I’m way behind in posting the podcasts but I have a great reason. I made a girl! No.. not met.. I made a new tiny little girl named Skylar! She was born on Oct 20, in fact Barbalicious told me she was in labour as soon as I got back from doing the show. Can you believe it? She waited until I finished the show!

It was a hard trance week and Caddyshack showed up unexpectedly (at least I think I have my weeks right) so enough already…

Carl Cox has been my top influence since the first time I saw him play at Subconsious – an all night rave event that took place in the UBC hockey rinks before they stopped hosting such events. As a producer I’m not a huge fan of Carl and even his mixed CDs seem more Chicago House than I would ever listen to. But in the 3 times I’ve seen Carl Cox play on the West Coast his sets have been uber-brilliant – maybe best described as Tribal Trance. His live DJ sets – at least the one’s I’ve heard – are nothing like his house CDs.

The biggest reason I have such high respect for Carl Cox is his mixing style. When I have seen him, Carl Cox has always played on 3 turntables. His mixes are almost constant – that is – he almost always has more than one record playing. After watching and listening over the years I picked up a technique that Carl seems to employ. I swear I see Carl play in ‘tripples’ – that is 3 records that fit well together. He will mix back and forth until the first 2 records are properly lined up to peak together – then he will prep the third record to peak at the same time, but waiting until the other two peak before slamming in the third record so all three records peak at the same time and the new sound of the third record adds intensity to the peak.

Carl Cox doesn’t line up beats – he lines up entire records to fit together.

After the three records peak together there’s not much left and so a short mix leads into the beginning of the next ‘tripple’. I remember hearing these short mixes every now and then when Carl was playing and thinking how wimpy it sounded after such colossal intensity of his previous mixing. It was only when I stopped to pay attention closely that I could see why the need (and the justification) for such a short mix.

My other memories of Carl Cox are that he always played late for a headliner. He might not even start until 4 or 5am – and rumours would start that he wasn’t even going to show – but he seemed to prefer to play long sets for the die hard fans that were still going strong at 8am. I remember seeing Carl play for about 50 dancers that were left on the floor (after 1000s of others had dispersed). Another 50 people stood around the dance floor in a semi-circle just watching.

I’ve never seen a group of ravers stand and watch a DJ with such a respect as that.

Those of us still on the dance floor where absolutely exhausted – but every time it seemed like a lull to take a break, Carl would bring it up again and we were held hostage on the dance floor. Ever since that night (morning) I’ve known Carl Cox affectionately as ‘The Puppetmaster’ – his ability to keep people moving on the dance floor is second to none.

DJ Carl Cox Vancouver 2008 with Jon Rundell

Tue Oct 21, 2008 @ Plush Nightclub, Downtown, Vancouver
Cost: $35
By: Twisted Productions, Trust & Cargo

Here’s this weeks Trancendance podcast. Smiley Mike starts off the night for the first hour and Caddyshack takes the second hour with several tracks and remixes by Blue Amazon. Then in our usual long-weekend fashion we extend the show with a two hour tag-team set.

Thanks to Edward, Andrew and the other people that called in. Edward requested Children by Robert Miles and I just happened to have Tilt’s version of Children and played it – third track into the set.

Trance legend, DJ Armin van Buuren will be at Plush Nightclub this week for two nights.

DJ Armin van Buuren with Guest Glenn Morrison
Oct 9, 2008 & Oct 10, 2008
Plush Nightclub
$60 in advance

Presented by: Twisted Productions, Solid Entertainment & Pure Image Entertainment

If you asked me as I was leaving the station on Sunday I would have said this was destined to be a great set. I even had hopes of adding it to the Featured Podcasts (in the sidebar). After a second listen however, the mixing is not as tight as I had hoped. Whatever. I had a blast in the studio this week.

This week’s mix is pretty diverse including a few classic trance anthems from Transa, Faster Kill off Paul Oakenfold’s A Lively Mind and sweet mash-up of the Bassment Jaxx. Sometimes you just gotta have fun!