Maybe it was all those months of tearing through The Wire dvds, but I am on a serious Bmore house binge right now. There's something really sexy about the combination of motown and house music, so enjoy the durrrrty remixes of Cee Lo, Montana, Santana (my personal fav) and that spoiled brat named Ke$ha...
Warning: Parts of this post have been rated NSFW due to prolonged sexual content involving a stop-animated Barbie doll.
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I've got 2 tracks for you today on polar ends of the spectrum. Different as they may be, however, both songs belong to folk singer-song writer, Madeline. She's from Athens, Georgia, and has made a couple of albums: that's pretty much all I know about her.
For the sake of our readers at work, let's start off with the delightfully poppy (albeit slightly incoherent) "Hurry Up Pronto." I'm not going to say any more about it, because I really want you to get to the next one.
And now, the real masterpiece. Red Light Bulb is a mesmerizing "music video" produced by Clyde Petersen. The stop animation is masterfully directed, strutting intricate rack focuses, obscure camera angels, and a twist ending! If this music video were live-action, that is actors instead of Barbies, it would be directed by Darren Aronofsky. No doubt.
There's never been a better way to start a Monday than with Cookie Monster and the rest of the Sesame Street gang, so enjoy their rendition of the Beastie Boys' 'Sure Shot'.
On another note, I wanna thank DJ Basscamp and our gang of merry pranksters who all came out to party in full force on the first night of Operation Adams Morgan. We had a lot of fun spinning for ya'll and we'll be bringing you another round of mashups and moombahton at Bourbon on 8/11/11. Here are some of the mashed up goodies that we dropped on Friday.......enjoy
Sorry for the abbreviated post this morning, but here are a few of Pretty Lights' ill summer creations, and if you're around Friday night, make sure to check out my homie Basscamp and I as we spin the night away at the Black Squirrel in Adams Morgan.....
DJ Eskay and I have casually been friends for a while now, so I thought it would be good to sit down with him to discuss his new Discotecha Thursday parties at El Centro.
Ben: So Adam (I can't really call people by their DJ names, for some reason it just comes off so strange), I know that you've really picked up in the last few months with regular gigs at Third Edition in Georgetown and Redline in Chinatown, what spawned the whole idea to expand your party base onto U Street with Discotecha Thursdays?
Eskay: Well I became friendly with Jerome Baker III, whose a huge dj in dc (Policy on Thursdays, Recess on Fridays & Napoleon on Saturdays), and I was amazed by the scene that he helped create through his site Better Than Yours. He managed to bring in Common, Tabi Bonney, Theophilus London, etc to hit up Recess on Tuesdays for concert after parties, so he's kind of a big deal. We kinda vibed on the same shit, and decided that it was worth exploring U Street. Once we checked out El Centro, we envisioned this sick spot with that Meatpacking District, back alley vibe to it. The goal is to throw clean, trendy, sexy parties (the entrance will be in the alley behind the restaurant) - we both love disco house but can’t play it elsewhere, and since .the whole Marvin/Lost Society scene is so into disco house, we figured that it would fit in well with the overall U Street music vibe.
Ben: I've always felt like disco house is one of those genres thats so open to interpretation...I know from a personal preference point as a DJ, that would be the green light to go crazy with a lot of stuff from the bastard pop mashup scene, so what kind of sets do you and Jerome envision yourself playing.
Eskay: Well I've been thinking for a while about it, and then I was like, why not combine top 40 mainstream pop with fun disco house....kind of like Chromeo meets A-trak with a lot of fun disco tunes that people can still dance to.
Ben: Ah, nothing like another hot sweaty mess of a Thursday night then, looking forward to it for sure. Now that we've got that bit of business out of the way, what inspired you to take the leap of faith to become a DJ?
Eskay: I’ve always liked music and it was kind of the same thing like you where I went to these parties and the music was fucking awful. My fraternity loved country music and I can’t stand that shit, so I was just like always thinking in the back of my head that I wish I could control the music at this party, I would be playing much better music. After graduating I moved to Chicago and went w/ a buddy and his girlfriend to a club, I’d never been to a club during my four years at UMD, and DJ AM was spinning. There was a video camera setup showing a birds eye view of him and it was mind boggling to see what he was doing on the turntables. I would have never thought to have dropped Tequila, followed by NWA, by Kanye, RHCP...I mean how the hell does he do that? It was just so crazy and his transitions and scratches were incredible. I looked him up on YouTube and started basically studying everything about him, so I figured why not try it out. The rest is history I guess...
Ben: What was it like moving back to DC in 2010? Or lemme rephrase I guess, how did it affect your DJ career?
Eskay: I felt like I was at the point where it would be fun to make some extra money and see how far I could get, and I took DJ lessons at the Beat Refinery, brushed up on my Serato and scratching skills, learned how to use turntables, then just started grinding. I was able to meet a lot of fellow DJs at the Beat Refinery, who gave me a lot of tips on how to find gigs in DC. At first I had no fucking idea what I was doing, but over time when you start doing it over and over again, you find what works well and know when to drop certain songs at certain times. I’m not saying that it becomes routine, but you feel more comfortable with everything and it becomes a lot more fun.
DJ Eskay will be performing live at the Underground Taquileria at El Centro alongside Jerome Baker III, more info here.
I hope everyone had a great time at the Squirrel this weekend - we tried to take it back to the 90's, and after checking out our weekend Twitter stream, it looks like everyone was really digging the Alanis Morissette mashups. It was kind of funny, one of my friends texted me after dropping Mighty Mike's 'Nothin Ironic' about how much she loved the B.O.B. vs. Alanis mash, so there was no reason not to keep the 90's train alive and introduce everybody to DJ Maya Jakobson's 'When I love You Oughta Know', a truly inspiring dance hall anthem (we'll be interviewing Maya about the TLV mashup scene in the coming weeks...stay tuned kiddies!).
Thanks again for coming out to Adams Morgan to party this weekend - we'll keep you posted on some exciting new developments and upcoming parties over the next few days
So I don’t want to make this sound weird or anything, but Zach Gorman is my first real friend that I met over the Internet. It wasn’t creepy or anything (I am a blogger after all), and it’s not like either of us was responding to a random Craigslist ad. I had in fact been invited to a Facebook group that he created called Because Electro is my Drug and I Need my Fix, and to be honest, that was all I needed to hear about the DC-based DJ Basscamp to know that we would probably get along.
In case you’re not neurotically obsessed with the local blogosphere, Basscamp is one of DC’s many up-and-coming DJs who lives and breathes electro, spinning everything from the most symphonic trance to the crunchiest dubstep (all jokes aside, I’m pretty sure electro IS his drug of choice). After an avalanche of new electrostep music was sent my way thanks to the ‘book, I dug a bit deeper and checked out some of his self-produced tracks, including a floor shattering self-produced Adele smashup that I re-posted here back in June. With friends demanding more Basscamp left and right, I figured that it was worth reaching across the still slightly awkward digital divide of social media. Rolling In The Noize by DJBASSCAMP
Like any good journalist with zero background in journalism, I did a little bit of Facebook stalking on the man they call Zach Gorman, and after checking out his pictures from this year’s Ultra music festival, he seemed like he’d be a pretty cool dude to talk some shop with (or at least not hack me to pieces in a back alley in Adams Morgan).
By choosing a $2 domestic happy hour for our interview, I figured that the always disappointingly quench-thirsting Coors Lite could get the conversation flowing, and despite some pretty heinous service, we had a pretty good time debating the party potential of Applebees, the awesomeness of Lake Minnetonka (now I know 3 people from Minnesota!!!), and whether or not I should start liking Moombahton….
B: So Zach, what’s the inspiration behind Basscamp?
Z: So the moniker is inspired by a feeling I aspire to convey both in my production and in my performance. I've been an avid wilderness fan my entire life, which has taken me on countless adventures around the world, the most recent being a three week attempt of Aconcagua in Argentina during my Junior year of college. These adventures are always packed with a variety of emotion, but by far the most profound is the feeling of standing at the "base camp" in the shadow of a mountain. It's sublime and immensely humbling. I have felt very similarly about electronic music. These experiences have been some of the most important of my life and I want to share them with other people.
B: I hear that (note to self, cue up Basscamp’s Aconcagua mix tomorrow morning when I need to force myself out on a run), so what was it like growing up in Minnesota, do you still rock out to Purple Rain?
Z: Haha not really, I’ve never been much of a Prince fan. Growing up in the bastard cousin of the Midwest wasn’t that bad though, especially once we discovered the whole club scene.
B: No way, I wouldn’t exactly associate the Twin Cities with wildly awesome music…
Z: After getting tired of the whole high school party scene, a bunch of my friends and I saw Tiesto when we were 18, and that’s when I became obsessed with electro music. I had no idea about it beforehand, and thanks to Limewire, I spent the next few months listening exclusively to Tiesto trance mini-mixes.
B: Limewire, now that is a blast from the past. You went to Tufts, right?
Z: Yeah, not exactly the biggest party scene, but we had a pretty good time. I found a group of friends that were all into electro music, which led to our first adventure to the Ultra Festival during my sophomore year in 2008. Nothing can properly explain the feeling of standing amidst a crowd of tens of thousands of people all united by the same femur-rattling sound, and I was just blown away. After returning to South Beach during my senior year, I started mixing at a couple of house parties in May 2010 and people were just exploding to this whole electro genre that they’d never heard before!
B: So the first gig went pretty well I take it?
Z: In a lot of ways I was using DJing as a vehicle to expose people to the music [that] I was obsessed with, but I knew that there was a lot more to it than that. There needs to be some kind of substance beyond the music, so when I moved here, I wanted to take things to the next level.
B: As an even later bloomer to the local scene, I can empathize with the difficulty of booking gigs in a town that’s surprisingly full of talented DJs, what were your first few shows like?
Z: My first local gig wasn’t even in DC! Last September, I started out at PJ Schadoos, this overblown Applebees in Fairfax, and I could only convince the owner to cover my travel expenses. By the winter, I had booked a regular Friday night gig at Alero on U Street, which ended up being a lot more fun. At first I was like ah f*ck, there are like people still eating at midnight, but the people over at Alero are really cool and gave me free-range to play whatever I wanted.
B: Admittedly I never made it out to Alero, but I’m really stoked about this new Jimmy Valentines gig on H Street. You going all hipster on us now?
Z: H Street is a really exciting neighborhood, and I couldn’t be more content with Jimmy V’s. With 5-hour sets, it really gives me the opportunity to push the genres and get into the Moombahton…
B: Ah, I was making bets in my head over how long it would take us to breach the whole Moombah thing. Because of Moombahton’s homegrown roots, I’m inclined to support the movement, but honestly I don’t get it…
Z: So Dave Nada (Mooombahton’s founding father) is like a god to me – the first time I heard his slowing of the Afrojack ‘Moombah’ remix to 108 BPMs, my head exploded. The thing about Moombah is that it is so inherently electro, but people often get weirded out by the fact that they’re supposed to get their grind on to this stuff, which in fact they totally can, because its real sexy. The genre’s local roots make Dave Nada homecoming concerts so memorable because everyone whose there has a genuine appreciation for the music. What’s so cool about DC is that everybody is friends, so there are a lot of opportunities to collaborate with similarly minded DJs. Dave Nada - Moombahton by T&ARecords
B: Ok I’m sold, hold on a sec, let me just download a few tracks on my Soundcloud app. As a blogger, I’m always amazed by the Internet’s ability to connect strangers to new music – from the performer’s perspective, how do you utilize social media?
Z: Well Twitter has blown up recently, and I think it’s so awesome that you have the ability to communicate directly with musicians. I actually had a funny little conversation with Laidback Luke the other day, and there’s no way I would have been able to do that without Twitter. I’ve got my website, Soundcloud, Facebook, etc., but most importantly, all my music is free to download. There was never a part of me that thought I should charge for music, because that’s just not what electronica is about.
Now that I'm DJ'ing a bit more often, I've had to spend a lot more time working on set lists and less time exploring the gamut of music available in the music blogosphere, so I've got to give full credit to infrequent Audionugs contributor Ike on finding the Aloe Blacc covers. While we've all obviously been jamming out to 'I Need a Dollar' since that awful HBO show came out last year, Aloe's put in some serious studio time w/ funk up-and-comers The Grand Scheme, who've helped create some truly unique covers of Jay-Z, Paolo Nutini and Michael Jackson.
For this week's Monday Mash I thought it'd be best to open up my Recently Added iTunes playlist for some new mashes to share - there's no thematic reasoning behind the selections except for the fact that they're just too ill for the radio....Oh yeah, and by the way, drag your ass out to Adams Morgan on Friday night!!!
Ok, I'll admit it, I'm officially hopping aboard the Moombahton train after some heavy convincing by Basscamp. It's not that I was anti-Moombah, c'mon, I do live in DC and generally am down to support a local movement, but I just didn't get it. Then, Dillon Francis dropped a club banger remix of CSS' 'Hits Me Like a Rock' earlier this week and I was instantly hooked, because frankly, its just that iiiilllllll.
If you're in DC this weekend (and you lika da Moombah), come party with my homie Basscamp at Jimmy Valentines on H Street tonight (Click here for Facebook Event details) and check out up-and-coming rapper Che Merk on Saturday @5pm at Twelve Lounge on H St, whose riding high off the recent release of Bass Da Movement: Vol. 1.
After spending 4 years embedded into the Dirty South, I'm always looking for new hip-hop coming out of the ATL, and I gotta say that I was blown away by rap newcomer Reign, whose Guilty Pleasures EP was sent my way earlier this week. On 'Find Me', which I'm starting to like a lot more than Ash Roth's original track, Reign brings a subtly cool and casual swagger to the mic, and he's certainly got me looking forward to the much anticipated release of the Fame Under Glory album. The 19 year old Georgian has already released three mixtapes, and I'm pretty sure that we'll be seeing a lot more of Reign as 2011 rolls on.
I know it's already Tuesday, but the Hombre crew was a bit slow to recover from Sunday night, so I'd like to take this Monday Mash opportunity to give you all of the pop-heavy dance mashups that turned the Black Squirrel upside down and into the world's hottest sauna.
I can't take full credit for the epic Britney mashup by Tel Aviv-based DJ Maya Jakobson (who ironically shares my mom's side of the family's last name), but the dance floor blew up when I dropped this one, and too many people came up to me afterwards to ask about the track (if Dana's blonde friend from Florida is reading this....you're welcome)
Once we got the mashup train started, it was hard not to start busting out some serious moves, and since Mashup Germany's made a career out of dropping at least 8 or 9 acapellas into each instrumental, the Kings of Leon/Whitney Houston choruses got everybody moving in the right direction...
After some heavy bastard pop mashes with Gaga, Ke$ha (typing her name on a keyboard is one of the most frustrating minute tasks in the world) and that whole uber-pop scene, we busted out the old DeLorean and traveled back in time to the reign of the King of Pop. While 'Black & White' has never been anywhere near my favorite MJ song, the Martin Solveig beat is too much fun, and people were literally bouncing off the walls to the Duck Sauce vs. Beat it mashup.
While I'd love to share some more mashes on such a fine Tuesday morning, it's quickly inching towards the beginning of the workday, plus I've gotta keep the Ridgewood mystique goin, right?
If you came out this weekend to the Black Squirrel, THANK YOU for making it such an awesome night. We've got some meetings with the Black Squirrel and a few other bars this week to discuss more summer mashup parties, so stay tuned kiddies....
Well, the sun is shining in DC this morning (thank you eastern exposure bedroom windows), and while the approaching holiday weekend should be enough to get you out of bed, why not add a little Snoop to that first (or fifth) cup of coffee this morning?
It goes without saying that Wick-it's casual encounters with dubstep have produced some tracks that rank pretty high up there with the best of Skillrex, Bassnectar and Diplo, and we can only hope that he continues to crank out more fresh remixes as the summer rolls on.
If you're around DC this weekend, make sure to stop by The Black Squirrel for our DEBUT mashup party (Facebook Event). Here's a few more new tracks from my main man Wick, including, yes, another Adele remix...
