Saarbroken
Monday, May 25th, 2009I’ve been so busy only now have I had time for a proper ‘debrief’ of International Mash Bash in Saarbruecken – also wanted to wait til I had all the videos and pictures uploaded. There have been far better ‘debriefs’ such as Shiggi’s aka Defunkto who had far more exciting and dramatic time than me…so I’ll keep it quick.
Friday morning was stressed – I was running late and the supposed Stansted Express is anything but, stopping at the likes of Little Buttf**k, Essex for no apparent reason. I ran – well shambled – as fast as I could to the gate, to find this is the Uprising crew method of flying:
So I made it with plenty to spare, sadly Shiggi didn’t – as you can read in her report…and this wasn’t first of the RyanAir hassles – several of the Who Boys massive got surcharged with that ripoff scam where you have to print out your boarding card – to turn up with the booking number like you can on other airlines means you get a 20 or 40 quid charge! Horrible airline.
Anyway safely in ZweiBruecken, we met up with Andreas and made it to Saarbruecken on the coach…it was at the hotel I met DJ Fuller (who is crazy) and DJ M.i.f. again – he was also at Trier. After much wandering trying to find the other hotels, finding a massive German sausage met Bacon (ooh! Insert Carry On Style joke here) and DJ Fuller attacking children’s bouncy play areas in the high street, we eventually found and lured the Who Boys to the Alligator, a 1 Euro per drink dive near the Continental. As you might have guessed, this set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
I finally met up with John later – the hotel had despite me mentioning him on booking email, and asking about him that evening by name – had booked him into a seperate room! It was by pure chance we met, so went and had a nice Italian meal…totally wrecking my German acclimatisation. The club started at 11pm, and we got there at 11:15.
Modul is a great club, quite civilised with loads of places to sit, sofas (of which several varieties became Jimmi Jammes home for most of the weekend) and an upstairs and downstairs bar. To kick off was Andreas akamouzpusha doing his first ever DJ set, video’d by his dad – ahh…a rather bigger camera was the SaarTV who interviewed Andreas on the dancefloor despite Jez mit Horsehead going up behind him..
Here’s Morgoth DJing in the upstairs bar:
I danced to his set but my dancing ‘duck’ was broken earlier by Mr Whitelabel who played a great mashup of Pjanoo vs Robin S, and if there was a song of the weekend, that was it for me.
(Djing AND taking pictures? Man after my own heart)
And here’s the start of CMP’s set (the ‘You Bastard!’ you hear part way through was as I realised he was playing one of the tracks in my set. He theen went on and played the next track I was going to play in my set – in exactly the same order! Hence a quick set change/panic on the Saturday for me).
BTW may look a bit empty but that’s cos Fusion’s crowd cleared out at the end of his set before ; Jez had the floor packed in 1-2 songs after this. 
The Who Boys disappeared for most of the night, and came back with strange tales of midgets and polish women. Here’s a sample of a new video podcast called ‘Friday Night With The Who Boys’ I am not producing 
John was flagging so left around 1am ish – but I wanted to stay to the bitter end, mostly to hear LV15’s set at 5am. I didn’t know what to expect, but as it wasI think his first set in about 5 years, and apparently the last I wasn’t going to miss it…I wasn’t disappointed, it was the best set of the whole weekend for me – old skool drum and bass bootlegs, as I’ve posted here a few days ago. Total class, and was one of only two sets where I danced like a loon.
(Warning, audio is seriously not safe for work:)
So after that most of Saturday was rather quiet – John went off to visit the sights while I slept, then stirred around 1pm – well was actually awoken by a call by Robin aka Superelectro and practised my set, panicking that after CMP’s set it might seem a bit like a rehash. I calmed down, got my soundcard working with Traktor properly and felt a lot better. Stumbled out at around 4pm, looking for food and collided with the gang who were going down to the 6nul3 venue to show us where it was. It looked like a rundown secret cinema, and the poster had gone, rather worryingly.
Wandered around, got some food at a local Imbiss (the sausages are lovely!) and then drank in the Markt with the Uprising crew and Nick Deep Disco Force who was over from Trier…oh and Shiggi arrived! That was a pleasant surprise as we were all bummed she missed the flight…apparently she got in from Munich on the train at 4am. Ouch.
8pm: Soundcheck: oh dear. The place looks like a bunker and sounds like it, bass reflections all over the place. Their idea of soft furnishing and sound proofing is building the walls from those sorts of rocks you get in B&Q rockeries. Ouch. Set up my laptop and scarpered cos I was meeting John for dinner. A fraught yet nice affair – fraught cos I was nervous about my set, and the fact that I hadn’t been able to setup the projector.
Get back to the club with John, get lost finding the ’second floor’ til I learn it’s in the toilet. Cue much laughing (but later taken (a)back when I realise the acoustics were actually better in there) and learn the projector can’t be setup, as despite there being a big fuckoff strobe that’s always on, a projector will ruin the ‘ambience’. What ambience? Were they going for 60’s ski-resort torture dungeon that week? So it means my specially created hour-long video set is now going to be on TV only. Sigh.
Noise. The place is noisy. Even the ‘Second floor’ is noisy. Bass in your face and every other nook and cranny. John does not look happy as he’s agreed to stay for my set until 2am, so proceeds to get drunk. I can’t blame him. I partly join him, cos I am not looking forward to my set. Nick Deep Disco Force plays storm in the toilet, sorry second room, and I have fun taking pics in that room with it’s odd lighting.
My set rolls around, and I take to the ’stage’, well bit by the bar – it goes well for the first few songs, despite aggro trying to get the DVD to start with German OSX which Andreas sorts out (thanks)…but during the piano-house / modern AC Slater – Jack Beats style section I lose them…I couldn’t really work out what they liked, cheese? electro? rock? Strangely they seemed to react well to one of the earlier Metal bootlegs, and I’d not brought any metal – apart from Electro Sandman – in my set which they didn’t really like either. I’d gone for a surefire commercial electro/mashup floorfiller type set, demo’d elsewhere successfully, and it turned out to be far from surefire. I probably should’ve done ’silly’ but the point was to prove that I can do other things, like a credible set, like I’ve done successfully at Bootie or Eclectic Kettle. It failed.
Also I learned you can’t DJ in a top hat! I’ll be posting my set and my video in the next day or two so you can make up your own mind. Some of the bootleggers liked it – LV15 and Mrs Pilchard said nice things, which meant a lot. I stumbled off the stage into John’s arms – he thought it was wonderful, and no he doesn’t usually say that automatically The irony was I was half thinking of making it my last DJ set too, the response probably has made up my mind – if I was a good DJ I could’ve rocked that place. Oh well.
Still the night was young and I could now get very drunk and had nothing to worry about! Wayhey!
Pilchard went on and did a great set despite me knocking over his beer, and the soundsystem and then it was the Who Boys:
It was their retirement set, and sadly there weren’t a lot of people left by the time they went on, mostly bootleggers…the club was only partly full to begin with – not Andreas’s fault, the posters were everywhere and flyers in massive quantity – which we got to see when Andreas asked the owner if he had any flyers left and he pulled out a massive box full – not given out. Andreas was not pleased…tbh it seemed like the owner didn’t really care as he was selling the place.
But despite this the Who Boys played a brilliant set to the few people who were there. I danced like a loon, and it was great to see others like LV15 do too…
In the second room Shiggi was mixing up a storm playing house and later evil dubstep which reverberated the tiles and turned it into a giant bass unit – I wished I could be in both rooms!
So 5am comes around after Jimmi Jammes great set and taking loads of mad pics like these ones of ToTom and Shiggi with the Evil Strobe which was now on overdrive:
We walk to the after party where Ciaran Whitelabel will do his set as the 6nul3 is closing, to find that the other place has closed too – sorry Ciaran 
And we had a laugh as LV15 cajoled and told off everyone in the group, especially Scott Pilchard who had fallen off the wagon rather hard…and Shiggi and ToTom escorting him down the street…I stumbled into bed, but not after having breakfast at the hotel which Fuller and M.i.f. wangled every day – that man could talk the legs off a donkey, but knows how to get food and cheap alcohol, if you see DJ Fuller follow him for a good time
Despite my set etc. I had a great time in Saarbruecken, esp. the Friday, and pretty much all the sets rocked…it was great to meet more of the Europe contingent, from ToTom, Gaston, FM24, Morgoth, mad Danish posse, Fusion and Andreas – big thanks to him for organising this crazy catherding experiment. I hope there are many more!
You can find all the Saarbruecken pics that strangely appeared on my camera although I wasn’t taking pics, right? here.
I was in Trier and got a phone call from Scott from the 
