8 posts tagged “dj-ing”
Tonight I was bound and determined, On A Mission to...
Find Some Reggaeton!
Naturally, I went to Zion's Gate Records. The local uber-best record shop for all things Reggae, Dancehall, Downtempo, and Dubby! And I walked up and down the aisles. And looked. And looked. But where is the Reggaeton section ... DAMN!
So, being the not male archetype that I am, I asked the sales dude.
He pointed me to a measly section. Reggaeton was represented by like 15 albums. Meh. But he also said that I might find it in the Dancehall Hip Hop Remix section, or the Hip Hop Dancehall Remix section. Uhh, what is this you say,
?!?!Confusioned!?!?
And there I dug. And dug. For all of 10 minutes. Because all told, these sections added up to like 50 records. Whoomp, there it aint. (yes, I *am* going there, because we all need to be reminded of culture-wide errors in musical judgement every now and then).
Anyway. I did pull some records. And I actually did pull the one Daddy Yankee (although not what I was looking for). I think that was the theme of the night - not what I was looking for, but still cool.
I picked up the following:
1) Gangsta Zone | Machete Reloaded - Daddy Yankee ft Snoop Dogg
2) Vengeance LP- Soundbwoy Super Status Reggae Breaks And Beats
3) Ol Time Killin - Kardinal Offishall
4) Dirty Thangs | Alma Mater - Libretto ***
5) Music for Imaginary Films EP - Various ****
*** This is some seriously funky shit. Love it.
**** I heard a DJ spin a cut from this at a show I went to a week ago. I checked online and the CD was out of print. So I thought I would be rooting for this one for a while. But lo and behold, it was the second album I saw in the Downtempo Section. I pulled it and was like, "WTF? No way....!"
And I got to chatting with the clerk (ya like that never happens). He gave me a lot of hunting suggestions, and offered some ideas for things that should be in my collection. Too bad I already fordotted. Cause I suck like that.
Inspired in part by Dom's Post, I ventured out to one of my favorite local record stores ... Platinum Records.
What is cool about them, is they are a DJ shop. So they have all the equipment. They also carry the largest selection of DJ Tools records. Also, they have their electronic music sectioned out nicely. Meaning, unlike many stores, Downtempo is *totally* different than Florida Breaks. But the overall best thing is ...
Super Sale Used Hip Hop
So you can usually pick up some old single for about 2 bucks. Which is a very good deal, even though these arent in mint condition. Its good to find new stuff to mess up. And its good to find em cheap.
I made way from A, looking at every record. Letting my guts tell me to pull it for listening or just flash on past. And I made it all the way to O before I reached the 20 record limit. (well, I actually had 2 new promo records in there too).
Side Note:
An interesting thing happens when you like to fuck up records. You listen to things at the store and sometimes it just jives with you. But more frequently, you think, "Hmm! This sounds interesting. I wonder what I can do with this beat?"
And if you take home the interesting ones, that is when the magic can happen. You throw it on your turntable, and now it's in *YOUR* house. Your domain. Which means, you throw your scratch record on the other table and just feel it out ... easily. And then POOF! A sparkly little devil appears over your hand and you just ...
Rip it up and feel the flow
As a beginner, a lot of this probably sucks. You are trying to get a feeling for the beat, the tempo, the pacing, and all the little nuances of a song ... In REAL TIME ... as you are clumsily messing with your scratch. You know, because you just dont really *own* the ability yet.
But none of this stops how you FEEL about the mix.
So anyway. Without further adieu ... here is what I bought. (with the ones that sparked the feeling, bolded):
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Take Control - Amerie
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Like the Wind -Vibekings & Maliq ft. Rob G
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Nice Girl, Wrong Place | Rite Where U Stand - Gang Starr
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Be Alright - Kid Capri ft Cam'ron & Jermaine Dupri ; Unify - Kid Capri ft Snoop Dog & Slick Rick ***
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The Influence - Jurassic 5 (labeled Lose Yourself - Eminem?!)
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4 My Thugs | Gangsta - Geto Boys
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Lady Marmalade - Chirstina Aguilera, Lil Kim ft Mya and Pink
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Still - Macy Gray
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Do Something - Macy Gray
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I Cant | My Life | Ride - Foxy Brown ft Total
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Pitch in Ona Party | Quikker Said than Done - DJ Quik
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What You Want | Fame - DMX
*** Kid Capri featuring Snoop Dog and Slick Rick?!?! Might I ask, when the fuck did this awesomeness happen?
Here are the instrumentals I am currently spinning the most as background fodder for learning to manipulate vinyl (pics withheld because Amazon tends not to have vinly singles):
1) Mayor - Pharoahe Monch (From Rawkus Record's Soundbombing II)
2) Coma - Aesop Rock
3) La Familia - Foxy Brown
4) Come Close to Me - Common ft. Mary J Blige
5) Pack Up Remix - Lyrics Born ft KRS-One and Evidence
6) Ride Wit Us - Irv Gotti presents The Inc
For the manipulation record, I am primarily using:
1) Super Seal Breaks - Dirtstyle Records
2) Breakseven - Live Human
3) The Y LP - Q-bert
But I have also recently given a shot at recording vocals from the baseline record into Serato Scratch live, and then loading that onto the manipulation deck for cutting up. If I also record from breaks albums and then create a small sample list for each song ... I can get good vocals and scratch noises.
I also tried to do some scratching over complete tracks from my mp3 collection. I tried over Pharcyde, Five Fingers of Funk, Fun Lovin Criminals, and others.
I still suck at beat juggling. Its really hard to keep track of your place. And gets confusing really quickly.
Of course, it all kinda sucks. And I am really slow at transitioning between manipulation pieces. And I still cannot really put a smooth set together. But I dont think I can expect too much after one month.
Basic areas that need improvement:
- Diversity of sample inclusion. I still rely too heavily on one or two sounds per song.
- Quickness of sample change. Havent figured this out yet
- Knowing when to scratch and how much.
- And of course ... reproduction. Its still all too off-the-cuffish. So the same song never sounds the same.
We will see. It is still massive fun.
Sure, most sequels stink, but what movie really needs a sequel?
In general, I am against sequels. I am a huge fan of the Three Act Structure. As applied to a story as well as a set of stories. Aka, no sequel without it being part of a planned trilogy.
There are some people who claim that every good story follows Three Act Structure. One person I know, aka B McD, will tout this as if it were religious doctrine. And he will always back it up with his "The day I lectured with Sherman Alexie" story.
Anyway ... if there were one movie I would love to see a sequel of, it would be:
(aka Talking Drums and Whispering Vinyl)
This time around, I would like to see the following DJs:
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DJ Shadow
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Cut Chemist
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Craze
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Q-bert
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Rob Swift
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DJ Quest
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Faust and Shortee
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Mixmaster Mike
And it might be cool to explore other areas of musical collaboration:
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Instead of just session drummers, why not session rhythm sections, with turntable as lead instrument?
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Perhaps some brass instruments and turntables
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Team battles - one drummer plus one dj team versus another
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Beatboxers versus djs
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Beatboxers collab with djs (can you say Rahzel?!)
Well, I just went ahead and did it. I figure it will save me tons of money in the long run, so the extra bill right now is okay.
Here is my new toy for my new toys:
AND it is installed and configured on a Vista RTM laptop.
Faaaawk yeah!
What are your resolutions for 2007?
I tend to make a lot of New Years Resolutions, so this will be a long list. In general, I think it is important to have a Fuzzy Road Map of goals. This is used as a framework for spontaneous decision making, so whenever a fit of fancy comes over me, it does so with a goal check. Everything is open for adjustment and subtle tweaking though.
So without further adieu ... The List, 2007:
10. Join the Guerilla Masquerade
This one should be pretty easy to accomplish. Its just an email away, and a personal commitment to going through with it. I would like to incorporate others too. But I have just been putting this off.
9. Take more pictures
I tried this with varying degrees of success in the past year. Most of the time, I just do not bring my camera out. And when I do, I usually just feel I would be a humongous Camera Goob guy if I used it. Thus, I miss a lot of photo ops.
8. Go dancing again, more.
At one point, learning to dance sucked up most of my life - I was going 4-5 days a week. I would like to go more frequently, but not that much. I need to resharpen my rug-cutting skills, and find some ladies who actually like dancing. Harder than you would think, nowadays.
7. Perform as a DJ in front of a small group of people
I figure if I keep practicing, I will eventually get good enough to perform. Then I just have to take small steps and make it happen. Within 1 year after picking up the instrument ... I should be okay.
6. Have at least one party at my place.
Back in the day, I used to throw parties all the time (at other people's places). I have never thrown my own party. Sometimes I wonder if people would even show up - the Universe often has a sense of humor at my expense ;). But I need to do this in the coming year. After all, having people over is a big reason for quite a few of my purchases. Plus this will help me with other goals on this list.
5. Get promoted at work, or move to a different group.
You know, I think it is necessary to have one thing about work on this list. I think I really need to move to the next level. If I dont, well ... I need to position myself for a better future.
4. Unless I find a dream girl, date more women than I did last year
I highly doubt that I will find Dream Girl. So in absence of quality, Im going for quantity in the meantime. It will help me better hone my skills and personality so that I am ultimately ready when Dream Girl strolls nonchalantly into my life.
3. Further embrace Pronoia.
This is a multipart goal. First, I will need to continue to adjust my outlook on life. I will also need to do more letting go. And I will also need to perform some random acts of pronoia. But ultimately, I believe everything will be better for it.
2. Know the pulse of the city
Another multipart goal. The important end-result here, is that I want to know this city like nobody's business. Cool places to drink. To dance. To hang out. To eat. To do whatever. And then I want to spread the knowledge around. To share about what I am calling my home.
1. Save Seattle
This one is the granddaddy of them all. I know a lot of transplants. And almost guaranteed at some point we will have a conversation about the Seattle Chill. Its amazing though, that until recently I always thought of how to deal with it ... in a passive perspective. Well fuck that. I am waging war to make Seattle a friendly city in earnest. A place where its easy to be accepted in pre-established groups. A place that is the embodiment of my favorite notion - The Culture of Inclusion. And I will just have to do it one small step at a time.
Lookout Rain City, you're on my live double doppler. And its time for some of my sunshine.
First, let me bring you up to speed real quick:
In the last two weeks, I have fallen absolutely head over heels in LOVE...
with Instrumental versions of popular, and obscure songs.
That said, you now have the frame of reference to understand my joy at finding a Limited Edition, Instrumental Version of Common's Be. Yup, the whole album, every magnificent song, in instrumental version!!! Swoon. Way to keep it real there, Chicago brother.
And as if that werent enough, I also found a copy of Soleside's Greatest Bumps. It is a 4 Disc set that contains Instrumental Versions of every song. Which includes ... dah dat dummmm! Latyrx's Lady Don't Tek No. I thought I would never find this. Sweetness!
And all of this while simply digging for some used stuff, and maybe some DJ Tools.
Without going too tangental, I would like to say that I wish *every* artist that put out vinyl would also put out Instrumental Versions of their stuff. Not just the singles (cause my favorite tunes are rarely the Singles releases). And if they also put out acapella versions of their albums, I would totally worship them as heavenly gods in artistry.
I mean, I would really like to cut up, mix and blend some non-HipHop artists. I drool while thinking about what I could try with some Modest Mouse. Or some Beatles. Or some Zero 7. Oooh, or how about some Jack Johnson? Or Sublime. Or 311 ... or ... the possibilities are endless!!!
Honestly, if the recording industry wants me to switch over to BluRay, or whatever the new extra-large format is ... the best way to convince me is to release every disc with Radio, Instrumental, and Acapella versions of every song. Bing Bang SOLD!
While messing around on the turntables, I noticed that I was not getting the response I wanted for a particular scratch. The deck was really slow on the uptake. And even though I was being very light-handed, the platter would slow down quickly. This got rapidly frustrating.
So after some a thinking, soul-searching, excursion into myself (and some prodding from a co-worker) ... I finally decided what to do.
I promptly returned my turntables.
This is something that many people do after the first week. Turntablism not as easy as it looks. I could write an essay about the differences between learning the turntable and other instruments. So it is understandable to most stores. They actually expect it.
HOWEVER! I am not that kind of person. I know what I love, and I know what it means to get lost in something. And with everything I took in over the last week ... I just knew I had to.
And so I bought a nice set of turntables and a mixer.
.
I got 2 Technics SL1200MK2's. Each of them is about as expensive as my previous setup was. You can tell the difference in quality ... even if you do nothing more than move the box.
To mix between them, I got a Denon DN-X100. A nice entry level mixer with variable cross-fade. It was about half as expensive as my previous set was. It took me a while to understand what was going on with the mixer - the manual was not very helpful.
But the variable cross-fading and the super slippery action make it a much appreciated step up.
Once I finally got everything home, set it up, and kinda learned the basics of the new mixer ... I began to mess around. It was instantly apparent that this was a real setup. The response time was excellent. The craftmanship superb. Everything is just infinitely better - way better than the 3x price tag would imply.
[This made me happy]
