These gigs were all different to previous ones, because I decided to stop taking the Flying V to every rave, because it is big and heavy. I decided to get a smaller axe, but the shape still has something of a V:

Spirit by Steinberger

I also had a small battery powered mixer which looked less cooler than the one from KingKas, but was about 1/4 of the size. I brought it in a recent trip to New York, which you might read more about soon.

Getting to Lithuania was a bit tricky. First I had to get to Hamburg, which was by a stressy RyanAir flight. That night I met up with the rest of the microdisco kru who were doing the show. They were eccy'd up and pretty fun to be around I must say.

Dinner that night was just chocolate ;->

gwEm boarding pass

The flight to Lithuania was by 'Air Lithuania' who operate a small aeroplane service out of Hamburg and all over the Baltic. They even wrote 'gwem' on my boarding pass, which I thought was the coolest.

Microdisco team on tour! Benji, Frank and Manou

In Lithuania we were met by the guys from the party. The had alot to organise with the venue, sound system and decorations, but they were totally cool guys. The party was not for a couple of days so there was a chance to see around a bit of the town, Klipeda, where we were staying.

Lithuania has so much cool stuff around, especially food! If you go there you should definately try the local gerkins, which are the best in the world.

We hung out at the venue briefly to have a little barbeque, and then myself and the rest of microdisco went for a little stroll around the industrial estate close by.

In an abandoned building we found these pieces of carpet

We reached a scrap yard and we greeted by friendly dog, whose owner told us was called 'Golf' after the car. He spoke a few words of German and English and was happy to talk to us for a bit. At the start it was quite nice, but in the end we wondered when it was he would ever leave ;-> Actually his story was quite sad, in the Russian communist time he had a good position as a music teacher, but since capitialism took over the best job he could get was a security guard at a scrap yard.

Bulgarian cigarettes smoked by Golf's owner

Radio Bumsas was a new radio station who asked us all to do something at their grand opening. We agreed, but the whole thing turned out to be a disaster! First of all we were to do a do a one and a half hour DJ team set. This got reduced to an a hour, then 30 minutes, and finally 15 minutes. In the end we played 2.5 songs, playing for about 10 minutes. At least we got transported in a limousine (a stretched Volvo), but just on the way there - on the way back we were in disgrace and just got a beat-up Ford Sierra. They ignored our technical rider and thought we would bring our own turntables and music system from Germany. In the end the whole thing was totally hilarious, starting from us being the guests of honour, and then, well....

The biggest memory of that night will be when the party stopped and the kids were shouting for more music. I would have given them some, but the people at the radio were not interested in the crowd. But the scene really affected me, and made me realise how important music is in our lives.

The next day was the day for the big party, and it is a day which will stay with me for the rest of my life.

We went to the venue quite early. The place was usually a furniture warehouse from the Russian communist times. The promoters had spent alot of time with special modifications to turn it into the perfect venue for a rave! These modifications included special chairs, drapes, and obviously a kick-ass sound system.

Before sound check we made special workshops about DJing, scratching and music production. But it turned out that half the people who came were experienced in these things.... ;-> But we introduced alot of people too, and personally I was surprised how fast people learnt. When I first learnt to DJ it was some time before I made my first successful mixes and scratches.

Some people wanted to give me some of their own self-made music, but I forgot to get copies (stupidly) there was some really amazing tribal stuff, really original. I would really like to get a copy if anyone reading this knows the music I mean.

The sound guy at the venue was totally weird, he owned the sound system and knew about it, but I think he never worked with live musicians before, he was a little bit arrogant and ignored our requests and advice. In the end we set up our own equipment and soundchecked each other. Later, when it came to the gig, the sound guy made recordings of our shows without asking us :-/ But to be fair his system was a good one, and there was no cut-outs or other problems.

My new battery powered equipment was totally the right thing to bring, and it made it all so easy. In fact only my laptop needed to be plugged in to any power. It definately made things alot easier.

After sound check we went for a meal in a local restaurant and generally chilled out. The food was really good, especially the steak, and I got some good inspiration for my own cooking. In general Lithuanian cuisine was something I really enjoyed.

I brought some spearmint chewing gums for the rave!

The gig went amazingly well, but it was the ravers who really made the party. They were open minded about any kind of music and really wanted to dance the night away. I think anyone could have played and made a great gig, the atmosphere was so right.

First Manou DJ'd a bit of chipsound, and then a local DJ took over a played a very professional warm up set. During this time Manou and myself who were doing live shows took the oppertunity to walk around the venue in all the different rooms. The chill/lounge room was cool, with a local DJ team running things. The room was filled throughout the night with people dancing to a more relaxed vibe. Later microdisco member DJ Frank Sunrise did a set there, which made impressive use of the Traktor DJ software.

The live set of Manou was something very good, the best she did ever, with a special cyber look, and a slightly more techno sound. It worked well and the crowd were crazy for it. I was so scared to go on after that show, because I thought it was a techno crowd who would not appriciate my sound. Luckily I was wrong, the crowd were open minded and liked all styles!

My set went really good, the best show since the Golden Pudel, and the crowd liked all my tracks, even the ones which I made little errors in. A monitor speaker is a really important part of the show, and I learned the importance of it that night, next time sound check will take much longer as all the settings will be tuned perfectly ;-> But almost all of the tracks had no problems, and I got asked back on stage 2 times for more music - the ravers were so alive that night, respect to them.

After the live set we chilled out for a time, whilst DJ Benji DF took over for a great club set which included some classics, and up to date stuff. He did an amazing show too which lasted some hours. After Benji finished I started to DJ with some classic old skool jungle, the stuff that I always played as DJ Nova Nova 1, people loved the jungle sound as much as the techno and the Italo music of Benji DF.

I played for just over an hour, I think, and then Manou finished the party with a 'clear out set', but after the main room finished the party carried on in the chill out room for a long time more. Personally I was pretty tired and was really in the mood to sleep!

The last day was pretty lazy, in the evening we all met for a nice meal and some special vodkas.

The plane home

In the days between arriving from Lithuania and the gig I heard from my friend Eisebs that my latest release was reviewed in 'De-Bug' music magazine, so of course I went straight out to buy a copy...

De-Bug magazine with a little bit of a gwem review

The review was pretty positive which I was happy about, and it was a complete novelty to have something I've done written about in a magazine, a really good feeling actually. But of course if they had disrespected my music I would have been equally as sad about it, so thanks to De-Bug for then nice words.

I arrived a little too early at the club and had a quiet drink until some people came who I knew, namely T. Raumschmiere and Apparat. They were totally friendly and introduced me to some other people involved with the label and we had quite a nice chat. Later T. Raumschmiere's friend Miss Kittin turned up before playing at WMF club. I was interested to meet her after making a cover version of her song with The Hacker 'Frank Sinatra'. I totally respect what she does, but is no kind of big hero to me, in the same way as say DJ Hype or Tony Iommi. We talked old skool hardcore, of which she had a deep knowledge. Things became extremely awkward after she asked me why I covered her track.... I told her the truth, because I did not want to bullshit her with some really cool sounding lie. She seemed unimpressed by my purely practical reasoning, and I thought maybe I should have lied about it, but in the end I think I made the right choice, even if I would like her to think I was uber-cool so that I could make a rave tune with her some day. Raumschmiere and Miss Kittin also wanted to know why I sent Shitkatapult my music, which was because I heard Shitkatapult was a trustworthy label doing some good things.

The equipment at NBI was modified such that no microphone could be plugged into their mixer, that sucked because it was part of my plan to MC a bit too. Because I had come from Lithuania I had no records with me, but I was able to spin for some hours, mixing some of my favourite hardcore and jungle tunes on my laptop using WinAmp. After some hours, when I finished my set, I got a little bit of applause, which is always nice at a bar because you never know if anyone likes what your doing unless they tell you they dont ;->

Later I went with T. Raumschmiere to WMF club for some big raving!

The micromusic festival did not turn out well at first.

At the club there was a lot of stress because of problems with the sound system and some of the artists not really believing in the venue. After everything was setup I was happy to escape for some frikadellen and medicinal chocolate:

Really good shit man!

The venue was at an illegal club, which was known officially as an 'art gallery'. It had an infamous local reputation and I must say it was exiting to do a live set at an illegal venue, rather than just DJing.

When I came back then venue was slowly starting to fill up, but it was relatively empty. I thought it was a good idea to introduce myself to microstar Kawalla who was also playing at the party. When started to say hi she laughed at me, which I thought was strange, but apparantly I was being sucrose. We spoke about various micromusic things for some time, with the venue still pretty empty. Then later on I looked around me, and the venue was completely filled - what a transformation!

Suddenly the people had brought a party atmosphere in with them and the earlier stress had gone, it was now a good time to start the show!!

Kawalla was the first act, with her puppet show. Of course the show was in German, but I was able to understand something of it as I am learning the language at the moment. Her puppet theatre was self-made with beautiful hand paintings in the style of a fairytale Punch&Judy booth.

Apparantly the story was way funny with alot of use of Rhur-Basin slang, which I did not really appriciate of course.... But I thought it was pretty funny anyway, with some sweet puppetry and of course the *special effects*.

The puppet show was an original way to present her music, but of course does not give flexibilty in case of crowd response and so I guess would suit more relaxed events than a full-on Hardcore Heaven style rave.

The next act 'Egotronic' really rocked the party, to say the least. I found their attitude to the performance also quite professional. And all this when they were missing a band member!

Manou's show was not as well recieved as in Lithuania, but possibly people were not so into her more clean sound in Golden Gate. Even so the reception to her show was OK.

I had alot of problems during my show with feedback from my microphone ;-/ This sucked big time and there was no one around to operate the big sound desk to sort it out (the mic was not plugged in my own little mixer). It was impossible to carry on until someone came, and the pause in my show with phatt screaming feedback did not help my set. After it was fixed I was quite happy, people came back in the room and the response was pretty to very positive. But I will always wonder how this show could have been without the feedback, as I had only limited time before the next act.

I missed alot of Transformer der Roboter's show because I was drinking and talking in the upstairs room. The place was filled with so many people it was almost impossible to move. But people were having a great time, really dancing to the DJ set of Benji DF.

I caught the end Transformer's show, enough to see a touching finish, and a room almost equally as filled as the DJ room. I think they rocked the party ;->

Then I went back upstairs were the party carried on for some hours, I heard until 8! I left at 6 and the vibe was still going, so I can believe it. Overall the whole night was totally underground and with a filled venue the microdisco team had done an excellent promotion job. I saw alot of people we had asked and had turned up, some people from the shitkatapult party the previous day for instance, some people from WMF and many more!

S-Bahn seat covers

A few days later, on the train to the airport I noticed the seats had these cool covers on, with different symbols of Berlin, including of course the famous TV tower.

Special paper made for the 2003 Graz cultural festival, there is a new one each month

I was asked along with lektrogirl if I would like to do a performance as part of this show, and of course I accepted. The SelfWare people seemed totally cool, and it has always been my ambition to visit as many Germanic countries as possible. The performance we discussed was something different from my usual rock'n'roll show, or even my hardcore DJ set. I was to do a set similar to the one I played previously at New Bleep, however I made numerous changes to the show since then and had different concepts and projects I wanted to big up.

I spent some days before the show preparing my set, by making special custom leads and equipment, pre-selecting my set and thinking of cool links to go in between the tracks (radio DJ style-e). I thought it was wise to invest in 2 new Ataris ;-> for the show. I used Atari STs in 'Mega' cases, which are flat and have a seperate keyboard. This makes them easier to travel with and set-up for gigs. They are even lighter than usual models. In fact I could not have chosen a set of better machines for the show.

The flight was with my favourite airline Lufthansa, which always means an enjoyable stress-free time. One flight was from London to Frankfurt, and then I changed for a connecting flight to Graz.... So there was 2 little snacks instead of one. Lektrogirl disrespected the snacks, as they were pretty typical, but I must say I was quite into them and I could have eaten cheese rolls all night long.

At Graz airport there was absolutely no passport control, which we thought was pretty strange, but it save alot of time and soon we were smoothly met and transported to the hotel where we were staying. I set my Atari's up quite fast in the hotel room (which was totally generic business style) before going to the venue to check it out for the next night. Everyone involved with SelfWare games was totally cool and very interesting to talk to. I was in a particularly good mood when seeing the venue, as it was quite loungey and would perfectly suit my radio DJ style set. Outside the venue was a modern art sculpture and a beautifully smelling Linden tree.

After some dinner at a local boozer I retired to my room and worked into the night on some atari tracks. This was the first time I ever worked on music in a hotel before. I thought I should try it out as its kind of the rock'n'roll thing, and I found the totally sterile atmosphere very work oriented and I can see why so many musicians do it. I also thought it was even cooler that I was using an Atari to do it........ even though a sign on the door of the room said that it was only allowed to connect shavers and hairdryers to the electricity in the room.

The next day was the day of the party, but that would not be until much later. I had a phatt breakfast in the 'restaurant' which involved lots of cheese and cheesecake mmmmm.... Then I hit Graz!

But I walked the wrong way out of the hotel and got lost straightaway.... Even so it was quite nice to explore the countryside outside of the city.

Although Austria is a germanic country I found the atmosphere totally different from a German city, it was more organic and natural as well as having a more relaxed vibe. The city was certainally a very beautiful one, with lots of trees and architecture. I was happy to see a good range of eiscafes, which is normally the mark of a kick-ass city.

2003 Festival advertising was all over town! A competition exists for the most original advert, so you can't escape ;->

I quite easily got lost in time and space, exploring all the romantic medieval alleyways. I would come back to Graz anytime! For lunch I hooked up with everyone from the event and we all went to chic-y restaurant on top of a big hill (more like a huge lump of rock) in the middle of town. The view was amazing and you could see for many miles, lektrogirl told me the view in switzerland was even phatter, but I have never seen it. But if we are true, all views are unique and phatt in their own way.

The waiter at lunch was the craziest, and in a scary way, but at least the food was very well presented. The taste was OK, but maybe I should have picked something else.

After a lazy lunch we all had an even lazier walk down the hill (on the way up we used a lift, which was cut through the heart of the rock!!!).

I went back to the hotel and spent the last hours preparing for my set. I wanted it to be a really special show, because I had so much enjoyed my time so far, and I thought I should make a extra effort for all the cool people I had met, and there really was so many.

At the start of the night we took a taxi to the venue and I started to setup. This was the only sucky part of the whole trip, in that the technical guys had totally ignored my technical rider ;-< Luckily I had anticipated it and brought my own mixer, and we dismantled one of the exhibits for a TV. Before my show there was some time to really explore the fixed exhibits and the venue, which was called Theinfeld.

It was a lovely old building, for the 2003 Cultural festival some artists were constructing a special roof for the building, and it was possible to look at a scale model of the plans and even visit the construction site. Rain made the scaffolding outside really dramatic, even a bit thrilling, there was a small BBQ, a place to charge mobile phones, and even a internet terminal!

SelfWare rulez!

Back inside several computer games were setup, and it was allowed to play on the likes of Mario and Tomb Raider. The project had even comissioned its own special computer game, but I could not figure it out on my own at first. The comissioned system was multiplayer, each with their own huge projection screen. I guess you could get totally absorbed!

I got a water bottle from the bar and decided it was a good time to start, event organiser Reinhart agreed so I began my set.

The response was really good, even better than I hoped. It was completely due to the audience who were interested to interact with me and even made alot of special requests, which I was happy to fulfill. It would be nice to think people learnt something from my radio DJ track introductions, and I was able to big up cool projects like YM Rockerz and Micromusic. I also enjoyed myself, and the 1.5 hour set just seemed to fly by. At the end there was even some people dancing, which I did not expect at this kind of art event.

After my show I was pretty satisfied and I was approached to do an interview as documentation for the event. Of course I agreed and the setting was very dramatic - on the scaffolding outside in the lightning storm! I hope it all turned out ok, it was definately a very cool place to do it. I answered alot of questions about the chip scene. After the interview I ate a special veggie toastie and a beer whilst listening to the DJ set of lektrogirl.

After lektrogirl, a laptop DJ played selfmade noise and music from the SID archive. This fast cleared the venue, and it was then time to go to bed.

The next day I packed my Atari's and equipment and went to the airport, after catching some ices on the way. It was all pretty chilled out and there was even a chance to go walking in one of Graz's many parks. As it was early the swings and roundabouts were not being used by kids, so I was able to get a go ;->

The flight home was delayed a little, but it didn't matter, and we made the time up on the way.

(c) Gareth Morris 2003
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