Playing with knives

I played records in the most unusual circumstances, and to be honest these are the ones I like the most. Back in Brazil when I still played techno, I remember my gig at Temp in a huge "samba warehouse", pouring down with rain outside, the floor was wet and the equipment kept giving me electric shocks. In an inexplicable fit of masochism I kept messing around with the mixer like never before. Ouch.

Another remarkable episode in Sao Paulo was when my friend R played at Lov.e, one of my favourite clubs ever. We went there together, very early cos he was the first to play, and when opened his case he noticed he had forgotten his headphones. Loads of people coming, panic, what should we do? Haha. Leave me to it, I said. Go get your headphones, mate. He left me with his bag full of records and my favourite dance floor to entertain. I mixed the tunes for half an hour by watching the level meters flashing. The mixer so smooth, the sound so clear, the crowd so lovely...

There were so many nights filled with technical problems. Cross faders coming off in my hands, no monitors, inverted knobs (maximum is minimum and vice versa), fucked up needles, fucked up mixers, all sorts. Last Friday I played at The Synergy Party at SeOne, a massive club under London Bridge, high ceiling, brick walls giving that nice industrial feeling to it, full of smiley hippies mixing party, protest and quality information. Good stuff. 4 sound systems, food and proper coffee.

So I got to the stage to play at the Peace not War sound system. Most people were sitting down cos it was 6 in the morning, the crazy ones were in the trance sound system but the vibe was good nonetheless. I asked the Mc to say some crazy shit and he looked at me suspiciously. Hold on mate, I thought. Wait till I smash your brain with my music.

I started playing. In 5 minutes there were 100 more people and by the end of the set they were hundreds, screaming thank you, with that ecstasy urgency. I know, I know, my shit is heavy. Sometimes too heavy.

I asked the longhaired middle aged hippie engineer to record it with my mini disc but he said the batteries went and he replaced them but it stopped a few times anyway, so I have fragments of that night, which is a shame. Haha, I was missing the technical problems. But hey, I recorded a session at home with the same records so if you want to hear what it sounded like, click here