WFMU Pledge Marathon

The upcoming week begins the 2012 pledge drive for keeping Jersey City’s own listener supported WFMU 91.1 alive. For those of you who don’t know of WFMU, it’s [in my own words] probably one of the most dynamic and free-thinking sources of radio out there. Dynamic in the way that there are not only DJs vaulting through ultra informative spans of specific genres, but also DJs blending Cambodian Funk with Surf rock 7” b-sides at half speed. Then there is super comical and entertaining chatting amongst more controlled topical conversations/debates. As you can imagine, I really can’t say I’ve ever got bored of listening to WFMU. I can also admit a ton of gems from my own personal vinyl collection were first heard on WFMU.

All that being said, one has to remind themselves why this is kind of important. Turning on an FM radio these days will reveal a pretty steady dose of clear-channel controlled playlists of the same F*n sh*te over and over and over and over again. Given the incredibly rich past, present, and future of musical creativity, stations like WFMU are refreshing, and blatantly rewarding.

I totally understand that we’ve all got this wild-west freedom to surf the internet for whichever coral reef we happen to crash into. We can also keep in touch with our favorite stuff on a hyper-attached barnacle basis. Yes, we’ve got access to anything and everything…. But…. WFMU is like the very reliable longboard of music and taste surfing: you really can’t beat a super knowledgeable group of volunteer DJs offering up an informed curation to a super wide range of music and thoughts. Now that’s enlightenment (cough cough the original concept behind supporting the notion “free will”. See 17th century western history ) Shove that up your advertisement covered pipe and smoke it? You get the point.

I don’t get paid by WFMU to say any of this (actually, I don’t think ANYONE gets paid by WFMU, right???) , so yes,  free-thinking requires special support. Therefore, if after this spiel you are interested in what WFMU is up to, check out WFMU.org

And lastly, here’s a little jingle I put together for Chris T’s premium pledge prize, the Aerial View Flip-top lighter!

Long live people thinking for themselves, and sharing their consumed knowledge with others.

WFMU Aerial View Recap

If you missed me on WFMU’s Aerial View with Chris T and would like to check it out, you can recap the show here

Turmoil remix from Juno Download

http://www.junodownload.com/plus/2012/02/02/download-yan-wagner-turmoil-pink-stallone-remix/comment-page-1/#comment-23407

Look’s like Juno Download is hosting a free limited download of the Yan Wagner Turmoil remix. Grab it while it’s free and genre-defying (hmmm, do these two have SOMETHING to do with each other?!!!)

Pink Stallone on WFMU tomorrow

I’ll be making my first live appearance on WFMU tomorrow as a guest on Aerial View with Chris T. Won’t be playing any music, but hanging with host Chris T discussing the topic “The rise of the DJ & modern dance music”.

Without even guessing where tomorrow’s conversation will go, isn’t it crazy to think of how many 12” singles are released a day… and that’s on top of all the other 12” singles released daily for the last 40 years. Where do they all go (other than The Thing). I mean, hey, they go somewhere.

If you are interested in joining the conversation, PLEASE, tune into 91.1 WFMU on your FM radio or your streaming thingamajigger, and even more importantly, call in and drop a thought.

Yan Wagner Turmoil Remix

A few months back I attended one of the many lofty get togethers organized by fellow like-minds the Vietcong Disco. Strictly lofty in the sense they are usually in lofts ( Otherwise there is always an extremely comfortable amount of flanel apparel and PBR)  Mr. Uno was on the decks and spinning something especially fresh and heavy, so I had to ask what I was hearing… Turns out it was the yet to be released by himself (Uno Records) version of Yan Wagner’s Turmoil. Lucky enough for me, Mr. Uno came back some time later with a an invite for a Pink Stallone remix of the same track.

I was psyched to get the opportunity to turn in an interpretation of this, and even more psyched it made the grade for the UNO 12” of Turmoil. If you don’t know of UNO yet, nows a good time to start checking them out. Mr Uno’s quickly on his 10th released and has already released killer cuts from young cohorts like Eddie Mars, Jacques Greene, CFCF, etc.

http://soundcloud.com/unouno

http://www.unonyc.com/

Pink Stallone CCC Podcast

Although I’ve never truly met William Rauscher, I’ve probably been in the same room as him at least over 20 times and quite possibly in 3 different countries. What I know of William is that he not only does a fantastic job of covering releases and parties for Resident Advisor, but also manages to produce under Night Plane, AND now partakes in a multifaceted outfit called CCC. I recommend checking all of these things out.

CCC asked me to submit a podcast a while back, and now that it’s out and about, here’s the link: http://ccceditions.com/blog/2012/01/04/ccc-podcast-02-pink-stallone/

Apart from the thoughts I shared with William that are cited, I’d add this… The way I like to approach a request for a podcast or a mix or even a live dj set has everything to do with what I’m experiencing and of course, what I’m listening to. Other than that, It’s hard to be super preemptive about much, for one, because I only use my own vinyl selection and because I record these sets live&uncut on hi fi speakers in my dining room. But naturally, I prefer the limitations. Grab a record from the shelf on some intuition, mix it in. Make it happen.

In the case of this CCC podcast, it was a nice opportunity to explore some of the more minimal percussive house stuff in my collection. Alot of one note bass stabs and shaker burns. In the end, I realized where a lot of those records had come from, and wildly enough it shares strong relevance with vocals from one of the mix tracks (see the CCC link for that story). That’s just a nice’n deep spiritual added bonus, and that’s what makes just letting it happen raw totally worth it.

The internet

I am not an internet socialite. I prefer to remain nicely tucked in the shadows of dive bars made of 0’s and 1’s in this wild’n'wacky world of everybody-holding-eachothers-johnsons-24/7ism. No thanks. But, i DO get google alerts, it’s like my internet 90’s beeper. Which means, I WILL see when you decide to blurt something like this out:

Let’s start from the top.  First of all, who the f is Pepito. I don’t know Pepito. I don’t know ANYONE named Pepito, and even if I did, it sounds like a 4 year-old Mexican nephew who shouldn’t be at a computer without supervision. Pepito is not the responsible vendor of the music I just spent forever making. Thanks but no thanks Pepito, stick to the chiclets.

As for nononodog, I had to call this out. I mean, come on. When you can get grandma’s manicotti fresh from the oven [VINYL], don’t complain about it 2 weeks later after its been frozen & unfrozen amidst 3 to 4 severe power outtages [STOLEN TORRENT MP3s]. Yuck, that ricotta has gone bad.

More IMPORTANTLY, PLEASE DON’T DIAGNOSE THE PROBLEM AS “BAD MIXING” [grandma, I don't like your cheese].  This will warrant this type of private message from my newly created global noises account:

Hey sorry buddy,

Do me a favor? Next time you download one of my records in yoinked-shite mp3 form on a forum , don’t wonder much more whether the bad sound quality comes from that or the ” bad mixing”.

Mixed by one of the slyest young mothafuckas in all of Brooklyn on pure analog tubes and tape baby. Straight up rude. Tis Tis.

PINK STALLONE

——————-

Now, Nononodog was super proper enough to take it like a real internet man and go out and buy the digital release. That is way way cool and he’s granted himself any entitlement to dissing, criticism, and pure dismay with our product which, will be handled and responded to accordingly by Pink Stallone customer service*

*This phone call may be monitored so that we can make sure that our exotic call center is worth ruining the employment rate here in New Jersey.

The moral of this story isn’t don’t steal my music. It’s not even buy my music. A man’s financial investments, however large or small, are of no concern to me. BUT, if you are gonna steal the Chinatown version of the music, at least think about buying the real Rolex before questioning the technical aptitude of myself and my fellow clock makers.

Mine climbing the charts

Woh, mine is climbing the Juno single charts! Thanks for the support, we love making the tunes.

Mine out on Vinyl today

Our single Mine on Under the Shade is now available on vinyl! It’s an especially dynamic release ,featuring guaranteed floor mover  remixes from the Eddie Mars, SAS, & The Revenge.

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/438910-01.htm

*****

There’s been so much work put into this it’s only appropriate to give credit where it’s due.

The original recording sessions took place well over a year ago in the studio of Bushwick Wizard, Eddie Mars, slightly after meeting the Vietcong Disco crew and exchanging emails over excitement for Mr. Mars live sound quality control (the guy manages to blend records, eq the main mixer and make weird sounds on a monophonic pocket synth all at once). I’m not quite sure any of us knew what exactly we were getting into, but a steady dose of  low-slung love funk found its way onto the tubes of one of the many mysteriously donated pieces of equipment in Mars’ studio. At the time, we were in the process of jumping ship from our abandoned house studio (all of our gear had experienced just the right amount of water damage), so even all of our shit was there. We ended up doing a live show  of the material we were toying around with at Mars’ studio, opening up for Rub&Tug at a suspicious Biker Bar. I think one person yelled “we came here to see DJs!” during our set, but considering I was yelling nonsensical harmonies for Joey through a vocoder at the time, i couldn’t really be bothered besides.

Joey Washington eventually joined the party in the studio, laying down what in the early stages already felt like some classic vocal hooks. Months later, endless session swaps between myself and Mr. Mars, parts sounding like they had run the prep school bus gauntlet back and forth through all sorts of filters, and the original mix of Mine started to take form.

More months later, after a bit of hoo-ha and unmentionable confusion, we finally confirmed a release of the track with Under the Shade. Mars started to conjure up his own production (s)** of the original session takes at that time. ** There were probably closer to 25 of these productions, all of them equally impressive. Mars eventually settled on a mix and the SAS & Revenge remixes followed per fine curation of David Griffith.

In conclusion of the long experience of working on this, it’s not only a sentimental single for us, but objectively a collection of tracks that serve any funky vinyl junky well. While the original can certainly serve the “DJ”, it’s intention is to be a humble and genuine reflection of the energy we recorded way back in those wintery Bushwick nights. It is what it is, and it should never be anything else. Dude, it’s a song, don’t give me any blah-dee-blah about adding 32 bars of drums between every section. Besides, we like making songs, and like listening to them on vinyl in our living room while we eat slow-cooked pulled pork. Again, thank you to David Griffith for supporting the notion of letting the original do it’s thing, and letting it live on vinyl to do it.

As for the remixes, the Mars interpretation is, as he’s put it to me, how he’d produced Pink Stallone. It’s a spot on attempt at doing this, it embodies our youthful grunge funk swag in a diamond crusted Eddie Mars box (and no DJ can pass it up). The arrangement seems to grow and spiral endlessly in a way that all of our tracks ever have attempted to.  In any case, he did produce Pink Stallone, its the A1 on this single, you can hear it first thing. You’ll love it.

SAS manages to ride a similar line. They make it dancey as hell but not the point where I’m embarrassed to play it for my punky friends. It lets the percussion fly true and fires off a serious stabby  dirty bass line, thank you gents for that. The fact that I can hear myself playing out of tune bongos with sticks in Eddie Mars’ room on such a slamming mix is exciting. It’s got the “b*tch I’m telling you how it is” romantic approach. I can’t fight that.

Finishing up, the Revenge comes through with what I’d describe as a sort of Master at Works-like dub of the track. I’m not going to try to over analyze what Masters at Work did, and in the same vein, I’m not going to try to over analyze what The Revenge does. The guys body of work is out of control and to think he spent thought on a Pink Stallone track is awesome. Seriously, did I ever think the Revenge would ever touch one of my tracks, absolutely not. But here he did, and you can tell this is a guy who doesn’t need to impress anyone, that’s a a great place to be for making seasoned tracks. It stay’s course, its pretty, and any girl that’s heard me playing it around has started shaking, so there you go.  It’s mature like those late-aged guys who can body surf waves for 200 yards without choking or getting scared by the jellyfish running up their swimsuit. Smooth.

Dance folks can be a little hypocritical when they jump on tracks for not “standing out” or “not punching hard enough” but also for being “too much like 90’s house” or something. They’ll be the first to hate on Loveshack when it comes on at their cousins wedding party too, even if every person in the room is dancing like crazy. Dance music is , in fairness, somewhat of a functional genre. But much like in architecture, or even in airplanes, function will constantly be challenged and consequently reconsidered by pointless acts of expression, often later called art.

Ciao.

ps: center sticker is killer, thank you Anna for that.

NYC Pink Stallone DJ set

Pink Stallone @ The Wurst Compilation Ever Release Party

Le Bain // The Standard Hotel NYC

Friday, October 14th