Steve Aoki (a.k.a Kid Millionaire)—the founder of Dim Mak Records and co-founder of Hollywood’s premier indie/dance weekly, Cinespace (Tuesdays)—is known the world over as a int’l party rocker and so-called celebrity DJ. Today, Steve Aoki droped his debut mix album, ‘Pillowface and His Airplane Chronicles’ on Thrive Records.
And what did I tell you? Aoki starts his record off with Refused’s hardcore punk classic ‘New Noise’ and from there on it, it’s three thick layers deep of partytime. Layer one: take a club hit: Justice’s ‘Waters of Nazereth’. Layer two: find the most balls-out remix from one of the biggest names in dance music, Erol Alkan. Layer three: (now here’s the tricky part) enlist your hip and talented friends, say, Spank Rock affiliate Pase Rock to put a special verse in the mix.
Now do that over and over again. You’ve got a pretty unique and phenomenal mix. Here are some layered excerpts pulled from the mix:
We’re happy to have the album to give away to y’all, but you have to play to win. To enter the CD contest, ‘Pillowface and his Airplane Chronicles’, email us your name and mailing address. Winner picked at random for eligible (follow directions!) entries.
Send your entries to: missingtoof@missingtoof.com
Use the subject line: “Steve Aoki Pillowface Contest”
Done! Thanks for playing!
Furthermore, if you want to attend the CD release party tonight at Roxy in Hollywood with Steve Aoki, A-Trak, DJ AM & Them Jeans, shoot an email to the address below with your name for free entry (quick, fast). Get there early! Flyer and full details at DimMak.com.
Send RSVP requests to: partyline@dimmak.com
Use the subject line: “Pillowface At The Roxy”
More tour dates at Steve Aoki’s MySpace, link below!
More of these party pictures (and some insane afterparty pictures) available at Frisco Disco Fever. This past weekends Frisco Disco had Glass Candy (Portland) heating up the house, expect pics from that shindig soonly. The next BLOW UP (Dec 21) will feature electro-rapper Gold Chains and Missingtoof DJs.
Parisian rapper M.I.T.C.H. is oh-so Euro-crunk, Euro-gully, Euro-trill, etc. Released on Mental Groove, M.I.T.C.H. is making major noise with ‘Fais Rentrer Les Euros’ which features Ed Banger lovebirds Feadz and Uffie.
In 2007, the American dollar is falling and Jay-Z’s flashing Euro’s in his new video—I’m with M.I.T.C.H. on this one: Let’s get this money and make it European! Fead’z remixed ‘Fais Rentrer Les Euros’ for the official release and puts the vocal effects on hard-hitting front street:
Swiss Lausanne-based label Creaked sent over this brilliant and unusual remix by Larytta. I love stuff that doesn’t sound exactly like other stuff! Don’t let the beginning fool you, this shit gets crazy-dope electronic:
Neat eh? That mix is supposed to make it on to the M.I.T.C.H. EP. The other as-yet unreleased ‘Fais Rentrer Les Euros remix, if you ain’t heard, is a super-banger by Swiss beat-heads Audioporno. Our best-friends-forever Big Stereo introduced the world to this gem a couple weeks ago and we’ve had it stuck on repeat since. Oh, and Lil’ Jon just called, he said he ain’t mad at it! O.K.!
Our Blow Up parties take SF off the damn chains. Blow Up, Frisco Disco, and Robot Rock parties take it to 11 every time (know your Spinal Tap references?). We’ve recently had Justice, Uffie, Steve Aoki and are set to bring in The Glass and Pink Skull next time around on the 16th. Your hosts Frisco Disco Crew, Jeffrey Paradise (a.k.a. Jefrodisiac) & Richie Panic come to hit San Francisco upside the head. All of it’s captured by photographer Lady Meleksah and videographer Peter Noble.
LA Riots are (metaphorically speaking) burning L.A. down!
LA Riots is a recent formation of two well striped DJ/producers. One is Daniel LeDisko, who is known for his years of residencies at Hollywood’s 82, Moscow, and Le Disko. The other is Jo’B, who formerly DJ’d many-a jungle parties and raves under the name Orion and concurrently produces, the indie pop group Edison Gem.
With LA Riots, the sound is made for electro dance parties. Their stuttering vocal edits and four on the floor basslines are done with finesse and we all notice. Some of the right people certainly noticed the early unofficial remix of Justice with Uffie and recently have been busy doing commissioned remix work for EDM artists Ocelot, Hatiras, indie rock artists Scanners and Mystery Jets, d’n'b heavyweight Photek, pop superstars The Cure, and funky favorites Chromeo.
Nice resume for a band that is nearly fresh out of the gate, eh? Listen and learn:
LA and OC heads can check out LA Riots this weekend at a new little multi-genre dance music club in Santa Ana called Trust. I’m favoring this place because I dig that they play breakbeat, garage and other sub-genres in with the electro, because it can’t all be electro/ electro/ electro all the time.
SF heads can see LA Riots play with us at Blow Up on Aug. 31st.
Errybody else sit tight and LA Riots will slowly glaze themselves across the earth. Keep checking LA Riots on MySpace for tour dates.
Uffie’s not only a girl who’s ready to fornicate, she’s also ready to love. This is definitely a different sound that we are used to hearing from Ed Bangers first lady. When I first heard it I thought someone was pulling my bike chain. But the tale-tell production and little Uffie idiosyncrasies shine thorough and you can tell it’s the real deal.
Back again is ‘Old rap Wednesdays. In this special, ‘Late homework / Sorry it’s almost Friday edition’.
Audio Two is Milk D. and DJ Gizmo. Rapper and DJ, respectively. Brothers in music and in real life (or maybe half-brothers).
Audio Two had their run between 1985-1992 releasing three LP albums, with slowly ebbing success. They began their career with the (impossible to find) 1985 12″ single titled, ‘A Christmas Rhyme’ on MCM records, but the group really emerged in 1987 on their major-label (First Priority Records) debut single ‘Make It Funky’ with the incredible and classic b-side ‘Top Billin’ which eclipsed the a-side and everything that followed, and still remains as their signature track. ‘Top Billin’ will be the primary focus of this week’s post. Enjoy the original:
Now I’ll say something really journalist-y like, the ‘Go Brooklyn!’ vocal sample looped in the instrumental is so quintessentially late 80s BKLYN. Or so my expertise would lead me to believe—considering I was in, like, 3rd grade and living in LA in 1987.
The popularity of the B-side lead to several remixes, like this remix from a 1988, ‘Top Billin’ promo 12″ (pardon the quality):
The group ended in 1992 because of poor record sales of their third album, 1992’s ‘First Dead Indian’—Undoubtedly when the west coast ushered in ‘Dre Day‘, many of the of the more light-hearted pioneers, like Audio Two suddenly found themselves in the dark.
However, the break up of Audio Two wasn’t the end all. Milk D released one album as a solo artist in 1994. Rick Rubin was a fan and put Milk D. on as one of his early artists on his American Records label. Milk D. dropped the D. and titled his record, ‘Never Dated’. The album was a flop, with very few record sales. And those sales were mostly among hardcore Beastie Boys fans, because of Milk’s tie to the Beasties and their collaboration track, ‘Spam’ which features two of the three Beastie Boys, with Adrock on the mic and Mike D on drums:
Audio Two has never lost relevance. Perhaps most people have heard Audio Two through a proxy, in the form of the Notiorous B.I.G.’s 1994 debut album, Ready to Die. This ‘new’ Brooklyn MC was obviously influenced by the west coast gangsta rap sound and his 1994 debut record was decidedly more gangster than his Audio Two forefathers. Still, on the intro track, which is a skit intended to sum up B.I.G.’s life up until that point, you’ll hear Audio Two’s ‘Top Billlin’ play for nearly a minute underneath the skit’s dialogue.
For Biggie, ‘Top Billin’ is the one song chosen to represent the sound of the late 80s (along with Curtis Mayfield’s I’m Your Pusher Man representing 70s, Sugarhill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’ representing early 80s, and Snoop Doggy Dogg’s ‘The Shizint’ representing the early 90s). I find this interesting because the cultural significance of ‘Ready to Die’ and the impact it had, and how that record payed homage to Audio Two and other (dare I say) prolific artists that came before him in such a direct way (as literally playing their songs on his album). Does ‘Top Billin’ represent the late-80s sound perfectly? I think it does.
And it doesn’t end there! Top Billin’ lives on 20 years later in Uffie’s ‘Pop the Glock’ (produced by Mr. Oizo) which borrows heavily from ‘Top Billin’. If you didn’t notice by now, act like you know! Uffie para-phrases, copies entire lyrics, borrows concepts and audio samples from ‘Top Billin’:
Now you’re up on Audio Two! I’ll end this on one last trivial-pursuit-80s-rap-edition fact: Milk D. is the older brother of MC Lyte, who emerged as a solo artist after the success of her brothers classic single, but went on to even greater hip-hop celebrity.
You can find Audio Two’s first album, ‘What More Can I Say’ on Amazon due to a post-millennium re-release. All other records are harder to locate, and your best/only avenues would be secondary markets like eBay or Amazon affiliates.
[p.s. I know this post was half referential college shit drawing links between stuff and other stuff. Oops. Sorry for making you learn in yr freetime.]
Got this remix in the inbox today & have been listening to it on repeat since. A fun little remix utilizing French-American electro-rap sensation Uffie’s ‘Ready to Uff’ & classic rave anthem, Alice Deejay’s ‘Better off Alone’.
Sorry for the lack of creativity on the accompanying image.
But, I’m at work!
We named our cat Uffie. You know we gotsa post this shit. Thanks to These Rocks Pop for putting us in the know.
Sounds as though the Ed Banger princess is a tad riled up. This is Uffie’s answer to people’s (Roxy Cottontail’s) complaints about her rapping skills on the internet. This track was released on the Ed Banger Records Vol 2 compilation, but you guys can grab it here:
If you are not on the Uffie bandwagon yet, visit her myspace page to stream some of her official tracks. Ed Banger Records Vol 1 is availble on CD here.
This track was sent to me a few weeks ago by John from La Greve Generale. Just now getting around to posting it. Justin Timberlake and Uffie together at last. Seems like a match made in aural heaven. He’s bringing sexy back & she’s ready to fuck. When’s the wedding?
On a side note, If Uffie weren’t with Feadz you guys think Justin would have a fighting chance? & if they did get together what creative mash up of a moniker would tabloids use for them, ‘Juffie’ or ‘Uffstin’?
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