Friday's Track of the Day

Since I'm in Mexico I figured I'd drop this ill cover on you all. This track is called "The Mexican" and is remade by Marc Hype and Jim Dunloop with Sara Bourgeois on the vocals. They are a German duo who have released a bunch of really good tracks, most of which come out on the Melting Pot Music label. The original track is a B-Boy anthem by an English group named Babe Ruth and this is a worthy cover. With harder drums and slightly different instrumentation (Dunloop is a keyboard player and the original melody is guitar), this track really bumps:

Man on Wire

Last week I went to check out the SilverDocs, an annual documentary film festival in Silver Spring, MD. Tey played all sorts of films over the course of a week and I went to see one called "Man on Wire." It is a story about a French wire walker who puts a wire up between the two World Trade Center towers and walks between them. The documentary shows his planning and pulling off of "Le Coup" and it's quite a good story with lots of archival footage and decent reinactments. I've heard it's going to get a wider release in July in the US so be on the lookout for it, it's definitely worth seeing.

Here's an interview from the Sundance Film Festival where it won both the Grand Jury and the Audience Prize in the World Cinema category:

Mix of the Week

Here's a downtempo beats mix I did quite sometime ago. It is the 2nd in a mix "series" I was working on. I don't think I ever did a recording of the first half. It was recorded almost exactly 2 years ago to the day. There isn't really a title for it so I'm gonna just call it "Downtempo 2" and maybe someday I'll put together a first one again, I actually have the records for that in order still. It is primarily downtempo tracks and hip-hop instrumentals with some hip-hop tracks and rare groove to end it out. Tracks are all good, mixing sometimes isn't. Oh well, hope you enjoy anyhow.

Euro 2008

So for some reason I've been watching the UEFA championships for over a week now and haven't mentioned it once. So just quickly...

Go Holland!



Gotta love the Orange. They are due for a big win, hopefully this is the year! It's been a really enjoyable tournament to watch. Good games, great goals. Thank you ESPN for getting all the games on tv.

And some music to enjoy with a game: "Qualified" by Soul Patrol, done for the World Cup in 2006:

Friday's Track(s) of the Day

I'm going to Guanajuato, Mexico tomorrow for a week so here are a couple of Rufus Thomas covers dones by Mexican bands. They are classic tracks that you'll recognize: "Push & Pull" and "(Do) The Funky Chicken"





Posts will be popping up over the course of the week so stay tuned...

DC Area Beat's Spectacular

Time to rep some beats from the DC area. First is a track by See-I called "The King" and this is a remix by Magic Fly. It came out on a 10" 6 months ago or so. See-I is a live reggae group from DC featuring some members of Thievery Corporation (vocalists Roots & Zeebo, guitarist/sitar player Rob Myers, and saxophonist Frank Mitchell). They rock the house when they perform and supposedly have an album coming out in the future.



Next is a track that just came out that is by a few different artists. It is titled "SBC" by the All Good Funk Alliance vs. Neighbour featuring Wax Romeo. AGFA hail from Virginia (yea, I know it's not DC, that's why I put "area" in the title of the post), while the other 2 dudes are from Canada (most def not DC, more like BC). All artists involved are into the funky breaks sorta sound. I tend to like the AGFA sound a bit more than the others but here working together they create a nice little track.



Going on vacation Saturday. More on that tomorrow as I drop a gem or two on you for Friday's pick... and don't worry, I'm gonna try to get some posts up while I'm away, I think I can pull it off.

Editor's note: Audio's not working, will try to get operational later this afternoon

Editor's note II: Maybe it is working, just slow to load

Natalia Clavier (and more ESL releases)

Natalia Clavier is the newest artist to release an album on the ESL music label. She is from Barcelona via Buenos Aires. Her debut album, "Nectar," featuring help from Federico Aubele and production by the Thievery Corporation's Eric Hilton came out this past Tuesday and, while it features no suprises musically, is very solid. Instrumentation is what you'd expect with some hip-hop/ downtempo beats, acoustic guitars, and airy spanish female vocals. A nice release with a great calm vibe to it. She has been featured on all of Aubele's previous albums and especially heavily on "Panamericana." Highly recommended for fans of ESL Music releases. Here's video of her and Federico performing "Diario de Viaje" during an acoustic set from his first album "GranHotelBuenosAires"



Oh, and I just saw that ESL has two other releases that just came out, a Federico Auble live acoustic set and, even better, a new Ocote Soul Sounds album. Ocote Soul Sounds are a group that do a fusion of a lot of different sounds but to put it simply I would say it's laid back latin funk. I should picked that one up the other day. Maybe tomorrow...

Friday's Track of the Day

This track came out last year but I just picked up the 12" today @ DJ Hut. It's the B-side to Marco Polo's single from his album, Port Authority, and it's a track called "Nostalgia" featuring lyrics by Masta Ace. The beats on that classic hip-hop steez, with a nice guitar loop and boom bap drums, and the A.C.E. kills it. A good track for the summertime.

Got my computer working again...

Yesterday evening after too much time messing around with my computer I finally got my audio interface for my computer working again. I had messed around with it to varying degrees over the course of the last year with little luck, yesterday I did everything I had tried before plus I switched some cabling and moving some PCI cards inside my computer. Well, none of that worked but I essentially limited it down to a program error. So I downloaded some updated drivers and that worked for a bit. So as a test, I recorded a whole record in one hour long take. The record was the one on my turntable, "Cicero Park" by Hot Chocolate (I picked this up in a quick dig last week for $0.25, it was a good day where I got about 8 records for $1.50.) Not really that spectacular an album but it does have a couple of decent tracks, one of which has been sampled in the hip-hop realm. I can't place the exact track that used it but it has a west coast sorta vibe to it. Let me know if you can place who sampled it.



Getting my computer to work gave me a natural high...
More tracks to come in the future if my computer holds up. I sure as hell hope it does.

DC United Game last night

Game didn't happen, it rained too much. The Barra Brava & Screaming Eagles had alot of fun though. And it was fun to watch them for a bit from under cover cuz it poured like crazy. Game to rescheduled and I'm looking forward to sitting in our actual seats because they are right behind these crazy people:

Top 5 DC United Goals of All Time

The title says it all, I remember watching the #2 goal on tv before I really became a huge DCU fan, as it was the first season of MLS. It was pouring rain for the whole game and the field was such a mess, it was hard to see anything because the cameras were wet. What a game! The start of a dynasty.
I like the Freddy Adu goal too, he pulls a nice move to get by one defender and just burns down the field.



Goin' to RFK tomorrow night to see them vs. defending champs Houston Dynamo. I'll be sitting just behind the Barra Brava so it'll be rockin' and rollin' and I'll be lookin' for a win. DC UNITED!