Dual Citizen - You Got Me Feeling Emotions

Happy New Year! Here's a new song from the Dual Citizen laboratories. Special thanks to Mariah.
   Dual Citizen - You Got Me Feeling Emotions

>>> DOWNLOAD <<<

Louis La Roche - F.U.B.A.R.

Ever since I was first exposed to the instantly classic Canadian film FUBAR back in 2002, I can't help but think about Terry and Deaner every time I hear the acronym for "Fucked up beyond all recognition."

In fact, it's been altogether to long since I've rewatched the mockumentary about that pair of booze fueled ragamuffins. It would probably take a few flats for those heshers to appreciate the joys of new disco, but perhaps producer wizard Louis La Roche could find his way to their hearts.

I have been enjoying LLR's sampled filtered house music for a while, and now he's handing out his newest track for free.  Giver!

Louis La Roche - F.U.B.A.R by louislaroche

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011 Recap

We went to Fun Fun Fun Fest in 2010, but this year we had to take in most of the festival through TV, thanks to the multiple live video streams generously provided by Pitchfork.

It was awesome to avoid the dust kicked up by 25,000 people dancing in a drought-stricken park. But as high quality as the video streams were (when they were working), you don't experience the same energy as being there.

Nevertheless, now you can take in the entire weekend in a mere four minutes, thanks to the recap above provided by Austin-based creative company Guerilla Suit.

Penguin Prison - Don't Fuck With My Money (Music Video)

I have really enjoyed this song ever since it came out, which is strange because I dislike almost all the other songs on Penguin Prison's new self-titled album. I just find them too poppy or something. But this one is different.

Well, now there is a new video for it. I think it might be the first music video to air on MTV that was filmed at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in Lower Manhattan. To be honest, I never got the broader political implications of his lyrics, "Don't fuck with my money." I just thought he was singing to his landlord about rent or something.

Am I being cynical if I find irony in the use of Occupy Wall Street as a backdrop for a music marketing effort waged on a TV channel owned by Viacom, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world?

Then again, who cares, the video is entertaining. A nice distraction from the real world.

80s Moments: Transformers in Time

Here's a blast of feelgood 80s nostalgia!

It all started when Futurecop! took their song Transformers and mashed it with Robbi Robb's In Time, the song that plays when Bill and Ted visit the future during their Excellent Adventure. A fantastic retrofuturistic synth pop song was born: Transformers In Time.

Then this DJ from Kazakhstan took a bunch of memorable moments from the awesomest 80s teen movies and synced it to Transformers in Time, creating a warm trip down memory lane. Thanks DJ Artem Narcisse! I hope the weather is nice in Almaty today.

Bonus videos:

If Michael Jackson's 90 second Pepsi commercial from 1988 doesn't warm your heart, then you weren't there when it happened.
This is just awesome 1987ness: Miami Vice night drive sequences edited to one-hit wonders The Ward Brothers' Madness of It All.

Death Grips at Empire Automotive

One of the Fun Fun Fun Fest aftershows last week featured an experimental hip hop group from Sacremento, California called Death Grips. The intensity of their live show isn't really captured in this shaky iPhone video. But their music and performance is exhilarating and terrifying. Best of all, their dark off-tempo music actually sounds like something new and original.

The venue was cool too. Empire Automotive really is an auto repair shop during the day. I guess they started renting it out for the occasional live show at night. Definitely has an underground warehouse feel to it, even though it's just a block off Red River street, one of the major live music centers of Austin.

You can download Death Grips' mix tape "Exmilitary" for free on their website.  Or stream it here.

Happy Halloween!

Super cheesy song but amazing disco light display!

Labtracks - Robotic Love (Lenno Remix)

Labtracks - Robotic Love (Lenno Remix) by Lenno

I love new disco songs that make me feel like I'm racing on a space motorcycle. This is one of those songs. It has a plucky lead and excellent use of filters. Lenno is another wunderkind in the world of electronic dance music. He's 16 and lives in Finland and produces everything with a Mac and Logic Pro.

Check out this interview with Lenno on Cheers Ears.   Here's another Lenno song I like:


Lenno - Your Style (Club Mix) by Lenno

Magic Machines - Hey Mister

Who doesn't love a good animated gif? This music video, created to promote Los Angeles-based Magic Machines new song Hey Mister, is made entirely from animated gifs! It's pretty rad.

Midas Touch the Sky - Midnight Star vs. Kanye West (Dual Citizen mashup)

Last time we were in NYC, I picked up the 12" single for one of my favorite disco funk songs, Midas Touch by Midnight Star. Great record, but I was unable to rip the instrumental because my turntable needle sucked.

That all changed just the other day when I finally picked up one these puppies. Now I can rip vinyl to my heart's content.

I grabbed the Midnight Star instrumental and thought another song involving touching would go well with it. Then I found an acapella for Kanye West's 2006 hit Touch the Sky and realized it was meant to be.

 

Why I love and hate ACL Fest

Austin City Limits Festival is a big deal in the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World, and this is the outdoor music festival's tenth year. We went one year and I hated it: paying $90 a day to be locked in Zilker Park in sweltering heat with 75,000 other people, paying $7 for a can of beer, standing in line for 20 minutes to buy overpriced food. Fuck that noise!

But I also love ACL Fest because it brings tons of awesome artists to our fine city. When they shut down the concert at 10 pm every night and the sun-baked families head home to bed, the musicians are just getting started!  They go downtown and play shows in bars and venues. Drinks are cheaper and the weather is cooler and the crowds are smaller and you can get a lot closer to the artist.

The video above is the perfect example of that. I took it last night at Emo's Austin where we got to see Theophilus London up close and personal. To have had that close a perspective at ACL, we would have had to fight through this huge crowd of people, and even then we would still be 10 feet from the stage. Did I mention his ACL set was at 12:30 in the freaking afternoon?

I look forward to ACL Fest every year. I just hope I never have to attend it again.

Britney Spears in Houston

Earlier this summer we went to see Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj in Houston. It was freaking awesome. If you can't appreciate some good pop music, seriously, loosen up a little and don't take yourself so damn seriously. America is pop music, and pop music is Britney Spears. At least for this generation. This was just pure fun and the people in the crowd were weird and crazy. Nicki Minaj was great too.

Pixel Hell game for iOS

From the guy who brought you Bubble Pets, my longtime friend put out another awesome retro video game for iPhone. I love the feel of the 8-bit graphics and sound. Kevin MacLeod wrote the chiptunes for it. The game takes me to my happy place.

Basically, you are tapping people who are falling to hell and sending them to heaven. But don't tap the wrong characters! He has a list of features, but this one is the best:

A GORILLA AND A TANK... MORE

Good stuff. You should download it now!

Destiny's Child - Say My Name (Dual Citizen remix)

I rewrote the music to this song to give it more of an indie dance feel, and pitched the vocals lower to make it sound a bit creepier. Hope you like! Download it through the SoundCloud player below or grab it here.

Destiny's Child - Say My Name (Dual Citizen remix) by dualcitizen

Break Machine - Break Dance Party (Dual Citizen edit)

Here's my edit of Break Machine's 1984 hit "Break Dance Party." 

Madeon - Pop Culture (live mashup)

Madeon is an amazing French dance music producer. This guy is only 17 and already killing it. I was blown away with this use of the Novation Launchpad. I own one of these things, but this is by far the most impressive performance I have seen with it yet.

So what is he actually doing? The Launchpad is connected to the music production software Ableton Live. Each illuminated yellow button represents a sound clip in Live, in this case, a song of Madeon's choosing. By pressing the button, it turns green, indicating the song has started playing at a predetermined location.  Pressing a non-illuminated button stops play in that vertical column.  Pressing one of the non-illuminated buttons on the far side starts play of all clips in the horizontal column.  So he is basically playing short snippets of 39 different songs to create his composition.

Towards the end of the song, at 2:32, Madeon switches to a different mode in the Launchpad that allows him to control a synthesizer in his host software, Ableton Live. The music continues in the background while he plays a solo on top using buttons corresponding to notes on the keyboard.

He is showing how a grid of buttons should be respected as an as instrument. After all, what more is a piano than a series of buttons? But by using samples, he is incorporating a wide range of timbres from 39 songs to produce an entirely unique creation. Great stuff!

Here are the 39 songs he is using:

Alphabeat - Boyfriend
Alphabeat - Fascination
Bag Raiders - Shooting Stars
Black Eyed Peas - Gotta Feeling
Britney Spears - ...Baby One More Time
Capsule - Can I Have A Word
Chromeo - Mamma's Boy
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Daft Punk - Aerodynamic
Daft Punk - Around The World
Deadmau5 - Raise Your Weapon (Madeon Remix)
Deadmau5 - Right This Second
Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed
ELO - Mr. Blue Sky
Girls Aloud - Biology
Gorillaz - Dare
Gossip - Heavy Cross (Fred Falke Remix)
Gwen Stefani - What You Waitin For (Jacques Lu Cont Mix)
Housse de Racket - Oh Yeah
Justice - DVNO
Justice - Phantom Part II
Katy Perry - One Of The Boys
Ke$ha - Take It Off
Kylie Minogue - Wow
Lady Gaga - Alejandro
Linkin Park - Crawling
Madonna - Hung Up
Martin Solveig ft. Dragonette - Boys and Girls
Michael Jackson - Billie Jean
Nero - Me and You
One Republic - All The Right Moves (Danger Remix)
One-T - Magic Key
Ratatat - Shempi
Solange - I Decided (Freemasons Remix)
Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You
The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star
The Killers - Losing Touch
The Who - Baba O'Riley (SebastiAn Remix)
Yelle - Que Veux Tu (Madeon Remix)

BONUS

• Read TheWorstGuy.com's Interview with Madeon
• Madeon - Shuriken (download)

Vanguard - Loving Someone Else

About once every week or two I find a song I really like. I'm going to start posting them here. Loving Someone Else by Vanguard is one such song. It is a few months old but I only discovered it recently. Given the huge influence of Daft Punk on electronic dance music, the French filter sound is often attempted, but in this case it is applied awesomely.
01. VANGUARD - LOVING SOMEONE ELSE by VANGUARD
The whole song is based off a couple loops sampled from If the Phone Don't Ring by Street Fare. You can hear it around 1:13 in this video.

Vegan Black Metal Chef

This guy needs a Saturday night slot on Food TV!

AUSTIN TEXAS SUMMER TIME PARTY MIX USA Vol. 2

It's been too long since I posted a mix! Here is volume two of AUSTIN TEXAS SUMMER TIME PARTY MIX USA. (volume one here) Mostly indie dance and disco tracks I have been enjoying a lot lately. Hope you do too!

Track listing

Prince - I Wanna Be Your Lover (White Girl Lust's Bump remix)
Breakbot - Shades of Black
Missy Elliot - Work It (acapella)
Delorean - Stay Close (RAC remix)
Far East Movement - Like a G6 (acapella)
Smalltown DJs - Autograph
Holy Ghost! - Hold On
Dual Citizen - Speeding at Night 
Chromeo - Needy Girl (Zdar dub)
Digitalism - Idealistic (A-Trak remix)
Theophilus London - Humdrum Town
Futurecop! - 1988 Girls (Instrumental)
Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence (acapella)
Madeon - Shuriken
Ashanti - Still On It (acapella)
StardonE - CT
Worship - Starcrash
Phoenix - Armistice (RAC remix)
Lenno - Your Style (Club mix)
Siriusmo - Gummiband
Loredana - Rain Rain (Endiamonds remix)
Treasure Fingers - Cross the Dancefloor (Chromeo remix)
Grum - Can't Shake This Feeling
Rocco Raimundo - Can't Shake This Feeling
Midnight Star - The Midas Touch (Bedmo disco dub)
Breakbot ft. Ruckazoid - Fantasy
Michael Jackson - P.Y.T.
Ghosts of Venice - Her (Bit Funk remix)
Eumig and Chinon - Kaschow
Notorious BIG - Juicy (acapella)
Calling in Sick - Fun Punch (Calling in Sick remix)
Fukkk Offf - Worldwide (Fukkk Offf remix)
Skrillex - Disco Rangers
Wolfgang Garnter - Anthology (Madeon mashup)
French Fries & Chaos in the CBD - With You
Falcon Punch - Where You'll Stay
Rocco Raimundo - Be With You
Jacques Renault - Norman's Fire
Mary Jane Girls - Candy Man
Wax Motif & Anna Lunoe - Love Ting
Treasure Fingers - Lift Me (Gabriel remix)
Christopher Cross - All Right (Fiero Catalina Remix)

Mixed in Traktor Pro 2 using a modified VCI 100, a Midifighter (Instant Gratification mapping), and a Novation Launchpad with an upgraded custom mapping. 

Introducing the new Midifighter Pro!!

Fuck I want one of these really badly to add to my existing Midifighter! Too bad they're $350 each. Gotta start saving!

Rusko at Stubb's BBQ

We saw Rusko at Stubb's BBQ last night. He had crazy stage energy, getting all Richard Simmons and shit. He put on a pretty good show considering he was just DJing his own music. The kids seemed to like it.

Captain N: The Game Master

I was at the Alamo Drafthouse last night and they were showing their weird little videos before the movie starts, and this video came on! I was a little blown away because I used to watch this Nintendo sponsored cartoon all the time, but hadn't thought about it in years.

I laughed and pointed at the screen and said, "Oh my god I used to watch that show, and I totally forgot about that!"

The guy next to us, who I had never met before in my life, turned to me and said, "I was just about to say the same thing! I totally forgot about that!"

For those not in the know, Captain N: The Game Master was a Saturday morning cartoon show that aired from 1989 to 1991. It was about a kid who was sucked into his TV with his dog while playing Nintendo. The kid would run around with a Nintendo light gun, the kind you use in Duck Hunt, and fight bad guys with the help of Nintendo characters like Kid Icarus. The team would surf around on an old school Gameboy for transportation.

I think I loved the show because a) I loved Nintendo, b) the dude's name was Captain N, and c) one of the core values it transmitted was that playing video games might actually save your life on day (if you get sucked into a vortex). In short, it was a brilliant half-hour TV commercial for Nintendo.

There are way more details I didn't remember in the Wikipedia entry for Captain N. There are also a ton of Captain N videos on YouTube. This one is great!

Hitler Responds To Recent Trends At SXSW

Last SXSW post for this year, I swear. Just couldn't stop laughing over this one.

SXSW 2011

This pretty much sums it all up.....

More SXSW 2011

Some more of my iPhone 4 vids...my buddy Dane played drums in this band.

One of my favorite performances of SXSW was !!! The end of this video is awesome. He's all like, "WTF why is there a couch on the dancefloor?"

Walking down the street during the day. It was even crazier at night.

At SXSW you see stuff like random marching bands


All in all, SXSW 2011 was an awesome time. I'm glad the crowds are gone now and we can have our city back.

SXSW 2011 so far

Been to a bunch of stuff since this crazy party crashed down on Austin, Texas ...trying to press through to the end! Here's some of the video I've taken so far with my iPhone 4.

Fun Do It To It party in an interesting loft on Congress Ave.


Live taping of awards show that was on MTV.


My buddy Adam plays bass in this band.


Scoot Inn last weekend


Scoot Inn last weekend


Scoot Inn last weekend

How not to do South by

You win! Midifighter controllerism routine

You may recall last year around this time, I won a Midifighter for this routine. Well, DJTT had another contest and this dude won. The contest required you to use Streetfighter samples and a specific Midifighter mapping to develop a routine.  Gotta say, immuzikation killed it!

As much as I love the internet....

 

...I still find the death of large book stores depressing. The Borders shown here was always emailing me 40 percent off coupons, and I was wondering how long that could be sustained. Not very long, apparently.

Black Ops game clips

It's funny that I'm posting these now because I haven't been playing the game much lately. But an interesting feature of Call of Duty: Black Ops is the ability to create your own custom movies based on your game. You can control the camera angle and everything. It lets you load up to 30 seconds to YouTube. Strange limitation but whatever.

Here's a clip where I shoot a small, explosive remote control car called an RC-XD from about a couple hundred yards away using a Galil assault rifle. Nice shot!




In this clip I jump out of a warehouse and mow down my unsuspecting opponent with an AK-74u. Take that sucker!

Did I mention it snowed here yesterday?

People are not used to the snow here in Austin, Texas. The city gets half an inch and practically shuts down. That's partly because it has only 15 "snow trucks" (actually just dump trucks with sanders and plows slapped on). That's one per 47,000 residents. Here's some of the local TV news coverage of the "storm":

On Thursday night, everyone was waiting in anticipation.

Then the snow fell and people forgot ice was slippery.

A lot of people took the day off and went sledding on the "snow". (I enjoy this reporter's good ol' Texas gumption.)

And then it froze up last night and people were warned to stay inside.

Akai APC 20 + Akai APC 40 = Whoa!

This is freaking amazing! It's like the Semi-Homemade of DIY midi controllers.

Bottle cans

Had to try these. It's weird to drink beer from a soda pop-sized hole.

Boss Hogg Outlawz - Ride Wit No Ceiling

Texas!

Ruby Baby Dion

Happy Friday!

Vancouver's new bike lane is pretty cool

Being the fan that I am of driving videos, I was stoked to find this video on the Vancouver Province's website of some reporter biking down the new bike lane on Hornsby Street in downtown Vancouver. I love the idea and it's a great way to tell the story.

Vancouver, while no Amsterdam, is one of the most bike friendly cities I've been to. When I was there in 2009, everyone seemed to be biking all over the place. Great stuff.