Frankie Knuckles Short Video

This has got to be my favourite short video. Check out how the crowd goes crazy when the drum kicks in!!

DJ Caravan @ Myer?!

We went shopping to The Basement store at Myer today where some good clothing stores and the Virgin music store is located, and I noticed an old caravan at the basement with some good DJ equipment inside. The DJ was missing, but the caravan was continuously pumping out chilled-out House tunes as well as some pop, and later some more upbeat West Coast House sounds!! Apparently The Basement does have a resident DJ who plays a combination old and new music. From what I've seen online, a live band played at The Basement for their first anniversary.

The equipment in the caravan were 2xTechnics turntables, 2xTechnics CD players, and Technics headphones. The mixer seemed to be a Vestax/Stanton. The monitor speaker was a small one, as the volume level has to be fairly low to make it a pleasant shopping experience, and the speakers were spread out throughout the store.


I'm trying to figure out how to contact the people managing the music at the store so I could have a spin in that caravan! I'd love to spin some happy-chilled out-House tunes while watching the shoppers go by! Can't really play for the crowd though, since I won't be able to see the entire crowd through those small windows! The pictures of the caravan were taken from here.

Quick House Mix Video

I was bored so I decided to put up a quick 10min mix on YouTube. The tracks I chose were from my November '06 Demo. The video is a bit dark but I can't be bothered re-doing it! The tracks in the video are:

1. DJ Freestyle -- Girlz & Boyz
2. Kaskade -- Gonna Make It (Original)
3. Chuck Love -- Soul Symphony feat. Fourfeet (Original)
4. JT Donaldson -- Trust Me (Broadway and Wilson Remix)

Starting Your Own Bar?

So how can someone go about starting their own bar? I had a look around out of curiousity, and found that there are places that can be rented for around AU$60K per year in the CBD for use as bars. Then you'll need a liquor license to be able to serve alcohol, which I think costs around AU$1,300. After that you'll need to get spend on making the bar look appropriate, with couches, lights, DJ equipment, etc. Then finally you can start thinking about hiring staff, getting the promoters and DJs in and running a few nights!

Well at least that's what I think is needed. I'm sure there are hidden difficulties in there that only a bar owner would know! It would be cool to own a bar though -- get a few friends together so you can afford the rent, run your own nights to begin with, and DJ as much as you want! But you'd want to have some very close friends as partners -- you don't want to lose your friendship over business issues! Family members would make better partners I think.

8 Year Old Scratching?

Here's a future DMC World Champ. in the making. An 8 or 9 yr old scratching on the turntables like a pro!!

Frankie Knuckles and Chicago House!!

Here's a video I found on YouTube with an introduction to Chicago House, how it started, where it started, as well as a sneak peak into the home and life of Frankie Knuckles -- one of the founders of house and commonly known as the Godfather of House. The introduction is mostly done by DJ Elbert who has been warming up for Frankie Knuckles for the past 3 years. I'll let the video do all the talking!

Mark Farina MOS Interview - Video

Here's an interview with Mark Farina for the Ministry of Sound CD launch. He talks about how he started DJing at the age of 15 or 16, by hanging around in the DJ booth of a club DJ. He also says how Chicago is an open House genre, which includes minimal, techy, etc., and about how he likes to include a bit of old, a bit of new, something different, deep and some classics in his set, while keeping a good vibe happening throughout. Enjoy!

Cafe del mar

When we went for a dinner last night to my fiance's sister's place, I heard some chilled-out House music playing in the background on the PC of my fiance's bro-in-law. Out of curiousity I asked him what he was playing, and he said it's a compilation called Cafe del Mar. He had pretty much every compilation of their Chill House mixes.

Apparently Cafe del Mar is a real bar in Ibiza, built in 1980, perfectly located near the beach where you can watch the sunset every night, in beautiful scenery, whilst listening to a DJ play very appropriate, chilled-out House music in the background. The bar became popular mainly because of the Chill House compilations released annually, since 1994.

I had a look at the track-listing of the mix that was playing and was surprised to find some really good artists, including one of my favourite tracks at the moment - Trust Me by JT Donaldson. The compilations were mixed by someone named Bruno, and the mixing was pretty average, but the tracks were consistently chilled-out, deep house tunes -- excellent for a sunny Sunday afternoon at a bar!

Coincidentally, my November mix also had a lot of similar tracks to the Cafe del Mar compilation we were listening to, so I downloaded it onto the PC for them to have a listen to later. Here are some other artists in the Cafe del Mar compilations that I was familiar with.

Johnny Fiasco
Julius Papp
Solar House
Roy Davis Jnr
To-Ka Project
Jay J
AlexKid
Ross Couch
JT Donaldson
Collette

Derrick Carter, Melbourne '06 - Video

Derrick Carter, Melbourne '06

After changing my mind a couple of times, eventually I decided to see Carter instead of Chuck Love. Carter played at the Atlantic South Wharf, which was located at the Docklands, but it wasn't the easiest place to find! After driving around the Docklands for about 30 mins I finally managed to stumble into right place.

The venue was perfect! It's located right next to the Yarra, with a small more layed back bar called Alumbra right alongside the main venue, for those after an occasional 'break' from the main act. Lots of nice Buddha statues in the Alumbra made it look very appealing.

Carter was in the main room, which had a large enough area to easily be able to hold 1000. He was supposed to start at 2am but started about 30 mins later (which was good for me as I was late too!), and played a techy/jackin' set, which I thought had a pretty similar beat right throughout. It seemed like most people were just standing around talking and moving their heads than actually dancing. There was a bit of a vibe right infront, but the rest of the crowd didn't look like they were enjoying themselves, including myself! There were a couple of good tracks after 4am, and I heard a couple of backspins and acapellas (e.g. Sexual Healing -- see video), but other than that I couldn't really get myself involved on the dance floor, which was a bit dissapointing. When I saw Carter up-close, I noticed him pitch riding both the turntables and the CDJ1000's with ease, using the eq's well, and I didn't notice any hiccups in his mixing, so he has definitely got some excellent technical skills!!

I was looking forward to catching Clint Hargreaves who was supposed to play at Alumbra next door, but unfortunately, probably because there were fewer people than expected, Alumbra closed before Clint's set.

Overall a bit dissapointed, but I didn't really expect to enjoy the Carter gig as much as a Farina gig anyway, as I prefer the slightly less techier/jacked-up version of House. Some pictures below, and a video coming soon!

Mint Nightclub Brighton

Mint is a very classy and popular bar/nightclub located on the busy Church Street in Brighton. I had the pleasure of playing there last night, and I found myself wondering why I had never been there before. From what I hear from my bro. and his friends, Fridays and Saturdays @ Mint are a full house. For a Wednesday, last night wasn't too bad with a good 50 or so people by 10.30PM. By the time I left at 11.30 it looked like the party was just getting started.

I can see why some of Australia's best DJs (e.g. John Course, Grant Smillie) have played at Mint -- they've got a top-of-the-range DJ setup, including 2xCDJ1000s, 2xTechnics 1200s with Ortofon DJ-S/E carts, a DJM3000 and even a separate 10-or-so band equalizer for that extra control! The DJ booth, like the club, has got plenty of space, and the powerful monitor speaker sits on a stylish silver barrel. There's even a separate silver barrel for the record crate so DJs can look through their crates in style!

"What do they have for us punters?" I hear you say. Well, other than the stylish bar serving some of the best summer cocktails, there's also huge dancefloor, pool table, speakers placed strategically throughout the floor, fancy lasers and even smoke machines. And if the full-house on a Saturday night ever starts making you feel stuffy, go out for a smoke -- Brighton beach is just 2 minutes away!

New Mix -- Soul @ Mint

I've finally managed to get myself to make a new mix after months and months. I'm calling it the Soul at Mint mix, as it was made especially for an Open Decks competition I'm playing at tomorrow (Wed) night, at Mint Nightclub in Brighton. Winner of the comp. gets residency and record vouchers! There's some tough competition though -- the experienced DJ Pound (dj oldfart on ITM) will be playing right after me, and I'm sure there's some other ITM DJs (probably even Mike Jules) that are playing in the coming weeks. But even if I don't win, it's at least it's another venue to add to my list of conquered venues!

Anyway, back to my mix. It's very soulful, so in that way fairly different to my other, more upbeat/"jacking" mixes. The tracklisting is given below, and you can download it from here. It's a 1 hour (70MB) mix.

DJ Freestyle -- Girlz & Boyz
Greenskeepers -- On The Line (Mark Farina Remix)
Kaskade -- Gonna Make It (Original)
Chuck Love -- Soul Symphony feat. Fourfeet (Original)
JT Donaldson -- Trust Me (Broadway and Wilson Remix)
Bryan Jones -- Baby Fever (Original)
Swirl Peepz -- Excuse Me (Original)
Chuck Daniels -- The Get Back
Oliver Desmet & B. Mccarthy -- Disco Dust (Original)
Jay West -- Feelin Sexxy (DJ Freestyle Mix)
Ross couch -- Latin Fusion (Da Sunlounge Mix)
Da Sunlounge -- How Can You Resist?
Town & Country -- Love Could Be (Town Mix)
Natural Rhythm & Trap Groove -- Dancefloor Jazz (Trap Groove Mix)
Herbal Essence 003 -- Disco Inferno

Chuck Love @ Bar Altitude!

One of my most recent faves Chuck Love will be hitting the decks at Bar Altitude in the CBD, on Nov. 24th. Although he's a great producer with some of his tracks (e.g. Soul Symphony and Funky Ass Beat) getting plenty of air-time during my sets, I hear he's equally impressive as a DJ, playing not only on the turntables but also on guitar, flute, trumpet, and a keyboard, all without missing a beat!! I've only heard good things about Mr. Love, so although I'd also love to see Derrick Carter this weekend, considering my financial status at the moment, I think I'll check out Chuck Love instead. Here's the flyer (taken from here).

I Quit!

Last night was my last set at Hush, as I decided to quit. The owner was a bit too much to handle. So although the rest of the staff (management & bar staff) were pretty cool, there's no point in staying there as I really can't put up with the owner.

Besides deciding to quit an hour or so into my set, the remaining 4 hours of my set wasn't too bad really. There were quite a few people at the bar and most of them were chatting and listening to some good House music. My bro. and quite a few of his friends came over too, so it was a nice vibe. Later I started getting a few RnB and commercial House requests, and since it was my last gig there, I decided to give them what they wanted!! I played some cheese for about 30 mins, and while I was packing up to leave, I played an RnB CD that I saw lying around (which happened to be a non-stop mega-mix).

There was an interesting guy who came up to me and started telling me about how I should play music that suits the crowd. But this time, I gave him a good piece of my mind, which included "you want RnB, someone else wants trance, and someone else wants rock -- how do you expect me to meet satisfy everyone's musical tastes", "this is real House music, what you hear on the radio is not, so learn to appreciate it", "House music is not necessarily about packing up a dance floor -- some people like to have a cocktail and listen to some good music. So an empty dance floor doesn't mean people aren't having fun", and "a part of what I'm doing here is trying to educate people on what House music is all about". Any other day I would have kept quiet, but today I realised that I might as well let it all out!

Anyway it turned out to be an interesting conversation in the end. He told me that he knows a bit about House music, and said that he feels that it's all about making the bar your own "house", and treating the bar area like your own kitchen, the fridge like your own fridge, etc., and impressing the people in your "house", with some chilled out music, while they chat to some cocktails on the balcony. A nice thought!

Overall I enjoyed my set. I played a lot of good soulful House (e.g. 'Soul Sympohony' - Chuck Love, 'Gonna make it' - Kaskade, 'Trust me' - JT Donaldson, 'On the line' - Mark Farina remix, 'Baby fever' - Bryan Jones, 'Love could be' - Town and Country) that went well with the vibe and my mood at the time. As far as Sunday Lounge goes, we'll probably start it again at some other bar, sometime soon. Should be fun!!

Free Hosting For MP3 Mixes

After having a look around for a good place to host my MP3 mixes and tracks for free, I came across http://www.orbitfiles.com. The good thing about this service is that they provide 1GB (which is more than enough for 15 one hour MP3 mixes, encoded at 160kbps) of free storage, unlimited file sizes (so uploading that 2 hour mix of yours shouldn't be a problem! But the maximum mix length I've uploaded is 65 minutes), but most importantly, they keep your mix forever, i.e. without deleting it after a month or so like most other services.

Only problem with Orbitfiles is that they don't provide a direct link to your MP3. So you'll have to go to a webpage from where you can download. They do this so that they can advertise on the webpage and make some money out of it. Although having no direct link is fine in most cases, if you want to stream your MP3 file from, say Webjay (which is what I'm using -- see the little MP3 player on the left), you'll have problems, as the Webjay streamer requires a direct link to the MP3. In this case, you can become a paying customer at Orbitfiles, and pay US$10/year (which is very reasonable compared to some other services) to get the direct link, and much more -- including 10GB of storage space!

Dancing To House Music - Video

The following video has some of the best dance moves to House Music that I've ever seen!!



There are at least two more videos that are continuations of the one above. This second clip is more of a documentary on what people think house music is, but has some dancing after around 6 minutes. Go to YouTube for the remaining videos!

DJ Luvvy - Bop [Original] - Unreleased

bop1  /bɒp/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[bop] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, bopped, bop‧ping.

–noun

1.

Also called bebop. early modern jazz developed in the early 1940s and characterized by often dissonant triadic and chromatic chords, fast tempos and eccentric rhythms, intricate melodic lines punctuated by pop-tune phrases, and emphasizing the inventiveness of soloists. Compare cool jazz, hard bop, modern jazz, progressive jazz.

This is my very first House track, made with GarageBand on the Mac, using the samples, drums, etc. provided in the original version of GarageBand. The track has got a groovy (but repetitive!) bass, a few quirks that make it have a slightly west-coast House sound, and fairly hard hitting drums. I preferred slightly softer drums, but GarageBand doesn't seem to have the exact sound I want, or at least I couldn't find it! I might sample drums from tracks I like in the future.

I've decided to call it Bop because most of the song has a short sample of an organ, which sounds like someone's saying 'Bop'! Also, the track has got some eccentric rhythms, like those found in the bebop sounds of the 1940s.

Since it's only my first track, and since I don't really think it's such a good tune, I doubt it's going to end up on a record label, so I'm happy to give it out for free. Also, I'll probably make slight changes to the track, after playing it out a couple of times and based on any feedback I get from others. It also needs to be mastered before it can be played on big sound-systems.

I will be making it available on Download.com sometime in the near future, but until then you can download it from here. Feel free to leave some (positive or negative!) feedback below. You can have a listen to it on little music player on the left.

Beach Party Melbourne!

It's that time once again for the yearly beach party, organised by one of the biggest house-heads in Melbourne, Mr. Jules -- Mike Jules.


The extravaganza will be held on 16th December and has some of Melbourne's finest House DJs lined up, including Matt Promo who recently broke the world record for the longest DJ set (87 hours!). The party will surely be a truly awesome day out in the sun & sand, with some fine House music, right next to the beach!!!

I missed this party last year as it was held on the same day as the Tsunami Fundraiser I had organised, but I'll definitely be going this year. The location is Elwood beach, and a map is shown on the left. The line-up is shown below, more details out soon!!










1-2 little chris
2-3 mike jules + dj luvvy
3-4 cuznmatt
4-5 ben vapid
5-6 matt promo
6-7 ben evans vs blinky
7-8 alex mckenzie
8-9 adrian

If you want to get there by public transport, go to Elsternwick train station, catch bus no. 246 (called "Elsternwick - La Trobe University") from the station, and get off at stop 2. Here's the route map of 246. Stop 2 is right infront of the beach party!

The Weekend

The weekend was a good one, as expected. Stellar Bar saw Clint Hargreaves play a downbeat, funky and groovy House set, that kept everyone's heads bopping the whole time. Sunday Lounge, although quiet, had guest DJ Renee Kuperman, who played an upbeat, vocal, latin-flavoured House set, which was a good change from the layed back tunes that get played usually. Mike played a nice set, finishing it off with some hip-hoppy tracks, and I played mostly new tunes that I bought last week. I also tried out a new track I've been working on (will be available for upload from this website within a week!), and realised that it needs to be mastered properly before it can be played in a big sound system.

Although Clint had told me in the past that he can play a swingy layed back House set if necessary, Friday night was the first time that I actually saw him doing it. Looks like he definitely knew what he was talking about!

Right opposite Hush Bar, during our Sunday Lounge session, there was an under-age party at Barcode. As expected, the pretentious little kids were badly behaved, requiring (at least) 2 bouncers, 3 security guards and 6 police officers to keep them under control. A couple of people were thrown out, and it seemed like the party ended early. No big dramas though, other than a security guard being punched in the face.

House Party + Sunday Lounge = Big Bang

It's a big weekend coming up, with Stellar Bar veteran Clint Hargreaves gracing the decks once more, in what will surely be a tear-jerking set (in a good way of course)! Clint was the first person to start making Stellar Bar the chill-out venue of choice, after which myself (for a short time), Mike Jules and the whole house party crew joined in to make Stellar Bar the house capital of the CBD!

On Sunday, our lounging session at Hush Bar will also be big, with DJ Renee Kuperman coming down all the way from Sydney with a (UDG) bag full of tricks! She'll be playing 8-10, Mike from 6-8 and myself before 6 and possibly after 10.

So if you're into physics and want to know more about the big bang, or just a regular house-head sniffing around for the best tunes, head down to Stellar+Hush bars this weekend! Free entry as always.

Latest Purchases from SubStrata

There's a huge sale on at SubStrata with all items at least 50% off, so I made full use of it. I bought 13 tracks for $110 (including registered post shipping), which comes upto AU$8.50 per record! That's the lowest I've ever payed for brand new vinyl. I picked a couple of gems including Chuck Love's 'Soul Symphony' (which I should have bought a long time ago!) and Kaskade's 'Gonna Make It'. Hope the records reach me by Friday so they can have their first spin on Sunday night!

Childs, Jake - Do You Feel Me: JT Donaldson rmx (12")
Chuck Love - Soul Symphony (12")
Cosy Creatures - Show U The Way (12")
Daniels, Chuck - The Get Back EP (12")
DJ Freestyle - Forest Lake Grooves EP (12")
Fiasco, Johnny - NRG 2 Burn Vol.2 (12")
Hogan, Slater & Chuck Daniels - Stay Tuned (12")
Johnson, Brett & Dave Barker - Silly String (12")
Kaskade - Gonna Make It (12")
Littlemen - A Day In Oakland EP (12")
Saint & Marco Santiago - Igloo #9: Libera Mi Alma (12")
Vernon & DaCosta - Real Food For Pretend Chefs EP (12")
Ward, Shawn - Twilight EP: Fabriani / Jay West rmxs (12")