Catgirl Goth Rave X Happened
Nov. 22nd, 2014 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raxIf you're interested in my main set: You can listen streaming here, download here, and see a tracklist here. If you're interested in other people's sets... I'll try to get copies and post them here? :)
What the party was like: It was kinda small and cozy, reminded me of CGR 4 or 5, where there was more socializing than dancing but a lot of the socializing was structured around the presence of music and the possibility of dancing. People seemed to have a lot of fun, and I got rave reviews, which always makes me really happy. Throwing parties that encourage people I care about to do different kinds of things than they usually do is super awesome to me. Would do again. Will do again. (I'd been feeling before the party a little like "ugh, will this be the last CGR? am I done with this?" and my answer is emphatically no. So that's cool.)
What DJing was like: It's interesting how much better I am at this than a year ago and just how much there is left to learn. Listening to last year's set as well as this one, I can tell that last year I took risks all over the place because I didn't know what I was doing, and some of them paid off in really interesting ways and others... Worked out okay. :P This year I was more careful, and while I think that paid off overall, it means I didn't do things as complex or reach-y as last year? Which maybe is related to how I'm approaching the world lately, or maybe isn't? Check back in a few months? (Also I whiffed the transition into Lights. Oops. The perils of going live; I brought in some stuff I hadn't expected to actually use at the end, so I was _way_ off script.) It was SUPER FUN. I did a second set at 3 AM or so, but it was just a reprise of half of the stuff from Laura's wedding afterparty, so while I did save my work for private review I'd much rather get a good mixdown of the whole set and share that later.
What CGR is growing to mean for me: A changing of the seasons. A chance to see old friends. A way to share what I'm learning about music with said friends. A way to bring people together. An excuse to put cat ears on everybody. One of the anchor points in my year, something I plan around even when I don't do a _good_ job planning around it and only get a venue locked down two weeks in advance. Sorry about that. I hope it can be some of those things for some of you, too, and is at least interesting to read about for everyone else. :P
What sucked this year: Someone who sexually assaulted me multiple times as an undergrad showed up and, while they didn't do anything to me, they were all over one of my friends in a kind-of-creeps way and it sucked. They weren't supposed to be invited; I thought I'd removed them from the invite list, but they'd been on it twice, and I only removed them once. *sigh* Why were they ever on the invite list? For a while I'd decided to just let bygones be bygones and have them in my life. That was a fine choice. I'm not making that choice anymore. I'm in general changing up the way my boundaries work and trying to accept less bullshit from other people and from myself. Good luck with that, me. (In theory I'm going to write a whole long thing about that here. In practice, I don't blog much, so don't wait up.) This person being around sucked --- their behavior reminded me of the things they'd done to me, whether it was indicative of them still being likely to be that way or not --- but they won't be there next time, and it turned out okay, and I turned out okay. Still would rather not have dealt with it, and I'm very gladgaudior was there with me.
Why this post is in this format: I have no idea. I'm pretty tired, time to go to bed.
What the party was like: It was kinda small and cozy, reminded me of CGR 4 or 5, where there was more socializing than dancing but a lot of the socializing was structured around the presence of music and the possibility of dancing. People seemed to have a lot of fun, and I got rave reviews, which always makes me really happy. Throwing parties that encourage people I care about to do different kinds of things than they usually do is super awesome to me. Would do again. Will do again. (I'd been feeling before the party a little like "ugh, will this be the last CGR? am I done with this?" and my answer is emphatically no. So that's cool.)
What DJing was like: It's interesting how much better I am at this than a year ago and just how much there is left to learn. Listening to last year's set as well as this one, I can tell that last year I took risks all over the place because I didn't know what I was doing, and some of them paid off in really interesting ways and others... Worked out okay. :P This year I was more careful, and while I think that paid off overall, it means I didn't do things as complex or reach-y as last year? Which maybe is related to how I'm approaching the world lately, or maybe isn't? Check back in a few months? (Also I whiffed the transition into Lights. Oops. The perils of going live; I brought in some stuff I hadn't expected to actually use at the end, so I was _way_ off script.) It was SUPER FUN. I did a second set at 3 AM or so, but it was just a reprise of half of the stuff from Laura's wedding afterparty, so while I did save my work for private review I'd much rather get a good mixdown of the whole set and share that later.
What CGR is growing to mean for me: A changing of the seasons. A chance to see old friends. A way to share what I'm learning about music with said friends. A way to bring people together. An excuse to put cat ears on everybody. One of the anchor points in my year, something I plan around even when I don't do a _good_ job planning around it and only get a venue locked down two weeks in advance. Sorry about that. I hope it can be some of those things for some of you, too, and is at least interesting to read about for everyone else. :P
What sucked this year: Someone who sexually assaulted me multiple times as an undergrad showed up and, while they didn't do anything to me, they were all over one of my friends in a kind-of-creeps way and it sucked. They weren't supposed to be invited; I thought I'd removed them from the invite list, but they'd been on it twice, and I only removed them once. *sigh* Why were they ever on the invite list? For a while I'd decided to just let bygones be bygones and have them in my life. That was a fine choice. I'm not making that choice anymore. I'm in general changing up the way my boundaries work and trying to accept less bullshit from other people and from myself. Good luck with that, me. (In theory I'm going to write a whole long thing about that here. In practice, I don't blog much, so don't wait up.) This person being around sucked --- their behavior reminded me of the things they'd done to me, whether it was indicative of them still being likely to be that way or not --- but they won't be there next time, and it turned out okay, and I turned out okay. Still would rather not have dealt with it, and I'm very glad
gaudior was there with me.Why this post is in this format: I have no idea. I'm pretty tired, time to go to bed.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-25 01:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-27 02:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-25 05:05 am (UTC)It's strange to look back. Last year, I got lost on the T trying to find the place (not anyone's fault, the fault of my state of mind at the time), and eventually gave up in a depressive haze of "oh well, why bother?" and trudged home. This year, I managed to go and dance, eat, drink, and talk for two hours. The difference between last year and this year is about me more than anything else, but it's cool to be able to measure it in terms of successive Catgirl Goth Raves.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-27 02:59 pm (UTC)