Coco, number 3 in top Mixcloud cloudcasters… http://www.mixcloud.com/bestof/2009/cloudcasters/

Posters for the Feel Free Live Good album project have arrived ahead of the albums themselves. Made in collaboration with Anthony Burrill. Screen printed by Adams of Rye. As the boys in Spinal Tap would say, there is none more blue.

Last night I played another long set at Sosho. Lounge, party, house, eclectic, it was all over the place. When I DJ I sometimes write notes to remind me of things to do or good ideas. Here are some bits from last night that don’t fit into the normal categories: I am a DJ but I am not, as the popular song infers, what I play. i am no more what I play than a barman is the drinks that he serves, that the architect is the buildings she builds. And I wonder, while I play, while I observe an increase in self-referencing and faux documentation with mobile phones and digital cameras. People posing in pictures to show how much fun they are having before they have actually had the fun. I wonder if I am not the most self referential, being the observer and documenting my thoughts on others lives. Why am I always a part of the party but somehow apart? Why can I not fully engage and have the fun? Because I am a DJ but I am not what I play…

Vampire Weekend at Rough Trade East. First live gig of the year, of the decade, if you’re counting, and it’s there. Why we do it. Why we do everything. It’s all about that feeling. The tingling. The joy, the bliss, the out of the every day, the wonder, the purity of music. It’s why I do what I do, it has made my life (for better or worse) what it is. Is it the pursuit of happiness? No, it’s not that complicated, it’s just about the music and how it makes me feel. It’s about the people and being alive and how brilliant and simple and simply brilliant that can be. Without music life would be a mistake, Nietzsche famously said. Tonight, I believe it, yes, I believe it.

I have been out in the city, playing and investigating, and I have come back, not just with a slight hangover, but also with an interesting observation. It seems there is a new devil may care attitude to nightlife in this grey new decade in our big old city. I think the reason is simple. Last year was a bit rubbish, well really rubbish actually, everyone was being careful, trying to be frugal, feeling worried. This year, by all accounts doesn’t look like it’s going to be any better. But. Instead of carrying on with this gloomy atmosphere, people have decided that they are fed up with being fed up., sick of being sick and just totally over being worried about everything, because too much worrying is wearing and doesn’t really get you anywhere. Which means it’s time to party, properly, like we are as rich as we thought we were going to be in 2010, like the financial crisis never happened, like our nation’s not fighting stupid wars from a bunker made of debt, like there’s no tomorrow because, hey, there may not be. That’s depression fatigue, that’s 2010, we’ve cut back, slimmed down and tightened our belts, we’re lean, mean and ready for action.