Dr Dave’s barabara Mix

[See post to listen to audio]

[direct link]

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

You call that Music? I call it Noise.

Of course, I still have a paper deadline for Friday and about 120 hours of sleep to catch up, but that’s what we call low season around here.

To celebrate, and because there’s only so many days in a row one can justify spending in bed (no matter how good the reasons or convincing the company), I hereby introduce:

Dr Dave’s Eat to the Bleep mix of 2008!

[See post to listen to audio]

[direct download link]

Don’t look for soothing deep house beats this time around: it’s all moody bleeps, 808 galore and punkish overtones. This is the Sound of Tomorrow, people (which is coincidentally just like the Sound of Yesterday, only with better electronics and more post-modern irony).

Also, this is my first time, ever, mixing entirely in digital format, only using, for lack of better options, my trusty laptop and FastTrack Pro M-Audio box. The result is neither as fun nor as satisfying as a nice pair of decks, but certainly better than nothing (hopefully). Since I still haven’t purchased a new MIDI keyboard either (ohh, grand ambitions of renewed artistic endeavours from last September, where hast thou gone?), there is practically no additional productions to speak of.

PS: if you missed previous installments of the collection (including the less electro-ish ones), they can all be found, neatly labeled and sorted by bleepy type on the mix repository page.

PPS: for those looking for a deepy-house fix, I can’t recommend enough Fleep-san’s near-monthly delivery of such.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

I can haz bleepy mewzic!

[See post to listen to audio]

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Winter Night Music

Overall, all of them were found, which goes to show they weren’t that hard, though not one person had them all, so perhaps they weren’t that easy…

And so it went:

I was made for loving you

Originally sung by Kiss (big hair, yay !):
[See post to listen to audio]

turned into an electroclash underground hit by Queen of Japan:
[See post to listen to audio]

Je t’aime, moi non plus

Ultimate 60’s make-out song, by Serge Gainsbourg with wife Jane Birkin providing the orgasmic background (the original take featured Brigitte Bardot’s, who refused to let it be released):
[See post to listen to audio]

covered, appropriately enough, by French electro wizz-girl Miss Kittin and Sven Väth:
[See post to listen to audio]

Strings of Life

Probably my favourite dance track of all times, Derrick May’s seminal house anthem:
[See post to listen to audio]

covered by the Williams Fairey Brass Band:
[See post to listen to audio]

I wanna be your dog

Originally sung by Mr. Pop and his Stooges friends:
[See post to listen to audio]

This song has been covered so many times it was hard to make a choice… Though in the end, how could one resist Futon’s electro version, sung in Thai & Japanese?
[See post to listen to audio]

Radio Activity

Kudos to anybody who’d recognize Kraftwerk’s brand of German proto-electro:
[See post to listen to audio]

… in Señor Coconut’s awesomely cheeky Latin beat version thereof:
[See post to listen to audio]

Stranger in Moscow

I’m not particularly crazy for the original Michael Jackson song (actually, I am not crazy for any of his stuff not produced by Quincy Jones):
[Update 07/11/09: track offline to save my bandwidth, until the MJ fan hordes calm down...]

but Transformer di Roboter’s sampling the Mac startup sound in their version was just too cool to pass (full mp3 on their site):
[See post to listen to audio]

La Chanson de Prévert

Yep, this is another Gainsbourg, from yet another of his countless musical genre experimentations (if you are wondering why so many think he’s a genius: this is why):
[See post to listen to audio]

Strangely enough, and despite straying dangerously close to bubblegum J-pop or cheesy French accordion territories, I kinda like Kaho Minami’s version. The track was released as part of on an entire album of Japanese covers of Gainsbourg’s songs.
[See post to listen to audio]

Things that dreams are made of

I actually mentioned this Human League track on this blog once in the past:
[See post to listen to audio]

I have really fond memories of brilliant San Francisco boat parties spent dancing like a madman on its cooler-than-pure-grade-colombian-blow instrumental version:
[See post to listen to audio]

Cars

More Best-of-the-80’s tracks? Fine. If you’d listened at least a couple times to Gary Numan’s Cars:
[See post to listen to audio]

then cool Belgian eletro-rock band Vive la Fête’s Jalouse should have sounded awfully familiar to your ear:
[See post to listen to audio]

Voodoo Ray

There are two types of people in the world: those who, upon hearing A guy called Gerald’s infectious anthemic bleeping, start wiggle their arms rhythmically with a stupid grin on their face… and those who wonder aloud how this could be considered music in the first place… Pick your camp:
[See post to listen to audio]

once again the Williams Fairey Acid Brass Band (they did an entire album of those. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard KLF’s What time is Love played by an authentic British brass band):
[See post to listen to audio]

And now for the winner of an invaluable cup of coffee in the Parisian establishment of his choice:

Mr. Labosonic, hailing from Paris, whose pathological music nerdiness makes me feel better about my own, every time we meet, grabbed first place with close to 90% of all tracks (covers and originals)… Followed, I think by Ria and Lisbei, who each managed somewhere in the vicinity of 50%…
I posted the answers I got by mail in the comment area of the original post (a few others were received by other means and shall unfortunately be lost for the ages).

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Covered in Music Quiz: the Results !

While the last one was all about unearthing hidden samples, we are doing things a bit differently this time:

All track excerpts below are full on covers, rather than mere remixes of the originals. Styles of both original material and covers run across a very large span, so you all have a chance, no matter what your tastes veer to. We got a fairly even spread across rock, folk, house and electro. Often both between either version of a track.

Rules are simple: original song title and interpret gets you 1 point, cover artist gets you another. DO NOT post your answers in the comment area below, but use the contact form instead.

Results and name of lucky winner of a surprise worthless gift will be announced next weekend.

The tracks:

1. [See post to listen to audio]
2. [See post to listen to audio]
3. [See post to listen to audio]
4. [See post to listen to audio]
5. [See post to listen to audio]
6. [See post to listen to audio]
7. [See post to listen to audio]
8. [See post to listen to audio]
9. [See post to listen to audio]
10. [See post to listen to audio]

Update 01/05/07: Results have finally been posted here. Thanks for playing !

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Covered in Music Quiz

Unfortunately, my project-manager, on the other hand, seems to think that what the world desperately needs, is another 3000 lines of code by Monday and that, incidentally, I am the ideal, if not only, candidate for the task.

I think I may be a sell-out.

Party candy for the week-end – Instrumental version (not mine), only listen at full volume in a dark and smokey room while wearing large sunglasses:
[See post to listen to audio]

Extra party candy for the nostalgic crowd – Original version (not mine either, obviously):
[See post to listen to audio]
To think that such unspeakable crap as Don’t you love me would share an album with this mindblowing piece of electro goodness…

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Stunted Artistic Endeavour

Let’s start with those you found:

Sample 1

[See post to listen to audio]

… was an easy one. Lalo Schiffrin’s Danube Incident, happily sampled in Portishead’s Sour Times:

[See post to listen to audio]

Sample 2

[See post to listen to audio]

… was another famous one. Carol Williams’ Love is You, sampled by Mr. Spiller in his 2000’s hit, Groovejet (if this ain’t love) :

[See post to listen to audio]

Sample 3

[See post to listen to audio]

… was The Imperials’ Can you imagine, ruthlessly looped to exhaustion in Daft Punk’s Crescendolls (in case you’re wondering, the latter is made of absolutely nothing but a sample of the former to a standard house beat):

[See post to listen to audio]

Sample 4

[See post to listen to audio]

[See post to listen to audio]

… was short, but obvious enough to let you recognize Dee-lite’s Groove is in the heart’s infamous break, sampled from Vernon Burch’s Get up.

Sample 5

[See post to listen to audio]

To spot this one, you had to spend some time near a mainstream dancefloor last Summer, where you could have heard late 70’s band Was Not Was’ Wheel me out, remixed as Woz not woz by Eric Prydz, and marvelled at how little it takes to create a 21st century dance hit (essentially: removing the vocals and adding a stronger beat):

[See post to listen to audio]

Sample 6 & 8

[See post to listen to audio]

[See post to listen to audio]

[See post to listen to audio]

[See post to listen to audio]

Two tracks by the King of Sample, a.k.a. Mr. Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim. First turning Camille Yarborough’s fabulous Take yo’ praise into a decent, if not transcendent, radio hit (under the track name Praise you), then sampling Wet Willie’s voice on Macon Hambone Blues for the awesome Talking ’bout my baby, a track I recommend listening to in its re-re-mixed version (used in the sample above), not the anti-climactic album version that keeps building, never starts and sounds like it’s missing a half.

Sample 7

[See post to listen to audio]

I kinda screwed up with this one: I meant to leave it out, seeing how it is nearly impossible to identify unless you are so badly obsessed with music, you are currently browsing from a psych ward somewhere (or identified the original track and thought of googling it around). Most people will have spotted Kurtis Blow über-famous proto-rap anthem The Breaks. Some might have recognized a riff sample used by hundreds of other tracks (mostly hip-hop and rap) ever since. But the biggest use of a sample of this track is not where you’d expect it. If you pay attention, you’ll notice the entire drum-line has been re-used in Chemical Brothers’ It Began in Africa club hit:

[See post to listen to audio]

(Yea. Didn’t say it was easy.)

Sample 9

[See post to listen to audio]

There again, you mostly needed to be acquainted with recent dance hits to immediately recognize Chemical Brother’s Galvanize:

[See post to listen to audio]

Though I must say I unambiguously prefer the slightly more obscure track it was sampled from: Just Tell me the Truth, by Chaabi-Najat Aatabou (particularly love the amazingly uplifting intro).

Sample 10

[See post to listen to audio]

I was really surprised to see both original and newer tracks identified, seems you guys have decent musical tastes after all…
While Air’s Modular Mix isn’t of the same depth as the great Gil Scott Heron singing We almost lost Detroit, I always thought they did pretty nice, in an entirely different genre, reusing this odd little tidbit at the beginning of his track.

[See post to listen to audio]

Sample 11

[See post to listen to audio]

This one was the extra bonus track of the bunch. Not only because I was confident nobody would identify the remix (and the original sample is obscure enough not to help), but also because, when you hear it, you will probably slap your forehead and immediately recognize it. Provided you left your bedroom at any time during the late 90’s, that is:

[See post to listen to audio]

Indeed: that’s Eddie Amador’s House Music, you hear… Sampling 70’s funk band Exodus’ We can be together with enough talent to create one of the biggest club hit of the last decade.

Any more?

As I said, samples in dance hits are three dozen a euro cent: just google your favorite club track of the past ten years and I bet you there’s a 70’s sample underneath. In the list above, I purposely kept Fatboy Slim’s contributions low (it’s not even fair), I could also easily have added more Daft Punk (every single track from their hit album Discovery). Notably absent, but deserving of a spot, would be Moby, whose multi-platinum Play album is entirely sampled off Alan Lomax, except maybe for a few very forgettable productions. As I said before, the filtered disco-ish “French touch” sound of the late 90’s is essentially a bunch of 70’s samples with harder beats and effects on them…

Anyway: thanks for playing. Seems we got a tie between Ria and neuro, with others soon following behind, so we’ll say coffee’s on me for any of you, next time you happen within public transit distance of my humble person (that would be Paris for most of the year 2006, and some as-of-yet-unspecified location thereafter).

Edit: This just in from our Vote Recount Department. It turns out Ria is the clear winner, with an impressive six pairs, all by herself (well, I suppose Google may have helped… but overall that’s every single sample left, save for #11). She is therefore eligible for double-coffee and cream on me. Others can still claim their coffee next time we meet.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Musical Quizz: Sample Galore – The Answers

Instead, today is Musical Quiz.

Not any musical quiz: Catch-the-sample musical quiz!

Music producers are lazy bastards. Take my word for it. Modern electronic producers: even more so.

Actually, all genres’ music producers get away doing fuck all, they just do it in a different way:

I don’t think I need to cover R&B and Hip-Hop “producers”. In a way, when listening to some of the excruciatingly bad original Hip-Hop backing tracks made in the 90’s, you tend to be thankful that they finally opted for a more consistent rip-off policy of every instrumental tracks known to man. You just wished sometimes they’d do a bit more than cut a two-minute loop and dub it with lyrics involving large vehicles, precious ore and loose women, that make you wonder why Gil Scott-Heron ever bothered in the first place.

Charted pop music usually doesn’t go for sampling of actual past tracks, they just dip into the same three arpeggios and five bass lines used by all Western musicians since the dawn of times. “Alternative” rock doesn’t always go that length: they turn on their RS7000 to some random default settings, call it a “revolutionary riff” and sing on top (if you have no idea what I’m talking about: imagine it the somewhat higher-end equivalent to recording an album using the “cha-cha-cha” rhythm line pre-packaged into your kid’s $30 electronic synthesizer).

And then there is house music, and it just becomes a wild game of spot-the-disco-sample or the Motown bass line. I mean, I love the stuff, and I’ll rip-off the obscure Salsoul track just as much as the next guy, but it makes you sometimes wonder about the whole point of ending the disco era in the first place. Note that all this applies mostly to the eminently “commercial” subset of the genre, particularly the string of club hits released during the 90’s by the masters of the so-called French Touch. Deep house, techno and others aren’t so much into this (which doesn’t mean they don’t share one bass line for twelve tracks: they are just a tad more subtle about it).

Anyway, not so much to prove my point (because really, Google and the name of any major club hit of the past two decades is all you need for that) as to provide some easy entertainment, I went through my archives in order to offer this small quiz. But rather than giving you the remix, asking for the original (which once again requires nothing more than basic Google skills), I figured I’d present you with the original and see if you can spot the remake. Some are easy, obvious, provided you had a pair of ears during the 90’s, the last few may be harder to spot. Overall, though, I made a point to stick with the mainstream.

In a word: everybody can play!

Game is easy: give a listen down there and post your guesses in the comments. One point goes for name and artist of the original track, and one point for the more recent version (most notorious one, if there are many). Both are a Google query away from each other anyway.

As for the prize, beside basking in the glory of your well-earned musical nerdiness… let’s say coffee’s on me next time you pop by Paris.

Ready, set, go:

1. [See post to listen to audio]
2. [See post to listen to audio]
3. [See post to listen to audio]
4. [See post to listen to audio]
5. [See post to listen to audio]
6. [See post to listen to audio]
7. [See post to listen to audio]
8. [See post to listen to audio]
9. [See post to listen to audio]
10. [See post to listen to audio]
11. [See post to listen to audio]

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Musical Quiz: Sample Galore

I know I said I would post the solution this week-end, but things didn’t go as planned. Far from the comfort of my home and my little computer on Sunday night, I did try to sneak out of bed to send a quick post, around 4am, but was sharply reminded of House Rules regarding computer use, by the most evil phosphorescent glare, this side of the Pacific. I figured I’d rather be one day late on my promise than end up with a ritual katana neatly inserted between shoulder blades.

Without further ado:

The Answers

By order of appearance in the entry (I’ll leave it up to you to match translations and text).

• La Traviata: “Noi siamo zingarelle” (“We are the gypsies”) – Verdi, on a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
• Carmen: Acte 1: “Quand je vous aimerai?… L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” (“Love is an undomesticated bird”) – Bizet, on a libretto by Meilhac and Halévy (based on the novel by Prosper Mérimée).
• La Vie En Rose – Original lyrics composed and sung by Edith Piaf. Though the only version I have on my hard drive is the cover by Grace Jones.
• La Traviata (again): “Ah, fors’è lui che l’anima”
• Chan Chan – Compay Segundo – Calle Salud
• Le Tourbillon – sung by French actress Jeanne Moreau, written by Cyrus Bassiak: this song is featured in François Truffaut’s famous movie Jules et Jim.
• She’s Lost Control – Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures (1980)
• Everybody Knows – Leonard Cohen
• Il n’y a pas d’amour heureux – Georges Brassens – Les Amoureux des Bancs Publiques
• Die Lorelei – Schubert (many other versions) based on a poem by Heinrich Heine
• Kyrie – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Requiem: Κυριε ἐλεησον means “Lord, have mercy!” in classical greek. What? No, I’m not joking. I did mention greek in the rules, did I or did I not?

For your ears only, and very temporarily, I have uploaded all the ones I have on digital support, here. But hurry up, as I’ll probably remove these very much not-copyright-safe files within a day or two.

The Winner

All right, now for the man who shall be getting our unrestrained admiration, as well as a bottle of that nasty paper glue solvant the locals refer to as “alcohol” (comes in a cute bottle) [a picture will soon follow]:
Well, there is no surprise and Mr. Tuitui (helped by family) is the lucky winner. With an impressive 77% result (perhaps a bit less, as I suspect he only spotted the Traviata once, but let’s not be picky) or 10 tracks out of 13. Being French helped, seeing how it was heavily represented with four tracks. But then again, English would have been just a bit too easy.
Congratulation, Mr. Tuitui, my people shall be contacting your people and arrange for delivery. Preferably on a drier day than today.

Another One?

I think I may, when I have a sec, do another one. I’ll try to spend more than 10 minutes this time and make an entry slightly less nonsensical. In fact, perhaps you won’t even notice it’s there. Keep your eyes peeled.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Musical Contest: the Results

Good evening.
Do not attempt to adjust your radio, there is nothing wrong.
We have taken control as to bring you this special show.
We will return it to you as soon as you are grooving.

Welcome to station W. E. F. U. N. K., better known as We-Funk,
Or deeper still, the Mothership Connection.
Home of the extraterrestrial brothers,
Dealers of funky music.
P-Funk, uncut funk, The Bomb.

Parliament Funkadelic – P-Funk

Welcome to Station K.D.R.D… better known as…

Well, at the moment, it’s not known as anything. for a reason: I just made it up.

The concept is quite simple, really.

I have tons of these small tracks, pseudo-remixes, work-in-progress and all around occasional hour spent screwing around on decks with good ole music on wax. Every once in a while, I go through the length of packaging one hour of these into a nice and somewhat clean format for the enjoyment of the masses. Sometimes I even go one step shorter and only release a half-assed half-hour long mix with aforementioned musical goofing around.

All these mixes are available for your aural pleasure on the Dr Dave’s Insanely Cool Mixes Collection Page.

But this somewhat formal release scheme was still not cutting it. Three main reasons:

• Quality: Let’s face it, while I’ve gotten to a point I’d deem “fair” as a professional producer, I am still, for all purposes, a hobbyist DJ. Both in terms of skills and commitment.

  Which means that, to an overwhelming majority, times where I get on the decks and toy around with either records or computers, yield sub-par results in terms of overall mixing quality. What with the constant drinking and abusing substance while playing (OK, not this month, but I have still many ways to take my attention off whatever I’m supposed to mix). Even the Mini Mix collection requires a bit of effort, and I am a lazy person.

  Hence the need for an even cheaper/easier way to share some cool tunes without inflicting unfair damages to your eardrums nor spend every waking minutes doing so.

• Live Audience: this point kinda goes against the one just above, but the idea is that having an audience is good.

  Let me explain… These mixes I upload most definitely have an audience. They are downloaded, and listened to, by cool people, the world over. some of these people even send me nice notes or thank you gifts, which is really a testament to how awesome this Intarweb thingie is. But a live audience, it ain’t.

  If you’ve ever done any sort of art or music live, then you know, otherwise, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine: with the right mindset, there is a sort of pressure that drives you to expand on your usual practices and break the mold. Play/act/do whatever you would be doing in a studio, in a way that you would never have thought of doing before. The live audience is a major catalyst there.

  I hardly ever play clubs these days, and for the most part, I’m quite fine with this. But I do miss the crazy-spur-of-the-moment wild experimentations with vinyl, keyboards, sequencer, chopsticks (yea, I really did it once) and anything an adrenalin-fueled brain can summon.

• Technical Reasons: as mentioned last time, I am nearing the ceiling of my hosting quota. Each new mix I upload now requires difficult choices, moving around, shuffling of files etc. No fun. Especially for me, whose sleeping pattern is deeply perturbed by the mere thought of link rot at night.

The semi-answer to all these problems being…

KDRD: Dr Dave’s Very Own MP3 Radio Station

Very much a non-event at the moment, since it is anything but an actual streaming station yet. For now it’s merely a pointer to a file that I will manually update whenever I get the urge (without having to worry about announcing the arrival or removal of these ephemeral mixes). But in the very next few days, I will be going over my options for something a bit more real.
Read: an actual mp3 streaming server, complete with playlist rotation and… Live Shows!!!

We are not there yet, but getting there…

Currently Playing on KDRD

In the meantime, KDRD is featuring a quick and dirty mix I recorded on the side of some studio work, last Sunday:

KDRD – Currently Playing: Dr Dave’s Caffeinated Mix

A mix of old and recent (with some of my own stuff, for once), reflective of my current dealings with the harder side of things, be it in life, love or musical production.

I quite like it, despite its many technical flaws. Heavily recommended if you need some aural caffeine to get you through the day. Even if certain parts do not seem to cater to your exact tastes, I would humbly recommend hanging in there, as it contains many hidden surprises, under the seemingly austere demeanour of a dark tribal techno sound.

Toward the end of the mix, especially, is an old classic (let’s see if the old club queens in the assistance can spot it), that I would very much like to dedicate to the young fellow who writes in French over there, as he is not only a very fine, bright, gifted and wonderful individual who made some important life-changing realisations lately, but also because we happen to share a few genes, and I couldn’t be any prouder of it.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Introducing KDRD

Only marginally better, but this time, no skipping CD track (and huge props to Ian for e-mailing me a clean version, less than two days after I sent him a begging email). The Timmy Regisford track still sound rather awful: after nearly taking my turntable apart, I was forced to conclude it was a shitty vinyl pressing (happens a lot with white label acetate pressings)… bah, we’ll say it adds to the authenticity….

Oh, and also: since it was recorded in faux-mono anyway (stupid mixing board issue + laziness from yours truly), I used single-channel mp3 encoding: freeing 30 much needed megs on my server drive, hopefully without noticeable difference in quality.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Retrogressive Vol. 3 – Second Take

It’s been ages I haven’t done much, music-wise. I have actually been refusing a few jobs. Both for lack of time and motivation. Not that they were thoroughly uninteresting tracks, but it just felt like I would have had to force myself to do them, and if there’s one thing I am clear on, it’s that I never want this to become something I do half-heartedly. So I found it best to take a break, and incidentally didn’t touch a turntable in more than two months… Which hadn’t happened since I first ever started dabbling in electronic music (that’s quite long ago, if you must know).

But this week’s mostly nice weather inspired me (disregarding today’s depressing return of fog, mist and cold winds), and I needed a small break from coding, anyway. Hence one hour of delicious deep grooves with chunks of funkiness all over for your kind appreciation. Not an ounce of personal production this time, but lots of friends.

In light of the material and because I really like the result, this mix has been considered fit for the Retrogressive seal of approval, and shall therefore be Vol. 3 in the collection. It will probably warrant a second take in the days to come, but this one is OK for now.

While we are on the topic of music:

1) I finally created a dedicated static page with links to all my mp3 mixes available online. There’s quite a lot, as you can tell: http://unknowngenius.com/blog/music/

2) As pointed in 1), there is now a shitload of music files hosted on my servers. So much so, in fact, that I am running close to capacity. I should (and will) upgrade my account and get a much larger quota, but for now, a server move is just the last thing I need to take care of.
Which is why I’m hereby calling out to any kind soul who’s got some space freely available and could accomodate a few megs (ok, maybe a few gigs, or at least one gig) of legal music. I don’t even need a domain or anything, just a stable static IP address that I can point my .pls files to. A few generous folks have actually contacted me in the past offering to help me with hosting, but they were essentially referring to wp-plugins.net and other OSS-related projects (which aren’t a problem, since they are rather light on disk space), so I would feel bad taking advantage of these offers for my personal benefit.
I should also add that while I need lots of space, bandwidth isn’t really high: I can keep recent releases on my own server, and casual foot-traffic for older archived mp3s is very reasonable.

Many thanks in advance to anybody who can help…

stay funky everybody

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Deep House Mix: Retrogessive Vol. 3

Christmas spirit is upon us… what does that mean music-wise? Well, we had to make an effort.

Now, let me reassure you straight up: there are no techno remix of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in that mix.

But I figured that, after the noisy bad boy from last time, it was time to give you a mix you could safely bring back home to your family and introduce to your parents. I mean, this mix is not exactly husband material, but at least it won’t start snorting lines of candy canes off the christmas dinner table.

Actually, this is family House. mostly. even your dad could groove to that.

Safer to unplug grandma’s hearing aid beforehand, though.

Enjoy and merry chrismahanukwanzakah everybody!

This is a draft for a club promotional release, hence the rather mainstream selection and the lack of finish (not had time to even normalize it at the time of this writing, so turn the volume up)… I’ll try to post the final take later.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

NYE House Mix

Well, not me. I don’t do drugs.

But for all of you Acid Freaks and Speed Monkeys out there, tired of listening to the same old Grateful Dead record, or that drum’n'bass mix you traded for some weed in a smelly london basement circa 97-98.
I mean, that beat bores me to tears after the fourth measure, let alone a full track… So an hour of this stuff looped over for 5 years? Come on now, the drugs do not excuse everything. It’s time for a change.

For those whose lifestyle doesn’t involve sporting hoodies to go bang heads against concrete warehouse walls to repetitive music during 10 hours straight: there are many other reasons you might want to download this mix: annoying neighbour, small rodent infestation, wallpaper removal etc.

OK. If you are not into loud repetitive music, this might not really be your thing…

Do not hastily discard the merits of repetitive music… As Mr. Leary used to put it: yes, it is repetitive, but then again, so is sex.

You may wonder where the funk has gone and why the hell I resume that little collection of mine with something so unfriendly to the average ear…
Well, believe me: at the end of a 10 hour deep-house remastering session… no matter how nice the deep vibe is, you definitely feel like playing noisy music. Potentially that kind of noisy music.

Not even sure I’ll end up keeping that mix online, but in the meantime, I figured it couldn’t hurt since it’s been a while…

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Music to do your drugs to…

But really there ain’t.

Instead, and because we need to try and get our mind on something else for a bit (though I most certainly will come back to it in the near future), here is something to listen to. [Update: removed mp3 file for Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's incredible cover of Over the Rainbow in an attempt to ward off the leeches]

Make of it what you will.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Not the End of the World (Yet)…

Since I’ll be away from my little home studio starting Friday, and busy as hell until then, there won’t be any opportunity for recording until I come back in October. Unless I end up being able to record one of my sets live somewhere, but I wouldn’t count on it too much.

This week’s mix is much longer than usual. Actually it doesn’t really fit the original “Mini Mix” guidelines… but do we care?

Also, I decided to make life easier on me, you and google, by adopting a “keyword” format for each mix… Not exactly a tracklisting, but as close as I care to go at the moment. I’ll be progressively adding this to older mixes too.

Keywords: deep, funk, jazz, afro, japanese house, sax orgy, Miles Davis, James Brown, Cricco Castelli, Charles Schillings, Femi Kuti, Dajae, Misia, François K…

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Mini Mix #8: Brown. James Brown…

Or maybe that’s just what I need. Spend a few hours playing loud music, dye my hair blue and go drink my age in sake cups (only two out of three so far, but we’re working on it).

For those who loved the funky jazzy sounds of the last few mixes… you’re gonna be disappointed.

Yea, today is electro-ish mood. Can you feel the teenage angst? can you hear the dark eyeliner and the eurotrash accents?

It’s pack full of borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties, it noisy, it’s dirty and I fucked up numerous times (that’s when I was refilling my gin tonic), but it’s my birthday so bite me (no. not there, it hurts).

Keywords: electro, 80s, dirty, noisy, eurotrash chic, German rock, komputers, Miss Kittin, Ladytron, Felix da Housecat, Kraftwerk, LCD Soundsystem, I wanna be your dog, Losing my edge…

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Mini Mix #7: Da Electro Shit

In a hurry, so no annoying banter witty commentary this time.

We shall just say that if you liked Mix #1, you will probably like this one too.

Keywords: jazz, chicago house, swing, Saint Germain, Daft Punk, Roulé Boulé, Hakan Libdo, Norman Cook, Moodyman, C&C, Glenn Miller, shiny disco balls, everybody fucking dance NOW…

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Mini Mix Pt. 6: Full Swing

Lightning, flood, hailstorm, gozilla sequel… anything, really…

Incredibly enough, nothing went wrong, and I’m quite satisfied with the result, except for the fact I had to do it by headphones with the amp nearly turned off, for reasons obvious enough, and mixing quality is thus not at its best and brightest. But nothing to be truly ashamed of, I reckon.

Those who were only mildly thrilled by the musical digressions of the last two mixes can rejoice: the Funk is back.
Mostly Latin House tunes, to be exact: my personal sweet spot…

So put this mix on, crank the volume way up and enjoy!

PS: If within five minutes, your feet do not start dancing under you, take your own measurements and call your local mortician to make arrangements: you are probably dead.

Keywords: salsa, lupita, latin, miami house, ATFC, MAW, que rico los tambores, una mas tequila por favor…

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Ay que rico… Mini Mix #5

Actually, the best one I have ever seen was not one of mine.

Back in London, some DJ-legend-I-shall-not-name-here was scheduled for a major 5-hour set at the club. Things were not looking pretty when he showed up 30 minutes late in a more than advanced state of chemically-induced mental regression.

When their headliner DJs are too wasted to perform, I’ve seen promoters use all kind of tricks to keep the show going… most often putting on a mix CD and regularly slapping the passed-out artiste out of his daze so he can wave at the crowd like he means it. Depending on where you are and who the DJ is, that usually works. But in this case, the club owner (a DJ himself) was quite adamant about having Mr. Drooling Superstar play his own set. Essentially basing his decision on the quite valid idea that such caliber of a DJ could play a set in his sleep… and that most of the assistance would be at least equally wasted anyway.

This, as it turned out, was not the best decision of the night…

It seemed like our friend had not gone lightly in terms of efficient brain cell frying for that evening (and I suspect he did not have that many remaining brain cells to fry, to begin with). For even his motor skills were quite seriously hindered… to say nothing of the numerous imaginary creatures he periodically brushed off his clothes…
The first hour of the set went relatively ok, if you except a few really nasty trainwreck and an overall complete lack of timing. It must be said that the guy was indeed nearly able to play with only 5% of his brain on…

I happened to be nearly behind him when things took a turn for the seriously worse: either the strobe light was not doing the poor man’s vision any good, or whatever high he was on, suddenly went up three notches… anyway, he made a mistake: he forgot which deck was currently live. Now, once again, we’ve all done that at least once (at least I know I have), and there’s no need to even be drunk to do it. You lift a needle and instantaneously realize your mistake (when 3000 thumping Watts drop to a resounding silence all of a sudden, believe me, you notice). If you are any good, you can usually catch yourself and make it sound like a lame attempt at some sort of effect (needless to say you drop back the needle within a few milliseconds no matter what). The problem with our man was a bit worse, though.

See, he did not lift the needle off the currently playing record. He forgot to remove the currently playing record, and tried to place a new one on top of it.

The first few seconds of shock quickly mutated into irrepressible laughter when, completely oblivious to the excruciating sound of a live turntable needle being crushed at 100 decibels, he started forcing down the second record on top of the first one, as if merely dealing with a slightly recalcitrant car trunk…

Comical as the situation was, something had to be done and the sound guy swiftly killed the channel to launch a filler mix CD, presumably saving a few hundred clubbers’ eardrums.

I can tell you that even my most embarrassing public leg-tripping have always seemed really tame to me, compared to that one.

And why am I narrating this anecdote of particularly little interest?

Well, because it all goes to show that sometimes, you should know when you are not on your best to fiddle with musical equipment. The fact it takes you half-an-hour to trace down the absence of sound output to an obvious bypass trigger should be a clear sign that you will end up recording the most sublimely perfect take of your master track, just to realize afterward that the Midi cable wasn’t properly plugged. Of course, it’s only 10 minutes of your time, but that usually is enough to kill the mood for a while.
And that is why there ain’t no new mix for today. I might just surrender and go for a mix without additional prod, but I really wanted to get that track in there… so we’ll see if I can manage to record a second master take without screwing up the recording part this time.

And for the layman who hasn’t a clue what that last paragraph (or the whole post for that matter) means: let’s just say it’d be the music-geek equivalent to the cat tripping on the computer power cable around the 30th page of that Word document your are writing. (and by the way: he did it on purpose, that psychotic bastard).

BUT I still love you.

And to prove it, I added a brand new listing of the Mini Mixes mp3s released to date. All of them, neatly sorted and labeled, a click away from your delighted ears, in the left-side “Online Empire” section (quick message to the user interface-impaired: click once on the title to expand the sections and see the links).

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Musical Performance Blunders

Much tweaking and bleeping ensued.

Good part about dragging an eye more bloodshot than a flock of Transylvanian bats is that I can’t do much, except stay in the dark and make noise. Which in turn means I’m holding pretty good with my average two-three-mix-a-week production plan.

This mix is also kind of old school. Wait. Come back: there’s no Prince this time. I’m talking about the other Old School.
If you’ve ever gone dancing in the outdoors sometime during the past fifteen years, chances are you know most of these tracks. If you’ve not, then here is your chance to see why you missed out. Suffice it to say that one of my favorite instrument of all times is heavily represented (and I’m probably going straight to Musician Hell for even calling that an instrument).
So this is yet another nostalgia mix, I know, but for aforementioned strained-eye reasons, I really cannot stare much at a computer screen these days, and that reduce by as much my options in terms of making bleeping sounds of my own to go on a mix. Good part about this old school is that I got it all down there on lovely vinyl.
As a result, no prod on this mix, save maybe for some liberal use of sampling trickery, but that doesn’t really qualify…

And before you go and enjoy, I should probably add a fair warning: some of the music on this mix probably could be considered… huh…
“agressive” is not quite the word, but…
OK, let me put it this way: there are basically two type of reactions to it… Some people will shake their head rhythmically while making weird little snake movements with their hands, while others will repress tears of pain and clench their teeth to make sure their fillings do not come out while addressing a quick eulogy to their late eardrums.
Rule of thumb is that people past their thirties tend to belong to the latter category, but go ahead, make the stats lie!

And now that you’ve all been warned:

Don’t cry Sunshine, next week will be back to good ole’ Funky House. Promise.

Keywords: techno, electronic, psychedelic house, 303, more 303, noisy, tweety-tweety-tit, Underworld, Rollo, Josh Wink, Arrigo Boito, Grayhound, Mefistofele, rez, no sleep, people, consciousness many levels higher…

Oh yea, that first track on the mix…

Ten years later, this is still one of my strongest memories, ever: wandering in the middle of Black Rock desert at dusk, when my ear caught this infectious melody playing somewhere in the distance, amidst the bizarre art installations and the group of camping freaks. It was impossible not to start walking toward that sound, if only to make sure it was not an aural illusion. And I was not the only one either: people everywhere, it seemed, were irresistibly drawn to that sound and it was nearly comical to see us all walking blindly through the camp, looking for that invisible pied piper (may I add, importantly enough given the location, that this episode happened during one of the rare moment where the author of this post was under no chemical influence whatsoever).

The track was Rez, by Underworld, and it proves, if there was a need, that modern electronic music (and I am not talking about “contemporary” electronic music) can sustain the comparison to even the most entrenched classical gems in terms of talking to the soul and the mind beyond the boundaries of human language.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Mini Mix Pt. 4: The Other Old School

See, on my shared server web control panel, there is this little indicator that changes color to reflect the latest Terror Alert level, courtesy of Donald and his friends at the Homeland Sicherheit office. Or so I thought.
I mean, things had been pretty quiet for the past month: the bar remained a serene green and I had naturally assumed that terrorism had been eradicated from the face of earth, evil vanquished, all that… Except, about a week ago, the indicator suddenly went through yellow, orange, red to finally stop with an even brighter red. Not inching back to safer level thereafter.
I was starting to worry a little bit and considered contacting the SDF: tell them to get Godzilla ready. just in case, you know…

Well, it turns out my ISP did not put a terror level indicator on my control panel. According to some guy from their support, it is supposed to represent the amount of “free disk space” I got on my share. Free as in “free beer in your fridge”. Red meant, in essence, that I didn’t have any (space, not beer, please follow).

So the good news is that you can put these rolls of saran wrap back in your drawer and take grandma out of the anti-gaz-attack freezer: everybody is safe… for now…
The bad news is that this latest brilliant idea of mine has to be reconsidered, and the frequency of mp3 uploads slowed down a wee bit for now, lest we make that indicator go past its current red level, which can only be a bad thing, I assume.

Since running a public web server off my laptop at home is probably not a good idea (trust me, the poor thing already has quite a hard time coping with the heat and the crazy things I ask it to do), I am currently doing the round of all my lucky friends with nigh-unlimited disk space on their box to see if somebody can spare a few megs for the sake of this artistic endeavour.

In the meantime, I erased a few porn movies from my server and was able to make enough space for a new mix:

Keywords: hip house, old school, Miss Kittin, Prince, sniffing in the VIP area, I like the way your booty shake…

I was feeling like a bit of change, so this mix is Old School (and I do mean Old. School). As a funny aside, that track with the proto-hip-hopping in the middle of the mix was labeled “hip house mix” and made in 1988 according to the sleeve (bought 10 years later on the East Coast if I remember correctly)… doesn’t make us feel any younger, all that.

Oh yea, special note to the soccer dads and hip mom amongst our loyal fanbase who like to play these mixes while driving their little ones to school: there are a few PG-13 elements in that mix. Though honestly, nothing they won’t know already from the Discovery Channel (or from these old issues of Playboy they found in your garage).

I was gonna forget: if the bass sound a bit muffled, it’s normal, that’s the benzocaine.
Oh wait. I took the benzocaine. never mind.
Might still sound a bit weird anyway.
Before you get any idea: benzocaine is an efficient pain inhibitor commonly found in these small toothpaste-like tubes of oral analgesic you can buy at Walgreen to treat mouth irritation (“toothache, cold sore, minor injury” it says). Works miracles on any severely scorched mouth (don’t ask) and brings a pleasurably mellow high as a nice side-effect.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Mini Mix Pt. 3: Revenge of the Old School

Somehow even less polished than the previous one, if that was humanly possible, let me introduce the second volume in the Mini Mix series:

I promise I’ll make an effort on quality next time…

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Mini Mix Pt.2

Tweakin’, mixin’ and producin’ as usual…

See, in my shoes, Ian Curtis would probably have made something awesome, deep and powerful and then proceeded to slit his wrists open…
Me: I mostly wonder what Django Reinhardt would sound like, remixed on a techno beat…
Maybe that’s why I haven’t reached worldwide fame yet.

talking about, I expect the ghost of Ian Curtis to show up any second now and he’s probably quite pissed for what I’ve done to She’s Lost Control during my last bout of inspiration…

Anyway… on a completely different train of thought, I have been brainstorming on how I could make that blog of mine more interesting, given the ludicrous amount of time I have just spent making it prettier.
Posting naked picture of myself daily was considered. and ruled out.
What I wanted was a good reason for my three faithful readers (that includes you, the guy who got here by typing “soccer milfs” in Google) to check that vacuous page more than once a year or when their mouse trips and activate the link by mistake (a very common problem: that happens to me quite often with porn websites, personally). And we all know these pathetic rants of more than dubious literary value sure aren’t much of a reason.
And that’s were the aforementioned music activities come into the picture: I figured it would be cool to post some here on a regular basis. Problem is, I do not have the time nor the motivation to record full-hour mixes very often, especially given my borderline obsessive compulsive nature (did I say “borderline”, sorry, I meant “full-on, clinically recorded”) that compels me to maniacally do a hundred takes until I am either satisfied or passed out from exhaustion (usually the latter).
On the other hand, all kind of complex legal and moral issues bar me from making single tracks available on this site, whether mine or other’s.

Hence, the Mini-Mix of the Day idea…

The skinny:

• They mostly contain tracks I like or stuff I made, should cover a very wide range and balance styles as much as possible
• They are not very worked on, mostly a half-dozen tracks hastily cued together and done in one take (or two, if I really fuck up, cf. OCD issue above)
• There should be some kind of theme running, though I certainly won’t go into details over each one
• I’ll try to record and upload a new one at least every other day (well, that’s the theory of it, and we all know how theory goes around here)
• There is definitely a big tongue-firmly-planted-through-cheek factor (cf this first mix). One more reason to stick with a short format, ’cause I can tell it would become old easily over 90 minutes.

And without further ado, the first Mini-Mix-of-the-Day:

Of course, there’s always the old mixes here too.

Enjoy.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Introducing: Mini Mix of the Day

Lest we forget that the gentleman ranting endlessly on these pages actually spends a sizable share of his time lovingly fondling wax and stroking keyboards until harmonious bleeps of satisfaction come out in arpeggios… I added a little something to my online mix repository.

I should probably tell you this is some old mix I recorded 3 years ago and just found yesterday while cleaning up my room… ’cause none of the tracks is any more recent than that: didn’t do that on purpose, it just happened… and I’m not one to shun old tracks just because they are old.

truth be told, I was originally planning to put together a nice & clean new demo with all the shiny new stuff I brought back from my last US incursion. Some sick SF Deep House, loads of funky tribal white labels from Miami and countless other studio experiments courtesy of yours truly and his little robot friends…

So I started playing, garden bay-window wide open, basking in Tokyo’s shining April sun, and completely lost track somewhere amidst the heavy incense fumes.

OK. Maybe I should stop here in order to explain the incense part: I do NOT usually light up sticks of sacred incense every time I’m on the decks… See, the nice part about living right next to a Cemetery, beside the fact your neighbours don’t mind the loud music at night, is that, every once in a while, the whole surrounding area is filled by the spiritual smell of dozens of massive incense sticks burning outside of the Buddhist temple. It’s like Benares, without the hundred of corpses floating on the Ganges in an advanced state of decomposition…

Anyway, the warm sunny day, the smell of incense (staple of every freakin’ tree-huggin’ peace-lovin’ Californian househead party, as everybody knows), my overall mellow disposition toward that shitty planet on that very day, all concurred to make me record this.

It’s not very funky, definitely not cutting-edge, not progressive, not loud, not like these at all… but it’s a rather groovy soundtrack to your spring & summer afternoons. It’s got some of my favorite tracks of the decade, along with a few gems straight from the secret stash of Master Dave. It’s mostly deep house, with some chunks of electro, to make sure everybody stays awake. It’s far from perfect and would most definitely call for a second take, but as I said, it’s merely a sidetracked session that came out nice enough. So I ain’t spending more time on it.

I just figured it would be nice to put some new music here and help putting at rest the aching ears of my fans… so here goes:

Dr Dave’s Summer Nostalgia Mix – 2004

Enjoy!

PS: I might update this entry later on with a succinct tracklisting if I feel like it.

PPS: I guess now is also a good time to announce officially that we’ll throwing our first Summer Park Party in Yoyogi Koen next Month! On Sunday the 23rd of May, we’ll be bringing decks, groovy beats and good vibes to a lovely little spot inside the Park and playing for whoever cares to come share the afternoon with us. Stay posted for more info or contact me directly.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Oh, and he Plays Music Too…