Saturday, June 27, 2009

Day 177: DJ Lifestyle.

Ok so I may have done zilch towards anything DJ related. My bad, but what with being made redundant and the summer solidly rolling in, other things have been on my mind.

One think that has happened though is that I seem to be adopting (what is probably nothing like) the DJ lifestyle. My sleeping patterns are inverting, I spend all my day on Ableton, and just been chilling with the hunnies at the beach.

Who needs to be a DJ for real!

Another hard day at the office

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Day 176: Don't Stop till you get enough!

Not really too much to say... other than to make a personal tribute to the great Michael Jackson, with 3 of his classic cuts. Not necessarily my personal faves, just a good pick from his, lets face it, amazing back catalog.

This guy hailed from a time when great talent was required to succeed. Not like in today's pre-fab, off the shelf music industry.

I'll let the music (and moves, never forget them moves!) for itself...






2/365

p&&l

bang!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Day 175: The end of beat matching!

This topic has come up a couple of times already here, so I'm not going to labour the point, I can sum it up in two points:

1.Should DJs be able to beatmatch? - probably.

2. ...but it's not the be all and end all, just as long as you are doing something awesome.

What inspired me to mention this again though was an interesting interview with Joris Voorn on Beatportal, where he touches on this very subject:

I don’t do any pitching at all. All my tracks have beat markers and the computer beatmatches for me.

I’ll admit it did feel quite awkward when I stood on stage for the first time after so many years of playing CDs and vinyl, and didn’t have to beatmatch. I suddenly had a lot more time on my hands. The weird thing is that people think DJing is beatmatching. But by letting the computer take care of timing, you can concentrate on the music.


This gets it pretty spot on in my book. If you can't see it like that, it's like you've been locked in a box for all this time, that now someone gave you the key to do whatever you want with it, you don't know what to do with yourself. Like as if having too many possibilities confuses you or something.

Those purists who are stuck on the 2 decks/beatmatch model are either idealists, or too old skool for their own good. Musical knowledge is essential for DJing, and beat matching/timing is a crucial part of that. For sure nothing is more satisfying than a cracking blend... but hey there is so much more you can get out of a mix now too.

I think it's amazing what is possible now, and means the scope for original ideas is wild. Maybe all this technology just made it harder for the boring guys... Hopefully the last you'll hear from me on the matter.

Read the full article on Beatportal here.
2/365

p&&l

bang!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Days 173 & 174: Electronic meltdown

Today and yesterday have been a computing nightmare. All my fault needless to say, however for the last two days I have been basically sat at a computer rebooting it. Ok, I went to the beach last night to celebrate 'San Juan' (which was great, jumping waves in the sea at mid-night). But apart from all the fun, it's been bloomin murder.



Blogging from some weird bootable Linux distro is not as much fun as it sounds. Hopefully be back on blogging form tomorrow, and a much happier beaver I will be.






2/365

p&&l

bang!

Monday, June 22, 2009

Day 172: A Cloud of Sound

Soundcloud has been around for a while now, and I signed up to it ages ago, stuck my mixes on there and kinda left it.

Recently though it seems to have come back into my consciousness, mainly I think due to an upsurge in people I follow on twitter talking about it.

So I revisited the site again, and I think it's improving more and more each time I use it. Already it was a slick site, with lots of those 'oooh' and 'ahhh' funky Ajax and clever CSS tricks, but now over all it just seems to be coming more and more useful too.

With the new groups feature, there are more and more ways to dross promote your music, and to this end I think it might well be worth re-investing some time in it, organise things properly, and get it out there.


2/365

p&&l

bang!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Day 171: Bangers for my Bangers...

As is tradition here at BTDJ towers, I start one tune, tease you with it, then go and develop a whole different one out of the blue. Well today is no exception.

I started a walk through of one of my tunes last week... yet banged this tune out almost entirely in one (albeit long) session.

This isn't the style of music that I am so much into these days, but a part of me will forever love the Harder style. Back in the Raving days after 'the great split' I wanted to carry on liking hardcore, but as we all know it started getting happy... too happy really, so naturally I was drawn to the harder elements of Gabber.

I spent many a happy hour upstairs in the Sanctuary, V7 Saxton street, bletchly Milton Keynes (how's that for a memory) pounding it out in the Techno Drome. Sadly that place is now a fucking Ikea.

Anyway, it's a tribute of sorts to that, so here ya go:

Bang the DJ - Two Lips (Direct Link)







2/365

p&&l

bang!