Daft Punk: Random Access Memories

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Vibe

I absolutely can’t wait for the release of Daft Punk’s highly anticipated new album, Random Access Memories, slated for release in May. Collaborations with Pharrell, Todd Edwards, Giorgio Moroder, and the godfather, Nile Rodgers, only further confirms that this album is bound to be an epic event. I have been a Daft Punk fan for years, and their music makes all of today’s EDM “superstars” look like squires. Check out a great article from David Drake in Complex titled, Why Daft Punk’s New Album Will Matter. I have also included the video interviews with “The Collaborators.” Enjoy!

The “Get Lucky” teaser commercial from SNL

Film About Don Buchla

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Vibe

The following is a message I received from the Electronic Music Foundation. Check out the campaign here!

Clarity Films, in Berkeley, has mounted a Kickstarter campaign to fund their new documentary about Don Buchla and his many musical inventions.

Buchla is the inventor of the Buchla synthesizer, the Lightning, the Marimba Lumina, and other devices that seem to spring more from magic than engineering.

We’re tracing his path from the early days of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s to the present. Many stars — among them Morton Subotnick, Jean-Baptiste Barriere, Marc Battier, Gino Robair, Joel Davel, Suzanne Ciani, Ramon Sender, Mark Goldstein, Alessandro Cortini, and many other composers and musicians — light the way.

Buchla designed a set of wands for Lightning virtuoso Forrest Tobey’s performance at the New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square. Buchla sounds were among the last sounds heard in the 20th century.

Everyone should know about him. And this film can make that happen.

DJ Shiftee Takes On Traktor DJ

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Vibe

I keep reading great reviews on the Traktor app for iPad is. The April 2013 issue of Music Tech magazine gave it an excellence rating of 10/10, a great value, and innovation award. While I have no intention of looking into iPad DJing for myself, it does look like a fun and powerful app. Check out DJ Shiftee as he hits the streets of Berlin, armed with Traktor DJ.

TRAKTOR DJ brings the leading pro DJ software to iOS with an intuitive app for instant, high-impact DJ sets. Create mixes in seconds – put your hands directly on beautiful waveforms and manipulate them using gestures you already know.

Auto tempo detection makes track syncing effortless while iTunes integration turns your library into a virtual crate to dig through – TRAKTOR PRO’s acclaimed sync engine keeps tracks locked together so mixes hit hard. TRAKTOR DJ also syncs effortlessly toTRAKTOR PRO 2, allowing you to share essential track data – beat grids, BPM counts, and cue points.

This isn’t just an app, this is the most tactile way to get TRAKTOR power to date!

GET IT TODAY!

TRAKTOR DJ is available at the iTunes App Store for $19.99 / 17,99 €

BUY NOW

Requires iOS 6 or higher, iPad 2 or later, or iPad mini. 500 MB free storage/disk space recommended.

GZA Drops Science at New York City School

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Vibe

I loved this story and had to share it. It comes from David Drake at Complex Magazine. Check it out below!

Back in November, we posted about GZA’s plan to teach science through hip-hop in New York high schools. CBS News recently did a feature on the program, and they interviewed GZA (and grab footage of him rapping for the students) as well.

Although he dropped out of school in the 10th grade, GZA says he has a lifelong passion for science that he wants to share: “The goal is just to awaken the children, make them more aware and embrace science, and everything else connected to it.”

[Via Rap Radar]

Serato Icon Series: Hudson Mohawke

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Vibe

Ross Birchard is Hudson Mohawke – an artist who constantly pushes the expectations and boundaries of scenes and genres. One of the most influential and forward thinking producers currently. His appetite for sounds started at a young age. A UK DMC finalist at 15, DJing was the focus. It’s through his production that he has grown into the artist he is today and that has taken the kid from Glasgow, to the world.

Moving on from Glasgow, it’s in London where Ross lives and works these days.

“I live in London at the moment. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with it. I do like being there and whenever I go back to Glasgow, I’ll spend a couple of days there and think, I need to get out of here, I need to get back to London… I’ve got a great studio there and I like working there. It’s good in terms of doing collaborations with people. A lot of people come through the city all the time.”

Ross’s first exposure to production was an early Playstation game where he developed his taste for making music. Fruity Loops followed and he’s been keeping it relatively similar ever since. It’s about mastering the simple things for Ross and is what allows him to be so creative with the tools he has.

“I used to do the DMC battles. Before that I had turntables but I was just beat mixing basically. I started doing competitions when I was about 14 – 15, something like that. It wasn’t until after that I wanted to get more into the musical side of things. That was when the music game came out on the Playstation. The Playstation games were similar to really old Atari computers that a lot of electronic producers used to use in the early 90′s. It’s fairly simple but the most basic tools to do the job, and that’s where I learned everything from. My parents got a PC for the house, then I was able to have Fruity Loops. I’m still using the exact same software today basically.

“You work that much harder to master the craft of it, you know what I mean? I’m so happy that I pursued that skill set. That has lead into all of the production stuff that I do now. I started off being really really sample focused, and these days I’ve sort of switched a bit more towards more electronic stuff. I try not to have too much of a strict process with the whole thing. I try and not start things in the same method. I’ve always worked in a lot of different BPM ranges and a lot of different, I guess, genres in general. You know, I’m reluctant to have any sort of little micro scene names tagged onto things.”

Hudson Mohawke is an artist who traverses both the underground and mainstream. It’s a conscious decision to operate between the two and something that he’s always been interested in.

“Off the back of Myspace and a couple of other things, a few different labels have approached me. Luckily they came to me which was a blessing because I was never the kind of person that was going to be going, “Here’s my demo! Listen to this! Listen to this!” One of them being Warp and obviously I was a huge fan of them. I started off doing just an EP to see how it went and then moved on to doing an album after that. I’m about to do a second album, out this year.

“Something that I have really wanted to be involved in for years is getting into the more pop side of it as well as just releasing underground records. I would love to work with someone like Prince. I would really love to do something like a Quincy Jones sort of collaborative project. I always wanted to work with Kanye and you know, thankfully that’s managed to happened, but we spent a month and a half, two months all sort of working together last year. One of his associates approached me to submit some stuff with him and did that, then went on to do a load of sessions with them. That’s sort of an ongoing thing.”

A humble artist at heart, Ross has never been one to bathe in the limelight. It’s always been about the music and letting it stand on its own. Growing the experience of his live show to match the power of his music is where things are heading. There’s no limit to his opportunities for the future.

“I’d really like to get into scoring things, I’d really like to do like an orchestral project or something like that, do some film work. I want to build my own live show up a lot more as well, and for like the next record I want to revamp everything and just make that into more of an experience. You know, I’m able to pursue what I always dreamed of doing when I was younger so I’m thankful for that.”

Goodnight Mr. Lewis: Two Articles On Bottle Service That Are Completely Clueless

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Vibe

I came across a great article by the legendary Steve Lewis in his column for Blackbook Magazine. In his piece, Lewis lays out simply and eloquently the reasons why bottle service is here to stay and why nightlife is best left explained to the people who are in it! His explanation details the changing nightlife scene in an ever-changing New York. The following is taken from Blackbookmag.com. Enjoy!

There have been two recent articles professing the end of bottle service that I am being asked to weigh in on. The first:an article by Hardeep Phull on NYPost, and a story by Megan Willett from Business Insider. Both profess a “Chicken Little” approach to bottle service when all that’s really happening is an expansion of existing formats, not a quantum change. I contributed to my pal Hardeep’s article with a quote taken out of context from a much larger dialogue. He has it wrong, but compared to Megan’s take he is spot-on. Megan is clueless.

Marquee’s approach to dance was a calculated take on the market and their place in it. Their approach signals an internal decision to re-brand the NYC Marquee to be relevant to the Vegas Marquee, the highest-grossing nightclub in the country. They also have a Marquee in Australia. The NYC Marquee, after six years of wonderful and a few more of OK, needed a redux to bring it up to speed. I helped with the plan and the layout, but not the design. It was made clear from the start that it was all about the music, with some areas to accommodate big spenders who also cared about the music. It was also designed to be fairly non-competitive with their other NYC properties Avenue and Lavo, where bottle service thrives. Marquee made a smart move using their international DJ booking connections to create cachet. It doesn’t signal a trend of the end of bottle service in any way. Avenue and Lavo are bottle-selling machines. In that regard, the stories are just straight inaccurate.

Output in Brooklyn is as irrelevant to a larger social club concept as Cielo, the joint that spawned it. I love Cielo – did from day one. Its design, sound system, and bookings have made it one of the premier dance clubs in NYC. It has never been part of the larger club culture and has seen no need to be a part of it. Its new Brooklyn outpost should be a winner but it does not signify a trend. It’s merely serving dance aficionados in an ever-expanding Brooklyn scene. The trendy hipsters sipping $15 cocktails and eating $30 entrees at nearby hot spots in the new Williamsburg may never go to Output, and Output’s patrons may never go there but both will coexist in BBurg’s new world. Both are enjoying the transforming neighborhood which recently got a movie theatre and a Duane Reade and The Meatball Shop, and all sorts of other entertainment/distraction choices previously only found elsewhere. Output doesn’t signal the end of bottle service, but merely the expansion, or perhaps the gentrification of BBurg. On a side note ,I find it fascinating that a “no dress code approach to door policy” was mentioned or sited as portending a trend. I live in Williamsburg and basically everyone dresses the same here anyway.

Nightclub Space Ibiza is on its way to New York. It will be big, it will be grand, and it will compete with the other Ibiza-based mega club that thrives in NYC: Pacha. Webster Hall, a little as well. I go to Pacha on occasion, although not as often as I would like. I love Pacha. Eddie Dean and Rob Fernandez are magnificent at what they do. They find new talent, book established stars, and have created a mega club where you can dance and chat and buy bottles of booze or just plain water. They know their patrons and have a social scene that’s unique. They thrive and survive and have vast experience in the market. Space will be coming in and have to learn a lot quick. Big clubs attract big enforcement and scrutiny. They are off-the-beaten-path, but so was Crobar/Mansion before it was pummeled to death.

Will there be competition? Of course. Will Space mean the end of Pacha? OMG, no. Space is a natural development. As EDM spreads to the masses, clubs will embrace the trend. More dance floor is needed to accommodate more dancers. These dancers are not being drawn away from bottle service. These clubs are not in competition with those clubs. EDM DJs command salaries in the high five and even six-digit ranges, and mega clubs are the only places that can afford them consistently Space, Pacha, and Marquee have relationships with these superstar, rock star DJs as they are all international brands. The big club experience is enjoyed by many and shunned by many as well. I loathe EDM but I am confident that EDM heads would loathe my Ministry and Stones and Zeppelin DJ set.

One of the things I particularly disapproved of in these articles and the comments that followed in social media was the comparison of these clubs to the mega clubs of yore. Palladium and Limelight and Tunnel all had door policies that culled crowds of 5,000 down to 3,000. Without getting into a discussion of the merits of door policy, those clubs had highly-developed social scenes at their core. We strived to book the best DJs available and had multiple, sometime six or more dance floors working in the same joint. We mixed crowds from all social strata, races, and creeds. Does EDM appeal to a mixed racial profile? Hmmm, I have not observed that. To me it seems to be white boy shee-it and that’s that, for now.

The articles also failed to recognize that EDM is a genre of music. There are many other genres of music. All have a place in our city which does include people of many ethnic backgrounds and classes and ages. EDM is expanding, but from my point of view it appeals mostly to a certain demographic and has not completely taken over the mindset of NYC clubs. Hip hop, mixed format, rock, pop, salsa and all sorts of other genres still pack them in. Sitting or standing or dancing with friends around a bottle is part of our club way of life. Marquee played a huge role in that development. Bottle service isn’t dying, going away, or being replaced. The writers just didn’t understand what the…. what they were talking about. No offense.

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