Sizzled Chicago

Fired! If it don’t make bucks, who gives a phuck?

Posted on 21. May, 2009 by John.

Well, well, well. Howdy everyone!

Sorry for the considerable inexcusably long delay in posting this, not to mention the long pause in content addition to the site whatsoever, but I’ve been pinned down with a whole bunch of personal responsibilities that have kept me far away from any computer terminal… I’ve been dealing with the always-sucky business of moving (and the subsequent unpacking), I’m preparing to jump I have jumped in to the world of the nuptial bliss (I’m on my honeymoon as I type), and finally I’ve been processing/licking my wounds about the whole business of us getting fired by our friends at Lava in such an abrupt manner (although I completely understand their reasoning). The cash just wasn’t flowing like it once was.

[To hammer in the busy point, I am actually posting this from a third-world internet cafe in Belize. There are literally (I am not joking) both a goat and a chicken within spitting distance of this computer.]

We were a bit blindsided by that, so it naturally took a little while to fully process everything. In other words, some regrouping needed to happen before I hit you all with this… and now I’m regrouped. In terms of everyone else’s silence, I imagine that pretty much everyone involved with the Sizzled project has been confused in their own right seeing that this is a site originally formed around a party - a party that is no longer happening. So where does that leave things? Well, let me take a crack at that.

1. First off, just to recap, Sizzled Chicago (at Lava) has been cancelled. It wasn’t our choice or our call, but I do admit that much of the original awesomeness that made the early/middle days of Grizzled such a success was pretty much lost even in the last few episodes of that event. Sizzled was an attempt to get back to some of the stuff we felt had made Grizzled such a success in the first place, but it’s pretty clear to me now that it’s tough to replicate something as special as that party was. And if we’re being honest here, folks clearly weren’t as excited about things as they once were. So the bottom line is we weren’t helping Lava’s bottom line. And even though we’re incredibly sad to go, I agree with management that now is probably the best time for them to try something else, and for us to as well. Lava is still my favorite club in Chicago, and you should still go there all the time!
2. The Site is here to stay, although it may experience some cosmetic changes to go with the change. I think that pretty much explains that. Depending on the level of contribution coming in, I may end up merging everything under the umbrella of John Mork Music, which is where almost all of my creative energy is focused now (on the music, not the website).

So that’s it. I’m going to go see if I can find a cockfight somewhere down here. See you all stateside, if I decide to come back! haha

jm

Continue Reading

Friday 3.27 | Forget WMC @ Uptown Lounge Chicago | DJs: KARL ALMARIA, JOLBY, DON CLARK, JEFF BLOOM, + more | Free!

Posted on 27. Mar, 2009 by Karl.

“Forget WMC” - Friday 03.27.09

Tonight for Chicago people not in South Beach for Winter Music Conference …

DJs: KARL ALMARIA, JOLBY, DON CLARK, JEFF BLOOM, + more.

@ Uptown Lounge
1136 W Lawrence
Chicago, IL 60647
10P-4A
FREE

Continue Reading

Tonight 3.22 | Real House Music Sundays with SEAN SMITH and KARL ALMARIA at Betty’s Blue Star Lounge, Chicago!

Posted on 22. Mar, 2009 by Karl.

Hey Chicago!  Just a quick heads up that I will be droppin’ some tunes at Real House Music Sundays tonight with resident and Smooth Agents Records bossman, Sean Smith. My set is from 12:30 - 2:00. Party goes ’til 4am. There is an open bar from 10-11. Guys free before midnight, $5 after. Ladies free all night. Hope to see some of you out!

REAL HOUSE MUSIC SUNDAYS
@ Betty’s Blue Star Lounge
1600 W Grand Ave - Chicago, IL

Continue Reading

Tonight 3.20 | John Mork TSR & Jeff Bloom at Uptown Lounge, Chicago!

Posted on 20. Mar, 2009 by John.

Hey all! Join me tonight at Uptown Lounge here in Chicago (1136 West Lawrence Avenue, Chicago, IL 60640 - 773.878.1136 - half a block from the Lawrence Red Line station on the corner of Lawrence and Broadway) for Jeff Bloom’s (.dotbleep. Gallery, Guesthouse) always-awesome Friday night party! I’ll be playing the late slot (Uptown Lounge is a 4am bar, so by late I mean late!), and Jeff and co. will be rocking things out as always earlier in the evening. The party is totally free all night,  and every time I’ve ever been out to this event it’s been a total blast! I don’t expect tonight to be any different. I’ve got a few special treats to drop on yous tonight, so I hope to see the hometown homies out and about! 

FRIDAY, MARCH 20th @ UPTOWN LOUNGE
John Mork TSR & Jeff Bloom
1136 West Lawrence Avenue, Chicago, IL 60640
NO COVER! 

Continue Reading

Spring Has Sprung! News + Free Sizzled Desktop!

Posted on 20. Mar, 2009 by John.

What’s up superfriends?!

I’m feeling pretty darned good today. Chicago’s already-erratic weather in tandem with The Impending Global Climate Crisis™ have been giving us a cornucopia of seasonal experiences, and all in the course of one week. In the last four days, we’ve had temps of something like 50º, 34º, and (seriously) 74º — for those of us masochistic enough to have actually chosen to live with these long grey midwestern winters, the random warm days are like effin’ gold.  Late winter/early spring always has people running around town in shorts and t-shirts as if it were mid-July. What I’m saying is that hibernation season is just about over, and there’s lots in the kettle!

First off, I want to send a huge “Thank you!” out to everyone who came to Sizzled at Lava this past weekend, and of course to the lovely and talented Lady D for throwing down the wickedness on the 1200’s, and ALSO for signing on as our newest contributer to the site (more on that later), and she’s one of those rare house music people who actually like to write. A good fit for us, yea?

Anyway, there’s a good deal of new download content on the way, including DJ mixes from Stompy.com co-owner & GoodFamily label boss Deron Delgado, Dae Recordings’ bossman Aaron Dae, plus a whole lot more!

In the meantime, you can download the Sizzled Spring Desktop by clicking the thumbnail below!

Continue Reading

Monthly Chart [March] from Smooth Agent Records’ Sean Smith

Posted on 19. Mar, 2009 by seansmith.

1. Sean Smith Feat. JL from BSTC “Cloud 9″ (Sean’s 09 Dub mix) Smooth Agent Records
2. Marc Evan’s “The Way You Love Me” (Spen’s Killer Klub Mix) Defected
3. Chieko Kimbra “Changed My Life” (Code Red Vocal) King Street
4. Yassoul “Back To Fundamentals” (DJB & Neal Paul Mix) SSOH
5. DJ Brad & Pepper Mashay Ft. Salsoul Nugget “Heaven” (Pablo Martinez Deeper Mix)
Deepless Records
6. Roy Davis Jr Feat. Terry Dexter ‘Horizon” (Aaron Jerome 2/4 Mix) Smooth Agent Records
7. Galaxy Group Feat. Lady Alma “Don’t Play” LoveSlap!
8. Sacha Williamson “A Better View” (Martino Mix) DHN
9. Gorge “Supique” Freerange
10. Tortured Soul “Home To You” (Quentin Harris RX) TSTC Records

*Real House Music Sundays takes place weekly @ 1600 W. Grand Ave. Chicago, IL featuring a spectrum of guest artists along with resident (and Smooth Agent Records Label Head) Sean Smith.

Check Sean Smith out at Smooth Agent Records WMC ‘09 “Rejuvenation” party in Miami!
Tuesday March 24th at the newly remodeled “Living Room”.

Complete event info at SmoothAgentRecords.com

Continue Reading

I ♥ Typography!

Posted on 07. Mar, 2009 by John.

¡Hola vatos! First off, I know we’ve been a little super light postwise this week, but chalk it up to both remix and design deadlines for me, Karl’s remix deadlines & general “having a life” (how dare he?!), Rem being on vacation, and Jenn banging out press releases like the Chinese Ministry of Health, but fear not! New installments of most of our columns are all being typed up as we speak, so hold tight! In the meantime, enjoy the lovely piece of food-type above, and what I consider to be one of the best (and my favorite) blogs about type/design of all time: I Love Typography — check it out! Even if you aren’t a graphical designer type, I think you may be able to appreciate it… or maybe I’m diluted! Anyway, plenty of house music talk (andcoming your way later this weekend! Hold tight!

Continue Reading

WNUR’s 2nd Annual Chicago Jack Summit | 5.5 Hours of Live Online DJ Sets!

Posted on 23. Feb, 2009 by Karl.

WNUR’s 2nd Annual Jack Summit happens Monday night. This is a phoneathon drive for this wonderful underground, commercial-free station that has been doing their thing for years and years. Expect lots of good music … and lots of nonsense too, as they let us get on the mics (oh no!).

2nd Annual Chicago Jack Summit - Featuring DJ Sets From (in set time order):

Karl Almaria
Chris Grant
Frankie J (of The Sound Republic)
Santiago (of Santiago & Bushido)
Justin Long
Midway Strangers
Bryan Jones

89.3 FM (Chicago Radio)
Monday, February 23rd
9pm-2:30am (CST)
Also streaming online: www.wnur.org.

WNUR STREETBEAT RADIO
Since our inception in the late 80s, our foremost goal has been to play the most forward-thinking, cutting-edge, underground dance and hip-hop cuts the world has to offer. We have programming on the station six nights a week covering material from industrial to progressive, hip-hop to tech house.

From the beginnings of house music in Chicago, WNUR has brought to the airwaves a side of dance music that doesn’t get exposure elsewhere on the dial, in the clubs, or even in the party scene. While WBMX’s Hotmix 5 were playing the latest local cuts during house music’s big explosion, WNUR’s role was playing the imports. Such legendary DJs as Derrick Carter and Mark Farina held shows on WNUR in the late 80s/early 90s. In the mid 90s, DJ Snuggles’ Strictly Jungle show gained national recognition for being the first weekly drum ‘n bass show in the country. Our present mission is to provide Chicago and the world with a source of consistently good underground electronic/dance music in all its variety, both new and old, whether local or imported.

Continue Reading

New Guest Mixes: BRETT JOHNSON and JEFF BLOOM + MY BOY ELROY!

Posted on 19. Feb, 2009 by Karl.

Greetings! If you are subscribed to our podcast, this may be a bit of old news, as we added these mixes a couple weeks ago. And if you aren’t, we have got a grip of new mixes for your download/streaming pleasure. Either way, we think you will be pleased with this round of guest mixes!

Brett Johnson [Aesoteric, Classic, Freerange] hit us with three mixes to share: “Live In La Casa”, “Live in Leipzig, Germany”, and “Rock Wit You”.

Also, we have a tag-team set from fellow Chicago residents (and all around great guys), Jeff Bloom a.k.a. Po!ntfive [Guesthouse, OM, .dotbleep, Movim, Gallery] and My Boy Elroy [of Liquid Soul]: “Live at .5 Studios”.

As a reminder, you can subscribe to the Podcast HERE. Also, you can view our separate mixes-only blog feed at podcasts.sizzledchicago.com.

 

 Brett Johnson | Live in La Casa | 12.08 [41:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Brett Johnson | Live in Leipzig, Germany | 01.05.05 [52:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Brett Johnson | Rock Wit U | 11.08.08 [69:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

  Jeff Bloom + My Boy Elroy | Live at .5 Studios | 01.08.09 [79:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Continue Reading

The SH09 has arrived…

Posted on 15. Feb, 2009 by John.

…and is officially my new favorite piece of gear. Besides the fact that it sounds absolutely incredible, this 30-year-old (can you believe that?) beauty looks like it was hermetically sealed in plastic wrap and stored in Tutankhamun’s tomb since the day it was manufactured. Seriously, my 2-year old Dave Smith Evolver is in worse shape than this thing. No shit — not a single crackle, sticky key, or cosmetic flaw to be found… and it sounds GREAT. Sometimes synths can have way too many features… they sound incredible when you’re playing around without any practical purpose, but the moment you try to fit that kooky sound in to a tune you remember that you don’t make trance. With that in mind, the SH09 is brilliantly simple. It’s just a simple, stripped down, ballsy-as-hell analog piece — no frills, just proper bad boy business. If you can find one (even close to) this clean, I would say snap it up without hesitation. At this point I’m liking it better than my far-more-expensive Juno 106, but it’s a new toy so that’s not set in stone yet.

OK, that’s it. I promised I’d report on it, so there’s the report. Later skaters!

Continue Reading

[Weekly Column] Nerd Words: The Helvetica Moleskine & The Roland SH-09

Posted on 12. Feb, 2009 by John.

I’ve got a little something this week for both typography enthusiasts (because I know there are so many of you out there) as well as fans of vintage synthesizers. Strange bedfellows to be sure, but I figure both groups of people are equally obsessive… so maybe there is some overlap after all. To be fair, a cool notebook is useful to all humans interested in writing things down, so the appeal widens a bit with that one.

First off, I have been a bit of a Moleskine nerd since they started popping up in shops again a few years ago. They’re nothing really but high-end notebooks, journals, and planners of various sizes targeted at design/art/writer types… partially because they really are damned high-quality books, and partially because of their historical legacy (their tagline is something like “The legendary notebook of Picasso, Hemingway, and Jesus“). I’ve been buying them for people as gifts a lot, and I’ve got more than a few myself (what can I say, I’m a victim of marketing). Anyway, to coincide with a recent exhibit at Tokyo’s Laforet Museum Harajuku called Helvetica: A Tribute to Typography, and certainly because of the popularity of the film Helvetica with “normal” (read: non-designer) folks, Moleskine Asia has released two special-edition typography themed notebooks to coincide with the exhibit, limited to 500 pieces each. You can order them from the Asian site up there — don’t be scared by the price… those are 198 Hong Kong dollars. The books come out to something like $25.54USD apiece, and are still available as of the time of this posting. I’m not sure if I’m going to actually use mine when they arrive (do you think they might be worth something someday? I’m being totally serious with this question), but they sure are purty!

Moving on with our general fetishism theme, I also was lucky enough to come across an old Roland SH-09 on eBay yesterday that was not only in excellent condition, but had a BuyItNow price of under three hundred dollars (which is a total steal, so thank you Whoever You Are). I snapped it up quickly and am now waiting patiently for it to arrive. For those of you not familiar with Roland’s S-series of synths — the most popular of which is Roland’s SH-101, which came out a few years after the 09 — they are the precursor (and more fully realized synthesizer) cousins of the famous TB-303 Bassline, and most of them share much of the circuitry and filter technology (some of the VCF filters and other circuitry in the S-series are actually identical to the 303) of that famous acid gadget. The (huge) difference is that you can grab an SH-101, SH-2, or SH-09 for under a grand, and often for under 500 bucks. As good-condition 303’s become more and more difficult to find (and wildly expensive) because of how incredibly popular they became in the nineties, you would be wise to seek out one of the S-series synths (manufactured before and at the same time as the 303) to get that classic Roland analog sound (they can create the exact same sounds as the Bassline, including that acid twerk we all love, plus much much more than that little box is capable of). Rather than give you my convoluted explanation of what this synth can do, below you can check out a really great SH-09 demonstration video I found on YouTube. One thing I will say is that the 09 came out a few years before the whole x0x plastic mid-range synthtoy series came out, and was a sort of lower-end professional analog synth. But because of that demographic, the 09 is sturdy, metal, and heavy versus the x0x-series’ light n’ plastic engineering. OK. check it out! I’ll post an update after it arrives!

Continue Reading

Sizzled at Lava Chicago (1270 N. Milwaukee Ave.) - Friday, March 13th with Lady D! No Cover! Free Bacon (fo’ real)!

Posted on 08. Feb, 2009 by John.

Continue Reading

[Site Update] DJ Bookings + Press Kits Page added and functional!

Posted on 31. Jan, 2009 by John.

Hey again! Busy week for me… I’ve been pretty much working on a million projects at once, dancing back and forth between three or four different things at once (due almost entirely to my undiagnosed ADD, I’m sure). One of those “things” was getting the DJ Bookings + Press Kits Pages up and running here at SizzledChicago.com. As some of you know, I’m entering a totally exciting new phase of my music career, and with change comes… well, new stuff! I might be alone in this, but New is unquestionably my favorite Stuff, and I’ve got a buttload of that in my updated and all-new Press Kit (that will download if you click this). We’re trying to make things as easy as possible on everyone, and to be a resource to the whole house music community. So for now, you will be able to contact me and Karl & download our press materials (Karl’s press kit is on the way), but eventually we hope to able to provide access to as many of our compatriots as possible. We’re working on it! Anyway, check it out. And if you want to take a look at my new press stuff without downloading it, you can check out the bio and pic by clicking on the words back there. OK! Back to work (Me, not you! YOU should go have fun! It’s Friday, after all!).

Continue Reading

Studio Tip o’ the Day: Noise Reduction (Theory + Practice)

Posted on 30. Jan, 2009 by John.

OK, a real quickie here for you guys. I was checking my email this morning, and came across what I thought was just another spammy update from Sony for Soundforge users. And while it kind of was that, it also happened to contain this very useful little article on Soundforge 9’s newer noise reduction features. You can read the article yourself, but what Sony has done is actually apply an old acapella-extraction studio trick to their audio editor as a method of eliminating unwanted noise from a sample. It’s the kind of simple (and awesome) idea that goes overlooked as a software feature for years. Honestly, you could do this by hand in any audio editor - but this takes a lot of the tedium and guesswork out of things. 

Right, so the acapella trick is something that I actually learned from Frankie years ago. The theory is that if you have a tune with a vocal in it that you want to extract, you should be able to cancel out the background elements of the song by exactly laying the instrumental (with the phase inverted or “flipped”) of the same track over it (it’s important that the songs are sonically identical, minus the vocal), and because of the positive and negative phases, they should cancel out and leave just the vocal behind. In practice, it only kind of works. Sometimes. But when it does, it’s a very helpful little trick. This is basically what Soundforge is doing to eliminate hum, and it’s far more useful! Like I said, you can always do it by hand as well. OK, and on that note — enjoy the weekend!

Continue Reading

John Mork’s Stompy.com Top 10 for January! (+ Iron Chef Milwaukee Video!)

Posted on 28. Jan, 2009 by John.

Hey dudes! I (in the nick of time) posted a quick January Top 10 for the always-awesome Stompy.com as well. Check that out here! And of course if you like the tunes, I would encourage you to support the labels and pick up some tracks!

*(Big thanks to Mr. Greg Yuen for getting my chart up quickly with his lightning-fast internetting skills!)

Oh and one other thing! Last weekend, I drove up to Milwaukee to help my buddy Ryan “Mr.” Timms compete in Lukewarm’s home Iron Chef Battle (which ended up being Battle Mushroom). I honestly had no idea what to expect when I got up there, but I’ve got to say that they handled things with a level of seriousness and professionalism that was downright impressive! So props guys, I had a blast! Unfortunately, Timms lost (by one little point), but it was so close that I see a rematch in our future. Like I said, they were NOT screwing around up there. They filmed the whole damned thing and cut it together reality-TV style. It turned out to be quite an entertaining little program, and you can check it out here if you so desire! Big up to Luke and co. for hosting such a great event, and for the record, I had a blast (and hate mushrooms haha)!

Continue Reading

Sean Smith of Smooth Agent Records Monthly Chart (January ‘09)

Posted on 27. Jan, 2009 by seansmith.

Sean Smith’s January ‘09 Chart (Real House Music Sundays)

1. Sean Smith Feat. JL from BSTC “Cloud 9” [Smooth Agent]
2. Doug Willis “Nu Dimension” [Z Records]
3. EOL feat. Cindy Mizel & Lisa Fischer “You Brought The Sunshine” [Vega]
4. Peven Everret “Heat Up” [CDR]
5. Gullaume and the Coutu Dumonts “I Was On My Way to Hell” [Circus Company]
6. Mary J Blige “PMS” (Quentin Harris RX) [CDR]
7. Donnie “If you Need a Friend” (Reel Soul Rx) [White]
8. Monique Bingham “Run” [CDR]
9. Doc Link vs. Billy Ocean “Feel like Getting Down” [White]
10. Bernard Badie Feat. Dajae “Truth Hurts” (Andre Harris Innate Soul RX) [Smooth Agent]

*Real House Music Sundays takes place weekly @ 1600 W. Grand Ave. Chicago, IL featuring a spectrum of guest artists along with resident (and Smooth Agent Records Label Head) Sean Smith.

Complete event info at SmoothAgentRecords.com

Continue Reading

Smart Guy: “Beat Variance” in popular music directly related to Stock Market volatility

Posted on 22. Jan, 2009 by John.

So my lady friend and I were listening to NPR this afternoon in the car (as we tend to do), and we caught this story (click here for the audio). So it turns out that this guy Phil Mayman developed (or at least I think he developed it… either way, he put it to use) software that analyzes “beat variance” in music (essentially the amount of rhythmic complexity in any given tune). This in itself is cool enough, but he went on to get all scientific on us and measure the correlation between how volatile The Market is and what’s on top of the Billboard charts. Yes, people get grants for all kinds of wacky things.

Anyway, after testing all however-many-thousand Number Ones against the market, the data came back conclusively that when things are going bonkers in the market, people tend to gravitate towards tunes with lower beat variance. And the more stable things are, the more complex. So check it out: house music (and disco before it), are music withe relatively LOW beat variance. So given how crazy everything is right now, we should be expecting a Number One House Jam any day now right? Right? I’m not gonna hold my breath, but a girl can dream can’t she? Peep the whole story at npr.org.

Continue Reading

The Sizzled Chicago Podcast is fully + permanently rockin’ n’ rollin’! Subscribe now!

Posted on 18. Jan, 2009 by John.

OK, I know I said it before, but this time I really mean it. The Sizzled Podcast is up and running, for good this time! The problem we had before was that we tend to attach more than one mix in a single post, and in the interest of keeping everything CD-burnable for you guys (and visually bearable as well), we had to make a separate blog feed specifically for the mixes. You can check that out at podcasts.sizzledchicago.com if you’re so inclined, or just want a quick place on the web to zoom in on just the DJ Mixes posted here on the site. 

Anyway, you can subscribe to the new podcast here and you’ll be set for good with new mixes coming down the line all the time. There are already twenty-two killer mixes up for your listening enjoyment, with more coming soon. Sign up, and tell yer pals!

Subscribe to the Sizzled Chicago Podcast!

Continue Reading

Minor podcasting Snafu The Podcast is back!

Posted on 14. Jan, 2009 by John.

OK folks. Due to our (my) novice-level understanding of getting the podcast set up, I’ve been forced to take the original Podcast down from iTunes. The basic problem was that folks weren’t getting the full set of mixes that we were posting here on the site in their iTunes feed. In other words, if we posted four sets from a Sizzled event in a Podcast post for example, people were only being fed one of those sets to their iTunes auto-download library. So after racking my brain for a little while, I realized that we’d have to start setting things up in a one-set-per-post format… but honestly, I don’t want any of us to have to look at all that goofiness on this site (which after all is for reading, looking, and fun stuff). 

So what I did was create a separate blog to handle JUST the podcast feed that you don’t really need to worry about, but it is one convenient place to grab all the downloads. You will still be able to manually download all the sets from here at the main Sizzled site.  Unfortunately, it will be a day or two more before iTunes approves the new location, but just to be clear, the Sizzled Chicago Podcast will be back (and permanently operational) in a few days. 

The Sizzled Podcast is back! (RE-) Subscribe here!

dsgdfhf

Continue Reading

January Sizzled (002) sets now available for download!

Posted on 14. Jan, 2009 by Karl.

Wait … free bacon, now free mixes!? CRAZY! The first night of free bacon was a great success! You can expect this trend to continue each and every month at Sizzled. My kitchen still reeks of maple bacon, although I can’t really say that’s a bad thing now can I? It’s kind of like Sizzled all the time over here, both literally and figuratively.

Anyhow, here are the sets from the night. Big ups to Ryan “Mister” Timms for dropping not one, but two dope sets (first Downtempo, then House) … it most definitely was Peanut Butter Timms Time! I am especially feelin’ his downtempo set - proper headnodding hip-hopp’y business, but with the long luscious blends of a house jock. Also, check out Karl Almaria’s opening Downtempo set, and John Mork’s middle-of-the-night House set. So, go fry up some bacon (or bake it in the oven, as we did - man, this works like a champ … this was the first time I tried it and it works great, who knew?!), pour yourself a stiff drink to put yourself in the mood (as pours were on the STRONG side that night at Lava), pop these bad boys on your HiFi, and you have now created your very own Sizzled Home Game™ (We’re in the midst of working something out with Milton-Bradley, but that’s just between us…)!

 

 MrTimms | Live At Sizzled | 01.09.09 - Part 1 DOWNTEMPO [59:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 MrTimms | Live At Sizzled | 01.09.09 - Part 2 HOUSE [65:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 John Mork of TSR | Live At Sizzled | 01.09.09 [76:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Karl Almaria | Live At Sizzled | 01.09.09 [62:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Continue Reading

[Weekly Column] Diggin’ in the Crates: Featured Record: Atjazz Looking Glass (Reincarnation Records)

Posted on 11. Jan, 2009 by remedy.

Hola my house music aficionados!

John Miles aka DJ Remedy here once again. Welcome to the Second Installment of my weekly column Diggin’ in the Crates. For those of you who couldn’t guess from the title, every week I pull a sweet record from my collection, make some clips for you to hear, and then encourage you to run to your local record store and start digging. Pretty simple eh?  I’m also spending a bit more time touching in on the artists, who they are, and maybe a little bit on the path that led them to making these records I find so seminal. Got it? Good, and now for the record…

This week’s featured record:

Atjazz - Looking Glass [Reincarnation 003]
released: December, 2007

A Looking Glass

B Looking Glass (Astro Dub)

Music \ˈmyü-zik\ -noun An art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

When Derby-based producer  Atjazz (Martin Iverson) makes music, he is attempting to “make you hear what he sees everyday.” And while that sounds simple enough, anyone who calls themselves a musician knows that meeting that goal is far from simple. Atjazz is the true definition of doing what you love for a living [And the fact that he's actually making a living at it is pretty rad too. — JM]. As his Biography states, Atjazz quit his job as an In-House musician for the game company that made the Tomb Raider series back in the early 90’s to begin Mantis Recordings and pursue his career of creating some of the most amazing music I’ve ever heard, period. I can’t say that even one of his wide range of productions (be it in the vein of house, downtempo, breaks, funk, hip hop, or whatever other tags you want to slap on it) isn’t pure, blissful quality. I can honestly say I own almost his entire discography in some form or other, and there is always at least one Atjazz record in my bag.

If we use the definition of music up there as a starting point, Atjazz absolutely uses sound to express (his) ideas and emotions, and it can be heard from his diverse, groundbreaking, and genre-defying rhythms and melodies.  As one of the top 5 records I own, the Looking Glass EP on Reincarnation Records is a true example of just damned excellent music, house or otherwise.

Seriously, if I was going to put a record into a time capsule and launch it into space for beings of the future to hear beautiful music, then this would be the record to do it with. As I sit back and listen to this, I can’t help but picture an old Star Trek episode: the Enterprise flying triumphantly away from an epic battle, with shit blowing up all over the place and Captain Kirk cupping the left breast of some Romulan chick he picked up on Degobas-48-B.  So yea, this track truly tells a story to the listener. OK, on to the tracks.

On the A-side, Looking Glass begins with a really nice filtered synth melody that growls and builds in intensity with wiggling analog effects.  Starting a track out dark and deep is signature Atjazz, and this tune is no exception.  As the track progresses, he beefs up the drums with some shuffled rhythm bits, adding a little more flavor to the mix. Atjazz loves to work Afro-Cuban elements in to his tracks. Live bongos, claves, tambourines, shakers, you name it.  As I explained to a friend recently, whatever he uses for percussion always seems to sound alive, crisp, and fantastic. The sheer recording quality of those and all the other instrumental elements of his music is one of the big things that sets him apart from his peers… as far as house music go, the level of professionalism is pretty unparalleled. His keen ability to layer multiple instruments and build energy throughout the track are rivaled only by a few, and again suggests a mind that would be equally at home composing jazz tunes or classical concertos (we’re talking serious business here, folks!). After the buildup, he drops a beautiful verbed-out xylophone/vibes melody, bringing us right in to the epic battle part of the track. He changes things up a bit halfway through and finishes with the a new synth melody that reminds me of the old Mozart symphonies I used to hear on NPR (representing the retreat from the battle).  If you’re playing late night, the people are… um… feeling the vibe… this is serious dancefloor ammunition!

Flip the record over for the Astro Dub, which pulls what might be an actual African percussion ensemble in to the studio, and lays that organic element in contrast beside a mean-sounding dubby Moog Bassline that punches and fills ot the low end.  Subs are required to appreciate the full scope of Moogy goodness. The gorgeous xylophone melody from the original is back in this mix, and he stretches, bends, and delays the hell out of all the synth melodies from the original, making them sound “dubby” in the true Lee Perry sense of the word. This mix is definitely true to its name, and does indeed take you to outer space — so prepare yourself! 

The original mix of Looking Glass made its way on to my latest mix, Pieces & Expressions, that I will be releasing later this month on CD and of course in downloadable nerd-friendly form on both my podcast and the Sizzled Chicago Podcast as well. Keep an eye out for that and go out and support this amazing artist!

Until next week, keep your tables turnin’ and feel free to drop a comment with your opinions on this and any other records YOU might like down below! PEACE!

-John Miles (DJ Remedy)

Continue Reading

Reminder! Sizzled at Lava (with Mr. Timms) is this Friday… TONIGHT! FREE BACON!

Posted on 08. Jan, 2009 by John.

Hey hey hey! Just a friendly reminder to let you all know Sizzled at Lava Chicago (1270 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL) is this Friday, January 9th! Remember that the party is FREE ALL NIGHT (NO COVER) and starting this month we will be rolling out the insanely awesome baskets of free bacon! Special guest MR. TIMMS from Milwaukee + production duo kingSIZE will be hitting us with a killer early-evening downtempo set as well as a dope night-closing house music set, in-between duties will be handled by residents John Mork of The Sound Republic + Karl Almaria. Timms is one of our favorite all-time jocks in Milwaukee (or anywhere, for that matter) — I promise you this will be a night not to be missed! Check the original post for full details, or hit lavachicago.com for more of the nitty gritty! 

Continue Reading

I love the 00’s Redux

Posted on 06. Jan, 2009 by John.

OK, so a few weeks ago I posted this post about Justice faking their live sets. OK, in all fairness to Justice, we are looking at this picture completely out of context, and I suppose they could have been joking around… but I’m going to guess that those two lads aren’t exactly the wacky prankster-types. I realize that to the advanced interwebber-types out there that picture was old news anyhow, but even so I had to post it out of sheer principal. The thing that really made me put it up was that these guys have been trumpeted as the Second Coming of Daft Punk™  by every clueless (and not-so-clueless) music critic out there.

The problem with all of these media people is that even the ones I respect (let’s use Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot from Sound Opinions as the prime example), are just absolutely fucking clueless when it comes to house music as “we” understand it. Sure, they’re versed in the major-label “electronica” acts from the nineties and early aughts. They know every “obscure” hipsterlectro act you don’t give a shit about’s life story. They think big-room Prog is underground music (I just got a douche-chill). I’m even sure they’ve all read Last Night A DJ Saved My Life and maybe even the more obscure Love Saves the Day, and I actually even heard Greg Kot name check Dave Taylor on their show a few months ago. That Dave Taylor/Switch reference is as deep as it could ever possibly get though, and even then the only reason any critic has paid attention to Dave Taylor is because of his involvement in MIA’s career, and his connection with the major-label “underground” darling that is Diplo (read: commercially viable music aka the Cock Rock of 2009 aka commercial rap).

When it comes to what you and I (assuming you’re one of “us”) understand to be proper house music in 2009, the media is either completely clueless, totally uninterested, or both. And actually, that’s probably OK with me… can you imagine a world where frat-boys and rural thugs would get stoked about the latest Freerange release? Yikes. I just caught my second douche chill from that one.

Anyhoo, the point of that whole rant was that the only artists to ever really come out of our scene, who started the same way that so many of the people we relate to have (except for the whole Banglater’s dad being a music industry insider part), are of course Daft Punk. Before Homework came out, they were releasing singles on underground labels like Soma Quality Recordings  and continued to do underground joints on their own Roulé and Crydamoure imprints after the major label album dropped. Now say what you will about what they’ve become since then, the incredibly odd (and many would say questionable) tunes they’ve done, their abandonment of their underground/DIY sensibility (I would argue that they grew out of it), and whatever else. But the fact remains that they came from this thing of ours, and now they are huge megastars. I am GLAD that they are huge megastars, and as far as I’m concerned they should be a beacon of light to any house artist that is toiling in the underground (they are to me!). Justice did NOT come from this thing of ours, and it shows. Inside Daft Punk’s crazy performance pyramid, there is a bunch of actual gear (the details of which you can check out here on my favorite gear-nerding site, Music Thing) back there, not just a MIDI controller and a DJM 600. And beyond that, it’s actually plugged in. 

The moral of the story is this: Justice ≠ The New Daft Punk™. Not even kind of. Sorry guys, but I’m just sayin’.

Continue Reading

Real Time Hand Motion (RTHM), Chris Grant, The Sound Republic, & Karl Almaria - Live at Grizzled Sets (12.01.07) available for download now!

Posted on 06. Jan, 2009 by Karl.

Yeah, no typo here … these are from over a year ago. Again, we will be releasing all of the Grizzled recorded set archives as the year goes on - so keep checking back for more!

Another night of Grizzled good times at Lava! This night featured a remarkable live P.A./DJ hybrid set from Nashville’s Real Time Hand Motion … or, as they are known in some parts: Prime Time Man Lotion (true story - haha!). This night also saw the the long-overdue Grizzled debut DJ set of Chris Grant, who effectively put the caps-lock-and-exclamation point on FUN! for the evening. Also, peep the opening sets from The Sound Republic and Karl Almaria. Get your download on now!

To download:
PC - Right click on link, choose “Save Target As…”
Mac - Hold down Option key, click on link. Or Control-Click and choose “Save As…

 

 Real Time Hand Motion | Live At Grizzled | 12.01.07 [82:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Chris Grant | Live At Grizzled | 12.01.07 [58:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 The Sound Republic | Live At Grizzled | 12.01.07 [61:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Karl Almaria | Live At Grizzled | 12.01.07 [67:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Continue Reading

Smartbar rocked! (More this weekend!)

Posted on 05. Jan, 2009 by John.

Holy crap. What can I say? Big the heck up to everyone who came out to Smartbar on Saturday night. Killer sets from brothers-in-the-struggle Pat Nice, Chris Grant, CRS, and cool Ableton set from newcomers Blu Sol Revival all kept the floor hype! As far as my set went, I had some of the most fun DJing I have had in quite a while, and big up to everyone for the incredible dancefloor reaction and supportive feedback for the set. I’ve been exploring a slightly reworked sound behind the decks lately (and in the studio on my forthcoming solo projects), and it was cool to see folks responding so positively to the deeper/dubbier/techier fare this weekend! Anyway, killer party all around and big love to James Amato and Ori Kawa for keeping things running smoothly as usual, and to all of the crew for coming out and showing love! It was great to see everyone out again. 

This weekend will be another action-packed funtime, starting on Friday January 9th with our party, SizzledChicago at Lava (1270 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL) featuring an early downtempo + late house set from one of Milwaukee’s finest jocks, our buddy Mr. Timms (with opening duties handled by Karl Almaria + John Mork of The Sound Republic), and is completely free all night long!

Saturday, January 10th, we’ll all be back hanging out at Smartbar (3730 N. Clark St.), catching a set from two of our favorite jocks of all time, the one and only Iz and Diz! Sizzled badass and musical decknician Karl Almaria will be handling the opening bits, and you can expect nothing but fantastic tunes all night! 

So the moral of the story is: we’re having fun in Chicago again, and you’re invited!

Continue Reading

New Weekly Column: Diggin’ in the Crates Featured Record: LDOE Crimes (The Dubs)

Posted on 04. Jan, 2009 by remedy.

What’s good everybody? John Miles aka DJ Remedy here. This post will serve as the first of a weekly post series called Diggin’ in the Crates.

Each week I’ll showcase a favorite record of mine from my collection and explain why it moves me, and why I think it will move you too. I’ve always wanted to talk about these records, and this is the perfect forum. I’ll also be recording and uploading clips of the tunes so you have an idea of what the hell I’m actually talking about. Without further ado:

This week’s featured record:

LDOE - “Crimes (The Dubs)” [Gallery Music 013]
released: May 15, 2006

A1 Crimes (Joshua Remix)
B1 Crimes (JT Donaldson Late Nite Dub)
B2 Crimes (JT Donaldson Bonus Edit)

The original “Crimes” release [Gallery Music 012] from LDOE on the Gallery Music Group label (helmed by JT Donaldson and Tim Schumaker) is a solid upbeat and funky number and includes remixes from Greenskeepers. For the dubs, Gallery brought in masters of the deep, Joshua & JT Donaldson, to individually remix this awesome track.

With LDOE (Chris Penny, JT Donaldson, and Tyler Steel) laying a solid original foundation for Joshua’s remix (A1), Mr. Iz takes this track to the next level and employs some wicked spaced-out guitar bits and a blocky rolling bassline which kicks in after the tight intro. This track seriously could have been plucked straight from the “Dune” soundtrack! It almost seems like he took the idea he and Diz started with on “Mouth” (on Classic), edited some wicked vocal stabs, and took it one step beyond to add to that spaced-out dubby vibe. A nice track to bump at all points of the evening, it can easily work in techy, deep or funky sets. Quality work by Joshua — nothing less than expected from one of my favorite artists, period.

Now for the best part of the record . . . it appears that JT told Cpen and Tyler: “It just ain’t deep enough, guys” and then turned out a wicked late night jam in B1 (JT Donaldson Late Nite Dub). The chords come alive as the smoothly layered strings and pads in the background keep this deep dancefloor killer chugging along nicely. Flaunting that deep yet driving sound that JT has perfected over the years, this tune  takes it even further underground. After the big breakdown with whispered vocals, he employs my favorite percussion bit — that bright ride cymbal that makes the drum section come alive until the end of the record. Play this tune at the peak hour and work out the floor proper!

B2 does justice to Joshua’s remix as JT combines his elements with Iz’s to close this record out. Much more of a techy number, it fits the moody, late night vibe of a Terrance Parker performance.

Til next week,

-John Miles (DJ Remedy)

Continue Reading

SizzledChicago.com is hiring!

Posted on 03. Jan, 2009 by John.

Well, sort of. If by “hiring” you mean “looking for dedicated heads with opinions to contribute to the site for fun/free”, then you’ve hit the nail on the head. When we started this site, the original concept was to have it be a sort of one-stop shop for info on the night, a place to download mixes, and for people to read some of our ramblings. But we’re thinking a little bigger now, and one of the things I’ve always appreciated about the underground/DIY aesthetic of this music is that it’s totally fooking inclusionary. So rather than talking at everyone with this resource, I thought it would be cool to give people who have something to say a forum in which to say it. 

That being said, we will be adding a Music Reviews + Charts section, as well as different themes and topics of conversation to weigh in on. And obviously, the real point of bringing in additional contributers is to let folks discuss, observe, and express their opinions freely. Of course there’s a screening process with all of this, and there are standards involved. Clearly if you are interested in contributing to the site, you should be a mostly-literate house music person whose main goal is being heard, making insightful and interesting observations, and ultimately putting something back in to this tiny + fragile  music that we all know and love. What we do not want is the same-old same-old pissing, moaning, bitching, hating, cockblocking internet ugliness that can permeate house music message boards (and frankly, message boards in general). This is NOT a messageboard… think of it as a magazine for all of us. 

So! We want to hear what you have to say, what you think, and why you’d like to be a contributer to this fledgling thing we’re building here. We’re looking forward to hearing from folks on this. Drop a line at contribute@sizzledchicago.com and we’ll get right back with you! It’s a brand new year, so let’s get busy having fun! 

— Team Sizzled

Get in touch with us CONTRIBUTE@SIZZLEDCHICAGO.COM!

Continue Reading

Starting this January at Sizzled: Free Bacon!

Posted on 30. Dec, 2008 by John.

Haha ok, I know it sounds crazy, but we were sitting around discussing what would make the night even more awesome (and more importantly, what we would want in the perfect club night), and it was unanimously agreed upon that no matter how awesome a party might be, it would be infinitely more awesome with the addition of free bacon. Think about it. Unless we’re talking about a meeting of the Chicago chapter of PETA or Vegans for House Music, we have a pretty hard time imagining how the addition of bacon to any meeting of the minds could do anything but enhance it.

That being said, we’ll be cooking up large quantities of free bacon for every Sizzled, and it will be yours for the taking until we run out. Seriously. So, just to recap: great music, no cover, cheap booze, and now…. free bacon!

Continue Reading

House Music Logos for Designers

Posted on 29. Dec, 2008 by John.

Are you a designer?

Know someone making a flyer that needs one of the logos of these folks?

Below you can grab a host of house music logos in Unlimited Resolution Illustrator Vector (.eps) files, High Resolution Raster TIFF Files (.tif), and Low Resolution Raster Web Files (.gif). All logos are the property of their respective owners, so use them responsibly. That means if a SpatulaCity artist (for example) isn’t playing at your party, then there should be no reason for that particular logo to be on your flyer. You liking a label is not a legitimate reason for putting it on your flyer (unless they tell you otherwise). So right - be adults with this resource, dudes. I have no doubt that you will, so don’t let me down!

There is also a permanent page for this on the site that you can access under the Downloads Section. 

DOWNLOAD Aroma Recordings 10-Year Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD Bunchlox Music Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD Control Recordings Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD .dotbleep Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD Guesthouse Music Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD HouseGuest Music Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD [I Hate] DJ Chris Grant Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD Lava Chicago Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD Lust4House Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD Sizzled Chicago Logo 1 (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD Sizzled Chicago Logo 2 (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD SpatulaCity “As Always On Vinyl” Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD SpatulaCity Main Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD Synesthesesia NYC Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD The Sound Republic Logotype (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

DOWNLOAD The Sound Republic Logo (EPS) (TIFF) (GIF)

Continue Reading

SoundCloud: A New Way to Submit DJ Promos + Projects You’re Shopping to SpatulaCity Records

Posted on 26. Dec, 2008 by John.

Hey folks! John from The Sound Republic here. For those of you who aren’t already aware of it, besides making tunes and running this lovely party Sizzled with Karl, I’m also the co-owner of (in my opinion) the high-quality house label SpatulaCity Records. That being said, we are always getting sent tracks by artists who are shopping projects for potential release on the label, as well as artists and label owners sending out promos for us to play as DJs. And while we certainly try to get through everything we get sent, it’s often really tough to jump through all of the hoops necessary to grab them… 

So! As a solution to this, I’m trying this service (Soundcloud) out as a means of consolidating and making organizational sense of all the projects we get shopped for SpatulaCity, as well as any DJ promos. The yousendit/sendspace/rapidshare/whatever other site method of receiving tunes is getting downright impossible to deal with. So… until further notice PLEASE route any and all projects for consideration (being shopped to us) through the SpatulaCity DROPBOX page, and I promise it will at least be listened to, considered, and I will make every attempt to provide feedback as well - regardless of our decision. Unfortunately, a lot of submissions we get via other means require us to jump through so many hoops that they sometimes end up getting lost in the shuffle and we don’t hear them. 

AND!!!: From an A&R standpoint, we are very concerned with there being NO stylistic rules or formats regarding what we are looking for. Simply put, if it’s good, it’s good. And if we like it, we will release it. So go nuts, have fun, be yourself, and make the tunes that you need to hear! I can’t wait to hear them! So that’s it! Thanks, and we can’t wait to hear your tunes! 

LINK TO THE SPATULACITY PROMO + PROJECT SUBMISSION DROPBOX

Continue Reading