold changed my life from the age of 12 on. there have been those who have accused me of being too busy or doing too much or appearing to be careless with myself but this is it. this is your life, are you going to be boring? this is why i don't hold back. everything is made up of these fleeting moments.

Posted by davin at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

i heart The Amalia! clicky for biggie.

Posted by davin at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

i suppose if one were to assume i owe something to the blog, it would be some regular attention. something i've given regardless of how much i don't feel like sharing, or how much i have waaaaaaaaaaay too much to share. so there it is, it is usually one or the other. lately it's been my only connection to people and i kinda, honestly, resent that. i feel like blowing up this machine because it represents obligation and not a hell of a lot of satisfaction. it is that honesty that always seems to get me into some sort of trouble. i think i'd like to be in some trouble right now. i should be careful what i wish for, i think there is a lot of trouble i am not privvy to right now that i ought not to be.

in any case, i just got over some massive sickness and though i still have a lingering cough, i feel 1000x better than i did, say, a week ago. still whenever someone is close by with a cigarette my lungs can not stand it. i start coughing, they look (sometimes) guiltily at me, i'm not doing it for show. your cigarettes made me fucking cough, bitch. stop smoking in a covered area. anyways tonight on my brisk walk out of the seabus station on the north shore, this young woman (she doesn't get the absense of responsibility associated with 'girl,' she was old enough to know better) lit up as SOON as the seabus docked. for those not familiar, there's about 200 feet of corridor (not open air) that one must walk through after departing from the seabus. yeah it's pretty standard i think, it's called a terminal station at a dock. whatever. the point is that she rushed to the front of those departing from the seabus and proceeded to walk hurriedly while puffing the evil stuff and polluting the walk for everyone. thank you, inconsiderable wench. i felt like saying something to her after passing her, but talking too much when the throat is already irritated doesn't help matters.

what an interesting weekend. i didn't get the physical activity really that i wanted, but i am sure next time i will. instead i had fabulous waffles (thank you jaime) and some urban strolling, looking for a new place to live in the west end. so i did get some exercise. well i always do -- that is the one advantage of not having a car is that i do quite a bit of walking and i manage to take in some new sights that one might ordinarily just drive by. it was actually quite a good weekend -- dinner at my aunt and uncles tonight, some appartment hunting, great conversation on saturday afternoon, a wee bit of picture taking, everything is in order at the apartment and i got some work done on projects for adrian and steve. (seperate.) so that is progress. oh! and some more ideas for the next track i am going to do with jaime. so in retrospect everything sounds dandy doesn't it? yeah it does. sometimes taking the baby steps is hard though and it doesn't feel so good. i made some wise decisions this weekend and, though they were really hard at the time, i am glad i stick with my sense of integrity and dignity. hows that for windtalking? seriously that is okay. if i know you well enough you know what i am talking about, and if not, you'll probably figure it out on your own. that's okay. some things are fine staying private.

privacy is an interesting concept. i am not saying that dignity can not exist outside of privacy, but they sure do cramp eachothers style sometimes, dontcha think? sometimes you just know what people are going to judge about you. and you don't want to give that power away. people say they aren't judgemental but at the end of the day, you know they are, you can feel it, you can sense it in comments they make, it just is the way they are. and i am not saying it's wrong to be judgemental -- i think it is important to be, afterall, it is the basis for instinct and gut feeling, and where would you be without that?

i miss having DJ friends around. last night i hung out with Brett (Soma is his DJ name) last night for a bit. he's cool and laid back and it's pretty easy to talk to someone if you know you have that common ground with them. i saw him spin for a bit at the Tokyo Lounge (which is snazz btw) and i like his approach to DJing. he's good. i should say that i miss having DJ friends that play regularly in vancouver -- and that i hang out with and my friends. my pal DJ Khan mysteriously dropped off the face of the planet and isn't returning phone calls (along with some other friends) so that is rather irritating and i do miss the guy, along with my expansive cohort from victoria, some of whom i hung out with on friday at Sonar when Braeden was DJing there. yeah I do like that.

i have to say it is really good to be out of the house again. spending that much time in the apartment was really unhealthy (though healthy at the same time because i was recovering from The Illness) but my energy to be inside and working The Studio dwindles when my primary concern has become surviving in the damn place.

i think that it is interesting that the photo i posted tonight is not a black-and-white photo, but there is very little color to be seen in it. and really, the grey is just the concrete and not the art piece or the message. 'i love you' is not a matter of being hazy or confusing, it is clear and you know it means something intense. it is black and white with no inbetween. you either love someone, or you don't. it is that simple.

what i love about visiting my aunt, uncle and cousin in kitsilano is that they've always lived there, as long as i can remember. so it's like this amazing grounding experience going there, it's this part of my life that has existed since i was a kid (though i used to spend more time in the backyard when i visited years ago) and mostly it is the same, though i see my relatives in a completely different fashion now. they're more open to me as well, making jokes and talking about things we wouldn't normally have talked about before. visiting without the rest of the family around always changes things with any relatives though, it's always a different dynamic. anyways their timing was impecable and when i needed some grounding, probably the most i have in the last oh -- month, or so, they called me (i was going to call them up and see what they were up to) and invited me for dinner and general banter which is always enjoyable. the usual tech-talk with my uncle got a little more involved tonight -- he is always looking out for the latest trends (and beyond) so talking tech with him is fun and interesting. the food is the best as it always has been so that, if you know me, is totally satisfying and really, when i think about it, i've been spoilt today, first by jaime's superwaffles, and then by my uncles cooking. so i owe somebody some amazing meals -- whoever trusts me enough to cook for them, that is. yeah just come over and i'll cook it for you. yes i love the company.

ray is out on video, i wanna see it.

charles sent me an awesome email tonight. i plan on responding (of course, as i do with all awesome emails) but sleep must come first. good night all.

Posted by davin at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

not that there is anything wrong with the funk. it's just a saying. i've been struggling with what to write about lately. being sick doesn't really afford me much in terms of events to talk about, because i have been house-bound, except for last night.

last night myself and jaime did a wee show at a photogallery show @ Cafe Deux Soleils -- a funky cafe on Commercial Drive (East Vancouver). from what i could tell it went over really well, and that is saying a lot -- it's no small job singing an 11 minute tune, and jaime did swimmingly well. that has me excited to make more music with her -- yes, it was our song performed last night and we plan on making more. those that were there saw the beginning of something special. our next choon, we have agreed, is going to be downtempo. time to try some new things.

it was very cool that my pals mattwhat and thor came down to hang out and take in some tuneage. it makes a big difference to have friends come out and i really appreciated it. since i was DJing most of the night i didn't get to socialize.

i've been working from home, getting lots done and then lying down to rest myself -- to try and kick this cough out the door, the last stand of the passing illness. it's stubborn like a barnacle on a west coast rock though, and is very unclear about its departure date. grrr.

i am listening to a CD that my good friend charles gave to me a long while ago -- it says on it "where ever I am, I am what is missing." it's really good, it kind of sounds like the sneaker pimps. it's by a band named laika. kind of girl-nobody-ish too. well hopefully i'll be able to hang out with charles this weekend coming up. he's been really busy with school. i should say even though. even though he's had a remix come out on pacific front, a full release, and another upcoming remix, he's been impossibly busy with school. so i haven't had a chance to connect with him. life gets busy. and tricky. and so.

things i miss: feeling healthy. like, eating right, getting physical activity, feeling fit, energetic. i always feel most energetic and full of life when i am physically exhausted from doing. after my lungs are back in order i plan on changing my lifestyle to include more physical activity. and the weather is starting to warm up so it is almost time to take advantage of Vancouver's superior outdoor amenities.

i think that's what is missing from my life, my life is missing that balance .. it is all work, work work. need more play, healthy play. like a hike-photogroffee would be amazing because it would combine people, physical activity, and photography and we would have accomplished 3 things at once. yeah that would be grand. like mount finlayson grand. who is in? this sunday. yes, THIS sunday. hopefully i will be in condition to do this by then. that is my goal.

Posted by davin at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

all that is left now is a really dry throat and some of The Evil Stuff in my lungs. the doc says i have bronchitis but since i am a healthy guy regularly, administrating medicine wont make a difference to the overall recovery time at this point. i am planning on leaving my apartment to go to the office to work from there for the afternoon so wish me luck out there in the cold, wet & cruel world.

i am eating some of the ultra delish soup that jaime brought me last night to make me feel better. what a good friend! i am the lucky. did you know we have a show at a photo gallery on commercial drive tomorrow? well we do! i wasn't sure if i was going to be able to make it until yesterday when i started to feel much better (and hence i worked). i will supply more of The Details tonight.

Posted by davin at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)