After taking last weekend off (but hey, I gave you almost four hours in two mixes last time I updated), here’s another new practice mix. Every song in this mix is somewhere between 105 and 115 BPM. And as always, this was mixed “live” and has no post-processing or editing work, so while it may not be perfect, it’s all me!
Year: 2013
Gigs Music Theater 1998
So this is a little bit of silly self-indulgence…but then, wouldn’t that pretty much describe this entire website? ;)
Back when I was DJing at Gig’s Music Theater, I was also running a website for the club (and though I have no way of verifying this, I’ve always assumed that we were one of the first clubs to have a website running). As part of the website, I kept track of my requests, and kept a running “top requests” list. Since I archived the website as it was when the club shut down, I still have the last “top requests” list that I posted, back in 1998. Looking at it the other day, it struck me that it could make for an entertaining playlist….
So here we are: Two hours and forty-five minutes of the top club hits in 1998, as determined by the requests at an all-ages, non-alcoholic, alternative club in Anchorage, Alaska. In other words, this list probably wouldn’t match a similar list anywhere and anytime else.
It’s a little rough around the edges in spots, but that’s cause it’s recorded “live”, with no post-processing or editing. It’s not perfect, but I’ve rarely been perfect, and I think it ended up an honest and pretty fun throwback to what you’d have heard at Gig’s “back in the day”.
Difficult Listening Hour 05 (100BPM)
Finally! The first (and hopefully not the last) of a new series of long-form mixes! There’s no real particular theme to this mix, and likely won’t be for the next few mixes — primarily, I’m working on getting back in practice and getting used to my new equipment. As I do this, I’m recording what I’m doing, both so I can later listen to it and critique myself and so, if I think they’re good enough, I can upload them here. This was mixed “live” using djay with the Numark iDJ Pro controller and has no post-processing or editing work, so while it may not be perfect, it’s honest! ;)
Well, okay, there’s one light theme: Every song in this mix is between 95 and 105 BPM.
See Something? Check Snopes!
So here’s a little contribution I made to the world today, after seeing yet another Facebook friend sharing yet another easily disproven bit of misinformation:
Please: Steal this image. Re-post it. Share it with your friends (you know the ones). Post it as a comment when they post whatever hoax comes around next. Get it out there.
Over and over, I see people–who in other situations seem to have at least two brain cells to rub together–sharing and reposting images on Facebook that are absolute junk. In most cases, disproving the information is as simple as googling “snopes” plus a couple keywords from the text. For instance, the image of a bunch of soda cans that talks about how someone died after drinking from a can that had been contaminated by rat urine? Yeah, that’s false, and not only is that link is the top result after searching for “snopes can rat urine“, but every other link on the Google results page is to a page debunking the information.
This stuff is not hard to find. The problem is, even the couple clicks and few words of typing are more work than simply clicking “share” on Facebook, and so when people see these things, their brains just seem to disengage. After all, it could be true…right? Well, no, not usually, but it gets shared anyway.
So, in a fit of pique, I created the image above (based off the “See Something Say Something campaign), and have now posted it publicly to Facebook, Google+, and this blog. It’s my (sure to be unrealized) hope that this image will get shared and, just perhaps, prompt a few people to actually put some small effort into thinking about what they’re posting.
Yeah, I know. Unlikely. But it’s worth a shot.
You’ve Got A Dirty Speech Synthesizer
An amusing little anecdote about Watson, the IBM supercomputer that was featured on Jeopardy, that might seem a little familiar to those of my friends who are parents:
Two years ago, Brown attempted to teach Watson the Urban Dictionary. The popular website contains definitions for terms ranging from Internet abbreviations like OMG, short for “Oh, my God,” to slang such as “hot mess.”
But Watson couldn’t distinguish between polite language and profanity — which the Urban Dictionary is full of. Watson picked up some bad habits from reading Wikipedia as well. In tests it even used the word “bullshit” in an answer to a researcher’s query.
Ultimately, Brown’s 35-person team developed a filter to keep Watson from swearing and scraped the Urban Dictionary from its memory.
Gee, seems like parenting would be a little easier (if less embarrassing–and, of course, amusing) if the solution was that easy for people!
(via Techdirt)
This Far, No Further
I do my best to be open-minded about just about everything, and accepting of outlooks and beliefs other than mine. I may not understand why someone might believe the things they do (republicans, for instance)…but if that’s what they believe, that’s what they believe.
A few months ago, I hit the first time when I decided to “un-friend” a Facebook contact (the ultimate arbiter of relationships in today’s world) because of their beliefs. I could deal with this person being a gun nut, I could deal with them being an uncomfortably far-right Republican. What I couldn’t deal with was when they outed themselves as a Birther. At that point, it was obvious to me that there was simply no way I was ever going to connect to this person on any rational level. If someone’s at a point where they can take that level of over-the-top racism-poorly-disguised-as-conspiracy-theories seriously, then they’re not at a point where I can even pretend to be able to relate to them. So, off the friend list they went.
Just this week, I found a second, similar line, when I discovered that another contact was a vaccine denier. This I find even more offensive than the Birther nonsense. Birthers are crazy and probably racist, but at least their paranoid fantasies aren’t likely to hurt anyone. Anti-vaccine people, though…that can be harmful, and not just to the person, but to others, as they could potentially end up helping to spread an otherwise preventable disease. The “research” that the anti-vaccine crowd relies on has been debunked so thoroughly that it’s mind-boggling to me that anyone can continue to try to believe it, and when you factor in the very real chance that by not vaccinating themselves or their children, they could spread diseases that we at one point came very close to having essentially eradicated…. Enough is enough, and off they went.
This kind of thing doesn’t happen terribly often. I don’t mind disagreeing with people, I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, and in the right circumstances, calm, rational discussions of disagreements can be quite good. However, the line has to be drawn somewhere, and I’ve now found two places where I’m quite comfortable drawing that line.
Give It A Crablouse
For many years, I had the idea for a mashup bouncing around in my head. In fact, it had been rattling around in my brain for so long that it wasn’t even originally thought of as a “mashup” — just a mix I wanted to try. However, I’d been missing a crucial piece, so it never got beyond the conceptual stage…until a few years ago.
Here’s the second of my contributions to mashup culture: Give It A Crablouse.
Sources: The Lords of Acid‘s “The Crablouse” (“In Its Native Environment (Album)” and “Whatever You Do, Remain Calm (Instrumental)”) mixes, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ “Give It Away“.
Download Give It A Crablouse (5.2 MB .mp3)
Just Can’t Get Flexible in 1999
Now that I’ve run through all the long-form mixes I had laying around, here’s the first of two mashups I’ve put together.
Depeche Mode’s ‘Flexible’ and ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ plus Prince’s ‘1999’ equals DJ Wüdi – Just Can’t Get Flexible in 1999 (7.8Mb MP3).
Download Just Can’t Get Flexible in 1999 (7.8Mb MP3)
This was my first attempt at creating a mashup rather than just listening to ’em. Probably not likely to make it to the top of the charts, but I don’t think it’s too terribly bad for a first try.
Unhappily Ever After
Seven short tales, all based off of Disney tales, but far darker than what you’re used to….
She was always kind, but she was no longer good.
Snow White didn’t remember how she ended up in the forest. She remembered her stepmother’s huntsman leading her into the forest to gather flowers, and setting the flowers aside so she could speak with a lost bird. The next thing she knew, she was wandering alone, feeling colder than she had ever felt before.
Eclecticism
The eight and last of my old mixes to go up. Hopefully I’ll eventually start putting new mixes up!
This is probably my favorite of the mixes I have available right now. There’s no real set style through the piece, I just slapped together a bunch of tracks that I happened to like a lot. Luckily, it all seems to work pretty well…possibly better than it should?