Cybersex: A Complete Listening

I have never listened to the entire Cybersex series that I produced from 1993 to 2018 until today. I was organizing my records and cooking and decided to just these play in the background. After all, it is Mixtape Monday. Listening to them was like reconnecting with a old friend. I could recognize this as me but so many years have passed that some of the connections seem foreign. I first came up with the Cybersex concept in summer of 1993. I had been DJing in the LA rave scene for a little over a year. Most of the tapes I had done previous to this one were mainly the standard techno of the day. Most of it being breakbeat techno that would soon morph into Drum N Bass and Jungle. Styles were changing and new genres were being defined. I really got into the Artificial Intelligence series that came out on Warp during that time. Albums by Autechre, Aphex Twin, Mu-Ziq and others were coming out and changing how I was listening to techno. I wouldn’t know what IDM was at the time but I was really falling for this sound. I was buying anything that I felt was different and unique but still danceable. The problem was that I didn’t know how to play these tracks out live most of the time. I would drop a Aphex Twin track here and there (Quoth was a favorite) but a lot of this was maybe to heady for the rave dance floors that I was fortunate to play on. But mixtapes were a perfect vessel for me to try these tracks out and mix them together

The original Cybersex cover art

Around September of 1993 I felt I had a good collection of this style that I could put something together. I took the Cybersex scene artwork from the movie “The Lawnmower Man” and Cybersex was born on October of 1993. I remember placing them on consignment at record stores around LA and was surprised that it was selling well. I was still a relative new DJ on the scene but I think this tape being something a bit different helped it stand out. I got a lot of positive feedback from the tape and then started thinking of number 2. Again I was getting into different music. I had discovered German Trance. Especially from labels like Harthouse/Eye Q. The first side of Cybersex 2 was a dedication to this sound. I loved the melodic take on techno. Side B was bit more like the first Cybersex mix with some Detroit techno influences. The cover was done by a new designer I was using and we trying printing it on using purple inc over some silver paper stock. The tape was purple also and I really liked the way the package came out.I put it out in April of 94. Just 6 months It outsold the first one and I was starting to get know for the trancy music I was playing at gigs.

For Cybersex 3 it was all about the packaging. The mix was more European trance, still melodic but heading more into progressive trance territory. I was always looking at ways to stand out with the production of mixtapes and for 3 I found these little silver anti-static bags that fit the tapes perfectly. I made these silver stickers tat we placed on the bag and also most of the early copies contained a condom. I remember putting these packages together. They were pretty damn cool looking if you ask me. Cybersex 4 was another change in direction in sound. I had recently got into the Goa Trance sound this was one of the first mixes I did in that style. I was actually planning on this tape to be the last Cybersex mixtape. It even says "The Last Mindfuck" right on the cover. This tape came out in the late summer of 1995. I remember this one selling well as it was pushing a different sound..A lot tracks on this came from Flying Rhino, TIP, Matsuri and other Goa/Psy labels at the time. I was pretty proud of this mix. Listening to it again right now it takes me back to that summer.

I thought I was done with the series. I was happy ending it at 4. But around 96 I started working with Ken from Pure Acid on new tapes. This was the first time I wasn’t really producing and selling direct. Ken was buying the masters directly and then handling the production (he was doing a damn good job on the design and packaging) and distribution using his popular Pure Acid Mixtapes booth and direct purchasing through the mail. He was selling tapes all over the damn place now and it was great working relationship we had made. I decided to revive the Cybersex series with tape number 5 in 1999. Again I changed directions and this tape was more focused on melodic breakbeat trance. I really enjoy this tape quite a bit. And with that the series laid dormant for almost 20 years. Then in 2018, I produced a new standalone mixtape with Pure Acid called Alien Arrival. It was the 3rd in a Pay Trance series I started in 1997. I had such a good time doing that project I wanted to do another. The 25th anniversary of the first Cybersex was coming up and I thought a new Cybersex mixtape would be fun to do. I had an idea to focus on Melodic Techno which was a thing and tie it with other elements I also was adding samples and synths into the mix to make it a bit more unique. The idea was stand alone cassette and a 6 pack with all 6 mixes. I had recently located the DAT masters for the older mixes and sent them off to be cleaned up and re-mastered.

Artwork for the single cassette version of Cybersex 25

Listening to Cybersex 25 now, almost 3 years since I recorded really puts me back in that time. In late 2018 I was having a lot of change going on and this tape reminds me of the start of a lot of transition for me personally. I was listening to this mix a lot at the time. It is honestly one of my favorite mixes that I have done. Maybe it is the emotional tie to this period of my life but there is something about this mix that I really love. Listening to them all back to back today was really nice. It really does encapsulate 25 years of musical influences for me. I mean the artist that are on these mixes are just top notch and so influential. Just to name a few we got Aphex Twin, Ken Ishii, Laurent Ganier, Joey Beltram, Orbital, Kenny Larkin, Sabres of Paradise, Juno Reactor, Plaid, Moderat, Stephan Bodzin, Total Eclipse and so many more. To me each tape has its own direction and vibe but they all come together to tell a complete story. We only made a 100 of the 6 packs. We still have a few more and if you are interested in picking one up just click here.

Back to Goa - Live at Psyclone (06/16/18)

Around the end of 1994, I was at Dr. Freecloud's Mixing Lab. I would usually go to Ron's store to get my German Hardtrance and assorted other Techno goodies. I spotted a record on a label I did n't recognize. I listened to it and it was trance, but not the super melodic German stuff I have been playing. It was a little slower, but a bit more aggressive. There was a menacing quality to it. I picked it up and I remember I called Dan Efex over in Chicago and played it for him over the phone. He liked it just as much as I did. I didn't that purchase of the first Flying Rhino release would set me on a different musical path.

I started discovering a whole new sound of trance I was unfamiliar with. I found new labels like TIP, Matsuri and Dragonfly. I picked up everything I could get my hands on. When I prepared to make the next Cybersex tape in 1995 (Cybersex 4), I decided to use this new sound I was digging for that tape. I fully got into the sound and learned as much as I could about Goa trance. I discovered that there were the massive scene in the Middle East and Europe. I was so into it that I flew to New York to go to the first Psy Trance rave in the states, Return to the Source in the Liberty Science Center. It was epic.

Around 1997 I started venturing in new sounds again and pretty much stopped playing Psy Trance fully around 1998. I still loved the sound but I wanted to move in other directions. Also the Psy at the time was getting a bit over produced for my tastes.

I still had a love for it and I was planning making the "Alien Arrival" mixtape with Pure Acid that would be my final installment in a Psy Trance mixtape trilogy that started with "Alien Voyage" and "Alien Abudution". So it was perfect timing when Arthur from Vector Tribe asked me to play a Psy Trance at his next desert party, "Psyclone". The wife and I took her new Jeep out on it's first desert run. Got there around 3:00 am and I played an hour of mainly Psy-Trance (I threw in a few classic trance tracks into the set too). So here is that set. Hope you like it. :)                                                                                    

I miss making mixtapes

Today is a special day. It is a day that hasn't happened for me in the past 17 years. I am releasing a new mixtape. Yeah an actual cassette tape. So how did this happen and why did this happen?

Nostalgia is a strange thing. It is very powerful. A couple of years ago a friend named Jason who DJ's by the name Simfonik met up with me to collect some of my mixtapes for a online archive he was doing. I gave him some of the copies of mixtapes I still had including the "Planetary Rave Series" and the "California Project" (both are pretty rare). I really hadn't thought about mixtapes in a while. I have converted some to mp3 and put them on my Soundcloud but that was about it. I thought (along with most of civilization) that the cassette tape was a dead media, especially in the days of mp3's, iTunes and streaming. But that meeting did remind me why I loved mixtapes. 

I know I come out with a ton of mixes still. I constantly record myself when at gigs and I do random studio mixes too. But there is something about creating a mixtape that is so different. When I first produced professional looking mixtapes was in 1992. Before that my self and my friend Pete Lopez (aka Dr. Jeckyll) who I DJed in High School with would just make copies on store bought cassettes. After Ron D. Core and DJ Dan came out with "Dx2", it lit a fire under me. It was the first professional looking mix tape that I remember seeing. There were Milky Way tapes but those just had printed stickers on the tapes. "Dx2" had printing on the actual tape. I looked legitimate. Around this time my buddy Pete started working for a company called V-Corp in Covina. They were a tape and CD Duplicator and they mainly did Mexican and Filipino music. I reached out to them to produce my tape with The Kandyman called "Don't Feed The DJ's" that we put out in May of 1992. It was a clear tape with printing and a J-Card made from Astrobright card stock from Kinkos. After that, I kept looking for new ways to make unique mix tapes. Different color cassettes. Unique packaging. Double Packs. Box sets. I just wanted each one to be a statement of work and not just a promotional item for me as a DJ.

The cover for Cybersex (1993)

The first time I really felt I had something special was "Cybersex" which I released on October of 1993. It had a full color J-Card (color copier) and a smoked tinted cassette. That year was very much a transitional year of techno music. You had things going into different directions. Trance was starting to form and the breakbeat techno I was spinning was starting to mutate into drum n’ bass. At the time I was really getting to the new sounds that Warp Records was doing with their  series which includes artists as Black Dog Productions, Aphex Twin, B-12 and Autechre to name a few. At the same time R&S was doing a side label called Apollo that was also moving more into what today would be called IDM. I started getting into these sounds and decide to create a tape with these sounds. What was unique about this was this wasn't really the sound I was DJing out. It was something I really enjoyed but I wouldn't really play this style at a rave. So this opened the door to me about allowing the mixtape to actually be something more creative. To play with genres and styles. I didn't have to worry about a dance floor so I felt I had more creative freedom with the mixtape. I could create mixes that didn't have to be just about the dancefloor. So I did downtempo mixes, ambient mixes, super hard acid mixes, IDM mixes, I would mix gothic, 80's, spoken word, whatever I wanted. I loved just trying new things. In 1993 I also started Biohazard Productions which on top of other things was a Mix Tape label. We released mixes from Tony Gamboa, Dieselboy, Ganesh, DJ Flite, Terminus, Paulina Taylor, just to name a few.

Around 1994 I met Ken who was selling mixtapes at his booth at raves across LA. I gave him a few to sell and we sparked a friendship and working relationship that would last to this day. At first he was just selling tapes that I produced. In 1997 he decided to create his own label and start producing and releasing mixtapes under Pure Acid. The first tape I released with him was called "Digital". Together we put out many mixtapes including some faves of mine like "Cosmic Journey", "Morning Majik", "The Force" and "Alien Voyage". We continued putting out mixtapes together until about 2001, when it seemed that the format was dying due to putting mixes online and mp3s. I put out mixes in this way to but it wasn't as fun for me. I tried different things like trying software like Abelton and Sony Acid. I did some creative things with it but it wasn't like producing a mix tape. 

3 years ago at Nocturnal 2015, Insomniac posted a old school stage and since it was the 20th anniversary it sparked up a lot of nostalgia. Insomniac, at that time, interviewed Ken about the mixtape culture and he shared some of his favorite mixtapes over the years. Something about that article and the nostalgia got things sparked up for Ken and I. Whenever I saw him I told him he should get something going again. It was a fun idea but did it make sense. Everything was about downloads and streaming now. Then in the end of 2015 and early 2016 I heavily got back into collecting vinyl records again (as a lot of people did). It seemed that this dead format was now alive and doing quite well. Around 2017 I noticed that labels were actually coming out with cassettes again. My friend Zack Hill created a new mix tape around 2016 and that totally intrigued me. So early in 2018, I decided why the fuck not. I had so many ideas floating in my head. So I reached out to Ken and asked if he would like to partner on this venture with me. 

I didn't just want to put out a mixtape of what I was DJing out these days. There are plenty of live mixes that I post that have the sound of what I play out live. I wanted to do something unexpected. I did two Psy Trance cassettes in 97-98 that were supposed to be a part of a trilogy. Those two tapes were "Alien Voyage" and "Alien Abduction". I never had the opportunity to finish it up so I threw the idea to Ken about doing the last tape of that trilogy. I decided on "Alien Arrival" and picked up new Psy trance music to make this mix with. On top of just mixing I added samples and some synth lines from the Pioneer DJ AS-1 into the mix as well. I ended up recording 3 45 minute sets. 2 of them we included on the actual physical cassette and made the 3rd side available as a download with the purchase of the cassette. Ken even made a deluxe version with alien shaped USB stick and poster. So today is the day it is finally out. We started this in March and had a few hiccups throw at us but here we are. I really wanted this to be the first of a few mix tapes. I have ideas about "Cybersex 25" (25 years from the original mix) as well as doing "The Force 2" to coincide with the end of the new Star Wars Trilogy. These physical releases will be very limited in quantity so please, pick one up. Support this venture. Ken and I had a great time getting this project off the ground and we would both love to keep doing this but it will be up to you and your support if we continue.

Pick up the new "Alien Arrival" mixtape by clicking here.

Live from Magic Wednesdays 1995

To my surprise, RaveTapes.com today posted up a mix that was recorded during my set at Magic Wednesdays in 1995. This is prior to me becoming the resident at Magic Wednesday which occurred around 1998 when the club was at The Globe. On this night I was a guest DJ. I remember that I was really into Psy Trance / Goa at the time so it doesn't surprise me that the last half of my set is filled with that sound. The beginning of my set seriously surprised me though. I start off my set with some breaks and acid and progress into some Techno before I get into the Psy. So strange to hear this mix after all this time. It is really interesting to see what I was into as a 22 year old DJ. It's been a long and crazy trip.

In the write up for the mix, RaveTapes.com wrote:

In the early days (93-96), Thee-O was the city’s authority on hard trance and psy trance. When you heard those up-tempo bass lines, driving kick drums and screaming synth arpeggios, you knew Thee-O was on the decks. As the years passed, Thee-O expanded his repertoire to include techno and house, among other styles.

Thee-O was certainly one of the hardest working DJ’s of the era. I can’t recall a single weekend when his name didn’t appear on numerous flyers. It seemed he was playing everywhere, all the time.

I am honored to be  thought of that way. I am glad I have some history into this scene that has provided so much to so many. It's been an awesome ride and we aren't done yet.

RaveTapes has some more history and some other nice words to say and if you are interested in reading that please click here. The mix is below as well so just click on play and take step back into the mid 90's rave scene.