But that just doesn’t sound right.

It’s 2007, and there’s still no good solution out there when looking for non-mainstream music digitally. People want a place where they can find most everything they’re looking for, and it came the closest to anything out there. I often said that I’d happily pay a monthly fee for it so that the money could go back to the artists. There is no other site out there with that kind of selection, those transfer speeds, that ease of use. (And part of what made it so good was the speeds thanks to the strict ratio requirements.)

Wake up, record labels. The reason why many people use sites like this is because they can’t find anything close to a comparable legitimate solution. And if they’re willing to donate to it, chances are they’re willing to give to artists too. Further, part of its allure was exactly that it had a wide selection of non-RIAA indie and electronic music. In fact, I think many of its users would have happily stayed if every single RIAA track had been stripped.

But people are too stubborn, finger pointing at the “pirates.” Many of these pirates want to support artists too (notice I said artists), and there’s still no sensible solution out there.

It’s been 8 years since Napster, you’d think someone could figure something out.

DJ Die Young - Crank Dat Edit

So there has recently been some talk about “neu rave,” and I thought it might be worth clarifying. Just what we need, another genre, right? And if that wasn’t enough, what about “blog house?” In any case, I’m not so sure that neu rave actually exists (also note the german spelling, consistent with this blog). In fact, I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t.

But let’s just pretend that it does, for the sake of the following hypothetical. According to Simon Reynolds, author of Generation Ecstasy, the first so-called rave culture emerged in the UK in the late 1980s. “Illegal raves” then had a resurgence in the early 90s, “instigated by renegade sound systems like Spiral Tribe.” While raves, regardless of their legality, existed throughout the 90s, there was arguably somewhat of a re-resurgence in the mid-to-late 90s, around 96 to 98. So that’s at least three waves of raves. Now I’m not saying that indie rock circa 2007 has anything to do with a “rave” (because it doesn’t), but even if it did, it wouldn’t be new (or neu) rave. It would be new new new rave.

So tell that to all the kids with their glowsticks and neon clothes and dayglo face paint. Please.

Lil Louis vs. Die Young - French the World

Underworld - Two Months Off (John Ciafone Remix)

(Shout out to ML for throwing this one down!)

Okay, recently I was writing about my own stupidity in throwing out my old mixtapes and CDs and other good things. Well it turns out that I wasn’t in fact *that* stupid. Phew.

Back in 1998, Daft Punk played an amazing set at then-superclub Twilo, alongside Cassius. This was the height of the French House mania (even in the States), and a lineup like that was not to be missed. Neil Aline organized the whole thing — together with the Respect is Burning team in Paris.

A legendary night — I snuck in even though I was too young..shhh — with a legendary group of performers. I remember sitting by the side bar next to the DJ booth in Twilo with my friend getting our picture taken by, who else, the guy that now does lastnightsparty.com.

So my friend had access to Daft’s incredible set straight from the source. And there were only a few copies of this in the world…

Till now.

Daft Punk - Live at Twilo (Part 1)

 
Tracklisting anyone?

 
P.S. Check the Home Taping Edit of Palmsout Remix Sunday if you haven’t already.

So the wikipedia entry for Blog House appears to have fleshed out quite a bit from the last time we saw it. Maybe it really does exist! Wikipedia said so!

And now that we can get endless amounts of not-yet-fully-but-almost-finished edits online, should we just throw our dance parties virtually?

 
Just ask Red Foxx.

No. Staying home and dancing on Second Life is super retarded and never will be cool.

1) You can’t really fuck on second life.
2) You’re not really dancing.
3) You can’t get someone extra drunk buying them drinks and then have a
better opportunity to fuck them.
4) You can’t do coke in the bathroom with a slut in Second Life.
5) You can’t make out with someone on a dancefloor in Second Life.
6) It’s not real.

But oh wait, it’s already been done. SBT.

And Baltimoroder’s shit is too cool to be played in Second Life anyway.

Alter Ego & Ghost Writers - Ghost Musick (Baltimoroder Remix)

I threw out all of my tapes recently. It was somewhat unintentional, as I was caught up in moving and the pressure to get rid of things, but unfortunately it was only after the fact that I realized what a stupid thing it was to do. At the time, I remember thinking, well I can get it all digitally anyway, who needs these shitty, low quality analog tapes? Right?

But the thing is, even if I had the tracklisting from every single mixtape (which I unfortunately don’t), it wouldn’t be the same. Even that mix that’s slightly off beat, that overlaid vocal, or better (worse?) yet, that semi-unintentional trainwreck would serve to make a tape what it was.

When you throw out physical things, they’re often gone forever. Luckily, though, the vast expanse of information that we all know and love makes finding things made of 1s and 0s a lot easier. And thanks to that, DJ Die Young (our newest contributor!) has cooked up a hot mix of the recent home taping dishes. And regardless of your feelings on meat, you can find yourself a nice plate of Goose right along with it!

DJ Die Young - Home Taping Hot Mix

Scissor Sisters - She’s My Man (Goose Remix)

As seen by recent posts on Palms Out and this very blog, we are a generation obsessed with Daft Punk. Our parents may have rejected disco in 1979 at a sporting event, but we are the ones that rediscovered it. Or at the very least, we saw through the bullshit like Disco Duck and Disco Inferno and a landfill of other cheesy anthems destined to be on a 70’s compilation.

Labels like Crydamoure and Roulé (both members of Daft Punk’s vanity labels) took the best hooks, looped them, added some glitz and then set ‘em loose. There wasn’t much more to a lot of my favorite records ever than an 8 bar loop and some intro. It was these boiled-down, to the point tracks that made me fall in love with house music.

Catching my ear lately has been California’s own Melee Beats. I have a feeling Melee realized the beauty of these chopped up disco gems and took the liberty of adding some wobbly bass and those pop hooks that we all love. This music has more strut in it than Travolta ever did walking down a New York street.

Melee Beats - Distraction

So with all of this talk of blog house and DJs downloading tracks off of blogs the morning of and playing it that night, electronic music visionary David Day had a pretty ingenious idea. Instant DJ Network. You download the mix as soon as it’s done and play it right then and there in the club. You trade tracks with other people playing in other places.

In a way it’s already happening, like when I said to Frog, I wish someone would make an edit of this eternally effervescent Nightcrawlers track.

I love how sometimes when you wish for things, they just magically appear.

Night Crawlers - Push The Feeling (Dances With White Girls Bmore Club in a Day Remix)

“Make new friends, but keep the old…”

You know how it goes, right? Well I think there’s something to be said about remembering the musical past of electronic music. As seems to be continually reinforced, much of what we have today has been borrowed from the past, and peering into where it all came from can be a valuable experience. Sometimes it’s an overt and recognizable sample, and in others, it’s a more latent stylistic influence.

The Electroclass mentioned briefly before really took that idea home. (Just see, you will wish you were back in school!) And while many people may have heard many of the musical selections before, Wayne did an incredible job of piecing it all together. As one electronic musician who loves old school electro put it — “How did he know to put all of those tracks together?! I can’t believe this! It’s my entire record bag!” Well believe it. This is our history.

Sometimes distant, sometimes not so distant. The Magic Number really put Misc. on the map, and rose to semi-anthem-level status in 2004. They then ventured to mix Oliver Huntemann’s Scary Love, which begins with a poppier edge and progresses into an intenser, nouveau electro-fied version of Herve (or perhaps vice versa?) Now we can only wonder what 2007 holds for the miscellaneous.

Oliver Huntemann - Scary Love (Misc. Mix) (From the Ravegression 5 mix!)

Misc. - The Magic Number

Ever feel like you have constant ADD? Well it seems that increasingly, our generation suffers from what has been termed infomania. Can’t go more than 10 minutes without checking your email or myspace or text messages? Well then you’re not alone.

Infomania has been loosely defined as “the urge to check email, text messaging and other sources of information, which causes the person showing symptoms to neglect other, often more important things.” Basically, we just can’t sit down and enjoy ourselves anymore. We need to be constantly online, constantly ahead of the game, constantly connected.

Apparently our ever-multitasking lifestyles can have quite a deleterious effect. Recent studies have shown that infomania can lower one’s IQ twice as much as — yup, you got it — weed. Some people say that we can fight back against the loss of concentration caused by the constant electronic interruptions we experience. But I’m not so sure…

As good ol’ Adonis would say, too far gone, and no way back.

Harada & Hess - Nylon Dreams

Adonis - No Way Back

In case you have a few minutes (or even if you don’t):

Wikipedia Random Entry. Hours upon hours of fun.

vvork. How did I not find this ridiculous(ly good) art blog sooner?

New York Times on how the music industry is warming up (ever so slightly) to P2P.

Idolator on the RIAA going after college student downloaders (hmm, guess not).

MPAA plants fake bittorrent trackers so they can collect your IP. Now they *really* didn’t get the memo.

Foreign Islands. The name alone makes me feel all tropical.

Dances With White Girls. Killing the islands and waters like no one else.

Foreign Islands - That’s How This Goes Down (Andy Pry and Dances With White Girls Live Your Lyrics Remix)

Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman (Dances With White Girls Bmore Clear Remix)