Two new mixes I've just completed in Kyiv, the first is called Homeless, and is more of an emo excursion around some deep and rolling tunes I've been listening to a lot lately. The second, Hateless, would have probably been my Masters of the Universe set if I'd played the last gig. It's pretty typical Masters stuff, starts optimistic and foot-loose, then climaxes in a bloody peak.
Here are links & tracklisting, enjoy.
Homeless
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ttykn7
Tracklisting:
Altair - Reminisce
Chris J - Planet Girl
Spectrasoul - Alibi
Adam F - Circles (Original Mix)
Spectrasoul - The Tube
Fracture & Neptune - Sky Song
Redeyes - Turn Around
DJ Vapour - Sharpside
Icicle - Minus
Ed Rush & Optical - Wormhole
Zero T - Goes Around
Utah Jazz - Runaway (Nu:Tone Remix)
Redeyes - Clapslap
Atlantic Connection - The Frighteners
Zero T - Go 4 Yours (Feat. Icicle)
Lynx & Ciah - Disco Dodo
Calibre - Alone In A Crowd
Zero T - Touch
Paul Simon - Homeless
Hateless
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oizuoi
Tracklisting:
Intro - Soul Transportation
Utah Saints - Something Good (High Contrast Mix)
D-Kay - Ill Teknique
Zen - Hovercraft
Futurebound & Brookes Brothers - Dawn Treader
M-Flo - Love Song (Danny Byrd Remix)
Zero G - 10 Times
Danny Byrd - Planet Music VIP (Feat. MC Foxy & Adroc)
>> Baron - Turn Up The Sun
Sub Focus - Timewarp
Spor - Unknown
DJ Samurai - Gospel Truth
Pendulum - Granite
>> ICS & Trevelyan - Exit One
>> Phetsta - Virtual Reality (Feat. Youngman)
Trei & Dose - The Other Part of Me
Moby - Alice (Noisia Remix)
>> Dieselboy - Midnight Express
Ghostface Killa - Charlie Brown (Yuksek Remix)
Outro - Soul Transportation
29/07/2008
01/07/2008
Now Available In Cannes
On the 14th June I visited the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival for the first time. Sadly not because I was about to run onto the podium and collect a gold lion, but because as one of the perks of being a Creative Director the network sends us there to be inspired, meet peers from more glamourous markets, and talk about work - a lot. After my trip to Ibiza for the EAME (Europe, Africa, Middle East) Creative Directors' conference, I had become acquainted with quite a few nice people from the region. It was nice to meet up with them again. It makes the whole gigantic advertising world seem like a small group of friends.
I had two pieces of work sent in to be judged this year. Neither of them made the shortlist, cue sour grapes and envy. But when you visit the festival, the screenings of the shortlisted TV commercials, the thousands of press ads, promo, direct and digital stuff, the sheer quality of it all makes you realise that you're looking at the absolute best the world has to offer. This is the Oscars of the ad world. It's quite inspiring.
The flight from Kyiv was as to be expected - with the same airline that kept me waiting in Barcelona airport for 6 hours while the plane I was to fly on bled fuel all over the runway (see facebook photos). We flew through Vienna to Nice on the same flight as Darko Skulsky, head of Radioaktive Film in Kyiv, who like many other producers was visiting Cannes to network and acquire business (come shoot in Ukraine, it's cheap, the girls are pretty etc.). Our transfer to Cannes from Nice was by helicopter. The taxi takes an hour, and costs over 100 euros, the helicopter costs 100 euros a head and takes 7 (seven) minutes. We boarded the chopper, lifted about 10 feet off the ground, and bang! Blasted out over the Mediterranean, around the coast, and landed in the tiny Cannes airport. What a laugh! It was like riding a roller-coaster. I'd never flown by helicopter before and i strongly recommend it. I'll upload pics and video of the flight on facebook.
The next and first full day in Cannes was unfortunately spent in a meeting room from 9am to 7pm. It's not often that everybody from our CEE mini-region gets together and quite expensive too, so we used the opportunity to sit down and talk about work all day. Being in a basement when it's 28º outside isn't a great look, but I managed to outline some of the initial things I'm doing in Kiev to make things better and it was pretty well received. Politics over, now to the party...
n.b. Cannes is not a cheap place. A small beer in the gutter bar will cost you 7 euros, a small shot of Vodka 15 euros, and the wine list starts at 70 euros. So I tried to hang around regional management and their glorious bottomless platinum credit cards and managed to avoid a wallet haemorrhage.
Met up with Peter Russell, the man from Brussels, for a glass (or two) of wine on the Croisette, we talked about Ian Dury and great ads, the sun shone, it all felt very rosé. I went out later with Ivor Jones, the CD from Moscow and one of my very favourite people in the network. Ivor's from Manchester and enjoys Moscow's similar qualities. I have no idea how he does it, I wouldn't live in Moscow for all the money in the world. Met up with an ex-girlfriend of his who used to work for Grey London at the beginning of the 90's and who I actually worked for when I was at my first job as a production assistant in London. Small world indeed.
Next day was the first chance I had to see some ads, so I gorged myself. I was on the jury of the Eurobest awards in 2004, and it was almost excruciating to sift through the piles and piles of work looking for the good stuff, so I sincerely appreciated that somebody else had gone to the trouble. Everything is presented beautifully and some of the work is just breathtaking. Here are links to some of my favourite stuff:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=McfJeL7GKTw
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ncCq6uSMK1U
http://www.canneslions.com/winners/film/win_2_2_02765.htm
http://www.canneslions.com/winners/film/win_2_3_04226.htm
The only award-giving ceremony we actually managed to see was TV & Cinema (everybody's favourite) we avoided massive queues by showing up late and blagging our way into the already full grand auditorium. I don't quite know how we did it, French security are notoriously stubborn, but we got lucky. Watched the ceremony from the steps at the top. It was very impressive. Powerpoint eat your heart out. I'll post videos from this on facebook shortly.
After the ceremony I went with Bartek (ex-CD of Kyiv), Michael (CD of Poland) and Anna (TV Producer, Poland) for dinner at a charming little eatery in the winding backstreets of Cannes, away from the madness. They showed us the catch of the day and I picked an attractive looking sea-bass, they cooked it, I ate it. Just as the bill was on the way Joe Pitka walked out of the restaurant, and I discovered the price of the fish. 98 euros. Bang. Where's my regional CD when I need his credit card?
We went on to the closing gala, a great party, and I chatted to some very important people who were actually totally normal and stayed up all night as the flight back was very early on Sunday.
Ogilvy CEE won one Gold Lion (for Ogilvy Kosovo's inspiring Newborn project) and two shortlists. Next year, I will bring back to Kyiv the first Lion ever awarded to a Ukrainian agency. Watch this space.x
I had two pieces of work sent in to be judged this year. Neither of them made the shortlist, cue sour grapes and envy. But when you visit the festival, the screenings of the shortlisted TV commercials, the thousands of press ads, promo, direct and digital stuff, the sheer quality of it all makes you realise that you're looking at the absolute best the world has to offer. This is the Oscars of the ad world. It's quite inspiring.
The flight from Kyiv was as to be expected - with the same airline that kept me waiting in Barcelona airport for 6 hours while the plane I was to fly on bled fuel all over the runway (see facebook photos). We flew through Vienna to Nice on the same flight as Darko Skulsky, head of Radioaktive Film in Kyiv, who like many other producers was visiting Cannes to network and acquire business (come shoot in Ukraine, it's cheap, the girls are pretty etc.). Our transfer to Cannes from Nice was by helicopter. The taxi takes an hour, and costs over 100 euros, the helicopter costs 100 euros a head and takes 7 (seven) minutes. We boarded the chopper, lifted about 10 feet off the ground, and bang! Blasted out over the Mediterranean, around the coast, and landed in the tiny Cannes airport. What a laugh! It was like riding a roller-coaster. I'd never flown by helicopter before and i strongly recommend it. I'll upload pics and video of the flight on facebook.
The next and first full day in Cannes was unfortunately spent in a meeting room from 9am to 7pm. It's not often that everybody from our CEE mini-region gets together and quite expensive too, so we used the opportunity to sit down and talk about work all day. Being in a basement when it's 28º outside isn't a great look, but I managed to outline some of the initial things I'm doing in Kiev to make things better and it was pretty well received. Politics over, now to the party...
n.b. Cannes is not a cheap place. A small beer in the gutter bar will cost you 7 euros, a small shot of Vodka 15 euros, and the wine list starts at 70 euros. So I tried to hang around regional management and their glorious bottomless platinum credit cards and managed to avoid a wallet haemorrhage.
Met up with Peter Russell, the man from Brussels, for a glass (or two) of wine on the Croisette, we talked about Ian Dury and great ads, the sun shone, it all felt very rosé. I went out later with Ivor Jones, the CD from Moscow and one of my very favourite people in the network. Ivor's from Manchester and enjoys Moscow's similar qualities. I have no idea how he does it, I wouldn't live in Moscow for all the money in the world. Met up with an ex-girlfriend of his who used to work for Grey London at the beginning of the 90's and who I actually worked for when I was at my first job as a production assistant in London. Small world indeed.
Next day was the first chance I had to see some ads, so I gorged myself. I was on the jury of the Eurobest awards in 2004, and it was almost excruciating to sift through the piles and piles of work looking for the good stuff, so I sincerely appreciated that somebody else had gone to the trouble. Everything is presented beautifully and some of the work is just breathtaking. Here are links to some of my favourite stuff:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=McfJeL7GKTw
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ncCq6uSMK1U
http://www.canneslions.com/winners/film/win_2_2_02765.htm
http://www.canneslions.com/winners/film/win_2_3_04226.htm
The only award-giving ceremony we actually managed to see was TV & Cinema (everybody's favourite) we avoided massive queues by showing up late and blagging our way into the already full grand auditorium. I don't quite know how we did it, French security are notoriously stubborn, but we got lucky. Watched the ceremony from the steps at the top. It was very impressive. Powerpoint eat your heart out. I'll post videos from this on facebook shortly.
After the ceremony I went with Bartek (ex-CD of Kyiv), Michael (CD of Poland) and Anna (TV Producer, Poland) for dinner at a charming little eatery in the winding backstreets of Cannes, away from the madness. They showed us the catch of the day and I picked an attractive looking sea-bass, they cooked it, I ate it. Just as the bill was on the way Joe Pitka walked out of the restaurant, and I discovered the price of the fish. 98 euros. Bang. Where's my regional CD when I need his credit card?
We went on to the closing gala, a great party, and I chatted to some very important people who were actually totally normal and stayed up all night as the flight back was very early on Sunday.
Ogilvy CEE won one Gold Lion (for Ogilvy Kosovo's inspiring Newborn project) and two shortlists. Next year, I will bring back to Kyiv the first Lion ever awarded to a Ukrainian agency. Watch this space.x
20/05/2008
Things that are different in Kiev...
The most exciting and compelling thing about being in a new place is discovering all the little practices and normalities that differ from those we are familiar with. Here's a list of a few things I've noticed about Kiev.
1. People don't drink in pubs.
On-trade alcohol is so expensive here that there is almost no pub culture. This is a big change from Prague, a city where people travel home from the pub and back, rather than the other way round. The way they do it here is, get dressed up, buy some booze from one of the many kiosks in the centre and sit around on a park bench or street and socialize in public. Drinking in public in most places is frowned upon, but here it seems to be the backbone of the nightlife. Whole streets are closed down on the weekend evenings and become huge street parties teeming with young socialites.
2. Cars are a man's home.
The cars in Kiev are huge. Really huge. When you see a Merc, it's an S600L, when you see a Lexus, it's a GS600h, when you see a BMW - you see a 760iL. All the cars, bar a few, have massive alloys, and a great deal of them are tuned to hell. Porsche Cayennes with carbon fibre hoods, lowered Range Rovers, AMG Mercs, Hartge BMWs, TechArt Porsches. As if these cars weren't fast and expensive enough. But the funniest thing about it all is that when they park up, usually after having run over several kids and broken the window of an expensive boutique, out steps a bloke who doesn't even look fit to clean the bloody thing. How did you come to afford that mate?
3. There are no corner shops.
None. None at all. If you want to pick up a few things on the way home, the only option is a whacking great hypermarket. And it's not as if there's a lot of them either. The nearest one to me is a kilometer away and I live slap bang in the centre. By contrast, if you want to nip out quickly to buy an gaudy, overpriced Louis Vuitton handbag, a new washing machine or a Porsche Cayenne, fear not my son, they're everywhere. How strange!
That's it for now, as I discover new strangeitudes I shall inform.
Peas.
18/05/2008
Alone but with a full fridge.
I just moved into my second place of residence in Kiev. The first one was really too expensive for the company and more of a gesture for my first few days here. It was very nice indeed but totally over the top. I'm now in a more down-to-earth place where I actually feel more comfortable. I never really feel at home when there's too much posh about the place.
This flat is more central, just 5 minutes from work and right in the centre. So hopefully I'll be able to do some walking about and get to grips with the geography of the place. I'm still not sure which way is north.
I went out to get some groceries at the supermarket down the road, because a home isn't a home without some food in it. I went a bit nuts and bought too much to carry forgetting I don't have any wheels yet. My hands are still shaking from the walk. Here's what I bought:
Orange juice, apple juice, smoked salmon, Щпикачки (Ukranian Salami), mushrooms, leeks, red onions, chives, cream, a selection of Ukranian variety beers, bottle of Русский Бриллиант vodka, Actimel, cheddar cheese, cambozola cheese, butter, honey nut cheerios, mezze penne tricolore, olive oil, black olives, Ahmad english breakfast tea, pistachios, dried spiced calamari, pesto genovese, salmon caviar and a kilo of carrots.
So, what am I gonna cook with that? Recipes please!
12/05/2008
Settling In
When I moved to Prague in 1993, the reaction of most of my family and friends was fairly suspicious and apprehensive. When I told many of my Czech friends in 2008 that I was moving to Kiev, they had a similar response.
Why are you going there? It's practically the USSR, full of criminals, mafia, thugs, corrupt businessmen.
The fact of the matter is though, Kiev has a certain magic about it that Prague did all those years ago. A sense of something big brewing under the surface, something wonderful about to happen.
Sure, Kiev is a mess. The buildings – though beautiful – are falling apart, the roads are ridden down, the drivers psychotic, there is evident poverty across the board, the wealth of the chosen few is excessive, a class difference similar to that which I saw in South Africa last year.
But it's got that je ne sais quoi that tells you; despite all the mess, this city has what it takes to make it.
I arrived here on Saturday morning, got picked up from the airport by a mute driver of a big Mercedes, who silently chauffeured me to my new place of residence. A ludicrously over-the-top executive apartments complex in a run-down area just off the city centre, near the state circus. It's a nice district though, perhaps a bit like Karlin in Prague, or Stoke Newington in London, where I grew up.
After I arrived, I was picked up by my MD and taken out to a long awaited lunch. The food on the plane was borderline inedible, so it was a welcome introduction to real Kiev cuisine. We chatted about the future and realities of the job, and after a couple of beers in the sun, I went back home and slept for 12 hours straight. It was a relief after all the build up to the move and endlessly saying goodbye to relax with a clean slate in front of me.
On Sunday I ventured on a nice long walk into the centre along Shevchenko Blvd. to a sports bar to watch the footy. On the way I stopped at one of Kiev's many bustling churches to have a look inside. I have never lived in a country where anyone cared about religion, and to be honest, I never really cared either. But the church was packed, people crossing themselves on the way in and out. It's nice to see that some people actually believe in something, however superfluous and superstitious it may seem.
After the footy I walked back and saw a guy begging whilst swigging a beer and noted his gall. I was impressed and gave the guy 50 Hryvnia (about 10 USD) for being a cheeky bugger. After all, being cheeky is what success in the modern world is all about innit?
Then this morning I got picked up and taken to work, where was thrust into what I can only describe as baptism by fire. These guys are seriously busy. I drew 7 press ads and wrote three scripts and didn't finish work until 9pm this evening.
Sitting in my flat now, I am trying to come to terms with life in a new country, a new city. But the people I work with seem cool, everybody's really friendly, and they are all doing their utmost to make me feel at home. I am a very lucky man and despite missing my family and friends deeply, I couldn't have hoped for a nicer start.
I have taken lots of photos which I'll be editing and posting up in the next few days.
Lots and lots of love to you all x
w
05/05/2008
The run off.
It's Sunday, half past midnight. Yesterday my daughter, Anna, turned 13, which means she's a teenager. Two days before that I proposed to my partner Liza, which means we're engaged.
This Saturday coming I move to Kiev, in the Ukraine, to take a job working for Ogilvy (who I work for in the Czech Republic). I will work there for two years, and for the first four months I will be alone. Liza and Anna will join me at the end of August.
I started this blog ahead of the biggest period of change in my life since moving to the Czech Republic in 1993. Back then things were pretty interesting, except that I can't exactly remember how. So this time I'm going to write it down.
I'm still not sure what to expect, and the first few months are going to be difficult without my family and friends.
I'll keep this blog updated, daily if possible, to let you know how things are going and how much I miss you. Simultaneously I'll be trying to see if a man can survive on vodka, dried fish and d&b alone.
This Saturday coming I move to Kiev, in the Ukraine, to take a job working for Ogilvy (who I work for in the Czech Republic). I will work there for two years, and for the first four months I will be alone. Liza and Anna will join me at the end of August.
I started this blog ahead of the biggest period of change in my life since moving to the Czech Republic in 1993. Back then things were pretty interesting, except that I can't exactly remember how. So this time I'm going to write it down.
I'm still not sure what to expect, and the first few months are going to be difficult without my family and friends.
I'll keep this blog updated, daily if possible, to let you know how things are going and how much I miss you. Simultaneously I'll be trying to see if a man can survive on vodka, dried fish and d&b alone.
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