Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Monday, November 23, 2009

Monday Wake-Up Jawn

This past week has been (in the words of the illustrious Dude) ups and down, strikes and gutters. I've been abiding it all so far tho. Today's wake-up jawn is a sleepy slow-burner with great drums. It's kinda moody... but I've been working on a moody downtempo mix this past week that I may end up releasing sometime close to the new year. I got some new records from Turntablelab with my date guap from Kulture Klash, and I'm trying to make a stay under the covers on a cold winter morning mix using lots of the new wax. Anyway, this is Bonobo's remix of Jon Kennedy's track Tell Me How You Feel:

Melsontwitternow... checkhimout.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Monday Wake-Up Jawn

Today's jawn has a little bit of a story behind it. One of my top 3 De La Soul songs of all time has always been Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey), but laying hands on the original mix of the song has been most difficult despite years of record collecting. You see, there have been so many De La releases that include a version of Ring Ring Ring... from comps, to 12" singles, 7" singles, CD singles, the shitty one LP pressing of De La Soul is Dead, and many others. As always, the only way to get the good version of Ring Ring Ring (without the saxophone) on wax that you could actually play out at a show was to find the elusive promo (AND 2LP VERSION THAT INCLUDES ALL THE SONGS) copy of De La Soul is Dead.

Well with my payment from Kulture Klash, I bought some new records, and I now got my own copy of the promo De La is Dead 2LP, so I can play the original version of Ring Ring Ring:

Hopethatwasnttoohardtofollow... thatssomerecordnerdshit.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Kulture Klash 5 Video

In my previous post, I mentioned Adam and Aaron from Jewell&Ginnie filming us on stage. Well, they filmed a lot more than that at Kulture Klash. Check the slick editing and how they gave us some serious shine:

Kulture Klash V from Jewell&Ginnie on Vimeo.


Bigupstothosedudesforsure.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Monday Wake-Up Jawn (Post KK Edition)

Today's song to get you awake is Breakadawn by De La Soul:

Kulture Klash was crazy fun, but I'll start this story at the beginning... After getting off work on Friday, I stopped by Alex's (of Spaced Invaders fame) office on Broad St. He was projecting art work from the Fr3sh crew on the Daughters of the Confederacy building, and it looked amazing. Julie of Cavortress (who is a big fan of the BGBs) was also meeting Alex at his office to drop off some clothes for him. I might have to get her in my pocket somehow so I can get her to find me some clothes. Anyway, Alex and I walked down to the beer exchange and got myself a growler of this, which was awesome. After hanging with Alex at his office for a bit, I went over to Hunter's to practice our sets, which went really late into the night, so I crashed with him.

Hunter and I were up early on Saturday to sneak in some more practice sessions before heading over to the Kulture Klash location at noon. Jess made us a great lunch; and after picking up some equipment at my house, Hunter, Jeff, Dave, Alan and I made our way out to Kulture Klash. We got set up and sound-checked with no problems thanks to everyone from Big Hair Productions. After hearing the sound-check from the main stage, I was a little worried that we wouldn't be able to get loud enough to match the huge set-up they had; so I talked to Gustavo and Alex, and they got us enough sound to calm my concerns. Big ups are indeed due to Gustavo and Scott (who organized the event and made sure we had everything we needed all night and kept us having a good time), Alex and Jason of The Spaced Invaders (for running projections for us... see pictures below, editing together a visual Roc Raida tribute to go with our set, and hanging with us when we weren't playing), BadJon (official photographer for the event, and a super telanted dude), Jeff ET (who played brilliantly, more on that later), and everyone that showed up and partied with us on the loading dock stage.

Here's some photos courtesy of BadJon:

Loading dock stage before doors opened

Once the show got going

Hunter warming up for our first set

Hunter and I opened the show at 8 with lots of instrumental jawns, a good bit of cutting, and a couple remixes (most notably D'Angelo's Left and Right). Adam Boozer from JewellandGinnie shot video of us spinning. I'm really looking forward to seeing what he shot. We came off stage at 9 very happy with the set and our performance of it, and Righcus came up and rocked it with DJ R-Dot. Hunter and I got back up on stage at 10 for our second set. This set went particularly well (especially the 10 Crack Commandments remix we did) until THE POWER CUT OUT FOR THE WHOLE VENUE. At around 11:25, at the height of our set's hypeness, everything shut off at once. I ran around the stage cutting everything off to protect all the equipment from a surge if the power came back on. After a couple minutes of talking with lots of people who liked our set and chillin with the Spaced Invaders in what we were calling the A/V tent, Gustavo came over to tell us the generator blew and a new one was on the way. The power came back on a couple minutes after midnight, and I re-routed all our equipment to the new power source. Basically, I wanted to be up and running before any of the other stages started, and that's what happened. Jeff went in from the start with one of my favorite Red Astaire songs, and he tore it down until 2 when the show got shut down. After packing up, and hitting the after hours VIP (Gustavo, true to form, gave me enough after-hours wristbands to take care of everyone that helped us break down equipment), we all went back to my house for an early-morning Street Fighter tournament.

Crazyweekend... Imgladthestressisover.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Monday Wake-Up Jawn

I hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend. I had a great time despite having to work at the library on Saturday and Sunday. This week, Hunter and I are in full-on Kulture Klash V prep mode, so if you don't hear from me before the show, I'm sorry. To wake up today, I bring you the Jay Dee remix of D'Angelo's Me and Those Dreamin Eyes of Mine:

Seeyouatkultureklash.