Posted 17 January 2011 - 01:34 AM
What a fun night. God I wish we had night like this down here in San Diego but promoters just don't see trance as that viable right now. It's all got to be Electro and Dubstep.
Josh & I wound up having dinner with a bunch of musical heads in LA that included Sharky ('smü[th] Music,) Johnny Yono (Armada, Lange, Baroque) and the opener before Solarstone, Micheal Badal (Anjunabeats, Jigsaw, Molecule, etc). Laughter and good times ensued as we ate dinner after a gorgeous SoCal day in the mid-70's (That's like 23C for all you SI people.) Yes, it is strangely warm for this week all of the sudden. After some fine Mediterranean food, Josh and I drove down to the venue. I thought it would be much more club-like but it really was more like a stage with a booming sound system and some large scale lighting.
Michael had started his set and had a rough spot for one mix early on, but the energy was getting the crowd moving. His set surprised me since he had talked about how he had to watch the energy in his set for Rich to really blow it up. His set was equally enjoyable as we all made funny remarks to him during it.
Rich showed up and was flocked by a good number of fans including the likes of the area infamous sweetcandygirl (check Markus Schulz's first LP's (Without You Near) linear notes for the infamy.) Eventually as people went back to dancing I walked up to Rich in the solarSwarm shirt I have. His first words as he pointed at me were, "You must be a swarmer?" We both laughed and I said, "Why yes, I am, I'm the infamous MyStro." We shared more laughs, and I introduced Josh who was asked to explain the "Josh the bear" moniker by Rich. After a bit, Rich went on stage and started rocking the decks after they switched the booth monitor (why the had only one stack I don't know) to the other side.
Solarstone blew it open with a dope intro form of Touchstone (seemed to combine the Album and Club versions.) Two songs later he followed it up with Slowmotion, and from there on it was basically a Solarstone hit parade with a bunch of Solaris label representation mixed into it. He also dropped the Mike Foyle remix of Apple One's "Heart Shaped Box" as tribute to the solarSwarm's progress and the three of its members (Agray, joshthebear, and Myself) there. Since we were right up near the booth, he offered a complimentary two-handed "S" when he dropped it to us. The place loved the track in my opinion, and everyone was rocking smiles. Rich closed down his set with a mix of Seven Cities (Solarstone's Atlantis Mix) as well as dropping Andain's "Beautiful Things" (sounded mostly like Gustav's Remix of it but I can't be sure.) I believe I also heard mixes of the tracks Part of Me, 4Ever (Dub perhaps?), Late Summer Fields, Ferry Corsten - Gabriella's Sky (Solarstone Remix), Solarstone ft. Jes - Like A Waterfall (EPIC room at the drop of that one), and Spectrum (though I'm not 100% sure on that one.)
Post the set, I got to speak to Solarstone again and enjoy one more conversation before leaving to drive with Josh back to San Diego. The night really capped a bad week of work down here, what with a computer hard drive failure and an abnormally stressful week, and I was happy to see something start to turn around. Thanks again for coming out Solarstone!
Founder of MyStro Productions - Our World, My Story
Founding Member / Admin / A&R for solarSwarm Recordings
A&R Representative for 'smü[th] Music
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Funny quotes:
djwax4 - "And I'm of the opinion that Europeans probably shouldn't wear cowboy boots."
Liquidmocean - "Had me slapping my voluptuous beer belly with the wooden salad spoons, as you do!"
Catalin Anton - "As for me Denny, the amount of alcohol needed for me to unleash my Barry White like voice is tremendous"