Kai Tracid at Melly’s

It’s been a long year and a half since I first encountered a Kai Tracid video, tracked him down, got copies of his CDs, learned what Trance/Acid music was, moved to Germany, and then kept track of his schedule learning that he was nearby in Leipzig, but I wasn’t able to go (no German skills, two or three weeks after getting here, and I wasn’t quite ready to go there alone), then that he was going to be in Erfurt (but I was going to be in New Orleans), and then Dresden-which I could make easily.

What a trial it has been.

Not really, but it was nice to see him at last.

Mateo was the only person with me when I first saw the video to “Life is Too Short” – and liked the message of the music, as well as the video (ironically, I’ve only seen the video once, that first time). MT was the one who helped me track down Kai Tracid’s name (I remembered “Life is Too Short” and “Kai” but nothing else) by using a lyric search engine on the net-I think at amazon.com.

Anyhow, I was at Melly’s, which is a nightclub located in a slightly seedy part of Dresden-and by slightly seedy, I mean that the streets weren’t as nicely paved as the rest of the city, and the nearby buildings appeared to have some graffiti on them, but it was not, in any remote way, an unsafe feeling. It was just slightly seedy.

After paying the 5€ cover fee, I checked my coat (0.50€), went to the toilet, and then found the main floor. Thanks to the unusual feature of the club’s website, when clicking on “Location” and then choosing the first option on the left, “überblick,” one gets a mostly accurate floor plan of the club (not the expected city map showing where the club is located, but I diagnosed that it was under “Anfahrt” after thinking about it and experimenting). The floor plan was slightly off, in that there were only two tables behind the DJ/LJ booth on the mainfloor, not the three indicated.

I did not check the rest of the floor plan for accuracy, but it looked right. For most of the evening, I hung out behind the booth watching people dance and the LJ and DJ work.

Kai Tracid, as the main event, did not appear until well after my 10:00 arrival-starting his magic at 12:30. I left my spot at one point to hit the toilet and got my ass pinched.

By a girl.

Ugh!

Kai was obviously an attraction–there were more than a few people seeking Kai’s autograph and taking his photo (oh why did I leave my camera at home).

What’s interesting to me is that his music is definitely distinctive. There’s no mistaking that he was the one who mixed the music, and he doesn’t rely upon current hits to find his mixed. I recognized much of what he played from having listened to his albums in the past. (For the record, two of his tracks are currently under “current favorites” on my iPod: “Life is too short” and “4 just 1 day.”)

(Random aside, I don’t know what was more disturbing about the House DJ’s music: how much of it I didn’t recognize, or the fact that one in ten represented something that had been in my personal music collection for at least five years. I mean, crap, I don’t know much about music, but really!)

Oddly, Kai seemed rather shy while working. He never once spoke into the microphone, leaving announcements to the House DJ. I watched as he signed autographs for fans, and whenever he handed autographs back to the people standing in front of him, he always handed them over using both hands as if he were presenting something special-which I suppose he was.

Unfortunately he didn’t have anything special to sign, and was signing the little slips of paper people use to make requests. I felt like a dolt for not grabbing any of the CD booklets I have of his, and wanted to get something signed.

It dawned on me that I had a Dutch “Nationale Strippen Kaart” in my wallet that would be perfect. So I reached into my wallet to grab it, when I realized that I also had a map of Dresden that I’d been using to find my way around town.

How perfect was that?!

I had my autograph on the map of the city where I saw him.

Now to figure out when and where I can see him next.