The reason that a lot of tracks have intros and outros is because producers know that most DJs are lazy twats or are so untalented and wouldn't be able to play them otherwise. I've known far too many DJs that had this idea that tracks are somehow sacred and that you should respect the integrity of the artistic work and only mix during the intro and outro. That notion is bullshit.

Reshape the songs the way you want to hear them. This is not disrespectful to the artist, btw. The people who make music are creative people - they understand the creative process - and a lot of them like to hear their tracks used in creative ways.

To go way back into history - here's an excerpt from a Kraftwerk interview where they discuss Afrika Bambaata's Planet Rock:

Ralf Hütter: Well, we have been hearing Bambaataa many years before. Our first experience was when he was playing "Trans Europe Express" and "Metal On Metal" on 2 discs in a club, and they were experimenting with two record players, and they had two pressings, and so he was doing that, and from there I knew there were things going on, and then he did that rap record, and "Trans Europe Express".
JJJ: Did you find it exciting?
Ralf Hütter: Yes, it's a very, very good record.

full text here: [ kraftwerk.technopop.com.br ]

Wasn't able to drag myself away from work on Friday, so I couldn't make it out until Saturday. Scored a ride with my friend M3lang3 (Bob - who rented a car for the occassion)... arrived at the site a little before 9pm.

Parked up front near the Pinksox system - and then took a walk around. Found the 5lowershop/Havoc crew - Rtype was playing a nice hardcore set... chilled with that posse for a while, and ended up playing a two hour set there (roughly 10pm-midnite).

Nice location and a pretty mellow vibe. Spent a lot of the night wandering around - catching acts here and there. Laf-o played a nice set of material from his new album on the Pinksox stage, caught Amok twice (on the NTK system and on 5lowershop)... was good to hang out with the NY/SF crew, as a good time was had the weekend before when they played at Locale.

Played a second, techno-ish set on the Pinksox stage at 5:30 (techno-ish because I was co-erced into doubling the tempo and dropping some 270bpm speedcore towards the end)... took a nap shortly after that - then made the rounds and said my goodbyes at 11am.

Got home and slept for 13 hours... good times.

shout-outs to: Maskinn, Amb, Nobody, Amok, Laf-o, Jackson, Jason Blackkat, Rtype, Havoc, M3lang3.

Carlos won the pool!!

I wouldn't rely too much on premade sets, if you do you'll have to work out something new every time you play out - or run the risk of having people say that you always play the same thing. What I used to do a long time ago was this:

Take a group of four or five records that you think will work together... and then practice with them. Throw one on, mix another one in, then cue up the first track and mix it back in. Play around with as many variations as you can. Decide which ones work best for you.

Select a different set of records and repeat. Do this until you've got four or five 'mini-sets' that you're exceptionally comfortable with. Then work on transitioning between the different groups of records - find which ones work best for slowing things down, and which are more suited to building intensity. At this point you'll have 20-25 records that you're so familiar with that you'll always have a lot of options open. When you get new records - try to associate them with one of the pre-existing groups based on tempo/style.

ymmv - but I found this really helpful when I first started.

it's like chess, kids... you can learn all the openings and end-games that you want - but it's the creative touches that real set you apart.

btw - if you want decent headphones for playing out at a budget price... you can get a construction worker headset (which blocks a fair amount of noise) at most hardware stores - and then take the drivers out of a set of $40 headphones and put them inside... hell, you can go cheaper than that if you want. I took the drivers out of the free set that came with my old walkman.

for home use... I like Senheiser. I've got the HD500s.

I had no problems with the venue - but it felt it could have used a few well-placed fans... then again, hell is supposed to be hot.

666 bitches.

I'm looking forward to a bunch of the sets... especially LowTek. I missed out the last time he was here...

At any rate, it'll be nice to see Delta 9 up here again... although he'll probably hit me up for drinks... guess I'll have to stock up on jager.

off topic:
The only way the hardcore scene will ever grow is if it becomes one community instead of a bunch of seperate camps. That doesn't mean you have to like everyone or enjoy all the music - just that we should all think about setting aside personal interests and concentrating on what's good for the scene. If we can all do that, then we'll all be better off.

Rob Gee is fuckin' hilarious. He came out to Knitting Factory when I played at Fukkital a couple of years back... I can't say I've always been the biggest fan of his tracks, but the guy can def be the life of the party.

the two vocals thing is really tricky - but sometimes you'll discover something that's absolutely golden... where samples line up to add to each other. An old fave of mine is riding Maneater by Hall & Oates over Skelechairs by Doormouse. It gets funny as hell, because vocal samples throughout the Doormouse track are taken from the intro to Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and pertain to cannibalism... when it's hit just right there's this call and response thing going on - where the Doormouse cut fills in gaps between lines in the song.

[ djfishead.com ]

Ween - Shinola
Fanny - Shoebomb Hurricane
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country
Venetian Snares - Cavalcade Of Glee and Happy Hardcore Dadaist Pom Poms
various - Notochord compilation

demain, les branleurs.

Had a good time while I was there. It was nice to see some of the Quebec crew (Merku, Pymo)... and get a chance to talk to Phosphor for a bit. I wish I could have stuck around for more of the night, but I was pretty damn tired... and having a couple of broken ribs didn't help, either.

nice line-up... Sorehead were, imho, one of the highlights of COMA3.

This is gonna be awesome.

picking up a new batch of records today... tomorrow should be an interesting evening/night/morning.

It was a messy car-wreck, but it lost a lot of points when it became the catalyst in the plot of Amelie. It doesn't seem quite so evil anymore.... back to the discussion at hand, though... Na-, got any predictions on which world leader or religious figurehead is most likely to snuff it on July 30th? Or is that a secret that the party organizers don't want to talk about.

when I think of this party... I rub my hands together like I'm part of some fiendish plot to enslave the minds of mankind.

be prepared.

I'm probably not qualified enough. I mean, I've never had the pope die because of one of my sets... although I remember playing a warehouse party the night that Princess Diana died...

I'll have to make a very special "pope dies" request, then...

I missed it when the cross on the mountain turned purple.

HARD drum'n'bass is great... wish there was a lot more of that raw sound - but some of the roughest labels don't put out all that much stuff (or don't exclusively stick to hard drum'n'bass)... I picked up a bunch of stuff when I was in Kentucky a few months ago. I played a show for Paul Fear (who ran Fear and Fear Red before selling them off to Black Monolith last year) and snagged a bunch of things from his collection - including a couple of tests of tracks that are no longer slated for release.

[ fishead.gabber.org ]

This mix is a little over a year old... but you might enjoy it... 10 tracks in 18 minutes - 3 of which never made it past the test pressing stage (including the last track by Hecate, which is a shame as it's killer)...

here's a d'n'b hardcore mashup from the mash-up cd I did a couple of months ago....
[ djfishead.com ]

Na- I'll be playing at HAF666 - and you can rest assured that I won't be caning the cheese... probably a mix of dark-ass d'n'b (a la SubVersion, Praxis and such), pounding kicks and breakcore... maybe I'll even drop some Pan_sonic into the mix. Neuromyth looks like a good show, too... looking forward to finally catching a set from LowTek - and S.O.R.E.H.E.A.D. played some interesting stuff at COMA3, so that should be interesting as well.

pain in the ass or no, you should try to learn as much as you can - not just the things that come intuitively.

I didn't mean to imply that I'd done something really new, just that there are a lot of ways to mix a pair (or more) of records together... and that there are some people who seem to believe that most of them only work with hip-hop or only work with techno or whatever.

At any rate, there is a lot to be learned from watching old (and new) DMC videos and such... although I've never really bothered with body tricks. Kentaro's set from the 2002 worlds is one of my all-time faves - especially the bit where he starts working things with the decks powered down...

the new stuff on Planet-Mu is sick... especially the Breakage and Pinch records....

also been picking up a lot of techno lately... Mole's 12" on Wagon Repair, all the shit I've heard on Circus Company and the Mark Broom record on BPitch... wonderful stuff.

How genre affects mixing styles is a pretty interesting discussion.... especially if you play around with a lot of styles and apply techniques learning with one sound, to an entirely different sound... I remember someone telling me that certain 'tricks' (a word I kind of don't like because it implies that an act is some kind of subterfuge, and not a skill) couldn't be used for certain styles... In specific she was saying that double copies of a record wouldn't fly with the 'complicated melodies used in psy-trance' (her words - not mine).... I asked if she happened to have two copies of anything and start ghosting the records she handed me... playing with the offset to create pitch variations in effect.

I dunno... learn as much as you can - try anything. Mixing ain't like riding a skateboard... I mean - I've never heard of anyone breaking their arm when things didn't work out.

I'm looking forward to showing people how hard I can fuck... two weeks away. Should be fun... expect something deep, dark and uncut.

Edgey's truck broke down so he couldn't make it...

How am I awake already?

note to morphine:

it's difficult to make the distinction between absinthe and the myth that surrounds it, but it is a *very* different drunk from anything I've ever experienced... I certainly wouldn't say it has hallucinogenic properties that are on par with chemicals, but I will say that I've always found it to be a very lucid and intense experience (especially when combined with capsaicin, which can also trigger hallucinogenic episodes - not sure if that's due to the substance itself, or the endorphin release that accompanies large doses)...

as for distilling your own booze? Regardless of the end product, I still think you'd end up with moonshine... and yes, I've sampled home-brew absinthe (made by people who knew what they were doing)... for those who are seriously interested, read up on Ted Breaux and the Nouvelle Orleans brand... it's good stuff...

Nice to see that Edgey is finally making his way up here... played shows with him in NY, NJ and hung out with him in Pittsburgh... the guy is a beast... the TIK booth used to carry the split disc that he did with Subsektor and Enduser on the Reduced Phat label - it's well worth checking out... very solid line-up overall.

there's been hardcore at the SAT before... Black Market put together a show with Venetian Snares, C64 and David Kristian a couple of years back... and the Squarepusher show there was a seriously ear-damaging evening.

Had a good time at COMA last year... I'll probably head down to this year's event, too...

Morphine... you might want to read up on Wes Craven before talking about bogus-intellectual reviews, considering he was a university professor before his film career took flight. The original Hills Have Eyes is, however, the only film of his that's even remotely interesting... watch for a torn Jaws movie poster in the original film (and then watch for a torn Hills Have Eyes poster in the cellar sequence of The Evil Dead)...

btw - the guy with the weird head is Michael Berryman... who was born with 26 different birth defects (as I recall from interview footage)... and is surprisingly well spoken when he's not playing mutants in film.

too bad you can't get any really good absinthe out here... Versinthe is about the best thing the SAQ carries... Absente is a pastis with more reputation than it deserves (like a stiffer version of Pernod with a dash of vermouth)... and don't even get me started on Hill's (essentially everclear with a dash of food coloring and some wormwood flavouring)...

if you can get your hands on Nouvelle-Orleans, then you're well hooked up (sampled some at a warehouse party I played in Louisville, KY a couple of weeks ago... quality stuff)... I've also got a bottle of Abisinthe that a friend brought back from France - which is a brilliant drink.

As for smoking the stuff... a friend of mine reported some interesting effects from chewing on the plant, although you might want to read up on toxicity before doing anything like that.

it's solid enough... a lot of sick ass cuts, too... I caned the hell out of that AB4 cut, but I used to drop it at 45rpm in the middle of hardcore sets... on a big system that whoop sounds like a god-damned elephant.

[ www.discogs.com ]

nice to see that people are listening... I'll post a few not-so-ridiculous mixes in the coming weeks... maybe put together an old school drum'n'bass mix - filled with records that I'd be willing to sell (anybody need a bunch of '96/'97 Ed Rush work on No U-Turn? Get in touch)

that's the whole point... people don't seem to understand contrast anymore...

although - right there's a sample right before the metal track kicks in that says "A lot of DJ think it's just about going a thousand miles an hour - they don't even think about what they're doing." Which seems like an adequate disclaimer to drop before a freakin' Venom track.

[ ] Stupid

I've done some pretty damn genre-defying mixes of retardation in my time - but this one takes the proverbial cake...

I'll post the tracklisting later on - because the element of surprise is a necessary component.

I'm back from Europe and the show is still going... we had guest sets from John Burke and Carrie Gates to cover while I was away... as always there's been plenty of variety. The last couple of shows have been more on an ambient tip, but this coming week will feature a harder vibe.

[ controltochaos.ca ]