Spin Class

Today I took my first "spin" class at the local gym.  My goal in taking the class was to find a new way to ease the tedium of winter cycling training.  That does not relate to this blog, but the music they played does.

Prior to today's experience I knew relatively little about the music behind spinning.  I had read once in the editor's column of Club Systems International that the music was diva trance and this afternoon when talking to a coworker he stated that he thought they turned down the lights low and blasted techno.

And the truth to be told the music did fulfill those expectations.  There were a couple of cool songs during the rest periods and the cool down, but during the actual workout it was mainstream dance / trance with every overplayed sample that you can think of.  Now I know there are some limitations to the music that they can play.  It has to be upbeat, driving, and during the peak moments of the workout pretty fast.  To add to those problems the instructor probably does not care about what is happening in the dance scene...

I can not help to think though how damaging this is to the EDM scene.  The mainstream world has very little exposure to dance music: commercials, trendy clothing stores, wedding DJs still playing Sandstorm.  This continual exposure (except for commercials) to the same cheesy pop cannot help spread the music or alleviate peoples' misconceptions.

-Charles Cushman

i-phone

x-mas is almost over and the presents have been opened. I hope everyone had a good day and received the presents that they wanted. The big shock for me was my wife buying me an I-phone, and yes I can blog from it as I have just proven :)

Merry Christmas

-Charles Cushman

The Blue Room

Today my wife was listening to a recording that I made of the Blue Room a coupe of years ago. I had forgotten how much fun that show used to be. i was lucky enough to record a couple of episodes, but those can only go so far.

If you have not heard of the Blue Room it was a radio show on BBC 1 Saturday and Sunday morning. They played a really diverse mix of electronic, dub, and indie rock. It really highlighted what is great about BBC radio; a willingness to not just play the hits, but to play great music. 94.9 in San Diego is also that way to a certain extent, which makes radio so great here.

If anyone does stumble across any recordings of the Blue Room pleas let me know, I would love to add some more recording to my collection.

-Charles Cushman

HighLights of 2007?

The dance blogsphere was up in arms recently due to an article published by Billboard Magazine. "DJ Tiësto and the return of house music were the highlights of the dance scene in 2007" I think that it is easy to say that for people interested in electronic music, even the fans of Tiesto and house music, that those two items were not the news for the year. Once again minimal ruled the airwaves and electro-house continued to become omnipresent. Record distributers and stores shut down. The future of clubbing in Ibiza came under fire.

I have been thinking of this from a different standpoint. Sure the items described by Billboard were old hat to us. And I agree that if they had done a little bit of journalism they might have gotten deeper into the story. We can not forget thought that for outsiders the view is completely different than from inside the club. Tiesto selling out stadiums and closing Coachella, that means more to the mainstream industry.

So, "DJ Tiësto and the return of house music were the highlights of the dance scene in 2007?"

True? Yes
False? Yes

To check out some other peoples' view visit Beatportal or Danceblogga.

-Charles Cushman

Photosynth

I am not the biggest fan of Microsoft, but they do come out with some interesting ideas now and then like this one, Photosynth.

Photosynth is a program that combines thousands of snapshots to create a seamless view of a space. The program also makes it extremely easy to flip through a large collection of pictures on line. The photos shown in the clip and examples are tourist locations, but I see this application have a great affect on nightclub photos. The two things I don't like about looking at photos online are that:

a) They are a pain to go through, especially if the net is slow that day.
b) Where is my picture? Wait I found it after looking at 50 random shots.

Now imagine this program. You could flip through the photos in seconds, guests could add their pictures to the collection, and with the thousands of pictures that are taken at a nightclub over the course of a year a pretty strong virtual environment could be created.

How cool would that be?

-Charles Cushman

Free Music

I love music. I always have something going on in the background be it rock, pop, EDM, hip-hop. i am lucky enough to live in a city that has some great radio stations, but they can't provide me with everything that I need, neither can the podcasts that I listen to. So when I find a web page that hosts some great music, gives them away for free, and is legal I am stoked.

I might be a little late on the boat, but here are two recent finds, check them out and tell me what you think:

Rcrd Lbl

Xlr8r

-Charles Cushman

Top 5 Clubbing Experiences

So i have been lagging on the posts, I know. It is not for lack of subjects, just lack of time and I just bought iLife '08 so I might be moving the blog to the metronome server. Anyways, just to get something up here is a post that I did 12 November 2003 on my MySpace page (yes I have been a member for that long). These are still some of my top nights. Maybe tomorrow i can update this.


Top 5 Clubbing Experiences

I want to hear them, every ones top 5 clubbing/ raving nights. Here are mine:

5) Groove Armada at Bridge and Tunnel, London: London by myself, trying to find the places to go. Looking through Night Out magazine see that GA will be spinning at some club. Don’t know anything about it, but I call find out that there is no dress code and I am on my way. I got a little lost, but eventually arrived waaayyyy to early. Turns out Bridge and Tunnel is just a little bar. So I hole myself up in a corner and drink and watch. The crowd slowly fills in, the DJ starts up, I make some new friends. After a while they open up the basement (they have a basement?! and GA take to the decks for one of the best house sets ever. Turns out the crowd is mostly made up of their friends from University ( A lot of people wondered who the hell I was) and all very friendly. The best part it was free!

4) Unknown at Dre’s, Las Vegas: This one was with my friend Scottie. We had found Dre’s one night when we were not ready to go home and this was our second visit. There were two firsts though, first time hearing breaks, awesome ones at that, and the first time I saw B-Girls dancing. It was so cool to see some girls really into the music that could go off. Ended up talking to them and hanging out the next night also. One downside to the entire experience, when I told one of them that I had a girlfriend they never talked to us again (Let the record show though I did nothing wrong!) Nikki and Erin where are you?

3) Donald Glaude at 4th and B in San Diego, NYE 2002-3: This was the first night I saw D, and the best one. He owned the crowd completely and fully, and the place was packed to the gills. For the people who have never been to 4th and B, it is one of the largest clubs that I have been to, comparable to Circus, larger than 1015, Ministry of Sound, or anything in Vegas. They even had the stage open that night, pure madness.

2) Tall Paul at Montage, San Diego: Another one of those shows that I went to early and by myself. I definitely miss Montage and the parties that used to go down there. That night, along with great music, the vibe was epic, smiles all around and I had the perfect mix of caffeine and alcohol in me. When I finally got home I would not shut up about this to my parents, they just think I ma crazy.

1) DJ Tiesto at Spundae, LA: I saw Tiesto in London two weeks prior at the Gallery, the place was packed, but the crowd was quite and I was forced into a corner (I did meet my friend Jet though) So I was anxious to hear him again. This time I did not have a pre-sale ticket so I got to Circus 2-3? hours early (7ish ?) and stood in line, and waited, waited, and waited. Finally around 11 I got into the club, a little pissed off, swearing to myself that I would never do that again. Once inside drop a yellow jacket and guzzle some vodka and step onto the floor. I felt better instantly. After an hour on the floor I finally meet up with my friends (Jhoana, Ian, and crew) and the night is fantastic. I never had gone out with so many people at once who were all cool. Plenty of room to move. To top it off Tiesto took over and made us go crazy. I danced harder than I have ever done, hell I danced on a go-go booth! I was so exhausted that I had to sleep on the way home.

-Charles Cushman