Deadmau5.

This seems to be a topic that creates a lot of divisiveness in the electronic music community. I figured it was time for me to throw my hat in the ring.

So, a little bit about my musical background first. I've played guitar and bass now for over 20 years. I come from the era when grunge and thrash overthrew hair metal, when Milli Vanillia had to turn in their grammy for lip-synching, leaving Downtown Julie Brown and the Club MTV Party-To-Go massive homeless. My background was such that ALL music should be played "live" - as in every note, every word, every drum hit, performed by a human being.

An excerpt from an old Metal Church track:
"One more MIDI cable
and my band is ready to go...
...sincereity is felt much more
When the human factor shows..."

Then I saw KMFDM live. Then I saw Nine Inch Nails live. I realized you could use electronic instruments and sequencers in a live setting without compromising your artistic integrity. It was a *huge* paradigm shift for me. Then I discovered The early Warp Records IDM stuff, Aphex Twin Selected Ambient works, and then, the 4-4 beat. It was all over.

When I took up DJ-ing, I didn't realize that I was in for yet another paradigm shift. DJ-ing is not like performing in a band. There's a lot more to it than just blending two songs together. You have to know your music front to back, and you have to have a LOT of it to choose from. Using Ableton to mix together multiple scenes of music which are all warped to the same tempo seems no more "live" to me than cueing up a record, CD, or mp3 - even if the music is all yours to begin with. And beatmixing, PLUS reading the crowd, while at the same time creating a musical identity for yourself seems to require a LOT more skill. As the old saying goes, "If it were easy, everyone would be doing it."

But the bottom line for the DJ remains, "can you rock the party?" (no matter what technology you use)

The first track I ever purchased by Deadmau5 was "1981" - probably in late 2006/early 2007. It was a pretty cool little deep/chill house track with a catchy bassline. I then picked up "Not Exactly" which went into heavy rotation in my sets at the time.

Prior to that, I had noticed a lot of the drum patches being used in even the trance/progressive stuff I was hearing starting to lean more towards heavily compressed/gated 80s style drums, which I think owes a lot to the influence of electroclash. And Daft Punk had been using 70s funk/disco samples for awhile. Deadmau5's style seemed to be the logical merging of the two: one or two hooks (either in the form of an analog bassline or delayed synth stab) layered over 80s style drums; EQ-ed for new-millenium era PA systems; then filtered in and out gradually like a french house track.

Deadmau5's collaborations with Kaskade gave him enough of the vocal leanings and groove of deep house to bring his productions into the mainstream. In effect, it made Kaskade sound less like OM Records and more like Tiesto, and make Deadmau5 sound less like Detroit and more like Miami. Understand, I'm not hating on either of them, simply describing my viewpoint on the progression of their sound. And maybe a little bit of the public's perspective of their sound.

And then, he decided to make those colorful remarks about DJs and DJ culture. Wow. What a PR nightmare. I mean, try to spin "...hopefully, with all due respect to the DJ type that will fucking go the way of the dinosaur, I'd like them to dis-a-fucking-pear" all you want, it's just never going to sound any better. And you know he meant it 100% when he said it. Ouch. Way to bite the hand that feeds you.

Now, take all of this, and put yourself in my man's shoes.

Deadmau5 was in his teens when the boy bands were topping the charts. He's writing electronic music in a post-grunge, post-gangsta rap, post-electronica, post-boyband, post-Idol and (almost) post-emo world. In a matter of 3-4 years, he went from being a bedroom producer to an arena-filling "rock star" (in the truest sense of the word, complete with on-stage costume and light show). The tracks that his audiences seem to respond to most readily are almost entirely based around musical themes and rhythms, rather than lyrics and lifestyle. A far departure from when I was DJ-ing only 5 years ago and people were complaining about all the "no-words music."

Is he perfect? No. Could you remember every single word of every interview you gave, at any given moment, while at the same time keeping your inside voice in check? Doubtful. Are all of his songs great? Not exactly (pun intended). Yet somehow, he has managed to rope in audiences worldfwide almost exclusively with his *original*, theme-based electronic music - night after night.

Love him or hate him, I think he deserves a measure of respect.

There are no big deals.

I learned from my girlfriend recently that among animals, fear is the quickest instinct to learn and the hardest to unlearn. Seems to me that characteristic is true of us all. I've been having a lot of spiritual struggles lately related to this. What is it about the human condition that makes suffering our greatest teacher? If we're wired to seek some (supposedly) benevolent entity outside of ourselves for guidance, then why did said entity allow suffering to come into being in the first place?

I guess I have to take a step back and examine what it is that suffering has done for me. Probably the single biggest axiom I've learned is this:

"There are no big deals."

Growing up, everything was a big deal. Even the smallest mistake - a dish left unwashed in the sink, a chore undone - was met with the most serious consequences. One thing remainined in its wake: crippling anxiety. I did not have abusive parents, but what I did have were parents also raised to be anxious themselves, passed down and passed on by those who came before them.

That anxiety has haunted me more or less since birth. I tried telling so many people people about how I felt, describe the gun-wrenching pain to them in a way that made sense. First my parents, who often told me simply "you just have to suck it up!" One of my greatest resentments I've had to face is that the ones closest to me were probably the poorest listeners - or at least what I interpreted to be poor listening. But how could they have known? Parents are closest to their children - if they're doing it right - which (as my father pointed out to me) makes it hard for them to clearly see exactly what might be wrong.

Then there were guidance counselors (useless), teachers (overworked, underpaid and unconcerned), and "friends." And then there were relationships. I could go on and on about my romantic relationships. When they work, they're amazing, and when they're bad...well, yeah. I then turned to religion, thinking perhaps that the reason for my suffering was the fact that I turned from God somehow. At first I found comfort there, and belonging. Sadly, I then uncovered a world of judgment, uncharitable opinions and polarizing politics, rooted in legalistic interpretation of religious dogma. Salvation was about numbers, attendance (they called it "accountability"), catch-phrases, buzzwords and keeping up appearances.

In fact, after attending Lollapalooza 1993, one of our field-staffers took me aside during youth group and told me that she didn't think Jesus would've gone with me. I knew instinctively that this was a point of view that didn't mesh with my beliefs AT ALL. I didn't realize it then, but I had become disillusioned with religion. (I would turn back to religion one other time in my life for some source of comfort, and would simply find more of the same.)

So I joined a band, and took refuge in the one thing that has *always* consistently provided me with solace and comfort: music.

Actually, I was already in a band - I just threw myself into it whole-heartedly this time. We found ourselves in a recording studio, and on day 3 of our studio session, I sat on a leather couch with my three friends and we listened as the fruits of our labor came out of huge studio monitors in the wall. I knew at that moment, at 21 years of age, that I'd found my place in the world. Not in college, not in my job, but right there in that recording studio. Sadly, A recording studio (at the time) was a prohibitvely expensive place to find a sense of balance in one's life. And the inner conflict between doing what I loved (music) vs. doing what I needed to do to provide for myself (work) and/or doing what looked good in the eyes of the world and my parents (finishing college) was an additional source of anxiety on top of everything else.

So in the end, I found better living through chemistry before I found healing, or solutions, or balance. I had developed two faces, a public face and a private face. The face I thought the world wanted to see, and the face that was really me - where everything was a "big deal." No one can exist in that condition indefinitely. Life catches up. It was at that point I began to learn about real suffering, and unmanageability.

So I may not understand why, or be able to accept the existence of suffering. But I know that today I have peace. Peace that comes through honesty, and reconciliation, and hope. Peace that comes through good health. And yes, peace that comes through MUSIC.
I have peace knowing that there are NO big deals.

It's Friday

I finally decided to jump on the blog bandwagon probably a decade or more after everyone else stopped caring :)  I'm at work, I should probably be doing work, but it's almost 3:30 and my motivation is shot.

So what have I been doing? Trying to win this contest (I'm "Hello - Clean edit" by DJ FM)...
http://www.reverbnation.com/heineken?artist_id=101154

...and ogling this amazing 2002 Civic Si...
http://www.hondatuningmagazine.com/features/htup_0707_2002_honda_civic_si/index.html


Oh, and since it's Friday...here's a song I wrote about it called "Friday"!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELlpMDgX9E8

That's all...until next time...
J