i think it was around


i think it was about 2 years ago that these posters were up on poles and walls all around Victoria. Chlorine used to be on Thursday nights at the defunct Neptune Soundbar. Neptune Soundbar’s old space is now occupied by Diablos Nightclub. Yoseff, Nigel Haze and Jemma put the night together for the most part, and I ended up helping out. Along the way DJ Brian also joined us to become a resident of one of the most well known progressive nights in Victoria’s bar history.
The clubnight’s attendence tapered off in early 2001 and the night was put to a hault temporarily around that time. I remember just getting over such silly conceptions about being paid for a gig just before then. I had never thrown a club night or a party, nor did I have any desire to. I didn’t want to be responsible for paying people, maybe out of my own pocket if necessary. I had only just dropped the notion that I was entitled to a certain amount of money for a gig.
Since then, in 2002, I’ve thrown 3 months worth of successful clubnights with Craig / Bedlam and Adrian / Mischiff at 11 Stones. The clubnight there was called “Experience” and I’m not certain that Experience is over yet either. The problem there is the actual night club. It has had 3 fires in just as many years. If only it would stop burning down, we could have gotten something special going. In any case, I have a preference for buildings that don’t go up in flames and as such I’ve moved on. Hush provides stability where there was no hope with the other club, but I only see that in retrospect. For the most part, the people at 11 Stones were great and I had some excellent experiences, but also some not so great ones. There was confusion, there was disorganization, there was bad communication.. etc etc. I’m really glad I got to work on something with Adrian and Craig though, that experience in and of itself was fun and entertaining and worthwhile on the whole. We didn’t make much money over 3 months. Probably paid for some records. But we didn’t lose any either and we ended up having a pretty regular crowd by the time the club closed because of the latest fire.
It’s nice to be working with Yoseff again. Experience was also on a Monday night. Monday nights are a hard night to sell. You have to pretty much convince people to go out on a night that follows the most dreaded morning of all — Monday Morning. They even have songs about how awful Monday mornings are. I have to admit, it’s frustrating seeing what Experience had built up, and then having to press reset before anything really blossomed out of the whole deal. Putting the same amount of energy into Chlorine has unfortunately yielded lesser results thus far. We’ve talked to Hush about changing Chlorine to another night but we encountered a straight up stone wall. Through talking we found out that we do have the option of doing one-off Friday nights.
That could be a lot of fun.
Freezing at the door of Hush waiting for about 15-20 people to show up over the span of about 4 hours is not really that much fun. I understand everything about investing time and energy, and that it is required to build a night, but I see time being the biggest resource drain of all in this particular case. I’m not sure what else we can do to get people to come out on the Monday night. We don’t have drink specials.
We do open early — we start at 9 pm and go til 1 am. Myself or Yoseff work the door, switching off when one or the other is DJing. I design posters for a monthly 11″ x 17″ b&w poster that gets printed by Brent and distributed by Braeden. We advertise on www.ravevictoria.com with a banner ad that points to the Chlorine website. Our events are listed on the same website. We book local DJs that spin progressive house or progressive trance or progressive breaks. Maybe we should mention the word “progressive” somewhere on our website or print advertising.
I’m taking Monday night off to go for a visit to Vancouver. I hear John Digweed will be there that Monday night as well but I’m not so sure if I am going to go see him. I don’t think I would’ve said that 2 years ago, but .. times have changed.

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4 Comments

  1. geez,
    yeah times certainly have changed. on the island. and in the scene as a whole. parties are far and few inbetween, and the scene has fractured into seperate almost militant-“your music sucks!”-factions. i can’t understand this mentality, and i’m not going to waste my time trying to. in the most versatile and accepting cultures there is, ravers(for lack of a better term, plus generalisation is fun!) are very stubborn, close-minded and over-defensive. i count myself as being priveledged enought to have played at chlorine at neptune when it was still jumping. that was one of the first times i ever played out too. i was sooooo nervous. but it rocked!! i don’t play out very often, especially lately, because i never get to play what i want to. but in all honesty, that’s my own fault. i think people often don’t understand what i’m doing, and my sick sense of humour is often reflected in what i play. but yoseff and davin let me play at the new night,m and i played what i wanted to and it was a wicked set imo! it’s too bad only they were there to hear it, hehehe! story of my life….
    as for the scene, i dunno. i hope it’s just a phase. an ever revolving phase…

  2. chrissie,
    i haven’t seen diggers spin since nov ’98 at noble house’s memorial arena party “cream/bedrock”, so for me, seeing mr ‘weed is long overdue. i think davin just saw him in may, though. it’s a matter of pacing…
    davin,
    i had lots of fun at experience, and from what i could tell on the floor, so did everyone else. it was great fun inviting my friends down. one big thing that got people coming out was just the mere presence of vodka/redbull — even if it wasn’t at a discount.
    by the way, you got me addicted to prog. now I wish there was more of it here!
    http://pub2.ezboard.com/fpaintedpuppy56588frm20.showMessage?topicID=21.topic
    sure, things may not be happening that quickly at hush right now. and sure — one thing 11 stones had going for it was its new environment. however, nothing’s stopping the khlorine kru from transforming hush into an EPIC SPACESHIP OF TRANCE&lt/fry&gt with a few well placed decorations. 🙂
    by the way, at uvic, the clearihue building’s first-floor d-wing hallway is one of the most well-seen areas on campus. i’d plaster it with as many posters as you can afford!
    by the way, i ate at a chinese restaurant for lunch today, and my fortune said “you have the ability to analyze and solve any problem”, so you have to trust me on this one.

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