Live at re:love (03/26/16) w/ Jason Blakemore & Bret Wallace

What a stressful but fun day. Dougal and I were running the event and we faced nothing but issues in the beginning. The park was packed due to it being Easter and the spot we usually ran was already over ran with families celebrating the holiday. So we looked around the park and found an ideal spot. The sound guys came and started unloading but I didn't see them unpack any DJ gear. My fears were realized when they confirmed they they only brought sound. I had to run back home and grab my XDJ's and Mixer. Luckily the first DJ was on a controller and laptop so this allowed me time to head back home and make it back in the nick of time. Bret and I were going to close out the show together doing a back to back set but when Jason Blakemore got there and asked to join us, well we knew it was going to be a good time.

We each played two tracks at a time and just went round robin style until the end of the night. It was a fun playing off them and trying to work in our various styles into a cohesive sound. So go check this out and download it. I think you will dig it.

Live at Techno Taco Tuesdays (03/22/16)

Well this was a fun time. It was a very sudden booking. I got a text on a Wednesday that they would like to book me for Techno Taco Tuesday in Vegas. I have heard nothing but great things about this spot so I was definitely down to do this. It has been a minute since I had a proper gig in Vegas. I was assuming the booking would be at least a month away, but when they asked if I had the following Tuesday available, figured I better take this opportunity. I drove out there after work on Tuesday. Got into Vegas around 10:00 PM and my set was at 12:30 to 2:00 AM. So after a quick rest at the hotel I headed over and the place was popping. It was located to a large tent that was attached to the venue and this is something that I heard the promoters did on their bigger nights or during the summer. There was a ton of friendly faces and people I haven't seen in a while. The vibe was excellent. My set seemed to go by so quickly. After a few hours of sleep I was back on the road to LA that Wednesday morning. What a whirlwind. Here is the set from this night. I hope you enjoy it. Tracklisting to come.

Turntables: How a new world opened up to me after 25 years of DJing

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I guess you can say I have always loved turntables. When I was about 5 is used to carry a portable player with me at all times. I would just play music wherever I was. It feels so familiar to me to lay a piece of vinyl on a platter and watch it spin. When I started DJing when I was 13 in 1986, I started off on a system from Radioshack. My aunt and mom teamed up and bought me 2 Realistic Lab 2100 Turntables (see below) and a Realistic 4 channel mixer. It was pretty damn sweet for Junior High kid. I would come home after school and just play on the decks for hours. More and more of the kids in my neighborhood were joining or starting DJ Crews. As I was hanging around more DJ’s I also found out more about the gear that people were using. Everyone wanted a Numark mixer and of course the gold standard of all turntables, the Technics SL-1200MK2.

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My first turntable for DJing

In the late 80’s two 1200’s were out of league of most of High School kids. I couldn’t afford them so I had to make due with using those that were owned by those lucky enough to get them. My buddy Pete was a year older than me and he had a pair. I would go over his house all the time just so I could get my hands on them. Although I had graduated to a Pyramid PR-2700 Mixer (see below) and a couple of lower model Technics that were belt driven, they were never the same as playing on 1200’s. There was something about those tables. They are heavy and built like a tank. They seemed to last forever and could stand all sorts of abuse. I had to have them. After I graduated High School I started working and started doing some door to door marketing on the side as well. After my first commission check, the first thing I did was buy myself a pair of 1200’s. That must have been late 1991. I had them for years. I added a third deck in 2005 when I purchased a MK5 which I still have. I sold my original pair in 2006 when I purchased my first pair of CDJs.

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Pyramid PR-2700. My High School Mixer

So I had resigned to play on digital media as far as DJing goes but I still had a my MK5 for sampling or whatever. I had my turntable in my studio but it wasn’t plugged in. My wife wanted to listen to some records and asked me to set it up in the living room. This was in late 2014. Since then we have been regularly listening to vinyl and I fell in love with it again. I missed going to record stores and crate digging. I missed the tactile feeling and the warm sound. I missed listening to music as an album and not just a collection of songs randomly shuffled. I was hooked again. Late last year I purchased a new Pioneer DJ rig of 2 XDJ-1000s and a DJM-900 Nexus mixer. I thought about adding turntables back into the mix. I had one that was in great condition and last week a friend of mine from work sold me a 1200MK2 that was sitting in storage for the past 22 years. It was like a brand new vintage turntable. So that purchased solidified everything for me about having turntables as part of my DJ rig again. So now I had to think about a turntable for my living room.

I have never been in the market for a non-DJ related turntable every in my life. All my turntable purchases have been about one thing and one thing only (wiki wiki). Doing some research on audiophile turntables was quite daunting. So many companies I have never even heard of like Rega, Music Hall, Pro-Ject and UTurn Audio seemed to have great turntables that had great reviews. With prices ranging from $300 to start to several thousand on the end of the scale I had no idea where to begin. So I started where I usually start when I have no idea where to start. GOOGLE! Soon I was watching reviews of turntables on YouTube, reading comparisons on popular models and listing out advantages and disadvantages. Then there was the option to get a refurbished vintage turntable and my mind exploded at the possibilities. I thought long and hard about what model to get and what would work best for years to come. I ended up finding a deal on a Music Hall Ikura turntable. It has excellent reviews and the deal I found was hard to refuse.

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Music Hall Ikura Turntable

Vinyl will always be a part of my life. There was a point where I was almost over it. Everything was digital and the thought of carrying around a crate of records just became too much for me. I like that vinyl has returned to my life but in a new way. I also like that I now have the option of DJing vinyl again in the comfort of my studio as well as mp3 or wav files. It is really the best of both worlds.

Cybersex - 23 years later

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I got into my car this morning and decided I wanted to listen to something I mixed a long time ago. I don't tend to listen to my old mixes often but from time to time I will get a urge to listen to one of them. I decided to listen to the original Cybersex mix that I did in the late summer summer/early fall of 1993.

Electronic music was really evolving around that time. In 1992 I was getting into Aphex Twin and some of what could be more of the less straight forward techno music of the time. Also in 1992, a compilation called "Artificial Intelligence" by seminal label Warp came out and influenced me quite a bit. I found myself gravitating towards artists like, Black Dog Productions, Autechre, Seefeel, Beaumont Hannant, Locust and others. While I got myself more into this sound, I did find it difficult to play this style of music at raves. Although I did, it wasn't the stereotypical rave sound of that day. The mixtape was the key though, it allowed DJ's to not think solely of the dancefloor when compiling a mix. Cybersex for me was when I really started to think about programming and flow of a set rather than just slamming records together as that was the style of rave mixing that was pretty popular in the early 90's.

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This compilation highly influenced my musical tastes in the early 90s

Cybersex was really me getting a chance to mix the records that I wanted to without worrying about where I was placed on a lineup or the energy of the room. I just wanted to play the music I thought was cool and although I didn't know it then, was timeless. The mixtapes I created previous to this were merely promotional items that were meant to showcase my DJing skills. I took to making this tape as something different, it was a showcase of my musical taste rather then just DJ skills. This changed the way I took to mixtapes. I could play music I don't ever play out, I could just create sonic scenes that didn't have to relate to a dancefloor.

Listening to this in my car this morning I was surprised that this did not sound dated to me. I mean I could easily reference a time to this because I was there, but I think if played to new ears, one wouldn't think early 90's per se. It still sounded fresh to me. Side A was some great early tracks from Ken Ishii, Aphex Twin (under his Polygon Window name) as well as others. Side B was bit more straight-forward. I was also getting into progressive house and trance during that time and Side B was dedicated to that sound that would later lead into other tapes in the Cybersex Series.

This mix came out in October of 1993. I was 19 years old. That to me is pretty crazy in itself. To me it was one of the best moments for Electronic Music. Genres were breaking out, creating new sub genres that could become larger than the genre that spawned it. All of a sudden there were different styles being played in a night. For such a long time, it was pretty much House or Techno and now the variations and the stylistic lines were becoming more distinct. Looking back at it now, this tape shaped me as a DJ. It allowed me to be less rigid with genres which is a stance I still approach to DJing today. Good music is good music....

Live at Imagination Festival (01/30/16)

This was fun night. I haven't DJed at the Majestic Theater in a couple of years. In fact it was the last Imagination Festival a couple of years ago. TTV Events did it again and did it well. They nailed down every detail to provide a great event to the Ventura area. If you live there and you missed it, well you missed out. It was a damn great time. I recorded my set (along with Jason Blakemore's as well. I am sure he will post his soon) and have it presented to you here. It was a really fun time and I hope my set captures some of that. Hope you enjoy.

Tracklisting:

Ron Costa - "Shake That” (Suara)
Gene Farris – “The Way U Like” (Relief Records)
Green Velvet & Claude VonStroke aka Get Real – “Snuffaluffagus” (Dirtybird)
Green Velvet & Patrick Topping – “When Is Now” (Relief Records)
Eats Everything – “Big Discs” (Pets Recordings)
Riva Starr – “Velvet Zone” (Snatch! Records)
DJ Roland Clark & Sante Sansone - "House Nation" [Riva Starr Remix] (Saved Records)
Joeski - “It’s a Scat Thing” (Suara)
Harry Romero - "My Beautiful House" (Bambossa Recordings)
Genghis Clan & Mikey V – “Crave Me” (Dirtybird)
Will Clarke – “Can You Funk” (Dirtybird)
Marc Spence – “Nasty” (This Ain’t Bristol)
Will Clark – “Turn It Up” (Will Clarke)
Justin Martin - "Don't Go" [Dusky Remix] (Dirtybird)
Escape – “Just Escape” [Justin Martin Remix] (Aus Music)
Dantiez Saunderson & Per QX – “The Collaboration Track” (Great Stuff Recordings)