Soon it was the day of the party and as I left my flat I suddenly changed my mind about something - the guitar I was going to play that night. I put back the travel guitar and picked up the Flying V. Old habits die hard.

Colin with his camera and Manou with her gameboy

The start of the journey was a bit dissapointing. Checking into the EuroStar train was like a less hardcore version of an areoplane flight. Also, because I booked youth tickets I had to do a manual check in to prove my age. Anyway I was soon on the train, and a very clean train it was too. A couple decided to take our seats on board, so we asked them to move their ass. Later, this turned out to be an embarassing situation, because we met them at the party and they turned out to be cool - more on that later.

The train journey took three hours, but it took us right from the center of London to the center of Paris. Not only that but the scenery was nicer than looking out of a plane. I would take EuroStar again without any hesitation. The EuroTunnel itself seemed like a total anti-climax, the journey just went dark for 30 minutes. If it was a night train you probably wouldn't even notice.

Christen navigated through the Paris underground system to the venue:

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the rest of Paris_HQ ;-<

The party was to be at a cool underground venue in the south east of the city. It was a disused electronics factory and had an atmosphere I liked. Darkness was beginning to fall as we arrived and I imagined a dramatic funk in the air!

At the relaxbeat factory we met all the crew: The C-Men, Sidabitball, Firestarter, Lo-bat, Divag, Hypercut, the guys from Relaxbeat, Post-Eat.... it would be impossible to list them all. Paris_HQ had transformed the space with lo-tech posters, a bar selling all kinds of drinks, and a delicious waffle bar (manned by post-eat).

Firestarter's a real brand name freak: Commodore, Casio, Yamaha, Nintendo and Aviator!

His sound check was good to say the least - the sound guys at the venue were very great indeed. The had sorted out alot of high quality equipment and knew their stuff. Firestarter was a bit scared of a leaky roof above all our equipments, but luckily there was no problem in the end.

Next it was my turn to set-up.... But there was problems, like not enough space on the 2 tables they gave us. Divag had generously lent me his Atari for my show, and this and a TV took up most of the remaining area. Also there was a problem with cabling everything. Whilst I figured out how to sort this out Lo-bat did his sound-check. I thought he looked the coolest with all this equipment around him:

Lo-bat looking like the bastard son of Orbital and Kraftwerk... Theres even a light strapped to his head ;->

I resolved all my problems by turning my whole setup round 180 degrees. My sound-check was good except that the TV I used distorted the sound from my Atari - this was solved by turning the TV to its lowest volume setting and caning the mixer. The I had problems with phatt feedbacks from the microphone - which the sound guys somehow half fixed. Later on in the set I think they kept having to adjust the mic volume to avoid feedback and keep the vocals loud - a difficult job because I have done it. Everyone was heartily sick of 'Shoot Out The Lights' after I played it 5 times sorting out the sound problems - I vowed not to play ever again.

During the setup I spoke to the guys from Paris_HQ and Relaxbeat, and they were pukka people - you know that! Anyway they had lots of future plans, which is great to see.

Here's the classic 'view down the table' shot

Everyone was chatting away and it was a good atmosphere. One of the relaxbeat guys made a really complicated attempt to get everyones order "does anyone want couscous? with roast vegetables?... no? is that one or two of you?" ;-> Maybe it would have been easier to ask each person seperately - but it doesn't matter we all got fed in the end.

Tres and Brioche did a nice little warm-up set and got people's ears tuned in to the microsound.

I'm sorry to say I didn't actually see much of Lo-bat's show as I was nervously preparing for my set, but I sure heard it!! The sound system was nice and loud - filling the whole venue. I looked round the corner into the main room and saw some serious dance action going on.

During this time I bumped into DMA-SC at the bar! DMA-SC is another musician from the Atari music collective YM-Rockerz that I am also involved with. DMA-SC was a really nice guy and we had a looong chat about Atari shit. He stayed and saw the rest of the night, it looked like he had a great time. I tried to take a picture of him with the Gameboy, but it didn't come out at all well. Check out his music - its good stuff ;->

Lo-bat's set stopped and I had to very fast change into my Altern-8 clothes. I forced my way through the crowd to my equipment, everyone was really pumped up after a set from Lo-Bat which was up to his usual high-quality. I had a little technical problem at the start of my set, which was embarassingly caught on video - but I fixed this in 30 seconds and went into a little Atari/Gameboy mix-up (a new feature I planned for my set), which was mainly intrumental based. I seriously enjoyed doing this part of my set and I will do more like it in the future because it was like a combination of DJ and live set.

Advertistment picture - If you want to DJ with gameboy too, then check out my latest invention here

Then I went into the main part of my set, which featured alot of new tracks. Encouragingly the new stuff went down the best of all. Then I had a little costume change and finished the show. The shady venue meant there were alot of French punks and anarchists in the audience, who were into the rock, and the micros liked the ravin' stuff so overall I was happy with the show.

Next Firestarter went on... I fast changed into some more normal clothes and watched Firestarter's performance from the C-Men's visual gallery. They proudly showed me their new video mixer and some more animations. Their visuals get better and better each show I am sure. Also Paris_HQ member O_TR_O, who also designed a tasteful flyer for the show, was mixing it up in the visuals department.

Firestarter did the best show I have seen from him. Everything went together and he even wore a cool costume with a wig and Aviator shades. Especially good songs he played were 'Check this gameboy out' and a special christmas anthem, which was a remix of Jingle Bells. You can and should get all these tracks on micromusic.net.

Firestarter left the stage to great applause and then Hypercut made his DJ set. Crowd pleaser as he is, he played all the micromusic greats. By this time the crowd had thinned out slightly - but that just meant there was room for everyone else and get down and boogie. As is well known Hypercut takes his spinning seriously... I think it was my personal favourite set of the night, but thats a difficult choice.

Is everybody on the floor?

Tres and Brioche's final set was a little bit incoherent compared to earlier, but I suppose it was hard to follow Hypercut, and also all but the hardcore ravers had gone home by now. They were doing a good job though, because everyone who was there was still grooving:

We put some energy into this place!

Not knowing this I was happy to get to the flat of Glaofuk, who made us feel the most welcome ever. He even slept on a mattress in this living room whilst I used his bed!! Respect man, and it wasn't necessary, but thanks anyway.

I woke up to the sound of accordion music, as wafts of garlic drifted through my nostrils.... Who should be there but my old friend the onion-seller - there on his bike in a blue and white shirt, a red scarf and a black beret! Actually not, but I had to fit it in somewhere ;-> I didn't see a single onion-seller while I was there - what a con!!

For breakfast Glaofuk gave me an authentic-style croissant and showed me around his 'museum' which had all kind of weird curios and a table made from a road sign.

Interesting as the museum was I wanted to hit Paris in the last few hours I would be there. Glaofuk recommended a cool brand of ice-cream which I should check out, and we made arrangements to meet later.

Esmerelda! The bells! The bells!! etc etc ;->

Although touristic areas are always cheesy, I couldn't help but like the city. It felt like a nice place to be - a bustling atmosphere like London, but looking nice too - like Berlin or Cologne. For instance - check out this cool shop:

Just reach for the skies - no valley too deep, no mountain too high! Techno techno techno techno

After hooking back up with our mates Colin and Jeff we went for a hot chocolate with loads of cream in a cafe somewhere. That was nice beacuse night was already falling and it was starting to get stupidly cold!

(c)gwem 2004
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