Last year, Carrie Skipper released a beautiful vocal trancer called Time Goes By. Time often goes by, but sometimes it just flies by, like a ray of light or a wave of sound, slightly rubbing against you without even causing you to blink and without making a single sound, until you only come to process the reality of the act long after it has exerted its influence upon you.
Two years ago, Trance was still a completely unheard of word in Lebanon, or perhaps narrowly heard of but often abused in its employment. But there were four trancers (and a friend of one of the four who, in turn, is a trancer as well) that knew Trance for what it really is, each one of these trancers thinking that he alone grasped the entire depth of this music's brilliance, that he alone was blessed enough to listen to, enjoy, and above all understand and appreciate this divine form of artwork... and although this state tends to make one feel "special" or "unique", it also made each of these four trancers feel lonely, for they had no one to share this unveiled treasure with, except some few close friends perhaps.
And so, two years ago, each one of these four trancers began the hunt for fellow Lebanese trancers, a hunt with low expectations, given the pitiful musical ignorance that our culture is sinking in. By sheer chance, these four trancers accidently met up on another (now closed) Lebanese forum, and discovering each other put an immediate end to their loneliness. Ziad, Steve, Samer (plus his good friend Isam), and Saleem, were surprised to discover that there indeed exist other real trancers in their home country, I repeat back in the time when Trance was unheard of here. But they wouldn't settle for just sharing their rich knowledge between eachother - they wanted more. They wanted more because they knew they were capable of more, and because they knew that the scene needed someone to initiate a Trance movement, else it would perpetually lurk in the abhoring filth of contemporary radio music.
Thus, exactly two years ago from this very day, i.e. on the 21st of March 2004, TranceHits.com was born, with a mission to spread the endless wealth that this refined music genre has to offer, to activate the potential of those who have the readiness to embrace this music, to educate those who are not familiar with our gem, to show the planet that this cellular chop of soil that goes by unnoticed on the world map and that we call Lebanon can indeed build a solid Trance community comparable to any Trance community of any other geography. This is was the aim that we had in our four minds on day one, and for the past two years we have been dedicating every single free moment in non-profitable service to this mission that we deem sacred, some off their work time, others off their study time, and all off our personal time. We may have not yet succeeded in fully achieving that goal, and I hope we never do succeed, else we would decay in idleness instead of constantly striving to improve something, anything... but we have managed to cross a long path, recruiting over a thousand members, covering dozens of local and international events, hosting a handful of the globe's most reputable shows, reviewing the latest and freshest releases on the scene, attracting some of the industry's most revered producers, giving birth to a whole new generation of prospective local DJs, fully organizing two events and co-organizing others, establishing our name on the local scene as the reference to everything Trance... all starting with just five crew members (e-sam, SamEr, DIONYSOS, TRANCExual, Dreamboy), and all in just two years. So are we not fucking entitled to celebrate?!
My good friends of this great forum, excuse me for this much prolonged introduction, but seeing where this place started and how it grew means a whole lot for one of the people who laid the foundations to what is today one of the greatest Trance forums online (in my humble but objective opinion). This forum is great in its founding crew, in the other crew members that followed, and most certainly in all its active members that altogether make up one hell of a community! So yes, we sure are entitled to celebrate, and the celebration of the second anniversary of TranceHits.com will take place this coming Friday the 24th of March 2006 in Roadster diner Zalka at 8 P.M. sharp. We want to see you all there, each and every one of you, without any single exception, so that we all celebrate together what we all built together. I'm willing to take excuses for some of you not attending a gig of mine but am not willing to take any excuses for any one of you not joining us in our gathering, as it's not everyday that your little baby TH turns two years old, as it's not everyday that we get to gather up outside a gig.
See you all there my beautiful THerz! All!
Greets,
your dedicated crew.