Hall & Oates‘ classic 80’s pop track ‘Out of Touch’ gets remixed by Indiana’s hardworking Action Jackson, giving it more of a ‘B-More’-style backbone. With its familiarity to the (general) public and overall catchiness of the tune itself, this should easily bring people on to the dance floor like bees on honey. On the rizzeal!
“Indianapolis born and raised, ACTION JACKSON has quickly established himself as one of the premier up and coming DJs in the country. Specializing in genre bending mixes that span multiple styles of music, he is equally comfortable spinning hip-hop, Baltimore club, electro, old school classics, dancehall, rock, and everything in between. His productions are diverse as well, having remixed artists such as Hall & Oates, Soulja Boy, and Treasure Fingers. In short, there’s not a crowd or party that he can’t rock. In 2007, he partnered with Flufftronix to form Rad Summer, a booking and promotions company, and has since been responsible for several succesfull events throughout the Midwest as well the first Indiana performances of Flosstradamus, DJ Assault, The Toxic Avenger, Scottie B., etc…”
Everything you ever wanted to know about Action Jackson is on his website here.
Swiss electro-rockers Cryptonites are back at it again and go new-wave-disco on us with a melodic remix of ‘NASA’ by the UK’s Futurecop!- this is on some serious Miami Vice shit right here!
Berlin’s ‘Sex (I’m A…)’, taken off of the album ‘Pleasure Victim’, (which also contains the hits ‘The Metro’ & ‘Masquerade’) was a major new wave club hit back in the 80’s, and still sounds fresh in the club between some Soft Cell & Adult.…believe me- I still rock it out at Atomic!
For this remix I took bits and pieces of the original to come up with a sort of minimal Detroit-Electro style track (think Dopplereffekt or Ectomorph)…
Maethelvin has provided a remix for fellow Valerie artist The Outrunners‘ latest EP ‘Cool Feeling’, available on Juno. Valerie is worth your money! We’re still waiting for the Valierie takeover, initiated by our excitement for fellows Minitel Rose and the ‘Official Theme of Valerie (Minitel Rose Remix)’. We’ve put this up before with other Minitel Rose stuff, but it deserves one more go:
The B-52’s formed in Athens Georgia 1976 after a drunken night at a Chinese restaurant. The name comes from the bouffant wigs that are a part of the band’s distinctive look, and not the airplane of the same name contrary to popular belief. Their quirky take on the emerging new wave and unusual guitar tunings set them apart from the pack.
The band gained popularity pretty much from it’s inception, but couldn’t break into the US top 40 charts until their 1989 release ‘Cosmic Thing’ which contained the infamous track ‘Love Shack’ which landed at number 3 on the billboard charts. A few months later in early 1990 ‘Roam’ which was also on ‘Cosmic Thing’ reached number 3 on the US charts as well.
Though the band had been around for more than a decade, 1989 - 1990 was manys first introduction to the band, which is a shame because their earlier material didn’t get much radio play in the U.S. Although Australia had been big supports of the band pretty much from the beginning. Here’s a few of my favorite cuts from the B-52’s.
MP3:The B-52’s - 52 Girls
Listen to the intro on this then listen to DJ Shadows ‘Six Days’ (Soulwax remix)
Electroclash artists Chicks on Speed recognize the importance of B-52’s and in 2000 the released a collection of B-52’s covers on an album titled Chix-52. Their rendition of ‘Give Me Back My Man’ is excellent.
The B-52’s released a collection of hits from the past on a cd titled ‘Time Capsule: Songs For A Future Generation’ in 1998. That can be picked up here. If you hit up your local record store you can usually find used 12 inches for a few bucks. I saw ‘Party Mix’ and Whammy at the On The Corner Music on my last visit, all you non-locals hit up ebay.
My moms used to say that everything comes back into style. I always thought that was a fallacy she held on to in hopes that one day her clothes would be semi-cool again. But in fashion & music it’s evident that she was correct. BJM proved that 60’s psych rock could once again popular again, and 80’s pop? Hell, did it ever really go away?
It seems as though almost all past decades and genre’s have been re-hashed in some form or another. All except for the late 80’s most stand out genre (for myself); freestyle, or sometimes called High NRG or Latin Hip Hop. I just got that Ultimate Freestyle collection I saw on an infomercial & that shit, is the shit. You know you fools go crazy when some Debbie Deb or Shannon comes on in the club. And you can’t fake the funk on Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam.
These days we’ve got nu-rave, nu-noise, nu-disco, where the ef is the nu-freestyle? No one got’s love for Expose? Where’s the Stevie B’s cover bands? I kid, but seriously, it’s a style of music that has a lot to offer, fun and keeps you moving on the dancefloor. I wish more producers gave the genre a nod, like these acts:
W.I.T. was produced by the infamous Larry Tee but the 12″ is mad elusive. Hit up Gemm for a copy.
Red White Rose’s (a.k.a. Rutherford) ‘No One Puts Baby In a Corner’ was released on Creme Organization’s ‘Are We Too Late For The Trend‘ release which came out in ‘03. I got mine on vinyl at Streetlight because the main record buyer is a genius (and also writes for missingtoof)! I haven’t been able to find a link for a physical release, but you can purchase the digital version from Juno Download.
All you producers bust out them Roland TR-808’s and get to work! Trinere 4 lyfe!
Greetings. This is my first post, and I thought I’d start things off with one of my favorite hidden gems. Some of you may recognize the band Blitz as one of the most well known old school Oi/Punk bands. However not many people know that in 1983 they had a bit of a personnel split, with half of the band continuing on in the bland Punk style, while the other half released this beautiful monster of a Post-Punk album.
Second Empire Justice is what happens when a good melodic Punk band finally gets time in a real studio, with a real producer (Chris Nagle who earlier assisted the legendary Martin Hannet on a number of Joy Division and New Order albums).
I could go on and on about this album, but instead I’ll let you take a listen and decide for yourselves. This was one of the singles from this LP, and it is also one of my favorite Post-Punk songs ever recorded.
It’s been one year since Turntable Lab set up shop in L.A. and to celebrate, they’re throwing their biggest party yet—so big, in fact, it’s two parties stretched across tonight and tomorrow.
On the bill tonight we have Hollertronix (i.e. Diplo and Low Bee) and Blaqstarr at the 700 capacity EX_PLX in Echo Park (L.A.). This is likely to sell out quick, trust!
Here’s a jammy from Hollertronix’ first EP in 2004. This shit set that whole shit off:
This vinyl EP has been re-released in slightly altered form (dubbed #1.5 EP) and is available now from Turntable Lab.
Oh yea, if you didn’t know by now. All the Mad Decent (label related to Diplo and Hollertronix) podcasts are available for stream (and download) from Diplo’s .mac account. However, it looks like the account has hit its bandwidth limit for the moment, so you’ll definitely want to bookmark it, check back often and get e’ything when it’s live again.
We’ll still hook you up tho! Last March, DJ Blaqqstar (preforming in L.A. tonight) dropped a mix for Mad Decent Radio Worldwide and it’s hot fire. Dude must DJ with oven-mitts on:
Visit Mad Decent’s MySpace to hear and purchase more Blaqstarr.
Yes! And on Saturday, Electro legend Egyptian Lover will be doing his stuff extra smooth for the ladies to shake it. One of the few people from L.A. doing Electro Dance Music in the 1980’s, our city’s got mad love for Lover. If you’re not up on this man, look to Wikipedia and throw this 1984 classic in heavy rotation:
Visit Egyptian Lover on his Myspace pages one and two. Also check out Willow the Glasslamp Killer, ’cause he’s playing Saturday and he’s fucking awesome.
UK’s John B is one of my favorite DJs. He is the electro-rocker-glam boy of Drum & Bass. Over the past 11 years, his records have cycled through the jazzy, the dark and the techy through the first half of his career, then his signature Electro/Drum&Bass sound was defined with his 2002 LP, ‘Brain Storm’ and has continued on since. His sound is sometimes called ‘Electrostep’ Drum & Bass—it combines the sounds of sounds and themes associated with Trance, ‘Electroclash’ and New Wave with Drum & Bass. Often adding humorous tongue-in-cheek topics in his songs and employing some of my favorite low-key rapper chicks, including stand out performances by Star Eyes of Syrup Girls. It all makes for one very fun package.
John B. found cult status in 2005 via MySpace with his laugh out loud ode to internet stalkerdom titled, ‘I’ve Been Stalking You On MySpace’. This song exists in several forms and mixes, but this is my favorite. It isn’t new, but it’s still relevant and it’s certified banger, so turn the volume to 11:
I must confess that a motivating factor for this post was so we could tack on the fact that we just added links to our profiles on our favorite networking sites for you to get your stalk on. Please get at us though MySpace, Virb, Facebook or join our group on Last.fm, and while you’re there you can check my personal Last.fm and Disaster’s personal Last.fm and applaud and/or snicker at our listening habits. Stalk us!
Now back to John B.! Here’s another one from 2003’s ‘In:Transit’ LP that features Star Eyes and she talks like my dream date, or something:
John B. released his latest LP, ‘Electrostep’ in 2006. The title, of course, is borrowed from the term that was coined to define his unique sound (buy the album from Amazon). On it John B. tackles a pair epic 80s tracks for some interesting cover versions. Hear John B.’s take on Toni Basil’s ‘Hey Mickey’ and Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’:
The ‘Tainted Love’ vocals are provided by Marcy Meow, a former go-go dancer from S.F. (namely BootieSF), turned stripper, turned Spanish-language video-vixen. How’s that for multi-talented!
John B does remixes too, re-vamping my favorite Dirty Sanchez track, and slapping it on ‘Electrostep’.
John B. tours a grip and he’s about to roll through Europe and the US with dates in L.A., N.Y., Hawaii, and Dallas in the near future. You can can peep the details about the upcoming tour and stream more tracks on John B.’s MySpace. John B. owns several record labels, most prominently Beta Recordings. This label also serves as his personal website. You can cop many of his records from the Beta Recordings website. Also, view the official I Been Stalking You on MySpace profile and his more complete discography on Discogs.
Want lots of lots of free John B mixes? Get your’ Electrostep’ D’n'B O.D. starting with this 2.5 hour set from April on his site, available for free, with even more to be heard by clicking around the ‘audio’ and ‘news’ links in the sidebar.
. If you hit up your local record store you can usually find used 12 inches for a few bucks. I saw ‘Party Mix’ and Whammy at the 
