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DJ M.O.S. Becomes First DJ to Spin at NYC Mayoral Inauguration

Darren Ressler Leave a Comment

dj mos

Bill de Blasio was formally sworn in today at noon as the 109th mayor of New York City by former President Bill Clinton on the steps of City Hall. Amid a star-studded audience full of celebrity supporters and politicians, de Blasio promised to bolster the middle class and foster a culture of equal rights and opportunity for all. In between speeches, New York nightlife fixture DJ M.O.S. made history of his own, serving as the first DJ to perform at a mayoral inauguration in the city’s history.

M.O.S. spun a variety of cuts to the crowd’s delight, including jams by Stevie Wonder, Jay Z and Katy Perry, even dropping Daft Punk’s massive 2013 anthem “Get Lucky” and classic rock cuts “Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen and “Don’t Do Me Like That” by Tom Petty.

Before rehearsal yesterday M.O.S. tweeted, “Sound checking for The Inauguration Ceremony for Mayor Bill De Blasio. I’m honored to be the first deejay ever to perform. I love my city #newyorkstateofmind.”

When it was all said and done, M.O.S. posted the image above on Instagram, noting, “Being born and raised in NYC today was surreal. Incredible way to start the year!!! #blessed #nyc #newyorkstateofmind #inaugnyc.”

While former Mayor Bloomberg was as musically square as it gets, it should also be noted that when de Blasio made his victory speech in November after he trounced Ray Lhota, he approached the stage to Lorde’s “Royals.”

Could Bill de Blasio be the city’s first-ever musically savvy mayor? How much influence will his clearly hip teenage children have on his future musical choice? Folks, this could get interesting.

Image via Instagram

Warner Bros. Records Re-launches Online Vinyl Site

Darren Ressler Leave a Comment

i love vinyl

Major label Warner Bros. Records has re-launched becausesoundmatters.com, a retail site offering a selection of the label’s releases on vinyl as well as T-shirts. The latest iteration of the shop is now optimized for mobile and boasts updated navigation. While the site’s offerings are geared toward rock and mainstream bands, the array of offerings are still pretty tantalizing for those who appreciate all things wax. A 15% store-wide for Black Friday weekend (November 29th through December 1st) with an additional 10% off discount code to e-mail subscribers is going on right now.

Beginning December 2nd, Cyber Monday, the site kicks off 12 days of flash sales with Neil Young’s Harvest, and other select titles available for 30% off.

December Sales events feature 30% off the following titles:

Dec 2: Neil Young – “Harvest” – 140 gram vinyl
Dec 3: The White Stripes – “The White Stripes” – 180 gram vinyl
Dec 4: Devo – “New Traditionalist” – Clear vinyl
Dec 5: Eric Clapton – “Blues” (5 LP Box Set) – 180 gram vinyl w/ Litho
Dec 6: The Punch Brothers – “Antifogmatic” w/ bonus CD
Dec 9: Red Hot Chili Peppers – “One Hot Minute” – Red vinyl & lenticular cover
Dec 10: Lindsey Buckingham – “Gift of Screws” – 140 gram vinyl
Dec 11: Dire Straits – “Communique” – 180 gram vinyl
Dec 12: Head Automatica “Decadence” – 140 gram vinyl
Dec 13: “The Flaming Lips And Stardeath And White Dwarfs With
Henry Rollings and Peaches Doing The Dark Side Of The Moon”
– 140g gram clear vinyl disc w/ bonus CD
Dec 17: Neil Young with The International Harvesters – “A Treasure” (2 LP set) – 140 gram vinyl w/ download

RIP Cheb I Sabbah, Bay Area DJ/Producer Who Fused World Music with Dance Beats

Yehouda Silverman Leave a Comment

chebisabbah

DJ/producer Cheb I Sabbah, who blazed trails in world music scene and was a mainstay on the Bay Area music scene, has died at the age of 66. Cheb I Sabbah was born Haim Serge El Baz in Algeria in 1947. He moved to Paris in the ’60s, where he began his career as a DJ. In 1984, he relocated to San Francisco, changed his name to Cheb I Sabbah ( “young of the morning”) and went on to make an international name for himself producing world music fused with dance beats.

Combining musical elements from all over the world, he released seven albums on Six Degress Records and appeared on that label’s two Asian Travels global compilations series. Sabbah was diagnosed with Stage IV stomach cancer in 2011 but continued working on music.

Fellow world music artist Kash Kale eulogized Sabbah on Twitter: “The world of music owes you so much… And I miss u brother.”

His family posted the following message on the artist’s website:

Dear friends, family, fans and fellow beat followers;

It is with a heavy heart that we, Cheb i Sabbah’s family, announce his peaceful passing yesterday morning in his home in San Francisco.

He was surrounded by his life partner of over 18 years and is memorialized by his two children and three grand children.

We ask that we be allowed the time to grieve and mourn our loss and will be announcing any memorial services in the near future…..

When dusk falls this evening, and the stars begin to swirl, our father is spinning for all the great ones who passed before him and were awaiting his arrival –

BOM SHANKAR!

Here’s the man behind the decks at Komasket Music Festival. Joined by percussion players and a dancer, it looked like quite the party.

Custom MIDI Guitar Is Destroid’s Secret Weapon for Playing Live Dubstep

Darren Ressler Leave a Comment

destroid guitar

Dubstep supergroup Destroid — Canadian bass artists Excision and Downlink and drummer KJ Sawka from Pendulum — are taking their live show to the next level and beyond. With costumes influenced by Daft Punk to sci-fi flicks like Alien and Tron, their secret ingredient is a specially designed custom MIDI guitar enabling them to control Ableton Live as they rock out. In an open letter to their fans, Excision explained to the trio’s fans how they’re using new technology to break sonic boundaries.

From the outset, the goal of Destroid’s live show was to have just that.. a live show. To create the real world of these characters, they each needed the ability to perform and react in real time. With that goal in mind, we began designing the interactive system. It’s a tech-nerd’s dream; an incredible synergy of performance & technology requiring borderline insane problem solving, not to mention inventing some new ways to throw control signals around a venue!

Custom MIDI Guitars with LED fretboards, a body full of pads & knobs, and string triggers were being fabricated by Starr Labs in San Diego. They make the most responsive, velocity sensitive, 6-string, 24-fret MIDI instruments we had seen. (Excision Midi Guitar pictured above). To make these guitars behave as we wanted our tech guy Matt wrote a Max/MSP external that allowed us to easily control Ableton Live. This included on-the-fly mapping changes, a multiple output port routing system, pathways for the appropriate LED feedback, and MIDI to Artnet conversion to send commands through to the lighting console (for CO2 blasts & helmet and arm-mounted lasers, and many more “weapons” we have yet to unveil).

Our two redundant Ableton playback systems take MIDI-In (via MIDI Solutions Thrus & Merges) from the Midi Guitars, KJ’s Roland V Drums, and from a pair of Roland FC300 footswitches that Jeff & Sean use to control effects, mapping changes etc. All drums parts & bass samples are played live, in Ableton samplers and drum racks. We had to actually split our 75 minute set in to two separate projects as Ableton could not handle having an entire sets worth of individual samplers/drum racks for each bass sample/drum hit.

The suits are nothing short of amazing. Although they are insanely heavy (something we are working to give us more flexibility and energy on stage) they have on-board power, under-suits that circulate cold water, helmet microphones, and in-ear monitors. All embedded RGB LEDs are individually addressable & controlled by the lighting team on their console via wireless DMX.

There are also a lot of moving pieces to the visual show. We’re sending song unique SMPTE time code from the Ableton rigs to control all lighting and video cues. Some of these cues are built into the structure of each song, others are triggered from the guitars and drums. A video rig running Modul8 sends the video output to a projector that makes post-apocalyptic cityscapes and spaceship control center backdrops come alive.

Together this creates a dynamic show that delivers a unique story to the audience. There’s room for tweaking and improvements in all departments, having only played one show together both as artists and as a 16 person crew. We’re extremely happy with how things went and are looking looking forward to the future as we experiment with this groundbreaking technology to continually develop the most insane experience possible with our fans. We have only scratched the surface, and are excited to see Destroid evolve.