Archive for August, 2008

Hello! Hope everyone had a top bank holiday weekend. I spent my Sunday day time in a carpark by London Bridge @ Secret Sundaze! Their headliner was the one and only Carl Craig and he was unreal – pure quality techno. Here are some of the tracks that I remember from the day!

X-Press 2 – Kill 100 (Carl Craig Remix): Oh yes! Classic CC remix here.

Junior Boys – Like A Child (Carl Craig Remix): A timeless classic.

Whos Who – Klack (Joris Voorn Remix): Amazing Joris Voorn remix coming on Size Records.

Giles Smith pres. Two Armadillos: Warriors Secret Sundaze resident and King Roc on fine form.

Manuel Tur – Acorado: A deep groover that gets those asses shaking!

A few classics and a few new gems but all 10/10! Enjoy the rest of the week – see you next Monday!

UPDATE 1: Sorry, forgot to get the venue snaps up!

So we like it, Pete Tong likes it, and from my Google news alerts the web likes it too. Happy days! Working out of San  Francisco, Max Vangeli has produced the “Crazed E.P” (purchase plug: available for digital download at Beatport.com) with the help of Digital LAB on tracks “iRock” and “K.E.J.I.”. Our good man Mr Lake bought into these tunes back in February, and signed the E.P to Rising Trax immediately. As a celebration of the release, Max and Rising music have teamed up with West Coast nightclub Ruby Skye for the first… yes first, Rising Nights fiesta on 19th September. Without going into too much detail, this is the beginning of much much more to come.

Good Luck Max!

Here’s a version of “Crazed” taken from Max’s YouTube account:

Only one day later, and it’s time for me to blog again! After an incredibly busy month getting all our social media sites set up, I’m really getting into all this new media stuff. I can’t believe how much people are getting involved… it’s just great.

To top everything off, the new MySpace design should be going live after the bank holiday, and I am REALLY pleased with the layout of this. Myspace can be restrictive in some ways in getting the information you really want up there, so the lovely people at Retrofuzz have put together a new design to our spec. Can’t wait!

So, I write to you this Saturday morning, 23rd August. I am flying at 35000 ft, from Gothenburg to Amsterdam, having played a great gig to a crazy crowd in Sweden last night. It was my first country I ever played abroad, over 5 years ago now, and I love how clean, fresh, and beautiful the country is. I took my wife out for dinner last night to a restaurant called Fond, in the heart of Gothenburg. Admittedly I did not want to go out for dinner. I was tired, I woke up very drowsy from my sleep, and was extremely grumpy until I was served food. It turns out the restaurant has 1 Michelin star, and once I got the food in my mouth I instantly realised why. The food was simply unbelievable! I had grilled halibut with cumin and red wine sauce, while my wife had an open vegetarian lasagne. The flavours were having a party in my mouth, and I couldn’t even attempt to conceal the smile it brought to my face every time I took a bite. This really is what food is about. It was not pretentious, it was just good food done VERY well. I hate sitting in restaurants where you feel you have to conform to a behaviour, or standard. This wasn’t the case, and I felt very relaxed, the staff were extremely friendly, and this tight old Englishman even tipped generously for once

So back to the present: I am now on the descent to Schipol Amsterdam airport. We are both amused looking in the KLM magazine at the different planes in the KLM fleet. Among them, various types of “Fokker” plane. Why call the plane a Fokker!?! So, the big planes can be called the Mother Fokker’s, the oldest planes called the Grannie Fokker, and even worse, the smallest planes called the little fokker? This is how I will remember them from now on……….

So in a few hours, Mysterylands, in the “In search of sunrise” or “ISOS” area, playing before Tiesto. I expect a huge crowd here, specially as Tiesto is the local star. I had to break the news earlier to Rising man Sebastian that I forgot my camera to take footage, much to his disgust! I will try to borrow one for the day and get something for you guys to see. 

So I am getting told to close the lid on the laptop, so I must end this post. Because the crowd is expected to be so big, I’ve flown my parents out to Holland to come see the festival. Not seen them for a few months so can’t wait to catch up. They love seeing my gigs (they try to get in one or two a year, I think just to check I am behaving

Well well well, here I am again, I think I’m starting to enjoy this blogging malarkey! This time it’s all about the podcast! Chris Lake Podcast 002 if we want to talk specifics. We’ve been thinking about doing these since October last year, and I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am it’s become a reality. So this is the plan… well at the moment anyway, we seem to be developing stuff at Rising on a daily basis so who knows… but like I said, at the moment I plan on putting one of these together on a monthly basis. This month I’ve kicked  off with five of the records that are getting the most attention in my sets. I’ve then moved into a cheeky assemble of all three of the Rising Summer Series tracks… still one left… but more about that later… and then randomly… I went off on one… throwing in some Adam Shaw, Shur-i-Khan and the brilliant U.N.K.L.E. Finally, it just seemed right to finish things with a tune that both my iPod and I love to pieces… Air’s Mike Mills… does it really get any better?

From what we saw it looks like you enjoyed my last podcast – I hope this continues in the right direction. Take it easy people, I’m off record shopping, Sweden followed by a night with 65,000 in Holland this weekend… wish me luck!

Hope everyone had a great weekend whatever you were up to. I had a weekend in (at last) but still spent most of it listening to dance music! I spent hours trawling beatport and downloading promo tracks this weekend but did find some awesome music along the way.

WTF? – Ceaba55555 (XFER): Tommy Lee, deadmau5 and DJ Aero – you know this is going to be large!

Tyken feat ADL – Let It Rain (Trevor Loveys Dub): Trunkfunk Loveys turns in a wicked remix here – Fidget house!

Sebastian Ingrosso & Laidback Luke – Chaa Chaa (EDX’s Marakesh Souk Remix) (SIZE): Size continues in fine form and the EDX remix is cool as f…

Locodice – City Lights (Martin Buttrich Remix): Not the most upfront track but an essential track none the less.

Stanton Warriors – Still Here (Nick Thayer Mix) (PUNKS): Classic Stanton’s track bought bang up to date by Nick Thayer. Here’s a quick video of the lads in action at Lovebox 2008:

Some of these are available on beatport now, and some very soon so keep those eyes open!

See you Friday

Where the bloody hell has the week gone again?! I could do with an extra three days in my working week! Here are some of the tracks that have helped us through!

Justice – D.A.N.C.E: We’re big fans of Justice here and this is one of their best.

MGMT – Electric Feel: I can’t get this song out of my head – reminds me of Prince!

Chris Lake – Mission: B Side to the Cool Cuts No.1 ‘Only One’ with the coolest hook of the summer.

Goldie – Inner City Life: Classic. Enough said:

Goldie – Inner City Life

Benga & Coki – Night: We are in love with dubstep and you should be too! Doesn’t get much better than this.

Have a great weekend guys, be safe and be back Monday for more tuneage!

Duncan x

So in my humble opinion there are a few clubs in the UK which support international theory that this little island is one of the top destinations for clubbing. Now, being a Northener and all that, my words are of course likely to be centred around club culture outside of London… yes it’s true… people are living, breathing and raving it up outside of our great nation’s capital… and guess what… it’s cheaper too!!! I digress… so for me, four clubs/nights epitomise quality north of the Watford gap; Shindig, Back to Basics, Sankeys and The Arches up in Glasgow. Solid nights and venues that have been going for a very long time.  Londoners would probably have similar thoughts on clubs like the end – you just can’t beat the atmosphere created in these disgustingly sweaty, yet beautiful places. I spoke to a mate of mine the other day, and we were reminiscing over a night at Foundation with Carl Cox. Easily one of the best nights of my life, and did I care that sweat was dripping off the ceiling? Hell no!

Anyway, last weekend, Chris and I took our ladies to Manchester’s notorious Sankeys for a night of fun and games at Bitch. It reminded me why I got into all of this in first place and why the UK has its reputation. For me the memories of foundation came flooding back – low ceilings, friendly people and loud LOUD music. Here’s a little snippet of how it went:

Chris Lake @ Sankeys

As a little treat… and to celebrate the launch of “The One E.P” we’ve put together a very cheeky video of Chris rock’in out “Only One” at Tiesto’s In Search of Sunrise last Monday. With the help of several radio plays from Mr Tong, and last weeks support from the Judge, this track seems to have really caught the attention of the public. Rumour has it our friends across the pond like it too – suffice to say we’re totally buzzing!

I’ve now been working at Rising Music for almost two months, and whilst I’m learning about the music industry every day, last week something larger than average came about… the Cool Cuts chart… HousePlanet.DJ have this to say: “The Cool Cuts is the UK’s leading tastemaker dance chart compiled from reactions from tastemaker DJs and the Cool Cuts panel.The Cool Cuts is exclusively published in MUSIC WEEK , the UK’s leading music industry trade publication.”

Quite a few “leadings” in there for me, but from what I’ve been told, it is the most prestigious of charts and good things happen to those who are in it. The chart is released on Fridays… so that leaves us three days… but again ‘rumour’… (yes there does appear to be a fair bit of these in our industry)… has it, one of our singles is predicted to do quite well this week. I’ll keep you posted.

Hope you enjoy the video:

Morning guys and girls.

Hope everyone had a great weekend, I know I did! I was at an cool event on Saturday and here are some of the best tunes from the night! 

Sharam Jey – Shake Your (Wally Lopez Factomania Remix): (King Kong) I’ve always been a big fan of Mr Lopez and he doesn’t disappoint with this remix

Audio Bullys – Flickery Vision (TG Remix) (Southern Fried): This is going to be huge, you heard it here first!

Oasis – Falling Down (Chemical Brothers Remix) (Big Brother): An official remix and a real bad boy – great crowd pleaser

Yousef – Equilibrium (Circus): New on Circus and top work from the labels’ main man.

Steve Mac – Paddy’s Revenge (3 Beat): Big track from a larger than life legend.

So there it is! Have a wicked week guys, see you soon!

So Privilege, Ibiza. What a club! Absolutely huge place. I had the pleasure of playing before the much adored Tiesto on Monday night and it was such a good gig. 7000 mad up for it clubbers ready to go mental for every beat and when Tiesto stepped up to the decks they went insane!

Here’s a snippet of the night:

There is no denying that trance nights give a lot of enjoyment to the crowd. The only negative was the heat. It was sooo hot. Felt like it zapped the energy out of me. I flew home 2 hours after my set, and met the producers Meck and Michael Woods on the plane. The only other time I met Meck was 2 years ago on a virgin flight to Miami for WMC, when his record “thunder in my heart” was no1. Both of them had been to Privilege, and walked in just as I was dropping michael’s mix of cafe del mar (huge for me. It’s on the podcast if you want to hear it). We landed and had to change terminals to get my car. Took an hour after landing and I was knackered! It’s an hour to my house, but after 30 minutes I had to stop and sleep or there would be no new Chris Lake singles in the future!

So now it’s Friday and I’m off to Croatia with my wife for a gig on Pag island, followed by Sankeys’ ‘Bitch’ in Manchester tomorrow. I’m excited as Pag island looks like a Croatian Miami! Should be quality! I will report later on how it goes…