Filta on tour

It's hot in Austin at this time of year. Very hot. In fact, it was still 28 degrees at 1 am this morning... thankfully all the bars and clubs have very
good aircon!

21 Jul 2001

It's hot in Austin at this time of year. Very hot. In fact, it was still 28 degrees at 1 am this morning... thankfully all the bars and clubs have very good aircon!

Needless to say, it's more pleasant to be inside during the day (Friday), so I figured it might be time for a short travel update...

Los Angeles (first stop) was nicer than I expected. The beach suburbs (Redondo, Venice, Santa Monica) where I spent my time are cooled by a nice breeze off the pacific every day, and the air quality is AOK... very different from the infamous Valley. Still won't be moving there any time soon though. Santa Monica has a great little strip of bars and small clubs, reminiscent of Courtney place, but substitute film industry types for the rugby fans.

The Saturday night was low-key, but the following Tuesday I played a night called Our House in Costa Mesa which was well cool... better than the weekend crowd!

From LA up to Vancouver, and out to Victoria for a Thursday night at Neptune. Vic is a lovely city, very relaxed and quite a good house crowd.

Everyone in BC is fit, it would appear fat people are banned. This makes the population easy on the eyes, always a nice thing... :)

Saturday at the Lotus Sound Lounge was killer, it's a club about the size of Studio 9 (club and backbar) with the cleanest, fattest sound system I've
ever heard. The place packed out for a memorable evening, my fave gig so far.

Onwards to Toronto... a place which gets lots of schtick from people in BC ("It's a hole" was a common quote) but turned out to be great. Downtown is buzzing Thursday to Sunday, centred near Queen St West, which is like Cuba St on steroids.

The gig was at NASA, a cool small club (Paradiso size) operated by the owner of the now-defunct Industry, Toronto's first superclub. Interesting story, they were bought out of their lease (by a bank) for a *very* tidy sum.

Some small technical issues with the stacks did not detract from another good night, with Ian (promoter) having to turn several hundred away due to overcrowding!

Sunday we went to a sensational patio afterhours at Fez Batik, classic house jams, Long Island Iced Teas, and Hoegaarden on tap. Eating, drinking, and much merriment.

Which brings me back to Austin, a pretty city (for the States, anyway... ;), although sightseeing is difficult in the heat, which reaches 40 during the day. Did a walk around last night after sundown though, and the Capitol is impressive.

The gig here is Saturday night, at a larger venue called Texture. Anthony Pappa guested last week and Sander Klienenberg is next week so I'm optimistic to say the least!

OK, off to see Final Fantasy to while away the worst of the day in comfort, I hear its crap but can't resist checking the animation out...

See y'all in August.