jill shanna dot com

Good question! I was attempting to complete a an overwhelming summer courseload that was too ambitious. Had to drop something at a late date. Then I was trying to get an internship and scored a co-op doing Web development, and possibly more. My brother’s wedding was coming up, and I was making the jewelry for the bridal party. I also was trying to get my own jewelry out there and finally did sell a few pieces at the end of the summer, but never had enough time and jewelry prepared to get a table at the Farmer’s Market this year. I was so busy this summer that I had to forgo Habitat for Humanity entirely. This is why I have not posted in months. I did get a mix posted on SoundCloud and should have my August one FINALLY posted soonish….

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I will update this post continually as needed….

The “A State of Trance 450″ celebration/tour kicks off today and lasts for three consecutive days and for two more next weekend. Armin van Buuren begins the events with a live broadcast today at 1:00 PM, Central Time from The Guvernment in Toronto, Ontario. Check out Cube Trance’s up-to-the-hour tracklist for the whole five-day event (very sweet–thanks, Guys.)

You can hear a free live broadcast of today’s Toronto show (and also the Wrocław, Poland broadcast on Saturday, April 10, live from the Centennial Center) at alpharadio.bg. Click on the Winamp icon in the upper right corner of the page to stream it, or open the stream directly through your media player at http://188.126.1.9:8000/AlphaRadio. Other famous names (Markus Schulz, Aly & Fila, Sean Tyas, Signum, etc.) will join in with mini-guest preview mixes during the Toronto broadcast today and will have hour-long sets in various locations later tonight, which are to broadcast on some stations, and continuously on astateoftrance.com. The guest mixes will continue for the next several days and will mainly be available only on astateoftrance.com.

Here’s a full list of the events and locations and which stations are broadcasting the ASOT shows live over the next five days. Check out Armin’s Twitter feed for exact start times and additional tidbits of information.

If you miss any of the live sets (Armin’s or others’), you can hear them over the coming days at various times on zebradrive.com.

EVENT LINEUPS (taken from the official site; all times are local to each venue):

Day 1: April 1, 2010 – Toronto, Canada (GMT -5)

• 10pm – 11pm – Arnej
• 11pm – 00am – Blake Jarrell
• 00am – 03am – Armin van Buuren
• 03am – 04am – Aly & Fila
• 04am – 05am – Simon Patterson
• 05am – 06am – Sean Tyas
• 06am – 07am – Signum

Day 2: April 2, 2010, New York, USA (GMT -5)

• 09pm – 10pm – Cerf en Mitiska
• 10pm – 11pm – DJ Eco
• 11pm – 00am – Rank 1
• 00am – 02am – Armin van Buuren
• 02am – 03am – Menno de Jong
• 03am – 04am – Roger Shah
• 04am – 05am – MIKE

Day 3: April 3, 2010, New York, USA (GMT -5)

• 09pm – 10pm – Breakfast
• 10pm – 11pm – Lange
• 11pm – 00am – Giuseppe Ottaviani
• 00am – 02am – Armin van Buuren
• 02am – 03am – John O Callaghan
• 03am – 04am – Filo & Peri
• 04am – 05am – Alex M.O.R.P.H.

Day 4: April 9, 2010, Bratislava, Slovakia (GMT +2)

• 09pm – 10pm – Ashley Wallbridge
• 10pm – 11pm – Myon & Shane 54
• 11pm – 00am – Dash Berlin
• 00am – 01am – Gareth Emery
• 01am – 03am – Armin van Buuren
• 03am – 04am – Daniel Kandi
• 04am – 05am – W&W
• 05am – 06am – Marcus Schossow

Day 5: April 10, 2010, Wrocław, Poland (GMT +2)

• 08pm – 09pm – Mat Zo
• 09pm – 10pm – Jorn van Deynhoven
• 10pm – 11pm – Super 8 and Tab
• 11pm – 00am – Andy Moor
• 00am – 02am – Armin van Buuren
• 02am – 03am – Markus Schulz
• 03am – 04am – Cosmic Gate
• 04am – 05am – Sied van Riel
• 05am – 06am – Nitrous Oxide

You can find the Bratislava, Slovakia broadcast live from the Expo Arena on Friday, April 9, live starting at 7:00 CT on XMRadio.com‘s Area station (channel 80), as well as on astateoftrance.com. astateoftrance.com will also have live video from the final day in Wrocław.

Replays of this show appear around the Net on free streams like the 96-kbps trance stations at DI.fm‘s Trance channel, and DI also will play the Toronto live show on their premium (paid) Trance channel.

Derrick Summers (DJ Derrick) from somewhere in the U.S. won the Bedroom DJ Contest! AlphaRadio cut off the broadcast though, so I switched over to the live stream from astateoftrance.com to listen to it. Very uplifting. I haven’t found any info on DJ Derrick on the Net just yet. This does make me a little sad…the Bedroom DJ winner should’ve been me! But I didn’t enter in time (next time, give us a time zone for that deadline, ASOT publicity people)….

Armin van Buuren recently announced his Bedroom DJ Contest. The DJ with the chosen 60-minute trance mix will have it broadcast live on A State of Trance 450, which airs worldwide on various stations (such as XM/Sirius) in just under a month. Entries are due March 21.

DJ Jill Shanna would LOVE to enter, but since I do my mixes entirely on my computer, dragging around waveforms and what not, rather than live on physical turntables or turntable-emulating software, it’s unclear whether they will accept a mix by me. I e-mailed Armada Music the other night to inquire and am eagerly awaiting a response (preferably in my favor). I think it requires equal skill, though of a different kind, to do what I do. A bad mix is a bad mix; it’s just easier to screw up the timing when doing it on the fly.

In any event, having my mix played for millions of listeners, and on ASOT with Armin, would be incredibly awesome! I hope that I can give it a shot.

UPDATE: March 30, 2010: So, when all was said and done, they changed their official rules, because I took a look and saw nothing saying anything about “showcasing your skill as a DJ and performer” (which was the phrase that suggested to me that I could not mix it studio-style in the first place). So I was going to enter and revised a mix I had already done for year-end 2009 by shortening it, smoothing out some transitions even more, and adding a couple newer songs…and whaddya know, the contest closed like half an hour before I was ready to submit it. I went down to eat, relaxed a bit…drat. I wish they had posted a time zone for that midnight deadline. In any event, my own fault–I just had too many other things to do and let it go until the last minute. Regardless, I’ll be listening when ASOT 450 airs on Thursday, for sure.

I’ve been really busy for a couple weeks, then I got sick for a couple days this week, and then I’ve just been catching up and getting stuff done…so I apologize for the delinquency of this post.

Thanks to Emma, her boyfriend, online games that allow you to apply points to concert-ticket raffles, and KISS FM, I enjoyed one of five free tickets to see Armin van Buuren last Friday night, October 9th, at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. In a word, it was pure joy. I know, that might sound silly for a DJ concert, but it’s the truth. Remember, I was DJ Unia. I had the turntables all the big-time DJs had, at the time, and the headphones (but a cheaper mixer, because that stuff was expensive enough). So I would say that this concert was pretty amazing. I’m pissed because right now, I’m missing ATB at Vision (arrrrrgh!)…but I couldn’t afford to go up there again this weekend, so I’ll just have to miss this one. At least I know I can check out Vision, SoundBar, and the Aragon for future trance shows.

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