Welcome to 2024! As much as time seems like a blur to me now, with every year passing I see new eras dawn. It seemed like only yesterday that I would start paving the way for Hard Dance in San Antonio when I joined forces with Hard Dance Texas back in 2017 and continue the streak of hardcore dance music with HakubiVerse. Now that I think about it as I write this journal, I think the last time I played a full hardcore set of any kind was when I headlined Night 1 of San AnTokyo 5. The illustration fo time was like an absolute flash despite my many long adventures across Texas enjoying Trance, but the reality was that it was an incredibly long time since I got to enjoy Hard Dance. The nights of February 16th and 17th allowed me those chances to party at these real raves with fast, hard, and happy music as I attended Keep Austin Hard’s event at The Oven featuring Hartshorn in Austin, and perform at Underground Syndicate’s event, PKLEstock: 5 Years of Remission at The Compound featuring Levenkhan in Houston.
Hartshorn would return to Texas since his last appearance in the Lone Star State in 2021 when he headlined HakubiVerse’s Homecoming HardDance. Meeting Hartshorn in person again in Austin was just as an incredible experience as when Ame and I worked with him in San Antonio and he still seems like the iconically-driven DJ to bring pure rave sounds to wherever he goes. I dare say everyone on this show’s lineup was perfectly on point and every set had my jaw drop from the incredibly crowd-pleasing tunes. The night kicked off with some hard-driving techno sounds by Gondra, followed by the high energy sounds from the highly energetic DJ, Elevon. R3N3GADE would later melt my heart with his selection of tunes while A_C_A_B brings the charm of hard AnimEDM with his mixing. There was never a dull moment between these opening DJs and I was absolutely pleased at every moment of their sets; however, Hartshorn took his set to incredible levels with banger after banger that had me yell “OMG” mid-dance or mid-conversation. As I write this, it has been a couple of weeks and I admit my details may have gotten a bit murky for taking too much time to share this weekend’s experience but at least I have captured a couple of moments from this night. Hopefully I will have a much easier routine to report my awesome nights.
The next day, Ame and I embarked in our journey to Houston to as I’ve been selected to join this year’s PKLEstock lineup and open for PKLE and Levenkhan. As I thought the weather would progressively get nicer and that we would leave the frigid temperatures back in January, Texas was hit with another cold front and I had to endure the cold as I did not have the common sense to bring warmies. Luckily there was a Buc-ee’s along the way to Houston from Austin and I snagged a thick hoodie with the eponymous beaver on my chest. After checking into our hotel and sorting my music, we would then embark on our drive across brutal Houston traffic to get to The Compound, only to get ourselves lost and driving a good 30 minutes across the city until we realize that we should map the address instead of the name of the venue. We tend to keep a good habit of making it the event as soon as the door opens and we were only a few minutes late driving back mostly from where we came. Unfortunately Pinky was unable to make it to Houston that night but PKLEstock kicked off with some hard tech sounds by Warbear. My good friend Tynam0 would then proceed with Hardstyle and raw sounds while I followed with a bit more Hardstyle and introduced Happy Hardcore. PKLE would then take the stage for his hour of hard sounds with every bass drum figurtively kicking cancer’s ass. So from I understand about the lore of PKLEstock, it is PKLE’s and Underground Syndicate’s flagship event celebrating PKLE’s conquering of cancer and showcasing a night of hope and strength. Following PKLE with just as much a raw spirit as I’ve seen her in previous sets, Krelisa carried on in the semi-final set for the night before PKLEstock’s headliner Levenkhan, showcased his burtally hardcore power. Something I did notice about this night compared to the previous night in Austin was that we had a much more raw sound. Instead of uplifting vocals and heart-melting synths, I vividly remember the grimy, dissonant percussions and synths usually found in hardstyle and rawstyle. Looking back, I felt enjoying a much raw hard dance night was appropriate for a show like PKLEstock as we want to continue punching cancer in the face and we are going to continue to live our lives without compromise with our sound. My set is now up on Mixcloud and although I do have some Hardstyle in my set, I admit it does not compare to the raw power I’ve heard that night and I only wish I could show you all after the fact; maybe next time I’ll remember to record some videos.
This will definitely not be the last time this year that I will get to enjoy hard dance and if anything I would love to spend more special attention to it with some upcoming events. I will share that I have been booked for some upcoming events with Keep Austin Hard that I will announce soon and I am actively working with some additional collaborations in Texas. However, my next upcoming show will be at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center as I will be headlining Kawacon‘s rave along with Tynam0 for Kawadansu 2024. As much as I feel I should be playing more Hard Dance to keep the momentum going, I am actually playing AnimEDM, House, Trance, and Festival EDM yet I may turn up the pace with some HandsUp and perhaps Eurobeat; on the other hand, Tynam0 will be closing Kawadansu with his hardcore sounds so no worries as we will have something for everyone at this massive anime rave.
