Ibiza by 2010

I've long flirted with the dream of retiring after playing Ibiza.  It doesn't need to be any fancy sort of massive foam-filled lazer-lit extravaganza; any ol' dingy bar, or even a parking lot, would be fine.  Just get me there, and its a wrap! 

That said, I, by way of nothing to do with me, have taken one giant step towards reaching my dream.  Apparently Santogold is performing at WMC's centerpiece event, Ultra Music Festival.  I've never been to a single one, but they seem to spend $70 billion every year, so it must be good.

Anyways, so sure playing Ultra isn't the ecstasy-induced hopscotch towards Ibiza that would garner a flight and slot, but . . .  last weekend, after getting a flyer on my car, I saw that we're scheduled to play the Main Stage; and more important than just playing in front of 30,000(+) Ed Hardy/Hardylettes with inflatable beach balls, is the headliner for the main stage.  

The very same day, on the very same stage, maybe even with the very same turntables *gasping blush*, is none other than the grand god of everything God deemed godly, Mr. Hands In The Sky And Touch Heaven:  

TIESTO!!!

Sunrise indeed kind sir

So yes, as of now, I'm officially boys with Tiesto.  Update the Myspace.

I'm kinda getting nervous just thinking about what I could possibly talk to him about.  Its like meeting your long-lost-brother on an episode of Maury; I mean T-dawg and I are basically two peas in a pod, nearly identical.  We can talk build-ups and breakdowns in G-sharp rather than F, handing out Lambo's with diamond-encrusted keys, having our water imported from Antarctica, and every other common-day occurrences for trend-leaders like us.

So basically after we rekindle what we've always known was there (I saw him once in NYC ~'01; I nodded), I fully expect The T-meister to take me along to his next 16-hour set in Ibiza.  

If for some reason this doesn't pan out because I've got to dip early, Lloyd and I have an Ibiza tour scheduled in 2010. Get on board now, before Ministry of Sound releases our legendary mix.

Throwbackbackback to Lloyd when he was 15 song

Jock- Jock- Jockin Santi, Jockin Santi

"... in the building tonight!"

So a couple weeks ago, Santi opened up for T.I. & Jay-Z.  You may be familiar with them from such hit songs as "Every Other Song Played In A Nightclub" or the emotional ballad "If It's Not Playing Now, You'll Hear It Soon".

So I was kinda excited for the show -- not really our part of it, but more the 'everything but us' part.  I mean, this is 'the guy'.  He is on top on top.  He's the dude in the orgy who is like: "Aight, who is licking on my toes?!" [Hmm, that analogy totally fell short of what was once funny in my head; but here's to no rewrites in '08.]  

Anyways, as I was saying; so he's on top of the game killin everyone Rambo II style; and for the top guy doin his 'on top show', Saltmaster Flash (that'd be me) kinda felt it wasn't all that great.  I mean, its hard to knock a show that is stacked full of classic/soon-to-be-classic bangers, but even so, we're working somewhere in the ranges of 7.5 out of 10, definitely no higher than 6.5.  You know, being the balanced critic that I am, (a luxury which I like to afford myself, as its waaayy easier than actually making 70 gazillion hit songs), I was definitely let down.  If i were a fan spending $300 to get close enough to feel his sweat fall on me, I probably wouldn't really care either way, but back-row seats people -- i know you hear me.  

And no, in my brief interaction w/ dude, i didn't tell him to his face that his show was 'womp' . . . but i did tell santi to tell him for me.

I wish i had more photos/video of the show --- especially his 1990's techno-screensaver graphics that were projected on the massive screens above the stage. But below is pretty much all I snapped.




The "I Got So Many Hits" Encore Segment:

* yeah DJ AM (looking like not a damn thing happened to him) was on stage as Jayz DJ; as in there were turntables on stage, and he had headphones on sometimes -- but i'm thinking it prolly went along the lines of what Craze does w/ Kanye now -- cuz there was a mega ProTools station at the side of the stage.

New Studies Say Depression Hits Losers Hardest

Gotta do a wrap-up of this last Santogold tour across the US, but currently scamming wireless from a neighbor, and that shit is SLOOOOWW . . . . so i'm gon have to wait on that to upload photos/vid etc.

That said, i'm looking forward to this next week; I'm dipping out w/ Santi again -- opening up for Jay-Z one night, and then opening for this Get Out and Vote concert.  

If you're in town, lemme know.

I got nothing else.

With Friends Like These . . .

Yeah, so no tracks to share.

Go buy it here, now. 

In the meantime I'm keeping busy taking over the world one air-horn at a time.

Read a wispy review from The Boston Globe.

When Worlds Collide

Wow . . . 

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes", seemingly launched into the upper-echelons of mass commercial consciousness w/ the recent help of Pineapple Express movie, has been sampled w/ arguably the top 4 rappers in the game dropping verses.

Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, T.I. - Swagger Like Us

I really dunno what to say about this.  

Mark my words, next sample Kanye uses is gon be Santi!!

War Stories (Part 5: Cue Confetti)

So, it seems that the blog has been sorely neglected by the tight-knit cast of contributors we've got running this thang.  You guys got lives or something?!  

That said, I'm only gonna post a video.  This is the 2nd encore of the Coldplay show that I mentioned in a previous post.  Btw, there was one guy in the Coldplay crew w/ the sole responsibility of triggering the ticker-tape.  So you know, if you've got nothing else going for ya, maybe a career change is what you need.  Just sayin . . .   

It's basically the best part of their 1.5 hour set. So, cheers to everybody w/ tickets to their upcoming tour in Europe; you've just seen what you were about to tell all your co-workers at Nieman Marcus the next day was "all I could hope for".

I also 'met' this guy:


He was uncomfortably staring at me as I was walking around backstage.  I complemented him on his ~Panama Jack safari hat as he walked by w/ entourage. . . . . Kinda gotta work on that ice-breaker convo.  I mean, it was either that, or "E.T. Rocks!".

Oh, and can you take a guess at who is 'down' enough to roll in The Berg's posse?

My guess would have been Tom Hanks.  But alas, no.

This guy:

There was also some model/actress chick that followed the band for a bit; but i really didn't know her, even when people started listing her movies to me.  Blue Crush?!  Wasn't that some horrible rip-off of Point Break w/ James Van der Beek?!  I dunno.  She had a crush on our bassist who was just recently married.

Yeah, blah blah blah, here's some other crap.  It was only a matter of time I suppose.  At least the sample isn't "Hotel California".  

Jermaine Paul - Boyz of Summer (The Remix)

War Stories (Part 2: And You Say Chi-city!)

So I snapped this video for my sister who was born in Chicago.  She's a big Bulls fan, so since we were playing their arena, I thought it'd be cool to snap their backstage ish.  The door was locked, but randomly, I caught Coldplay running back to the front of house for their 2nd encore.  Similar to that Beastie Boys show documented in the "Awesome, I Shot That" DVD, after their main set, they run to the back of the arena, and *surprise* "Here we are guys, amongst the crowd for an encore!"  Then they run all the way back for another encore that ends w/ these crazy cannons shooting out multi-colored paper butterflies all over the crowd. (Gotta get that shit on video!)

Anyways, if you watch the vid, you'll catch me saying something like: "I'll get you later!" to Chris Martin.  

See, they've got this ping-pong table that follows them around on tour that they play to warm-up before their shows.  It also happens to be setup right outside our dressing room . . . so i mean, wtf, I'm gonna get on that shit and rock out.  Naturally, right?

Well, to this point, my only interaction w/ dude has been to challenge him to a game where he puts up his per diems against mine.  If I won, I figured I'd be getting a 400% mark-up.  

That was the plan at least.  But the very next day I get word from our Tour Manager, who was told by a Coldplay staffer, that we (Santogold crew) can't use the ping-pong paddles; which is basically like saying: "Puny proletariats, your unwashed hands shall never again befoul the holy paddles."

So now, I've gotta find a sports store and get some bling-ass bedazzled signature paddle.  I'm gonna take dude out and have the whole shit filmed w/ the SG-1's (dancers) getting some cheers on, and "Eye of the Tiger" playing on a boombox as I walk on court.  Then again, if I beat him too badly, especially before they go on stage, i foresee: 

[*Best English accent*] "That's it!  Santogold's DJ is off this tour!  Now!!"

War Stores (Part 1: I'm On Air Horn Duty)

EDIT: Wrote this last week, but haven't really had quality internet access.  Btw, what's up w/ expensive hotels also charging you for internet use?!  If I buy a $4 coffee and can use the internet gratis, paying $300 for a room should get me a computer to use as well. 

 

"People who don't even like music are gonna be there!"

- EggFooYoung

Video taken from Dante Ross's blog.

Before we got on, Wes & A-Trak were djing.  I was in the artist's trailer thing going through a set cuz Santi mentioned I might play (we've got a ~30min show, but an hour slot).  Then track-by-track my set got smaller and smaller as both these cats were going through 'em.  Wes played this Duke Dumont track I had just made an edit of two days earlier.

That said, might as well post it up:

Duke Dumont - Hoy (Contra Edit)

We Up On It

There's an interview on UK magazine Dazed & Confused's website w/ me.  This is an edited down version (i.e. no personality/elaborations); to see the full thang, check out Slam x Hype sometime soon.  
If you go to Dazed quickly, I'll still be on the front page . . . sweeeet.

Funny Caption Here.

And cuz Jake is a lazy bastard (sure guy, "meetings all day", i smell ya), i'll post up his recent interview on Cool Junkie as well:

pfffrt.

----------

In other press, the relatively new party Oh Hell Nah! that I dj at alongside Luis/DS and Mike Deuce, got written up in Flavorpill as something you should be going to.   If you've got any input as far as drink specials you'd be interested in let us know, we're open to changing the $4 Tequila & $4 Coronas.   

Then in even further news clippings of this week, Money Shot's 1 Year Anniversary leads in the 4th of July weekend wrap-up by The Miami New Times.

I should've posted this track up for my computer story, but better late than never.

Doris Norton - Personal Computer (OG Mix)

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

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

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)

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.  

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

Up N Strolling.

Been through 3 computers in the last 4 days; trying to get situated before the Santogold tour.  Now my crates aren't showing up, and apparently the latest Serato update isn't 'approved' for Mac OS 10.5.3, etc, etc.

Also, felt like the blog needed a breather to soak up all that is/was Dan's agggggrrroo-post.  Bad day chum?!

Well, let's move things forward.


Looks like Lily Allen's on the same diet I am.

And in other news . . .

In the near future (*edit: Thursday night) my boy EggFooYoung, now 'known' as Michna (sellout!)(Ghostly | Turntable Lab) is coming into town for a weekend of gigs.  

It's crazy to me that I've known this guy for about 10 years!  I still remember one of his first mixtapes -- he did this little beat-juggling session w/ Common's "Funky For You" using that "I can break it down..." section, then switchin up the speeds as he juggled it.  He did the routine at one of my backyard Ill Sessions parties my 1st year living off-campus; I'm pretty sure that was the same party that ended w/ 7 MPD squad cars and a helicopter!  

Anyways, I stole this track off his laptop ~2 years ago.  I know he never checks our blog, so I figured I'd post it up; don't rat us out.  That and apparently you have to post up a Diplo-related track to get on Hype Machine. (WTF?!  Anybody got the connect?  Darko?!  Roxy?!  Bueller?!?)  

Diplo - Way More (EggFooYoung Remix)

And this song outshined the rest of Like Water For Chocolate for me.  I'm pretty sure the late Jay-Dee produced it.

Common - Funky For You

She The Best! Who?! SHE!!!

Looks like the interview was done before we did the show in Guadalajara and before the L.E.S. Artistes video was shot.  

Read the article here.

Her album just dropped 4/29.  Buy it -- its one really worth having.

She's doing shows in the UK now; trying to have her come down for Contrapalooza 2.0. 

I see the Switch remix of this song posted up everywhere; wonder if many people have heard the original version.

Santogold - You'll Find A Way (Original)

WMC - Sunday

Ate at Tap Tap before going out. Highly recommend ordering the Malanga Fritters!  So good.  

If you don't mind eating a fish w/ its head still on - Santi ordered the grilled whole fish in lime sauce, and I made fish faces:

Later, OMD had a jam at Purdy Lounge. The fam showed up in force. We were gon do some Santogold songs, but by ~1:30am it was way past Santi's bedtime. *whomp*


Blaqstarr also showed up and killed a late night set!! 

Big thanks to Dos Equis & Sujinho.

WMC Recap - Wednesday

RPS, or "Rock, Paper, Scissors" for the squares, is the oldest game in history(*starting from when scissors were invented).   

I wouldn't refer to myself as the 'best' at RPS, but i'd consider myself above-you.  

So, late on Wednesday night (read: Thursday ~10am), I've ended up at the Mad Decent apartment, sitting around a table w/ Sandwich Boy Naeem, Unemployed Lloyd, and 'Nother Drink Switch.  Naturally, as is the case when dealing with such ardent enthusiasts of filling up time, RPS comes up in conversation.  

Switch has never played before, so he's instantly cast-out of the competition.  Naeem was into the 3-way tournament, but pretty much got scared away when me & Lloyd started clearing off the table and spacing out the chairs 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly' style.

In an amateur attempt at scaring off his last challenger, me, Lloyd brings out the cash.

*Tsk, tsk*

Little did he know who he was messing with.  

The bet had started off at a respectable $5, but I 'only' had a $10; so naturally, we got locked into a best-of-3 $20 winner-take-all-loser-gets-blogged-about match.

The crowd gathers around the table and the intensity begins.  

If you haven't played RPS for money in a while . . . . it'll get you on that 'next' level.  

First comes the trash-talk.  You try to psych-out the opponent, while psyching yourself up.  Lloyd is pulling the "Oh, I got you son!" chatter.

Next, when you are both ready to get down to business, you enter the Staredown.

Here, you try to get a little read on your opponent.  Is he the type of guy that'll throw Rock first?  (*Note: 90% of newbies throw Rock first.)   

But wait, he's putting up money, so he's probably going to go for the Scissors; knowing that I would throw Paper to beat a newbie's Rock.  But then I would have to counteract with Rock; but maybe he already figured that in.  Et cetera.

First Round: I beat him w/ Paper.

* What a sucker, is he that weak that he pulled the Rock out on the first-round?!

Intensity grows, and now Lloyd wants to raise the bet.  

Well, I don't have any more money . .  but Switch does!!  He covers my $10 increase, and now we're at $40 --- plus, I've got a crucial 1-0 advantage.    

10 minutes after more trash-talking and pacing around the room, I ruthlessly put Lloyd out of his misery with another Paper.  A clean 2-0!!  You can just feel the disgrace haunting his dreams:

Who gwan test me now?!?

Trouble Andrew, that's who.  

We strike up a match over lunch @ The Delano.  This guy plays with some weird Canadian rules, where instead of 1-2-3-Shoot!, its just 1-2-Shoot!  That nonsense fucked w/ my head and I lost 6-5 in an 11-round rapid-fire match.

Here's vid of Mr. No-Shame beating up on his girlfriend.


Solid Groove - Pat Pong (Remix)


No idea where I got this from, but here you go:
Master Kev & Scott Wozniak - String Thing (KW Griff Remix)


Herbie Hancock - Bring Down The Birds
- Sampled & used in Deee-Lite's party classic "Groove Is In The Heart"