Every now and then someone asks me where I get my music from. I have to say multiple sources. Vinyl, CDs, friends and sometimes the internets.
For the most part I purchase music through legal channels because it’s the right thing to do. But sometimes I’m just forced to do things through not so legal channels for the simple reason that the proper channels don’t have what I want.
Case in point. A few years back my boss and I went to India on business and were horrified that we were going to miss the new episode of Lost.
“No Biggie!” I said “We’ll just watch the stream on the ABC website!”
Wrong. When we tried, all we got was a message informing us that ABC’s streaming media was not available in our host country. My boss was disappointed, but I said “Wait! We can download it off iTunes! Problem solved! Yay!!!”
Wrong again. Different website, same discouraging message as before: Service not available in your country. Fuck.
But do you know what service was available in my country? Bit Torrent. And an hour later we were gathered around the warm blue glow of my laptop watching Lost. My point is, we made every effort to give money to the right people and go through the proper channels…but in the end only piracy gave us what we wanted when we wanted it. The day the media fully embraces that concept will be a great day indeed.
Another great day was the day Montreal’s The Arcade Fire dropped their sophomore effort “Neon Bible” on the world.
Although I’m somewhat annoyed that once again a non-American rock band has out-rocked us again, I can’t help but love their sound. That’s just the way things go sometimes.
Originally formed at Phillips Exeter Acadamy by brothers Win and William Butler, the band lineup went through a lot of changes before finally solidifying in 2003 around Butler and his new wife Régine Chassagne. In it’s early incarnations, the group sold copies of the now unavailable “Us Kids Know EP” while playing local shows. If anyone has a copy of this, let me know cause I need it.
Their first full length album, “Funeral” was released in late 2004 after a recording session plagued by the deaths of several bandmate’s relatives (Thus the title. ) They garnered the attention of David Bowie who loved their sound, but it was the internets that really made The Arcade Fire into stars. The band’s mini tour was rapidly expanded into a mega tour, large venues replaced small venues and the band soon sold out of it’s stockpile of self released albums.
It was around this time I first heard the band and was happily surprised that the hype wasn’t exaggerated. They have a lovely indie baroque sound that I could say was close to The Killers, but a lot dreamier. If you don’t have “Funeral,” consider that your extra credit if you like “Neon Bible.”
After the success of “Funeral” the band purchased a defunct old church outside of Montreal and spent the first half of 2006 converting it into a recording studio. The band also made some great decisions like trying out new instruments and sounds, and deciding to self produce their new album.
I think “Neon Bible” should have been 2007 album of the year. Why it wasn’t was a mystery to me. Maybe because it was a sophomore effort. But regardless this album will move you…emotionally or even physically to shake your ass. Which to me is what a good album does.
You can hear how much work went into making the album, and how much attention to detail was put into each song. That’s a rare feeling in most of today’s music. And while their music is kind of hard to categorize, the quality isn’t.
BONUS: You know it’s good when Spike Jones uses a song for his trailer for “Where The Wild Things Are.” Lets hope the movie is as good.
A few years a go I got invited to a house party down by the beach and I was told to “just bring a crate of records” since I would be one of four or five DJs who would be playing. Soon after arriving I discovered that there were no longer three other DJ’splaying, just me and this other kid with dreadlocks.
I wanted to drink so I let him go first.
All he played was progressive house…it was all he had with him, and from what could see, it was all he ever played. He was really into it too, so I felt kind of bad for him because no one else at the party was. He cleared the room fairly quickly, and soon realized that (A) he was alone (B) no one wanted to hear his music and (C) he had nothing else to play. At that point, his gig was pretty much over.
He was not “all city.”
There’s an old graffiti documentary where a kid explains “all city” in graffiti terms as the ability to not just paint walls, but also breakdance and DJ. You couldn’t call yourself “all city” unless you had mastered all styles of the hip hop culture. I have not mastered all styles, but at least I’m capable of mixing several genre’s of music.
The best all city DJ I’ve ever heard is DJ Neil Armstrong. This guy does it all from turntablism, beat matching and music selection…especially music selection since his taste covers everything from hip hop to pop, slow jams to hard rock.
But what he’s really known for are his mixtapes.
Neil grew up in New York City, where he honed his turntable skills in the early nineties and formed his world famous crew The Almighty 5th PLatoon. He’s toured alongside hip hop greats like De La Soul and Wyclef Jean, but was also part of the Grammy nominated jazz group Russell Gunn and Ethnomusicology (who are great by the way.)
Some people make a mixtape and put very little into it, just playing a song then yelling over the transition (DJ Clue…cough, cough.) Or they just make a jumbled audio mess that you listen to once then turn into a coaster on your coffee table…I have a few of those. But Neil’s work has been coming out for over ten years now and it still holds up. Especially when you look at his first big mixtape, “Original.”
Neil, who often likes to work within the framework of themes, took a very simple concept of mixing great hip hop songs and the original songs they sampled and then proceeded to blow everyone’s mind with his mad knowledge and skills. I picked it up at Fatbeats when it came out and it became a staple for bringing to parties for well over a year…who am I kidding, I still pull that shit out. And that’s what draws you in about Neil’s work. You can keep going back to it and it still seems fresh. Don’t just take my word for it though!
After dropping “Original,” he did a sequel called “Original 2″ before releasing a double disc mix of both tapes performed live. He then moved onto an epic love song series (Sweeet, Bittersweet, and Smoove) and his freaking awesome All Out King series that mixes all styles (Warmfuzzy, ExtraOrdinary, Filthy and Oscillate Wildly.) Once you get a taste, you’ll pretty much be hooked and have to track all of them down. You can buy them HERE. Support the man and all the good work he’s doing.
Give it up to the All Out King…and feel free to grab his newest free mix HERE!
Remember when Chevy Chase was funny? It seems like an age has gone by since it was true…and before his train wreck of a talk show sort of sealed his fate.
Not that I blame him, at the time they were giving out late night talk shows to just about anyone and only Conan survived the carnage. And it seems like he was only real funny when he was coked up, which is a shame. The man was Fletch for God’s sake! And Clark Griswold, Dusty Bottoms and Ty Webb! He was like the Harrison Ford of smarmy comedy. And man, did he do it well. And aside from all that he used to be the drummer for Steely Dan.
True story.
Well, kind of…since they really weren’t called Steely Dan at the time. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and I don’t think you can blame Chevy for not staying with the band since the only two constants have always been Don Fagen and Walter Becker. Everyone else has been pretty liquid.
Fagen and Becker met in 1967 at Bard College in New York and quickly formed a bond over their shared love of music…especially jazz. They began writing together and playing in local groups like The Bad Rock Group (AKA Leather Canary) where Chevy had a brief stint as their drummer. I wonder what Chevy’s life would have been like had he just been Steely Dan’s drummer, but any attempt to imagine someone else playing Fletch makes me shiver with horror.
After a while playing cover songs and living like filthy beatniks, Fagen and Becker slowly drifted away from their friends…moving to Brooklyn to try and sell their songs. Kenny Vance, who had an office in the same building and worked with his own group: Jay and the Americans, liked their material enough that he got them work doing the soundtrack to the overly long named Richard Pryor film “You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You’ll Lose That Beat.”
Yeah, I’ver never heard of that one either.
Apparently Becker and Fagen weren’t to thrilled by it either, but it was a paid gig. The created a series of demos between 1968 and 1971, all of which don’t exist except in bootleg form (yay bootlegs!) They had no success, and were soon touring with Jay and the Americans, where they built a reputation for their anti-social behavior. They might have vanished into obscurity until a friend, Gary Katz, dragged them to LA to become staff writers for ABC Records.
The only problem was that Fagen and Becker’s stuff was too complex for the ABC roster, being that so much of it was built on jazz scales. Katz suggested they form a band, which they did and named it Steely Dan after a strap-on dildo from William Burroughs novel “Naked Lunch.” They released “Can’t Buy A Thrill” in 1972 and their stock began rising. With a knack for working with nothing but top notch studio musicians and a reputation for perfectionism beyond what anyone could believe, Steely Dan released an album a year until 1977, when “Aja” dropped.
What sets ‘Aja’ apart from the other works was it’s return to the thing Fagen and Becker loved most…jazz. They brought in top names like Lee Ritenour and Wayne Shorter, and even Michael McDonald as backing vocals on the chart topping ‘Peg.’ But the album also includes such transcendent hits like ‘Black Cow,’ ‘Josie’ and ‘Deacon Blues.’ But what makes Steely Dan and “Aja” so great aren’t just the hits, but the sound. They sound like a seventies band, but at the same time not so much. In a time when everything fit nicely into a particular genre, Steely Dan didn’t. They made their own noise, and that’s what keeps them relevant today.
My house has kind of become DJ central these days, at least amongst my friends. Andrew has a nice set up at his place, but mine is the one with Serato…which everyone wants to use so there you have it. My friend B-Dog showed up on Monday night itching to give it a try and I was happy to oblige.
At first I had him practice on my rig, because I have thousands of songs on there, but eventually he wanted to plug in his Mac Book and give that a whirl. This would have been ok if not for his selection. As it turns out B-Dog, who DJs a little more often then I do, had only bought his laptop recently and had only used it for only one gig. That gig was a birthday party for a six year old girl.
What B-Dog was doing DJing a party for a six year old girl, I may never know.
Needless to say, his music folder contained a lot of Hannah Montana and (shudder) The Cheetah Girls. I started browsing the Internet for porn …content to allow B the opportunity to play around a bit when, unexpectedly, something good came on.
Something real good.
As I’ve said in the past, I don’t expect too much from other people’s crates, but I spun around in my chair, turning away from the porn.
“What is this?”
“This” was Sam Sparro. and if you haven’t heard of him yet, I have no doubt that you will soon because the kid has talent. Born in Australia in 1982, Sam Falson (“Sparro” was a family nickname) discovered his talent for singing after the family moved to Los Angeles in 1993. His father Chris,a gospel preacher and musician, was at work on a soul album at the time and introduced Sam to the genre through a church in Tujunga.
Aside from his singing, Sam soon got work acting in commercials and radio.
In the late nineties he headed back to Australia for a short time before moving in with some cousins in England. He immersed himself in the music scene, but couldn’t stay…returning to Los Angeles in 2002 and finding work at a coffee shop. It was then that he began writing the songs that would become his debut album.
His sound is somewhere between Justin Timberlake and The Scissor Sisters…with a dash of Justice style electro to boot. Really juicy…as you can hear on his second single ‘Black and Gold’ or his 2007 single ‘Cottonmouth.’ It’s a good bit of music to fill out a dancefloor or make you hit the stairmaster with a good bit of soul inflected intensity.
I wish I had more juicy tidbits for you, but that’s the problem with these new kids…they’re still new. He’s openly gay, but I hardly think an openly gay musician is news these days.
Oh! He’s writing some songs for Lindsey Lohan’s new album! Wait…no…that’s not a good thing is it? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. But in the meantime, I recommend this debut as a sign of good things to come.
Tuesday is here and our economy is so far in the shitter that other countries are now calling us to bitch about our governments inaction. With all the conflicting views, fear mongering and catch phrase tossing going on, it’s hard to get a handle on the situation.
Luckily I have my Dad to answer these questions. He’s worked in the financial sector for my whole life, and he’s my go to guy for any information about the markets…and any lingering questions I may have about the great battles of World War II. I thought I’d share his insight with you, because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good information out there.
And there needs to be…even if it comes from a music blog.
He says:
“If you want to get into the real history of this whole thing you need to go back to the late 1960’s. At that time the Government created GNMA (Ginnie Mae) as an agency to package and insure mortgage pools. Prior to that the issuing bank had to retain the mortgage which in turn limited their ability to make new loans. GNMA was created to allow banks to package up the old mortgages and resell them so that the bank could then go out and create a new mortgage. These GNMA mortgage pools were insured and this was paid for by having the buyer take a lower return than the pool would otherwise show (a pool of 6% mortgages would pay to the purchaser of the pool 5.5% with the 1/2% going to the GNMA and the servic-er of the mortgage (the guy who collected the moneys and did the bookkeeping). Over time these vehicles became very popular among the various accounts who emphasized fixed income (banks, insurance companies, pension accounts).
Their major complaint was that they kept getting back principal every month which presented problems for the reinvestment of these funds. They wanted something that paid the same (mortgage pools typically pay more because the maturity is so variable – when you refinance the whole loan is paid off early) but with more predictable maturities. Thus was born the Mortage Backed Security pools (MBS). These pools directed any return of principal to one piece (traunch) of the pool until it was paid off and then started paying off the second traunch. Because these pools were over collateralized (104-105% of the principal was deposited) they were rated AAA. Some continued to guaranteed by the government but many were not. All were typically AAA and thus eligible to be purchased by very conservative buyers.
Step two came when the Federal Reserve responded to the dot com bubble bursting by lowering interest rates so dramatically in the early 2000’s. The demand for high income, highly rated vehicles continued and Wall Street tried to figure out new ways to create those vehicles. Congress also came out in 2002 and encouraged banks and savings and loans to make mortgages more available to lower income buyers. Thus was created the zero down no monthly payment mortgage.
Housing prices boomed due to the increased demand. The banks went to Wall Street to find a way to resell these new mortgages. Wall Street went to the rating agencies (Moody’s and Standard & Poors) and asked how the pools could be structured to obtain a AAA rating. The rating agencies did some back testing and came up with a formula that established the criteria to get the AAA. When the prices began slowing in 2006 and the default rates began rising on the new mortgages beyond what the agencies had expected they began downgrading the existing pools. Many of the buyers could not own lower rated pools so they were forced to sell. This depressed prices and caused the value of all pools to sag. Under the rules the banks that continued to hold pools had to take write offs which started leading to the need for new capital. This whole thing continued to spiral until banks began failing and certain parts of our financial system began failing as well.
Today the Auction Rate Securities market which worked for 20 years has stopped functioning altogether, the commercial paper market which allowed corporations to borrow short term is faltering, banks and insurance companies don’t want to loan to each other…even overnight, the whole system is very shaky. Remember the system we operate under requires faith (think “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the run on the bank that James Stewart owned). If people start hearing rumors that they have to get their money out of the bank because is is going to fail then their with-drawls can cause the bank to fail. That is what killed Indy Mac and WaMu.
This brings us to yesterday. The plan was for the government to buy assets at a discount to fair market value but probably up from where those assets had been trading. The government (read taxpayer) would get a good deal and the buying should stabilize the prices for other assets which would help the balance sheets for all banks In the long run the government should do very well. Check out the history of the Chrysler loan and check out the Home Owner’s Corp created in 1933 under similar circumstances which ran until 1951. In both cases the government made money. Now look at how the $85 Billion AIG deal was structured. AIG should survive but the shareholders are paying a huge price. The terms of the loan require that they pay about 11.5% for the money plus a $1.7 Billion dollar up front fee plus warrants to but the stock if the company survives. In exchange for the loan the government gets first call on all of the AIG assets estimated at $1 Trillion (that’s right. Trillion!).
In conclusion I think it will be a good deal for the taxpayer but I also think we need to do this last week. If we wait the system could start collapsing which could stop the ATM’s, checking accounts, credit cards. Just stop and think how many things we do on a daily basis that requires a functioning banking system. If that system falters or stops even temporarily what would you do?”
Hope that helps.
Now on to the program of awesome music you should own with very little financial risk. Music like Nicola Conte’s 2004 effort, “Other Directions.”
Some of you may remember Conte from his first album, 2000’s “Jet Sounds,” that firmly planted his flag on the mountain of the electro jazz movement. With it’s lead single “Bossa Per Due” getting play from people like Thievery Corp and Gilles Peterson, and appearing in commercials as well, the album proved a huge international success.
Born in Bari, Italy, Conte was trained as a classical guitarist when he began DJing and producing. Sharing a love of Bossa Nova, Italian and French Jazz, as well as the Acid Jazz scene, Conte and his like minded friends formed a group called “The Fez Collective” and a label called Schema. (you’ll find more on that in my post about Gerardo Frisina HERE) As Producer he has helped cull the careers of such acts as Paolo Achenza Trio, Rosalia De Souza and a slew of funky remix jobs that I can’t even begin to list here. As a DJ he, like a lot of DJs, has a love of all things old and awesome…which brings us to “Other Directions.”
After “Jet Sounds,” Conte could have followed the same formula and still seen success. I think a lot of people bought “Other Directions” expecting just that…but as a musician and DJ, he felt the compulsion to go back to the past and bring it into the future…and the listener gets to reap the rewards. Released by the mighty Blue Note label “Other Directions” is a 1960’s fusion album, released in the 2000’s. Backed by a full jazz band and playing guitar, Conte weaves a jazzy tapestry that borrows heavily from the past but still incorportaes little glimpses of the future. My favorite track, ‘Kind of Sunshine’ (hear it up top) takes the old time song ‘You Are My Sunshine’ on a jazzy ride that you have to hear to believe. What stands out, aside from the stellar production and the almost House-y beat…is the sound.
That incredibly stylish sound.
I love jazz, but I mostly love old jazz because the stuff that comes out today sounds over produced and a little too safe for me. Nicola’s work here sounds almost as if it was plucked from the dusty record shelves yesterday and the warmth of the sound is undeniable. I listened to this album on a loop at work until my cube-mates forced me to stop. Check out the stylish ‘Nefertiti’above or the driving ‘Impulso’ below if you doubt my words. I wish I had ten albums like this.
If you like a stylish retro vibe as much as you like your downtempo jazz, you really will piss yourself over this album…but in a good way.
Wednesday night ended up being much drunker this week than I expected…but I’ve really come to enjoy the idea of the mid week tension breaker. Billy and Brian showed up around 9ish and started in on the beers and Sailor Jerry. Then Deven appeared after 11 with two old friends Crum and Tyo (their last names…not their first.)
Tyo is what we call a magnificent asshole. The kind of guy who will tell you exactly what he thinks, regardless of the situation…then tells you to fuck off. I love him anyway because he has one of the sickest collections of sixties era furniture I’ve ever seen, and he collects the most disgusting high-end audio equipment you could imagine. The kind of shit that was designed in Germany and costs several grand. Jeff buys that stuff like groceries.
But Tyo has a real thirst for funk and jazz, like myself…and Wednesday night found us deep in my loft digging through said sections for treasure and playing a little game of “have you heard this?” One of the albums I pulled out was Sixto Rodriguez’s 1970 album “Cold Fact.”
Unless you’re one of the crate diggers over at Soul Strut, or fan of finding obscure music, you probably don’t know Sixto, but that’s why I’m here, and why I write about this kind of thing. It deserves to be known. It doesn’t seem to fall into any particular genre, but seems to borrow a little from the latin, funk, folk and psyche categories and forms a unique creature of it’s own.
Sixto was born in Detroit, the son of middle class Mexican immigrants. In 1967 he released his first single ‘I’ll Slip Away’ under the name of Rod Riguez on the Impact Label. It would be another three years before he released anything else, and not until he signed on to Sussex records where he cut two albums: “Cold Fact’ and ‘Coming From Reality’. But although of high quality, neither album took off. Most critics didn’t get it and the album sold poorly, leading the label to drop Sixto who subsequently gave up his career as a musician.
But then something strange happened. He albums began to gain steam over seas in countries like Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. By 1975 the original run of “Cold Fact’ was sold out and an Australian label called Blue Goose Music bought the Australian rights to Sixto’s catalog, giving both albums their first major label release. This was all news to Sixto, who discovered that his album had gone platinum in South Africa. He toured Australia twice, once in 1979 then again in 1981 before he went home and resumed a normal life.
With a voice somewhere between Cat Stevens and Jose Feliciano, Sixto’s music definitely falls under the label of ‘deep’ with his semi political leanings and social commentary. The best album cuts include the smooth ‘Sugar Man’ (which you may recall from the Heath Ledger movie: Candy ) my favorite ‘This Is Not A Song, It’s An Outburst’ and ‘Rich Folks Hoax.’
And of his two albums, “Cold Fact” remains the best. Sixto can still be found playing occasionally under the name Rodriguez…although mainly in Australia. Check it out, folks.
A lot has been said about old MJ over the last 20 years.
All rumor and innuendo aside, he strikes me as a kind of tragic figure in the music world. Here was a guy who hit it big as a child star in The Jackson 5, then went out and became an international superstar almost over night. He literally ruled the pop world, putting out two consecutive classic albums, and one “sort of alright” album before the musical downhill slide really began.
Now living as a pariah somewhere (Dubai?) I look back and think “It’s too bad he surrounded himself with the wrong people.”
Too many “Yes Men” seems to be the root of the problem, at least to me. Michael strikes me as someone who didn’t have anyone telling him “no” very often…or didn’t keep them around if they did. So, instead they all just nodded at everything he said, and kept telling him he was brilliant.
There was no one to tell him that hanging around young boys all the time might not be a good idea, and could be viewed as “creepy.” No one got through to him and said “Mikey, you might want to invest some of this money you have lying around instead of buying a zoo.” No one suggested he just “own” his skin condition and stop walking around wearing masks, or perhaps not dressing like some sort of glittery circus ringmaster.
Or maybe people tried, but no one was successful.
But most of all, MJ was not made to understand that if he just stopped whining about conspiracies or being misunderstood, and just go back to making awesome, no nonsense R&B again…he might still have a career.
Seriously.
For years I kept asking myself, why doesn’t he get The Neptunes to produce his next album? Why isn’t he working with Timberlake? Why is he still trying to relive the 80’s?
For the love of God, this is the kid who made “Off The Wall” when he was twenty-one years old!!! And then , for an encore…he made “Thriller!”
The year was 1982, and still reeling from his fathers recently admitted affair, Jackson teamed up with his “Off The Wall’ producer Quincy Jones to begin his second album in April of that year. Michael had one vision for the record, summed up with his question of “Why can’t you make an album where every song is a hit?” Unlike his previous albm, “Thriller” took on a much darker tone from the beginning, as Michael dealt with issues in his life and clashed with Jones in the studio.
Out of the nine songs on the album, Jackson wrote four: ‘The Girl is Mine’(with Paul McCartney), ‘Wanna Be Startin Somethin,’ ‘Beat It,’ and the seminal dance floor destroyer ‘Billie Jean.’ Better yet, he never wrote them down on paper, but instead dictated them into a recorder, then sang them later from memory.
I think its important to note that not all of Jackson’s arguments with Jones were misguided, as was the case with ‘Billie Jean.’ Jones wanted to leave the song off the album, as he felt it wasn’t strong enough. When Jackson insisted on keeping it, Jones wanted him to cut down the intro instead…but Michael held firm saying it “made him want to dance.” We came that close to being denied one of the greatest dance songs of all time.
Wanting more of a rock song feel to ‘Beat It’ that would appeal to all tastes, they spent weeks looking for an appropriate guitar player to accompany Michael on drums. The kid they settled on was Eddie Van Halen. The title song, ‘Thriller’ was written by by songwriter Rod Temperton, who had collaborated with Michael on his previous album with ‘Rock with You’ and ‘Off The Wall.’ (Unfortunately for the rest of us, he also penned the Michael McDonald hit ‘Yah Mo B There.’)
When all was said and done though, “Thriller” had become the best selling album of all time with seven of it’s nine songs becoming hit singles. That and it was one of the first albums to use the new music video genre to it’s full marketing potential…especially with the John Landis directed 14 minute mini movie that was ‘Thriller.’
Shit, I remember staying up late to see that one premier on MTV!
So, in closing, I’d like to pretend that the Michael of today just doesn’t exist…because with the brilliant promise of the album at the time, it might have been better if he retired to producing afterwards. Nuff said.
Billy brought over Serato to my Loft the other day and it was every bit as awesome as I thought it could be…therefore cementing my desire to finally switch over to the digital realm of DJing.
To be honest, I’ve fought it as long as I could.
I was getting used to being stared at as I wheeled my gear into a gig and people saw only vinyl.
“Are you playing real records?” they’d ask. And I’d nod.
“Wow…do they even make them anymore?” I’d nod again, then have to listen to some story about records they used to have while I ty to get everything wired.
But vinyl always seemed better to me. Maybe it’s the sound quality, maybe it’s the substantial feel (better than CDs), but most of all it’s because there is music out there that simply doesn’t get released in any other format.
Usually these are just singles, remixes or blends…and eventually someone converts them to digital formats for DJ usage. But for the most part, they remain out of all public knowledge…and I find that kind of sad.
How does that help anyone?, let alone the music?
Take Los Hermanos Latinos for example. I picked up the first of these 12″ singles a few years back and it instantly became a crate staple. The kind of music that would guarantee dancefloor booty-shaking no matter where you dropped it. Since then, three more volumes have dropped and each one has been awesome in it’s own right.
Not much information is floating around about these records, which is usually how it goes in these cases, but they appear to be a side collaboration project between Will Holland (AKA Quantic) and Miles Cleret of Soundway Records. The formula is simple. Take a great latin tune (Mexican, Colombian, Cuban etc) that most of the English speaking world has no knowledge of, and pump it up with some stanky hip hop drums.
It’s simple, but it works. In a lot of remix projects, the music gets so over worked that the original tune gets lost in the translation. But with Will and Miles at the helm, the original tracks really shine through.
You can pick up the wax at some of the better online record shops (most seem to be sold out), or maybe some of your local record shops (support em!). But, I’ve looked around online, and aside from the vinyl no one appears to be selling the digital tracks…they do appear do be freely shared though! So I’ve done y’all the favor of zipping up fout of the tracks for your enjoyment.
It may not count as a full album, but there are four other tracks out there for you to collect…if they really float your boat. Put em on a mixtape, toss em on your iPod, bring em to work!
Every now and then someone asks me where I get my music from. I have to say multiple sources. Vinyl, CDs, friends and sometimes the internets.
