DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs 2006

DJ Mag has released the TOP 100 DJs (according to 217,000+ votes from their readers). Like the 2005 results, Mark Farina is nowhere in the top 100 for 2006, although he was no. 100 in 2004, no. 79 in 2003, no. 73 in 2002 and no. 57 in 2001. Is this an indication as to where Underground House music is going? If so, it's truly going underground.

I feel a bit of comfort in seeing a house DJ: DJ Dan as no. 5 this year, although he plays harder electro-ish styles of house compared to the chilled-out Mark Farina. Tiesto has gone down to third place this year, and Paul Van Dyk remains first once more.

Here are the results, taken from this website:

1. PAUL VAN DYK – Non-Mover – Highest Trance DJ
2. ARMIN VAN BUUREN – Up 1
3. TIESTO – Down 1
4. CHRISTOPHER LAWRENCE – Up 10
5. DJ DAN – UP 19 – Highest House DJ
6. FERRY CORSTEN – Down 1
7. SASHA – Down 3 – Highest Prog DJ
8. JOHN DIGWEED – Down 2
9. ABOVE & BEYOND – Up 10
10. DEEP DISH – Down 2


11. CARL COX – Down 1 – Highest Techno DJ
12. INFECTED MUSHROOM – Up 14
13. ATB – Down 4
14. PAUL OAKENFOLD – Down 3
15. HERNAN CATTANEO – Down 8
16. JUDGE JULES – Down 1
17. EDDIE HALLIWELL – Non-Mover
18. MARCO V – Down 2
19. MARKUS SCHULZ – Up 2
20. GABRIEL & DRESDEN – Up 9

21. JAMES ZABIELA – Down 8
22. JOHN ACQUAVIVA – Highest New Entry
23. FLASH BROTHERS – Up 43 – Highest Climbers
24. AMADEUS – New Entry
25. ERICK MORILLO – Down 7
26. BENNY BENASSI – Down 4
27. SANDER KLEINENBERG – Down 7
28. DJ YAHEL – Up 17
29. OFFER NISIM – New Entry
30. ANDY MOOR – Up 16

31. DAVID GUETTA – Up 8
32. SANDER VAN DOORN – New Entry
33. RICHIE HAWTIN – Down 21
34. GARETH EMERY – New Entry
35. PHIL KIERAN – New Entry
36. NICK WARREN – Down 1
37. DJ SKAZI – New Entry
38. STEVE LAWLER – Down 8
39. D-FORMATION – New Entry
40. RICKY STONE – Up 8

41. ASTRIX – Up 34
42. ROGER SANCHEZ – Down 15
43. BAD BOY BILL – Down 1
44. SVEN VATH – Down 21
45. THRILLSEEKERS – Re-Entry
46. DONALD GLAUDE – Up 22
47. DJ VIBE – Down 7
48. KYAU VS ALBERT – New Entry
49. CHRIS LIEBING – Down 16
50. TIGA – Down 6

51. MATT DAREY – Up 40
52. BOB SINCLAR – New Entry
53. JAMES HOLDEN – Down 16
54. LANGE – New Entry
55. WRECKED MACHINES – New Entry
56. DION MAVATH – New Entry
57. PETE TONG – Down 8
58. DANNY TENAGLIA – Down 22
59. GEORGE ACOSTA – New Entry
60. BLANK & JONES – Down 29

61. DJ SAMMY – Up 31
62. JOACHIM GARAUD – New Entry
63. TIMO MAAS – Down 11
64. MATT HARDWICK – Down 6
65. FRANK TRAX – Down 14
66. STEVE ANGELLO – New Entry
67. DANNY HOWELLS – Down 42
68. SIMON POSFORD – New Entry
69. JOHN GRAHAM – New Entry
70. DESYN MASIELLO – Down 16

71. MAURO PICOTTO – Down 43
72. MENNO DE JONG – New Entry
73. BT – Up 9
74. SCOTT K – New Entry
75. TALL PAUL – Down 32
76. M.I.K.E PUSH – Up 1
77. FILO & PERI – New Entry
78. DJ TARKAN – New Entry
79. ANDERSON NOISE – New Entry
80. FATBOY SLIM – Down 17

81. DJ SERGE DEVANT – New Entry
82. DJ UMEK – Down 3
83. VICTOR CALDERONE – Down 28
84. DARUDE – Re-Entry
85. FERGIE – Down 25
86. TALLA 2 XLC – New Entry
87. RONSKI SPEED – Re-Entry
88. LEE BURRIDGE – Down 12
89. MARIO PIU – Down 51
90. AXEL KARAKASIS – New Entry

91. STEVE PORTER – New Entry
92. YOJI BIOMEHANIKA – Down 60
93. AXWELL – New Entry
94. STANTON WARRIORS – Re-Entry
95. DAVE SEAMAN – Down 26
96. ROBBIE RIVERA – New Entry
97. ANDY C – Down 27
98. AGNELLI & NELSON – New Entry
99. LISA LASHES – Down 43
100. DAVE CLARKE – Down 64

Isn't It Ironic?

I didn't end up playing at Hush Bar last night because I had a lot of other things to do, and I didn't think anyone would come to see me play, as I didn't send out reminders, and no one gave me any advanced notice (via SMS/Email) that they'll be coming.

But out of all the Sundays that I've played there, my bro. two friends decide to choose last night, to come over and give me a surprise visit! My bro. had come all the way from home by tram, and my friends were in the neighbourhood so they popped in. But since I wasn't there, they had just turned around and left!

It's funny how they picked last night instead of the 16 or so Sundays that I have played there. What are the chances of that happening?!

House Music Production with GarageBand

I tried out GarageBand on the Mac last night. The interface was very intuitive, and it became obvious what the steps needed for making a track were, after messing around with it a bit. There are a lot of samples already provided, ranging from Deep House beats, to 70's Pop beats, to Latin Organs, etc., which provides a good place to start. You can choose a beat and modify it with the drum sounds of your choice, to get, (say) the West Coast House sounds. You can then add the bass, vocals, etc. as layers on top of the beat, to slowly build up your track.

Some of the samples they provide can't be modified though. These have a different icon to the ones that can be modified, so you won't any waste time selecting samples that can't be modified.

I ended up making a basic beat by listening to a House track, and then trying to copy it. It only worked to a certain extent, as it was difficult to reproduce the more subtle instruments. Next on my list is to try and reproduce the Joey Youngman beat!

GarageBand is free, but it comes with the Mac, so if you're not using a Mac I'd suggest another free program MadTracker. Although I haven't personally used it (I did download and play with it, but it was not as easy as GarageBand to get started with), a friend of mine has, and he has made some really nice House tracks with it. Check out his tracks here, and maybe leave some feedback!

Vinyl Recording Machines

Imagine being able to put your own tracks on vinyl records and sell them off to record stores! Well, it's possible if you get yourself one of these vinyl pressing machines/vinyl recorders. They cost around AU$5,300 to buy from Europe, excluding accessories (mixer, amp etc.). Each vinyl record will cost about AU$7 from Europe, if you buy them in lots of 10.

Even if you don't produce, it'll be cool to be able to download a track from www.beatport.com, and press it onto vinyl to take to your gigs! But of course the artist/song names will have to be handwritten, and the covers won't have any art on them, but you'd still be able to play the track on vinyl, instead of a boring old CD. Or maybe even start a small business pressing vinyl for up-n-coming producers?

OK, maybe I'm going a tad overboard here. I may be a vinyl-purist, but I'm not stupid. Anyhow, check out www.vinylrecorder.com for all the details!

House Party @ Stellar Bar

Just got back from the House Party @ Stellar Bar, so here are some pics! The deejays in the pics are Mike Jules (white stripe on black t-shirt), Luke J Sammut (with mic), Dan Sal (light blue t-shirt), Rob Wu (brownish jumper) and Byron Foxx (black jumper on white shirt). Some fine tunes, good vibes and a packed house it was!

Hush Bar Melbourne Central

Being located right inside the busy Melbourne Central, Hush Bar provides a convenient place for relaxing after a meal, having a couple of drinks before a movie, or breathing some fresh air after a busy day of shopping. That's right, fresh air straight from a large third floor balcony, that also provides plenty of space to move around, plenty of seats to have a smoke, and beautiful scenery of some of the city skyline. This summer will see the balcony area being used to host BBQs, while the DJs pump some summery tunes from inside!

The Hush Bar interior is lavish, with red and brown leather seats, comfy couches, fireplaces, TVs, a projector and a very stylish and sophisticated bar, serving every drink in above average-sized glasses! A separate seating area allows people to chat the night away, and the large dancefloor allows the rest to dance the night away. With a good soundsystem and fancy lighting, Hush Bar has got what it takes to give you a nightclub experience.

Latest News From Other House-Heads

Keep an eye on this page -- it contains a summary of the 5 most recent blog posts from other (interesting and blog-updating) Australia-based House-heads! If you want to know what's happening House-wise around Australia, this is the page to be!

If you're interested in any of the posts, simply click on the title and you'll be taken to the full post.

Latest addition - DJ Pound.

Melbourne

Other States

Joey Youngman, San Simeon, CA [Video]

While I'm on a YouTube video review frenzy, why don't I review this one too. This is another short video, this time of Joey Youngman, one of my favourite producers and DJs, playing some jacking house tunes at some club in California. The video was from earlier this year -- probably some time in Jan. There's another video clip of the same gig here.

He's playing Bryan Jones' Chicago Jack (Sound Republic Remix) (not his own remix!) and mixing into another track towards the end of the video. The setup is 2xTechnics, a DJM 500/1000 and two CD players (probably a Denon/ Numark/ Pioneer). And like in Farina's gig (two posts ago), the monitor speaker is on the left.

Good to see him making his funky moves -- (better than the rest of the dancers in this crowd!) and pitch riding with his right hand, on the left turntable, while his other hand is nowhere to be seen (it's probably on the mixer). Reminds me of his gig at FFour last year when he was pitch riding with both hands!

Exporting Blogger to ITM!

ITM provides a free blog for members, so I decided to do something similar to what I did when I exported www.djluvvy.net to Myspace. Unlike Myspace, the ITM blog template allows JavaScript, Frames and PHP, so the process of integrating www.djluvvy.net into my ITM blog was much easier.

Basically, I found an awesome site called RSS-Info which asks you to type in your RSS feed URL, and it then generates an RSS feed reader in the language of your choice (i.e. JavaScript, PHP or iFrames). You then copy and paste the code to your ITM blog template (or any website), and you get live RSS feeds delivered directly to your website!! So now, my ITM blog gets content directly from www.djluvvy.net. You can even customise the look and feel of your RSS feed so it matches your website/blog. When you click on titles from the ITM blog, you are taken to the corresponding post at www.djluvvy.net (although no one really needs to click on titles in the ITM blog, as the full content of each post will be shown anyway). Here are a few pic of what my ITM blog looks like!

One of the main problems with reading RSS feeds is that, the content is not necessarily shown by the date on which the initial post was made. E.g. I had to re-post some of my older posts (see the 'Dinner Plain Hotel video' in the above pic) last night to include them in an extra category called 'Videos', but the RSS reader thinks that this old post was recent -- i.e. it doesn't look at the actual date of the post in blogger.

Mark Farina @ Ohm Video

Here's a 30 second video clip of Mark Farina @ Ohm Nightclub in Portland U.S.A. (supposed to be the best House club in Portland). The video is of Farina's gig from last Friday. I like this video because it's a close-up, and it shows Farina messing around with the mixer when he's right in the middle of a mix.

The DJ setup is CDJ 1000's, Technics 1200s, and one very complex looking mixer! Looks like it's got 4 channels, and a hell of a lot of buttons! I'm dreading the day I go to a gig and get confronted with a mixer like that!! FFour in Melbourne is the only venue I've been to that has a complex looking mixer like the one in the video (FFour I think has got a Stanton/Vestax).

As usual Farina is moving to the groove! He's playing a track on the right CD player in the beginning, and then introduces a track with vocals from the left CD player, by cutting off the bass in the track on the right, and increasing the volume control on the left channel. And this whole time his left hand is riding the CD player's pitch! It's also interesting to see that his monitoring ear is the right ear and not the left (so the monitor speaker should be on the left -- which I think is pretty standard in the U.S.), and the headphones are firmly stuck to his head the whole time, except for a few quick flicks to the left ear.

Hmmm...it's amazing how much you can learn by watching just 30 seconds of Farina!