I've been reading Harry Potter all week long.
Here's one of the videos I shot/cut for the Flesh from their European tour.
The footage is taken from a bunch of different shows:
3x 12s that should be obvious records for any DJ, but for some reason the 12" versions are not easy to find on CD:
ALPHAVILLE forever young (12" extended rmx) (mp3)
I'm sure I don't need to point out the inherent irony of a now old band singing about the desire to be young, merely take a look at Alphaville today:
This is along the same lines as the perennially old Rod Stewart singing that he also wants to be forever young.
PAUL MCCARTNEY & MICHAEL JACKSON say say say (jellybean mix) (mp3)
PAUL: We're really going to give that "Ebony and Ivory" song a run for its money with this one. By the way Michael, you do know that all the money really comes from song rights?
MICHAEL: That's very interesting, Paul.
PRINCE erotic city (12" mix) (mp3)
This is dumb loud and burned from vinyl, not that tinseltown shitty version from the greatest hits 3cd set.
Best label ever!
Virgo / Mechanically Replayed (mp3)
Virgo Four / Do You Know Who You Are? (mp3)
Robert Owens / Bring Down The Walls (Dub) (mp3)
The only thing more powerful than my hatred of posting flyers on blogs is my love for both Andy and Lloyd:
So now that I'm unemployed again it's back to finding time to fill. Yes, it's been a while since my first bout with unemployment and I'm back in the groove of "let's spend 4 hours to do laundry today while I wait for my job-having friends to get out of work!"
I'm trying to be slightly more productive than that though, here are some of my summer goals:
1. Finish a mixtape with Michna
2. Cut 2-3 live videos for the Flesh
3. Try to draw more
4. Read Harry Potter! :) :P xD
etc
Meanwhile, my friend Tamara literally taught herself After Effects and created this visual masterpiece. It's actually upsetting how good it is:
DEEP DISH ft. STEVIE NICKS - DREAMS (album version) (mp3)
...and sorry for the shattering news, Deep Dish, but Enigma already did the backwards video thing with their epic meditation on world corniness.
My first post on this blog was a mix I did with Michna called Metal on Metal. That's probably one of my fave mixes, and I tried to do a follow-up called "Fire on Fire" without Michna on Ableton. Let me just say that Ableton is a dope program, it's very powerful and you have a LOT more control over what you're producing than say, GarageBand, which is the equivalent of recording on a 4-track. However, everything you record on Ableton sounds totally bloodless, like it sucks the life out of every track you put in.
So I think my strategy for the whole thing was to create a mix that was crazy and constantly changing, and jam-packed with songs. Little did I realize that what I was actually doing was making a fake Girl Talk mix. Ugh! So it languished in obscurity for 6 months and I decided to go back to square one and record a new mix with Michna, once again on GarageBand.
Every once in a while I'll still listen to the Fire on Fire tape, which I think has a few inspired moments, and think to myself "hey this can go on the blog," so here it is.
FIRE ON FIRE (19 Minute Version)
For all you DJs who want to openly mock your audience on Saturday night.
Via Archie via Chris
This entry is all about the producing genius of Mike Chapman. The way I found out about this guy was that I realized all the good songs by the Sweet (except for "Fox on the Run") were written by him. "Ballroom Blitz," "Little Willy" and "the 6-Teens" were all dude. Chapman was basically a bubblegum pop producer/writer who wrote a ton of shit in the 60s, and then when the 70s hit made a grip of awesome glam tracks. The Sweet eventually were like, in a Kelly Clarkson-esque fashion, "hey we want to write our own shit and not pander to 16 year old girls" and, just like Kelly Clarkson, began to suck immediately after making such a career-damning decision. Also, according to Chapman, they were a bunch of long-haired louts:
They were really horrible people, we didn't get along at all, but the reason the records sound so good is because ... there's an energy and aggression on those records [which] pretty much came from them looking at me and saying, 'We don't want to sing your stupid songs'... and me looking at them and saying, 'You are going to sing my stupid songs whether you like it or not [you pack of LA douchebags].' 
Everything I know about Mike Chapman was thru his Wikipedia entry, so I'm not going to tell you anything that isn't there. Apparently dude blew a bunch of ginormous speakers like the one on the right because his playback volume was so deafening. Also, he EQ'ed the soundboard IN THE DARK because he was one with the mixer.
Apparently Blondie came up to him and was like "we've got this reggae-ish song called "Heart of Glass," wanna hear the demo and produce it?" and he was like "shyea, too bad it's actually a disco song. Now sit your dumbasses down, Chris Stein and Debbie Harry, while I Chapmanize this shit."
Another time, he wrote this song called "Kitty" for some who-cares band called Racey and it didn't do so hot, then he was like "fuck it, I know an INTERNATIONAL SMASH HIT when I fucking write one, sure as my name is Mike fucking Chapman" and gave it to Toni Basil to remake as "Mickey." The next thing you know? BAM! #1 on the charts for literally 18 weeks.
Here's a dude whose philosophy on relentlessly writing #1 hits was basically:
If you're going to be in the music business, you gotta make hit records. If you can't make hit records, you should fuck off and go chop meat somewhere.
Move over Alex Browning, Max Martin and Captain Haddock, Woody's got a new hero!
Jamz:
Blondie ~ Heart Of Glass (Reggae Demo Version) (mp3)
Racey ~ Kitty (mp3)
So I'm an enormous Breeders fan. I guess there's some "nerdy indie rock dude" cred in that, but in the DJ world it basically makes people look at me twice before shaking their heads and being like "I guess Cannonball is an OK song."
Just take a gander at all this useless Breeders crap I have:
That's right! They're one of those "I own the same album on multiple formats" groups! Say hello to Daft Punk, Nas, and DJ Shadow (and, apparently, Rancid!)!
The Breeders are so good! Take away Frank Black's piggish squealing and you're left with Kim Deal doing her cute girly schtick, even though live she was like mega frump-a-dump with her ridiculous XXXL "University of Wisconsin" sweatshirts and interacted with the crowd like a honking goose:
Plus of course she was a total smackie and was always wasted when she played live with the Breeders. Still, "Pod" is kind of like a great Pixies album without references to Samson killing a bunch of Philistines; Last Splash is like a fun summertime record; and Title TK is their "I literally just got out of rehab, plus we're contractually obligated to put out another album, so maybe you can help us out on this one, STEVE ALBINO??? Please mic the drums in the awesome way you do."
Out of all their records I think I like Title TK the best, it's like a convalescent record where it's totes obvious she wrote all the songs while trying to dig her way out of a K-Hole. So there's these energetic short pop songs and slow atmospheric dirges that go nowhere... here's the whole album, it's good and weird. (via Fantome Sound)
*you need stuffit expander to open the file*
Thanks to Kyle for turning me on to this record a few years back. I found the 12 in Europe, where apparently there's a picture sleeve 12" of every single song in the history of the universe. As far as disco 12s go, this is goes somewhere at the top for pure double-headerosity, right next to that Stephanie Mills 12
JUMP TO THE BEAT (mp3)
DYNAMITE (mp3)
Highest selling 12" single of all time. I got tired of playing out the quiet-ass version from Substance so I burned the 12.
BLUE MONDAY 12" MIX (mp3)
Plus, you thought YOU were nerdy and obsessive?
Just got back from Europe the other night. Man I must say that I bought an embarassing amount of 7"s there... mostly because they all have picture sleeves, and seeing a record with Boz Scaggs on it that reads "Lowdown" in a 70s font basically screams "buy me." Every store I went to in the UK was filled with all the trendy dance bullshit (that I secretly really like) and double the $$$ of the US. Come ON dollar, are you really that worthless against the pound? The ratio is basically 2:1... plus the food in England is TERRIBLE:
Mmmm... prawn mayonnaise on oatmeal bread(??!). Anyways, I would hit the shops in Austra and Germany and there were always crates and crates of 7"s, this one spot in Amsterdam had several crates that the shop guy (who also had a framed poster of High Fidelity on the wall, and I also asked him if he had any "deleted Smiths singles" but I don't think he got the reference) had bought off a radio DJ from the 70s! Dude! Here's a sampling of the records I got:
COLIN BLUNSTONE - I WANT SOME MORE (mp3)
Apparently Rod Argent and Chris White produced a bunch of his post-Zombies work, which is like WTF? This is how the Zombies would've sounded if they continued into the 70s.
PINO D'ANGIO - MA QUALE IDEA (totp style video)
I was turned onto this by Andy like 4 months ago in one of those "dude how do you NOT know this song?" moments...
ELO - DON'T BRING ME DOWN (12" MIX) (mp3)
Famously sampled by the entire universe... Jeff Lynne writes rock anthems! Also, yes I know this whole entry is about 7"s and this is the 12" mix.
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