Something for your ears at the bottom »

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.