U:Move

Deadmau5 (a.k.a. 28-year-old Toronto native Joel Zimmerman), one of the most in-demand producers on the house music scene will be the house DJ for the 2010 MTV VMAs. He will be joining a list of VMA performers that includes Kanye West, Drake and Best New Artist nominee Florence and the Machine.

This year’s VMAs — which air live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles at 9 p.m. (live ET, tape delayed PT) on September 12 — will also feature appearances by Nicki Minaj, Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Trey Songz, Selena Gomez and Ne-Yo.

U:Move’s Bill Pile has been nominated for a Pitch Music Award.  You can vote for Pile in the “DJ:Dance” catagory HERE

    If they gave out championship rings to DMC winners, Craze would be something like the Michael Jordan of turntablists.  Today he is sponsoring what he believes to be the leading digital DJ program on the market - Traktor Scratch Pro, contrary to what seems to be the more popular program in the US, Serato Scratch Live.  Native Instruments recently posted a wildly popular promotional video for Traktor on youtube, starring Craze himself, incorporating tracks on the fly with his gold turntables, Traktor and a Kontrol X1.  If you’re a DJ who hasn’t picked up your headphones in a couple of months, this video will definitely get a rise out of you. 
   
    But with all of this business about MIDI controllers and all the pretty lights that go along with having a DJ rig in 2010, are new DJs putting more into their USB ports than they are into honing their own skills?  One can only imagine the day that people are waiting in line for six hours outside a Best Buy to cop the hottest music production software.  When the DJ game decided to throw a middle finger in the face of the vinyl versus CDs debate, there’s been a constant arms race between DJs trying to stay on top of it.

    Though he’s been crushing the worldwide DJ scene for about two-and-a-half decades, DJ Craze is not about to fall behind the times.  With a new label, Slow Roast, and a forthcoming EP on that imprint, he’s still putting in the work (and moving with the technology) that’s had people throwing around phrases like “best DJ on the planet” for years.  Catch him Klever at the Live Stage at Power & Light and the afterparty at Mosaic in Kansas City on Friday, August 6, brought to you by umove.  CLICK HERE TO GET ON THE GUESTLIST

Umove:  What have you been up to, DJ and music-wise?  What kind of music/projects can we expect from you in the near future?

Craze:  Hello…for the last couple of months I’ve been concentrating all things Slow Roast.  That’s a label I started with my homie, Kill The Noise.  Been working hard on getting people familiar with the brand and releases (for more info visit http://www.SlowRoastRecs.com).  On my side of things, I’ve been working on my first EP release on Slow Roast.  All I can say is that it’s a mixture of all my influences throughout the years and it’s mostly club music.

Umove:  What DJs out today do you think would serve as good model inspirations for younger DJs coming up?

Craze:  I think I’d be a good role model for younger djs .  I’ve followed what I’ve liked since day one and I’ve made a good career out of it.  Other great examples would be Q-bert, A-trak, Diplo and even Tiesto.  These are all DJs that have followed their hearts and have made great contributions to the DJ world.

Umove:  Are you seeing a lot of turntablists moving towards MIDI controllers?  If so, why do you think that’s the case?

Craze:  I think a lot of DJs are moving along with the times.  The days of 2 turntables and a mic are almost over.  I embrace new technologies and I always have.  For me, it’s exciting to get new toys and figure out new ways of freaking them with what I do.

Umove:  What is it about Traktor that you like better than Serato?

Craze:  For me, Traktor is just a better program.  Traktor has more “toys” (more effects and it allows you to customize every little thing).  The scratch latency on Traktor Scratch Pro is better, in my opinion.  And last but not least, Native Instruments makes quality products so I don’t have to worry about crashing or bugs.

Umove:  Do you think it’s a bad thing that DJs nowadays are having to upgrade more often to the next big thing in technology to keep up with the Joneses?  Whereas several years ago, everyone was pretty much on the same playing field with turntables and vinyl.

Craze:  I do think it’s kinda bad that DJs are always looking for the “next” thing in technology and don’t spend enough time mastering one thing.  At the end of the day, it’s not what you use but how you use it…skills!!!

Umove:  What are your three favorite tracks currently played in your sets?

Craze:  1) Klever - “It Gets Hot” (Slow Roast).  2) Redlight - “What You Talking About” ft. Ms. Dynamite.  3) Rusko - “Hold On” (Subfocus RMX)

    Varying members of the Los Angeles-based electro-hop crew, Glitch Mob, have done shows in Lawrence (edIT and Ooah), but never the whole group.  Friday, May 28th, Kansas City’s growing experimental dance following will have a chance to catch da’ Mob at the Conspiracy Room inside the Uptown Theater on Broadway.  And this show is no conspiracy.  This is no grossly-delayed April Fool’s joke or anything like that, we assure you. 

    With their debut full-length album, Drink The Sea, slated for release on May 25th, we couldn’t resist poking their brains to find out more about the record in this quick Q&A.  But what should you expect at the show?  When you hear Glitch Mob’s post-digital, remix-on-the-fly sound and think something is wrong, just remember the old saying - “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  The only thing you’ll need to worry about breaking at this show is your own neck.  I even overheard a rumor that the doorman will be handing out free neck-braces after the show is over…

Who is Glitch Mob? Some online sources list differing numbers of people in the crew.
The Glitch Mob is Justin Boreta aka Boreta, Ed Ma aka edIT and Josh Mayer aka Ooah.

What’s the significance behind the title of your guys’ new record, Drink The Sea?
With Drink The Sea we were telling our story. We put a lot of thought into every aspect of the record from the song titles to the mixing, melody, tempo, mastering, length, etc. There’s a story in there but we’d rather leave it up to the listener to decide what it means to them.

Concerning your guys’ upcoming Drink The Sea album, what is it about electronic music that makes good full-length albums so difficult to come by? Would you even settle with that statement?
I think there are plenty of good full-length electronic albums—some of my all time favorites, in fact. It’s challenging to make a good album that works on the dancefloor and in the headphones, but it has been done a lot. Dance music and DJ culture are not focused on the overall listening journey as much as rocking the dancefloor, and those can be very different aesthetics.

How is Drink The Sea going to compare against most of the tracks you guys have released over the past couple of years?
Drink The Sea is a full listening experience and is meant to be heard from start to finish, preferably loud. In the past we’d focused more on individual dance tracks and singles.

How would you describe the live sets you guys do? Is it DJing? Controllerism?
We’re just playing music utilizing technology. It’s not really DJing at this point because we aren’t playing full mastered tracks. We are playing songs like a band, although there is an element that is being played by the computer.

Would you rather play a big festival or a medium-sized city?
There’s benefits to both really. In general we prefer small, intimate events though because of the way we can feed off of crowd energy.

Hailing from Minneapolis, DJ, Vocalist and Multi-Instrumentalist Chuck Love is known for his live ‘on-the-fly-produced’ performances.  This year Chuck launched his label, LOVE NETWORK, and has teamed up with Colette for the first release - UR EVERYTHING (with Remixes by Santiago & Bushido). His productions range from downtempo to minimal electronica to head-bopping 4/4 house - all infused with his signature soulful, jazzy flavor influenced by his Minneapolis roots. You can find his releases on Love Network, OM, Great Lakes Audio, Shifted Music, Salted, Onethirty, Celebrity, Lingo, Large and Tango.

U:Move’s Andrew Northern caught up with Chuck for an exclusive Q&A session.

Where do you personally envision as the next big trend in dance music?
That’s a pretty tough question. I got into music as a producer and have been kind of focused on my own stuff.  I’ve Always been a little bit on the corners of dance music in the first place because I got into the dance music world as a producer and performer, more so than as a DJ or a crate-digger. I am a little more familiar with the direction I am going personally than where the world is taking it. Continuing to expand media. The collaborations and the various things with video and audio is what I am really cranked up about.

When you record, what do you use?
I use logic on Macintosh

You play a lot of the instruments yourself right?
Yeah, I play all of the instruments myself. I play guitar,  trumpet, melodica, hand percussion and do vocals while I spin so it’s a live-hybrid cameo sort of show.

You just started up your label recently Love Network, right?
We are just about to release our first track with Collette.

What else can we expect to see on Love Net?
We are exploring down tempo stuff as well. There is an artist from Minneapolis named Alicia Wiley that I’ve got some remix stuff on and I’m anxious to release as well.

How do you feel about sample culture?
I was making music back in the 80s when sampling became a thing.  If you track it back to dj culture or hip-hop culture for re-purposing, it can be very exciting.

What words best describe your sound?
Eclectic and leaning more towards smooth and sexy.  I think I am best known for the smooth stuff, although the party doesn’t always call for that so I play for the party.

When you DJ do you play only your own music, or other people’s as well?
I spin about 85% of my own music.  I basically became very interested in DJing when the Pioneer CDJ-1000 came out. I could go out and play my own track that I made that afternoon, where other people had to wait for it to be pressed to vinyl.  This opened up my style of dj’ing. The fact that I could present digital media that I had just made with the appropriate parts missing in order to present in my live hybrid set.

So would you consider yourself more of an artist who happens to Dj rather than a Dj who is also an artist?
Definitely an artist who happens to DJ.  An artist that happens to go to work in the same place as a DJ I think is a better way to put it. DJ’s that are taste-makers, that knows what everybody wants to hear and that can ID the songs from ten miles away are an entirely different discipline. Big ups to anybody who does that.  Because I am not in that mode really. I am trying to get more and more in that mold with my own label where I need to cultivate peoples’ interest and interact with people’s charts and making my own charts. I have to know what they are releasing and know what my DJ buddies are doing. So that will be a new focus - getting that taste maker thing hooked up again.

Any hot tracks you are particularly into right now?
I am really liking Atnarko’s new stuff. He’s got a new release Lazy Days called Solid Ground.

Cake or pie?
Cake, as chocolaty as you can make it and make it a double or triple.