TIMING IS EVERYTHING. CURRENTLY, I'M WRITING TO YOU FROM THE NORTHWEST FACE OF LOBUCHE FAR EAST, A SMALL MOUNTAIN IN KHUMBU, NEPAL. IT'S VERY WINDY UP HERE, WHICH IS WHY I HAVE TO TYPE LIKE THIS. ANYWAY, THIS MIX IS ABOUT TIMING AND HUMANNESS AND RECORDS AND COMPUTERS AND MUSIC.
Of course, the actuality of things is that it's 1:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, and I'm laying across the loveseat in the front room after having spent a half hour slowly and painfully extricating myself and the laptop from the bedroom, after having spent the hour and a half before that writhing around in post-cycling accident, cramped tendo calcaneus agony, trying to simultaneously focus on my breathing, shift to a semi-comfortable position (there wasn't one) and not wake T., whose weekday rise time is now 6:15 a.m., (with a kickass new job to make it worthwhile).
But back to the bike accident. If my rear axle hadn't broken on Friday night on the way to work, I most likely wouldn't have taken my ride in to have it repaired and tuned up. If the most competent Mike at Newson's Bike and Skate hadn't tightened up my brakes, I probably would not have slammed on them in time to safely roll off said ride as it was rapidly being pushed to the curb by a car that swung a hard right on a green, sans signal. The driver was apologetic, I ended up bruised in a few places (no breaks – the now herb-quelled pain was simply cramping and stiffness that accompanied the ½ hour of sleep I'm guessing I nabbed earlier), and hopefully in Mike's skilled hands I'll get away with just needing to have my front wheel trued.
Timing. I make mention of this often to others, that when recording a mix, I always endeavour to recreate that 'live' experience - that of going completely off the rails in a hazy, dark, sweaty concrete box at some ungodly hour where strangely enough, given the right combination of audience, sonic messengers and substance (in complete fairness, anything from clean air to the more illicit fare), the concept of time can appear to vanish altogether. Having experienced playing both the bedroom and the big room, I can understand how difficult it can be for many neophyte DJs to come up with mixes that express something more than “these are a bunch of tracks I like that I think fit well together” - it can never really be proven how well they do fit until you obtain the opportunity to try to get someone other than yourself to dance to them.
If I could proffer one piece of advice regarding getting-out-of-the-bedroom DJing, it would be that programming is a huge aspect of the craft – MASSIVE (back on Lobuche Far East for a second...) Rely too much on what's hot, what everyone else is caning for the next 24 hours, and you'll quickly find yourself swallowed up in a sea of vacuous intellectualism and baseless one-upmanship – have fun sloughing your way to the mushy middle. When heart-centred, DJing is a deep, visceral expression of the self – the best of the best convey the sum of their personalities and experience each and every time they step up. In my ideal world, that's how it would be for everyone – powerful, moving stories, void of trendy superficiality and profit-minded motivation.
So, back to timing. If I hadn't been born in '69, I wouldn't have been a teenager when my friend POA bought his vinyl copy of Funky Alternatives 1 (peep Discogs, peeps...), and I probably wouldn't have ended up securing my second copy (the first having been left behind, somewhere) of this absolutely deadly compilation LP a couple of years back when DJ Iain (of Toronto's Lizard Lounge – I took over the club's 'Sex on Sundays' residency in 1990, when he gave it up after several years at the helm) cleared out about 6,000 pieces from his old collection.
And if I hadn't purchased that record, I wouldn't have dropped the instrumental version of Colourbox's 'Manic' somewhere in the first third of this mix, distractedly off-beat, with a couple of seconds of fruitless salvage effort before I bailed on it. And timing is such that in all likelihood, 6 months ago, when I was feeling less than confident about my own sense of timing in regard to most aspects of my life, I would have used that DJ-dreaded shoes-in-the-dryer moment as an excuse to not put out what's actually an otherwise pretty tasty, burn-through-twenty-platters-in-under-an-hour ride, if I don't say so myself.* I play vinyl, I play all of what I own and am no longer enslaved by trends and mindless consumption, I work quickly, improvise and take huge chances, believing the the end result will be fruitful – more often than not, I'm finding that as long as that
GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD AND INTO YOUR BODY
CHALLENGE YOURSELF
LOSE YOURSELF
SURPRISE YOURSELF!
spontaneity is in full effect, occasional glaring -ups in a mix merely serve as a reminder that there's a real human being at work and play, actively seeking to convey the sum of their personality and experience to those who love to be moved.
Tales from the Westside, y'all – here's hoping this one moves ya!
52:55, 320kbps mp3, all wax, improv'd from start to end on 2.5 x 1200 (2.5 = running three decks, but not at full-throttle :p )
Tracklist:
1. Headroom - Ekab - Planet Rhythm Records
2. Untitled - Oliver Ho - Light and Dark
3. DJ Bone - The Music (Rennie Foster's No Lights, No Fights Remix) - Subject Detroit
4. Surgeon - Machine Language - Downwards
5. Johannes Heil - P.A.X. Part 2 - Kanzleramt
6. Untitled - Frankie Bones - Remains
7. Jovonn - Drum Drum - BBE
8. Colourbox - Manic (Instrumental Mix) - Trance Records
9. Roy Davis Jr & Jay Juniel* / Men From The Nile Featuring Peven Everett – Watch Them Come!!! - Underground Therapy Muzik
10. Maurice Fulton Presents Melonsniffers – This Is What You Want (Dr Scratch Stomp Mix) - Pagan
11. Traxx - My Soul - Nation
12. Moodymann - Music People - Planet E
13. DJ Slip - Player - Kanzleramt
14. DJ Slip - Work Me Over - Kanzleramt
15. Lenk – Narcotics (Fred Remix) - Planet Rhythm Records
16. Anthony Child – Over Napoli - Slut Smalls
17. Dafluke - Outta Bodai (Mossa & Pero Mix) - Complot
18. Random Noise Generation – Falling In Dub - Filth Records
19. Coco Steel & Lovebomb - Feel It (original mix) - Warp Records
20. Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft - Der Räuber Und Der Prinz - Virgin
(*Also doesn't hurt that this mix was made in the presence of the magic triumvirate mentioned earlier...necessary elements for a good tone!)
PivotTechno
one bump for the deep.down.dirty!
Addendum: Yesterday, T. graded for her brown belt in Shotokan Karate*. In his end assessment, her Sensei (5th dan and also our shiatsu teacher) emphasised a core lesson in martial arts - the importance of recovering quickly from one's mistakes. Hesitate, and you've defeated yourself, long before your opponent has struck you in any way. This poignant tip brought me full circle to the backstory above - penned only a week and a half ago - and while his advice may seem less and less relevant in a world where machines are increasingly doing more of the work for us, it may be as easily applied to life as a whole, as much as it may be to individual pursuits like karate or DJing.
if there is one thing to say about djing, it is that it is not about self-expression. it is never about you going up there and strutting your , even in the confines of your room. it is a communal thing, and clubs/raves/festivals are so important because they are some of the few places, or events, that bring people together. the selector is the facilitator -- the dj is the conduit between the crowd, the music, and the night vibes.
when your a bedroom dj it's really easy to forget that your doing a communal activity by yourself. that semi-buddhist mantra about losing yourself & thing is not empowering when all it means is "forget and enjoy!" i can see why you brought up martial arts, but even then, martial arts is not about self-expression. gathering Ki is about recognizing one's place in the world and harnessing that energy which keeps you there into focus. so much like the fader slam, the backspin, and the click of the play button :P
ill grab the mix
PivotTechno
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
if there is one thing to say about djing, it is that it is not about self-expression. it is never about you going up there and strutting your , even in the confines of your room. it is a communal thing, and clubs/raves/festivals are so important because they are some of the few places, or events, that bring people together. the selector is the facilitator -- the dj is the conduit between the crowd, the music, and the night vibes.
I understand the perspective you offer, but let me take it one step further and say that's it's neither wholly one nor the other. Some of the most intense nights of music I've experienced at parties occured because of some not-so-subtle tension that existed between certain DJs playing the same room. Some of it was friendly, some of it was certainly ego looking to express itself, but the end result was almost always a spectacular display of DJs attempting to one-up each other in how high they could take the crowd.
Claude Young offers a vantage close to the one I've espoused, in an interview RA put up today (no coincidence he was one of my biggest influences in the 90s):
What do you think is "Detroit" about how you play?
Something I picked up from the RA Exchange you did with Chris Liebing was that Germans, Berliners especially, have been lucky enough to play extended sets all the time. I think German DJs created a situation where they were in charge of the night, so they had space to really evolve, but in Detroit it was the exact opposite, it was like, "There are 12 DJ's playing and you're all getting 45 minutes, so it's tight."
45 minutes to make an impression on someone?
Jeff Mills' Wizard thing is the bar that people still try to live up to. In the beginning I was really trying to do that, but now it's a meld of the Detroit style and the German style. I still do it off feeling. It's kind of like jazz, it's real spontaneous, I may have a few songs but for the most part I just roll in. I try to keep it like that because that way I'm interested. If it's a set set, I can do it, and people will probably like it, but I'll be extremely bored and it'll be obvious.
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
i can see why you brought up martial arts, but even then, martial arts is not about self-expression.
Really depends on how you define "self", doesn't it? ;)
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
that semi-buddhist mantra about losing yourself & thing is not empowering when all it means is "forget and enjoy!"
Reference the 2nd paragraph of that Claude Young excerpt above. I'm very much of the "Techno as Jazz" camp (as opposed to say, the "Techno as Classical" mindset).
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
ill grab the mix
Excellent - may chair dancing ensue!
pozz
lol im part of the "techno as ambient" camp. take beats far enough along and they become drones.
i can see your influence man. it's totally different thing to spin in your room, and ya gotta take that into account. there are some pretty indulgent mixes out there, but self-expression is always pale to the development of some notion, like when Claude Young refers being set into a totally different position in Detroit, having to play 45min instead of 3hours. that movement from one environment to the next is more powerfully affective in shaping the mix than the dj himself. the kind of art projects/installations/galleries abundant in the city and elsewhere give room for some central artist-figure. djs never really have that luxury, they gotta make space for other people in the room/on the dancefloor. <- this is what i'm talking about. it's something that gets eradicated when the focus is on developing a personal sound. how personal can it really be?
too bad i never really got into looking up interviews and bios. i wish i could call one up for you, but all i got in store are the random albums/tracks that impacted me the most.
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
if there is one thing to say about djing, it is that it is not about self-expression. it is never about you going up there and strutting your , even in the confines of your room. it is a communal thing, and clubs/raves/festivals are so important because they are some of the few places, or events, that bring people together. the selector is the facilitator -- the dj is the conduit between the crowd, the music, and the night vibes.
Are the mixes you share on here a communal thing, about bringing a crowd together? DJing is just playing tracks together in a creative way. It doesn't have to be about a party or serving the crowd. People might argue that a live gig is entertainment for a crowd, so a band should only play hits and never experiment. Don't have a prescriptive ideology of how a musical form should be.
pozz
the ideology is in the music, ideology is not something that is imposed.
of course my sets are for a crowd. i'm not claiming they are dance mixes, and even if i played that stuff live there would not be too much movement :p. i imagine they would be pretty nice in an opium den. i always wanted to open up a lounge called 'Slow', bring some ambient/chillout acts in.
like i said above, the mode of production for the mix is the bedroom setup. an activity done by someone with a crowd has transitioned to a single person in a room. so the dynamic has changed. i can't mix as though the relationship is 1 dj (me) to 4000 listeners in one room. i can as though each set will spread out and be listened to as a punctuated moment, whether by a group or inside headphones.
self-expression is not inherent to art/music/djing if that's what you are implying.
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
the ideology is in the music, ideology is not something that is imposed.
What? This is nonsense. The ideology is in the creative decisions you make as a DJ and your reasoning behind those decisions. It's not like the music has to be mixed in a certain way, that it just flows through you or something. Surely that's self evident from the discussion you were just having - one DJ might approach techno like jazz, you might approach it like ambient. That reflects in the tracks you play and how you play them. One of the most creatively rich aspects of DJing is hearing someone take a track and integrate it into their own style - making the tracks tools of their vision.
Equally, a DJ can play any music from any genre or scene, and there is no way you can claim that it's an inherent ideology of all music to be party of some communal party vibe that the DJ has to serve. There's nothing to stop a DJ playing an intensely personal piece of music, so it's just as much nonsense to claim that "DJing is not about self-expression" is the ideology of the music. It's your ideology, and it's prescriptive and conservative.
And I am not in any way implying that self-expression is inherent to DJing/music/art and I really do not see why you'd infer that.
PivotTechno
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
lol im part of the "techno as ambient" camp. take beats far enough along and they become drones.
I can totally dig that. A friend recently related a Surgeon interview where Monsieur Child spoke of throwing down long, deliberately repetitive tracks, as he found there was always a breaking point where the crowd would see past the repetitiveness, subsequently falling into a sustained, meditative groove.
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
i can see your influence man. it's totally different thing to spin in your room, and ya gotta take that into account.
It's a totally different thing to spin in your room if that's all you've ever done, but like I said, if you've had the experience of playing to several hundred (or thousand) people, after a while it becomes easier to bring that experience back to the bedroom, basement, etc...even when it's just you playing to the wall.
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
djs never really have that luxury, they gotta make space for other people in the room/on the dancefloor. <- this is what i'm talking about. it's something that gets eradicated when the focus is on developing a personal sound. how personal can it really be?
With close to 4.5 million electronic music records for sale on Discogs alone (and how many MP3s in circulation? I don't even want to guess), I'd say the opportunity for personalisation abounds, moreso when you account for individual styles of playing.
I've always viewed the DJ as part of a long lineage of storytellers, and personally, the best of those have always been the ones that have challenged me to think and feel in ways well outside of my usual parameters. Unique stories can only come from unique experience.
quote:
Originally posted by pozz
too bad i never really got into looking up interviews and bios. i wish i could call one up for you, but all i got in store are the random albums/tracks that impacted me the most.
The end result is the same. Trust, I learned more about DJing and music by dancing to Claude Young than through any words penned by or about him. ;)
I guess it would be fair to mention that the 53 mins that is Bazooka Bass Floating Dancefloor Dragonflies is more of an excerpt than a set, hitting the ground pretty much at a full gallop. My friend didn't realise he was supposed to have brought his setup (Traktor) over, and ended up playing around with my wax instead - he hadn't touched the stuff in a number of years. The lead-in track is the last one he dropped before I took over, hence the rather brusk beginning.
pozz
i'm curious -- what do you mean by ideology? as a set of ideas that govern outlook? if so, then we are talking about different things. you ever read Marx? in that type of anaylsis/theory ideology emerges as the form of consciousness (meaning) that is inscribed into objects via processes of exchange.
communities are not only a gathering of a group of people, you can be separate and isolated and nonetheless part of a community/society. what is called "virtual" community like as within facebook is valid cultural form.
djing grew out of parties, and eventually the technology developed to the point where it was possible to spin on an individual basis in your bedroom. you still spin for a crowd there, but instead of a simultaneous reception for hundreds, it is split and punctuated into moments. mixtapes imply a listener to come. it's really strange notion that one makes music simply for oneself, to reveal oneself (isn't that what self-expression means? to show oneself, so that an outside object/environment takes on the form of inner feelings/being, to bridge that gap?). what is really being expressed there?
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
The ideology is in the creative decisions you make as a DJ and your reasoning behind those decisions. It's not like the music has to be mixed in a certain way, that it just flows through you or something.
Surely that's self evident from the discussion you were just having - one DJ might approach techno like jazz, you might approach it like ambient. That reflects in the tracks you play and how you play them. One of the most creatively rich aspects of DJing is hearing someone take a track and integrate it into their own style - making the tracks tools of their vision.
yea, i wrote the same above.
quote:
There's nothing to stop a DJ playing an intensely personal piece of music, so it's just as much nonsense to claim that "DJing is not about self-expression" is the ideology of the music.
nothing about how intensely personal that piece of music for one guy is inscribed into that piece of music. in crimson jihad, the most intensely personal moment for me was the final transition from the LSG track into that sample of water from Biosphere. this is the one aspect which has to be recognized. all of your meaning disappears into ambiguity once you release the mix. you can write something about it, you can give hints as how to read the mix, but when someone listens, they are going through that process again, interpreting the mix again, maybe coming up with something completely outlandish. in that sense, sets and djing are communal -- there is no fixed interpretation in advance to be conferred on the mix. it is a constant negotiation between all these aspects.
what i was talking about when i wrote against self-expression is that when one takes djing to be a medium for their inner self to move through and reveal itself, they assume it remains steady, self-same, identifiable. you may think you are doing one thing (expressing yourself) but you are really doing something else (participating in a communal ritual within a historic process).
edit: corrected spelling
pozz
quote:
Originally posted by PivotTechno
With close to 4.5 million electronic music records for sale on Discogs alone (and how many MP3s in circulation? I don't even want to guess), I'd say the opportunity for personalisation abounds, moreso when you account for individual styles of playing.
I've always viewed the DJ as part of a long lineage of storytellers, and personally, the best of those have always been the ones that have challenged me to think and feel in ways well outside of my usual parameters. Unique stories can only come from unique experience.
hmmm.. this is interesting. the one thing i would add is that there are not an infinite number of mixing techniques. they are basically set and established already. maybe someone will come along and do something totally different but for the most part because they are few in number, no permutation is directly personal. it's like when you ask someone what they listen to, and they respond "everything". you know they lie. thing is, i dont think people are that unique. not really. not as much as they would say. you ever notice how sounds in a given musical era, separated by location, sound remarkably alike? people are like that.
i dunno how much of a story you can tell by djing. but now that i think of it, the ebb and flow of the set, the difference in energy, makes sense as a kind of story. radically different approach to story-telling tho. i still think of music in terms of journeys.
SYSTEM-J
Yes I've read Marx, but I'm not a Marxist. The word "ideology" predates him and I'm using it as from the dictionary:
the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.
DJing as a technical skill may have come out of parties, but really it's just a form of the mixtape, the general art of creating a larger picture from the selection of music made by others. I don't think you would say that the essence of DJing is in beatmatching. The decks and the mixer and so on are just manifestations of particular methodology.
quote:
what i was talking about when i wrote against self-expression is that when one takes djing to be a medium for their inner self to move through and reveal itself, they assume it remains steady, self-same, identifiable. you may think you are doing one thing (expressing yourself) but you are really doing something else (participating in a communal ritual within a historic process).
You talk as though the two are mutually exclusive, as though having a listener to come precludes a mixtape from being an act of self-expression. All art involves a creator -> audience dynamic, it's got nothing to do with parties or communalities or the history of DJing. But again, the "communal ritual" of DJing involves a certain ideology of what DJing entails, what should and should not be done. Ideas about reading the crowd, track selection and so on. Yeah these are commonly accepted as part of the DJ's craft, but they're not inherent. If you make decisions based on a different ideology, you are not following a communal ritual, and the fact you're using decks and a mixer doesn't change a thing. There's no right or wrong way.
