Entries associated with the tag "dance music":

I've heard a lot of stories about Moscow nightlife from DJs who've been flown over there to spin for what turned out to be rooms full of ballin' mafiya dudes and their hooker girlfriends, which led me to believe that the worst thing you have to worry about when you're making the Russian scene is getting ruthlessly murdered by thugs in Versace. But as bad as that would be, I think getting blinded by a laser at a rave might actually suck worse.

On one hand you get to, you know, survive the incident, but on the other hand try getting this out of your head: "Powerful lasers can cause eye damage instantly by burning the delicate light sensitive cells in the retina or by heating the fluid in the eye, causing a small steam explosion." NO THANKS DUDE.

Not too long ago I talked to Justin from Walter Meego for my column, and pretty much every answer he gave to the questions I asked about the band's relocation from Chicago to LA included a reference to the pool they now have in their backyard, how kick-ass it is to have your own pool, and how many pool parties they were planning on having in their own personal pool. I just saw on Bigstereo that WM has a new video for their summerweight disco-pop jam "Forever," and unsurprisingly, poolside partying plays a major part in it. 

I gotta say, it really does look like the pool party is those dudes' natural habitat.

Recently New Yorker pop critic Sasha Frere-Jones pulled off a rare and fully bragworthy music-critic trick--that is, he may very well have coined the colloquial name for a nascent subgenre. Specifically, S/FJ gave the name "lazer bass" to the emerging hybrid of hip-hop, electro, dancehall reggae, and eight-bit video-game soundtracks. The style's brightest lights so far are the duo Megasoid, whose party-rocking ways I profiled in a Montreal scene report last summer.

Of course the term "lazer bass" has already attracted some criticism, mostly for being kinda goofy--to which Frere-Jones replied, "I will work day and night to coin a less stupid name: something like, I don't know, 'hip-hop.'" But I like his name, seeing as it combines three of my favorite things: bass, lasers, and misspelling the word "laser."

As Frere-Jones noted today, "somebody whom I do not know liked the name enough to create a video mash-up and title it 'I Love Lazer Bass,'" so at least a few people are cool with it. The video also happens to be a heavily bumpin' survey of exactly what kind of stuff falls under the lazer-bass rubric.

Like most dance music genres, blog house was declared dead by its more cutting-edge proponents as soon as it got popular enough to earn its own unfortunate moniker. And for sure there is something burnout-inspiring about the form's kudzu-like infestation of dance clubs around the world, and the way that its genuine talents are often swamped by wave after wave of pale imitators. That being said, it's still a little too early to fully turn your back on the style, and its going to be a little while until the last bit of fun can be squeezed out of the combination of pulsing Giorgio Moroder beeps, obnoxious 90s-rave synth freakouts, and raps about sex, drugs, and personal electronics from the 90s.

If you want to stock up on "I was there" moments to pepper into future conversations, I recommend checking out tomorrow's event at Smart Bar.

Headliners LA Riots are one of the aforementioned genuine talents of the genre. Their DJ mixes (one is available here) show a genuine knowledge of and respect for the older forms they're jacking, and their already huge catalog of remixes is marked by a refreshing sense of restraint.

The Bloody Beetroots, on the other hand, can really shine when they completely abandon restraint and good taste by pushing blog house's standard distorted synths to a place not too far from pure noise. Of course that can also make them completely obnoxious at times, and I still haven't settled on whether to love them or hate them.

Felix Cartal has supplied some of my favorite dance-floor jams of the past year. A couple of quirky breaks aside, his track "Drugs" could have slain at any rave I ever went to in the 90s.

The event is free, but requires an RSVP through its sponsor, Toyota Scion, and probably putting up with a fair bit of Scion propaganda around the club.

You know a show is a big deal when the two headliners get separate afterparties. After the Justice/Diplo show at the Riviera tonight the Frenchies are heading to Sonotheque to spin with my guys the Gutter Butter DJs and Young Wes is off to Debonair for his own event. Odds are that the Justice party--a fund-raiser for the Iraqi metal band Acrassicauda--is going to be jam-packed insanity, and the Diplo party is going to be full of people who either don't feel like dealing with Justice-related claustrophobia or have figured out that their DJ skills are kinda weak.

I'd suggest skipping the big names and hitting up Empire Liquors, where Baltimore/D.C. party destroyer Dave Nada is headlining a solid night of less well-known DJs. Given Mr. Nada's touch with the bootytastic club jams--specifically on some Baltimore house--it should be at least as good as the more hype-heavy parties, and as a bonus it'll be way easier to breathe at.

Sometimes it seems like real life is just a pale imitation of the Internet. I love my cat, but she has yet to ask me if she can has a cheezburger, and on the rare occasions that I leave the computer I wouldn't have instant access to hardcore porn if I didn't always carry at least two Internet-capable devices at all times. Even getting mugged isn't as cool as having your identity stolen online.

But sometimes the Internet reaches across the divide and intrudes on uncomputerized existence to make things a little more bearable. For instance, tonight at the Funky Buddha Lounge the Frenchies who run Fluo Kids, my favorite I-can't-read-it-but-I-download-all-the-songs dance-music blog, will actually be physically present, spinning some of the very same tracks they've put online. I imagine it'll be a lot like living inside their blog, albeit briefly, and that sounds pretty nice.

Whenever I get a promo of an upcoming Fabriclive mix I tend to put it on without stopping to really examine the packaging--none of them has been bad, and some have been among the best mixes I've ever heard. I didn't even look at the name on Fabriclive 38, and the first time I listened to it I could've sworn that on the drop at the beginning the dude says "DJ Crate." That blew my mind, because the only DJ Crate I've ever heard of was a sorta-crazy middle-aged guy in my neighborhood back in Kalamazoo who wore the logo plate from a Crate amp as bling and to my knowledge never actually DJed anything. I'm not even sure he knew how. 

Turns out that it was DJ Craze who put together Fabriclive 38. It's a pretty decent mix, centered around the hipster party-rap axis, with the Cool Kids, Bangers and Cash, Pase Rock, and Blaqstarr each appearing at least a couple times. There are also a few surprising cuts--an Earth, Wind & Fire joint, Jan Hammer's "Miami Vice Theme"--thrown in for flavor. It's great and all, but I wonder what DJ Crate could've done with it.

Actually he'd probably sing-rap into a Walkman for half an hour and then try to sell me the tape.

Craze is spinning at Zentra tonight. I'm guessing booties will be shookened.

After spinning more than 170 shows in 2007, Flosstradamus is taking some well-deserved time off. While the duo's laying low, J2K is cleaning out his room and running an eBay side hustle. Most of his offerings are things you'd expect from a hipster-beloved DJ, like spare Oakleys, a lot of ten Mishka T-shirts, and one of those confusing Japanese watches from the future. The real surprise is his recently retired iBook, which went through all those shows with him. To quote the item description, there are "about 25 gigs of music on it, lots of Flosstradamus exclusives, along with serato, ableton, and flossy fx, our patented effects program." That means it could end up a pretty good deal, unless some maniacal J2K fan goes bonkers because he autographed it and bids it through the roof. At this very moment the top bid is $213.83.

Oh, and here comes a press release telling me everything I just typed. Also, and I quote, "Flosstradamus are currently at work on their debut album to be released in Summer 2008. Including fellow Chicago-based artists such as Kid Sister, The Cool Kids, and Philadelphia-based MC Amanda Blank, Flosstradamus will be handling production duties, showcasing their signature party-rocking expertise in the studio as well as the club." So there you go.

About 99 percent of the pitches I get from publicists are little more than annoying reminders of how many shitty-to-mediocre bands there are and how many of them can afford a publicist. But every once in a while they can inspire you to go back and listen again to something you may have dismissed too quickly or just didn't get.

My latest experience with this phenomenon is We Are Wolves, whose recent Total Magique I pretty much dismissed out of hand, probably because their previous full-length didn't do much for me and on the cursory listen I gave to the new one nothing really popped. But after getting e-mails from like five different people to preview their show tonight at the Funky Buddha--and after getting another copy of the record, this time on marbled vinyl--I went back and discovered that I'd been totally wrong. Magique is an album-length riot of dirty electro injected into dirtier garage rock and I can't believe I didn't get hooked on it the first time around. Anyone interested in getting completely buck wild should put tonight's show on their agenda. 

How much do I love unimaginative trance pop with Euro-ESL lyrics? Probably far more than a non-German, non-Swedish straight man has any right to. How much do I love horror movies of equally sketchy quality? With a furiousness that exceeds what I feel for Toy Box. So finding the video for "Move Your Dead Bones" from Beyond Re-Animator was a very special moment for me. Christmas has come early this year, and its name is that guy saying, "I'm the Re-Animator." God bless you, Re-Animator, and your dancing zombie Dresden Dolls fans.

Via Ectoplasmosis.

At first I liked the Real Tuesday Weld's The London Book of the Dead. The opening track, "Blood Sugar Love," title aside, is a dark little slice of hypnagogic electro-psych that promised a lot of good things. Unfortunately, by the time I reached track five I'd already heard three swing-jazz-meets-sampled-dance-music songs too many and had started comparing the group to a combination of the Primitive Radio Gods and Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers, so I turned it off. That their album reminded me of the existence of such travesties is enough to make me resent the Real Tuesday Weld.

Then I went and googled Jive Bunny so I could re-experience "Swing the Mood." I remembered it having more jazz than it actually does, but I'm going to keep comparing the Real Tuesday Weld to them just because it's what they deserve.

Maybe you've wondered what Johnny Love, former enfant terrible of the Chicago party scene, has been up to since his move to LA. Maybe you've heard his collabo with Filip from Junior Senior, Guns 'n' Bombs, which has been *verb that is not "exploding," "blowing up," or any other bomb-related pun* all over the world of dance music.

But, you may ask yourself, most importantly, is he getting enough exercise? Signs point to yes:

Daft Punk's set at Lollapalooza on Friday night accounts for 90 percent of my reason for going to the fest at all. (The other 10 percent is a running contest with my friends to see who can get the worst heatstroke.) If you feel sort of the same way, you should hit up the Hideout tonight. There's a screening of the duo's silent film, Electroma, at 8 PM followed by a bunch of DJs and a Daft Punk cover set by locals May or May Not.

If you want to keep the party going after Daft Punk's set on Friday, there will be a bunch of Ed Banger dudes and Throne of Blood—the Rapture playing records with James Fucking Friedman—doing it up at Sonotheque the Green Dolphin. It promises to be bonkers on an extreme level. Expect the per-square-foot population density to be on the same level as the festival itself. If you show up early you'll have a better chance of getting in, and you can catch DJ Funk's set. Work it!

Word just came out today that local synthesizer enthusiasts Walter Meego will be releasing their first full-length album through Almost Gold Recordings, home to Peter Bjorn and John. The record, which may or may not be called Voyager, won't be out until late 2007 or early 2008, but if you beep over to their MySpace page you can peep some pretty-finished sounding electro-pop demos. I've got a few more new tracks in my iTunes, and based on those, I'd say the record has potential. The beats are a little bouncier and clubbier than they were on the Romantic EP and the duo toys with a range of danceable influences—a little disco, more than a little Daft Punk, and maybe a smidge of Ed Banger—but they've also got the vocal thing going on, so the songs probably won't be confined to DJ sets. With the right coverage in NME I bet Walter Meego could take over England. In the meantime, I'm sure you'll be able to hear more new songs when they play the Bottle on July 27th. 

I'm just finishing up a long weekend in Montreal, the City of High Tolerance for White-People Dreadlocks. Whenever I take a trip to another city, I invariably arrive at or near the beginning of a live-music dry spell, and the past couple of days were no exception. But Friday I did end up at this new club, Gymnase, and caught a pretty en fuego set by local DJs Megasoid and Sixtoo.

Sixtoo threw down a bunch of decent dancehall, which was a treat for me, as Chicago seems to have a deep-seated inability to get down with anything remotely dancehall outside of Sean Paul, so I only ever hear it in clubs when out-of-towners come spin. If you're curious, Jamaica is doing things to "This Is Why I'm Hot" that make the original seem trifling in comparison.

Megasoid's playlist was a lot like what you'd find in any hipster-ish sort of club in any city around the world—some Jay-Z throwbacks, a couple more recent rap jams, a grip of Ed Banger bangers—but dude is niiiice to the tracks. While most DJs see Serato mostly as a way to avoid lugging around heavy-ass crates of vinyl, Megasoid uses the whole digital interface thing to chop, flip, and twist on the fly, remixing in real time and generally turning even worn-out tracks into bananas central.

It was Sixtoo and Megasoid's first night at Gymnase, and the crowd was pretty sparse (although, strangely, almost 100 percent female). The duo is better known for hosting illegal outdoor happenings, like the one captured in the following video. It looks fun as hell:

Tonight's Flosstradamus party up at Sonotheque should be pretty bonkers, even compared to the usual Floss joints. The event is sponsored by Colt 45 and Vice magazine; Colt 45 is going to be on special. And Chicagoist is reporting that the first 200 people to show up get in for free. Which means that by midnight or so, the club is going to be chock full of kids going incredibly apeshit on malt liquor. I have a feeling that the event is going to be equal parts sweaty, dangerous, and fun.

Tomorrow night's the third installment of the recent Fly by Night DJ series at the Underground Lounge in Wrigleyville. The headliner this time is East Coast duo Certified Bananas, who've been getting some heat off of indie rock/hip-hop blend sets that are supposed to have all of the fun of a Girl Talk show without all of the suckiness of a Girl Talk show. Party-starters the Cool Kids and Fly by Night main man Willy Joy open. Should be live.

For a group that's not currently promoting an album, going in and out of jail, or dating either Jessica or Ashlee Simpson, Daft Punk has been getting crazy talked about recently. If you've been out of the loop, here's what's been popping off in the world of French robo-funk:

- This September, the duo's first film, Electroma, is coming out on DVD through Vice Records. The press release says, "Daft Punk's Electroma is an odyssey of two robots (played by Peter Hurteau and Michael Reich) who journey across a mythic American landscape of haunting, surreal beauty on a quest to become human. Their symbolic quest, which takes them from endless two lane highways to small idyllic towns to the arid desert, finds Daft Punk once again resisting conformity and developing new ways to highlight their inventive vision," but I think it's mostly going to boil down to "sad robots discover the power of the American road trip," or "Daft Punk's Crossroads." Daft Punk themselves don't play the particular robotic duo, nor do they provide a soundtrack, although there are rumors that the film will sync-up Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon-style with one of their older albums. Vice has a brief interview with the band on their blog.

- Kanye West has sampled the track "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” for his own song, "Stronger," which looks to be the first single off of his next album, Graduation. 'Ye just screened the Hype Williams-directed video for the single in NYC. Miss Info's got a couple of screenshots up, and it looks bonkers: retro Japanese monster movie-meets-next-gen anime with Daft Punk in costarring roles.

- LED Effects, who created Daft Punk's rad/scary helmets, say you can buy your own edition if you're able to secure permission from the band and can scrape together $65,000. I am taking on a second job as a world-class international assassin for hire in order to pay for mine.

- Also, it is now summer, which is the top season for listening to Daft Punk, narrowly beating out every other season. I mean, just in case you forgot or something. 

There generally isn't such a thing as a bad week for getting free music on the Internet, but this week is shaping up to be particularly decent.

After the big DJ Drama bust a lot of DJs and rappers are looking at free online mix-tape downloads as a way to get around the RIAA, which seems to think that the most effective hype-building tactic in hip-hop promotion since the wheatpasted poster is no better for business than flat-out bootlegging. No one's really sure yet how well the move online will hold up against the Fun Police, but for the time being it looks like the real hotness for 2007. DJ/producer Clinton Sparks is the latest to get on the bandwagon—what appears to be his entire discography is now available on his Web site, including both We Got it for Cheap mixes with Clipse and Kanye's Touch the Sky.

The Wu-Tang Clan just put a staggering 215 rare and unreleased tracks by members, associates, and hangers-on up on their site. That is a fucking lot of Wu-Tang by anyone's standard. There's no one single .zip file for the collection, but Idolator points out that this is a prime example of how much easier your MP3-ganking can be if you're using Firefox with the DownThemAll extension.

If free Yung Joc exclusives and rare U-God tracks don't do it for you, you might be more satisfied with Hello Young World Volume 2, the new mix by indie dance DJ/producer Lushlife. On one hand, a lot of his selections are the kinds of things a guy who considers the Shins baby-making music might put on a "Dance Party" iTunes playlist—the Go! Team, Pulp, Shout Out Louds—but sometimes I'm a sucker for the goofiest indie shit, so I kinda like it. Besides, I put "Disco 2000" in a set I spun over the weekend, so I can't really talk.

If your "Dance Party" playlist is half MSTRKRFT remixes, you probably already know about Discobelle. If not, you should know that they are totally the source for post-Diplo hipster dance music. I'm an even bigger sucker for that shit than I am for indie rock, and I probably download more tracks from Discobelle than I do from any other MP3 blog. They've been posting a lot of good DJ mixes recently. Pump them really loud and you feel like you're actually in a Swedish dance club with a couple hundred kids in all-over-print streetwear.

My column on podcasting went online today.

I'm only a regular subscriber to a dozen or so podcasts, about half of them music-related. Between given at least a cursory listen to every promo I get in the mail, trying to keep up on the radio, mp3 blogs I feel obligated to check out, and occasionally trying to listen to something just because I feel like listening to it, my daily music time is maxed out. So I try not to subscribe to too many podcasts because if I get too many in at once, I'll just let them back up. But if you're still interested, here are a few that I listen to fairly regularly.

Diplo's Mad Decent Radio is probably the most sporadically updated podcast I listen to, but it's also one of the best. Diplo's DJ sets are famous for their all-over-the-place genre blending, but his podcasts generally work one theme apiece. Between sets of indigenous club music from Africa and South America -- a wealth of Brazilian funk carioca, if you're into it -- he's dropped some fiery mixes in tribute to the New Orleans hip-hop scene and Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation. 

The Fader magazine's been dropping a monthly podcast for a minute now. The staff over there is almost pathologically obsessed with staying on the cuttingest of edges, and their podcast is basically a preview of the tracks and trends that'll be running the clubs for the next few months. It's also an expertly blended mix, finding a common thread that makes cozy neighbors of gangsta rap, electro, dancehall, indie rock, and anything else with a decent beat.

My column alluded passingly to the Garage Punk Podcast, but I actually don't subscribe to it anymore -- as much as I love garage punk, I don't love it enough to need an hour of it sent to me every single day. Luckily they offer individual episodes on their Web site, so when you need a dose of nasty fuzz and bad attitude, all recorded poorly, you know where to go.

Seattle public radio station KEXP is a shining example of the right way for radio to embrace an online audience. Beyond streaming of their broadcasts, they offer great podcasts full of independent music, including exclusive live recordings. My favorite of their podcasts is the Song of the Day, which is exactly what it sounds like: a single new song delivered to your iTunes every day. The focus is on middle-of-the-road indie rock, which isn't an altogether bad idea. At the very least, you don't have to spend any effort reading indie mp3 blogs in order to realize how unexciting Tokyo Police Club is. On better days you might find your new favorite song of the week without even trying.

This afternoon I got an e-mail from a guy who does a podcast called The Best Radio You Have Never Heard. The name's a little hyperbolic, considering that anyone exposed to college radio in the 90s has heard DJs who blend alternative power pop, 70s rock, and the occasional dance song. But this is indeed what it sounded like when the record geeks started taking the radio into their own hands to do what the big stations wouldn't -- college radio is the spiritual ancestor to the podcasting explosion.