Paused Tones

Got a case of Miller and I’m ready to get drunk enough to accidentally blow my arm off!

Nothing really to talk about today because to be honest I’m tired as shit. The wife is sick as a dog and I’m pretty sure that I am as well. Damn you flu. All I have to do now is chill and watch some family get murdered brutally in Funny Games.

I did recently rediscover The Oblique Strategies that were created back in 1975 by Brian Eno (can you believe he’s producing Coldplay now?) and Peter Schmidt. Their meant to be these guides to breaking some creative blocks that you might have during the day. I’m finding their great for when you hit a road block when producing music in general but can be applied to a huge amount of things.

I stumbled onto a site thought that gives you a random Strategy whenever you click the button so now everyone can experience the magic.

http://tools.blackhat-seo.com/strategies/

Try it out. See what things it helps you with.

Today I think I had the most pointless conversation that I’ve ever had. With that said, a simple question.

If you were a celebrity would you try to borrow stuff from your fans?

Lets phrase it differently.

A knock at the door, you go and answer it and there she is. Camron Diaz. The first thing she says is “Hey, I know this may sound weird but my alarm clock broke and I was wondering if I could borrow yours?”

What do you do! WHAT DO YOU DO?!?

Would you let Justin Timberlake borrow some socks?

What about Jessica Alba borrowing your weedwacker?

If I were a celebrity I’d be borrowing all of your shit.

Now as for selling out. About a month ago I DJed a friend’s retirement. I played nothing but 80s rock, synth pop, and 90s Rap (That girl is poisooooonnnn). The venue I played at offered me a job playing the same type of music for about a hundred a night, which in the scheme of it all isn’t really much but it is a little bit of money to go toward paying for all the crazy about of records that I’ve bought over the years.

This is the first time that I’ve ever compromised the music I enjoy playing though and deep down this kinda bothers me. It’s also the first time I’ve had to put myself out there as a musical jukebox. Just playing the obvious tunes to make people happy. Normally when you play as a electronic music or club music dj you get looked at as a performer. An artist. This steady gig makes me feel like a employee.

The real reason this manages to get to me is because of a certain DJ that I knew in Virginia who had sold his soul to the music devils to basically play top 40. He despised his audience, hated the music he played, hated the bar, and before you knew it he was just a bitter old man who completely lost shit playing crap music for crap people and it’s a road that I don’t even want to head down.

But here I am, tomorrow playing the first sell out gig of my life. Fuck.

So I’ve really got nothing new to write about. Slow to update my blog like normal.

First up is Metro Station’s self titled album. The only reason that I’m aware of this band to begin with is due to seeing them in concert at an all ages show at Nuemos in Seattle. A friend invited me because he had a extra ticket so the wife and I went out to see them play along with a few other bands. The band was alright, the women (girls) were enjoying them enough though. Last week though I picked up their album for the wife and gave it a listen myself.

Honestly, this album is like a pop music overdose. Song after song of teen pop garbage. Their going to be huge. If I’m being really specific, this album is way too clean sounding. The electronic beats that sound like a poor man’s Panic! At The Disco could be improved with just a little bit of grime added to them. But without it, the album fails to pull it’s self out of it’s boring teen pop hole. Lyrically, the tracks read like a 14 year old trying to be sexy for the first time. It’s not going to stop songs like Shake It & Disco from being blasted out of your kid sisters bedroom though.

3/10 - When all is said and done, there’s nothing original, innovative, or particularly interesting being done here. Still, if you are a sucker for pop music there might be something for you in here, just know there’s much better synth pop out there.

Now as for Santogold’s latest, this album is a joy to listen to. I’ve been keeping a eye on her since first hearing her on Lindsay Lohan’s Revenge a year or so ago. Hilarious. This album is fun and perfect for jamming out to on a summer day. Productions come from Diplo, Switch, and one from the late Disco D. as well. The works M.I.A. spring to mind but this album feels more focused and a little less bound for the club. The sole weak point comes from a remix of You’ll Find A Way by Switch and Sinden which closes out the album and is quite frankly the worst thing I’ve ever heard Switch do.

8/10 - Great album, easy to digest, and fun to listen to. Pop album of the summer.

For your listening pleasure. My set from Broken Disco last month.

thegooglybrokendisco

Tracklisting

1) Whatever track of Jake J’s I Mixed Out Of
2) Glimpse & Matt Tolfrey - Misunderstood [Glimpse]
3) Laurie Anderson - Oh Superman (M.A.N.D.Y. Remix) [White]
4) Canvas - The Cat [Rebelone]
5) Force Of Nature - Sequencer (Stefan Goldmann Macro Version) [Mule Musiq]
6) Fred Everything - Friday (Trentemoller Mix) [Lazy Days Recordings]
7) Claude Vonstroke - Beware Of The Bird [Dirty Bird]
Trulz & Robin - Rubber Love [Snick Snack Music]
9) Djinxx & Xpansul - Spanish Kebab [Ovum Recordings]
10) Friendly People - Cap’N Can’t Get Right [Cyclical Tracks]
11) Wighnomy Brothers - Pele Bloss [Freude Am Tanzen]
12) Danton Eeprom - Confessions Of An English Opium Eater [Infine]
13) Adultnapper - Maxwell’s Demon (Alexi Delano Remix) [Ransom Note US]

Thanks for listening.

Ok, so I have to admit that I really don’t know much about Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds except that for the better part of this week I’ve been pretty obsessed. Between the guitars of his Grinderman album and the overwhelming greatness of Dig! Lazarus, DIg! Both of these albums are worth checking out. I’m really feeling the Grinderman album in particular with songs like No Pussy Blues. Rock N Roll muthafuckas!

I wish I could say that I’ve known him from something cooler, but the first time I heard him was on Johnny Cash’s cover of Hank William’s I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. I’ve moved on since, becoming obsessed with the song Straight To You In Particular.

I personally think that if I could have any artists career than I would have to choose his. Being able to make relevant and important songs for 2 decades, look like a fucking pimp, and have woken up next to PJ Harvey in the morning. Nice.

First up here’s a new track that I finished. This is a early version but I forgot to save the file after I exported so I’m afraid it’ll never sound quite like this version again. Bellow is the download link for Almost by The Paused.

Almost

Other than that it’s been crazy busy just finishing up moving. Were finally moved in and stealing internet from our neighbors just like we should. Plus I’ve managed do deck the basement out pretty well.

On the music front there really hasn’t been much going on for me either. I’ve been listening to the Arcade Fire like crazy. I did get the Mark Farina Fabric in the mail today which is pretty good so far. I’m not the biggest fan of labels like OM but sometimes the house music really does it for me. All things said, Mark Farina is very good at what he does. I prefer him much more in DJ mode than I do in his Mushroom Jazz guise.

Sleepy, I’ll have more to talk about tomorrow.

Here’s a pretty cool music video that I saw floating through RA.

Hilarious. Had to share.

Nothing new today. I finally signed the last bit of paperwork for the house I’m buying and I’ll be getting the keys to it tomorrow. Yay for me. Here’s a pic.

Getting this is the end of a lot of stress. The place is all packed up and I’m not as… err… fumbling around the internet as normal today. So nothing really new to report on that point of my life. Other than that I’ve just been playing with Ableton Live 7 constantly. I’ve been able to get a lot of hints on productions from some of the music magazines that come out all the time to start really improving on exactly how I’m using the program. The Akai MPD24 is really helping out in that department as well. I’ve almost got the finishing touches on a track that I’ll be posting soon. I just have to make sure that I like it before I put it up.

It was kind of weird today because I had to watch a friend of mine retire from the Navy today. It was kind of striking to me that after 20 years of service to the Navy that all he really got was a small award that he had already received 6 times and a little bit of a goodbye from us. It’s cool though because we’re throwing him a retirement party this Saturday (with your truly DJing all the 80s rock classics). I’ve found that there are a lot of Blue Shirts that get shit on when it comes to retirement because of the extra effort that people have to go through. I’ve got a buddy down in Florida that never received his retirement flag because a certain person didn’t like him enough to file the paper work. I just hope that things go ok for him when he gets out. He helped me out of a weird situation about a year ago and just want him and his wife to get out and be happy.

Being sappy.

Here’s some Navy videos that make me laugh, nice to share them. For those in the military you will find these pretty funny. If your not in the military, well…. prepare to be confused.

Really busy this week packing up the apartment to move into the new house. I figured I’d pop on and share this video from Booka Shade talking about their new album. Worth watching if your fans of their music. Check it out.