First On This: Radioclit

Franki Chan preaching the gospel back at the hotel post-show.

Super-cool Swede, Johan from Radioclit, just sent me, and i'm assuming everyone else he met here on this past tour of theirs, an email w/ a bunch of new goodness.

When we met at Money Shot last Thursday (which was super-slammed!), he reminded/told me that we had met while I was on the road w/ Maya -- but you know how 'that' goes.  Regardless, after talking to him for a good deal of time before the show; he pretty much confirmed my long-standing belief that Swedes (probably, all Scandinavians in general as well), are the best people in the world.

Also, not being all that familiar w/ their work until that night, I was really into what they were doing --- a heavily traditional African-influenced hybrid of then-and-now.


Heres a vid of them working in the studio spliced w/ other ish:




And then, via YouSendIt, you can get their single "Secousse", as well as all of the remixes so far for the track.  Including efforts by Crookers, Mumdance, Qoso, and Bablee!

Jag Lskar Dig!

p.s. We got our 1st(?) first; what's up now Hype Machine!?!  Jake, make it happen!

Jay-Z pulling a Lil Wayne

There was a bunch of 'drama/concern' regarding having dude perform at this year's Glastonbury Festival . . . what with him being black and all.  Seriously, people were up in arms about having him headline because they felt that the festival's been anchored in rock etc.  Whatever.  Well, if you haven't seen it yet, check some vid at the beginning of his set; gon Weezy:

Guitar?
Check.

Semi-drugged-out sing-song-flow?!
Check, and ooof.

Throw a 'surprise left-field' joint into your set?
Check.

However, the inclusion of Wonderwall into his set wasn't the idea of a genius, rather one of a bitter man taking a dig at one of dem brothers from Oasis who didn't want him to headline the festival.  Too bad the crowd was so into the song.

I couldn't help but laugh when the band transitioned into the omnipresent AC/DC mash-up mix of 99 Problems!  I can't really decide whether its a worse look for a dj to drop that in his set, or for the remixed artist to use that same mash in his set . . . in front of 100,000+ people.

Now, who put him onto that mix?  AM?  Ronson?  Tom LaRoc!?!  And, more importantly, was it really this guy's genius that made it to Jay's ears?

Here's a vid of Wayne from Hot97's SummerJam. Totally going to play this tonight @ Chocolate Sundays.  So awesome.

Another vid of a Glastonbury performance is of Amy Winehouse, who apparently got agitated by someone enough to punch/push em a couple times mid-song.  Glad to see that crack doesn't cause mood swings.

If I Ruled The World (Part 1 of Infinity)

From the city that brought you:

and, of course:

There is another project, which is a bit less . . . well, stupid:

  

Dubai is breaking ground on a brand new Cultural Center and Opera House.  

I'm with it.

There's another project they're working on as well, its called Dubailand.  Think Disneyland, which employs 58,000 people on-site and is the #1 tourist destination in the world, but double the size!   Check it out over here.

Avenue D - Do I Look Like A Slut?

*Edit:  How timely, just found out about this today from Franki Chan who's in town for MoneyShot w/ Drop The Lime & Radioclit

This rotating dynamic tower is fucking nuts!!  Check the site!

Santish

This happened a bit ago; but the blog's been slowish, *ahem*...

Anyways Hot 97's DJ Enuff interviews Santi on Hot97.com.




Also, I got an email today saying that Santi's not doing the Rock The Bells tour anymore; instead:

I'm not quite sure what to think about Coldplay's new album -- which I haven't heard aside from that iPod commercial which seems to be perfectly targeted at my tv-viewing habits, .  . . hmmm? -- but I'm all for meaningless conjecture.  Therefore I'll go ahead and guess that the album will lend itself to allowing Chris Martin to pull a bunch of those 'I feel the spirit' moves that Thom Yorke has pretty much ran with for 6 albums.  

Anyways, its probably a better match than pairing her w/ most hip-hop acts -- and for that matter, it can't be much different/worse than djing for M.I.A. when we were opening for Gwen Stefani!

This was one of the few photos i managed to snap from backstage while she was performing.  

Gwen would be the one glowing white.

Apparently I wasn't allowed to take any photos, and Gwen's personal bodyguard made that abundantly clear when he caught me. That dude sucked!

When we were in LA(?), the rapper Nump, who had that hit(?) "I Gott Grapes" which M.I.A. jumped on for a remix, was stopped by Gwen's bodyguard forcibly in the hallway when he noticed he didn't have his backstage sticker on -- even though he had just been in Maya's room with all of us in there. 

Whatever.  I'm rambling and have to go to Oh Hell Nah!  

Dude also had a "Stop Cupcakin" t-shirt.

Nump - I Gott Grapes

Bau Down!

Our very good friend Matt Foley (under the guise Beach Club) likes to do these insane remixes of Hip Hop songs, usually involving a West Coast/Mainstream rapper and/or a movie theme and/or some weird rock song you never expected. I think the kids these days are calling these crazy blends "Mash Ups." But get ready to NOT drop these joints in da club, unless, of course, it's the Beach Club (or Country Club). This one is Daz from The Dogg Pound featuring Rick Ross over the classic Bauhaus joint "Bella Lugosi's Dead," with some samples from The Ghostbusters thrown in for the best measure.

ENJOY

The Planet Is Fine, The People Are Fucked

Finding Flyer Fodder

Now that I've got a new computer, I'm getting back into one of my side-hustles: graphic design.  It's probably healthier than where I am now, djing 6-nights-a-week --- hurting my soul/liver. 

I've been away from doing pretty much any design for . . . . shit, almost a year now.  So for this outing I spent a bunch of time online browsing/searching for something that would get me back into the swing.

Well the flyer, which I'm almost done with, isn't based on any of the images I found online; but these are weird, dope, gross, and not all work safe images that I'll post up:

YOU BE THE JUDGE

Always thought of these guys (cold play) as kinda of budget Radio Head, but I guess they are a suped up shitty SXSW hipster band....who knew?

On The Table

Random baile-rave track from 06.  

Makin Hits!

Get Down With The Get Down

I'd be pleasantly suprised if they got into any of their slow-bass jams.  

2 Live Crew - Reggae Joint

Womp Womp

So I went to the movies a couple days ago for a double-feature.  The plan was to watch the new Mark Wahlberg flick, "The Happening", first, and then scoot over to the new Hulk movie. 

Well, after 25 uncomfortable minutes of: 

"Ooooh, the trees . . . . Hey, this is weird . . . oooh, somethings happening . . . very slowly . . .", I got up and left.  

So, went over to see Hulk down the hall.  

Better than the CGI effects.

Though, more entertaining than The Happening, this joint was WEAKSAUCE!! 

Read an informed review here; or, let me just sum it up w/ some key points/words:

"Abomination"

"braindead"

"...gets progressively worse and more insulting."

"This leaves little time to work on his acting, which is preeningly dreadful here."

"Liv falls short of this drastically low standard."

"...biggest disappointment..."

"...green penis exploding her vagina..."

Having Issues

So I tried uploading the Lil Wayne x Santogold track up on Myspace -- but got this:

Now, out of the hundreds of remixes of the Lollipop song out there; how the hell did mine get caught?!   

Dunno what to say about that.
I read up on this filter they've got -- and apparently once its triggered, they have some sort of hash-check wherein no matter if you reformat the song, it will always be recognized and flagged.

In that case; here's the track again w/ bumped up studio vocals.

Lil Wayne - Lollipop (Contra's Creator Remix)

*Track taken down by DivShare -- you can now find it here.

And here's some awesomeness captured with this old footage of 3 legends together at one time -- James Brown, MJ, & Prince

Nihilists

Magic Johnson - Scanning For Viruses (Claude Von Stroke Remix)

If You've Got It, Post It

My choice tune off their new Mad Kidz EP.

Crookers - Embrace The Martian

Oh Hell Nah

What's more 'American'?
Selling out/Capitalism, or protecting the 'American Way'?


The proto-American King of Beers, Budweiser, has been offered a $46 billion buyout by the Belgian company that owns Stella Artois and Beck's.


Thankfully the good people at Save Budweiser have started a petition against the sale.  They've got more than 35,000 signatures so far.

On the topic of 35,000 people banding together with the goal of partying til "The dawn's early light", I bring you the hottest shit you've ever stepped in:

Letsss Goo!


This track reminds me Rock Master Scott's Request Line; regardless, here's an edit w/ an easy mix intro, found via The Hydeout.

Common - Universal Mind Control ft. Pharrell (Intro'ed Edit)

*Track taken down by DivShare, go to The Hydeout.

Back In Town

*air horn*

Just wrapped up the first stint w/ Santogold.  Pretty quick really.  The above photo is from an in-store at the Virgin Megastore in LA; which was actually a large ass setup outside in the center of the Hollywood mall-thing.  Switch surprised me by showing up to watch the show, and then further surprised me when he told me he had recently moved out there.  LA, really!?

Old Man Blu, 5 years ago.

Later in the night, met up w/ Old Man Blu(Jemz), who is as crochety as ever, at The Standard -- which was as much LA-flavor as I need this year.  On getting past the velvet-rope-guarding-door-girl, who was protecting a half-filled room, I got what felt like a 3rd-grade lecture about wearing a baseball cap, and how: 

"Usually we don't allow people to wear hats, but we're playing it really cool and loose tonight.  I just wanted you to know, so that you don't come back here with a cap on again and expect to get in, because usually . . . "   

Thanks babe, now can I go inside and pretend to ignore the horrendous girl-to-guy ratio?

Anyways, given Santi's hectic schedule, her voice/throat was giving her issues the whole time --- aside from her pre-show vocal warm-ups and while performing, she couldn't really talk at all.  Had to take steroids and use this weird inhaler thing.  Bunch of text msging and sign-language goin on the whole time.  

In preparation for the Rock The Bells festival dates, I wanted to work out some "Don't be scared frat-boys" transitions.  You know, mix something familiar to lead into her tracks etc.  

Well, that idea turned into a semi-finished remix when I realized the two tracks went really well together (D-Minor in the house!).  So basically, used replayed pads and blips from Lil Wayne's Lollipop song w/ a bootleg acapella and put em on a re-chopped Creator, w/ some Santi on the hooks.  

Lil Wayne & Santogold - Lollipop (Contra's Creator Remix)

FROM THE FUTURE

ENJOY

On the Road (San Fran)

I wish I had a bunch more photos, that is, I wish I had taken any photos.  

Friday morning, as I got home from MoneyShot, I had planned on taking a 'disco nap' for an hour before I had to wake up my roommate for a ride to catch my 8am flight.  

Yeah, well that didn't really work out.  Woke up at 7:15am when someone was in the shower.  

"Let'sss Gooooo!"  

Race-car driving later, I'm the last guy on the flight --- you know 'that guy' who totally stalled your plane and you ice-grill him on his way in.  

Fast-forward a bit, and I'm at the TLA in Philly.  We're scheduled to play at a 5-act show, w/ The Roots headlining.  Supposed to be on stage in 35 min, no sound-check; yet, I haven't even seen Santi yet, nor do I have the updated setlist, nor do I have all of the show instrumentals. 

Sweet start.

Phone call > YouSendIt > downloading . . . . 42 minutes to go.  34 min to show-time.  

Thankfully the band before us took their time; I got a quick setlist, and basically just free-balled the whole thing.  Couldn't hear shit Santi was sayin on the mic, and couldn't find a sound guy to patch her into my monitor.  Then again, no sound-check and 1 minute of coordination is how I usually roll anyways.  

Also, later found out that one of the instrumentals included in the YSI packet was incorrect -- it was a full version of "Shove It" which features Spank Rock.  Luckily, as the song before it was just ending, Naeem showed up on stage to say 'Hi' to me, and generally rock out in the background.  Dude saved the day, cuz once Santi & I realized it wasn't the right edit, I just pushed him front-and-center, and he didn't miss a beat!  

Then went out to a party at the Barbary after the show w/ Naeem & posse.  I'm pretty sure it was Drop The Lime djing downstairs, didn't bother to ask.  Shit was loud, people were into it like good ol' rave-cave bats.  

He was playing some heavy dance music (~Trouble & Bass[his crew], Switch, and some of his own cuts he sang on) -- all pretty good tunes, but his blends/cuts/efx were reeaally off.  Ooof.   

But of course, looking around at the dancing globs of sweat, nobody seemed to care.  

In San Fran now.  Gotta grab a bite to eat before we go to the festival.  Steve Aoki is on right now, then DJ AM, then us, then MSTRKRFT, and then Moby -- who i'm going to pretend I know/met at Poplife.  

Ze Germans

Next Level....




Speaking of looping...this guys playing at LOOP tomorrow (see contras previous post about how they stole Dave Navarros bottle of vodka in a fit of revenge)

Damn....

This is kinda a metaphor for my life....

Alice Russell In Miami

Just got what seems to be an open invitation, i.e. not just those on Giant Step's mailing list (which is probably everyone anyways), to catch the amazing Alice Russell performing at The Delano's Florida Room June 19th.

I've written about Ms. Russell before (check old post for some other mp3s).  Though I have never seen her perform live, I bet it would be a safe assumption in stating that she's probably even better live, esp. at a semi-intimate venue like The Florida Room, than on record.  

It says in their invite that Daz-I-Kue of Bugz In The Attic fame, who was just down here for WMC08, will also be performing; nothing said about if he's playing for her, or if she's got a band together.

Regardless if you have a taste in music that expands past loud club music and/or 99JAMZ, do yourself a favor, get some UK soul.

Here's a cover of the White Stripes' song:

Nostalgia 77 (ft. Alice Russell) - Seven Nation Army


This track is off of Quantic's Mishaps Happening -- his last effort that I really enjoyed.  The banjo, played by Quantic, cinches it!

Quantic (ft. Alice Russell) - So Long

From the invite:

RSVP to thefloridaroom.rsvp@morganshotelgroup.com. 

RSVP limited to one person per email.
21+ W/ID  

Land Of The Bjork

I mean damn, just imagine if you were the bear.  

Aaawww.

You're on your last ounce of strength as you've had to swim through all sorts of deadly perils: Sharks nibbling you, waves crushing all around, and most importantly, you've had nothing to eat for days!  

Then . . . in the faint distance . . . after hours and hours of treacherous hell, you think . . . . maybe . . . "Is that land?!?"

The blood starts pushing your muscles harder and harder as your heart starts racing again with a newly rekindled vigor.  

"It is land!!  I made it!"

Once you're finally ashore, the relief sweeps over your body as if you were 8-years-old doing a cannonball in the pool on a hot summer's day.  

"Finally," you must have thought to yourself, "I made it!  I'm exhausted.  *Phew*  200 miles!  Wait'll I tell the guys back home, nobody's gonna believe it!  It's gotta be a new world record or something."  

As you look around this newfound terrain you realize, "Well shit, I am fucking H-U-N-G-R-Y!  Lemme look around for some food and see wha . . . oh fuck."

 

*BAM*

If you're into cute-bear hunting, you can watch the video of Bjork's minions killin the polar bear here.  

Woo Hoo! Happy Anniversary China!

Today commemorates the 19th anniversary of the violent end to the Tiananmen Square 'incident'.

"That night, the Chinese government turned its troops and tanks against its own citizens, slaughtering hundreds to stop a coalition of students, a handful of workers, and a few academics, writers, and journalists from seeking more control over their own lives and for a pluralistic political system."

According to Human Rights Watch, there are still around 130 people in prison for their involvement in the protests. Bummer, eh?

Speaking of genocide, well, not really, but it still made me think of this track, and want to post it up, and its got a story, and a run-on sentence to boot . . .

I should be a photographer, cuz I made her look gooood.

This following track M.I.A. put me up on when she was down here recording. It took me a while to wrestle the track id from her - so you're welcome.

The tune has got such a HUGE sound. It opens with a classic breakbeat melting into a warm spacey melody that was a staple of the early-90s big-room sound. But the song doesn't really start for me until around the 4-minute-mark. That peaceful bliss fades to nothingness as the hypest guy i've ever(really? maybe.) heard on a mic just rips the shit on the ragga-dancehall-stylee for 2 minutes with barely a breath.

This is the stuff I imagine being played at a 90s warehouse rave in East London. I've reserved playing it until I find the perfect room of sardine-packed-just-don't-give-a-fuck's; and as of yet, it has remained silent.

Genaside II - Narra Mine (OG Version) (1991)

* Listen to it on your headphones at home; your laptop speakers will NOT do it justice.

*Brrraap*

You know that little bar up at the top of Blogspot sites?

Well, if you're bored, waiting for someone to get to your house, click on the 'Next Blog' button; you could be amazed.  This is what I found:



. . . um, kinda want the song.

Now, the nice smooth segue from gunfire = Ratatat.


They have a new album coming/out/leaked.  Gave it a quick listen.  Couple jams.  More misses.  Overall, eh. Then again I wasn't into the last Portishead effort either, so just download the track, and figure it out for yourself; cuz if my opinion mattered, there would already be socks sold in grocery stores.

Ratatat - Mi Viejo


Ratatat - Falcon Jab



And this is the best remix they've done -- better than the whole new album.

Ghostface Killah (ft. Jadakiss & Comp) - Run (Ratatat Remix)

BLOW FLY

So I did the BlowFly show last week on Friday, I'm not gonna lie I had some serious reservations about this, but i was pleasently surprised. The dude can actually still sing, hes definitely older and cant move that much, but not in the depressing geriatric way I feared, hes still got a powerful voice which was enough for me. His backing band however, thats a different story, ignoring the fact that they all look like they just walked out of a Smash Mouth performing live at burning man concert, they're just not that good. I can't help but think how dope the show could be if he linked with someone like breakestra or the the dap kings ...but when you're drummers your manager and you're looking to make some extra dough to survive, probably never gonna happen....

Heres some highlight pics....












INDUCE brought 10 Blow Fly / Clarence Reid records to get signed...to which his reply was "Holy shit where you get all those boy"....

And finally I leave ou with a blwfly track for you to enjoy....The First Black Presiden

Tough Luck Lohan.

From The Guardian:

Sparks - All You Ever Think About Is Sex

Flyer Fodder Spotted

Having done graphic design for a bunch of years now, I'm always interested in spotting the source materials people steal/borrow for their work; much the same as when I was 18 going through 126 Bob James albums looking for Beastie Boys samples.

Now, I did a good bit of googling for the finished flyer, but to no avail.  The event featured Lloydski at PS14 doing a disco set.  If you missed it, maybe the designer will post up the OG in the comments. 

*Edit: The link is in the comments.

Regardless, here's the album cover the piece was ripped from:



Just imagine Lloyd's head on there.  



Nice fit.

But, to do you one better, here's a rip of Captain Sky's album.  Enjoy.

Continuing on Lloyd, he was just down here this past weekend, djing at Poplife in the 'Red Room' --- also known as the 'other room where you go when its too packed/loud/annoying in the main room'.  Aside from Benton and myself, it was a fairly lukewarm reception, despite him dropping some really good tracks.

Here's one of em that you most likely missed; unless you are either the guy or girl that was enjoying a serious makeout sesh in the corner.  Yes, we were watching.

Force Of Nature - Afroshock

And just cause I can, here's the 'alternate' take on a classic:

West Phillips - (I'm Just A) Sucker For A Pretty Face (Alternate)

Where's Contra?

A very observant reader of the blog recently let me know that he's found me on Wikipedia.

No, no, no; you can't just type in 'DJ Contra' and find me.  Nope, this takes Sherlock Holmes-style sleuthing.  

So, I'm going to offer up a free ticket to an upcoming Santogold show to whomever finds me first (excluding the observant reader, who gets another prize I can't think of yet).  

But, here's the catch.  I don't have the dates/cities yet for her tour.  From this Thursday until early-August we're just doing festival dates, and I dunno if I have any pull for those.  If I find out that I can score wristbands, then we can work it out.  So, potential-soon-to-be-winner, have patience.

That said -- here are some of the dates I have so far:

June 6 - Philly - Roots Concert
June 7 - San Fran - Live 105
June 8 - San Diego - 949 Independent Jam
June 9 - LA - Virgin Store outside performance

July 20 - NYC - Summerstage
July 22 - NYC - Craig Wetherby Event
July 26 - Boston - Rock the Bells
July 27 - Washington DC - Rock the Bells

Aug 1 - Chicago - Lollapalooza
Aug 2 - Miami - Rock the Bells
Aug 3 - NYC - Rock the Bells

Heavy D & The Boyz - You Can't See What I Can See