Unsung heroes: The Set-up Sound

Posted in Blogroll on June 14, 2008 by jacksonsf

Almost every party revolves around the headline DJ. His or her name splashed across the flyer in some extravagant font, conspicuous notice that the DJ will be flown in from some exotic locale, and whispers of that brilliant set spun on what is actually a computer-synched DJ mix. Nothing should be taken away from the headliner - his/her status and reputation is what gets people into the venue. But I want to focus on the name that goes below the headliner on the flyer: the set-up DJ.

The set-up DJ is the one who comes on before the headliner, the DJ who is mixing while people are filling up the club, buying their first rounds of cocktails, and showing love to their friends and cohorts. This DJ actually has a difficult balancing act to perform: he/she must create an atmosphere that points towards greater things to come, i.e the headliner, while building a vibe out of thin air. There are many ways to mess up the set-up slot: a tempo that’s too fast, the volume too high, the music either too deep or worse, that tries to be peak-time fare. When it’s done properly, the room is abuzz about what’s too come from the headliner. The set-up DJ builds the platform from which the headliner will launch the crowd into the stratosphere of sonic delights.

I’ve been DJ’ing a good part of ten years now, and I was always good either at mixing peak hour sets or really chill, lounge affairs. It wasn’t until I ran my own monthly, and consistently opened for the DJ’s I booked, that I began to understand the nuances of the set-up. In that sense, the most difficult slot is the set-up slot because the entire night essentially depends upon it. It’s too easy to have people leave the venue before the headliner because the atmosphere isn’t balanced between music that is both immediate and reserved at the same time. The sound has to loosen people up, put them in the mood, and keep them wanting more. In a cruder sense, you’re the fluffer.

But while this DJ may be the most critical link in the line-up, he/she is often forgotten at the end of the evening after the superstar headliner has blown the crowd away with peak-time record after record. So I want to give a shout-out to all the DJ’s out there who have dutifully done their best working in restraint, teasing the crowd without giving in to the urge to go all the way, and then stepping aside as the headliner stands on your proverbial shoulders to be showered in accolades at the end of the night. Here’s some love =)

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The Technology Mirror

Posted in Blogroll, Music with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 9, 2008 by jacksonsf

Last night as I was falling asleep, I began thinking about the dreams I would have. I recently heard someone describe the dreaming process as the brain defragging itself of all the information, both intellectual and emotional, it had gathered during the day. It’s an interesting analogy - brain defragmentation. But then I thought that perhaps the reason PC’s need to be defragged is because we have subconsciously imparted our own behavior - the subconscious processing of the dream state - onto the computer.

There is a myth that technology is perfect because it can process billions of pieces of information instantly, or it can beat us at a chess game. The problem is, we created computers, and it seems that an imperfect creature cannot create a perfect machine. The machine itself is a reflection of our desires, both conscious and subconscious, and reveals itself in the process of the machine. Also, the more complex the machine the higher the probability there is for errors, anomalies and what we have come to fear most: “bugs.” So it seems that in every thing we create, we impart upon it not only our ingenuity, but also our subconscious irregularities. I think computers are a fine example of that (and if you’re a Mac user, you must admit there have been problems at some point and time.)

So, since our subconscious desires and neuroses are present in many of the technologies we have created, wouldn’t it seem logical that we can explore our psyche through these very machines. Take , for example, the Roland TR-808 drum machine. This drum machine was created to be used in place of a drummer - and was hated by percussionists for that very reason. Also, the sounds it produced were considered inferior not only to live drums but to other contemporary drum machines. But five years after it was discontinued, it was embraced by a handful of club music producers who found that its “deficiencies” were actually perfect for the new sound that was being created - house, techno and electro - and a whole new world of creativity was born.

It begs the question as to whether the creators of the TR-808, in their quest to produce a tool for studio musicians, and their subsequent failure, imparted in the machine a piece of their own subconscious, perhaps a yearning for the future that was later recognized by those with no prejudice about what it was “meant” to be, and instead discovered what this machine’s true nature was. One person’s failure is another’s muse.

What is more interesting is that these machines have quirks that make them highly coveted. Take E-mu’s SP-1200 or the Akai MPC series that each had their own idiosyncratic tendencies that ultimately produced music that was less mathematical in its performance and ironically, more human because of its flaws.

We, as a culture, seek through technology the lofty goal of perfection through control. Every wire, every circuit is produced to achieve the most perfect state available. But the history of these creations is that each machine exhibits certain “flaws” - flaws that are there because we have imparted them without even being conscious of it. Therefore, the search for perfection is a pointless undertaking, since, first, we can never achieve it as we ourselves can never exemplify it, and secondly, because in our bold strives towards perfection, we miss the beauty of what we have created.

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Clubbed with Love

Posted in Blogroll, Music with tags , , , , , , , , , on April 17, 2008 by jacksonsf

Do you remember your first clubbing experience? For me, it was at this club called the Odyssey, it was in a strip mall in a white trash section of Dayton, Ohio. I had just moved from rural North Carolina and didn’t assimilate very well into the affluent redneck culture that I had been dropped into. But some new friends took me to this club, and even then I was beyond excitement at the prospect of dancing, of escaping for a few hours from the dull grey scenery that seemed to pull Dayton down into a deep depression.

Ah, but this wasn’t a big city club - it was a late-80’s, top 40 hot springs. I remember drinking beers in the parking lot before hand, looking out for cops. We’d walk in to a mix of acid-washed jeans and Vanilla Ice look-alikes, the smell of Aqua Net lingering in the air. But we’d dance our asses off, especially to Soul II Soul’s “Keep on Moving.” I loved that song. Unfortunately, I never learned all the moves to the electric slide that everyone would start doing as soon as that song came on.

I soon moved on to a club in Dayton called 1470’s that was a gay club six nights out of the week, except Thursday’s, which was their industrial night - Front 242, Ministry, Pigface, Meat Beat Manifesto, along with New Wave, like Soft Cell, were mixed alongside early European sample-heavy techno (anyone remember “The Running Man” remix). This club was my church for a while - I could be myself, I could be expressive, enhanced by the excitement of witnessing a new form of music evolve.

Then a friend suggested we go see this guy Plastikman in Louisville. I was game even though I really didn’t know who he was. How was I to know I was to have my mind blown? The black plastic lining the entire room, the minimal lasers, and the music - Richie’s live PA was unbelievable, the way he manipulated and worked the crowd, and the way they responded, they were freaking out. Up until I heard the Plus 8 music, I always had the impression that the music was just silly and fun - until I heard F.U.S.E.’s “Substance Abuse.” It was then I realized this was more than about the music, it was a way of life, an escape from the stagnant attitudes and droll stripmalls that defined the Midwest back then. The music was talking about technology, capitalism and consumption and how these ideals are ultimately what will be our downfall as a society.

I have no idea while music affects me so much, but here I had found a music based around energy and sounds that brought together every cross-section of youth to these early parties. The music is serious and it is making a statement about the world we live in: The music is soulfully designed from cold, inorganic machines, yet these circuits were designed by humans and therefore will always reflect our own idiosyncrasies and nuances that make us unique as a race. The soul in the machine - another medium for humans to express themselves. I was hooked from then on to the sound and the scene, searching every club and party to experience that vibe again. The beauty of it is that it is constantly revealing itself time and again with the right combination of DJ, environment, and the expressiveness of everyone who is there - a truly synchronistic event.

But now I live in the Castro in San Francisco - one of the gayest neighborhoods in the world, and I love living here and I feel lucky there is still a vibrant scene here. Unfortunately, the gay clubs have changed since the early days where they were basically the only outlet for new music. Now they generally only play really awful repetitive NRG music. Back in the day, the only place to hear techno or house was either at a gay club or a rave, and now, both of these have fallen victim to genrefication - the belief that they have to play what the crowd wants rather than being confident enough that their crowd wants the new sound, or even, a mix of the old and new put together in intelligent ways.

But I have to give a shout out to the gay clubs of the 80’s and early 90’s, they helped to spread the new gospel to gay and straight, black and white, they were inviting and ultimately they helped to shape the musical and club landscape that is an outlet for the ever-evolving sounds and rhythms that still bring so many different people together.

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The Mix Tape

Posted in Blogroll, Music with tags , , , , , , on March 20, 2008 by jacksonsf

Having grown up in the 80’s, every album I bought was a cassette tape. So, I think as soon as I got into music, I started putting together mix tapes. It started with recording my favorite songs off the radio. Then, when I started listening to good music, I couldn’t help but put together tapes with my favorite songs - recorded from one tape deck to the other - carefully arranged to maximize the impact of each song.

When I got to college, I was exposed to an incredibly diverse amount of music - mainly because I couldn’t help but seek it out. I was always on the hunt for that one song, that one gem, that would satisfy all my emotional needs. Fortunately, one of my best friends in college, Mo, had a boyfriend who was in an indie-rock band. I think I had my first man-crush on him simply because he had the best taste in music - well, I think Morrissey was first but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, he would always make mix tapes of the latest songs for her, and then I would make copies for myself, and then rearrange them. Hearing a tape with everything from Jesus & Mary Chain, Red House Painters, the Beautiful South, The Sea and Cake and Kitchens of Distinction. I would listen to these over and over again, to the point where if I ever heard that song somewhere out, I would be surprised when I didn’t hear the song from the mix tapes I listened to being played next.

Well, once I had accumulated my own wealth of knowledge of properly obscure songs I would put them together in methodical arrangements to impress some girl or other. Of course, by this time, I was a card-carrying indie rock snob - Q: Why don’t indie rockers have girlfriends? Because they’re always lying about their 12-inches. Of course, I don’t think those tapes ever helped out my game.

But then I found techno and DJ’ing, and suddenly there was music that was made to be mixed. Nico, the founder of No U-Turn records, a seminal drum’n'bass label, apparently said that his music was purposely without context and that it was up to the DJ to create the atmosphere for his tracks to take on meaning. Of course, if you hear his music, you can’t deny that they have a very definite tone and meaning.

But, in essence, it is true that the dance record takes on a different meaning every time you play it. There are records that can only be played on very specific occasions, and the DJ’s skill is in knowing when that moment is. The record before and the record you mix out of define and, done properly, enhance the nature of the music on that track.

But cassette tapes disappeared back in the 90’s as cd’s took over. I still have a box with a few of them from my college days, but most of them were played until the boom box I kept in the back seat of my car ate them. I used to buy vinyl to DJ with but I’m strictly on cd’s now. But for some reason, the term “mix tape,” still exists in the lexicon. I’ve been told that up-and-coming hip-hop groups still hand out cd’s, but call them “mix tapes.” So even as the technology changes, some of the anachronistic language will stay with us long after people have forgotten what a cassette tape is.

So, I’m still making mix tapes. Sometimes just a play list on i-Tunes, but preferably a dance mix. But it will always be a mix tape to me. The arrangement allows me to create an imaginary world that can take the listener somewhere beyond where they are at. When it’s done just right, the mix can transport you along that road trip, or ease you out of the day’s stress you’re still holding on to. I’ve been married for almost five years now, so I don’t have to impress her with my music knowledge (she was never impressed, and that’s probably why I liked her so much), but I still can’t wait to play her that new track that plays endlessly in my head, carrying me through the day.

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Soul, man

Posted in Blogroll with tags , , , , , , on February 26, 2008 by jacksonsf

So I just got done watching Mary J. Blige perform on the VH1 series, “Storytellers,” and I was blown away. It wasn’t just that she could sing (trust me, she can), but it was the amount of emotion, the soul, that she was transmitting on that stage. What made the performance even more enthralling was that she talked with the audience about each song before she sang them. She became really emotional at times and I could hear where all that pathos comes from - she hasn’t had an easy life and she has been able to translate that, even more so, transmute that through her singing.

I’ve always had a thing for soul music - that raw emotion that comes from hardship, experience. One of my favorite albums is Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly.” What I love about this record is not only is the music fantastic - orchestrated funk - but that he’s telling a story about a socially relevant topic: drugs in the ghetto. But the album has so much soul because you can feel Mayfield’s own anguish throughout, as well as his hope for things to get better.

Music is so fascinating because on one level it’s just a series of frequencies put into a particular order, which doesn’t seem really all that interesting, but then you hear it and it triggers something in the brain - emotions, thoughts, passions, anger, heartbreak. We’re wired for sound and soul music targets that in a way many other forms of artistic expression just can’t. It goes straight for the heart.

But what exactly is soul music, especially when you think about electronic music? It’s music made by machines. Growing up in the Midwest, if it didn’t have a guitar in it most people don’t think it’s music. I’d always be debating about how an instrument doesn’t have to be “played” to be considered music. In fact, when I first heard proper techno, I was caught by how much soul was being conveyed in this music that strove to be as inorganic, compositionally, as possible. It was music that seemed to be searching for the soul in the machine.

I’ve always been attracted to the fact that despite the evolution of technology, we still grasp at the humanity within cold wires and hardened steel. Techno, in some ways, epitomizes that by saying, “we’ll take these machines you’re trying to inject us with and make something beautiful with them.” The machine has simply become a new medium for human expression.

Music isn’t about the format, the instruments, or even to some degree, the ability - it’s about the soul. When a song can touch or move someone, when it can create an empathic bond between two people, it becomes something more than just sounds and sequences, it transcends its parts. Soul music is about the expression of the human experience and it doesn’t matter how you do it, it just needs to be done.

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Beat(off)port

Posted in Blogroll, Music with tags , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2008 by jacksonsf

 

It’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m in my office.

Point. Click.

Point. Click.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Honey?”

It’s my wife!

I scramble.

An “Uh, yeah,” stumbles out of my mouth as I fumble with the mouse trying to close the browser.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, not much . . . I’m just . . . just . . . looking at porn.”

Silence.

“Well, as long as you’re not on Beatport.”

“Oh, c’mon, baby, you know I said I wouldn’t be doing that anymore.”

It’s a silly scenario, but not altogether without truth. With the easy access of digital music tracks, time well-spent on gay midget bondage videos is now going towards scrolling through genre after genre of the latest in electronic music. In addition, with the scores of formally out-of-print back catalogs being added, there seems to be no end to the deluge of dance music one can scan through.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love vinyl. The feel on the fingertips, the cue under the needle. But vinyl, alas, is expensive. And more importantly, in limited quantities. I can’t count how many tracks I’ve heard and then ran down to the record store to find it only to hear it’s not in stock when I know there are five copies underneath the counter saved for the “crew.” A morally devastating routine, to be certain. But it’s also understandable for the record label to print a limited quantity – it costs a lot of money and time to master, press and distribute vinyl, and even the biggest hits can be in high and hard-to-find demand.

But with the advent of the digital format, no track will ever be out of stock again. That, as a DJ, is simply brilliant. I will never have to suffer the knowledge that I won’t, eventually, be able to acquire a track. I mean, I just downloaded the Surgeon’s “Magneze,” almost ten years after I first heard Jeff Mills backspin into it on his classic “Live at the Liquid Rooms” mix. I’ve dreamed of owning that track and suddenly I can have it forever, without fear of warping, scratching, or theft – only my hard-drive crashing.

The other by-product of on-line digital shopping, with it’s easy access and low-cost, is that now anyone can acquire what was otherwise a strictly DJ-only form of music. That track you heard on your favorite DJ mix can now be yours – in its entirety. And for me, as a DJ who loves all genres of music, I can now afford to buy music that at a record store I would have to put back because I could only afford records that I knew would eventually be used for live performance. I mean, I started buying drum’n'bass again, almost seven years after I stopped spinning it! And I’m all the happier for it.

As a music junkie, I can never get enough. I have to have it, and I have gone to huge lengths to acquire certain tracks – like special-ordering from Germany – for an import price I’m embarrassed to mention now. But, now, since I have unlimited access, I can’t seem to stop. I just know on the next page is that little gem hidden amongst the rows of WAV files that will finally fulfill me. Oh, but, wait, there must be one more on the next page, or the next page, or . . .

Knock, knock . . .

“What are you doing, honey?”

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Defining the Quantum Culture

Posted in Blogroll with tags , , , , , , on January 20, 2008 by jacksonsf

So, you may ask, what exactly do I mean by “quantum culture?”

Well, a couple of years ago, a friend left a book at my apartment entitled, “In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat,” by John Gribbin. It’s a book about quantum physics and reality. I was a little familiar with quantum physics, but I wasn’t prepared for the conceptual depths this book took me to. It blew my mind. Literally. I had to use a spatula to scrape my brain off the floor . . . and it’s never really been the same since.

I’m not going to get into the nuts and bolts of quantum physics here . . . that will be left for future posts:-) But there are two quotes from the book that I think can shed some light on what I’m pointing towards:

“The future is inherently uncertain - we do not know exactly where we are going; but the past is clearly defined - we do know exactly where we have come from. To paraphrase Heisenberg, “We can know, as a matter of principle, the past in all its details.” This precisely fits in with our everyday experience of the nature of time, moving from a known past into an uncertain future, and it is a feature of the quantum world at its most fundamental.”

With the aid of technology, our culture is the most self-conscious the world has yet conceived. We constantly look at ourselves, and then look at others looking at ourselves, and then look at ourselves looking at others looking at us. It’s like two mirrors facing each other - their reflections go off into infinity.

But one of the interesting side-effects of this hyper- observation and contemplation is that by becoming aware of ourselves and the world around us, we alter those things (for better or for worse). As Gribbin says in the book, “we have to accept that the very act of observing a thing changes it, and that we, the observers, are in a very real sense part of the experiment.”

We’re becoming a quantum culture - one that that has slowly become more and more aware of itself and the reactions that result from its actions - how the present constantly implicates the tomorrow. We have an unquenchable thirst for who we are and where we are from. As we begin to become more aware of ourselves and our surroundings, we slowly begin to alter our reality.

The quantum culture is one that is looking. We constantly seek input, data - and this information, while often wavering between disorienting and sedating, disheartening and amazing, is ultimately a small step toward enlightenment.

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SAMPLE

Posted in Blogroll, Music with tags , , , , , , , , , , on June 18, 2007 by jacksonsf

Are you a sample?

SAMPLE a cross-section of society searching for the lowest cultural denominator to sell to __ a marketing wet dream of single-celled citizens with SiMPlicity of tastes__songs all structured on popcentric digestibles __ prismatic fashions woven from the same cloth_nuclear family nuances designed along track-housing lines__iMPLications of corporate cloning searching to replicate itself indefinite__a loop of consummation procreating impotence|

scanning through infomatic soundbites for a SAMPLE of sanity__break through contexts of similarities for the inherent soul__take and make for yourself new SeMBLancEs of sound and textures_biting the traditional hand for shoulders to stand upon__cycles of beauty MAniPuLatEd into new forms speaking of the electromagnetic essence connecting the PLExuS of society__seeking to free the sound from the MAnacLES of profit industry|

Or are you sampling?

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