Oh putain!
Hier: je ne me souviens plus....

Bon alors London semble [etre une ville vraiment folle. Je suis situe en plein coeur de l action et j ai commence a reperer des trucs vraiment interessnt comme plein de magasin de musique underground. Il y a une petit rue qui en est farcie juste a cote de la maison... Je pense bien me faire un petite journee ecoute aujourd hui d autant plus qu il se peut que ce soir je sorte a La Fabric.
Mon pot nico a prix conge hier et nous avons fait une mega ballade apres une grace matinee. Vive les vacances!! Carnaby Street, Mayfair, Soho, Hide Park et Chelsea. Il y a des boutiques a vouloir en mourir. Une fille mourrait d enviie de tout acheter ici, et serieux meme moi je me prend au leche vitrine. Il y a evidemment les boutiques de luxe que l on connait tous mais Londres regorges de petites boutiques vraiment sympas et originales!
Bon alors une petite douche et hop je devrais aller faire un tour vers Brick Lane aujourd bon, j'ai trouver les disquaire pas trop loin de chez moi... Back with vinyls of Dirt Crew, James Holden and Kraftwerk...
And tonight is THE night!!!!

Alors apres une petite sieste l apres et une blade en debut de soiree a Trafalgar square et a green park (il y a la des chaises longue, alors innocemment je m installe, ca ne prend pas deux secondes qu un homme en vert vient me demander 1.5 pounds!!!) Ne jamais oublier, rien mais absolument rien n est gratuit a Londres. Sauf quand un ami vous invite dans son Local Pub, qui s avere etre un resto francais!! Mega bouffe avec Chablis, Champagne dessert de fraise confites au champagne...
Aujourd hui dodo jusqu a 11 heures!!! Ca c est les vacances!! et am;i a conge alors je ;e laisse guider!

I know, it's been a while since I posted something. Two reasons. One, I was pretty busy these last few days. Two, with the new ravewave, I was afraid the whole entry would get deleted once I hit the "add entry" key.

I've been raving a lot recently. Promoting for Time Machine makes me go to every party on the calendar. Sadly, not everyone does that. Some of those parties had less than 50 people attending. I've seen too much empty venues these last months, so I feel the need to whine about it here. Oh, and suggest ways to make it better. Not, as always, there's no magical solution. It is summer, people don't go out as much. There isn't as many ravers as there used to be. Good promotion helps too, in fact it's the only way to have people. That and a good line up actually. Well, add a good concept to that.

First, let's get one thing clear, cause we get the same debate every summer. People don't go out as much. People like me who only go out in all night indoor parties are a minority. People go out on camping, spend time with their families, go on a trip, go to la ronde... They're plenty of things to do during summertime that are more interesting than raving to a lot of people. They might still rave, but not as much as other times of the year. However, as much true as this is, it is getting a bit worse every summer.

The number of ravers isn't raving either. We've said it again and again, people get older and leave their partying past behind. fewer and fewer kids are attracted to raving. I've already written a whole entry about this, so I won't repeat myself. Get up and recruit people! Wether you're a promoter or a raver, bring your friends over, maybe some of them will get hooked. One of my friends dragged me to my first rave cause I was feeling a bit depressed that weekend, and look where I am today.

Now, up to the big part. Now, read carefully I'M NOT POINTING ANY FINGER, I DON'T HAVE ANY SPECIFIC PROMOTER IN MIND RIGHT NOW, so I better not get any drama here. Okay, now that this is clear, a lot of promoters aren't doing things the good way. The word promoter comes from, well, promoting; someone who goes out, talks to people, who's main job is to get people to his or her party. A few things I've noted. First, many parties are announced 1 or maybe 2 months in advance. Only regular ravers hear about those parties. A party announced 3 or 4 months in advance will get more people because more people will hear about it. Some ravers only go out once in 4 months, and they don't read message boards.

Now, anouncing a party 4 months in advance won't help if the promotion is centered around message boards. You gotta go out and promote. That means going to events. You wanna throw a rave, hope you like raving, cause that's all you're gonna do for the next months. Ravers like it when they ear about a party from the promoter's mouth. Go out and talk about it, some kids might just get as hyped as you are. Going out means talking, not just dropping some flyers on a table.

About flyers, a few things. first, the bigger the flyer, the most chances it has of being noticed. This is all a question of how much you'll put in. There's no mathematical formula to determine the optimal size. 4 by 6 is the "regular" size, and smaller flyers might not get noticed. Now that you have the flyers, it's time to give them away. Dropping them is a good way for the party to get noticed, but it's just a very small part. The big one is the door. That's right, I'm talking standing at the door from somewhere between 5 and 6 am, and sticking there till the party's over. It is hard work, but I can say from experience it's easily done if you get some rest before you go to the party. (and I never do it on drugs by the way) Oh, and flyering at non-raves events can help too, you might not get as many people, but you can still get a few.

Next part, the line up. It's pretty simple, if the promotion is amazing but the line up sucks, no one's gonna come. You need djs the people know and love, you need good djs people haven't necessarily heard a lot, older djs who haven't played in a while can bring back older ravers, and headliners usually bring people too. If you only get the djs who play all the time, people will feel there's no originality to the party and will stay home. If they don't know any of the djs, they'll stay home too. Any promoter who throws a party should first ask himself the question: "how is my line up different from the other parties?"

Finally, there's the concept. This is important, because it's a promoter's personnal touch. Any idea you have, try to do it. Be original. A good concept can attract attention to a party. People will go out when they feel it's unique.

Now, to anyone who reads this and says: "your first party hasn't happened yet, you don't know what you're talking about", I have one thing to say. Before being a promoter, I'm a raver, a raver who parties a lot. I've seen what works. I promise after Time Machine, I'll post another entry and either tell you I was right, or try to explain what went wrong. Oh, and I did promote other events before.

Well, in the end, not every party can be a success. Taking promotion seriously and not being lazy is the secret. The hard work is getting people to the party. The rest can be done pretty quickly, it's actually a question of calling people and signing checks. Don't be afraid to get some ravers to pass flyers. It's sometime worth it to give away a few guest tickets. They're tons of tricks, and every experienced promoter has his or her own way of seeing this. The best trick I can give anyone is to ask questions, not be afraid to ask for help and work hard. If you're throwing a party, every raver on the island, and even some in Quebec city and Ottawa, should know about it.

Listening To: Virus & Scoots - Konnichiwa part 2

July, 26 4:32 pm
After delays due to electromagnetic storms, I finally get to London at 4:20 am. Good sign isn t it. Not much proble; zith th accent... This city is impressive. I live between Picadilly Circus and Leicester Square at a friend s place. He even got a room especially for me!!
I surprinsngly remember how to write with the French "clavier".
I walked aroun a little bit this morning but get back to have a nap to be in shape tonight zith my friends.
Can t wait to discover more. I ll try to keep this journal up to date...

Consider this journals section as sort of a diary/autobiography. I will be rambling in this section every once in a while with anecdotes as I remember them. I don't want your pitty, I don't want your sympathies, I just want to be remembered.

There's a saying that I read years ago that I will never forget;

In any man who dies there dies with him,
His first snow and kiss and fight...
Not people die but worlds die in them.

This is my world.

I'm 25 years old and I don't know how to live life and be free. I've never been able to keep a job for very long, I can't sustain myself, and I hate my life.

I know and understand that everything in life is relative. One's point of view is shaped by one's life experiences. Things that have happened to me that I live with are the same things that would have easily traumatized and destroyed a person, and sometimes I wonder if I, in fact, was not spared.

I spend every day of my life in a controlled panic attack. I am constantly afraid that something "bad" is going to happen to me in any and every aspect of my life; my health, my sanity, my future, nothing ever seems certain other than knowing that nothing will ever come out like I'd like it to.

I've been betrayed by almost all of my closest friends in the past few years, though most of them aren't aware that I know what they've done or tried to do.

I was never much of a social child, having been constantly abused physicaly and emotionally while growing up. I have no self esteem, no positive self image. All of my life, everything I've ever done, has never been enough to gain any sort of acknowkledgment. Nothing is ever good enough, everything I do is always flawed.

This is how I've been brought up to feel about myself. I can never live up to anyone's expectations, no matter how low they set the bar.

I've never felt any kind of love from my parents. They say it, they try to show me that they love me, but something to me just comes off like bullshit. I've felt like this from most of my family. I feel like they put up with me being around because it's a chance to try and connect to my mother again, and not because they are genuinley interested in me. My grandmother is the only family that I've ever felt completely accepted and loved by.

I constantly feel that the only reason my friends have me around is because they feel pity on me. I always feel completely and totaly alone and unwanted, because it's how I've always felt.

I've spent so much of my life alone and feeling unwanted that one summer, I spent most of my time at a friend's place, always sleeping over, and every night I would wake up to him molesting me in my sleep. I was so afraid of losing this one friend that I pretended to sleep and let him do it, almost every night, for 3 months, because I am terrified of being alone and unwanted.

It's not hard to feel this way. Without going into growing up, or what I was put through by my parents, I just have to look at school. When I was young I was skipped ahead a grade, and as a result I was always the youngest one in class. I was always picked on and made fun of. It's not easy being a kid in school, but it's a lot harder when you're more intelligent than the rest of the idiots in your class.

Being hospitalised with a rare blood disease didn't do much to help matters. For one, I almost died, and spent more time than I'd care to remember in the hospital. Wegener's Granulomatosis is an inflamation of the blood vesels, and in my case affected my lungs mostly, though I did have body-wide internal hemoraging.

Imagine you're whole body is itchy; you scratch. Now imagine your white blood cells are "itchy". They "scratch" by attacking everything around them, causing veins to become pourous and attacking organs.

I'd spent so long in a hospital bed unconcious that I had to learn how to walk and talk again because all of my muscles had atrophied. For years after, breakfast included 36 pills and supper included 24. Some of the many side effects were fun things like water retention, false hungers, hair loss, mood swings, bladder infections, immune system supression, acne (even worse, anyways)

When I went back to school, I had gone from being 130lbs to roughly 290lbs, with a case of acne that was worse than anyone going through puberty, a completely diffrent voice that was constantly cracking more than usual, and a receding hairline.

I immediately became the butt of all jokes. Everyone made fun of me. My life was a living hell.

Most people would say that it's a normal part of childhood, but what I was put through by those fucking idiots can only be described as torture, and the teachers let it all happen. If I'd have had acces to guns back then, Columbine would not have been the first massacre of a school you'd have heard about.

I spent countless nights awake fantasizing about some kind of terrorist group coming into our school and taking us hostage, and to avoid having them kill me, I "convert" to whatever their cause was and prove myself to them by killing all of my classmates and teachers.

When I think of Harris and Klebold, I think of heroes.

I wish I would have had the balls to do what they did, to stand up to all of the bullshit that I was being put through by other students and to the teachers' indiference to it all. I didn't want notoriety, I didn't want to be remembered for it, I just wanted the torment to end.

I'm not saying that mass-murder is the answer to all of your highschool problems, but when you have been pushed around and abused and tortured to the point where you feel you need to commit a massacre, just to get a little breathing space, something is seriously wrong with the system and it's administrators for letting this kind of abuse go on unchecked.

I dropped out a few days short of turning 16. Specifically, it was november 27th 1996, the day that I tried to kill myself.

Since grade 5, life at home was far from what you could call stable. I would get into an argument with my mother, and she would kick me out to go live with my father, and then I'd get into arguments with him, and be shipped back over to her. In 1995, I was living with my mother in the west island, but going to school in Laval, because I'd been living with my dad when I registered for school and didn't want to lose touch with any of the few friends I had. I ended up just not going to school a whole lot. It was too far, I had to leave the house at 5:45 in the morning to make it in time for 7:45 class, a near impossible feat, because I was unable to sleep at night. No matter how much I stayed awake, no matter how tired I was, I simply could not fall asleep before 4am.

In the school year of 1996 I registered at PC and went to school sporadicaly for september through november. On the weekend before my birthday, I'd gotten some money from my grandparents. I didn't go to school for the first 2 days of the week, and on the 27th I had an argument with my mother and told her that I was just not going back.

When I was in school, I honestly wish I could have spent my time learning. But the problem is that other kids are just not interested in it, always disrupting class and doing stupid shit like throwing chalk and erasers at the teacher when their backs are turned, or setting the garbage can on fire, throwing desks and chairs across the room, etc..

In grade 5, it took the teacher 1 week to convince the class to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They all thought it was just a kids book and that they were too old and mature to read it. By the time they'd started, I'd written the book report already, and explained the religious themes behind it. When the teacher would ask us to read a book and write up on it, other kids would pick the shortest page-count the teacher would let them get away with, while I was busy reading Stephen King's IT and the Tommyknockers in a week and having a full book report writen out.

That was grade 5. It seems that every grade after, every other child thought themselves more mature and intelligent than the year before, which meant that they didn't need to be submited to the uselessness of doing things like reading books, doing homework, listening to the teacher..

I dropped out because I wanted to learn, and was in an environment that did absolutely NOTHING to promote any kind of education or discipline in the student body.

So, on nov. 27th, I officially stopped going to school. What I ended up doing, was taking birthday money I'd gotten from my grandparents, went to canadian tire, and bought a brand-new set of exacto blades. I came home, went into the bathroom, opened up the pack, without thinking, without any hesitation, I cut my wrists.

If you've been paying attention, you'd remember that I said that, no matter what I do, no matter how low I set the bar, I always fail. Somehow, the pack of blades that I had bought, brand new, were dull. I could barely scratch myself using the tip, let alone do what I wanted to do. So I went back to the store, and bought a completely diffrent brand of blades, came back home, and promptly opened the package and drew the blade across my wrists again.

Nothing happened. Another pack of blades, a completely diffrent brand and type of blade, and they were once again too dull to cut with. To some people, this would be interpreted as some kind of message, an act of god, a miracle. But that's not how I was raised to think. To me, it was just another faliure to add to the list of things that I was never able to do right.

I passed out in the bathroom. I had some kind of dream, a vision, I don't know what to call it, but I remember a few things very clearly; me, and at least 2 other people, infront of a crowd of people, and weird music.

When I came to, I went on some BBSes and started looking around for programs to make music. I'd never been interested in music as anything other than something to listen to, but something spoke to me and said that that's what my future had in store for me; this weird music that I heard myself making.

This is my journal.

Listening To: Tori Amos - losing my religion(original by r.e.m)

Promoters don't make good parties, ravers and djs do. A promoter's job is to convince people that his party's gonna be great. Once people are convinced, they actually do the job themselves. Okay, maybe the drugs are in part responsible too. They're 3 different aspects to a party; the music, the vibe and the personnal trip.

The music is the dj's domain. The promoter's job on this aspect is to book the right djs. It's simple enough, if music is good, people are gonna dance and have fun. Some people don't really care about it. Sure, they like to dance, but they're not heavily into rave music, and might not notice a trainwreck. They might like a bit of everything, and will just dance to any beat. That's not a bad thing, it's these people's way of having fun.

On the other hand, some people rave only for the music. They'll take the time to listen to every dj, and will have an opinion on everything. Again, it's cool, as long as they don't diss djs they don't like that is. Music is the core of the party, it's what the people come for initially, even if it's a social event as well.

Then, there's the vibe. The vibe is directly linked to the people. This is my favorite part, cause promoters and djs only have a very small influence on this. Ravers are the ones creating the vibe. Sometimes, it's created by hype about a certain event. Everyone is convinced that a party's gonna be huge, so they make it huge. It can also just happen. A few people are really into it, others follow in, and you get a great vibe. The vibe can be different for everyone. While a couple might be having the best time of their life because they bumped into old friends at the party, another guy might have the worst night ever, cause he just broke with his girlfriend.

A party is a gathering, and other people have a huge influence on it. Again, some people might not care too much, and only be there for the music. Other ravers go out almost specifically for the social aspect. Again, there's no good or bad way to approach this. People just have fun in their own way.

The third aspect is the only part of raving no one has control over except each and every individual person there. Everyone has a personnal trip. Many ravers, especially those who have been in the scene for a while, don't live any deep or trippy experiences. I'm talking about those moments where nothing exists, where you're only losing yourself in the dance, the music, the visuals...

This may seem related to drugs. It can be, but not always. Many ravers will party sober, and still see the rave environment as a way to disconnect with real life. There's no shame in doing that. Some jaded ravers might diss people who try to "lose it". That's fuckin lame. Raves are one of the rare places where we can just forget about everything else. It's what makes them special.

So, in the end, a good party is one that mixes these three things. For some people, it might be only one, or two. Still, these are the three aspects of raving. Experiencing all of them at one party, and in a positive way, can make the party one of your best. The music part is entirely out of your control. The vibe part is only partially in your control, and the introversion part is 100% yours to command.

So, yeah, go to parties where you'll like the music, don't get into drama and take the time to have fun :)

Listening To: A mix from Tricky, a dj from Quebec city

I am becoming an emokid! I feel reject; got no friends on my list. Please make friend with me! I promise to be a good boy.

Listening To: Nightwish - End of all hope

The internet is a great way to pass a message, and what better way for everyone to say what they have to say than a message board? I'm talking about rave message boards of course. It's fun, it's a good way to know about parties and it's full of drama. It's also a good way to realize that raves aren't necessarily what we believe em to be. After my first rave, I actually thought that everyone was friendly...then I subscribed to message boards.

First thing about the internet, is that it's a good way to promote. Now, a good way doesn't mean the best way. Too many promoters are using rave websites as their only promotion tool­. The scene certainly won't grow if parties are only annonced on the internet. The only people who'll know about it are the people who go to every party anyway. Most people don't take the time to check every topic on message boards, a lot of ravers don't even subscribe. Internet promotion is fine for loft parties, wich are smaller and don't wanna attract to much attention, but promoting an actual rave can't be done this way.

Message boards aren't a promotional tool, they're a way for ravers to keep in contact with one another. In other words, create cliques. All those cliques have to share the same message boards, this can create clashing, resulting in drama. While it does, in a way, reflect reality, this doesn't necessarily give the scene a good image. A lot of message boards are full of neverending drama threads, people dissing promoters or djs, and other immature behavior. People allow themselves to say anything they want, because they're hiding behind an avatar.

The best thing we can do is just try to act civil. Message boards aren't meant to be a way of life. Please, people, be respectful. Don't diss people, if you have something to say, say it objectively without pointing any fingers. Yes, message boards are a good way to discuss about problems, but there's a way to do this. First, make sure what you want to talk about is of interest to the community as a whole, and not just your group of friends. Also, always stay detached from what you read. Even if you're frustrated with other users, don't say it on the board. When emotions come in, there's bound to be drama. Just talk to your real life friend about it, go take a walk, but don't react on the board, you're just gonna find more frustration. I've NEVER seen anyone change their opinion due to a thread on a message board.

Now, don't get me wrong, message boards aren't a bad thing. If it weren't for ravewave, I wouldn't be writing this blog right now. Just remember that when you post, you're making your opinion public. Please think about making the boards friendly for newbies.

Oh, and one last thing, if you don't rave anymore, but keep posting to stay in touch with your old rave buddies, don't ever, EVER diss new ravers. Okay, you've grown out of the glowsticks, pacifiers and plastic beads. That's not a reason to bitch younger ravers who are just having fun. You can bitch as much as you want when you're at home with your friends, but be respectful when online. If someone is disrespectful to you, ignore them, or just post once to say that you don't care. Afterward, never open the thread again.



Listening To: Matricks - Happiness