“Ahhh ahh, Techno City”

I must apologise profusely for the lull in skkatter website updates recently, this has been due to a number of factors:

Record encoding! This pretty much took up one hundred percent of my non-working and non-sleeping time, but I’m happy to announce I’ve finally finished turning all the grooves on my records into ones and zeros. I don’t have the exact figures on me right now as I’m writing this in the food court of Dublin Airport, but I recorded in the region of 2200 records, which worked out at something like 855 hours of music. It’s currently all in wav form and takes up just under 600 gigs approximately, I’ll post up some more precise (and deliciously nerdy) figures in the next post. Unfortunately this project is finished, the hard part is over, but I still have to chop up and normalise all the music. I can do this whenever I wan t to play a particular track though, so won’t be spending a huge chunk of time doing the lot all in one go. I’m really relieved I’ve finished the recording part though, that really took up all my free time and now I get to go out and DJ and make music again, woo woo!

Holidays in Boston! I spent most of the Christmas holidays in Boston where my cousin was getting married. Hence no posts during Christmas! It was my first time in America’s most Irish city, I’d a fun time and spent New Year’s Eve at a club/venue called Great Scott where a promoter called Basstown had got some local DJs and local synth pop bands to play. The two bands were great, the DJs ranged from decent to cheese mongers as the night progressed, but it was a very entertaining night and the bar staff gave out free champagne at the turn of midnight, how thoughtful! While in the city I also availed of the weak US dollar and bought myself a Nintendo DS, mainly because I want to try out that brain training game as I feel myself getting thicker with age (and not just around the waist).

Bye bye Fairview! The end of an era: I have moved out of my flat in Fairview! I had been living in a dingy, damp non-central heated flat on Fairview Strand (near the Fairview Inn pub where that guy got shot in the back) since February 2004. The place actually suited me pretty well as it was near to town and the neighbours never complained about the loud music. Also the landlord was a nice guy, a rarity in this country, I even convinced him to lower the rent after my first year there and it never went up afterwards. But I was running out of space so decided it was time to take leave of this particular abode.

Hello Berlin! The start of a new era, hopefully, I’m moving to Berlin. Yes, moving to Berlin is currently *the* techno cliché, however in my case it’s actually my job that are moving me there. A happy coincidence really as what electronic music fan wouldn’t like to live there!? I’m currently sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to the German capital, however this is just for a two week trip, the permanent move date is still being worked out, but will probably be within a month or so. It’s just as well really, there’s only so many times I can write about going out in Dublin without boring everybody, I’m looking forward to documenting the Berlin scene and keeping you informed of all the important things like how much a pint is and where to source Tayto crisps.

So I gotta board a plane now, stay tuned as the frequency of these updates will now return to the (hopefully) bi-weekly standard. Bye!