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

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

Hey folks! Just added three awesome new mixes from Stompy.com + GoodFamily Recordings owner Deron Delgado and two from Dae Recordings’  Aaron Dae. If you’re a podcast subscriber, they should be in your iTunes player already! If not, or if you prefer to download them yourself, you can snag them below! If you haven’t subscribed to the Sizzled Chicago Podcast, you can do so by clicking the image above, or the link below. Enjoy ‘em! 

Subscribe to the Sizzled Podcast (Requires iTunes)!

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

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! 

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!

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

Hey friends! Sorry for the Sizzled Slack Attack™ the last couple of weeks! As I said in my previous post, we’ve all been really busy the last month or so with other… stuff — yadda, yadda yadda, you know the drill. The explanation isn’t very important (or interesting) though, is it? Excuses only seem to concern the people who make them, and that’s almost always because they make the excuse-maker feel better about some Responsibility they didn’t live up to. So I’ll spare you all the bollocks, OK? OK. Enough of that. On to the dorkery, dammit!

Right. So we’re all familiar with that old cliché about ignorance being bliss, right? The idea that there are some things people are just better off not knowing. Things that might just be a bit too much for a person to handle, things that could keep us awake at night if we knew about them. I remember reading somewhere that if they were given a choice, something like 97% of people asked would absolutely not want to know how and why they were going to die beforehand. Now I’m not sure what I would ask Doc Brown about my future if he came back in his DeLorean, but I do know that I really was much happier before I was aware of Elektron’s absolutely incredible (and somewhat affordable) MachineDrum & MonoMachine boxes. (Although having a piece of gear to obsess about is a huge part of the fun, isn’t it?)

I honestly have no clue how this company and the incredibly high-quality machines they produce slipped by me, but they did. In fact, one of the main reasons I’m making this post is that I consider myself a pretty studio-savvy person, and I consider many of my friends to be as well. And until a couple of weeks ago I had never heard of, read about, discussed, seen, or even come across a photograph of either of these machines. Now maybe I just didn’t notice them in the wild, but I’m guessing that if these guys are new to me, they may very well be new to a great many of you… And even though discovering them has triggered a minor personal obsession in my life, I’m willing to risk screwing up some heads in the name of the greater good. 

I picked up a mild outboard gear fetish during The Sound Republic days, and I suppose it remained pretty mild at the time because of how sample-based those tunes were. Not that I’m not sampling now, but since I’ve been working solo, I’ve been playing with my toys a LOT more. And we all know that once those floodgates of gear using/collecting get opened, they’re kind of hard to close. This has proved especially true for me, mostly because being able to interact with actual instruments (as opposed to virtual ones), really helps to create a tactile experience that seriously feeds the ol’ creative process and stokes the flames of my playing-around fire. What can I say? I like fiddling with knobs… who doesn’t?

Anyway, one thing I have noticed is that I’ve spent most of my time collecting really old equipment. This has nothing to do with nostalgia or some retro-kitsch aesthetic, but is almost always rooted in the fact that even before I got turntables and learned to DJ, my first piece of gear was the endlessly mediocre (if not downright sucky) Roland MC-505, which was great for teaching me how step-sequencing and “old school” programming worked, but also absolutely hammered in to my brain just how crappy reasonably-priced ”modern” outboard gear really was. I’m not kidding… everyone I’ve ever known whose owned one of these (or the MC-303 – which funnily enough was my partner Frankie J’s first piece of gear… I swear to god, in the beginning The Sound Republic was founded on our mutual disdain for those fucking Grooveboxes!) has absolutely despised it (and most of the other 90’s/00’s “toy” synths out there). So after computers freed us, those of us who went back to using gear at all ended up seeking out older gear. Case in point: almost EVERY synth I own is vintage, with the exception of my Dave Smith Evolver. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some incredible modern synths out there, but most of them are very expensive, and until I got hipped to the MachineDrum, I remember being sort of flabbergasted that there seemed to be NO professional-grade “modern” drum machines. I had heard that Dave Smith & Roger Linn were making something (they are in fact, but it’s not done yet – check out the prototype here), but other than that I couldn’t believe that there was nothing high end out there anymore that wasn’t a sampler, but a pure drum synthesis module. Turns out I was wrong…

Enter the Elektron MachineDrum, a relatively affordable ($1200ish), high-end, full-on, badass drum synthesizer/sequencer that has been endorsed and road tested by crazy drum surgeons like Autechre, Orbital, and plenty of other people who know what they’re doing. Now I will stay true to the spirit of this column and not get crazy in to the technical specs (you can read them yourself on Elektron’s site), but I will say the more I read, the more I am saving up for one. The same goes for its modern TB-303ish cousin, the MonoMachine. What gets me so excited about both of these pieces of gear is that they really are no more expensive than one of these crap “Groovebox”-type products, but are actually worth buying. So check ‘em out when you can, and all I can say if you get obsessed is… well, welcome to the club.

¡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!

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.

What’s good my House Fam?!

John Miles (aka the DJ Remedy) here reporting once again. Welcome to lucky installment number ’seven’ of my weekly column Diggin’ in the Crates. For those of you who have not yet visited the Sizzled Chicago site or read my previous columns, here’s the deal: Every week I pull a record from my collection that I think is dope, record some clips for you to hear, and then explain what it means to me so that hopefully you go and snag it so it will mean something to you. Other than just talking about the actual music, I will also spend some quality time touching on the artists, who they are, and information that will help you support them and the wonderful art they create.

This week I will present a different topic:  “Remedy’s Top Ten House Tunes”. I have always wanted to do this list but have never finalized it so I felt that for lucky #7 of ‘Crates’ it would be an appropriate topic.  I will provide release information and a quick blurb or two about the track and why it’s dope enough to be in my top ten.  Some of the tunes have already been featured in past installments but I wanted you to see how they stack up in the top ten list.  So enough talk, let’s peep the tracks I value most.. .

Remedy’s Top Ten House Tunes:

_______________________

1)   Solar House - “Freedom” [Large Records 068]

Solar House - Freedom

This was the featured record on ‘Crates’ Installment Six from last week.  Calum Walker created a timeless Deep House classic.  Peep the one record that has meant more to my musical career than any other.  “What is House music?  It’s a unique form of music that gives complete freedom of expression.. .You can grab this wax HERE

2)   Ron Trent/Joshua/Abacus/Chez Damier - “Foot Therapy” [Prescription 108]

Foot Therapy

“Let Your Spirit Dance, let your spirit dance”.  This immaculate EP was created by 4 of Deep House’s ambassadors.  The record was dedicated to David Cole.  The record is seriously one of the best slabs of deep wax ever created and I feel honored to own a copy.  As the record states, “I can always feel the faith that sits awaiting.  God is guiding.  Some people know this feeling that keeps them wanting more.   You better hope this feeling comes soon over you.” Grab this gem HERE

3)   Atjazz - “Looking Glass” [Reincarnation 003]

Atjazz - Looking Glass

Featured on ‘Crates’ Installment #2, the one that is Atjazz takes you on a journey into space with this amazing musical composition.  The song truly tells a story and anyone who appreciates the art that is music will appreciate this record.  You can grab this record HERE

4)   Ear Lotion - “The Fiasco Rubdown” [Select Recordings 002]

The Fiasco Rubdown

Featured on ‘Crates’ Installment #3, Johnny Fiasco churns out my favorite remix of his.  Working with an upbeat original and taking it deeper and deeper, Juan Lopez showcases talent that touts him as the House Godfather.  With the track’s vocals meaning a lot to various moments of my life, it will always be near the top of my list.  You can grab this record HERE

5)   E-Tones - “Day Lite” [Aphrodisio 008]

E-Tones - Day Lite

This was one of my first vinyl purchases back in 2004.  Having seen E-Tones rock many parties in Minneapolis, his sets are legendary.  This knowledge of working a crowd has the one that is E-Tones taking you on a deep voyage with this disco remake.  Enjoy!  You can grab this record HERE

6)   Eric Gadd - “The Right Way (Mood II Swing Dub Mix)” [Hevi Floe 04]

The Right Way

Mood II Swing remixs this original bumpin’ vocal tune into a simple and timeless deep groove.  Rolling bassline, perfectly chopped vocal samples, and addicting synth stabs make this baby chug right along.  Having first heard it on Mark Farina’s Live @ The Gathering 97′ mix, I snagged this baby HERE and has managed to damag dance floors all around!

7)  Pound Boys - “Way Back When” [Look At You 003]

Pound Boys - Way Back When

One of the first records released by the dynamic duo, the Pound Boys, they are def one of my favorite groups. Releasing classic after classic record, these guys unleash an 11 minute deep bomb of synths and organs with ‘Way Back When’.  The layering is impeccable.  Hands in the air peeps!  You can grab this wax HERE

8)  Johnny Fiasco - “Passageway” [Large-025]

Johnny Fiasco - Passageway

One of Johnny’s first releases that pretty much set him atop of many Chicago Producers of the late 90’s this track comes off of the scorching 4 tracker entitled “Subliminal Passage”.  This deep trippy arrangement sets the mood instantly and showcases Johnny’s many different Production styles.  One of my favorite Large releases, you can grab it HERE

9)  Kids In the Streets - “Keep On Turning (Motorcitysoul Original Dub)” [STIR15]

Keep On Turning

The record states:  “The biggest leap we make in personal growth is when we move from the belief that “life is happening to me” to knowing life is happening by - and through me.  Two ways to ask “why me?”.  We can ask why me? from a place of self-pity…we can ask “why me?” from a place of self-discovery … remember, we teach others how to treat u, how to practice responsibility, stop making excuses…stop blaming others or circumstances ..work on changing yourself, not others…find your part in it (you do have a part, whether you admit it or not).  when we’re in victim mode, we don’t see our part and don’t see how we are “advertising” for it.  We don’t see in us what allows the condition to remain.   thanks for hearing, Chez”

Enough said!  You can grab it HERE

10)  Sounds of Life - “Get Into the Vibe” [ProgCity 0009]

Get Into the Vibe

Sounds of Life have a way to inject soul into records.  This record has that soul and it gets me every time.  It sounds amazing loud and the goosebumps rise every time I play it.  Prog City has a history of releasing bombs and this one is no exception.  You are guaranteed to work the floor with this baby.   You can grab it HERE

So there is the list my friends.  By no means is it definite or ‘your’ list but I hope you can feel these records like I do.  Musical expression is what I seek in records and these ten are perfect examples of that.

My new promo “Pieces & Expressions” will be done soon. This will be a mix that will celebrate a decade of artists and tunes who promote this “freedom of expression” that I champion as a DJ & musician.  Please look out for that in the coming weeks to download and put in your car, play on your iPod, or use to take a trip to the deep techy side of things.

I will be taking next week off to work on this mix so enjoy these 10 records for the next 2 weeks.

As always, please  email me with any comments, questions, or opinions on my column and/or the record.  I am always open to feedback and want to know your thoughts on what I’m trying to do here and how I might be able to improve.

One,

-John Miles (DJ Remedy)

Hey there everyone! As promised, every now and then we’ll be hitting you folks with sets of free resources for you to use in your own projects. By free, I mean royalty-free, copyright-free… just plain-old free! That is to say you can use these bits in your own work however you see fit. We’re providing this stuff as a little thank you from us to you, and we hope you enjoy. Not only will we be offering stuff for graphic designers, but I’m also working up some cool audio bits for producers to use as well. Anyway, on to the free stuff!

I was out shooting photos of various textures for a freelance project last week, and I was surprised at how much inspiration one can find just by looking closely at the world around them. I ended up getting so many great shots, I figured I’d share a few with folks to use however they see fit in their own work. All of these textures were shot within 20 feet of my apartment, and are saved as large 300dpi TIFFs. I’ve stuck them together in one big ZIP file, which can be downloaded here, or by following the link below.

DOWNLOAD JohnMorkDesign.com / SizzledChicago.com Freebie: Free High-Res Backgrounds & Textures HERE!

Bill Sr dropped a nice eclectic set covering disco, house classics, Stevie Wonder, and lots more in a little over an hour! Marshall (one of Chicago’s best kept secrets IMO) played a House set heavy in the sound of years past that we can’t just get enough of! Jolby of Midway Strangers (another highly underrated DJ) played a nice set of upfront House business. Also, check out Karl Almaria’s opening Downtempo set featuring Digable Planets, Tom Tom Club, and some familiar house vocals toward the end. As usual, you can get your download/stream on using the links above.

Wanna get these mixes automatically in the future? Sign up for our Podcast HERE. Also, you can view our separate mixes-only blog feed at podcasts.sizzledchicago.com.

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.

Hola peeps?!

John Miles (aka the DJ Remedy) here reporting once again. Welcome to installment number six of my weekly column Diggin’ in the Crates. For those of you who have not yet visited the Sizzled Chicago site or read my previous columns, here’s the deal: Every week I pull a record from my collection that I think is dope, record some clips for you to hear, and then explain what it means to me so that hopefully you go and snag it so it will mean something to you. Other than just talking about the actual music, I will also spend some quality time touching on the artists, who they are, and information that will help you support them and the wonderful art they create.  Alright, now that business is settled, let’s peep another dope record!

This week’s featured record:

Solar House - “Power of Sound E.P.” [Large Records]

A  Power of Sound

B1  Freedom

B2  Higher Power

Drum roll please……….behold, the Holy Grail of records! Yes my friends, this is the one.  This dope record created by the one that is Solar House aka Calum Walker released in 01′ on Large Records contains my favorite house tune, “Freedom”.  No joke.  There is no slab of wax that has meant more for my musical career than this one.  I started seriously listening to house mix tapes around 2003 when my brother let me dig into his collection of electronic gems.  Before that I didn’t know there was much of a difference between house genres like “Deep” and “Jackin”, but I knew that I liked more of the “Deep” sound from all of my OM Records purchases.  Always having an interest in the sounds of Chicago, I picked up the Afterhours Chicago mix at Best Buy in Madison, WI cleverly placed in the Electronica/Dance Music area of the store.  Let it be known that this CD would introduce me to some of the foundations of Chicago House Music:  Guidance Records and Large Records.

Large Records began in the early 90’s as the brainchild of Founder & Owner Jeff Craven.  Jeff has one run one hell of a business over the last 16 years releasing nothing but straight fire with almost every release.  You can’t think of a house release by Large that isn’t ‘classic’ in the sense that us house heads always refer to.  For this reason, I am pretty sure it was fitting for Kinkysweet Records and the ‘Afterdark’ series would choose a Chicago mix to made from only Large releases.  The first time I popped in this Afterdark mix into my Ford Ranger’s CD player and pressed ‘Play’, I was taken over by the mixing styles of Jask.  Jack Merideth aka Jask is one of the most respected jocks in this biz we call house and has over 2 decades of experience behind the decks.  What a way to get introduced to Large Records and Jask I tell ya, something that was meant to be people!

In anticipation to finishing college at UW-Madison and moving away to begin a professional career, I must admit that hearing releases like the “Power of Sound” and the “Afterdark” mix swayed my decision to move to Chicago a ton.  I always wanted to live in a big city where I could work & play and I always wanted to be in an environment where music played a large part in the culture.  What a choice it was to move to a city that expresses itself authentically through it’s House music, Chicago (pats self on back..haha)! In all seriousness though, my decision to move here was made final upon driving along Lake Shore Drive here in Chi as the sun went down blasting “Freedom” with my windows rolled down.  It was if time stopped and the city was calling.

“What is House Music?  It is a unique form of music that gives complete freedom of expression.. .”

This saying is what I base almost all of my musical endeavors on.  The sample used in B1  Freedom is perfectly placed as I believe it is the perfect definition of what purpose House music is trying to serve.  Let me attempt to explain my thoughts for a moment:  The freedom house brings can be defined as an expression of thought, talent, passion, creativity, and soul released through a complex intricate musical art. This art’s creation is intended for dancing and this dancing is a result of this musical art.  The dance floor and the dj complete a never ending cycle of energy which is rooted with music made by the artist’s freedom of expression.  This energy is addicting and wonderful and is what we seek when we make music, play music, and dance to music.  This pursuit of this energy which brings happiness and satisfaction in turn driving us all to find it over and over again…

Seeking this energy while in Chicago in Spring of 05′ rolling along Lake Shore Drive, I was playing Track 11 on the Afterdark series, B1  Freedom when it all happened.  The track begins with driving percussion including some bright hi-hats, snares, and a thundering kick.  Then the deepness is injected in with some lush pads and strings that grow and grow over time.  I refer to them as ‘moody’ chords because as soon as I hear them, I get goosebumps and I know I’m gonna hear something deep and serious.  Next, a dope vocoded guitar riff is brought in taking more control of us as we listen.  The breakdown comes in next which involves the ‘freedom of expression’ sample from above setting the mood for more.  Then BAM! the dopest of the dope Rhodes piano melody comes in as well as a second bassline gradually completing the track.  The way Calum starts to bleed in the Rhodes is a thing of beauty.  The success of the track really has to do with how the track is layed out in general as you don’t hear the best part until you’ve already been dancing for ~3 1/2 minutes.   This melody repeats til the end of the track with the vocals coming in and out complimenting them.   Speaking from experience with being on the dance floor wanting more and more from a track as I ‘m dancing, this track definitely delivers!

If you were going to speak of “Feel Good” House or “Happy House” , then Calum Walker brings this to you with B2  Higher Power.  The Rhodes melody on this track will literally put a perma grin on your face and make you “feel good” from your head to your toes.  Another ‘goosebumps on the neck’ groove, Higher Power was indeed made for you to put your hands on the air and reach for that higher power.  I think it would be acceptable being belted out of a church on the south side of Chicago on Sunday morning.  I will probably start going to church once again if they ever play start playing music like this.   Some soulful and nicely placed vocals by the one like “Angela Reid” fit right in to that infectious groove.  Now as a dancer myself, I can say that nothing warms up a house track’s mood and  “makes ya feel good” more than a lady’s vocals belting out over some wicked house beats.  You should all thank Angela for doing this repeatedly on various Solar House Large releases over the years (round of applause…).  Sit back and smile as Angie sings..

“Where is this coming from..?  This is where I belong!  And I feel so free. This is where I should be.  I know, I know myself, better than anyone else.  Where is this coming from?  I like to feeeel things.  I don’t want to let this go….!  do do dooo do doooooo..da dooo da dooo da doooo..” (Now that’s some soul peeps!)

There is indeed a “power” within sound and I have tried my best over the last few weeks to define this power through these records I love.  How fitting than to have my favorite record called the A  Power of Sound.  This title track is a deep & spacey house journey and I think if there was a genre it would indeed be “Solar House”.  This was made with every intention to take you into the clouds and it sure does.  Some live african percussion, saxophone, Rhodes, steel drums stabs, deep pads & chords and various other elements make this track come alive.  I picture myself sitting in Machu Picccu staring up into the sky as the music surrounds me.  Wicked title tune here my friends.  Get deeeeep!

So I hope you enjoyed my journey into the power of sound and some life experiences I’ve had based on my favorite record.  This can be purchased at discogs HERE and to make this wax even more exclusive, this is one of the few Large releases which is Vinyl Only and cannot be found on any of the digital download sites.  My guess is the “Freedom” samples didn’t get digital clearance so it will remain a Wax gem that we here at Diggin’ love.   I snagged my copy at Gramaphone Records here in Chicago but I am sure you can grab yours at your local wax retailer (if you are lucky enough to still have one ).

B1  Freedom will be on my upcoming Promo Mix CD, “Pieces & Expressions”, a mix that will celebrate a decade of artists and tunes who promote this “freedom of expression” that I champion as a DJ & musician.  Please look out for that in the coming weeks to download and put in your car, play on your iPod, or use to take a trip to the deep techy side of things.

As always, please  email me with any comments, questions, or opinions on my column and/or the record.  I am always open to feedback and want to know your thoughts on what I’m trying to do here and how I might be able to improve.

****Next week you will be treated to a Remedy’s Top Ten  Tunes Chart for Diggin’ in the Crates Lucky Number 7****

Til lucky number 7,

-John Miles (DJ Remedy)

…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!

I haven’t got a clue what made me think about it, but my first-ever computer just popped in to my mind.  The pretty-forgotten other (non-Macintosh) “graphics” computer of the late 80’s (which at the time meant it could display 64 colors at once!): the Commodore Amiga 500. I don’t really have much to say about this thing other than the fact that I really wished I’d had an Amiga 2000, our cell phones are more powerful than both of these computers and that Joshua supercomputer from War Games combined, and that I used to play the shit out of Shadow of the Beast. That’s it.

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!

Before the night now known as Sizzled, there was Grizzled. The final Grizzled was held October 10, 2008 (sniff sniff … tear). We ended the party with the same guest DJ that started us off at the new Lava on Milwaukee Avenue (old location was on Damen Avenue) … the almighty DIZ!!! Being one of our personal faves, it’s no coincidence that he has been our most frequent guest DJ (a tie with DJ Mes). Diz brought a bag o’ wax and dropped a mostly vinyl set this night - a rarity in this digital age. Like all Diz sets, this is a must download! Also, check out Karl Almaria’s opening set.

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

Ah yes… the mix tape! Those outdated, scratched-up, unstable pieces of plastic that most folks have banished to a forgotten shoe box in their mother’s basement…

If you’re anything like me (or are driving a car that still has a tape deck), then maybe you’ve held on to a couple (dozen) of the cassettes that meant something to you. If you’re like the vast majority of people my age (that spent their high school years chasing down rave parties), you have long since lost that old box of tapes, or maybe wish you still had a copy of that one special tape that melted in the backseat of your car.  It’s also entirely conceivable that you’re young enough to have missed cassette culture entirely — in which case this monthly series will hopefully open your eyes to a whole series of mixes (and the culture that went along with them) that hail from a Time Before Digitalia. 

Whatever the case may be, if you were part of that culture, then you almost certainly had a favorite mixtape. As an example, some of the tapes of my youth contain elements that continue to inspire me as a DJ 13 years later. The intent of this article — coming at you once a month — is to happily recognize, explore, and expose new (and old) listeners to some of the tapes that have had the biggest impact in my life as a house music enthusiast that grew up in Chicago in the 1990’s. 

The Mixtape Chronicles will aim to dig up the best sets of yore, and although there are many established and well-known mixtapes to acknowledge out there (most of which are readily available on archival sites), I’ll be attempting to showcase more obscure, harder-to-find tapes from my own collection that might have otherwise slipped through the cracks. These are the mixes that I’ve proclaimed as my own personal classics! So without further ado, here’s the first.

As I was trying to decide what to kick this series off with, I bounced between a number of strong contenders. When it came down to it though, my first choice ended up being Star Trax, a personal favorite of mine that will hopefully encompass the essence of what this column is all about. My original copy was handed down to me in 1996 from a friend, and has since been in and out of my hands at least three times. I was finally just recently able to recover a copy after years of trying to track another one down, and to my delight it was just as good all these years later as it was back then.

This tape brings back memories of hot & sweaty house parties, long car rides to random check-point raves, and grindin-ass fools makin’ shit twerk in south side barrios all over Chicagoland. This tape is a straight-up ghetto house banger, a sound that was especially huge in the Midwest (and is probably responsible for Daft Punk’s entire career) but is in no way tacky. Seminal Chicago ghetto house labels DanceMania and Relief Records make a dtrong showing all over this mix, along with early tunes from legendary producers Fast Eddie, Green Velvet, Paul Johnson and DJ Funk.

The (still) unknown DJ who laid this mix down could have been plucked straight out of any house party at the time, and the mix contains tons of edits and reworks that I’m still trying to track down! The packaging (and side A) positively scream commercial studio mix, but I’m still pretty sure this was mixed live. The jock behind the decks is not at all afraid to abruptly cut tracks in (or quickly slap them out), and the tape captures a lot of the attitude and style I still hope to see from DJ’s when I’m out and about.

This mix remains a true mystery tape to me and my friends (we still have no idea who was responsible for it), but it was definitely professionally duplicated (printed in white across the side of a clear cassette case with nothing but a telephone number).

I always had fun hypothesizing what DJ was behind this (anybody out there with inside information, please pass it on)! What’s especially curious about this tape is that the first song on side A is “Cotton Eyed Joe”…. um, yeah we won’t go there (nor present that side to you here) but trust me, Side B to this day is where it’s at!

Thanks again to Brian S. from Wisconsin for taking the time to digitize his copy of this classic tape for me. This has given me the opportunity to share one of my favorite tapes of all time, Star Trax, with a whole new audience.

Of course ripped tapes aren’t going to be of the best audio quality, but after years of research and easy listening on the deephousepage archive, I’ve learned that inspiring content doesn’t always require perfect sound quality!

So, without any further hold-up, I present to you the infamous, ghetto-fabulous, yin to DJ Funk’s yang, inspirational, and (in my opinion) classic music mix that is Star Trax!

Grab the mix on the Sizzled servers at: 
http://sizzledchicago.com/guestmixes/MixTapeChronicles-StarTraxx.mp3

Or from Underground Existence dot info at:
http://www.undergroundexistence.info/StarTraxx.mp3

Until next month,

Bryan (BAI-EE) Balli

http://smoothagentrecords.com

http://myspace.com/truefamilyunit

http://undergroundexistence.info

Halllooooo?!

John Miles (aka the DJ Remedy) back at ya once again. Welcome to installment number five of my weekly column Diggin’ in the Crates. For those of you who have not yet visited the Sizzled Chicago site or read my previous columns, here’s the deal: Every week I pull a record from my collection that I think is dope, record some clips for you to hear, and then explain why I love it and why you should own it. Other than just talking about the actual music, I will also spend some quality time touching on the artists, who they are, and information that will help you support them and the wonderful art they create.  Alright, now that I’ve settled the score, on to another dope record!

This week’s featured record:

Kerri Chandler - “After The Other Thing For Linda E.P.” [Downtown 161 www002]

A  Out To The Boonies (The Zone Mix)

B1  I’ll Send It (I Promise) Bear Paw Mix

B2  Downtown (Dark Mix)

If there was an artist I’d feel comfortable labeling as genius in the electronic music world, Kerri Chandler may just well be it. One of the founders (and continued champions) of the so called “deep” house sound, Kerri’s rhythms and production have set standards for all who toil in that genre.  As his Biography states, he grew up in New Jersey in a family of jazz musicians and was raised amongst soul, disco, and the New York Garage sound, which helped him hone his incredible taste and talent.  This diverse upbringing has led Kerri to lead one of the most impressive and iconic musical careers in this realm we call house music.  Check his Discography for concrete, sheer numbers-based proof of this.

As we here at Sizzled got to appreciate and witness the musical legacy of the father/son DJ team of Marshall and Bill Beecher this past weekend, I can’t help but make comparisons to how Kerri followed in similar footsteps. He grew up attending gigs with his own father, a respected DJ himself, who turned Kerri on to the craft at the tender age of thirteen.  A lot of folks who call themselves DJ’s didn’t find the calling until much later, and Kerri’s life of music is a very interesting (and very impressive) story.  Not many of us have had (or will have) the opportunity to push and define sound the way he has, and for this I am happy that Mr. Chandler has maximized his opportunity and stayed true to his roots and convictions throughout his own journey.  

Here at Diggin’ in the Crates I often try to document the deep connection I have with a particular record in my own collection, and describing the spiritual approach Kerri takes to making his records fits right into that mentality.  A very spiritual and religious individual, Kerri prays before making each record and as his website states, he attempts to “inject his free spirit into the groove” each time he works on a project.  As one of Kerri’s biggest fans and an appreciator of the so called “freedom of expression” that house music gives us as artists, let me say that Chandler certainly injected spirit effectively into this week’s featured record.

A  Out To The Boonies (The Zone Mix) is a true definition of what his fans have described as a “legendary” groove.  Kerri starts the track off with some very solid percussion (that he records and writes from scratch — he has released sample collections and FX packs for producers to incorporate in their own work, spreading his message even deeper and further that way), and allows the tune to  ”enter the deep” with a genre-defining analog bassline sound that sets the tone of the track and builds the backbone and foundation of the groove. Along with the bassline, a string section builds as the track progresses, creating  even more ambiance.  Once the meat of the track is laid out, a very nice harmonica solo builds and builds throughout the track (changing octaves, but remaining in key), and this carries on for 4 minutes or so – building a nice sustained groove without rushing things. The track is accompanied by some bright piano stabs echo harmonica solo’s tones. The track is closes out with this spoken bit:

“I want you to imagine a journey that’s very far from where you are right now. We are going to call that place The Boonies.  It will help you figure out where you are going only because the physical journey is a lot tougher than the mental one.  Remember, nothing is possible cause you’ve already made the trip, to the boonies….”.  Now that my friends is deep! [Ed.: haha, it suuuuure is, John! -jm]

B1  I’ll Send It (I Promise) Bear Paw Mix is the most fun of the 3 tracks on the EP.  An infectious synth chord progression with the perfect touch of delay and reverb define this playful tune.  The Thing for Linda theme that Kerri made for Downtown 161 (the distribution company’s record label)  is another joint in his serious of pieces dedicated to Linda Perrone of the same company (peep: “The Thing for Linda”, “The Other Thing for Linda”, “After the Other Thing for Linda”, “The 4th Thing for Linda”, you get the point).  A very interesting play on words, “I’ll Send It (I Promise)” probably has to do with Kerri most likely delivering the tune a bit late (although I don’t know the full story on this, but if I hear anything else about it, I’ll be sure to report back!).  Regardless of the play on words or when he turned it in, the tune does justice to itself and chugs along nicely as the reverb-and-delay-soaked synths are gradually accompanied by KC’s signature pads and strings that echo the main riff.  Definitely a good tune to play as the night is progressing and the dance floor is just beginning to fill up (or directly after peak hour when everyone is still on that high and don’t need to be convinced anymore!).

B2  Downtown (Dark Mix) is by far my favorite Kerri Chandler track of all time.  It has all of the elements of what I consider to be a true deep house track.  Booming dark kicks, a deep subby bassline, ‘verbed-out synth stabs, lush chords and strings, and spacy vocal samples.  All of these elements rolled into one really help to define the way I define deep house.  This track never disappoints.  It is a true definition of KC’s deep + driving sound, and I can only imagine the passion that was put into the production of this lush piece of music. If the goal of “Downtown” was to create that space “where we can go, like we used to do“, then it was a successful creation indeed, as this tune completes a timeless EP that indeed takes us places… that takes me downtown. Have a listen yourself (preferably on a dark dancefloor with a hundred or two of your closest friends), and see where it takes you, I’m sure you will find it!

“Yeah baby, I know a place where we can go.  It’s called downtown, you know what I’m sayin? down…yeah…you know…where we used to go.  You know, like we used to do….down….you know what I’m sayin baby?  We are going to go down, that’s where the action is baby, we are going to dowwwn…”

This genre defying deep house release (“After the Other Thing for Linda E.P.”) can be snagged at discogs HERE and as it is definitely a vinyl-only label (which makes sense considering Downtown 161 is pretty much the only U.S.-based house vinyl distributer left — I don’t see them going digital any time soon!), and it can probably be picked up by your local record retailer as well (if you are lucky enough to still have one).   B2  Downtown (Dark Mix) made it on to my July 2008 Mix Friday Groove which can be found on my Podcast for your downloading pleasure. Peep the layering I do with Joshua’s “Echo Chamber” on that mix as the two tracks fit nicely on top of one another!

I hope this review has been beneficial to you, and that you can grab hold to a bit of the inspiration I have received from Kerri Chandler’s production (if you already haven’t!) on this record as well as his overall spiritual approach to a music career.  Remember that house music is indeed a feeling and however you intend to achieve that feeling is up to you: artist, partygoer, dancer, or otherwise! All any of us can do is just be true to whatever it that we do, and Kerri is a shining example of that.

As always, please feel free to email me with any comments, questions, or opinions on my column.  I am always open to feedback and want to know your thoughts on what I’m trying to do here and how I might be able to improve.

Keepin’ it deep and signing off til the next installment,

-John Miles (DJ Remedy)

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!).

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!

Jenn Danko’s weekly column dishes on products, pop culture, news items, and music–all through the professional lens of a late-night observer (and part time participant).

You couldn’t pay me to go back to high school. For those of you who frequent this site, I am sure many echo my sentiment (because if you don’t, I don’t fully trust you anyway). Now it looks like high school and even jr. high girls have even more options when it comes to lowering their self esteem these days. The culprit is an unlikely suspect—Claire’s Boutique.

Claire’s was an ear piercing bastion in our time, for girls and guys alike. I still have my first set of gold, topaz studs, although the posts are so thick, they hardly fit anymore. Today one of Claire’s sister stores—the slicker, black-and-gold outfitted, Icing—is playing into the overall gaudy grossness of teeny pop culture by marketing 5 oz flasks within its store. Many of them are decked out in Las Vegas-style cherries, fake blue diamonds or sexy looking kitty cats and indicate straight on the label: Carry alcohol in me! It even goes as far to advise not putting fruit juices or other acidic content in the flask—just so there is no confusion, of course.

I am by no means embarking out on a temperance crusade—those who know me from the Jameson-bender days would find that especially laughable. But I have limits and apparently when it comes to earning the big bucks and an increasing amount of people can’t quite find the ceiling. Claire’s comes off with some ridiculous quip that that these products are marketed to college girls of legal age but by the time I was graduating college, I was hardly cruising the local Claire’s store for jewelry finds—let alone a bedazzled little flask to sneak into bars.

Of course, I was never the kind of girl who relied on pretty things to get me drunk, even though the notion of “pretty things” are the precise reason boys set out to get us drunk. In high school and college, at least. Even after my first and only dance with peach schnapps and OJ—or better yet, Root Beer schnapps and a rousing game of Asshole—I knew better than to rely on any liquor that came branded with shiny metal flecks, a malted neon glow or the diversion of “Strawberry Hill.” Now the new brand of girl not only wants her liquor to smell and taste good, she wants it to look good too—flashy, dazzling, some me-of-the-moment article that screams “notice me!” in a way that is neither thrilling or revolutionary but simply brash and bored. In five years (three with ID), these girls will be the new late-night luxuries slinking through the bars, listening to stunted versions of crunk-hop and more than half blinded by faded sparkle of their flasks. I doubt any of them will bat a fake eyelash.

Thank you Claire’s, it’s good to know what society’s breeding.

Now buy me a drink.

Hey there, my fellow dweebs! I know I’m a little late this week, but here we go with the second installment of the Nerd Words column, a little weekly discussion between you, me, and our pocket protectors about the intricate subtleties of predicate calculus. Wait, wrong website. Really though, it’s basically just an outlet for me to discuss some of the more technical issues related to this wacky music that we know and love, usually as it pertains to studio gear and the actual making of… stuff. 

Right. This week I’m going to talk about one of the coolest (and up until recently, one of the most wildly underused) pieces of equipment in my studio’s arsenal: the Roland GI-20 Guitar/MIDI interface (along with the essential GK-3 MIDI Pickup — **NOTE! Be advised that neither piece of equipment works without the other — you need both — so don’t be like me and bring home the pickup, expecting to plug it right in to a piece of MIDI gear and have it work. It won’t. You need the interface).

So without being too technical (if you want the full shakedown on the technology, peep it here), the deal with Roland’s GK/GI stuff is pretty simple: attach the pickup to any guitar (preferably one that isn’t too expensive, as the actual sound of it doesn’t matter at all… it’s just a way of delivering data, like any blank MIDI keyboard) or grab yourself a guitar that’s made specifically to work with the Roland interface (like the Brian Moore iGuitar, for example), jack in to the GI-20 interface, and BLAM! you’ve turned your guitar in to a MIDI controller. So now you can play any synth, soft-synth, drum machine, and anything else that can be controlled via MIDI with your guitar. Rad? Rad.

But it must not work properly, right? There’s gotta be something wrong with it. As far as I can tell, the answer is a big fat wrong to both. In fact, it’s surprisingly accurate, even in translating complex stuff like string bends and note slides. So if you’re like Frankie and I were when we finally got to making dance music, you maybe had been in a band or two and still play guitar or bass at a competent level (oh yea, there’s a bass module, too). It just seems to me that folks of our generation are so much more likely to play guitar than keys, so I’m stoked that there is finally a way for those of us who aren’t Stevie Wonder to start adding some more advanced MIDI programming in to our tunes. This is definitely the key to doing that. 

As I said before, I went out and bought the pickup first (without fully reading up on things), and was incredibly pissed off when I got home and realized I needed the interface for it to work. So I waited a while and eventually went out and bought the interface. I waited even longer to actually hook it up (what can I say, I’m lazy), but when I did I was pleasantly surprised. Now is also a good time to reiterate the fact that neither the interface nor the pickup generate anything but MIDI data. No sounds. Roland makes a “guitar synthesizer” that functions as a dual interface/sound engine, but I tend to think that anything Roland made after the 80’s usually has somewhat-cheesey sound to it, but that’s just one man’s opinion. Check it out for yourself and draw your own conclusions… it’s also mostly based on my intense hatred for the MC-303/505 (the 505 was my first “synth”), but that’s another article altogether.

So yeah: no sounds. You’ll be controlling whatever software- or hardware- based synthesizers you own (again, anything capable of being slaved via MIDI) with your guitar now. So rather than trying to plonk out your leads on a keyboard or draw them in with the mouse, you can now actually play them on your guitar. Awesome, no? I attached mine to my not-so-great sounding Gibson Melody Maker (a sort of crappy single-coil Les Paul knockoff), and it took a relatively useless studio instrument and made it one of the most versatile tools I have at my disposal. So yea, if you play guitar (even a little bit) and are interested in adding a new level of expression to the MIDI parts in your tunes, give the Roland GK/GI combo a whirl. It’s surprisingly great.

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)!

Well, after several trial-and-error episodes, the Sizzled Chicago Podcast is fully functional! You can subscribe to the Podcast HERE.  Also, you can view our separate mixes-only blog feed at podcasts.sizzledchicago.com. Or, just keep your eyes on our homepage, as any new mix additions will be posted here as well.

To kick things off the right way, we have added mixes from DJ Mes [Guesthouse Music], Lee Mortimer [.dotbleep | Wearhouse], and Natalie Williams. This is a real nice variety pack of ear candy: jackin’, techy, and deeper-ish flavors of house are all represented here. All mixes can be downloaded and streamed above. Enjoy these sets … there are plenty more on the way!

*Special thanks to LA’s Hawt Music  for providing the Mes mixes! Do yourself a favor and subscribe to their podcast here.

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

What’s good fam?!

John Miles aka DJ Remedy here representin’ once more. Welcome to the fourth installment of my weekly column Diggin’ in the Crates. For those of you who have not yet visited the Sizzled Chicago site or read my previous columns, let me break it down for you. Every week I pull a record from my collection that I think is dope, record some clips for you to hear, and then encourage you to run to your local record store (or wherever you shop for your wax) to go grab it. Other than just talking about the actual music, I will also spend some quality time touching on the artists, who they are, and why I think you should support them in the wonderful art they create.  Alright, now that we have that business settled, let’s listen to some music!

This week’s featured record:

Didier Sinclair & Chris Pi - “Groove 2 Me/Devotion/Smoky Night” [Serial Records 018]
Released: 4/1/1999

A   Groove 2 Me

B1  Devotion

B2  Smoky Night

First off, Didier Sinclair sadly passed away on October 30, 2008 due to lung cancer.  As his website states:

“..Although Didier’s journey was short, it was a first class one.  His life wasn’t a matter of luck, he built it step by step.  Through music he was expressing his feelings.  He chose to be under the light ad not to remain in the shade.  He always lived by his passion and shared it with us.  He may have left but its energy remains in us.”

Rest in Peace, sir. IN memory of the man, let’s take a look at one of my favorite records he ever made. Serial 018 has significant meaning to me not only because I learned Didier recently passed away, but also because it was one of the first house records that really touched me on a deep level. Even the way I found it seemed to be an act of fate.  Back in 2003, I was in Minneapolis, MN shopping for records in the one and only Cheapo Records in downtown Minneapolis.  This store is one of the many vinyl treasure chests buried in the cities and towns of the U.S. (and the world) — there are literally millions of old records floating around out there just waiting to be discovered, and while every town might not have an up-do-date house shop, they nearly all have a great used vinyl store worth combing through. Definitely check Cheapo out if you are ever in the Twin Cities and be prepared to have 5 hours and  at least $100 to spare once you step through the door.  I was visiting my brother Arturo Miles (Hip Hop Dancer/Curator/Chroreographer of Minneapolis’ Collective Dance Co.) for one of our many Thanksgivings where we play records, buy records, watch vintage movies from Village Video, and go to the sweet Mystic Lake Casino to stuff our faces with their $30 Thanksgiving Buffet delight (what a trip it is..haha).  This was my second trip to Cheapo records since I started playing records and we had just gotten done watching Scratch and were completely inspired by the likes of DJ Shadow and his belief in finding records by sheer fate.  So we basically were on a crate-digging mission from God at Cheapo.

One of the coolest things about Cheapo is that they only have the old world record players and plastic Sony headphones for you to listen on, so you get a true old school analog experience from start to finish.  So I am pulling records from the “used” section and I am having a ball finding all kinds of jams from Bob Sinclair’s “The Ghetto (Uptown)”  to Kenny Dixon Jr.’s “Midnight”.  I’m already getting that “meant to be” feeling that Shadow talked about in the movie. I proceeded to pull this cool looking record out that ended up being Didier Sinclair & Chris Pi’s “Groove 2 Me/Devotion/Smoky Night” EP.  To be honest with you, I had no idea who either of these artists were but I did know that the record looked cool, and that was enough to make me listen to it.  It turned out be to one of the best $4.20 music purchases I’ve ever made.

A   Groove 2 Me starts off with some amazing percussion that grabs your ear as soon as the needle hits the record.  Some nice bongos and congas liven up the mix, as well as some shakers and congas to get the hips moving even more.  Next up a tripped out synth melody that makes you feel like you are flying around in the movie Tron drops in to the mix.  Some smooth Rhodes chords with a filtered guitar sample compliment the original synth melody gorgeously. Only 2 minutes in, the track is already living up to its name, and is building a solid and running, well, “Groove”.  Once all the disparate elements are in together, they just seem to fit.  To top off the vibe, what better than some filtered vox that sound like the computer from “Logan’s Run“.  I heard E-Tones play this record in Minneapolis at the VIP Room a few years after I bought it in Minneapolis and I was doing just what the record is named: “groovin.”  

Now to touch on my original statement about crate digging having meaning, B1  Devotion is a true representation of this and is the main reason this record was a “Must Have” in my bag.

“Devotion”

–noun

“Devotion” is literally the perfect title for a tune of this caliber.  If I was going to say that Didier “expressed his feelings through music,” then this tune is the prime example. The track starts off with a booming kick and some lush chords that instantly tell that this tune was made with profound deepness in mind.  To get the kind of chills I get from the first 20 seconds of this track is special to say the least.  Again, I bring up a valid point that some people seek to express certain things through an art form and Didier did exactly this with music, and especially with this track. I literally feel the chords talking to me (very cool feeling), and this is something I always look for when listening to music — a deeper connection that I can’t properly explain with words. 

After a minute or so, the percussion picks up with some bright hats and a clean snare. The growling bassline comes in to move the track along perfectly.  As soon as the percussion is fully charged, a filtered Violin melody comes in gradually to take the deepness of the track to new levels.  Not only does the melody build more and more volume as the track progresses, chords are layered on top of the pads and they growl and come alive over time as well.  At about 3:30, this tune just blows me away.  The introduction of a female “devotion” vocal rounds out the tune in a way that again, really just touches me deeply..  All of the elements seem to just come together and you feel as a listener that the track is placing you on a cloud and whooshing you into deep  space.  I must admit, this 6:45 journey into “Devotion” is a journey that you will want to take over and over. One of my favorites of all time… can you tell?

“Hey mon, come down to the beeeeeach..” is exactly what I’m hearing when I play B2  Smoky Night.  I see this track being written on a late night in a smoke-filled studio while enjoying a fat spliff and trying to create a Jamaican vibe.  The track has some nice Marley sounding vocal samples as well as drums straight out of a “circle.”  The track could definitely be played later in the evening and could be worked in to multiple styles of sets. A very diverse addition to an already solid EP.

You can grab this record on Discogs HERE and it can also be found on most Digital Music retailers (such as Beatport) who sell Serial Records releases.  Also check your local record stores to see if they have it in stock or can snag a copy for you somewhere.  B1  Devotion made it on to my July 2008 Mix Friday Groove which can be found on my Podcast for your downloading pleasure.  

I hope you enjoy this wonderful record I found through my triumphant session of crate-digging, and I encourage you to go on a mission to your own local record store to do a little mining of your own.   

Feel free to email me with any comments, questions, or opinions on my column.  I am open to feedback and want to know your thoughts on what I’m trying to do here and how I might be able to improve.

Signing off til next week’s wax,

-John Miles (DJ Remedy)