Marc Reck

or as much as i can remember off the top of my head anyway!..Don’t normally do these, but it feels a good thing for me to do as they say it’s always good to see where you’ve been before deciding where you are going to go.

Djing saw gigs most weekends ranging from Birmingham Opera in a warehouse to Atomic Jam at the que club, from botanical gardens to the custard factory and learning a whole host along the way. I’m also up to 5 residencies now with some of my favourite events in brum, and even started a new radio show for brum based Rhubarb Radio, all culminating in an end of year best local dj award from the Night Times!

On the music side, i saw my first two soundtracks, one for a new vibes dance on film piece and a festival and events dvd. I’ve also got to grips with production and arranging side of things, and feel a lot more comfortable with guitar, vocal, djembe and scratching, writing an array of styles in the search for my own sound.

On the events front, Project X Presents delivered 2 awesome events, starting the year with a small X-lab, and in september, after going through around 30 venues, transforming a working mens club into a digitial distopian vision of the future.

Mr Elephant Presents delivered a range of community based events, ranging from afamily day with workshops, live music, and kids activities, through to blowing up the hare and hounds for mr elephant’s 1st birthday bash with mask making, kazoo’s, live & djed music, and the midnight parade. We were also asked to host rooms at events such as the longest day festival, whilst collaborating on live events such as the consider it done debut showcase. The heffalump collective also came together to Celebrate Birmingham’s Underground with poodle parades, stalls, 12 piece percussion jams with beatboxers and scratch djs, interactive performance art and amazing dj and vjs sets. Following that 2008 also saw the launch of a little mr elephant night called Party Rockin Mammals, and even an award from the night times as runner up for best small promotions. All the events have packed out each venue, generated great reviews and postive feedback, and in the majority of cases created highest bar takes for venues and paid opportunities and/or substantial exposure for participating artists.

As none of the above are (unfortunately) ways to generate sustainable income, also on the cards was a music educator course via access to music, in order to teach custom made courses in music and djing. I also completed an events management course, in the hope to qualify me for the big festival events, attended a seminar or two, and gained invaluable experience with shadowing various workshop sessions in order to take my music, and djing technologies into cross artform workshops for educational and community settings.

The big community based idea which began as Workshop of the World on Mr Elephant site has become Share to Create, which was made a reality after receiving great interest from people who can build it, various partner orgs who can deliver the outreach and services. 9 months in the making and support from some amazing people in brum has seen the idea grow into something really special, and we are currently applying for 4ip funding. Watch this space.

And then of course there was all the rest of life. The good times with friends, the inspiring gigs, the creative sessions which inspire each time we do them.

Here’s to 2009. May it bring all that you wish for.

So this year started at the hare and hounds. A sold out gig and two rooms full of some of my favourite djs and wonderful friends.

I had a huge set ready for last hour, and warmed up with some choice downtempo classics for the first. Adam Regan delivered a great set from 10-12,

followed by two heavy breaks sets from Sumo residents Steve Lopan and Dani C.

Jibbering, Jam Jah and Funbox were keeping in nice and toasty in room two,

and Liam Blendstate’s visuals were awesome once again.

with us both rockin the last hour to a lovely crowd

All in all another fantastic night at the hare, with nice drinkies with friends til the early hours of the morn.

The first day of a new year, and here’s hoping every single day from hereoin will bring you all that you wish for.

If you’re reading this in your rss reader, you’ve probably just got all the drafts for the last 2 months. The site still needs some work (like posts being categorised, pages being rewritten, etc), but we pretty back to normal transmission, and hope to improve each week.

I’ll leave you with you the second zeitgeist film and welcome any comments if you watch it

Just a quick note to wish you a merry xmas and to say that i’m updating the site at the mo, aiming to finish it for the new year. I’ve almost sorted the template and navi/linkage out, and have a stack of posts that i’ve saved for the last few months, which i’m aiming to post on the 30th. (drafted initally as i was moving the site, and now because i didnt want the rss to alert anyone to the site while its being rebuilt)..For any interested readers they are atomic jam, night times and elephant reviews and videos. new gear road tested like the new traktor scratch pro, and omnisphere,  some awesome new promos and records that i’ve found, plus some hopefully useful tutorials on how to make time consuming things  such as making a website, sorting out millions of records, and implementing systems like g.t.d a whole lot quicker. Hope you having a good festive season, and for anyne that wnats a ticket for the new years eve party at the hare theres i’ve just heard there’s literally only a few left.

Its xmas eve, i’m still pretty flued up, looking forward to seeing my parents, missing my girlfriend (she’s away), and my friends,(who are all out partying) so i’ve consoled myself with some retail therapy.

Finally i’ve made the plunge and bought some earplugs. Expensive custom made ones from the best place i could find, in the hope that they will save my hearing from getting damaged.

Its going to take at least 2 months before i get them as there needs to be an ear impression and then the making, but i’ll be sure to review them for any other djs and musicians out there. Until then, check out their site – http://www.audiorelief.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?cPath=24&products_id=40 and if you are wondering why i chose them, they seemed to be the preffered one for djs like Danny Byrd and the like.

Although i’m saving posts as drafts, i do wish you a very merry xmas all the same

I’m currently working on redesigning this site, and  have been trying to keep up with the blogging as i go by saving to drafts. The redesign was going to be a fairly quick process, but i seem to have got quite involved with the php, css, and other 3 letter abbreviations that can be quite time consuming little monsters.

It was Aarts birthday yesterday, who has been our Mr Elephant designer for the last 2 years, and is pretty fluent with the ole css. However even he was stumped by the child and parent themes i was trying to design, so i think i’m going to revert back to one of the more simpler themes i have found, as this can, and has, taken up a lot more time that i was anticipating!

He did however design the fabulous new header which is sported at the top! He’s got a new site coming, but for now catch him at T.V.S or his old site

Expect a new look and some helpful tutorials in 2009.

I was feeling great yesterday, and really looking forward to seeing lots of friends at Phil and Lara’s xmas party, and Steve and Dani’s Sumo Party. Why i’ve now got flu, i really dont know..(and not even “man flu” but the proper achy stuff!)

Ah well, it generally leads to healthier living, and it did give me time to take my trusty Iriver apart and replace the battery with a larger ipod one. All felt pretty clever after doing that one! Check out the guide here, or watch this video below

Yesterday we finally had a meeting with Ant who’s going to be building the Share to Create website. It was a big relief for me and Pyn as we’ve been working on the idea since our inital meeting back in August, and i’m happy to report we are all back on track for the build (though due to Ants contract running out at open advantage we are not sure exactly when)

Nevertheless it tied in nicely with a meeting i had with Dave Peebles at the custard Factory last week, and i went again this week to have another look at the premises. The initial one were a lot smaller than i remembered, so Jonathan showed me one that was double the size, which seemed ideal.

I had a great chat with some of the side projects for Share to Create  including the outreach projects, and was inspired with our chat. Its been really postive each time i chat about the project to new people, and once the site is built i think we could really have something on our hands. Anyway the premises were great and heres a little video i shot.

After that i went home to get a bite to eat and then back to the custard factory to record my first radio show from the rhubarb studios. I initially started and designed the show to broadcast from home, but there has been a change to the computer i broadcast onto, so until there is  another option i’ll have to either prerecord or come into to host it from rhubarb.

It was a lot of fun hosting at the studio, and while theres so much i cant do, it felt good to be back doing it again. The studio is somewhat lacking in equipment being a free community run radio station, so the second half of the show wasnt possible, and with one of the cdjs not working, the only option was to play one of the mr elephant shows, and host it on the mic, which to be honest was a nice introduction to the desk.

We also got to host another competition, this time for a pair of tickets for new years eve at the hare and hounds, courtesy of the very generous Adam Regan. The internet computer in the studio was ridiculously slow, so communication was somewhat stifled, and reading the messages was difficult, but thankfully there was only 4 entries to the competition and i got to read all the replies just in the nick of time.

We’ll be having a few weeks off until the 9th, but there’s a very clever listen again function on the show, so if you missed it and fancy a listen (to any of the shows on rhubarb) you can hear them again at your leisure. If any of them sound like intermission music by the way, it probably is, as the computer automatically records shows at the alloted times

UPDATE – our show from the 19th has been accidently deleted, but will be back online again soon

The second installment of the Celebrate Birmingham’s Underground gigs saw the Night Times teaming up with Evolve and Custom Made. We were asked to do Mr Elephant again, but as it was at the Custard Factory, we didn’t feel there would be enough space to do the kind of thing we did last time, so i ended up being involved just from behind the decks for this one, which as it turned out was superb!!

Sir Real was playing before me, and Nik Wells was playing after so in terms of music selection i had a lot of freedom. I started with some funky breaks, then heavier techy stuff, some old techno, and then into drum and bass, and by the end of the the room was absolutely rammed. So much energy in there, and glad Pyn was able to capture some of it on the camera phone.

Custom made room was great, proper festive feelings in there, and the evolve crew did a great job hosting the outside stage. I didnt venture upstairs, but heard the music was quality. Didnt enjoy the whole thing as much as the first one, but then it was freezing cold!

All in all another good demonstration of what the city has to offer in it’s night life, and a attracted a real mix of people, which is always a good thing.

Just been told that i’ve won local best dj in the Night Times annual awards!! I havent seen a copy yet, but apparently our Mr Elephant night was also runner up in the best small promotion category!

Seems like 2009 is going to be a good year!