this city feeds my addictions

My addictions being: great music, pretty boys and delicious baked goods (available even at 4am when you're walking home)

Bitsy is in town this weekend! So her and I and her friend Courtney decided to check out a night hosted by Vicarious Bliss at la Fleche d'Or. Very cool little place. We drank some beers, met some people, and of course danced danced danced. The girls that were behind the turntables between bands even pulled out some MSTRKRFT.

Didn't manage to catch the names of the bands that were playing. We only really watched the last group. It was some good quality pop-rock. Nothing spectacular, but given that there was no cover and we showed up at this place not knowing what to expect, we were pretty happy...



We headed home around 4. Since I was waaaaay across town it took me forever to get home...And walking home alone on a friday night in Paris is like going through an obstacle course...jump over drunk dude snoring on the sidewalk, cross the street to avoid large group of drunk guys, watch out for drunk people on scooters, stop to buy nutella crepe, etc etc. I can't wait to get a bicycle.

ED BANGER NIGHT

So those of you who know me well probably know that I'm an introvert at heart and that unless I have a couple of drinks in me I'm a little shy when I don't know anyone. This made me a little apprehensive about going out last night to the Ed Banger party at the Nouveau Casino, because I'd be going all by my lonesome. But I figured it was worth standing in a corner, just to check out Busy P (www.myspace.com/busyp), Krazy Baldhead and master of booty house DJ Funk (www.myspace.com/djfunknet), so I threw on my favourite kicks and headed out to the east side of town.
I got there at about 1am, and Busy P (aka: Pedro Winter, of Daft Punk and Ed Banger records fame) was warming up the crowd. In twenty minutes, he had the at-first sparse crowd swarming the dance floor. By standing alone in the corner with a beer, I made a new friend...and possible enemy, when I refused to give him my number. I ended up losing him when I made my way to the front of the crowd.
Krazy Baldhead was on next...he was good but it got a little redundant, and by the end the crowd was more pumped by DJ Funk bumming around behind the tables, setting up his gear, than by the set being played.
Then DJ Funk hit the mic. And it.got.retarded. This guy just kept throwing out the sickest mixes, with pounding bass-heavy electro mashed up with old and new hip hop. Booty house by definition. Around that time, dude who asked me for my number showed up again and tried the old grab-from-behind-grinding move. I would have none of it. He finally left.
So I was pretty content with rocking out like an idiot at the front of the stage. Pedro Winter was walking around on stage handing out DJ Funk mixes burned onto CDs. Because I was right at the front, I got one. My night was complete.

BUT WAIT...
DJ Funk jumps out from behind his turntables and grabs me and drags me onto the stage, where we proceed to have a dance-off. I'm not sure who won, but I did pull out my most killer booty-bass dance moves, including one where I grabbed his rhinestone encrusted baller cap. All I remember is hearing lots of "OOOOOOOoooohhh!!!"s coming from Pedro Winter. Dude had to go back to his turntables, so I walked over to the side of the stage, and got handed some Ed Banger vinyl, and spoke briefly with P.Winter. (...starstruck...)

I got to watch the show from the side of the stage for the rest of the night, and met the promoter. I ended up peacing out at about 430am because I was practically falling asleep standing up. So vinyl in hand, I headed home, made some new friends on the bus who had also been to the show, and fell asleep to the sound of the city waking up.

Yep, Paris is awesome.

et voila!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, but things are starting to fall into place. My last week in Vancouver was great, and I don't remember much from my last night in town...but I heard it had all the makings of a big night: totally drunk even before getting to limerick, near-bail in the middle of the club, jager bombs and shots, dancing, drunken conversations (that I don't remember), drunken confession to gorgeous bartender (that I do remember...embarassing) and early morning walk/cab home.

So now I'm in Paris. I'm living in a very swanky part of town; I have included photographic evidence of my proximity to the Eiffel Tower. I live in a tiny place, about the size of my room back in Vancouver. But within that space I have a kitchen, a shower/toilet and a bed that folds out into a double (for all of you coming to visit me) Internet was the last thing on my list of things to get done and now I can relax (ie: party and wreck my body as much as humanly possible) before classes start on the 9th.

Last night I went to check out The Rapture at Le Bataclan (about half the capacity of the Commodore). Despite getting there in kind of a bad mood (metro delays that made me miss the beginning of the set, head cold, fever), I immediately got into it. Their set was short, and they only played one song for their encore, but the crowd left pretty happy. Especially after one of the singers crowd surfed his way to the very back of the room and then back to the stage, gave everyone in the front row high fives and sweaty hugs. If my head wasn't already sore from my cold, thus limiting my ability to rock out, I would have woken up this morning with a serious bangover.

I'm all blogged out now, but stay tuned...this weekend's gonna be balls out.