As I had announced earlier I recently went to Seoul for business, and I was really excited to visit a city I’d never been to before.
I was there for four days, with a specific purpose related to business, so I barely had any time to visit. I spent most of the time going from the hotel to the office and at night I was too tired to go out and explore. Needless to say I never got to the record shops or flea markets I had hoped of seeing.
But from the little that I saw of it I really really liked Seoul: the girls were pretty, the men were classy, people in general were friendly, and the city itself reminded of a mix of various places I like.
So hopefully I’ll be able to come back and spend more time visiting and perhaps go to a couple of funk/hip hop nights.
Here’s so,e photos I took during the trip, and some links to some songs I listened to during the trip.
It’s been another hectic week full of gigs, concerts, restaurants and new work responsibilities; overall a very tiring but extremely fulfilling week.
I had the pleasure to play some excellent mambo, cumbia, salsa and soca tunes at Piedra Negra’s Cinco de Mayo festivities, which were a huge success.
DJ Shellsuit and I were quite surprised at the turnout for the Thursday night, since that was supposed to be the quietest event. People ended up filling up the entire Haji Lane as if it was an old school block party, and they drank and sang and danced well into 2 am.
The second night started out slowly, people began eating and drinking at around 9 pm, and only started dancing at around midnight. But once they got started it was difficult to stop them, we stopped the turntables at around 4 am, a bit later than originally expected.
All in all, an excellent party to remember with lots of good food (mmm beef quesadillas), good drinks (mmm margaritas and Patron tequila shots), and beautiful girls (you know who you are). So good, in fact, that it may soon become a monthly fixture.
Unfortunately my recording of the night’s sets was quite botched, so instead below is an 8tracks playlist that I prepared with some of the big hits I played that same night.
Speaking of big hits, one of my latest 8tracks selection has been getting a lot of attention. In only two days since I uploaded the playlist i got close to 100 favorites and 750 listens, something I’ve never had before.
The mix is even featured on 8tracks’ “Hot This Week” section!
I know this is only virtual recognition and that it’s more a recognition of my selection than of my DJ skills, but still, it feels nice.
In other news, I’ll be spending most of next week in South Korea (Seoul), for business. I don’t know yet how much time I’ll have to explore the city, but I’m taking a list of record shops, flea markets, and other interesting venues just in case.
I’m also trying to contact a certain Seoul Brother who seems to regularly play exactly the kind of sounds I dig, to see if I can catch one of his gigs while I’m there.
In any case, I’ll take lots of pictures and share them here when I get back.
I finally had the time to develop the first 5 rolls of film I took with my new Horizon Perfekt 202 camera, and I must say I am very happy with the results.
I played around with the settings (I’m still not sure which photos were taken using which settings), I had trouble loading the film into the camera, and I nearly bruised my neck from carrying the heavy object all across town, but it was worth it!
Of course I’m happiest with the photos that came out bright and clear, but while the ones taken in interior, at sunrise or at night came out dark I still like the effect.
Here’s a quick selection (More can be found here. In fact, these panoramic photos are best viewed in a larger format.):
Last week was the much-awaited first anniversary of Singapore’s very own audiovisual collective, Syndicate .
I was honored to be asked to play some tunes at the beginning of the night, so I prepared a playlist that would hopefully get people in the groove.
I prepared some dub, electro dub, hip hop, electro hip hop, dubstep, broken glitch beats, basically a lot of different styles that I don’t usually play in more laid-back jazzy/funky settings and that I had promoted through two exclusive Syndicate mixes (dub and hip hop).
I guess I was a bit too ambitious, since my one hour slot only allowed to play a small part of what I had prepared, but I was still pretty happy with the results (props to the VJs who really allowed the sounds to stand out throughout the night!).
Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the excellent Thaipusam Festival, one of my favorite religious events of the year.
I had already attended some 5 years ago, but my limited photographic tools had only allowed me to take a couple of good pictures and some very crappy videos.
I got up at 5 am and got to the temple on Serangoon Road just in time to catch some of the preparation ceremonies. Around 8 am I came back home, had some breakfast, and went back to the temple with my mother and sister, who wanted to have a closer look at some of the amazing – and painful – rituals.
I managed to get quite a number of photos, some better than others, but overall I’m not too happy with some of the colors and angles. My small compact camera manages to take good daytime photos, but nighttime shots are more difficult, especially when compared to some of the setups some people had.
Also, this time around I focused more on making good videos of the whole process.
Here are some of my favorite photos/videos.
Enjoy!
PS: I also took many photos with my Horizon, Fisheye, and Disdéri 3-Lens cameras, I’ll be posting the results very soon.
