HELLO MY PEOPLES!!! Very exciting stuff happened this weekend! I’m back from mixing in Palm Beach, Florida and I loved it! It does feel good to be back in the bay tho, new projects are on the rise, my Pro Tools is officially up and running and I can’t wait to see what develops!!

the official weekend wrap up-

On Thursday, I mixed at the Bamboo Hut on Broadway in SF. The set was off the wall, I played some  B-more classics, Soul Seekerz remix of the Ting Tings “That’s Not My Name,” new hip hop from Redman & Method Man “Miss International,” and classic hip hop like Wu-Tang Clans “Shame On a Nigga” just to name a few.  Broadway was definitely in full effect.

Friday night, I played along side Chris Clouse at Fahrenheit Ultra Lounge in Downtown San Jose. . Then I got back on the turntables and pulled out the heat, Fahrenheit was doin it that night for sure!

… and now for some DRUM AND BASS…

If you haven’t heard it yet, I made a Drum and Bass mix called “Instant Gratifikation”. If you love Drum and Bass or if you want to see what it’s all about, you gotta download this mix! Here’s the link:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/624952859ba41f74/

Enjoy!

Last week, I blogged about the song We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off, which has been recently released by both Miami Starfish and Chocolate Party.

One of the commenters of the entry was Billy Mead, and I thought I’d follow-up the post with some revisions.

First, I was pleased to hear that Mead and Simon Langford were still collaborating:

For the record, Simon and I are still *brothers* in almost every sense of the word, and he did a mix of ‘our’ version as the Soul Seekerz.

Great to hear, and I’d missed the Soul Seekerz remix when I was listening to these dualing releases before. As a big fan of Soul Seekerz, I did of course like it, and I’m reconsidering my selection of which version of Clothes Off to play.

As for replacing the MySpace presence of Avalon Superstar with Miami Starfish? Well, that’s simple enough too:

I’m getting lazy in my old age and since I am producing music less than part-time i just couldn’t be bothered to build a new MS page, promote it and find new ‘friends’.

Admittedly, that is a great big “PITA” and understandable. And easy enough to change back when Avalon Superstar have another release.

As for how the track came about:

I really did this as a laugh for my wife who has always loved the original track. I gave it to a few DJs, and got good reactions… so had a few mixes done and are just now getting promos out. I had no idea there was even another version out and really like what they have done. But yeah, you pick one or the other.. not both.

Interesting background, and funny how projects end-up coming together sometimes.

Thanks to Billy Mead for setting the record straight.

at the beginning of last month i posted two Pussycat Dolls tracks, including the indian-influenced Jai Ho, which features A.R. Rahman. the track has now been remixed by both the Soul Seekerz and DJ Fisun, and i must say that the latter is burning hot, – i highly recommend it.

The Original Version
Jai Ho! (ft. A.R. Rahman)

The Remixes
Jai Ho! (Big Kids’ Mardi Gras Reconstruction)
Jai Ho! (DJ Fisun Radio Edit)
Jai Ho! (Soul Seekerz Vocal Mix)

you are my destiny..

My songs are of the day are  both catchy fun songs to get down to!

The first one is Flo Rida’s -’Right Round’ I think it’s set to be the biggest song of 2009 (as of yet)..

The other song is rather old but it’s still got loads of appeal!

It’s Leann Rimes song-’Nothing Better To Do’ (the Soul Seekerz remix)-watch it here

Enjoy the a video and lyrics  ’Right Round’ for below

xx

yours musical madness

I found today the recent remix of the Famous Ting Tings’ song, That’s not my name. A little late from Soul Seekerz but quite good.

The Ting Tings – That’s not my name (Soul seekerz remix)

One bit of weirdness when it comes to the dance music industry is that artist and track names seem to have less relevance than they did at one point, or even today with other genres. My theory is that it’s due to the relative unimportance of the long-form album in dance (few produce them these days, though there are notable exceptions with artists like Moby, ATB, DJ Encore, etc.), and beyond that, that singles tend not only to be the focus, but that they are islands—projects with a start, and a defined end, at which point they’re released, promoted (or not), and the producers and/or vocalists move-on to the next project. Finally, it think it has something to do with the fact that in dance, the original producer, the vocalist (if applicable), and the remixers on a specific project are all islands too… Often times, they come together, they do something, they move-on to other collaborations.

Whatever the cause, it has the rather strange side-effect that talented producers end-up working under numerous aliases, project names, group names and so on much of the time. If you are a fan of a specific individual, it becomes a bit of a challenge to figure out what they’re actually working on at any given moment. (That dance artists in general don’t seem to understand even the most basic aspects of marketing or building brand contributes greatly to this too.)

One of the more talented production teams in my view is UK-based Soul Seekerz, consisting of Simon Langford, Julian Napolitano and Andrew Galea. Napolitano in particular goes under numerous monikers, including One Hit Wonder (with Soul Seekerz partner Simon Langford), Ruff Loaderz (with Sheryl Deane), and Perpetual Motion (with Andy Manston). Langford also has a number of names, including Avalon Superstar (with Billy Mead), and Koishii & Hush (with Alex Sowyrda). I’m sure I could go on… You get the point.

Along with each single being an island, it’s not unusual in dance for an artist to work with several different record labels. Many so-called “record deals” in dance are informal, and usually it’s a singles-focused deal. Gone are the days that many people still think exist, where associating one’s self with a record label is some sort of sweet high-dollar deal with big advances, slick parties, limos and all that. Not anymore. Not in dance anyway, and probably not in today’s broader music industry. And seemingly way more often than not, artists create their own “record labels” to release their tracks, bypassing established labels in an effort to keep as much of the limited take that exists these days as possible.

Which brings me to the real subject of this post: Groove Factory Records.

Scant information is actually available, but as near as I’m able to piece together, this Boston and UK-based record label was started by Simon Langford and Billy Mead for their joint project, Avalon Superstar (which features the vocals of the talented Rita Campbell).

These days, they’ve been taking-on some additional projects that for all I know are just other names for Langford and Mead. This summer, in particular, Groove Factory released a pair of incredibly strong dance tracks.

Loveless feat. Amanda Wilson with Found a Miracle is the one of the pair of songs that’s gained some traction in radio and club play. Wilson’s vocals are, as usual, very strong (she’s a staple of dance, having worked extensively with Freemasons), matched with good songwriting and some sweet production work from the remixers on the project.

The other track I’ve grown attached to is Lisa Law’s Wicked Ways, which was distributed to promotion several weeks ago, but which I haven’t heard being played or seen being charted anywhere outside of my own sets and my own chart. Law is a UK singer-songwriter, and the sole club-length mix is from Soul Seekerz (Langford/Napolitano/Galea again), and is perhaps one of the catchiest pieces of production work I’ve heard in the past few months. The rhythm track is driving and razor-sharp, typical of Soul Seekerz, and the samples and instrumentation used in the arrangement are very well thought out, and well chosen. As a complete track, it represents some of the very best of today’s house music in my view, and it baffles me why this track hasn’t been more widely picked-up. Much to the chagrin of some of my audience, it’s also not available for sale yet through any of the usual suspects; so many people are clamoring to get this song, it’s a shame that Groove Factory are keeping it under wraps for whatever reason.

In any case, it’s clear that Langford and Mead are a very talented, very capable duo. I have no idea what their plans are for Groove Factory, but if they keep cranking out work like their own Avalon Superstar project, Loveless, and the Lisa Law release, I can guarantee they’ll continue to find a strong audience.

The Ting Tings, uno de los grupos revelación de la temporada, reeditan unos de sus primeros eps, Great Dj, con más y mejores remezclas, esta de Soul Seekerz es especialmente buena a mi por lo menos es de las que me puede arreglar una tarde, y más de un lunes como este que ha empezado tan mal pero se va arreglando, se va arreglando, a ver si un great dj de verdad me la pincha aunque sea de vez en cuando!!!!

The Ting Tings – Great Dj (Soul Seekerz Rmx radio edit)

So Bank Holiday Monday, let’s be honest we all just want to sit in the sunshine and drink yes? Well, it isn’t really very sunny so I reckon the following songs will brighten your day:

Estelle – American Boy (Soul Seekerz Remix)
Sebastian Tellier – Divine (Danger Remix)
Cut Copy – Future (Chromeo Remix)
Adele – Cold Shoulder (Basement Jaxx Remix)
No Wow – MSTRKRFT

So now I have no commitments in the World, I’ll be updating a lot more. Lucky you.