Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Originally the plan was to have a quiet new years eve, in preparation for Summadayze on new years day, but of course this 'quiet' night turned out to be impossible. We ended up down at the St Kilda Sea Baths for the Carnivale party, which proved to be a lot of fun.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
When I first started going out to dance parties and clubs, the name in dance music was Gatecrasher. So to find myself, shooting the latest and possibly the last Gatecrasher event in Melbourne, it was a bit of a thrill. It was even more exciting to see so many locals on the lineup, so many friends up on stage for one of the greatest labels ever known :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
After the Boat party there was the after party (kinda makes sense all written down like that). The party was FLIRT at Miss Libertine, a renovated pub on franklin street, old pub in the front, and new club out back. This is the second FLIRT i've been too and they are truly wicked parties. The sideshow included two of santa's helpers sharing their lifes blood, snorting a gigantic bag of charlie, and sucking seductively on large candy canes. What more could you ask for? :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Boat Party Ahoy! I don't really need to say much more than that. Smashbang and aLive join forces for a christmas party on our old friend the Victoria Star, and as usually, it got very messy, very quickly :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Hooray! Finally, summer has officially returned because the Beach Parties have started up again. Mike, Luvvy, Chris and the crew throw a top party, in a great location :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
CSC's Christmas party, and my first with the company, was held this year at the Richmond Union Bowls club. Quite a good location for a lazy summer's evening and especially good if you happen to live a few hundred meters down the road like I do :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
After Clare's birthday I popped in to Stellar for BugHAUZ, the very last party to be held there. The guys that run the party are pretty cool, and I was especially happy to have Blinky playing there, as I hadn't heard him outside of the normal Techno/Electro environment and he really blew those breakbeat kids away. We used to tease people about listening to breakbeats, but the stuff that's around now is actually really cool.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Went to Lounge to help celebrate Clare's birthday and to generally have a few drinks and get some good tunes in :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Summer is here and Felicite decided to throw the first BBQ of the season down at Ormond. A bloody good day for it too, and a good chance to catch up with all of that crew that I hadn't seen in a while :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Stellar bar is closing it's doors, so we all gathered for the last House Party to be held there and drunk it out in style. The house party crew were in fine form and the bar staff were, as usual, up to all sorts of crazy shenanigans. It's kind of weird but I won't miss the house party crew so much, since we see them anyway, but I will miss Jeremy, Bev, Lauren and Julia, as we won't see them out and about as much.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
I caught up for dinner with Joe, Kim and Shaz at a vegetarian restaurant in St Kilda called Lentil as Anything, which uses a novel approach to billing, you pay what you think it was worth. Which I thought would be annoying, but it turns out it wasn't too bad. The service was a little slow, but the place was packed so you expect that with most places it starts to slow down at that point. It was so packed in fact that at the start of the meal we were actually sharing a booth with a couple (who were ver kind to let us share). The meal was quite nice and the company was of course, exemplary :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Rose & Pete got married on 2 December and did Joe and I the honour of letting us shoot the wedding for them. It was a lovely ceremony, held in a winery out just past Eltham, and was really an idyllic location for it. The party up the hill later on was also spectacular, as was the gigantic conical wedding cake made out of profiteroles and toffee. crazy but wonderful :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Earthcore again and this time we did it in style, having hired a 6-berth camper van. I don't thin kI can go back to camping after that little experience. There's something to be said for having a decent bed, for not having to do very much setup when you arrive, and for always having a cool shady spot to go and have a sit-down. It was also useful to be able to keep my batteries for the camera charged and ready to go, so I basically didn't have to worry about running out.
The event itself was fantastic. We had VIP access and also I had backstage access to shoot it (thanks Spiro!) so I managed to get a heap of really good shots, and just had a blast as per usual. It was also really cool to see so many people I knew up on stage. Big props go to Bubble and Squeak (Ehsan and Evan) who played the main stage and who absolutely blew it away. These guys have always been good, but that was the best performance i have seen from them, truly worthy of their international status.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
The launch of ITM's second annual magazine, inthemix.2006, which was held at Eurotrash. Not a bad little party, got to see the magazine early and got a little showbag of stuff. Got to meet some of the ITM staff from interstate and one of the ITM photogs from interstate too, and got to drink a whole lot of free Smirnoff Ice Black again. That's getting to be a habit :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Sunday 19 November saw a combination ITM meetup and Push party at The George White Bar in St Kilda. Quite a good event it was too, with lots of ITMers showing up and ITM/Smirnoff providing a case or two of Smirnoff Ice Black, which is a damn good way to get hammered :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Kate and I went to see the Tezuka exhibition at the NGV. It was so good, the man was a master of the line drawing, using novel new ways to illustrate actions and thought and directions. Some of the images were extremely moving, and not something you would expect to see in a 1950's or 1960's comic.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
The guys from Smashbang records launched their new night at Lounge. Now every Friday is a Smashbang friday :)
Finally got to hear Luke McD bang out some tunes on the trumpet, which Ehsan plied us with laptoppery and Davarj played the bass guitar. Fantastic, and definitely added to every Friday's list of options from now on.
Teh Hotness
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Elli held a dinner party to get all of her friends together, and her and Jake cooked up a damn feast!
Elli then paraded her latest fashion look, yet more examples of her insane obsession with KFC :)
It was great to hang out with Elli, Jake and Kerryn, and we also took the time to surprise the hell out of Joe by having his friend Elle arrive back from the UK a few days earlier than he expected :)
Happy Birthday Becy
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Time for Becy's birthday, a party featuring lots of standing in the kitchen, lost bottle openers, crazy food, broken bottles, crazy shenanigans and silly stories. Pretty much like any good party :)
the ghosts of parties past
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
The traditional event for Cup Eve is a tour by Techno giant John Digweed. This year he was accompanied on tour by Sasha, so we were able to experience the first Sasha and John Digweed party in five years.
This was also the first party in a long time that I have not been taking photos for, didn't even have my camera along, so i was just there to party and have a good time. It was an awesome party, those guys are really the kings of this genre (techno) and were relentlessly pushing out tunes and sounds to drive us into a frenzy. Good times were had by all, although I got a bit more wasted than I had originally planned, it was all good in the hood. :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Went to a pretty cool party on Friday night, called Peppermint, because it's a twist of different styles and DJs. The party is run by Piro and runs at The Apartment at the Inkerman Hotel, which is basically a spacious luxury apartment at the top of the hotel that is set up to be accommodation or to be a club-style venue. Not may clubs have a BBQ and a spa pool though :)
The party was pretty cool, has some good random music styles, and I met some cool new people and saw some awesome fire art (twirling, juggling, etc)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
This weekend I went along to the G.O.D. (Gospel Of Dance) Halloween party. The party was put on by the GOD, MDA, Reason and Smile Police crew and was really a sea of good costumes and hard dancing :)
It was also interesting to see a bunch of the people from the previous night at 3D, as the music styles were fairly similar to the 1st floor hard trance :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Another installment of the excellent 140 parties put on by John Edwards and crew. I like this party a lot, not just because the guys who play are so good (they are, believe me) but also because by putting the party on at 3D I basically get three parties in one, hard trance downstairs, 140 tech/trance on level 2 and Psy trance upstairs. So we end up with lots of really nice people at the parties, because those music styles tend to engender nice people, but we get a variety of groupings. Young energetic 'kandy' kids downstairs dancing up a storm and shuffling (rocking) to their hearts content, a more mellowed out and older crowd on level two, having a drink and a chat and getting dragged onto the dance floor by the driving techno beats, and smiling stomping psy trance people on the top floor, hippie-like in their outlook and fun and games shenanigans :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Went to my first occurance of the Interview parties at Tilt this Saturday, and it was a bloody good party. Finally managed to see Mike Nichol play, which is amusing because I'm met him out a dozen times, in the company of Jules Plees and Ben Evans, but never actually heard him play, and he's bloody good :)
Even though Tilt is a fairly small place, they definitely packed it out with a good bunch of people, with some of the usual suspects and some new peeps. A good night all around :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Today was my last day sailing the wide accountant-sea at KPMG. After 9 years, 11 months and 2 days I
left the firm to start a new job as a Solutions Designer at CSC, a job I don't really know how to do and
something I haven't actually done before.
In my time at KPMG i've done just about every type of IT job that I was interested in, and a few that didn't even exist until I was put into the role. I've learnt a lot about providing IT services and honed my operations skills to quite a sharp point I believe. And now i'm moving away from the operations area and into design, working with a team to help put together designs and cost models for new infrastructure pieces for existing clients of CSC and occasionally to work on bids to get new customers.
KPMG was an interesting place to work and despite having had some bad times there were also a lot of good times, especially meeting a whole raft of really good people, forming the basis or seeds of just about every friendship I have at the moment, many of which have survived past the time the other people have left the firm, indicating that they are worthwhile friendships indeed.
The firm was quite generous in sending me off, giving me a very nice farewell gift (a portable hard drive to download images off my cameras without needing a pc - geeky but very useful) and also providing a significant financial input into my self-organised farewell drinks at Stellar Bar.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Another round of the Technoir party, and a simply wonderful party at that. These guys really have what it takes to make a fun and friendly environment, and the warehouse they are currently using has proven to be a useful and flexible place to hold it.
preparations
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
It had been a while since I had popped in to Stellar to check out the House Party crew, so we figured it was time again.
It's always fun down there, although Mudgutz didn't really like the music at all, but I like it :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Time for Godskitchen again, one of the original 'large' dance parties we used to go to, and still going strong. This year it was a bit of fun because Elektra was playing in one of the rooms and so was Dee Dee. It was fun and strange to see DJs that I see so often up behind the large stacks belting out the tunes :)
The event itself was pretty enjoyable, lots of good music and I ran into a lot of people that I know from other trance events like 140. I also had some time to hang out with Calvin, Kathryn's new boy, so my official verdict is: he's good enough to date my friend :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Went to Sydney for work for one day to do a Secret Squirrel photo shoot and to be involved in the Infrastructure team day.
It was a good opportunity to say farewell to the Sydney team i'd been working with for years (nearly a decade in some cases) and get some free dinner off work :)
Stalker
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
On the way to Famous I got a call form one of the Messy Creations guys about a warehouse party they were having in Kensington.
Off I popped in a cab, found the elusive street, walked through a very dark industrial estate, wandered in and amongst workshops and factories and train yards and earth moving machines to finally discover an oasis of light and music.
The warehouse itself was a large space, decorated like nothing I have ever seen. Rooms made up by a small caravan and cushions stuck to the wall, the DJ booth made out of an old Valiant, shadow sculptures made out of old bicycle parts. Even just describing it again now is making me wonder at how they came up with such inventiveness.
The music was awesome, a real breath of fresh air from the commercialism of Famous. Favourites like Colonel Mustard and Nicnac, and new faves like Toupee generated some fantastic tunage, and the crowd really got into it. It was especially nice to see more and more people I knew showing up as the night went on, until there were heaps of friendly faces. It was one of those random organic nights that just showed up and turned out to be a wonderful experience. Thanks Messy. :)
Stalker
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Finally got a chance to get down and visit Melbourne's newest super club - Famous. Future Entertainment have renovated the old Queensbridge Hotel and reopened it as a regular weekly club. My editor Sara, from itm, was keen to get some shots down there and I was keen to check it out so down I popped.
I must say I got a heap of shots in a very short time, I even missed a happy snap in the time it took me to get my flash out of my bag and yet had another lined up by the time it switched on :)
Pretty good club with a lot of potential, without too much of the original QBH soul ripped out.
Farewell Bec
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
As an indicator of how up to date my blog is, here';s the entry about Bec going off on holidays to India, except she's almost due home again :)
We had a few drinks and some dinner to sned her off and all was well.
I was especially happy as we popped into the Italian Waiter's Club for dinner, which I absolutely love and do not go to anywhere near enough. If you like italian food and live in melbourne, go here.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Saturday was Joe's 30th Birthday and we celebrated in style. To mark the move out of his 20's he held a 1920's themed party and a huge number of people came in costume. There were flappers, gangsters, street urchins and prize fighters, even Charlie Chaplin made an appearance.
There were a few DJs playing, some of the usual crew, as well as Joe himself doing his debut set as a psy trance DJ, and doing a pretty good job too. There were people from flickr, inthemix, kpmg, they were coming out of the woodwork like crazy :)
Even the birthday cupcakes had little picture of Joey on them. it was crazy fun :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Friday night we popped into The Espy for the Data on Dub showcase (part 1).
Pretty good party from some of Melbourne's best minimal DJs, with some fantastic pops and squeaks. Really good stuff.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
When I worked at Melbourne CAE and Melbourne Uni we would regularly go and get Pizza on Lygon st, in fact there was a point in time where that's what we had for lunch every single day, and there was a few years where every Friday was pizza with the other non-academic staff at the CAE.
During this time we sampled every pizza place on Lygon st, an area renowned for having the best Italian food in Melbourne.
Without a doubt in my mind, the best pizza place on Lygon is, was, and probably always will be Papa Gino's.
On Tuesday a bunch of the old crew hit up Gino's for dinner. Damn it's good pizza. :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Popped into the White Bar @ Push to see Fifi and Elektra, and they managed to drag us off to Revolver as well. We normally try to avoid that place like the plague that most likely inhabits its bathrooms, however with the right crew, and at the right time (post post post munted crazies in the morning) it turned out to be not too bad. :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
DJ's in their PJs!
Cuznmatt's Pyjama party has finally come to fruition. The Pyjama Jarmi Jam, held at Acemorning and featuring DJs in their PJs.
Very funny night, met some new peeps and saw some old peeps and generally had a bit of a dance to some good music and a bit of a laugh at some dodgy PJs. Funny stuff.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Popped in to the inthemix50 party at Room680 for a few hours this Friday. A really great party where the winners of the Technics inthemix top 50 were announced and some of the top 50 DJs spun a few tracks.
Lots of beautiful people just out to have fun. Normally this generates a lot of idiots, but for some reason this didn't happen here. Not sure why but I'm really happy it occurred.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Sharon's School Disco meant that we couldn't make it to Felicite's birthday dinner, so we all went to The Windsor Castle for some sunday arvo drinks.
I'm glad we got to catch up with Felicite and Dean, as they are some of the nicest people I know. Funny and quirky and just all around good people. :)
p.s.: the food at The Windsor Castle is fantastic. Highly recommended.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Time for a private party this time, and it was Sharon's School Disco with all the regular crew dressed in their best uniforms.
It was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to have a bit of a laugh. I won't mention the whole schoolgirl fantasy thing, but the winner or the evening was Amelia who wore her actual original school uniform. :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Friday night after the shoot, Joey, Marcus and I went to 140 @ 3D nightclub. The club is always interesting, as they usually have three different styles of music across the three floors, often they are even different events like they were this time.
Downstairs was "Brad's Birthday" playing hard trance, level 2 was "140" playing trance and techno and upstairs was "Psychotic Episode" playing psy trance.
It was a great night, with good music on each floor and a strong contingent of people making an appearance on each floor. I also got a chance to meet some more of the local DJs i've been keen to meet like JulesPlees (i'd met him, but I wasn't sober enough), Ben Evans and Steve Strangis.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
I got another paid shoot this week, another wedding via someone on inthemix.com.au, this time it was phunkdust's brother's wedding.
It was really good to shoot on behalf of another photographer because all I had to do was shoot the pictures and he did all the post processing :) easey peasey.
I shot the whole lot in RAW and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't that much harder to work post. I'd still need some significantly larger memory cards to do it for club events, but I really loved being able to control the white balance and exposure in all the shots before opening in photoshop.
Rave Love - Stage 3 - Impregnation
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
The second party on Saturday night was a much different affair. The latest installment of Technoir, held in a warehouse in Coburg, harking back to the old rave days where it's BYO alcohol and everyone is friendly and there to have fun. Lots of great music (it's Technoir after all), heaps of silly shenanigans, and just a really nice party.
