Friday, October 13, 2006

preparations


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 :)

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Godskitchen



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 :)

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Sydney quickstop



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 :)

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Re-Hash Trash


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. :)

Famous


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.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Farewell Bec


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.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Happy Birthday Joe



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 :)

Friday, September 22, 2006

Data on Dub



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.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Gino's



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. :)

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Push



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. :)

Friday, September 15, 2006

Pyjama Jarmi Jam!



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.

inthemix50



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.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Happy Birthday Felicite



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.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

School Disco



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. :)

Friday, September 08, 2006

140



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.

Wedding Shoot



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.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Technoir


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.

Vermillion



Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Saturday brought a couple of very different and very interesting parties. The first one was Vermillion, held at the upmarket strip club Spearmint Rhino. Elektra played as well as Luke McD but the highlight was the floor shows, put on by a couple of very good dance troupes, that included some great burlesque, some very advanced pole dancing, members of the audience being dragged up for sexy dancing on stage and a group of very cute girls who dressed as various male fantasy models, cheerleaders, nurses, schoolgirls etc.
At one point I ran into one of Vanessa's friends, Elise, and she asked if I got paid for this sort of thing. I only had to gesture to the 12 hot girls dancing on stage a few feet away to indicate that it wasn't really necessary. :)

Friday, September 01, 2006

Lectro: Pirates of Porn


Elektra
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Another installment of Lectro, this one centered on Pirates and Porn, the mainstays of the Internet.
This time the party was taken to Room680 and Lectro managed to fill the place quite well. A very successful party from a crew who are really going places.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Happy Birthday Kerryn


Princess Kerryn is crowned
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Playing a bit of catch-up on the blog here so bear with me :)

The day after the boat party we went to Bridie O'Reilley's on Chapel St to help celebrate Kerryn's birthday. It was a lot of fun, even though Joe and I were still a bit tired form the day before, but it was good to spend some quality time with Kezza and Elli and meet some of Kerryn's friends, her new flatmate, and to finally meet Elli's boyfriend Jake.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

boat party madness


Joe is, er, distracted
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Hooray for the Screw crew's boat parties, simply one of the best parties in existence. These parties are definitely the most fun that can be had on any boat, anywhere, any time, up to and including being a Guest Star on The Love Boat and having a love interested with Judy, your cruise director (or Isaac, your bartender, if that's more your style).
The parties are a fairly well kept secret, in that you have to know someone involved to get tickets, and they sell out fairly quickly, so you know it's only going to be good people who are interested in having fun and not a bunch of idiots :) Just good people having a great time dancing to some fantastic DJs.
The after party was also pretty cool, although I was very messy by the time I got there so I think the less said the better. I will say that I was so drunk that when I ordered Smirnoff Ice at the after party and was told they didn't stock it, I managed to stuff up my order of the equivalent Skyy vodka drink that I ended up with Skyy vodka and pink grapefruit and didn't notice until I was nearly finished, despite another friend telling me a few times that I was drinking a 'girlie' drink and laughing at me. :)

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Puma shoot



Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Joe and I got an email from our photo editor at inthemix, looking for someone to shoot the launch of Puma's spring women's collection in Melbourne.
It was a fairly easy shoot, and a quick way to make some money, although it was kind of weird shooting people who were basically shopping :)

Monday, August 21, 2006

Ski trip 2006


overhand
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, another year's ski trip has come and gone :)
This year the snow was a bit light on, but we had enough mostly for our purposes. The summit area was closed the entire time, in fact I don't believe they've had it open at all this year, they'd also sent a lot of their staff home, as there wasn't enough work for all the towies and instructors. At one stage in the week we'd heard that Hotham had just closed down, as they're run out of their water allotment and couldn't make any more snow to keep the runs open. There was a big dump of snow the next night so they were probably pretty thankful. One of the advantages of Falls Creek (where we were) is that most of its ski area is on the edge of a lake, meaning that water can be drawn from that lake for making snow and any melt or runoff will flow straight back into that lake. I suspect this means that water used on those slopes for snowmaking doesn't count towards their water allotment to as great an extent and is the difference between a resort almost closing and only having one run open, and a resort doing well and having half the mountain open.
So the snow was pretty good, where it was, and we were able to ski every day. Except I only skied half days, and didn't ski at all on the day it was pelting down snow and rain, because, frankly, i'm over that ;)
Skiing was a lot of fun, as it usually is, you can tell because we often end up the run and meet at the lift queue and everyone has a huge smile on their face, and nobody has to say anything.
Apart form the skiing the time was spent in the usual ways, drinking a bit, talking a bit of crap, playing dice and card games, watching a few dvds, eating a lot (we eat very well, and there's no shortage of good food), and of course 'entertaining' the kids (read: torturing)
A very restful week overall, lots of good skiing, loads of relaxation, not as much alcohol as normal, heaps of home cooked meals. awesome :)

Friday, August 11, 2006

Joey Joey Joe Joe Jr Shabadoo



Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Joe has returned to Australia after an absence of two months spent in the UK with his family so a bunch of us headed out for beverages to celebrate his return. In the hunt for somewhere to go we ended up at Altitude on Russell st, which i haven't been to for quite a while, not since well before they built their new balcony lounge, so it was good to get another look at the place and see how it's shaping up. It was also good to see Joey again and to just hang out with the crew again. It ended up travelling up to Stellar and getting a bit messier before we all went our separate ways, but it was a good night.
The next morning Kerryn, Joe, Elli and I met up for pancakes and a bit more laughing and joking around before we all split up for a week. I was off skiing, Elli was off to Sydney, Kerryn was off to NZ the next weekend and Joey had some sleep to catch up on :)

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Autumn Gray



Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Thursday night was the launch of the first EP from Matt Watson's band Autumn Gray. The launch was held at the Rob Roy hotel in Fitzroy and it went really well, with the band playing to a capacity crowd and sales of the EP quite high. It's quite a good 6 piece band, with most of the band members playing a variety of instruments, particularly on the EP. Check them out for yourself here

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

night stroll


planet earth is blue
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Took the opportunity of working late to take a couple of strolls around the city for some shots. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but then it caused my knee to start hurting again (I twisted it at the Collision party but it had been much better lately). At least that prompted me to actually go see a physio to see what the issue was and confirm I would still be able to go skiing next week. She confirmed that my patella was slightly out of place and showed me how to tape it back down properly.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

aLive 12


Sal
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This weekend was the aLive 1st birthday party, despite the fact that it was only the 12th alive and not the 13th, but we celebrated anyways. This was the first aLive since the Mercat closed, and was held at a new venue the Bendigo Hotel in Abbottsford. The pub seemed to work quite well, with a decent beer garden and a large enough bistro to fit us all in comfortably, the sound system seemed fine and the food was excellent. It was also an opportunity to see Funky Monkey (Sal) DJ and she was pretty good, especially since it was only her second gig ever :)

Sunday, July 30, 2006

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.

Friday, July 28, 2006

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 :)

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

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 :)

Monday, July 24, 2006

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 :)

Saturday, July 22, 2006

'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 :)

Friday, July 21, 2006

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.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

[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 :)

Saturday, July 15, 2006

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.

Friday, July 14, 2006

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 :)

Thursday, July 13, 2006

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.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

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 :)

Sunday, July 02, 2006

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 :)

Saturday, July 01, 2006

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.

Friday, June 30, 2006

more housecapades



Originally uploaded by Scootie.

After drinkies with Mitchie I popped into Mikeys House Party for some more fun and games. I think this is going to be a regular friday thing, time permitting.

Farewell Mitch


centre of attention :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

after 5 years with KPMG Mitchie Girl moves on to brighter and better things. After a sufficiently boozy farewell party of course :)

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Technoir



Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Technoir again, what a good party that is. I think i've been blessed by the ITM gods, the main parties I go to, aLive, Lectro and Technoir are all awesome, and all almost randomly encountered. aLive was my first ITM meetup which put the idea into my head that I could publish pictures of events on ITM. Lectro was one of the first random parties I decided to check out, and Technoir was the first time a promoter had approached me at a party to take shots for him. All of those parties are absolutely awesome, and all are now on at the Mercat Cross Hotel, which is one of the best possible dance venues in town.

This Technoir was a huge party spread across two rooms, with such a great vibe going on in each. The messhall had Tronikelesch and Heath Myers lighting the place up and making it jump, and dancehall had Dee Dee, Ranjit Nijjer, Luke McD, and Elektra (my favourite) grinding us all down to pieces with dark and dirty techno goodness. Decor, was of course, fantastic once again, with a lot of attention to detail and unique usage of the dj space, and they also had some feature dancers and an acrobatic performance. This party gets better every time, I just can't believe my luck :)

Friday, June 23, 2006

house in the house



Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Mikey asked me to pop into his regular House Party at Atoka/Stellar/98 Bourke on Friday and it was a lot of fun. The crew there are pretty cool, and the place always seems friendly and inviting, and they drop some very fine tunes too. I'm not into house so much these days for a dance party, but for sitting around chatting and having a few drinks it's pretty bloody good :)

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Of pictures and poets


Jeff Lemon
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Tonight was one of the regular flickrwalks about the city, this time focusing on Birrarung Marr and the bridges nearby. It's always good to go on these things and take some pictures with other people, althoguh I try and not take the obvious stuff and usually end up taking shots of the weird stuff or shots of the other flickrnauts :)

Tonight was also the first time Fran's brother Jeff Lemon appeared as a feature poet, at The Spinning Room, held in ET's in Prahran. There were a number of good poets reading that night, some old hands and some new blood, but Jeff's stuff was really noteworthy. I had no trouble with his imagery, his words taking me to some interesting places and also reliving some interesting times, especially when he read a poem about Earthcore :) The night was very enjoyable and I thin I wouldn't mind going to another reading sometime.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

a funny thing happened on the way to the forum


Geminae: bookends
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

A friend of ours, Sally, was in the local production of the Sondheim musical A Funny thing happened on the way to the forum, starring as one of a pair of courtesans known as 'Geminae' and managed to sing and dance up a storm. It was an excellent production and Sally was, of course, superb :)

(that's her on the right) :)

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Dancehall



Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Kathryn and I decided we needed to go out dancing this week, so we popped along to Dancehall at the mercat to have a bit of a boogie.

I had spent the whole day sick in bed, so it was good to get out of the house and have some dun, and Kathryn is always good fun :)

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

suspended


suspended
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

14 june 6pm - I helped George out by shooting a rope suspension he did for the artist Dennis Ropar. The photo shoot and suspension went really well, and it was quite good to meet Dennis as he's a very good artist. His current work is showing at his gallery about Popshop in the city, some really cool pop art depictions of some pvc/rubber kink scenes, I suggest you try and get along if you can. :)

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Traincore



Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, here it is, Traincore. I had wanted to go to the original traincore years back, but it just didn't eventuate, and I always felt a bit of regret at that. I had been to a number of Earthcore events and always had a lot of fun, they always seemed to know how to make a party special.

Add to that the recent parties I'd been to by the Lectro crew, parties that all managed to have that element of craziness, that glitz and glamour that just made the party shine, and the friendly atmosphere that makes it feel safe to be yourself, judgement free.

So when you take an antique train, restored to all it's glory, 600 happy ravers, partygoers willing to present the right attitude, willing to leave their dull and dreary lives behind and go out of their way to have fun, you add in the Earhtcore tried-and-true party team at one end, the Lectro shenanigans at the other end, then you have yourself a party.

There's something about dancing on a train and trying to add the motion from the rails into your dancing style. Something about being on an antique train and seeing an art-deco dining car turned into a Psy trance dance floor, including lasers and light up 70's style dance floor. Something to the look of the local when 600 munted kids show up at the local pub for some insane Goa and punjab trance. Something very special about being crammed into box cars like cattle and being surrounded by smiling people as the Lectro grinds its way out of the sound system all the way back to the station.

Fucking awesome, truly one of the great parties of all time.