The Reason
Last weekend, on Friday/Saturday night, it was time to dive into a proper electronic/techno event. The reasons. Joining some good friends and having fun. The music: First ever live act in a club setting, by two top techno producers from this tine country. The country with mucho of its land at a height lower than sea level. The event: an event called 'Etmaal' with a funny twist. 'Etmaal" is a Dutch word describing a full day. Though the event lastest for 32 hours from start to finish 😂 The latter was already sufficient for me to move my ass over to our city of Utrecht, the city hosting the event.
The Location: But Why?
The concert and art performance theatre TivoliVredenburg is located right in the middle of the city (location). Meeting some of my friends close to this location; Within walking distance; Kinda like a 3-minute walk only 😉 Rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. Phoned one of my friends. Voicemail. Heard them from some balcony or ground floor garden or something. Couldn't find the exact location. Back to the front door. Waited a few minutes. A girl opened the door from the inside and stepped out with a guy. Waiting time continues. Minutes later more happy-looking, but none familiar faces. And then! My friends 👐 Someone shouted my name. Hugs. Kisses...
...and then, this girl who stepped out the door first: "Ohwww, you are Edje!"
They talk about me? No clue who she was. In some kind of friendly interrogation mode, see started the ask me all sorts of questions. Where I was from? Where did I travel from? If I ever been to Tivoli? If I ever been to Utrecht? 10 minutes later I concluded this was a start of a great new acquaintance. The initial questions became an exciting conversation. Not a deep one but an enjoyable one. But as quickly as we started the conversation, as quickly I lost her in the crowd when we just entered the top floor of Tivoli. Only to see her face in the early morning, for a second or two, when the floor closed and we were gently pushed out of the room.
Ah well. This is how it often happens in this nightlife scene. Can't imagine this is any different in other (dance) music event/club scenes. Many of these contact moments with total strangers. Sometimes we recognise peeps the next time when we see them; Sometimes not. Must admit, most of the time it is the other peeps that recognise me, while I don't recognise them. Not sure of the reason though. Am I that different to others? Am I that easily imprinted in their brains? Am I that 'special'? Can't be! Uhmmmm... must be my age! My memory is acting up. My grey mass is super lazy these days; Taking rest most of the time 😂
Writing Style? Seriously?
Re-reading the above, I start to wonder and question myself. Is this my new writing style? Does this make sense to even publish? Are you comprehending? Are you interested? This staccato and blah blah writing! Or is this just for my eyes only?
Maybe my rollercoaster day justifies publication as well as stealing your time to read all this. I try and summarise the rollercoaster:
Office - Go-Lives and End-of-Sales: ...announced the End-of-Sale of a large part of our portfolio while announcing the go-live of a new portfolio, dated backwards. How is dating backwards possible? does that make any sense? The reality: The new portfolio is on paper only, not much in reality. Something am dealing with already for one and half years because top management was and still is under the impression that the new portfolio went live about a year ago. Since this year am handle all these opportunities towards our sales peeps, prospects and customers. Opportunities that are served with these none existing products and services from this portfolio that was supposed to be there a year ago. Total misalignment between top management and the floor. And am right in the middle of it all. Just as a soldier, on the ground. A pre-sales guy and solution architect. not someone who is allowed to decide. But apparently, someone needs to tell many what they need to do, execute, not do, decide etc. Challenges every single day. Now am bombarded with questions from all over the company about what the situation is since they are fearful. Fearful they now have to enter the space I am in for a long time already 👻
Office - Product Management: Last Monday I wrote a book-like email to the management of many departments involved. It all started with an internal offer process to test the readiness of this new portfolio and all its products and services. I described a common solution requirement set we see in the market we fish in, and designed a solution based on all this new fancy stuff. I kid you not: All directors and managers involved in the sign-off, returned with a big 'NO'. Obviously, because most is vaporware, fiction, on paper only. Throughout last year almost daily I pointed out missing elements, to all sorts of peeps, leaders of one or the other task. Today I took all the feedback from the solution sign-off and combined them, resulting in this book-like email. Of course, I took the opportunity to bring forward my experiences, learnings, advice, recommendations, suggested solutions and conclusions. That made the book-like email even more like a book 😂
Office - Vice President(s): A VP requesting timelines for a project. Ofcourse a solution based on this new portfolio. Official roadmap items included. Yea, you read it right. A vaporware portfolio having a roadmap 😂 Almost nothing is available today. I asked him (this VP guy) if he meant to ask: "I suppose you don't ask timelines only, but also the conditions and needs to achieve the requested timelines?" His response: "The Excel sheet is wide open, you can add columns, rows, fields and whatnot, give me all the details." For the last year or so I had to deal with this VP. My experience: He doesn't understand anything else than super high level blah blah blah. Details are invisible to his senses and processing cells. Tried many times. Always failed. This guy will use the input requested to make decisions with top management. Top management knows even less. I expect very soon, top management to decide without knowing the consequences in the details they should know and realise. Could even be we have to denounce the End-of-Sales status and re-instate the 'old' portfolio. I added that as the condition for the most wanted scenario. The most wanted one by customers, middle management and top management, that is. Am pretty sure that suddenly the most wanted scenario is thrown into the bin 😂
Crypto - DeFi: Almost 'live' I saw a hack happening. Almost. Just a few minutes after all happened. About 70k$ was stolen. Since I know part of the team, I reached out asking them if I could help. Within minutes I got a response and a request to help out. So I forgot for a few hours or so all my office shizzle and dug into transactions and whatnot on the blockchain in question. Halfway through my evening, I got the message: "Get your popcorn ready; Tomorrow we will do a debrief." The response I got to my following question: "Tell me: How mucho popcorn do I need?", was pretty funny: "Get yourself a popcorn machine!" 😂
Brother: Last week I (finally) onboarded my brother into the same DeFi project. The one I mentioned above. With kinda pocket money, but still, enough to spend a nice week somewhere on vacation in Mediterranean Europe. Didn't tell him what happened today. Ok, his funds are all there, safe and sound. And the team is gonna repair whatever needs to be repaired and redeploy the contracts. All money that was taken by the hacker, will be handled by the team and they compensate till the last cent. This is just a tiny element of my rollercoaster ride. Not sure if I shall tell my brother. Obviously, I have to tell him at some point but am contemplating postponing this to the moment the DeFi project is up and running again. He isn't a crypto guy at all. He may get scared as hell and as slowly I was able to get him into crypto, as quickly he will leave again. All effort for nothing. While I so much like him to get super gains on his money instead of the measly interest rates traditional banks give on savings. He knows my HIVE account details, so maybe he reads this post. Though I think that chance is tiny. Don't think he ever reads my blog 🤡 It's too cryptic and too crypto! 😂
Does this sound like a rollercoaster day?
EDIT: Written three days ago (on Wednesday evening), but wasn't able to proofread it until today. Too lazy to completely re-write. Now on a serious note: The aftermath of the rollercoaster ride was crazy. Between opening my eyes in the morning to almost closing my eyes in the evening, office shizzle. Meeting after meeting. Hopefully with some success. Only time will tell.
Finally: Music
Getting derailed completely in the above 1000+ words. Community and post type dictate the content of Music. Ok, it also dictates a story, of which I provided a few already, so all good! 😉 ... or? ... "Of course not, Edje!" "We want Music!"
OK OK ... 🙃
Below is a set recording by the two producers/artists mentioned earlier. THE reason for me to have fled my city to spend the night in another one. Unfortunately, no recording was done last Friday. Usually, they do, but not this time. Therefore I included below an older recording. Published about a year ago. Done in the recording bunker by the Speedy guy. Recorded right in the middle of one of the Covid lockdowns. They did a few back then. So yea, I kinda know what they create with their live act. But it was last Friday I was able to experience this in a club, in the physical space. And what a great act they created. Some parts were prepared, I would think, but for sure lots of improvisations. Thinking of it, I did hear them together in some club in Amsterdam, but it wasn't just the two of them. Three others joined in as well.
I won't describe the music to you. Not only hard to explain, but not sure if you like to read. Better to listen anyways. It'll not cost you too much time. Just a bit over two hours 😉
Owww, I can tell you this: The mood is a mix. The deep and hard techno style by Speedy J. The 'sound' of Steve Rachmad. Not that Steve doesn't create hard sounds, he does, but containing 'flair', always! Perfect combo, since I do love the harder styles of Techno. As well as the deep sounds. As well as the 'flair' 😀 Though I must say: Most of the harder techno I don't like at all. As well as most of the sets and acts by many DJs performing with this style. Usually, it gets super boring super quickly. But not when Steve or Speedy are in the driving seat. That's a given 😉
Within 24hrs after the event, I booked myself a round trip to Berlin. Soon they perform in that city, in a club with a magnificent speaker setup. I am in real need to get that experience. I must hear their work on that specific speaker system. If this club was on the other side of the world, I may have gotten myself an airline ticket as well. Fortunately for me, this one is just an hour's flight away from my home town. {"Sorry Nature! I HAVE to fly up and down Berlin this time! The train is too slow for this quick visit. And No. I can't pass on this one 😥}
StV: Spread the Vibes
Again am bending the guidelines I drew up myself. StV guides it's 'players' to react to a previous music post of any kind. Something I skip for this one since am already approaching 2000 words. Can't steal more of your time! 😉
Here is an idea: Friends submitted some video material and photographs in a chat group. I'll download them sometime later and try to create a little video. Good for my editing skills. Good for some distraction. And maybe interesting for you as well. I may drop it down below in the comment section. But possibly it'll take a week or a few of them, therefore I may better add the vid to some other book-like post 😂
Anyways, if you are interested in StV, and like to learn what this is about, head over to #spreadthevibes tag and go through some of the other posts, by other 'players'. In addition, you may like to take a look at this post; The post where all this started with 🙏
