Beantown Boogiedown -

Wednesday

May162012

Let's Boogie: Upcoming Boston Events For May 2012 (Updated 5.16)

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 12:56PM

Upcoming Events

Past Events

nickdawg |

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Wednesday

May162012

Backyard: Craters Provide the Texture to Your Rainy-Day Soundscape

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 12:24PM

Written by Matt Farina

Having fun with another week of classic New England spring weather? Us neither. But we’ve got a little something that’s perfect for this rainy limbo while better weather takes its sweet friggin’ time getting here. Click here to read more and download the Craters album!

nickdawg |

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Wednesday

May162012

Nickdawg: Live at Elements (Drum & Bass, April 2012)

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 9:15AM

Although I’m not promoting myself as a DJ even remotely as much as I used to (with so many other projects going on), I always love getting the chance to play around town when I can. Last month I played a drum and bass set at Elements (Phoenix Landing in Cambridge) that I ended up recording. It turned out great so I figured I’d get it out there! Out of any set I’ve ever played live, this one easily ranks within my top 5. Click here for the mix and write-up.

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Wednesday

May162012

Crate Exploratory: B.I.G.G.S.: Hymn (Mix 1) (1995 Garage House)

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 1:30AM

I’m a sucker for wicked obscure ear candy from the 90s. This works out great for hardcore collectors like Pete Dev/Null who sold me the record above at the Together Fest record fair back in April. Its pretty much a win-win; I get access to interesting stuff on the cheap, and he clears more space on his shelves to buy other equally obscure bits.

A white label promo, a quick scan at the matrix etching revealed this as a release on Canadian house label Stickmen. If you were DJ-ing house around the turn of the century, you were likely well aware of how successful this imprint was. This record dips further back to 1995, a more humbler time for them. In other words, before they were pulling their antics with their infamous mix CD’s showcasing covers sporting the words “TITS”, “COCK”, or “BALLS” in LARGE bold face fonts. (Side note: Freaky Flow scored lucky with the first of the three examples, while Czech unfortunately got…er, the SHAFT, with the second!)

B.I.G.G.S. only had one release, period (let alone Stickmen). Each side of this 12” includes three loosely-affiliated mixes of two different songs; here we’re focusing on the first mix of “Hymn”. Probably the most playable piece of the lot (even on my heavily scratched copy, which surprisingly does not skip), what we will call “Hymn (Mix 1)” is all about the now-dated garage house sound. A little more reliant on the 909 than most garage from those days, Hymn (Mix 1) is otherwise pretty basic in structure. It’s mainly about the vocal chant which repeats throughout and the drums; the bass takes a back seat.

Regardless, Hymn (Mix 1) it’s a nice filler piece that still serves purpose if you are mixing from one style of garage to another. It’s easily the best of the 3 on this 12”.

nickdawg |

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Monday

May072012

Featured Mixes: Durkin Covers 30 Years of Beastie Boys in 15 Minutes

Monday, May 7, 2012 at 9:36AM

There’s never any sleep ‘til Brooklyn, but whether it’s there, or Brookline, or hell even Buffalo, chances are your Cinco de Mayo soundtrack involved some Beastie Boys at whichever club or bar you hit up. Adam Yauch’s untimely passing is unfortunate, but at the end of the day he provided us with thirty years of music that danced between contrasting genres as if it was somehow natural. Click here to read more!

nickdawg |

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Monday

May072012

Backyard: A Game of Contrasts For Andre Obin & His Red-Hot 2-Track "Valencia" EP

Monday, May 7, 2012 at 8:55AM

You might find yourself a bit confused when you first lay your eyes on Boston producer Andre Obin’s most recent vinyl release. The stark red-and-white cover art bares more resemblance to a classic Russian propaganda poster than the sand, sun, and Mediterranean surf of the Spanish town “Valencia”, the A-side of the package. The steppe of this track is nowhere near as ominous as the artwork might suggest, but the contrast in colors undermines how different it is to the song on the flip, “A Star is Torn”. Click here to read more!

nickdawg |

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Sunday

May062012

Backyard: One Trance DJ Veteran Plus One Band Veteran Equals Duestro

Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 2:26PM

With dance music re-entering the consciousness of the mainstream crowd, it’s only appropriate that decade-old memories of trance music instantly comes to mind to the average listener. While the likes of Armin Van Buuren and Tiesto are still managing six-figure paydays, the genre as a whole is not exactly front-and-center stage anymore. But don’t worry, it’s still released and played throughout the world, and several forms of it (notably psytrance) have enjoyed a recent afterlife in the summer festival circuit. It’s even made and manufactured right in our backyard, thanks to a production duo named Duestro. Click here to read more!

nickdawg |

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Tuesday

Apr242012

Crate Exploratory: L.A. Producer Milkman Delivers Freshly-Bottled Electro and Mash-Ups

Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 11:26PM

As a lot of people know, Los Angeles is a hotbed for much of what’s happening domestically in dance music right now. Breakthrough producers like Tommy Trash, Dillon Francis, Kill The Noise and LA Riots are putting the city of angels on the map in a major way. The mainstream has begun to accept their balancing act of crafting energetic dance originals with radio-ready hooks. Who is going to be the next to emerge from L.A.? It’s a tough question, but a potential answer could be Milkman.

Milkman is 23 and already has dozens of finished pieces on his soundcloud page, ranging from the anthemic “Revelry” to the pop-oriented mashups of the likes of Katy Perry, and finally the bass-heavy “Tiger Lily” (a freebie released just a few days ago). Milkman’s music works best within the framework of a larger club and a packed dancefloor; it’s only fitting that he will be playing a show at Boston’s own Royale in May (date still to be confirmed; more details to come). He’s currently touring all over the country right now; expect to hear more about this dude in the upcoming months.

And in the mean time, if you’re not lactose intolerant, go check out Milkman’s stuff on Soundcloud and his Facebook page!

nickdawg |

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Tuesday

Apr242012

Embrace Presents El Hornet of Pendulum, Middle East, 5.3.12. Free Tix!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 1:17AM

Let’s not beat around the bush too much here: if you’re reading this site, you know who Pendulum is. They’ve been instrumental with infusing traditional songwriting in drum and bass music. They’ve raised the bar for production quality. They were even one of the very first acts (along with Bad Company’s Digital Nation project) within the genre to perform live rather than DJ.

In a span of just a couple months way back in 2003, this trio went from being small-town musicians in Perth, Australia to dominating many a drum and bass DJ’s sets by the end of the year. You probably already know the rest of the story, so I’ll just shoot out a couple interesting factoids instead.

1. Pendulum’s first track to strike big was “Vault” in early 2003. Sounding almost nothing like the liquid and wobble jump-up that was dominating drum and bass at the time, DJ’s from Bailey to Photek to Andy C picked up on this track immediately. Many opened with Vault for the duration of the entire year, probably one of the biggest compliments any producer could recieve.

2. Pendulum did not release only on Warner and Breakbeat Kaos. In their earliest years, a wide range of indy drum and bass labels were chomping at the bit to get in on the action. Doc Scott signed Vault to his 31 Recordings label, while other early anthems like “Back 2 You” was released on Timeless Recordings and “Trail of Sevens” to Renegade Hardware.

3. Paul “El Hornet” Harding has the most drum and bass history out of all the members in the group. He has been a record collector for over fifteen years and is extremely knowledgable about many an obscure release during drum and bass’s formative years. You probably won’t hear any of these songs played out in the clubs, but he does occasionally post mixes and other odds and ends on his Soundcloud account.

4. To this very day, Pendulum’s 2007 “Propane Nightmares” (off their sophmore album In Silico) still manages to be the ONLY drum and bass song I have ever heard on American FM radio. I distinctly remember channel surfing the airwaves coming back from a party in 2008 at about 3:30 in the morning and hearing the final 15 seconds of it on one of Boston’s biggest top 40 stations. While they’ve had massive success on the pop charts abroad, getting air time in the US is a much more difficult wall to climb in my book.

5. Grooverider going mental when he played Pendulum’s “Slam” for the first time on Radio 1 in 2005 will be forever cemented in my memory. I think he rewound it about a half dozen times! There was actually an early version of Slam that very few people had access to. It had a different vocal sample at the intro: “Real mean killing, and the wrong guy died. They buried his body but his soul survived.” The build-up and main riffs were re-worked very heavily between this version and the released one. To my knowledge, one of the only recordings you can hear this version is in Andy C’s essential mix. Shortly after this, an updated version was sent to most remaining big dogs, and finally, to the shops on the “Hold Your Colour” LP.

6. Pendulum have had four songs crack the UK top 40 singles chart since 2008. All three albums have sold over 200k copies; 2010’s “Immersion” is approaching 2 million, making it the best-selling drum and bass full-length album of all time.

7. El Hornet from Pendulum will be playing on Thursday, May 3rd at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, courtesy of Embrace. This will be their third time booking Pendulum since 2008!

8. Also Courtesy of Embrace, you get a chance to win a pair of tickets. (Like you didn’t see this one coming!) As per usual: leave your name and email in the comments section below. I draw a winner at 9am on April 30th. Good luck!

For official details on this event, check out the Facebook event invite page.

nickdawg |

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