the people's republic of house

better late than never

i really should have sorted this blog out ages ago. i moved from the states to shanghai in june of 2005 and, aside from the odd collection of digital pictures or my increasingly vague recollectiont, i haven't really kept much of a record of the experience. granted, i've never been able to keep a journal. i've never maintained any sort of documentation over an extended operiod of time without being paid to do so. in spite of this, i feel compelled - or perhaps even obligated - to do so now.

so what's the deal?
you may have heard plenty about shanghai recently - what a huge city it is and how it's on the cutting edge of chinese culture. well, shanghai is a huge city. gigantunourmous. 20 million people and (aside from perhaps tokyo) more high-rise buildings than i've ever seen crammed together. as far as being on the cutting edge of chinese culture is concerned... you've got to bear in mind that china has been disconnected from the world culture circuit for the last 50 odd years. additionally, most of china's 1.6 billion citizens live in remote rural areas - without access to so many of the things people in other countries take for granted. so yeah - i suppose you could say that shanghai is on the cutting edge... but the blade is antique and covered in a thick layer of rust.


so the deal? well, i'm a house dj from san francisco playing tunes for a lot of people that don't always get it. or, in other words, i'm playing music to get down to in a country where a lot of the kids are still learning how to get down. back home house is an institution; not the mainstream crap (solveig, sinclair, duretta, etc.) but the more underground and indie stuff (i.e. the stuff with nuts - inland knights, jacob london, troydon, style of eye, claude von stroke, etc). i've spent the last year and a half slowly trying to build an appreciation for a higher quality house sound. it's not easy, but it's happening. i'm trying to build something here that guys built in sf when i was in my late teens and early 20's - and really beginning to aprpeciate the kind of commitment involved (it's huge). i'm not doing it because i wanna be some superstar dj - but because i genuinely believe that house is the engine tht drives the whole scene and the real essence of what it all tries to be. this blog is a record of my experiences out here in pursuit pushing house music forward in all corners of the world.