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September 20-24, SYMBIOSIS GATHERING 2007: 3rd Annual Arts, Music, and Concious Lifestyle Festival
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Meta
Meta/Boomslang
Started Topics :
24
Posts :
1045
Posted : Sep 25, 2007 23:31
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On 2007-09-25 21:02, paradigm wrote:
which brings me to Simon. Yawn.... no more please. Its always the same. Sphongle set was verbatim the exact same set he played last year. |
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When I saw the lineup this year, I assumed it was a misprint and they had put up last year's again by mistake. I can't understand a festival having the same headliner two years in a row. Maybe if he had released new material in the meantime, but... that didn't happen. Not to mention you could probably bring 3 or 4 other world-class headliners for the same price.
I suppose it makes sense from a business perspective, I am always surprised at how many people that aren't really into trance or electronic music in general consistently come out of the woodwork to see Posford when he is booked.
I didn't make the journey for a variety of reasons but I hope everyone had a great time and made it down that road ok... it was pouring rain here when I was still considering going so I was concerned things would get grim, glad to hear the party still went off. cheers
  http://soundcloud.com/aeon604
http://www.metaekstasis.com/
http://the1134.com/ |
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sentient
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
16
Posts :
91
Posted : Sep 26, 2007 06:57
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On 2007-09-25 21:02, paradigm wrote:
It was alot of fun. Year after year the Sybiosis crew impresses me with the level of production.
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Yes, they do. Them and GoaPlay put on the best produced parties in NorCal, hands down. Symbiosis was the most pro and fun party I've been to in a while (bummer about the rain tho, but no one cared when Ott played!)
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Rinkadink was a bit on the dissapointing side, this time around. Not that it was bad, it was just not very different than the last time he played out this way....
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I didn't see his set in LA that time, but I loved his set. He played some new and some old, and had enough chunk for the night and plenty of melodies for the dancers. Killer, IMO.
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which brings me to Simon. Yawn.... no more please. Its always the same. Sphongle set was verbatim the exact same set he played last year. As for Hallucinogen in dub, on paper it looks like a fantastic idea, in practice not so much. Simon cant play guitar, he shouldnt even try.
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Have to disagree on this one. Yes, Hallucinogen in Dub wasn't amazing, but it was brilliant to see Simon, Ott, Youth and David (their drummer) play together and have a great time doing it. Simon is a good guitar player, but hadn't been able to practice for this show since the last time they did this live set, which was at Camp Bisco in early August. So yes, he was a bit crap on the guitar, but the music they put out and the show were super fun for me. I think SF could give Shpongle a miss next year, as we've seen him do his DJ set four times in the last two years.
But as for this Shpongle set being the exact same one verbatim, sorry but that's outright wrong. Sure he played a couple Shpongle hits like the DMT Dance Rmx and Dorset Perception, but he had a whole bunch of new Younger Brother tracks that were remixed to have a 4/4 beat as well as playing a couple more obscure Shpongle tracks too. And boring? Check out the crazy amount of happy dancing people on the dancefloor in photos and I think you'll find it to be less boring. Come on, L-Dawg, give a grin and less of a sourpuss! 
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now to be on the critical side a bit, not that i am dissing the deco or set up one bit, but this years, was just a variant on last years. Why not for next year, bring in a international deco crew like Tribe of Frog or something similar.
Totally re-do the set design and freshen it up?
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Sure! Do you have an extra $5,000 to spend on that? lol. I think it's a nice idea, for sure, but I also think that the Symbiosis guys put on a good enough event without needing to blow a bunch of money on international deco when there's great deco people here in California.
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It just naturally sucks when from a trancers p.o.v, trance at a event like this is the one that gets the short end of the stick
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yeah, it was a bummer, but this was only due to some artists not being able to make the event. otherwise, trance would have been fully represented for sure. Shit, the organizers may be making it a multi-genre party, but the $$ goes into the international psytrance acts for sure. Plus the main stage is psytrance on Saturday night, the main night. I think they have our interests in mind, dude, no worries on that front.
Looking forward to next year!!
Brian Petterson
DJ Sentient - (Alchemy Records) California
Email: soundofmind@gmail.com
http://www.myspace.com/djsentient
"Watching television is like taking black spraypaint to your third eye." - Bill Hicks |
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Magox
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
20
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2095
Posted : Sep 26, 2007 07:25
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I loved just about every minute of the event except when i was sleeping and that may have been only a few hours through out the whole festival.
Rink a dink played i thought a pretty good set, he really didnt play a lot of his trademark tracks, which i'm sure many people wanted, but he still played a really good power set, and i definitely kicked a lot of dirt during that time.
The Ticon set definitely imo kicked some ass, those guyz definitely know what their doing and i was pleasantly surprised to hear their set. I was thinking that there was going to be some cheese in the set, but NOPE, no cheese, nice progressive power. One of the better sets of the Festival.
I loved the Motion Soledad set right after, they put on some serious tracks with different sounds that i had never heard before, and i believe they played for 3 hours, and as the set progressed it became more psychedelicy sounding and i thought it was a really nice set.
Dnox- holy shizzy!!! I knew he was a first rate dj, but after hearing him play, i would have to say that he is probably one of the best DJ's i have ever heard. The guy is in total control, you could see he was just toying with everyone, he is a total showman that is for sure, had this mischievous looking face the whole time, but the explosion of sounds that he was able to share with everyone was just amazing. My friends and I just couldnt get over how awesome Dnox was. I really thought that i was going to hear some cheese, but i probably enjoyed his set as much as anyone's.
Treavor from moontribe rocked, the guy is really good, everytime i have heard him play he alwayz plays a different set, flawless.
Chromotone and Tryptich were really good, they got it going, i stomped to their music and enjoyed that a lot.
Simon Shpongle,  I have to disagree with the comment earlier, yes, they were all not prepared for the hallucinogen in dub set, and yes the guitars didnt sound that good, but when he did his shpongle set. Holy shit!!! For me, that is as psychedelic as it gets. Sounds that come from deep within. I havnt ever heard anyone produce sounds the way he does. Sounds that come from a madman, kinda like steven king, but only in music. I swear i felt like everything was in slow motion... I looked around and everyone i think was in slow motion, then things would come back to normal, just the way he loops his tracks and comes back and then changes it up, and then slows it down then comes back. He is truly amazing!!!! There is no one like him and i have a deep admiration for what he does.
And who would be able to compare to him to headline anyway? I was talking about that with one of my friends, and we were thinking, who would be able to replace him? it would be tough. I would be really happy to hear him again, and no he did not play the exact same set as last year, i went last year, and it was not the same set.
It was truly a psychedelic set
Telefon Telaviv played some kool stuff that i enjoyed. Majitope and Bluetech i enjoyed as well.
Really a great job by everyone involved.
I'll be there for next year, and i hope to sleep as little as i did this time  .
"On the path of spirituality, one ventures to vanquish one’s own faults rather than to judge others" |
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jds
Started Topics :
8
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384
Posted : Sep 26, 2007 18:54
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I posted up a totally random montage video here:
http://stage6.divx.com/user/jdsvids/video/1675305/Symbiosis-Gathering-'07
(Stage6 is DivX video hosting/sharing, the DivX player plugin that you're prompted to install is clean and quick.)
I got some random (poor sound) clips from the Sunday dawn sets (chromotone, ticon, d-nox). I'll post them up raw and unedited in a bit for anyone interested. |
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konflux
Konflux
Started Topics :
25
Posts :
811
Posted : Sep 26, 2007 22:34
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Saturnia
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
30
Posts :
174
Posted : Sep 26, 2007 22:58
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On 2007-09-25 23:31, Meta wrote:
I can't understand a festival having the same headliner two years in a row. Maybe if he had released new material in the meantime, but... that didn't happen. |
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A Younger Brother live performance would have fit the bill.
Sunday morning's line-up was perfect, in the fine tradition of past GOAplay / Symbiosis events. Ticon gave a fantastic performance playing their own material as well as their remixes of some of the best progressing electro tracks released in the last year.
D-Nox definitely was one of the highlights. He constructed a superb set with something for everyone, from minimal tech to pumping electro melodies, from old to new - even dropping mixes of Chemical Brothers and Moby! He was humorous and energetic, despite his mad tour schedule (Tokyo to Germany then Mexico and finally Symbiosis in the space of a week) and being hassled by the man (sadly Beckers was behind the jail bars in SFO customs Thursday night).
Customs and immigration blocked Entheogenic and had a few words with Youth, too.
The weather kept me from getting out most of Saturday night, though I could hear Chromatone rocking it from the Blue Oak camp!
Perhaps next year the line-ups could be staggered more to avoid total concurrence? I heard Liquid Stranger played a great set on the Porch, but Rinkadink had me locked-in to the Forest Stage.
I wasn't scheduled on the original line-up, so I was super stoked to have the opportunity to lay down some chillout tracks with Chlorophil on the Field Stage before the sheriff's department finally shut down the music at around 6am with a third (!) noise complaint. I don't recall noise complaints last year. What made the difference this time? Saturnia
http://www.facebook.com/saturnia.corybant |
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PsyCore
Started Topics :
4
Posts :
499
Posted : Sep 27, 2007 00:47
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@Saturnia
new redneck neighbors.
so... hasn't anyone heard of bribery? small towns without a lot of funding would be much more perceptive to it than you think... |
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Meta
Meta/Boomslang
Started Topics :
24
Posts :
1045
Posted : Sep 27, 2007 01:10
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I have always been under the impression that's what made the first & second Fusion festival possible at that location without interference, and just assumed the same thing was happening now. I guess not.
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On 2007-09-26 22:58, Saturnia wrote:
(sadly Beckers was behind the jail bars in SFO customs Thursday night).
Customs and immigration blocked Entheogenic and had a few words with Youth, too.
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...? What the fuck? What is going on with all of this? Why are so many people being stopped? Didn't they have travel visas? Why did some get through and some get stopped? As someone looking to play abroad soon this is relevant to my interests...
http://soundcloud.com/aeon604
http://www.metaekstasis.com/
http://the1134.com/ |
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mubali
Mubali
Started Topics :
71
Posts :
2219
Posted : Sep 27, 2007 03:12
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...? What the fuck? What is going on with all of this? Why are so many people being stopped? Didn't they have travel visas? Why did some get through and some get stopped? As someone looking to play abroad soon this is relevant to my interests...
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It's been my experience playing abroad that most other countries don't really care too much about why you're coming, because you're gonna spend money there no matter what. From what I understand, Canada has about as strict laws as we do about people coming into there, so make sure you have a good story. Spend a little time researching where you're going and make a little itinerary for touristy type stuff. The important thing about traveling abroad is that, 1. You know the name and address of where you're going to stay at. Even if that means booking a hotel room for one night, just to cover your bases. 2. Avoid it being obvious that you're coming to a certain country to earn money. Being from the states, I don't really know how difficult it is for people to get in, there's a lot of hoops you have to jump through for virtually everyone. You have to apply for the B-1 visa, and you will have to provide information such as the nature of your business and whatnot. Check the state department site about these things, you'll learn a lot on how difficult it is to get into any country as well as some interesting things on the Visa Waiver Program for visitors to the US from certain European Countries. Also if you are to apply for a visa, there is a $100.00 fee just to apply, then there's another cost depending on the country you're coming from to get the visa, as well as the event coordinators will have to submit their information about the "conference" as well to the state dept. That alone can make event coordinators a little squeamish about things.
One particular red flag would be the arrival time of people... If you can avoid flying in on a Thursday and maybe fly in on like a Tuesday or so, then it could raise less of an alert. Also appearances mean everything. An artist friend of mine got denied at immigration to England coming from Germany because he didn't have a good cover story, a round trip ticket, and he had blue hair with a midi keyboard in his bag.
Personally I've been very fortunate to never have any issues coming into any country (including Russia) [knock on wood] but I also make it a point to have all of my information and my story straight well in advance, so that my landing card is all filled out properly and that everything could be crosschecked if neccesary. It's important to make sure that the traveler has all of his proper information. I don't know what the situation was in that particular case for the artists in question, but it really helps to have a name and address of where you're going to be staying, and if you run across too many people using the same name and address, that's a red flag too. I'm not sure if the situation could honestly have been avoided, cause DHS and our immigration can be very strict, but if you already have a hotel room or an established staying arrangement and the appearance that you can afford to contribute to the tourism in the country, it'll raise less of an issue. Basically if it looks like you're there to spend money instead of make it, people are more inclined to let you into the country. If you look like a tourist, then you'll be regarded as one. Nothing like a little powdered rouge...
That being said, I've never been detained for any sort of issue entering a country. And I really hope it stays that way.
An Eagle may soar, but Weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. |
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Meta
Meta/Boomslang
Started Topics :
24
Posts :
1045
Posted : Sep 27, 2007 05:20
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Yeah, I've been held up going to Canada to play; I paid a $200 work visa fee that the promoter reimbursed me for. They took my money and let me go on my way... after booting my laptop and searching for child porn. (Really.)
I just wonder if it's really worth it for a promoter to save some money on a visa when these are the results. I mean, it sounds like everyone was bummed about the artists that didn't make it, but... imagine if Posford was the one that got held up. The hippies would have rioted.
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that our country charges some absurd highway robbery rate for a Visa that is one of the many factors that makes it nearly impossible to throw events here. Fucking fuck.
http://soundcloud.com/aeon604
http://www.metaekstasis.com/
http://the1134.com/ |
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Millie
Started Topics :
2
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11
Posted : Sep 27, 2007 06:00
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I could not help writing something as I had problems getting into the states myself...
I came from london, not for the festival, but for a job interview out in SF.
I flew via detroit and although I have travelled to the states before and have had no ploblems, the US officals gave me the worst experience of my life!
Having my emails read and being stripped seached was just a few things to of happended to me, I was almost afraid I was not going to make it for my interview!
The highlight, was making it to this festival after then having all my clothes stolen in a hostel in SF.
I turned up with nothing. Though, I felt I gained more, with the enormous generosity of the beautiful people, who gave me clothes to wear, food to eat and I even got given a tent, roll mat and a sleeping bag!
The music was fantastic! The hightlights were Ticon on the main stage and bumping into my friend Charlie Radcliff from London, which we both did not expect.
Thank you symbiosis for a beautiful experience and I have not been scared off from ever coming back to this country again.
I leave on saturday and am looking for a party in SF bay area on friday night if anyone can help?
Love and light.
Millia
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Saturnia
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
30
Posts :
174
Posted : Sep 27, 2007 06:24
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Symbiosis Gathering Afterparty Fundraiser
Thursday, September 27, 2007
9PM to 2AM
After an amazing weekend of arts, music and awareness we will get together to support the Symbiosis family in appreciation of their efforts to inspire and unite our community.
Ott (Twisted, U.K.) www.twisted.co.uk/artists/
Ott is a maverick genius sound engineering creature straight out of Lord of the Rings. One of the cave trolls maybe that ran in on a hobbit psy-trance party, ate too many inebriated hobbits and never quite got over
it! He has worked with countless producers and artists over the years and is a master of psychedelic sonic sorcery. He mainly writes down-tempo stuff as you would have heard on his album 'Blumenkraft' but he has also
been known to break into a trundle with a dancey Shpongle DMT Remix and more recently he has released a trance track on Unusual Suspects 2 under the name Hikimori. His second album is very nearly finished too. Coming soon on Twisted Records.
Plus Djs:
Pedro (Entheocentric Salon, Interchill) http://kymastream.com
James Christopher (LowPro) http://outlawjunglist.com
Majitope (Symbiosis, LowPro) http://majitope.com
DeeJay Om (Royale) http://myspace.com/deejayom
Ribotto & J-Tonal (Symbiosis, LowPro) http://lowprolounge.com
Info: symbiosisafterparty@gmail.com
Very limited capacity, so arrive early to ensure your entrance.
Price:
Sliding Scale: $10 to $20
Location:
Royale Bar 1326 Grant (between Vallejo St and Green St)
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 433-4247 |
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Esoteknic
Started Topics :
7
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47
Posted : Sep 28, 2007 03:19
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I was also a bit dissappointed with the small amount of trance and the large amount of downtempo/hihop stuff, and started a thread on it at tribe: http://tribes.tribe.net/symbiosisgathering/thread/2ec12444-7380-48a5-89b9-fe612c987ffa
I hope there'll be more trance next year, however I'm also thinking about visiting my friends and family in Holland, and then visit Europe's festivals instead.
That would mean missing Burning Man again, and since I've never been, I'm not yet quite sure what to do...
Well, I got some time to think about it.
Chromatone, Rinkadink and Soteg were my favourites I think, although I didn't keep up with the program once the psytrance finally started.
I LOVE these festivals!
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Meta
Meta/Boomslang
Started Topics :
24
Posts :
1045
Posted : Sep 28, 2007 05:14
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PsyCore
Started Topics :
4
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499
Posted : Sep 28, 2007 07:30
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ROFL!!!
yeah, but at burning man, all you have to do is bring a louder sound system. |
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