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j00f updated his blog and mentioned this night 
| quote: | Wednesday, June 06, 2007
June Diary
Diary June 07
Regular readers of my diary/blog know that I'm always hoping that the 'good ol' days' of UK clubs will return to its homeland. I probably sound like a moaning old fart constantly looking back reminiscing, but I honestly believe that true vibe will come back one day. There seems to be very few people that care about this so passionately as I do, so I make sure that know one forgets and constantly motivate new promoters and DJ's to peruse with their events and not give up. One example of this was my visit to Detox in Newcastle at the beginning of the month. I nervously try new gigs in the UK worried that they maybe a disaster and I get faced with a load of punters treating me like a human duke box fuelled with happy-hour shots. This was the complete opposite. Not a designer shirt or high heeled shoe in sight, just dedicated music lovers looking to dance their arse off all night. The night was programmed perfectly with DJ's of many styles. Throughout the night the crowd went crazy to every DJ's set completely oblivious to each DJ's genre, they just wanted to be exposed to great music.....to me that is the whole point of clubbing. So there looks a glimmer of hope for my home country after all, we need more of these clubs in our cities, I know people are hungry for it!
So now I'm going to eat my words. A couple of years ago I vowed not to go back to Ibiza as I found I was more suited to other territories. That has all changed over the last week!! One of my favourite clubs in London has just bought a club in Ibiza town. This combined with one of my favourite labels have made a very tempting invitation that I couldn't say no too. As I write this it looks like I'll be doing regular Monday visits to Spun Records events at Heaven in Ibiza town, Ibiza. Eventually something different on the magic island 
The rest of this month was spent travelling back and forth to North America starting off with a trip to Winnipeg in Canada. This was my first visit here so I didn't know what to expect. I usually get my bookings 2-3 weeks in advance from my agent, it kind of surprising finding out where I will be heading in the World. I also have no knowledge of the clubs I'm going to unless, of course I've been there before! I trust my agent and they rarely get their research wrong. I often have a preconception of what the club will be like as I'm heading there, but as in Winnipeg I got it completely wrong. Being a small city in the middle of Canada I presumed it would be a small club but was shocked when we headed to a huge sports hall to a full-on rave! I had a horrible flight with a 5- hour lay over in Chicago, two hours of it was past chatting to the chef Jamie Oliver. It's amazing whom you meet while on you travels! The following day I headed down to San Diego pretty exhausted and managed to grab a couple of hours sleep on my arrival. The ***** club always surprises me here. Upon arrival you think its going to be a bar type attitude, the punters really make the effort and dress up. An hour into my set those same people are going absolutely crazy on the dance floor, it's an amazing sight. I really love this place for that reason.
The next day I flew back to the UK from LA and its seems stupid knowing I'm actually playing in LA the following Friday. People ask why I don't stay in that country while I'm touring. I've done this in the past and you're staying in a country where you don't know anyone. The promoter/club owners have their own lives to lead and have to continue working so can't spend all those days baby-sitting me! To me those are days wasted sitting in a hotel room doing absolutely nothing, I'd rather get home and utilize that time in the studio. Five days later I was back in LA! There's been many changes here recently with club brands moving to different venues and some changing musical direction. I find myself moving back to my original home of Red at The Venue. I had a great time but didn't feel I played my best. It was if I was learning the crowd again and couldn't 100% work out what music they wanted until the end of the night. I hate it when this happens; you wish you could rewind the clock and start again?? Maybe it was because I was so used to playing for the Spundae crowd? The following night I played to a crowd that I know very well at 1015 in San Francisco. Now this was one hell of a night. From start to finish of my set, there was a powerful sense of occasion for all of us. I hadn't been at the club for a while, so I was really excited to be back there and I could tell they where excited to see me too. This only fuelled the whole event and we where all at one throughout my whole set, dam that atmosphere was electric that night. A bank holiday weekend in Canada took me to Toronto the following night to another club that I hadn't been to for many years. I have many years of history here at the Guvernment and remember playing many evens from as far back as 1995. It was a wonderful feeling being back in that newly refurbished DJ booth after a couple of year's absence. Being a long weekend they threw a huge party in all rooms. Infected Mushroom played before me then I got stuck into what was supposed to be a 2-hours set. Almost 5-hours later I finished the night off. I'm still buzzing about this night as I write this a couple of weeks later. That whole long weekend I had a total of 12 hours sleep from the Thursday I left the UK until Tuesday when I got home. Who says this lifestyle is glamorous! It knocked me for six for the rest of that week. I felt so tired and lafargic I couldn't get motivated to get any studio work done. I'm generally a night person and don't get to bed until 3am but also don't like to sleep too long in the day, but that week I had a few 1pm sleep inns, I needed them!
For the first time in my career I had a punter spill a pint of beer on one of the turntables as I was playing. This happened as I was enjoying digging out some oldies for my classic set at Timeflies in Cardiff. I watched the screen on the CDJ start doing some strange things then I realised that none of the functions where working. Luckily it kept playing the CD and I mixed into the next track. Then panic struck in when I couldn't eject the CD from the drenched player. I only had CD's and there was no back up CD player. The current track had 3 minutes left to play. I spotted the next DJ's bags on the floor and saw he had some vinyl and we had turntables, so I sent a search team to find him, but with less then 2 minutes to go I was going to have to take some drastic action. As I started flicking through a bunch of records that I didn't know, then the other resident handed me a JOOF recordings record and I quickly threw it on the turntable but had no sound as they weren't plugged in! Luckily I know Alan & Heath mixers very well and found the leads and a spare channel. With 30 seconds to go to the amazement of the punters standing round the DJ booth watching this fiasco, I did a floorless mix and kept the show going!! That had to be the longest 3 minutes of my life....phew???
The next day I played for M.I.K.E's club Elite night in his hometown of Antwerp in Belgium alongside Andrew Bennet, Harry Lemon and M.I.K.E. I have to admit I was a bit nervous playing alongside these guys because I can play much harder and faster and was worried I might clear the dance floor. But I was proved wrong as I watched the crowd go crazy. As Mike kept shouting behind me, they have come to experience the John 00 Fleming sound, so give it to them. So I did! I also had to respect that Mike was playing after me, so needed to calm things down as he now plays much slower then me. I was so good to see my good old mate Mike, especially in his own town.
So another month has flown by and we're now halfway through the year...soon be Christmas..ha!!!
See you all next month. |
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I'll do my best if i get the chance. 
