Monday 23 April 2012

April Mixes Music & More....



Hey there folks,

April has been a really busy month, still feeling the vibe and the fallout from Renaissance which saw the start of the month at the VOX in Leeds, lots of underground talk on the Facebook group Venue44 Appeciation Society, about the next installment and also the DJ's from back in the day are comming out of the woodwork and are getting involved, awesome times, to that end they ran a DJ competition in the group not to win anything just to keep the music alive I guess, so as I am crazy about music I decided to do an entry see the Links:





From this other Ideas and mixes have been springing up allover the place, I started watching a few films also in April, so as to get some quotes and samples for a new project for Sunday nights Chillout sessions, As a Pure DJ I am somewhat perplexed as to the DJ workings of Ableton software but love to play around in the studio with it. As this gathers momentum though studio sessions will become more interesting for sure.
Well in terms of all the Ambient/Experimental/Downtempo stuff I have recorded thus far I have two mixes for you of about 2hrs each, these are fun to do but indeed need alot more studio work, but as I really enjoy doing them I thought that I would share the best with you, hopefully as these sessions get better, the quality will just improve...

This was Sundays entry a week or so ago! - this was the first one and in the main went very well samples from Apocalypse Now, Deadwood, and Butch Casidy & The Sundance Kid! Awesome..



Okay moving on..Other things that have been happening musically this month is that I have created a new mix that is all brandnew for April, I originally did two mixes, however the sunshine came out all be it for a week and my mood changed and an influence told me that what I had done was a bit two dark and Technic and that I should do something for April that is more uplifting decided to change this at the last minute as in the main I kind of agreed with this... However spoke to Paul and asked him to have a listen and Wallop it got his seal of approval so I was quite chuffed with that... so to that end onto the Mixes, the first one is the Original one I ditched, lots of CidInc and Matrik Techno Techno!



So here is the other half to that which ended up being an more melodic spacey mix, as I said to kind of capture spring and the change in weather, but what happened in reality was it pissed down the following week and was snowing....lol



Out of the blue this month I gotten wind of a party happening at the Warehouse in Leeds for the 3rd of June 2012, which was just too good to pass up on, from the old daze of HardTimes (Huddersfield) I followed this everywhere back in the day even up to Glasgow at one point, I will never forget this, a banging night with Miles and Elliot, and a live PA from Barbara Tucker, unfortunately for her some mad arse Glasweigan out of his box, decided to pull her wig off on stage, then naturally it was game over and they walked off...lol. Seen Little Louie Vega & Farley Jackmaster Funk as well as CJ Macintosh, Roger Sanchez, can even remember a night in the Legendary Camden Palace courtesy of the HardTimes Crew.



Simply we cannot miss this so there is a few now going and no doubt it will be a fantastic night filled with memories and nostalgia for all, plus Morales 6 hour set which will be on fire without question, but I guess also very interesting, but I doubt that we will get the closeness as we did with Ian Ossia & Dave Seaman at Renaissance, but we will see what the night brings!!!
And So to bring this Part to a Close I did a Mix and have already released part 1 today so enjoy it, lots of Bangers in there from back in the day from 1995/6 so can't wait for both the 3rd of June at the Warehouse and also concluding the second part of this Legendary club night that for me at least oozes quality and gets my respect, Enjoy folks:



Onto more regular stuff now, I have on a Friday night and midd-week, been going through Promos, both Paul and myself have amassed an absolute stockpile of Records, vinyl and other media, needless to say that it is going to get played and I can see a project in the not too near future that is going to encompass, everything, Vinyl, Ableton and whatever else..Fridays is where I just play out anything that we have accrued in the Week, from 8-10pm, have to say this is still just a wing it on the platters and see what comes up like, but I do post all the tracklistings out there which maybe of use to someone at least, well here you go these are the last two Fridays entries:







Saturday night just gone, I decided to try something different and broadcast from the Studio live a 3 hour Techno special which would feature Drumcode type techno tracks, I knocked up the flyer above and here is the end result, lots of people have messaged me on this and given some very positive feedback...



Saturday the 28th April saw me Live on Pickering FM (Radio) Live 3 hour set with Erik Bruce B2B, Erik is a fantastic and creative Lad from Portsmouth who loves his vinyl, he blended a 3 hour Vinyl Set including some of his new and innovative remixes! nice one Erik! hopefully we will hear more projects like this very soon. See the Flyer and the 3 hour set which has been uploaded to Mixcloud includes a full tracklisting.



I was very impressed with this art work as all I used was microsoft word 2000 and a few Font packs, amazing to think that many of the flyers I see about on the web are utter shite, not to say this is perfect, but lots of people comented on how good the art work was for this, any how here is the real meat below!



Erik plays regularly and you can also hear him live on
and also you can check out Erik more here :-)



Further on this month I found out from Youtube that I have kept a clean sheet so my account has been given more status, to this end I have uploaded some of my Vs Series for you all to enjoy whilst you are working, a bit of a fuck about to create a .avi file then upload it as a movie but never the less it works for me right now!



From Mixcloud I did a cheeky Little Sasha Super Sunday Mix as it was raining and there was nowt else to do, just threw it together and recorded it here it is if you fancy a listen, naturally all the tracklist is there for you :-)



So that really Concludes me for April Really, no doubt there will be more on the Way, I have a Mix project for Renaissance Venue 44 Appreciation Society on FB which is looking good got about 5 DJ's not including myself also here is the art work so far!!!



A Project with some DJ's from Rotterdam... sounds like it will be absolutely fantastic, I have not worked out the details with them yet, so watch this space :-) I would have put some tracks of the month in but if you do take time to listen to the mixes they are all in there for you to grab....One last thing, Both myself and Paul are eagerly awaiting the new [Sasha Involver 3] keep your Eyes and ears open...2 weeks to go!!!!

Enjoy Your Week Ahead Folks, remember music is the key, lets see what happens next month :-)..

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Bring on the Sunshine.....!!!

Well after a great weekend over Easter, the hype and excitement from Renaissance 20th birthday in Leeds has died down (slightly), however it seems there still loads of hype and talk on the Venue44 Renaissance Facebook group, which myself and Rob are members of. Part 2 is certainly a hot topic, so it will continue to be discussed until dates, times and DJ's are revealed, hopefully with Mr Ian Ossia and Dave Seaman to take centre stage in that main room back to back all night, I would certainly love to see that.

Well to keep those thoughts of Renaissance part 2 at bay, here are 3 of my favourite tracks for this week...all strangely came from when I was at Bedrock, XOYO with John Digweed just before the Easter celebrations and all guaranteed to smash any dance floor to within an inch of its life.

Apart from that, I am working with Rob on a B2B set each recorded in our own studios in North and West Yorkshire respectively which we will share on soundcloud once its completed, so sit back relax and enjoy these 3 bangers, cheers Paul







If you're all still feeling like you're missing Renaissance like I am.......here's a back catalogue of Ian Ossia's mixes from back in the day...... :D

Ian Ossia part 1
Ian Ossia part 2
Ian Ossia part 3
Ian Ossia part 4

Sunday 15 April 2012

Renaissance and them some...

Well its almost a week after the night that was Renaissance 20th birthday, in Leeds we had a great time from start to finish with Sasha, Ian Ossia and Dave Seaman on the decks...with Ian and Dave making that classics backroom a magical night never to forget, always to rememeber. There has been so much hype and talk about the events in Leeds and Birmingham...but I can honestly say for me in Leeds that me and Rob had a legendary night that we will continue to talk about over and over to remember where we were when it was Renaissance's 20th birthday...

Already with talk on the Venue 44 facebook forums, October has been loosely touted as the date for part 2, so I am sure that the anticipation will grow over the coming months for both venues, I will be looking forward yet again to attending Leeds with Rob and everyone else to ensure a full to capacity Venue at the Vox... while we all wait for the lineups, venue and all important date check out all 11 videos I took over the course of the night... the vast majority are from the main room with Jozif and Sasha..

Ian Ossia and Dave Seaman were in the back room smashing it up....I can't wait for the next installment from those two at Renaissance later on this year...I hope you all enjoy the videos, I certainly did, cheers Paul :D

Jozif warming things up in the main room early on....



Sasha battering Leeds within an inch of its life!!!








Dave Seaman, oh so warming things up in the classics room, OMG!!!

Thursday 12 April 2012

Renaissance 20 years on... VOX Leeds




Well I thought that I would, first say a big thank you to Renaissance for bringing this to Leeds, and I have to say it has been without question the best ever reunion party of 2012, or that I have been to ever! Renaissance is special to me because of the music, the atmosphere, the DJ's and the whole Renaissance scene. In the past I have been put off the idea of old school classics retro nights, as I believe that in the day just being there and being part of the legendary nights were for me very fond memories and have a place in me always, but should stay where they are as a memory and a good one at that. However I was compelled to get involved from the start with this, Dave Seaman posted a new mix CD which I acquired and quickly began to think about old times back in Mansfield to digging out my Masters Series CD's and old mixes from Mixriot for Ian Ossia and John Digweed.



A result of which I really started getting into this whole scene again and low and behold Paul rings me to say that there is a 20 year anniversary at the VOX in Leeds and also in Birmingham, tickets were so cheap at the time we could not say no. Looking back at the flyer online I noticed a typo which seemed to suggest that both nights were over the Easter break Saturday and Sunday, as the tickets were so cheap we thought we would do both nights, after all this was Renaissance, Sasha/Ian Ossia/Dave Seaman.



Short lived that was, I was gutted, however what was to develop later in April would be one of the best nights of my clubbing days all over again, it was absolutely monstrous. The Venue @ the VOX looked like a proper warehouse club with plenty of space and the toilets were so clean and the people were friendly and the service was excellent, no moody gangsters or shady characters creating bother or giving attitude either. before the back room was setup I nipped into the back to see the layout of what would be the best 3-4 hours of clubbing retro heaven, looks simple enough Pioneer CDJ 2000's and a Pioneer DJM 800 mixer, (Standard)I thought, but this coupled with the sound system made this delivery of absolute quality and crisp sound...



As the night started to unfold I welcomed old friends and new here at the VOX R20 and chatted about the old days and it soon emerged that people had come from far and wide to see the same as us and hear those old Renaissance classics. Earlier in the week when the set list was announced, I was a bit gutted that Sasha was to only visit for a few hours and Birmingham got him to play till the end, also people were taking the piss saying it was a warmup set for Brum, well how fucking wrong you lot were...Hahahaha In the main room Sasha absolutely smashed it so many tracks delivered to such outstanding quality only Sasha can do, And I kid you not this set was off the scale both technically and musically, and further to all the Sasha haters out there this was truly a masterclass nothing short of genius, you missed out no really you missed out! the sound system was top quality also which made that main room just perfect.



When Sasha eventually left for Birmingham, everyone piled in the room at the back for the Classics set from Ian ossia & Dave Seaman, and what happened in there can only be described as pure magic, Ian Played an absolutely phenomenal set alongside Dave Seaman between them just put on the best performance ever, It was like they were back in an F1 car leading the pack only adding more and more every time, the performance, set-up, tuning & Precision through the decks was without peer. Here is the classic smash Yeke Yeke.... got goose bumps now! so much energy in that room, soundsystem was outstanding real sounding full on bass driven atmosphere. at times crowd participation full on singing plenty of whistles place was electric.





Dave Seaman was in a world of his own clearly involved in every track he was playing, singing along with the crowd and loving every min of it! here he is smashing it up in the back room with R20 classics, so many played the next track even better & bigger than the last driving the crowd into a frenzy, Dave Seaman played approx, 90 mins over his allocated time and was loving it so much you could see the man was in his element, the podium to the left of the DJ console was ram packed with folks dancing their sox off and going nuts!

I love this shot...







A great night had by all I can't wait for PT2 and I have to say Renaissance without Ian Ossia & Dave Seaman for PT2 would be a huge mistake, best £12:50 I have ever spent, roll on R20 part two, hopefully at the VOX in Leeds Smashing venue awesome music, fantastic crowd, and DJ's that were born to do this in their sleep... nice one, again a big thankyou to all who made this happen! :-)



Here is my little tribute mix to Venue 44 with some old Sasha Renaissance classics... enjoy



Okay Folks as an update here Ian Ossia & Blue Amazon will be doing it all again this time @ the VOX in Leeds 14th July, for a top Quality Night of the best Venue Atmosphere and Music in Leeds if not the UK.... See you at the front :-)



Friday 6 April 2012

Bedrock....just the beginning

Well for me Easter started oh so early, I warmed up the Easter celebrations with a visit XOYO in London, for Bedrocks monthly party in Shoredtich...Mr Digweed was in attendance as per usual...warming things up was Jozif, then Danny Howells as a surpise guest DJ warmed up for John.

All I can say is that Danny certainly warmed up the room and the night once John came on, he rocked it big time. As Bedrock is on a monthly Thursday, it always attracts the right sort of crowd and I can safely say it was one awesome night even though the night finished at 3am. As you can see from the footage, John played a monstrous set with some yet to be released bangers in there.

Bedrock is one of those nights where it feels you have come home and have an effortless night without any of the hassles of a weekend.

...all I can say is Bedrock @ XOYO on the next Thursday can't come around soon enough, enjoy and cheers Paul :D






More to follow from the Easter weekend, the full coverage of Renaissance 20th birthday in Leeds at the Vox!!!!

Tuesday 3 April 2012

Gems for April

Well here's three lovely tracks for the month of April, with Renaissance and Bedrock for me this week its going to be a fun filled weekend of Easter and the bank holiday messyness, oh yes indeedy. There will be coverage from Bedrock and Renaissance from me and Rob which I will post once I have er....recovered, for now sit back and enjoy these lovely progressive bombs....





Monday 2 April 2012

3 from me

Well its been a busy month for myself and Rob, both of us getting to grips with Ableton 8, along with my shiny new APC40 midi controller, talk about steep learning curve, however amongst all the education, I did manage another cheeky mashup for everyone to enjoy, here's my latest mashup... and the other two I did last month, enjoy and cheers for listening, Paul






Feel free to share, comment and download :D