Both my brother and I were featured in this documentary on the Electro scene, which I believe I slated to premiere at WMC in a few weeks. It also features Justice, Steve Aoki, MSTRKRFT, DJ Premier, LMFAO, Lil Jon and an actual sidechain compressor. For more info check thelectrowars.com.
Another zany video to add to Chromeo’s collection. This one was directed by Jeremie Rozan from Surface To Air, who also did “Tenderoni” for them and the pottery version of “aNYway” for Duck Sauce. Check out my brother’s moves!
I’ve wanted to post something about Zdar for a while, so when I stumbled upon this video it seemed like the perfect pretext.
Philippe Zdar is 1/2 of Cassius (who in the 90s were known as La Funk Mob and used to produce hip hop tracks for MC Solaar) and he’s also my favorite mixing engineer. One of the true wizards of sound. He mixed down Chromeo’s Fancy Footwork album, which is how I came to hearing endless stories about the man and the myth, through my brother. Sometimes I mix Chromeo’s live backing tracks and I try to match Zdar’s work. It’s impossible. His tracks sound like they’re straight from the late 70’s, they’ve got more warmth and attitude than anything else out there today. He’s done a good part of Phoenix’s music as well.
In this particular clip however, he shows the good folks at Future Music his CS-80 synth and it’s just fun to listen to his accent.
Seriously, you need this in your life. I love a good 2-parted track. Siriusmo is my favorite producer of the year, and if you don’t know how I feel about Chromeo then I don’t know what you’re doing on this blog. The combination is everything I hoped it would be! Recommended.
Also if you’re in NY this Friday don’t miss Chromeo live at Brooklyn Bowl! More info on the FG blog.
Time for the final recap of the 10,000LB Hamburger Tour; the second serving, if you will. For those just catching on this lasted all throughout July, traveling across North America on a tour bus with Treasure Fingers and Theophilus London. We did an extensive run across enormous Canada. Normally I have a rule: no more than 4 shows in a row. I’m not sure how but that rule got broken, or bent, and we did a 5 city blitz. The day before that started I was in Vancouver and decided to get a massage at my hotel to try and ease the tour wear-and-tear. Then we went to our first Canadian show in Victoria, which involved putting the bus on a ferry. There’s something pretty phenomenal about putting an entire bus on a boat. But hey, Archimedes wasn’t kidding, buoyancy is very real. We also saw some porpoises in the water as we were leaving the docks. How do you recognize a porpoise? By its fin! In Victoria, about an hour or two before my set my neck started stiffening up. It got bad really fast and I had to play my set whilst in pain. Damn massage! On the lighter side, a girl asked me if I was Amish.
Soooo Chromeo did the next DJ Kicks compilation and here’s the kicker (pun intended): they covered The Eagles classic “I Can’t Tell You Why”. You gotta hear this.
There ain’t much around-the-world-ness going on for me right now, folks. Now that I’m back from Paris I’m doing about 1 gig per week and for the most part staying home and recording. After Christmas I’ll be going to Australia and New Zealand but for now I’m rather sedentary. Last Thursday I did a gig in London…. Ontario! It’s a city about an hour away from Toronto. I think the last time I played there was in 1998, possibly with Obscure Disorder, the rap group from Montreal that I used to DJ for.