Josh Wink’s Friday the 13th

On the way to Barcelona airport

Sleep or eat? This is a question that I ask myself a lot. I feel that DJs tend to sacrifice things at times, and eating or sleeping is one of them. Going to bed this morning at 6:15AM, I asked myself the question that I’m always faced with when I go through the hotel lobby and the morning staff is setting up breakfast: Should I wait in my room for 15-30 minutes and have breakfast? Or sleep as much as I can? And if you sleep as much as you can, you may forfeit having lunch too.

This morning neither breakfast nor lunch allured my desires to consume food, and I instead succumbed to the seduction of Morpheus and my bed!

The power of the sun is amazing, regardless if the air temperature is cold. It has a profound feeling on me physically and mentally, and thank God it was a sunny day in Barcelona.

Doing the habitual travel activities we DJs do with little sleep and many responsibilities is much easier with the aid of the sun. A sense of calm is draped over the usual stress I feel when commencing a day with a full journey ahead.

Traffic, immigration, taxis, security, not eating, airports, airplanes, lines, little sleep, and the typical mishaps that occur, seem less burdensome when the sun is shinning, and today I welcome it!

One of my favorite feelings is to sit on a plane next to a window, recline my seat, look out the window, and have the sun bathe its warmth and light on my face as I look on the Earth, allowing myself the freedom of not connecting with the issues that are 37,000 ft below. Floating and flying, entitling myself the pleasure of not having a single concern, with being fully relaxed and aware that my eyes are heavy and I may go to sleep at any moment. Ah, sleep.

There are some simple pleasures in life and I always look forward to them. Today was a good example: Plane on time, flight easy, no delays, no traffic, lines at airport were small. Another example is routine. When you get to know something it becomes a welcomed greeting. I know the hotel I’m staying at, I know which restaurant I’m going to dine in, I know my friends are coming to visit for dinner, and I know the club will rock. Aside from the random search from customs when I landed in Milan, it was a great day.

I have been waiting one year to eat a special dish made in a certain way here in Milano. Now, mind you, my diet is a special one that I do by choice. I don’t eat dairy, cheese, eggs, red meat, chicken, sugar or wheat. I now however, eat seafood and deep sea fish. 

My favorite! Spaghetti al Cartoccio

Well, I’ve decided that I will only eat pasta or pizza (wheat) in Italy, as it truly is magical and different. This dish is called Spaghetti al Cartoccio, which is seafood pasta in red sauce, with pizza dough draped on top of the stone cookware and placed into a wood stove oven. The dough is cooked and rises like a balloon and finally, when the sauce is placed on top of the pizza dough - viola! Spaghetti al Cartoccio di Pizza. More or less, pizza on pasta. Insane! I’ve been dreaming of this for one year, no joke.

So, with my friends - Italian booker, Zenzo, Lele Sachi (boogie drama and Magazini Generali) and Remo (DJ, producer), we talk music, politics, recession, food and life over great drinks and food.

After a great meal comes another great question I get confronted with, hibernate and sleep before the gig for two or three hours, or enjoy the night with friends and new experiences.

Remo’s present! A new DX2 Controller

Well, sleep did not win tonight, even though that meal definitely put me in a food coma. I went with Remo, his brother, and Zeno to Remo’s studio to talk music, gear and technology. I have been having some issues with MIDI mapping with my FaderFox LV2 controller and Traktor and I found out that Remo is doing seminars for FaderFox here in Italy.

He suggested I use the DX2. So, he hooked up his system and we went through how he maps his setup. Well, in the end, he ended up giving me his DX2 as we couldn’t figure out what my issues were with the LV2. We did some quick personal MIDI mapping programs and noticed that it was 2:15AM already, and I had to be at the club to play at 2:30. Plus, I wanted to go early to hear Heartthrob live.

Now, in rush mode without stress we arrive to a packed club, where Heartthrob was rocking it. All in all, it was a great night at Magazinni, a couple of Friday the 13th bugs in setting up the system, and some of the custom MIDI mappings for the controller (made 25 minutes earlier) didn’t save. But, it was a magical night. The only drama of the night was when I found out that Tiesto was doing his first performance in Milano to a sold out crowd at another club and the police came at 3AM and shut his venue down due to capacity limits. So, all of the sudden our club became more crowded than it was already.

Time is a weird concept. At times it moves at a slow pace, and at others, it just flies by. The whole day and night seemed to pass in only a couple of hours. Blink and it’s gone! I arrived at the hotel at 6:15AM and look forward to sleeping for 6 hours. It’s a real simple pleasure I so look forward to.