djcev.com

CW: Self-indulgent self-reflection

I was pretty bad at it (DJing, mixing) for most of that time. I plateaued creatively and skill-wise some time in the early 2010s and then had to really work to improve.

It's a weird thing to have done, and a very weird thing to have taken seriously.

CW: Self-indulgent self-reflection

I think I've been a DJ for 20 years now. Give or take.

I can remember buying turntables and random sound FX records at Goodwill. Making trips into Portland to buy records at the shops (2nd Ave, 360, Everyday, Ozone, Platinum). Being really, really bad at mixing.

I got a couple gigs in 2007, one good, one disasterous. Then I got in playing at Ground Kontrol and started hanging out there; later I held a monthly there with a friend for 7 or 8 years.

Spent the evening building tomorrow's mix. Nothing too fancy, a couple old favorites, a couple new(ish) tunes.

I'm trying to be more relaxed about DJing and making mixes in general, trying to enjoy the process more.

CW: Flashing lights, YT video, tracker DnB

One more. This video has some unnecessary flashing / strobing lights at the beginning, don't watch if that'll bother you.

RJV / Danny Saved My Life
DANNY.IT, 2001

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8HX3emx8AM

Edit: that youtube video above is now missing. You can find the original .it here at files.scene.org.

Tyree / Soul Circle
CIRCLE.XM, 1999

(I've run across this youtube channel before, it looks like the product of a script that renders mods to youtube videos. Linking to it anyway...)

Went through Language Lab ll-001 to ll-062 today, renaming and sorting files. Rendered 24 of the releases to .flac with OpenMPT. There's some very good drum & bass and downtempo in here.

Found another old tracker group / netlabel to dig through and research. Noticed it while reading comments on some of Nagz's mods.

Language Lab: https://files.scene.org/browse/music/groups/language_lab/

Sorting through a directory of over a hundred Nagz mods today. Some duplicates, some I've already rendered to .wav.

It's a lot of music.

Ah nice there's some Quake on today.

GetQuad #quakeworld Nations Cup 2020 Semifinals, Sweden vs. Russia, streamed by Suddendeath TV:
https://www.twitch.tv/suddendeathtv

Oh wow, Losonofono put the old Dark Matrix Techelectro LP up on bandcamp:

Techelectro is a really good, weirdly slept-on #techno #electro (what else?) LP from the early 2000s. I'll play a track from it in tonight's mix.

I really do not like Beatport. I think their interface is terrible (nearly unusable) and their prices are too high. I could complain about them for hours. So a correct "electro" genre there won't get me to use their service.

Woke up to the news that Beatport finally added an "electro" genre that sort-of represents what the word means. "Electro: Classic / Detroit / Modern".

They have never had a browseable "electro" genre tag as far as I'm aware. Wikipedia says Beatport went up in 2004; that means it took them 16 years to recognize a fundamental genre of electronic club music.

I really love those fake LED candles. I know they're hokey little things, plastic and wax and a simple circuit driving an LED. But they make me happy.

I can remember when I first saw one in a bar around 2006 or 2007, it seemed like magic.

I feel like I'm spinning my wheels right now, like I'm not getting much done. That's OK I guess, December is usually a less productive time for me. Just have to be patient, keep plugging away.

Goal for today: organize, render, and catalog all the old Noldus Rabiatus mods I've got.

There's a #quake3 CPMA 2v2 TDM cup going into the grand finals now over at:

Been watching off and on this morning, games have been good so far.