Harry Ransom at Starscape 2010

It's been a couple months since I posted here but I'm bringing it back with a bang. Here is Harry Ransom's DnB set from Starscape, just follow the link to the Expansion Broadcast site. It's so worth it, trust me.


Expansion Broadcast

While you're listening to that I will rundown a quick update. U Street Music Hall is quickly becoming the best venue in DC and killing all other contenders, I finally made the pilgrimmage to DEMF (or Movement as it's known now) and during that trip I wandered into the hallowed halls of Submerge Recordings, and finally, even though I'm updating this now, it's going to still be pretty spotty due to the fact that the next 7 or 8 months I'm going to be kind of off the grid.

This is honestly the Forward fest night that I am the most excited about. Techno is my shit! And Barem is the minimal hotness. I've never been to Aqua, so I can't speak on the venue, but the DJ's are going to kill it tonight. I've posted some tidbits below, just to get you primed up.

Click HERE for a streaming set by Noah Pred

Tonight: Forward Festival Kickoff, X!

Tonight at the Fridge is the kickoff of the 88 Crew's 3rd Annual Forward Festival! I am seriously amped about this one. Such a great concept by a great group of guys. Tonight's happenings will consist of everything below, which is all blatant plagiarism from the Facebook event page:

We enlisted some of our favorites this year to help kick off the festival right. And kicking it off are three dear friends to us since 88’s inception. The Great Mundane, Kilowatts and City Rain. Since we held the last X party back in Twenty Aught Nine, these three have been furiously touring and prepping new music to drop on your St. Patty’s Day celebration. The visual entertainment will be on par if not superior to those of the X parties as a fine group of artists including local favorite David London. As for the venue it is quickly becoming one of our new faves. If you joined us for the Untold party you will know the atmosphere is unlike anywhere else in the DC area.

WED:3.17.10'X' FORWARD KickoffThe Fridge

Rear Alley 516 8th St SE7PM - 12AM

Cost: $5Featuring: The Vantastic Teleportour

The Great Mundane - LIVE

KiloWatts - LIVE

City Rain - LIVE

Live Design by: 2Stimuli/Brokengrind, Arijiit Das/Graham Jackson

Live Divergencuy: David London & Decoy

Live Sculpture: Jeramie Bellamy

Featured Art Exhibit: Mikal Hameed (mikalhameed.com)+ MORE!PRESALE FORWARD PASSES AVAILABLE FOR THE ENTIRE FESTIVAL - ONLY $45: http://forward3.eventbrite.com/

Hope I see everyone out tonight, should be a boatload of awesome!

FORWARD

The 88 crew is coming correct in March. Starting tomorrow, March 17, St. Patty's Day, 88 will kick their 3rd annual Forward Festival, a celebration of electronic creative culture. You can get an idea of everything that is going on from the flyer above and check back here daily for that night's flyer and for a recap of the night before. They are also holding workshops on Ableton Live for those aspiring producers out there, and on 3D design as well. Those workshops will be held at the Fridge, in the Eastern Market area, on Saturday. You can get a pass for $45 on presale here, but you better hurry, presale ends tomorrow evening.

Sorry

I don't have links to anything I did last week. I'm kind of just throwing this post up because I just thought about it. I went to TEC on Thursday at Muse. Besides the frigid weather it was a good night. Good music, chill vibe. I don't really care for Muse that much but what can you do.

Friday I stayed in because, for reasons I won't go into, I had to wake up at 4am on Saturday. Saturday I went to Dupont with some friends of mine and then made my way to Jimmy V's all by myself. That was definitely a good time, it was nice to hear some truly soulful house and the place was actually packed, with people still pouring in even after last call.

So, it was pretty uneventful. This weekend I'm going to get artsy. Saturday I'm going to the DCist "Exposed" photo gallery event and then I'm going to head to Arlington for the Art Whino: G40 Summit. I'm excited about both really, but the Art Whino event should really be amazing and this Saturday is the grand opening! You should def go check it out.

Josh Wink�|�Shop the Josh Wink Official Store

Josh Wink�|�Shop the Josh Wink Official Store

Ovum Recordings just announced the kickoff of the Josh Wink official store this morning on Twitter and Facebook. The link is above. It looks like all they have for sale right now is one men's tee and one women's tee. The t-shirt is pretty dope though so check it out and I'm sure they will be adding more items soon.

Holy Crap!

This was a seriously amazing weekend. First Derek Plaslaiko on Friday and then "The Dig" on Saturday. Derek Plaslaiko was absolutely amazing. I also drank a .375 of Jack Daniels while pregaming at a friends house so forgive me if the description of his set is vague but seriously, the man threw down some serious techno. The best part was, he kept pushing the limits of just how weird and esoteric the beats could get before bringing it back to something banging and catchy to put everyone on the dance floor again. Saturday was a little more low-key for me. I didn't stay long at "The Dig" but I will say the following things:

1. The venue is actually really cool. It was my first time there but the set-up is perfect. The big, open upstairs is a great contrast to the cozier downstairs and lends itself nicely to having house/techno upstairs and DnB in the basement.

2. I spent most of my time downstairs and I really only had the pleasure of hearing Illeffect and Ray Casil. Ray stepped in when Locks couldn't make it and pulled off a fantastic set. Illeffect didn't disappoint either, there was plenty of head bobbing going on.

3. I was way too hung over from the poor decisions I made the night before and after I found out the people I was going to meet there bailed I decided that my couch and pizza were calling my name.

Thanks to the JQM and 88 crews for making it an eventful weekend. I definitely can't wait for the next one.

02.192010 – JQM PRESENTS: DEREK PLASLAIKO, CLINC, JOEL CHANDLER, PETEONE : JustQualityMusic™

02.192010 – JQM PRESENTS: DEREK PLASLAIKO, CLINC, JOEL CHANDLER, PETEONE : JustQualityMusic™

Friday night on the second floor of Station 9. It's a pretty good venue but I am planning on pregaming as they are a little steep on the drink prices. The price is ok because they make them strong, but some of us are trying to save up for a new place to live.

If you're not sure who Derek Plaslaiko is, here is a primer from DEMF in 08.

This is going to be sick. Apparently the last JQM party I didn't stay long enough for the action. I covered that in my first post on this blog. I also said back then that I would be back to the next JQM even and I'm keeping my word, I will see you guys at Station 9 tomorrow night. (PS the text under the flyer is a link to the event.)

The Dig

The Dig

And just in case you're curious about what I'm doing this Saturday, follow the link above or just check the flyer.

Valentine's Weekend

My weekend started on Friday at the loda party at The Fridge. I have to say that it was definitely a good night. The first DJ (someone told me his name is Eric) tore it up spinning a good mix of all different flavors of broken beats. Illeffect came on next with Robert Manos on the mic from NYC. The set started out with some UK garage and degenerated into straight dubstep with Mr. Manos destroying the vocals along the way. Untold was absolutely insane, if you've never heard of him go check some of his videos on youtube. Sick.

Saturday I stayed in and relaxed but Sunday I had to go out so I wouldn't feel like the sad little single boy on Valentine's Day. I made my way to Modern in Georgetown. I have to say I was pretty surprised by Martyn's set, he mostly stuck to the techno (I didn't hear any dubstep), but I've heard that he does that sometimes. Still, sick.

All in all it was a great weekend. Now I need to find something to do next weekend. What's good DC?

TheBedroomRockers - East Coast Easy - SoundCloud

TheBedroomRockers - East Coast Easy - SoundCloud

Local DC downtempo duo with a special guest. This song is the hotness!

imperial

imperial

Some live Prog Housey type stuff that may or may not relieve your cabin fever, from an undisclosed location in DC. It's a friend of a friend spinning, so enjoy.

Bryan Zentz

The first record I ever bought was Bryan Zentz -The Kingdom of the Selfish EP on Primate. It was one night at Flood in Norfolk in probably 1999 and I asked the guy selling records for "just straight banging techno" and I got it. Bryan has been my favorite producer ever since. I'm really happy to see he is still killing it on the decks, but we seriously need to get him back out to the East Coast.

and it begins...

Mark Farina's Friday gig at the Layla Lounge has been canceled due to the weather. The snow is already taking a toll and it hasn't even started yet. Click his name in this post to see the good word from his twitter account.

More Snow?

I was really hoping to get out this weekend and hit up a few parties, not to mention I was supposed to watch the Super Bowl with some friends at a bar in Arlington. I hate being snowed in. Anyway, if you can make it out this weekend there are a few good events. Jimmy Valentine's Lonely Hearts Club is probably going off Saturday night, that's always a good time. There is also the MecTec Warehouse Party with Lee Foss headlining. If I can get out on Saturday then that's where I'll be. I've been excited about this all week, if I get snowed in again it might turn into another Shining in the home spot.

Rave Archive - DJ Mixtapes, Party Flyers, Scene Zines, Forums

Rave Archive - DJ Mixtapes, Party Flyers, Scene Zines, Forums

So, the last few days I have stayed up way too late listening to mixes from this website. It is impossible to describe the flood of nostalgic bliss that comes from some of these sets. I used to have alot of these mixtapes. They were bought at parties up and down the east coast and my collection has suffered a slow and painful attrition from multiple moves through the years. To hear mixes like Frankie Bones Live in Tokyo from 96 (or the nice size collection of mixes from his Fantasy series) is amazing to me. These were the tapes we listened to on the way to and from parties from NYC to Atlanta, as we made use of our place in the middle of the coast and enjoyed the best of the East Coast from the bottom to the top. Maybe some of you had heard of this website before, but for me it's just a recent discovery and a happy one at that.

JustQualityMusic™ Presents Eric Cloutier

JustQualityMusic™

Here is the really sad fact about this event. I didn't stick around long enough to hear Eric Cloutier's set. It's sad, I know, but true. The reason I didn't stick around that long is the opening DJ's were a disappointment. I don't like speaking negatively about a DJ because it takes balls to lay your musical tastes and mixing skills out on the table to be judged by the public and I commend them for trying. However, if you are going to play your music in public you should be ready for criticism so here it comes. Every one of the three opening DJ's had pretty much the exact the same problems so I'm not going to single anyone out. Those problems are as follows:

1. Almost every song went on for way too long. I'm not sure if you were having issues beatmatching or you just loved each of the songs that much. Either way, it made the sets kind of tedious.

2. You guys were, for the most part, spinning minimal techno and tech-house. You have to layer anything called minimal. Richie Hawtin, Plastikman, the king of minimal techno, uses more gadgets and tools on stage than anyone I have ever seen. My favorite mix by him is called "Decks, Efx, and 909" and that's exactly the tools he used to make the mix. On the inside cover of that cd there is a graph that shows where in the mix each track begins and ends. At a couple points in the mix there are FOUR tracks going at once. I'm not saying you have to have the skills of Plastikman to be entertaining, but you have to do more than just lay tracks end to end and let the original do the work for you.

3. This is the reason I couldn't stand it anymore. You guys are the opening DJ's. It is your job to warm up the crowd and build energy for the headliner. Get people excited! Minimal doesn't have to be lowkey and "deep". There was no energy in those sets. Not only are you hurting the guy who comes on after you but you are disappointing the crowd who paid money to be there and is trying to have a good time. Your sets had a 5am feel at 11pm. That is why I left, I was simply falling asleep.

None of this means that I wont come out to another event when you guys have one. I like supporting locals. Just please take this for what it is, some positive criticism, and consider your audience next time.