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A second, somewhat better, take of the Retrogressive Vol. 3 Mix. Same address, same music, better sound:

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.

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I thoroughly hate internet “memes”. In fact, I even hate the cheap bastardization of an interesting, yet mostly unrelated, word in order to give some sort of legitimacy to what is, in fact, nothing more than a 21st century take on the braindead chain letter thing, mixed in with a bit of “glad you asked, let me tell you all about myself” blogger hubris.

However, Bunny asked. Soon to be joined in the peer-pressure effort by our favorite bible-reading cosplay freak. And I can’t decently turn a cold shoulder on them without justifiably being labeled a stuck-up killjoy. Plus I do need a diversion from coding and who can resist a bit of self-serving writing every once in a while (all right: not like this whole blog is anything else in the first place).

So here goes… Expect a rather freestyle approach to the whole meme-answering thing, though.

Since this one was asked in French and it’s been a while: I doubled the effort and made a bilingual post.

Je hais profondément les “mêmes” internet. En fait, je déteste même la récupération douteuse d’un terme au sens complètement différent, pour désigner une tradition qui doit beaucoup plus aux stupides chaînes de lettres du siècle dernier, doublées d’une bonne dose de narcissisme, qu’à une quelconque transmission dans l’inconscient collectif de concepts auto-propagateurs.

Néanmoins notre Bunny helvète préférée a gentiment demandé, suivie par un certain geek neurosé. Je pouvais difficilement refuser sans passer pour un pisse-froid…

Je cède donc à la pression, et vous présente en exclusivité le premier et dernier “même” à jamais paraître sur ce blog. J’ai néanmoins pris de grandes libertés avec le format.

Vous noterez aussi, je l’espère, l’effort inhabituel pour répondre en français.

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I think it was during an hopeless attempt to explain some utterly untranslatable nerdy joke to Eriko, that she admitted she had never seen Star Wars (talking about the original trilogy here, not that poor excuse for a pop-corn commercial they made recently). I thought about it, and realized I probably hadn’t seen all three episodes ever since I was a kid. Hence, tonight was Star Wars night, the first two episodes (kept Return of the Jedi for next time).

Watching it again and having to help Eriko with the story (we only had English subtitles) made me notice many funny details; some of these were quite obvious to me as a grown-up, and the rest is certainly widely known among fanboys circles. But anyway:

  • The whole Japanese theme is definitely all over the place: Jedi only seem another name for Samurai, Darth Vader’s helmet is straight from the Shogun’s era and all their fights are conducted using some sort of space-katanas.
  • The mystics/metaphysics angle, however, seems more inspired from Taoism than Bushido. In fact, if you take some of Yoda’s quotes and replace “the Force” by “the Tao”, I’m pretty sure you’ll find them verbatim in the Tao Te Ching
  • There’s a blatant Shakespearean moment, in Empire Strikes Back, when the big hairy dude is left to lament with the lifeless parts of one of the droids (C3PO or R2D2, can never tell which is which). When he sits down and takes the droid’s head in his hands, you would probably hear him call out for Yorick if you could understand his growling…
  • That one is actually a very widely known bit of trivia to anybody who’s lived in the Bay Area: these weird four-legged machines attacking the rebel base in Empire are exact replica of the cargo cranes you can see when you drive to Oakland from the Bay Bridge (they do look quite ominous too if you catch them at sundown).

I’m sure there are tons of other trivia to catch, but these really popped out when watching tonight…

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Picture keitai_w21t.jpg
Sunday, I took my roommate Eriko on a record-shopping spree in Shibuya.

The principal goal of our expedition was not for me to pack up on yet more records that I will probably have to leave behind when I move, but rather to help her get started with her career as a world-renowned DJ.

People coming over and asking you to “teach them how to DJ”, is pretty much par for the course whenever you start playing outside of your bedroom. This is how everybody get started, this is how I got started… You pick a DJ you know or that you particularly like and humbly go asking for advice and guidance.

DJ’ing, in that respect, still holds much of that old “master-apprentice” tradition that you get, both in western and Japanese craftsmanship.

But enough with the Mr. Miyagi bullcrap: Eriko didn’t turn to me because she was blinded by my turntablism wizzardry and had a striking revelation in the middle of a dancefloor. Rather because we live under the same roof and she couldn’t help but become increasingly curious about the pleasure I seemed to draw from playing with all these colorful knobs in my bedroom.

Note: If you didn’t grin stupidly upon reading that last sentence, you are way too pure to be reading this blog and have probably lived a very sheltered life so far.

Anyway, after explaining that she probably didn’t need to get the full Midi keyboard and TB-303 kit just right now, I gave her the usual drill. In a nutshell: “Sure, go for it, but not with my records, please”.

Hence the trip to the store, hence the last two days spent enduring the same continuous soundtrack of mismatched beats from the same two records for hours on end…

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A few very random observations prompted by the music in my life these days:

  • Keith Jarrett is a bloody genius (dug the Köln Concert’s vinyl boxset last week-end in Koenji.)
  • Sometime during the late 90’s, there was a point where it seemed House was about to break into the mainstream: radios started playing House tracks, cross-over successes appeared, major venues featured House acts.
    Eventually, the trend fizzled out and, instead, Hip Hop became the music of choice for the average dance-impaired suburban white kid…

    I take a deep hard look at any random Hip Hop producer on TV nowadays and thank the gods that House never made it to that level of buffoonery…

  • My personal theory regarding Drum’n’Bass is that it is a project gone out-of-hand, developed in the Secret Research Labs of the British Dentistry Association aimed at removing patients’ fillings without anesthesia.

    An alternative theory would be that somebody once decided to make a music so caricatural that it begs to be used for one of these 60 Minutes special on The Youth of Today and the barbaric music they are into nowadays.

    Note: My current appreciation of that thankfully near-extinct musical genre is possibly biased by the fact I was just handed such a massively retarded piece of washing-machine rhythm with mission to make the sound “Phat” and to compress the bass more (you stupid tweakhead: if I throw one more inch of compression into that track, it’ll pretty much become one single pulsating bass sound with a few signature d’n’b, motorcycle-on-the-highway, sound effects here and there).

  • Also among the insanely cool picks of that last vinyl hunt to Koenji: Cymande, probably one of the best funk band of all times.

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[sc_embed_player_template1 fileurl=”http://www.unknowngenius.com/mp3s/drdave_nye04.mp3″]

(right-click here for download)

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.

At the risk of stating the obvious: End of year celebrations are approaching. Pretty soon, we will be getting together with our loved ones to indulge in a feast of holiday gourmet food (or alternatively, staying in with the dog and two bottles of Jack D, if that’s the kind of celebration you are into).

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!

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In BoingBoing tonight: “Cubase plugin makes music sound like it’s played by cellphone”

60 years after everybody else, Nokia (and Xeni Jardin) discover the breakthrough concept of… Vocoder…

Congratulations!

What’s next? some crazy device to make your music sound like it’s being played in a concert hall?

And do not come telling me this is news because it is being brought to the public at large: for chrissake, it is a Cubase plugin.

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Don’t we all need some? (music to do drugs to, not drugs…)

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.

Dr Dave’s MiniMix #9 (right-click here for download)


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I wish I could find something positive to say about all that. Something to heal what feels like one of the worst hangover I’ve had in many years, even though I haven’t even had the heart to abuse my daily dose of cough syrup, let alone wash it down with a quart of rum, for the past two days. Like everyone, I’m looking hard out there for comforting words and reasons not to depress.

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.