Wednesday 27 February 2013

Getting hot

(Fashionably?) Late to the party, but with youtube now on your living room TV I've been catching up with the latest hype, "boiler room tv". Like that mad Thomas Bullock DJ set we previewed here in the village, it's basically a DJ playing records on camera (boring, right?) in a TV studio a bit like DJ on "top of the pops". So the idea sounds whack, and actually it is whack, but if you're going to listen to a mix, or perhaps a radio show, it's kinda like having a webcam in the studio - you can pretty much ignore what's happening on screen, but actually it's a pretty fun and compelling game to watch the idiots in the TV studio pretending that they are in a club. Honestly, you'll be amazed by how you can't take your eyes away from the dude with the strange moustache/glasses combo, or the girl quite obviously gurning her face off, or the midget doing the really weird anti-dance. Regardless, the music is pretty tasty and some of the DJ's work their socks off, take this set below from Young Marco, he works the studio from dead still into a proper spin, sweating his tits off and smoking furiously throughout. Others to check include the Carl Craig set (he brings his home studio with him), the Daphni set and the Actress set. We watched Charlie Brookers's Black Mirror straight afterwards, the irony of our viewing not entirely lost on us...





While I'm at it, I read this morning about the new version of NI's Traktor software for iPad 2. Further inflaming the digi-debate, the newest version of the software means not only you can DJ solely with an iPad, but it now in addition to snapping the beats to a grid to enable beatmatching via the sync feature, is able to read the musical key of the track in question and will suggest songs in your iTunes library which would sound appropriate mixed in. Critics have long feared the advent of this type of functionality bemoaning robot DJ's and the like, however I reckon if you've already stepped along the path towards digital DJ'ing then it's already a different beast and shouldn't be compared to the traditional role. You're stepping towards the future which means a change in thinking - embrace every new advance and use it to your advantage to mold the future and become an artist. But you will look like a twat.

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