New DJ Shadow!

New EP from DJ Shadow, I gotta rok is out digitally now. Physical copies on June 1st. Apparantly the new album is called "the less you know the better" and comes out in september. How did I not know this?

Listen to it HERE

T/M/S/M

Straight out of Grantham an exclusive video from the Redi Highknights! These guys are putting out some real good stuff at the minute with a refreshing approach to hip hop.

Check them out at http://www.facebook.com/redi.highknights

The Greatest

Where were you in 92?

Well, I was actually 10 years old. Still at Primary school, a huge fan of Red Dwarf and the Crystal Maze and an obsessive Sega Megadrive player. My brother was a lot older than me and he saw that i always used to borrow his "dance" compilation CDs so one day he gave me a cassette. It was an Fantazia tape, Top Buzz I think. I pretty much wore it out in a couple of weeks.

You see in 92, i'd never really even heard of raves let alone listened to the music. I saw what they used to show on the news about all the illegal raves and how drugs were ruining britains youth. To be honest though i thought it was pretty cool. I listened to that tape non stop. The thing I liked about it was the music never actually stopped, in those days most people didnt really understand the concept of a DJ mix. Neither did I really. I actually thought that the MC was the DJ and he was making all that music live on the spot while he was chatting down the mic. But to me that tape was the coolest thing in  the world.

So in the years following managed to get hold of some more tapes (The Ratpack were my favourite), got into the Prodigy obviously and just kept being a schoolboy fan of rave. This obviously lead to me and one of my mates getting some decks and messing around putting events on in village halls and actually built up quite a good rep. Being able to pull of a pretty good beatmatched mix was quite something to be proud of when your 14.

Anyway, when we did actually hit 14 we used to go to a 14+ Rave at the Sanctuary in Milton Keynes. We saw all the classics. Dougal, Hixxy, Fickey Finn. Even a young Andy C. This was in the days where it was the norm to have a Happy Hardcore DJ Followed by a Jungle DJ, how things have changed. The other thing was that because we didnt actually know many other people who were into raving we were pretty unaware that people took drugs, we just thought everyone was really friendly! haha. Good days.

Fast forward to today and I still love dance music just as much as I did back then. Still go raving sometimes and still djing (and trying to produce) I've been through everything including old school hardcore and Jungle. Proper heavy D+B, house, gabba techno, hard house, hip hop, a brief excursion into metal, electro and minimal house and these days pretty much just hop hop and the deeper side of dubstep. I've enjoyed every minute and have to thank my brother for giving that tape so many years ago. Dont forget your roots!

Hardware?

Hardware. I'm a little bit obsessed by it but I dont know why. Over the years i've own several grooveboxes, samplers, electribes etc and i'm still lusting over an MPC even though in the back of my mind I know I wont use it to its full potential if I do get one.

At the minute pretty much the only hardware I own is the Roland SP505 sampler (poor mans MPC). Yeah, its cool and it has some good features but it takes soooo long to do anything. When you first turn it own and hit the sampling button it seems to take nearly a complete of minutes to ready itself to record. Those two minutes are the most inspiration stealing minutes ever. Basically, if i wanted to record a sample, cut it up and add effects, depending on how large the file is could take take anything from 15 minutes to an hour! The same thing I can do in ableton in just minutes!

So why do I keep wanting to buy more samplers? I think its just the mystique of creating and performing music without a computer. I dont wanna start the whole software vs hardware thing again but why cant I just leave it alone?

Right, I know its not music related but its something I feel strongly about. I'm running out of TV to watch! I'm a complete TV nerd and love to have a few shows on the go at any one time. Community was definitely a good recommendation but theres only a couple of episodes left of that. Supernatural and Fringe will be finishing soon leaving me with a summer tv drought until True Blood in the Autumn (well apart from Dr Who, i'm not ashamed to admit that I love that!) Over the years I have seen all 24, Prison Break, Heroes and the best show of all time, Lost. Does anyone have anything they could recommend me to keep me going over summer. I tried the Wire once but only got a couple of episodes in and wasnt really feeling it. Should I try again?  Anything serious, Sci Fi or comedy i'll be into. Any suggestions?

New Burial 12"

Just about to go to bed last night, quick check of the emails. NEW BURIAL 12"! Needless to say I copped that bad boy straight away. Apparently Kode 9 has previewed it on the Benji B show last night. Dunno if I wanna listen to it or wait until it comes in the post then lock the doors, pull the curtains, turn the phone off then have a good listen. Anyone else heard it yet, what do you think?    

Get it:  HERE