Junky

I'm sorry. I tried but I couldn't just do it. It has cast its root so deep into my person over the years that I almost immediately have withdrawal not having it for even just half a day. I have amassed so much of it that I'll most likely be judged several lifetimes if it is illegal. I can't change anymore. This is one hard habit to break. Not even a rehab will mend me; I might as well be dead. Only then can I be cured of this addiction. Damn you, house music!

LOST GROOVE

It has been more than two years since I last had my hands on decks. I'm afraid I'm rusty by now and will need to refine my skills if I ever want to go back to spinning. I miss the nightly gigs I used to have back in Bicol as a resident DJ of a club there. I miss the feel of vinyl grooves in my fingers, and having to scratch on the first beat of the bar before starting the mix even though it is not necessary.

On the bus on my way to work tonight, I was listening to my playlist of house music on my phone. Although I brought along my PSP, I opted to just listen to the music instead and daydream (or nightdream) about the past years.

The crowd took a break and there are only a few on the floor. It was a few more hours before the club closes, and most are already tired dancing to my previous sets of RnB and HipHop. It is strange that I specialize in house music, yet it seem so hard to me to push for acceptance from my crowd, as they more prefer urban music than real club music.

I pushed the playing track into a backward spin, while slowly introducing the other deck as I scratch the first beat of Kaskade's remix of Here I Am by David Morales. The people on the floor turned to look at me, as if asking what the hell I was doing it for. Throwing them a smile, I killed the upfader on the outgoing and let the vinyl go on the other deck.

Some people got up from their tables and soon after the floor filled up. The perfect house pattern of the song makes me jump to it, as my wife beside me dances with me. We each have on the booth a bottle of SanMig Light, from friends of us in the crowd. Good tracks, despite the crowd not knowing it, always have the effect that makes them go wild.

From my crate, I took the vinyl for Robyn's Be Mine, and laid it on the other deck. I set the tonearm to the beginning of the track and then put on the headphone and pressed the PFL (pre-fader listening) button. I took the tonearm back to the beginning of the track and then scratched the first beat in sync with the beat of the current song playing. Then I let go of it to be able to adjust the BPM. I took one ear off the headphone to hear the playing track from the monitor on the booth, while still being able to hear the incoming track on the other ear.

Shortly after the first few beats, the incoming song goes a bit faster than the other, and I have to tap a bit on the pitch bend button and adjust two notches below on the pitch slider. I let the incoming song playing, and making adjustments accordingly as it goes off-sync. Stopped the incoming deck and returned the tonearm to the beginning of the track, again scratching to the beat of the outgoing song waiting for the first beat of a bar. I have let the incoming ride the beat of the outgoing on my headphone to check if it is perfectly in sync for at least 32 beats.

Went back to enjoying the currently playing song, while the next song is cued on the other deck. As the outgoing song nears the end, breaking down to just the music, I let the incoming track go and then adjusted the channel's low EQ to just half (I don't know with other DJs, I always adjust the bass of the incoming as I do the mix mostly when there still is substantial music instruments on the song). Slowly, I push the upfader on the incoming's channel to blend with the outgoing. While doing this, I also am adjusting the high EQ of the outgoing by small increments.

Kaskade's Big Room Remix of Here I Am by David Morales has this perfect house beat pattern, while Robyn's Be Mine has this off-beat snare where supposedly the hihat cymbal should be. It is a joy to introduce the off-beat snare into the typical house beat. AS the mix progresses, the two tracks are always in perfect sync and the melodies from the two are blending very nicely. I have started to introduce the bassline of the incoming by slowly turning up its low EQ, and I started to slowly slide down the upfader for the outgoing. Then suddenly both the track goes into a breakdown where the outgoing will be shifting to just drums, while the incoming goes into full swing. I killed the upfader for the outgoing and let the incoming take the main feed.

Just another perfect mix. And the crowd went wilder.

I wish I have my own decks. So I don't have to dream about mixing ever again.

ON WHY I HATE ROCK MUSIC

On my bus ride to work today I was seated opposite to this two friends who obviously are rockers, judging from their clothes, and sure enough they are talking about their music preference. You can blame me for being prejudiced, but from the way they talk and the words they use, even a kid can tell they both have nothing to speak of intellectually. They could well be typified like your neighborhood "taho" vendor. Well, I have seen the worst- like rugby boys in Cubao or Divisoria nodding to rock music, and "kargadors" as well.

It used to be that these kinds of people only listen to the likes of boybands or Filipino HipHop (looking the way of Salbakuta), even those old songs rolled into a medley with just one or two persons singing all throughout. And rock is reserved to those with enough intellect to understand what the bands are singing, at least literally. I admit I have been into rock music for the longest time. You can mention rock bands from way back AC/DC and Iron Maiden era to those of the recent years such as Incubus and Staind, and most likely I have got an album by them either on tape or CD. I grew up listening to rock music.

Somewhere along the way, around the time of Incubus and Limp Bizkit- the early 2000s, I just realized that I am sharing the same preference with most everyone else. I heard the errand boys at the grocery store near our home in Bicol listening to Linkin Park and System of a Down. I'm not being egocentric or something, but I do prefer things that are different from what everybody else has. Somebody suggested that this has been fueled by the proliferation of piracy, which opened the whole she-bang of options for music to those who previously are limited to, well, Salbakuta. So, damn the pirates. I do love downloading through the internet, though.

Along with rock, my other biggest music passion is electronic music. At around that very same time my love for rock is waning, I also am beginning to explore remixing and music production through computers. Well, to tell you the truth, I do dig most kinds of music from classical to pop standards to jazz-- the most extreme probably of which is my fascination for violins and bagpipes traditional music of the Irish and Scotts. Around the same time also, the opportunity to be a resident DJ for a local disco (club for us, westernized) opened up for me to explore further into electronic music by way of house music, and also into urban music. And me and my wife lived happily ever after.

Note: Thanks to http://www.shutterstock.com/ for the image