SXSW 2010 Part One (a personal account)

[Written by Adan]

[ADAN SPEAKS ... ] All rhodes lead home

Pardon my absence from these pages as of late, I've been tangled up inside the wiring of electronics for a spell, LEDs in my eyes, and resistors in my hands. And I've recently been spending an unhealthy amount of time back in the studio, home and proper, enjoying a long overdue reunion with my former production partner Sifter, and working on a punk/dance hybrid project. The beat obsessed never leave for long, I guess.

Fortuitous timing and the universe have a way of always bringing one back to the effort and the loop. And as we continue, headlong into eternity, whether we find ourselves at the intro, or at the break, it's sometimes necessary to reach for the pause, to catch our breath for a moment, before the build hits all the right notes and brings us back home to the moment where we began. Music junkie and bass monkey forever and ever amen (breaks).

Adan's Just Givin It Away

I ran across this tune while searching samples for a remix I was recently working on for VIM. This is a remix my old partner Sifter and I completed a couple of years ago for a now defunct handheld game console. After a couple of listens, and testing performed on inebriated crowds, I thought it'd be nice to pass around. So...here ya go. 320 mp3 of four to the floor business with an exaggerated bottom and sirens galore.

Enjoy - and if the link has expired, feel free to email me for a copy.

Adan's Just Giving It Away

Get In Where Ya Fit In

I've been out of the loop for a bit, paying my dues in a suit by day and re-tooling the machine, calibrating the frequency by night. I spent some time building up a beast and reorganizing its contents...what a chore that was. But while my head remains a mess, the sample library is finally in order.

I've also been shackin up with an indie band for the last couple of months. Playin bass, trading the carpal tunnel and screen tan for callouses and blood blisters. It's been alright but the initial enthusiasm has worn off. And more than anything, I realize that the indie and rock crowds sometimes annoy me. For the most part, the people just stand there, arms folded, at most head nodding. They clap or hollar out after each song, and a couple of the prettier ones have followed me home, but overall, it feels slightly lacking in spirit. Maybe it's just that I don't believe in playing music for people who don't want to dance.

Things are looking up though. Toolroom this weekend. Evil Nine in a couple of weeks. Yes. And soon the weeklong industry leaning, whore parade that passes for a future glimpse of music, better known as south by will descend upon my streets. And there are always great moments to be found in there. One just has to filter through overcrowded bills, hotel lobbies, or any number of afterparties. Viva la hipster and all that shit. But they put out, and given enough drinks, they'll sometimes even dance to the rock and roll music (where's the ghost of Lou Reed when he's really needed?).

So the cycle has begun anew - we're all a month into another trip around the sun. And on these shores, imminent doom has been replaced by hope. And as always, there are new tunes to be made, to be heard, and to be hyped. The Tech Funk sound will be pushed even further this year. By all accounts, the blogs have almost entirely replaced the locals behind the counters. And this blog will continue to do its part to help expose new music. More news, reviews, tunes and a few choice interviews. So to any labels or artists who've just recently stumbled upon our pages: get in touch with us if ya feel your sound fits in here. This goes out to those familiar to TFM as well.

All good things to all of you.

The Universal Note

My speakers are ringing and my ears are blown. I'm livin kush at some dolls' afterhours. I'm sprawled out on a perfectly manicured back lawn somewhere in a suburban maze, a labyrinth of an american dream. and what was that George Carlin said? "You have to be asleep...". But more than that, i'm thinking about sound waves. Some believe that soundwaves never truly dissipate. That they echo into eternity, piling up on one another, every sound ever made from the bang up until now. What a cacophony that must be.

Some (and I) believe that the earth resonates at F#. That sacred sites around the world are accoustically tuned to amplify this universal note. But have you heard it on a moog, tonally augmented from decades of abuse and neglect, then trashed through a stomp box? Not very sacred, and probably not the direction the conductor originally envisioned either, but infectious nonetheless. Fair enough.

Sometimes I really trip on the idea of vinyl. I can't get my head around it. Music is etched - notes and ideas, passion and feeling, into grooves on an acetate platter. And seriously, I've read the manual, I know what's happening ...it's just one of those things that seems like magic to me. I look at the vinyl I've released, that I've framed and placed on a wall, doomed to live without its purpose simply because it's mine, and I'm overwhelmed by the thought that a simple beat, originated in my head one lonely night has traveled the world over. This is my connection, my inner child manifested as a loud, raccous extrovert. And I'm left to wonder about the strength of the connections we now create in the digital divide that paves the way for creative expression in this age.