Slingshot

So a whole month has passed already since I last wrote anything on here. Things on the island have calmed down a lot over the last week or so and it's starting to feel like living in small village again instead of the clubbing capital of Europe.



Really looking forward to going over to Belfast in a couple of weeks time. Going to be DJing over there again which is always a good look, but what is even better is that as part of the deal I will be picking up my Nintendo wii. I've wanted one for ages so can't wait to get that back here. That will waste a more than a few days time!



Had a really crazy night on Thursday. Me and Dawn were taken out for a meal by Jesus and his son, a couple of people that she has been teaching English too since we lived here. We still aren't sure exactly what his job is, but needless to say he definatly appeared to carry some weight. All night we were treated like royalty and didn't even get so much as asked for money or given a bill. It felt a little like being out for an evening with "the Godfather".



Without a doubt, the mentalist part of the evening was when without really thinking it through, Jesus invited me onto the "slingshot", and in a true "embracing the madness" way I just went for it. You can see what happened on the youtube video that with a bit of luck you will be able to see below. Happy days!

Manumission

For years now I have wanted to to check out Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim, as he has been someone that I have really looked at as an inspiration when it comes to DJing. So last night we (a couple of friends that are visiting and me) headed off to Amnesia and the well renowned Manumission night. I knew that it was going to be a night to remember when the police pulled us to one side as we drove into the club car park to be searched. I have to admit that it wasn't a very good search and that we easily could have been hiding something, but none the less, I did think it was pretty ironic that out of everyone they could have decided to pull over they pulled over us, who I would imagine were the 3 soberist people in any club on the whole island.

Fatboy Slim played a harder set that I expected but was clearly loving it. He didn't play until 5:30am and finished around 7am which was pretty crazy, I would have liked to have been done and in bed well before then. The whole Manumission night was much more of a theatrical performance than I expected, it's easy to see why it is one of the busyest and most talked about nights on the island. As expected, there were quite a few breasts appearing at various points, but they had 2 old guys playing guitar, flaminco dancing mixed with some heavy beats and mc'ing, and easily the best breakdance crew that I have seen in a club setting (well, the only ones I have seen at a house night). They had a very small stage but one guy managed to just sort of flip over about 5-6 times in a row on the spot which was pretty impressive.

Finally got back to mine about 7:30, and then decided we may as well go out for a breakfast so got to bed about 10:00. Even living in Ibiza I haven't been out that late in a while. All in all a great but somewhat crazy night. I don't think that we will be taking any visiting teams to Manumission but it was definatly a night to remember.

Polish Movies

Just got back from Poland and am now staying in one of the most random apartments that I have ever stayed in. I am in Berlin now until Tuesday when I will be going to the UK for a couple of days.

We have made a bit of a video diary thing so I will hopefully be able to upload a little video of the Poland antics but the most random thing from the weekend was Polish TV. I have been staying in a hostel in the middle of nowhere and we thought we would see what was on. We turned on the TV to discover Erin Brockovich. At first it seemed to be in English, but after a few moments of Julia Roberts talking a Polish voice appeared over the top. On it's own this isn't too strange, but it was in fact a man's voice. It soon became apparent that the same man does the voice overs for every charecter in the movie and when we changed the channel found the same voice for a Robin Williams movie on the other channel. Excellent! I did record a little of it so hope to get a clip up, I think you have to see it to really grasp the randomness.

German Dogs

I am now at my friend Basti's house in Koln, Germany and staying here until Thursday when we drive to Poland to DJ at the SLOT art festival. I think it's going to be one interesting journey. There were 3 dogs on the plane this afternoon, all with different owners, all in small bags. I found it all very strange.

Hospitality Ibiza

I am pleased to be able to bring you the news that I have been working behind the scenes alongside Hospital Records to bring you the very first Hospitality Drum ´n´ Bass night in Ibiza. Check out the flyer below. If you like d&b then you need to get here for it! But you will have to get a hotel. My house is full.

Ultimate Fighting Championship

Well it´s been a crazy couple of weeks and there is no sign of the pace slowing down at the moment. With Brian & Tracy (24-7 team leaders) away in France I have been the designated driver of the new 24-7 people carrier and had the privilage of coming to the rescue of a whole heap of people over the last week. From a guy who had been left on his own after comsuming a little more than your average amount of vodka and puking his guts up through the holes in a bench to a girl who was seriously distressed after an alleged drink spiking incident. All good fun. But there is one story that I have to share that without a doubt is the highlight of my summer so far...

Last night we got a call on batphone (as the 24-7 mobile has become known as), to see if we could assit a girl at one of the bars who thought she had had her drink spiked. When we arrived she was very upset and confused but we calmed her down and I went to go and get the van to take her back to her parents who were back at her hotel. Just as I went to walk past the next bar, two men came flying out and onto the floor. One of them was laying on top of the other and had put him into a strangle hold. The bouncer from the bar knew that he needed assistance and was calling on his radio to the other bars to send their bouncers over to help. It´s at this point that my instinct of working on the streets of San Antonio just sort of took over. I leapt onto the two guys and started to pull apart the arms of the man that was strangling the other one as the bouncer tried to turn them over so that we could pull them apart. After a couple of minutes I managed to pull back his fingers and a combination of that and the bouncer pulling his arms and we managed to seperate them.

The two men stood up in the street and the bigger one of the two went to carry on attacking the other one who had been shouting for anyone to "get him off of me". I looked up and realised that this was possible the biggest and meanest looking bloke that I have ever come accross in San Antonio. If he had have actually hit me then without a doubt I would have been hospitalised, but I reached out and put my hand on his chest, looked him in the eyes and said "please, just stop, let it go now". With that he grunted a bit and just stood there, almost frozen, then both men just walked off in opposite directions.

After that we took the girl back to her hotel and made sure she was ok, then went back to the bar to check that everything was ok there. Now I knew that this bloke I had asked to stop fighting was a mean looking one, but when the staff told me that he was a champion boxer in the army, lover of street fighting and a semi-proffesional fighter it struck me just how crazy the situation was. Some of the other door staff knew him and one of them said to me "If there is ever something I have seen that makes me believe there is a God then it´s what you just did there". I asked him what he meant exactly and he said "If any other person has put there hand on him and told him to stop they would now be in hospital".

To be honest I am really dissapointed that no one who saw the whole thing thought to get their video phones out. But I have got a reconstructed picture below. Just imagine this, but with a more messed up face and shirt on.

Being a Christian and trying to live to them values means that I don´t really get the oppotunity to get involved in many fights. But I am almost looking forward to the next one now. What a rush!

The Magic Of Facebook

Due to getting about 20 e-mail requests from other people I finally gave in a couple of weeks ago and joined facebook (http://www.facebook.com/). To my suprise I actually love it! If your not a member then join it and join the revolution. Just in case your wondering, I only looked like that for about 10 minutes, but you have to admit, it's a great look!

The Dentist Story Continues...

Just been for my 3rd sitting at the dentists. He's finally sorted out the little blighter that's been giving me a lot of pain, but I didn't realise that he was going to give me an injection. I am one of those people that fits firmly into the hating needles category, so when I saw a big needle heading towards me it was a bit of a shock. Obvisouly not wanting to let on that I was a little nervous or that I hadn't quite grasped the Spanish for "I am about to stick a needle in your face", I just focussed on a fly on the ceiling and waited.

Good to have it sorted out, but as I write this I can't feel anything from my nose down and when I talk I sound, well for want of a better word, retarded, which is pretty strange. Still 3 more fillings to go, but then considering it's been 11 years since I went to a dentist, not too bad!

Spearhead Records Podcast

For those of you that don't already know, I have started a monthly(ish) podcast for my record label, Spearhead Records. This months one has just been put online so if you have iTunes, goto the iTunes store and search for BCee, then click subscribe for you free subscription to my podcast!

Also, a quick update on the teeth situation... I done something very stupid on tuesday and missed my appointment. I turned up at 17:30 instead of 17:00 and when the dental nurse said that I was half an hour late I pulled out my appointment card in disgust to show that I wasn't, only to slap it on the desk and see that I was in fact very very wrong and late! So I am off there again today. Happy days.

Poker

Had a crazy night on monday. We started off the night by going to Es Paradis to see Mark, a friend of mine, who was in the semi finals of a DJ competition that's been running for the last few weeks. Not sure if he's in the finals yet but if he wins he get's a fully paid trip to the Miami winter music conference!

The strange thing about the night was that everything was kind of in reverse. We started in the club, then went out around the west end and chatted to a few people, and then ended up at someone's flat playing poker. It was a great night as Ben & Tim (also from the 24-7 team) were also there and it was great to get to know some more people here over a couple of beers and some cards. I'm not sure that starting a game at 4am is the best way to keep concentration, but it rolled on until about 8:30am and I lost both games. I think the plan is that we are going to meet up again next monday for another round.

In other news, one of my friends collapsed while out walking today. He went for a walk for about 4 hours with another friend Kris and couldn't handle the heat. At one point he stopped on the beach and layed on a girls towel, then a little further he got underneath a car to cool down. I have been over to his house to check that he is ok tonight and he seems to be doing fine now, just a little tired. Here is a picture of the two of us below.

Finally, the Lomax - Brain Freeze EP comes out tomorrow on my label, Spearhead Records. You can buy the 12" vinyl version at all good record shops or the digital version from iTunes, http://www.beatport.com/ and http://www.trackitdown.net/.

Aorta Boys Video Diary

Ben & Si from Aorta were here last week and have made a small video diary from the few days that they were here. Check it out!

The Dentista

Well I have finally seen the dentist, who didn't speak a word of English (not that he should but it would have been easier). In spite of it taking a little bit longer than normal to understand exactly what was wrong due to my lack of knowing the spanish words for Gum Disease everything went pretty well. He did repeat back to me 3 times "You haven't seen a dentist for 3 year", I think he thought that I had just got my Spanish muddled up, but all that considered my teeth are looking pretty good. Got to go back 3 more times and it's going to cost me, but at least I don't have to lose any.

One slightly amusing thing did happen though. There was a little confusion because I only told Dawn that I was going to "a" dentist and gave her the street name. In fairness I didn't realise there were two in the same street, but I had asked her to come and meet me as her Spanish is a lot better than mine. I got a call from her asking where I was becuase she was in the wrong dentists telling them that it was her husband in there, then got closer and realised that it wasn't me.

I'm going back next thursday for round 2!

Bad Teeth

For most of my childhood I can remember the dentist as a very familiar place. My teeth used to be proper mashed up as a kid and it took 9 teeth to be removed (5 were baby teeth) and several braces to sort the boys out. It was all worth it though and anyone that knows me now will know what a fine display of pearly whites I have.

Now whenI was 19, like most people, I stopped getting free dental treatment and didn't register with an nhs dentist when it all changed over. So it's been just over 11 years since I last went to a dentist, but unfortuntatly it's time to go again. For the last few days I have been having serious tooth ache and have just made an appointent with a Spanish dentist tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's bound to leave me with another comedy tale to tell.

In other news, about 10 days ago a drunk girl wet herself in Brain's car. I realise that on it's own, that line seems very random. But to cut a long story short it really made Brian realise how much we needed a people carrier for 24-7. He stuck a note on his blog about it and from some very generous donations, in just 7 days over £7000 has come in, and Brian is driving a people carrier over from the UK this weekend.

As tempted I am to tell this story as if it happened in Ibiza, unfortunatly it didn't... But a new friend called Tim has come out to work with us for the next month. He usually works as a mental health nurse and yesterday told me a story which I found alarmingly amusing. A little while back he had to seperate two people from fighting at work, becuase they were both convinced that they were Jesus and were arguing about which one of them was. I hope to hear more of his stories soon.

That's about it for now but I am sure I will have some sort of tale to tell about the dentist tomorrow night!

All about the illusion

Just about to head down to Cafe Mambo to check out Pete Tong's essential selection live on Radio 1. It's funny how such small places like Cafe Mambo and Cafe Del Mar have such giant reputations. The majority of people that I have taken down to either of them are really suprised at just how small they really are. Last year there were a couple of times that I went down to Mambo to check out Pete Tong's show and the reality is that the speakers were so quiet that you could have easily walked by and not noticed it was going on. The police and government here have been cracking down on noise pollution more and more each year so bars can be heavily fined on the spot for exceeding the noise limit. Saying that though, as tonight is the first one of the season I think that the beach will be rammed and if it is, then it's unlikely they will be bothered about getting fined. Either way, it's going to be a lot busier than it was in the winter (see below).

Check up

Today we had Pete & Samie Greig visiting. We had a meeting with them at Brian's house tonight which went really well. In a way, Pete is like the big boss of 24-7, which alongside having the 24-7 Ibiza thing that I am working with, have a heck of a lot of other stuff going on to. Check out www.24-7prayer.com if you want to know more.

I found it good to know that I am not the only one that get's bored in meetings though. At one point I looked up and saw Pete playing with Brian's son's xbox controller and without realising he pressed the on button. He had a genuine look of panic when lights started flashing and I laughed even more when the 'welcome to xbox' sound came out through the speakers.

Bar Tropi

Last night I done a little DJ set with the Aorta boys in a bar called Tropi in the west end. I knew it was going to be interesting when the manager of the bar told us that a lot of people complained about his equipment. Sure enough, when we started to use it, you more or less had to punch the buttons to get them to do anything. I think it was actually the worst set of equipment I have ever had the privilage of using. Thankfully we just had a good laugh about it, got a few free drinks and then headed down to Es Paradis for a bit.

Drunk Driving

On Monday night I walked into San Antonio with Si & Ben (my friends that are visiting from the UK). We were heading up to the 24-7 office to meet up with the others, although before we had even made it that far we came across a girl who was trying to help her friend who had had way too much to drink and was laying in the street being sick. She (the sober one) was asking passers by if they had a tissue or anything that she could clean her friend up with and was looking really worried about how she was going to get home. I have had pretty bad hayfeaver for the last couple of weeks so had a packet of tissues on me which I gave to the girl. Then I offered to give them a lift back to their hotel as the taxi drivers wouldn't take them as one of them was being sick. As I offered her a lift she looked very scared, at which point I remembered what I look like and that I was with two other young guys. I explained that I worked for a Christian charity and that I would call and get 2 girls to come down and help, which really calmed her and for obvious reasons made her feel more relaxed.

After about 20mins driving around and having to stop for a bit while another friend of their's puked up, we finally made it back to the hotel to the relief of the girls.

With all that action it was definatly time for some sustanance so Si, Ben & me popped into the Kebab house for some chips and all was well. After a bit of a walk around the west end and saying hello and chatting to a few people we thought we would walk back home.

All day the boys had been taking the "p" out of my amazing Spanish accent, much to my disgust, but on the way home we passed 2 guys that had about 6 police around them. I could feel the need for some Spanish speaking action coming on, so I went to see what the vibe was. The police were about to put the guy that had more or less passed out into their jeep, the other guy that was fully alert was panicing and didn't speak a word of Spanish. I asked him what the score was and then very roughly translated that there boss was on the way to pick them up and take them home. With that the police then thanked me, got in their car and drove off, while the other guy stayed with his friend and waited for their boss, who turned up just as we left.

After about 40mins walking all the way back to my house, we got a call from Brian to ask if we could give someone a lift back to their hotel who had called the bat phone becuase they didn't have a clue where their hotel was and the taxi's wouldn't take them. So we then drove back to the place that we had just walked from, and dropped someone else of.

Now bearing in mind that we had just gone out for a quiet night to chat to a couple of people and to show the Aorta boys (Ben & Si) a little bit of the west end at night, I think it was quite an eventfull evening all in all.

Renee Zellweger

Last night our first 24-7 temporary worker came out. I think she bares a striking likeness to Renee Zellweger. The picture doesn´t really show it as much as in real life, but see what you think.

Welcome To Ibiza

So it's my friends Si & Ben's first time in Ibiza and they obviously have some idea of what to expect as regards to the club & bar culture, but they really got dropped in at the deep end last night. After picked them up from the airport we dropped into one of the most popular bars/clubs in the west end called Hush where a friend of mine runs the Sunday nights. We had only been in there for about 2 minutes when a girl went up to Si & Ben and asked if she thought it would be cheating on her boyfriend if they felt her breasts. I don't think she was expecting the deep conversation that she got, but it was pretty funny.

When we left Hush to head back to mine, we had to stop the car as there was a guy frantically waving at us in the middle of the road. It turned out it was his first night in Ibiza and he had got so battered that he couldn't remember where his hotel was. We gave him and his girlfriend a lift back to their hotel and headed back to mine. I thought it was quite a good introduction to Ibiza!

The Sheriff

Last night I picked up my friends aorta from the airport. (That's the name of the production team, I didn't just pick up an aorta). While I was waiting for them to come through the arrival lounge doors I saw a man come through that I thought I knew. After a couple of moment I realised that it was Keith Allen, the sherif of Nottingham from the recent BBC adaption of Robin Hood. I have never really felt the feeling of being star struck before, but I am a real fan of him in Robin Hood and had a real urge to go and get a photo with him. As it happens I felt too much of a nob and didn't get one. I wish I had now. Since looking him up on wikipedia today I have discovered that he is also the father of Lily Allen and used to have a band called Fat Les, responsible for that classic football song "Vindaloo".

Welcome to my world

Well what can I say? Mainly due to the success and popularity of my amigo Brian's blog, and partly due to working most afternoon's in an internet cafe, I have decided it is time to join the blogging bandwagon. I am going to aim to post here at least once a week and keep it up for at least this summer season in Ibiza. So hopefully someone out there will at least read it, but if not, at least I feel like I have got some random stories and rants off of my chest.

If you have no idea who I am and want to check out more then you can visit my myspace page which is www.myspace.com/bcee.

ez
Steve