Am I Coming, or Going?

Man, life has been crazy the past month or so. School has been killing me, Pittsburgh has had some fantastically awesome bad weather (which I would actually like if I could miss school ever and have that be alright), and the record store I work at just moved locations which meant much heavy lifting and shit like that (though we will now be located at the best record shop ever, Jerry’s Fine Used Records).

Pittsburgh has been fortunate to host not just one but two interesting deejays over the past few weekends. Dan Bell played a bass heavy set that nearly killed Jwan. Seriously, he missed having a huge light fixture fall on his head by about 3 inches. Aside from that, it was cool to see people getting down to some techno in the 412, even if they had no idea what the hell they were hearing. And then this past weekend, we got a visit from my boy Derek Plaslaiko who dropped a nice bit of deep minimal techno from Rob Hood, G Man, and Philus (a track which I didn’t know, when I asked for an ID on it he just gave it to me! Nice one!) as well as some house from Moodymann and some disco/pop by Liaisons Dangereuses and Sheila E. It was good to have him in town, he should have a contribution to ISM at some point in the near future as well!

Despite being completely crazy, the gears have been turning in the background here at ISM. We have a couple guest mixes lined up for the next couple weeks, as well as some more interviews and other things. I also have a mix completed that will be going up on Juju + Jordash’s site soon, and I will also be doing a guest mix for the Trackwerk blog in the next little bit.

Speaking of Trackwerk, they have a couple dope mixes up there right now by Jitterbug and Solid State, both of whom are regular posters over at the DJ History message board. You might also recognize Jitterbug from his Maze edit that we hosted a few months back. Another fun mix I’ve been digging lately is by my man DJ Guy out of the UK. If you like the ghettotech/electro/ghetto house sound cut and scratched to death, look here for the link and tracklist. I can’t wait to chill with Guy and Matt Chester again in Detroit this year over festival weekend. My man Toby Frith over at Bleep43 came through with a dope two part 4 hour mix by the Beatdown crew: Norm Talley, Mike Clark, and Delano Smith. Miss this one at your own peril! One more good mix I’ve checked out recently (that I can actually remember, I’m sure I’m forgetting something) is by Leonard Part Sixx (aka the guy behind the Underdog edits!) over at Another Night On Earth. He outs two of my secret weapons, Wilbert Longmire’s “Black Is The Color” and the Escorts’ “Make Me Over”, but I ain’t mad about it 😉

On the record tip, I’ve been getting some really sweet new stuff. The Sunshine EP by Billeebob is especially good, some sleazy electrofunk business that is fortunately slow enough to play with 80’s disco and deep house, as I like to do. Also from the UR camp, the weather has been perfect for some dark techno and electro like Electronic Warfare 2.1 and Skurge’s Lanminds. I’m thinking a mix of breakbeat techno styles might be in the works soon! Also on the electro tip is $tinkworx’ Aquapolis on Convextion’s VEXT label. The music is awesome (my favorite might be “Mudpump”) and JT’s artwork on the sleeve is ill as well. The Nebraska on Down Low entitled Vicarious Disco is no joke either, my personal joint being “Full Deck” but the Steve Pickton (aka Stasis!) mixes are cool as well. Also on the deep house tip, the new Lerosa EP on A Touch of Class is very nice. I’ve been playing out the A1 cut “Dark Knight”, which has an offbeat bass line going on that sounds huge when you play it loud as hell. Osunlade recently released a limited edition 7″ that has a really nice vocal house jam entitled “The Dating Game” on it. Osunlade can be hit or miss for me, but this one is a definite hit if you like soulful deep shit. The flip is on some weird jazzy shit, definitely not your typical jam! I also recently discovered that a cat I talk to from the 313 e-mail list was involved in the Late Night Essentials label, of which I only had the Kai Alcé release. He hooked me up with a couple of the other releases, there’s some deep vocal house action in there that has been completely forgotten about already. Big ups, Adam! Mr. De’s classic anthem “Whonleeone” is finally mine after it being sold out at Submerge the last few times I tried to get it. That is one of my top 10 Detroit records of all time, no question.

On the used tip, I recently grabbed a couple of things to add to my 80’s disco obsession. Interface’s “Robot Love” is an electroboogie joint that is all about the vocoded Dub mix. I finally found a copy of More Jive Rhythm Trax which may be even fresher than the original. Beat records like this are the roots of house music, it’s so much fun to take it down to just a simple 808 and then lay down a disco jam over top. King Sunny Ade’s Juju Music is really nice as well, a very sunny mixture of electronics and African rhythms. I also picked up a copy of Maynard Ferguson’s “The Fly” on 12″ which is a super hot jazz-funk joint. Forget about “Rocky Theme” on the flip, it’s just as bad as you can imagine.

Finally, on the film tip I have been going back to the late 70’s to early 80’s period of classic horror/thriller flicks. I know it is probably trite to say it, but John Carpenter and David Cronenberg are both amazing. “The Brood” is especially twisted, and my son really enjoyed “The Fog”. I’ve also been buying George Romero’s low budget films that he filmed in and around Pittsburgh. “Martin” is a gothic vampire story that really does a good job of showing Pittsburgh around the time of the decline of the steel industry. It captures how I remember things being when I was growning up. I bought “The Crazies” as well, but I haven’t gotten around to that one yet. If you want a good movie to watch when you have a bunch of friends over, go with “I Spit On Your Grave”. It keeps things nice and fucked up.