On October 19th, I threw a DM party for the release of the final two albums in Depeche Mode’s “Remastered” series.

The club: Vertigo’s, in Downtown L.A. (down the street from the Convention Center, and the new Nokia Live theater).

About 75 minutes in, everything was going smoothly, and then, without warning - zap! The power blew! The only light in the place was from my laptop (battery at full charge). At first, I thought it was just the club. The manager of the place explained that if we went too loud, we could blow the power. When the power came back on (briefly), I even opened the mic, and joked “OK, who turned on the hair dryer?”, before the damn power went out again!

Turns out, the club went dark, along with the street lights, and even the street signals! Over a block, blacked out! I was frantically trying to get power company people on the phone, but we never did get the power back on.

Luckily, I had almost 300 DM items to giveaway (loads of vinyl, test pressing DVD’s for the new Remasters, old UK promo box sets…tasty items). While people didn’t get a full four hours of dancing, they got enough swag to make it somewhat worth it.

I found out later that the Convention Center, down the street, went 2/3rds black earlier in the night. Sucks…

I am looking into a makeup gig, hopefully to happen by the middle of November. I will keep everyone updated on the progress…

Sorry to the near-200 people inside, and all the people still waiting outside to get in (it was only 11:15pm on a Friday night - we were going to have a full house….damn).