Posts filed under 'DJ Wesley Personal'
Facebook’s Achilles Heel (sorry, Facebook friends)
I realize that this posting is pretty off-topic, but here goes… This weekend when I have some time, I’ll be de-friending a pile of people on Facebook. It’s nothing personal; it’s just that Facebook’s Achilles Heel is becoming more and more painful, and it calls for extreme measures.
What the hell am I talking about? Well, bear with.
Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. That’s what they say, right on their home page. But let’s take a quick inventory of the various types of “people in my life:”
- Best friends
- Casual friends
- Work friends at my current day job
- Work friends from previous day jobs
- DJ friends
- Online friends
- Family friends
- Immediate family members
- Extended family members
- Neighbors
I’m probably missing some of them, but 10 different types of “friends” is probably sufficient to make my point. Which is, do I really want my neighbors or work colleagues to know about the trepidation I’m feeling about my upcoming proctological examination? Do I really want my nieces and nephews to know that I just told a nasty joke about my sister-in-law at work, that my co-workers can’t stop bringing-up? Do I really want my family and boss to hear about how I tied one on at a DJ gig, or to see all the stupid Facebook Mobile photo uploads I made at the time? (For the record, my ass is fine, and I don’t even have a brother. The last example, unfortunately, is true.)
Think I’m wrong about this? The Internet is rife with examples of me being even more right than a simple embarrassment about a doctor’s appointment. Like losing your job over a Facebook posting that the “wrong friends” saw, or having the authorities use photos and comments you’ve posted against you.
Facebook fairly recently started allowing you to group your friends. I have no idea what value this is, considering that once they’re grouped, you get precisely zero control over what happens from there. Want to post something only for your co-workers friends group? Good luck. Want to make sure the ridiculous pictures from the family picnic go only to your family? Yeah, sure. Dream on. Filtering who I see on my home page on-demand isn’t really my idea of control, but it’s the limit of what these groups can deliver.
The stupid assumption that all the people in your life are created equal is laced throughout Facebook, and changing it would require a massive overhaul of the Facebook infrastructure. I’m wagering we’ll never see that overhaul happen. Ever.
So the Achilles Heel… Just like Facebook was a way better MySpace (and what it did to MySpace is suddenly becoming very, very apparent), all it’s going to really take to put Facebook in its place is someone to develop a better mousetrap with a compelling reason to start using it, and for me, that service is that one that does everything Facebook does—while giving me the ability to filter, separate and control my various public and private faces. With technology, and with web-based services specifically, people can be (and are) supremely fickle. The Internet is littered with has-beens and their entrails, and if anyone thinks Facebook, Google, Flickr or anyone else is going to stand on top forever is kidding themselves. They will stay on top only as long as it takes for someone to create a clearly better approach and get a little momentum going. Many people are already trying; most of them will fail miserably. Will it be a long haul? Yes. Is it impossible? Not even a little. And as I said, the first Facebook challenger to do this right? I’m all over it.
So back to Facebook. Apologies in advance to the family members, the co-workers, and others who are going to get tossed from my friends list this weekend. Don’t take it personally. My participation in Facebook is changing to a very narrowly-defined purpose, and anyone on my friends list who doesn’t really fit that is getting deleted. It’s just the way it is. Blame it on Facebook and the fact that they have a seriously flawed concept. And blame it on the fact that, at least for now, I have no interest in maintaining 2, 3, 4, 5, or maybe 6 or more different Facebook profiles so I can limit who gets to hear what; that’s way too much work—and just not worth it.
2 comments June 26, 2009
Do I have to like Hannah Montana?
I’ve said in this blog on several occasions that I’m a sucker for pretty songs. I think I’ve mentioned that while I love dance music, I also love music, period. And what constitutes a “pretty song” can vary between things that are aesthetically pleasing in some way, to those that touch me on some level.
Last night, a good friend of mine sent me a link to a YouTube video with some lyrics to accompany the song being performed. No, it wasn’t Internet sensation Susan Boyle, it was, of all things, a video of Miley Cyrus’ latest song from the Hannah Montana movie. Honestly, I groaned for a moment or two. Just long enough for her to get the first line or so of lyric out of her mouth, and then I think I started tearing-up a little bit.
The song is titled The Climb, and the reason my good friend sent me the link is that he thought of me when he heard it, and sure enough, the lyrics absolutely speak to me.
The theme is practically universal; maintaining perspective in the pursuit of life, and trying to remember the point that it’s about the journey, not the destination. Suffice it to say that it’s a message I could use to hear right now, which is why it resonated so much for me.
It’s an extremely well-written song on pretty much every single level, and the fact that Cyrus performs it in a pop-friendly, semi-country style takes nothing away from it.
The song was written by veteran songwriters Jon Mabe and Jessi Alexander, both of whom have been very prolific, and while I don’t realize it, I’ve probably heard their respective material before. I didn’t bother to try and find out who wrote which part (music vs. lyrics), but that doesn’t matter either; it’s the whole that counts, and what an amazing job they did putting this one together.
I sort of resent being sucked-in by the Disney entertainment machine and all their factory-produced pap. But just like good food can come both from factories and from small one-man restaurants, Cyrus deserves credit for picking a great song from some great songwriters, performing it well, and touching someone. And isn’t that what music is supposed to be all about?
You can watch the official video on Hollywood Records YouTube channel.
Add comment April 21, 2009
Why do some songs get so old, so fast?
As I was preparing my morning coffee this morning, as usual, I was listening to iDanceRadio.fm. (I don’t have a choice; it broadcasts to every radio in the house that’s turned-on over an ultra low power FM transmitter. Don’t ask; yes, I’m a geek, we knew that already.) The song that was playing, Madison Park and Monodeluxe with Come Out And Play, is one I feel like I’ve heard about 10,000 times, and I wanted to throw the radio in the neighbor’s yard.
I have nothing against the song itself, or Madison Park, I want to be clear. I love DeAnna Cool’s smooth vocals, and I’ve been a fan for years. But there’s just something about her singing, “Why don’t you play with me, under my apple tree,” that after so many plays just grates on my last nerve. I want to go cut her apple tree down and burn it at this point, which in a way is pretty disappointing, because I still think it’s a groovy song.
But it got me thinking… Why does it seem like some song get so old, so quickly? Prematurely, even? While others seems to last and last. Here’s my list, and I may add to this post later if other ideas occur to me. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think it is, and I’ll do a new post to revisit this subject later on.
- Lyrical Variety or Complexity
First, I listen to lyrics, as I like to sing along to songs a lot of times. I know that not everyone does (like my friend Bobby, who says he never pays attention to the lyrics at all). So for some, this might not matter, but for me, if a song has complex lyrics—I don’t know how better to explain it, but basically more than just a couple of verses or a chorus repeated over and over—it seems to hold better.Notable exceptions: Filo & Peri’s Anthem, which in some of the mixes is quite redundant, and Ferry Corsten’s epic Fire where Simon LeBon sings the same small block of lyric over and over. And over. An exception to every rule, I guess.
But if DeAnna Cool didn’t sing about her apple tree about 15 times in a single track, it probably would have lasted longer for me.
- Lack of Novelty
Novelty songs, or songs with a novelty angle, get tired fast for me. Sally Jaxx’s take on 9 to 5 which I blogged about for other reasons a good 18 months ago, is an example of this for me, because it’s a remake that is incredibly close to the original to the point that it sounds like a remix of the original, and not a remake. And hearing something like 9 to 5 remixed is pretty novel to me.Some novelty songs don’t even get off the ground for me in the first place, like amberRose Marie’s Wanna Be a DJ which I mentioned earlier this week.
The “novelty” moniker is subjective, I suppose, but if a song is intended to be “cutesie” or silly, or maybe is even if it’s not intended to be but comes across that way, it won’t last long.
- Sonic Complexity
This is probably the biggest single reason why some songs last and last… I’ve often called this “ear candy” because it describes anything that lets your ear go for a little ride.This complexity can be done any number of ways. If I was talking jazz piano, it’s often achieved with complex, rich chords and chord progressions. With electronic music, it’s usually sophisticated production with layer after layer of synth action, rich percussion, clever use of patches, clever use of filtering, and/or a very defined rises and falls in energy level that give a feeling of anticipation and fulfillment.
It’s not an easy thing to do, and frankly, it’s also what separates an “OK” dance track from a “WOW!!” dance track, and the aforementioned Filo & Peri and Ferry Corsten tracks are good examples of this.
But when a track manages to achieve that complexity, it takes time for it to become familiar, because you keep hearing something new every time you listen to it. I really like songs (or more accurately, I suppose, mixes) that manage to achieve that, and moreover, knowing how difficult it is to achieve it, I appreciate the sheer artistry and craftsmanship that went into it.
So, what did I miss? What do you think gives a track an extended life, vs. those that are tiresome in a week? It’s fascinating for music nuts to ponder in any case.
Add comment March 19, 2009
Going from DJ to producer
The term “DJ” means a lot of things to a lot of people, but as I seem to recall blogging at one point (although I didn’t go looking for the post), in the club DJ realm, I think I see it as a sort of progression in a way. There’s your basic DJ, a DJ/Producer, and what I’ve coined as a “Producing DJ” (which is admittedly not the best term for it).
A DJ just spins records. (OK, well, maybe MP3 files, but anyway.) A DJ/Producer does that, but also produces or remixes music, which in dance music, is basically the same thing; which is to say, actually creating and arranging the music. And the “Producing DJ” is someone like a Tiësto or Armin or whoever, who DJs and produces, but also brings those concepts together in a “DJ” set, manipulating songs on-the-fly, adding loops and effects, and generally giving a musical performance that’s based on the work of others, and themselves.
As I said, it seems that there is some evidence that these three things are a progression of sorts. Regular DJs—not that there is anything wrong at all with being a regular DJ (unless you ask Deadmau5)—tend to want to start producing music. And if you’re a really good DJ and producer, it’s not much of a leap to start doing both at the same time, live.
This is, in fact, exactly the progression track I’m on. The release of my first commercial remix is merely the first publicly visible mile marker of entering the second phase, DJ/Producer, although in fairness to myself, publicly visible is the key phrase there; I’ve actually written and produced dozens of songs (and not just in dance), but they’ve not been particularly visible. Whether I ever become a “Producing DJ” or not, I don’t know; that’s not really a current aspiration.
In any event, other DJs I know are on the same track, although are farther along than I am. My buddy Jeremy Martorano in Phoenix is producing quite a bit these days through his Majik Boys collaboration, and is sounding good. And Mike Bordes, a DJ I know through coordinating his mixshows on iDanceRadio.fm, has been on this track awhile now. (For the record, Jeremy and the Majik Boys also have a mixshow on iDanceRadio.fm.)
In fact, Mike just released a really superb dance track titled Don’t Know What U Got. It’s well-produced, it’s got a nice vocal (provided by Mike’s fellow New Yorker, Angela Severiano), it sounds good, and well, it rocks!
The most recent work I’m aware of from Majik Boys is their remix of amberRose Marie’s new track Wanna Be a DJ. I do like amberRose, and really dig her track from last year titled Destiny. And I do like the production work that Jeremy and team put forth in their mix of Wanna Be a DJ. Unfortunately, however, I just can’t stand the song; in short, I cannot manage to get past the cheesy, gratuitous lyrics. It strikes me as a song written to pander to DJs, as if the thought was, “Oooo, DJs will love this, it’s about them!” Well, I don’t like it, and I don’t like feeling like I’m being pandered to. But that’s nothing against the remixers on the project, or amberRose, whose vocal talents I really do like. I just wish they all had a better composition to work from. But alas, the track is on the Billboard dance charts, so perhaps I’m alone in this. Or, maybe I’m just jealous. 
But in any case, as Deadmau5 would say (refer to the link above), I’m just a f***ing c**t, so what do I know? 
Have a good week.
2 comments March 16, 2009
Cool DJ toys
I don’t really write this blog for other DJs, so I guess this post is a little off-topic. But I was struck in an e-mail conversation I had yesterday about how many cool toys there are for DJs these days. I have no idea how big an audience DJs compose as a consumer group, and in this economy, I am even more clueless how many DJs are spending money. But DJs, like musicians, tend to have big aspirations (which is a good thing), and I don’t know about yours, but my local Guitar Center (where both musicians and DJs tend to frequent) still seems to be pretty busy these days.
Anyway, I recently had the chance to play with the Hercules DJ Control Steel pretty extensively so I could write a review of it for it DJ Times. It’s a USB-based DJ controller (i.e., “MIDI control surface” to use the typical parlance) that provides a variety of knobs and sliders and LED indicators to enable better, more accurate control of your DJ software. It has enough of those knobs and sliders to provide direct access to the key aspects of digital DJ’ing, thus freeing you from having to use your computer mouse to manipulate the software. And at around $300, and bundled with DJ software (Virtual DJ), it’s ready-to-use and a steal (bad pun).
You’ll have to wait until the May issue of DJ Times hits the streets to see what else I had to say about it.
As I told the person I was corresponding with by e-mail yesterday, I think what’s cool is that things like the DJ Control Steel even exist. When I started DJ’ing, I started out all-digital, and there were perhaps one or two choices for DJ-specific MIDI controllers at that time. After trying the M-Audio X-Session Pro (which I found to be an overly limited choice, not to mention its cheap, plastic feel; it was truly a toy, not a serious solution), I eventually settled onto using (of all things) an M-Audio Trigger Finger which is actually intended to be a MIDI drum controller. But it served me well for quite some time until my Allen & Heath Xone:3D (and later the 4D) came into my life.
But I digress. The point is that today, there are an increasing number of dedicated controllers already on, or coming onto the market, from Behringer, Vestax, Stanton, and Hercules (among others) at the affordable end that are great for mobile jocks and within reach of even aspiring DJs. And at the higher-end, pro goodies (with price tags to match) from people like the aforementioned Allen & Heath as well as interesting entries from places like Finland’s EKS.
In short, there’s no better time for a DJ to move from the traditional turntable-based approach to the art to the all-digital realm. Great controllers and increasingly great software choices make it way easier, and way more fun, than it was when I started out.
Add comment March 11, 2009
My “Butterflies” remix hits iTunes!
As many of you know, I recently completed my first commercial remix project, which was done for Worldwide Groove Corporation, for their single, You Still Give Me Butterflies.
I’m very pleased to announce that the song has been released on iTunes today! (It will be coming soon to Amazon.com in MP3 format too.)
If you’d like to listen to the sample, write a review, or maybe even buy a copy, please visit: http://www.djwesley.com/butterflies/
As soon as the original artists permits me to do so, I’ll be posting a longer sample of the remix on my MySpace and Facebook pages.
If you do choose to pick-up a copy, I very much appreciate it. But if you like the remix, and/or the original song, I encourage and would appreciate you posting a positive review on iTunes.
I’ll post additional information about this project soon. Thank you in advance for your support.
1 comment January 29, 2009
Some people still don’t get it
I was reading the New York Times online this morning, as I usually do each morning over my first cupper, focusing (also as usual) on business and technology. One of the articles that got my attention was one with the headline, Europe’s Twisted Path Away From AM Radio.
It was interesting reading enough, but I was struck by how most of what I read about radio (whether terrestrial or satellite, analog or digital) simply overlooks what I feel is the real trend, the real threat to traditional radio, and it received one sentence at the bottom of the article: “Many radio stations are streamed over the Internet.”
To that sentence, I’d like to add a few points:
- Yes, many radio stations (in this context, conventional radio stations) are in fact streamed over the Internet. There are thousands of such stations from around the world doing just that, and along with them are thousands more Internet-only radio stations. (I have a vested interest here, since I’m program director at one of them, iDanceRadio.fm.)
- Together, conventional and Internet-only radio stations streaming their content provide something that Sirius XM, terrestrial (AM and FM) radio, and digital radio don’t, and frankly never can: a “radio band” (the Internet) with tens of thousands of “channels,” with every conceivable format, genre of music, and nature, from talk radio to bagpipe music.
- It is possible today to listen to Internet radio, easily and conveniently, with mobile smartphone devices like the BlackBerry and iPhone, and as mobile devices get smarter and more capable, and cellular networks continues to offer greater bandwidth, it’s not unreasonable to expect that this method of listening to “radio” will only expand in the years to come.
It’s true that mobile Internet streaming is a geeky thing at present. You have to have an unlimited data plan to go with your smartphone, and you have to be geeky enough to figure out how to find, install and use the sometimes cumbersome software. But it’s not by any means difficult, and as I can personally attest—I listen to iDanceRadio.fm on my BlackBerry for hours and hours each week during commutes and errands—the experience is quite good. (Yes, the connection drops occasionally, but it’s easily restarted, and it’s a surprisingly rare event on my Sprint network powered BlackBerry Curve.)
In any case, I have yet to see a single article from a major news outlet that even mentions this way of listening to radio. The New York Times article I referenced merely talks about how Apple hasn’t put a radio receiver in the iPod; well, in a manner of speaking, they did put one in the iPhone. And Sprint put one in my BlackBerry, too, in the form of the semi-tolerable “Sprint TV” application (which also does radio).
I truly believe that this is the future of radio, even if nobody quite sees it yet. Consumers want choice, and Internet radio gives choice. Consumer want mobility, and mobile Internet radio gives mobility. With improvements in hardware and software, mobile Internet radio could also easily deliver what the DVR has brought to cable and satellite television; program buffering to allow pausing and rewinding, and maybe even scheduled recording of programs (the RIAA would love that—not).
But alas, I think sometimes I’m the only one who “gets it.”
Keep listening.
Wes
1 comment January 19, 2009
Random thoughts about dance genres
As I was eating breakfast this morning (I think about these things at weird times), and listening to iDanceRadio.fm, I was somewhat struck by something.
When I first starting DJ’ing almost several years ago, the dance music I preferred was what I’d today call filter house. It goes by a lot of other names too, but the best way I can describe it is modern day disco. It sounds a lot like the disco music of the 70s, but with a more up-to-date “feel” in terms of composition, arrangement and certainly production. (Unfortunately, a bit like the classic court definition of obscenity, you know it when you hear it, but it’s difficult to describe it with mere words.)
Over the past 18 to 24 months, my tastes have slowly evolved toward a harder edged sound, first to what I’d probably call progressive house and electro house, as well as techno in its various forms (which is definitely a bit of an acquired taste, especially for someone in my age group), and more recently, toward trance.
Now, I’ve liked a lot of trance for a long time, but for whatever reason, I’m really getting off on the sound at the moment. I still tend to prefer trance tracks that incorporate vocals and elements of more traditional song form. But even traditional instrumental trance that’s well-produced is increasingly getting my attention, and I continue to be struck by its similarities with classical music (rich textures, rises and falls in energy levels, and so forth).
In programming iDanceRadio.fm (and in my own DJ sets too), I work very hard to select tracks which, for lack of a better word to describe it, are “commercial.” There’s a lot of dance music out there, from artists who clearly put a lot of effort and passion into their work. Judging music is always very subjective, but I hear an awful lot of dance music that just, for lack of a better way to put it, lacks polish. The songwriting is pedestrian; the production screams that it was done by someone without a lot of experience; perhaps the engineering itself was off (it wasn’t mastered properly); or maybe the vocals are just badly sung or badly recorded.
But when a song is simply well-done, it catches my ear, and it doesn’t generally matter anymore whether it’s soft and squishy filter house, or the edgiest hardstyle techno, or various points in between. Quality is quality, and quality gets played… In my sets, and on iDanceRadio.fm.
The great thing is that quality comes from a lot of different places. It can come from a major artist on a major label, and it can come from the unknown trance producer barely out of high school working in his basement. It can come from California here in the U.S., and it can come from a small town in Austria.
The fun part about my job is discovering those gems and getting them heard. And the great thing about programming iDanceRadio.fm is that I’m never told what to play. The whole point is to provide tremendous variety in dance music styles. I have that luxury in a lot of the DJ’ing I do as well, and the good news is that there’s a lot of great material out there—regardless of what genre label you want to apply to it.
Keep listening.
Wes
2 comments January 2, 2009
New Year’s Eve party in Second Life
As many of you know, I actually starting my DJ’ing career inside the virtual online world known as Second Life. While I’ve branched well out of that at this point, there’s a tradition I started a couple of years ago that I’ll be continuing this year.
Back in 2006, I did my first DJ Wesley’s New Year’s Eve Bash, where I had the crazy idea of leveraging Second Life’s international reach and audience to ring-in the new year live across Europe, and across the Americas. I did it again in 2007, and almost unbelievably, it’s time to do it again in 2008 to ring-in 2009.
This year’s event is a little different; I’ll be doing it at The Pavilion Nightclub, a virtual club sponsored by the very real life CAPP Records. But what hasn’t change is that I’ll be counting down to 2009 in Central Europe, and again in the GMT time zone. I’ll get a couple of hours’ break, and then will crank-up the party once again at 11:00 PM in the Atlantic time zone (that’s one zone farther east than Eastern time). I’ll countdown the new year in each time zone all the way to Pacific.
While it’s a very (very!) long party for me, I really enjoy doing it. This year, we’ll be simulcasting the entire party—all of it—on iDanceRadio.fm. That way, people outside of Second Life can join in the fun too (even if some of the Second Life-specific stuff may sound a little strange to them!).
If you have no idea what Second Life is all about, you might want to check it out and join us on New Year’s Eve. All the details are on their web site at secondlife.com. You can get an account absolutely free, and see what all the buzz is about.
Once you’re joined, or if you already have a Second Life membership, just come to the club on New Year’s Eve night, in any (or all!) of the time zones I mentioned above, and join the fun. You can port right to the club with your Second Life viewer software by clicking this link: http://tinyurl.com/pavilioninsl
Even if you don’t have a Second Life membership, or just plain don’t want one, you can still tune-in at iDanceRadio.fm and enjoy the music and general craziness that’s bound to ensue.
I hope to “see” you there!
Add comment December 30, 2008
Checking-in, and some exciting news
Hey everyone.
Sometimes maintaining a blog is easier than other times, and unfortunately, life has sorta been spankin’ my butt this past month, so the updates and playlist postings and what-not have taken a bit of a back seat.
For the astute among you, you’ll notice I caught-up the playlists for the mixshows this evening; they’re all up and current. And the Top 25 Dance Chart on my web site is up-to-date now as well.
Also from the Good News Department, the remix I recently completed for Worldwide Groove Corporation will be released soon. Kurt Goebel and Ellen Tift, the members of WGC, recently initiated a cool project to have DJs around the world provide remixes to a few of their incredible chill tracks. I did one for their track You Still Give Me Butterflies. While I didn’t really intend for it to turn-out ambient, it did, but I’m pleased with the result, and I’m even more pleased that Kurt and Ellen are pleased.
I’ll let you know when the track is available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon.com. Sometime soon, it’ll be on my MySpace and Facebook pages for preview, too.
And for those who might wonder, yes, I have a few more projects actively underway. 2009 should be exciting indeed!
Add comment December 8, 2008
