Chicago was a blast - got to meet Sunny and Vince from Aes Dana and Ultimae records. The Earthdance party was wonderful - the location was about 2 miles south of Chicago, outdoors. The weather ranged from about 78 degrees down to the mid 50s at night. The people were amazingly friendly, as always. The party started out with Psytrance on the big stage and downtempo on the little stage, but then it switched, so it was sooooo nice to hear (and play) downtempo on a big system. I had a few technical glitches with my set at the festival; I think my mac needs to spend some time in the shop because the trackpad is dying on it. Zay and his lady friend came out to Earthdance, so it was great getting caught back up with him and hearing all about his recent adventures.

My set at F212 in Chicago on Wednesday went much better. Who knew that so many people were gift culture fans in Chicago? Sometimes at home, it can get discouraging to keep going because there's not much of an electronic music scene here in Dallas to speak of. It was very refreshing and inspiring to have so many people sincerely express their support in Chicago for what I'm trying to do musically. I was asked by one of the organizers of the Entheon Village BM camp to come to BM next year and play on their soundsystem, possibly with Sound Tribe System 9, who I totally am digging at the moment!

One of Troy and Julee's friends, Mason, approached me about doing videos for all the gift culture tracks. He's the head of the Motion Graphics society of Chicago and teaches at the Chicago Art Institute so I'm looking forward to seeing how this all comes out.

Sunny and Vince from France were really wonderful people and I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them. Since Sunny spent time in England and Australia, she spoke with this wonderful combination of a French, English, and Australian accent. Her English was really good - Vince's english was fair, but it was good when we were talking about music or gear - I guess that it's true about music being a universal language. They were both very positive, friendly people with very kind hearts and wonderful music.

Most of all, with any trip to Chicago, I'm most thankful for the awesome people that I meet, both old friends and new. So to Troy, Julee, Mike L., Liz, her wonderful new man (congrats to the both of you), Vince, Sunny, Damon, Igor, Matt, Mason, Eric, Koko, and all the other great people that I met on the trip, thanks again from the bottom of my heart.

Now, I have to get ready for a set down in Austin in October. It's a mad rush getting everything together for my show in Germany in November but I'm looking forward to it. I just got my itinerary yesterday, so it's all becoming much more real to me :^)