This is even older, from August 8th 2003! —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————- After this incredible long time, here I am! It’s a shame, because I’ve written down so many notes on things I wanted to say but now I feel like the old ones are not worth saying because it’s been so long. What should I do? Tell them all? Forget them? I don’t know… We will see how this post will turn out… maybe longer than all of the other ones (ouch!). I fell like I lost some of my English as of late. Recently I’ve been so involved with personal stuff that I’ve spent a lot of time at home, where I speak mainly in French, and the only English I’ve had to speak was the strict minimum (with agents, in interviews and with promoters at gigs) so I haven’t been speaking English as much, nor was I writing very much – as you all know since everyone was impatiently waiting for the next TRUTH – so if you find that my English is terrible, sorry! Well, let’s start by the end and go as backwards as I can. I’m in Calgary…. Had a gig here yesterday. It had been a while since I played in Canada, out of Montreal, because the scene there was pretty down and nothing was happening………….. and… it’s still that way! Let’s move more backwards. Two weeks ago I got back from my last tour in Europe. Saturday 26th I played the Godskitchen Global Gathering in Stratford. I couldn’t believe how many people attended that show, in the middle of nowhere and in the poring rain! It was so funny because before going to the show I asked Brian what shoes I should wear and he told me to bring my boots just in case… So I am like, “Ehem, Brian! It’s July! I didn’t even pack my boots in my suitcase!” but then I forgot I was speaking to a guy who lives in England… But he was right and God was I regretting not having my boots with me!! It was cold, it was wet, it was muddy, it was gross! English weather cries so much that it must have some serious issues and I think it should really go to therapy!! How can it rain like that all the time?! Anyway, the weather was as YUCKY as the show was good though… So can you imagine how good was the show? When we got there, by the time we found the tent where I was going to play (the Main Godskitchen stage), we were all completely wet. When we got in there I was happy to finally be under some kind of roof, but the grass under the tent was so wet that it was mud all over, so at that point I decided to stop caring as I was already all dirty. I didn’t care about my feet anyway, I cared more about my shoes. Poor them… 15000 people, 20000 perhaps, under one tent. Packed. Incredible. But before playing I was listening to the music played by the artists before me and I must admit that I was pretty nervous… I was wondering how could I have fit between the Epic Trance that was being played before me and the one that was going to be played after me by Tiesto… I was thinking that it would have officially been my last gig at Godskitchen but maybe my first hit in the Guinness Book, for emptying a 15000-20000 people dance floor all at once! Well, fortunately it looks like I will still be playing for Godskitchen, and unfortunately I won’t be in the next issue of the Guinness book, but that doesn’t count for me. What really counts is to see such a big, huge crowd of Trance loving people, reacting to my hard Techno beats with such pleasure! Seeing all the people dancing and screaming and smiling and enjoying the music I played, when not long before they were dancing on 15 minutes break melodic tunes… I felt really happy and proud and I can’t describe the smile on my face after that set. When I was done it was time to organize an interview, getting paid and get out of that wet zoo to go back to London. That night, once again, I realized how without Brian I would be nothing! Not only he was already more wet and more dirty than me, but he was going to get even more dirty by running around in the mud to try to find the right people to sort everything out for me. Do you know how hard it is to find the right person in the dark, the rain and in a 35 000 people event? If not, ask Brian! I’ve done it, I’ve been there in my early days when I was travelling alone, and I know it’s not easy. It’s just pure stress. And it’s a stress you don’t want to have on your shoulders when you have to perform and try to be the best at what you do. But Brian is amazing because he helps me out like that and he looks after me so well that on that night (just like any other time when he travels with me) I had no other stress than playing well and that’s it! And I’m glad, because that night was so messy that I really felt like if I would have been on my own I would have sat on my record box and just waited to be cleaned along with the whole site, a couple of days after the event… The week before, on Saturday July 19th (day of sweet Malissa’s 30th birthday who couldn’t celebrate with us this year), I played the Monegros festival in a desert in the middle of Spain. Once again, Monegros was one of the best sets of my life! Last year I was mostly new for all that crowd, but this year it was different. I played the same closing set, from 11:45AM till 2PM, and the people knew… They were there, waiting, and they were many more than last year. Starting to party out in the dust of the desert when it’s night time and staying up until the end just to wait for an act you like, it is pretty cool I find! And in fact, all these people, they were cool! They had the best vibe and energy ever. They made me smile, they made my day! And the nicest thing is that they made my day because I was making theirs. Isn’t it amazing? That’s the whole beauty of it. It’s so unbelievably intense, I love it! Brian says that playing in Spain it’s like paying in my backyard now. Maybe he’s right. I feel at home when I play there. I recognize those smiles and I love seeing them and knowing that they are partly kept for me. It makes me feel really good and special. On June 28th I played for the first time at the International Jazz Festival of Montreal. I was really happy to be part of such a big organization, where thousands of people from around the country, the continent, the world, come to every year. I played as Barbara Brown, along side with DJ RAM who did a brilliant live set with his band RAMASUTRA. I was really looking forward to play in Montreal as Barbara Brown again because I wanted to be able to prove something good since the time before was at the White Party and I had been very disappointed. Well, at the Jazz Fest it turned out that I played for even less than at the White Party but the night was so good that I don’t mind. It was fantastic. The show was sold out since a week before and the place was packed! At the end of the night, when the sound guy shut the sound, I kept on playing just with the monitors for the whole dance floor who were as disappointed as me that I could only play 1 hour and 15 minutes. The times were wrong, RAM finished his set later than supposed and me well, I tried to continue into the after-hours but a monitor isn’t enough for a whole dance floor… It was funny but eventually I was going to get in trouble, so I stopped and that was it. I am really looking forward to another BB set, it’s so fun and relaxing to play house! After that I went to see Carl Cox who was playing his first time ever at Aria. I was really happy that Carl finally accepted to play there as opposed to playing for 514 Productions. He had a packed club all excited to see him and it was a really great night! After that night he stayed in Montreal for a few days and we’ve made a real bomb in my studio which I will be putting in my MB 03, coming out around October 2003. A couple of weeks before that, I had a really fun trip to Europe. Two new things: playing my first time in Scotland (Edinburgh), and playing my first SONAR festival. Edinburgh was nuts! I have never, ever in my entire life, had such a big welcome from a crowd, a city, who doesn’t know me! 16 000 hands in the air, 8000 mouths screaming when they announced my name. I was touched to say the least. I was really surprised. The Scottish know how to party. They like the Techno up there and it’s pretty cool… except the rain! The week after, at SONAR in Barcelona, I played one of those sets that I will never forget. It was incredible. So many gigs in Spain are unbelievably good, but in a way there’s something special about SONAR because it’s a very important event where not only DJ’s play at but also bigger artists such as Bj?rk for example, who played this year. She played on the Main Stage, on the Friday night, from 11 till 1am, and I played on that same stage a few hours later. How weird is that? Well, for me it was… And it was like a dream because I LOVE Bj?rk’s music and I’ve always wanted to see her and now I even had the chance to check her out from closer, since I was backstage. That was something! Like the whole SONAR is something. Something big. When I played I had 13000 people in front of me, all squeezed together, like a real concert, in front of that big stage where I was on, with its big lights that were blinding me the whole time. It was exciting. The sad thing on that night is that Richie Hawtin lost his records and his Final Scratch computer crashed. So he couldn’t play for long. I offered him my record box and he used a couple but he preferred to stop playing after an hour into his set so I started earlier and ended up playing for a little more than 3 hours instead of my scheduled 2 hours set. He was thanking me for helping me out but for me it was such a normal thing. What goes around comes around and when I have been in trouble like that (many times!) because the airlines lost my records, I have been helped as well. I have had many people offering me their records many times, record stores letting me borrow brand new records so I could play them, etc. At I LOVE TECHNO 2001 Richie was one of them who lend me his records so I could play, because the airline had lost mines on that night and I was so sad because it was my first time at ILT and I was really scared that I couldn’t perform as I would have been capable of, if I had my own records. It went well anyway, but that’s thanks to my friends who helped me out. Like him. So at SONAR this year it was my turn to help him out and I felt really happy about it. Someone even asked me how could I accept to let him play with my records just before my set, as he could play all my hits and my bombs, but I replied that I didn’t care for me and that I was confident enough for myself to be able to do a great job and that the only thing I cared for was to help him out because I know how much it SUCKS when this happens! But all turned out even better, he wanted to stop and I was perfectly happy to play longer. I felt on fire on that night and I was too excited to finally play at SONAR so it wasn’t a big deal. That night was a night I will never forget! My ears rang for two days after the event, but it was worth it. Speaking of “what goes around comes around”…. In the end of May I played 3 gigs in the US. I played the DEMF in Detroit, then I played in Chicago and finally in NYC at Tronic Treatment. It was a fun weekend, except the record loss… That was dramatic! When I left Detroit to go to Chicago I kind of had a feeling something would happen to my records but as usual there is nothing you can do and you must trust life. I checked-in in Detroit plenty of time before my flight to Chicago. But on that day the sun was shining and I didn’t want to stay in the depressing airport of Detroit so I went outside and ate a sandwich under the sun, with my friend. When we realized it was time to go grab the flight, we got stuck in a line-up at the security check point and got to the gate too late. The flight was leaving. We got rebooked on the next flight that was leaving an hour later so that wasn’t a big deal. I was a little worried for my bags as they were going to go with that flight we had just missed, but I was trying to stay calm and … trust life! When we got to Chicago, all our bags were there already, except my records of course. It was really strange. And I was really worried. Why everything but the records? In the DEMF weekend, in Detroit, there are hundreds of records cases passing by the airport and lately there have been many cases of records stolen. I was really sad, scared, nervous. I filed a claim and got to my hotel and was phoning the airport one hour after each next flight. I was sure my records would be getting in on the next flight, but each time they were telling me that they didn’t get there and to wait until the next flight I was losing faith. By the last flight of the night, when they didn’t arrive, I was sure I would never see my records anymore! In the meantime, during the afternoon, Chicago Techno fellow Tim Xavier prepared a box of records for me that I could use in my set later on, and we even went at Gramophone to grab brand new records that I would give back the next day. Every one has been so kind and helpful. Chris, from Pure in Chicago, has been really patient and helpful! When it was time to go, without MY records, I was so so so sad. When we got to the gig, a big 6 room event a little outside Chicago, we got in by the office where there were so many people and faces I didn’t know. I had Tim Xavier’s record box with me so leaned down on the floor to start looking through them and trying to see if there were any I already knew. I was having a hard time and at each record I didn’t know I was swearing and I was obviously spreading bad vibes around me. A guy looks at me and bends down and tells me “I think I know where your records are…”. So I look at him, without a smile, without surprise as I thought he was the king of the pricks choosing the worse time to do such a bad joke, and I answer him a very cold and non-chalant “What?”. So he tells me “Yeah, I really think I know where they are, I think I have them with me at my hotel!”. So I get up and I give him the meanest ever look in the eyes, saying “Hey what the fuck are you saying!? This is not funny. Who the hell are you and why would you have my records??!”. So he explains to me that when they got off the flight from Detroit to Chicago with his artists (the one I was supposed to be on but wasn’t on apparently) he grabbed all the record cases from the belt and put them in the truck, without looking at name tags because they all looked alike, and when he got to the hotel he realized that he had one too many and that it wasn’t theirs. So he felt really bad because he didn’t know what to do with it and the only tag that was on it was my Air Canada card with my full real name on it and that’s it. It’s only when he saw me arriving to the event and being in a bad mood and talking about how I was worried and upset that he realized that he may have had my records at his hotel. So I begged him to go and grab them and by the time he got back I had already finished my set with Tim’s and Gramophone’s records but at least I got my records back! Can you imagine? What a story! I mean, these guys could have easily played another event in Chicago, or I may have never encountered them in the office at the same time because it was such a big event with so many rooms. I have been SOOOOOOO lucky!! I have never embraced my records so much when I saw them! I kissed the record box all over. I was so relieved! I can’t believe destiny sometimes… It’s crazy. There. I think I have said it all. It’s Sunday night now, I have been 24 hours in Calgary and in 3 days I am going to Europe for 24 hours. I will play in San Sebastian at the Electrogaia Festival. Then I will come home, to then leave for Europe again a week later. Things are pretty hectic at the moment and I feel sorry to keep you all waiting for so long before I write my new posts, but life goes on and sometimes there are other things that need to be sorted prior to fun activities like writing, and reading… I know that if I write more often I could keep my posts more fresh and punchy because I could also make them shorter (that would be nice eh?), but personal stuff has kept me away from my laptop and my studio lately. Everything is cool now. Soon I will be releasing a new Misstress Barbara EP on Iturnem with remixes from Stanny Franssen and Vince Watson. Before that there’s a nice release from DJ Preach coming out with a Barbara Brown remix. You can expect more music from me in the next year, since now things are all set as I have wanted for a long time. Well, thanks once again for reading me and, until next time, take care and keep keeping Techno alive! Peace Barbara x
