It could have been a reggae concert in the States, only the lyrics were in Russian (except for the English-language cliche, rendered truly campy by the Russian accent, in the chorus of the first song: "Chill out, chill out, chill out!").

Also surprising, the club's beefy security types were inexplicably on edge at the sight of a bunch of peaceful souls grooving to a band fronted by a singer in rainbow suspenders.  In fact, the "face control" stooge at the door was convinced I was packing heat (likely on account of my "rebellious" black bandana, a real novelty here) and gave me one of the most thorough friskings I've ever experienced.  What a pointless power trip, especially when you consider that for the DDT concert at the CKK arena, a big enough venue for someone to do some real damage, the security didn't even check my ticket.

The choice of venue was the Pump Room.

It was my first time there, and it was really pretty nice! The ambience was good, the staff were friendly. The only bad thing I suppose was that the food portion was quite small, and that we had a very big and round table (it's a pity we were knights), which made it hard for everything to converse.

Some pictures of us with another couple friend and us alone. Could see that I was pretty tired despite the live band action... It's been quite a long time since I went to a bar with live band performances! I must do that again one day.

But here's a group picture of all of us. Nice to know that he has a good bunch of friends who care for him =)

via KFMW

Y más:
esos versos no han de servirle para
que peones, maestros, hacheros, vivan mejor,
coman mejor o él mismo coma, viva mejor,
ni para enamorar a una le servirán.

No ganará plata con ellos,
no entrará al cine gratis con ellos,
no le darán ropa por ellos,
no conseguirá tabaco o vino por ellos.

Ni papagayos, ni bufandas, ni barcos,
ni toros, ni paraguas conseguirá por ellos.
Si por ellos fuera la lluvia lo mojará,
no alcanzará perdón o gracia por ellos.

«con este poema no tomarás el poder» dice,
«con estos versos no harás la Revolución» dice,
«ni con miles de versos harás la Revolución» dice.
Se sienta a la mesa y escribe.

Confianzas - Inspiración Espiración - Gotan Project

Un temita Chill Out para la tarde de domingo...

Mixmasters was a late-night music show, and later a DVD series, of audio-visual and DJ-VJ mixes produced by AV artists. The series ran from 2000 to 2005 and aired in the UK on ITV. It has since been screened in a number of countries worldwide. The show consisted of 2 short ten minute DJ sets from independet record labelsmixed with innovative visuals, motion graphics and animations by VJs, often with trippy results top psychedelic effect.

Mixmasters fue un show musical de la tarde-noche, y más tarde una serie de DVD, de audio-visual mezcla de DJ-VJ producidos por artistas AV. La serie duró desde 2000 a 2005 y fue emitida en el Reino Unido en ITV. Desde entonces, se ha proyectado en una serie de países de todo el mundo. La muestra consistió en dos cortos de diez minutos de DJ conjuntos de sellos discográficos independientes mezclados con innovadores efectos visuales, gráficos dinámicos y las animaciones por VJs, a menudo con resultados Trippy a efecto psicodélico.

Yo descubrí la serie en el Canal Buzz. Ahora mismo no se si lo siguen emitiendo. En cualquier caso aqui pongo mis videos preferidos, espero que les gusten: (no se vayan sin escuchar (y ver) el último)

Espero les haya gustado.

Saludos!!

Finally, my first 'mini' album's droppin'.
I just have too much style I want to share so I decided to make 'mini' digital albums rather than a 'LP'.

Need somethin' to chill to? stay tuned!

Nonetheless, let me share a quick story with you.  Earlier this year I went to lunch with a friend who talked so much about this problem and that problem that I'd finished my meal while their food was practically untouched.  I said, "Look at your plate and look at mine...point taken? Now, shut up and eat."  Hey, that's a true story LOL.  So friends - CHILL OUT!

Ya Gotta Love Me ~ GreGory

2 CD`s, 26 tracks, ab 14,47 €

hier bestellen...

Also, because I'm lazy, I usually slack off on days like this.  Chill out.  You're going to get my assistance, it just may be a little snarkier than normal.

Mañana lo actualizo... prometo!!! -me estoy interiorizando en el libro de Bauman para tener una opinión más fundamentada del tema-

Estoy en proceso de mkt y difusión para que me dejen más comentarios!!

También tengo un blog de bikinis para esta temporada 08/ 09:

http://bikinis0809.wordpress.com/

PASEN Y HAGAN SU PEDIDO!!

Puse música -espero que funcione-

...al blog del dia de hoy!
Plas, plaaaaas, plaaaaaaas!

Y ahora, si tienen el gusto de celebrarlo conmigo, pasémos a la zona chill, pongámonos cómodos en éstos sillones de terciopelo azul y disfrutemos de la música.

[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/9/2/2077759/SESION%20DISCOTECA%20PENELOPE-1.mp3]

Gracias a todos por venir.
¡Camarero! Que no les falte de ná, que hoy invito yo.

Including Oliver Willis - RadicalRuss at Pam's and ReaperObot0 at MYDD.

Dove nasce l'idea.  www.bluemarlinibiza.com

BLUE MARLIN BEACH - IBIZA la madre di tutte le LAZY SUNDAYS

Having long had a fascination with all things Eastern European, I thought that this sounded dead cool and so immediately volunteered to head up the operation.  So, by early 1992, I spent my working week travelling between Warsaw, Prague, Bratislava, Budapest and Bucharest, plus the occasional trip back to the UK to report on my progress (or, more often, my lack of it).

In August 1992, there was the first ever exhibition for home entertainment in Prague and my company exhibited there even though we weren't really ready to launch yet.  After a complete fuck up on the first day (I'll tell you about it in another posting) and a busy second day, things got quiet and so I spent most of the time chatting to my recently employed Marketing Manager, Olda.  Over the course of the few hours, we discovered that we had almost identical tastes in music (alternative), movies (alternative), culture (trash) and humour (dark and sarcastic).  Scarily, we were also born only a couple of weeks apart and nearly looked the same.  It was like we were long-lost brothers, separated at birth and we were quickly best friends and my stays in Prague were always the highlights of the constant Eastern European merry-go-round I was on.

He suggested that I move to Prague.  As I was travelling all through the week anyway, 'moving' actually just meant 'where am I going to spend my weekend'.  So, on 27 December 1992, I moved to Prague, witnessing the last week of Czechoslovakia before the Czech Republic and Slovakia split from one another.

I thought that I was pretty mad about music, but Olda was even more mad than I was and we spent most of the time discussing new bands we had come across.  It was the time of grunge - Nirvana and the Seattle scene and so we were very much into that.  He also introduced me into Industrial, such as Ministry, Revolting Cocks and a lot of German bands who I have forgotten now as my Industrial phase never really lasted that long - it was mostly too heavy for me, although I did like Prong, Tool and Nine Inch Nails (who we saw live in Prague - which was one of the best ever gigs I ever went to).

Actually, heretical as it might sound, I was never actually a huge fan of live concerts.  I guess I was spoiled by videos and my pathetically short attention span.  Gigs seem to involve waiting for hours for anything to happen, then it was really cool when you saw the band play the first track, and then it was just the same old thing for another 90 minutes.  At least on a concert video, they at least change the camera angles every few seconds to stop things from getting too dull.

I preferred a bit of rap mixed in with my Industrial, stuff like Rage Against The Machine (who we also saw live in Prague - they weren't terribly good though), Sweden's Clawfinger and the lesser-known Skatenigs, who sounded like this:

And this was Clawfinger:

It's a universe away from what I'm into over a decade later and so I never listen to the stuff any more, although I still like a bit of Rammstein every now and again, plus the occasional bit of Prong:

I still love that guitar sound.

At the end of 1993, Olda and I had broken away from our employers and started our own company called Vision which, surprisingly quickly, became the biggest importer of computer games in the Czech Republic.  We basically spent all day together screwing around, torturing our poor employees with our hardcore music, yet still somehow managed to create a company with a $2 million turnover within a couple of years.

When we were too lazy to change the CD's, or had listened to everything once (both Olda and I bought hundreds of CD's that we only ever listened to once or twice maximum), we listened to Prague's only alternative radio station, Radio 1, which shone out among all of the other radio stations playing Eurotrash Techno, which was what most of the rest of the Czech populace was listening to at the time.

Radio 1's music of choice in the early Nineties was very similar to ours - totally alternative and quite heavy.  However, as the decade progressed, the tastes of their Programming Director started to change - their output was still alternative, but was becoming softer and more dance orientated.

As I listened to music nearly every waking hour and 50% of that time it was to Radio 1, the station influenced my tastes along with their output.  Amazingly, even 15 years later, due to the wonders of Internet radio, I still listen to the station most days today, despite the millions of other options available for listening online.

So, thanks in part to Radio 1 and our constant search for new music, our (particularly my) tastes went away more and more from hardcore via hardcore dance like The Prodigy, through the Bristol sound of Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, etc.

Olda and I consumed so much music so quickly that it's hard to remember particularly influential tracks.  One time though, I remember being sat in Olda's car listening to a track so amazing that we had to listen through to it all the way to the end (which took a while, as it's 10 minutes long).

It turned out to be:

Underworld's Dirty Epic - still as awesome today as it was back then. 

The success of their later track Born Slippy, with its annoying refrain of "lager, lager, lager, lager" stopped Underworld from becoming one of my all-time favourite bands, but their first album was definitely a classic, and became the soundtrack to my relationship with my (very boring) Japanese girlfriend.

Another of my all-time favourite's from the same era was Lamb's Gabriel (another track which got a lot of heavy airplay on Radio 1):

Probably my all-time favourite love song.

Meanwhile, our computer games business had collapsed, probably due to our spending too much time discussing (and spending money on) music and not enough time dealing with all of that boring accounting stuff.  Fortunately though, we had launched a computer games magazine, Score, which became very successful and so we morphed into a magazine publisher, once again hitting the magic number of $2 million a year in turn over through doing practically nothing.

Having grown a company from nothing into a serious moneymaker, we thought that we were invincible.  Unfortunately we weren't.  Olda and I started growing a bit apart.  Olda had got married in the mid-Nineties and they had their first child a little later. I got married in 1998  We didn't socialize as much together any more by that time.  We also started dabbling in different businesses - Olda in antique dealing (which was very successful) and me with starting a Marketing Agency (which was a total fucking disaster).  Also my habit of chain-smoking incessantly was starting to drive hm totally nuts.

He ended up moving to the US, leaving me alone in Prague with a local manager to run his side of the business.  Due to my very limited attention span and the fact that I had recently discovered the Internet and spent all my time online screwing around, I didn't keep much of an eye on the business and, from the US, neither did Olda. The manager saw his chance and started to steal some money - at first a little bit, then more and more until, by the time we had figured out what he was doing, the company was bankrupt.

Olda came back to rescue the company together with a friend of his.  I didn't trust the friend at all though and would have needed to put all my life savings into rescuing the company, which I didn't want to do as I had other business ideas, and so we split up.  Another mistake from my side, as Olda and his new business partner were able to bring the company back to life whereas my new business venture was a complete disaster, and I lost all my life savings in the process as just one thing after another went wrong.

This was not a very happy period of my life and my musical tastes represented this.  I got very much into chill out music by this time, particularly liking compilations such as the Cafe del Mar series.  My favourite track from all of them being:

Over the past decade, this is probably the track that I have listened to the most and everyone I have introduced it to has loved it as well.

Four months ago, my bay-bee and I went to Ibiza and went to the real Cafe del Mar in order to watch the sun go down.  The view was exactly the same as on the album covers, but the place itself was complete shit - just another crappy bar full of Ibiza oiks.  Another illusion dispelled.

The general misery of the time also led to an interest in Scandi lo-fi, such as Kings of Convenience:

(Actually, I see now that the Lotus Eaters (see previous post) were actually not a million miles away from the sound of Kings of Convenience even though they came nearly two decades earlier).

Meanwhile, back at the start of the 21st Century, my life was going from bad to worse.  I seemed to have the Midas Touch in reverse - everything I touched turned to shit.  Over a period of two years I'd gone from having multiple streams of income and nearly $100,000 in the bank down to nothing.  By mid-2002 I was completely bankrupt.  My only choice was to leave my wife, move back to the UK, start living again with my parents (a highly humiliating experience for a guy pushing 40) and find myself a proper job at which point my wife could come and join me.

When I kissed her goodbye before driving from Prague back to England, I had a premonition that it was the beginning of the end of our marriage.

Things were worse than I imagined.  When I left the UK in 1992, I was a superstar marketing guru in the video business and since then had a lot of experience with both computer games and magazine publishing.  I thought that I would be a hot property on the job market. 

But I was wrong.  No one wanted me in the UK. 

I had been self-employed too long and out of the UK too long - not what employers wanted, especially after the mini-recession brought on post 9/11.  Living with my parents sucked even though they were very supportive.  After 125 failed job applications, I started a small business that my parents bought for me, but the 'Midas Touch in reverse' phenomenon was still too much in evidence and this too was a complete fucking disaster, ending with my mother coming close to having a nervous breakdown as it nearly ate up all their life savings too.

Needless to say, this was an even more miserable period of my life and musically barren.  I used to watch MTV Dance on satellite a lot and, sitting in an office all day with a broadband connection and bugger all to do and with no money, started off my MP3 collection after someone introduced me to Limewire.

At the end of 2003, I started looking for jobs again and my parents started looking for some other sucker to buy the business.  Amazingly, within a month, they had managed to find someone to buy the business and I had managed to find a new job.

Which brought me to Riga in Latvia ...

When she walks, shes like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gentle
That when she passes, each one she passes goes - ooh

(ooh) but I watch her so sadly
How can I tell her I love her
Yes I would give my heart gladly
But each day, when she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead, not at me

Tall, (and) tan, (and) young, (and) lovely
The girl from ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, I smile - but she doesnt see (doesnt see)
(she just doesnt see, she never sees me,...)

OK. This post isn’t exactly about food. But I’m the blogger here. I decide what to write.

My love affair with Ipanema started when a friend brought me here (shout out to Carol!). For Kuchingites, you’ll find Ipanema next to SoHo.

Why I love it? I might be young but I am not keen to hang out at clubs with loud music and smoke all the time. Me and my friends used to hang out at Mojo before. A bottle (or two, or three) bottle of wine, quiet cosy atmosphere, jazz music, Mojo was THE place to hang out to catch up with friends and unwind. After they convert Mojo to a club- filled with youngsters, loud music, bar brawls and all, I was crushed. I’m lost. Where to lepak?!

Back to my story, after the dinner at Li Garden, me and Eileen head to Ipanema. Both of us are thinking about the delectable Hoegaarden beer. We were told that Ipanema is one of the few places that serve this beer.

I love Hoegaarden beer because of the smoothness of the texture. Yours truly is not a beer-fan but I fell head over heels with Hoegaarden at the first glass. It even got that some sort of chrysanthemum-like smell – which make it very pleasant for a proper lady to drink (oh, the very perasan statement!).

After the glass, I feel more adventurous. So, I ordered a shot, B-53. The name sounds like a bomber plane, don’t you think? If my memory serves me well (a bit blurry because of the alcohol), B-53 is a mixture of Bailey’s Irish Cream, Kahlua, vodka (?) and some grenadine syrup. It tasted just like cough syrup! Plus the alcohol J of coz.

Undeterred by that, I ordered another drink – Margarita, this time.

I ordered margarita everywhere I go, to compare. The margarita is...err.. OK lah. My favourite is still Senso’s Frozen Margarita. That reminds me of this conversation:

Me:  I like Senso’s Frozen Margarita better.

Eileen: Me too. But it has too much ice to my liking [referring to Senso’s Frozen Margarita]

Me: (pause) Leen, it’s frozen. Of course it has a lot of ice.

Eileen: Oh.

He he he. Please don’t hate me Leen. I know you have a terrific sense of humour he he he.

This is a wonderful place to hang out. I love the decor – kopitiam-style table mixed with a touch of luxury (Moet & Chandon bottles everywhere). And the Guinness posters? Love it.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a place to relax and unwind after a hectic day of work, visit Ipanema.

ki-ka: RI, swan, cims, chu

hehe..jalanjalan sama anakanak waktu 17-an kmaren di Discovery Shopping Mall Kuta, tepatnya lagi nongkrong di Black Canyon fu..sebelumnya sih maem ribs di Ubud (bukan di Nuri's tapi disebelahnya Nuri's, lupa namany) mustinya qta pake dress code merah putih yah biar kerasa 17-an nya ;d (ngga mauuuu!!!)

MERDEKA!!

-RiRi-