45 King on HandyTrax

Had to share this...it's a video of Mark The 45 King KILLING a breaks set on a pair of Vestax HandyTrax portables and a stack of 45s.

Diggin' At Home (June 2009)

I've been listening to my iTunes a lot of shuffle lately to try to rediscover stuff in my own collection. I've got a pretty large and very diverse collection so it's pretty fun. Here's a few of the 'new' rediscoveries. That Dimenzio post from a couple weeks ago is also technically part of this.

First up is by avant garde '80s funk rockers The Flying Lizards. This group is amazing! They also do a cover of 'Money' by Don Covay which is one of my favorite 7"s to play in the most random places & times. Some of you hip-hop heads will recognize this song even if you've never actually heard it.


The Flying Lizards "Her Story"










Next is a song I never really paid attention to by one of the greatest groups of all time to come out of the African funk & afro-beat movement. They but out a few really good albums that are very expensive when found in good condition...actually even in poor, nearly unplayable, condition these albums still aren't cheap. This is from their compilation on Strut records and is long out-of-print.


Blo "Preacher Man"










Here's a track from a serious jazz group with a silly name on Gilles Peterson's label, Brownswood. They also have the creepiest album cover in this post so let's give it up for Soil & "PIMP" Sessions.


Soil & "PIMP" Sessions "Low Life"


BUY IT







This song produced by Domu with Pete Simpson on vocals is just beautiful. Excellent composition, lyrics and harmony. The latin swing combined with the cadence of the vocals work well together to carry the song without losing your attention. The house remixes are worth checking out too.


Domu presents Pete Simpson "Won't Give Up (album version)"


BUY IT

Happy Record Store Day!!

Today is the third annual Record Store Day.Unfortunately I can't partake in the festivities today but everyone else should. I kinda have a store in my house so I think I'll just go shopping at home tonight. In all seriousness though, if you love music or claim to be a DJ but don't have any records you need to go out there and support vinyl. It doesn't really matter if it's new or used. Just get out there and buy some goddamn records!

Read more about the holiday at their website

Get your hands dirty..put on a mask and rubber gloves..talk to crazy old dudes who know more about music than you ever will..spend your rent money..justify how you don't need to eat much for 2 weeks but you "NEED this record"..don't care about the environment and all the paper and PVC used to make records because "it's worth it"..inhale decades old dust from old basements..hear stories about the DJs in your town that created the music scene there..negotiate prices over some tiny mark on the cover..get excited about how you're gonna play that old song in your new sets..clean off some mold to unearth a rare gem..argue about 'proper ways' of cleaning records (NO alcohol & water solution...NO paper towels!)..be humbled by the amount of great music that was made and you didn't know about..realize that you haven't dug through as many boxes of wax as you think you have (pshaw...amateurs! haha)..hear stories about high profile collectors like ?uestlove, J-Dilla, Kenny Dope and that dude from PM Dawn!! hahaha..and the infamous dealers that supply them..use the 45 adapter that you keep in your wallet..get annoyed by those people that want to listen to a whole song on the listening station (c'mon dude! you can't tell if you like it in less than 15 seconds!!??)..keep an eye on what the person digging next to you is missing then get 'em..act naive and put on your poker face when you find that $30 record for .50 cents (or that $100 record for only $3)..realize that you actually won't sell it for $100 anyway..be late to work or any other important appointment because you're in the middle of going through all the records in a store..laugh when you hear some kid as "do you have records with samples on them?" (they ALL have samplse you idiot! be creative.)..pretend you don't really know much about disco and are just starting out, then help the store price everything before selling it to you..claim that your addiction to vinyl is under control when secretly it isn't.

100th post...finally

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know it's only taken a month but here it is finally. I have good reasons why it's taken this long though. Between teaching DJing classes to kids all summer followed by a 17 day trip to Japan I just didn't have enough time.

Originally I was going to do this big long post with tons of info but I'm just gonna keep this one brief. I had already had a nice post all typed up when Safari decided to crash. So, you're not even gonna get the good brief one..just scraps. Sorry :(

There have been some good changes to the site though which you may have noticed:

-More mixes in the player: you can't download these but there is enough music here to get you through your 9-5.

-Last FM player added:
This thing is awesome. I used the desktop software and it scanned my iTunes library (which is huge) and plays stuff based on that and makes similar suggestions for songs that aren't even in my library. You could listen to this thing for weeks on end and not get bored. Listen to it right on the site or use the pop out option to open it in it's own little window.

-Muxtape:
I want to make this a weekly updated list but I haven't got much feedback from this yet. So, for now it will just be updated periodically. When I see that more people are interested, it will get updated more frequently.

-Travels:
So, I finally went on a 'real' vacation. (I don't consider a day in NYC a vacation) The last time I got away from Philly was in 2002 when I went to Paris for 12 days. So it's been 6 years since my last vacation and it was well-deserved!! Japan was/is amazing and it wouldn't have been possible without a few solid connections that really helped me out. I'm not really caked up so with out them I couldn't have went at all. Ok, I'm lyin...I got more money than I know what to do with and though a long trip to Japan was a good way to spend some of it. I'll start posting some of my adventures from Japan next week.

-Events:
I don't go to a whole lot of events anymore compared to back in the day but I do go to some good ones. I'll start posting some of those soon as well. They won't be in any particular order but will be based more on when I'm looking through pictures.

-Diggin' At Home:
Over the last couple months I've recorded a bunch of my vinyl and am still in the process of making the mp3s (I'm one of those types that likes to have his music sounding proper so it takes some time with some records to enhance the sound). Here's a couple recent purchases and both are soulful disco bombs! You NEED these in your life...go buy them immediately!








Holding On - from We Can't Take Life For Granted... (anthology)


Eugene Blacknell
buy this anthology here








Save The Youth (Kenny Dope mix)


Mellow Madness
buy this 7" single here