Freaky Dancing

...Being the pagan sort that I am, I celebrated the Spring Equinox the other weekend doing what I do best - dancing in the outdoors to deep house moozik under the rays of Ra - you may recall from a previous misf report that I was up by the Golden Gate Bridge for the Winter Solstice when the moon was at its brightest for 150 years or so. When I lived in the UK I used to try and make a once- or twice-annual pilgrimmage to Glastonbury Tor whenever I could, so this was my own way of getting a bit of that archaic revival going again...

...Anyhow, we were about an hour north of San Francisco, up in Wine Country, nestled next to rolling green hills and a glistening clear lake. The party was Sunset, an outdoor rave/gathering that's been a Bay Area institution since the early '90s. A pair of turntables and a couple of booming speaker stacks were set up in one corner and the DJ was surrounded by a motley crew of spangled ravers, techno-hippies, Deadheads, glammy house queens and hardcore junglists. There was a real cosy community vibe - even if some of the participants were clearly motoring on something more powerful than fresh air. As 800 souls got down to a soundtrack of the deepest house, the sun set on one side of the lake and the moon rose on the other. Very spiritual...

...The main reason I was there was the fact that I was doing a story on the new "rave film", Groove. That was the movie I saw screened at
 the Skywalker Ranch a few weeks back and the same one for which I recorded some of the background noise back in December. Anyhow, the magazine and I thought that rather than just do an interview with the cast and crew, I would take them out and about in San Francisco on a 24-hour clubs and raves bender and write about it and take photos and all that  - seeing as the film is all about that scene, it kind of tied in nicely. The previous night we'd met up at one of the cast's house and then gone on to a drum & bass allnighter for a bit of body-baffling breakbeat science. Sunset runs midday to 8pm and so we then drove back to SF and finished Sunday night off at the biggest club in town, getting down to Carl Cox's techno juggernaut...I'll let y'all know when the story goes to print. I've attached a few preview piccies to this email (for those that can handle attachments) from the weekend...

...Better sign off here. I've just returned from a six day music conference in Miami so am still counting my lost braincells. Give me a few days to conjure up some verbage about that one...

Namaste,

Kieran

PS An update on One Man And His Dog (totally true I'm afraid) - the BBC are actually going to scrap it and the next series will be shown on...Sky TV! My insider at Sky who told me this says his suggestions for a Dog-Cam, the sheeps wool dyed in various 'team colours', ad breaks every 30 seconds, and a large Sky logo painted onto the pitch have so far fallen on deaf ears...Come by...

 PPS I have now been in America SIX months! Happy anniversary to me! I can hardly believe it myself...

 He was born with a gift of laughter
 and a sense that the world was mad.

Rafael Sabatini