I'm back in Sydney (and back at work) now. I'll post another time with some sort of wrap-up and Jerry Springer Final Thought action.

I have finally uploaded a few pictures for you all to look at. They're in a flickr gallery here.

Only a few cos I selected the best ones. There are plenty on the Academy's gallery as well, taken by proper photographers with expensive gear and better eyes than I.

Finished the track today, will do some kind of mastering tomorrow(!) Kode 9 this morning was great, Kutcha Edwards this afternoon got pretty deep at times, everybody's feeling good, Derrick was pretty good tonight (Groove La Chord sounded super sweet on that foxy rig).

It's a shame we're finishing tomorrow but everybody is pretty fucking exhausted and looking forward to some rest. Tomorrow night's parties will be pretty huge, I think.

I'm off to bed now. I think it will probably be the weekend until you hear from me again, when I'll post better observations of today, and will doubtless be in a more willing mood to indulge in reminiscence than I am right now..

Night night.

(Apologies for the delayed posts, has been a busy couple of days and not really had the time to commit to the blog)

OK, perhaps today was the best day in terms of making stuff. I had the track arranged, and all that it required was some fine tuning, some mixing and (very exciting) the journey into the Live Room to record Dave playing the Actual Real-Life-In-The-Flesh, Warm-As-Fuck, Total-Sex-With-Keys-And-Fancy-Dials Fender Rhodes Electric Piano. For the record, Dave deserves as much hyperbole as the device with which he made love today, but we'll get to all of that in time.

First lecture this morning and fuck me, it's only Fabio. Absolute Godfather of DnB, Radio 1 Deejay, Living Fucking Legend and an apparently top bloke, he told us how he needs to have a midweek residency because that night is much more about the music and less about getting totally clattered. It was quite funny to hear him talk about his DJ epiphany - the moment he saw the light and decided he wanted to be a DJ. It was at a rare groove night in London, over 20 years ago.

The DJ was Paul Oakenfold.

Lunch brought an hour to get the track sounding nice. I really love Logic. It's so powerful, and I've barely scratched the surface, but I like it a lot. I would like to buy a Mac and Logic at some point in the future. After I've bought an MPC and built my soundsystem and maybe before I get the Allen & Heath mixer or maybe afterwards.

They fly you to the Academy, it's true. They pay for your accommodation, they feed you, you get into all the parties for free. It seems so cheap! They even give you a free record bag. However, the amount of money you decide you absolutely NEED to spend on new toys after some time here means you will be paying for this trip for about 6 years.

The afternoon lecture was fun. A few members of the Bamboos together with the Academy's resident hornsmen Todd Simon (LA-based, member of Breakestra) and Toby Laing (NZ, Fat Freddy's Drop) and told us all about horns. How to score them, the different sounds they make, how to arrange them. It's funny with instrumentalists - they all believe that the instrument they play is the best. Same attitude as the various Martial Artists. Get four of them together on a couch with some microphones and you can imagine what it might be like. They were all very gracious folk though, and there were some nice live demonstrations.

But back to the track, and the recording session. As the attentive might recall, the track's based on found sounds that were (unbeknownst to me at the time) from a track that Dave had made. And so now, with a nice sense of symmetry, it was time for Dave to record some Rhodes action for the track.

We just played the track in its rough state to Dave through headphones while he jammed out some sweet shit on the Rhodes. The keyboard purred - it sounded so beautiful, such a magical creation. And it was being played by somebody with the gift. And it was being recorded on a really fucking expensive microphone. And it was going on a track I was producing. Proper fantasy island shit happening right here.

Anyways, the track's coming along great. Hopefully it will be done by this time tomorrow night.

One of the coolest things happened today. Check this out:

Tiago from Portugal has been working on a dubstep song for a couple of days now but seemed to have hit a wall today. Fortunately today help was at hand and he and Kode 9 sat down together and worked some shit out.

I woke up today in much better spirits than those which enveloped me 24 hours previously. I had a good loop in the MPC, and there was only one lecture today which meant plenty of studio time to develop it. First bus in, and once again it was me and Amir plus a couple of others. Amir got in the van with a carrier bag full of towels he'd flogged from the hotel. He explained that he'd discovered a shower block at the academy and on the basis of that he was moving out of the hotel and into the studio for his last few days. We tried to develop a scheme to sublet his empty hotel room for the remainder of his stay but before long we were at the building and it was time to get to work.

My first ever use of Logic today - I recorded the separate elements of the MPC loop and then spent the rest of the day (except for the lecture from Melbourne musician Qua, who was very interesting) working on the track. A bit of mismanagement resulted in there being less copies of Logic than people wanting to use it and so there was some serious political action going on between people to get time on the workstations, favours being traded for "just another 30 minutes to finish a conga line? Pleeease?"

This remix track is coming along pretty well. Working in Logic is really good, and it's the most complex arrangement I've ever done (ie more than 6 parts). I'm totally in love with this software!

There isn't much more to report from the day - I was locked away in the studio all day pretty much, finishing up at about 1am at which point I headed up the road to the µ-ziq gig, which I'd been excited about for a while. Dave Pham was playing a really wicked set of dancefloor-fuckedupness (think Detroit Underground etc). Dave's a great DJ with quite a range and a very gentle demeanour. Hopefully I'll be able to get him up to Sydney soon - he'd be ideal at High-Jinks. Also at the gig I met Brendan from the Semi-Retired crew, who were our Victorian counterparts on the Modeselektor tour.

And µ-ziq? Fucken phenomenal. Really abrasive music - crazy cut-up drum loops and big bassline, Jungle style but 4 or 5 times more intense, the highs driven so hard that it was actually a little painful from time to time, the bass so big that I felt the resonance in my chest cavity at the back of the room. No brown notes though!

One of the reasons the music sounded great was the production, but I also have to say how great the sound system was. Even though the bass was bowel-movement spec, the audible component was crisp and clear. The highs were so driven but never sounded distorted, and cut through the huge subs, sounding real balanced. I hung around the mixing board and saw some interesting looking gear in the racks - what looked like a vintage dbx compressor amongst other goodies - and a few people told me that the system was fully analogue, in fact the only analogue system in Melbourne.

The room is really cool as well - quite small, probably holding about 300 people all up, great lighting and visuals and this sound is one of the best sound systems I've ever heard. It's also one half of a pub, and the other half is classic dingy workers' pub in the middle of an industrial area. A near-perfect space. I'm going to go visit the pub tomorrow and see if I can't find someone to tell me more about the rig. It's wicked.

(Would now be a good time, do you think, to tell you that I shall be witnessing Derrick May in this space, on this system, on Thursday night?)

So today I was in a pretty lame mood but Mike Paradinas' lecture was great. He's put out some crazy music on his label Planet Mu and made plenty of it himself under a zillion names. He's also one of only a few people that have released a collaborative work with Aphex Twin, and said he learned nothing from the great one, other than how to dance behind the mixing desk when making a track.

(contrast this comment with one from Derrick May last week, who said that it's wrong to dance to your track while you're making it, because it means you're being too egotistical)

Mike talked about running a label, his fears, his way of making music. As seems to be the norm for anyone who gets through the doors of the Academy, he was utterly sincere and that was quite touching, especially as I was feeling pretty down.

So down, in fact, that I skipped the afternoon lecture and went for a walk and some time on my own, as it'd been quite a while since I'd been alone. So sorry, mr UFO-man, I'm sure you were great but I had to have it out with myself. 

On my return there was a listening session where we played the tracks we've been working on. There is some seriously good shit getting made here. Lots of hip-hop, some very jazzy stuff, a couple of minimal tracks and some experimental gear as well. I played my track, feeling very self-conscious, and it was quite difficult to do but I'm glad I did.

Some lovely dinner on the roof followed, as well as a new burst of inspiratio, fuelled by a great tutorial with Todd Osborne on how to use the tracker software I mentioned previously to chop up beats - can't wait to have a crack at that when I get back. Anyway, I was playing around with one of the MPCs - I found some chord samples that were on the machine already, liked the sound of them and got a bit of a groove going. David from NZ, who is a wicked keyboard player, came and had a listen, and commented that the MPC actually belonged to him, and that the samples I was using were parts from a track he'd done with his band. The chord stabs I was using are triggered live when he plays out, his MPC beside his keyboard. So, I was unconsciously making a remix of this track I've never heard. Dave has said he will only play me the original once this track is finished. It's cool little connecting experiences like this that are in abundance here.

So it turned out to be a great day - I left the academy after midnight, and headed to a bar called Loop to see a show with an all-academy lineup. I sadly missed Sergei at the beginning who apparently nailed it with an audio-visual experimental extravaganza. However, I DID catch Natalia from Poland, who was jamming with Irish Daniel. Natalia has an incredible voice, and the pair teamed up to improvise something that was absolutely breathtaking. So melancholy, so moving. After Natalia came Varo, with an hour-long set of electronic house music that was one single Reason sequence that used about 70 separate devices. Varo is a madman, and the chaos of his reason sequencer window goes a little way to describe him.

I left as Jonas was happily DJing - he'd brought no records with him, so I lent him my laptop for the night so he could use the serato box and the three MP3 CDs he'd burnt. It's a strange world we live in when you can rock a joint off three CDs...

No lectures meant a late start and a lie-in, which was great.

We walked in this morning, mingling with the grand final crowd in the beautiful weather. Emma came along to have a look around and then it was time to get the track ready.

The live room was busy, so I took an MPC and made some beats (which subsequently got deleted by accident...) for a while. Soon enough it was time to go into the room and it was pretty exciting. Richard sat down with his drumkit and laid out a brilliant hi-hat line which needed no editing. Mixed the track down and all was good.

And then it was time for my gig. It was fun! I played for about an hour and a quarter, I got to play out the track which did not clear the dancefloor and then as I played my last track (Solitary Flight), the sound system blew up. A suitable end, I feel.

We kicked on to the other Academy gig where Tor was bloody mindblowing and Florian went on afterwards playing some hoopy shit. Home to bed at 4.

I'm actually writing this on Sunday evening - we had no school today, and went instead on a field trip to Healesville where there's a native amimal sanctuary. It was good to see everyone's reactions to the various animals, and I got to finally see a platypus.

Right now, I'm totally rooted and exhausted and uninspired. There's a couple of shows tonight - I don't think I'll be making it to the Espy for Amir's show, but Clara and Maxime are playing down at Honkytonks. Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure I'll even get there. I think some sleep is needed.

I left my fucking power supply at the academy again...

Another late night was had at Honkytonks by all accounts. Only me and Amir again on the first bus. Turns out after I left last night that Phonte rocked up to the club, took over the mic and started taking requests from the audience for covers. Shit!

Spent some time this morning doing a little bit more work on the Juno track, and locked in Eric the studio engineer for some time in the live room to record the drums and do the mix. Then it was time to hit the decks and rinse some disco ahead of Danny Wang's lecture...

Which was amazing. First up he made us all stand up and gave a quick dance class. After the little warmup we launched straight into a 3 hour lecture from Herr Wang, where he got into some real deep music theory, banging on about different temperaments and the like. He seems to be on a total mission to make music more musical again - he's all about key changes and harmonic progression. Straight grooves with no real melodic change don't appeal to him. Probably better not play him my track then.

He was a really engaging speaker, and gave a true lecture. He even photocopied up a load of notes and gave us all a set - about 30 pages all up, with a list of 100 disco records that need to be owned, excerpts from various books and magazines and stuff. Truly incredible. Gerd, the interviewer, said about 4 things during the whole lecture. It was brilliant, and it would be great to see more things like this. It was a real lesson - this was straight-up teaching, from a really intelligent, passionate and entertaining expert. And he taught us the Bus Stop.

Lunch was really quick, and then the second lecture began. Carl Mcintosh has spent the last three days here at the academy, a bass guitar and a shit-eating grin firmly attached to him at all times he lobbed up on Wednesday, unpacked his bass and said "where's the studio then?" He's been having more fun than us, I think. He spoke beautifully, and carries about him a calm happiness that's infectious. He had many stories, but the nicest thing was at the end, he played a few chords on the Rhodes that he'd had brought downstairs, and the whole mood in the room changed. It was incredible. He hardly played any music at all, but there was something about the notes he played, and the way he spoke, that was quite incredible. I think he is a magician.

And then I felt not so good for a while. Tiredness got the better of me and I ran away home early to rest, and to see Emma who arrived today. When I saw Sofie yesterday, she asked me if I'd felt overwhelmed yet. Today I definitely did. It was all too much.

We went to the first show of the night, a street art show in a neat little venue in Richmond. Total industrial aesthetic, a carpark covered in graffiti has a staircase you ascend into a big wide first-floor warehouse space with wooden floors, whitewashed walls and a lean-to DJ booth in the corner, where Steve aka Flying Lotus was playing out some of his own tracks and being a charismatic motherfucker on the microphone, behaving as a genuine master of ceremonies as opposed to straight-out rapping. He played this absolutely killer Brazilian beat that got everybody moving. Steve stopped the track, told us he was going to play it again, and did. It finished, everybody went apeshit, and he strolled out of the lean-to and started talking to everyone, "so it took some Brazilian shit to get your asses moving," and then played the track again. Everybody went bananas. I was feeling much better now.

We then went onto the Trough Faggot party. A notable difference between disco school and regular school: at disco school, you can walk into a club called the Sin Bin, and see your teacher behind the decks wearing an orange disco singlet, playing air violin to beautiful music, while men dance with their shirts off all around and beautiful girls kiss each other.

OK, got to move quickly as I managed to remember my laptop but forget my power supply.

So Honkytonks kicked on for quite a while last night, it seemed. I was up early to get the first shuttle to the academy, which is usually full. Today it was me and Amir and nobody else on the ride in...

I was on the first bus as I was recording a set this morning for the radio, and had to get it done before the first lecture. Such a wicked setup in the studio there - three turntables, pioneer mixer, two CDJs mounted above the mixer - well cool. And you have an engineer from PBS monitoring the recording so everything's sweet. And I did pretty well, I think; I haven't listened to the mix yet, but I think it was OK. I screwed the first mix but aside from that it was pretty much green light. And I got to play for two hours which was great.

And then in to the first lecture, Phonte Coleman. Singer with a group called Little Brother, he was the first frontman that had been on the couch and it showed. He ran the show, kept everybody entertained and was totally sincere and did not give a damn. Every time he played a tune for us he'd dance away and sing along to it and was definitely having the most fun of everyone in the room. When the lecture gets posted on the RBMA website you go and check it out ASAP. Wicked stuff.

At lunch I got to meet up with Sofie which was great, and the beautiful weather meant we were all on the roof again. A quick stuffing down of some food and then back to the lecture hall for Derrick May. What can I say? He was exactly how you'd expect and then some. A huge character, with a massive legacy, he shared some great stories and bold opinions. For the record, he's not too keen on the new version of Strings. And he's also promised to buy everybody dinner if we can find a picture of him DJing with no shirt on. So please get looking.

In the evening I quickly jammed out a structure using the parts I'd recorded yesterday. That Juno is a beautiful instrument. I REALLY want one now. Going to get Richard to play a live hi-hat line over it and then run it through some of the processing gear they have here and I will hopefully have something to play out on Saturday night.

And a few other interesting projects are presenting themselves. Tomorrow I think I'm going to sit down with one of the tutors, Todd Osborne aka Osborne aka one half of TNT and Starski & Clutch aka Soundmurderer and learn some shit from him. He makes all his tunes on an old PC running tracker software. I told him I wanted to make a jungle track and he cracked a little grin. Fingers crossed!

And tonight was another great show at Honkytonks. Judith played a great DJ set and then another band, this time consisting of David on the keys & MPC (wicked Kiwi funkateer), Andreya the vocalist with a little loop box so she could get all Jamie Lidell, Carl McIntosh from Loose Ends (!) on Bass and a local drummer whose name I don't know. The band tonight had a little bit of rehearsal and were fucking nailing it again. It's just ridiculous.

And I'm back at the fuckpad now. Quote of the day goes to Danny Wang who, at the end of Derrick May's lecture, announced to everybody, "OK everyone, we're going to show Beat Street in the lecture theatre at 8pm. If you haven't seen it, you should. It's like the Breakdance Casablanca."

Tomorrow's lecture will be fun, I suspect.

PS today I ended up wearing my brown t-shirt and my hat, jinkybadge proudly adorning it.

Another day, another cartload of amazing stories... off we go again.

First lecture of the day was Strobocop from Cologne. A great lecture - he runs a label called karaoke kalk and had lots to say about the history of Cologne, and the ins and outs of running a label. Very humble, very personable, he was engaging and had a very refreshing outlook on the business aspect of things. He's been running his label since 1997, notched up 41 vinyl and 36 CD releases and hasn't signed a single contract with anyone - it's gentlemen's agreements all the way. Quite strange.

Also speaking interestingly on the business side of things was our second guest, the one and only Recloose. We heard sneak previews of his new album (it's the goods), he told us about how he feels prey to the tyranny of distance, and commented on the general flakiness of musicians. AND, I finally got to hear the Carl Craig / Sandwich story from his own lips. It's probably a story he's told a million times now and he's really good at it, has a little patter down pat saying how he served Carl a "demo on rye".

The real magic today was in the studios though. Today was the day the Academy started to cook, and it was running hot all day long. I finally succumbed today and spent a good few hours with a Juno 106, 909 and not much else. Recorded some great stuff that I've started working on and will continue tomorrow.

Tonight's show was at Honkytonks, and it was possibly the best so far. The whole academy took over the joint and rammed it. We were treated to an amazing set from DJ Bozak (he played Solitary Flight!) which segued into an all-in jam session, with drums, bass, guitar, Bozak still behind the board serving up cuts and scratches, live trumpet and sax and just about every vocalist in the academy getting a go on the mic. They started about 90 minutes ago and were showing no signs of stopping when I left.

It's great. Everyone is really getting tight now, the vibe is really massive and it's positivity all the way. Plenty of time left yet, loads of sleep to be missed. Time for bed - I'm in early tomorrow to record a DJ set to be played out on the radio at a later date, and Derrick May is popping in for a cup of tea and a chat tomorrow.

I'm having a dilemma over what to wear for the occasion.

A quick one today, as I'm in a rush...

OK, Tuesday came around and up early after not much sleep, the devilish stimulant providing much-needed energy, we mustered in the lobby for our lift to the academy. There's a good crew of us that get in every morning as early as possible to soak up the vibe. And there was a good amount of soaking to be had this morning...

Into the academy and up to the studio floor and a new face is waiting up there. "Hi, I'm Danny," was the introduction from everybody's favourite Disco Disciple Mr. Wang. I showed him round the studios and we talked a little and he was able to trainspot my cologne. "You're wearing Gucci, aren't you?" Yes Danny, yes I am. Good man.

He's playing on Friday night at a party called Trough Faggot 9 in a club called the Sin Bin. Shirts-off, man-on-man action all night long. Can't wait! Danny went off somewhere, I had some breakfast and the gear room was open. In like a flash, I booked out a Serato unit and started rinsing the digital goodness on my hard drive for a while, and then it was time for the first lecture of the day.

It was great to hear a Manchester accent and some good, straight-up northern humour from one of my city's many legendary sons. The mighty Peter Hook was in the house, regaling us with stories of the Division, the Order, the Hac, losing millions of quid and wives, how he got into DJing, how to fix an E-mu sampler with a hammer (and the time the band received a phone call from Erasure asking the technique) and generally being funny as fuck. It was great! There were times when his rough humour would go over most people's heads but I'd be pissing myself. Hugely entertaining, highly opinionated and with a mouth as foul as mine, it made me homesick.

The day was beautiful - the sun out, not much wind - and so we decamped to the roof for lunch. More conversations with interesting folk as you'd expect, and then time to go back downstairs for the arvo lecture, where we had a big listening session, listening to all the music we've made. There are some seriously fucking talented people here at the academy. A good 2 hours of music, all of it really good, all of it super-fresh, nothing obvious at all.

On the back of that session, everybody had a good idea where people were at and so little teams spontaneously emerged as we went upstairs to the studio to start jamming shit out. And this is where the Academy REALLY begins. Everybody getting down and jamming, great music all around, so inspirational. A quick walk upstairs and some more information is shared - not quite musical though. One of my American counterparts kindly took time out to school me in the art of rolling a blunt. Killer!

Couldn't really smoke it too much though, as I had to go downstairs and do a show on RBMA radio, where for two hours I played nothing but Sydney music. A couple of my own tracks and plenty good stuff from Triosk, Feral Media, K.Bliesner, ollo, Fangle, etc etc etc. At one point one of the PBS guys (who are running the station here) came in and said it was the best music he'd heard all day. The look on his face when I told him it was all Sydney gear was priceless. Suck SHIT, Melbourne! And then the show was over and it was time for me to go play in the studios. Tiago had the Juno 106 out and I started beating it with him, the beast is so fat. Wajeed comes by and starts getting all excited, waxing lyrical about how "She's a great board, that one... shit..."

A skip across the floor into another room where there's a crazy jam session going on. The dude on the computer gets up to leave and I take his place, making Ableton sing for me with plenty of delay as you might expect. And that was the day done. Back home to do some washing and then onto the lovely Horse Bazaar in the city, where our Pakistani Pink Floyd fan, Sheryar, played a live set after some difficulties with his PC (which I was able to fix, my geek skills coming in handy - so happy about that!) and after a yummy grapefruit juice it was time for me to go home and write this, when I realised I'd left my laptop at the academy.

So be grateful, cos I'm using studio time to write this. But not for much longer. Speak soon!

These days are so long!

It seems like an eternity since I was dancing in the ladies' toilets.

So last night ended up being a really late one, thanks to our worthy sponsors. Too much Red Bull for Si meant I couldn't sleep until 5am and so this morning I was the bleary-eyed one while my previously jetlagged cohorts all looked super fresh. I got to pack that shit in.

I was up early because I was super keen to get to the Academy at 10, 2 hours before our first lecture, as I was absolutely stinging to get some time on the turntables with my own records. Of course, as soon as we arrived at the joint I found out that they were still doing some construction work on the studios and it would be the evening before we could get in there. Some disappointment hit me, but it was mitigated by the fact that I was back at the magical disco school again and there was some kickass yoghurt and muesli to be had, as well as all the fresh fruit I could fit in my gob. The couple of hours flew by, as nascent relationships were strengthened amongst us lucky folk. It's really great - the degree of openness here is so wonderful. Nobody drops names, nobody plays games and everybody has time for you. Anxiety can happily be disregarded as people are truly interested in you and what you have to say, and people listen - they aren't just planning what to say next, or working out how they can make the conversation go back to them again. In short, nobody is too cool for this school.

And so on to our first lecture of the day, a frivolous icebreaker where each of us got our turn on the couch and were asked a few silly questions. It was also our first real interaction with Torsten, one of the main visionaries behind the Academy, and one of the guys asking the questions. I don't know why, but I'm a bit scared of him. It's silly really. I think perhaps I'm a little afraid that he'll find out that I'm actually here by mistake and kick me out!

Anyway, enough wanking. Everybody was great on the couch, and the atmosphere was one of affection and interest, and those relationships all got a little bit stronger. Even the quietest of the crew are starting to warm up now, which is great considering it's only the second day. At lunch (burritos with really fucken good guacamole) there was plenty of excited chatting going on and still no action in the studios. My records remained bagged and folorn.

But then we all piled downstairs again for the day's second lecture with Cut Chemist and a collaborator of his, Hymnal. Turns out that Hymnal and Cut go way back, back to middle school in fact. Two very interesting people with very different stories to tell. Cut told us his history, of being white and 12 and in the finals of a DJ comp that had the likes of Arabian Prince in it, and then went on to explain at some length the nature of sample clearance and what it's like being signed to a major. In short, he was signed to Warner by the boss of the label (!) and from my perspective it sounds like he's being fucked around. In fairness to the good folk at Warner, it sounds like all they're doing is exercising sound business sense but that isn't really compatible with artistry at the best of times. Cut spoke with great candour and feeling, and he might be some superstar with a big record deal, but I couldn't help but feel for him in his predicament. I really hope that it spurs him onto greater things, and that he finds a home somewhere that appreciates him more. Fuck the majors, Cut! You seem like a nice bloke - you don't belong there, and that's a good thing!

(Please note that I'm not calling him Cut all the time to try and imply some sort of familiarity or anything, it just seems silly writing Cut Chemist every time.)

So Cut was great, the honesty was amazing and he played us some lovely music, including a couple of rare treats from his legendary crate-digging sessions. Also amazing was his mate Hymnal, who contributed vocals on at least one of the tracks off Cut's new album but seemed to be more than a mere collaborator and rather something of a spiritual adviser. A very, VERY deep thinker, he was namechecking Jung and Kesey and Wolfe and tracing the philosophy that drove hip-hop, talking in very esoteric ways. A lover of psychedelic folk music, who would shake his head around, as if in a trance, whenever some music was played. Hopefully the guys will hang around a little longer and I'll be able to have some conversations with them - there was a lengthy Q&A session afterwards, but it'd be nice to engage in a longer dialogue. I'd definitely be super keen to have a chat with Hymnal though, share some thoughts about the spirituality angle and conscious music.

Anyways, make sure you watch the lecture on the website when it gets posted as it is definitely worth it.

So after an endless barrage of questions, the session ended and like a rat up a drainpipe I pegged it up to the studio level to find everything open for business. Ooooh yeah! I bagsed myself a studio, got my records and finally got to play some fucking tunes. An hour of JA music, back-to-backing with Tiago from Portugal who was rinsing a wicked Trojan box set, and then into some techier territory via a see mi yah mashup. It was so good, like having a nice stretch after a long flight. In the other studios people were getting down and starting to make beats, play tunes, talk shit. Then the gear room was opened up and we flew in. Oh my god!

Stuff I saw in the Gear Room:

303, 606, 808, 909, Juno 106

A bunch of mixers from Pioneer, Vestax and Rane (Including the MP2016)

Turntables from Technics and Vestax, including that weird one with the built-in mixer

A couple of pioneer DVD decks

Loads of effects and EQs and compressors.

A big fuckoff 24-channel Mackie Mixer

A couple of big electronic pianos

STACKS of novation and korg midi controllers

And basically the deal is this - you want something to use, you go up to Martin or Jules who run the gear room, tell them you want to borrow it and then you take whatever you want and go use it.

So, once I'd gotten the record playing out of my system, Ali and Joe had fired up the computer behind me and gotten Reason installed on it, and were bashing something out. I was having a listen and thought that some 909 handclap would sound good. So I went and got a 909 and plugged it in and had no idea how to make it go. Just as I'd got a good rimshot pattern going, it was time to go and check out the first Academy show, where Irish Daniel played a live set of beautiful free jazz that morphed into some pretty tough minimal, all off his laptop with a custom-built Max/MSP patch, and then Canadian Daniel layed down some no-nonsense minimal goodness from Traktor. Anybody who starts their set with 'Solomon's Prayer' by Luciano and Melchior is a winner in my books. Some good conversations with Dan the photographer over the parallels between photography and music in the analogue/digital debate were had, and other heads started arriving from the Academy - Jonas finally managed to tear himself away from the 808, Yuri had completed his radio show after a bit of difficulty with Serato, and we are finally a complete bunch of participants after Clara arrived, fresh from her show with the Modeselektor boys.

And that was the end, for me, of Day 2. I'm determined to get a half-decent sleep tonight, and get back into the joint on 10 tomorrow to continue my battle with the 909. I'm also doing a show on RBMAradio tomorrow night between 8 and 10, where I'll be showcasing a whole heap of Sydney music. I'm starting to get a little irritated by all this Melbourne cock-sucking that's going on and want to show people that there's some interesting shit happening up in the 612 as well. Who would have thought it - me getting all territorial about my adoptive hometown! So tune in to the radio tomorrow night to hear tunes from all your faves!

PS I got interviewed by the documentary crew today - that was weird but kinda cool as well! Tomorrow the 'real' press are arriving...

First day at disco school today. Not too bad!

The academy is amazing. It's a big old warehouse that's been done up and converted into an artspace, basically. There are installations and paintings and street art all over the joint, which essentially has four levels.

First level is the lecture theatre, with all the couches (inna Melbourne style, naturally - plush 70s monsters abound). This is where the great and the good will be talking to us. Next level has the social space, where there's a limitless supply of great food, beer (coopers red or green), soft drinks and of course Red Bull.

(on a side note, I have never seen so much Red Bull in my life. You can't walk more than 10 metres in the academy without reaching a fridge stocked with the stuff. There are fifteen cans sitting in my fridge here in the fuckpad at the moment, and should I drink them all I will get a fresh stock tomorrow morning. It's crazy.)

OK, the social level also contains the workspaces for the guys who run the academy, as well as a bunch of net-connected PCs, a radio studio (VERY exciting!), loads of cool art and more bloody red bull fridges.

Above that is the studio level. Incredible. 7 studios, each designed by a different artist - no two are alike, and every one has a distinct vibe to it courtesy of the fabulous art. Most of the studios have a fully decked out mac with midi keyboard, a pair of turntables and mixer (different rooms have different mixers - some have Ranes for the turntablists, one has a sweet Vestax PMC-250 with the big fat EQs) and sick monitors. There is a big fucken gear room in the middle of the floor where you can check out instruments to use in those studios. It was locked, but rumours are traded about the treasures that this stronghold contains. 202, 303, 808, 909, junos, moogs, monomachines, machinedrums, bla bla bla wank wank wank. I can't wait to get in there tomorrow.

There are also two fully macked out studios that have a live room attached to them. These have big external mixers and plenty of froth-worthy outboard processing, most of it analogue, all of it sexy.

And finally, on the roof is another social space; v.brave move considering melbourne's patchy weather - while Sydney burned today, we were treated to a soaking. The poor internationals came here expecting sun and surf and are all freezing their exotic asses off. The roof has a barbie and - total masterstroke - an astroturf lawn bowls pitch.

So that's the building. The people are great too. We met so many people that work at the academy, and they are all so excited and eager and keen and open and approachable. They have really cool jobs!

There are photographers and a video crew knocking around as well, documenting everything for the website. They're kinda there all the time, ninja style - you'll be talking to someone and then from nowhere you'll catch a lens out the corner of your eye, peeking at you. Really odd at the moment, but they're just part of the family too - which is another thing that's great. Everyone seems on the same level - us, the lecturers, the staff, the camera folk, the drivers (who are all members of the Melbourne Techno Collective) - everyone. It's just this wicked time and everybody's buzzing and getting along and having a laugh. Maybe it's the Red Bull doing it.

So anyway, we wandered around and had our minds blown and it was time for the first lecture. And Paul Kelly (yes, that Paul Kelly) took to the couch and took us through Oz music, from the 60s through to the present day, with assistance from his son Declan. We heard music from The Triffids, The Cruel Sea, The Necks, TZU, The Herd, Yothu Yindi, Archie Roach, even John Paul Young got a look in. It was quite lovely to see this very gentle man play music he loved, managing to get across a sense of Australia at the same time, choosing songs that evoked the enormity of this nation, its youth, its issues (there were audible gasps amongst the visitors upon learning of the Stolen Generation), and its future. I always figured they'd get some Aussie guys in, and I was wondering who they might get. I never once considered Paul Kelly might be one of them, and he was absolutely perfect for the job.

And then we took off from the academy, but not before Ali and I managed to finally get a go on some turntables and played a few tunes. After that it was back to the hotel and then on to Honkytonks for their birthday party, where people were all dancing in the Ladies' toilets to a DJ, something which blew a few of the guys' minds. Now, they are all considering a move to Melbourne.

And so Day One finishes. I hope I can get some sleep cos I want to get down to the academy at 10 to have a couple of hours' fun on the decks before the first lecture, which is a bit of an introduction where we all get our own go at being interviewed on the famous couch for a few minutes. We also have some other great lectures lined up this week. Hip-Hop, Post Punk, Techno - in both Cologne and Detroit flavours, Nu Disco and 80s Soul are represented this week. And apparently a very special Aussie guest who is being kept secret from us for now.

Night night!

OK, so I'm here...

Arrived last night after a super show on 2SER that was much fun to do, playing nice sunny tunes for Sydney on a 30 degree day at the start of spring...

and then straight to Melbourne and 15 degrees and thank fuck I brought my jacket with me. At the airport I met up with a couple of fellow participants - Daniel from Dublin and Ali from Istanbul. We travelled back to the hotel together in a cab, me trying my best to be a tour guide, speaking authoritatively on a city I've spent the grand total of about 5 days in (most of them drunk).

Into the hotel and christ, it's a swanky joint. I have my OWN serviced apartment, all to myself, and it's an a-grade fuckpad right in the middle of town. The design is on a bit of an industrial tip - bare concrete bits and lots of right angles with those low-voltage lights strung on wire across the ceiling. What really matters to me though is that there's a big comfy bed with good linen.

Anyway, after christening the toilet and staring in wonder at the joint, I got my shit together and met up with Daniel and Ali and took them out to Collingwood to go meet up with Brendan and Tiani at their place. Which turns out to make my pad look like a crackhouse in comparison. A really sweet warehouse conversion with heaps of space, lots of light and rent so cheap that both Ali and Daniel were doing sums in their heads to see if they could move in.

Up to Smith Street then for some food - our elation had eclipsed our sense of time and most restaurants were shut; we ended up settling for second-rate pide, the irony of the choice of cuisine not lost on Ali, who felt right at home.

A couple of joints and some random chat back at Brendan and Ti's for a couple of hours and then home and to bed, though excitement and anxiety prevented an easy slumber. Breakfast was yum, at Mario's in Fitzroy, and then it was off for some record shopping.

Fuck me, there's plenty of wicked shops in this town. First stop was Northside in Collingwood, where I picked up a swag of nice sevens, and then to a second-hand store on Smith St where there was a Chain Reaction 12 staring me in the face. I picked it up as a present for Ali who just the night before had said he was keen to buy some. I looked around for clothes but didn't make a purchase and then returned to the city, to check out Collector's Corner on Swanston St. What a great place! Another wad blown on sevens, a copy of Queen In My Empire and a really nice 12 on Honest Jon's.

Now I'm back at the fuckpad, writing this, and then I'm off out to catch up with Bones for dinner. I can hear Parklife Melbourne in the background.

And tomorrow, at 3pm, it all begins.