I also wanted to send this thru since there were many of you who
couldn't make it to the memorial...
Favorite reflections of Jason Lamport
aka
DANCERBOY
I learned a valuable DJing lesson that day: play what you love.
Forget about whether it's new enough or different enough. If you
just play the latest releases, you're going to sound just like every
other DJ. If you play the best of the best from your own collection,
you'll be spinning better tunes, and they'll be *yours* -- an
expression of your own personal taste and style -- in a way that
just spinning the latest releases wouldn't be.
-jason
hey, we can doof all year 'round here in the nw! you must not have
been at eskimo summer: there was much doofness. in fact, i don't
think you've *really* doofed until you've doofed in the snow.
mmmm... doofing in the snow...
-jason
Yes! I've been refraining from even mentioning the actual dancing,
because I knew once I got started, I'd want to keep writing for
pages and pages... but oh well!
Dancing in the snow is the greatest! I especially loved dancing on
the icy patches: it's like dancing and ice-skating at the same time.
I love the way the unevenness and slipperiness of the snow throws
your body in all sorts of unexpected directions. It's like a game
you're playing with the snow. Or more like dancing with a partner.
Really, whenever you're dancing, the ground is your dance partner.
But usually, when you're dancing on a level floor, you're the one
leading and she's following. Out on the snow, it's totally
different. The ground is still your dance partner, but she's
leading, and you'd better learn to follow, otherwise she's gonna
knock you flat on your ass. I loved it! It was wonderful just giving
up control and
letting the playful, mischievous Earth take over and lead my feet
wherever she wanted them to go. It's scary at first, because she
likes to play rough. She rolled me on the ground quite a few times.
But she never *dropped* me. (She never does.) I loved how on that
uneven, slippery ground, every time I put my foot down, I had no
idea which way that step was going to throw me. You can't plan where
you want to go. You can't decide ahead of time where your feet are
going next. You can only let go and trust that whichever way the
snowy ground chooses to throw you, she's going to be there, right
underneath you, to catch you again.
At one point someone asked me what my "secret" was, how I was able
to dance full-out on slippery icy snow. I muttered something about
8 years of modern dance classes -- which was true enough -- but
that answer didn't seem satisfying somehow, and later in the night
I kept thinking about it: how did my body learn to move the way
that it does? I thought about my dance teachers, and my small amount
of martial-arts training, and about my years of skiing (which I
think gave me a more intuitive understanding of the snow, of that
weird mixture of slipperiness and stickiness that snow has, that's
not like anything else in the world). But in all that thinking what
I kept coming back to was how, when dancing, I'm somehow able just
to let go and trust.
Later, after the Goddess had been particularly fiesty and rolled me
around in the snow for a bit, that same person asked me if my
rolling around on the ground were "dance moves" or if I "just
fell". I only shrugged, because I had no idea what the hell he was
talking about: "You mean there's a difference?" Dancing *is*
falling. Every step you take, you're falling and the ground catches
you, falling and the ground catches you, over and over and over. How
do I keep my balance? By throwing it away! You can't lose your
balance if you never have it to begin with. You can't fall down if
you're always already falling.(Now if only I could live my life that
way, then I'd say I'd discovered the secret to everything. Maybe
someday...
I learned so much from the snow! I think I learned more in 5 hours
of dancing in the snow than I could have learned from a year of
dance classes. That's another reason I want this to happen again
next year: next time I want to bring my dancer friends up with me
-- I mean my technically-trained, modern-dancer friends, the ones I
take class with and perform with. Dancing in the snow is way too
good to keep just to ourselves and our little group of goa-heads...
-jason
The best way to describe psy-trance to someone... other than simply
*playing* some... depends on whom you're trying to describe it to.
To someone familiar with classical music, I might try describing it
something like this:
"If you took Igor Stravinsky, gave him a drum machine and a whole
bunch of vintage analog synths to play with, then fed him huge
quantities of psychedelic mushrooms, the resulting mutation would
probably bear a striking resemblance to Simon Posford
(Hallucinogen, Shpongle, etc.)"
Not sure how you'd describe it to aficionados of other
non-electronic genres. Suggestions?
-jason
Finally, I have time to sit down and attempt to describe the
indescribable.
Revelations of Sound.
Now, I have had musical ass-kickings before. I've heard goa that
kicked me all over the dance floor and jerked my limbs around like a
puppet being controlled by an epileptic tweaker. But I have never,
ever before in my life had my ass kicked the way I did at
Revelations of Sound. That music grabbed me and would not let go.
It got inside me, into my muscles and sinews and bones. I swear I
was possessed.
The goa demons got inside of me and took over. I wasn't dancing to
the music, the music was dancing me. I was literally out of
control.
Lara and Sean damn-near killed me. I seriously thought that I was
going to get carried away from that party on a stretcher. I
wondered how I was going to explain to the paramedics that it wasn't
a drug overdose, it was a music overdose. I was OD'ing on goa…
...And then the music just laughed at me and said: "Go ahead and
*try* to stop dancing. Go ahead. I dare you. You know as well as
I do that you *can't* stop. You're going to keep dancing for as
long as I tell you to keep dancing -- and that's going to be a LONG
time..." and there was evil laughter in my head, and my body just
kept on dancing no matter how much I begged it to stop. And by the
end of Sean's set -- hell, by the *middle* of Lara's set -- I was
begging, believe me. "Make it stop! Oh please, just make it stop!"
I was battered and bruised and in pain. My body had been screaming
at me for hours that it needed a rest -- food, water, cool air,
sleep.
I was way past exhaustion. And still the music just kept dancing me
mercilessly. I felt like the sacrificial virgin in Stravinsky's
"The Rite of Spring" (who, as part of a barbaric pagan ritual, was
forced by the shamans of her tribe to dance herself to death).
My ordeal started with Lara. (I missed Shepherd's set, which is
probably a good thing: by all accounts, Shepherd's set kicked some
serious ass as well, and I barely survived the evening as it was.)
Holy fucking shit that woman can spin. I knew the second I got out
on the dance floor that I was in for at least a minor ass-kicking.
Aminute later and I suspected I was in for a *major* ass-kicking.
(Though if I had known ahead of time just how *much* of an
ass-kicking, I probably would have run away and hid while I still
had the chance.) At one point, about half-way through her set, she
let the energy drop for about 10 or 15 seconds. I swear I *ran* out
of the room as fast as I could, because I knew that it was probably
the last chance I would have to escape for a long, long time. So I
escaped to the other room, had some water, peed... but then I
wandered too close to the door, and the beats sucked me back out
onto the main room, and Lara proceeded to bitch-slap my poor
dancerboy ass all over the dance floor some more.
One thing that I love, and that still amazes me, is the way that a
really good DJ can use other people's music as a vehicle for
*self*-expression. I felt that especially in Lara's set. As some
of you may know, one of Lara's many other talents is as a ballet
dancer. I'm sure that's why, at one point, the goa demons who were
controlling my body suddenly decided to put me through a vicious
petit allegro. Lara put on this track that was *almost* prog trance
-- except with that psychedelic edge that made the fluffiness yummy
instead of saccharine -- and suddenly my feet were doing these
glissades and jete's and emboite' turns. I was not happy. I
wasalready exhausted, and did *not* have the energy for that shit.
"Not a petit allegro!" I screamed in my head. "Jesus H. Fucking
Christ, I do NOT want to dance a petit allegro right now!" And the
music said: "too bad".
Finally, her set ended. "Good," I thought. "Maybe now I can take a
break, rest, chill out for a bit." Yeah, right. The next DJ was
Sean.
I remember the first time I heard Sean spin. It was at a great
little psytrance event in the back room of a juice bar. I remember
my review of his set: "trance like that is better than sex." He's
improved since then. At one point, dancing under the parachute, I
thought of that review I wrote way back when. "Yes," I thought to
myself. "This is better than sex. This is a *lot* better than sex!
OH MY GOD this is SO much better than sex!!!" Orgasmic is the only
way I can describe his set. I think I literally had a hard-on the
entire time. (It was kind of embarrassing, really, given what I was
wearing.)
I know Lara's a ballet dancer. I think Sean must be a whirling
dervish, because during his set the goa demons just kept spinning me
round and round and round and round. I got so dizzy I literally
fell over a few times. And then the goa demons would roll me around
on the floor for a while before flinging me back up onto my feet to
go spinning around some more.
The goa demons rolled me around on the floor a lot, in fact. I
didn't really want to be there -- that floor was *dirty* -- but like
I said, I wasn't in control. When the music said: "Get down on your
knees, bitch!" I couldn't argue. I just did it...
-jason