This is a section for MUX blogging, blog frickity blog! Yeah, yeah. Blogs are lame, I know - but whatever, it's an easy way to keep my site up to date with what I'm up to. I am a slacker, but I will try to keep this updated on a fairly regular basis.
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MUXList Mailouts
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Friday, 31 October 2003 |
Subject: (mux): Free Halloween Party Tonight! MUX Liveset!
From: Drew Smith <drew@mux.ca>
Date: 31 Oct 2003 12:24:45 -0800
Holas,
Last night, as I was sitting in a pool of pumpkin guts in Granolaboy's
kitchen, I remembered that I should probably send out another email to
this list, to remind you all of the party tonight.
Seriously, I was up to my ankles in seeds and goo. Tania and Jody and
crew managed to come up with 20 pumpkins to add to the extensive
decorations, and Ben, Drew (another Drew, just to confuse matters),
J-Stone, Chris and Kelly, Ryan, Trevor, and about twenty others were
over there having a bit of a pre-party. I got to hear Granolaboy, San
Fran House DJ's Ben and Drew, and acid-techno superstar GIJody mixing it
up all night - I think they even recorded it. I should have been back
at my place practicing my set, but the beer was flowing, the people were
of the coolest variety, and the music was *excellent*.
Basically, last night cemented into my mind that tonight is going to be
one hell of a Halloween party. :)
Have you made your plans for the evening yet? You're coming to Spooky
Doom, right? If not, surf over to http://halloween.granolaboy.net to
see if that'll help convince you. Some of the high points of this
party:
-*- our own Imported Visuals Guy! c60 Media from Calgary, working the
video mixer with two VCR's, two DVD's, and a computer full of
weirdness. Seven TV's and two projectors!
-*- our very own Tania, heading up the decorations committee! The
amount of time and effort this woman is expending on decorations is...
well, frankly, it's unhealthy. It looks awesome tho. :)
-*- two import DJ's from San Francisco (up just for this party!), two
local DJ's, and of course, a completely, totally, utterly awesome
Live-PA act. Maybe I'm biased... no, actually, I just rule. ;)
The party starts at 9pm and goes until 2am. There's a fully-stocked
bar, a *wicked* soundsystem (there's already a really good soundsystem
at the bar, and we're *doubling* it for this party), and fun people.
Sorry about the shutting down at 2am thing - if you're not done partying
for the night at 2am, we recommend you come to this party until 2am,
then head for Organix at Club23, which is about a $6 cabride away.
I'll be doing a one-hour set of live techno, from 1:00am until 2:00am
(woo! headlining! go me!). I've been in the studio for the past month
honing the live set, and I'm ready and itching to drop the techno on a
crowd.
To recap: tonight, 9:00pm - 2:00am, the Waldorf Astoria (the "pub"
side, NOT the Tiki Room!!), 1489 East Hastings Street, Vancouver.
See you there!
Cheers,
- Drew. |
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MUXList Mailouts
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Wednesday, 01 October 2003 |
Subject: (mux): Upcoming show and other announcements!
From: Drew Smith <drew@mux.ca>
Date: 01 Oct 2003 12:29:31 -0700
MUXLIST ANNOUNCEMENTS:
1.) UPCOMING SHOW!
2.) New live recording released
3.) New studio recording released
4.) New third-party remix released
5.) Website updates
6.) Trivial Drew stuff
Heyas,
This is the second email to this mailing list. News time!
**********************************************************************
1.) HALLOWEEN PARTY! HALLOWEEN PARTY! HALLOWEEN PARTY!
COME TO THIS: http://halloween.granolaboy.net! I'm playing a set later
on in the evening - the soundsystem is apparently more than sufficient,
and there's a big dancefloor. We have a capacity of 380 people and the
music is going to be great all night. GIJody threw down the acid techno
at both SketchyPizza parties and awed the crowd, Ben and Drew are coming
up from San Francisco specifically to play this party, and Ross's house
style generally rules all around. It's going to be a wicked night (if
you'll pardon the pun). COME IN COSTUME!
I'm not sure of the exact time of my set yet, but I'm hoping for
something after midnight - no guarantees yet though. I'm working on new
material in the studio literally every free minute I have (seriously,
ask Erin), and can't wait to unleash the techno on a big soundsystem
again. This time there's a real dancefloor!
The only downside to this is that the party ends at 2am (or thereabouts,
we'll see - but bottom line, it's a bar, not a 6am party). If I were
you, though, I'd strongly consider making this party one of your big
stops for the evening - Halloween night, great music, great visuals,
great decorations, a bar, and a huge pile of freaks in costumes. Bring
your friends, drop in here - if you're feeling especially hardcore,
maybe check out Crazy Dave's party, "Dance of the Dead" afterwards.
There's decent parking, even! Everyone is welcome! It's free!
If you've got any questions about this party, please see the FAQ at
http://halloween.granolaboy.net - if you have further questions, talk to
Ross at granola@granolaboy.net.
**********************************************************************
2.) Well, it's been a few weeks now since the Listening Room show at the
Planetarium, and I must say: MAN, that was fun! The decorations were
great, the D&B stage was kickin' it all night, and the star chamber was
awe-inspiring. Listening to Tom, Thomas, Fish and Lace throw down the
techno while reclining in the tilted-back theatre chairs, looking up at
the enormous dome taking up all of my field of vision, watching the
lasers dance across the night sky... what a night!
I got a half-decent recording of my set - you can find it at the usual
place, http://mux.ca/tunes.html - or there are also mirrors of the file
(and the other folks' sets as well, I particularly recommend Thomas' set
on some nice speakers in a darkened room) at http://eastvan.bc.ca or
http://benow.ca/misc/lrc respectively. My set was to be recorded onto
minidisc off of the house mixer, while simultaneously recording the room
onto minidisc using a stereo mic... however, *both* methods failed! The
minidisc recorder on the mixer decided to overload and not record
anything, and the minidisc with the stereo mic has a few skips.. not so
bad though, definitely worth a listen. Turn it up really loud and
pretend you were there!
**********************************************************************
3.) In other news, I multitracked one of the LRC tracks in the studio,
mixed and mastered it, and released it on the website. The song is
called "Optimal Blue", and you can hear a live rendition of it in the
Listening Room set - it's the one right after the "Alright, bring on the
@#%^ing TECHNO!". It sounds very different live - maybe the difference
in tempo has something to do with it. :) Equipment used: well, pretty
much all of it! The bassline is Waldorf Pulse, the repetitive chunky
parts are Nord Micro Modular, the kick and odd percussive bits are the
Simmons SDS-800 and Korg ER-1, and the howling synth is my baby, the
venerable Roland SH-101. Two weekends in the studio mixing down and
down and down, and that's the result. I'm learning more and more about
studio recording - it's really not something I was interested in before,
but it's something of a necessary evil. If I want to get a record deal,
I have to have decent recordings of my music. :)
**********************************************************************
4.) Heh - not even a week after releasing "Optimal Blue", Xyn
(http://www.xyntheticspace.com) has released a minimal techno remix of
it! Xyn is a rave techno rockstar from Detroit who moved to Vancouver
about a year ago - he threw down the live techno a few months ago at
"Tek", sharing the stage with DJ Noah and Freaky Chakra. The remix is
great! It's available for download at the usual place,
http://mux.ca/tunes.html - I've made a new section at the bottom for
third-party remixes.
I'm always happy to hear what people do with my music - if you are
interested in doing a professional remix of one of my tracks, contact me
about it. I may have some higher-quality WAV files for you to start
from, or perhaps even a multitracked version of the song. Not much of
my stuff is multitracked though. ;)
(hell, even if you're just listening to it, I'd be happy to hear from
you - drop me a line with a critique, I value your input.)
**********************************************************************
5.) I've been working on my website, http://mux.ca, and with the help of
my awesome girlfriend Erin, I've been optimizing it for search engine
ranking. I've done pretty well so far, with Google Canada ranking me #1
for "live pa techno" (tho #2 for "live-pa techno", with a dash?), #1 for
"rave tunes", #1 for "techno studio pics", and #1 for "techno musician"
(that last one is pretty cool!). I'm trying to keep the website moving
along - I've got some new features I'm busy trying to add to it, so keep
checking back on it often.
**********************************************************************
6.) In stranger news, I've cut off approximately 71% of my dreadlocks.
I've kept fifteen in total - one "young jedi" dread in the front, and
fourteen at the upper-back of my head, in a sort of Hari-Krishna
fashion. The rest of my head is now chopped short, at about 1cm length
all over... not sure yet whether to shave it bald or just leave it
here. We'll see. I'm happy with it - much more hardcore. Punk rock
meets Mad Max meets MUX. Mwahaha.
Why? I'm getting tired of this question. Here's the top 5 reasons:
5. Saw dreadlocked white guy in the "Homer vs. Tony Hawk" episode of
Simpsons. Unflattering.
4. Five dreadlocks were breaking off near the roots.
3. Wanted to show the folks back home in NB - done that now.
2. Time for a change. Keep 'em guessing. ;)
1. Tired of being mistaken for a filthy hippie.
**********************************************************************
Well, that's all for this email. I'll be sending out the next one...
well, when there's enough news to warrant a big email. Feel free to
forward this to anyone you like, and if you know someone who'd like to
be on this list, they can sign up from the link on http://mux.ca. :)
Cheers,
- Drew. |
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MUXList Mailouts
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Wednesday, 03 September 2003 |
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Subject: (mux): The Listening Room - Sept. 13, 2003
From: "Drew Smith (mux)"
Date: 03 Sep 2003 19:10:39 -0700
Holas,
Well, after a hiatus of nearly three years, I've finally gotten to the
point where I'm ready to play a live set again. I'm booked to perform a
one-hour set of live-PA techno at "The Listening Room", a night of live
electronic music and fantastic laser visuals, hosted at - get this - the
HR MacMillan Space Center, also known as the Vancouver Planetarium!
These guys have literally millions of dollars in laser and projection
equipment, and have been doing it for years, so it promises to be a
pretty fantastic show.
Info: http://www.listeningroom.ca
My set will be the first time out with the new equipment - I've
completely revamped my studio over the past few years. Some things have
changed, while others have stayed the same; I'm still sequencing with
the Alesis MMT-8, and still have the Mackie mixer, but pretty much
everything else has morphed in some way.
Also performing at this show will be four other Vancouver electronic
musicians, three of whom are close friends:
** Koolatron++: some of you know Fish, he'll be doing one of his
classic ambient sets, but with a twist.
** Pleasure Frequency: Thomas Bernard is the founder of the Black Hole
Club, arguably the biggest community of electronic musicians in Canada.
He'll be performing downtempo and minimal techno...
** Tom Schulz: my good friend and former housemate, Tom will be playing
breaks and techno, showing off his mad MachineDrum skills.
** Lace: I don't know much of Lace - I haven't seen him perform.
However, I keep hearing insane stories of dancing robots and
synchronized video...
The event will be held on Saturday, September 13th - tickets are $16.05
each, and are available through me, or any other member of the Listening
Room Collective. Hint: get your tickets early! Help ease the promoters
stress, while giving yourself an excuse to actually come out to a show
for once! ;)
I'm looking forward to my first performance in a long while. I've been
working hard in the studio, and it shows - expect to hear some pretty
insane rhythms! |
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