A story re-told using the help of photographs and the blurry minds of four individuals.
It started off as what was a pretty ordinary day for the four of us. Nursing our hangovers from what we at the time thought would be the highlight of the weekend: a full blown line-up that included acts such as Lapalux, Ikonika and Dauwd. Who the fuck would have thought what sort of shit would be going down on the Saturday.
As I sat on my couch, slowly regaining my strength and a clear frame of mind I recalled sensing the distant vibration of a phone as it clattered against the brown mahogany kitchen table. A NOTIFICATION. Multiple notifications in fact, as they seem to have accumulated while I dazed in and out of naps throughout the course of the afternoon. The balls were thrown in my court while I was asleep. The plan of attack for the night was as follows:
- A house party was happening somewhere in town. The plan was simple: infiltrate the party. Crash, mingle, hydrate and move on.
- Rendezvous with the family at a Viennese coffee house for a more intimate vibe. I was grabbing a flight the next day so it would be good to catch-up.
Pretty standard so far, until Sofie threw the curve-ball:
-
SinjinHawke at Sexy Deutsch III. WHAT THE, WHO THE, I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW. While I am no longer a full Viennese resident, my scanners are pretty good on the parties anywhere I go. I’ll throw in the excuse of bad promo for the event overall. But who cares at this point, Sinjin Hawke is playing Vienna and we are all going. I remember my reply being somewhere along the lines of ‘he is such a boss’ or something like that (ALL CAPS of course). Pretty fucking ecstatic at the moment. Cherry on top of the cherry if you know what I mean. One more time, #YOLO till the sun comes up, take no prisoners kind of mentality.
At this point the night started in different ways for each one of us, but I can tell you how mine started. Father comes up to me before dinner. Stern look on his face; serious talk coming up in 3, 2, 1: "I’ve got this bottle of Clicquot lying around that we need to open and finish over dinner as it has been racking up dust and it may have gone off." Now if that wasn’t a good omen, I wouldn’t know better if you slapped me across the face with one. Please refer to Exhibit A. The photo sucks, so you know I'm not lying to you:
Exhibit (A):
What happened next was good re-con from the scouts I had on my payroll. House party mentioned prior to this was pretty much D.O.A. No point in dropping by, they had moved-on. Casualties were spared. Objective two wasn’t looking too good either. We missed our table reservation at the café as we were all running late.
I ended up meeting fshstk in an Italian café. Nothing against Italian cafés but when you are in Vienna you do not go to an Italian café. End of. We’ll ignore that for now. The dude was running late because he was giving an interview to a Master’s student who was writing her thesis on "third-culture kids." (This has nothing to do with the Third Reich, you dumb-ass.) Pretty intellectual stuff. I weighed in on a couple of socio-economic factors to stir up the conversation but I digress.
JUST LVZE joined me as the interview was coming to a close. Just in time. From this point onward I will calculate time by drink intake. This is not to brag about drinking abilities or such, but that’s just the best way for me to calculate my voyage through space and time when partying, as I am a responsible adult who needs to know when and where to moderate.(editor's note: lol) Keeping a vague tally helps. So Sofie finally joined one beer down. It turns out she actually went to the real café we were supposed to meet at. Oops. It was after the revelation that Sofie was carrying concealed weaponry in her handbag (a bottle of Johnnie Walker, Black Label) that we decided to find a place to destroy the evidence after finishing our Long Island Ice Teas.
We gave the boy Stewiwonda one last try. Rendered unfit for battle from the night before along with his natural tendencies to encapsulate himself in his studio to make beats, we obviously had to go out and pull him into action. We got into a few difficulties in getting a cab there but eventually reached our destination after having to recite a few laws to various greedy cab drivers who seem to have forgotten their duties to take us on as passengers. Unfortunately, this story will not include Stewiwonda, although his pad served us suitably to go H.A.M. on that bottle of Black Label. Has anybody ever had Black Label? It was my first time, and man does that go down smooth. With the bottle down, we faced the dark, cold Vienna night, next up: Sinjin Hawke.
We finally got to the place. I was pleasantly surprised. It was pretty packed, despite not hearing about the event until hours before it started. The crowd: various species of dickhead in all its magnificent forms. Sinjin Hawke was playing when we got there. And man, that little dude went hard. He was playing the finest selection of tracks that I had on my iPod. See audio example A, B and C below:
This is where the memory is blurry. I cannot fully vouch that exactly these tracks were played but you get the point, it helps to set the scene. Not to belittle Vienna, but I was surprised and very pleased to see that this type of music was getting validation. Who would have thought, a little community of trap-a-holics and music enthusiasts existed in this city. Nevertheless, I got asked for ID a few times. Found that pretty amusing as this always makes me think of the Boiler Room chatroom. Please refer to exhibit B, C and D for the man Sinjin Hawke below:
Exhibit (B):
Exhibit (C):
Exhibit (D):
During the time we were walking with Johnnie earlier that night, I somehow managed to obtain a German flag and took this to the party with me. The moment I pulled this out, it was evident that there were a few people from the smaller lesser-known country Bordering Austria. This entertained the crowd for a good minute until it made itself to the ‘stage’. The guys backstage proceeded to hang our flag up. We just totally Iwo-Jima’d the party. Please refer to exhibit E and F below:
Exhibit (E):
Exhibit (F):
The Serbs eventually announced their presence (The other DJ’s that night were from Serbia) by adding their mark on our flag. Always the friendly type, I caught up with one of the girls who was on tour with the DJ’s whom I exchanged stories of the legendary Happy Novi Sad stage at the EXIT festival with. She thought I designed the t-shirt I was wearing at the time, so I told her where she would be able to cop the ones I actually designed. RIGHT HERE. (See how I just
casually inserted that plug right there?)
Now to get a few things off my conscience. To the bar: you need a better system in capturing sales. I must have UNINTENTIONALLY gotten away with about three free beers as the bar tender didn’t bother in adding up how many she had poured. ALSO: You undercharged me for long drinks multiple times. I managed to pay one round at the actual intended price from the 3, maybe 4 rounds I bought that night. These unfortunate errors on your behalf probably made the night better. So thank you, next round is on me.
After Sinjin Hawke’s set, we managed to meet him outside the club. A real cool dude. He told us how he just recently moved to Barcelona to set up base. We actually thought that would be the end of it as he was done so we grabbed our stuff ready to bounce.
Sinjin Hawke eventually went back down to tear it up one more time. THANK YOU. WHO DOES THAT?! We have this little inside-thing between us around the Juicy J track ‘Who Da Neighbors,’ and the short-story is that, that shit got dropped that night. Any DJ that plays that gets an instant plus in our books. 100 society points for you, Sinjin Hawke. See audio example D below:
What followed was banger after banger and vodka shots with Sinjin Hawke whilst playing. Once again, WHO DOES THAT?! Another 100 society points to Sinjin Hawke. At the end of it all, we gave him a well deserved KONY ISLAND tee we designed. Hopefully it fit. If you need a different size get in touch with us man.
The verdict: One hell of a way to say goodbye to Vienna. Until next time.
Bonus Material:
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