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From The Digital Sweatshop
The Music, Art and Travels of Alan D. Oldham a.k.a. DJ T-1000.

Barbzilla.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Been in the studio making some hot shit these past few days; jacking, minimal, unapologetic techno. I've been really feeling it. I'm trying to absorb the Chicago vibe and bring it to my new music. I'm in the studio right now, just taking a break to write this.

I tagged along with Steve Tang last night for his live set on WNUR. He tore it up. Lot of Italo, old-school progressive (what we used to call European disco records way back in the day), and Chicago house. Trying to get back to those roots with my own tracks. Listening to what Steve was playing last night, you can tell what's missing in today's music: soul and funk.

That's why people still love old Chicago and Detroit tracks 20 years later and this new laptop shit from these no-name "producers" is as disposable as yesterday's newspaper.

From there, me and Giaxia went to see Barb play at Soundbar. It was good to see her, she had two glasses of champagne waiting for us. How sweet. She told me on the phone day before yesterday that's she's over hard techno. Her set was kind of electro, minimal, and Chicago house-style. Everybody's going Chicago now. She sounded like a harder Miss Kittin. I personally think Barb should stick to what she does best, rocking dancefloors. Not too many female DJs rock like she does. In show biz, it gets beyond what you personally want, it's about what your paying fans expect.

Okay, back to bangin' out these tracks.

-AO :: 12:49 PM ::

Comments:2

  • Hi, Alan, nice to see that you have a blog. I am just a music lover that started a blog about electronic music (mostly techno) and I have linked you. It is at http://motownelevator.blogspot.com/

    About your comment, I agree with you that soul has been lost at some point in the last years. It seem to me that today's music targets the brain instead of the soul. However, both old and new music target the body, and that is always a good thing.

    On another side, I actually love the "no-name" thing in music. Lack of cult to personality in techno is very attractive for me (I'm a kind of deconstructed pop-rocker) and in some ways it has been encouraged by many artists, who change pseudonyms a lot (can you imagine Sting recording with a pesudonym?) and avoid all the MTV crap.

    Actually, this is older than it looks. Do you know that J. S. Bach did not sign most of their works? He just didn't care, he just was doing his job with no interest in fame or eternity. The "artist" as a half-god and all that crap was invented later, during romanticism, I think...

    Keep bloggin!

    By Blogger benchosei, on Saturday, April 23, 2005 2:46:00 PM  
  • Hi Ben,

    Just addressing some of your points:

    a) Cult of personality sells records. If it weren't for that, all music would be a complete mish-mash of sounds that you wouldn't be able to differentiate, artists would be completely interchangeable. Your iPod playlist is a result of cult of personality in music, right there.

    b) When I use the term "no-name" I refer to a producer/DJ with no actual credibility. There are many out here today (naming no names).

    c) In the beginning of Detroit Techno, artists recorded under psuedonyms to give the illusion that there were more artists on their labels than there actually were, or to escape contracts with other labels, not for any lofty, artistic statement.

    I can assure you, nobody in Detroit was thinking of J.S. Bach when we made our records. =)

    By Blogger -AO, on Sunday, May 08, 2005 12:04:00 PM  

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