I wanted to do another x-eleven show and needed a venue, so Jeff K put me in touch with a rave promoter named Hooman. Hooman put on some of the biggest parties in town, and he agreed to schedule x-eleven at shows in September and on New Year’s Eve 1993. For the September show, we added three tall steel racks to hold the prison TVs at eye level and debuted an early version of a new song, “Through the Ether” that would be included on the next EP. Hooman knew next to nothing about us, so he had us play the second “stage” at the September show, which turned out to be on the street outside of the warehouse where all of the main acts were playing. This rave, called “Dizzyland” had a carnival theme, and the blocked-off section of Canton Street in front of the warehouse was full of kiddie carnival attractions like the ball pool and moon walk. We played our set and ran the video on the sidewalk while a couple of friends watched us from five feet away. With the exception of our friends, we didn’t attract a lot of attention, even though there were over a thousand people at the show. Most only ventured out of the sweaty warehouse to burrow in the ball pool or to take a stomach-churning bounce in the moon walk. A few people did manage to stop by and check out our show, and I handed out records to the most interested of those. As we packed up our equipment at the end of the night, a group of misanthropes set up permanent camp inside of the ball pool and began hurling the brightly colored plastic balls at passersby. No amount of threatening by the event staff could get the giggling, drug-addled goons to stop, and soon Canton Street was submerged under a rainbow of primary colored spheres. When I pulled away in our Ryder box truck, the balls made a sad popping sound as they crushed underneath the tires. By October 1993, my next EP was three-quarters complete. I already had a title, “Through the Ether” and had written the PostScript code for the label art (minus the fourth track). After recording “Through the Ether” and “Within the Ether,” I again felt the need to return to a harder sound, and I did just that with “Flight of the Phoenix,” completed in about three weeks. Of all the x-eleven songs, this one is probably the most aggressive, and I decided to lead off the second EP with it. I finished off the label artwork and scheduled a mastering session at A&R records for early November. By Thanksgiving, I had another carload full of heavy record boxes, and Jeff K. was soon spinning “Within the Ether” on his EDGE club show.