sidechain

the narthex project

2006-12-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

dean will be coming over in the coming days to do some tracking on a project he and mike are working on. i thought it was going to be one song, but on examination of the cd, it appears its 9-10 songs. mike's been busy!
i'm going to set up each song as a project in logic and use tap tempo and beat mapping to set up clicks for dean to lay down drums to. i'm not exactly sure how to do that so i may have to fall back on ableton live6 if i can't find any easy way to do it in logic. ableton is always my go-to for beats and rhythms.
lots of work to do and it looks like fun!

rodger's trick worked

2006-11-26T10:27:00.000-08:00

my buddy rodger gave me a track of his to mix the other day. it was a sly attempt to get me back to the studio and over the fact that other things have been taking up my free time. his idea worked because i've been spending time in the studio again and its been fun enough that i've been thinking about it a lot and anticipating each night's tasks. in other words, i'm back in the studio again...

the song was tracked in live5 and there was about 20 different tracks in the project. rodger doesn't work in clip view so i had to work in arrangement view, something i rarely do until i'm ready for the final "take" during a song's creation. i'll even record dj sets in clip view and just apply some tweaks on arrangement view and most of that is easy because i'm only manipulating 3-4 different tracks.

my first task was to consolidate the tracks into single audio files. for the tracks that had been "frozen" it was simply a matter of using live6's "flatten" feature which takes the frozen track and makes it the audio track, removing all of the effects and such. that worked like a charm. the other tracks were multi-selected and rendered into stems making sure that all tracks were starting at 1.1.1 so they could easily be synced up after importing into a new format. most of the renders were done clean (no effects) except the drums and the tracks that had been laid down originally with effects. with the new imac, it took about 30 seconds to render each track. that's a huge difference from my powerbook, which took about 2-3 minutes per track. normally this process would be expected to take about 2-3 hours for a 20 track project. i was able to get through everything in about 30-40 minutes at a leisurely pace.

after the stems and single track renders were completed, i imported them into a new project in logic pro using the audio window and the "create arrange track" feature. it was a simple process and very fast. at this point i had all of my instruments available to me for use as well -- the nord's 4 voices, instrument tracks with the rhodes plug-in (evp-88) and my own bass, 10 bfd drum tracks (singly miked drums, cymbals and overhead/room/pzm mics) and guitar tracks (mapped to the pod xt outputs).

i then spent the rest of the night laying down drum tracks using bfd. they sounded great, as usual but i'm facing some weird bussing issues that need to be sorted tonight. it appears that some of the bussed drum outputs are being doubled which make mixing difficult. its some environment window routing issue, no doubt, which is still a bit of a mystery to me. i have a much better understanding of it than i did a few months ago but some of the routing details related to aux and bus tracks are murky and require some experimentation and education.

as a sidenote, buying logic pro was a big step forward for me. its everything i needed and expected from a d.a.w. and each session adds more depth of knowledge and ideas. it was a pricey option but once installed and put to use, its value becomes vibrantly apparent. rodger and i were discussing it from a cost perspective. if you total up the value of the synths, the rhodes and b3 plug-ins, the convolution reverb (space designer), the other logic effects (compressors, gates, maximizers, exciters, and mastering tools available), marker tracks, beat mapper, *and* the d.a.w. sequencer/tracker/mixer, you get a price far in excess of $999. add in the imac and the pair of them become a fantastic tool in the studio. and i'm not just justifying my expenses! its a bad-ass setup!

i'll try to post some screenshots of my project interface and screenset layouts when i get a chance. i might post some clips of the drum mix too, so you can get a sense of the "live" sounding bfd drums.

here's some studio pics

2006-11-11T15:24:00.000-08:00

my studio in pictures

things have changed

2006-11-10T06:57:00.000-08:00

below is what i'm currently using in the "new" studio setup

hardware:

intel imac 2.33ghz 20", 2gb ram, 500gb hd
powerbook g4 15" 1gb ram
2.4ghz pc, 1gb ram
nord lead 3
pod xt
ibanez stratocaster copy
fender jazz bass
old acoustic guitar
behringer bcf2000
korg kontrol 49
firewire hard drive 150gb - music content and samples
firewire hard drive 150gb - music "crate" - mp3s and aifs

software:

logic pro 7.2
ableton live 6
reason 3
bfd
pro-tools 6.9 (pc-only)

its a powerful setup and i'm still getting things set up. the imac arrived last week so it really tore the whole thing up. there's been a ton of configuring and optimizing to do, with regards to studio layout and such.

and now a bass is added to the mix

2006-04-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

i am hemorhaging money, basically and i need to stop. what's done is done however and i'm left with a relatively shiny, burgundy-colored fender jass bass. i never realized how much i like playing bass but having an actual bass may be adding to the perception. just maybe.

the song i'm currently working on has stalled. it have two basic parts done but it needs something else. and some vocals. and an intro. i'll break it all down tonight and see what happens but i'm pretty happy i have a real bass guitar to add to the mix. it really does make a significant difference to the overall sound.

its been a while

2006-04-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

i keep wanting to post music i've made or links to a new myspace site that i'm contemplating but other items prevail and, about 5 failed post-beginnings later, here i am.

my latest efforts have been focused on learning how to use apple logic express 7 to track instrumentation. i've been doing the reading and research and coming up with some decent pieces of songs, but nothing complete. at this point, the tool still gets in the way, and like with ableton, until i get past that stage i find it hard to make music as i'd like.

i'm very comfortable with ableton right now. i'll probably end up using it with logic express since, much to my dismay, express doesn't have groove templating like pro does. ideally i would work in one app but re-wire might be necessary to get the groove templating (to tighten up drum pieces or create drum loops).

i really like logic as a while however. i like it a lot more than pro-tools but that's not saying much.

one of the major purchases since the last post, music-making-wise, has been bfd by fxpansion. its a pretty incredible midi drum library. you can create very realistic drum pieces with it. using it in conjunction with my roland spd-s and kd-8, i can come up with reasonable facsimiles of drum tracks, minus the talent and timing.

i hope to have some samples up soon.

my current studio set up : illustrated

2005-11-30T16:10:00.000-08:00

here's how everything is hooking up currently in my studio. obviously only mildly interesting to the propeller-hat types out there who like that type of thing.

as you can see, the alesis multimix8 is the hub of the whole thing and i can't see how i got along without it this whole time. overall i'm happy withit but i'm still coming to grips with how best to use it. at this point its completely integrated and doing everything i wanted it to do. i still need to tweak the latency stuff. it appears that the chained hardrives may be affecting the latency. i'll do some more experimenting. at this point, its acceptable to me but it could be better.

now i want to make the alesis do some interesting stuff like use the onboard effects. i'll need a few more cables to make that work but the possibilities are intriguing.

about time: state of music

2005-11-19T13:30:00.000-08:00

there's been too much music purchased and acquired since the last post but i can say there's been a few finds that stand far above the fray. most of them are "top 10" material for this year's top finds.

grand national - kicking the national habit --- this is from 2004 but its a great album.
iron & wine / calexico - in the reins ep --- good... music... must.... listen....
sasha - fundacion nyc --- with the exception of the goofy intro, this album rivals my pick from last year as top album of the year, involver. it took a while to grow on me but now i love popping this one in for a listen
death cab for cutie - plans --- this band is hit or miss for me but there's no real weak track on this album. highly recommended.
danny howells - global underground miami --- its a mix cd but one of the best of the global underground series. its a fine blend of deep/funky/techno house that pulls out all of the stops. the dennis desantis sounds are standout.
james zabiela - utilities --- techno house, a genre i don't usually listen to, but creative song choices and the fact that he used ableton live for one of the cd's was enough to get me to listen. once i did i was hooked. the aphex twin "windowlicker" remix is a keeper.

there's so much more. if i run across something in the cd player that won't leave, i'll post more.

about time: state of the studio

2005-11-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

its been ages since my last post, as you can see. if just been spending my time doing stuff other than blog posting lately. when the thought strikes me about something to post, its usually gone from my head or significantly fallen in priority by the time in get in front of the computer so my inane thoughts end up bouncing around silently in my head until they peter out and i move on.

that being said, the time is ripe for some updates, opinions and such so here goes:

*** the state of the studio ***

the studio has grown somewhat since the last post. i bought a pair of official active monitors, krk rockit5's which sound great in my small space. fathom recommended them and so did the dude at guitar center after my targetted purchase (m-audio bm5a) wasn't in available.

since my old midi controller bit the farm (oxygen8) i went ahead and got the korg kontrol49. its been really good so far. i love the 16-pad section for doing drum beats.

korg electribe mx1 was something i got for my birthday. its basically a groovebox with 9 drum parts (using samples internal to the hardware) and 5 synths. it has a ton of effects and instruments and has been fun to mess around with. integrating it into my live kit for dj'ing or bringing the audio into the daw of choice for editing was a challenge which i've solved with some creative routing using an alesis multimix8.

the multimix8 is a great buy. 8 channels of simultaneous input, several output options including one that will allow me to pipe a perfectly clean analog signal to my broadcast pc for radio shows. the noise level is almost zero and the quality is pretty amazing. i had some firewire issues due to the chained harddrives which i've solved by routing things around differently.

i route the emx1 into the trs stereo in's and use the midi between the kontrol49 and the emx1 to keep things synched with live5 (or whatever --- but so far its been live5). i can also keep a mic plugged in as well as my guitar due to the number of in's the alesis has so all is finally sorted on that front. i can also use the myriad routing options to set up a pre-listen for dj'ing which will become helpful when i start using it.

i'm using the following software in some capacity on a regular basis:

ableton live5 -- i use this the most by a long shot. i do a lot of my dj work (see below) using it as well as create most song sketches on it. i've had some issues with processor peaking during long shows. i am suspecting it has to do with complex mode warping but i'll need to do some more research on that.

reason3 -- i don't use it as much as i think i should be. generally i opt for other synths in live5 rather than rewire reason. i think if i hit upons some interesting synths in there or have need of the matrix or dr. rexx, i'll start using it more. at least its there if i need it.

absynth -- an amazing synth. i have only tinkered with presets so far but they sound full, rich and layered. i did a few of the sounds on the tracks i have on myspace with it. i tend to use it a lot but it can kill a processor quick. i generally end up recording a midi part, bouncing to audio, then disabling the midi track to reduce processor load.

arturia arp 2600v -- another great sounding synth. i played with it for a week intensely and barely scratched the surface of what its capable of. its also on a few of those myspace tracks.

digidesign protools/mbox -- with the purchase of the alesis multimix8, i've decided to move the mbox and protools over to the pc and use it primarily for vocal and guitar tracking when necessary. live5 is great for a ton of things but vocal and guitar comping is waaay easier in protools. protools has just been too unstable on the powerbook to justify its continued use. i have yet to successfully bounce down a dj mix in it because i generally get a usb or mbox error before it finishes. it accounts for many hours of wasted effort and i'm done dealing with it. after i reimage the powerbook i might consider moving it back over.

i have discovered too may plugins to mention but two of note are supatrigga and livecut. they do some crazy-ass rhythm stuff and i've liked blending them with my more stayed rhythm work to expand the aural bag of tricks.

i got my old behringer bcf2000 midi controller to operate successfully in emulation mode in both ableton live5, logic 7 express, reason 3 and protools. gotta love those flying faders.

as far as music production, i haven't created any songs in a while worth listening to, let alone sharing. most of my effort has been learning and working out the best methodology for using live5 as a dj tool. i have been putting together mixers, doing the show and then playing with creating finished mixes for posting on mixdepot. i plan on getting back to song creation or remixing soon however.

611 records

2005-08-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

i found a great record store in philly that is all electronica stuff. i picked up some bad ass mixes namely:

mixmax: live high contrast - kick ass d&b
INCredible: sound of d&b mixed by goldie - vibey d&b
fabric20 - john digweeds latest mix cd.

woo

update: tower records was on our walk back to the car...

tiesto - in search of sunrise iv
lcd soundsystem
bad brains - banned in d.c. - bad brains greatest riffs
gorillaz
unkle - never never land

good weekend for music. bad weekend for my wallet

danny howells

2005-07-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

i hear the danny howells global underground mix is really interesting. anybody hear it?

more posts on the way. i got ableton live5 and i've been having a blast with it. i also got a new set of monitors (krk) and bought ableton's operator as well. its musictown down in my studio at the moment...

what a cool toy

2005-07-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.lecielestbleu.com/media/pateasonframe.htm

hey... rollover dj...

2005-07-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

please refer to the following link. its funny.

maybe not

2005-06-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

i've been reading about how awesome the new version of ableton live is going to be (they're up to v.4.0 now. 5.0 is coming at the end of july). it looks like i may not need that much talent after all. this thing is going to be amazing and is going to make dj'ing in ableton itself much simpler due to its mp3 support and complex beat matching.

count me in.

stay tuned for some music review stuff. i've gotten through a ton of music since i last posted.

for those of you who missed my last dj show (6/23), let me know. i can make a copy of it available to you on teh int4Rw3bS. as a word of warning, its huge -- about 300mb.

finally...

2005-06-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

there's a new version of alsihad available on the digidesign webpage. this one is for le-based installations and makes it compatible (finally, after 8-9 weeks of waiting) with os x tiger. i installed it and it all seems to work. now i just need talent, ideas, proficiency and skill.

oh well. i'm fucked.

dj show this thursday (again)

2005-06-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

this isn't a duplicate post... i am actually planning on dj'ing again this thursday. it kind of dovetails with my goal of taking some time away from the poker. i have a ton of new music to lay on everyone and its my task to make some sense of it this week and present it in a format that won't induce spontaneous vomiting. right now it looks like the new royksopp, new sasha, deep dish from global underground 25, m83, and a bunch of other stuff, dance/trance/alternative and/or otherwise.

i'll send out the email reminder later in the week. if you want to receive the email reminder via my yahoo mailing list, just send me an email (helixx@drow.org) and i'll hook you up.

"paul's boutique in brooklyn..."

2005-06-15T04:23:00.000-07:00

i forgot to mention before that i read a cool interview with the dust brothers in sound on sound about their production of the beastie boys' album paul's boutique. they made reference to a site that researches and catalogues the source of all of the samples and lyric references in this deep, technically amazing and genre-ending/defining album. you can find the site here. check check check check it out.

dj show this thursday

2005-06-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

i'll be hosting a show on thursday night on malor (i'll post a link on the night of the show). it'll be mostly trance, house, deep house and some alternative and alternative remixes. its going to start between 9:30 to 10:00pm est and play for a couple of hours.

rock on.

its all about being organized

2005-06-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

last night i took some major steps towards getting ready for dj'ing with ableton live and the new version of traktor dj studio. my basic setup is this and i proved out its ability to handle the load last with the help of a couple of friends who listened in on the "broadcast".

i've had a lot of organizing to do to get my music collection in shape and available to both of the apps that access it because i had run out of space on my main pc. i have an 80gb drive on my main gaming/ex-music machine but i've had to keep deleting games as my mp3 collection was getting bigger and bigger. at 72gb, on an 80gb drive, i had to make some changes. it took about an hour to move the entire collection to a 250gb drive i have installed on the same machine which wasn't too bad. after i confirmed everything made it safely there, i synched it up with my external backup 100gb firewire harddrive using an app called "karen's replicator" that my buddy rob turned me on to. i think its all kosher now so that's a relief. i had to recreate my itunes and dj studio databases and remap all applications that access the old spots but i'll get that cleaned up fairly soon.

after i backed up the mp3 collection i was able to attach it to the powerbook for dj'ing purposes and i imported my ~11000 file collection into traktor dj studio with a few hitches (this program seems to die when it hits a bad file name or weird id3 tag). i also tried to find a good way to organized the bcf2000 midi controller so that it would work with live4 and dj studio running at the same time. that's proving to be a pain but i've been thinking of ways to do it through control re-use and i'm going to try it out tonight when i get home. there may be a way to not only create a viable mapping but also make it easy to control both apps. i just don't want to hit a button to start a track in dj studio and have it crank up the drum machine in reason or a scene in ableton. i'll post results.

the sound quality was good and with practice i will be able to mix not only between tracks in a specific app but also between apps themselves... crossfade from dj studio to ableton live and back etc. doing so will allow me to create some pretty intense layers and sounds. should be cool.

next steps are to shore up the midi mapping and then to set up beat mapping for all of the tunes i expect to run in ableton (i've already converted about 20 tunes to aiff format for this purpose). then i'll suck some samples out of those tunes for overlays or fades and create ableton live sessions called set lists which will basically layout the playlist and all tracks, overlays and fades. the more organized i get, the easier it is.

i'll also create a playlist in dj studio and between the two come up with a show that's about 3-4 hours long. i doubt i'll play that long but its good to have stuff planned if i'm in a mood, having fun, or still have a bunch of listeners.

i'll probably be practicing this set up over the next week or so so if you want to listen in let me know and i'll foist the address on you. just im me. once the proper shows start, i'll crank up the email list.

on the music front, a buddy at work has given me about 3gb of mixes from the bbc radio shows essential mix, annie nightengale and er... one more. the name escapes me. two stand out shows are the mylo show and the sasha ableton live show, both from last month. outstanding shit. i'll probably mix some of them into my shows in the coming weeks.

here's an update on the stuff i posted about a couple of weeks ago. the ones with the strikethroughs are the ones i've gotten ahold of so far:

death in vegas (satan's circus)
flaming lips (late night tales)
~~sound tribe sector nine (artifact)~~
~~gorillaz (demon days)~~
various artists (dub massive chapters one and two - produced by bill laswell)
~~beck (guero)~~
~~chemical brothers (new one)~~
~~the glimmers (dj-kicks)~~
daft punk (human after all)
van morrison (magic time, stfu plz)
white stripes (blue orchid)
~~coldplay (speed of sound)~~
mike doughty (haughty melodic)
~~esthero (wikked lil' grrls)~~
~~dj mark farina (mushroom jazz vol 5)~~
~~hell (ny muscle)~~
deepak sharma (boogaloo:brooklyn 3:23 pm)
~~various artists (mayfield: remixed)~~
sage francis (a healthy distrust)

catching up

2005-06-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

music

its been a while since i posted here and much has been happening on the music and music production front.

i read a great review of bloc party's album in remix... lemme find it... here 'tis... a five star review in remix, the only one i've ever seen. here's the text in its entirety:

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"
How exhilarating is that, now, you get to enjoy not only post-punk legends in the flesh (thank you, Gang of Four) but also the fruits of their influence? Although the buzz surrounding Bloc Party is near-deafening, Silent Alarm validates all you've heard with enough layered, effected guitars to make you shed blissful tears and a torrent of spastic rhythms, unrelenting hi-hats and well-placed synths to have you dance yourself into hysteria. "Like Eating Glass" and "Banquet" explode with urgency while "Blue Light" and "So Here We Are" retreat with tragic beauty, leaving you positively ravished" - Erin Hutton

heh, ease up there, erin. its my pick for album of the year, but yeesh. calm the fuck down. anyway, go buy it.

new music i want to get:
death in vegas (satan's circus)
flaming lips (late night tales)
sound tribe sector nine (artifact)
gorillaz (demon days)
various artists (dub massive chapters one and two - produced by bill laswell)
beck (guero)
chemical brothers (new one)
the glimmers (dj-kicks)
daft punk (human after all)
van morrison (magic time, stfu plz)
white stripes (blue orchid)
coldplay (speed of sound)
mike doughty (haughty melodic)
esthero (wikked lil' grrls)
dj mark farina (mushroom jazz vol 5)
hell (ny muscle)
deepak sharma (boogaloo:brooklyn 3:23 pm)
various artists (mayfield: remixed)
sage francis (a healthy distrust)
the new satoshi tomiie looks interesting too and there's probabaly a dozen i forgot like the new john digweed (plastic 20). i also want to find the latest sasha bbc essential mix (more below) and the latest essential mix with all of the african stuff overlaid with wicked house beats (ben somebody?). i'll have to look on emule for those, i imagine. cripes, that's a lot of music... (in case you didn't notice, that list was more for me than anyone reading. i need that list of albums all in one place so i don't forget any!)

one last thing. get the new fischerspooner, odyssey. i mentioned it before but this time i really mean it.

music production/home studio
i've been reading a ton of magazines like remix, musictech, sound on sound, tape-op, mix, eq, digizine, electronic musician and such. after a while they all seem to be covering the same stuff but this is usually how i do things when i dive into something new. i just read all i can and soak up every scrap of info i can find. i'll link up some massive links at some point that have sparked interest and gave me some good stuff to mull over as well.

so my brother-in-law (mentioned in my poker blog a few times) was interested in getting into some home production as well. given his music pedigree and massive experience doing studio production he'll be a good guy to go to with questions and vice versa since i've been doing this home studio thing for about a year or more by now and i'm pretty "up" on what apps and tools are out there. we were messing around with ableton live on the powerbook the other night. what a massive program that is...

i should back up a bit and describe my set up and current working methodology.

my current set up for music production, at least the one i'm currently using for most of my mucking about is the following:

apple powerbook g4 (1.65ghz, 1.5gb ram, 100gb hard drive)
ableton live 4 (my daw of choice by far right now)
digidesign mbox
protools le 6.9 (waiting for the os x tiger patch)
reason 3.0
midiman oxygen 8 keyboard
behringer bfc2000 midi controller
at2020 condenser mic
old ibanez strat copy (roadster)
piece of shit acoustic guitar

i have a few other apps that i am just learning (or trying to) like logic 7 express but i am concentrating on learning ableton live just because i love the capabilities of the app. i am probably going to be using it for parts of my dj show at various points too.

i'd say that about 80% of my time for the last couple of months had been ableton live-based loop and sample recordings. i generally rewire reason in as a synth and capture whatever comes out of reason to separate samples in live and work with it that way. i can basically pipe any synth-based stuff right into live or just play over top of the mix and record. i'll also lay down quick drum beats in reason's redrum drum machine and pipe them into ableton live too. the possibilities are wide open.

i was reading in "sound on sound" about how the dust brothers use similar methods to construct their songs and the latest beck came about largely through mucking around with samples in ableton live as well, so at least i'm in good company. when you see sasha doing entire shows (see the bbc's essential mix) using ableton live, you start to see that the possibilities for this app are really expansive. i think as long as i keep creating tunes that engage me and show me i'm moving forward i won't get frustrated. in the past, i've gotten stuck trying to get a particular sound or mix and get pissed and my interest dwindles. i have no real expectations this time and just getting into the learning and gaining experience. i may burn out on it but i don't think i'll throw up my hands in frustration this time.

its cutting into my poker time though... doh!

some other interesting stuff. my brother-in-law brought a book down to the shore house called "mixerman". its a great book written by a famous but anonymous music recordist and mixer on the west coast. its a compilation of a collection of posts he made on the great website prosoundweb.com chronicling his recording sessions with an unnamed band. the book is fucking funny and is worth a read even if you're not a music geek. it hit me at the right time since i'm so into music production right now. you can actually read all of the posts without buying the book at the link above. just look for "mixerman" in the menus. its well worth the read. its long though so be prepared to read. a lot. the book was over 200 pages.

anyway, enough babble for now.

built to spill

2005-05-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

i saw built to spill last night at philly's electric factory. excellent stuff. i had never seen them live before and i really thought they'd stretch the songs more but they were pretty much on point in playing the album versions of the songs. just the last song or two were jams and they were pretty kick ass. i love that guy's guitar sound. they have added two more guitars to the band for this tour and it created a wall of noise that was pretty awesome. if they come to a town near you, check them out. they're well worth it.

on a sad note, bloc party is sold out in june which totally sucks. like totally, fer sure.

new music

2005-05-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

i have gotten a huge list of new music lately, all of which will be going into dj shows on slive over the coming weeks/months. here's a partial list with inane comments:

ben folds -- good album. i always find his records kind of fruity on first listen and they improve the more time you give them. my honest opinion of his music when i first heard it was "what the fuck is this 'godspell' horseshit?" but now i like the guy. the cd has a dvd flipside (dual whatever they call it) and the video about the making of the cd is pretty funny. ben's a cool guy.

dj earworm mashups -- i can't remember if i blogged this guy's stuff on "stfu" or not but every one of his mash-up/bootlegs are right on the money. from funk to alternative, they're all really good.

black flag - olde schoole for the hardcore kiddies. henry put together a benefit for the west memphis three (my indifference makes it near-impossible to do research on the injustice of it all) and the music is a flashback to my halcyon days of youth. my war? oh yeah...

bloc party -- this is the album of the year so far for me, although there is a *lot* of good music out there lately. if you don't go out and get this album (or already own it) you are deeply and profoundly retarded.

cat power - i forget what its called. it has 'he war' on it, which i really dig.

death cab for cutie live - i borrowed their new live album from a friend. its ok.

the decemberists - they have a new one. its kinda like vaudeville meets olivia tremor control meets minstrel show meets an acid trip

doves - some cities - very good stuff here

iron and wine - woman king - outstanding.

jem - finally woken - i'm behind the times on this. my buddy adairen has been telling me about her for a year now but i just got around to listening. very good record.

lemon jelly - '64-'95 - fuckin' excellent stuff

longview - manchester shoe-gazers. pop hooks and sweeping mixes in their stateside remix but good stuff. they opened for phoenix and dogs die in hot cars when i saw them in philly

louis xiv - esquire magazine rightly deduced that these guys realize that rock and roll is all about getting laid. their songs are all about fucking, so go figure.

magnetic fields - 69 love songs - sixty nine songs is a lot of songs. an awful lot. there's a lot of good stuff hidden in the morass of that amount of music. there's bound to be filler tracks when you put this much volume out there, or one track that might be a standout in a 14 track cd gets lost in a 3 volume opus. its still good. worth listening to

manic street preachers - holy bible reissue -- i never heard this when it first came out, being exposed to their latter efforts like "tsunami" and "if you tolerate this then your children will be next". its some angry stuff. its the punk rock ethos described by a couple of welshmen with loud guitars and non-rhyming obscure lyrics, basically. strap in and hang on. its quite a ride.

the mars volta - frances the mute - meandering, fiddly prog rock drives me nuts, but when mars volta kicks it in, they really can deliver a sucker punch. the songs are long, they don't end, they meander, there's weird sounds and shit that annoy me but, by and large, i like it and i've listened to it a lot

mogwai (new, live record. forget the name) - mogwai is cool. the version of "like herod" is out of hand on this thing. i never understood why people liked that tune of theirs so much until i heard this version in the car with the volume turned up to 11

olivia tremor control - music from the unrealized film script "dusk at cubist castle" - long title, interesting album. the beatles would be proud. its like beatles meet neutral milk hotel meet iron & wine and they all have dinner and then have sex afterwards and have this baby and its olivia tremor control. yeah, that's it.

phoenix - live in 30 days (live) - if you don't own this you're deeply and profoundly... well you know the rest. please, buy this album.

prodigy - dirtchamber sessions vol 1 -- neat concept. spotty results but i like giving it a listen now and again

queens of the stone age (new) - forget the name. its everywhere, though. it kicks ass.

royksopp - these guys are amazing. excellent electronica grooves. its worth it for the intro to track two "hey... i have some frequencies for you. 600. 150. 400..." "400?! i'm coming over." heh. great stuff.

stereophonics - their new record is good. pop/rock with a kick. the guy's voice is awesome

sweet coffee - this is lounge stuff. another adairen tip. i like this one for playing poker. mellow beats.

deep dish essential mixes - i found some lo-quality rips on ed2k and they're fun to listen to despite the bad sound. i like the way these guys think.

tiefschwarz - german dj duo with their latest misch masch. excellent mix record

fischerspooner - odyssey and #1 - my latest additions. i can't stop listening to them. odyssey is more accessible and really really really fucking good. its like postal service's 'give up' without the angst.

that's a lot of new data and its taking me a long time to digest it all. i love having a lot of new stuff to listen to though. things were getting stale...

first post!

2005-05-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

this is "sidechain", a blog that will represent the music-listening, music-dj'ing and music-production side of my life. i've been doing a lot of that type of stuff lately and, if you're read my other blog, you'd know i'm into the music. so i figured i'd start this thing up. let's rock.