Everything is very quiet, Everyone has gone to sleep.

I’m wide awake on memories, These memories can’t wait.

Yup. Jetlag. Wide awake, drinking duty free bourbon… and it’s morning. Serious attempts to sleep (“Take the blue pill”) sadly failed on the flight back, so a pile of in-flight movies numbed my floating brain instead. Despite that, had a lovely chat with my seat neighbor, the American soprano, Marnie Breckenridge, who was on her way out to perform Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” in Prague. It’s always fascinating discussing what we do with performers and musicians from different genres – hope you liked the CDs, Marnie!

There’s a party in my mind…And I hope it never stops

There’s a party up there all the time…They’re gonna party till they drop

Bootie LA was a dynamite experience – there was definitely a little apprehension in the air at first, as although Adrian, Deirdre and Paul V are into what we do, they had yet to hear the proof of the DJ pudding. Suffice to say I was a little nervous for likewise reasons, but a swift blast of a couple of new tunes during the soundcheck put all minds at rest. Feeling a little more confident, I chilled in the outside zone of the club (what is that called anyway, a smoking patio?), chatting to a few fine people, including Buck from The Mutaytor, who, once we’ve got the requisite Ableton chat out of the way, regales me with tales of jamming with Mickey Hart and Baaba Maal. I’d advise you to check their site, especially if you’re not from the US, as you won’t have seen nada like this before – and admittedly neither as yet have I, as we were both sadly playing on the same night in SF! Next time, next time… And muchos good luck with getting the ‘taytors over to Europe soon, Buck…

Still, time flies, and it’s soon time to cross all extremities and patch in. It’s a little freaky at first, but the crowd are grinning and shimmying, and soon the couple of aces up my sleeve actually *feel* like aces. The set zooms by, highlighted by one wonderful moment when I could see several people right in front of me almost doubled-up laughing their asses off yet dancing madly at the same time (anyone at the shows can hazard a fairly accurate guess to which tune *that* was), and then suddenly I’m back in the fresh air breathing releif and nicotine as the hosts wrap the night up. A few after-beer beers and then I’m a straight to bed good boy for the flight to SF the next day.

Take a walk through the land of shadows, Take a walk through the peaceful meadows

Try not to look so disappointed, It isn’t what you hoped for, is it?

Los Angeles, I have to say, I found very, very disorientating, as I hinted before. To the small-land mentality of an Englishman, LA just does not compute. The sprawl suggests that it must be tough for peeps to keep new community culture locked in place amongst it all, and it’s mighty tough to get a quick reading through the streetlife, as everyone is in a damn car most of the time! But I was reassured by many folks that it’s worthwhile, so looking forward to going back and digging a little deeper, for sure.

San Francisco, on the other hand, has much that immediately resonates with the English (and more to the point, Brighton-toned) psyche. The Speakers Corner meets Leicester Square chaos that lives at the base of Powell Street felt rather reassuring, as I lugged my case past the militant vegetarians, street performers, panhandlers and god-botherers towards The Palace Hotel for the Web 2.0 conference.

I’m stuck here in this seat… I might not stand up…

This article was posted on Wednesday, 15 November 2006 at 6:32 am in the K Happenings category. You can leave a comment, or Trackback to this article.