I’m not sure if it’s correct but, perhaps I owe a small explanation of what happened with me after I dissapeared a long time ago. So after creating this website I thought It’d be a good time to explain, for those that keep asking me every now and then. Specifically for those on this post on DI.fm.
NOTE: For those of you incapable to sustain an attention span long enough to read all of this, goto the bottom of this post. Otherwise, if you like long explanations, keep reading.
So, What happened? I do not know exactly what made me stop to be honest, I attribute it to a lot of events that got in the way when I was mixing 4 years ago. Among those things that got me incredibly derailed of all my priorities, was that I was coming out of college (too much mental pressure), and right after that I got myself into a relationship that had a really bad ending. In an attempt to recover and distract myself away from that, I started mixing … a lot.
In the upcoming months I ended with several sets (that weren’t necessarily my best) and put together the first version of this website. For a while I was constantly updating and providing new material for the site, but then work came along. I got involved in some projects that required my attention, and from there I started to get busier and busier with work, to a point where I was completely stressed out most of the day.
When I find myself in such situations I’ve always turned to music to be my escape from things, but at the time those things were getting so overwhelming that I couldn’t even find comfort on music anymore, everything was feeling like an obligation. After several months of not knowing what to do, something else caught my attention, MMORPGS. As funny (or stupid) as that may sound, I found an even bigger escape in them from all the mess I created. I started playing EVE Online and eventually moved onto World of Warcraft. Yes I played WoW (and still do occasionally), and let myself get sucked into it, making it a big part of my life.
For several months I found refugee in those games, it was a growing addiction that kept me entertained, relaxed and distracted away from the storm that my daily life became to, but as refreshing that it was, I started to realize I was getting away from things I liked, and among them, my mixing.
Eventually I found a way to control that addiction, and slowly tried to get my life back in order. Accompanied with another relationship that had a really strong emotional outcome on me, it made it clear to me I should get away from them, and quick. My first option was my music, and so I returned to mixing.
What happened to Broken Toy? Why change names? When I went back to mixing I started to think if there could be a better alias, mainly cause there were these other artists that went by that name, a couple of Israeli DJs (if I’m not mistaken) that played Goa/Psy Trance. They would often run onto my sets on DI.fm and comment like it was their work. I didn’t mind that initially, but eventually made me feel awkward to not have a true identity. So for that, I tried to make a name of my own. In the process I came out with 2 or 3 initial options, but none really convinced me. After a few subsequent failed ideas, I simply decided to go with Borked Toy (notice its Borked instead of Broken) until I could think of a better one.
Eventually, that “better one” never came and I was in need of an alias once more, so after so much mind debate, I ended up picking simply Liam. It’s not too distinctive, I agree, but I’m historically terrible with names, so for now that’s my alias, and it has grown on me.
Where am I now? In the last few years I’ve changed my residency about 5 times in 3 different cities. I was living in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas and moved to Mexico City for work reasons. After nearly 1 year and a half, I went back to Chiapas where I stayed for nearly 8 months. In that time back home, and out of nowhere I found a job opportunity in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, which I immediately took and moved out to where I reside currently.
Why was the old website taken down? Before I decided to put the website offline, I found myself having trouble to keep it updated, mainly cause of work, but taking the website down wasn’t really what I was trying to do. At that moment I thought I’d put a list with the links to all the sets I had available, thinking it’d be easier to maintain until I had time to set it up correctly.
In the process of making such list, I accidentally removed some of my sets from the server. After uploading the sets back, I found out I didn’t simply delete some of my sets but that I also deleted most of the website interface, and I had no backups at all to bring it back.
So, after seeing the whole mess I created I simply gave up and put it offline altogether. A big mistake perhaps, but I had so little willpower left in me that I just couldn’t sit down to fix it.
After a few months I tried to bring it back several times, but I never really found time to do it, until now.
Are all the sets still available to download? Most are. Others got lost in my personal files, but I’ve managed to recover almost all the released sets. Currently I’m only missing a few, while also recovering some of the original remixes/reworks I made back in the day.
Short Explanation:
So what happened? Life happened, women happened, work happened. Yep, that’s the short version, and yes I’m back.