We had a great time in AK, see for yourself!

Photos from The Anchorage show are up, and Video will follow shortly! Check them out HERE!

Tuesday night 11:54 PM. Sun night was Smokeshack Sunday, played 10-11, it was a practice run for the show this weekend with my new midi controller (more on this later). Needless to say, there were some serious fucking up with the controller and software, and the music came to a screeching halt a couple of times.

Turns out I was trying to do things a bit too complicated. I was hitting wrong buttons because I hadn't learned the right patch to hit after the 2nd track, just too confusing. So the past few days I have been working on simplifying the PA to balance stability of the system and the ability to improvise. I think I have come up with a good system and am going to hit up the Smokeshack tomorrow to test it on their kickass sound system.

Now a little bit about the new MIDI controller that caused all of this, M-Audio Trigger FInger. Read about it in FutureMusic a while back and finally went and tested it out. Thing works like a champ with Ableton Live and Cubase. 16 velocity sensitive pads, four faders and 8 knobs, all assignable, with 16 presets. This thing was made to work with Live, its easy to program and the trcks you can pull off with it are great, like using the velocity to trigger the gain on a filter. This would mean that while you push the pad, the harder you push on it the higher the gain. You can assign it to volume, to delay times, quantize rates. All sorts of cool tricks. And that is where I got caught up, trying to do so many dumb little tracks just because I could, not because they did anything for the set. So, the set is now simplified, PA ready to be tested at the shack tomorrow, time to get excited for Alaska!

I leave Thurs night at 9:45pm, meeting up with Jimini Crickit at Sea-Tac, then up to Anchorage. Spend the day there, then play that night at Bringin' the Boom! MC'ing for Jimini then playing a live PA, should be a good time. I'll be sure to make updates while I am up there, probably use the audioblog. Also expect a bunch of photos when I get back. Should be a good time.

Hello folks, welcome to my personal corner of the net here! In my attempt to keep the main Hardscience Blog on topic and primarily for "Official" Hardscience stuff, I decided to create this space for my personal posts.

You can expect a bit of audioblogging, mostly from events and other shindigs, much more like a personal journal.

Now that the introductions are out of the way, on to the content!

Last night was a big night for Hardcore Music in Seattle. Pussycat Productions was nice enough to book me to MC for the night, and broughout AC Slater from Pitched Up Recordings and DJ Silver from Happyhardcore.com.]

I posted a review of the party on NWtekno, here it is:

Just woke up, here is my review of the night.

Met up with AC and Dave for a few drinks at Jillian's which is a hilarious place to be on a Friday night. They must have problems with Minors sneaking in cause we had our ID's checked 4 different times throughout the night.

In the parking lot we met up with Shaun (DJ Panedmonium) who I invited to the party after hearing he was back in town for a bit.

Got to the venue and Microdot was spinning in the Main room, getting the crowd moving quite well.

We met up with most of the Old School NWHHC crew inside, it was great to see Tek, Pandemonium, Dummy, Dave Sci, Jimini, Elise and Bobby all in the same place again!

We hung around the main room which Heavyweight banged away with some great Hard Dance, leading into some nice upfront hardcore.

During this time most of us ran amok behind the stage, eventually getting introduced to Silver, who I knew only by reputation, and I gotta tell you he is a great guy who has an obvious love for Dance music.

Around this time AC and I went on, AC rocking out with amazing new Hardcore, many tracks from his Pitched Up Recordings label. The Crowd was up for it, and when AC dropped his remix of "Wintermute" people just blew up. AC's set was an all out hardcore assault with a lot of Robbie Long tracks, all with a high level of energy. Just remember AC, that Chicken Buger would ahve ruled with Nacho Cheese on it.

Silver went up next, and his set was an awesome mix of upfront hardcore with a lean more towards the uplifting side of things. Vocal antems and euphoric riffs gave his set a great vibe. It was great to meet someone who has made such an impact on the Hardcore scene and to get to hear so many tracks I haven't heard before. On an interesting side note, when I first met him I asked "How was your flight?" and he told me that that was the very first thing that EVERYONE had been asking him. So, for future reference remember, ask about other things first, to break up the man's day! Silver is an great guy, and it was wonderful getting to play with him.

Bobby Ritalin went on next and he was rocking it with a bit of the harder edged UK Hardcore, frantic beats and stomin feet. We had to leave during Bobby's set, but I am sure he kept things going hard until 3:30 in the AM.

All in all I feel this was a great night for Seattle Hardcore and Hard Dance. My apologies to the DJ's I missed, in particular my Smokeshack Homies Wheelz and Check 6 and Mrs. Hardcore herself Jimini Crickit. Shouts to Mrs. Check 6, Beefer, Graz from the pulse, and of Course Mr. Pussycat himself Heavyweight. Thanks for putting on an event the shows that the people love the Harder Stuff too!

-Ian K.