Groove City Festival (Brussels, BE)

8 p.m. I got there spanking early. There were barely 30 people on site. I remembered I ❤ Techno at 7 p.m. was already pumping. The rooms weren't packed but there was a decent vibe going on. The few people here hadn't quite warmed up yet. I was flipping though. I still had no contact whatsoever from my Parisian friends. They came over to Belgium just for this party. Little by little, the place started filling up. I checked out a bunch of the rooms they had. I even went to the drum n' bass lounge just to see what kind of set up they have. Truth be told, unless it's played in a deep Prague underground club or at Cross Club (also in Prague), I don't enjoy drum n' bass. Their electro room was rather small and unpopulated, so I didn't linger there either. So far I dug the light and sound of the techno room, so I stuck around. The place was the most crowded of all the rooms. at 9 p.m., Sebastien Leger came on. He's a French house/techno DJ from Paris. I could tell he had quite the following already because the place had doubled in capacity. I made a quick stop at the House lodge for a second time and concluded that the music there was not my type. It wasn't making me groove. So I went back to Sebastien Leger while waiting for my friends. They really trekked here for their favorite act, James Holden. And it seemed the whole crowd was crazy about the London-based spinner. I've never seen an audience strike back like they did last night. People going up to dance on stage and there was no security to stop them. Sometimes, a crew of the DJ would mention to the guy to get off, but it was totally amicable. If someone so much as made a move towards the stage in NYC, that person would have been dragged out onto the street by the rogue security crew. Here, it felt homey. Friendly, almost. It was as if we were all just attending one big house party. The Frenchies arrived for their beloved act, and we were grooving further to the prodigal beats of German DJ Sven Väth. (He doesn't have a myspace account and there are no uploaded videos of last night's performance but here are two excerpts from last year's groove city ). We couldn't even finish his performance. We were dead. We needed to sit down, walk around, do something besides dancing. Weather permitting. And last night, the weather was not permitting anything. It was raining a river. So we took refuge in the house lodge. We caught the end of Bob Sinclair's super commercial mix. It was really sad. That man sucks live. David Vendetta however, came to save the show. There was fight starting up at my left and my friends were recuperating close to me at my right. And the music suddenly hit me. I don't understand how I suddenly managed to move again, but I was dancing. As the music got better, I kept giving it harder. It came to a point where my brain no longer controlled what I was doing. I had no idea my body could or would move like that. People around me probably thought I was on some new miraculous dancing drug (not the case). The man and his violinist just tore it up with a electric violin rendition of small town boy, MGMT's "Kids," "Seven Nation Army" and "Sweet Dreams." No videos of last night are up on youtube yet, but I asked a girl who filmed the entire cathartic finale to put it on youtube. Waiting to relive that magical moment!

Sure Thing! Surkin is on my Saturday night playlist!

I know I'm a bad sport. I hate to admit it when French DJ's are awesome. Now I am presenting Surkin, a small French prodigy, despite my reservations. See the thing is... I love France. I love their music, I love their movies, I love their culture, I even love their super-strict education system which I was a prisoner of for 15 years. But they get on my NERVES when they try to use my open-mindedness about the world's greatest dj's against Belgium's ability to throw the sickest raves on the planet! But, if I'm going to let them gloat, I may as well use this dude, who was man enough to produce this sick remix of boys noise's "Don't Believe The Hype." Naturally, he has created equally, if not superior mixes of his own, like the uber vibing White Knight Two. Though I hated David Guetta's track "Sexy Bitch" for marking his demise into pop music, Surkin's Hoes Get Down proves that you can put the word "Ho" in the title of the track, and repeated it throughout the number and NOT turn it into techno from the ghetto. "Gangsta's" and "Homies" have hip-hop and rap. Leave the electro to the European kids!

Czech out this DJ

So I went to Prague for the weekend. On top of being beautiful, this is a great town to stay up late in! I came back for nostalgic purposes. I lived here for four months in 2008 and had such a good time, I just had to come back to scope out the scene. Now that I am in Belgium, I can afford to city hop on a whim (literally, I can afford it... it was a 30 euro round-trip flight). When I checked out a bunch of the local DJ, I found that the most well-known of all, is DJ Lucca, a girl. A blonde girl! And don't let her apperance fool you, because this hottie can deliver a goddamn beat! Regrettably, she will not be performing in Prague while I am here (she's in Poland right now), but I checked out her schedule and found that the elektrolady will be performing at Austria's Rave on Snow and that she joined Chris Liebing on his tour in South America. If you want to groove to her tracks, check out the songs "Quantum" and "Woodblocker" on her MySpace. I can linger on her page for a while listening to her stuff. It doesn't hurt that she is a total FOX either...

Berlin is calling me!

So there I was, on the elevated stage of the orange room, waiting for Laurent Garnier to perform his sick set when a French dude and I started talking. Well, more like screaming. He was from Paris (of course) and mentioned how we Belgians can throw some sick parties. Tell me something I don't know, Christophe! He asked me who I was going to see after Laurent Garnier. I was headed straight for Boys Noize. The new track, NOTT, repeating "I. LOVE. TECHNO" in a robotic voice, would make the mob go wild, I thought. I wanted to witness that. "No, go check out Paul Kalkbrenner in the green room," he said. "He makes the best techno of our time. This dude is German." This sounded all too appealing for me. I was convinced! I shouldn't have been, because the German sensation was moved to a different room without notice and I missed him. But when I got home I check out his material. I was intrigued. And, though I'd hardly put my hand in the fire saying this dude makes "the best techno of our time," I'd gladly vouch for the fact that this DJ has quite a range of electro. From MANGO's spiritual beats taking you on a more relaxed journey through electronica, the KALKBOMB brings you to TORTED, a danceable techno groove with a vengeance. He doesn't really deal with the terribly hard techno, but damn, the man can spin. His claim to fame still rests primarily on SKY AND SAND, which earns him rave revues from fans, aficionados and techno connoisseurs. Though not my personal favorite, it fits in with the rest of the album very well. An album which displays the range of Kalbrenner's talent. A range I would like to see develop and progress. The Parisian techno fan and I spoke of both our plans to move to Berlin in the near future. He told me, as parting advice, "try to catch Kalkbrenner now... you'll regret it later if you don't."

No tracks, just sets

Adam Beyer is a sick motherfucker. You walk into anyone of his gigs and you will be surprised. Mainly because you can't predict any of the songs that this dude will be playing. I can't even tell if the dude would be playing a chill set or a techno-trance night. But then again, I expect nothing less coming from the Ultra-Modern Sweden. Electro artists like Eric Prydz, Basshunter and The Knife all play by their own set of Scandinavian rule. And so far, I'm not disappointed. The set this guy played at I Love Techno was electric, and his essential live mix is even more booming. He's into pure beats. No commercial sound coming outta him. So if you're not that into techno, he's probably not your best bet. But for electro junkies such as I, he's a man you want to catch in action.

Fake Blood, Real Endorphins

Have you ever been to a restaurant and the wine waitress is using adjectives like "compassionate" and "wild" to describe the fermented grape juice? Well, if you haven't, it's a shame because I still laugh about it with my friend. But I'm going to be doing the same thing right now with music. I checked out Fake Blood's last EP FIX YOUR ACCENT and it's a really fun ep. They've managed to turn a series of fun sounds into three great, totally danceable, tracks. The title track "Fix Your Accent" makes me feel like I'm on holiday. Or on an endorphin rush somewhere in a dark corner. Either way, I'm happy. I don't know if it's the whistle, the party flute or the French guy telling ME to fix MY accent, but it just works.

Here are some other reccomendations for Fake Blood Lovers:

"Mars"

"I Think I like It"