So just like everyone else it’s time for a look at the year in review. 2009 for most people was a year that didn’t bring too much happiness, but it wasn’t all bad either.

In our own little world, Mike is always on the hunt for a legitimate job and myself, well I’ve been out of work for nearly two years. It gets difficult to run a lifestyle blog/magazine when you can’t even afford the gas in your car, or the car itself. And when you finally get to the club or venue you realize you might not have the gas to get home, or the lens on the camera is scratched and maybe worse, the camera itself isn’t working and you wonder, “What will I have to sell to get this thing fixed?”

Then you look at the site stats and you perk up. You see hits from around the world. In Austrailia, Japan, Europe, even Africa and South America, we have tons of repeat readers. In our local area we have a ridiculous amount of hits considering we don’t really promote outside of this site or Twitter. It’s always encouraging to know that people are seeing what you are doing.

Which has also lead to us meeting tons of interesting people.

In the few short years we’ve been around, we’ve had access to some of the biggest parties and artists in our niche. We’ve interviewed people we knew, people that just happened to be there, people we admired or in my case people with music so unbelievably catchy that no one will ride in the car with me.

We’ve also met tons of people behind the artists, the people behind the scenes doing a lot of the “grunt work”. And I know, putting parties together may not be the most important job, but what I think people fail to realize is the people who put parties together with the typical fakeRICH reader in mind as their main crowd don’t make much money and they do it for the love of music.

While other places, and other genres are very lucrative, we work in an genre that is usually a few steps ahead of the mainstream. I don’t want to use the word “tastemakers”, but I’ve seen first-hand how what I’ve heard in shitty (I say that with love) little clubs in Costa Mesa/LA/Santa Ana is now being played at bars and clubs for the more mainstream crowd in Huntington Beach, Newport Beach or any city ending with “Beach”, and also on the most mainstream radio stations in California.

When you’re ahead of the curve, like so many people are in this niche, you realize that the people doing this are doing it because they love what they do. The DJs, the artists, the venue owners, the promoters, the people at an online magazine who still have not broken even. We all are a part of this because it’s something we love and would like to share with others. Which makes it all the more sad when you see some of those people leave; either not able to make it, or moving on to other things, or are just gone.

This year some of what I considered to be mainstays of the “electro” world in Southern California closed their doors.

Avenue out in Riverside shut down. I only went to there once or twice, but I remember hearing about it every week. They always wanted us to come out and throw a party and when we did, it was an unforgettable evening. I only met the people behind Avenue in passing, Mike might have more words on them. That place was around for years, and if you wanted electro out in the I.E. that was the place to go.

Mute Fridays in Downtown Santa Ana also shut down this year. That place when it first started was nearly empty every week. However, over time the crowds grew and grew. I was always amazed that there was a place in Downtown Santa Ana drawing a crowd so big that people were willing to wait in line for it. They always brought the fun. In OC, besides every Wednesday in Costa Mesa (Busywork, which also shut down and Avalon), Mute was the only place to get real two-step worthy Electro.

And then there was LAX. The story of LAX goes hand in hand with someone we lost.

(Here’s a quick little background on me. Before I started with fakeRICH I really didn’t think DJs were anything more than highly advanced iTunes cyborgs. I just didn’t know what goes into it, nor did I care.)

The first time I heard of DJ AM was on TV when they were going on and on about him and Nicole Richie. I immediately thought “Why am I watching this?” So you can only imagine my excitement when Mike told me we were going to LAX and DJ AM was going to spin (heavy on the sarcasm here).

We get in, the place is packed. Everyone already sweating. I just wanted a drink. And then it gets quiet for a second and you can hear a murmur in the crowd. It was like everyone had a heart palpitation at the same time. The music changed. The crowd at the bar lightened up. I got my drink and headed outside. I couldn’t find Mike or my friends. So I did a walk-around and the guy DJing was playing some pretty good songs, obviously just warming up.

I looked into the dance floor and there was Mike with our beloved fakeRICH Canon 30D just snapping away with a stupid “I’m so happy right now Joe” look on his face. So I make my way out there.

It was like AM was waiting for me to walk out there. I don’t remember the songs, but the way he mixed them and the way he played the crowd was amazing. I never knew a DJ could do that. I still don’t have the words or know the correct vocabulary to technically describe what he was doing on the decks….All I knew was “This is what a DJ is.”

I never cared who was DJing before when I went out, but after that, I was able to see DJs in a new light.

What AM was able to do with a crowd is something most people can only dream of.

LAX was a success because of AM and the excitement he brought to same music we all listen to all day. So when he left us, it was only fitting that LAX was gone too.

In less than a month three of the biggest electro clubs around here were gone.

There are many more things that happened in our little world, but there isn’t enough time to go back and relive them.

2009 will be remembered mainly for things we lost. Michael Jackson; will you ever forget where you were when you heard about that? Money; I can’t think of one person who wasn’t affected by the near-collapse of the financial system.

Another thing we lost was our unbridled optimism. It was only a year ago that the chants of “Yes we can” were echoing in towns across the country, on our way to electing our first Black President. Though, today you won’t go far without hearing a cynical voice, saying, “He’s not doing enough.” That hope isn’t enough.

It’s nearly impossible to go anywhere and not hear people being negative about something. We’ve lost our innocence and our confidence and a lot of people are scared, but I won’t let that bring me down.

2009 for me is a great year. It is the year that things were once again put into perspective. Yes we lost many things and people we’ve loved and cherished. We lost some of our hope and unending confidence, but HOPEfully we’ve gained a more realistic view of the world around us. Hopefully we will finally see what is truly important and work harder to achieve those goals. I don’t mean to be a cheeseball, but maybe in losing so much we’ve gained a sense of who we really could be, or should be. 2009 should not only be a reminder of just how fragile life is, but how fragile our way of life is.

I’ll look back on 2009 without the fondness I have for 2002 (My best year), but I’ll still have a smile. Because it is times like this that we find out what we still have.

We have our friends and family. We have our music, and the influence of those who made music before us. We have each other. And most importanly we have today.