Whew! What a fantastic night we had at the launch party last night! It was, as the saying goes, awesome. We practically packed Industry DTLA solid, and we ran an hour over our official closing time so that we wrapped things up at midnight! We had so many people come from far-off places to enjoy “DANCEFLOOR THUNDERSTORM”, it was truly remarkable. There were contingents from both San Diego and Boston(!) who made the trip, along with a few hundred L.A. residents—including the world-famous actress Izabella Miko! It made for a very festive and laid-back celebration.
The responses we’ve gotten for the book have so far been phenomenal. Those in attendance who participated in the raves covered in “DANCEFLOOR THUNDERSTORM” were gasping and marveling at some of the photographs, which were no doubt at that moment taking them right back to those fantastic times when the scene meant so much to all of us. Time and time again, folks would be struggling for positive adjectives when trying to describe to me how the pictures made them feel. It wasn’t just old rave die-hards who were enjoying the book, though—we also had a lot of younger attendees who professed both awe and a bit of jealousy when they saw what at incredible experience the 90’s rave scene really was (and that they missed out on it). It all helped drive the sales of the book: we moved quite an impressive number of copies!
And the music! Even though Jason Blakemore had to bail due to reasons beyond his control, the other three DJs made up for it, and then some! Mark Lewis, Freddy Be and Riley Warren were all fantastic, bringing some great grooves that never overpowered the small space we were in. Speaking of that space, we also got a lot of compliments for our choice of hosting the party in Industry DTLA. The people really seemed to like the dual-purpose place—maybe it was the open bar? (Heh heh)
But of course, none of this would have been possible without the help of a lot of people who donated their time, product and skills to get the party going. So accordingly, HUGE thanks to Mark Lewis, Riley Warren, Freddy Be, Chris Wayne, Christian King, Icelandic Water, Singha Beer, Gina (Christian’s assistant), Eric the doorman, Getty Images, and our lovely bartenders. Thanks to all in attendance who’re still making the party blow up on social media at this moment. Thanks to Susan von Seggern for some great PR work that helped get all those people down there. Thanks to all the media who helped generate the buzz, especially the LA Weekly!
And of course, an enormous THANK YOU to everyone who came down to enjoy the book and the evening! You guys rock, and I am so happy and pleased that you’ve enjoyed the book as much as you have. After all, you’re the ones I wrote this book for. I just hope that you can continue to spread the word about “DANCEFLOOR THUNDERSTORM” to your friends and other fans of the music, and steer them to the book’s web site, www.dancefloorthunderstorm.com.
More events are coming in the future, so stay tuned! In the meantime, enjoy the gallery of pics taken by friends of mine, and the great Getty Images gallery that can be found by clicking this link:
http://www.gettyimages.com/search/events/580884883?family=editorial&assettype=image&excludenudity=true&sort=best&phrase=
