Monday Choon: ATB, Topic, A7S - Your Love (9PM) (Official Music Video)

So today's featured track is a bit old as it's been out for 6 months already, no idea how I missed it seeing that the original track was such a firm favourite of mine back in the 2000's. Andre's original track 9PM was a dance floor classic, having seeing him perform it live at the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange project in Cape Town was like a dream come true. Fastforward to today, it's been given a new lease of life by ATB with the help of A7S and Topic. The vocals add an extra element to the track that's so complimentary, it feels like it was always suppose to be there. Even though I'm six months late since it's debut, it still feels fresh and hence why I've got it on the blog today. So turn up the volume and enjoy. 

Looking back on 2010

2010: Its been a pretty insane year dont you think? Besides the for obvious reasons alot of things went down in this year, we found out who the Stig was, we re-created the big bang, and Robert Mugabe is still a douche.

As I sit here today thinking or trying to think what went down in 2010, only one word can come to mind to describe it. LEGENDARY. I know the word is over used after Barney Stinson basically made it part of normal conversation but truly this year for me was just that. Firstly thanks to the intwerbs and twitter! It has changed my life, changed the way I do things, see things, experience things and it forced me to create this very blog! I could bore you and give you the the details on why this year was so great but I'd spare you the annoyance and give a brief summary of my years happenings in pictures, because everyone likes pictures right?
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Kiaria Lodge - Golden Gate National Park

Jan started of with me in the Berg, awesome place to unwind, relax and breathe in the clean fresh air the mountains have to offer. Whether you go for hiking, fishing, mountain biking or like me, to kick back relax with a fire and meat burning on it with a beverage in hand. There is no better place to chill.
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Clarens

We stayed near a small town in the Free State called Clarens. This place has more restaurants than houses! theres 100's of them in a town as small as a block in Jhb!
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Katse Dam

Staying so close to the Lesotho border and me have fetish for big things that are made out of concrete we saw this as an ideal opportunity to see one of the Southern Hemisphere's marvouls. The Katse Dam located in the Lesotho highlands! Its the second largest dam in Africa... its huge! but getting there, yoh be prepared thats all Im going to say, its not easy!
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Reshma & Shyam

From the berg we made our way to the land of the big hole, aka Kimberley for my cousins wedding. Now Ive been to tons weddings before but this one was special, if one has to dig up Kimberleys Tourism figures, one would distinctly notice that the weekend of the 30th Jan will stand out. All the hotels in the city were fully booked and on the wedding day itself if you drove around town you were guaranteed to spot a woman in a sarie!
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Queen Mary 2

Keeping with the big things theme. In March the Queen came to visit! No not that old hag that waves like she has an electronic wrist joint. Cunards luxury cruise liner, the Queen Mary 2! The biggest trans-Atlantic cruise ship in the world! Jostling to get a good spot at the harbour entrance to see her leave was a mission, not to mention they delayed the exit by an hour! but it was all worth it.
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First Official flight from KSIA

May saw the opening of Durbans new King Shaka International Airport. The one that was being planned from the days of the dinosaurs which finally saw green light given 2 years back. I've followed this project since the first pile was put in with a bunch of mates on a construction forum so we had to go down there for the official opening and witness the first commercial flight taking off. Plus I came on national TV!
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Tiesto

May saw me being part of a chosen 1000 to witness something unexplainable. Smirnoff brought down DJ'ing great Tiesto for a one night show. I got the call on Friday morning to say I've got a ticket, the concert was the next night, I had to chose 3 other friends to join me and arrange flights. It was one chaotic day but ended up being a weekend for the record books. The man is a legend, he had us in a trance till 4 in the morning. To top things off I got to meet DJ Fresh, Euphonik and on the plane back home I met Wayne Brady who was touring SA.
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Moses Mabhida Stadium

June saw the biggest event in the world kick off right here on our shores. The World cup has been talked about since the time we won the bid to host it. It for me was the most anticipated event of my LIFE! Yes everything for me revolved around this event. I followed the bid process, the stadium constructions and everything else World Cup related, I even made it onto FIFA's website!
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Moses Mabhida -Semi Final

I have to add more to it, all in all I saw 7 matches including the semi final in Durban. Just to experience the event was something, I made sure I took as many people as I could. I even dragged my mum who hates sports to see a game! I braved the minus temps of Jhb and partied with the Algerians and drank with the English in Cape Town. Everytime I think back to June/ July I get goose bumps. Meeting so many different people from all over the world and more importantly seeing our nation unite as one to welcome the world was just spectacular.

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Gosais Supermarket

 July was also quite emotionally sad for my family and I as we bid fairwell to our business that we've had for 79 years. My whole life revolved around the "shop". I didnt know what it felt like to do shopping until this year. Normal bread and milk was a given and brought home from the supermarket, as well as so many other things. It was tough letting it go but Im sure even tougher for my dad and his brothers. In the long term I suppose it was the right thing to do but we still have fond memories of the place.

the 3rd generation

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Kavita doing the Champers justice

My sister turned 21... you know you're old when the baby in your family reaches this age. It was quite a party too. Smack bang middle in our fasting month, this one took a long time to plan and lets not get started on the cake but it turned out to be a blast and me quite enjoying the food as told in my blog post.
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Trevor Noah & Pixie Bennett

Thanks to Rabin Hurduth for organising VIP tickets to see the most famous CEO in South Africa. And I got to meet fellow twitter buddy and major SA singer Pixie Bennett.
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Kings Park - Currie Cup Final

October saw me attend my first ever Currie Cup final. The Sharks have made it to finals before and won, but lost many as well so I wasnt sure what to expect from this one knowing we carried the dreaded chokers tag. The match itself was quite the opposite with us running away with the victory. Definitely one for the record books.
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ATB

November saw me invited for yet another Smirnoff event, this time for the Nightlife Exchange project in Cape Town. Featuring one of my favourite DJ's ATB. I also was educated in trance by the great Markus Schulz. It was an event bigger than Tiesto but I cant compare the 2 since both were epic in their own way.

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Camps Bay

Being in Cape Town I pulled an extra few days after the concert, I lived it up, pimped it up,  met up with many of the twitter peeps, partied till the wee hours of the morning and made that mountain my bitch. Basically I did that Town justice and when I left I had it begging for more, be warned mountain... I'll be back.
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Theres still 2 weeks left in the year and more memories to be made, the main thing is to be safe in what ever it is that you're doing. If you're drinking, dont drive, if you're going to be messing with fireworks on New Years, be aware of those around you and the pets but all in all dont forget to have fun! You only live once.

This wont be my last blog post for the year but seems like a good time to do a review.

Lets hope 2011 out does 2010.

Partying in the land of the Mountain

So as my previous post stated, I was off to Kingdom Zille, believe it or not, even though I have lived my entire life in South Africa, this was just my 4th visit to "the mother city". Its not a question of whether I liked it enough to visit again, but the location of the city. It finds itself nestled in a corner of the country thats over a 1000km's away from any major city. Given its nature as the be all and end all of cities in SA one cant say that its position doesnt suit it as it probably doesnt want to be connected in any way to the rest of South Africa. Sharing the same bodily mass as the other cities is as far as it goes with Cape Town. It is though a truly remarkable city, well governed and manged to the point that you almost feel at home after spending a day or 2 in it. Some say after visiting that they dont feel like they were in South African, thats just bollocks, either they've been smoking tik or just want to make them selves feel better for not affording a holiday out of the country because Cape Town is in every essence a South African city, just with a big rock in the middle of it.

Can you smell...

Back to my trip, main reason was indeed the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange project as previously stated it was hosted by DJ Fresh & euphonik  of South Africa but featured Berlins DJ'ing greats, Monika Cruz, ATB & Markus Schulz but more about them later as I start at the very beginning. Durban airport aka King Shaka International, I knew my holiday was going to be a good one as I managed to get a window seat in the emergency exit row! These tickets are as hard to get as hens teeth! Why you ask? well duh window seat for staters! and if you dont already know the emergency exit row has an extra 500mm of legroom in order for hysterical passengers to make their way off the burning plane to safety, now me being larger than the average Joe enjoys this luxury, I call it the "middle first class of low cost airlines". Now it just gets better from there after as I enter the gate terminal I spot a Sunglasses hut kiosk, could they have the pair of Oakley Polarised Inmate I've been hunting for all over? of course they do! and the guy gives me a R600 discount with out me even asking him anything!

Cape Town Festival of beer

►►Fast forward to Cape Town ignoring the fact that the plane took 30 minutes extra in the skies or the the fact CTIA opted to put us in the bush and make us climb down stairs instead of the air bridge and lets not get started with the wait for the luggage. I was planned to meet with fellow tweeter @JuicyJemma at the Cape Town Festival of Beer but with the hassle of the car rental place not giving me my license back and me having to drive back to the airport to collect it, I just missed her. But never the less I still went to the festival of beer to share a pint with legendary Cape Town blogger LifeisSavage who might I add isnt very easy to find in a crowd! Mr popular as he is, I found him being hounded by Cape beauties Jeannie D & Lyndall Jarvis, good thing too I met him as I had my directions in a knot and he pointed out to me that the Smirnoff party was in Bellville and not the CBD as I previously thought for some odd reason.

Smirnoff Night Exchange- ATB

►►Fast forward again, this time to the party. It started at 8pm so a good time to get in was 10pm right? Venue the Bellville Velodrome, much bigger than the Skyraiders hanger that hosted Tiesto in May and was a brilliant venue for such an event. Walking down the ramp into the drome, with the sounds of Monika Cruz hitting you in your face was an awesome feeling. VIP bars at every corner with plenty of couches to rest the asses of the masses, I could tell that this was going to be a good night. Monika not well known to many as her two partners for the night did a great job albeit I saw the last hour of her set. With the bars being a free for all all night I was pleasantly surprised that many didnt take this opportunity to get sloshed out of their mind. The last thing I wanted was my night ruined by bunch of people that couldnt handle their liquor. Andre came on for his set and was seriously amazing, he played a mixture of his songs, mainly the new stuff but threw in some classics like "Till I come" & finished off his set with the massive "Let You Go" which got the crowd right in the mood for what was coming next.

Markus Schulz

Step up Markus Schulz, as I said I havent heard much of his stuff apart from the odd mix but this night it was no remixes from the trance master, hardcore from the word go! His set from 1am till 3am felt like a few minutes as his music was so good, suffice to say the only time I stopped dancing was to get me another redbull as I could feel my legs letting go a bit and I had a long drive back to the CBD. After his set we begged him for more but all he could offer was one more song. After which he came down to meet whom ever was left at the end. It was rather a tiny crowd of a 1000 or less. Its sad that events like this which is invite only get those who come for the sake of it being that and not to enjoy what was on offer in terms of entertainment and not the free booze. The true fans of this type of music were left to sit at home that night twiddling thumbs wondering what must have been going down.

Urban Hip Hotels - The Icon

Now stumbling home at 4am may not be the most pleasant thing to do but I couldnt help but feel happy walking into this place. A 1 bedroom 5* apartment in the heart of Cape Town, what more could a guy ask for? fully fitted kitchen, dinning room, lounge with full DSTV bouquet, big screen LCD & a home theatre system. Now I know what you must be thinking, it must cost a pretty penny, but no. Compared to all the other hotels around, this place was by far more cheaper! heck even some places that I could get discounts at were atleast R400 more than this place, fine the others offered breakfast in the morning as appose to this place but you tell me what breakfast is worth R400?

2011 Mercedes Benz CLS63 AMG

The next day I woke up at 7am... dont ask, drinking red bull keeps you awake for longer than you can imagine. Fighting the caffeine I thought I'd go have a look outside, good thing I did as I caught Mercedes Benz shooting their commercial for the newest CLS model, at first I thought it was just the 500 or lower model but on closer inspection it turned out to be the CLS63 AMG! They had a guy constantly shining it as you dont want any smudges on it for TV. Plus with the EU plates you could see it wasnt for the local market. I would have gone for a better colour as AMG's are meant to be bit more scary.

tweetup/ drink up

 The days that followed in the Cape were filled of awesomeness, sunsets at camps bay to car sound competitions at the Goodhope center (hey Im Indian, we like our sound okay). On the Monday I got an opportunity to meet some fellow tweeters who we frequently tweet each other... if that makes sense. Was good to finally put a face to the tweets, but we kinda already knew what each other looked like with profile pics and facebook etc.. but meeting them in person was good. A big thanks to @KimGreyling, @MishtotheD, @staceywest24 & the Patron Princess @KirstyBisset for arranging a great night.

View from Signal Hill

No visit to Cape Town is complete with out some scenic shots and from a vast variety to chose from the favourites have to be going up the Mountain and Signal hill, fighting for time I had no time to wait to go up the cable way so Signal hill had to do. Surprisingly it wasnt that busy, so to get parking and walk around the hill with ease was a first time occurrence for me, and to make things better the weather was perfect for pictures!

Fish on the rocks- Hout Bay

When in the Cape another must do is fish and chips, dont waste your time having it at the Waterfront, a drive along the M6 is much more worth it, passing Camps Bay and the 12 apostles making your way into the small fishing village of Hout Bay. There are a few takeout/ restaurants to chose from and all are more or less priced the same so the choice is yours really. Dont stick to just the cooked seafood as there are fish mongers around for you to buy the fresh stuff as I was given strict orders to bring the famous Snoek back to Durban. I probably wouldnt have been allowed back into the house if I didnt bring some.

Camps Bay

Back onto the heavy schedule of meeting people, I had the pleasure of meeting yet more twitter people! (who needs family hey?) Tuesday night was spent having dinner with @PsychoButterFly who you'll find online at most strange hours of the night, hence I dubbed her "Night Warrior Princess". It was pointed out during dinner that I havent properly "done" Long street so after dinner I had a mandatory stop then I decided to explore this mystic street. Well thats as far as I can remember the night, the next morning I found myself with a moerse hang over, receipts for R1000's on the kitchen counter and to top it off my jeans some how got torn... dont worry nothing else was "torn".

The Icon

Its quite a mission to get your butt together to make an 11am checkout time but the gods were kind to me that day and I did but something had to give as finding parking infront of the hotel to hand back the parking garage disc with room key proved to be impossible with traffic, driving a BMW didnt exactly help the cause as well since people dont really take kindly to BMW drivers (no wonder the rental place had them on special). With the hours running out I had the privilege of ending of my time in the Cape on a sweet note by meeting @LeeAnn_Roberts for coffee, as I tweeted shortly afterwards, pictures do her little justice as she is much more stunning in real life. Now I can scratch off "having coffee with a supermodel" off my bucket list. As I sat there at the airport eating my last bit of seafood the Cape had to offer at the Ocean Basket, I wished that the weekend could rewind itself right to the beginning, as there were things I wished I did, things I wished I remembered, and a first for me, wished I took more pictures! But I suppose the good thing is I dont regret doing what I did, I could do this annually from now on!

Jet setter

So tomorrow I embark for my first holiday post World Cup, I dont regard my travels from there a "holiday" seeing as most of the time it was rather stressful! not to mention the winter cold wasnt a welcome, especially in Joburg where I at one point thought I was seriously going to die from being too cold!

ATB in action

The kind folks at Smirnoff have given me a ticket (well its an sms really) to attend the Night life exchange project which is being held in Cape Town this year, the host's will be none other than SA's 2 great House sensations DJ Fresh & Euphonik popularly known as FeU. Cape Town was chosen with Berlin as the 2 cities that will exchange their ideal party, so their line up (which gave me goose bumps) consists of ATB, lengendary trance DJ Mark Schulz & Monika (havent heard of her before). I still remember my first ATB CD I bought, which was "Dedicated" which featured some great hits such as "Dedicated", "Hold You" & the club pumper "Let U go". It was my facourite CD from the bunch of randoms I bought. André (ATB) has been making beats that both rock the club world and yet still playable on the radio, his currently ranked 11th in the world of Top DJ's, that is quite an accomplishment after being in the business for so long.

Mark Shulz also has been on the DJ seen for a while will be more famous for his mixes, as he has remixed many a top artist such as Madonna, Depeche Mode & worked with Fat Boy Slim of the UK. To be honest I havent heard much of his stuff so Im really looking forward to see what he has to offer.

Mark Schulz in the mix

The thing I like about these Smirnoff parties, is that they're well setup & managed, the crowd is limited & its invite only. Fair enough you have to be the lucky ones amongst thousands vying for the prize for an entrance ticket but its totally worth it if you do win. Even such events where you do have to purchase tickets such as the recent Gods Kitchen gigs with Above & Beyond have been awesome or so I've heard.

Other than the wild night on Saturday, Im looking forward to relax, something I hardly get to do on holidaying with the family as there is always places to see or people to visit, this time its me and what ever the fuck I want to do. Looking forward to meeting a few tweeps (twitter people) I frequently chat to on twitter from the Cape, so if you spot me on the street, dont feel shy, come say hi... but dont rob me as I got hardly any cash left since this trip is costing me a bit ;)

So this is my last blog post before I leave.
Cheers