shortly after arriving in detroit, hearing this song by ESG made the entire drive worth it. their drummer rocks like no other. everyone was excited beyond belief as is evidenced by the constant screaming during the song and the chanting at the end. listen to ESG

later the speedy j show left a little to be desired. don't get me wrong, his pa was technically without flaw, the crowd was excited, and the venue (st. andrews hall, one of my detroit favorites) was perfect. his music all sounds too similar to get me very excited and the volume of the bass actually made the little hairs on my skin stand up and caused my nose to become extremely itchy (strange, i know). maybe i'm just getting a little old and no longer know how to have fun, or maybe i'm just having fun in different ways. either way, had i known about the chill out room upstairs where vladislav delay was playing, i would have had a much better time. listen to speedy j

after that at the low res party i had an opportunity to chat up a few good friends who were in town from san francisco for the festival. one was matt dober who is without an internet web page, the other was kim song, aka yopper (the one and only yopperator). i also received a nice mix cd from a nice boy who randomly introduced himself to me. listen to the low res party

and well past the time that all smart people are in bed we went over to a middle of the night coney island in downtown detroit where rob hood's little brother introduced himself to us (what a nice guy too). in my over caffeinated, slightly intoxicated state, (as jes said: listen: did you give her sugar?), i refused to go back to the room without going to get some saganaki (flaming cheese) which is one of my favorite kinds of junk food to eat. one of the reasons i like it so much probably has more to do with the presentation that the cheese itself. the server comes to your table with a tray that has a big hunk of some extremely greasy cheese doused with some edible, flammable liquid, he gets out a lighter and lights the cheese on fire to melt it, and then yells, "OPA!" before dousing it out with the juice from a wedge of lemon. this waiter was not a very enthusiastic one when it came to yelling OPA. listen to "OPA!"

waking up the next day was difficult but not impossible. luckily our room at the pontchartrain was surprisingly quiet. i expected that with all of the unattended ravers staying at the hotel there would be tons of noise and we'd get little sleep. by the looks of the hallway and the broken elevator when we returned, we missed the crazy shenanigans of hundreds of kids under the influence of who knows what.

we wanted to get out of bed in time to see carl craig and the detroit experiment. it took a while for him to go on. not as many people were out for this one, but the people who got out of bed by 5PM were all having a good time to vikter duplaix playing what is sure to become the new catchy dance craze. listen to "put your hands up in the air"

finally carl craig and the detroit experiment took the stage and for the first song played the jazz funk classic space odyssey by marcus belgrave who was also on trumpet with the detroit experiment. unfortunately, my microphones decided they could no longer handle the bass and crapped out on me. all i can say is that, this is a great song and you should check out the streaming version of the record on rope-a-dope, the record label's website.

later while walking between stages i heard someone looking for a battle. i'm not sure if he was looking for a battle as in wanting to start a fight or he was looking to battle as in some kind of dance contest or the possibility has been suggested by ken that he was referring to an mc battle. either way, his screaming is amusing. listen to battle guy

late that same evening i was feeling way too tired to go out to another after party. plus, call me a hater and i don't care, none of the after parties seemed worth going out for. what sounded much more exciting was a late evening drive around the city of detroit. driving around abandoned urban areas and factory wastelands relaxes me and what better place to do it than detroit. i recorded no sounds and took no pictures.

after the relaxation of driving around the outskirts of the city, we were confronted with no place to park. all of the city parking garages close at or before midnight except for the ones by the greektown casino. normally this would not be a big deal, but as tired as i was i offered to pay for a cab for the short walk. dave gladly accepted. taxi cabs are few and far between in the city of detroit, but for the demf they were out in full force, some apparently trying to double their profits. the cab we hailed was a minivan cab, there were two passengers already inside. the cab driver rolled down his window, asked where we were going, and said to get in. i was tired and gladly accepted. the boy and girl in the seat behind us didn't seem to mind. within a moment they were dropped off at a place that was alomst on the way but not directly on the way. after they were dropped off our cab driver took a way back that was again kind of on the way, but not really. he passed a club and picked up 4 other people, 1 extremely drunk obnoxious girl and 4 annoyingly clubby drunk men. before they even entered the cab i knew i'd be annoyed because the girl was shouting racial slurs at the cabby demanding he open the door and let them in, and he decided that it would be a good idea to give them a ride too. i didn't let anyone share a seat with me and dave, somewhat rudely i refused to move over. i had a conversation with the one guy who ended up sitting on the floor because i refused to move. being mean is hard when one is tired. while straining to be nice, i recorded part of the conversation. listen to a cab ride

the next day, dave was off to work in windsor. jes and i decided to rave it up a little more. after a good night of sleep we went to lunch with mattdober and kimsong. then headed over to a loft in greektown to visit friends who had not yet been to sleep. after a long time spent in a dark loft, we headed out to see Time:Space and Aril Brikha and then DJ Magda. here is part of Aril Brikha's set. it was much more imaginative than this, but keeping in mind that my microphones apparently don't feel the bass in the same way i do, i chose a part with little bass. listen to part of aril brikha's set

much later, after meeting up with dave again and refilling our drinks, we headed over to the main stage to hear the much anticipated jeff mills. my attention was not focused for several reasons, one being that suddenly the volume coming from the stage was too low, another was that we were too far from the stage. his set was barely memorable except for the two guys behind us who were chanting. listen to guys chanting for another point of view on the weekend check out the write up jes did for gapers' block and check out the photographs from her site j3s.net/photolog.