barton's creative blog

Valentine Lyrics

barton@netspheres.net — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:00:00 GMT

A lot of people have written me and asked for the lyrics to valentine - here they are:

valentine
music and lyrics by barton
©1996 .netspheres. all rights reserved.
published by .netspheres music / PRS

morning comes along and i hear this song on a lonely street
a frozen moment of emptiness where we used to meet
glimmers of your love like rainbows from above are falling to the ground

i try to hold it back
my voice i hear it crack
can you hear me calling?

and will i see your face again?
you see the state i'm in
i cannot hide the pain i'm in,
can you understand?

and so the rain it turns to sky
rivers from my eyes
i pray that you'll come back one day
i hope and pray that...

and now the love is gone
how will i carry on?
and now the love is gone

day turns into night and i've lost the light to guide my way
nothing can become when belief is gone - the decayed remains
i stared into the sky it seems that love has died, is darkness all that matters?

try to hold it back
my voice i hear it crack
can you hear me calling?

and will i see your face again?
you see the state i'm in
i cannot hide the pain i'm in,
can you understand?

and so the rain it turns to sky
rivers from my eyes
i pray that you'll come back one day
i hope and pray that...

and now the love is gone
how will i carry on?
and now the love is gone

FORMATIVELY yours

barton@netspheres.net — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:00:00 GMT

I'm very happy to announce that FORMATIVE, my ninth solo release and first full-length album, is available on CD. The digital release is imminent, but for those of you who like jewel cases, album art, and liner notes, this is the format for you.

FORMATIVE is a collection of songs I wrote and completed before the release of TONIGHT in 2004. An excerpt from the liner notes say it best:

The recording artists that have moved me the most over the years are those who are somehow able to write and produce songs that, regardless of when they are played, don't sound dated and continue to reflect something consistent about the artist. As long as I can remember, I have held my work as a singer, songwriter, and producer to that standard.

When I recorded these songs, between 1994 and 2002, I was still very unsure of my music, probably due to years of insecurities and because I did not immediately attract world attention nor did I have the experience of having a flurry of A&R people try to sign me to their labels. Yet since the release of later material I have written and produced, starting with TONIGHT in 2004, I've come to see, often through the comments of others, that many of these early, formative songs, stand as a historical record that when I am moved to write and produce music, something timeless does happen.

In this blog post, I wanted to go through the songs that I selected for this, my first real full-length album release and share with you a little bit about each one.

Funny (How Things Change): This is the only real cover I’ve ever done that I am in any way satisfied with, because I was able to take the song and reinterpret it in a way that is completely my own. The song is a D-Influence track from their groundbreaking 1992 album Good For We. My across-the street-neighbor at the time, Marts Andrups, who had always helped me with my musical aspirations, played the song for me in April of 1995 suggesting I go in this direction. I remember the moment I heard the song I got goosebumps because the lyrics told a story about a truth of life experience. My reinterpretation of the song took it in a very different direction from the original, but to me, this was what the song was always about - the way that things change and our memory is what we hold on to as a token of what whe experienced. Marts died on my birthday that year, so this song was always, for me, a testament to my memory of him, of his wonderful spirit.

Taker: This song is interesting - I finished it in 2001 and wrote it out of an experience I had with a friend who I felt betrayed me. I had not written anything for a couple of years, and this is the first thing that came out. The song is also notable in that I started to experiment with a more BARTON-recognizable vocal style with the wall of my background vocals framing the lead. There is a lot of power in this song, and while it was partially an expression of frustration and anger, more importantly, it speaks to a notion of universal justice that I see all around me in my own experience.

Valentine: I love this song. It was the first time I ever sat down and consciously tried to write a pop song. It is from the 1995 period, and the inimitable Kathy Sledge was kind enough to do the vocals on it, which was an amazing experience for me. I remember when she came in and recorded her vocals; I could not believe how perfect everything sounded on the first take. Every time. Seeing talent like that gives one something to shoot for. Valentine is about love regretting its loss. As I am with most themes, even when I write about something sad or tragic, I always try to see the bright side, so the chorus ends up happy, with the line “…and so the rain, it turns to sky”, always hoping for a positive outcome and looking toward the future.

Waiting: A simple song, also from the 1995 period, written as a musical mobius strip that expresses a sense of longing and isolation, two of my most endearing qualities. Imagery was stressed here in the lyrics of the verses, but despite my attempts at abstraction, I still come through, revealing myself once again.

Time To Go: Part of the 1995 group, this song was another exploration in feelings I had inside myself. More prophecy than I realized at the time, having written the song when I was happily in a relationship, I remember walking to the airport after having broken up in a strange and sudden sort of way, and was listening to music. This song came on. At the time it made me very sad to be writing my own soundtrack, and a sad one at that, so I vowed not to write sad songs any more in the vain hope that this would keep anything bad from ever happening to me again. Since then, I've heard other songwriters I admire, like Neil Young, acknowledges that songs he has written become “show tune(s) for my movie”, where the movie is his life. I guess it's just part of the playing field when you write songs about your feelings.

Presence: Another in the 1995 group, this was written about a former boyfriend I had that died. Despite the sober subject, it’s not a sad song, focusing instead on the way that people in life impress themselves on you indelibly. My dear friend Felix Howard sang background vocals on this track and I really enjoyed having him be part of this song. It came out very rich, and I especially like the strings that refer to a more classical genre.

Laura: This was a birthday present to my sister on her birthday of 1996. I sang it at her party and messed up the lyrics. Despite this, I still like the song. It talks about possibilities, how we really can be what we want, and how the choices and changes in our lives are the pivot points where our dreams can become real.

Intention (Micky Mix): This was one of the first songs I wrote - co-wrote actually - with Mark White - who was really a significant part of my growth as a technical musician who used synthesizers. I still use an Roland MKS-80 because Mark had one and I love the bass sounds it makes. The song is what the title says it is about. The mix was done by a friend, Micky, in Ladbroke Grove, who I have long lost touch with. The background vocals were done by a session musician named Maxine Gilmore.

Catch Me: This was written in 2001 and I wrote and recorded the whole thing in one sitting. The song was written for my former partner Bruce because he always did everything he possibly could to take care of me and make me feel protected. This is a song I wrote to acknowledge that care.

Love Once Shared: This is another very early track, from the 1995 series. The song is very young, and overdramatic even for my taste, but listening to the song now, there is an earnestness and honesty in the lyrics that is inescapably compelling.

Intention (3AM Mix): This is another mix of intention where I co-produced the mix with Micky. I like this mix a lot.

Valentine (Harvey’s 12” Mix): Closing the circle here, when I was friends with Marts, he had a record company named Narcotic. Heidi Lawden was his assistant, and am amazing talent in her own right. Heidi was managing DJ Harvey at the time and we produced this track at a ”proper” studio. Rollo was in the studio at the same time, and I was completely intimidated, but the mix, 12-13 years later, still holds its own. Harvey and I wanted to style the mix as a “sleaze” track, and I think we hit the mark.

As I Sit Here Floating Gently in the Sky

barton@netspheres.net — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:00:00 GMT

This is genre of blog entry I rarely indulge in: the revealing disclosure. But I have been silent for more than a year on this blog, and some explanation is in order.

As I sit here floating gently in the sky, just making landfall to North America, my fingers are “itchy” to type these words. I have not felt this in a long while and have been waiting for this feeling for a long time.

I am flying back to San Francisco from Berlin, watching the longest sunset one can possibly imagine, one that reeks of California even from here on the Northeastern tip of Canada. The flame red hue banding the edge of the hemisphere I now speed toward, speckled with cloud, dotted with overtones of purple and yellow, diffuses into an innocuous baby blue. And it is getting lighter, as if morning is coming, though I know I am merely crossing the wake of coming nightfall.

I am happy, and happier than I can recall having been in recent memory. Optimistic always, but truly satisfied and happy is not something I have been able to attest to. And while I started off writing this entry with the idea that I wanted to share some of my observations about the German language that I am just beginning to gain a functional understanding of (and I will get to this), it is time to give an update on what is happening with my music, which, as you may or may not realize, is a result of what is happening with me.

I have been in what I would call a “musical hibernation” for little more than a year now. Through this time of gestation, I’ve come to understand that I am one for whom there is little separation between who I am and what I do. I am chameleon-like and can appear to be many things, but above all else I am about making dreams that are meaningful, both to those I care about and myself, come true, through feelings, ideas, communication, and action.

While I have been dormant, I have focused instead on other aspects of my life; my strategy and technology consulting practice, Luminous Group, and research into how to bring an interdisciplinary approach to the explore the relationship between strategy, organization, and process, all of which has been fruitful.

This hinter time began with some revelations, or rather, admissions. I realized that I had been deluding myself, and in the process, others, about what was possible regarding my relationship with Charlie Rogers. Charlie was a catalyst for many things in my life in many ways. But it became apparent to me slowly over five years we shared a close relationship that there were some fundamental incompatibilities and patterns of interaction that served neither of us beyond the initial catalytic stage, and I was just too stubborn to admit it.

Sometimes dreams die, and for my former domestic partner Bruce and I, this was October, 2007. This was the time at which I chose to end my relationship with Charlie was also the point I chose to end my relationship with Bruce. I’m still often haunted by that choice, because despite the fact that I know in my heart that the relationship was not right, I still feel a deep connection to Bruce that I carry with immense pride. I am grateful to have that. Bruce and I were together for 10 years and had many wonderful experiences together, but the upshot of what I felt at that time was that I knew that neither experience – neither Charlie nor Bruce was the right choice for my life going forward - so I did something radical. I ended both relationships simultaneously in order to start fresh. Except that the truth is you can’t really start fresh – nothing in our human experience is completely new once we’ve oriented to time and space, happiness and pain.

I took a risk – the kind of risk that historically I have avoided – the kind that potentially leaves me alone. I knew from past experiences what I did not want and what I liked much better than before and like it or not, life is an ongoing process of trial and error in at least a few areas of anyone’s life. Sure, some people shore up risk by taking fewer chances, but not taking chances, not acting, accepting things just as they are and not moving things toward some idea of what we would like life could be like, but as you may have already surmised, that is not the approach I choose.

It was like taking a double-edged pruning blade to both my arms. In a single decision, I lost the stability of my primary relationship, and any time I tried to even think about doing anything closely related to making music, I simply could not. It was too closely associated with Charlie. It hurt. And while I am sure I could have written many sad songs about this, I learned early on that songs I write and produce hold strong relation and relevance to what I continue to live in my life. “Be careful what subjects you write about...”, I warn myself, having had the dubious privilege of watching songs I wrote transform into haunting soundtracks of my own life.

“Don't Stop”, which commercially, for a number reasons did not have the expected escalated impact of its predecessor “To Call My Own” despite the fact that it is one of my strongest songs, is particularly biopic. It even sports a video that documents the demise of the relationship between Charlie and myself, to which I can fully attest that neither Charlie nor myself were consciously considering such a direction at the time of the filming. It just came out that way, a sort of subconscious expression of how things really were before we could truly admit it ourselves.

I have always come to music with joy, and to lose that joy renders the making of music pointless for me. To sit in front of paper and write words, to feel them flowing through me, to sing spontaneously and feel a melody within me, to let something move me and appear as a song, to hear sounds dance spatially in my head; that is the high point of making music for me, and to wallow in sad feelings, regardless of how attractive that might appear, as a price to pay for making Art is not of interest to me. So I decided to wait until the good feeling came back.

It is a year and two months later now. And it is interesting what happens when you leave yourself no options.

Looking back, I find it ironic that within a few weeks of making my “big decision”, I did in fact meet someone with whom I started a correspondence about Art, who happnes to make very beautiful photographic Art, and who lives very far away from San Francisco in a land I had only briefly visited: Germany. A land of fairy tales, castles, old customs, strong will, and great pride. When the correspondences turned into phone calls the idea of visiting each other came up. “Sure Felix, I’ll come visit you in Germany”, I heard myself saying, thinking at the time how very foolish I was to be considering a 6,000 mile visit to someone I hardly knew. But I went with it. After all, I thought, wasn’t this the whole reason I had cut my arms off in the first place? So that I could try things like this freely?

And after that first visit in February 2008, while we both knew that something magical had happened, I tried (in a manner which I can sincerely say is very much against my nature) my best to keep the pace of our romance under some control. But by June, we came to a clear decision: we wanted to get married.

Now, I’ve been in long-term relationships before, but somehow being married to another man seemed a bit silly to me, and truthfully, when the subject had come up in the past, it made me nervous. I don’t feel that with Felix. I think we met at a time when we were both ready for a step like this.

And it is funny to me that at this particular point in time that the idea of getting married should suddenly become so relevant to me and simultaneously be such an issue in California – and American politics. Isn’t it fascinating that even if we could get married in California that this would not give Felix the right to live and work in America, yet Germany (and 20 other democratic countries in the world) freely offer the right us to enter into a legally recognized union that includes the right for me to live and work in the EU.

I am not getting married in order to make a political statement – but the current political climate environment makes me especially proud to be getting married in a way that says, “I don’t need my country to approve of my choice. I’ll go to another country where I am more welcome”. And believe it or not, we all have these kinds of choices.

Felix and I are planning to have ceremonies in Berlin and in CA. The CA ceremony is set for June 2009 – the Berlin ceremony will likely happen sometime before this, and I am planning to relocate to Berlin in the next year.

It’s even brighter outside now and I am looking forward to landing in San Francisco, getting to my apartment in the Castro, settling in, and getting a good night’s sleep…

Because tomorrow, I am going to my abandoned music studio and cleaning house. I have a significant amount of material that I have sat on since the mid-1990’s that has never been publically released because I have chronically fallen prey to “I do not believe in myself” syndrome. My first order of business: the release of “FORMATIVE”, a collection of work I did before the release of “Tonight” in 2004 and which I still very much enjoy. And on the heels of that, I am announcing that the next BARTON single, “On The Beach”, which is going to be the closing chapter of an album that represents the collection of work I did with Charlie entitled “LESSONS LEARNED”.

I have no time frames at this moment, but wheels are now set into motion. I am alive and happy again, my fingers tingle, my eyes sparkle, and I am very, very happy to be in this world and be able to make contributions to it that are there to uplift, stimulate thought, question, and lead by example.

There's no stopping it now...

barton@netspheres.net — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 08:00:00 GMT

The past couple of weeks have been an absolute whirlwind of activity for me. It is an irony that in the release of Don’t Stop it feels to me as if more obstacles have come up in its release than any other. I am keenly aware that I was perhaps the greatest obstacle and I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the amazing and supportive team of collaborators & music industry people who have worked tirelessly to help move this project forward to its ultimate release to you, the world-at-large. I always want everything to be so perfect, and this song has been a great lesson in letting go (a lesson I am constantly learning). I am so lucky to work with such talented people - the remix artists on this release are all so different and each has something unique to say in their interpretation of Don’t Stop. Jaimy, Josh Harris, and Manny Ward - thank you for working with me.

We shot our video in two days and Charlie did an amazing job both directing and editing the video over a single weekend. Our dear friend Kurt assisted at the shoot and it was really a wonderful experience, as we have become a family of sorts. I am deeply grateful for the talent and artistry that the people who have helped me to project an image I feel represents the music we are expressing: Emily Kern, Gino Norris, and Melinda Cazarez. I knew something shifted when, at the end of the second day of shooting, both Charlie and Kurt congratulated me on my performance. The experience was an analog to something I felt years ago in my vocal recording process where I could feel the feeling of my words going onto the recording medium. I experienced that same feeling in the performance for this video. It was real, natural, unrehearsed...just a natural expression of what the song feels like inside of me. I venture to say that it means more to me than anything to create something that has both feeling and meaning, and with this release, I can feel that I have crossed over to a new place in my artistic expression.

More than anything, I am just filled with an intense sense of gratitude for a life where I get to do so many different things, music and performance among them. As self-produced artists who do this entire thing on our own, I feel great pride in our work, what we are representing, and look forward to what is to come.

Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap

barton@netspheres.net — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 08:00:00 GMT

Some songs are deeply personal and yet address experiences we all go through, creating an environment for the listener to experience their own feelings intensely. Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” is one of these. It is a song about a person involved in a moment in time where she becomes aware that someone else is breaking up with her, apparently brought on by a decision from the other person.

We start in Imogen’s head asking “Where are we?”, as if waking from a dream, hearing her voice in a mixed with a vocoder, with thoughts of disorientation and the key line “sinking feeling”. Whether we heard all of the words or not, if we heard that phrase, it is something we can all identify with.

Her incredible sense of description, blending metaphors of movement with a sense of awareness that something completely personal is happening within a larger world where this one event is completely invisible. There is also a beautiful reference to the way we makes things, like “trains and sewing machines” more important than our “blood and tears”, but ultimately recognize that it is the latter which is the source of our experience.

The transition toward the end where she is actually speaking to the other person who is rejecting her is even more powerful. When she acknowledges to the other person that they “only meant well”, giving the benefit of the doubt, so beautifully reveals a lovely character of grace while simultaneously showing an anger and powerful assertiveness, reminding the other person that they “decided this” along with an increased tempo and slightly different melody than the rest of the song, bringing it to a climax. We then retreat back into Imogen’s head, where she is clearly hurt, where she makes an assortment of observations that whatever the other person is saying is of little value and that they “don’t care a bit”.

Most listeners will not take the time or trouble to look at the song in this depth, but instead will simply enjoy the way in which the simple vocal presentation with ever-present vocoding adds an element of emotional context, as if the melodic portion of the vocoder is simply an emotional extension of her own words.

Few songs give me goosebumps and cause tears well up in my eyes. What a beautiful work of art this is.

Closer To Me

barton@netspheres.net — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:00:00 GMT

I wanted to begin sharing some of my perceptions about music that I have been listening to recently that has been particularly inspiring to me.

One track that never fails to compel me is Chab's "Closer To Me (Alex Neri Vocal Mix)". Note the vocals are by JD Davis, not Alex Neri. The track's slow build and highly syncopated rhythmic intro gives the listener so many choices in the dance moves they might choose to act upon, a choice I feel is basic to a good dance track. There is a sense of mechanism and power that emerges with the arpeggiated synth that cuts through at about 1 1/2 minutes and carries the entire song with its melodic line. The line itself is the hook of the song, threatening to veer downward in its melodic line but ultimately rising to the higher octave. It comes across as a statement of ultimate persistence and optimism to me. It's how I feel when I am unstoppable - I know that all I need to do it keep going, relentlessly, into what may appear to be darkness because what I know that what I will eventually find there is light.

The vocal elements are clear and to the point, layered in double-octave format, similar to the way we do our vocals. We took the cue on this from Eurythmics, whose layered vocal approach strongly inform our work. JD's higher octave vocal is lower in the first repetition of the verse, only to gain strength and intensity in the second, again, bringing home the point of ultimate release. All he wants is to be with this other person. It is his single desire.

The choruses abate into a gentle pad/organ-like rolling swirl or stereo-tremoloed that gently lowers the listeners intensity without being disturbed in any way. As the beat subsides, around 5 1/2 minutes, the gentle swirls are left in the clear, only to introduce another higher-register arpeggiation that is much more cyclical in nature, adding great tension when the original arpeggiated bassline comes back in, again, underscoring the cyclical nature of our experience.

The song, like our own "Don't Stop", explores that range of feeling which borders on obsession, that feeling of intense power and pleasure that emerges from an intense physical and emotional connection where the experiencer wants nothing but the object of its desire.

To close, the chorus is repeated once again in two repetitions, with the second repetition revealing JD's yearning just as before, with the arpeggiated bassline once again taking control and fading away back into the beat we started with.

It is no accident that many parts of this track sound like the Giorgio Moroder soundtrack to "American Gigolo". The arpeggiated bassline and rolling swirls were central to the production style between Morodor, Harold Faltermeyer, and Keith Forsey, but have been beautifully reintroduced into a more modern arrangement. Works like this thrill me because they underscore the fact that many of the foundational elements of disco, while over 30 years old, are still fundamental to cutting-edge dance music today. It also gives artists like me greater latitude to spread their disco-wings.

We're looking for a good record company

barton@netspheres.net — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:00:00 GMT

We've decided to wait on the release of our next project "Don't Stop" in order to find a record company to work with who can help us with the marketing and promotion of our work.

"Don't Stop" is a great song and we really want it to reach a much broader audience than our previous singles so have taken the decision to wait on the release.

It has been really amazing to do all of this ourselves for the past four years, but the time has come to take things to a new level. Charlie has some great video ideas, and if we are going to shoot a video, I want to know with certainty that it will be seen. Sometimes you have to hold off in life for the things you want for them to come to you. This is one of those times.

Letting Go

barton@netspheres.net — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 08:00:00 GMT

Our next single, entitled “Don’t Stop” is just about ready to be released. We have some great mixes by Josh Harris, Jaimy, Manny Ward, and ourselves. The only real thing now between us and a release is the video, which we have not shot yet.

This release has been somewhat of a departure for me in terms of how I manage it. Normally, control freak that I am, I try to plan out every aspect. Instead, with this release I have been much more allowing and relaxed about the whole thing. I am so confident in the song and the mixes that I know the song will do well. There is a lot of passion in this one and I think that is something people pick up on in the music.

A big step for me in this “letting go” process was our decision not to attend the Winter Music Conference in Miami this year. Instead, the artists who worked with us on remixes this time: Josh Harris, Jaimy, and Manny Ward, who did attend, as well as our beloved promoter Sergio Goncalves, gave out the first wave of promos. The feedback we have gotten back so far is amazing.

Charlie and I will be planning out the video later this week and I am sure that what we end up producing will be a perfect match to our fourth single.

The Perfectionist

barton@netspheres.net — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 08:00:00 GMT

I have wanted to write a blog entry for several months now, but each time I move toward actually doing it, this voice inside of me holds me back. I guess I am not really a very good blogger as I don’t have a particularly strong desire to share a lot of information with people. I read many other people’s blogs and find it so interesting that many people want to share so much, so often. I suppose I am focused more in other areas.

This year has been a particularly powerful year in terms of achievement and challenges for me personally. I have been very hesitant to break the veil that I am so comfortable with, projecting my eternal optimism into the world. While much of the lyrical content I produce has to do with themes of personal empowerment and a positive attitude, this past year I have experienced much less of the experience that I write about than I care to admit.

I often remark to my musical partner Charlie how ironic it is to me that I am capable of writing a song like TONIGHT, whose lyrical content is all about deciding in your own mind how you want your life to be, creating that, experiencing that and being that – yet, in my own personal life, I struggle to live up to the ideal of my own idea. Sometimes I think that the song came through me to teach me about its meaning. I am still learning.

Yes, I guess that it is the issue. I have visions in my mind about everything, from the way a song should sound to the way my life should be working out. When my experience does not meet up with the vision, I often feel dissatisfied. And in this year, where we have achieved our first national radio #1, produced a great video for which we continue to receive constant praise for and I have completed my master’s degree in interdisciplinary computer science, I have somehow found myself at what I think is the most miserable I have ever been in my life.

Neither achieving a number 1 has nor earning my master’s has degree created exactly what I had in mind. But, as with most things, one day, maybe 6 weeks ago, something clicked and I realized how amazingly lucky I truly am to be able to simultaneously pursue so many things in this life and actually produce results that are acknowledged by others. I have started to open myself to the idea that maybe; just maybe, my idea of what things should look like is not the right one. Maybe the way things are is perfect for me and my growth. Even if I am wrong, I can tell you this is certainly a much better mental perspective from which to mine the opportunities that will form my future.

I am very lucky to have such good friends and family in my life to support me as I have faced my own perfectionist this year. I am happy to report that I have come to a point where I now recognize that I am right where I wanted to be in my life. No, it is not as easy as I might have imagined, but when I really think about it, I know I did not want it to be easy. I am not the kind of person who enjoys being catered to but instead enjoys the experience of creating things myself. As I write this sentence now, I can once again feel the force of TONIGHT in me, running through me, reminding me that I can (and do) make up my mind about what I want to see.

What's new? Our first (national) radio interview, Amsterdam, Manny's new single...

barton@netspheres.net — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 07:00:00 GMT

Our first radio interview airs this week on SIRIUS radio this weekend. Charlie and Manny and I flew to New York recently where we were interviewed about all sorts of things, including how we make music together. It still seems very surreal to me, but I am very happy we have been given these opportunities to present who we are as artists to the world in a broader fashion.

Then next week we head off to Amsterdam for the Amsterdam Dance Music Event, Europe's largest dance music conference. We have a very full schedule and are very excited about being able to go to this conference. In Europe, the dance market is seen as much more important than it is in this country, so we are very excited about the opportunities we will be presented with there. It is also an interesting coincidence that I really started making music in 1992 in Amsterdam, living there for about 3 months. It is a very special city to me, and I am so happy to be able to go and visit again.

In addition to our material, we will also be bringing promo copies of Manny's new single, entitled "The Cycle", which features vocals by Danny "Buddha" Morales. We did one of the mixes for Manny and I am very proud of the work. It is very nice to work on something other than our own material and see what happens when we apply ourselves to someone else's music. I am looking forward to more opportunities in that area.