Promise Cherry Beach

This week features great music from some rapidly emerging creative forces: Ray and Basilisk from Ektoplazm.com, Cryogenetic from Intellegenix, and the inimitable Masia One and Dylan (Ill Gates). Enjoy.

sarah simms – deep dubstep
marty mcfly – bouncy break beats
leelee mishi – sunshine house
.gates foundation with masia one – b.c meets l.a
basilisk – sunset trance
ray vincent – downtempo psy-techno
teezdale (cryogenetic) – deep funk and chill smoky electro

3 to 11pm

Remember: no alcohol allowed. Security will be confiscating any obvious alcohol. If you bring vodka or wine, it gets dumped out. If you bring water or fruit juice, it’s ok. Have lot’s of fun.

Directions:

Driving: Take Lakeshore Blvd East just past Parliament. Turn south down Cherry Street all the way to the end. Then go east into the parking lot on your left. Walk along the bike path past the windsurfing club and yacht club… you’ll hear music. Look for the massive smokestack of the abandoned hydro station.

Biking: Biking to Cherry Beach is easy along the trails beside the lake

TTC: a bus goes from Union Station right to the parking lot area.

Taxi: the new spot is right beside Unwin Ave beside the huge smokestack

If the weather is looking dodgy, you can follow our updates on how things are going at http://twitter.com/cherrybeach or call Dave’s landline 416 461 4939 for a recorded message.

We wanted to give you an update on how nice the new spot is and on the ways in which we’re continuing to develop our systems at Cherry Beach.

The New Spot (yes!):
Last week’s move was a success in so many ways. The new spot has more space to spread out, so people have more room to be creative and do their thing, but it’s intimate at the same time, due to the small trees, bushes and patches of wildflowers around. Also we noticed that any alcohol consumption disappeared, which was one of our goals in moving. Thanks for putting your efforts into making it all work.

The New Signs:
You may have noticed some signage that we put at a couple of areas explaining the nature of our parties to people. We have heard from many newcomers and even people who have been coming for a while that they never knew who was throwing the events, nor did they know that donations cover all the operating costs. So we took a page from the Piknik Electronique event in Montreal and made it easier to understand what’s happening and who’s doing it.

New Soundsystem:
We have decided to take our equipment to the rental shop and reintroduce Justin Martin’s alien sound system. He bought the speakers from the auditorium where the Phantom of the Opera was playing and they are super crisp, clean and precise sounding. We look forward to how it will sound this weekend.

New Wristband/Donation Policy:
Over the years, we’ve heard from a lot of people who have taken us aside and wondered how we pay for everything – and how they can donate to it. In response to this, we are doing something new this weekend, again, similar to the Piknik Electronique. We have a small team of Cherry Beach regulars working with us to help fan out and accept donations from people and putting wristbands on people who have contributed. They will be working all afternoon and into the evening accepting donations from everyone who comes out to enjoy. We ask for a suggested minimum donation of $5, but people can donate more if they like.

Obviously, we know a lot of artists and travellers and people who are strained financially. $5 isn’t a lot, but if you can’t do it, we ask any small donation you can afford, or some help keeping the party going. If everyone is contributing somehow to the event, it will be the most amazing possible.

We hope you like this idea. We see alot of people showing up each week, but we’re not generating much of a nest egg to keep the event maintainable. If we can mobilize small donations from everyone who enjoys the afternoons with us, we’ll be able to accomplish more with the events, and put people to work as well. We would love to afford to pay the artists, and we don’t think this is unattainable. If you are available to work some Sundays, please send us a message to help us get a list of workers together. If you have any suggestions or reactions to our ideas, please give us some input.

We thank everyone who has given us help in moving things along. A shout out to Geoff Robinson and crew for their cool glow/lantern creation the other week, and to Thomas with his wooden forest structure, and all the hulahoopers and performers who come out to have fun each week with us. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

Some people have suggested that we have more dance music in the afternoon and chill it off at night, so that’s what we’re doing this weekend. So the dance music is all afternoon and early evening, then we go more progressively downtempo after dark for that perfect enjoyment of the sunset and emerging stars.

See you Sunday.

David and Irving