28/12/2011

What happened in 2011

Welcome back, for the last time this year! Push play before you read on. These are four tracks of my coming Ep. It's been a good year and here's why:


>we completed the video for Frank Call,
>the video was on TV, where I also gave an interview,
>Frank Call got featured as demo of the week on Radio2,
>For play Ep was released,
>shot photos with Gabriela,
>made Blo Me shirts and sold them all,
>Pick Up track was featured on MAP,
>played 11 shows/sets,
>Had a houseshow at my studio,
>around 8000 readers were on Fluon,
>published 58 posts on Fluon,
>three of my prints were on exhibition,
>shot photos for Eazy Jet magazine.

The photo that almost cost me my camera.

I spent this year working on different music skills. I studied further mixing and mastering skills to give you a better quality listening experience. I consulted Ö-stuudio to better understand those techniques.  I also studied composition and classical music theory (chords, keys) to know what is commonly used in music. This was the first time I had studied any music theory. Lots of tracks were made during summer to capture the light and happy beachy mood. Those are the tracks you can hear in the mix, up there. I also put a lot of work into this blog and my Facebook page. I focused more on DJing as it's something that I'm planning to do more in the future. I'll mix it up with some of my bootlegs and mash-ups.
My new year's promise is to get music out to you faster. That might mean that tracks will be just downloads instead of Eps, but I haven't decided yet how to do it exactly.

Artwork for the Ep tracks.


The shows and sets I played this year were enjoyable. The last set at Nälg was a real treat with people dancing from the first song non-stop to the last one. The Errorfests had a strong concentration of great people and good friends. It was also an opportunity to interact with foreign artists, even if the dance floor wasn't packed. Mõisa Karneval was a great festival, which I enjoyed even despite having pneumonia. The most experimental experience was playing a house show at my place, something I would like to do more when the occasion arises.


Best way to live is to be always celebrating.

I went to a Californian guy's housewarming party on Tuesday. 400 invited, 40 attending, 30 came. At the party I was attacked by a crazy bitch when I was taking photos of her. Her assault resulted in damaging my camera. Bitches be crazy! To be discreet, I'll post no face or name, but my camera is barely alive. We also got a visit from the downstairs neighbor thug, who was complaining about music. Except for those incidents nothing much happened. It was a regular Christmas week with pretty much everything closed.

See you next year and leave your new year's promises in the comments!
Barthol

18/12/2011

Pregaming Christmas.

Welcome back!

We were contacted on Thursday and asked if we wanted to play at Nälg on Friday, because the other DJs had cancelled a day before. We accepted the challenge and it was great. Me and Zuks played a 4 hour set. It started with mellow tunes and three dancing foreigners telling me to turn it up. I was prepared to rock the floor as I had schooled myself on advanced use of CDjs and brought the fresh tracks and old classics. I even played two of my own and they worked well. Zuks played with his DJ toy like last time.


My fellow party people.

There was also a very persistent German hippie girl, grabbing my knobs, while I was playing. I almost had to throw her out. At some point, when I was mixing too viciously, I lost one of the knobs. Luckily I recovered it quickly and the flow was uninterrupted. Surprisingly most of the crowd was international students. At the end of the night it was harder to keep track of what I had played already as the drinks kicked in, but my ears and body knew what they were doing. We'll meet at the dance floor soon enough.


We had a Christmas dinner on Saturday. I was urged to sing "Pick up track" before I got my present. I got a bag full of fireworks and glow sticks. It continued with games and ended with magic shots and a pillow fight. The pillow fight master was Marcus, my very distant cousin. It has been his dream to be on Fluon, as most of his friends have been featured already so this is him. Merry Christmas, Marcus!

Marcus. His hobbies include playing with dogs, vodka and DJing.

Some times you go out for a walk and end up somewhere else. On Thursday I ended up at the art school Christmas party. It had a laid back atmosphere. Everyone had a red kitten drawn on their hand. The best part were some old friends I hadn't seen for a while plus the new friends we made. Two girls were wearing white foam hair, but that was about all the artiness I witnessed.

Christmas is the time for fireworks.
Fluon will have it's 3 year birthday on January 7th and it will be synced with post number 100. Make sure you come back for the limited time give away. Also read about my lessons and achievements of 2011.

See you soon!
Barthol

15/12/2011

My first tattoo

Looks like one of my designs. - It probably is your design.

Welcome back!
The quote is about the tattoo down here. I used to draw that girl face here and there and as it turns out the girl on the picture found it and like it so much, that she had it tattooed on her arm. That was one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me.

Girl on girl action.

On Tuesday night I was playing around with CDjs at Kink Konk. One of the players was a CDj200 and the other one a CDj1000 it was a world of difference. Some of you came by (thx) and Zuks stayed there for all of the set. On the way back we found a poster advertising a party at the new diner - Kiirsöökla. The poster was full of design and spelling mistakes. We were slightly intrigued by it.

The Dj is playing on the right.

On Wednesday we went to the new Kiirsöökla's club night. There was bad club music and the design was reminiscent of soviet time diners. Dishes were glued to the walls and the toilet ceiling. The floor was still covered with the former casino's logo carpet. There was no room to dance because of the tables and the place has full wall windows facing the street. There was a smoke machine, lights and a strobe. The hostesses kept telling the DJs to turn down the music. I enjoyed myself, as it was a totally out of this world experience. No room for dancing and we were almost the only ones eating their expensive food, everyone else just sat at tables and went out for an occasional smoke. I'm not sure I'll go back, but it was fit for the night.

Drunk girls clubbing at Nälg.

This Friday me and Zuks will surprise you at Nälg. It wasn't too long ago when we last played there. This time it will be a bit different and be sure to wear your dancing shoes. We will wear our's and take turns dancing and playing tunes. It's also an opportunity to get on Fluon, I'll bring my camera with me, so think of some wild stuff to do on the dance floor. Also if you want a temporary tattoo, I'll be more than happy to sketch something on your arm.

Marco the stripper, Margus the artist and a girl.

There was a cool exhibition opening on Friday that I haven't written about (been working on the tracks for my coming Ep). It was Bach's airbrush exhibition. He's one of  Tartu's first graffiti writers and has now moved on to painting nudes with airbrush. The opening was a real party with a fish tank full of punch and Mowka spinning records. There were artists, students, celebrities and models attending. Like at every opening over here the mother son duo of eaters, named the "Food club" were present. Party lasted for several hours before everyone headed to different clubs.

See you tomorrow at Nälg!
Barthol

09/12/2011

Shoot and beat!

I read all of your blog in one day

Welcome back!
Monday and Tuesday Olivier Hess was taking photos of me for Easy Jet's magazine. It's a piece on Tallinn, where I talk about the Patarei prison space and other alternative venues. The best shot was at Biit record store (run by Madis Nestor), but we also shot at F-hoone for example. The Biit store is a great place, if you need music in Tallinn, go check it out at Maakri 19/21. We were listening to LFO and new Mr Oizo.

Get comfortable at Biit.

Frank Call has been selected as the "Demo of the week" at Raadio2. We talked with Heidy Purga about new music, big cities and how I started on Thursday. If you know Estonian you can listen to it at http://r2.err.ee/jarelkuulamine select 8.12, Pleier and skip to around 17:30. I used to tape their electronic shows back in the days when I didn't have internet. So it's great to have been selected.

Some of the selection at Biit.

My computer got fixed thanks to Zuks. He told me he knows a guy who can sort it out. So we rode up to a house on Thursday and called him. He was around 50, had a great mustache and a couple of missing teeth. He invited us into the basement,which was full of dissected computers. Piles of motherboards, wires and 53 empty cases (yes, they were counted). It was like a computer clinic and cemetary at the same time.

Madis Nestor goofing around at Biit.

Too bad I didn't have my camera. He tested my power supply, but as it turned out, his tester was broken. It didn't matter, he dived into a pile, and fetched me another one. Thanks to a new ticker my machine (named Rabbit btw) is running again and I can get back to completing the Ep.

At a Cafe.

I added the photos from Gabriela's exhibition opening to the last post. Also I will play a long experimental set on Tuesday in Tartu. There will be more info on Facebook as the day approaches.

See you soon!
B

04/12/2011

Night of wet fun! - updated photos

Erasmus - orgasmus.

The best part of this week was the pool party on Friday. It was organized by the Erasmus student network. Lately one of the best concepts. You know how wild student parties can get. To get there we had to break through the heavy rain (no snow yet). The Aura center pools were full of international girls in bikinis. There were different saunas, water slides and light therapy, which was our favorite. You get to stare into a lamp for half an hour, that's a priceless experience.

The clearest photo I got.

It was hard to take photos because it was so wet by the pool, everything, even the air, was wet. There was a limbo contest and a ten-man-swim against the stream. All the winners got Red Bull. By the end of the party the mixture of alcohol, light therapy and Red Bull had produced a strange state. Luckily there wasn't water deep enough to drown in.

The goers through the haze.

We went to the exhibition opening of Gabriela Liivamägi on thursday, she's one of Fluon's favorite photographers and my banner up there is one of her photos. The exhibition was in Genklubi and Uebanda was playing afterwards. She had big and even bigger photos up, some of them finished with industrial glaze. It was a great exhibition with strong portrays.

Another photographer at the exhibition.

 I had some photos of the opening, but my computer refuses to turn on. I can't add photos, but I can finish writing this post on my sister's computer. My computer works again so I got to upload some photos. Read about how a mustache saved my computer in the next post.

Gabriela's big portraits.

I've been getting played on Radio2, once or twice per day and sometimes even on prime time. I'll have some great news soon, if everything works out. There might be a secret gig coming up soon, look out for it on my Facebook page. Enjoy this last image from when we were playing with Zuks in Nälg.


See you soon!
Barthol