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I Dreamed I Dream



Quiet Village - Fragments of Fear Vol. 1 [2005]

1 Unknown Artist - Intro
2 Goblin - Zombie
3 SSQ - Trash's Theme
4 Aphrodite's Child - Capture Of The Beast
5 Charles Manson - It's Coming Down Fast
6 John Carpenter - Reel 9
7 Poppy Family, The - There's No Blood In Bone
Vocals [Featuring] - Susan Jacks
8 Roger Webb Orchestra - Hammer House Of Horror
9 Pino Donaggio - Dead End
10 Fred Myrow - Mineshaft Chase
11 Ralph Lundstein - Horrorscope
12 Donald Rubenstein - Train Attack
13 Hot Blood - Soul Dracula






I am locked in all night tonight, as I have horrifying creeping deadlines to meet. I will share this with you: I had a strange dream last night. You should know that it is very unusual that I would want to share such a thing with you. I consider the recounting of dream narratives to be one of the human race’s more pointless conversational efforts, because unless you yourself experienced the dream, its recounting will most likely seem little more than a heap of non sequiturs, compelling only to their narrator.

A friend and I sneak into an exclusive, very sophisticated party on the 102nd floor of an immense skyscraper. The windows are floor-to-ceiling, everyone is very chic and important. My friend and I wander through the crowd, grabbing free drinks, ogling the partygoers, exploring. Out of nowhere, a series of calamitous events unfolds. A man in a suit is split in half cut through the torso and his body is somehow propelled violently through the glass. Panic ensues and it is clear that the building itself is about to collapse – there is a deafening riot to escape. I lose my friend but somehow manage to survive by jumping out of the building and landing in a pile of cardboard boxes. As I pass out from exhaustion I realize that around me are the bodies of the superheroes "The Fantastic Four," who have not survived the leap from the building and who lay half-covered in its dust. 

When I awake it is clear I have entered another realm that exists on top of our own. I am met by two small, amusing creatures. One is a blue and white duck who resembles Groucho Marx, with bushy eyebrows and a cigar, and whose name is Twindle. They escort me to meet the other inhabitants of this invisible parallel world - it is a frightening phantasmorgia of all manner of horrible beasts. I take out my camera and record them, as you yourself might do in my situation. Among them there are wobbly, demonic trolls who sing in unholy choir. There is a deranged, bloody yeti, with the hindquarters of a gigantic snake. They all begin to attack and devour one another in mindless, eternal frenzy. I get it all on tape. Finally I am escorted to a door which I understand only I can open and close, but if it is left open, the beasts are free to wander back into my world. I pass through the door knowing I have footage of the beasts as evidence of my strange journey.

I awoke in the middle of the night immediately after this dream ceased, and was still so in the feverish grip of its contents that I did not want to go back to sleep, but nor did I want to get up and write the dream down right away, as the act of writing of what I had dreamt seemed still too incantatory. My mind turned to the camera - the story seemed to be about the creative process, about venturing into the soul's own underworld and returning with images that could be shared with others, instead of the beasts themselves, who would only lay waste to the world, leaving it in ruins like the tower from which I had leapt. 



Love Lockdowns



Kanye has a new album coming out in November. It's called 808s and Heartbreak. Guess what? It sounds futuristic and sad. The video for the first single "Love Lockdown" was premiered by Kanye on Ellen. Really. Also guess what? I remixed it. Feel free to enjoy yourself.



Please Be Advised



Readers of this blog are advised against two activities: the setting up of a blog account with BLOGGER, and the use of DIVSHARE to host one's files. The reasons for this are evident in the notice I have received below. The result of these notices is that I am now at work on a separate autonomous website, presumably less subject to the oversight of Kafka-esque bureaucracy. My central irritation does not stem from actions clearly derived from what must be Blogger's strict CYA (cover your ass) policy, but from the fact that Blogger takes it upon itself to completely delete my post, without giving me the opportunity to revise / preserve it in some non on-line form. The post is simply annihilated, and without any indication as to what specifically about the post was in violation of Blogger's terms of agreement. I can't even contest it, because the post no longer exists. I've responded twice to Blogger's notices about post removal, and have received no further communication from them on the issue, even when I've simply asked if they could specifically identify the violation. Now it's quite possible that the language I've been using in the emails has been too complicated for the support team's reading level, so in case they happen to read this, let me take this opportunity to say just:

FUCK YOU.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

From Blogger:

"Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog infringes upon the copyrights of others. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.

The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling Effects at http://www.chillingeffects.org. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Please note that it may take Chilling Effects up to several weeks to post the notice online at the link provided.

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. We are in the process of removing from our servers the links that allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. See http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=254 for more information about the DMCA, and see http://www.google.com/dmca.html for the process that Blogger requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

Blogger can reinstate these posts upon receipt of a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and 3) of the DMCA. For more information about the requirements of a counter notification and a link to a sample counter notification, see http://www.google.com/dmca.html#counter.

Please note that repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel. If you have any other questions about this notification, please let us know.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team"

Narc Edits 01



I've just wrapped up a pair of edits, the first in a proposed series of chemical-themed cuts. To whit: Bobby is of the slow-mo leafy variety, his companion Whitney, of the powdery white. I want to share them with you: I like your feedback. Enjoy. 



Night Plane / Narc Edits 01


Tomorrow Night: Prime Time w/ Greg Wilson



This takes place tomorrow night at Santo's Party House. Prime Time residents are James Fucking Friedman and Eamon Harkin. Guest of honor is the legend Greg Wilson, officially ridden for by AC. This is dancing time for dancers.

Greg uses records and his trademark Revox B77 tape recorder.






Were the reader to venture over to Eamon's website, well-mixed delights would be found there, including a mix by Greg Wilson recorded live at Space in Ibiza, and an ill early-house mix by Eamon. Also look for his contribution to the laudable Wurst edits series. 

Podcast: The Raw & The Crooked 005: Cumbia Edition



The latest edition of The Raw & The Crooked is a bit different than previous editions.  If focuses mostly on the new cumbia sounds coming out of Argentina from folks like ZZK Records and Bersa Discos.  Part reggae, part latin, part 8 bit nintendo.  And of course the usual amount of dirty raps and 808 hand claps.  Enjoy.



Radical Reason & Materialism



a radical reason to get Guitar Hero 4

My friend, colleague and fellow Walter Benjamin / minimal beats obsessive Andrea Wald now has a blog going with other like-minded Viennese acolytes of radical contemporary philosophy, titled nothing less than

Radical Reason & Materialism

and which is accompanied by an equally provocative subtitle, "Dismissing this project called Enlightenment, but demanding to think it to its end. Not towards a telos, but away from compromise." In the span of a month or so it has already quite handily managed to display Andrea's characteristic brio and intellectual vivacity. 

Enjoy, or don't enjoy, if you think that's what your superego wants of you. Fuck your superego, it's not the boss of you. 

http://philosovereign.blogspot.com/


Dear Doctor Beats



Doctor Beats

Dear Doctor Beats:

These days I'm sad, and I suffer under a greyish malaise that bears no name. It's not one thing, but a lot of little things, that conspire together to whisp an air of self-pity and discontent all around me. The guy I was casually seeing stopped returning my calls. The weather has taken a colder turn. And I have this thing on my leg near my "area," I hope it's just a fungus. 

Signed,
Daughter of Darkness

Dear Daughter:

For reasons still unfathomed, man needs to constantly represent his own world back to himself. This becomes urgent when contingency becomes unbearable, and contingency only appears to you in this way when you don't get what you want. When this happens with enough intensity, it feels as if a great shadow of soul-draining ennui is slowly creeping around your floorboards. Fortunately for you, and for the race of human beings, New Orleans funk legend Allen Toussaint knows the musical counterpart to this feeling. It is a song called "Cruel Way to Go Down," and while it's explicitly about feeling lonely, it's really about every sad feeling ever, combined together in a beautiful dirge-y atmospheric jazz tune that makes you want to wear a trenchcoat and stroll aimlessly, watching a pretty girl pass by in a bus, staring at shop windows in the rain. It's better than Xanax. Because music, unlike prescription medication, never needs to be refilled. 




After soulful catharsis has subsided, may I recommend as a segue-track back into the sunny world of smiles and lightness, this "Raw Boogie" number posted by Beat Electric, one of the best disco blogs that the internet has yet produced. It's a little Minneapolis-funk style private press number called, inexplicably, "Soul With Milk," performed by "Sumy," and it sounds like Prince but slightly more autistic. The chorus of synth bells and 'dip-a-dip dip dip" vocals is truly a joyful noise unto the lord. 




Dylan's Gospel




The Dylan's Gospel album was a fundraiser for a church choir in LA, the Los Angeles Gospel Choir, if you want to be precise, and you do. 

Now play this and lay your good burden down, son.

Liner notes:

"The top background singers in Los Angeles are the finest in the world. They usually sing in groups of  3, 4 or 5, but for this album, they are all here together (except for a few who were in Las Vegas, but they will be here next time the Brothers and Sisters meet).

This album happened not only because of the smiles, laughs and hand-clapping of everyone during the playbacks, not only because of the party atmosphere that prevailed (the food sent in, the drinks sent in. etc...) not only because the people did not leave after the session but stayed to hear and discuss the things already recorded.  Not only because Armin Steiner, the Engineer, spent a week thinking about the studio setup, placement of singers and microphones, etc... not only because there were more people singing than had been contracted (cousins, mothers, boy-friends, etc...).  These were just some of the reasons, the others were...

Gene Page arranged.  His brother helped, his sister contracted the fine musicians.  Gene's mother and father came to hear; Carole King came to hear; Peggy Lipton came to hear and be near; John Phillips came to hear (and no one hears like John Phillips hears); Spirit came to hear; Tom Wilkes who did the cover with Barry Feinstein was there to listen and watch.  So, they were all there, engineers, arrangers, conductors, watchers, listeners and singers and it happened.  But what made it all happen?  The songs of Bob Dylan.  But he has made a lot of things happen, hasn't he!

The album was produced and directed by Lou Adler at Sound Recorders in Hollywood, California." 


Jamie Lidell - Little Bit of Feel Good (Remix)




From the 12" with remixes by Mr. Oizo and Senor Coconut. But guess what, the killer remix is from some dude who won the Warp UK remix contest, NTEIBINT. Jamie's original is a great soul track and this remix gives it a tech'ed up strut. Always a crowd pleaser. I couldn't find it in the digital universe so I ripped it, just for you. 

Gang Gang Dance - Afoot



Gang Gang Dance - Afoot

1. The new Gang Gang Dance record is out. 

2. They're playing the Social Registry CJM showcase on Friday with Growing and Psychic Ills.

3. You will hear alot of talk about this record and this show, because the record is good and the show will be.

4. "Afoot" is dope. Gang Gang Dance sounds like Brooklyn through Africa in the 22nd century, dirty lysergic afrobeat, future-primitive space jams and sci-fi booty beats. "Afoot" is particularly "My God, it's full of stars" type of dubby galactic trip-out. If you raised your kids so that every night they went to bed listening to "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" they might make something like this. NYC should be proud it has this band, and Animal Collective and Black Dice. put them all next to each other, and you get an object lesson in politics. Being in a band is always political, and musical improvisation is a beautiful model for how politics can work, how mutual trust and freedom can be integrated in group activity. It's more like jazz, these days: you know what the song is, but it will be different every time. This is why these bands pretty much make pop/rock stuff on the radio more or less totally historically irrelevant. 

5. Over on 20 Jazz Funk Greats, the band put up some songs they liked, which included an Idjut Boys re-edit of Phil Collins. So bearded. 

Spiritualized - I Think I'm In Love



Spiritualized - I Think I'm In Love

I have a friend who does not ride for Spiritualized. More offensively, he even refused when asked at point blank to ride even just for this song. This is egregious enough that I will not embarrass him by mentioning that his name is Jonathan Forgang. 

You can't make someone like a song by explaining it to them. It's like trying to make a joke funny by explaining it. I will leave my unnamed friend to his opinion, because I don't need to make other people agree with me in order to feel good about my own point of view. I already feel very good about it. I feel very good, specifically, about "I Think I'm in Love." 

It is one of the best sunny-day walking songs ever, a gorgeous steam-powered whirlwind of smooth-groove gospel-tinged psychedelic rock. Above all, the lyrics perfectly nail the at-times devastating energy of possibly being in love. That's the de-stablizing, disorienting, freak-you-out part, because, as J. Spaceman sings, you could be totally wrong. That's the sheer force of maybe being in love, because it's de-coupled from all kinds of knowledge or certainty. You have to just ride the wave. After beatlessly singing about lying in a room on heroin, J. goes on to say:

I think I'm in love 
Probably just hungry 
I think I'm your friend 
Probably just lonely 
I think you got me in a spin now 
Probably just turning 
I think I'm a fool for you babe 
Probably just yearning 
I think I can rock and rool 
Probably just twisting 
I think I wanna tell the world 
Probably ain't listening 
Come on 

I think I can fly 
Probably just falling 
I think I'm the life and soul 
Probably just snorting 
I think I can hit the mark 
Probably just aiming 
I think my name is on your lips 
Probably complaining 
I think I have caught it bad 
Probably contagious 
I think I'm a winner baby 
Probably Las vegas 
Come on 

I think I'm alive 
Probably just breathing 
I think you stole my heart now baby 
Probably just thieving 
I think I'm on fire 
Probably just smoking 
I think that you're my dream girl 
Probably just dreaming 
I think I'm the best babe 
Probably like all the rest 
I think that I could be your man 
Probably just think you can 
Come on 

I think I'm in love 


J. Spaceman knows enough about drugs (including love) not to blindly trust the insight they offer. All the beauty and danger of ecstatic feeling lies in the absence of suture between how you feel when you're high, high on anything, dancing, shopping, creating, screwing, drinking, and the condition of the world after you come down again. That's why some addicts end up revolutionaries, some become messiahs, some melancholic and alienated. 

I'm a Rausch-er, take it from me.


The Laughing Light of Plenty - The Rose



The Laughing Light of Plenty - The Rose

Oh the good Lord, he knows when to shine. In advance of my set tonight @ Savalas I was able to learn of and track down this highly-limited release from Whatever We Want records. It involves Thomas Bullock, aka one-half of Map of Africa and Rub-n-Tug, and formerly of A.R.E. Weapons. Although it's based here in NYC, WWW pretty much just ships its hen's teeth-rare releases abroad like to Phonica in London, where they immediately sell out. This track is a striking example why - it's a swirling, psychedelic disco-rock anthem. If you listen to this, it will put you in a good place, and you will stay there. Bit of a Stone Roses /Happy Mondays dense & trippy vibe as well. Why is cosmic disco, to use the parlance of our times, so satisfying? Because it's well-dressed drug music, elegant and deeply bugged at the same time.

In Memory of the Baron



This is a sneak preview of a shoot I did with Firenze Magazine an Italian design, fashion and lifestyle magazine a couple of weeks ago in Tuscany. The Baron has long departed from his magnicent 15th century 6000 sqm villa that sits on a Tuscan hill just out of Prato. His ghosts live on. Each room is work of art, it's faded beauty an echo of the past. The stylist, make-up artist, model and myself all dreamed of each having one of the rooms for ourselves. Giant spacious rooms some frescoed, others panelled but all with a sense of space of another time. I would plonk a beautiful bed in the middle of my room and not touch a thing. A place too beautiful for words..









































































































U R Invited



11pm @ Savalas, Bedford btw Grand & S.1st 
- - - - - - - 
w/ Resident DJ Weekend Prince (Narcos Discos, Open Secret) - Weirdo Disco / Yacht Rock / Minimal Beats. Special Guest: DJ Bravestar spins rare Chopped & Screwed Avant-Progressive Dub Trance

 - With Halloween & Election night both looming, it's a special horror editionaka a night of  ghosty beats and haunted house.
 - Weekend Prince controls to the fullness.
 - As always, this is our turf, NO Rasta takeovers.
- Enjoy!

Cry of the Lonely / Night Plane Edit








A forgotten Chicago r&b/house jam produced by "Silk" Hurley in 1987. JM Silk's bigger hit was a cover of "I Can't Turn Around" by Isaac Hayes, and like Hayes' version was repped by Ron Hardy at the Music Box. As the cover would indicate, this is definitely on the flat tops & fades end of the house spectrum. With a longer instrumental intro, extra dubby handclaps and chunky snare, The House of Trix mix could be a New Order song being performed by impassioned brothas. Nice fat analog bass and echoey, pitchshifted vocal samples.

For your additional exclusive pleasure, may we recommend a special extra-languid Night Plane re-edit, which is based on the "Dub-House" mix being played at -10. Recommended for fans of DJ Screw, Rub-n-Tug, and dance music for cough syrup addicts. May we in general recommend the "dub-house" mix of anything, preferably pitched -6 to -10 and served with craig and sazerac rye. 




Jacques Villeglè at the Centre Pompidou

Since the 1950's Artist Jacques Villeglè has been walking the streets of Paris with a giant knife cutting deep into pasted urban posters to create his masterpieces of collage. Currently showing at the Centre Pompidou the giant colourful posters of Villeglè are exhibited in colours, fonts and images and are spectacular. Don't miss this exhibition if you are in Paris.











































DISCONET PROGRAM SERVICE



Lama - Love Is On the Rocks (Disconet Remix)






Serge Santiago / on myspace

Serge Santiago is a London-based DJ. He used to be in Radio Slave. What's Radio Slave? Radio Slave is techno, it used to be a duo but now it's just Matt Edwards, who is also one-half of Quiet Village. Serge loves Italo disco, which in the history of dance music is the experimental turning point between disco and house, the point where dance music becomes electronic, but in a wild, hairy, very bearded mutation, like the part in "Metropolis" when the wizard dude makes a robot woman. 

Part from "Metropolis" Where Wizard Dude Makes a Robot Woman



So Serge loves italo re-edits, which I mean, who doesn't, really? One of his recent cuts is a re-working of "Love is on the Rocks" by Lama, a classic early-80s italo rarity. Do I have to mention that it's really good? Actually, I'll say this to you: if you don't know what 'italo disco' is, this is a smashing example. It's glitzy but spare, cheesily up-lifting, with echoey synths. It's about dancing silvery robots with lips and hips. If you were to have a conversation with a beardo master about rare synth-disco awesomeness, you could easily glide through it solely by saying "oh yeah, of course, 'love is on the rocks' by lama.' 

In doing research for a review of Serge's latest edit 12", I found out that there's another remix of this track, from back in the day, by an organization known only as DISCONET




It seems that Disconet was a subscription-based DJ service in the 70s-80s which would provide its customers with monthly LP compilations featuring exclusive remixes and medleys. I offer here some further images and choice quotes from djsportal.com concerning DISCONET.

"DISCONET was part of a New York based company called Sugarscoop - created as subscription program service with professionally selected and mixed disco music for discotheque DJs, mobile discos and radio stations. Program content was selected by DISCONET DJs from new disco releases made available by Record Companies which have licensed DISCONET to provide the service.




DISCONET is called as the "Granddaddy" of all remix services and provided mixed/segued DJ dance sets, not only to make the DJs job a little bit easier, but to expose club goers to new music. The DJs spinning at the height of the disco era were given access to a new creative tool - a different interpretation of current dance tunes to wow club goers."





DISCONET was invented by THIS MAN, MIKE WILKINSON, aka CAPTAIN MIKE

"During its second year, Disconet added more remixes and medleys by popular DJ's like: Bobby Viteritti, John "Jellybean" Benitez and Raul A. Rodriguez. The third year highlighted the first productions by Bill Motley & Trip Ringwald, who later start Moby Dick Records of Boys Town Gang fame. The first "Disconet Top Tune Medley" by John Matarazzo & Mike Arato was released as well: they produced "Top Tune Medleys" from 1979 to 1985 with the exception of 1982's Casey Jones' medley.

'Volume 3, Program 7' included the infamous Patrick Cowley's mix of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" lasting 15:45 minutes, which was issued after Patrick's death in November 1982 by Casablanca Records."

As mentioned, these quotes are all from DJSPORTAL.COM, which is run by an erstwhile Polish music critic and enthusiast, the proprietor of a number of disco-history prorjects such as DISCO AID: "I would simply like to create special fund to help discotheque pioneers whose are
broke and need economical / life help."



List of every Disconet release, including the respective "DJ NEWS" update for each:http://www.hotdiscomix.de/remix_services/disconet/mwdn0307djnews.htm