The Drop - A Future Bass Party

SUNDAY // 2.15

"2 ON" Tuesdays featuring B-Rock & That Dude Trey @ The Nomad

Dance Yrself Clean (indie electro dance night) Thursday 1/23

Disclosure - Latch (La'Reda remix)

OTB 3-Year Anniversary this Tuesday, 7/23

TRACKLIST
Intro
Macklemore, "Thrift Shop" (loop)
Pharoahe Monch, "Simon Says" (acapella)
Grandtheft x Scratch Bastid, "Miley"
Dem Franchize Boys, "Lean Wit It" (acapella)
Kanye West, "Send It Up (THUGLI remix)"
Bone Crusher x Baauer, "Never Scared (B-Rock Harlem Shake blendit)"
The Dream, "Tron"
Cosmo's Midnight, "The Dofflin (Ta-Ku remix)"
Top Billin x DJ Venum, "Money Up" (instrumental)
Neon Hitch, "Gucci Gucci"
Kendrick Lamar, "Poetic Justice (Terrace Martin saxaphone remix)"
Busta Rhymes, "Poetic Justice (freestyle)"
Birdy Nam Nam, "Jaded Future"
Tweet, "Oops (Falcons remixx)"
T.I., "Whatever You Like" (acapella)
Anacron, "Club Etiquette (Kid Cut Up blend)"
Jay Z, "Can I Get A.. (Big Gigantic remix)"
Dr. Dre x Blue Sky Black Death, "The Next Black Death (B-Rock's episode)"
Eve, "Mama In The Kitchen" (loop)
"300 Drunk MFers in the Nomad" (DJ Tool)
Kanye West, "New Slaves (DJ Snake remix)"
Ciara feat Nicki Minaj, "I'm Out"

Demon Queen, "Rude Boy feat. N8NOFACE"

Demon Queen is the collaborative efforts of Tobacco of Black Moth Super Rainbow and Zackey Force Funk for an upcoming record entitled "Exorcise Tape". It's glittery dance funk that's been kidnapped, handcuffed in the trunk of stolen a 1980's Buick Regal, spit on and used as a squeegee at a strip club halfway between Vegas and L.A.. The project is set to be released August 6th on frenchkiss/Rad Cult.

Banks, "Warm Water (Snakehips Remix)"

Hip-Hop Cornucopia

Celebrate the short work week, get away from family drama, and spend time with your friends at The Spring Street with that good hip-hop you and yours have come to love. Not only do you get me and Trey on our usual night, Thursday, but you get a special kick-off to the holidays on Wednesday night! DO NOT miss Wednesday night. Year after year, the night before Thanksgiving goes off at the Spring! I'll see you there with my bags of wax!

...and HEADS UP! Trey and I are dropping 80's party jams and hip-hop bangers on Friday night at Shamrocks!

*all shows are 21+ and NO COVER

80's Meets Hip-Hop: a dance night

If you live in St. Paul, next Friday is your lucky day because we're bringing the party to you. No need to travel across the river to get your dance on. And if you live in Minneapolis, you finally have an excuse to visit your beautiful capital.

DJ Trey and I will be throwing down 80's jams and the choicest hip-hop bangers all night at Shamrocks on October 23rd. Come on down and bring all of your friends and friends' friends. If we pack them in on the 23rd, we could make this a monthly occurrence. So help a brother out and get your grown-ass dance on next Friday!

995 West 7th Street, St. Paul

"Ring My Bell (b.cause Calle Ocho version)," Ann Lee vs. Pit Bull

Recluse/Recloose

I've been reclusive this past week or so.  I apologize to my fanbase.  My energy has been spent trying to record a perfect, live, all-vinyl hip-hop mix and then beating myself after I fail for the dozenth time.  It's coming.  Be on the lookout.  I decided it would be best to take a break from the tables and give you guys some lovely new music.

How appropriate is it to make a post about a band named Recloose after being away for a while?  It just so happens that the new tracks that I'm digging this week are from this funky collaboration.  I picked up the band's latest, Perfect Timing (won New Zealand's Best Electronica/Dance Album of 2008), in my magic promo pile earlier this week and have given it multiple spins.  What I know is that the music is made in large part by Matthew Chicoine: DJ, producer, multi-instrumentalist and funky guy.  He teams up with some great artists to make certifiably funky boogie jointies.  If his stuff were a little dustier, I would have sworn this was straight out of the late 70's/early 80's.  There's a little bit of everything on this album: R&B, funk, boogie, and disco.  I'm only going to post my two favorite tracks though I highly recommend this whole album.

Recloose, "Emotional Funk"

This is by far my favorite track.  It was right down my alley once I heard the synths twirking and the slap bass in the opening bar.  Then it went and gone blew my mind as Tyna comes in with a super mellow voice and setting the lady straight while still keeping his composure, "...I don't care/I don't give a fff/No, I won't swear."  The echo of "emotional funk-funk-funk-funk" at the end of the first refrain is an example of a little thing, but proves the artistry of the group.  Usually the word "funk" is used to describe positive, cool things in a funk track.  That little echo and the delivery of "emotional funk-funk-funk-funk" helps deliver the message that the subject matter of the song is the garbage nobody needs in their life.

Recloose, "The Sanctuary"

Everything great about positive dance tunes can be found in this track: swirling synths, uplifting horns, a funky bassline, tasteful effects, a dance song about a dance party and the fictional (?) hot spot where you can forget your worries.  I'll forgive them for missing a syllable in "sanctury" (sic).  Judging by the attention to detail in the rest of the album, I'm guessing that they mispronounce it on purpose because the extra syllable just doesn't work sonically.  This song gets me rolling my upper body side-to-side every time.  By the song's end I have my plans for the night figured out: I'm heading to The Sanctuary!  You better believe that if I open up a club I'm calling it "The Sanctuary" and this is the last song played every night.  

Get Cryphy 14 in pictures

You know the drill.  It's the day after another successful Get Cryphy.  The crowd continues to become more diverse as this party evolves.  It was great to see all lifestyles and ethnicities represented.

The guest DJ of the night was So Gold who really got the crowd heated with a blend that I've never heard before.  I'm going to assume it's his own special blend.  He dropped the instrumental of Justin Timberlake's "My Love" which got the girls going, and then brought in the vocals of "Thuggish Ruggish Bone" for all the fellas (and weed smokers).  It worked so well.

I also must give a shout out to the local, independent retailer of cool ish, Phenom, for giving away cool schwag.  Items included shirts, stickers, caps and even a skateboard!  Bill tossed wooden projectile into the crowd midway through the night.  I can't believe nobody got hurt.  A lot of people ended up leaving with some good stuff.  I'm still trying to convince my girl to let me rock the stocking cap she nabbed.  I can't complain though, because I caught a solid long sleeve.  Props to Phenom.

BOMP! is official

If there were any doubts whether the inaugural BOMP! Vol. 0.0 last month had a fluke debut, they were answered last night with another packed crowd.  And what a crowd!  It was a beautifully diverse group of Minneap party-rockers enjoying the music and the deejays.

Founders Wes Winship and Shannon Blowtorch hit the tables early on, followed up by heavy-hitter and Cryphy King, Jimmy 2 Times.  The headliner of the night was a DJ that I was previously not familiar with: Dirty Finger.  Dude hails from BK and holds it down on stages with the likes of Jazzy Jeff, Juiceboxxx, Ninjasonik, and Spank Rock.  And he definitely held it down last night.  It was great to get a New York native's take on the new dance scene.  He brought some usual B'more jams (thank goodness, because I've invested a lot of vinyl into the genre).  But he definitely had some nutso remixes of white-boy-party-rock, some seriously cheesy old-school melodies from the 'jock jam' era that actually worked, and my favorite was some unknown indie rock that caught the crowd a little off guard initially.  They warmed right up to it, though.

I loved his mixing style.  He doesn't quickly transition tracks within 8-bars by fading in and then fading out (the standard style).  Instead, he brings in the next track as a certified layer to the current one and lets it ride for maybe a full verse.  This definitely takes a great ear and understanding of the music.  I've never seen or heard that style.  Very cool.

The evening in pictures (many got chopped - click to view full image):

Happy Post-Cryphy Day!

Aw, man. What can I say? As Jimmy2Times posted this morning, the one year anniversary of Get Cryphy was "unfuckwithable"! Everyone was on their game. Prof engaged the crowd and even performed part of "Rocket Man". And of course all the DJ's brought it: Billy Ray Serious, Mike the 2600 King, Fundamentalist, and Jimmy2Times. And the crowd reacted accordingly by rocking so hard that the sound system was at its limits as the speakers bottomed out and distorted a couple of times. Oh, what a crowd. By about midnight it was announced that the show SOLD OUT!!! I can testify to this fact as I was waiting to meet my lady by the door and witnessed many people getting turned away due to maximum capacity.

What made this night extra-special wasn't the size of the crowd, but the beautiful people who came out and how they partied. Throughout the night I saw and heard things that would make Jimmy and Bill proud. As people passed through the crowd there were countless greetings, pleasantries, old friends catching up, new friends bonding, identical head-nodding to the music, dudes letting other dudes go through the single-person gap and all smiling faces. You don't see a lot this if you go out dancing to many other parties, especially in Minneapolis.

The Cameos

Another part of what made the crowd so special were some of the specific people who either just came for the support or were there just like everybody else, to have a great time. The Minneapolis quasi-celebrities that I saw throughout the night were:

Jordon Daley (God bless the Fifth Element), ANT, Last Word, TenderCakes, MillionsBillions and Jimmy's girlfriend who came in all of the way from NY.

Visuals

My camera phone could not do the crowd justice, but here's a taste...

The Morning After

It's a beautiful Minnehappiness day.  It helps when you ease into it with this...

Otis Redding, "Sitting On The Dock of the Bay"

"Do you have any plans for the weekend?"

Ugh.  If you work in corporate America, you hear this every Friday and you dread the inevitable exchange.  Hopefully if you're reading this blog you have many interests that you pursue and participate in over the weekend.  You always have something sweet to look forward to.  Sadly, most co-workers' things worth mentioning about their weekend are watching TV, a movie, or going out to dinner.  I sure hope I never have such a lame answer.  If you're worried that you may have such an answer, fear not!  This is what you're doing...

You're getting buck with some of the best DJ's in Minnehappiness.  The only rule... there are no rules.  They'll be playing anything and everything so long as gets bodies moving, frothing, writhing, hooting, hollering, exposing, drinking, jumping, banging and flailing with a side of dancing.  Unfortunately, co-founder Plain Ole Bill is repping Minneap hard along with P.O.S on the "Never Better" tour.  Fear not because Jimmy 2 Times, Mike the 2600 King and Fundamentalist are all party scientists that know exactly how to turn oxygen, water molecules, weed smoke and spilt beer into a nucking futs atmosphere.  Be there or live an unfulfilled life!

It might go a little something like...

Jimmy2Times & Plain Ole Bill, "Drop (Dress You Up Remix)"

with a splash of...

Jimmy2Times, "Nasty New Booty"

and a healthy dose of  "FUCK YEAH!"s

BOMP!

Thanks to the gentlemen and taste-makers over at BURLESQUE there is another new-age dance night for the kids of Minnehappiness.  It's called "BOMP!" and is held at Bedlam Theatre on the West Bank/Cedar area every last Friday.  I attended this affair because 1) it's within walking distance from my humble abode, 2) Jimmy 2 Times was on the DJ list and 3) everything BURLESQUE does is fun and cool without being pretentious.  Unfortunately milady was feeling under the weather and couldn't help me cut a rug.  Instead, my brother and I went.  Despite the lack of liquor (they only served beer and wine, with some coffee on the side) everyone was having a good time and were plenty loose.  

HIPSTERS...EVERYWHERE!

I was caught off guard by the type of crowd.  I couldn't believe how many hipsters there were in attendance.  Hell, I didn't even know Minneap had that many hipsters in the entire city.  I had the hardest time figuring out who was gay and who was a crazy kid on the fringe of culture.  Everybody was rocking pants and thrift-store joints plastered to their seemingly prepubescent frames.  In an event that epitomized the night, I found myself in the restroom pissing next to a dude with pants so tight he had to unbuckle and drop trough while behind me was a guy with his trendy flannel shirt completely unbuttoned, over his shoulders exposing a shaven chest and bright scarf that he had been "swinging around like a helicopter."  Around the corner was guy and gal-pal philosophizing about previous club-restroom experiences.  I was half-expecting to see Kanye in the stall.

I LIKE IT RAW!!! (but also mixed, thank you)

Unfortunately I got there late due to my brother sober-cabbing the tardy ladies and missed Jimmy's heat.  I caught Wes Winship rocking some crazy build-ups with square-wave madness then do his thing snapping up photos of the proceedings.  The Moon Goons were the last DJ's to rock the crowd.  Being a DJ myself, I'm hyper-critical of track selection and mixing techniques so take the following with a grain of salt.  While the Moon Goons definitely dropped some big-time crowd pleasers like classic Biggie and ODB's "I Like It Raw" that had the crowd buck, the way they did it was less than impressive.  Maybe it's part of their style (I haven't seen them more than a few times), but they neglected some basic DJ techniques and seemed to disregard the 4/4 meter and the 3/16 track pattern.  What this means is that the sound and vibe gets jerked around.  Ultimately the dancers get jolted out of their trance and back to sad reality.  It bugs me not only as a DJ but as someone who loves to dance.  The last straw was when a non-beatmatched train wreck occurred close to closing.  That was my cue to leave and start walking home.  I've seen the Moon Goons before and have enjoyed them and I don't mean to bash them.  They just seemed off last night.  Since they were the closers they didn't quite bring that dancefloor climax that is needed at the end of the night.  I wouldn't attend a show where they were the only group I was familiar with.  But if they're rocking out with some of the Minneap's best, I'll give them another try.