Weekend Report 13-jun-2025

July 15, 2025

Ft Collins Drumcircle

Second Friday means drumming a Pat’s house. Weather was a little rainy in Longmont (raining small pets, as I called it) but on the way to Ft Collins I went through a few spots of rain/no rain, completely dry pavement in Loveland.

I arrived just a few minutes late. We had about a dozen people gathered around the fire in the back yard. I brought kenkeni, sangba and djembe, but I never got around to playing the djembe. Len was on the big drum. We had a couple of rounds before some rain caught up with us. We had to go inside. I had the foresight to bring a tarp with me and covered my barrel drums and bags of percussion. This turned out not to be very good because the rain was hard enough that the heads of the drums got wet, as did my canvas percussion bags.

We went inside during the rain and played in the living room. I got to play my old congas, which I’d sold to Pat many years ago.

There were two folks that had handpan drums (the brass/bronce ones that look like a flying saucer) so we had a couple of nice sessions with them. During one of the ones inside Cheyenne played both of them to good effect.

I looked outside after the second round and noticed that the rain had stopped but had to convince Pat because right outside the door water was still falling from the trees. The fire was stil burning, but by this time it was after 9:00. A few of us played one more session before 10:00 to accompany a couple that had brought their fire spinning gear.

Afterwards hung out for a while talking. Seems the next drumming at the Loveland Vibrant Life Farms is going to be a little bit different in two weeks. We’d built the site up for focused ritual drumming, but the announcement that went out called for potluck followed by “shenanigans and drumming”: yard games and such. Not quite the ritual vibe I’d signed up for, but it’s not my land so I don’t get final say. We’ll see.

I got home about midnight by way of Cheba Hut where I got a nice veggie sub sandwich.

Saturday was the Colorado Black Arts Festival but I didn’t make it down to Denver in time for that.

Sorted 20

The latest in the series of late night techno parties hosted by Sorted Social Club started at 11:00 PM. It was at the same site as the one in February. At that previous event, they had a meet and greet with the headliner, DJ Darwin from Berlin. She had mentioned a book that she recommended called “Lowe End Theory” by Paul C Jasen. I’d bought the book but only in the last couple weeks gotten around to reading it.

The book gathers scientific, anthropolgy and anthropology sources discussing the use of lowe frequency sounds going back to prehistory. Several points I had learned:

Deep bass sounds has a history in many prehistoric cultures. In at least one of the caves in Europe featuring wall paintings, an examination from the persective of acoustics reveals that the place where the painings are just happens to be the focus of the acoustics. Not as well known is the fact that further into the cave, there are a couple of red spots on the wall. If you make sounds from there, the acoustics are such that the sound is most intense where the painings are
Of course, drums.
Some Many of the early organs were not particularly musical, but were used to create loud, deep sounds that in one case could be heard sixty miles away.
In the Baroque period, the music of JS Bach featured some very deep sounds.
Of course, modern electronic dance music features some very deep bass sounds. People who are particularly interested in this are known in the rave culture as “bass worshipers” and there have been many different phases of the use of the deepest bass. Items of note:
- Jamaica is known for a competition amongst dance halls to provide the deepest sounds.
- 12” vinyl dance have an unexpected feature. Because the radial distance is being used to encode less music than a normalrecord, the grooves can be made wider. This allows for a deeper bass sound to be encoded. This became important later.

The rave was down in a warehouse district in Englewood. The surrounding area is industrial buildings of various kinds. The venue featured two spaces, with the smaller one playing “deep house” and the larger one, which featured the larger speakers, were playing more drum and bass, electro, and techno. This was the louder of the two spaces.

The first two DJs were using electronic decks, which have become pretty common in recent years. The DJ brings in a hard drive or flash drive with their music, plug in, and can take advantage of some electronic assistance in beat matching. Old school folks might find this a little bit like cheating.

The night ran from 11:00 to 5:00 AM. The first DJ was Mia _____, who used the electronic stuff. The headliner, named DJRUM, played after that until 5:00 AM.

I have learned to pay attention to the time because the “star” DJ usually comes on at 3:00. I have tended to try to get as close to the decks as possible because, as i have a name for now, I am a bass worshiper, a speaker hugger. The others in the cult of bass worshipers could also be seen bathing in the deep vibrations of the music.

About the speakers. Like a home stereo speaker, they come in three main sizes. The subwoofers were about 4’ tall, 18-24” wide, and about 3 feet deep, in a bank of 4. When you stand in front of them, the bass can be powerful enough to move your pants. Then there are smaller speakers on both sides, and smaller still on top of them. During the evening, the guy who rented the speakers out was attending, adjusting straps to hold them in place. If that wasn’t there, the speakers would possibly vibrate off of each other.

It took me a little bit to notice that DJRUM wasn’t playing electronic decks. He had three actual turntables and was pulling records from a crate behind him. He was fun to watch because mixing records like this takes a bit of skill. In a continuous mix, you must ensure that when you are bringing in a new track, the speed of the music must be the same and the beats synchronized. Most of the time, two records are playing at once. While transitioning in, the track that is ending is playing all frequencies (low, medium and high) while the new record is adjusted at the mixer so that the bass isn’t playing until you are sure that the music is synched. Once you get the second record going, no time to rest, it’s time to bring in the next record.

Some folks go to hear the music, some go to watch the DJ, especially if you are also a DJ. This is called trainspotting.

The producers of the event, my long time friends Wally and Missy, spent the evening making sure that everything was running well. Wally produces his own music as well as mixing for the dance floor. Often at his parties, he takes the first shift. Missie is more into dancing, and it was fun to see her down front several times during the evening.

Of course, it can be a bit intense to be down there the whole time. It’s crowded and hot, and occasionally one needs to get away, stand near a fan, drink some water, etc. Socializing happens outside where you can actually hear each other. The buzz of the conversations can be a little odd because being around all that noise can change your hearing a little bit, amongst other factors.

The party has a cash bar and since it is a “social club” rather than a bar, you can get drinks later in the evening than at a normal bar or club.

When the music stopped, I have made a habit of staying around to help with cleanup. I finally got going at around 7, drove home a young man who I’d seen at several parties, but we had never really connected, talked, gotten each others’ names. We had a nice conversation about computing history, essentially the same rant I had with Nash after the Phis concert. I think I might need to record this and publish it.

I have been to enough of these parties that I have a growing number of folks who I recognize, and who recognize me. I guess I provide some inspiration to some of them, that maybe this kind of thing is viable as they get older.

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