Yes, boys and girls, it’s time once again for Santastic!, the third-annual installment of holiday mix-and-mash-ups performed and compiled by the redoubtable djBC. (Fresh from snagging the BMA for “Outstanding DJ.”)

As always, this year’s edition is a corker. For kids who’ve been waiting for the red-suited man all December, Divide and Kreate’s “Velvet Santa” sets up a rendezvous between a pre-creepy Michael Jackson and a very naughty Lou Reed on some dingy New York City street. BC’s own “You Shook Me All Noel” has the Peanuts kids philosophizing over devilish Angus Young riffs, and his “A Wicked Hardcore Christmas” finds ska/punk dudes Big D and the Kids Table doing Jaeger bombs in Allston to jingle bells and swooning strings. King Of Pants “Alala Falala Hasselhoff” gets festive with the ladies from CSS and The Hoff himself. Meanwhile, DJ Flack’s “Hanukkah In Dub,” Voicedude’s “Dreidel All The Way” remind us that the holiday season is not just for the goyim.

But our pick for mash-up of the season — splendidly timed for the recent (and future?) Page/Plant/Jones/Bonham, Jr. reunion — is mojochronic’s “Yuletide Zeppelin” which seamlessly grafts all your timeless holiday favorites to Zep Set staples like “Kashmir,” “Stairway,” and “Dazed and Confused.”

It just makes too much sense: Didn’t we read in Hammer of the Gods that the band sold their souls to Santa?

 

On semi-related note: don’t forget that the New Year’s Day deadline is looming for the dj BC/Big D and the Kids Table collabo Strictly Mixed and Mashed remix contest — in which amateur bastard-pop auteurs are invited to download Big D masters and create their own chopped/screwed remixes.

More Santastic...

LISTEN: “Safety Bells “ - DJ Earlybird (MP3)
LISTEN: “Elvis Christmas Turkey“ - Go Home Productions  (MP3)
LISTEN: “Yuletide Zeppelin II “ - mojochronic (MP3)

12/21/2007 4:20:14 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

DJ Ms DD: Introducing The Trannysphere

>>DOWNLOAD: DJ Ms. DD, The Trannysphere #1 [mp3]

About once a week, for as long as we can remember, one of the Phoenix's most senior critics, Michael Freedberg, would come into the office to pick up his check, and then, on his way out, as a way of saying "hello," he'd stop by the arts desk and launch into a monologue, often aimed at no one in particular. It wasn't idle conversation: he was professoring. He has one of those lawyer's voices (he being, in fact, a lawyer): the iron-plated, stentorian tone you'd associate with someone who'd watched old Abe Lincoln biographs from the 1950s. He would talk about Led Zeppelin, about electro, or spend an hour hectoring us to listen to some new Mylene Farmer album, or a Prince b-side, or an Arabic dance band he'd found on some European offshoot of Amazon.com. Michael Freedberg is one of those Rushmore-sized visages of the legendary-rock-crit days: although he spends his fruitful hours doing legal work, and is happy discoursing about the Greek and Latin classics, and has for 25 years or so voted conservative Republican, he has also been one of the most insightful and unique chroniclers of African American dance music of our time. At some crucial point in the '70s he ignored punk, embraced disco with both arms and both lobes of his brain, and ever since his has been a singular, lone voice in the wilderness -- his canon is no one else's canon, and as such he has sometimes found it difficult to communicate with his editors (except for the Phoenix's Matt Ashsare and Jon Garelick, who have given him the most work in recent years, and former Village Voice editor Chuck Eddy, whom Michael adores and who understood him completely). In the '70s Freedberg covered the greats of R&B, and had his Almost Famous moment touring with P-Funk for a week for the long-lost music rag Gig. In 1981, he discovered (then Roxbury-based) electro godfathers the Jonzun Brothers, and even provided the title for that group's most well-remembered song: they'd wanted to name it "Pac Man," but it was Freedberg, who knew what kind of legal trouble would come with that title, who convinced the label to call it "Pac Jam."

For the past decade, Freedberg's passion has been house music -- a genre universally discredited and ignored and reviled by mainstream music editors, but which he has written about insightfully, tirelessly, and beautifully. Freedberg also adores French variete, though not the kind that usually gets written about in indie-rock magazines. Long before the blogs turned "rockism" into a dirty word, Freedberg was railing against the tunnel vision of what he called "the SPIN crowd," by which he referred to the magazine but meant to indict, by association, not just all of American rock and roll but most of what passes for youth culture. (Because he spends so much time listening to music his own way, he sometimes has odd blind spots in his repertoire: one day in 1997 he came into the office raving, at high volume, about a new song he'd just heard on the radio, and was ready to canonize its creators as the best new artist of the year -- except that he didn't know what the record was or who'd made it. After some vigorous searching, it became apparent that the song was Nine Inch Nails's "Head Like a Hole," which had then been out for about eight or nine years.) He maintains that the French do rock and roll far better than Americans. In 1991, while everyone else was writing about grunge, he published a definitive guide to the best 800 disco records ever, almost all of which he owns on vinyl. Michael finds most contemporary American top-40 music insipid, weak, poorly produced, dumb, talentless, and offensive. He is often dismissive of hip-hop, but has been -- for far longer than you -- a great champion of R. Kelly, whom he had elevated to the pantheon of the greats (Otis Redding, Prince, Robert Plant) way before indie kids discovered "Trapped in the Closet."

But sometime around the time "Trapped in the Closet" came out, maybe before, we found out that Michael, himself, had been trapped in the closet. We'd approached him about doing a podcast, with the intention simply of commiting some of his best rants to tape -- many was the time we kicked ourselves for not having hit "record" the minute he walked through the doors. There's a Led Zeppelin rant that he's never written but deserves to be in the hall of fame; we still hope to coax it out of him again someday. But instead Michael proposed something completely different: a podcast that would be hosted by his cross-dressing alter-ego, DJ Ms. DD. The existence of such an alter-ego briefly turned our brains into scrambled eggs. Then, thinking about it for a few minutes, we found that the emergence of Ms. DD explained quite a bit about what we knew of Michael Freedberg. After an aborted attempt to bring Ms. DD to the airwaves last year -- aborted not for lack of effort or enthusiasm, but merely by OTD's lack of technical ability -- we have two episodes of "The Trannysphere" (title courtesy of Ms DD) in the can, as well as the above video trailer. Our production values, we hope, will improve with practice. And we hope to coax Michael into the studio as a special guest, so that we can share with you some portion of the wit and wisdom that he's brought to these halls.

>>DOWNLOAD: DJ Ms. DD, The Trannysphere #1 [mp3]

11/15/2007 7:57:48 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

When he's not destroying parties as half of the Certified Bananas crew, DJ P. Nice mans the decks for the Providence party-funk trio Miss Fairchild, alongside this little dude who sings like Prince and this big dude who plays the flute. Trust us, it's genius. Combining both talents, P. Nice has just dropped the preview Miss Fairchild mixtape, which spins four new tracks into the hot old-school shit by Tony Toni Tone and Morris Day. Grab it now, then get over to Harpers Ferry tonight to catch them with OTD faves UV Protection.

DOWNLOAD: Miss Fairchild mixtape (registration required)

If you're like us, you probably assumed that DJ AM's frequent appearance in the tabloids, on the arms of various Hollywood starlets, meant that he must be some kind of LA hack, or maybe a mashupping cheezeball or something. So consider our brains thoroughly mangled by this absurdly focused set, which bops from bloghouse to b-more to party rap and back. Seriously, this is life-changing, bar-raising type shit. Step your game up:

DOWNLOAD: DJ AM, Live at Banansplit (mp3)

More fire:

DOWNLOAD: DJ Benzi & Lil Wayne, "None Higher" Mixtape (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: DJ Smallz & B.O.B., "Cloud 9 Mixtape" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Caps N Jones N Professor Murder, "Mixed Tape" (mp3)

5/24/2007 4:24:04 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Dance-party holocaust, complete with drops from Spank Rock and Amanda Blank, better than Coachella. Plays like a DJ set instead of some dude's clever mixtape: in case you're wondering, that's a good, good thing. They explain better than we can. From MySpace:

On March 5th, 2007, The Smalltown DJs and Certified Bananas met in an orange colored studio on the other side of the Calgary train tracks to make a mixtape. After exchanging pleasantries, Sammy Bananas set up the computers while Mike Grimes broke out the fresh squeezed orange juice which is always stocked in his fridge. Certified Max unwrapped the takeout delights from that Indian spot around the corner from the Hi-Fi, and Pete Emes spilled some raita on his wool hunter's cap. After the meal, the music began and a story unfolded; these North American Scum had hours to work, but a mere 30 minutes for the tale. What transpired was a legend for the ages. It is the story of 4 djs, in a big concrete room, eating indian food, watching a big flat screen tv on mute and playing records. The sun had long since set over the Canadian Rockies when they packed up the tools of their trade and parted ways. A few days later, the Bananas were shredding the gnar in the pacific northwest while the Smalltowns were back to the grind of Cowtown domination. But the music lives on, the music lives on forever. Jizz Cannons 4 Life.

DOWNLOAD: Certified Bananas and Smalltown DJs, "North American Wildlife Mix" (mp3)

5/2/2007 1:51:15 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Mistaker brings the Rub up to the Middlesex Lounge tonight -- always a good time. And if you happen to notice a bunch of sweaty bloggers with ping-pong paddles, just don't even bother asking.

Speaking of the Rub, those dudes are making history -- more to the point, they're 11 (eleven!) volumes into their "The Rub History of Hip-Hop" mp3-mix series, which is so good we can't believe they're giving it away for free. Consider it remedial homework for anyone who wasn't alive -- or who was otherwise engaged with Duran Duran -- during rap's first decade. Essential from front to back, but we have a special place in our heart for 1984-1986, for our money the best three years of rap music, or any music, between 1967 and 1991.

DOWNLOAD: The Rub Hip Hop History 1986 (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: The Rub Hip Hop History 1985 (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: The Rub Hip Hop History 1984 (mp3)

Get the whole series and tracklists here.

5/1/2007 11:47:47 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Our dude David Day has been talking about bringing big tings to big rooms for about a year now, and now the shit is finally starting to pop. In a let's-get-the-whole-scene-under-one-roof-and-give-it-a-name enterprise called Basstown Productions (useless trivia: Basstown was the rejected first name for David's "Circuits" column)a bunch of people are responsible for round one: a bonkerlicious night at Axis with local metallicafont headbangers Hearthrob and official DFA dj Tim Sweeney, whom webternerds (and any other people who prize Carl Craig remixes of Junior Boys and so forth) will know from his indispensible terrestrial/webcast radio gig "Beats In Space." It's the first place we check for secret DFA remixes that no one else knows about -- and may we add that the prospect of DFA giveaways tomorrow night is enough to get us there. Email the basstown kids for $5 off admission.

Here's Sweeney's winter-07 contribution to the DFA Radio Mix Series:

DOWNLOAD: Tim Sweeney, DFA Radio Mix 2007 (mp3)

Tracklist:

4/27/2007 8:46:44 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

That whole DJ Drama mess spooked the crap out of mixtape DJs, to the extent that hometown hero CLINTON SPARKS done closed up shop on Mixunit, started a blog, took a day job at VH1, and is giving away his entire mixtape library for free.

Latest: a collabo with . . . Tommy friggin' Lee?

We give you Hip Pop Rock Star. As amusing as it is to hear Fatman Scoop and Mr. Pam compete for cheesiest drop of the week, we caution: this is not Clinton's finest hour. The concept (Justin and PCD top-40 over MTV rock) is juicy but not new, and the execution is pretty spotty. Most of these blends are the kind of barely-synched shite you hear on Kiss 108's "mashup mafia" show, which is generally not how our dude throws down. Notable exception: Beyonce's "Ring the Alarm" over AC/DC. Bey-Bey obv. wanted to get some screamo out of her system on that one anyway, and surprise: it sounds way better with Angus guitars. Superproducers please take note: R&B divas + hard rock = fire. Always.

Clinton's been busy smashing spring break parties, so he hasn't been home in a minute -- matter of fact, sometimes it feels like Tommy Lee DJs here more than Clinton does. So make your plans early: Sparks returns to Boston with a gig April 29 at Mantra.

DOWNLOAD: Clinton Sparks and Tommy Lee, Hip Pop Rock Star (.zip mp3s)

4/19/2007 1:38:22 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Bruce v. the Mooninites

Ever since we heard about Hollertronix taking root at the Ukranian Club in Philly, we'd been dreaming about a Boston party scene flowering at grimy, non-club-like venues. The obvious corollary was the Elks Lodge in Central Square: two basement rooms, no attitude (unless you count the gentleman's no-cursing rule enforced by the bartenders), a two-o'clock license, and -- dude -- paneling. When the Certified Bananas crew started heating up Enormous Room, this was the dream: a monthly at the Elks, with every party DJ in town getting drunk, throwing caution and genre out the window, making a sweaty roomful of kids lose their shit.

The future is now. Mistaker has laid the groundwork with three increasingly ridiculous editions of THUNDERDOME, a night with no rules and ample helpings of cheap booze, druggy video projections, and bass. Lots of bass. Volume 4 is now set for March 16, and the Providence-vs.-Boston theme brings together our absolute favorite party people in New England under one roof. Yeulch. Clear your fucking calendars.

Meanwhile, DJ-C and DJ Flack have been shredding the fringes of experimental party music at the E-Room every Monday night, building towards something bigger. Now we know what that something is. Their inaugural "BOUNCEMENT" night -- named for a DJ-C mixtape that pretty much changed our lives -- is going down March 30 at . . . the Linwood? THE LINWOOD?!

This is such a good idea.

Although it's marginally less destroyed than it was several years ago when it played home to beard-metal goons, biker-punk apocalypticians, and Southern-fried boogie-rock leviathans, the Linwood is still 100-percent roadhouse. It's physically impossible to walk through the door and not get hammered. The room just demands instant retardation. And BOUNCEMENT is genetically engineered to take advantage of it. You've got Montreal's GHISLAIN POIRIER headlining, and he's been here enough that he ain't just a face from the blogs anymore. The dude has turned out parties here with astonishing regularity, with a rep based more on jam-packed E-Room nights than on Fader/Vice clippings. For pure spirit-of-the-moment circus factor, this will also be the first post-Mooninite performance of ZEBBLER, a/k/a the dude with the dreadlocks who accidentally punk'd the entire fucking city of Boston. In his pre-lite-brite-terrorist days, Zebbler was a working video artist, and he'll be on hand to graphicalize with frequent Glitch Crew compadre Sean Stevens.

This is a good month.

3/6/2007 12:33:02 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

That dude MISTAKER has cued up AC/DC, Tina Turner, and Justice for your listening pleasure. Call the bomb squad. Special NYC guests TROUBLE & BASS. OTD will be trying to get someone to play the new NIN thunder.  

DOWNLOAD: Mistaker, "Thunderdome Mix" (mp3)
WATCH: Thunderdome, the party trailer

2/16/2007 4:39:52 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Pre-party film screening featuring Tyrone Tanous's silent documentary Survey [click for trailer at Google video] at an undisclosed location. Party time at Shine with David Day, Mistaker, Baldur, and DJ Die Young.

DOWNLOAD: DJ Die Young, "Electro-Lite Promo Mix" (mp3)

2/3/2007 4:57:48 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

IF YOU GO:

• Wayne and Wax
  at "Beat Research"/Enormous Room
  567 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
  9pm to 1am, 21 plus, Free
  617.491.5550

The bad news: Wayne Marshall, the smartest person we know email from time to time, done moved to Chicago. (Dude, there's a hole in our heart that can only be filled by you. Although if anyone knows another Boston-based ethnomusicologist/DJ/producer/blogger, get at us immediately.) The good news: he's put together a farewell ode to Boston in the form of a followup to his awesome Boston Mashacre mix, this one called the Boston Smashacre. Even better news: he's in town again tonight to DJ at Enormous Room.

But first, let's talk Smashacre. In his words, it's an "anti-canonical" mix that includes local faves from Big Digits to Luny Tunes, but that "generally sidesteps the pop and pop-rock referents of last year’s 'Mashacre' and instead claims for the Hub's sonic profile some homegrown hip-hop, bellydance, ska, new jack, quirk rock, boss bounce, and reggaeton, among others. Although I still attempt to make some gestures toward breadth and familiarity, including some poppy faves, in general I have tended here to the obscure, to the weird and the dark and ironic-exotic, seeking to plumb the town’s dirty water depths more than skim its surfaces."

In other words, the same awesomeness you've come to expect from our favorite braniac DJ.

It's also the jumpoff for what Wayne describes as "semi-regular, relatively longform musically-expressed ideas about music" -- i.e., a podcast, or in Wayne's world a Waxcast, which you can sign up for here. 

DOWNLOAD: Wayne and Wax, "Boston Smashacre" (mp3) [TRACKLIST]

11/13/2006 1:19:13 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Learn from our mistakes: as this guy and this guy might lead you to believe, DJ RNDM is not pronounced "DJ R.N.D.M.," it's  actually "DJ Random," though we've also been introduced to him as just plain "Todd." Fortunately, we never fucked up any of his names to his face. Now you won't either.

Whatever you want to call the young crate-digger, his DJ ID is certainly appropriate for his mixtape style, which hasn't been honed in software clicks or Vegas Audio licenses, but direct from the decks. Yep, his recorded mixes are all live vinyl blends, though he does admit to a little post-production multi-tracking "to keep the energy up in a way that is technically impossible with just two turntables." That technique ends up with a classic late-'80s anthem like Soggy-Bizkit-grandfather "Walk This Way" sutured next to INXS's suicide-pop hit "Tonite" for a number the kid's logically christened, "Walk This Way Tonite." Or the first 1:45 of the sexy-people-dance "Push It" overlayed with a minute of "When Doves Cry" that's something strange called, "When Doves Push It." Unlike most dance-party sprangers (except maybe these guys), kid's also got a crazily nasty hankering for mixing classic-rock prom songs with Top 40 jukebox mainstays: "Another One Bites the Dust" spliced with "Hot in Herre"? Nas's "It Aint Hard To Tell" a cappella over Led Zeppelin's "All of My Love"? Doesn't always make sense, but somehow RNDM makes it work.

RNDM's almost done with his new CD, so as a little appetizer, he's offering his entire debut release ...this is rndm as a downloadable .zip file from his Web site. It includes all the aforementioned mixes (don't call them "mash-ups" or you will be killed!), along with Missy Elliot cussing out Payless-Shoe-shopping ho's over Young MC's "Bust a Move," plus tons more.

He's also got this A/V partnership with that ever-endearing VJ, Robotkid. Tonight, they're doubling up for some tag-team audio-visual coordinated action in which they use, quoth the young Robot, "are using special vinyl records wired to our laptops to mix music videos" at the Middlesex Lounge. Little known fact about the Middlesex: don't stand on the square seats or they will (try to) bounce your ass out of there. (Robot is a witness.) Again, please learn from our mistakes.

DOWNLOAD: DJ RNDM's ...this is rndm (link to .zip file page on djrndm.com)


Click to enlarge the flier for tonight's show.

8/9/2006 10:58:12 AM by Cami | Comments [0] |  

We try to keep abreast of MICL PTVN's adventures in this space, but the dude just keeps on keeping ahead of us. David Day caught up with him in his latest circuits column, and then sent us the following mixtape to pass along:

Potvin's sense of tunes and danceability is no clearer than this mix, "Disco mix 4 Sarah," which does the hip Manhead, Daft Punk, Pitchfork poster-girl Annie, club queen Miss Kittin, those LCD boys, and the red-hot Digitalism remix of Cure's "Fire In Cairo" in one 60-minute super-jam. Privot is the in-house DJ for the Compound 440r collective, a group of art-minded music makers in Somerville that throws parties in club and loft around town. The guy also plays in Campaign for Real Time and is part of (We Are) Cassette. What more do you want? Check him out at a new night over at the Enormous Room or at any one of the 100s of 440r jams around town. Or just drop this into your iPod and try not to jiggle your hips on the bus. We dare you.

DOWNLOAD: MicL Ptvn, "Disco Mix 4 Sarah" (mp3)

6/8/2006 4:04:44 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

That dude DJ Mark E. Moon has been awful quiet lately -- too quiet, buried-in-the-lab quiet, building-birfday-mixtapes quiet. We should've known that he wasn't kidding when he told us his Dipset-ized Neutral Milk Hotel "King of Karat Flowers" remix was part of a longer suite. But after that, there was his baile-funk Belle and Sebastian remix and then . . . nothing. Hell, we haven't even heard much from his band Plunge Into Death lately.

Wait's over. Run for cover.

The official occasion of Mark E. Moon's "Last Nail in the Coffin" mixtape is the birthday of his comrade-in-ravesploitation TD of Big Digits, and the official celebration goes down tonight at outsider-rock gnome Dan Shea's "Haunted Toof, Neon Fang" night at the Reel Bar. [DETAILS.] But this tape is going to be knocking spare tires off trunks for months. We knew the kid had something back when he created the groundbreaking "Crunkin Donuts" mixtape, which introduced the world to the Compound 440r miniverse and set Allston breakdancing to UV Protection. Now he's set his scope on the world at large, and the results are . . . fuck . . . stunning. Crazy. The tracklist doesn't do it justice -- but like OMG THE MAGNETIC FIELDS DISCO SONG AND JJ FAD IN THE SAME JAM (which OTD hereby christens the "S/FJ'S REVENGE MIX"), and then Tom Waits over Clipse shotguns is, like, ten kinds of retarded genius. Like everything on this thing, the Waits track is outofcontrol brilliant, but it's an example of what elevates Moonbeams over yr usual mashup fare -- the associational leap (the fronteir-American-violence of Waits' bone machines, the urban-American-violence of Neptunes' clattering gunplay) that makes rock critics start drooling and titling posts "total genius" and gushing like idiots.

Neutral Milk Hotel: King of Carrot Flowers
Lil Kim: Whoa
Juiceboxxx: Do you wanna hear some Juiceboxxx?
Tom Waits: Hoist That Rag/ Hawnay Troof: Out of Teen
Beats International: Won't Talk About It
Chamillionaire: Ridin
Sebadoh: Brand New Love/ Yaz: Situation
Magnetic Fields: I Thought You Were My Boyfriend/ JJ Fad: Boom I Got
Your Boyfriend
Run DMC: Tricky/ Velvet Underground: What Goes On
Busta Rhymes: Touch It/Architecture in Helsinki: Do the Whirlwind (NON-MARK E. MOON JAM)
Jay Z: Dirt off Your Shoulder/B-52s: 52 Girls
Clipse: Mr. You Too
My Bloody Valentine: Sometimes

DOWNLOAD: Mark E. Moon, Last Nail in the Coffin Mix (mp3)

5/25/2006 10:49:08 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

1. Sure, there's lots of people playing Brazilian shit nowadays. You can get it from people like this, or you can get is straight from the tap. Lemon-Red's new mix is by none other than Bonde Do Role's DJ Gorky. This is the guy who thinks up shit like Alice in Chains as a baile funk song. He does stuff like that for breakfast. So you can imagine what the guy does when given, like, 45 minutes to fuck with. Smashing Pumpkins/M.I.A. perhaps? Lots of carioca shit you haven't heard, too.

2. Grindie. Inevitable? Genius? Download and decide for yourself.

3. Thanks to everyone who sent us the email version of this last week -- whadda we look like, Godsmack fans or something? -- and even more thanks to the folks who ripped it to mp3 form. Because the streets wanted it:

DOWNLOAD: Arthur Magazine pwns Godsmack's Sully Erna, live on the telephone (mp3, via Crooks and Liars)

4. We've given up and given ourselves over to that Yung Joc song, which has us doing silly dances all over the place. Tom Cruise, too. Officially blown up.

DOWNLOAD: Yung Joc, "Goin Down" (mp3)

5: Wayne & Wax breaks out the bubblesalsa chipmunk-soul remix of "Runaway" from the Riddim Method's Lemon-Red mix as standalone track; with Lil Jon shouts, Boston Bounce, and other goodness.  

6. Word has it that Kool Keith does not actually own the name Dr. Octagon, or at least believes that he doesn't, and so his latest disc is credited to The Return of Dr. Octagon. As in, that's not the name of the record, that's Kool Keith's name for the duration of the album. Album sampler/megamix/trailer here now:

DOWNLOAD: Kool Keith, The Remix of Dr. Octagon (mp3 via DJ Benzi)

7. Sorry, we waited too long and now you can't download this for free anymore. You'll have to settle for the video.

STREAM: Aksent feat. Beanie Man, "Zingy (Remix)"

8. Baltimore madness:

DOWNLOAD: Rick Ross, "Hustler's Anthem (Sinden B-More Remix)" (mp3, via braap)
DOWNLOAD: Baltimore Bass Connection, Blentwell Mix #2 (mp3)

9. The only good thing to come out of the New Cars: they're taking Blondie out on the road with them. But will they play Debbie's new rap song in praise of Lil' Kim?

DOWNLOAD: Debbie Harry, "Dirty and Deep" (via This Big Stereo)

10. THE REAL BEHINDTHEMUSIC: Erica says her career is "like a big pot of rice and beans: You add the sofrito, add the sazon,
add the adobo and the final product gets demolished."

(Aksent gets you ready for summer.)

5/9/2006 12:20:34 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

OTD is heading south for the week -- and no, we're not going where everyone else is going. We're off for some R&R and even a little M&M, because as we've said before, OTD is for the children. Don't sleep, though, because Cami and a cadre of Phoenix guest bloggers are gonna keep you up to your eyeballs in exclusives until we return. Before we step off, though, here's what we'll be listening to on de plane.

A couple years ago, we heard some dude talking about freestyle, and from the way he was describing it our brain got all scrambled, because he definitely wasn't talking about improvised rap battles, but he was talking about shit we knew. And so it was that we discovered we were experts in a genre we didn't know even existed: capital-F Freestyle, which, to paraphrase DJ Ayres in this month's Fader, is all about chanelling your inner 15-year-old Puerto Rican girl. Unless you actually dated 15 year old Puerto Rican girls in 1987, you probably don't have intractable yanking-on-heartstrings connections to the eight songs Ayres pegs as pillars of Freestyle -- Noel's "Silent Morning," Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force's "I Wonder If ITake You Home," Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts," Taylor Dayne's "Tell It To My Heart" among them. But holy shit, we do. Not only do we own all these 12-inches, we still sweat them. We'd always wondered what to call the stuff we danced to at middle school jams, and usually threw up our hands and described it to our metal pals as bubblegum R&B, or black electropop, or something despicable like that.

There's been a resurgence of interest in this stuff over the past couple years -- Ayres mentions Ciara's "1, 2 Step" as a distant relative of Freestyle, though we also detect its synth-brass heartbeat in Chromeo; and our fave Freestyle act of all time, the Jets, of "Crush on You" fame, have become a mainstay of 2ManyDjs-type mixes. We know the Compound440r dudes represent for this shit as well. Witness C440r's Philly brothers-in-arms Crimp Yr Hair, whose freestyle party Jam It On the One is apparently causing a stir at a rock bar we used to get kicked out of called the Khyber. The Crimp dudes' "What Would Theo Do?" mix (that's Theo as in Huxtable, not Epstein, as the Cosby Show samples will make clear) also goes heavy on first-wave Freestyle, including Ready for the World's "Oh Sheila" and Shannon's "Let the Music Play" and the aforementioned "Crush On You" (best song ever, or so we've thought for whole weeks of our lives), which is what you'd expect from a couple of dudes who pledge undying allegiance to Jellybean Benitez and the Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis empire.

DOWNLOAD: DJ Ayres, "Fader Freestyle Mix"
DOWNLOAD: Crimp Yr Hair, "What Would Theo Do?"

Oh, and weve mentioned these before, but dude: the Diplo podcast on Baltimore club music is absolutely killer (who's got the unmixed bmore remix of the Beatles "twist & shout"?!), and the new Caps + Jones mix destroys. When people give shit like this away for free, you start to wonder why anyone buys records, ever.

3/5/2006 10:03:15 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

Yeah, sure, there's a DFA remix album coming out, which contains almost nothing you didn't SLSK eight months ago. Don't get us wrong: it'll be nice to have it all in one folder. But for those of us who hang on James Murphy's every cowbell thwack, there's gigabytes of new shit afoot.

1. This one likely didn't make the remix-retrospective cut: a new 10-minute DFA remix of Tiga's "Far From Home," which has been making the rounds, and is available locally from our friends at Compound 440r, complete with MicL Ptvn's close-reading attention to detail, if you're into "reviews" and stuff. And new DFA signees Hot Chip also got the grand treatment. Speaking of which, there's a new Hot Chip song (sans DFA remix) up at Fluxblog. We're sorta finding it hard to get super excited about Hot Chip; keep wishing Spank Rock had got signed down there instead or something. Y'know, Juan likes 'em.

2. As always, the best thermometer on what's soon to emerge from the DFA camp is official-DFA-DJ Tim Sweeney's "Beats In Space" show. Just before jumping on tour with the Juan Maclean, he uploaded his end-of-January edition, which has even more goodies you will not find on the upcoming remix record. Don't want to spoil the surprise, but for a teaser: how about a Carl Craig remix of Delia & Gavin?!

DOWNLOAD: Beats In Space, Jan 31 2006, Part One (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Beats In Space, Jan 31 2006, Part Two (mp3)

3. Issued just before Christmas in ridiculously small quantities, leaked on DFA-friendly message boards when the holiday eBaying got out of hand, and now posted all official-like, the DFA Radio mixes showcase a quintessential Murphy DJ set, dropping Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Bee Gees, Six Finger Satellite, John & Yoko, Radiohead, and Jonathan Richman, plus copious DFA and Rub N Tug mixes, spread over two CDs. A third disc rolls out how the Juan Maclean do, beginning with Hawkwind and ending with Giorgio Moroder, but spazzed in between with throbbing punk-rock gristle (black flag, DAF, bad brains). That clicking sound you hear is your iPod's shuffle button committing suicide.

DOWNLOAD: DFA Radio Mixes 2005: James Murphy, Disc One (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: DFA Radio Mixes 2005: James Murphy, Disc Two (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: DFA Radio Mixes 2005: Juan Maclean (mp3)

4. Disc two kicks off with that ridonculous Rub N Tug "edit" or cover or whatever the hell it is of "I'm a Man," which deserves some sort of award for unlikely superbreak of the decade or something. From the sets we've heard, it's become Murphy's unofficial theme song, or at least his designated leadoff track. No exception: his hour-long set at Australia's Big Day Out, which is available for your appraisal (along with, if you like, his Euro competition) . . .

DOWNLOAD: James Murphy, Live at Big Day Out 2006 (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: 2 Many DJs, Live at Big Day Out 2006 (mp3)

2/20/2006 8:46:20 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

1. A belated welcome to the new-look OTD. In case we didn't mention it before, that sweet logo is by Jef Czekaj, with whom any regular reader of this blog is already familiar via his numerous musical endeavors, most of which he chooses to pursue under one pseudonymn or another. Besides all that he's an awesome cartoonist. Even Dustin Hoffman thinks so, or so we've been told. If you ever forget where he's at, just click his signature above to check out his site.

 2. Let's pretend this item is unrelated to the one above. Mark E. Moon -- the dude who wrecked the internet with last week's all-world Neutral Milk Hotel remix -- has done it again. He was a little bummed we didn't mention him in our baile-funk rundown a few days ago, but that's only because we hadn't checked the Compound 440r blog in a whole five minutes, and in the interim those dudes had lit up, like, three yards of posts. Including a couple of distinctly non-C440r leaks -- like the first single off the MSTRKRFT album, which, goes without saying, we're totally stoked on. Plus the Big Digits dudes took a videoblog ride with that dude Raji that Miliard wrote about a while back. To get back on track, though, Mark E. Moon has posted two more songs from his upcoming Last Nail in the Coffin mixtape: a reggaeton remix of Unrest and (the source of his protest to OTD) a baile-funk remix of Belle & Sebastian. Fuck's sake, why isn't this kid famous already?

LISTEN: Mark E. Moon, "Legal Man (Baile & Sebastian Remix)" (mp3)
LISTEN: Mark E. Moon, "Isabel (Reggaeton, Eventually Remix)" (mp3)

3. Deserving of its own post: Wayne "& Wax" Marshall's definitive two-page Reggaeton essay in the Phoenix this week (actually even longer online). We were super, super inspired by reading Wayne's now-famous blog post "We Use So Many Snares," which subsequently became the inspiration for a couple of MSM reviews, including a widely-read one in the Times by a former Phoenix hip-hop critic . Wayne didn't really get as much credit as he probably deserved for steering the critical discussion about reggaeton, and OTD thought it was really important to get him into ink-and-newsprint to set the record straight. In any case, we feel this is an important and definitive piece of criticism, and it's one of the things we're proudest to have published. Even better, Wayne has put together a 40-minute annotated soundtrack for the piece that's downloadable for free over at this place, tracking many of the musical moments he elaborates on in his piece. We got giddy listening to it and reading along with it: this is what music criticism should be like. Period.

LISTEN: Wayne&Wax, "Dem Bow Mix" (mp3)

3. Apparently everyone else had this already, but now we got this thing where you can see what Google searches people did to end up at OTD? And then you're supposed to post about it when you get a funny one? OK, best one so far, just the other day: someone landed here by searching for "Jordyn Bonds nipple." Dream on, duder.  

4. The Chop Chop's Catherine Cavanaugh checked in the other day -- hi, Catherine! -- to clarify that we were not crazy, they really did have an mp3 up, they just took it down to save on bandwidth. "And plus," she writes, "I'm fascinated with myspace....which is lame, I agree." Not at all. We love social networking as much as the next hopeless web addict, we just can't take myspace with us on the train. So consider yr iPod satiated: here's the track . . .

LISTEN: Chop Chop, "Mixtape" (mp3) 

1/21/2006 11:05:24 PM by On the Download | Comments [2] |  

"Like, when I wrote `Oh, Comely,' I felt really great about it. I wrote it till six in the morning. I was staying at my dad's house at the time, and I was walking around the kitchen, and my dad heard me, and he's like, `What are you doing, son?' And I came in there and I said, `Well, Dad, I just wrote this song, it's really pretty freaked out.' So I played it for him and he made me feel okay about it. And I think that `Two-Headed Boy, Pt. Two' is that way, and `Holland, 1945' was that way, where I would be writing them and be feeling like things were right, and then I'd get tripped up by a line and suddenly think, `Oh my God, is this too much? Is this too fucked up? Are people gonna understand what I'm trying to say?' And it's taken seeing other people get the same reaction that I'm getting out of it to realize that I'm not just crazy."

1/8/2006 3:38:15 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

 
How do you say "Vanilla Ice" in Portuguese?

1. Before you embark on your subculturally-programmatic mocking of the new Kevin Federline single -- and yes, it is in fact a baile-funk track produced by Disco D, and yes, that means this will be most Middle Americans' introduction to baile-funk, and yes, there are already people who are mad at it -- consider these four arguments, put forth by no less than Disco D himself on Hollerboard the other night, after asking the question of all questions, "How is this more of a cultural infringement than M.I.A.?" (Low blow, D -- nobody up in your grill asking who named a white boy the king of ghetto tech, right?) So here goes, inna direct quote stylee: Disco D's top 4 reasons K-Fed is more authentic less reprehensible more enviro-friendly (insert-value-judgement-here) than M.I.A.:

"1) He actually pays homage to the type of music referenced and shouts it out and where it came from.
2) The beat isn't a straight bite of anything else in existence, where as M.I.A. just took someone elses' rhythm
3) Every Brasilian I've played it for, including DJ Marlboro and DJ Juliao (the biggest funk DJ in Sao Paulo) loves it.
4) He is shooting the video in Brasil, bringing tens of thousands of dollars in commerce as well as countless amounts of exposure to the country."

Can OTD just chime in hurrr and opine the following: There's nothing more embarassing than turning in your Pazz and Jop ballot with a baile-funk comp on it, only to turn around and find out that Britney Spears' babydaddy just rubbed one out for his debut single. Why bother doing all the hard work of being an early-adopting hipster when some Mickey Mouse millionaire is just gonna come shank your game in the back? (Uh, quick: what's the html for <sarcasm>?) That said, a little perspective, folks: no, it's not gonna replace De Falla's "Popozuda Rock N Roll" as the greatest baile-funk song ever, but it's a big step up from Kelly Osbourne's faux-"Favela Funk" mix of "One Word." Word?

LISTEN: Kevin Federline, "Popo Zao" (mp3 via this site, beware the popups). There's also a Megaupload link over at Do It Old Maid.

2. Pre-K-Fed (as all time before now in the history of favela funk shall be henceforth known), Paul Devro made one of our fave baile-funk mixes. Go figure: his new mix, next up in the world-beating Lemon-Red mix series brought to you by URB's hip-hop blogger of the year, has not a lick of funk carioca on it. "No baltimore, no grime, no baile," he tells L-R. "Some bollywood, some iraqi, some italo, some p funk. one new rap song, some old ones." The first song sounds like some third-world transmogrification of "My Humps," (we mean that as a compliment), and it only gets crazier from there. OTD has a soft spot for rap answer tracks, so Icy J gets vigorous nods and rockist overbite, too. Devour, study, surrender:

LISTEN: Paul Devro, Lemon-Red January Mix (mp3)

3. And while you're over there, Mr. Lemon-Red got hisself added to Pazz and Jop, but was not silly enough to add a baile-funk comp to his albums list. He was, however, generous enough to post his entire singles list as a motherfucking zip file. Dope. Since everyone seems to be doing it -- and though no one asked -- here's OTD's P&J Ballot:

Albums
1. Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway - RCA (15)
2. LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem - Capitol (14)
3. MIA - Arular - Interscope (13)
4. System of a Down - Mezmerize - American (12)
5. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm - Vice (11)
6. Young Jeezy - Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 - Def Jam (9)
7. Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain - Load (8)
8. Various Artists - Slam Dunk Presents Funk Carioca - Mr. Bongo (7)
9. The Illegible DJ Caps and Pandemonium Jones - Moving In Stereo - nolabel (6)
10. Say Anything - Is a Real Boy - Doghouse (5)

Singles
1. Amerie - 1 Thing - Sony
2. Beck - Girl - Interscope
3. Black Eyed Peas - My Humps - Interscope
4. Three 6 Mafia - Stay Fly - Sony
5. Paul Wall - Sittin Sideways - Swishahouse/Atlantic
6. Doomriders - Black Thunder - Deathwish, Inc.
7. As Long As We're All Living We're All Dying - Fatigue - Teenage DiscoBloodbath
8. Kano featuring D Double E & Demon - Reload - 679
9. Sufjan Stevens - Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois -Asthmatic Kitty
10. MIA - URAQT (DJ C Remix) - XL

4. David Banner, New York Times columnist. Bet he'll get a P&J ballot next year.

5. You did whispers and whistles. You ate some Laffy Taffy and got your sugar fix. What's next? Oh, snap!

LISTEN: Dem Franchize Boys, "Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It" (mp3)
LISTEN: D4L, "Betcha Can't Do It Like Me" (mp3)
LISTEN: BHI, "Bubblegum" (mp3)

6. Ghostface Killer doll. Accessories: "Real 14 karat gold chain. Real GFK Robe Gold Chalice with Swarovski crystals. Each doll will include a Ghostface Killah Doll mixtape by a world-famous DJ TBA. Real 14 karat gold avenging eagle accessory (extra). Each collector will have a 1 in 500 chance to spend a day with Ghostface Killah himself. Each Doll will come in a limited edition gold sealed box. Ghostface Killah is fully involved in all aspects of the project from manufacturing to promotion. Each Doll speaks original recordings of Ghostface Killah catch-phrases."

7. Obie Trice kicks off official marketing campaign for new Eminem-produced album by getting shot in head.

LISTEN: Obie Trice, "Wanna Know" (Real Audio stream)

8. Winner: best post combining Johnny Damon abuse and a song by the Hives, awarded to Badminton Stamps. Winner: best post combining Johnny Damon abuse and two songs by the New York Dolls, also awarded to Badminton Stamps.

9. Remember back in 2002 or whenever when every third and fourth word out of everyone's mouth was "no wave"? Prepare for that again this year. JD Twitch of Optimo DJs fame gets you caught up with a 45-minute mix featuring traxxx from Contortions, DNA, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Y Pants, and more:

LISTEN: JD Twitch, "No Wave Mix" (mp3) (annotated tracklist)

10. Yet another reason never to use Explorer again.

11. Not sure what the headline is here: that Amazon's giving away lots of mp3s, or that