D. RAMIREZ USA TOUR // PART VII // AUGUST 2009
D. Ramirez // Paramount Pictures // Los Angeles
Thursday 27.08 (Club Parking Montreal)
No rest for the wicked and it’s up early to get to LAX airport for a 6 hour flight to Montreal Canada. I arrive there and it’s the usual charade of getting through passport control and then collecting my work visa. The whole thing takes about an hour and at that point i’ve lost my sense of humor and unfortunately the promoter named Pascal gets the brunt of it – sorry Pascal. He informs me that Club Parking is a gay club situated right in the middle of the gay quarter in downtown Montreal. I’m happy about this as i prefer playing to gay audiences and with my background in hairdressing i’m quite used to hanging around with lots of gay people, hell, even most of my best friends are gay.
I get to the hotel and take a walk around the area, the first thing i notice is the abundance of muscle Mary’s hanging around, the second thing i notice is that nobody is speaking English, it’s all French. I get to the club and the DJ before me is playing some very techy beats so when it’s my turn to step up i have to take it down a notch. The place slowly starts to fill up so i start to increase the pressure, the dancefloor is rocking and i’m loving it! People keep coming into the booth to meet me, some really lovely folk. There’s a lot of people coming in kissing me (on the cheeks of course) and i feel genuinely pampered. One thing though and that’s the lack of drink – This isn’t a bad thing as it’s going to be a long weekend and i need to get some good rest before i go to Toronto and Chicago.
At the end i get a standing ovation after what felt like one of my better sets and more people start to flood into the DJ booth. One guy who’s very toned and pumped comes in and tells me he’s David Morales dancer when he’s in Montreal. We get onto the tender subject of age and he informs me he’s 54 years old! – for once i’m not the oldest guy in the club. I ask him his secret of eternal youth and at that point he introduces me to his 23 year old boyfriend and gives me a wink.
I get back to my freezing hotel room, the AC is stuck on the coldest setting so i’m shivering! I’ve had nothing to drink which is really unusual for me but as it happens is a great preparation for tomorrow night in Toronto where i know it’s going to be a very different story!
Friday 28.08 (This is London Toronto)
I’ve been to Toronto about 5 or 6 times now and i’ve befriended a great crew of people who range from DJ’s to Club Promoters to Hairdressers and clubbers. They all hang around with each other and one thing they all share in common is that they’re all serious party animals! This i have learned to my detriment and the last time i was in Toronto i ended up at an after-party in a place called The Comfort Zone for what felt like days. It was winter at the time and we kept going out into the snow, which meant i caught the flu. This was no fun as I still had a week left of my tour and i had to fly around America feeling like the walking dead.
I knew tonight would be a similar situation with the usual slew of after-partys and shenanigans and of course i’d be dragged kicking and screaming. Everybody was already Twittering me warning me that ‘Everybody’s Nuts in Toronto’ and ‘Stay away from Fab Strong he’s dangerous’ so i knew i was in for an eventful night which would inevitably end with no sleep!
I meet up with some of the crew before my gig to go for dinner, which is nice and civilized and then we head off to the club. Toronto has an amazing music scene and the crew i hang around with are mostly DJ’s – we have The Junkies, Manzone and Strong, Carlo Lio, D-Unity – all guys who are inspiring me at the moment. Fab Strong is playing before me and he’s busting out some seriously cool beats, phat rolling basslines and chunky drums. The place is absolutely rammed to the rafters and they are all loving what he’s playing! I go on after Fab and keep the cooler, chunkier vibe flowing – i’m loving it as it’s a great excuse to play the music i’m feeling right now. The place is a bit strange though and it starts to empty out a little later into my set as it did the last time i played there. As a DJ it’s always quite hard to deal with because you don’t know if it’s your fault and that they just don’t feel what you’re doing or if it’s something else – i get very paranoid!
Once i’m finished we head off to an after-party, this time at a place called Film. We pick up some more degenerates of the night and drive further downtown to a dingey looking place with some mean looking bouncers at the door. I’m with Fab so he takes me to meet the owner of the club and to fill our water bottles up with Vodka. I meet some interesting people, i have a bit of a boogie, i meet some faces i recognise from the Comfort Zone.. As i’m at the mercy of the designated driver, a fiend Steve Romano, i have to go where he goes so we head off to another friends house where i continue to drink Patrone, a strong Tequila. Night turns into day before I get back to my hotel as I desperatly need a few hours of sleep before heading off to Chicago. Im feeling pretty dreadful at this point, like somebody has tried to kill me in fact, I vow to never drink again!
I try and get a late check out but the hotel informs me that i have to vacate the room at 12 pm, so i sleep for one hour before the maid comes and rudely wakes me up – Pontages Hotel Toronto you suck! I get thrown into the street un-showered and disheveled like an unwanted hobo – this flight to Chicago is going to be very interesting!
Saturday 29.08 (Crobar Chicago)
D. Ramirez - Margarita Time
Somehow i make it to the airport, i feel awful the hangover having fully set in at this point. I can’t speak to anyone, luckily i don’t get asked too many questions at passport control. This process can be quite hectic as you leave one country to fly to another. I get on the flight and i can only imagine i don’t smell too good having been out all night but i try to keep my head down – i’m broken! Fortunately the flight is only one hour and I get picked up from the airport and driven to The Hard Rock Hotel Chicago. I’m in an amazing King suite tucked up in bed like a baby. I have about four or five hours to sleep before tonight’s show and trust me at this point i need all the sleep i can get. I wake up around 11 pm and thank God i feel fine. I’m alive again. It’s amazing what too much to drink and too little sleep can do to you!
I’m relieved i’m feeling better as tonight i’m playing at Chicago’s biggest and longest running house night and it’s my first time so it’s important i make a good impression. Gustavo the promoter picks me up and we head down to the club. The DJ booth is awesome and it’s up high above the crowd with the loudest monitors ever. I go on and crank them straight up to max volume (i know, i’ll be deaf soon ). Tonight is all about the techno as last week in Brazil i met a producer named Marshall and a DJ named Gaz James, who both gave me some really great music of their own. I’m fully armed with some amazing dirty tech!
Allot of people are coming into the booth to say hello and i make lots of new friends. At one point a girl, who is one of the servers in the club, comes into the DJ booth trying to talk to me but not making much sense. I notice she has a large bundle of cash in her hand. Im not surprised as a little while later I see her being escorted/helped out of the DJ booth, looking a bit worse for ware.
My set goes down really well and i finish about 3.45 am, my only intention at this point is to get back to the hotel and get straight into bed. Im leaving again at 11 in the morning to fly back to LA. I realise this is merely a pipe dream as I finish my set i can’t find the promoter Gustavo to arrange to get back. I finally find him and he tells me that the girl making no sense in the DJ booth has collapsed somewhere and he can’t wake her up. She’s in such a bad state that she’s even urinated on his leg! He takes me to where she is and she’s out of it – all the money she’s earned that evening is all over her (she must have had it down her top and it’s all fallen out) I try to wake her but she’s completely out of it. The only way i know she’s even still alive is because i check her pulse! In the end we have to summon one of the big bouncers and between me and Gustavo we manage to manouver her onto the back of the bouncer who then carries her over to the taxi rank to get her home – i only hope she made it home poor girl.
Now i try to get back to the hotel but Gustavo has been drinking so he can’t take me and i have to wait for another lift. While waiting around we drink some more and i finally manage to get back to my hotel room at 6 AM – i’m up at 10 AM Damn!!
The Crobar was amazing! – thanks to all who came and thanks to everyone who made it over to the DJ booth to say hello.
D. Ramirez // Paramount Pictures // Los Angeles
Monday 31.08 (Paramount Studio Tour LA )
Aah finally a day off and some time to myself to get the full Hollywood experience. Im a true movie buff and I decide to do the Paramount Studio tour, i just have to do it. We get to see the set of the new Ray Romano comedy and the set of Monk, a detective series. We see the fake streets that are made to look like the streets of New York where loads of famous scenes have been shot. I sit in the fake restaurant where the first Godfather was shot. It’s all very cool but somehow i can’t help thinking from seeing all the fakery I have now ruined it for myself and it’s lost all it’s magic.
As it’s my last night in LA I organise to meet up with some friends, old and new. We got to a very famous diner called Mels where we eat proper diner food. Runny sloppy oily and wrong. I have the chilli burger and it’s HUGE! We say our goodbyes.
The next morning it’s on the plane for the 12 hour flight back to London. I’m really going to miss LA, it’s an amazing place, the weather is beautiful, there’s so much going on. Going back to sunny Sheffield is gonna be interesting.
