Bahrain Booking - December 2008

Hey everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful Winter Solstice season, and are looking forward to seeing in 2009. I've had a great time this Xmas in Manama, Bahrain, I've been here since Xmas Eve. My first night here I got VEEEERY drunk and didnt go to sleep until 8.30am on Xmas day... I drunkenly opened a present before passing out. Then when I woke up I was still drunk.. then the hangover from hell kicked in. I felt queezy all day, and the 8pm fajita's at Chilli's went down slowly, but eventually I felt better by the time I got to Cocoon for a lovely evening with friends. The night was Kinky Malinky and Lewi 5-0 played a wicked set. It was great to see him and have interesting conversations into the early hours at Tabu afterwards.

I played at Club Maxxim last night. The club is really cool, they have a great system in there. They even had a Christmas tree in honour of my night, which was called 'A Christmas Kiss with Anna Kiss'. Sounds like a kiss-a-thon but it wasnt!

Here's the dancefloor & booth (before the party started!)

Thanks to everyone who came down, you really were a great bunch as you appreciated the new stuff and even the filthy stuff! From the last time I played here, I know the Bahraini crowd are a good open-minded House crowd anyways, and you certainly did me proud.

Couldn't resist taking a pic of this... my poster was in the loo - haha so everyone was thinking of me while they peed lol

It's been soo good to see my lovely friends here, and meet many new ones too. People are very friendly here, it really is a lovely island. They say it is the Ibiza of the Arabic world - make of that what you will...

Here's some pics from my stroll along the bay yesterday (Friday is the holy day here so you see lots of families out and about enjoying their day off). There was the sound of children playing and scent of BBQing meat in the air.

Enjoying a cup of tea in the park

Coral Bay Beach Club - where I played last time I was here

Here is DJ Richie Kidd who's been looking after me while I'm here, showing me the sights, driving me about like a superstar, etc etc!

Trout Pouts...

Today is my birthday - and my present to myself was to swim with a dolphin. Something I have always wanted to do, and it was absolutely brilliant!

BORIS

Such a lovely happy chappy!

Birthday kisses!

It was such a great experience, not scary at all, only in the sense I was scared I might hurt him. He did look funny close up, dolphins look very different when you are inches away, on the same level. It was hard trying to avoid stroking the wrong bits, like his eyes and airhole!

He is such an affectionate creature, I guess they all are. I wasn't sure exactly how much was affection or directions from the trainer for bits of raw fish.. But after I started scratching him (which is what he likes) he didn’t need any more encouragement and wouldn’t let me stop! It was similar to lavishing lots of love onto a cat or dog.. yet this animal so much more intelligent than us. I didn’t want to leave him, even though I got probably more than double of the 20 mins I paid for, I could have done double that even!

This was fun! I was more worried about hurting him and my bikini bottoms falling off... then when I got out my left tit was hanging out of my bikini!!! Which reminded me of the school swimming gala when I was 12yrs old and one of the first in my class to have boobs...

Check out that pure JOY on my face! I look like a little kid - definitely what you need on your birthday!!

This looked like quite an uncomfortable pose for Boris to hold for so long! Bless his heart. I love him to bits!

Thank you Boris for making my birthday the bestest EVER! xx

Why I'm not performing in Bahrain on Nov 13 2008

At the end of September I was asked to host (and possibly DJ) at a 'Peace' Concert in Bahrain alongside ATB, Rachael Starr, Kirsty Hawkenshaw and Mr Sam - but I have just cancelled.

This is unfortunate for all the people who are going to it, who are being heavily promoted to on Facebook - however I am 100% sure that I have made the correct decision.

The organisers have had SO long with which to confirm the booking with me - and they have been told all the terms and today's deadline right from the start, so this really could have been avoided had they been professional and organised.

All that was required to confirm the booking was:

1. Signed contract scanned and emailed
2. Deposit sent

Flight details were also requested but I would have allowed that another few days.

The honest truth is (and you get nothing else but that in this Blog!), I have had bad experiences with this organisation 'Merave' since the start of this palarva. I have found them rude more than once and they have avoided committing to this booking right from the start. They should never have been promoting the event without confirming the artists. And I told them that they could not promote it with me on the flyer until I had confirmation.

Note that I said 'artistS' there.... I know that the above artists have also had the same experience with Merave. I emailed all of them (apart from ATB) a couple of weeks ago to see if I was the only one awaiting contract, to find we were all in the same boat. A couple of days later they'd all cancelled. The only reason I didn't do it sooner was because I had extended the final deadline to confirm this to 27th October, and I have integrity and stick to my word.

I now see that they have taken all the artists names off of the Facebook event which is good news. I was worried they would continue to con the people of Bahrain, which might have affected all of our positive reputations.

In future all bookings are going through my Manager Lisa (email her on lisa.b@annakiss.co.uk) unless I have worked personally with the promoter before. This will free me up more time to concentrate on what I love most: the MUSIC!!

Just before I sign off, I'll leave you with the text that I received from the organiser yesterday:

"Anna, just be cool, we working really hard here for this event, ticket, money i can promise, but really i don't have time to scan and send you the contract, as everyone working on the venue so please just pickup your phone, thanks"

LOL! priorities.... and promises..?! he's someone I've never even met before, why am I going to go to Bahrain on a promise? LOL!

(the reason I wasn't picking up the phone was because it was Sunday I was at a family gathering)

So there we go, another exciting installment in the life of an international female DJ.... living and learning from these life experiences, being grateful always - because I believe I have had a lucky escape this time!

Besos
Ax

Welcome & Vinyl Sucks!

Thanks for clicking... I have just decided to create 2 separate blogs, as with the weekly tracklists my other blog gets a bit full, so you can't easily see the more personal stuff when it's in there.

So.. I just wanted to say 'Helloo' and that I will be writing more blogs in here when some exciting things happen! Right now I'm just working hard getting some press-packs sent out to promoters and selling my vinyl collection... bloody dusty heavy, bulky things!

Even though I started playing vinyl in 1994, I really don't miss playing it at all. A lot of purists will find that offensive, but it's the truth! And it doesn't make me any less of a DJ either. Pioneer CDJ1000's are fabulous things compared to a Technic 1200... You still mix the same on them, but you can do so much more (and no, they don't beatmatch for you, silly!). Now I play CDs I don't have to rely on someone to help me into the club with a weighty record bag... Who cares that the quality of MP3s isn't as good - at least there's no snap crackle & pop with CDs!

Death to vinyl!! All you DJs who are clinging on to the past, you need to keep up with technology or you'll be left behind! They won't be allowed to make vinyl for much longer, with all these silly EU save-the-planet directives.

Oh, but I do hope there are at least some DJs clinging onto the past or I'll there'll be no-one to buy my collection on ebay ;o)

Axx