*Mainstream = Electronic Music*

When I look at you (Emalkay),

The computadora is still in the shop... bear with me, please, the regular posting will be back sooner than later. In the mean time I've been thinking about the electronic music genre as a whole and the transformation that the genre has incurred over these past few years. When electronic music first came out, it was labeled as 8-bit computer nerd music. Slowly yet surely the music diverged from that path and became more rhythm and bass driven and spurring into the biggest drug music genre since the days of Pink Floyd. After "techno" music was dubbed as ecstacy music and for "ravers", interest in the genre seem to stray away and this can be seen by the complete chart domination by rap and hip hop music during the late 1990s and 2000s. But these days, you can't hear a song on the radio or being played on heavy rotation without some sort of electronic element, whether it's the use of heavy synthesizers, vocal modifiers, or simply ripping off popular electronic songs, the mainstream music monster has successfully absorbed the electronic music sound into its ever shifting definition of what is popular music.

Some might be skeptical when they first hear this radical argument... but is it really that radical? Popular/mainstream music has been defined by a genre (somewhat) for decades as a time. We can see this with mo-town /soul in the 60s, psychadelic/alternative rock during the 70s, disco during the 80s, rap and RnB during the 90s, hip hop during the 2000s and now it's electronic music's turn. Take for instance the biggest chart topping the songs in the last couple months, even as far back as a year or two. The first couple songs that come to mind right now are Tik Tok by Ke$ha, Sexy Bitch by David Guetta ft. Akon, and Shots by LMFAO. Tik Tok which is arguably 2009's biggest party anthem of the year is purely a party and bass driven electronic song with, at best, decent generic lyrics describing alcoholic tendencies. Sexy Bitch is MADE by David Guetta, one of the most prominent electronic/dance DJs that has been around for ages but is now breaking through the mainstream. Shots is another song made by an electronic group, LMFAO, and again another synthy & bouncy track that has semi-decent party lyrics over it.

Mainstream music has been and will continue to change and shift according to the times and what the masses want. But upon closer inspection, it seems as if the idea of mainstream music has not really changed but evolved, it continues to capture the popular elements of rap and hip hop that everyone loves but adds a new twist by putting those fun-loving party rhymes over some serious bass and synth driven dance-techno.

While I am a fervent fan of the electronic music, it's almost a gift and curse with the recent popular emergence of electronic music because while it's awesome to see the genre of music you really like finally get its turn in the spotlight, at the same time it hurts to see the shameless exploitation that the genre is going to naturally incur along with the other genres that have been enveloped by the mainstream music monster. Just look at the 1990s if you want an example of a shameless exploitation of a music genre. Rap from its humble beginnings was about empowerment to the people who had no power and had no voice. Rap was musical poetry that expressed the emotions of oppressed people and times and gave the impoverished and the ghettos a chance to be seen through the eyes of the people who were living in it. Rap was my first musical love, it was powerful, cool, stylish and was trying to say something more than "let's get tipsy and light up." But after the commercial success of rap, the floodgates opened for every average joe that could rhyme a couple words together. Gimmicks, egos and characters began to sell records instead of the content itself and nobody seemed to be actually listening to the music. No longer were the days of Adidas superstars and gold dukey ropes where we learned to say the "fuck da police" and became fans of ghetto poetry that brought to light the social inequities that ran rampant through the inner cities of America... the 2000s ushered in a new type of rapper, the pimp, the hustler and the gangsta. Your lyrics didn't matter, your flow didn't matter, your message didn't even matter... the way you got rich was having all the girls, selling the most drugs and making the most money, and surviving the most bullet shots. Rap became a glorified arena for wannabe big shots who lusted for the action packed lives of the criminals they idolized; John Gotti, Pablo Escobar, etc. One might ask, "where did it all go wrong?", and that's easy, as soon as Universal Records offered the first guaranteed 7-figure contract to a rap group, the market for the next big rapper became over saturated with everybody and their momma trying to become a rapper. The music industry doesn't reward lyrical ability and skills, they reward record sales, and with an ever-dumbing audience, music about drugs, chauvinism, and reckless behavior was gobbled up by the idiotic masses. Rappers didn't rap anymore to vocalize their unheard opinions, they rapped to become rich, and that is where music ALWAYS goes wrong, when it's no longer about making a quality product but making the highest profit margins.

I'm not Nastradamus or am I trying to be a negative nancy, but just give it some time and every song you hear on the radio is going to have an electronic-esque beat and the genre will give way to every kid with a laptop and turntables trying to make a quick buck while the genre is the "it" thing.... or at least that's what I think.

Tell me what you think and where music's going, electronic music's going and why mainstream music sucks. (I haven't listened to the radio actively since middle school... and that's a long time ago)

Peace,

20thetruth

Over 1K Hits!!!

Thanks for caring. And yes the comp is still gettin' fixed.

Peace,
20thetruth

BREAKin' it down with the BOT

I said (deadmau5),

My precious (macbook) got effed in the A this weekend and crashed harder than Tara Reid's acting career. But it's new-er, so hopefully the good people at Apple won't try to eff me in my A and fix it, quick and free. It's been a while and I wanted to drop some chill tunes that got a soul-vibe that'll have your feet movin' in no time. Ed Banger's new signee Breakbot has been blazin' the charts and heatin' up the dancefloor with his original mixes and remixes, here's a couple for you to check out for yourself. Baby I'm Yours is an insta-hit for me and should be HUGE. I like this guy's style, no homo. Listen, download, yaw.

Breakbot - Baby I'm Yours ft. Irfane
Breakbot - Make You Mine ft. Irfane
PNAU - Baby (Breakbot Remix)

Peace,

20thetruth

*Social Bookmarking*

Around the world (Daft Punk),

Let me preface this post by saying my computer crashed this weekend, which really blows and that means posting is going to be slowed for a while, but oh well, we'll be back up and running in no time.

While exploring the internet and learning about some new internet tools from my writing professor, I discovered two pretty snazzy social bookmarking sites, diigo and delicious. These two sites are similar in the services they provide but differ greatly in other aspects. Both of these bookmarking add-on's work on the mozilla firefox browser. These social bookmarking sites allow a person to bookmark, collect, annotate, and tag articles that they deem interesting and aggregates all of the individuals' bookmarks and allow one user to search through the database of bookmarked, annotated, and tagged articles.

Diigo is an awesome tool that allows for a lot of interesting connectivity within frequent online bloggers and readers. The diigo add-on will be right below your search bar and is it's own tool bar and if you want to bookmark something you use the diigo toolbar. First and foremost, the main thing diigo allows you to do is collect all the articles that you find captivating and stores them in your diigo library. Once you have some bookmarked pages you can share them with your friends, or with a diigo created group (where you and other diigo members form a group and anything you bookmark/tag will be up for everyone in your group to see). This allows for collaboration and the sharing of ideas. Another interesting feature that diigo allows is the highlighting and annotating tools. On the bookmarked pages of yours, you can highlights anything from certain esoteric vocabulary to entire passages that gripped you in one way or another. And the next time you visit that page, your previous highlighted and annotated material will be there. Also, if you post that page in the group, other people can highlight and annotate parts that they thought were interesting and share that with you. Diigo allows users to bookmark, aggregate, and annotate sites that they really like and share them with others. One downside to diigo is that it seems it's used more by academics and it doesn't seem like there is a ton of users on the site to share sites with.

Delicious is a similar website to diigo but has different features. The delicious add-on will be in the bottom right corner of your browser, and when you want to bookmark pages you simply click the delicious logo in the bottom corner. Unlike diigo, delicious does not have a highlighting and annotating tool, and focuses more on tagging and aggregating websites so a person can find similar websites of interests that they have or find websites that are similar to a topic they are researching, etc. Thus the point of delicious is to add a website, add some secondary info and add the very important tags. These tags pretty much identify and establish to the reader what that website is generally about. Delicious is more effective than diigo to me personally because there seems to be more users and sites tagged on delicious than diigo. Because of the availability of more information, websites and tags, it's more practical and useful to me. Delicious is also less scholarly in it's concept, simply tagging and aggregating websites so people can find websites that are similar to discover more about the topics they are interested in.

Using diigo, I didn't find too many sites similar to fist pumps & club drugs but on delicious, I found a butt load of sites that are similar to mine. In fact some of the other blogs that I frequent and are on my blog roll, I actually found and discovered them through using delicious. Some of these websites include DISCODUST and You Can Call Me Pelski. These websites are very similar to mine in that they post almost exclusively electronic music and blog about their opinions of the new tracks, introduce new artists and try and stay hip whilst doing it all.

I definitely recommend getting one or both of these useful add-ons and you find some incredible websites that you probably would've never found on your own if it weren't for the inception of these new social bookmarking networks where they allow the users themselves to create the content of the website and provide the database where the users can search and use.

Who Loves Random Remixes? Everyone. Duh. (3)

We are from venice (The Bloody Beetroots),

I know you need that funk for you trunk to shake that ba-dunk-a-dunk all weekend long, so we're back again for the third installment of Who Loves Random Remixes? Everyone. Duh. It seems to be pretty popular with you guys and I ensure that these week's random remixes are extra funky. So listen and download and keep the bottles flowin' and party goin' all night long, till the break of dawn. Yaaaw.

So y'all remember Eiffel 65's smash techno-y song Blue? [da ba dee da <-- that was my best e-rendition] This kid J.Rabbit smashes the original into dub-steppy electro madness. It's hard to capture in words, just listen.

Eiffel 65 - Blue (J.Rabbit Remix)

Cut Copy is an amazing alternative-electro-dreamwave-pop [if that's a genre] group from da land down unda [Australia for you dummies]. One of my absolute favorite non-electro groups, and I don't know much about Midnight Juggernauts but they made Cut Copy's hit-song Hearts on Fire into a sweet ass remix. Check it out.

Cut Copy - Hearts On Fire (Midnight Juggernauts remix)

Kaskade is an amazing, and I heard his live set from Electric Zoo 200o in NYC, NY and there was this one song that just had a killer drop and I had to have it. So after some web hunting and help from my homie A-Stack, I finally found the song in the mix, Sgt. Slick's Right In The Night remixed by Mind Electric. It's just an awesome song with an even awesomer drop.

Sgt. Slick - Right In The Night (Mind Electric Remix)

During 2009 La Roux became one of the biggest music blog stars on the net, with breakout hits like Bulletproof, In For The Kill, and I'm Not Your Toy. And dubstep wizard Skream has been one of the guys who's been bringing dupstep into the spotlight, and this remix of La Roux's In For The Kill is massive, must download.

La Roux - In For The Kill (Skream's Let's Get Ravey Remix)

Daft Punk's Voyager was already a great song and Revolte's remix just makes it better... I'm usually a fan of original mixes but this one is definitely an exception. Plus Daft Punk is legendary so hear this shit.

Daft Punk - Voyager (Revolte Remix)

Peace,
20thetruth

I Wanna Rave till THE SUBS Blow Out

In for the kill (La Roux),

It's THURSDAY! What time is it? Party time. This Friday I'm going to go see STS9 (a sick ass jam band, but so much more) @ the Wiltern and I've heard great things about the venue, and I frankly think STS9 is super dank, so I can't wait to see these dudes live in action just rock out. But back to this electro shiet, these Belgian DJs known as The Subs have been putting out hard hitting electro-techno that's so rave friendly you'll just want to just keep movin' to the beat. Their original mix From Dusk Till Dawn is a rave favorite and for sure gets the crowd riled up. And their new release Mistubitchi has been blazin' the charts, and Bobermann's [a.k.a Bob Rifo of The Bloody Beetroots] remix makes the original go THAT MUCH harder... like that was possible, but it is. Listen, download, just soak it in.

The Subs - From Dusk Till Dawn
The Subs - Mitsubitchi (Bobermann Remix)

Peace,

20thetruth

We gettin' MASHed UP

Shut the club down (Girltalk),

So I've recently got and heard some dopetastic mash-ups and thought I'd share them with you lucky bunch. We've got some tracks from DJ Stroke, the hood internet, and BEARBOT (a rare female DJ). These DJs are some of the internet's mash up specialists and have been putting out great work for some time. The hood internet is personally one of my favorite mash up groups out there and it seems like every mash up they produce is instant crack sizzle. Check 'em out and listen to these fresh ass mash-ups. Listen, download, just keep it movin' and don't stop groovin'.

DJ Stroke - House of Money x Money to Blow
BEARBOT - Stuntin' Like I'm Swerving (Lil' Wayne & Birdman x El Ten Eleven)
The Hood Internet - Cult Logic Forever (Miike Snow x Drake)
The Hood Internet - Two Weeks of Hip Hop (Grizzly Bear x dead.prez)
Wiz Khalifa x Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Thrill

Peace,
20thetruth

Birdy. Nam. Nam.

Baby i'm yours (Breakbot),

Birdy Nam Nam is a 4-man French DJ wrecking crew that rips their turntables to shred on stage. I've heard great things about this DJ crew that flawlessly combines aspects of electro and hip-hop into some outrageously good dance music. They cover a fairly wide array of sounds and some songs are more electronic than hip hop and vise versa, either way it's tight as shit, so you should check 'em out. Listen, download, you know the drill. I recommend checking out their latest release Manual for Successful Rioting, it'll make your neck snap from the raucous supersonic sounds these frenchmen produce.

Birdy Nam Nam - Trans Bolougne Express
Birdy Nam Nam - The Parachute Ending
Birdy Nam Nam - Love Your Enemy (Kill Your Friend)

Peace,

20thetruth

Da Mau5 Iz In Da Hou5e

[the] West Coast Rocks (Matty G),

You know what I hate? When people throw a rager the one night of the middle of the week that you can't drink because you have a midterm the following day. Shibby. But back to business, you all know I worship da mau5 and this remix done by Michael Woods is electro house bliss, not to mention the song incorporates one of mau5's best songs Arguru. This song has been rippin' up the beatport charts so you now it'll keep you movin'. So throw this one and enjoy, listen, download, you know the deal, just keep it real.

Deadmau5 & Chris Lake - I Said (Michael Woods Remix)

Here's a bonus track from Simian Mobile Disco, this DJ duo from London, UK makes some of the best electro house there is, and this track Hustler is probably my favorite SMD song.

Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler

Peace,
20thetruth

Dub-STEP, Dub-STEP, Dub-STEP

Hey boy, hey girl (The Chemical Brothers),

Alright, alright you dubsteppin' maniacs, I'm bringing more wobbley womp for the masses. Here are a few random dubstep remixes from Chrispy, Wire, & Sukh Knight, that are harder than the next one and to compare is unfair because they have mad wompage. I recommend Chrispy's Cockney Dream is a blend of Rusko's Cockney Thug and the theme song from Darren Aronofsky's awesome drug movie Requiem for a Dream and it's an awesome combination of dubstep glory.

Chrispy - Cockney Dream
Don Diablo & Example - Hooligans (Wire Remix)
La Roux - Bulletproof (Chrispy Remix)
Sukh Knight - Ganja Dub

Peace,
20thetruth

Why Crookers, Why?

I want your soul (Armand Van Helden),

So is it just me or does anyone else in the electronic music blogosphere or fans who think that Crookers' album Tons of Friends is going to be wiggity-wiggity-whack? I mean don't get me wrong, I will be one of the loudest proponents of Crookers and their original works and remixes they have produced. However, while listening to some leaked tracks off Tons of Friends it seems as if they've taken everything that makes them good and thrown it straight down the trash chute for this album, and instead, have decided to take the most pop and sell-out approach in making an album where they provide the instrumentals and have countless other vocalists sing over their beats (to be more exact they provide semi-decent electro house beats over some repetitive ass vocals).

I loved "sbombers", "knobbers", "what up yall", "we love animals", and their countless sick remixes (Thunderstruck, Salmon Dance, Summertime, Business Man, Day n Nite, etc.) So someone in this vast world of ours PLEASE tell me what the hell these Italians are thinking and tell them to release an album full of fidget house anthems like "we love animals". Maybe I'm the one on the crazy pills and their new stuff is amazing and I just can't see it, either way take a listen and tell me what y'all think.

Crookers - Transilvania ft. Steed Lord
Crookers - Cooler Couler ft. Yelle
Crookers - Remedy ft. Miike Snow
Crookers - Jump Up ft. Major Lazer, Leftside and Supahypa

Even the usually oustanding Miike Snow failed to sound ethusiastic on this track. And Major Lazer SUCKS so I hated Jump Up before I even heard it.

Peace,
20thetruth

MODESELEKTOR.

Rock it out (AC Slater),

I say let there be BASS, and MODSELEKTOR dropped the nastiness. This eclectic duo from Berlin, Germany pumps out the hardest hitting, bass buzzing, electro glitch house... I think that's what you would classify these guys. There bass synth driven melodies well have your head noddin' so hard it'll fall off your effin' neck. I saw these crazy dudes at Hard Haunted Mansion and their stage show is pretty fuckin' weird.... one of the guys was holding his hand above a lighter with a demonic look in his face, while a troop of their roadies were dissecting what appeared to be an alien on stage and playing with its fake guts... WHAT THE FUCK, yeah, that's what I said. Either way, these guys BANG super hard with their blaps so turn your subs up and blast off. Here's a couple tracks by these guys to get your tongues wet, listen, download, just remember to fist pump.

Modeselektor - Cash
Modeselektor - Hyper Hyper
Modeselektor - Sucker Pin

PS) Cash is my personal favorite.

Peace,
20thetruth

*TRIFECTA*

>HELLO WORLD Post

First and foremost, welcome to Fist Pumps & Club Drugs, a blog site dedicated in bringing you the funk and the realness with no preservatives or artificial flavors. I'll be posting the grade-A best electronic on the net, whether it's a golden oldie, a hidden gem from a known artist, or discovering the next big thing, you'll have all of your guilty electronic pleasure fulfilled here; we don't discriminate, just appreciate.

Not only will I be providing the bass for your speakers but I will be blogging on the hot and controversial topic surrounding the electronic music genre and culture. You might be asking yourself, "what controversial topics could come from electronic music?", well the answer is a ton many to list. From issues ranging from internet piracy to copyrights and ecstasy usage at raves to controversial images broadcast in music videos. Some of the issues involved in the electro-scene are heavily political; piracy, copyrights, remixes, original works, pre-released material, creative rights to digital and unofficial releases. Many of these aforementioned issues are scarily current because the laws haven't been decided on a lot of issues dealing with creative rights to digital media and who owns what, and more importantly who gets paid. Other issues that arise from the electronic music genre are the incessant murmurings about drug usage involved with raves and just how regulated or "safe" are these electronic music festivals. This issue is more social than political, concert promoters with lax security and a "no-look, no-tell" policy make it hard for strict drug policy to be enforced even though the law mandates strict event regulations. These issues are far and many and we hope to delve into a few of them while we keep supplying blaps (slang for awesome song) all day.

Why Fist Pumps & Club Drugs? That's a no-brainer. Two words. JERSEY and SHORE. These fun-loving guidos have made fist pumping synonymous with eruo-trash techno and I thought it would be good for the publicity of the blog site to play off MTV's absolute HUGE hit TV show. And now to explain the club drugs part... well the electronic music genre is notoriously associated with frequent drug usage at electronic concerts (raves) and drugs and racy and controversial so I decided to throw that in there to spice the name up. And frankly the whole phrase sort of rhymes and is like a nice little catch phrase.

"Oh what did you do this weekend Broseidon, God of the Brocean?"

"Just chilled and went on Fist Pumps & Club Drugs, the net's premier electronic music blog site, duh."

That's just a model conversation that would happen between two followers of the blog, hypothetically speaking of course. Either way there's my long-winded explanation as to the name of this kick ass blog.

What makes my perspective different? I'm not JUST a band-wagon fan or occasional listener of electronic music, I live, breathe, eat and electronic music. Yes, I breathe and eat it. I've been a fervent fan of the genre ever since its inception (some might say Daft Punk, others say Soulwax, we can discuss that later) to its recent popular emergence in the mainstream. Because I have kept up with the genre from the beginning till now I feel that makes me fairly qualified to discuss electronic music. I am also a frequenter of raves so I've seen my fair share of electronic artists live and I am also constantly following new music and artists on other music blog sites. I am also an amateur DJ that pretty much exclusively spins electronic music sprinkled in with a touch top 40, so I keep up new mixes, remixes, etc. on the regular.

What makes this blog different? This isn't your typical pompous hipster blog site that lauds itself for posting the most rare and exclusive mixes on the internet, but rather a comprehensive music and culture website that will not only post amazing music, both new and old, provide relevant social commentaries on the genre, the making of the music, the music industry, and the "rave" scene. This blog will combine an introspective look into the world of electronic music and be voiced by a college aged music lover that is deeply entrenched and involved in the genre itself. Also, all genres of electronic music will be posted on, from trance to electro hard house and drum & bass to dubstep. Some of many favorite electronic artists include The Bloody Beetroots, Crookers, Deadmau5, Boys Noize, John Roman and Rusko. Some other bands that I like that aren't electronic include Bloc Party (the greatest band ever in my humble opinion), XX, Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, Empire of the Sun, Animal Collective and Pheonix. Comment on what you think, what you expect, what you want to read about and other bands/artists that you love.

>BLOG PROFILE Post

Who wants to DANCE DIRTY all night long? Well, today’s post is going to profile another electronic music blog that is better known and is more frequently visited, Gotta Dance Dirty. The blog is written by an anonymous poster that goes by the name of Jonah, other than his name no much else is known about the author. Knowing the author’s credibility or authority on the topic is relatively unknown since the author does not disclose any personal information. This blog is related to mine because it pretty much covers the same topics as my blog will cover minus the music culture and discussing of controversial topics that surround the genre of electronic music. The blog has a new post every 2-4 days and they usually discuss new artists, songs, remixes, music videos and other trends or newsworthy topics surrounding the genre. The blog is pretty popular, but to know exactly how popular is difficult because the blog does not have a hit counter and is not rated on technorati.com. However, this blog must be fairly well known because the website exclusively promotes several club events that they coordinate and put together. These Gotta Dance Dirty showcases which feature several up and coming unknown DJs have been a hot ticket to get in Los Angeles. Also, since the majority of the events occur in LA, I’m going to assume that the author is a native of the LA greater area.

This particular blog relates well to my blog because like stated earlier it encompasses the same things that I am going to discuss except the social commentary. This blog is not scholarly or academic but is fairly professional. Legitimate songs from artists are sent to this blog site so their songs can be heard online by fans and the blog is aggregated by a lot of other music blogg aggregators that only aggregates the top hitting blog sites. The posts themselves are not that detailed or rich, they are more like small descriptions of the songs, albums and artists that they post about. The posts have a little bit of personal opinion since the author interjects his own thoughts on the posted material on top of the description that the author provides. Here is an example post:

Sorry for the late post this week guys! We are having an unbelievable night tomorrow night with the amazing master of warehouse soundZodiac Cartel, along with one half of new electro duo Bass Weazal, Will Bailey.Circuit Freq and Mr. White will both also be doing sets in the big room as to promote the new track "The Filth" which was remixed by all acts that will be in the Avalon tomorrow night. Check out all of the new remixes on Beatport. I have posted the Mr. White remix in this post if you want to check that one out for free :)

Tomorrow night all you dirty dancers that are over 21 will be entering through the Honey Lounge entrance which is the left side entrance if you are staring at the front of the Avalon. All you youngin's still enter through the main entrance and there will be a GDD™ list there for you as well. We will not be doing The House Party room but rather we will be teaming up with our good friends at BBE and Everyday in the Legit Lounge to give you the best music experience possible. Bring your danceypants!

Here the author is talking about an event that the website, Gotta Dance Dirty, put on in local LA venue, The Avalon. Not that detailed, primarily descriptive, but also nice and short and to the point. The audience that this blog is reaching out to is anybody that is a fan of electronic music and enjoys hearing new artists and going to concerts that the blog site puts on.

This blog will primarily feed my music interests and have commentaries on new music releases, upcoming concerts, and the author’s opinion on new material. My site is going to differ in the sense that not only will I be discussing new music and artists but the culture surrounding the electronic music genre and provide a fresh commentary on what I think about it and hopefully create worthwhile material to read about.

>USING VOICE Post

Voice is what separates good authors and great authors. More so than simply seeing who’s storytelling abilities are better, voice creates a sense of personality that the writing itself can exude and portray. Voice is what makes an author seem relatable and personable, instead of a cold narrative James Earl Jones-like voice we can capture the distinguishing characteristics of the author and feel the words that they are saying, rather than just listening to the words and going through the motions.

There is a blogsite, earmilk, that is similar to my blog in that it is also an music blog (covers all genres) but rather than just post new music the blogger is able to capture the audience better by talking to them instead of just writing and informing. The author was promoting his website’s Suicide Sundaes where he posts extra hard electronic music. Here is a sample of his writing:

A time when bangers were big, remixes were bigger, the bassline bled, and we didn’t care about anything as long as came in kicking and left screaming. To hell with sketchy sunday, we want to shove another dragon down the hole.

The author does several things in this quote to add voice to his writing. I thought the personification of the bass line was stylish and the quote just oozes a mantra of “fight for our right to party” and not caring much about anything else besides raging as hard as possible. The phrase at the end, “we want to shove another dragon down the hole” perfectly captures the idea of wanting ear-splitting bas and pulse-pounding rhythms by comparing taming a wild dragon to listening to some new hard electro-music.

We’re going to melt you faces off with enough mashed up music to make you wanna slap yo’ mama.

Here the author’s use of slang and colloquialisms conveys his voice as he describes the type of intense music and sounds the listener/reader is about the experience.

We will try to bring you one “chill” track every day. This is for when you get home and you are trying to unwind. You reach for that glass of wine or that unlit Black & Mild or maybe you reach for something more herbal. This track is for those times. We will try to bring you at least one a day. We are just your milkmen and I’m here to make a delivery. Chill…...

In this quote the author’s description of a “chill” or relaxing is what really portrays his personality and voice. For him, a relaxing night is having a glass of wine and enjoying a smoke, while for others it could be reading a book or spending time with family. His youthfulness is felt through this description because his methods of relaxation are the ones used by younger people. Also more of his voice is used when he describes himself as a “milkman”, one who delivers something good on a regular basis, to further fortify the idea that his blog is bringing quality material for his audience.

The author is able to use a variety of mechanisms to portray his voice; personification, personal anecdotes, vocabulary, use of slang and colloquialisms and word choice. The author portrays his voice as one having a good time, witty and urban-cultured, all things you would expect from your neighborhood hip music blogger.

COACHELLA !!!

Rockin' with the best (Laidback Luke),

So a little too much drinkin' and smokin' and not enough taking care of the body has resulted in an overall shittiness in well being and blog posting... boo, I know. So even though it's super late, I've decided to create a Coachella mega-post previewing all of the electronic artists (minus Erol Alkan and Major Lazer [WHO SUCK!]), so you can decide which ones to check out further and which ones you actually want to spend the time listening to during the day. Coachella is in our backyard in Indio, CA, and for anyone even sort of, partially, may be considering going... YOU SHOULD GO, end of story. Awesome line up, and why do you even need an excuse to spend three days raging and listening to some of the sweetest bands in the land? The answer is, you don't, so hope to see all y'all there!

>Friday - April 16, 2010

I personally don't listen to alot of LCD Soundsystem (the musical project of producer James Murphy and is a mix of dance, punk & disco), but from what I've heard, I've liked and they are not as hard as the usual stuff I listen to but still enjoyable. Check 'em out.

LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
LCD Soundsystem - Tribulations

Joel Zimmerman a.k.a. Deadmau5 is one of the most amazing DJs/producers/musicians I have had the pleasure to see and everything he touches turns into electro-house gold. If you have a chance I would highly recommend seeing him. Life changing.

Daft Punk - Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger (Deadmau5 Remix)
Filter Freq - Dirty Sexy Club Music (Deadmau5 Remix)

Italian Benny Bennasi is a electronic music godfather and has been pumping out electro house magic for years. I've seen him once and wasn't disappointed, and I'm excited to see how his set is going to be.

Public Enemy - Bring The Noise (Benny Bennasi Remix)
Felix Da Housecat - Ready To Wear (Benny Bennasi Remix)

>Saturday - April 17, 2010

Tiesto IS techno. More people know him than the genre itself and this trance GOD doesn't need much introduction or explanation. I'm going to be there for sure.

Tiesto - Traffic
Tiesto - Moonlight Party

David Guetta is a little bit more pop and dance than I really like in my electronic music but he still gets the girls moving and that's always a positive in my book. Peep his ish.

David Guetta - Love Don't Let Me Go ft. Chris Willis
David Guetta - Love Is Still Gone (2009 Tribal Mix)

Kaskade is the epitome of house music and both times I have seen him he has been amazing. Some of the best live mixing I have heard and you can't help but dance when he gets on stage.

Kaskade - Steppin' Out
Kaskade & Deadmau5 - Move For Me (Extended Mix)

Electronic music legend Soulwax, has a side DJ group, 2manydjs, which is just two of the members of Soulwax who do live sets and remixes. Soulwax is awesome, thus 2manydjs is awesome. Can't wait to see them live.

Felix Da Housecat - ELVI$ (2manydjs Remix)
The Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy, Hey Girl (2manydjs Remix)

Dirty South is a Serbian DJ who resides in Australia and plays some great house music. See what you think of these remixes of his.

Evermore - it's Too Late (Dirty South Remix)
Ferry Corsten - Watch Out (Dirty South Remix)

Bassnectar is wobbley awesomeness and these guys make the speakers CRUNCH. I saw him at Lollapalooza and the entire crowd was waving with the wobble he was blasting, crazy experience, can't wait for round two.

Bassnectar - The Churn of the Century
Bassnectar - Bassnectar's Supterstylin' Smash

>Sunday - April 18, 2010

Psychadelic trance/dance group, Infected Mushroom, hails from Israel and these guys rock. Hard. Crazy sounds and truly an audio journey through electronica. Pretty stoked to see these guys for the first time.

Infected Mushroom - Forgive Me
Infected Mushroom - Converting Vegeterians

Club 75 is a DJ supergroup. Ed Banger label DJs, Justice, Busy P [Justice's manager] & DJ Medhi + Cassius = Club 75. Justice is incredible, absolutely incredible and I'm excited to see the other DJs and which songs these choose to play and how they interact on stage.

Justice - Stress
Santigold - Lights Out (DJ Medhi Remix)
Busy P - To Protect & Entertain ft. Murs (Crookers Remix)

The Glitch Mob is 4 dudes on tables and comps spinning some nasty ass tunes and remixes. Their experimental style combines underground hip hop elements with an aggressive electro sound. These remixes are especially dank.

Matt G - West Coast Rocks (The Glitch Mob Remix)
Napela - Monday (The Glitch Mob Remix)

This British bastid named Rusko is probably one of my favorite DJs right now and he's blowing up on the scene. With his supersonic womp and face melting wobble, Rusko is blazing his shows with a relentless bass assault and I can't wait to have my spine broke and neck snapped during this wobblefest.

Leon Jean Marie - Bring It On (Rusko Remix)
Kid Cudi - Day 'N' Nite (Rusko Remix)

Peace,

20thetruth

DESIGNER. DRUGS.

HI Friend! (Deadmau5),

It's THURSDAY!!! I know some of you might not be that excited by that fact, but no classes on Friday means it's the weekend, tonight, and "Let's fuckin' Raaaage" (said in the voice of Nick Swardson's character in pothead classic, Grandma's Boy). Tonight I'll probably be spinning some tracks by this hard hitting electro duo from NYC, Designer Drugs. Their drugs might be designer but there's nothing posh or pompous about the hard thumping electro hard house these guys are putting out. Massive synths, massive wompage and overall dankness, we go hard, but they go reeeeeal hard. (Zombies is the shiiit bteedub) Here's a couple original mixes and remixes by these guys, listen, download, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Avian X - Dark Circles (Designer Drugs Remix)
Designer Drugs - Zombies (Original Mix)
Fake Shark-Real Zombie - Designer Drugs (Designer Drugs Remix)
Thieves Like Us - Drugs In My Body (Designer Drugs Remix)

Peace,
20thetruth

Yummy GRUMmy Goodness

You've got the love (Florence + The Machine),

So I thought y'all would like the extra mid-week electro and I would like to introduce GRUM. Some of you might know him and if you don't well that's cool too, and hopefully you'll hear a couple hidden gems you haven't caught yet. This kid represents the original, machine 8-bit beeping electronic. You won't hear any other DJ pumpin' out pure robot-lovin' techno. I recommend the VERY hard remix of Kings of Leon's On Call. (KoL one of my favorite non-electro artists bteedub). And also, Friendly Fires is a great alternative-dance group from the UK and GRUM's remix is PURE DISCO awesomeness. Listen, download, do what it what you will just don't forget where you got those blaps. (slang for great song)

GRUM - Heartbeats (Original Extended Mix)
Friendly Fires - Skeleton Boy (GRUM Remix)
Kings of Leon - On Call (GRUM Remix)
Passion Pit - To Kingdom Come (GRUM Remix)

Peace,
20thetruth

I. Am Not. Techno. (But I really am)

To protect AND entertain (Busy P),

Middle of the week, so I know you need your electronic fix to keep trudging on till the weekend. Boys Noize is one of the HUGEST DJs in the electronic genre right now and I've had the pleasure seeing him twice at Hard Haunted Mansion in Los Angeles, CA and Lollapalooza in Chicago, IL. The first time I heard this song I knew it was going to massive, tell me what y'all think.

Boys Noize - Nott

Here's a bonus track from the mau5, he's personally one of my favorite DJs and this song Strobe is probably one of the greatest songs I have ever heard and if you haven't heard it that's a fuckin' shame, so download and experience this electronic greatness.

Deadmau5 - Strobe

Peace,
20thetruth

Doorly & Dubstep

I'M walking on a dream (Empire of the Sun),

So I know everyone missed the dubstep as did I, thus I made sure to bring a healthy dosage of wompage while keeping it classy with some very nice remixes done by dubsteppin' Doorly. This lad hails from the UK which isn't a surprise with all of the other dubsteppers from the land of original imperialism.. hah? Jokes aside, the two remixes of original songs done by Calvin Harris and Basement Jaxx, were already dance floor heaters, but Doorly has put his dubstep touch on both of these tracks just taking them to another level. The Calvin Harris remix is emersed in machine-screaming wobble while cutting up the original beat in style, and the Basement Jaxx remix has just got that extra awesomeness factor with the addition of Doorly's heavy dubstep synths. Enjoy these tunes and keep those limbs and necks loose for that wibbity wobble goodness.

Basement Jaxx - Raindrops (Doorly Remix)
Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone (Doorly Remix)

Peace,
20thetruth

Solar Symphonies w/ Dan Black & Cudder

We are your friends (Justice),

Soooooo you know when you hear a song and you THINK it's going to be reeeeal shitty but you give it a chance and turns out to be one of the dopest songs you've heard in a while? Well that's what happened to me when I heard Dan Black's Symphonies (Remix ft. Kid Cudi). Right when the song starts those hi-hat drums start pounding... just like in that damned song Umbrella by Rihanna. Try sleeping to that song on repeat on blaring loudness (I shudder when I think about hell week), but anyways once you get past the initial drums an orchestra appears out of nowhere and transforms this song into eletronica bliss. And having Cudder rap on your remix isn't bad for publicity either. Check it out, listen, download, whatever.

Dan Black - Symphonies (Remix ft. KiD CuDi)

Here's the video, which is pretty visual, which is awesome.

Thanks to WSHH for the video.

Peace,
20thetruth

Watch yo BEATS... or they'll get JACKed

Kontact me (Boys Noize),

So it's Monday, which blows, because that means you got to go back to work/school and fulfill all of the other obligatory duties you have to tend to. But with bad news there's good news, and the good news is we got that bump for your trunk and more bounce by the ounce that any other blog site and especially with these songs from the London duo, Jack Beats.

These guys have been pounding out songs with the most massive synths and drops that you beg them to stop the build up before they just murder it with their womp. Here are a couple original songs and remixes by Jack Beats (I recommend the Passion Pit remix). Remember it's only 4 more days till Friday, till the next time...

AC Slater - Jack Got Jacked (Jack Beats Remix)
Jack Beats - Get Down
Passion Pit - Little Secrets (Jack Beats Remix)
Project Bassline - Drop The Pressure (Jack Beats Remix)

Peace,

20thetruth

*Using Voice*

Voice is what separates good authors and great authors. More so than simply seeing who’s storytelling abilities are better, voice creates a sense of personality that the writing itself can exude and portray. Voice is what makes an author seem relatable and personable, instead of a cold narrative James Earl Jones-like voice we can capture the distinguishing characteristics of the author and feel the words that they are saying, rather than just listening to the words and going through the motions.

There is a blogsite, earmilk, that is similar to my blog in that it is also an music blog (covers all genres) but rather than just post new music the blogger is able to capture the audience better by talking to them instead of just writing and informing. The author was promoting his website’s Suicide Sundaes where he posts extra hard electronic music. Here is a sample of his writing:

A time when bangers were big, remixes were bigger, the bassline bled, and we didn’t care about anything as long as came in kicking and left screaming. To hell with sketchy sunday, we want to shove another dragon down the hole.

The author does several things in this quote to add voice to his writing. I thought the personification of the bass line was stylish and the quote just oozes a mantra of “fight for our right to party” and not caring much about anything else besides raging as hard as possible. The phrase at the end, “we want to shove another dragon down the hole” perfectly captures the idea of wanting ear-splitting bas and pulse-pounding rhythms by comparing taming a wild dragon to listening to some new hard electro-music.

We’re going to melt you faces off with enough mashed up music to make you wanna slap yo’ mama.

Here the author’s use of slang and colloquialisms conveys his voice as he describes the type of intense music and sounds the listener/reader is about the experience.

We will try to bring you one “chill” track every day. This is for when you get home and you are trying to unwind. You reach for that glass of wine or that unlit Black & Mild or maybe you reach for something more herbal. This track is for those times. We will try to bring you at least one a day. We are just your milkmen and I’m here to make a delivery. Chill…..

In this quote the author’s description of a “chill” or relaxing is what really portrays his personality and voice. For him, a relaxing night is having a glass of wine and enjoying a smoke, while for others it could be reading a book or spending time with family. His youthfulness is felt through this description because his methods of relaxation are the ones used by younger people. Also more of his voice is used when he describes himself as a “milkman”, one who delivers something good on a regular basis, to further fortify the idea that his blog is bringing quality material for his audience.

The author is able to use a variety of mechanisms to portray his voice; personification, personal anecdotes, vocabulary, use of slang and colloquialisms and word choice. The author portrays his voice as one having a good time, witty and urban-cultured, all things you would expect from your neighborhood hip music blogger.