And now for a short message:

While I was recording River City Sunset I took a little footage of myself being a total dork. I've put it all together to make a three plus minute long commercial. Here it is:

Round 2

It's just my luck (if it could be viewed that way) that I have four days off of work. Being a little encouraged by my last recording session I've decided to tackle another EP. This time four songs for Notch 21. Just one of two EPs that I have planned and mostly recorded. This one will feature Industrial Acid, a remix for that track and two new songs. One song, Maximum Threshold, is mostly recorded, while the other is still bouncing around in my head.

If your interested in my progress I will be doing regular updates on my new Twitter account: @DJ_Straathof And while I plug that I might as well get my Facebook fanpage in there as well as my iLike page.

River City Sunset

The bakery I work at is undergoing some renovations and as a result I had an unprecedented 5 days off. Having plans for a five song EP I saw the opportunity to sit down and complete a song a day. Though I did need two extra days to complete the last song I consider the whole project a success as I actually completed something for once.

For this release I decided to put some new software to the test. A few months ago I purchased iZotope Ozone 4 which as a dedicated mastering suite. I decided it would be cheaper for me to spend the money on some proper software and do the work myself instead of having to drive local sound engineers to insanity. I went back and remastered Calahoo, Euphoria and Starlena. Though it took me many hours and was huge pain in the ass to do I am very pleased with the result.

I also recorded two new songs specifically for this release. One is Constellations (Epic Intro Mix) which is a remix of a song that I wasn't ready to release just yet. The other, Rogue Memories, is an ethereal number which is based off a piano track with delay effects, haunting samples and an easy but fat drum beat. Random factoid: at 3:33 (The number of the beasts little sister) this song is the shortest I have ever written without having to drastically scale it down.

The album has been submitted to Songcast and will take up to six weeks to appear on iTunes. Until then check out some of my work on MySpace.

I have also taken some footage of myself recording this record and generally looking like a total goof. I will use it in a short video to promote the EP when it comes out and embarrass myself in a rather cruel and unusual way. With any luck it will go viral and I will forever be known as that idiot with that video. One can dream.

Keep an eye out!

-John

Update

I've spent a lot of time on my music recently and yet never got around to working on the blog, so here is a quick update:

Notch 21: Notch 21 is my latest project. I've felt a need to seperate my djing and my original productions. The first song is called "The Gunslinger" named after the Stephen King character. Yeah its lame but the imagery I got from this track really took me back to that series. The song utilizes a new purchase of mine: A Yamaha NP-30 Portable Grand. I absolutely love the piano and this song was a result of my very first 10 minutes I spent with the thing.

Depeche Mode: In order to promote my new project I have submitted an entry for Beatportals Depeche Mode Remix Contest under Notch 21. The song "Peace" is off Depeche Modes new album and is absolutely amazing. My version of this song uses a heavy acid bassline, some unique percussion samples and a dreamy synth pad. I have had faith enough in this mix to have it mixed and mastered by Terry at BMI Digital Studios who did an awesome job with Calahoo.

Have a listen to my mix and if you like what you hear please give me a much needed vote. To vote click on the "Spin it!" link in the player window. The top ten artists with the most "Spins" are reviewed by the judges who will decide the winner. I'm afraid you will have to register with Beatportal in order to vote and I sure hope this doesn't discourage you from supporting me and any other mix you come across on that contest.
Thanks!
-John

My Submission:
http://www.beatportal.com/remix/detail/peace-the-notch-21-remix/

Shenanigans!

I recently rented Down & Dirty with Jim Norton, a short comedy series featuring a bunch of different comedians. I tried to get a screen capture of a scene in this movie that is so unbelievable my computer even denied it existed and refused to cooperate.

Between sets a DJ would throw down a few seconds of a rock track as the comedians changed up. Who was selected for this challenging role? None other then Lemmy from Motorhead. You read that right; Lemmy. This is not even the strange part as Lemmy wrote the shows theme.

The strange part was the equipment he was using. Being a DJ myself I was obviously straining to see what they gave him to cue up his tracks. A few times an overhead camera gave me a clear shot and what I saw blew my mind. As it happens the shows producers have no clue what a DJ actually does. Lemmy is standing in front of multiple stacks of guitar amplifiers and in front of him he had not one, not two but three DJ mixers. Thats it. Just the mixers.

Let me explain to you (and the shows producers) how a typical DJ setup works and what a mixer does. A mixer allows you to control a number of different audio inputs, maybe from a pair of vinyl decks, cd turntables or even samplers. Something that plays music. My mixer has two inputs, one for each turntable. Each of Lemmys three mixers had 6 inputs. Thats a total of 18 audio inputs (i.e 18 turntables) to play 15 seconds of one whole song and NOTHING TO ACTUALLY PLAY THE SONG. Thats like having three game controllers and no console. The shows producers even gave Lemmy a token pair of headphones that he (obviously) doesn't even use once. I have to wonder which mixer the headphones were plugged into, if any at all.

The crowning moment was when Lemmy was busted on film standing around while the music mysteriously cued up all on its own.

I realize that this is a comedy show, but seriously, who is that joke on?

Before Craigslist

Community pin boards are essentially primitive internet forums. They have rules, lots of useless posts and of course the odd troublemaker. This is an actual picture I took at a local mall and it inspires me to make a few of my own posts.

iTunes!

It has been goal recently to get my music up on iTunes and thanks to SongCast it is finally happening. Songcast is a service that allows artists like me to bypass the need for a record label in order to make our music available to the general public. As you can see on their site my music will also be on Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster and a few other online market places.

Get my music here:

Dub Fx

Dub Fx is a street artist operating out of the U.K. He is the latest artist to utilize a Loop Station in his work but seems to use it rather exclusively and with amazing results. Some other artists include Imogen Heap who also uses nothing but her voice to create a backing track, K.T. Tunstall who uses her guitar and what was until now my personal favorite David Ford who creates an entire band. Very creative stuff.

". . .?!"

Exec:"Okay people, we have some tough competition at this years car show. We need to make our display really stand out to give us the edge. Any ideas?"
Marketing:"Oh, I know! We could make a gigantic model of our car, so big it practically touches the ceiling!"
Exec:"Thats not quite . . ."
Marketing:"And instead of having wheels in the wheel wells, we'll have nothing. They'll be like tunnels."
Exec:"Why . . ."
Marketing:"And then we'll have the actual cars drive around in it!"
Exec:". . .?!"
Exec:". . .?!"
Exec:". . .?!"
Marketing:"And a hot babe."
Exec:"Do it."

Can We Fix it?

YES WE CAN!

Calahoo

I've posted a new song on my MySpace called Calahoo. This track marks a new beginning for me. I've always had trouble finalizing my work and making it sound good. To be honest its an infuriating and mind-numbing thing to have to do. So I've decided to invest the little bit of cash and have a professional do it for me at an actual studio. The result is amazing. I was so pleased with the end product that I decided to wait on posting it until its been released through a label and available for sale. A sort of new years surprise. As you can see, that didn't quite work out so well.

Either way, because I'm working on new material I decided to post Calahoo as a small example of things to come. The song itself was tailored specifically for the club and I can't wait to see the reaction it gets. The version I posted is the club mix (that I will use in my live sets) which is why there is such a long intro.

Kudos to Terry Bradstock at BEI Digital Studios for his amazing work mixing and mastering this track.

Hope you like it!
-John

myspace.com/djstraathof