Welcome to the wide world of music! Please enjoy the music posted here and pass it on to your friends! Through the music the world can dance! Have fun!
In 2011 we saw EDM finally blow up in the States, to the relief of some and the horror of others the scene is finally here. 2011 was a blur for EDM in the States it seems. Everything seemed to be thrown at listeners at once, a lot of this music was well, made for the masses. It was a scene that was exploding and there was a lot to catch up on and a lot of money to be made, so it was to no surprise by some of the crappy music we have heard out of the EDM machine here in America. In this barrage of music thrown around it was easy to over step some great stuff.
I was guilty of this charge, at missing some great stuff, because...well there was just far to much to take in at once. In 2011 Boys Will Be Boys came together to release the EP "We Rock." A collaboration between Tiesto, Angger Dimas, & Showtek.
Angger Dimas is a Dj and producer from Jakarta, Indonesia and opened for Tiesto in Bangkok in 2010, which lead to their collaborative efforts and also has teamed up with Steve Aoki to produce the single "Steve Jobs". Showtek is a Dutch Hard Dance Duo. You can hear their influence in the "We Rock" track on the EP.
The EP only has three tracks and was released in June of 2011. This collaboration at the beginning drew attention that another super group might be forming, like SHM, but since the release of the EP it seems that the idea of a super group may have died. Even though that idea could still find new life again as this EP does go hard and you can hear the workings of all three Djs in the songs to make some great hard dance and some other groovy beats to dance to. Below you will find the three songs off the EP and another for Anger Dimas's single with Steve Aoki.
P.S. The write up about EDC is coming, I am just trying to get photos and videos together for you guys, thank you for the patience. :)
This summer I have found my self lucky enough by a whirlewind of good luck and great friends to go to not one but two music festivals this summer. As you can probably tell Wakarusa was the first one I was fortunate enough to attend, the other being EDC Vegas, which will have it's own post in then next few days. As I know many of you have asked about these experiences and here is everything you really need to know, or I guess I should say, that I remember of these times.
If you live under a rock and don't know what Wakarusa is, then please let me explain. Wakarusa is a four day camping festival on top of Mulberry Mountain in the middle of the Ozarks in Arkansas. The picture above is looking down over the whole festival grounds before it was filled with people. The setting for the festival has to be hands down one of the prettiest places that there is.
I was fortunate enough to be able to volunteer for this festival and got to go early for pre-festival set up.
Volunteering for a festival works as follows. You sign up, put down a deposit,
get accepted, and have to work 15 hours over
the time of the festival and you get to go for free.
I worked a total of three 5 hour shifts, one which was parking, the other two being production. The parking shift was standing in the dark for 5 hours telling people where to park, yes I know not glorious, but hey everything has to get done right! The two production shifts were amazing by far, the first shift I was backstage on the main stage. This entailed moving instruments and equipment on and off stage and the rest of the time, dancing and watching the bands preform, so I wouldn't even call this work. The second shift was more of the same, but at the Revival Tent. I was there able to meet some of the musicians that were playing for the first time at Waka or were up and coming and this was a new and awesome perspective and opportunity to talk to some of these guys. It also got me thinking how on earth does this festival actually happen. No one is really working, people are drinking, dancing, smoking, telling stories of past drug use in the yesteryear. There was only one rule, don't let the music stop. As long as the bands could get on and off and the instruments played, backstage was an adult playground. It is easy to see why, when this isn't work for anyone but fun and love. It really is a unique experience to meet and talk to the people who put on these festivals. It really does take more then anyone can realize to make one of these happen and it's amazing to see this all work so smoothly when it looks like no one is working at all.
The festival going experience was just as equally amazing and mind blowing. First tip for this, whatever alcohol you think you need, BRING MORE and in that bring BOXES of franzia, because you need to slap the bag as much as possible with anyone you meet. You can easily walk up to any tent and start hanging out with the people there. Have a bag to slap, or a bottle to pass around and you will surely meet a bunch of new friends. Check out this video to get a feeling (fyi I am in one of these photos).
To tell you how the crowd was I made friends with a Sooner and her husband and partied with them all weekend with another group of Aggies. That is right I raged with Sooners and Aggies and would visit both to rage some more. That is the kind of festival and crowd this was. Nothing else mattered at the festival except the festival and it was beautiful. Being able to rage into the wee hours of the early morning with music to surround you is an experience everyone should have. With bands like Beats Antique, Ghostland Observatory, and Paper Diamond playing till 4 or 5 am. You can dance from dusk till dawn and into the next day of the festival if you really wanted to. Meals consisted of cans of beans and corn mixed with salsa or a protein bar. Lunch was maybe some Wild Turkey or some Jack with chips or a sandwhich or something delicious from any of the food vendors there, and let me suggest that you buy some stuff there, the food is really good. Dinner usually was well.......The nights were filled with bands like Pretty Lights, Big Gigantic, Quixotic, The Avett Brothers, Girl Talk, Umphrey's Mcgee, Primus, and Weir, Robinson, & Greene Acoustic Trio to name a few. The crowds at these stages were very easy to move in and out of which was a nice change from some of the festivals I have been to. Anywhere on the festival grounds you could hear music till 5/6 am. The mornings were beautiful, it was cool and calm and smelled well clean. There was nothing around for miles and miles and the air was just pristine.
The festival was set up where there camping grounds were fenced off from the stages and the "security" was really only at the entrences to the stages. The camp grounds were well the hippie wild west. Special jello shots were sold by random hippies or some looking like drag rats for two bucks a pop and no one really could ever tell you what were in them. Food was sold from camp grounds by some and given away by others for free and asked for donations of any kinds including more food to cook. People sold knick nacks and random other shit to get by and I met many people that travled from festival to festival selling things and just getting by enjoying the life that was in the moment. It really was a very hippie beautiful life moment.
While working backstage at the Revival Tent I got to meet a band from Athens, Georgia called Dank Sinatra and wanted to put them out there for you guys to listen to and enjoy. This is also for Ben to show him how I am starting to get into that funk and jam music he o so love. I am actually writing this blog while listening to these guys and the more I listen to funk and jam the more I listen to funk and jam, it's kind of funny like that. Another great watch at that festival was Gary Clark Jr. I had seen him earlier this year at SXSW and was just as impressed, but at Waka it was on another level. At points in the show you could hear the crowd oh and ah as he did his guitar solos. He made that guitar sing like the greats I could only imagine did in concert. I was not blessed to be born in the times of Hendrix or Led Zeppelin, but I am sure that it was something close to this when you heard them play.
Sunday was perfect except the weather. Sunday was a line up of Reggae and blue grass and jam, a very chill way to wind down the festival. The likes of Soja, Iration, Slightly Stoopid, Matisyahu, EOTO, and Mountain Sprout all played. The only problem that day was the weather. The festival had to put the bands on hold a few times throughout the day and it even hailed at one point during the day, but nothing could ruin how much this festival was. During the hail me and my buddies huddled under two guys tarp we met the night before in the croud who were from Nebraska. Mind you that by under the tarp i mean we were all holding it down over us as we sat on the ground, it was truly a interesting experience.
In the end Wakarusa was everything I could of imagined and more. If you aren't ok with showering in a river, or not showering for a couple of days, being a hippie, with seeing a lot of naked people, with a lot of open drug use, with no rules, with never sleeping then don't go. If you can handle it and just enjoy every moment, then go. Go to everything possible there, never say no (within reason). Take up any opportunity to take a photo with someone, or chat up the person next to you. If you have ever been to a co-op party here in Austin, think of that on a massive scale. If you can handle that and have an open mind, go and you will never regret it, you will find new music and make new friends and have stories that will last a life time. I leave you with some videos that I shot randomly at Waka so enjoy.
Hello ladies and gents, it has been far to long since my last post, and I apologize for that. With the whirlwind of the start of summer and Wakarusa and EDC Vegas it was a little crazy. I need to do a write up of both of those festivals for you and artists that I found there, but that isn't what today is. Today it is time to meet Viceroy and his wonderful style of music.
I'm not sure how to tell you what this is, it's summer, it's white sand beaches, its cabanas with butlers getting you drinks. Viceroy is well summer, just listen and you can feel it inside. That feeling that music can produce of being taken away to a far away place, to not be where you are, but still never have to move. That is what his music does, it's a transport to a different place. You could consider Viceroy a mix of nudisco and funk that makes this perfect compilation of sounds that can make you move and dance. You don't find a lot of artists that will remix "Going Back to Cali" with Jamaican beats that feel like you are on the beach and that is what makes this such a clean and funky remix. It's a beautiful way that no one else really has even tried, let alone probably thought about. If this music doesn't make you want to go outside and at least sit by the pool as you jam it then you must live in the Arctic. Go grab some rum, mix it with that pina colada mix and sit in by the pool and start the party, because this is where that party starts right here with this music.
I am going to leave you guys with two of his sound clouds embedded on here, the originals that he has produced and then also the remixes that he has done and killed at. Enjoy the summer time music and go get a tan. ;)
Well I have something great for you guys today. Finally something from the band that I got the name from formy blog, which I have to say is long overdue.
What can I say about Pretty Lights, easily my number one band. I will not go into a long winded post about him, as I could talk for hours and hours. I will save that for when the new album drops that he has been working on in studio. I will on the other hand talk about the music video that he has made and that I am going to post right here for y'all to watch and enjoy.
The video is called We Must Go On and the name says it all. Times do get bad and terrible things happen, but we must go on. We must pick out selves up and continue on even when we think we can't. There is and always will be another day to fight for, to live through. The video does this perfectly viewing the world, the people, the scenery in a beautiful way. The first thing you get from this video is that it is pretty, fitting for Pretty Lights. The video is everything you can think of and more. To the children to the old man on the park bench, to the train showing that time never stands still, that we keep moving. The whole video is well to me perfect, every shot is there for a reason to show that things do move on, that time does not stand still and neither does our world. There is beauty in it all, from the still dirty streets of New Orleans to the begging woman on the streets of Prague, no matter what it will get better and there is beauty there, you just have to look. That is the point of it all, that no matter what the beauty is there and even at their lowest they know life will go on for them and it will for you too, that my friends is how I view this video. I hope y'all enjoy this and the music to come, thanks for the support.
Andrew Parsons resides here in the ATX and is in my opinion one of the best kept secrets of Austin. Here is a DJ that last Friday opened at La Zona Rosa and the place was empty! I as a fan was very excited to see him and when I walked in at around 10 I was set to dance to another one of his awesome sets. To my surprise he had opened opened at 9 for the concert. I was sad to miss him, but I was more surprised to hear the person they had playing next.
Griz was the act between Andrew and Big Gigantic and I am not totally sure how that happened. Andrew Parsons by far puts on a better show and knows how to move a crowd and keep them interested. I was sorely disappointed to have missed Andrew that night and I am excited to see him again when he plays on 4/20 at Haven with Michael Woods.
Lets do a little run down of Andrew Parsons, because as a DJ this guy fucking rocks. He puts on a great show that will get you moving and dancing. His abilities for mixing are flawless and his ear for putting songs together is outstanding. He started in 2002 and dove into the Trance and Progressive music scene where he quickly gained notoriety and had his song Underwold Dreams used by countless DJs like Armin Van Buren and Above and Beyond. He has also played at festivals such as Nocturnal, EDC, and Ultra 2012. Andrew has progressed his sound even more now and has taken influences from trance and house and dropping dirty bass and made his own unique experience for you to dance too. While transforming him self and his music to what he is today he has played several guest mixes for big DJs around the world including Tiesto and Gareth Emery.
I was surprised at the end of the Big Gigantic show to see him passing out cds of his set from South Padre to patrons as they were leaving. Parsons I feel is a dj that does not get enough respect from the new listeners that are coming into the electronic music scene. I hope that Austin starts to realize that this guy can throw it down with the best of them and rock a crowd. If you have the chance go and see him at his many shows around Austin and you will not be disappointed. In the mean time listen below to some of his sets and songs that I could find on the interwebs.
If you have not heard of these guys then you must live under a rock. Big Gigantic is made up of Dominic Lalli who is the producer and sax player and Jeremey Salken who plays drums. They hail from Colorado and I don't know if you all could tell but Colorado is producing some fine electronic musicians recently. With Pretty Lights, Big Gigantic, Michael Menert, Paper Diamond all hailing from the great state of Colorado, so if you don't know now you know that Colorado is all about that funk electronic.
Big Gigantic is something very unique and hopefully something we see even more in the electronic scene. With a live sax and drummer it gives unique feel for the electronic music scene. They bring in the elements of electronic mixed with hip hop and jazz to make a sound that is uniquely them. They are well known for their high energy live performances that get everyone in the crowd to dance. If you have not seen what they did at new years then have a look at the video and for you hustlers check out their remix I need a Doller both below.
Their new album Nocturnal was released on January 11, 2012 and reached the number two spot on itunes top electronic albums. The album is available forfree on their websiteand if you feel like it donate and support a great artist. The album is great with booty bouncing beats and a saxophone that will make your heart melt. When Dominic goes off on a sax solo it is something very beautiful and unique to their show and music. It brings jazz and soul to electronic music like never before. The live drumming also adds another level of amazing especially at their shows when Jeremey can go off and do a long drum solo that will make you shake your whole body. Luckily for all of you they will be here this Friday at La Zona Rosa and for only 15 dollars. So as Texas Relays starts and no one in college will be doing sixth this weekend and most bars will be closed take a detour from sixth and head down to La Zona Rosa. This will be a show that you will not want to miss and you can join me and everyone else there as we dance the night away and not worry about getting shanked or shot on sixth. Below are a few tracks that are for your listening pleasure so you can get ready for the weekend!
Deltron 3030 is a futuristic hip hop album set in the year 3030 with the main character being Deltron Zero, a disillusioned mech solider and computer prodigy. He has fallen from the blinding lies of the New World Order and their suppression of human rights and hip hop. This album was released in 2000 by Deltron 3030 which is composed of Dan the Automater, Del the Funky Homosapien, and Dj Kid Koala. The album follows Deltron Zero as he goes through a series of rap battles against different opponents to become Galactic Rhyme Federation Champion.
This album while from 12 years ago just makes me stop and think about what happened to Hip-Hop? Where did the lyrical flows go, the djs scratching opera tunes in the back ground and throwing down sick beats? What happened to having a purpose to conveying a point in the lyrics of a song and a album that has a whole story in it, an album that takes you into the world that is being portrayed and brings you all the feelings with it? Hip Hop at least mainstream hip hop has lost it's way from what made hip hop so beautiful with the way the song could have a rhyme and a reason. Listening to albums likes this ones and old school hip hop artist can bring you back to a different time in music when it wasn't all about getting bitches and money but telling a story to a club packed with people.
One song that really is interesting on the album is Time Keeps on Slippin which has Damon Albarn featured in it. Some of you may know him or you may not, but he is the lead singer of the Gorillaz. And some have said that this song helped lead to the creation of the Gorillaz first album. Especially with Del The Funky Homosapien featuring on the Clint Eastwood track. The futuristic sound and mixing of hip hop and audio clips and blending from many different genres, it is easy to see some of the influence that Damon got from working on the Deltron album. Here is the youtube video for the music so you can listen.
Well that is all for now and hope you find this music ringing in your ears for the next couple of days. If you are interested in getting the album you can try and find it on the pirate bay, or you can support and show love and get the album here. Much love all.
