Płock: Pwawesome!

That's funnier if you know Płock is pronounced "Pwotsk." Or maybe not. Ahem. Anyhoo, yes! Just got back from the first gig of the Gettin' Euros Tour, and while I got Zlotys instead, it was still great. A little context here: this gig was the last one finalized -- after setting on venues in Warsaw and Krakow for Fri. & Sat., we just filled one in for Thursday night at a smaller club in this city about 90 minutes drive west of Warsaw. I had no idea what to expect, and besides I'd been having an annoying day, with somebody stiffing me for about $10 in change and not realizing it til I was back on the tramway (dargh, unfamiliar coinage!) and still feeling perturbed with myself about the Bis set, yada yada. So, here I am, heading west of Warsaw in this crazy country to a city whose name I can't even pronounce. Pwonounce. What the hell am I doing? Would anyone show up, would they be nice, and have they heard of Lyrics Born?

Well, yes, yes, and oddly enough, yes. (Answer to that first question still to be determined). The venue was small but great, with a bar area in front and the medium-sized dancefloor area in the back. When we got in around 8:45 there were a smattering of people (as well as posters announcing my arrival with a kind of disconcerting skull motif, am I a death rocker? Plus that's supposed to be "Mash Up Your Life"; "For Life" sounds like, I dunno, an anti-abortion bootleg party. But no matter.) and by about 10 the place was hopping, with everybody responding really well to the opening DJ's stuff. When I went on at 11:30 I didn't do the full "Obi Wan Kenobi" drag since I was a little nervous about it, but I did pull out the light saber to start "Galvanize the Empire" with. Anyway, a really great response, and people sang along to a whole load of the songs, and surprisingly it got completely nuts when I launched in to what I thought might be a bit of a challenging set of sped-up Baltimore-style beats including the Lyrics Born mix you can hear on my Myspace page and some other new stuff. Of course it wasn't without technical errors -- I mistook the "pan" dial for the "bass" dial and when the speakers were shaking I tried to turn it down, and was actually just turning it all to the left. Derrr. But I figured that out quickly enough.

And yes they were labeled in English, I'm just dumb.

Special note to DJ John, whose "It Takes Two to Kiss" got played 3 times during the night: I played it in my set, not knowing that the opening DJ had played it, and then as we were leaving the DJ after me puts it on. "Hey, DJ John, again," I said to DJ Spox, one of the opening duo who rode with me. "Oh yeah," he says, "he's my favorite, and 'It Takes Two to Kiss' gets played all the time here. Why doesn't he make more mashups?" "Well, I dunno," I said, "I'll ask him," feeling like I'd just said "I'll check with Brangelina about getting you a kid."

Anyway, a great night. A whole bunch of people had heard of me and came up to express their positive feelings for my productions in halting English, to which I would respond with a hearty "chen-kwee" ("thank you," yes turns out it's Borat language). Thanks to Club Forma and everybody who came out, nice to meet you all. Not too many good pictures though, since I was busy, you know, DJing and stuff.

Tomorrow, heading off to Krakow by train and not sure when I'll be back in Internet range, probably Sunday.



Look, Party Ben's on the schedule



These nice ladies were singing along with everything.



Weird sign at the gas station on the way back. Put on your best Pterry the Pterodactyl voice and say: "Why no PB?"