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.
