Going to England, and Cookies for a Cause

Posted By: Shagz
Date:

Well, off to London, England tonight! Off to visit some friends I made while in Australia, and just toodle around in the record shops for new beats. :) Going to be fun!

While I'm away though, I'm missing a fundraiser that some friends are organizing for the "Weekend to End Breast Cancer". To help raise the $2,000 that each member of Team Busted needs to hit, they're selling Boobie Cookies this weekend, Saturday, July 21 at Tryst Lingerie (465 Eglinton Ave W, Toronto / Map).

Everybody loves boobies (especially us males, or so I hear) so it's a natural cause to support. For me, even more so, since my Mom is a breast cancer survivor. I think it goes without saying that we're dealing with a terrible disease and researchers can use all the support they can get.

If you're in the area or are in need of new undergarments, make sure you check 'em out on Saturday and buy some snacks 'n help out a great cause while you're at it?

One last thing before I go: NO...HARRY...POTTER...SPOILERS!

 No comments have been posted about this article - Why not post one?

State of the Beats

Posted By: Shagz
Date:

Just a quick update here on some things that have been going on in Shagzland...

First off, I'm really happy to say that an audio restoration project that I worked on earlier this year has finally seen the light of day!

A friend of mine contacted me a few months ago about taking some old LPs, digitizing them, cleaning them up and burning them to CD. His Dad was in a Canadian soft rock/pop duo back in the 1970's, recording under the name Gary and Dave. They were quite popular at the time, with a number of hits to their credit.

Alas, much of their music didn't make the cut to the digital age, and many oldies stations only have a couple of their songs to play. The goal of this project was to produce a CD that Gary and Dave could send to their contacts in the radio and music biz and hopefully generate some renewed interest, not to mention air play of some great Can-con.

It took a few weeks to clean and a few weeks more to get the printing and mass CD reproduction done, but my friend Ben Weeks gave me the final version just recently, and it looks soooo sweet. :) I'll be sure to post some pictures later.

Update, 2007-07-05: Pics! Here's the front and here's the back.

I'm really proud to have been part of a project like this, to have restored the music to something of its original glory so that a new generation might discover it, or that the older generation might *re-*discover it at the least.

Elsewhere, I'll be finishing up my first run as a teacher at the Off Centre DJ School! For the past few weeks I've been helping out at the school, teaching the Intro to DJing group lessons with DJ headmasters Steptone and Professor Fingers and it's been a lot of fun, and definitely an educational process for me.

It's funny, when you know a lot about something, it's very easy to think you can just teach it. But teaching is most definitely a whole other discipline, requiring it's own sets of skills, and some people are good at it, and some people are bad. So far, I think I've been doing ok. :) But I have much to learn, just as much as I have to give to my students.

If you're interested in taking lessons, either group lessons or individual private lessons, hit up the Off Centre DJ School website for contact and pricing info. We have two intro group sessions coming, starting July 16th and the other starting Aug 8th, both running for 4 weeks. Make sure you get in there early, lessons book up fast!

That's it for me, hope you all enjoyed your Canada Day weekend!

 2 comments have been posted about this article

Pacemaker update: sitting on the fence

Posted By: Shagz
Date:

Been meaning to drop an update recently, but you know, it's summer, things are busy. :) I gotta do a summary post real soon, mainly to properly announce on the site that I've started teaching at the Off Centre DJ School (!!!) but right now...

So, some more info on the Pacemaker got dropped recently, including some photos and some video.

As you can see in the photo above...well...I dunno, is that djing? Can you even tell who the dj is? (hint: she's not a guy) There's hardly any gear, you've got a small little cell phone-sized device that you're touching and tweaking with your fingers, you're surrounded by people watching you, trying to figure out what you're doing...ok, that last one isn't necessarily anything out of ordinary, but without any gear in front of you to give you a little space, people can get right up close, for better or for worse.

Plain and simple, I think the performance aspect is missing. The convenience is undeniably attractive - you could totally be a "mobile" dj in the true sense of the word now, setting up in a park or empty lot with a minimal amount of gear and packing up in seconds. The built-in effects sound pretty good, the interface could potentially rock my socks (hit the site and check out the Demos link, bottom left; it looks like they have some kind of "gesture recognition" for doing certain things) and it's just so damn cool and gadgety...but what are you sacrificing in order to get there?

Then again, how much more am I really doing behind the decks than what this dj is doing? Having your head down in your crates or your laptop isn't much different than having your head down over a gadget, perhaps.

I dunno...there's just something not right about it. Vinyl and turntables are part of the visual iconography of djing, I like to think people expect to see that, see the dj cuing something up, spinning it back, scratching it in, etc. And yet...I can't help but want one. :P

To get to the bottom of this, I think I'm going to have to start asking around, talking to YOU, dear reader/listener, and finding out what you think.

Is it generational? Are the youth of today, comfortable as they are with small portable gadgets like iPods and cellphones, going to find it rather easy to make the logical leap to a dj using devices like this? Do they even really care, so long as the dj is rocking the floor?

Tell me something people, what do you think?

 5 comments have been posted about this article

Photographs in Time and Space

Posted By: Shagz
Date:

Just giving you the heads up on a show I'm dropping beats at this coming Thurs, June 7th. It's a photo show opening at the Lens Factory (1036 Queen St. W, just west of Ossington) for a photographer friend, Andrew Drown.

I don't have the exact details, but the show is called Photographs in Time and Space. You can expect beautiful photos of landscapes, textures and colours from various locations across Canada and the world, wine 'n appys, down tempo beats 'n funk by me, and a slide show presentation set to music.

This all goes down starting at 8pm this Thurs, June 7th.

Hope to see you there!

Summary:
Photographs in Time and Space
Lens Factory, 1036 Queen St. W
Toronto, ON
Thurs, June 7th, 8pm - 11pm

 No comments have been posted about this article - Why not post one?

Pacemaker: a true ipod for DJs?

Posted By: Shagz
Date:

The Pacemaker...a just professional mini-all-in-one-dj tool or just a silly toy for the iPod generation?

A few people this week have flipped me this link, so thought I'd bring it to the rest of you and post a few thoughts on this mini-wonder or mini-blunder...

First of all, we can't really say much 'cuz we don't really have a lot of info on it, other than what you see on the site. Its looks pretty hot. I mean, a self-contained dj kit that fits in your pocket? 120 GB with 5 hours of djing battery time. I'm not sure how this thing is going to fly but it seems to have the essentials:

• pitch and bend control
• cueing and looping
• software based crossfaders, one for the line out (what people hear on the floor) and one of the headphones (what you're cueing in your "cans")
• Bonus: sound efx, but on a unit that small, how good can they be? :/

No idea what the "DJ Pause" means. :P Could mean a number of different things.

Three main concerns are raised as I read this stuff:

• if the device is tiny, then interface is tiny. I don't want to use a stylus to muck with parameters
• performance aspect: people already don't like djs being bent over a laptop, what are they going to think of a dj pushing buttons on a palm pilot-like device?
• will it be priced as a professional tool, prosumer tool or consumer toy?

I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

 1 comments have been posted about this article