Morbid Thoughts

Agnes Cecilia
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Kerryn and I wandered about Melbourne cemetery today to see what shots we could come up with.
Wandering a cemetery makes you think about tombstones, and how some types fade over time and some don't. At first I thought I would want one of the types that stayed visible for over a hundred years, but then again, does my ego go that far? do I really need my tombstone to outlast my children? outlast their children? At first I pitied Agnes Cecilia, whose tombstone is picture above, but after thinking more on it, I think i'll join her. If my name is to live on beyond my lifetime, i'd prefer it to be for my deeds, not my death.

Collision

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Lectroland.com, Earthcore and Dirty deeds combined forces to throw one hell of a party in the Prince of Wales on Friday. The whole night was pretty interesting, starting with drinks with Kathryn and Mudgutz at Yak bar after work, then segueing to dinner with Nick & Kate, Mick and Steph and Dave & Usha (Special guest stars direct from Canberra) at Kanzaman restaurant on Bridge rd. Then I went and grabbe Kathryn from the city and we headed down to St Kilda for Lectro.
The party was going full swing by about 1am with all rooms full and each set of decks pumping out fantastic music. Even the breakbeat stuff coming out of the Dirty Deeds stage was interesting, and something i'll definitely be checking out at their next party.
Collision was something new to try for all of the promoters, and in a new venue for most of them, but it was a roaring success and I think they'll be very happy to go for it again next month :)

DJ Shadow and Mos Def

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

I wasn't originally planning to go see DJ Shadow and Mos Def because i'm not really that into Hip-Hop, but I got asked to shoot it for inthemix, and I'm glad I did because it was really good.
It was also good to get up backstage and get some unique angles on the performers, even if I had to crawl a little through the speaker stacks like I did for this one :)

Happy Birthday Courtney

Happy Birthday Courtney
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Monday was my niece Courtney's 9th birthday so I went down to visit mum and dad and we had dinner and cake with Courtney, my brother Cam and his wife Cindy.
It is always nice to see them, and Courtney is growing up pretty fast so it's good to catch up at least a few times a year to keep track :)

'tonks

rave juice
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

With the news that Honkytonks is planning to close after New Years Day next year I thought I'd better take a few more assignments in there, get it documented while I can.
It also helped that Dave Pham and Mike Callander were playing their very fine variety of minimal tech :)

shenanigans

I love these girls :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Carrying on from the previous week's collision of flickr/inthemix we repeated the event this week and added a few more crazy kids into the action.

[this is elli]

Dinner with Elli
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Kerryn and I had this great plan to go out to Ikea for a bit of a photo stroll, and since Elli couldn't join us I made up these [this is elli] cards so she could join us in spirit. Ikea closes too early on a wednesday so all the plans fell in a heap and we went down to southbank instead :)

farewell to Mercat

Good work Tim and Jane
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

The Mercat closed its doors on Saturday with the biggest Technoir yet. I'm still not 100% clear on why they had to close, but it looks like they weren't making enough money to keep the place afloat. They were trying up until the last minute, so only publicly announced the closure on Friday, So I spent a large part of the day in a stupor, wondering what was going to happen to my weekends, and what was going to happen to my favourite parties.
Tim and Jane from the Mercat have done so much for the Melbourne party scene, helping so many promoters and musicians to bring their party dreams to reality, and in the process creating an environment that all sorts of people can come along to and just have fun without feeling threatened or unwelcome. I know the parties will survive the move to another venue, they all had a decent following and will be strong enough to take it, but the fact is they are extremely unlikely to end up at the same venue, and with that something will be lost.

Lectro, Technoir, aLive, Dancehall and Nutshell all threw great parties here, and I was looking forward to Schpunk, Interview and Plus:One that were coming up.

This last Technoir party was really fantastic, not much in the way of Decor, as they weren't sure if they were going to make it happen at all so they didn't do much prep, so instead they blew the decor budget on a kick ass laser that really gave it something special. All the guys playing, all Technoir regulars, pulled out all the stops and played their best tracks and their favourite tracks and the crowd really responded.
Overall it was a bittersweet moment, a party that I would prefer not to have happened in many ways, but that I wouldn't have missed for anything.

two worlds collide

two worlds collide
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

I was shocked when Tash (who I know form inthemix.com.au) walks in with Bev (who I know from flickr) I had toruble aligning my world so they could both be in the same room at the same time :)

Ketchup!

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Caught up with some of the key peeps on Friday after work, a very crucial catchup as most of these guys will be going overseas for a while :)

night wanderings

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

I've been wandering around the city a bit lately, trying to take the time to get some photos that weren't taken in a club. I like taking photos during the day, because you get so many more options for each shot, but I also kinda like hand held shots at night, because you have less options.

Think of a happy place

Think of a happy place
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This week has been fairly eventful, although not many photos to commemorate the occasion. During the week I was working the late shift, which used to mean finishing at 8pm or 9pm and having a pretty crappy life outside of work, but those days are gone and the new late shift only goes until 6pm, which leaves plenty of time to lead a normal life :)
On Friday I went along with the Incandescent Kate to see her boyfriend Nick in a local Gilbert & Sullivan production, Iolanthe. He was pretty good, especially considering it was his first time on stage, and he handled the dinging and dancing with aplomb. I was quite impressed with the production overall, a very high level of talent displayed in the cast and good production values otherwise. I was also able to chat a bit more with Nick's mum and dad that I had met previously on Kate's birthday, and met his sister Tash for the first time. Overall a good night, and made a change from the usual dark and dreary clubs that I normally skulk about in (which I love skulking about in)
Saturday night I went to a birthday party for a friend of Vanessa's and shot some photos for them. It was a pretty good party, with lots of free booze and heaps of people all catching up and stuff. I didn't really know anyone except about 5 people but it was still a pretty decent party anyways. Afterwards I went down to the John Curtin hotel to catch some of the Parliament gig that John/Hercules runs there. Hung out with John and Little Chris and met a few people associated with the gig, including Lisa the very cute bartender. Funniest part of the evening would have been when a group of young 20-24 year old girls came in as part of a Hen's night, and they were dancing away but kept asking the DJ to play some RnB. He just smiled nicely and shook his head, since he was under instructions from the promoter (John) to not play RnB, and also it was his birthday so he was just playing his own set of favourite tracks and wasn't really interested in what any of the punters had to say. I don't think it was that big an issue, as they were dancing pretty much the whole time they were there :)

geekfest revisited

covetous touching
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

yet another beery afternoon flickrmeet, this time back at The Workshop in the city, and the turnout was quite impressive. It's always a bit daunting to meet a whole bunch of people for the first time, especially if they have two names you have to remember, and when you kinda already know them from their photo streams, it's hard to keep it all right in your head and I still end up doing little double-takes when I get home and realise that this person was such-and-such and that person took that photo, etc.
There's also the funny frenzy moment that usually happens when someone gets their camera going and it starts someone else and it all snowballs into a critical mass where everyone is taking a photo of everyone else taking a photo of someone else and so on and so forth.
Lots of cool people in the melbourne flickr group and I had a blast :)

aLive 11

Cuznmatt, KL, Luko
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

The eleventh aLive, and about my 8th, and aLive just keeps getting bigger and better. It's graduated to the main dancehall at the Mercat Cross hotel and the nexo stacks there really give the guys some punch.

This time Cuznmatt, KL and Luko teamed up to perform together, and it was bloody fantastic. A year ago I wasn't seeing any real live music, and now i'm inundated with these phenomenally good locally produced acts. Awesome.