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Monday, 24 October 2005
Personal Jesus ... Violated
The Depeche Mode Violated project is finally completed! This is an unofficial "bootleg album," containing a mixture of covers, mashups, and remixes of songs from Depeche Mode's seminal 1990 album, Violator. I sing the version of "Personal Jesus" that appears on the album, a collaboration between myself and Australian electro-punk Dsico.
Download: Personal Jesus – Dsico featuring Adrian Roberts
DJ Tripp started this project over a year ago, soliciting tracks from various bootleggers around the globe. He posted a few preview tracks, including Dsico's original version of "Personal Jesus." A lot of people weren't too keen on Dsico's, um, unique vocal delivery. Ultimately, he pulled the track from the album, and Tripp eventually grew frustrated and abandoned the project altogether.
Download: Personal Jesus – Dsico (original mix)
However, I loved the electro instrumentation, and asked Dsico if he wouldn't mind if I took a stab at re-recording the vocals. He was game, and graciously e-mailed me a WAV file of the instrumental. Months and months later, after investing in a halfway decent microphone and pre-amp, I eventually re-recorded new vocals. That's the mix that appears on the Depeche Mode Violated album, which by this point, had been taken over by Churchill.
However, before the album was released on the internet last week, I performed yet another mix of this song at Trannyshack, for a night called "Duck and Cover." It was a show dedicated to twisted cover versions, and I had asked DJ Earworm if he could do a remix of Dsico's "Personal Jesus" for me to sing over. He thickened up the beats a bit, and added all sort of stuff to it. This is the only place where you can download this exclusive remix:
Download: Personal Jesus (Earworm remix) – Dsico featuring Adrian Roberts
Incidentally, Earworm has been working on his own Depeche Mode Violator bootleg tribute album, which was in the works even before Tripp announced his project. Supposedly, it's nearing completion, and I can't wait to hear it!
17:50 Posted in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Wednesday, 19 October 2005
Always pee before DJing in front of 16,000 people – our 15 minutes of fame at the Download Festival
It's been over a week since D and I DJed at the Download Festival, and I'm just now getting around to blogging about this. It was kinda weird and I had to, uh ... process.
Anyway, me and the Mysterious D got booked to DJ at the Download Festival, at Shoreline Amphitheatre – our biggest gig ever, if you go by the number of people we DJed in front of. Basically, this was the U.S. version of the U.K.'s big all-day, multi-band show, sponsored by GameTap ... who we were corporate shills for, unwittingly. More on that in a minute.
We were scheduled to spin two sets – an hour-long set in the "GameTap dome," an oasis of videogaming; and an 18-minute set on the main stage at Shoreline, in-between The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse. Whoa! No pressure, okay?
We weren't scheduled to start until 5:30, so we actually got to drink some beers and enjoy some of the show. Mostly, we just wanted to see Mindless Self Indulgence, whom we LOVE. Jimmy Urine is such a captivating frontman, berating the audience with ironic jabs that probably went over the heads of most of the teenage audience. And even though they didn't do our favorite song, "Two Hookers and an Eightball," it was still a great set (albeit with horrible outdoor stage sound ... nature of the beast with shows like this). We'd been working on an MSI mash-up, which we were hoping to debut that day, but it just didn't come together in time. Anyway...
Our DJ set in the GameTap dome went over just fine. We were hired for the mash-up thing, so that's what we gave 'em, tearing people away from the videogames and the comfy cushions to generate a bit of dance floor – the only time anyone danced in there, actually. It was a total "Bootie greatest hits" set, but it worked. Then we had to get our asses over to the main stage in time for our "big set."
From what we were told, we were supposed to DJ in-between The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse, while GameTap projected stuff on the screens. We figured we were simply the time-filler between two bands – and that's what it should have been. Instead, it was a total clusterfuck of misinformation, slow-ass sound technicians, and disappointed music fans. In other words, it was kinda weird.
We were supposed to start our 18-minute set around 8 PM, after The Extra Action Marching Band made their way through the crowd. D and I both had to pee like crazy (all that free beer we drank) but since we were going on "any minute now," we had to hold it ... and hold it ... and hold it ... Meanwhile, the sound techs for Modest Mouse took their sweet old time sound checking. Seven guitars, four keyboards, a banjo, two different kinds of basses, gear I didn't even recognize. How many instruments does one shitty indie band need, for fuck's sake? I used to not really care about Modest Mouse one way or the other – but now I fucking hate them. The change-over between bands should have been 15 minutes, tops. Instead, Modest Mouse took 45 excruciating minutes to soundcheck. WTF? The crowd was getting antsy...
And all this time, besides having to pee my pants, I'm wondering: "Why aren't we DJing while they do this? What the fuck is going on?" Finally, around 8:45, the lights go down. Naturally, everyone thinks Modest Mouse is going on ... but noooooooo ... it's time for DJs Adrian and the Mysterious D! And apparently, a very long GameTap commercial. Yes, we were simply the corporate shill DJs, providing the soundtrack. We couldn't see anything from stage, because of the lights, so it was really hard to gauge the crowd's reaction, but I'm sure it was "mixed," to say the least. But with no dance floor, who knows? We jumped around a bit (mostly because we had to PEE so bad!), fiddled with the EQs, cued up our songs, and did the best mash-up set we could in 18 minutes. It was definitely one of the weirdest gigs ever.
Unbeknownst to us, we were being videotaped. Apparently, we were shown on the big screen monitors around the venue. WTF? Oh yeah, watching two DJs twiddle knobs is SOOO exciting. We were told there were going to be GameTap visuals on the screens, so we had no idea we would be on camera! Anyway, here's what we looked like:
Our playlist? Not much you can cram into a set that short, but here it is: Go Home Productions' "Rapture Riders"; Party Ben's "Clash Killers"; a double whammy of our own A+D tracks "An Honest M.I.A." and "Decepta-Freak-On"; and then we closed with Sam Flanagan's "Beastie Cut-Up," which I totally fixed up the night before, because I couldn't stand the ending. About a minute before the end, some guy comes up to us on stage and yells at us to stop our set. Uh, hello? Dude, we have one minute left, and besides, GameTap paid for these 18 minutes! It's not OUR fault Modest Mouse took 45 minutes to sound check! Later, we found out that the Shoreline staff were severely freaking out, because apparently, the show was supposed to end at 11 PM ... and due to Modest Mouse's long-ass soundcheck, they were already 15 minutes behind schedule. The city of Mountain View fines Shoreline tons of money for EVERY MINUTE they go past the 11 PM curfew.
Anyway, we finished up with the big Nirvana "Smell Like" ending, tossed out a few CDs to the people up front, then ran (yes, RAN) to the nearest bathroom. Peeing never felt so good. Then we had to blow out of there, because we were already late for own club, Bootie!
At least we'll always have Bootie
Racing back to San Francisco, D was screaming at me to pull over so she could get a beer – we were that stressed! We didn't get to Bootie too late, and the rest of the night went great, with a really good crowd.
Who ARE all these people? I love them!
And DJ Freddy, King of Pants was down from Seattle to do a DJ set, and we had an intimate little after-party at our house, mostly gossiping about the bootleg scene and the trials and tribulations of DJing and promoting a mash-up club. (Freddy does Frankenboot, Seattle's first mash-up club ... and it's quite similar in concept as Bootie ... that's him wearing "The Grey Album Is Boring" t-shirt above).
Smash-Up Derby is not a Burning Man band
For my second weird gig of the weekend, Smash-Up Derby played in the early afternoon of the Burning Man Decompression party. Inspired by Jimmy Urine's between-song quips, I was quite snarky on stage: "Sorry, we gave our tribal drummers the day off." "We'll be better after your E kicks in." "How many of you read Piss Clear? You know, that's the only reason we got booked." We are so NOT a Burning Man band. But we played an extra-long set because the DJ scheduled after us was late, and I got to enjoy the rest of the day without being worried or stressed about doing a show later. So I dropped and drank and hung out and it was quite lovely.
Chilling out is hard to do
Last week was actually pretty chill. Only two DJ gigs, which were both a total blast to do – a fun corporate at Fluid, and our triumphant return to The Cinch, filling in for Anna Conda at her night, Charlie Horse. We got to spin a bunch of rock tunes, which we hadn't done in a while. It's almost always mash-ups or (if I'm lucky) electro, which is what I got to play at Faggot the week before (and LOVED it ... it had been too long ... sometimes I miss my old club Guilty).
I managed to design the new Pansy Division "greatest hits" CD too ... it came together rather quickly, a parody of Sony's "Essential Collection" series. Fun project to put together.
Other than that, D and I have mostly been taking it easy, especially over the weekend. It was our first free weekend in FOREVER ... so we spent most of it watching seven hours' worth of Season 4 of Six Feet Under! I love series television on DVD! I also "pretend shopped" for a PowerBook ... or an iBook ... I really need to get one, especially before we go to Europe at the end of November. I can't decide which one to get. Obviously, the silver-shiny PowerBook is better ... but is it $1000 better? Maybe I should check CraigsList...
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Monday, 03 October 2005
Bootie LA goes monthly!
Went down to LA this past weekend to do our second Bootie party down there. And all I can say is: WOW.
In club culture, there's an adage about how it's not important how well your first party goes ... it's really all about your SECOND party. Usually, the first one gets a big push, and everyone goes to check it out, and then ... the attendance tapers off. Well ... not this time!
Although, the evening got off to an ominous start, when we arrived at The Echo around 7 pm and couldn't get in due to the entire block being closed off, with cops running around and everything. We found out that there was a bomb scare, and no one was allowed on the street. Fuck! When we said Bootie was da bomb, we didn't mean it literally!
I did a short set at 10 PM, opening up with a Bootie LA exclusive, which I just finished recording and mixing a few days ago: a cover of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" by Dsico, featuring me on guest vocals, and remixed by Earworm. It's going to be on "Violated," a bootleg/remix album of Depeche Mode's "Violator." Who knows when it's actually getting released, but I'm going to be sneaky here and post it to my blog, just to see if anyone actually reads this shit. Here it is.
Anyway, tonight was the night that Ben and D dubbed me "The Executioner," because I was determined to play a couple of slow-tempo bootlegs that might clear the floor -- but noooooo! They danced to everything, and by the time I did my second set at 11 PM, they floor was packed! So I took a few chances, like playing stuff like our new Breeders vs. Kelly Clarkson mash-up, but shockingly, it went off! Hands in the air and lots of woos!
I must say, everyone spun really amazing sets last night. Inspired choices, fun tracks, both old and new. Two particular highlights were Paul spinning Philly Da Kid's "This Charming Booty" (Eminem vs. The Smiths) and D and Ben dropping Cheekyboy's "Smells Like NWA." Really great stuff. This was also the night that D got her new DJ nickname: "Blackout Selector" – because she always picks great tracks to play, but a minute later, can't remember what she just selected! Genius!
Then again, we've also busted our asses, pushing and promoting and really trying to build a mash-up scene. We hope to be able to galvanize an LA bootlegger scene, in much the same way we helped create one in San Francisco. But mostly, we're just super excited to be able to do this all the time now. Big ups to the LA scene! We'll see you next month!
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