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I'll start off by warning any potential readers that this rant will probably be very random and convoluted as I've had a few drinks... I fell in love with Goa back when the "new-school Goa" movement was just starting out - Suntrip had released only a few things - A couple of Filteria albums, Khetzal, Ka-Sol, and the compilations Apsara and Twist Dreams. Khetzal's Corrole album was a huge influence on me - I connected with this kind of music more than anything I had heard in my life. Prior to discovering Goa/Psy I was into more "mainstream" trance, like older Paul Van Dyk, Mauro Picotto, Darude, etc.... but that scene totally went to shit once everyone started adding cheesy and clubby vocals to everything, so in search of something new to follow I discovered Goa and Psy Trance, and in turn a lot of ambient/"psychill"/"goachill" stuff as well. Unfortunately for my these musical tastes, I was born and raised in southern California - (a few years ago I moved up to northern California...) I'm an avid discogs user. Here's my collection: http://www.discogs.com/collection?user=Ignite You know what's awesome? SIX HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO releases in my collection... guess how many of the artists are from the US? ONE! ME!!! Well, I'm sure there are a few compilations I own with artists from the US (Aerosis comes to mind...), but still, how pathetic is this? Not a single album from a US artist?? I don't go out of my way to avoid music from my home-country. I use Discogs, Psyshop, Psynews, etc. etc. to discover new music... and I'd be thrilled to stumble upon anything released by an American artist that I actually enjoy... but nearly 10 years of being interested in these genres and it hasn't happened yet! Back when I first became interested in Trance, everyone here just referred to ALL electronic music as "Techno", which pissed me off. These days everyone refers to it all as "Dubstep", which pisses me off even more. At least Techno and Trance are SOMEWHAT related... but Dubstep? Seriously? Yea, of course a genre as shallow and immature as Dubstep is the first genre in a decade to even become remotely popular here because people like the "bad ass" sounds and let's not forget, lots of BASS. Because that's all that really counts in electronic music. BASS!!!! Fuck. "I write my own electronic music." "Oh, you mean like Dubstep?" FUCK YOU! There is no scene in this country for the music I love, and it's becoming apparent that there never will be. I'm not even dead-set on Goa... I'd love even some good ambient festivals... or even some fucking Full On... I've gotta admit... as long as Full On doesn't have crappy vocals I can't deny that I enjoy a lot of it... like Ananda Shake, Vibe Tribe, etc... sure, it's not anywhere near as deep as Goa, but it's catchy and fun. I've been to like 5 parties in my life because I don't want to go to just random ones - I only want to go when there's an artist or DJ that I actually admire. I saw Astral Projection in LA a few years ago... they were awesome, but the crowd was full of drunk morons... I saw Wizzy Noise at an outdoor psy festival hosted by PsyTribe in SoCal - small crowd, but great people - really spiritual and down to earth... and of course Wizzy played an amazing set as well. I was psyched when they played my favorite track of theirs at the time, Oceanica. I also saw Infected Mushroom in LA once, but it was a similar experience to Astral Projection - their set was decent, but the crowd was full of LA retards that didn't seem like they belonged or connected to the music at all. I guess Infected Mushroom is partially to blame themselves since they had already started becoming Americanized... this was after Vicious Delicious... Finally, I did go to one Friday-through-Sunday Psy-Tribe outdoor event purely because Bobby Ognyanov from Aerosis was playing a set at it. That's right, I tolerated THREE DAYS of virtually nothing but Dark Psy for ONE HOUR of Goa. That hour was amazing though... Bobby played virtually nothing but Suntrip material, and I loved every second of it... I'm starting to realize that there's really no point to this rant other than a bunch or whining and complaining... but seriously... I order CDs from Psyshop and of course they always come with these flyers or booklets with events all over Europe (or even Canada) that I'd LOVE to be at... I see so many artist names I recognize and just get a great feeling about many of the advertised events in general. I've also seen several YouTube videos from Suntrip events, etc... all I want is a LITTLE of that without having to spend the money to fly half way around the world... just ONCE IN A WHILE... but no, there's never ANYTHING anymore... at least that I'm aware of. Dubstep has taken over. The best I can hope for when referencing Trance to a random person is that they remember Sandstorm by Darude. Great. A song that's well over 10 years old. That's the boring and repetitive piece of shit that stuck with you over the years when it came to Trance? Fan-fucking-tastic. Yes, the synth sounded bad ass at the time. I get it. Really gritty and awesome sounding. What else did the song have going for it? Nothing! Why is it still played in clubs here over 10 years after it's release? I have no fucking clue. But Sandstorm became more popular in the US than any other trance song. Evar. WTF. Then Skrillex came along and took over. What's it gonna take to start even a small Goa scene here in the US?? I've completely lost the motivation to write music lately because I feel completely alone in this place... if only I could have just a couple of parties a year to go to where they played music I actually liked... where I could connect with likeminded people who were just excited to hear Goa as I was... I'm listening to Land Of Freedom by Transwave right now... as soon as that square synth comes in I just fucking close my eyes and disappear in the music. It's beautiful. Powerful. Freeing. I love it! And it's depressing as shit to realize that there's no one else within thousands of miles who feels the same way. This is my song, Protostar: Imba was kind enough to release this EP of mine on his net-lable, UAF (Underground Alien Factory) Records. About 6 months after it's release, Persistent Aura (another UAF artist) contacted me to ask if he and Agneton could do a remix, and that they were planning to play the track at some festival in Belgium. Awesome! I'm not sure it it was ever actually played... and I know that they never finished the remix, but still, that's a festival I would have loved to be at, with or without my own track being played. Maybe my isolation as far as musical taste in this country is just becoming an excuse for not writing new material... but I can feel a part of me that really wants to get back into it... I just wish I could go out and feel like I was part of a community who felt the same way about this amazing music that I do. Is there anyone else here from the California, or even the entire US, who feels the same way I do? :-( /End drunken rant...