« November 2004 | Main | January 2005 »
December 31, 2004
Auld Lang Syne
And so 2004 comes full circle. For the first time in at least a decade, I'm going to be closing out a year exactly the same way that I kicked it off. Hopefully that's not bad luck or a sign that I've just been treading water in 2004!
Yes, in less than 9 hours, the 2nd Annual New Year's Eve(-il) Dance Party will be underway at Hell. Last year's crazy affair was one of my favorite parties ever, and a repeat performance was definitely in order. I'm excited to say that "the DJ formerly known as DJ Tanner" (aka my pal Stanley) will once again be joining me behind the mixer tonight. Stanley no longer lives around these parts - lately he's been in San Francisco, teaching kids science at a charter high school! Of course Stanley did not forget about the Cackalack...and the holiday break allowed him to come back and drop some science of a whole different sort. Last night we met up and made some plans for tonight's party....and now my only worry is that maybe I've set my expectations too high. Oh well, 2005's going to come knocking one way or another. Happy new year to anybody who's reading this. And as you steer your way through the unknown voyage that is 2005, always remember this piece of sage advice:
Never trust a man holding a microphone in one hand and three bottles of champagne in the other.
Posted by Tim at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2004
Christmas Rappin'
"'Twas the night before Christmas...and all through the house..."
"Hold it now, wait, hold it....that's played out!!"
- vocal exchange at the beginning of Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin'"
Last Saturday I DJed a Christmas party at the very swank La Residence. Whenever I'm DJing some sort of special event, I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself and I wind up doing more advance prep work than I do when I'm just DJing in a bar/club. Since this particular party was Christmas-related, I spent part of the the preceding week choosing a few good danceable Christmas tunes to play and trying to work out some ways to mix them into my whole set of music.
Along with classic Xmas tunes by Run-DMC and The Waitresses, "Christmas Rappin'" by Kurtis Blow was an obvious choice for the occasion. The interesting thing about "Christmas Rappin'" is that it wasn't just a typical Christmas record released by an established recording artist looking to capitalize on the sales of previous albums and singles. "Christmas Rappin'" was actually Blow's historic 1979 debut single, released only a mere few weeks after a song called "Rapper's Delight" took the world by storm. If "Rapper's Delight" had come out just a tad bit later than it did (in October 1979, only 4 months after "Good Times" was released!), "Christmas Rappin'" might be famously known as the "first" hip-hop record instead of just a Christmas novelty tune that gets broken out once a year and winds up fulfilling the prophecy of one of its own lyrics: "Every year just about this time, I celebrate it with a rhyme."
I'm not afraid to publicly admit that another one of my favorite Christmas jams is actually a certain million-selling single that was released 20 years ago this month. Yes, that guilty pleasure known as "Last Christmas" by Wham! Sure, those cheesy heartache-y lyrics are saturated with sappiness, but it's a really catchy song and I love the way that those synths bounce up and down on top of the primitive and gritty early-80s drum-machine beat. While listening to "Last Christmas" again a couple weeks ago I was struck by how the song might potentially mix well with some of the sparse 808-based hip-hop from the early Def Jam era. But I didn't really think that I ought to be busting out "Sucker MCs" or "It's Yours" at a nice Christmas party. So I just worked out a way to blend "Last Christmas" into the end of Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin'", since the latter song is only a little bit faster tempo-wise.
And once I started counting the beats per minute for these songs, that's when the ridiculous idea hit me. "Last Christmas" is right around 107 BPM, and the damn thing is way too long - it's almost 7 minutes! So I pulled out my acappella copy of Jay-Z's "The Black Album" and tried mixing in the rap from "Encore", an uncharacteristically fast Jay-Z song that I remembered being in that same BPM range. And the damn thing fit almost perfectly. And I thought it sounded pretty good and pretty funny. So I did a primitive mix of it and I played it at both the Christmas party and another party that I DJed the next night. I think it went over pretty well but the sound quality was really bad and I wasn't at all happy with the mix. So I coughed up the license fee for Goldwave's Multiquence (screw ACID!) and spent much of yesterday mixing together a Wham!/Jay-Z mashup...with a little bit of "Ho Ho Ho" chanting at the end to accompany those Christmas sleigh bells. The MP3 version is 5.0 MB and you can download either the regular or curseword-free versions here:
Let me preemptively state for the record that I fully realize that the Jay-Z remix craze is pretty played at this point, and I'm sure that someone out there might scream and groan about this. Whatever, if you don't like my mashup, you can press fast forward. Or the back button. Don't worry, I have absolutely no intention of making "The Wham Album" or "Black Christmas" or anything like that. Consider this a one-time Christmas-themed encore to cap off 2004, which really was the year of Jay-Z remixes, for better or for worse. C'mon, this is Young H-O....one last time, make some noise!!
Besides, if any Scrooges out there really need something to hate on, they should be throwing lumps of coal at that godawful Jay-Z/Linkin Park crap that somehow made it to the top of the Billboard album charts....
Posted by Tim at 02:19 AM | Comments (3)
December 21, 2004
It's Christmas Time and We Got The Spirit
I'm not very good at sending holiday cards or anything like that, so let me just say that if you're reading this, I hope you have a very Bass Christmas. Full of high-points to accompany the low-end.
And here's hoping for a boomin' New Year!
Posted by Tim at 02:14 PM | Comments (1)
December 15, 2004
I'm With The Band
A big drum major salute to Christa for posting a link to mp3 recordings of the University of Arizona marching band performing a whole routine of Talking Heads songs! And extra flam paradiddles for the fact that she simultaneously ignited a welcome thread of band geek nostalgia. I too count myself among those whose high school social life and developing musical taste were immeasurably improved and expanded by the whole marching band experience. During my three-year stint, the Jordan High School Marching Band never performed anything nearly as cool as a Talking Heads routine. Actually, I can't even really remember what specific music we marched to other than Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition", which I remember really liking, partly because it had a lot of cool tuba parts in it.
[SIDE NOTE: Since I have just used the terms "tuba" and "Arizona" in the same paragraph, I should probably clarify a few things for future Googlers of "Tuba City, Arizona" while explaining a little personal etymology in the process. I have briefly visited Tuba City, AZ but this blog has nothing to do with that fine place. I just really like the name "Tuba City", partly 'cause I played tuba for 6+ years. As you might see from the domain name where this blog is currently parked, I also like the sound of the name "Tuba Frenzy". But that was the name of my long-defunct music zine, and I wanted a new name for this very different online creature. Hence, "Tuba City".]
Back to marching bands....the most memorable tuba part that I played during my sousaphone-wearing years was not anything from the likes of Mussorgsky but rather a simple and powerful 4-bar bassline that wasn't even part of our official on-field routine. In fact, we never would've even played it at all were it not for a bit of tuba rebellion led by two of my fellow squad members. William Clapp and Shawn Bradsher must've done their share of hanging out at Hillside High School football games, because they had witnessed the swingin' glory of Hillside's marching band in action...funkier, more flamboyant action, that is. I guess William and Shawn must've resented having to constantly play their sousaphones in the more rigid and "white" Jordan High School fashion, 'cause whenever there was some sort of downtime during marching band practice, they started playing what I would later come to understand was the bassline of "Paid in Full" by Eric B & Rakim. "Paid in Full" had apparently been a Hillside marching band staple, and William and Shawn took the time to work out the exact fingering for it so that they too could play it. Once the notes had been worked out, it was easy enough to learn and really addictive to play....and before long, all four of us tubas were playing that awesome bassline over and over again. Eventually, the much-repeated tuba riff had picked up the accompaniment of the drum section....and within a month or two "Paid In Full" was no longer just some unsanctioned playing that annoyed the band director during practices. It had been fully transformed into an impressive crowd-rallying jam that the whole band played at football games while sitting in the bleachers. I doubt that our version of "Paid In Full" could've held a candle to Hillside's, but by then they'd probably moved on to something more current anyway. Looking back, I am really glad that I had that song burned into my skull as a 15-year-old. And I remember being happy about the fact that the sousaphone section had become a center of marching band attention for cool reasons and not just because we carried big funny-looking instruments that were easy sources of comic relief. For some of that comic relief, however, check this yearbook photo....yes, that's me as a 10th grade tuba player.
Popular music crosses over into the world of marching bands all the time, but these days, it's the marching band that's crossing back into the world of hip-hop and R&B. In the last few months alone, the glorious sound of marching bands has been featured prominently in songs like Yung Wun's "Tear It Up", Yin Yang Twins' "Halftime", and of course the Destiny's Child hit single "Lose My Breath", which has got to be the hottest slab of marching-band-pop since....uh, Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk". In a Village Voice column last month, my man Dave Tompkins reviewed the Destiny's Child and Yin Yang Twins singles. Amidst all of his marching band and football references, Dave managed to throw in a brief rimshot about Destiny's Child getting booed during a halftime appearance at the 2001 NBA Finals. Which was definitely in the back of my mind when I saw Beyonce and crew perform "Lose My Breath" alongside a full marching band during the recent Cowboys/Bears game on Thanksgiving Day (see BBC photo above/left).
I'm not sure what's up with this recent trend of marching bands crossing over, but I definitely approve. And I'd have to guess that it's maybe some sort of after-effect of the success of the 2002 film Drumline, which was directed by Charles Stone III - the guy behind the famous Budweiser "Whassuup" ads and the son of none other than retiring UNC-CH professor Chuck Stone. I was in Circuit City a week or so ago and was thrilled to see that they had that middle-of-the-field drum-battle scene from Drumline on a repeated loop in the special acoustic chamber that contains one of those $3500 televisions attached to a ridiculous arrangement of surround-sound speakers. I usually scoff at the idea of materially-obsessed people trying to turn their houses into mini-THX-theaters, but I couldn't help but enter the chamber and appreciate the fact that this equipment allowed me to soak in the Drumline scene in its entirety. Every snare tap, every rim shot, every tom roll...
Posted by Tim at 01:03 AM | Comments (6)
December 09, 2004
A Big Shout Out to 89.3
If you missed or simply want to re-experience the WXYC "10 Years of Webcasting" concert that took place at Local 506 last month, there are finally some mp3 recordings of the show available on the WXYC website. And I never actually blogged anything about the show at the time, so I'll provide some details as an incentive to check out the live mp3s.
eNtet was the first act of the night and were probably missed by many of the more late-arriving showgoers. But those of us who fit into that category (ahem...) can now listen to the final 35 minutes of the eNtet set (32.3 MB), including a nice rendition of Charlie Haden's classic composition "Song For Che". This 506 concert happened only 4 days after the election, and as eNtet leader Ian Davis explained from the stage, "It seemed appropriate, with the outcome this week, that we play a little 'revolutionary dirge' for you this evening." Indeed....give me liberation music or give me death! An older and more "macro" version of eNtet appeared on the Bandwidth CD as the Micro-East Collective. MEC's "Cells - One to Many" (3.32 MB) is a short and concise exercise in building cacophony out of nothing. This track almost never gets played on the radio, which is kinda too bad, because I think it would make an interesting transitional cut between other less-experimental tunes.
The Moaners were next up after eNtet, and while their set was quite rockin', WXYC is not making the recording available online out of respect for the wishes of the band's record label. The Moaners' new CD Dark Snack is coming out next month and I guess someone must see this live show as a threat of some sort. Personally, I don't understand why people aren't fully embracing the promotional spread-the-word value of sharing and downloading, even in its most limited form. But whatever. You can still freely download "Everybody Wants My Baby" (4.92 MB), The Moaners' contribution to Bandwidth.
Next on the bill was Spectac, who really got the crowd all hyped up. Accompanied by DJ Bumrush of WKNC and WXDU fame, Spectac blazed through a quick 23-minute set that featured several of his new 9th Wonder joints (including "War of the World", also featured on the new DJ Chela mixtape) as well as his upcoming single "One Day", which features a guest appearance by none other than current Durham resident Big Daddy Kane! Nobody's equal, Kane himself wasn't in the building that night, but Spectac more than held things down on his own, going off on a couple of hot freestyles amidst his other tracks. Spectac has some serious freestyle skills, he's one of those guys that can actually spout off all sorts of spontaneous rhymes from the top of his head and not just from the memory bank deep inside the brain. You probably can't as easily tell without actually seeing the visuals along with the audio, but trust me, the dude was clearly free-associating based on whatever he saw in front of him. I should know, as I happened to be bopping along right up by the stage...and on a couple of occasions, my shaved head and I somehow became sources of lyrical inspiration! Download the Spectac set here (21.5 MB) and listen at the 1:45 and 18:00 marks if you want to chuckle at the first-ever and last-ever times that my name gets checked-in-rhyme.
Jett Rink headlined the evening's concert and put on the sort of rousing live performance for which they have become so locally renowned. Viva once again proved to be an amazing frontman and they even did a righteous space-funk-y cover of "White Horse", that classic early 80s electro-disco hit by Danish duo Laid Back. The sound quality isn't always so great on this recording of Jett Rink's set (51.0 MB), but the considerable energy on display should be enough of an incentive to make sure and catch one of the band's shows sometime soon. And/or to download "Born Hungry" (2.75 MB), their hot slab of taut art-punk that opens up Bandwidth.
Here's a picture of Jett Rink in action, with Viva hilariously using a WXYC banner as a cape/scarf:
Posted by Tim at 09:44 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2004
Flash is Fast, Flash is Cool
This past Thursday afternoon, 48-year-old Joseph Saddler came to UNC-Chapel Hill as part of a lecture tour of 30 college campuses across the country. Who is Joseph Saddler, you ask? Well, he's one of the key early pioneers of hip-hop and inarguably one of the most innovative, influential, and important DJs of all time. Joseph Saddler, you still ask? At this point, music scholar Charles R. Martin might snobbishly clear things up by saying, "Oh, you know him as Grandmaster Flash". I can't front and try to play it cool, though...as soon as I heard about this event, there was no way I was going to miss a single beat!
Flash's afternoon lecture/workshop was supposed to begin at 3:30pm but a flight delay bumped everything back by about an hour. A bunch of us packed into the Cabaret in the basement of the Carolina Union and Flash finally came out around 4:30. He started off with a point that he would repeatedly emphasize throughout his UNC visit - that hip-hop truly began in 1971, way earlier than the release date of "Rapper's Delight" and other commonly cited beginnings of the hip-hop era. Over the next hour Flash gave us a verbal quick-mix of all sorts of historical facts, personal breakthroughs, and DJ-ing anecdotes by answering a series of pre-written questions posed to him by one of his deep-voiced associates. It was almost something of a reverse-Socratic-Method...and probably a great way to lecture without notes! Throughout we got to hear Flash talk about things like:
- "the get-down part" (i.e. the break) of records and how he wanted to make those parts longer
- his "peek-a-boo system" for cueing records via a mixer and external preamps hacked together with a single-pole double-throw switch
- his "Quick Mix Theory" for cutting short sections of records back and forth on time (something Kool Herc wasn't doing)
- his "Torque Theory" of turntable mechanics and the discovery of his first Technics turntable
- how the shape of needles impacted whether they stayed in the groove
- soaking records in the bathtub so he could exchange the labels between a "hot record" and a "wack record" and fool all the DJs who were trying to cop his material
- how he would keep dating girls whose parents had huge unwanted record collections
- his "Clock Theory" of how to calculate how far back he needed to spin a record
- details about the Bronx block party and club scene during the 1970s
...and ya don't stop. Except he did eventually have to stop due to time constraints. But not before demonstrating some of his innovations by cutting two copies of "Good Times" back and forth. Seeing Flash's legendary Chic quick mix recreated before my eyes was a pretty amazing experience, even if one of the turntable needles kept accidentally coming out of the groove during some rapid-fire cuts. Actually, the fact that Flash was not immune from DJ error was not only oddly reassuring, but it helped underscore a point that hip-hop fans and DJ historians have often made: that while other DJs went on to surpass Grandmaster Flash in terms of absolute skill and technical virtuosity, Flash was the true innovator that came up with so many of the ideas and concepts that are so fundamental to hip-hop music and the art of DJing. And he was the true scientist that was able to implement these ideas given extremely limited technical equipment and monetary resources. Hearing Grandmaster Flash talk about all of these things in person was inspiring....and even a bit humbling. I'm probably going to feel spoiled and unworthy the next time I use the seamless looping feature on my CD mixer, since except for the need for the DJ to still be able to feel the tempo/rhythm of a song and count beats, seamless looping is basically Grandmaster Flash's innovative brain and quick hands manifested in software.
After taking a few questions from the audience, Grandmaster Flash signed a few autographs and posed for some pictures with admiring fans. One of which was me:
I'm holding a copy of the excellent Rap Attack 2 by David Toop...I geeked out and got Flash to sign a full-page picture of him DJing at Bronx nightclub Disco Fever. I've been re-reading Rap Attack 2 of late and I highly recommend it (or I guess the new edition Rap Attack 3) to anyone interested in learning more about Grandmaster Flash and the early days of hip-hop. And for a rich history of all sorts of DJing (not just hip-hop), the extremely comprehensive Last Night a DJ Saved My Life is utterly indispensable. The authors of that book (Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster) also penned the extensive mini-book liner notes included in the soon-to-be-out-of-print CD The Official Adventures of Grandmaster Flash that came out on the now-defunct Strut label a couple years ago. Cop that one while you still can!
Anyway, back to Grandmaster Flash's UNC visit...he went on to perform later that night at "A Tribute to Hip-Hop" in the Great Hall. After a bit of a breakdancing battle between a Greensboro crew and a UNC crew, Flash came on and started with a "historical" set where he cut some of those ultimate breaks and beats back and forth as if it were back in the day. Then, as if to prove that he was still a living entity and not a museum piece, he hyped up the crowd and started spinning a lot of post-80s hip-hop classics, all of them veritable "get-down parts" for the students of today. I had an awesome time, though I learned how exhausting it can be to "jump around" when you're holding a messenger bag with a bike helmet attached. But hey, at least no one convinced me to do the worm...
Posted by Tim at 01:32 AM | Comments (9)
December 05, 2004
Throwing That Dynasty Sign
With 4 for 7 shooting from 3-point range and 28 points overall, UNC baller Rashad McCants had plenty of reasons to keep throwing the Roc-A-Fella sign during the Heels' big win over Kentucky yesterday. But as far as I know, yesterday might be the first time that someone from the press has explicitly asked McCants about the significance of his triumphant hand gesture. From this morning's edition of The News & Observer:
"It's for my family,'' McCants explained. "It's La Familia, which means The Roc."
Judging from the caption ("Rashad McCants makes a sign for his family after a score on Saturday.") that The N&O put beside the Chuck Liddy photo above, McCants sorta lost them at "The Roc". Though surely someone could've Googled one or more of those capitalized phrases and stumbled upon an album cover that would've cleared everything up:
Maybe the sports page guys need to start consulting with in-house music critic David Menconi, who reviewed last month's Jay-Z show in Raleigh that DeanDome usher Cy Rawls and I were fortunate enough to attend. UNC actually had a Mt. Olive exhibition game in Chapel Hill that very same night. Ushers can ask for time off but players clearly can't....perhaps the bad timing was one reason why McCants made his infamous "prison" comments back in October.
On a related note, thanks to Todd for telling me about the Rashad McCants/Jay-Z story that I missed in last month's Sports Illustrated cover story.
Posted by Tim at 01:50 PM | Comments (5)
December 03, 2004
Some Kind of Federal Program
No, this is not a belated rant about Bush's infamous Social Security comment during the 2000 campaign, but rather an update on the weekly DJ nights that I've been scheduling at The Federal. Only 3 more Saturdays before Xmas, damn! These Saturday night things have been happening almost every week since early July...and I'm really not sure if we're going to be able to keep up that pace (or any pace) in 2005. So if you get a chance, please come out this month for some festive beats and good times....while there's still a chance to do so! While I'm at it, big thanks to anyone and everyone who came out to this particular weekly during the last several months. The other DJs and I definitely appreciate it. Now on to the upcoming schedule...
This Saturday December 4th, my boy Todd will be mixing it up. This may be his last time DJing at The Federal, as the law books are calling his name and there ain't no half-steppin' when it comes to the bar exam. Come out and hear selections from Todd's ridiculously deep crates. Which reminds me, these crates have started to ooze out onto the Internet via a couple of hot new mp3 blogs that Todd is involved in: his own Right and Exact, and the hip-hop-producer-focused Can I Bring My Gat?, which currently features some great tracks from the likes of Prince Paul, Large Professor, and Clark Kent. If last month's Spin article is any indication (or even a catalyst), MP3 blogs are continuing to blow up, like slow motion rarities-focused radio shows with detailed hypertext-enhanced talksets. It'll be interesting to see how and when some of my favorite MP3 blogs start to integrate podcasting and/or some sort of next-generation version of automated time-shifting technology. 'Cause I'm already a bit tired of desktop file (un)organization and constantly right-clicking to "Save-Target-As"!
But back to The Federal business....I'm going to be back there on Saturday, December 11th. I'll be ramping up for the upcoming holiday party season, so no one should be surprised if the tunes that night are a little more geared towards getting people onto the dancefloor. It'll be a Festivus for the rest of us!
On Saturday the 18th, The Federal will be graced by special guest Yugen, a frequent DJ at numerous clubs and bars around town: Ringside, Fuse, Nightlight, Tallulah's, etc. Yugen will not only be wrapping up an unprecedented three-week-sequence of SILS-enrolled DJs, but he'll also be closing off our 2004 Federal schedule in style. That's right, no Saturday night DJs on Xmas or New Year's. Happy Chrismukkah to all and to all a good Saturday night.
Posted by Tim at 08:45 PM | Comments (2)
December 02, 2004
Totally Crashing and Stunned In Bright Lights
A couple of amateur photos taken of Battles at Tuesday night's show at the Cat's Cradle:
Gotta love a that band uses both an 8-foot-tall crash cymbal and two laptop computers...
Posted by Tim at 01:19 PM | Comments (1)