Showing posts with label live music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label live music. Show all posts
Friday, January 27, 2012
Monday, October 25, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
"Breakup" turns ten!
My first CD, the "breakup" EP turns 10 years old this month.
I started writing tracks for it back in 1996 (I was 22). Actually, the first track I wrote for it (but did not know it at the time), was "Valley." I had written it late summer of 1994 (about a failed relationship, what else?), and it saw many incarnations before the one that finally appeared on "breakup." The next 3 tracks, "Baranquilla," "Dreamstate" and "Escape" were written on an old Yamaha 8-track cassette recorder which my friend and former bandmate Chris Wimberley lent to me. The bass line and drum track for "Proton Girl" were composed on a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder and Boss DR-660 Drum Machine about the same time.
I actually entered the studio (Osceola Studios in Raleigh) to begin recording "breakup" in 1997. I traded freelance graphic design work for studio time with my old friend and producer Tom Mohbat, of Bad Dog Productions. Back then, hard disk editing systems were extremely expensive and unavailable to the average home audio producer (by contrast, now, every Mac comes standard with Garageband). So we recorded all the songs on "breakup" to Alesis ADAT Tape. Tom would sit at the board mixing on the fly while I would loop and sequence MIDI parts in Mark of the Unicorn’s Performer software on an old Mac Performa (!)
Then I had to have the CD mastered and pressed, but my studio time ran over budget. I had fallen behind on rent by about 3 months, and was essentially eating nothing but popcorn and whatever leftovers my roommate didn’t want. Between money my ex-girlfriend loaned me and a gift from my Dad, i was able to dig myself out of the hole, master and press the CDs. They were mastered at The Kitchen in Chapel Hill by Brent Lambert, who at the time was running his studio out of his home. I recall taking the finished CD home with me and listening to it over and over. I doubt I will feel that way - that newness, that sense of accomplishment - about anything I record ever again. No matter how much better the writing may be.
During this time I was working in computer services at the Kinko’s in Cary, and became friends with one of the 3rd shift managers, one Jody Barnes...who ultimately designed the cover artwork. He was also the one who suggested that taking up DJ-ing might be a good idea ;)
Then one day in April 1998, I came home to find 9 boxes sitting in my living room. In those boxes were 1,000 copies of my CD. I recall asking out loud, "what the hell do I do with all these?"...
...and I have spent the last 10 years answering that question.
Along the way I’ve had many successes and seen "breakup" (and subsequent recordings) go places I never thought they would. I have also seen failure after failure, been cheated, ignored, lied to, swindled, and ostracized, by colleagues, industry types, even close friends (or at the very least, acquaintances), and then been patted on the back by those very same people as if nothing had happened. But in the end, highs and lows, good and bad, it has all been worth it.
And I think I may have even learned a thing or two along the way:
1) At some point, you *will* want to give up. Don’t.
2) Be prepared to spend a LOT of money up-front. Be prepared to NOT break even for several years, if at all. Then be prepared to do it again.
3) Don’t assume people will simply know about what you’re doing because you think you’re talented. Tell people about who you are and what you do, in any and every way you can. If you don’t, no one will come to your shows save for your girlfriend, your roommate, a few friends, one or two random co-workers and your MOM (and even they’ll get sick of it after awhile.)
4) There is good business, and there is bad business. Very rarely are they isolated from one another, and more often than not, one can be mistaken for (or even disguised as) the other.
Thanks to all the DJs, producers, promoters, record store owners, friends (both internet and in-person), family, and colleagues who have stuck by me through thick and thin and encouraged me along the way. I succeed only because of you.
Ten years before "breakup" I was barely a freshman in high school, who had just picked up his first acoustic guitar. Ten years has now passed since "breakup". I can hardly wait to see what the next ten will bring.
With great thankfulness and humility,
JG.
I started writing tracks for it back in 1996 (I was 22). Actually, the first track I wrote for it (but did not know it at the time), was "Valley." I had written it late summer of 1994 (about a failed relationship, what else?), and it saw many incarnations before the one that finally appeared on "breakup." The next 3 tracks, "Baranquilla," "Dreamstate" and "Escape" were written on an old Yamaha 8-track cassette recorder which my friend and former bandmate Chris Wimberley lent to me. The bass line and drum track for "Proton Girl" were composed on a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder and Boss DR-660 Drum Machine about the same time.
I actually entered the studio (Osceola Studios in Raleigh) to begin recording "breakup" in 1997. I traded freelance graphic design work for studio time with my old friend and producer Tom Mohbat, of Bad Dog Productions. Back then, hard disk editing systems were extremely expensive and unavailable to the average home audio producer (by contrast, now, every Mac comes standard with Garageband). So we recorded all the songs on "breakup" to Alesis ADAT Tape. Tom would sit at the board mixing on the fly while I would loop and sequence MIDI parts in Mark of the Unicorn’s Performer software on an old Mac Performa (!)
Then I had to have the CD mastered and pressed, but my studio time ran over budget. I had fallen behind on rent by about 3 months, and was essentially eating nothing but popcorn and whatever leftovers my roommate didn’t want. Between money my ex-girlfriend loaned me and a gift from my Dad, i was able to dig myself out of the hole, master and press the CDs. They were mastered at The Kitchen in Chapel Hill by Brent Lambert, who at the time was running his studio out of his home. I recall taking the finished CD home with me and listening to it over and over. I doubt I will feel that way - that newness, that sense of accomplishment - about anything I record ever again. No matter how much better the writing may be.
During this time I was working in computer services at the Kinko’s in Cary, and became friends with one of the 3rd shift managers, one Jody Barnes...who ultimately designed the cover artwork. He was also the one who suggested that taking up DJ-ing might be a good idea ;)
Then one day in April 1998, I came home to find 9 boxes sitting in my living room. In those boxes were 1,000 copies of my CD. I recall asking out loud, "what the hell do I do with all these?"...
...and I have spent the last 10 years answering that question.
Along the way I’ve had many successes and seen "breakup" (and subsequent recordings) go places I never thought they would. I have also seen failure after failure, been cheated, ignored, lied to, swindled, and ostracized, by colleagues, industry types, even close friends (or at the very least, acquaintances), and then been patted on the back by those very same people as if nothing had happened. But in the end, highs and lows, good and bad, it has all been worth it.
And I think I may have even learned a thing or two along the way:
1) At some point, you *will* want to give up. Don’t.
2) Be prepared to spend a LOT of money up-front. Be prepared to NOT break even for several years, if at all. Then be prepared to do it again.
3) Don’t assume people will simply know about what you’re doing because you think you’re talented. Tell people about who you are and what you do, in any and every way you can. If you don’t, no one will come to your shows save for your girlfriend, your roommate, a few friends, one or two random co-workers and your MOM (and even they’ll get sick of it after awhile.)
4) There is good business, and there is bad business. Very rarely are they isolated from one another, and more often than not, one can be mistaken for (or even disguised as) the other.
Thanks to all the DJs, producers, promoters, record store owners, friends (both internet and in-person), family, and colleagues who have stuck by me through thick and thin and encouraged me along the way. I succeed only because of you.
Ten years before "breakup" I was barely a freshman in high school, who had just picked up his first acoustic guitar. Ten years has now passed since "breakup". I can hardly wait to see what the next ten will bring.
With great thankfulness and humility,
JG.
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