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mix | mona’s 2nd anniversary

Mona’s 2nd anniversary 20 guest dj live mix

Mona’s 2nd anniversary nickv live mix

MONATOTEM

Here is the whole mix recorded during Mona’s 2nd anniversary. Over 600 people came down to La Java to dance to the sounds of 21 djs and over 6hours of HOTDANCERmusic! It was great to be able to invite so many friends to play with me. Most had already played at Mona or are regulars at the party and will be playing again in the near future. The night started with a special set from the mona crew with a wicked selection of songs ranging from soul to tsigane kitcherie. LAFLEURWe had first timers at mona like Fred djaaleb who manages Jeff Mills but also has a very deep knowledge of techno and house, Miss Chrysalide who definitely rocked the crowd – check her out on the video below and dj Sundae who aswell as being a top notch dj has also been involved in mona’s graphic design. PATRICKADELINEADAMIt was a pleasure to hear the sounds of Soul Sam from radio Space funk (we have been connected for over 20 years now), taste maestro Adam Green and also good friends Soulist and Freeworker representing What the Funk. Ex record dealers Soulmate and djAlmost, NICKVcame down showing their utmost good taste for music in all kinds. Then we had classy disco queens Patrick Vidal, Aïcha and Emmanuel Caurel followed by techno and house garage heads LadyB, Slip Matt, Jasonw Fantomette and La Fleur. The exact line up is below! I took over around 330 to take the night through till 6am. DANCERS3I thoroughly enjoyed this one playing the sounds of Motor City Drum Ensemble, Pepe Bradock, ReelSoul, DJ Pierre, Roska, Radio slave, Roxy Music, Barbara Tucker, ARNOARMELLEMathew Jonson, Aril Brikha, Karizma and much more. Much respect to Arnaud light jockey, who has really worked hard on the lights – be prepared for a very special set up soon! Many thanks to everyone who came down and participated, what amazing energy !

Check out these photos by mat cav and david volants to feel a bit more of the mona vibe :
Pics 1
Pics 2
Pics 3
Pics 4
Pics 5
Pics 6
video : Miss Chrysalide and Fantomette Jammin’ up mona !

line up :
23:40         Fred de Mona
23:50         Carlos Torres
0:00         Samir Soul Sam Space Funk
0:10         Adam Green
0:20         Moh
0:30         Fred Djaaleb
0:40         Sundae
0:50         Soulist
1:00         Freeworker
1:10         Almost
1:20         Aïcha
1:30         Emmanuel Caurel
1:40         Soulmate
1:50         Jason W
2:00         Patrick Vidal
2:20         Lady B
2:30         Fantomette
2:40         Miss Chysalide
2:50         Slip Matt
3:00         La Fleur
3:20         Nickv
2010
03/11
POSTED BY
Nickv
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live & guest mixes
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Mix | mona jan 2010 Nickv & Cosmo Vitelli … mona supports Haïti

mona nickv & cosmo vitelli all night long

LIGHTS
Running a club night after a while sometimes raises questions that can go beyond the simple fact (but far from easy feat) of congregating your crowd and playing the music of your life every month. We have been doing mona for two years now, it’s mainly been quite successful from a commercial point of view, we don’t earn heaps of money but we never lose anything, are able to afford great djs, make regular improvements to our set up and invest for future nights. I started to feel we could  maybe set aside part of our earnings and donate it to a charity.

When the tremor in Haïti happened we were actually in the process of thinking about how to support such causes, and with the sheer scale of destruction and despair, it occured very naturally for us to donate the whole amount of the night’s earnings to La Fondation France – Solidarité Haïti. The quake occured on the Wednesday, mona was on the Saturday, the decision was wrapped up pretty quickly.

When you make a strong statement, you get quite a lot of attention. La Java, always empty at 1am for mona, filled up pretty early. I’m sure people were expecting a full house, was it conscious support for Haïti or was it because, as a consequence, people had been talking about the party for two days ? Maybe a bit of both. I felt a strong sense of solidarity throughout the night and most regulars, used to being on the guest list, were more than happy to pay (even if we’re still wondering what happened to the others that never made it and whom we never heard about afterwards – I wonder if they will put in any future requests). Other people attending didn’t really agree with our stance. Why support now ? Why not before ? Why Haïti ? Why such a widespread cause when you appeal to such a closeted crowd ? Isn’t it a deguised way of promoting your night ?
CARLOSFANTO
We had regularly thought about doing this with part or all of our earnings, without really knowing how to (and I still don’t feel we do so today). Why ? There’s always been a special mood at mona between people. Quite a lot goes on during a night, energies are liberated and exchanged, this is what makes people hang out for so long in such a confined and crowded space. You give out a lot and people take that home with them. So making a donation is an extension of that. It’s also a way of spreading a certain form of consciousness that you might not associate immediately with such a hedonistic activity, but isn’t in opposition with it, on the contrary. You can influence people in a positive direction by spreading out a positive message. Music is filled with such messages, listen to the lyrics of certain disco songs, naïve sometimes but uplifting nonetheless.  A club night can be the same, if the experience is positive then you go home feeling good.

If you have the capacity to reach out and make an impact on a group of people like we have at mona, then you should use it positively. We spread messages about music or a particular, sometimes marginally perceived, way of being. We encourage social mixity and open mindedness, we push boundaries and share experiences with others regardless of who they are, what they do for work or who they sleep with. So showing support and care for those in need is exactly the same type of message that we are trying to convey every month, except on a more universal scale. This universality may bother certain people as mona can appear to be a very confidential affair, but we don’t exclude people from our nights, anyone is free to join in.
1001nickvcosmo
Making such decisions can always be a bit delicate as you never receive total support, whatever you do, there will always be someone to question or even challenge you. If you believe in your actions and believe they are right then you should plan them and carry out that plan. It is good to question but never good to remain in doubt.

I hope you enjoy the mix of the night above, I’m sorry I didn’t time to edit it (I might do a bit later on) so that’s nearly six hours of music mixed live for your ears. Thanks to Cosmo Vitelli, who came down and showed why he is one of the best French djs around. This short video was shot at 525 in the morning with Jean Carne singing out loud and clear, a very sweet moment.

2010
02/02
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Nickv
CATEGORY
live & guest mixes
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Mix | mona dec 2009 Nickv Carlos JasonW Gregblackjack Fantomette

mona carlos warm up
mona JasonW
mona Fantomette mix

mona Nickv mix
This date was supposed to be the big one. They (the big party promoters) always say that the weekend before the xmas holidays is the best for having a night as everyone is out to party before packing up and going home to open their presents. But this year it wasn’t to be, at least on the attendance side of things, as Paris was covered in snow and experiencing it’s first bout of sub zero temperatures on the night of the final mOna party of the year. It’s not Helsinki here, people aren’t used to it, so our expected attendance was down by a third I guess.

photo by Mat Cav

photo by Mat Cav

They missed out on yet another great night though as mOna has been getting better every month. We had four guests playing : Carlos (who isn’t really a guest being actually part of the mOna team), JasonW aka fist fusion (king of the def mix edits), Greg Blackjack (my mate since 1982!! so you can guess how much music we’ve been through together since then) and Fantomette (who will soon be in charge of programming Paris’s newest and most exciting club since Le Pulp closed a few years back).

GREGFANTONICK

photo by Mat Cav

Each played an hour and you can listen to all the sets above. I finished the last 2 and a half hours off at the end. It was a definite house party this time – except for Carlos who played a mix of kitsch world soul fusion at the start, in front of about two and half people, (why don’t people turn up earlier in clubs in Paris ?). It’s a great feeling to hear good house music in a club, when the vibe clicks I don’t think there’s anything better for a dancefloor. Feels like being suspended in time, beats flowing, bass rumbling, dark room, deep atmosphere … I really miss that vibe now, we don’t get it as much as before in clubs today sadly. Track of the night goes to André Lodeman ‘where are you now’ a superb piece of modern house music that encompasses many different atmospheres and an almost dissonant jazz touch too.
photo by Mathias Casado Castro for Têtu

photo by Mathias Casado Castro for Têtu

The icing on the cake came thanks to Arnaud our very own light jockey, who built our new light show, and managed to persuade the club to allow us to use a smoke machine (it’s non smoking in Paris and there are alarms in clubs now). Lights look so much better when you have a smoke screen for them to beam through !
MONA LIGHTS

photo by Mat Cav

You know it’s been a good night when most people are still aound when the music stops. Check out our friend Mat Cav’s pictures from the night on facebook here and here too, some of them were taken at the end of the night with the bouncers inhaling the helium in the balloons and then squealing at people to leave. Here are other great photos taken by Mathias Casado Castro for Têtu.

Hope you enjoy the music and any feedback is always appreciated!

2010
01/10
POSTED BY
Nickv
CATEGORY
live & guest mixes
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Mix | mona nov 2009 Nickv Patrick Vidal & Aïcha

mona disco special

This was indeed a great night. I think we broke our attendance record (outside of our birthday nights), something like nearly 600 people, that’s still far from the bigger more fashionista nights in Paris, but I love our crowd. Definitely into the music, very loyal and great loving people. It really makes me very happy to see them every month.

photo 3-1Here is the mix to the last two hours of the night. I keep repeating myself but it’s always the best time to be at mona. Always loads of fun. If you were there you could have caught Aïcha miming the lyrics to each song. Anyway this is a sort of jam between Patrick Vidal, Aïcha and myself, you will hear stuff from : Sylvester, Patrick Adams, Eddie Drennon, Tata Vega, George Michael, Jocelyn Brown, MFSB, Sweet Cream, Hot Streak, Laidback, Punkin’ Machine, The Strikers, Deodato, Sharon Brown  …photo 4

Also many thanks to our friends Tim, Gauthier and Gilles who kindly chose mona to do the release party for the first edition of the very excellent Revue Monstre.

Please let me know if you enjoyed the listen, we are thinking of doing more disco funk nights, so any feedback is great.
2009
12/15
POSTED BY
Nickv
CATEGORY
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Mix | mona oct 2009 Nickv & Mr White

nickv warm up

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mr white part 1

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nickv part 2

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mr white part 2

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nickv & mr white jam till close down

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LA JAVA PARISAll the promotions team (and this includes myself) had worked exceedingly hard for this month’s party, so as to improve on september, which we felt hadn’t been as good as our previous nights. Promotion can get rather tedious and repetitive at times, we try to make sure we don’t do too much but sometimes we can get a bit carried away so I hope we weren’t too intrusive for people.

My guest for this month was american singer and dj, Mr White, who performed the vocals for the underground acid house music hit ‘the sun can’t compare’ by Larry Heard on his own imprint, Alleviated Records. I don’t think we tried as hard as usual to keep his identity secret – maybe a bit worried about pulling a good crowd in – so quite a few people knew who was to be expected, especially as we had sent out emails promoting the night featuring the youtube link to his song (if that’s not letting the cat out of the bag then I don’t know what is).

mr white

So a conjunction of both factors made up for a pretty big crowd, and quite a few music heads too – which is always a good sign. I really didn’t know what to expect djing wise from Chad (mr white) – sometimes artists can be very mediocre on the decks, but I was quick to brush aside any doubts, when he started playing (and singing) his first two records. A great mix of house music ensued sometimes deep and vocal, sometimes pumping and jacking and impeccably mixed, as with most american djs. He also performed his songs, singing on top of the instrumental versions. This contributed to building an extremely warm atmosphere in the club. You can’t beat live performance and crowd interaction for that. The best part was right at the end when he sung ‘sun can’t compare’ and carried on accapella when la java turned the music off (why can’t they wait until the track ends ? so impolite).

I hope you enjoy the mixes posted above. Make sure you skip through at least to listen to Mr white’s singing!

NICKV & MRWHITE @ mona
Here are some of the favourite tracks or songs played :

liquid people ‘hypnotize’
erykah badu ‘bump it (cottam rmx)’
blakkat ‘rite place’
jay shepherd ‘pipes and sneakers’
deetron ‘orange’
seiji ‘I can’t let it go’
snap ‘exterminate (simioni and flip rmx)’
seiji ‘ravin A’
mr white ‘spellbound’
mr fingers & mr white ‘sun can’t compare’
bugz in the attic ‘reject’
Markus Homm ‘channel by channel’
A guy called gerald ‘voodoo ray’

If you are lucky enough to have opportunuty to see mr white don’t miss it! This guy is a true artist and has amazingly infectious positive energy that will send you home into the early morning with a beaming smile.

Photos by mat cav
2009
11/10
POSTED BY
Nickv
CATEGORY
live & guest mixes
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Mix | mona sept 2009 Nickv & Erik Rug

mona sept 2009

nickv warm up

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erik rug part 1

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nickv part 2

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erik rug part 2

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nickv & erik rug jam till close down

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I’ve just discovered that it’s incredibly hard to blog post on a regular basis. A french person would probably say ‘you haven’t invented hot water by saying that’, and yes it does sound obvious doesn’t it ? However I am supposed to reveal who played at mona before the following party for promotional reasons. But it’s just not that easy to find time to edit the mix, find pictures, find something to say, when you have a day time job, two dj residencies, mix requests, loads of new tracks to listen to … anyway enough ranting now!

The five mixes above are the complete recordings of september’s mona party. That month I had the greatest of pleasures to play once more with Erik Rug, one of my all time favourite Parisian djs. Erik has an amazing collection of records and he has been djing since 1981, so he just about covers anything you can find in dance music. On top of that he has irreproachable taste in music, so you’ll never be disappointed when listening to him play.

erik rug @ mona

It was however quite a strange night, it sometimes felt like people had just come back from holidays and had forgotten how to dance (maybe I was myself a little tired after just getting off a 13h plane trip back from my own holidays in Vietnam). Erik still did the job with style and you can check out the mixes recorded on the night on this post.

You might notice on the pictures that the light show has changed at mona. We replaced the fixed neonesque fluorescent lights with LED light sabres that can actually flash and change colour upon demand. Everyone was really happy with the new set up (thanks Arnaud).
Erik Rug has a new music project out called Le Damn Dog check it out here.

nickv & erik rug @ mona

Favourite tracks on the night were :

Grace Jones ‘La vie en rose’
2000 and One ‘Spanish fly’
Sweet Cream ‘I don’t know what I’d do if  you ever left me’
Skyy ‘First time around’ (played twice)
Raphael Cameron ‘Boogie’s gonna get ya’
Nightlife Unlimited ‘Peaches and Prunes’
Armando ‘Don’t take it (johnny fiasco mix)’
Expansions ‘Move your body’
Erykah Badu ‘Honey (souled remix)’ … an amazing mix that you can listen to and download below

Erykah Badu – Honey (Souled Remix) by Souled

2009
10/20
POSTED BY
Nickv
CATEGORY
live & guest mixes
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Mix | mona july 2009 Nickv & Clement aswefall

mona july 2009 nickv & clement aswefall mix

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This recording was done during July’s mona party at La Java. It’s the last hour or so of the night when Clement and I jammed together playing on two mixers, a loop box, traktor and effects. We had great fun together. I hope you enjoy it ! tracks include : K Alexi, Tata Vega, Brother’s Vibe, The Motivators, Kool and the gang, Kenny Dope , Teddy Pendergrass, Blue Six, Caucasian Boy … Big shout to stephen laviers of the motivators for getting touch, your track ‘jobu’ is rapidly becoming the back bone to the night !

monafaces

2009
09/18
POSTED BY
Nickv
CATEGORY
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Mix | Best Friends Nickv & Da vince with Mitsu the beats

nickv & davince warm up the Nouveau Casino

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mitsu the beats rocks the house

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nickv davince & mitsu close the night down

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I’ve been doing this night on and off for 2 years now, starting as a really small party in a Parisian bar called Les Disquaires inviting my favourite Parisian djs to play with me, hence the name Best Friends (dj almost – supra, adam green, dj skillful, pascal rioux – favorite, da vince, nick rees – ex goya and more …). This year things got a bit bigger. I teamed up with Da vince, Marion and Nouhad, and we moved the night on to Djoon (with Mad Mats guesting) and then to Nouveau Casino (with copromoters Free Your Funk and Gilles Peterson).

So Best Friends has got bigger, but I am still very much attached to the intimate vibe that was there from the start. I believe that a party is good only if there’s a special vibe and atmosphere on the night. To create something special, different ingredients come into equation, music, sound, lights, venue but above all it’s about the people who are there. You don’t need that many people, and usually parties that are packed out aren’t that good, above all you need a special connection between people to bring them together. A good night is about bringing together the right mix of people and making sure they have enjoyed themselves and shared special moments together.

To me this is much more important than putting on a line up of amazing djs.

On Friday 17th July Best Friends, was back at the Nouveau Casino with DJ Mitsu the Beats from the excellent Jazzy Sport label and collective of djs and producers based in Japan. I have to say in this era of digital mixing systems – that I am fully part of – it is very refreshing to see and hear djs play the way mitsu did with vinyl records. Mixing was pure and seamless, tracks flowing from one to another, and track selection was absolutely spot on. You can tell this man has been listening to, acquiring and composing the finest music for a very long time. The crowd knew it too, check out the pics here.

The whole night can be heard in different parts in the mixes above … and catch a bit of atmosphere on the video below.

2009
08/13
POSTED BY
Nickv
CATEGORY
live & guest mixes
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Live mix : Mona’s first birthday, Feb 2009

Mona’s first birthday live mix :

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crowd1

On saturday 21st February 2009 it was Mona’s first birthday at La Java in Paris. 750 people turned up and listened to 11 djs play 6 hours of  music. The vibe was amazing and I really enjoyed it.

The floor was packed until the lights went on at 6 am. This pic was taken around 3am (Mandel Turner with headphones). For more photos check out Brice Smo’s album on facebook.

Here is the complete 6 hour mix recorded as it happened. The line up was as follows, set times are approximate.  Big thanks to the ten djs who came down !

SOUL FACES

2330 0010 ADAM GREEN

0010 0030 MYRIAM K

0030 0050 DJ ROY

DEEP HEADZ

0050 0130 GREG BLACKJACK

DISCONODISCO

0130 0150 EMMANUEL CAUREL

0150 0210 DJ ALMOST

0210 0230 PATRICK VIDAL

ELECTRONIC CREW

0230 0300 MANDEL TURNER

0300 0330 LADY B

0330 0400  JEF K

 

0400 0600 NICKV 

2009
03/19
POSTED BY
admin
CATEGORY
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