Saturday, July 19, 2008

Club Noord: Let's D.A.N.C.E. on Fri 1 Aug '08 - Antwerp

Hey boy, hey girl, superstar fashionistas, here we go!



Club Noord took off on Friday 4th of July, some consider it liberation day of Antwerp Nightife. No more door policies, no more discussions with the doorman because you want to dance to club music but wear a Metallica t-shirt or fluo shirts and all-star sneakers. Or a baseball cap, fluo wigs, funky (un)cool sunglasses... Well, at Club Noord, you can be yourself!

You wanna be who you are and have a party with your friends? Come to Club Noord and let's D.A.N.C.E. to modern electro music flavoured with some dirty rock.

Club Noord: Let's D.A.N.C.E.
Friday, 1st August 2008

Doors: 23.00
Damage: 7 EURO
Line- Up: Kim, Rave Grohl & Phantom By Night
Address: Club Noord at Noorderterras, Jordaenskaai 27, 2000 Antwerp

Official website: www.clubnoord.be
Netlog: www.netlog.be/clubnoord
Facebook Group: Club Noord, Antwerp

Spread the love!

Ps: check out Rave Grohl's set from the opening night:
http://ravegrohl.blogspot.com/2008/07/mixset-rave-grohl-club-noord.html

Friday, July 18, 2008

10 times Justice live, can you B.E.A.T. it?

Hello there!

I see you liked my post about the Daft Punk Pyramid...but what about that new Paris duo everybody is talking about...they're still far from what Daft Punk did although they're on their way to become the new electro legends: Justice.

All together, and including the show at Rock Werchter a few weeks ago, this was the 10th time I saw the chou-chous of Pedro Winter and cash cows of Ed Banger Records perform.

An overview...

Early 2006: I received a vinyl..."Waters of Nazareth"...and was immediately blown away. "What is this? How do you call this kind of music?" Damn, this sounded like hard rock, metal but with a beat and a lot of distortion. A new world order! (afterwards I discovered that Justice already had that club hit remix of Simian Mobile Disco "We are you're friends")
The white Justice sampler ends up in my cd player...it's a collector's item now. Damn good productions with remixes from Death From Above, Franz Ferdinand, Mr. Oizo, Daft Punk,etc.!

2006 Pukkelpop, Kiewit: the first show...Justice plays the Dancehall (if I'm not mistaken), anyway...check the videos! It is still an unforgettable moment. The hall was half empty in the beginning and packed by the end of the set. Ed Banger takes over the (big) Belgian festivals...and it started here.
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=3FvxVisxb5k ("We are your friends")

2006 I Love Techno, Gent: Again Justice, invited by Soulwax/2 Many DJs, joining Boys Noize, Tiga, Ellen Allien & Apparat, ...great night, but not the very best DJ set by Justice. (they were spinning vinyl)
Or at least Xavier was. I never understood what Gaspard was doing during the sets. :-)
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=eBVW_PqJCvI

2007 Body to Body, Culture Club, Gent: Justice spins the Pioneer decks (3 of them) together with Ed & Kim, Dr. Lektroluv & Cajuan. Un-fu-***-ing be-lie-ve-ble night. Ok, just for the fun of it, we dressed up...or something. No comment. You were not there, so shut up, and stop laughing ;-)

2007 Les Nuits Botaniques, Brussels: Justice, flanked by Goose & Joakim. First time I saw Goose live...damn they are good too. And Justice plays a party set like Busy P woud do. The popular tunes, ending with RATM...and Meet her at the love parade - Da Hool (jeezes). I was quite dissappointed 'cause I didn't hear a lot of their own remixes and too much commercial crap. http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=TwfAX862l3Y (We are Your Friends vs Klaxons)

2007 Dour, Eastpak Core Stage: It's Erol teaching Xavier some tricks, and I have the impression that the China Man doesn't even understand what Erol is doing or saying. But it's a bomb! Mehdi, Feadz, Uffie, Sebastian, Busy P, yes, it's Ed Banger Label night! Only that damn smell at Dour...I'm sure they do it on purpose!

2007 Pukkelpop, Kiewit: another Justice party, this time the place is on fire, Justice starts to get a grip on all young kids, including the little bit older Peter Pan boys, like me. Oh, important...Justice now plays "(LIVE)" these days and says goodbye to the party DJ-sets. They have the Marshall amp wall, the huge Cross, and an impressive monster computer + lightshow...(but we'll get back to those things in my next post - grin). It's a good show, a bit slow, too many breaks, but all by all worth the money. It's certainly the commercial breakthrough. Justice goes mainstream with uncatholic music, it's a fact, some people still tell me their music is so 'underground', 'uncommercial', 'hard to reach', blahblahblah...
Stupid excuses. Go listen to 50 Cent then, and please get lost, will ya.
But I rest my case. I'm a fan and I love it. I admit.

2007 I Love Techno, Gent: Again Justice with the live show, they improved a lot since Pukkelpop, and we still can't see what they are doing behind that dark wall of theirs. But it's damn loud and surprisingly good. Some promo flyers + Cross stickers I had were grabbed, almost ripped out of my hands in a few minutes. Amazing!

(Yes, I missed out SoulwaxMas in December...but check my "Colombia" posts and you'll see I had a good time as well. Even without Justice...)

2008 Ancienne Belgique, Brussels. This hall is known for its incredible sound quality, good atmosphere, so this must be good. No mass hysteria, but a qualitative show...and yes...that's what it is. You've read all about it. They have an act now, holding their breath 30 sec after the we are you friends acapella, cool idea. Some nice mix-tricks & metal mash-ups. The rest can be found in previous posts.
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=-S-o0GmU42s

2008 Pinkpop, NL: The same gimmicks as during the AB show, but they are here to stay. Even on the big festivals in Holland they seem to succeed. And Dutchies don't speak that much French, so it's rather new for them. "It only gets better!", is what I write down. Every time. And the people love Justice.

2008 Rock Werchter, Pyramid Marquee (not yet on mainstage :-)
Great show, I was bouncing, and raving with the other kids - although they seem to be younger? :-). Had to recover for 2 days, cramps in my legs everywhere. It was top-notch.
But some say it was soo-oo loud.

Well, "If it's too loud, you're too old" (thx So Me, nice quote).

And then there is that special 1 time. That's somewhere when we had diner and a conversation together: Justice, Kavinsky & So Me; we drank wine, talked about a Prodigy remix, smoked something and exchanged Justice remix ringtones. I gave them my ringtone remix, Gas & So Me should still have it...somewhere.

Next time, I'll post some info on their live show.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Daft Punk inside the pyramid!

Old news for some of you...still interesting for the others...


Here's some research I did on the web, which gave me a cool insight on the Daft Punk Pyramid mystery. So this is the Daft Punk pyramid from the inside, you might have seen some of the pics in the booklet if you bought the live CD. :-)


The image comes courtesy of mixmag (via The Daily Swarm), to whom Thomas Bangalter also revealed some secrets regarding Daft Punk's live sets and equipment of choice. Namely:

1. MOOGS (Voyager Rack Mount Edition)
"Next to the ethernet remote computer screens there are four Minimoog Voyagers, the classic analog synthesizers. They're a 30-year old design. We can mix, shuffle, trigger loops, filter, distort samples, EQ in and out, transpose or destroy and deconstruct synth lines. We keep some surprises on the side too!" (they don't use it for quick tv shows :-)

2. ABLETON LIVE + BEHRINGER BCR2000
"The show revolves around Ableton Live software on custom made super-computers, which we remotely access and control with Behringer BCR2000 midi controllers."
(Who said the Behringer equipment was crap? Yes, Mister Salesman, you did, because they 're rather fair-priced midi controllers. And you wanted me to buy more expensive stuff!)

3. SCREENS

Somehow there is some discussion: the pictures show like a Lemur (I'm in love with this machine since I discovered this post last night), but they are not, or not the standard models at least. Although...Daft Punk uses 4(!) Lemurs on TV Live Shows, as you can see here on YouTube (go immediately to 2'47" for Daft Punk action on the Lemurs)

And JazzMutant is happy to mention Daft Punk as a customer. (Hey Justice is a customer too! But that's another post coming up ;-)

4. ? Not a clue...laptops?

VISUALS

"There's a direct connection between our rig and the lights and visuals of the show. The light and video engineers can also add or control layers during the show."


SYNTHS
"Inside the pyramid are synthesizers and remote controls connected to the rest of the music equipment and computers, which are in rack-mounted towers off stage."
But there are no keyboards inside the Pyramid. So it is triggering and tweaking of synthsounds not like J-M Jarre playing the keys live - in a way (you like that Xstophe? ;-). But the triggering can be done with every midi controller, or with the Lemurs as seen in the youtube vid above.


TEAMWORK
"Working the music equipment, lighting and video equipment, and building the pyramid for each show takes around 10 people, including both of us."

PRICE?
2x Behringer BCR20000: 120 EURO x 2 = 240 EURO
1x Ableton Live 7: 419 EURO
4x Voyager Rack Mount Edition: +/- 2000 EURO x 4 = 8000 EURO

2x or 4x JazzMutant Lemurs: +/- 2100 EURO/each x 4 = 8400 EURO (for
'easy' lives)
+ and tons of synth racks (but where are they?) + lasers, etc.

You'd better sell your house if you want a temple like this!

So quite an expensive show triangle they have, and even if it's all technologic stuff, these guys made some of the best dance tracks ever. The shows are awesome, including all the lasers, etc. And in the end what counts is one, easy, simple Soulwax sample: "is it good enough for what you're payin"?

Answer: "Yes it is!"

Thank you, Daft Punk for the behind-the-scences material. Oh, and don't you just adore these helmets? Note the "Hero Helmet" and "Backup Helmet"...if you need a back-up, call me!

Friday, July 11, 2008

Hot Chip + Ableton Live = DJ Kicks

I found this interview this morning, and it's worth it, if you'r into digital DJ'ing/controllerism...or need to be convinced by real artists ;-)

Hot Chip, perhaps Britain's most refreshing electropop band, are renowned for their inspiring live shows, great songs, innovative videos and DJ skills.

After using Ableton Live to compile their DJ Kicks album last year, the band have come to rely on Live as an essential part of their performance and studio setup.


Felix (huge neurd alert! :-) from Hot Chip talks about the details of how they use Live and why. So if you don't believe me, believe the pros. Enjoy the interview!



www.myspace.com/hotchip
www.ableton.com

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

The reward is...Saturday Night Session 4

If you get off, then I get off. So this one is for you.

Finally another Saturday Night Session, right?

Most of the tracks were also played during my set at Club Noord, last Friday.


www.clubnoord.be
www.netlog.be/clubnoord
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16112782001

The setlist in text for those who can't read well:

Thomas - Puzique
Danse en France - Fisherspooner (D.I.M Remix)
The Salmon Dance - Chemical Brothers (Crookers Remix)
Bounce - MSTRKRFT
Heartcore - Shameboy (D.I.M. Remix)
The Reward Is Cheese - Deadmau5 vs Jelo
If You Say Yes, I Say Yes - VETO (James Braun Remix)
My People - The Presets (D.I.M. Remix)
Knobbers - Crookers
Blink - John Dahlbäck (Dim Chris Remix)
Close Them - Redial (Phantom 's Antwerp Excuse Mix)
Le Disko - Shiny Toy Guns (Boys Noize Vocal Mix)
Rock Queen - MIDIphil