this weekend was quite great. my main purpose was to go to chicago to see Gabriel & Dresden at spundae, and saw them i did, but really that was only part of the weekend. it has been a while since i've journeyed off on my own where my destination was barren and completely void of any friendship or roots that i could fall onto. i basically went alone, and was alone. and suceeding in having an excellent time. man, i hadn't been down to chicago in almost 10 months. acen was the last time.
on top of my spundae stop, i added a few more places to check. the groove shop in rockford, mitsuwa in arlington heights, and the 'trance addict' meetup at this bar near spundae. after getting all my maps together and printed out, i set forth.
the drive was smooth, surprisingly. galena is very beautiful, as it was the last time i went through there. an hour and a half later i got to rockford, i took the offramp to go to the groove shop and there was this HUGE accident on the road. massive. a tiny pickup truck must have been going 50 mph slammed (t-boned) into another car turning into the gas station. the truck was completely smashed, like an accordian. the other car was also completely wrecked as well.
traffic was being held up as fire trucks and ambulances came screaming down the street to aid the victims. i had never seen such a massive crash in real life. jesus. i bet if i would have gocked a little more i could have seen blood, and lots of it. man.
anywho, the groove shop was a little hidden from the plain view of my eyes. i had the address correct, and pulled into the place where it should have been. but all that was there was this auto shop. as i was pulling out of the place, i saw a sign on the side say 'groove shop'.. so i parked and went inside. it was basically a warehouse type atmosphere. you had the auto stuff over on the one side, some billiards equipment off to the other, and then records and dj gear in the back. i found a great deal of dj flyers, which was exactly what i was looking for.. mission accomplished.
afterwards i went to the atm for some breather cash in case i needed it, and then bought some of the best double cheeseburgers from mcdonalds i've ever had. it was actually cooked! tasty, meaty, cheesy, bug-free delicious. it was like ronald mcdonald actually shat in my mouth. i guess the state that gave birth to mcdonalds actually has a damn good reason why they are successful.
another hour later going on i-90, i reached arlington heights, my next stop: mitsuwa. it was great seeing the place again. the anime store's ddr machine was upgraded to extreme at some point within the last 10 months. they also added a para machine and beatmania IIdx machine to the outside of their store. they actually had Final Fantasy X2 International + Last Mission too. man that was quick, it only came out last week.
for some reason the book store doesn't carry famistu or any other video game magazine. i don't quite get that. maybe i'm just looking in the wrong place or something.
now that i more versed on cooking and far easten foods i actually spent a little time in the grocery store looking at what they have. they sell octopus tenticles. kristina pointed out that they must not have sold any that day because they were eight left ^_^. come to think of it, i should have looked around the fresh foods section a little more for some crazy stuff. i did buy anything that i could put in my fried rice.
though i certainly bought something to help me cook it. a beautiful wok pan. only $14 and better than anything i'd find around here. man i love that pan so much. i cooked some eggs in it earlier and it was marvelous. its double handled, so you can grab it from either end. its completely teflon, non-stick. it doesn't get too hot that it burns butter if you have the temperature up too high. and the base is magnetized, so it sticks to the stove AND heats up much quicker than that other pan i was using. i just need a better spatula now that work with the circular design of the pan.
after finding such a beautiful pan, i went on further. their ramen is dispersed throughout the store instead of in one set aisle. i found 3 seperate spots. one of which didn't have anything that excited me. another aisle i bought a few things from. and then i found their seperate section for the 'nong shim' instant meals. ha ha. i bought one of each of what i have not eaten yet. i also found this to be amusing.
the whole trip was timed out quite perfectly, i ended up staying at mitsuwa until close, which was really just an hour. after i bought all my stuff, i took off to the bar for the 'trance addict' meetup. i parked in the same garage i always have when i've been in chicago. this bar was cleverly picked only 2 blocks away from visions. nice job.
the meetup was quite fun, though technically a bust. the reservation was for about 25 people, but really only 5 of us showed up. sad. not including gabriel & dresden. they were really nice. easy to talk to, though i really only listened for much of the time. gabriel had some interesting things to say about how he writes music. where instead of thinking or focusing on melodies and 'tunes', he works with textures. how all of sound is texture and finding textures that work and blend together is the key to how he writes and mixes music. later on, it was great to see him put his words into action. ^_^
the trance addict folks were really nice. i didn't feel too out of place, though i was the only one in college. i don't know if the others graduated or didn't go, but it felt.. off. they weren't older or anything. basically same age. and they LOVE armin van buuren. he is their god. and right so. the one time i saw him, he knocked me off my socks. he's been to minneapolis, a total of once, but chicago?.. since the beginning of last year, i think he's been to visions 6 times. one of which was last week ^_^. and guess what. they still talk about armin @ spundae, august 30th last semester. ARHHGGHgg.. jesus. that was truly one event i should have been at. it would have been my chicago trip for that semester too, but no. sad.
standing in the guest list line (thats right, i was on the list, baby) was pretty funny when the one of the 'trance addicts' ahead of me was mocked by the bouncer for his tennis shoes. "you normally wear tennis shoes when you go to clubs?" "yes" "well don't". ba-zing.. i chuckled. i guess psuedo boots > tennis shoes.
almost the whole night inside the club, i 'buddied' up with one of the trance addicts who had very similar tastes to my own .. at least for that night. it was great making fun of the shitty house music john 'bid' simmons was spinnin' before hand. "on the first day, god fucked up and created man. on the second day, god fucked up and created house music." hehe. ah memories, much like hybrid last november when stu, kristina, and i were doing the same to mason t's opening set. "there's penis all over my body".
after the longest two hours of the night were over, james holden shined. like the sun. he kept the energy going through the roof. this is what my money went to ^_^. its kinda disturbing that he looks alot like bill. fricken weird. i think bill and james holden both need haircuts.
two excellent hours later, gabriel & dresden hit the decks. first it was dave dresden who started with a NEW mix of beautiful things. ^_^. and then another song i've heard before, and then another song i've heard before. he spun for about 45 minutes i think, and then josh gabriel took over with his apple laptop. he uses ableton live and has all his tracks on there. throughout the entire night, he basically played all stuff he wrote or remixes so he was probably using his raw files. i was always wondering how he was able to mix and sample a record into itself multiple time during a set. i guess thats how ^_^
i agree with most of the 'trance addicts' that gabriel & dresden's set was not near the calaber of james holden. afterward i felt empty from them. it was great hearing all the music i've heard on the internet since last summer, but.. that was pretty much it. the set seemed to go from texture to texture alright, but never built up or expanding upon any one part in particular. as an encore he played what sounded like a new remix of As The Rush Comes. heh. finally heard that one live.
on my way out, i made sure to swipe the only sasha poster left hanging on the wall and plenty of flyers for sasha as well ^_^. i am SOOOO freakin' pumped for him, i cannot wait. right now my door is pretty much completely sasha. it'd be pretty sweet to get some of my stuff signed by him. i think if i brought too much stuff for him though he'd start fucking around. like writing FUCK YOU on it, or something equally twisted. its gonna be fricken packed though. i haven't been to visions when there's no room to move.
anywho .. i actually stayed the entire night of visions, instead of the past 2 times where i ducked out early. so i left chicago around 5am, and stopped at a motel back in rockford for some sleep around 6.30ish. i woke up about 5 hrs. later with the sun on my face, i now have a slight darkening in my cheeks ^_^. and then proceeding back 'home' to platteville.
an excellent weekends, with another excellent weekend coming up this week with megalan iv and plattecon all rolled into one. video games, anime, and nerds oh my! i just need to get that website under control. must finish yearbook before wednesday. i was going to do it today, but it just didn't happen. man, i wish i had some recent time so i could fix my picture page of my site.