Beantown Boogiedown is a blog and informational site designed to highlight the dance music community in the Boston and greater New England area. The main purpose of the site is to help promote events within the area, as well as musical and creative output from respected members within the community. Some of the content that Beantown Boogiedown comprises of includes flyers for local events, dj mixes, reviews and sound clips of local producers, pictures/video/reviews of events within the area that I attend, a section that focuses on graphic arts, and a section that focuses on audio production. Much of what is posted in Beantown Boogiedown is local-based, however there will be a good amount of information that comes from other sources that can be of use to people who utilize this site. It was established in January 2009.

Here’s the breakdown of what the preliminary sections of this site are going to be:

The main (or “Journal”) section of the site consists primarily of flyers for upcoming events, as well as general announcements for the site. The niche in how events are posted here is that I generally post the flyer of the party only 1 or 2 days before the event actually happens. Anyone can find out about stuff going on around town on Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter well ahead of time, so the journal here is merely a “friendly last minute reminder” about certain parties in the area. For each event post I try to include as many details as possible, including rich media such as links, widgets to listen to/download the music of the artist playing the event, and a google map so you don’t have to go to a separate site just to get directions. By the way, text content written in the vast majority of the event postings is not by me; it’s usually just straight copy-n-paste from the Facebook/Myspace posts by the promoters.

Featured Mixes is a spot that highlights mixes from various DJ’s from throughout the Boston/New England area, as well as other interesting mixes I find from outside the area on occasion. Pretty much any style is included here and each include a brief write-up along with artwork if applicable.

My DJ and Production Work is a micro-site within Beantown Boogiedown that includes every DJ mix I’ve ever recorded, free for the taking. Right now there are around 30 of my tapes on there, spanning from my rookie years in 2003 all the way to today. Music that I’m working on will also be passed on here as well down the road.

9:59 includes either videos or audio files of me throwing down quick ten-minute “quikkmixes” of tunes, both new and old. The majority of these mixes will be hosted on youtube and either include album art/various imagery edited together in iMovie or a video of me performing the mix on the decks synched with the audio. The reasoning behind the fact they’re ten minutes each is because that’s the maximum amount of time YouTube allows for each video posted. 1 or 2 Quikkmixes will get posted each month.

Crate Exploratory focuses on both more electronic music from the 1990s, as well as newer music I’ve discovered (both locally and worldwide) that I have been digging. Many older tracks from my personal collection will be posted as basic youtube videos, and newer tracks will include links to download and/or purchase the songs. There are tens of thousands of unknown or long-forgotten EDM-based songs out there that have never seen the light of day, let alone YouTube, so videos I upload will be primarily songs that have never been on there before. 

Coffee Table is a non-dance music related section of the site. Pretty much nothing is off limits here (as long as it’s work safe haha)- from cool photography, graffiti, architecture, fashion, pop culture, sports, cooking, anything goes!

Cool Free Stuff consists of free unmixed songs (either local or non-local) I find online, resources, samples for production, free programs/shareware, utilities, and other goodies I find online that might come in handy.

This Old Mixtape is one of the sections I’m the most excited about- it’s dedicated entirely to posting and sharing old school tapes from the 1990s of local DJ’s from around the area. I will be recording, cleaning up and hosting old mixtapes I find and throwing links up in this section as long as they’re decent sound quality. NO recent MP3 or CD mixes in here. I am actively searching for tapes so if you would like to share and let me borrow any that you may have please do not hesitate to contact me!

Beat Box is all about music production and there are a lot of tutorials and video demos on here consisting of many popular DAWs on the market today. The vast majority will be based on Ableton Live, but various plug-ins I work with, including Native Instruments Massive & FM8, Rob Papen’s soft synths, etc. as well as Logic and Reason, will also get a good amount of coverage. Oh yeah, I dab in Renoise from time to time as well, so tracker heads, I’ll try not to let you down ;) Beat Box will be a balance between other people’s tutorials and tidbits I pick up here and there as I continue to learn the programs myself. There will also be other goodies in here as well such as one post I write each month sharing drum samples I run through my Akai s950 sampler, collected Live packs containing drum racks or Operator patches, reviews of iPhone applications dedicated to music production, and occasional computer-related rants. 

Time Machine emphasizes reviews of events as well as pics and video of parties I’ve managed to bring my digital camera to. I’ve been learning quite a bit about digital photography since starting this site and am constantly buying gadgets to upgrade my SLR so as time goes on hopefully the quality of the pics continually increases. Squarespace has some pretty neat photo gallery tools built in and I definitely plan on taking advantage of them.

Backyard is a spot that is strictly devoted to local music producers and their work. I feature a release with a write-up here approximately once every 2 weeks, as well as links to download their tracks as well as preview before buying.

Sketchpad I work full time as an imaging artist and spend a great deal of time learning about the Adobe Suite, particularly Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Flash. Helpful videos get posted here, and I’d like to make this spot more-or-less a large wall to post the work of both myself as well as friends/colleagues.

Thursday Throwback every Thursday I post a youtube video of a classic song from the late 80s-early 90s, primarily hip hop bits. Just a fun little tradition I started a few months after launching this site.

Accessorize this section hasn’t really been developed yet, but as the site grows I plan on expanding it with a spot where you can buy stuff like t-shirts. Haven’t designed any yet but have a few ideas so stay tuned. I use a free Cafepress account right now but am looking into other options such as a paid account on there or on zazzle.

Calendar utilizes Google calendars to show what events are going on around town every day of the week. It pulls the data from my personal calendar so if you want me to add any of your events let me know and I will publish it. The calendar is also embedded as a widget on the sidebar of every page on this site (thanks Google Web Elements!) for easy access to all upcoming events.

Links is self explanatory; this page is basically a list of cool local sites which include blogs, shops, bars, clubs, producers, dj’s, message boards, and promotion companies.

I plan on updating this site frequently as well as promoting it fairly consistently throughout the Boston/New England area, so if there is any of your music, art, or events you would like me to showcase on Beantown Boogiedown please do not hesitate to contact me. The sections and information breakdown is not at all rigid and can expand or change to reflect the trends within the community. The opinions of all users of this site are very important so please feel free to contact if you have any feedback or suggestions to better this site.

Enjoy!
-Nick

Contact: nminieri@yahoo.com
(last update: September 9, 2009)