Hello everybody! It’s been a while and here I am back with some stories about my latest trips. First of all I have noticed that I get less funny things happening to me than before. So in a way this is why I don’t write as much. I don’t want to be boring and say the same old stuff as, “my gig was amazing” or “incredible”, or “absolutely boring!”. I mean, when it’s good with no funny stories, it’s not rare, because I get so many amazing gigs and I can’t always talk about them. And when the gig is bad, I kind of don’t feel like talking about it or thinking about it anymore. Makes sense no? So this time I am not writing because I have extraordinary things to say, but simply because I feel like sharing with you what I feel is something so new and so fresh happening to me, and it’s so fantastic! First of all I am really proud of my new website! I know it took a long time, but finally here it is, the way I wanted it to be, to look, giving the impression I wanted to give. It’s very satisfying for me! I’m also very happy to announce that soon there will be a Photo page where you’ll be able to see some pictures and little videos about my gigs and some funny moments of my tours! There will be pictures of the gigs which I will mention in this post, and this should be coming very soon so keep and eye on the changes in the site! I truly hope that the site satisfies all of you the way it does it for me! So to talk a little about my latest gigs, I should say that what makes my latest gigs so extraordinary and worth speaking about, is the fact that I have this new thing that I love so much… But so so so much, that I feel like it’s a total new beginning of my career! I feel as happy as in 1996 when I started DJing. This thing is called acid, electro and minimal music. I know it’s not new. I know it’s been a while. But I feel like I just woke up. In the last few months I was in a crisis. A big musical crisis. I thought there is nothing new in Techno. It’s always the same thing. There is no original stuff coming out, and it’s not refreshing. Then, because Barbara Brown exists and because I play some events as Misstress Barbara VS Barbara Brown here in Montreal, I always shop for House music. Always have, too. I always loved House as you all know. I’ve always said Techno is my love and House is my mistress… But now what is it? Well… the normal House didn’t do it for me either in the last few months. When I was record shopping I was bored by all the disco easy vocal stuff. I was like, PLEASE!!!!!!!! And then, desperate, the record store owners started pulling out some other records for me. Different. All tweaked acidy electroey minimaly stuff. I loved it! I bought it all. And this is what I started dropping at my MB VS BB sets here. As a matter of fact, if you read my truth post about my ”Iturnem In A Funky X-Mas!” event I did on December 18th 2004 you’ll see that I loved it so much exactly because I played all that different stuff and everyone got so much into it that they made my night like they can’t even imagine! They made me so happy to just accept it and not ask me to play the stuff they’ve always known me for… Well, what I did is that I started buying more and more of that stuff, but suddenly feeling so sad to know I couldn’t really play it in just any gig I wanted. People know me as Misstress Barbara, hard techno or driving funky techno or whatever thing similar to that, and they are not used to anything else coming from me. So it started making my life a little difficult. Because I wanted to play something else, but I didn?t want to disappoint my fans. And I was wripped apart, between comments like ”just do what you feel, you are an artist” and comments like ”if you buy coca-cola you want coca-cola, not pepsi, so if you’re known for a thing, that’s what you should do!”. Oh God… It’s heartbraking for me, like you can’t even imagine actually. I love my work more than anything in the world, and I would hate to disappoint people! So anyway… let’s continue. I remember in the past year I haven’t played the US much, and I wasn’t bothered by it because every time I played the US before I was having trouble really playing what I wanted (back then), which was pure hard techno. Except in Chicago and Detroit, and sometimes in NYC, people wouldn’t understand what I was trying to do, except for a few trainspotters and purists, techno-lovers. Well… now my life has changed apparently! I enjoy playing the US more than ever before, as it allows me to just play them all that housy tweaky acidy electro minimal stuff and they love it!! And I love them for loving it! It’s certainly not in the US that I will hear people complaining that I don’t play hard enough. So it’s all good for me right now!!! Where it’s a little difficult to get away with this sound, is in Spain. They just won’t let me! They would just scream that they want it harder harder harder harder harder!!! Which used to amuse me before, but now I sometimes find it difficult. It’s very difficult for me to feel free to play what I want there. I mean, don’t get me wrong and start rumors now. Read this carefully: I still love techno. I still enjoy and I still play techno! OK? So it’s not a problem. Especially when I play big clubs, it’s totally ok. But when I play a small 400 people club, no matter where it is, Spain or Australia or Japan, I don’t feel it’s appropriate to play so hard! And I had this bad experience in Spain in February, where it was a small club and I wanted to play groovy and smoother and they just wouldn’t let me. It was frustrating. But then, 2 weeks ago for Easter I played two gigs in Spain, Basik Tech in Cintruenigo and Techno Flash in Burgos, and I only played super hard stuff and they loved it and I loved it too, as it was appropriate since the clubs where packed with thousands of people. So it’s fine. But to come back to what I was saying about the US, or actually North America in general, in February I had a gig in Seattle which I absolutely loved as I played so housy and everyone danced their asses off!! And last month I had the BEST gig at Vinyl in Denver!! I enjoyed it so much! It was so different and refreshing and everyone loved it and I was so happy!!!!!!! I also played in Ottawa in the beginning of March, in this small club called Helsinki which was totally incredible and amazing! It was like an old school small party, the people, the music, everything! The Toronto gig the next day was a little different. I felt like people wanted to hear more hard stuff, and as a matter of fact there are people who complained afterwards that I played different, and that’s very sad. But there are people who enjoyed it too, and that’s very fun! I think it’s like that everywhere anyway. You can’t always make everyone happy! I’ve learned that now, and I think it’s understandable. I just hate mean comments, and there are a lot of mean people around, that?s for sure! So keep going back to POST # 1 in the new Guestbook (my post) and please behave upon it because it?s so true! Life is so short, and energies should be concentrated towards positive stuff, not negative! So anyway, let’s talk about Europe in Easter now… After those two gigs in Spain we traveled to Germany. I say we because I have a new road manager, Anthony, who is totally GREAT!!!!! First of all he is the one who taught me how to DJ 10 years ago. Being a DJ himself, it’s easy for him to understand my needs, and he is so good at his job and he makes my life so much easier and I loved traveling with him! And he knows all this old school music and it’s so fun to talk about music with someone who actually knows! We had so much fun too! So, after those two Spanish gigs when we got to Germany on March 25th, we were completely exhausted as we already had two gigs in a row in our body, with no sleep, and LOTS of hours of driving through Spain!! But we had a lot of fun in Spain and we were looking forward to more fun in the next gigs. In Germany I sincerely didn’t know what to expect! First of all everyone tells me the market is not going so well in Germany! I know of very big DJ’s in Germany who go play and can’t fill clubs anymore as the economy is very bad right now. For example, last summer I played U60311 with Chris Liebing, and the night was amazing as Chris is so huge! But they told me that a few weeks before Adam Beyer played in the same club and it wasn’t very busy, and Adam is huge too in Germany! So this time I was going on my own, with Renato Cohen which was so fun to be seeing him again, and as there was no Chris Liebing I was very scared because I expected it to be empty. Needless to say I am not big at all in Germany!! Another one of my worries is that the reason they booked me again is because I did such a great job in the summer. I played so hard and tight and all that… Well, I knew already I was going to arrive with the hope of being able to play them something else… and the hope of them liking it of course! So I played 1 and a half hour of cool funky techno, I had a lot of fun doing that, played constantly on 3 decks, was tight, was fun, but then I brought it down and started playing the most slow minimal tweaky stuff, and they went as nuts as when I was playing techno! And that made me SO PROUD!! SO INSPIRED!! SO HAPPY!!!! That was a true revelation! That was a true transformation for me…. Because, playing not hard in North America and having people liking it it’s not a surprise… Not a challenge either. But in Germany?!??!?!?!?!?!?! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know the whole M-nus thing is about being minimal and all of them moved to Germany and are doing parties in Germany and they are loved and very popular, as well as Sven V?th being the German God and playing more electro right now and being still so much loved, but the thing is that if I am a complete no one in Germany and I go once and play well of one thing and get asked to go back but when I go back I play another thing, it’s pretty risky…. And this is why I was SO PROUD!!!!!!! AND SO SO SO HAPPY! But that’s not all…. The best part of my tour, the best best best part of it, was when I was not DJing, and when I went dancing my ass off at this M-nus party in Offenbach, a town 15 minutes away from Frankfurt, where Magda and Troy were playing to promote the new M-nus album. That was it!!! A complete orgasm! First of all, Anthony and I had a super early flight to go to Greece on Saturday morning, so if we would have gone to bed we would have been complete retards to do so, so as I was super happy to know that Magda was in the same area and I could see her again (we became good friends after crazy fun times in Argentina and Colombia with Richie, Christian and family…) I just asked her to put us two on the list and Anthony and I just went there, having absolutely no expectations. But when we arrived there… OH-MY-GOD!!! You should have seen our faces!!!! We were amazed to say the least! It was a small club called Robert Johnson, that didn’t look like a club at all but more of an empty loft (empty from furniture not from people). There were windows behind the DJ set-up which didn’t actually look like a DJ set-up but more of just a table with decks and a mixer, and behind the windows you could see the foggy morning coming up, revealing through the fog a river and a bunch of trees. All that music, and all that nature… Wow! There was a balcony where people would go get some fresh air, and you could hear the music from outside and you could just stand there and dance! Anyway it was absolutely unbelievable. But what was so unbelievable about it on top of the venue that was all white and cozy and all perfect, was the sound, the music, the people! The music, you know.. minimal. All minimal, but so groovy and so old school!! I loved it so much!!!!!!!!! I couldn’t stop dancing and screaming. And the people were so groovy, the way they were dressed, the way they behaved, the way they were dancing. It was like a dream party!! Really! And to hear that kind of music, if you don’t have such a tight sound, then it sucks. But the sound in there was just perfect, so round, so warm! I mean, everything was absolutely perfect!! I had so much fun! We danced from 6 to 8 and at 8 I was heartbroken to have to leave, but it didn’t matter because that moment is part of the best memories from that tour, and will probably be the best for a long time!!! I wish I could attend more parties like that, and just go dance on this amazing, so inspiring and refreshing music! Anthony and I were really so amazed! We literally still talk about it. So what happened after that is that we got to Greece, completely dead but so happy! And in Greece I thought I would have the same problem as in Spain… but not at all. What a gig! What a surprise! First of all let’s not even mention the way they welcome me there, they are the best! And the fish, and the food. YUMMY!!!!!!! I miss it already! But the gig… Wow! Ok…. I was supposed to play 4 hours, and ended up playing for 6 and a half! And this is only because I had to go catch a flight, otherwise…. I closed the club at 11:00, and they told me they never closed the club so late! The night was not packed?. but ULTRA PACKED! And stayed so packed until late morning! So it was unbelievable. But the most amazing part is that I gave them a good 2 and a half hours of techno and then switched to minimal and electro and acid house for the next 4 hours, and I was just too amazed to see them all enjoying it so much! But so so so much!! You can check the little video in the photos section coming up soon, along with all the photos from the other nights! Anyway, it was unbelievable!!!! And then the Sunday we went to Croatia, and that was so hard because we had maybe 6 bottles of Champagne in Greece, no sleep and then straight to Croatia and no sleep until the next day, when we got to Paris. It was hard. So hard. But Croatia was also very good and it was good to be back there after quite a long time. I forgot to mention that my new love, apart from this different style of music, is Paris. I am in love with Paris, and I now have an apartment there, which is amazing! Paris inspires me more than anything, and I love to be there! So after my tour, 5 gigs in a row, I thought I deserved a bit of Paris time. I went record shopping at Cyber and bought 54 new records… all minimal!! I was so inspired by that Frankfurt night that I only wanted to hear that music!!! And they have amazing selection there, and I spent just too much money on records! But I was just like a kid when I was leaving the store with all these new records and, of course, a new record case to bring them all with me! Now I just can’t wait to be able to have more experiences like that tour. And play more and more like that. Soon I will be doing a new mix for the site, as I feel that the groovy one is already old. I shall make a new techno one too, both hopefully in the next month… Keep coming back and check it out. And, even better, make sure to sign up on the mailing list to receive the news and updates! So I am super happy, super motivated, and as I said in the beginning of my post, this feels like a brand new beginning! It’s amazing! There is nothing better than music! Seriously!!!! And food of course! 🙂 On June 11th I am doing another Iturnem party here in Montreal, and I am so looking forward to that, it’s going to be another refreshing night of this great music, and we will have so much fun and celebrate summer coming up! So that’s it for now, I hope you enjoyed the news and I hope that you’ll enjoy the photos and videos that I will be putting up here soon! Take care everybody and see you soon around the world!!!! Barbara x
