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.
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)
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.
Last SXSW post for this year, I swear. Just couldn't stop laughing over this one.
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.
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
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!
This is freaking amazing! It's like the Semi-Homemade of DIY midi controllers.
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.
It's funny how this brings back memories of watching action and horror movies in the 80s, even though these are just the intros you see before the movie starts. Man, I need to dig up some of those movies again.
The East Side Drive In is basically a large, empty lot on East 6th street. Last time we went to a show there was during SXSW 2010. Last night, Big Boi put on a great performance. I love outdoor venues when the weather is nice. No ceiling or walls, just the backdrop of downtown. We were nice and close to the front.
Earlier this month, we went to a cool music festival in a downtown Austin park. Three stages, three days and dozens of bands. We went Saturday. Here's some of my iPhone video.
Here's their professionally produced recap of FFF 2010.
A couple weeks ago we had a 5 day mini-vacation and it kicked off with a bang. Began with a taping of The Roots (plus John Legend) at the Austin City Limits studios. Always been a fan of the Roots, especially now that I see them on a regular basis as the house band on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Never been to an ACL taping before, so I was surprised that a) they give out free beer before the taping starts, b) they allow photography during the taping (as long as it's not flash). I just had my iPhone, but you can catch a glimpse of what it was like. I happened to be getting some water just before the Roots showed up in the freight elevator. A cop got in my way and told me not to move, so I whipped out my iPhone camera only in time to catch their backs walking in.
After the Roots, we rushed back downtown to have a quick jello shot and to recharge my phone before going to Stubbs BBQ for Chromeo, Holy Ghost!, and Telephoned. I had been really looking forward to this show, but by the time we got there (early, like 10 pm), Chromeo were already half way through their set! WTF! Then I looked at the ticket and it all made sense. 7 am start time. All ages. The place was packed with like 2,000 college undergrads. Anyway, we caught a couple of Chromeo's hits - Night by Night, and Don't Turn the Lights On - and then got out of there right when they began their encore. (I have always hated encores, except in those extremely rare circumstances when they occur organically, but that's for another post.)
After Chromeo we went to Red 7 to catch Questlove of the Roots spinning a DJ set. Must say, the guy is an amazing DJ. He was playing a wide range of hip hop and funk and disco, and he would do these really fucking amazing transitions. Definitely an educational experience, not just from a DJ technique perspective but also from a music history perspective. He would take you on a journey and make these really fascinating connections between songs, like mixing Notorious B.I.G.'s Big Poppa seamlessly into the Isley Brothers' Between the Sheets, which was the sample in the Notorious song. Except it was like on and on like that all night. Here's a crappy video that doesn't come anywhere near to capturing his skills or the energy of the set. We danced for three hours and then I was done.
This drag/witch house shit whatever is definitely a "growth meme" right now but I can't help but love the creepy video aesthetic.
Happy Friday friends! Ed Banger Records put out this cool video for a song I have been loving lately, Breakbot's Baby I'm Yours. The video, like the song, has a kind of psychedelic disco vibe.
Download song
Baby I'm Yours is one of those songs begging for some four on the floor remix action. There are probably about a half dozen iterations out there. Here are two of my favorites.
Breakbot - Baby I'm Yours (Adam Smith Remix)
Breakbot - Baby I'm Yours (Color Blaster remix)
Today is also the one year anniversary of Michael Jackson's death. We miss ya buddy!
