ADRIAN DOES STUFF

The past two weeks have been pretty busy, but nothing too stressful. Just the usual stuff that goes into my ever-glamorous "life of a rock star/club promoter/DJ." (Ha! I'm kinda being sarcastic, just in case you can't tell.)

 

New A+D mash-up: Real Big Time

I finished up a new mash-up, one that I've been conceptualizing for a long time. D introduced me to the song "Real Big," a hip-hop single from this past summer by Mannie Fresh. It wasn't a huge hit or anything, but we both fell in love with it. When she tracked down the acapella, I knew I had to do something ... BIG! So I mashed it up with Peter Gabriel's "Big Time," along with some other "big" songs. I had lots of "BIG" ideas for this mash-up, but it ultimately got distilled into an A+B+C ... along with a little AC/DC thrown in at the end for good measure.

Download it here: A plus D – Real Big Time (Mannie Fresh vs. Peter Gabriel vs. Jean Knight)

Blah-haus

D dragged me to the Bauhaus concert at the Warfield. Yawn. I saw them during the 1999 "Resurrection" tour, and I really didn't want anything to sully the memory of that experience. Well ... this show did. The band played okay and all, but ... something was just lacking. I don't know. Maybe angular, dark, moody, pretentious, post-punk, goth rock with no hooks just doesn't really do it for me anymore. Besides, Peter Murphy – the "Neil Diamond of goth rock" – had a bald spot and a cheesy moustache. And it says something that the two best (and last) songs of the night – "Telegram Sam" and "Ziggy Stardust" – are both covers.

 

Horsepower

I suppose I should say something about a new musical project I'm working on. It's definitely still in the gestation stage, but it's nice to be working on original music again. We're tentatively called Horsepower, and right now, it's just me and Dave Dasher (ex-Diamond Galaxy, former touring guitarist for My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult). Just the two of us sitting in his studio apartment hashing out ideas and listening to tracks. He plays and programs, I sing and write lyrics. We'll see where this ends up ... exciting!

 

I'm so sick of Halloween

I spent Friday night in a pirate costume for 11 hours straight, DJing a corporate party at Fluid, then racing over to DJ the Bootie mash-up lounge at Pop Roxx at the DNA Lounge. Then Sunday night, there I was, dressed as a pirate yet again, bar-hopping with friends. By the time it was actually Halloween, on Monday, I was so sick of pirate drag. So I dressed up like a red-sequined devil, which was such a half-assed costume – it was basically just an old Blue Period stage outfit with devil horns on my head. Big whoop!

 

But at least I matched Trixxie, my co-singer in Smash-Up Derby. We played a show at Halloween in the Castro, debuting a couple of new mash-up creations – I get to sing Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" while the band plays The Cars' "Just What I Needed"! Yay! I love singing that song! We also did "Jerks On Film" – The Caesars vs. Duran Duran. And of course, we did "Smells Like Monster Mash" as our set closer. It all went over really well. Definitely better than last year. We went on at 9:30 PM, which was great for us. No "hurry up and wait."

 

I actually got to walk throught the throngs of people this year ... something I hadn't done in years. Only about half the crowd was dressed up, and of that half, only half of them had decent costumes. The rest of them were like, "If I wear this funny hat or these horns, then I'm in costume!" Lame. But I walked over to Marcy Meow's, who was hosting a little refuge from the Halloween madness. Hung out with Princess Kennedy and Jordan L'Moore of our sister band, Pepperspray, who played right before us. Fun!

Bootie LA post-party report

Good times! The doors opened at 10 pm, and there was a dance floor going by 10:20! What made 'em dance? How Obie Trice vs. The Faint? It shouldn't work, but it totally did. I followed that up with our new one, "Real Big Time" (see above) and it went off!

DJ Axel then took over, and he played a rock-solid set of crowd-pleasing hip-hop mashes, riling everybody up. Then DJ Paul V. took it into an indie direction, firing up the crowd before the midnight mash-up show, starring ... ME!

Princess Kennedy had flaked on us that evening, informing us that she had spent her plane ticket money on Botox, and was still in San Francisco. (I'm not making this up!) So I filled in, pulling a number out of my ass by singing live to an instrumental Smash-Up Derby track (Franz Ferdinand vs. Talking Heads), which went over quite well. Then Mysterious D slammed down a great set, finally spinning solo, since Party Ben had to sit this Bootie out.

Paul and I finished off the night, much booty was shaken, many CDs were given away, and ... someone even stole our Bootie pirate flag! Aaaargh! Those things cost money, dammit! Now we've gotta get a new one made. Grrrr ... as our friend Buck from The Mutaytor said that night: "The rock star in you loves it. The Jew in you hates it." Next time, we're wiring that thing with an alarm!

We've got four DJs from the UK coming this week for Bootie here in San Francisco ... plus Strangely Familiar from Nashville! It's going to an insane weekend. And then in two weeks we leave for Paris! Aaaaigh!

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!