Gigs

On the menu…

So many Food-related things to look forward to this Autumn / Winter:

‘Caught In The Middle of a 3-Way Mix‘ – a tribute to the Beastie Boys’ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album in mix form by DJ’s Cheeba, Moneyshot and Food with artwork by Jim Mahfood tomorrow night on Solid Steel via Strongroom Alive.

Debut of my remix of Kilah’s ‘Krzesany’ at the Sacrum Profanum festival, Poland on Sept 15th

A night of DJ Shadow mixes on XFM to support the ‘Reconstructed‘ comp with two by yours truly on Sept 21st

‘The Search Engine’ quadruple vinyl gatefold repress edition and return to the SAT in Montreal this Sept/Oct

A John Rydgren compilation on Omni Recording Corporation curated by David Thrussell with audio and images supplied from my archive.

‘The Search Engine’ fulldome performance at the Leicester Space Centre, UK on November 16th

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Film, Gigs, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | 3 Comments |

DJ Food news…

I’ve got some big gigs coming up in the next few months, see the above film for something very special at the Sacrum Profanum festival in Krakow on Sept 15th alongside other Ninja artists past and present, Grasscut, King Cannibal, Skalpel and DJ Vadim. I’ll be remixing a piece by Polish composer Wojciech Kilar and presenting that live, very excited about this one as it will look and sound amazing. The big gig in October is at the Forum – the first time I’ve ever played there – alongside Belleruche, DJ Cam, Chris Read and headliners The Herbaliser who will be using it as the release party for their album, ‘There Were Seven’.

Before both of those though I can finally reveal a very special project that I’ve had in the pipeline for several years now that has finally come to fruition. DJ Cheeba, DJ Moneyshot and myself had the idea of collaborating on a version of the Beastie Boys‘ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album shortly after Moneyshot aired his mix of their ‘Check Your Head’ made entirely from the original sample sources. It was one of my favourite mixes that year (or any year) and we decided we should get together to try and tackle ‘Paul’s Boutique’ as it was a far bigger task being that it has at least twice as many samples.

The result is ‘Caught In The Middle Of A 3-Way Mix’ – a tribute to The Beastie Boys’ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album, and it will make its debut on Solid Steel on August 30th. Each of us have taken a third of the album each to work on and combined our efforts into a mix that lasts just over an hour, if you’re a fan of the record then be prepared to hear it in a new way. Aside from the original sample sources we’ve included commentary from the Beasties, vintage interviews, demo versions and much more, if you thought the original was multi-layered then this adds even more.

The mix was over half way completed when we heard the tragic news of MCA‘s death in May so the impetus to finish it was instantly doubled and new meaning given to the project. It goes without saying that this is also a tribute to Adam Yauch and the legacy he left behind and we hope it will be embraced by Beastie fans around the globe when it drops, we’re just putting the finishing touches to it this weekend.

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Setting up at the SATosphere

Some of this content appeared on the Facebook page for the event as this was the most direct way to explain what was happening to the people who were going, so apologies for any repetition.

Pre-gig article by Lucinda Catchlove for CBC Music on what it’s about and what I intend to do.

Now some background on the process of getting it to the screen:

July 9th: Currently rendering footage from both After Effects and Final Cut Pro as well as preparing images in Photoshop. To show films ‘full dome’ (ie covering the whole surface of a dome) you need to have an image between 3000 and 4000 pixels square. Only Red cameras can shoot over the 4k image size but this is only on the long side, and the raw footage for one frame this size is 36MB. As a result most full dome films are animations and I’m attempting to make a 50 minute sequence to go with my mix of the album.

July 12th: Another late night, nearly ready to put the whole thing into the final arrangement. Most of the animation is done in After Effects but AE isn’t too great for synching visuals and sound together, especially a 50 minute sequence. So image sequences are loaded into Final Cut Pro for an easier handle on editing to a timeline although low res versions are made because of the huge file sizes needed for a dome and not a regular projection screen.

Once everything is in it’s correct place an XML file of the session is exported BACK to AE so that a plug in that simulates a 3D dome environment can be added in various different ways to sections. More on that later, that’s the really tricky part where you go from thinking in 2D to 3D and start placing things in space…

Trying to render FX on 2700×2700 pixel footage from a R3D Epic camera inside a 3600×3600 pixel video sequence. “Computer says no…”

July 9th: Animating images is largely done in After Effects then rendered to Image sequences of huge jpegs at 30 fps (frames per second). That’s 30 jpegs per second x how ever many seconds in a sequence. I’m making a 50 minute + show: 30 x 60 x 50 = over 90,000 images. Here’s one below…

I’ve already broken the whole soundtrack down into ‘stems’ (each instrument or part isolated onto a separate track) and this has been sent to the SAT where they are busy making ‘sound maps’ for each song in the mix. With over 150 speakers inside the dome we can place each sound from each track wherever we want. Even better, once the show has begun I should be able to move sounds around the dome manually as it plays using a program on an iPad.

So if you wonder what I’m doing if you come along, I’m not surfing the web or checking email, I’ll be moving sounds around to mess your head up. The song I’m most excited about for this is ‘A Trick Of The Ear’ – this track was actually written with the intention of each part panning around a sphere. Besides various polyrhythms working in tandem throughout the track, I wanted it to feel like you were inside a gyroscope when you listened to it. Hopefully we’ll get somewhere near that next week.

Friday 13th: Last day putting the finishing touches where I can before bouncing it all over to After Effects and applying the full dome plug in to certain sections. Off to Belgium today for a gig too so going to leave stuff rendering no doubt but some will have to be done at the SAT next week.

Monday 16th: Well, I’m in Montreal, about to head down to the SAT and plug everything in, still need to do work on parts today before we push the ‘render’ button. Had to pull an all-nighter Saturday in order to make sure everything copied over to 3 external hard drives. Today should be a pivotal day in getting this from my machines into the SAT. For anyone thinking of getting into dome projection in the future, I’d say… think very carefully. But if you’re determined you’ll need a very fast machine / graphics card, huge amounts of hard disc space and lots of time on your hands…

It’s 9.40pm and I’m still at the SAT, today has been trying to say the least. The Mac to PC file exchange got off to a flying start when trying to copy 300GB to their servers was going to take 9 hours. Luckily they have a Mac Drive program now which enables them to read drives formatted in HFS+ (Mac read/writable) and we needed the time to finish fine tuning the show.

Dominic, who is helping me with all the visual side is about to be a new dad, I mean imminently, not any day, but any hour or minute. He was giving me tips by mobile whilst at the hospital :) The initial render time direct from my drive for the 50 minute piece was over 30 hours so we’ve stop that and are now copying the files needed to the server for a multi-machine render tomorrow. Here’s a shot of the mini dome that they have in their computer lab and the bar and terrace on the second floor outside the dome.

On the audio side we have 164 separate tracks to sort out and bounce to a manageable amount before ‘spatializing’ them into different parts of the dome for each song. This will create song maps unique to each track and enable me to move certain parts around at will. For everyone back in the UK, the sun was out this morning and I’m in shorts and a T-shirt. But lo and behold, what happened this afternoon? It pissed down, exactly like London, I couldn’t quite believe it.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say, at one point the master drive I’d bought as back up with EVERYTHING on it wouldn’t show up on my laptop after being pulled out of the SAT server. ‘The drive could not be found, would you like to reinitialise it?’ Luckily Disc Utilities saved the day.

Tuesday 17th: Day 2 in Montreal: Woke up to rain at 5.45am – WTF? I’m beginning to think I brought the bad weather with me from the UK. Monday was full on, got home around midnight with ‘homework’ on the audio to do. Couldn’t face it so got up super early this morning to get a few hours in before heading out.

Dominic was here (still no baby arrived) and set the visuals up on 6 machines to render, he thinks it will be done by tomorrow morning when it then has to be re-rendered for the various projectors in the dome. Making sound maps and spatializing all the tracks this afternoon hopefully – I need some lunch.

Wednesday 18th: Mixing, mixing mixing, all day and into the night with Olivier Rhéaume… The downstairs floor of the SAT is open plan and there’s been a full orchestra ‘practicing’ most of the week. Insanely good players, completely perfect to my ears, we’re working on the 2nd floor and hearing Holst‘s piece ‘Mars’ from The Planets suite wafting up the stairwell was amazing. Apprarently we really pissed them off with the volume we were mixing at unfortunately. Had a midday break to go and record a mix for CBC (see last post) and do an interview for La Devoir paper then dinner and back to the mix until 11pm.

Thursday 19th: Show day – last minute emergency, some donut (me) left a reference film in place of the last sequence. When we watched the whole thing through we got to the end and it looked like someone had used an animated gif in place of a hi res image sequence, not a good way to end the show. Currently re-rendering from the proper source files…

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Poster for the SATosphere shows

Only a week to go until the full dome shows at the SATosphere in Montreal and here’s a poster that Pat Hamou has worked up to be sold at the venue. These will be printed in metallics, can’t wait to see that!

*UPDATE: you can now purchase the remaining posters here from Pat via Etsy.

There’s still work to do before I press the final render button but here are some screen shots I’ve been posting on Facebook.

 

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Castles made of Sound

In the last week I’ve played in the grounds of three castles – well, two were Forts actually – in Italy, France and the UK. Salerno was the first, actually playing on a rooftop terrace overlooking the sea on the Italian coast (above). Secondly the Nuit Carrées festival in Antibes, France, playing on a stage by a small amphitheatre next to the Fort Carré (below). The sound at this festival was unbelievably clear, most probably due to the acoustics of the amphitheatre and the fort was lit up as a backdrop.

Finally, last night, I played at the Kelburn Garden Party in Scotland on a stage overlooking Kelburn Castle, an incredible site being that two sides are completely covered in art from Brazilian artists Os Gemeos and Nina & Nunca. It is quite a sight to behold, Sau Paulo street art meets Scottish heritage, and was completed in 2007, a year before the same artists covered parts of the Tate Modern in London. Sadly it seems that the render on the castle is being affected by the paint, which is causing it to crumble, so the mural will be lost soon much to the dismay of the owner Patrick Boyle, The 10th Earl of Glasgow.

Apparently parts of the castle are haunted, Tara, one of the organisers who picked me up from the airport, told me she’d been woken the night before by the feeling of being cuddled in bed by something unknown. When he told it to go away she’d been scratched three times on the back of her head and other guests had reportedly had their ribs squeezed and bum pinched whilst staying in the same room. Another time a handbag had flown across the room and hit her on the head and it’s widely believed that the ghost is a mischievous female who was a guest at the castle at one time and liked it so much that she didn’t want to leave. Supposedly there is some kind of vortex in one corner of the room through which spirits can come and go and the temperature is noticeably lower in that part.

Talking of vortex’s, to add to the incredible scenery surrounding Kelburn and nearby town Largs, out between two islands just off the west coast is one of the world’s largest whirlpools. Called The Corryvreckan Whirlpool, it is formed around a single rock jutting up from the seabed, several small whirlpools exist, occasionally widening to form one giant vortex which has been deemed unnavigable.

The grounds of the castle are something to behold, recent winds have caused several huge trees to crash down, one of them taking out a bridge across a stream just a week before. Plans to project my AV set onto the castle were unfortunately scuppered when it appeared that my technical rider hadn’t made its way to the right people and the right cables weren’t available. After my set I got a cab to the hotel in the next town, only to find that everything was locked up and I had no key (we hadn’t checked in, going straight from the airport to the festival). Fortunately a couple with a key arrived shortly afterwards and let me in and I managed to find an unlocked single room to crash in.

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs, Photography. | 2 Comments |

Scottish dates in May postponed

It’s with great regret that the dates at The Reading Rooms in Dundee and Chambre 69 in Glasgow that I was to undertake with DK have been postponed. This is due to a run of bad luck the gig organiser has experienced recently and the dates will hopefully be rescheduled soon. Hopefully any ticket purchasers can contact the venue and get their money back.

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs. | 1 Comment |

Trevor Jackson presents Metal Dance on Strut

Strut release a 2xCD and 2xLP compilation of 80’s electronic oddities and rarities curated by Trevor Jackson. As ever, he doesn’t go straight for the obvious but we get a unique compilation with a lot of less familiar names or lesser known tracks from the bands you have heard of. The CDs boast 25 tracks with the double vinyl showcasing half of these. The album launch party includes a live performance by 23 Skidoo and a DJ set from Trevor at Electrowerks on March 24th. Check out a little sampling of tracks on his Soundcloud and an interview about the compilation below.

[youtube width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcEMyNeKpQg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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A couple of reviews

Sometimes with a release, gig or event, there are reviews that stand out, where the person has delved a little deeper than the first impression or copied the press release. Here are two, one from someone who knows me (Inkymole – reviewing the planetarium album launch) and one from someone who doesn’t (Kris Needs via Data Transmission – reviewing the album). Also here are some photos by Emma Gutteridge of the foyer outside the planetarium during the launch, photography inside was difficult because of the darkness but I’ve just picked up film footage which I’ll be editing into a short next week.

With courtesy of the Royal Observatory Greenwich

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs, Music. | 3 Comments |

Bastard flashback

[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5AINIO4eFc&feature=player_embedded#at=200[/youtube]

A new Facebook group popped up this week reminiscing over the club at the centre of the mash up / bootleg / bastard pop craze of the early 2000’s. This short piece by a Swiss film crew was posted that I make a brief cameo in. The King Of The Boots/Bastard nights at the Asylum are some of my fondest clubbing memories (as a punter and a DJ), genuinely insane, hilarious as well, as each new mash was greeted with a roar of approval. There was a real shock of the new in some ways, you could hear the scene unfolding month after month, incredibly exciting as well as being some of the silliest, dance-on-the-table-shit-faced nights out.

Posted in Gigs, Music. | 3 Comments |

The Stepkids in the UK

[youtube width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwbR8ubfHtY&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

The ever reliable Stones Throw label have their new signing – The Stepkids – coming to the UK this week for the first time. Lots of people including Gilles Peterson and The Guardian have been raving about them and they live up to the hype. If you like Rotary Connection, Charles Stepney productions and psychedelic soul then this band is for you. They play Cargo in Shoreditch, London on Wednesday the 3rd August, tickets are £5 in advance and £8 on the door and they play around 8.30pm. They’re also playing the Big Chill Festival Friday 5th but I’m not sure the exact stage and time yet.

 

The song everyone is raving about is ‘La La’, available on the B-side of this gorgeous splatter vinyl 12″, but everything I’ve heard so far has been great (check the ‘Wonderfox’ video I posted earlier)
The Stepkids – La La by stonesthrow

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Food & DK in Bastille, Grenoble, France

Sometimes all the elements just fall into place with a gig and last night was one of those times. The perfect balance of great weather, people and food in a stunning location – Bastille, on top of the mountain in Grenoble, France. The quickest way to the top was by cable car and the five bubble cars that descended from the sky were like something out of a 60’s World Expo fair. Once on top of the mountain, our stage was perched on the edge of a courtyard with a stunning view of the city and surrounding countryside below, including Europe’s longest street which you can see carved into the landscape in a couple of shots here.

___Saturdays_DJFoodRaiding spinesRaiding insideRaiding inlay and tapeRaiding cover

The gig was to be three hours long between DK and myself but we loved it so much we decided to play the warm up hour whilst people arrived by cable car as well. By midnight the place was packed with more people than expected but at 1.30am the promoters got a call from the city mayor. The music was too loud and the bass could be heard across the city so the sound had to be turned down, much to the annoyance of the crowd. 40 minutes later we ramped things up with some drum n bass and people started surging forward and pushing over barriers, a fight broke out after much moshing and we had to stop the music a couple of times. We decided to curtail the harshness of the music after requests from the promoters as there wasn’t enough security and it all ended well at 3am. It’s unlikely there will be another gig up there again after this and there was talk of us being banned from playing again :). Gig of the year so far for both of us though, thanks to everyone who came and made it so great and thanks to Alban, the promoter who put us up for it.

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs. | 7 Comments |

Crazy scenes at the last ever Mixed Bizness

I played in Glasgow last night as the special guest at Boom Monk Ben‘s last ever Mixed Bizness night at the School of Art. After my 90 minute AV set Ben played the final hour and the crowd went progressively crazier until he ended with Beck’s ‘Mixed Bizness’ (what else?) and a full on stage invasion. Predictably ‘one more song’ was requested to which he responded with Chaka Khan’s ‘Ain’t Nobody’ at which point there was full on crowd surfing! Another stage invasion occurred and demands for one more ‘one more song’ were granted by Roots Manuva’s ‘Witness’ and the place erupted. I think Ben feared the whole table and laptop were going to be pushed over at one point from the amount of people on the front of the stage and behind the decks.

It was a great end to years of regular nights Ben has been doing at the Art School, which is due for renovation and will be closed for at least 2 years while they rip everything out. The week before, I did a phone interview with Shaun Murphy for Mixed Bizness about the forthcoming show and my forthcoming album, which you can listen to here

I stayed in the lovely Citizen M hotel when I was there which is full of great designer furniture by the likes of Panton and Eames with compact rooms that resembled Japanese pod hotels.

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