Archive for the ‘DJ Rap’ Category

Remixes I Forgot I Bought

Monday, February 9th, 2015

Time to clean house with shit I’ve had in my backlog for over a year.

DJ Rap
Good To Be Alive (Johnny Vicious Short Epic Mix)
Good To Be Alive (Johnny Vicious Dub)
Good To Be Alive (Dronez Vocal Mix)
Good To Be Alive (Dronez Dub)
I will be entirely honest and say that I know very little about DJ Rap. I know she’s immensely talented, and that most of her popular work (house/dance music) has little in common with most of her actual work (drum and bass/jungle). I also know that this song was in the film Go, a movie that I have to re-watch someday to see if it has become a wonderful time capsule of the late-90s or a horribly dated Pulp Fiction rip-off. I suspect it is some combination.

Anyway. Yeah, even at the time that I bought this I neither knew much nor cared about DJ Rap. In fact, I don’t even know when I bought this record. I know I recorded it to my computer near the tail-end of 2013, but that just means I recorded it during my marathon recording session in which I digitized every single record in my collection that I hadn’t yet. As the clock was ticking before I packed them all up in storage before my big move to Japan. I suspect I probably had this record in my “to record” pile for over year before I actually recorded it.

Thinking about it now, this record very much serves as an example as how I used to buy records, and serves as a contrast to how I buy music now.

When I was living in Pittsburgh, in a rather large house, I was buying records like no tomorrow. I lived right by Jerry’s Records, the largest vinyl-only record shop in the world, and had vast amounts of disposable income and time (for reasons that I am not getting into).

Turns out that time + money + space = far too many needless purchases. Some of this worked out for the best. I would have never discovered Slow Bongo Floyd, Fay Ray, The Hitmen or countless other forgotten acts if it wasn’t for my nearly indiscriminate record buying habits.

But at the same time, it kind of turned listening to music into a chore. When you buy anywhere between 10 and 30 12″ singles and LPs a week, it doesn’t allow for much time to really absorb music. My turntable became a revolving door, and making the time to actually set aside music to review became increasingly difficult.

Now, with limited space and time, my record buying habits have drastically changed. With rare exception, I find myself buying no more than three or so LPs a day, and they’re usually albums. And my reasons for buying music has changed as well. Before I was often grabbing music solely because I thought it was out-of-print or hard-to-find, making it prime fodder for this blog. That was regardless of whether I thought I would like it or not (this explains why I at one point owned 12 Leather Nun records). Now I actually buy music because I think I’ll like it. I know, a crazy concept. Although I still do buy a hefty amount of records and CDs simply because I think they’re stupid, weird or idiotic, how else would I have bought that Hulk Hogan LP?

But yeah, I did buy this single, and I recorded it. So I guess I should finally share it. So to the one person out there who wants it, enjoy!

The Shamen
Make It Mine (Hilltop Mix)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (Land Of Oz)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (Rude)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (Bang To The Beat)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (Beltram Dub)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (The Bones Break Mastermix)
The Sound Of Pro-Gen (Horns, Guitars, Keyboards, Chorus, Bang, No. 1)
Everything I just said about the DJ Rap single does double here.

 

Posted in DJ Rap, remixes, The Shamen | 1 Comment »

I want to set all the preamps on fire

Thursday, May 23rd, 2013

Okay, so here’s what happened.

A few days ago I wrote a review for Daft Punk’s totally awesome Random Access Memories. As per usual with my uber-geeky reviews, I also went into some detail about the compression of the digital version of the album compared to the vinyl release. Then I went onto say that the vinyl also sounded slightly different, its drums seemed muted, and the bass seemed louder.

I can see what links people clicked on to get to my blog, and I like to do that everyday. It so happened that this review caught on with some people at an audiophile message board. Somewhere there commented that the album doesn’t actually sound like that on vinyl, and that if I had a certain cartridge on my turntable then it would sound better.

Now, I take audiophile comments with a grain of salt, especially when they’re along the lines of “you need this $500 cartridge to really appreciate your music, man.” But I have been unhappy with the quality of my rips for some time now.

This happens every year or so. I get a setup that I think I ‘ll finally be happy with, but then as I listen to more and more music and rip more and more vinyl, I start to pick out imperfections. In this case, I have long suspected that my rips were too, I don’t know how to describe it, muddy, I guess? Like they were muted and muddled a bit. Nothing horrible. I bet 90% of the people who listen to them think they’re fine, but it was bothering me. So I took a little more interest in what this guy had to say.

So then I went to my audiophile message board of choice, Audiokarma and asked about my problem at hand. I even brought audio samples. The people there suggested that I was looking for a more “aggressive” cartridge, and they steered me towards a couple that were much more in my price range. However, one person also suggested that something else could be at fault, that my setup might not be jiving well with my preamp.

Curious, I dug out an old cheap solid state preamp that I bought years ago and hooked it up to my system. Lo and behold, my audio sounded much crisper, the drums were no longer muted, nothing sounded “underwater.” I was happy. For about 20 seconds.

You see, the problem with this preamp is that it sucks. I guess that’s kind of vague, I’ll explain more. It has lousy shielding. it picks up radio frequencies like a motherfucker. If I crank it on full blast I can hear the classic rock station as well as I can my music. Additionally, it has a wicked hum that just never goes away.

So off to Radio Shack I went (yay) to pick up some grounding cable and a ground loop isolator. I figured if one didn’t do the trick the other would.

Hooked up the ground loop isolator, it made things worse.

Tried to hook up a grounding cable, and that presented itself with a whole other heap of problems. See, my turntable has been modified to not need a ground cable hooked up to it. That’s great, however it leaves me nowhere to hook up the ground cable coming out of my preamp. Feeling MacGuvyerish, I tried wrapping one end around a copper pipe in my bathroom (it was a long cable) but that also just made things worse.

So here’s how I stand right now. I have one preamp that gives me no interference, but it sounds like shit. I have another that sounds great, but it’s muddled with interference.

My head kinda wants to explode. Which is bullshit because I have exploding head syndrome so it does that shit already.

I’m looking into some other pre-amps, but this shouldn’t be that hard. I think that if I were able to properly ground my pre-amp then I would at least be able to eliminate the damn hum, and maybe from there I’d figure out a way to get rid of the RFI. Anyone have any suggestions? I keep reading things like “attach it to a three pin plug” but what the hell does that even mean? Wrap it around a three prong power plug? That doesn’t seem like a wise idea. As much as I love audiophile boards, they sure as hell have a hard time explaining the simplest of concepts. In fact, I still don’t entirely understand what a fucking ground loop is, other than that they’re bad and I don’t want them. Is it really such a complex fucking concept to get across?  Argh.

Anyways, I wrote another big thing at Mostly Retro, a guide to Giorgio Moroder’s music. I suspect that if you’re the kind of person who comes to this blog, you already know all there is to know about Moroder, but if you know someone who doesn’t and might be interested, send them my way. I’d appreciate it.

I also started putting “buy at Amazon” links on MR, and whenever you buy something from an affiliate link I get a cut. So hey, maybe check out that article and buy some motherfucking Donna Summer. (There’s also a Donate button there too, just sayin’).

Sigh, I’m fucking exhausted. And I really have nothing to say about tonight’s music other than “I like it a lot,” so enjoy.

DJ Rap
Bad Girl (BT’s Spoken Progenitor Mix)
Bad Girl (Bad Girl Roller Remix)
Bad Girl (BT’s Titanium Dub)

Psykosonik
Panik Kontrol

A Guy Called Gerald
Voodoo Ray (Extended Mix)
Voodoo Ray (Gerald’s Rham On Acid Remix)
Voodoo Ray (Paradise Ballroom Mix)
Voodoo Ray (Penthouse Mix)
Voodoo Ray (Voodoo Raydio Mix)

UPDATE: HOLY SHIT I FIGURED IT OUT AND NOW MY SHIT SOUNDS DOPE AGAIN. I’LL GO INTO DETAIL LATER.

*HIGH FIVES EVERYONE*

Posted in A Guy Called Gerald, DJ Rap, remixes | 5 Comments »

Bad Girls (Run The World)

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

No more grunge for at least a month. I loved writing about that fiasco and it got me a lot of hits, but goddamn it bummed me out.

Let’s dance.

Orbital
One Perfect Sunrise  (Phil Hartnoll Mix)
One Perfect Sunrise (Stereo-8 Remix)
Acid Pants (JDS Mix)
Orbootal
“One Perfect Sunrise” is a song that sounds like its title; beautiful and awe-inspiring, and these two remixes are almost just as great. The Phil Hartnoll mix works pretty well because it isn’t that different than the original, which makes sense considering that Phil is half of Orbital. The Stereo-8 mix is great as well, but it does make the pretty egregious mistake of burying the beautiful vocals away for the first half of the mix. When you have something that hauntingly beautiful, that’s your lead god dammit.

The “Acid Pants” mix is just like the original version of “Acid Pants,” in that it’s incredibly stupid. However, it makes the same mistake as the Stereo-8 mix, it buries the part of the song that makes it interesting: the crazy acid sound doesn’t show up until the song is halfway over. Still, it has the guys from Sparks saying something stupid over and over again, so it’s worth something.

“Orbootal” is a bootleg white-label remix of “Impact” which is a song I have not heard in years, so I really can’t comment on how it’s different. I like it though.

DJ Rap
Everyday Girl (Sneaky Vocal Experience Mix)
Everyday Girl (Rae & Christian Remix)
Bad Girl (Hybrid Remix)
Bad Girl (Num Club Girl Remix)
Bad Girl (Friburn n Urik Remix)
 DJ Rap is an accomplished drum n bass and house DJ. She’s a singer, songwriter, producer, model and actress. She is by far the most successful woman in electronic music. Not only is she a genius, but she’s also tough-as-nails for managing to thrive and succeed in a genre of music that is notoriously known as a boys’ club. Now if someone could just tell me why her name is DJ Rap. I just don’t get that.

“Everyday Girl” is a very good song, but “Bad Girl” is the one I’m going to talk about. Damn, what a track. Not only is it an amazing example of progressive trance (and the Hybrid remix is a must-hear) but it also has some amazing lyrics about sexism and double-standards. How many dance tracks drop the phrase “glass ceiling?” Shit is deep.

Enjoy the enlightenment via trance music. I’ll see you all again before the week is over.

Posted in DJ Rap, Orbital, remixes | No Comments »

Many Miles Away Bigfoot Rocks Out

Monday, April 19th, 2010

I hope everyone enjoyed their Record Store Day and got plenty of nifty neato keen exclusive records. I sure as hell did and in the coming weeks I’ll probably be posting them. Until then here are some especially bitchin’ tracks that I’ve been meaning to share for a while now.

Steppenwolf – Magic Carpet Ride (Steir’s 1999 Ride Club Mix)
DJ Rap – Good To Be Alive (Deep Dish Remix)
Sometimes shit is creepy man. Not a week goes by after I mention how I wish I had a copy of Philip Steir’s remix of Magic Carpet Ride that I find it, on freaking vinyl, in a record store. Not only that, it’s an entirely different remix that’s twice as long as the version that I had on the soundtrack to Go all those years ago. Synchronicity man, Sting was right (had to happen eventually). Somewhere the Loch Ness Monster is getting ready to appear. It’s gonna happen. Or something. Maybe if I keep saying I need a beautiful six foot tall women who likes Gary Numan to show up at my doorstep that’ll happen to. Anyways, the vinyl that I got this from was a 4-track 2×12” sampler for the Go soundtrack that had also had the above remix of the DJ Rap song. Nice bonus. The other two tracks were on the regular CD version so I’m not posting them here.

Spizz
Where’s Captain Kirk (Extended Remix)
I don’t know if Spizz (aka Spizzenrgi aka Spizz Oil aka Athletico Spizz ’80 aka oh c’mon now…) deserved to be star, but he definitely deserved to be a one-hit-wonder. The original version of “Where’ Captain Kirk” remains the best song about Star Trek EVER and one of the best punk rock singles ever put to wax. He was also responsible for one of the strangest 30 second songs ever written “Clock are Big” and he appears in the greatest New Wave concert film ever. The greatness surrounding Spizz abounds.

This extended remix the punk rock track that boldly went where no punk rock track had gone before is not based off the original version, but is instead an extended take of synthed-out version that was recorded in 1987. It’s still great, but not as good as the original. I got this from a 12”.

Posted in DJ Rap, Philip Steir, Spizz, Sting Theories proved correct | 4 Comments »