This myspace playlist is pretty crazy…

:Link:

Yeah, the Awesome Cool Dudes or ACD:

“Neon women’s jumpsuits, handcrafted basketball uniforms, perms, fake tans, we’re down for whatev’s when it comes to playing live. As far as recording goes we record ourselve and take our tracks into a real studio and fuck it up a little bit.”

:Link:

Seksu roba is a Japanese-Korean-American electronic music group based in Los Angeles. Using theremin, mini-moog, and micro- processor based technology, they create space groove electro- love vibrations that expand the mind and libido while massaging the soul - provocative pop and instrumental music that can be appreciated by electronic music fans, DJ’s, pop music fans, and anyone who just enjoys fun, eclectic music.

Seksu Roba features Japanese artist/designer/vocalist Lun*na Menoh and Korean producer/thereminist Sukho Lee, plus guest vocalists. The two met through Los Angeles’ underground electronic scene. Lun*na’s background is in visual arts: fashion design/art, painting, installations, etc. which she has incorporated into the band through her unique costume and conceptual art.

Sukho Lee’s background is in classical music which helped him learn the theremin (a strange instrument that pre-dates the synthesizer and is played without touching). Sukho’s musicianship has allowed him the opportunity to tour with Damo Suzuki - former lead singer of the legendary German 60’s progressive rock band, CAN.

Vladimir Hropov and Andrew Kolochinsky might be familiar names under their “Randomajestiq” music project, with releases out on Subsource (De:Bug netaudio of the month) and Kikapu. The two artists describe themselves as two scientists hidding from civilization and exploring it from the underground perspective. On Autoplate they start our focus on the east-europe musicscene which will last for a couple of releases, and bring a 12 song ep which thematically deals with the exploration of Area 51. They express themselves with different flavours of either gentle flowing soundscapes, warm expanding space pads and harsh metallic beats. Although the album is produced completly digital, the sounds sound analogue to me in the majority, and therefore with classic reminisces to mid 90s electronica. Songs like “Nsomnia” or “Nikkl” dig deeply into emotional electronics while tracks like “R-Type” or “Green Fireball” have a more industrial approach.

http://www.thinnerism.com/apl/practical.php?release=apl011

Looks like VH1 is trying hard to attract that hip-hop audience. As previously reported, VH1 will be adding more hip-hop flavored shows this and as part of Black History month, VH1 premieres two new episodes of their popular show Driven. On Sunday (2/9), the channel premiered the Jay-Z episode which follows the life of Jay-Z on his road to fame, from growing up in Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects to his hustling days and his early days in hip-hop with Jaz and Original Flavor. For those that missed the episode, it will air again on February 12, 13, 18, 20 and 28, check your local listings.

On Sunday, February 16, VH1 will premiere the Lil Kim episode of Driven. The episode details the early life of Kim coming out of the projects in Brooklyn and hooking up with Junior Mafia and Notorious B.I.G.. The episode includes interview with those involved in her career and life such as her mother, and brother, Jermaine Dupri and Biggie’s mother, Voletta Wallace. The show even highlights details on when Kim was pregnant Biggie’s baby. Check local listings for when the show will air this Sunday.

It was into this exciting and transitional environment that a young, would-be producer walked up to Vega and handed him a cassette. “This guy came up to the booth and said, ‘My name is Todd Terry. I just wanted to give you these new jams.’” The night was drawing to a close, so Vega had a quick listen to the track that was about to turn Terry into New York’s hottest house producer. “I was like, ‘Wow! This is powerful!’” With its quick-fire sampling techniques and harder beats, ‘Party People’ introduced an edgy, hip hop aesthetic to the Chicago house sound, and Vega wasted little time in securing a reel-to-reel copy. “There was an instant reaction on the dance floor,” he remembers. “I was playing ‘Party People’ six to nine months before it came out, so I got everybody into that sound.”

More than any other producer, Todd Terry defined New York house during the ’80s, a varied sampladelic smorgasbord blending the sounds of classic disco, the more introspective Chicago sound pioneered earlier in the decade plus plenty of hip-hop attitude and sampling piracy. And with two of the most respected crossover remixes of the house era ("I’ll House You” by the Jungle Brothers and “Missing” by Everything But the Girl), Terry more than earned his title “Todd the God” (or occasionally, simply “God"). Though he’s often been accused of recycling his own beats and effects (in his production work as well as the DJ booth) a bit too often for his own good, Todd Terry’s immortality as a dance icon is assured. - John Bush for http://allmusic.com

And Todd Terry dispensed with a vocal narrative altogether on Royal House’s “Can You Party,” as he created a dance classic out of a delirious, near chaotic collage of electronic samples.

Todd Terry brought sampling to house music with tracks like Royal House - Can You Party (1986/1987)

Todd’s Essential Top 10 House Classics (1996? In No Order)

- ‘Running Away’ - Roy Ayers (polydor) - ” This Came Out In the early eighties. It’s got one of those great choruses that always sticks in your mind and the bass is a good groove.”

- ‘Mainline’ - Black Ivory (mercury) - ” Leroy Burgess Sang On This And The Group Was Rocking” Patrick Adams, Leroy Burgess

- ‘Aint Nobody’ - Rufus & Chaka Kahn (warner bros.) - “This Brought Me Into A More Melodic Type Of Thing - A Funky Beat Type Vibe. I Definitely Play This Record Out.”

- ‘Jingo’ - Candido (salsoul) - ” I Think This Came Out Around ‘81. A Friend Of Mine Was In A Record Pool And He Got Sent It And I Begged Him For It…….I Don’t Think He Really Knew What It Was, Especially As It Was A White Label DJ Promo. He Wouldn’t Have Given It To Me If He’d Have Known. It’s A Latin Percussion Type Thing - No Verses.”

- ‘Don’t Make Me Wait’ - Peech Boys (west end) - ” This Came Out In 1980 although I didn’t Get It Until A Couple Of Years Later. It Was A Big Record Both On The Radio And In The Clubs. The Singer, Bernard Fowler, was great; he rocks those kind of records.”

- ‘Just Us’ - Martha Wash (rca) - ” This Came Out In ‘93 And Was A Remake Of An Old Song She Did - She Used To Be In A Group Called ‘Two Tons Of Fun’. I Like This One More; It’s Faster - The Old One Was Slow, 112 BPM, You Couldn’t Mix It With Anything - This One Is Brought Up By 10% At Around 122 BPM.”

- ‘Walking On Sunshine’ - Central Line (mercury) - ” This Came Out In The Early Eighties, It’s Another Sunshine Record - I Like These Sunshine Records. Its Has That Dance Groove - Raw Sounds Over A Skippy Beat With A Swing To It. It’s Not Really Straight, It’s Like A Swing Groove. If I Am Playing In Florida, And If It’s A Classic Set, I’ll Play That.” Larrry Levan mix!

- ‘Do I Do’ - Stevie Wonder (mowtown) - ” I Went Into A Store In Brooklyn And Bought This In The Early Eighties. He Made This A Club Record, Not A Radio Record. It Has Dizzy Gillespie On It - It’s Like A Jam Session. Its Has A Go od Feel: Great Hooks And Lots Of Great Melodic Sounds.”

- ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’ - Roy Ayers (cbs) - ” I believe This came out earlier ghan ‘Running Away. It’s a groovy type track. You can almost feel the high strings in it - It’s a summer record.”

- ‘Watching You’ - Slave (coalition) - ” This came out around 1983. It was like a New York roller skate record. Not that I roller skated - I didn’t want to break my legs. I play this in a classic set.”

I am guessing that if you are a PC laptop user you may have drooled over the new DeskNote A928. Why you ask? Well for starters the bottom-end model comes loaded with a P4 1.7Ghz processor. They go all the way up to P4 2.8Ghz. That’s desktop performance in an itty-bitty laptop. I am planning on gettin’ one of the babies for music production. I figure with that kind of speed, it should be able to handle Cubase SX as well as a fat stack of VST Instruments.

Features:

What is SiS MuTIOL Technology?
SiS MuTIOL technology, the new bus architecture, connects SiS 650 and SiS 961 together, and delivers 533MB/s bandwidth between North Bridge and South Bridge and even up to 1.2GB/s for South Bridge internal bus frequency.

Efficient Connectivity / Communication
The i-Buddie 4 features high-speed data transmission, providing users with efficient and enhanced connectivity through one IEEE 1394 and four USB 2.0 ports.

IEEE 1394
Supporting an IEEE1394 port, the i-Buddie 4 allows fast data transmission up to 400Mbps of consumer electronics audio/video appliances, and provides enhanced connectivity for high-speed storage peripherals, and portable devices. The i-Buddie 4 offers a way to connect all the digital products for digital video editing easily.

USB 2.0
The i-Buddie 4 supports four USB 2.0 ports to provide high-speed devices functions up to 480 Mbps, such as high-density storage devices, high-quality video conferencing cameras, and high-resolution scanners. ( USB 1.1 backward compatible )

Communication Modem/LAN
The i-Buddie 4 also comes with both build-in 56K V.90 modem and 10/100 Base-T LAN networking so that web surfing and e-mail retrieval ca be done anywhere and anytime.

15′’ TFT-LCD
Together with a huge 15.0″ XGA / SXGA+ TFT LCD display, The i-Buddie 4 provides high quality visuals and maximum viewing area with 1024x768 / 1400x1050 resolutions.

3D/2D Graphics Accelerator
High performance 256-Bit 3D/128-Bit 2D Graphic Engine build-in
Shared Memory size up to 64MB
Advanced hardware acceleration for DVD Playback
Superb graphics is achieved by AGP 4X interface

TV-Out build-in
The S-video TV-Out function is build-in for easier management of business presentations or home entertainment. You can bring your experience onto your TV and it will becomes a perfectly high performance home entertainment system with TV-Out capabilities.

DeskNote Website:
http://www.desknote.net
http://www.desknote.biz

Here is a copy of Mathew Herbert’s philosophy of making music. Certainly an interesting way to do things. - 909

PERSONAL CONTRACT FOR THE COMPOSITION OF MUSIC
[INCORPORATING THE MANIFESTO OF MISTAKES]

1. The use of sounds that exist already, subject to article 2, is not allowed. In particular:
a. No drum machines.
b. All keyboard sounds must be edited in some way: no factory presets or pre programmed patches are allowed.2. Only sounds that are generated at the start of the compositional process or taken from the artist’s own previously unused archive are available for sampling. The use of, ordering and manipulation of noise-sound/found-sound is to be held as the highest priority in composition.

3. The sampling of other people’s music is strictly forbidden.

4. No replication of traditional acoustic instruments is allowed where the financial and physical possibility of using the real ones exists.

5. The inclusion, development, propogation, existence, replication, acknowledgement, patterns and beauty of what are commonly known as accidents, is encouraged. Furthermore, they have equal rights within the composition as deliberate, conscious, or premeditated compositional actions or decisions.

6. The mixing desk is not to be reset before the start of a new track, for the specific purpose of applying a random eq and fx setting across
the new sounds. Once the ordering and recording of the music has begun, the desk may be used as normal.

7. All fx settings must be edited: no factory preset or pre-programmed patches are allowed.

8. Samples themselves are not to be truncated from the rear since extra audio and recording information is often heard at the end.

9. A notation of every sound, its source and a full description of all technical equipment used per track to be taken and made available at a future date.

10. Remixes must be completed using only the sounds provided by the original artist including any packaging the media was provided in.

MATTHEW HERBERT 27-11-00

Before disco, there was The Loft. And what was The Loft? We’ll let David Mancuso tell you about this legendary New York party.

Step One: Sound out, seek and you will find.

Step Two: Do a bit of love dancing.

Got it? OK, now you’re in the Loft space. And how can you tell? Well, it should be perfectly obvious: it’s all over my face.

In the early Seventies, around 200 lucky souls had done some seeking, done some love dancing and they’re still smiling. And what’s really cool is that some of them are still dancing. “The Loft developed into three generations. Sometimes you’ll see all three generations at a party, I’m not kidding! You’ll see a grandmother dancing with her grandson."David Mancuso has been watching them dancing all this time. The founder and host of New York’s seminal house party for some 28 years, Mancuso maintains that The Loft’s legendary status through three decades and three locations is down to how it maintained its basic principles and integrity. “I’m part of something bigger than me. A lot of places aren’t designed to endure. I saw it as a lifestyle, I was looking way the hell down the road.”

In 1970, Mancuso was living in New York, very much an activist (civil rights, gay liberation, anti-Vietnam War) and very much a social kind of fellow. “There was a lot of crossover between these groups and the music was that way too, there was music coming from every possible direction. So people mingled more, in a real way and were very open.” He was also going to parties and having a few himself ("ever since I was nine, I was going to other people’s houses and meeting up with people") when he found himself in economic enstranglement. So he threw a party that asked for a two-dollar contribution.

The party was by invitation only and had freshly squeezed orange juice and organic foods ("very Sixties"). It also had Mancuso playing music on a sound system that he had developed himself and would continue to experiment with over the years. “You know when you listen on your headphones and you are totally engulfed in it, well I was always trying to create that effect. When I was a kid I had this radio that was about three feet high, with a big speaker, and I was always into sound, drawn into it.

And I experimented with it. I had no technical training with audio but I was trying to follow this sonic trail and, you know, ohm is the source of all sound so there were situations where I’d go to see artists or concerts or the nutcracker and these were reference points. Or even listening to birds chirping, you want the real thing as much as you can.” Coming up with seminal sound techniques like tweeter arrays and bass reinforcements, he created quite literally a legendary sound system.
Speaking about dance culture today, Mancuso reckons “we should really be incorporating live musicians again, they’re a very important component. I mean even with the sound system at The Loft, the one thing that it did was encourage lots of other people to do the same. And all of a sudden, people realized they don’t have to dance beside a juke-box all night!”

As the monthly outings evolved into weekly affairs, Mancuso played an array of uplifting music. With two compilations out on Nuphonic, the richness of The Loft’s musical sound becomes startlingly clear. Rhythmically, melodically, spiritually, soulfully and lyrically uplifting, there was music like Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa” or War’s “City, Country, City", which, combined with The Loft’s atmosphere and acoustics, laid the foundations for disco. Later, Risco Connection’s infamous “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” and Loose Joints’ “Is It All Over My Face” would display how this party had influenced the productions. Loose Joints came together in The Loft and Steve D’Aquisto, long-time Loft attendee and friend of Mancuso, produced that classic and delectable piece of cello disco. There’s a distinct thread that runs throughout and it’s most definitely a love of quite gorgeous music that makes you want to dance.

With The Loft, there was little talk of the DJ’s mixing prowess. Mancuso made sure you were listening to the music, not to him. “Every song stands on its own. You know you’re at home right now and you’ve some records there and there’s a record that you love. Dearly. You put that record on and you listen to the whole thing, don’t you?”

Despite his modest assertion that his was an incidental role in the legend of The Loft, it is impossible to think of The Loft without Mancuso. He did have friends play on occasions ("once in eleven years I missed a party because of an abscess in my tooth, it came on so fast") but, he said, “for other people to play the criteria was the same as if you were going to have someone babysitting your kids.” David Mancuso: the real sugar daddy.

There are imaginary countries which no one can ever reach. We had criss-crossed the world from the distant province of Shaanxi to the banks of the Maroni, from Salvador de Bahia to Venice, propagating our Latin funk over seas and oceans, looking ceaselessly for our cherished city. We had come and come in peace, from town to town and from continent to continent. At times, at a bend in the road some wise man would call out to us, Are you also looking for Electropica? Tom Darnal, Paris, February 2002.

In 1995 the fantastic adventure that was Mano Negra finally hit the buffers and came to a grinding halt. Keyboardist and graphic designer Tom Darnal retreated to start answering the big “what next?” question. Armed with hours of video footage and aural ephemera collected on Mano Negra’s many trips to Latin America together with a sampler and few other essential bits of equipment, Tom and his crew began to work on new material. In 1996 the collective released their first œuvre, an break-beat powered hard-step EP called ‘Light And Fire’ on their own label. They baptised the band ‘P18’ because they are located in the 18th district, the funkiest and most cosmopolitan part of Paris. That same year Tom travelled to Havana, Cuba, to stay with the Teuntor family, respected act of the Cuban music scene and fixtures of the lively Centro Habana ‘hood. One steamy summer night, Tom and friends partook in one of those typically frenetic Cuban yard rumba parties. Whilst the whole neighbourhood slinked their way through steamy rumba routines, a ghetto blaster pumped various electronic beats cooked up by the P18 collective and Ir頉r鬠the Teuntor family’s traditional Cuban rumba group, chanted and partied over the top. The fire, passion and energy of that night was a revelation to all involved and it inspired the idea to create a truly epochal hybrid of Latin or rather Cuban sounds and urban dance electronica.

Between thought and expression lay three years of hard work. Countless trips across the Atlantic, sessions in Paris 18th and elsewhere, mixes, remixes and the involvement of a whole tribe of musicians and DJs of every holler and hue eventually produced ‘Urban Cuban’, P18’s debut platter which came out in 1999. The group played their first concert in front of thousands at the Transmusicales de Rennes on December 4th 1998, a day sacred to Chango, one of the many ‘Orishas’ or saints in the Afro-Cuban religion known as santeria. During the two years of constant touring which followed, the band were moulded into a powerful and combat-ready live unit, able to bring the primal power of Afro-Cuban music to audiences across the globe and take no prisoners in the process. “The show was really good,” Tom remembers. “Really wild and savage, with two percussionists at full throttle and all the machines pumping. I experimented a lot to get the machines right and fully integrated in the sound. It wasn’t just the energy of electronic music. It was more primal than that!” The group performed their last concert in October 2000 in the Chinese city of Xian. It was time to rest and think about the next album.

Tom got to work in his Paris studio. “I wanted to incorporate that incredible feel of the live gigs because I figured that if you have a unique sound it’s really worth keeping. So I laid down live recordings that had been made whilst on tour on one track, and since it was machine-driven, I could synch it up and put other elements on top. That way I always kept that live energy.” Tom had already recorded some new material in Havana with the Teuntor family and legendary Cuban afro-rumba crew Clave Y Guaguanco. One day a friend called him and suggested that he needed the help of a electronic music head and mentioned Laurent Collart, sound engineer to French Techno guru Laurent Garnier. Tom loved that artist and so Collart seemed heaven sent. “During two years of touring I listened to loads of things. I think there’s a fantastic scene in the US…guys like Joe Clausell, Fran篩s Kervorkian, Body and Soul, Kerri Chandler and I realised that this was the sound that P18 was looking for. That electronic element is not only a sound, it’s a culture, a school, a way of doing things. Although I had a feel for it, I didn’t have the technique whereas a guy like Laurent, he’s been working on it for a long time.

The big challenge was to avoid a cheap and easy ‘Latin House’ type of fusion. “I wanted to achieve a maximum amount of coherence between the Afro-Cuban and the electronic side of the project,” says Tom. “I wanted the Cubans to be able to recognise their own music in there somewhere. So I spent a lot of time talking and explaining how it all works to Laurent. I also explained the whole story of Santeria and Yoruban mythology because each Orisha is a colour, a natural element, a personality and more besides. I wanted the listener to feel the Orisha in the colour and texture of each of the ‘religious’ songs. It was a great exchange because Laurent also lead me to another planet.

Tom found other collaborators and contributors in the latter day Babel of Paris. Cuban percussionist and composer Raoul Hernandez was recruited and proceed to contribute the oh-so-funky ‘Entre Sol Y Palmeras’ to the new album. Other veterans of the P18 collective like the drum and bass producer DJ Sree, trumpeter Christian Lechevretel and bassist Gilles Rodriguez also played their part. Femi Kuti, son of the late great Fela, found time to make a beautiful contribution with his sax. The luscious fruit of all these collaborations and partings, years of touring, experimentation, moments of pure dance-fuelled joy and at times harsh frustration is ‘Electropica’. It’s definitely a collective effort, spanning continents and cultures, the work of a virtual band of like-minded musical fortune-seekers spread out across the globe but united by the same spirit. “I don’t think we’re a Latin band as such. We’re more to do with funk, Afro-funk, house, Afro-beat, call it what you will. But there is a certain Latin angle. I don’t know if the culture adopted me whether I adopted the culture. Everyone is talking about fusions and all that. It’s a term which is becoming outdated. We’re not at that stage anymore. We’ve already created the hybrids. They exist and now we’ve got to make them grow.”

http://www.p18international.com

Matthew Herbert has been playing music for as long as he can remember; taking up the piano and violin at the tender age of four. His father was a sound engineer for the BBC, and as a result, the young Herbert was exposed to his extensive collection of musical gadgetry that lay around the home. At school, a music teacher heavily into jazz and pioneering composers such as Steve Reich gave Matthew musical insights that were beyond his years. At University, he studied drama in a conscious effort to avoid classical music training, it was here that he first began to use sampling techniques in an exploration of the relationship between music and performance. It was around this time when Matthew began considering releasing some of the music he had been producing over the years.

In late 1995, he released the house inflected ‘Herbert - Part One’ single (Phono). A few months later in January 1996, there followed another three releases; ‘Herbert - Part Two’ in addition to material under two different pseudonyms - the abstracted techno of ‘Wishmountain’, and jazzy electro of ‘Dr Rockit’. 1997 saw the first release as ‘Radioboy’, representing the common elements of each of his former monikers, taken to sonic extremes. These unique angles on electronic music were a refreshing breath of fresh air amongst row upon row of unimaginative tat lining record shop shelves. Taking cues from the ‘musique concrete’ movement, a large part of Matthew’s music incorporated every day sounds, extrapolated from their usual context by use of sampler and applied to the formula of dance music in it’s varying forms. With high acclaim from both punters and fellow producers alike, Matthew found himself in demand - notably for his work as ‘Herbert’, and his considerable remixing talents. In addition to his electronic / dance productions, Matthew set about composing music for several feature film soundtracks - something he has maintained an active interest in since leaving University. However, Matthew Herbert is perhaps best known for his stunning live performances, in which he incorporates live sampling of seemingly anything he can get his hands on, including bottles, bikes, stones, radios, and cameras, to name a few. As Herbert, he takes vocalist Dani Siciliano and pianist Phil Parnell on the road with him and presents his ‘Wobbly’ perspective on house music - sampling Dani’s vocal in real time and manipulating samples gathered on the spot. Whilst in his own words he was ‘never supposed to be a DJ’, Matthew has played out in at over 300 clubs and events over the last five or six years, and travelled across the globe in the process.

Phil Weeks style is hard to describe. very hypnotizing deep house
he’s close to the San Francisco sound, not to mention he’s well known
there and pal with Hector Morales, Lance Desardi & Dj Rasoul.
This release is THE BOMB again. A powerful acid house revival with
one monster dub and a vocal version by Phil himself (In Paris, people
call him the french ‘Green Velvet’ …and believe me this is Phil Weeks year…..
read more on http://www.briquerouge.com

2002-03-04 15:15:28 GMT
LONDON (Reuters) - A member of feisty British pop group ‘So Solid Crew’ pleaded guilty on Monday, the first day of a trial at a London court, to possession of a loaded gun.

Ashley Walters, 19, a singer with the chart topping garage band, had previously pleaded not guilty to the offense last July when he was involved in a heated argument with a traffic warden.But on Monday, officials at Southwark Crown Court, south London, told Reuters Walters had admitted to illegal possession of a firearm and threats to kill. The trial was halted and Walters was remanded in custody until March 25.

‘So Solid Crew’ had a number one hit in August 2001 with ‘21 Seconds’ and won the Best British Video for the track at the recent Brit Awards.

But the group, which has up to 30 members, has been plagued by controversy following the shooting of two men at a gig in London’s Astoria last year which forced it to cancel a UK tour. Lee Jasper, a race advisor to the London mayor, also slammed the group for their violent lyrics in an interview with the BBC last month.

“Somebody needs to say, ‘Actually we (So Solid Crew) are singing about these things but we are not suggesting you go out and do it’,” he said.

Masters at Work consists of the talents of Kenny Gonzales, also known as “Dope”, and “Little” Louie Vega. Both Vega and Gonzalez were born to parents living in New York, though of Puerto Rican heritage. Consequently, both were early influenced by the Big Apple’s fertile salsa scene during the ’70s.

During the early ’80s, both were noted DJs around New York, though Vega immersed himself in house and freestyle while Gonzalez entered the rap scene. (The separate interests came in handy later, as dance fan Vega concentrated on songwriting and groove-making while hip-hop head Gonzalez programmed beats and samples.) The pair were also working separately as producers, and Vega had already made a name for himself working on dozens of freestyle tracks and remixes by Nice & Smooth, Information Society and India. Gonzalez, working as a mobile DJ with a team calling themselves the Masters at Work, founded his own Dope Wax Records and worked on production for all of the major New York dance labels: Strictly Rhythm, Nervous, Cutting and Big Beat. In 1987, he loaned out the name Masters at Work to Todd Terry for the 1987 single “Alright Alright", then Terry returned the favor one year later by introducing him to Vega.

One could say that Nuyorican Soul, a Latin DJ team, was formed in 1996 in New York, but it’s not quite so simple as all that. Really, the band plays Latin influenced house music and there are enough aliases to keep you ruminating for a while. The team itself is better known as Masters at Work. And they were already prominent DJs in the early 80s, well before they became NuYorican Soul.

Fran篩s K., Joe Claussell and Danny Krivit are the resident DJs of New York venue Body And Soul. Fran篩s also runs the Wave record label, where he sometimes reiussues classic tracks like Disco Dub, Together Forever, Journey…

Fran篩s was born in Rodez in France on January 10th 1954. His father worked at the ORTF, the French national radio and television broadcasting organisation, as a sound engineer. His mother was a dentist. They separated early in his life, so Fran篩s stayed with his mother until he was thirteen, after which he went to live with his father. In spite of these early disruptions, he managed to graduate from the Montgeron Lycee in 1972…
…He went on to attend college for a year at Lyon, where he planned to study for a biochemical engineering degree but got expelled for starting a general strike. He wasn’t unduly bothered, however, because he had become so involved in music that he had already realised that biochemical engineering wasn’t for him. His parents begged him to try again, so he studied pharmacy at Strasbourg, but it got worse - all he did was play the drums in various bands when he should have been studying.

How Francois Kevorkian got into DJing

“Well actually, most of the time I always quote I became a DJ in 1976 in New York, but actually I had some experiences DJing in France much earlier, in 1974, but it was not the same kind of DJing. After I had quit that second year of college in Strasbourg, I stayed in that city ‘cause it was a very cosmopolitan city, between Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands and France, there was all these people passing through. At that time, 1974, we in Europe were just getting the sort of late version of the hippy culture that happened in America. So I stayed and got a job for a year in this bar/restaurant/club where they wanted me to play music, but it was supposed to be ambient type music because the bar was for drinking, and if I got people up dancing the bar owner got upset. So I was playing the things I liked for not dancing to, like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yes, King Crimson, Soft Machine, which was very big at that time, and of course Hendrix and all these sort of hippy-related kinds of music, kinda intellectual things. There were two turntables, but there was no mixer, there was no cueing ‘cause you just changed decks when you wanted to change records, so you just put the record on, put the volume up, and that was it. ”

“The real DJing started when I came to New York in September 1975 to further my career as a drummer. I met a black guy in the street that I made friends with who invited me over to his club to show me what he did with his DJing. He had, like, a nice mixer with headphones and everything, and I didn’t understand what the mixer was cause I had never seen it before. At the time I think he was trying a very primitive way to slip cue the records without really blending them on top of each other. Well, he let me try a little bit and I was like, ‘Wow, wow, what is this?’ Cause at the time this wasn’t an accepted thing, this was a very underground thing. After that, I started getting with small little bands here and there and doing like R&B covers on like Chaka Khan, James Brown and records like that, but I fell upon pretty hard times in the winter, say February, of 1976. So I found a job and got hired by this really big club to play the drums on the dance floor while the DJ was playing, and the DJ got pretty pissed off about that, he really didn’t like it, but he couldn’t say shit about it ‘cause the owner wanted it that way. The DJ there was the legendary Walter Gibbons, who at the time was the hottest property around - Kenny Carpenter also worked there on lights, he must have been seventeen at the time. Walter mixed Loleatta Holloway with ‘Hit And Run’, he did the first commercial 12″ ‘Ten Percent’ and all those things, so I had to learn pretty fast, within a couple of days, to play the drums to all these records that I did not know, and it got to be a bit of a fight, where he would play all these drum solos to try and get me out. Unfortunately for him, I knew all the solos, but also at the same time it was like an enlightenment for me, ‘cause while I was playing the drums to the music, I could hear what Walter was doing with the records.

“Eventually the club closed down and I moved on to another couple of clubs, one of which was called Experiment Four. I got a job there just doing like the kitchen and the cleaning, towel boy or whatever to try and get the owners to give me a job as a DJ. The DJ already there was a guy named John “Jellybean” Benitez, and we made friends very quickly. This gave me access to a tape recorder and I started to figure out how to do editing by myself with like scotch tape and scissors and started creating my own little medleys of all the hot things of the moment by taking the breaks and repeating them and blah blah blah. So even though I wasn’t a DJ with an active job at the time and I hadn’t actually played yet, I would give Jellybean some of these things. But then I realised it was much harder for me to get a job as a drummer as opposed to a DJ. For me being a musician and drummer, I understood exactly what they were doing, how they were doing it, why they were doing it, and what I could be doing. And then I also understood what it is that I could be doing that they didn’t know, which I felt I could bring on top of that musically, to make it more exciting. Anyway I would bring Jellybean some acetates of my medleys from this little place that I would go to called Sunshine Sound and get known as the guy who was doing these plates. Through that I kept bugging Jellybean to let me fill in for him on a party or whatever. Then one Sunday Jellybean told me that he didn’t want to work because he was tired - he was the house DJ of that club working every day - so he faked like he was sick or something and finally the owners got me to work and that was my first gig”

Selective Francois Kevorkian discography

Sleeping Bag rds
SLX-0 Dinosaur L Go Bang! (1982)
written by Arthur Russell and a classic mix by Francois Kevorkian
Prelude 12″ discography
PRL D 154 Musique ‘In the Bush’ (1978)
PRL D 158 Claire ‘High on Love’
PRL D 163 Musique’ Keep on Jumpin’/In the Bush’ (1979)
PRL D 560 Michael Wilson ‘Groove It To Your Body’
PRL D 603 Gayle Adams ‘Your Love Is a Live Saver’
PRL D 605 Unlimited Touch ‘I Hear Music in the Streets’
PRL D 608 The Strikers ‘Body Music’
PRL D 609 Lax ‘Possessed’
PRL D 610 France Joli ‘Gonna Get Over You’ (1979)
PRL D 611 Sharon Redd ‘You Got My Love’
PRL D 615 Conquest ‘Give it to Me(If You Don’t Mind)’
PRL D 618 Gayle Adams ‘Love Fever’ (1982)
PRL D 619 Jeanette “Lady” ‘Day Come Let Me Love You’
PRL D 621 D Train ‘You’re the One for Me’
PRL D 623 Next Movement ‘Let’s Work it Out’
PRL D 626 Empress ‘Take a Risk’
PRL D 631 Passion ‘Don’t Stop my Love’
PRL D 634 D Train ‘Keep On’
PRL D 635 Nick Straker Band ‘Straight Ahead’
PRL D 636 The Strikers ‘Contagious’
PRL D 637 Michael Wilson ‘Groove it to Your Body’
PRL D 638 D Train ‘Walk on By’
PRL D 639 Sharon Redd ‘Beat the Street’
PRL D 642 Conquest ‘Body Movement’
PRL D 643 ‘Sharon Redd’ ‘In the Name of Love’
PRL D 645 Rod ‘Just Keep on Walking(Roch Niangandoumou)’
PRL D 653 Unlimited Touch ‘No One Can Love Me(Quite the Way) You Do’
PRL D 682 D Train ‘Thank You’
Jah Wobble, Holger Czukay, The Edge, “Snake Charmer", Ep, Island (83)
Midnight Oil, “Species Deceasos” EP, CBS (85)
David Van Tieghem, “Strange Cargo", Private Music (89)
Jan Hammer “Tranco", MCA (89)
Loleatta Holloway, “Strong Enough” (91) on the small Active label
Production / Mixage
Thomas Dolby “Airhead/Dissidents” (84)
Al Di Meola, “Sequencer” (84)
Jan Hammer, “Miami Vice Theme” (85)
Eurythmics, “The First Cut/Regrets", Remix LP (85)
Jean-Michel Jarre “Zoolookologie/Revolutions” (85-89)
The Smiths, “This Charming Man” (86)
Kraftwerk, “Electric Caf馱uot;, “Tour De France” (86)
Terence Trent D’Arby, “Wishing Well” (87)
The Cure, “Why Can’t I Be You” (87)
Pet Shop Boys (87)
Cabaret Voltaire, “Thank You America/Here To Go” (87)
Depeche Mode “Violator, Mute (93)
“FK-EP", Wave / Import (1996)

Listen to Francois from the deephouspage:

Francois K. - Radio One 2/1/99
The legendary Francois K. in the mix. Francois spun at the Paradise Garage,Better Days, The Loft and Club Zanzibar. He now spins at the Body and Soul in New York.

At the court of Louis XV in 18th century France, there was a character who amazed everyone by pretending to be several centuries old. He went by the name of Saint Germain. Ludovic Navarre, alias Saint Germain, pioneer of the French Touch, has become an idol on the international music scene. Without him, Daft Punk, Air and Dimitri From Paris would probably still be playing parties in the French suburbs. St. Germain was in the same generation, but has never shared quite the same commercial success as his French cohorts. When Ludovic was young, his goal was to be a professional sports player, but an accident changed his fate towards music and computers. His first album Boulevard, released in July 1995, focused on a fusion of electronic music and jazz. It has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide and has now achieved classic status. It was voted Record of the Year in England and was also nominated for the Dance Music Awards in London alongside artists like Goldie, d’Angelo, Michael Jackson.

Since then, Ludo has gained further renown with his remix of the Cape Verdean Boy Ge Mendes and Pierre Henry. He has recorded under various pseudonyms such as Deep Side, Soofle, and Modus. Today, after a five-year respite from recording due to contractual difficulties, Lud is back with a new album, Tourist, on the prestigious jazz label Blue Note. Says St. Germain: “There will only be four purely house tracks. The whole record will be a continuation of my work, with machines and musicians, live and sampled sounds.” Guest artists include Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin and percussionist Idrissa Diop.

J. Dub stands at the forefront of the next wave of Chicago new-school house jocks, with a hypnotic, versatile and irresistible sound that both dance floor massives and hardcore heads can vibe to. With a combination of seamless cut and paste blends, eclectic programming, funky, elegant bass lines, deeply soulful vocals, and relentless percussion, this mad futurist unleashes his patented Heavy Soul tempest across North America and Europe. His improvisational nature shuns convention never allowing him to rely on the hits to convey the message of therapy through self-expression.

His Heavy Soul technique, developed in the fires of Chicago’s heated DJ scene, has opened the door to many residencies at top venues across North America including Shelter (Chicago), Crobar (Chicago), Red Dog (Chicago), Common Thread @ Sonar (Vancouver), 360 (Los Angeles), and currently Sorted @ Smart Bar (Chicago) and Material @ Rednofive (Chicago). A frequent guest at clubs such as Transit (Philadelphia), Melodic (Los Angeles), and the legendary Industry (Toronto), J. Dub has established a reputation as a solid draw and showstopper from coast to coast. It was at Industry that he became a key figure in the Canadian house scene, with his performances at DJ Sneak’s Solid monthly. The foundation was laid for what has become a blueprint schedule of touring, Vancouver to Halifax.

Trained as a filmmaker, J. Dub mixes genres, eras, and new school/old school methods without diluting the essence of his style. His strong drive to create a custom set for each audience has led to many an intense beat-down heavy soul style across the globe. Focused and locked on connecting with the floor, this sensai-in-training comes to make you shake your ass and leave you begging for more.

Visit http://allworldentertainment.com for more information on J-Dub

There are a handful of men who have the title of “Godfather” of House. While many have legitimate claims to the title because of seniority and being there at the beginning, one stands out from the crowd as being the one that defined House music, and indeed dance music as we know it today. His name is Marshall Jefferson. In 1986 he played piano on a House record for the first time ever. The idea was so innovative that record companies told him that it wasn’t even house music. That record was the platinum “House Music Anthem", and today you rarely hear a house record without piano .

Since then, Marshall’s list of accomplishments in House music read like no one else. In 1987 he produced the first ever “Acid House” record “Acid Tracks” using the TB 303, and simultaneously launching the successful career of DJ Pierre. Also, he produced the first House record incorporating old tome soulful spiritual vocals, launching the successful careers of Ten City, Kim Mazelle and Ce Ce Rogers. All those early songs are blueprints for what we recognise today as Deep House, Garage and Techno music. The TB 303 is now the most sought after instrument for Techno artists and producers today.

It seems like almost every song Marshall produced turned into another form of music, which Marshall regrets, as he just wanted his songs to sound different from each other. Marshall was also the headline act in the first House music tour of Europe in 1987, and House music has remained since. The list of careers that Marshall has helped or launched reads like a who’s who of dance music; Roy Davis Jr., Felix Da Housecat, Lil Louis, Frankie Knuckles, Steve “Silk” Hurley, and many others, not including thousands of producers/DJs that have been influenced by him.

The most impressive thing about Marshall, however is what separates him from all the others, his ability to consistently write the classic song. He is far and away the most covered songwriter in dance music today, with his back catalogue containing more than one hundred covers and sample licenses. This is because Marshall"s forte has always been essentially groove-oriented.

In early spring of 1994 Marshall Jefferson came back from a four year sabbatical, returning to the UK he was surprised to see the lack of change in the dance music scene. He returned back to his first love, DJing. Six years on, he is one of the biggest DJs to come out of Chicago having played at every major club/event across Europe and playing resident to Europe’s biggest dance festival Tribal Gathering/Big Love. Finally when we look at the House music spectrum in all its mutated forms from Deep House, Garage, Techno and Acid through the years, you can be sure he has contributed or influenced all of them!

Marshall Jefferson’s Top 5 records that touched his soul and/or changed his life…
1. Led Zepplin - Kashmir
2. Yes - Close To The Edge
3. Queen - The Prophet Song
4. Black Sabbath - War Pigs
5. Deep Purple - This Time Around

Boo Williams was born and raised in Chicago growing up on the south side…where alot of the heavy hitters come from. Born in ‘67, His musical expressions are inspired by the seventies era from disco to some of the best jazz he could ever listen to back then. Influences like Patrice Adams, Roy Ayers, The Tramps, Gil Scott Heron and Captain Sky - his heroes from back then.In the early 80s Boo started to take his spinning seriously and started playing in Chicago at some of the hottest spots such as hotels like the Bismarck, Ascott, Congress and clubs like the Powerhouse, where legends like Lil’ Louis, Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy were performing. Not long after that another person stepped up to the plate - Mr. Fingers aka Larry Heard. He set the standards for Chicago house music with hits like “A Path", “Can You Feel It?", “Waterfall", “Bring Down The Walls", “Mysteries of Love” and “A Corner Called Jazz.” He is the reason for Boo making music today.

Glenn Underground and Tim Harper welcomed Boo with open arms into their group, Strictly Jazz Unit, who are to this day his true family. Boo thanks especially those people who support his music: clubs, record stores, labels, great producers and DJs all over the world.