The Movement Torino was surprising, sound was decent considering proximity to the main stage. Shame the lineup really didn’t interest me much. Ducked out for dinner at Roast and back to the festival for Plastikman. The light show was spectacular, the music left me feeling indifferent as did the 808 rawkout at the end.

Finished the night at the NDATL Deep Detroit party. Great lineup with Larry Heard, Kai Alce and Theo Parrish. Caught the end of Larry Heard, Kai Alce dropped some crazy deep business before playing a great disco set. Theo absolutely killed it. Had a fantastic night as we had last year, crowded dance floor but no milling about in mezzanine this year. Silly amount of name dropping to be had, name any Detroit producer who was in town for the weekend and there’s a good chance they passed through.

Day 2 – Sunday

Started with a healthy amount of protein at Slows BarBQ decent feed, excellent ribs and waffle fries. Unfortunately it meant missing Recloose, but you gotta eat. Wandered around the abandoned Michigan Central Depot, what an amazing building with great architectural details. Met a very zealous local named Rick who filled us in on some history and offered to take us through the abandoned building. We didn’t take up the offer though others did. We followed this with some more abandoned building around Bush Park. So strange to see these abandoned buildings next to those which were restored and inhabited.

Stopped in at the festival in the afternoon for Shake’s set. Started with Cooly G’s Narst and went all over the place from there, great set. Rolando played a banging and funky set after, despite a munter jumping up on stage and landing on one of the turntables (he got chased out of the underground but security were so slow to react). Rob Hood’s set was a little disappointing. It was relentlessly hard and despite all the equipment infront of him lacked dynamism.

Highlight of the weekend without doubt was the Soul Skate party a good drive out. Lots of locals getting their skate on. Again a huge turnout from local producers even better seeing them get their skates on. Loads of awesome moves out there I can’t even begin to explain.

We had to dash earlyish and headed to No Way Back at the Bohemian National Home. Caught the end of Serge’s set and BMG moving through some disco and techno also a lot of fun.

Day 3 – Monday

Late start with a trip out to Submerge, picked up a couple of records but highlight (maybe of the weekend) was Bridgette Banks taking my details and doing a double take recognising me as an old mail order customer. They’ve shipped to me in 3 continents now so great to meet some people behind the operation. We stopped in on another vintage store whilst the clothes were too rock n roll and not of any real interest the owner was a real character, even giving us palm readings.

A break in the rain for Moritz Von Oswald Trio playing a cruisey afternoon set until some technical issues interrupted the flow. They recovered nicely though lost Carl Craig in the process. There wasn’t a great deal on in the afternoon we were interested in so we took off for a bite and checked out the Heidelberg project. Shame it was raining as we didn’t get to wander around as much as we’d have liked.

We got back to catch most of Kenny Larkin’s set, who also seemed plagued by a technical issue and ended finishing his live set playing other peoples tracks from CD. It was a recurring issue throughout the weekend. Model 500 were probably the main reason we were in Detroit, and the Star Trek clad band made their way through the back catalogue of hits. The crowd were really into it though the rap interlude didn’t do much for me.

We finished the night with DJ Harvey who really started getting his groove on rocking some great italo and disco until the party got shut down by the police. I still don’t understand why as the place was pretty much in the middle of nowhere so it couldn’t have been noise complaints from residents. Such a shame it was shaping up to be a good night! We called it a day despite offers to get driven to another party.

Overall a great weekend, knowing more people this year and having a better feel for the lay of the land helped. It’s an odd time to be there and the festival may be a draw for many the fun times start after Hart Plaza closes every night. We met loads of local characters, from the cab drivers to dj’s/producers I really admire. It was surreal at times. I felt indifferent about the festival itself, and enough others have said their pieces about the logistics, sound and lineup. Driving around Bush Park you saw the juxtaposition which  no doubt makes the city what it is.

For many reasons mostly due to circumstances beyond our control we managed to miss the snow season whilst we were in London. We decided to suck it and booked up a few days to tear up some powder in the mountains. We snuck out of NY in the early hours for Salt Lake City missing the massive snow storm that wreaked havoc in the NE states. 

Sam had chosen Solitude in the Cottonwood Canyon as our base. It was a very sleepy little village and whilst we weren’t able to ski/board from our doors it was only a few minutes to get to the nearest lift and a short drive from a few other resorts.

There had been a good dump of snow the night before we took to the slopes making it a far more pleasant experience than our last venture on a snowboard, Jindabyne in conditions best described as heading down a giant block of ice.  That was a bloody long time ago (8/9 years?) so a much needed lesson had me on my way down the mountain reasonably quickly.

There’s a handful of restaurants and bars in the village, our apartment had a great kitchen so we’d stocked up on the way in and cooked most meals in. Not that we had much energy for wooping it up of an evening anyways, we were in bed by 10 most nights! Had a nice meal at Kim’s and a really good brunch at Silver Fork Lodge>

I was aching after the first day, by day 5 and having taken quite a few tumbles being a bit over confident and exhausted was feeling quite a broken man. It was crazy fun none the less and look forward to the next chance we get to hit up some snow. There was something like 36” snow at resorts in Vermont or closer to home whilst we were away, oh the irony!

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Weekend get away to the national capital. Lot’s of large memorial buildings, museums and galleries to get through along the National Mall, but what was up with the pool out the front of the Lincoln memorial being drained? We did our fair share of walking around town the weather was nice enough so it was quite pleasant. Chinatown was strange, it just felt like an area designated as such so all the shops had Chinese signage it didn’t have the hustle, feel or smell of a real chinatown!

Getting there and away: Took an Amtrak train from Penn Station, NYC. Took about 3.5 hours and was painless enough you don’t have to deal with getting to the airport and get to pass through a bunch of cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore. A tad pricier than we thought, I’m sure you can get cheaper deals booking way in advance.

Accomodation: Hotel Rouge in Dupont Circle not far from downtown. Looked nice enough on the internet. Boutiquey hotel, rooms were a decent size, beds comfortable,  rooms a bit scruffy in places and some naff artwork on the walls. Rooms were quite noisy from the street traffic on one side and air con units on the other. Wouldn’t stay there again.

Eats & Drinks:
Posto – good decently priced Italian bistro fare, if the bread was anything to go by i’m sure the pizza’s would have been pretty good. Nice selection of salumi and selection of wines.

Hook – Excellent seafood restaurant, the crudo are a nice way to start the meal. Everything tasted super fresh and it was nice to see a whole fish on the menu. Extensive wine list and great service and priced accordingly.

Art & Soul yep Oprah’s ex personal chef. We got some brunch in and I had my first chicken and waffles. It was rather good, not my last though not something you want to take on every weekend, even though i love fried chicken. The bloody mary came with a bunch of accompaniments including some candied bacon. Definitely play with the sweet & savoury combination’s. The garlicky pan bread almost tipped us over the carbohydrate ledge.

Jaleo – we stopped in for a snack before the long ride back to NYC. Good quality tapas the menu is lengthy but everything we got from the seafood stew, calamari were well executed.

POV Roof Terrace at the W hotel – tried to stop in on Saturday night and there was a huge line to head up there. We decided to come by after brunch Sunday and it’s a hotel bar with a view over the White House. You do get to see security agents on top of thewhich is a novelty and a panoramic view of the Washington Monuments (the obelisk).