I knew it would take something rather monumental for me to get back on the horse and start another Holologic after it’s been-what, over a year?

While I was blown away by the hospitality of Moalla Amine and his friends in Tunisia, the 48 hour JFK-Tunisia-JFK run just didn’t afford me the ability to gain as much of a sense for the country and it’s people as I would have liked. I hope to find a way, as times goes on, to articulate the frenetic reality of the trips in which the time spent flying outweighs the time spent on the ground in the destination city. Although commonplace for most DJs at the top of their game, I found that nearly everyone I interacted with in the “real world” made no secret of the sheer lunacy they felt these endeavors represented.

Luckily for me, my 6 days in Costa Rica were nothing short of epic. In every way I could have wanted the trip to excel, it did. And with the exception of the nearly three hour set I played at Vertigo in San Jose, the trip’s success was 100% due to the truly outstanding job my good friend (and now Latin American manager) Francis Vincent did of putting together an amazing party and comprehensive sampling of the, food, sights, and people that Costa Rica has to offer.

It began the morning of Thursday, November 19th when, after rolling over to turn off my alarm clock and reminding myself I was going to sleep in Costa-fucking-Rica that evening, the Today Show on NBC told me to expect massive delays and cancellations due to an FAA computer error that was wreaking havoc on the country’s airports. Subsequently, I checked into my Delta flight that connected to San Jose through Atlanta online and was alerted that while my flight had been cancelled, they’d taken the liberty of booking me on something that left the following day…at 6:10am….out of Newark.

A quick call to an outsourced customer service representative who’d clearly never found himself in a position such as mine was of little help. My only hope, he said, of getting to Atlanta was to tear-ass to the airport and hope the flight scheduled to depart at 12:48pm was delayed significantly enough for me to be allowed to board. The time was now 11:47am and Newark, on a good day, was 35 minutes and $80 away by cab. I’m a big fan of the “Where there’s a will there’s a way” mentality and didn’t want to accept that I was going to lose a night of my vacation to some nebulous computer problem. I ran down the street, grabbed the first cab I saw and was off.

From the back seat of the cab I looped my mom in on what was afoot as she was the only one on earth who’d send flight status text updates my entire ride to the airport. While the flight was ultimately bumped back to 1:15pm, the cab didn’t arrive until 12:49pm. I walked to the check-in desk, and waited patiently(on the outside) to speak to a lady in a bright red, ill-fitting and entirely out of uniform Delta T-shirt. In my experience, when the shit hits the fan, the airlines put all hands on deck and bring out the more executive staff from the back offices to lend a hand. I’ve seen these individuals make far more industrious moves with regards to rebooking flights, surprise upgrades and, at worst, tempering the bad hand you’ve been dealt with a reasonable consolation. What also added to my optimism was the fact that I overheard her mention Continental. Continental is the only airline with direct service to San Jose out of the New York area and despite being my first choice for the trip, was significantly undercut by Delta’s rate. Long story short, she put me on Continental 1796 with service to San Jose and I settled into a 4.5 hour wait at the airport without a charger or my Macbook.

Any packing checklist worth its salt should include your laptop’s power cord no matter how obvious you think it’ll seem to you at the time. What led insult to injury, in my case, was that my list DID include the power cord and my (also forgotten) hair product. But when a man named Tom with a thick Indian accent tells you to “run,” certain things, like the aforementioned items and the list on which they were written, quickly pale in significance to passport, wallet and CDs. The important thing, I kept telling myself as I tried to occupy my time with phone calls and blackberry messages, was that I was going to sleep in Costa-fucking-Rica…

For the most part, the flight was uneventful, although it’s never a good sign when the man sitting at the end of your row goes to the bathroom for 30 minutes and leaves a bag overflowing with cold medication and prescriptions written in Spanish wide open on his seat. Props to “Johnny” from Continental for hooking up a few Coronas gratis AND for having an apron that reflected his namesake in cursive over the image of a vintage airplane in the background.

Costa Rican customs took a decidedly forward approach to going through my bags when I arrived. Although I panicked a bit when they laid out my headphones and gigantic CD booklet, the real alarm set in when they found a pocket full of Holosound business cards rubber-banded together in my carry-on. Generally, I’m low-key about travelling without a work-visa and, if there is a perk about not being universally recognized for your craft, it’s that this is a generally safe predisposition to have. In addition to being safe, it’s also one mandated by necessity, as a work visa requires additional money being spent on your behalf by the promoter. In my music career, I’ve been way more prone to role the dice at customs than lose a gig on account of the extra $ and hassle acquiring a temporary work visa represents. Apparently, this time, they thought I had something far sketchier than dance music in my luggage and upon finding I was not importing drugs or exotic reptiles they let me through.

Like clockwork, my man Francis was waiting for me as soon as I exited the airport and we took off to the Barcelo San Jose Palacio where I was going to be staying. We threw my bags in the room and went out to sample some local Cervezas. Essentially there are three main beers brewed in Costa Rica: Imperial, Pilsen & Bavaria. Imperial is awesome and seems to be the beer most sold around the country. Pilsen is also tasty but a bit lighter in color and taste. Bavaria is gross. I guess there are different versions of Bavaria and it’s marketed to an older demographic, but if you ask me, Bavaria blows.

The next day, Friday, I spent mostly getting music and samples together in my hotel room. Francis had to work and I was more than content to rest a bit and get situated. At one hour behind EST, travel from NYC requires little adjustment to your circadian rhythm and for a place that feels a world away, Costa Rica isn’t tough to get used to.

At around 4pm Francis grabbed me and we headed to the airport to pick up the Li twins, Ann and Joy, who were also Francis’ guests and would be our company for the next 5 nights. He brought us to a local restaurant at the top of a mountain overlooking the entire San Jose basin with amazing steak, plantains, rice and beans and Chilean wine.

Saturday morning, Francis arrived at the hotel in his third car of the trip, a turbo-diesel Jeep Wrangler that would serve as our vehicle for the afternoon. We picked up a friend of his and began a 45-minute, off-road ascent up one of the many mountains surrounding San Jose. As we reached the top of the road, it was hard to tell whether a heavy fog was rolling in or if we’d driven into the belly of a cloud. The hills were extremely lush and although I’d seen several cattle on the drive up, the summit offered a pleasant view of a horse grazing beside some cows that were lying down-presumably as a result of the dense fog/cloud we all found ourselves in.

Finding myself surrounded by extremely green valleys and forests, in the company of cows and at least one horse, I remembered-and strongly disagreed with-disparaging comments friends had made about my spending time in San Jose. This wasn’t “just another dirty city” as they’d suggested and while the beaches and jungles of Costa Rica do offer an even richer sampling of what the country has to offer-I live in New York and this shit was fantastic!

Saturday Night: Game Time. Francis and the Li’s swung by my hotel room, just as I was exiting the shower, I ran through some T-Shirt options and we were out the door. We ate at a local Italian spot that was really fantastic and I settled into a responsibly paced, yet comprehensive, assessment of Imperial. We hit up a small local bar where we were the only gringos to be found, and after about an hour, shoved off for Vertigo.

Vertigo is gorgeous, and I really take my hat off to the owners and management for putting together a venue with as much class as the custom-built Gary Stewart Audio system that drives it. The party was held in The Den which, on paper, is the more intimate of the two spaces within the club. The only blemish on my New York City DJ resume is not having had the chance to play at Cielo and I’m confident that this was as close an analog as I’ve found in my travels. The booth was raised about 6 inches, sat squarely in the center of the main floor and really felt like a part of the dance-floor. Urbanettv.com was there to film the night from 3 angles and record all the audio-it’s really a pleasure to concentrate on just playing music and not having to record it as well. Everything about the club and the night ran exceptionally smoothly and professionally. Beautiful chandeliers were the icing on the aesthetic cake of the room….

Download (left-click and unzip):
Holosound – Live @ Vertigo – San Jose, Costa Rica – November 21, 2009

The next day, an overstuffed Jeep Wrangler showed up at the hotel, ready for the 4.5 hour journey to the Guana Caste province. As we headed west out of the city, I was thankful Francis had strongly recommended not engaging in any after-party festivities the night before.

Andy Newland warned me before going to Tunisia that the drivers were pretty crazy, but Costa Rica is no slouch in the “unorthodox” driving category either. We dodged mopeds, motorcycles, tourist busses and occasional livestock as we wound our way across the country.

The weather, for the first time since I’d arrived, was sunny and with every moment that passed, it seemed the temperature climbed another degree. Almost halfway (2 hours) through our journey we stopped for an amazing breakfast of scrambled eggs, tortillas, rice and beans and some plantains and salsa for good measure. The restaurant also had some gorgeous parrots on their property and a somewhat disarming 6ft Jesus head sculpture.

Roughly 30 minutes after breakfast (which was at 2pm) the combination of our collectively full bellies and the concurrent increasing of temperature and humidity forced a decision to remove the soft-top from the Jeep. With the sun bearing down and wind in our hair we soldiered on across the plains and finally arrived at our hotel with about an hour of sunlight left to spare.

After checking in at the hotel, we grabbed bathing suits and headed for Francis’ beach club. An absolutely top-of-the-line resort nestled in a beautiful cove with tiny islands dotting the horizon, this place did not mess around in any way. We hit the Spa for a steam and a Jacuzzi and then I disappeared to sneak a glimpse of sunset by the beach in this idyllic locale. Francis ordered some sushi that was as good as anything I’ve had in the states and threw a Margharita Pizza on top to level things out.

That night Francis and I left the girls at the hotel and had our one and only guys’-night-out of the trip. We took the Jeep down to the beach during low tide and did donuts for a few minutes before off-roading up to the back entrance of the casino in the aforementioned resort. At the roulette table we met a bunch of people who had just seen their friends (one of whom was a pro baseball player for the Mets) tie the knot. We had a few drinks and talked some shit about the Yankees but ultimately my dwindling luck, coupled with a growing hunger led to our departing in search of some late night eats. We found what we were looking for in “Pollo Alhondra #2” the only 24 hour food joint in the area. After annihilating a few chicken breasts and some tortilla chips with hot sauce (what?!) we sojourned home.

By now it was Monday and I was staring down the barrel of just two more nights in this paradise. I asked Francis if we could engage in the one activity I’d always associated with a trip to Costa Rica, Zip Lines. Known locally as the “Canopy,” the Zip Lines happened to be located about 45 minutes up an off-road trail into the mountains and away from the beach. We dropped the girls off at a beach and headed into the hills. It must have been clear how much I enjoyed our previous off-road activities because as soon as the cement under the tires disappeared Francis threw on the emergency brake and told me to “hop over.”

The level to which one can enjoy driving another man’s car is linearly related to the temperament of the car’s owner while it is being done. I like to think that I was doing a pretty solid job on my own, but having Francis snapping pics and taking in the scenery without a care in the world certainly added to my enjoyment. Just as we saw signs announcing the Canopy lay a couple hundred yards away, Francis told me there was a surprise down the road a few more yards. As we rounded the corner a river appeared that ran directly across the trail and, after 2.5 seconds of encouragement, made short work of splashing across it…three times before pulling into the Canopy site.

Some brief highlights of the Zip Line/Canopy experience: sweating profusely as we hiked from jump site to jump site, marveling at how the gigantic metal platforms were physically put so high in the trees, laughing with the guides as my hands shook so badly I could barely keep water in the cone shaped water cups long enough to bring it to my lips, tasting white chocolate covered coffee beans and finally walking into the Spider Monkey Jungle, seeing the monkeys and then being told there was a cost to continue seeing the monkeys and then deciding we’d seen enough of them and leaving.

Francis barreled down the mountain trail that’d taken me about 45 minutes to ascend in about 25 minutes-a fact that might have made me think to question my earlier pace a bit more were I not having the time of my life standing on the two back seats and “surfing” the Jeep while he did so.

We grabbed the girls at the beach and headed to what was described to me as the best Seafood in the area. A lofty mark to hit I thought, but upon looking down at a marvelously tender and juicy filet of Mahi Mahi glistening in garlic butter I started to think they might be on to something. A mound of rice, an ice cold Pilsen and 3 tiny islands spotting the horizon made for one of the simplest and yet most enjoyable meals of the trip. As the sun went down and we told the Mariachi band “No Gracias” for the third time, I knew I’d be sitting in front of a keyboard sometime soon and trying to share the experience with my friends.

Our last night at the beach involved sangria, pizza and an ill-intentioned tortilla chip that took out the bottom (and fake) half of my front left tooth. At first I thought the salsa had “rocks” in it (and declared it pretty loudly for an outdoor restaurant) but after deducing that the shocked looks I was receiving from my company at the dinner table were probably due to something aside from award winning charm, I realized what had really happened. If I was going to lose half of a tooth that had been replaced years ago-this was the place to do it.

We woke up the next day to Francis, our fearless leader, in a bad way. “You’re gonna have to drive bro” he told me before slumping into the passenger seat. We sped off to the infirmary at the resort where the doctor, upon hearing that he’d spent the last few days with “friends from New York,” returned with a mask and gloves on because of “Gripe A” known to English speakers as Swine Flu. They gave him some Tylenol and sent him back to us while we waited at the pool. We ordered some food, chilled out, and Francis found a day bed to crash out on. After an hour and a half he was up and insisting he drive us the entire way home. 5 hours, 4 milkshakes and 1 speeding ticket later we pulled into the Barcelo San Jose Palacio. I raced to take a shower before we all joined some friends for my last meal at a local Churrascaria.

While it’s always nice to have never-ending amounts of meat piled onto your plate until you say “stop,” the dinner drove home an important point to remember whenever you’re eating anywhere: just because it’s the most expensive doesn’t mean it’s the best. I’d now been to several different parts of the country and eaten by the side of the road, at the beach, on mountain tops and mom-and-pop Italian spots and seen just how far a smile and a couple thousand Colones could go…and, let me tell you, they can go pretty damn far towards having an unforgettable time.

The next morning, as had become the ritual, Francis picked me up at my hotel. This time our exploits were markedly less exciting. We swung by the “Super Mega” on the way to the airport and I grabbed more of the white-chocolate covered coffee beans I’d first tried at the Canopy to share with my friends and family back home. We spoke pointedly of the need for a Spanish Holosound press kit and hit up the Delta drop-off at departures. I lengthened “bro” into “brother,” when thanking Francis from the bottom of my heart for an amazing experience and believed him when he told me we’d do it again soon.  With memories like this, I really hope so.

And for those who’ve made it this far, here’s a little post Holoday treat.  Hope you had a great one.

Download (left-click and unzip):
Holosound – Happy Holodays – 2009-2010

“Part of the weekend never dies.” This bit of genius commentary comes to us by way of an extended version of “E-Talking” by Soulwax. For the last few years it’s been my signature on www.mercuryserver.com from whenever I first heard the track until now. It’s obviously catchy and semi-ominous sounding and I’m sure part of it’s appeal to me is that it conveys some sort of higher purpose to what often becomes a slew of bad decisions and overspending.

Recently though, as I continue to try to sort a life for myself out of the music we play and produce as Holosound I’m finding more and more truth to this statement. I didn’t get to where I am today by just chasing the party, the madness of all night dance sessions or after-hours filled with disposable conversations and pictures that make us regret bringing photography with us into the digital age. I got here by refusing to accept the fact that the quality of dance music I could enjoy was subject to the whims/mood/amount of sleep/level of intoxication of whichever big DJ happened to be swinging through my city that weekend.

Although this had been the case since I’d fallen in love with electronic music around ’93, it wasn’t until I was at Trinity College in Hartford, CT in ‘98-’99 that I really began to rebel against this situation. In the days before full-on Internet (2.0), accessible dance music outside of clubs/Raves in America was ostensibly controlled by GU Compilations and jaded record store employees who hoarded anything of worth to themselves.

When I purchased my first Technics 1200 Turntables in ’99 I religiously hit the record stores every week trying to get a hold of fresh, forward-thinking music that expressed what I felt was exciting about dance music at the time. I was buying underground stuff and the big tracks (at the time I admit it was all trance) I’d heard out at clubs but I had a difficult time conveying the sheer joy and utter abandon I’d sometimes feel on those nights when you felt the DJ was communicating only with you.

In these cases I was the DJ so not being able to effectively translate these vibes to my friends at school was frustrating. Stringing bombs together worked well enough at the smaller east coast raves and college frat parties but I kept wanting to elicit the kind of responses I’d given people like Josh Wink after a particularly mind-blowing set at Axis in Boston during some year that was pre 1997. After a couple years, a few thousand dollars and more records than my roommate and I could rationalize being in the “common area,” I started to see a clearer path through my record crates.

The secret, I was finding, was that every venue and party I played demanded a truly objective perspective when it came to choosing what records to play. It’s clearly not rocket science that your sets couldn’t be carbon copies of one another but I was starting to realize I’d never consistently have good results if I, as I’d tended to do in my first few years, favored my newest purchases at the record stores at the expense of something a few weeks older that may have better suited the situation or environment.

Combining proven records with newer, untested tracks limited the risk of losing the connection I’d generally work so hard to build with the people on the dance floor. Even though you’d know what a track sounded like in your bedroom or on headphones, it could often be an entirely different story when it came to the varying caliber of clubs and sound-systems I was having the opportunity to play on. Certain spaces were drastically over or under powered with regards to the lower bass frequencies and others had arrangements that strongly (read: painfully) favored the higher ones.

Regardless of which particular insufficiency of polar frequency response a particular venue suffered from, the mids almost always fell prey, resulting in a muddy sound that I personally hold partially responsible for the formation of the “it all sounds the same” theory with respect to dance music as a whole. In the current climate of dance music proliferation some of these conclusions may seem obvious, but back in 2001ish, in the absence of any accessible mentor figures or online recorded examples of how to tastefully play dance music live, this was a notable learning process.

This realization could not have happened without the ability to record my practice sessions at home. Listening to your sets, as I’m sure most DJs will tell you, is always a bit stressful because you’re always your own worst critic. You’re also infinitely more qualified to determine the effectiveness of a mix, track selection or filter sweep than the girl hugging everyone on the dance-floor who just gave you a thumbs up.

Some of the tricks I used to think were awesome live actually seemed to diminish the emotive potential of certain tracks upon re-listening. I found myself wanting to not hear an echo I remembered putting into a mix because I knew just how great the song could sound on it’s own. After all, when we make tracks as Holosound, we’re not hoping some DJ is going to reverb the hell out of a breakdown…

Restraint became more important to my playing a show that the audience AND I felt good about. Sometimes when you’re up in a booth playing records and the adrenaline’s brought all the hairs on your body to attention, impulses to show off or do something “incredible” start firing. I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline, the massive wattage a club system can put out or the minor differences between beat up pieces of club gear, but the results of most of these efforts sound a few clicks short of “incredible.” Don’t get me wrong, I still do certain things with effects if the mixer or gear is something I’m comfortable with, but I apply significantly more judgment into the decisions to do such things than I once did during the “early days.”

All of these discoveries that I’ve made about my own DJing, with regards to record store strife, programming tips, effect usage moderation and the importance of listening to one’s sets are epiphanies that came about from Monday to Friday. Initially these began at night after school, then at night after work and now 9-5 week in-week out I’m putting the groundwork into to making the weekend everything it can be. It also bears noting that even in the absence of a boss or cubicle, my desire for the weekend to arrive is still as strong as ever.

My theory is that the personal validation we all get or (in my case) got on a daily basis from our day jobs or academic performance is vital to maintaining a balanced sense of well-being. Having great friends and family is equally important but there will always be a need, certainly within myself, to constantly evaluate my progress as an artist within larger and larger sample populations.

It’s through constantly testing my ability to adapt to the unrelenting series of changing environments, crowds, and musical genre preferences that accompany a DJ’s lifestyle and job requirements that I can go to sleep each night, satisfied that I’m still learning and growing more effective at my chosen craft . Although I revel in the day-to-day creative process involved in laying the groundwork for the next show, I only truly relish and am spiritually satiated by the feeling that accompanies contributing to our society on, wait for it… The Weekend.

Download (left-click and unzip):
Holosound – Holologic 2.0 Promo – pt1 – July 08
Holosound – Holologic 2.0 Promo – pt2 – July 08

So…
my name is Alex Fish, I’m one half of Holosound and we’re based out of New York City. Holosound is a DJ/Production collaboration between myself and Noah Becker. I’ve been DJing since getting my first set of belt-drive turntables back in 98 but only really decided that it was the way I was going to live my life in 2004.

In August of that year, I drove cross country with barely enough $ for gas, moved in with my mom in Boston (at 25) quickly saved enough for two months rent in NYC, and headed down. For months I rocked an Aerobed, clothes in piles on the floor and two turntables and a mixer set atop two Rubbermaid trashcans and a roommates’ bedboard.

Since then it’s been a long and hard road accented by some of the most unforgettable experiences I’ve ever had. I happily submit that small aspect my ghetto background because I personally am very happy with how far I, and Holosound, have come from those humble beginnings.

At least that’s what I tell anyone I speak with that isn’t directly connected to this “scene” in one way or another…

The truth is, that the aforementioned “unforgettable experiences,” as tremendous as they may be, share an unfortunate analogous nature with the most addictive substances on the planet. As with anything extremely fun, or mind-blowing, your tolerance raises proportionate to how often you do them and the more opportunities you get to share your vision of great dance music with people all over the world, the more you’re on the lookout for that next big fix-err gig.

It’s not quite as melodramatic as that I guess… on the surface. On the surface I’m very lucky to have built a network of colleagues (DJs/Producers/Promoters/Veterinarians) that thrive on honesty about each other’s work and mutual respect. It’s by chatting, watching and listening to them do what they do, that I chart my course nearly every week.

We trade tracks, sets, stories from the road and a common desire to shape the course of dance music. Yet, as much as I enjoy some of the similarities that I hear in the sets played by myself, my close friends in the scene and even some of my Top 100 heroes, being this close is also like walking along a precipice of obscurity.

You never know when your next step might send you hurtling downward, erasing all of your hard earned progress in one fell swoop. In a world of rising gas costs (read: airfare) and where anyone with a laptop can be a DJ-and, seemingly is, I feel that one of the biggest struggles we face is how to keep things unique without jeopardizing one’s core audience.

Holosound currently finds itself with a following that is loyal and informed, but also not without its own prejudices and thoughts on how this music should be played. Nearly every time we release a promo mix I get at least an email or two mentioning something someone liked but also something they thought we should “stay away from.” Of course, I wouldn’t be sharing this if those emails weren’t accompanied by more from people we’ve never met in various parts of the world saying how glad they were that someone was playing exactly what they wanted to hear.

Getting my head around the concept that you cannot please everyone 100% of the time has probably been one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned since beginning with Holosound. It wasn’t that I hadn’t already mastered the concept with regards to my personality, appearance and career aspirations, but musically I thought those rules didn’t apply.

I was convinced I could work harder than anyone and find that perfect combination of tracks that would, regardless of one’s musical background or preference, transmit that eureka moment we’ve all had with this music directly into EVERYONE’S consciousness. If I could put that together, show all the people who thought it “all sounded the same” that it didn’t…then naturally all the chips would start to fall into place.

Once I brought what I’d grown up hearing my parents listen to on the radio and combined it an alarming amount of electronic music awareness and love, I knew that we could bring this underground music out into the light. As much as I’ve always relished the bond you share with people on the same dance floor in a dark club, I always wanted to know what that bond would feel like with 100 or even 1000 times as many people.

I guess it’s fair to note that growing up in America, where dance music represented an even more striking minority than in Canada or overseas, probably had a lot to do with this quest to bring it out into the open. I found it deeply frustrating that as I got older and was drawn into DJing I increasingly had to choose between the music and certain friends. Why couldn’t it be for everyone? Why couldn’t I be the one to make it so? Time and experience have been the two most contributive factors in my personal enlightening.

I now know this music that gives us goosebumps, watery eyes and sore legs will most likely never be for “everyone.” Everyday on the streets of New York from the vantage point of my ipod and earbuds, I see just how different we all are and am constantly reminded that there’s no possible way this shit could resonate as powerfully with everyone.

Just as a store-bought suit can only look its best after a trip to the tailor, the best house music will always take a little extra work to find. After all, the thrill of the hunt is often as much a part of enjoying it as dancing to it. That extra “work” may be standing in a line around the block at 3:30 in the morning or entering captcha codes on a Russion filehosting site. But once you enter that main room with pounding beats and flashing lights-or download that special set you’d been chasing for ages, you know that only the people who’ll go the distance deserve it.

The best part is, and one of the things I find most validating about electronic music, is that while “the scene” is an exclusive group, it’s one that is open to any and all who’ll work for it. It’s also one of the few congregations I know of where the internet geek who trolls the message boards for new sets, gear or DJ gossip is as much a part of it all as the gorgeous girls you may have seen cut the line on your way in…