my friend wanted this song. maybe you do too?
love yall
-j
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Dreams and a Little More Obama Love
Last night I had a dream where I was participating in an episode of Law and Order. The case to be solved had to deal with Arthur Russell's death. The ace detective squad somehow decided that he didn't die of AIDS, but that he was murdered, and there were clues in his lyrics leading to the killer.
"Hiding You Present From You" was somehow crucial to the plot development of the dream. I believe I was looking around a prison cell for clues while it played dramatically in the background.
In other dream news, a few nights ago I had a dream where I was DJing and I woke up matching the beat of the song in my dream with the clicking rhythm of my ceiling fan.
In much more interesting news, look who Obama is chilling with.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Amazing GZA Freestyle
GZA's flow is serious.
Funny him flowing over 50's beat after the whole diss thing. At a concert some fans kinda egged GZA on, and GZA started saying 50 cent doesn't have talent. In retaliation, 50 Cent accuses him of rhyming like a scientist and says no one ever understands what GZA is rapping about.
we got hats, shurts, Jackets, whatever you need mang
Green and yellow and white are the money gang colors man, if you ain't never read the money gang colors you know what I'm sayin'.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Summer Jam!
Click Estelle's purty face for a little edit I made a few days ago. Props to Shoes on the great Crazy in Love edit that I totally jacked and put Estelle & Kanye over.
Birds of Cañada
we drove to south san francisco to pick up a used SP303 and within an hour figured out that the best way to use this simple piece of machinery was to just patch its output directly back into its input. this creates a feedback loop whenever you use the external input or try to sample something. you can then apply effects and adjust multiple stages of gain to sculpt the feedback into something else entirely.
BEHOLD
Birds Of Canada Forever - a video by the REAL Kyle Spratt, Maxitron, and El Jeffe.
manythanks to manybirds of texas.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Second Night Out in Boulder
Much more successful.
Roommate #1 and I headed to a karaoki bar called the Dark Horse. Incredibly unpretentious western themed bar that had some sort of a circle fetish. There were wheels of many different shapes and sizes behind the bar, spinning by the power of some "dark horse" or perhaps a motor. Also the ceiling was lined with parts from old carriages, completely the wheel aesthetic.
I sang a feverish rendition of Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground and somehow got drunk for free. I also performed a slow midi-ed out version of Try a Little Tenderness by Otis Redding. I was really planning on singing the live Monterrey Pop Festival version, where he really rips into it, but the tempo never sped up. I kinda ignored that fact though and did pretty much the same adlibs he did in Monterrey (basically running out of breath on the chorus and shouting got got got got got and now now now), just at an incredibly drawn out tempo.
There were a few scene looking kids watching me and cheering me on for the Otis song and I talked to one of them afterwards. He was wearing a black jacket with rhinestones in the shape of a space shuttle so I asked him if he was into electro music. He said no, he was just into outer space, but he could see how I'd say that. He's in a garage rock band around these parts called Happy Jawbone Family Band that is actually fucking good. I'm curious to spend some time with this guy.
Afterwards we went to a place called The Foundry which was kind of confused about whether it wanted to be a pool hall of the Thursday night spot for your scantily clad college skank. It was a sprawling place, probably 10 pool tables and an adequate raised dance floor, in addition to a rooftop patio that was pretty sweet. The DJ was playing the hits. He definitely mixed One More Time by Daft Punk into Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back into Salt n Pepa's Push It. So no brainer-generic party DJing. People were eating it up, to be expected.
Afterwards I grabbed a gyro and hit the sack. A much better night than the last.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
First Night Out in Boulder
Last night I went to Boulder's only dance club by myself. It is really more of a wine bar with one big back room of about 150 person capacity where they throw shows. It is closing down and reopening under new management. This was it's last night. It's called Trilogy.
It was a fairly awkward experience. I don't usually go to clubs or bars by myself. The crowd was mid twenties to late thirties, well dressed, with a few wallpaper hoodies and fresh-stickered baseball caps thrown in. Also a lot of dreadlocks. People in Boulder love dreadlocks.
There was a front and back room. The front had a black DJ, maybe 30 years old, playing hip-hop sure shots with a bit of an old school tinge.
I was smoking a cigarette outside when he came and asked me for one. I didn't know he was the DJ. I started up conversation complementing the DJ. He played Move the Crowd by Rakim and also a song that used the beat from another Rakim song, Microphone Fiend. He ripped the filter off of my cigarette before he smoked it.
I tried dancing by myself, kinda dancing with a girl. Ordered a whiskey and coke. Smoked another cigarette. It had started to rain, so the handful of smokers were in close quarters under the bar's awning. I said hello to a woman next to me, asked her name, she gave it, Michelle. Then she immediately started making out with the guy standing next to me. The three of us were all shoulder to shoulder at this point. It was pretty hilarious.
In the back room there was a DJ playing some trancy drum and bass stuff off Ableton Live while another guy did projections. On the stage a woman danced with a hula hoop that had a bunch of LCD lights woven around it.
I don't really understand music like that. I never have. I don't even really know what to call it, I'm probably way off using saying drum and bass. Minimal drum and bass maybe. I don't understand people who dance to it. I'm starting to understand house music as a consequence of reading a book on disco (Love Saves the Day, check it out) but this type of music is so far removed from groove and melody, so cold and synthetic.
As I describe it, I think to myself "Hmm, music like that could sound cool." But to succeed in that sort of endeavor requires understanding the absence of these elements and controlling the sense of space in the music, giving the listener a shadow of these essential musical pieces so as to fill in the gaps themselves. This shit just sounds like there's something missing. And I paid 5 bucks to hear it. At least I got to see some drugged out bitch on stage twirling a hula hoop.
I started another conversation with a girl and it wasn't very successful. I left the bar and walked half a mile in the rain before realizing I was heading the wrong direction to my car.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
El Jeffe and friends - An Art Affair
video from our noise / jam set at some art thing that happened at stanford back in april. 7 minutes might be long for a youtubes, but the dynamics in this thing really take off.
props to cole, max, turner and michael. max broke the bass drum but we anticipated that.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Pre-Summer Jams!
Pre-summer james.
P.S. According to Wikipedia, Ryan Leslie graduated from Harvard at 19. W. T. F.
college radio tour 2K8
Hey there! Im in Chapel Hill. As of this moment, I have visited 4 college radio stations: Florida State's in Tallahassee, SCAD (Savannah School of Art and Design)'s in Georgia, North Carolina State's, and North Carolina's. Tomorrow I am going to try and make it to Duke's in Durham, although a physical address is not on their website (grr...). So yeah. Its been really interesting seeing the different stations, and how they work and what is different about each one. It would really be helpful for each station to know better how their station is run vs. how other stations are run, and it would be really helpful for small touring acts to understand how the different stations are run, and how to get their music played on the radio.
I'm going to compile something about each of the stations I visit when this whole tour is over...more later. Also, I think whenever Austin bands go on tour, they should get 10 of each of their friend's bands CDs to give out to college radio stations in person...but more on this idea later, too.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Mountain Mix #1
Stream it!
Mountain Mix #1
30minutes54seconds
James Pants – Rhythm Track #6
Greg Wilson – Chocolate Factor
De la Soul – The Magic Number
Bar-Kays – Montego Bay
Orlando Riva Sound – Moonboots
The Strikers – Body Music (Instrumental)
Hercules & Love Affair – Blind (Frankie Knuckles Remix)
Metro Area – Read My Mind
Tek Box – Move Your Hips
Prince – I Wanna Be Your Lover (Mystery Monterrey House Remix)
Matthew Dear – Deserter (Four Tet Remix)
Stream it! 
Sunday, May 11, 2008
AEM-100i Test
By Jeff's request, here's a little sample of what the effects on my mixer sound like.
http://www.zshare.net/audio/11887042c3c342e3
You can find more information about the mixer here:
http://www.audioinnovate.com/index.php?iframe=home.html
Monday, May 5, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
This is me oaousdghlajsdngaj
From the lack of quality control department, run by the symmetrical blogging department, an announcement:
I'm going to get wasted tonight.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
