Time... A funny thing
Its 23:27 as I start this post. About 2 hrs ago an advert for 'Twister' (the movie) was on... I recalled a conversation I had about 1 month ago about how the movie was about 10 years old. My reaction at the time... "No way, it can't be that long ago... can it?" Well its 2004 and that was 1996... I had some kind of crazy notion that it was 5 years ago or so. Not the best part of a decade... even with all that CGI. Well computer graphics in movies isn't exactly new any more. 5 years ago? Magnolia. I tried watching it back in 2000... possibly 2001, and with current inability to recognise time I'm not really sure which one it is. I think I did manage to see it about 2 years ago but it just stuck in my mind as I perused
www.imdb.com for Twister and some how, for some reason came across Magnolia... actor connection, Dusty in Twister.
Its 2004, September... 6 days shy of October. In 1977, October... 30 days in, I was born. In 1996, October, I started at The University of Kent at Canterbury. In 1066, the Magna Carta was signed. This particular event, unlike the others, has little to do with my personal story. It was 938 years ago.
So my point... suprisingly I have one. Time seems to fly for a certain period. Then it seems to expand out exponentially. Think about the 1990's, pretty recent huh. Pretty crazy what's happened in the past 10-15 years hey? The 1980's... funny time hey. Big hair and all. Dunno about you but when I start looking at it It starts to kind of warp out... then again I was born in '77. So, well my reference kind of stops.
If you were born in 1940 is the curve of recent memory extended, drawn out, or do everyone have a standard (ok, give it a margin of error) drop off?
Got me thinking :-)
Poetry in Music - Dance music? Bang the base.
Modern poetry in 'dance' music. An example one of my all time BT favourites (I used the track frequently in my DJ "sets", its so powerful, emotional and beautiful with such uplifting undertones to quite a dark primary concept!)
http://www.lyrics.ly/lyrics.php/B.T./Lyrics/Running+Down+The+Way+Up can't hear it here of course :)
Another album I recommend is BT's Movements in Still life. It starts of more break beat and hip hop (generally the 4 4 time is broken after the first or second beat to give a funkier sound - I'm no music expert though). It quickly moves into the more ethereal orchestrated sounds using both synth and analogue instruments. Tracks "Mercury and Solace" and "Dreaming" are more "housey" (in 4x4) when it gets to "Running down the way up" it moves into a much more developed epic sound with the emotional thread then moves back into the house, with a bit more techno - the album on Amazon now is actually not one I own because I had the 1998/99 version... he did an update, damn :)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004TK6A/qid=1095719689/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_11_3/026-9343341-7498856
BT is on the Perfecto Label which is Paul Oakenfold's label. Paul Oakefold is one of dance music (house and trace) biggest names but is musical influence and involvement runs broad and deep. He even signed Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (i.e. he made Will Smith!) and Salt n Peppa when he was an A&R guy. He was also pretty much single handily responsible for the Ibiza phenomena. He was also involved in producing for the Happy Monday's and had a touch into the Stone Roses for a bit I believe... Ian Brown from the Stone Roses has some some great solo work and SR's "Fools Gold" is a fab tune!
So many of the people involved in the "banging" dance music clubbing scene reach much deeper into music and the music biz and gem's like Nick Warren, Paul Okenfold, Jon Seaman and BT are either making, producing or DJ'ing some of the deepest, most interesting "non 'acoustic' non rock" music on the planet... its where being a DJ is about sourcing great music people might not even have heard of and getting a sound by mixing together a bunch of such tracks... this isn't your average hit after hit mix DJ'ing :-)
"Dance" is really beat based music and is the oldest form on the planet... ever since we started banging on things to make them into drums... so the funny thing is that you don't need synths and samples to get some amazing beat based sounds... but of course we are in the 21st century so break out your Yamahas and your Roland 808's and get a producing :-)
Do you like House Music? Trancey House? Deep House? Progressive House? Dare I say Dance Music?
Do you like beautifully scripted music...?
Global Underground have to be mentioned. Their deep, intelligent, well chosen, well mixed series is, in my humble opinion absolutely beautiful, & wonderfully made.
Will Thompson, a close friend from university, who unfortunately lives some way away from me now, introduced me to the Global Underground label when I was still at university where William Thompson and myself were running Trollyed, a Fluid Pixel Production. Will is a fabulous mix DJ with GU skills in sourcing and choosing music. He got me into the craft - although I was never able to mix as well as he was. Before I met him I was focused on party hosting and it was together and later with DJ Marky Mark (Mark Dennis) that we took the Canterbury music scene by storm producing nights with a distinct music al feel that encompassed will's Deep Progressive House with Techno undertones to Mark's Garage and my chill out sets.
If you haven’t listened to any or much "dance" music then I recommend exploring GU and what they have to offer in their main series, Nu Breed and 24:7 series' amongst others. They really are at the height of their craft. The DJ's that provide them with their music are second to none in their choice and mixing of music.
DJ’ing and "dance" music have never been so good. I say "dance" because the roots are in clubs, the DJ's do clubs but this is genre busting. This is deep. This is hot, personal and penetrating.
Most of the tracks you head on a GU mix you will never have heard of before. When it gets to someone you may know you'll find names like BT and Moby.
These are not the capitalist sell out money making scheme of the majority of 'mix' CDs. These are musical journeys that the DJ takes you on.
If there's a Sci-Fi classical its here.
If you are not interested I'd urge you to check out Nick Warren #24 Reykjavik and Dave Seaman's #16 Cape Town. These guys are 2 of my favourite DJs on the planet and a heartfelt thanks to Nick for #24 which I am listening to as I write this. Coldy and under the weather. Its penetrating and uplifting stuff.
Expand your musical horizons... you might just like it.
Oh, and as GU says. Don't take life too seriously.
JibJab.com Is those guys who did the "This land" parody of the US elections. Worth ch-check ch-checking out if you havn't already.
Graphics
Check out my graphics on Fluid Pixel Productions... an evolving company that has been everything form club promotions to graphics design.
One of my first Photoshop images, made back in... 1997 which kick started my hobby was this one of actress Milla Jovovich (who I still think is an absoloute star).
Technical Skills?!
Oh dear!
I never thought I'd program HTML again. When I produce
Fluid Pixel Productions I use mickey mouse software to make my life easy. So why today?
Well wanted to put a 'links' section on my blog... and it doesn't seem to be included in the package so to speak so I decided to hack, as they say the code to include it. I've not messed around in any sort of code for a while... Java scared me off as my brain didn't like spelling or numbers and it was too mysterious where my tiny little errors that made things fail were so I got p*d off and pretty much stopped... but it was quite fun figuring out how to make changes to that code I just did so I can respect all you code heads out there with how it means you can control the look and feel of the web with a bit of skills! Good work!
There's one link currently in that section.
