Nice Mix From Dan Ghenacia

French House!

Factory Club Closing.

The rumours are true, the Factory Club/Medicine Bar is closing but with a bit of a bang rather than the whimpers it's being making lately. Three Easter weekend closing partied bringing the likes of Ricardo Villalobos, Simian Mobile Disco and Laurent Garnier and a Hospital Records showcase to Brum.

The whole Digbeth scene of late has felt pretty tired and uninspired and I'm hoping that the switch to a new venue (Space 2) and a refocusing of the Medicine Bar will bring some new talent to the promoting scene.

In my eyes over the last two years all that we have seen is tired drum'n'bass nights, tired drum'n'bass nights and tired drum'n'bass nights plus the occasional visit from Annie Mac or 2ManyDjs which pales into insignificance if you look at the line ups at The Warehouse Project in Manchester or at Farringdon's Fabric. So I reckon it's time to move on as a venue.

I've had some great nights in the Medicine Bar and have seen - Jeff Mills, Dave Clarke, Hernan Catteneo, Erol Alkan, Plump DJs, Stanton Warriors, The Bays, Booka Shade and M.A.N.D.Y., Kruder and Dorfmeister, Claude VonStroke, Justice, Tiga, Jon Carter, Evil 9, Ben Nott, Baadmarsh and Shri, The Japanese Popstars, Pendulum - and those are just the one's I can remember off the top of my head.

Let's just hope there's a bit more imagination over the next twelve months.

XML and Flex

I'm rebuidling a client server app using Adobe Flex buider but trying to serialize XML is driving me up the wall. I just can't get my head around how I supposed to be doing this. I guess I should probably leave it and do something else and come back to it in the morning. Don't know if that would make any difference.

I'm so glad its almost the weekend....

No Money.

I am flat broke.

I've got about £20 to my name to last me weeks and weeks and weeks....

Maybe I'll have to turn to a life of hi-tech white collar crime.

Busy Busy

Nick came up on Friday and we met at New Street Station and had a quiet few beers in the Joint Stock. My work colleages were celebrating a birthday on Broad Street, I considered for a few seconds whether or not I should join them. Not a hard decision.

It felt odd not waking up with a mouth that tasted like I'd swallowed something very nasty indeed. Fridays lately have tended to equate to me going for a couple of beers after work and then either staying out and getting hammered or staying out and getting very hammered. So it was nice not to have a clear head on a Saturday morning.

After a pretty lazy start, I arranged to meet Nick again in the Bristol Pear, not the most charming of pubs, where we drank a few beers and watched the rugby. A little later we were joined by Ben who was on the cranberry and orange juices as he was driving to a gig in Leicester a little later that evening.

It got dark and it was time to go and see Ian as he was having a small celebration for his 70th birthday. Jen and her two friends appeared and we went off for a rather tasty curry at the Balti Cottage.

By the time we strolled out of the balti house it was time for me to meet up with Joe who was sat drinking a "disgusting pint of Adnams". A very swift pint and up the road to Neil and Amy's flat we went.

We hired a taxi into town to go the Rainbow Warehouse to see Erol Alkan and Fake Blood, unfortunately for Joe it was sold out and the touts were asking for £20. He decided (rightly) that was too much and decided to go home. Feeling bad for draggin him into town I suggested that we should go for a couple of pints before he did.

We got to the Spotted Dog just before the doors were locked and then drank a few beers rather quickly. About one I headed back to the Rainbow.

Having been drinking for more than eleven hours I'd got to the "can't be arsed, it's time to go home" stage. I wasn't that impressed with the music. And the crowd made me feel exceedingly old. I stayed for another couple of hours until I could take it no longer.

I fell out the taxi on the way home. Pissed.

Art and Horribly Pissed on Free Wine.

Last night I went to see the new exhibtion at the Ikon Gallery. I might as well have just stood in the foyer and grabbed as many wines as humanly possible. Well actually that's pretty much what I did. Rebecca and Mark kept going outside for cigarettes.

I wanted to see Peggy Honeywell do her folk songs but Rebecca dragged me away because she reckoned that "You only don't think she is boring because you want to shag her".

She wasn't boring I like her music.

I think we must have drank a couple of bottles of plonk each. Then went to the pub.

I felt that I needed to leave early from work all day. I didn't.