Although the “Dizzyland” rave had been a disappointment, Hooman had reimbursed all of our expenses and had promised us a main stage gig at the New Year’s Eve show, “Ravestock ‘94.” For the show, I really wanted to debut all of the new songs with new videos as well, but with only six weeks to prepare, it would be a challenge. I wanted our set to be at least thirty minutes long, which meant a total of at least six songs mixed together back-to-back. To make long mixes like that, there was a major technical hurdle I hadn’t yet overcome; my sampler could only hold one song’s worth of sounds and it took several minutes to load the next song from floppy disk. For the previous shows, I had prepared a rough mix of the show to two tracks of a four-track tape and punched in the sampled parts to the other pair of tracks. Todd had then overdubbed the stereo audio tracks back to the video tape for the final mix. This would have worked fine had the four-track deck always run at the same speed, but it didn’t. As a result, the video and music would gradually get out of sync the longer the tape ran. Also, the 4-track’s audio wasn’t anywhere near DAT quality. For Ravestock, we wanted rock-solid synchronization and crystal clear audio, and there was only one way to get it -- I had to buy a sampler with enough memory to hold several songs worth of samples at one time. So, in December 1993 I coughed up $3000 for an Ensoniq ASR-10M sampler with 8 Megabytes of memory (a vast amount at the time) and began working on the mixes for the Ravestock show. I divided the show into two three-song mixes; once the audio for the first mix was complete, Todd would arrange the video while I completed the audio for the second. Todd had just replaced his Amiga 1000 with a faster, larger capacity Amiga 1200. It was still made of plastic and it constantly threatened to overheat, but the 1200 allowed Todd to increase the density and complexity of the videos, although he still spent a lot of time swapping floppy disks. We debuted two new tracks at Ravestock: the opening untitled track, and “Passion ‘94,” a tribal rework of “Past Passion.” Also making the first appearance at the show was our five-foot-long plastic “bong,” made of 4” clear acrylic pipe filled with a boiling mix of dry ice and water and illuminated from below by a green spotlight. Designed by our mad scientist friend Alex, the glowing green “bongs” were a vision straight out of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, and they were always a big hit with the audience at x-eleven shows. With all of the new songs, videos, and props, it still amazes me that we finished preparations for the show on time, but somehow we managed. That month, I mastered the art of sleeping with my eyes open at work. Ravestock turned out to be the best show in x-eleven’s short career. We were the opening act for San Francisco’s Darwin Chamber, and the DJ had been warming up the New Year’s Eve crowd for some time when we took the stage. Alex kicked off the proceedings by dropping the first stick of dry ice into the glowing, water-filled bong, and soon the warehouse was filled with thousands of watts of booming x-eleven bass. As the video ran on the screens behind us and the lights danced across the crowd in front, we -- well, we didn’t do much of anything actually, since everything was taped. I added a few sounds on top of the mix, but it was tough to hear anything over the tremendously loud mains, so I eventually just turned the volume knob on my Prophet all the way down. Todd and I tried to cultivate an aura of coolness by guzzling Zima from 1-liter water bottles and smoking cigarettes during the show, but I doubt anyone noticed. As I looked out at the crowd while “Within the Ether” played, I noticed that no one was looking back at me; instead, they watched the bubbling green bong, or the video screens, or they simply kept their eyes shut while they danced or made out with each other. Everyone I focused on seemed to be completely enveloped by the whole experience: the music, the video, everything. The two awkward guys on stage didn’t even register in their consciousness, which was exactly how I wanted it. I had been onstage in bar bands scores of times, but I had never before played music I’d written myself to a crowd of that size. The feeling is beyond indescribable, and I’ll remember it as long as I live.