Saturday, July 25, 2009

Day 205: Red Bull Music academy

Right back on to the important stuff - DJing and production.

Red Bull are well known for promoting and sponsoring a great number of interesting events, one of particular interest clearly is the Red Bull Music Academy.

The RBMA is basically two fortnight-long 'terms' where 60 lucky applicants get to attend numerous sessions and talks from some of the top names in the music business. This really looks like a musicians dream.

What better way to spend two weeks than in the company of other worldly and diverse aspiring artists. Lots of different ideas, cultures and backgrounds to be explored. Add to that the hands on and direct advice of some of the worlds best artists. All of this topped off with nightly gigs and performances, sometimes involving the aspiring artists themselves!

The next event is being held in London (last time it was in Barcelona) and although you may not be lucky enough to attend first hand, don't fret, as there are a whole bunch of the talks up on their web-site archives.

Unmissable really... get on there and get discovering!

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Friday, July 24, 2009

Day 204: What a twunt.

If you didn't find UK whiner James Blunt annoying already then this should tip the balance.

The 30 something single female office worker favorite has denied Weird Al Yankovic permission to release his parody 'Your Pitiful' on his up coming compilation album. Mediocre AND no sense of humour. Boy this guy is my ultimate dinner party guest.

The good thing about this however is, he is prevented from selling it, however he can't stop him giving it away...

Brilliant.

Nab it here: http://tinyurl.com/28z7et

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Day 203: High Contrast bonkers.

You may well have heard 2 Many DJs' remix of the unusual Dizzee Rascal/Arman Van Helden collaboration 'Bonkers' in fact it was rattling around my head for days after Benicassim festival. However I stumbled upon this version today, and thought it was worth sharing.

High Contrast has been a top quality producer for many years now, and this proves he's still got what it takes.

The only problem with this in fact is that it's about 170bpm, making it about 40 beats per minute too fast to slot into one of my sets.


2/365

p&&l

bang!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Day 202: Worlds smallest USB DJ interface

I'm in the market for a snazzy new sound card, something that would be properly gigable. The market is fairly well catered for. However this little bad boy has recently popped up, and looks very interesting.

It's very trimmed down, only really got the two in/out's... but that's all it needs. Plus, the bumf on the Native Instruments site says it, importantly, that it packs the same audio punch as it's two bigger brothers (the 4 and the 8).

All that in one small box, plus it's set to be cheaper too, not sure what price point yet, but I'm gonna stick my neck out and say in the £100 region.

Oh yeah, and they made this snazzy promo vid for it too, so I'm sold!!

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Day 201: Free Electro Summer Mix...

What better way to start a new century (well of posts that is) than with something of substance. Yes folks, it's mix time!

OK So I got somewhat behind with the mixes, and this one is in theory June's, though I did it today. That does however technically put me bang up to date again. So I've have the rest of the month to provide July's, then we're all square!

Rather than the usual player and direct link, am gonna try using the sound cloud widget. Basically it's a much better widget anyway, plus it's got a link built in to directly download the mix already.

Not to mention it gives you an easy way to check everything else I have ever done too!

Track list after the hop:


Get off - Diplo & Switch (Jack Beats rmx)
Party people - Split loop
All Classy for me - IllStM feat. Hany
Killa Sound - DJ Zinc feat. No lay
War - Rampage (Blatta & Inesha rmx)
Aqui Para Voces - Buraka Som Sistema (Brodinski rmx)
One More Chance - Bloc Party (Alex Metric rmx)
What you need - Priors
Unbelieveable - Ricco Tubbs


2/365

p&&l

bang!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Day 200: How to Open for Established acts

Ever wanted to open for Axwell, or Lady Gaga? Now you can. Some enterprising Swedes have come up with Opening Act.

The idea is fairly simple. You register with the site, add your myspace details and all that jazz. Once you've done that, you put yourself forward for one of the events they have on offer, then get as many voted from people as possible.

If you win, you get to open for whichever artist you chose! Sounds possibly wildly open to corruption, but maybe that's just the cynic in me. Check it out here and see what you think.



2/365

p&&l

bang!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Day 199: More CDJ fundamentals.

If like me you're not lucky enough to own a pair of CDJ 1000's, but want to know how they work (as you might need to use em at some point) here is another good starter tutorial covering some basics.


2/365

p&&l

bang!