Well, January has escaped me. The 9 to 5 has been insane and motivation to really stay on the horse with the new mix and this blog has been, well, lacking.

The good news is that I’m in love with Tumblr. If you haven’t stopped over at “That’s What’s Up“, I’d suggest a quick look. That’s What’s Up is DjFREQ.com in sweatpants and a T-shirt. The posts are shorter, more casual, and might ask you to grab a beer for them while you’re up.

There’s a lot of music being posted there…tracks I think are worth a listen but that I don’t have the time to write a full review for.

Stay tuned here for some more content. I’m in the process of uploading another handful of mixes from the archives to the Mixes page.

Hope everyone is enjoying 2010 so far. I’ll post back here again soon!

So I’m attaching a Tumblr blog to the site very soon (Update: it’s here).

The domain name is already set, the Tumblr account is set up, and A-Record change is filed with my registrar. Woohoo!

So what does that mean? Tumbleblogging (or Microblogging) is kind of mash between Wordpress, Twitter, and Facebook. While I currently use and like all of those services, none of them meet all of my sharing and blabbering needs at once. Tumblr allows for very quick, very easy, and very accessable posting of all sorts of things, but it does media especially well. And it also happens to play very nice with Twitter, Facebook, and Wordpress.

If you want to see Tumblr in action check out my brother’s Tumblr @ ddp.kethcart.com He turned me onto Tumblr in the first place, so….Thanks, bro.

My justification for doing this is that I have a lot of stuff that I’d like to share with friends, family, and readers that doesn’t justify a full post on the main blog, or really fit in with the content and direction that I envision my main site having. So in my mind, the Tumblr site is mainly going to serve as an “et cetera” collection of movies, links, music, articles, etc…that don’t quite make “front page” material on DjFREQ.com, but that I feel should be retained in a place where I can share them with the other networks of people mentioned above.

And so where will you find this new content?

twu.djfreq.com

What’s TWU?

That’s What’s Up.

The name came almost as a joke at first, but then instantly stuck. It comes from a recorded interview with Kimbo Slice, a now world famous MMA fighter. At the time, he was just entering into the world of professional mixed martial arts. At the end of one of his interviews, Mr. Slice very promptly and matter-of-factly ends his statement with “…that’s what’s up”.

Yep. That’s What’s Up. I like it.

Simple and concise, if not brutish and terse.

You can catch the delivery of this wonderful phrase here:

That’s What’s Up

I picked this track for this week because it ties in with a previous post on chiptunes and 8bit sound hardware. (See Chiptunes and Demoscene and 8bit Nostalgia …) I also picked it because it’s a really great track. I’m attaching the Extended Mix which clocks in at a hefty 7:48, but that’s no surprise for Tiësto. There has also been a release comprised of various remixes of this track (including a Bart B More remix, which I haven’t heard yet. Considering his track record, it should prove to be an interesting Baltimore house fix of 8bit goodness.)

This track is being heralded as the “return” of Tiësto. Many of his fans feel that, as of late, Tiësto had departed from the edgy, darker, almost downright scary production value that he was known for (think Flight 643). They decried his “commercial” appeal and felt they may have lost their beloved king of trance to the lure of mass appeal. Frankly, I don’t think Tiësto has never had to worry about finding appeal to the masses. We’re talking about the first DJ ever to be asked to play at the Olympics. We’re talking about the man who has a statue of his likeness in wax at Madame Tussauds museum in Amsterdam. We’re talking the man who has topped almost every DJ list ever made at one point or another.

Mass appeal is hardly a problem.

I think Tiësto suffers from the same struggle every DJ (or artist in general for that matter) will: growing. It’s easy to be typecast or pigeon-holed by your own fans and to bring upon yourself certain expectations of what your DJ sets or your own productions should cater to. As popularity rises, there becomes a dedicated “core” of insiders that segregates themselves and tends to look at all these new “intruding” outsiders as a threat to their sense of what’s “theirs”. The DJ or artist is forced to deal with the changing demographics and tastes of their constituency. Any shift in methods or deliverables comes with the risk of backlash from the “ones who have been there all along” that have come to expect the McDonald’s experience from the artist. They came once and they bought a McRib. And man, they liked it. Now, next time they come in and buy a McRib, it had better taste just the same way, be wrapped up in it’s familiar wrapper, and delivered with a smile that says “It’s because of you I have my job. Thank you.”

My feeling is that “Louder Than Boom” is an attempt to bridge two previously explored paths: The early, dark, epic trance path and the later, more matured, “I just needed to try something different for a while” path. “Louder Than Boom” reminds me a lot of Flight 643. It also reminds me of some of Tiësto’s more recent material that sent some of his original fans packing. It reminds me of…Tiësto.

Loud. Epic. Dark.

But also Minimal. And Fun. And Bright.

Boot up your Commodore 64, kick back in your Reebok Pumps, and say “welcome back” to the man who defined Trance as a genre.

Tiësto – Louder Than Boom

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Christmas. It has come and gone without a peep from me on the site here. The new mix is coming along, but definitely not anywhere near as quickly as I had hoped. And definitely not quick enough to have been posted here before Christmas. So to be honest, it may be a while before it gets finished and posted. I think we can all agree the holidays are hectic, and I’ve had an especially, um, challenging one.

Stay tuned, there will be much more good stuff to come, but probably not until the Champagne’s been popped and the streamers and confetti have all settled.

No worries, 2010 is shaping up to the be a strong year for me.

UPDATE ::

Aw, shucks. Guilt got the best of me. I can’t let the year come to a close without giving you a little gift of some sort.  I offer up a little mix created in June of 2008. It’s mostly electro-house, with some 80’s remixes to start, some Wolfgang Gartner thrown in the middle, and some of the popular club anthems of that moment to round out the finish.

Head on over to the Mixes page. It’s at the bottom.

It’s quick, it’s loud, it’s fun. Just like I hope the end of the year is for everyone!

Happy New Year!

I’ve posted another mix on the Mixes page. While the tracks used may be dusty, this mix is near and dear to me.

Why?

Because it’s the first time I ever took a mix that I had recorded live from the decks and went to town afterwards with a scalpel.

Some DJ purists will tell you it’s a sin to fudge with the results of a session on the decks. They’ll tell you to leave well enough alone and deal with the imperfections of a live mix. I bought into that for a loooong time. And then I really listened to the material that well-known, established, popular, well-selling and well-represented DJ’s were offering.

Polished. Concise. Clean. Pristine. Exciting.

Those words describe the critically acclaimed works of Richard “Humpty” Vission and DJ Dan and many others. Those words are the hallmarks of expertise, sensibility, and appeal.

I was a fool.

I originally recorded this mix straight from the decks and it clocked in at an obese and bloated 2 and a half hours. I went around the day after recording the original and handed people the first 80 raw minutes of the mix; unedited. The reception was underwhelmingly lackluster. Back to the drawing board.

After going through the process of teaching myself how to edit out portions of audio that were poorly developed, unnecessary, redundant, boring, sloppy, etc…I did what was necessary. I opened the source file up in Cool Edit, now known as Audition, and I hacked the ever-living crap out of it. It was painful at first…to lose, no, destroy parts of your baby. To hack out motionless sections of transitions that you had rehearsed for hours. To surgically remove unexciting breakdowns that went on for just a bit too long. To tidy up your mistakes. To…wait a minute. This shit sounds GOOD.

It’s clean. It’s polished, pristine, and concise. My GOD….it’s exciting!

I returned to the same people I had given the originals to. This time it was a different mix. It was a scant 63 minutes.

They loved it.

It was a breakthrough for me. It was everything I wanted my mixes to be, and not to be. Mortal sin? Hardly. I did myself a favor. I did my listeners a favor. Besides, who in the hell has 150 minutes of their life to dedicate to a musical jalopy anyway? I put the jalopy back in the garage and took the Z06 for a spin.

Listen up. Listen closely. See if you can hear what you’re missing. I can’t. And I continue to apply a little “Audition Love” to all my mixes.

To all the “purists”: Sue me.

I’m motivated as hell. It’s been over 6 months since I sat down a really pounded out an honest mix. I’ve been resting on the laurels of my work from this past summer.

I’m very happy with that mix. It’s a solid, fun, and appealing mix. It’s designed to be liked by a lot of people. I’m confident that it is. But I have a confession:

I’ve been lazy.

There, I said it. No more resting. No more coasting. No more hoping people like material that was cool 6 months ago.

You all deserve better.

So far…making appearances on the upcoming mix: MGMT by way of Sebastian Ingrosso, Fatboy Slim by way of Mixin Marc, Miami and Atlanta by way of Eric Prydz, Will.I.Am and Akon by way of David Guetta (pronounced Get-uh, not Gwet-uh…FYI), and all sorts of hand-clappin’, foot-poundin’, singin’-along-in-your-car goodness.

It’s in the works. And it’s strapped to missile called motivation.

And it’s going to be posted here for you. To download. For free.

Merry Christmas! =]

It’s 12:05 AM local. I work in 7 hours. But you know what?

I have something to share.

My brother and I discussed and shared (to exhaustion) chiptunes tonight. 8bit demoscene “Robocop on Commodore 64” type stuff.

Tonight.

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

That.

That’s what I’m talking about. SID chip 8bit opus-type stuff.

“Not important” you say. And you think you’re right. But you’re wrong.

DJ Tiesto says you’re wrong. He says “Louder Than Boom” will prove you’re wrong.

Timbaland says you’re wrong. “Ayo Technology” has proved you’re wrong.

In fact, Timbaland will steal shit to prove you wrong.

What’s old is new. What’s defunct is funky. What’s obsolete is renewed and neat.

Why is 8bit hip? Why is there a cult of loyal video game music elitists that insists that a Nintendo is the ultimate music making device?

Because emotion tied to music that’s tied to gaming that’s tied to memories is priceless.

We all grew up playing Sonic and Mario and Megaman.

And the artists that grappled with the limitations of the hardware they had at their disposal made amazing things happen. Despite how things have changed in the gaming hardware world, I contend that some of the most evocative music ever made was made in 8 bits.

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If you’ve listened to the radio, been to a mall, have a teenager or a twenty-something in your household, or fancy yourself a new music buff, chances are you’ve heard MGMT at some point in the last 6 months or so. They’ve garnered a fair amount of radio play and critical acclaim thanks to the power of 2 singles from thier “Oracular Spectacular” album; “Electric Feel” and “Kids”.

If you’ve been to a nightclub, listened to a Ministry of Sound compilation, visited a house music blog, or fancy yourself a dance music buff, chances are you’ve heard Sebastian Ingrosso at some point in the last year or so. A member of the Swedish House Mafia, Ingrosso is undeniably one of the most influential, innovative, and entertaining EDM artists around. One of Ingrosso’s recent offerings is centered around the catchy and infectious melody of MGMT’s “Kids”. Dubbed “Kidsos”, this club banger just has that “something special” that I look for in a track. Ingrosso manages to successfully reinterpret a hip, playful, unembellished theme, adopting it as a key constituant of a powerful, churning, club-friendly composition. A powerful energy is quickly built at the outset of the track. This energy isn’t lost during the breakdown, where Ingrosso enlists the help of a high-pass filter to slowly introduce the instantly recognizable theme that will have your dancefloor screaming and clapping as the song builds into a crescendo. That’s when fun really starts.

As the break approachs the climax, Ingrosso shows off his savvy and credability as an experienced producer and DJ by slamming the pedal the floor. In an all-out mind-blowing drop, reminiscent of an Indy car screaming past you at 185 miles per hour, we say goodbye to “Kids” and again say hello to the furious shuffle and groove that we last experienced immediately before the break.

What I love most about this track is that instead of throttling back and slowly rebuilding the energy after the break, Ingrosso meets the listener’s expecations of a satisfying release from the tension built in the break. In what seems to be a rather popular but annoying trend in most electro-house tunes lately, producers insist on bringing listeners to plane of energy, after a break, that falls far short of what had been developed before the break. From there, the producer attempts to rebuild the momentum and energy, eventually matching or exceeding the heights to which the listener was brought earlier in the track.

 I find this to be a frustrating, unsatisfying, and counter-intuitive method to engage the listener. Nothing, to me, is more disappointing than an epic build-up to a climax that fails to deliver on a promise of satisfaction.

Sebastian Ingrosso gets that. He understands it. And man, does he deliver with Kidsos.

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Must hear:

_BT.

Leave your thoughts.

I used to have a fancy, new-fangled, flash-based, music-pumpin’, search-engine-unfriendly, rarely-updated website here. I still have it. You can still play around on it. In fact, I encourage it. See just how unimpressive awesome my Flash Template Editing Kung-Fu was:

Ye Olde Website

(Turn your speakers up so you can really FEEL the boom-ch-boom-ch.)