Dear You: Get Fucked - New Mix

Friday, November 14th, 2008

I’m officially the worst blogger in the history of the blogisphere. A month without a post?! Some nerd somewhere is rolling over in his grave.

Anyway, last night I got wasted and - inspired by recent chaotic events in my life - I bashed this mix together. I’m listening to it right now for the first time (sober) to see if it’s passable, and I think it’s pretty alright. There’s clearly some serious anxiety and aggression coming out in this one.

Couple repeat tracks, but whatever, I was drunk.

Enjoy. M. Download

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Tags: mixes

Harvitronix - Boulder Theatre + Bacaro on Thursday

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

Last weekend’s Turbo premiere down at the Bluebird Theater in Denver went OFF! The place sold out and the crowd was roudy. Thanks to everyone for coming down early for the DJ set.

Photo: Chip Kalback

Photo: Cecilia Kunstadter

This Thursday, come see Turbo at the Boulder Theater. Doors (and my set) are at 8, movie is at 9. Then, for the 21+ crowd, head on over to Bacaro for some late-night shin digs at the Level 1/Freeskier party. I’m playing from 10-2. Hip hop for two hours, electro for two hours. I recommend just coming for the second half. : )

Here’s the flyer:

The Presets Mega Mix!

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

I’m not going to lie, The Presets have really got me through these last couple days, with issues due and new ones already behind schedule. So tonight, before heading out to the Infected Mushroom show in Denver, I threw together this Presets Mega Mix.

Goddamnit, I love you, Presets. Download

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Tags: mixes

Upcoming shows - Sep 27, Denver; Oct 2, Boulder

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Come party at two huge movie premieres in Denver and Boulder!

The first one is on September 27 at the Bluebird Theater at 3317 E. Colfax Ave. I’ll just be playing a little hour-long set starting at 8:00 p.m. before Level 1 Productions‘ showing of TURBO. Check the flyer below.

Then the real party starts on October 2nd at Bacaro at the corner of 9th and Pearl. It’s a Level 1 Productions and Freeskier magazine after-party, starting around 9:30 p.m. I’m playing until the bar pulls the plug at 2 a.m., so bring your dancing shoes and drinking face. The actual premiere is at the Boulder Theatre at 7:00.

Denver Premiere flyer.

Live at West End - the Mixes

Friday, September 12th, 2008

Last week, I played a show at West End in Boulder as part of the Boulder Freeride welcome party.

Here are the live recordings, split into two parts. About 75% of the tracks I played can be found in HTW 1, 2 and 3.

Couple quick notes:

1. There are a couple spots where the event people had to do announcements. The announcements aren’t recorded in here, but I did turn my volume down (on the mixer) and randomly started/stopped a track or two. So when you hear a weird, abrupt, nonsensical mix, hopefully that’s the reason.
2. A drunk friend of mine decided to see what would happen if she hit every pad on my MPD24 in the middle of a mix — twice. I tried to do damage control, but hey, it’s live, and these things happen.

Hope you like it. I particularly enjoy part 2 (even though there are a bunch of glitches, as per above).

Live at West End, Part 1 - Download

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Live at West End, Part 2 - Download

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Tags: mixes

Dear DJ Shares and Shaywill.com: A mashup 4 U!

Monday, September 8th, 2008

Dear DJ Shares and Shay Will,

I was toying around with the idea of doing a “How to Make a (bad) Girl Talk Song in One Hour” tutorial when I found myself getting into it and just made a little 1:42 mix instead.

Using some lots-of-swearing-and-terribly-popular hip hop tracks with underlying classic rock songs, I present to you: Music for College Kids.

Enjoy,

M.

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Tags: mixes

How-To: DJing with Ableton Live, the Easy Way

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

There are all sorts of Ableton Live Djing tutorials out there, but I haven’t found one that explains how to do it exactly the way that I do, so I figured I’d share.

Note: This tutorial doesn’t cover pre-monitoring with headphones. There are a bunch out there so I won’t get into it. Also, unlike other Live DJing tutorials, I don’t use the crossfader. That’s probably the biggest different between this tutorial and others you will find.

Here’s how we’ll go from a blank Live Set to one ready for you to mix live in front of thousands of adoring fans:

1. Set up Live’s session view.
2. Pick the tracks you’re going to play.
3. Time warp all the tracks.
4. Add the effects (like EQ, filter) that you want to use
5. Map the effects to keys/controllers
6. Play around!

› Continue reading

Tags: how-tos

Live at West End, 9/4

Friday, September 5th, 2008

Thanks to all of you who came out to West End last night for the Boulder Freeride party. Packed house, free drinks, free food, dancing, yelling, and two-and-a-half hours of electronic music. Sounds like a perfect evening to me.

I’ll post up the live mix later. Here are some photos.

Shay performs the mandatory taste test.

Jen, P Chill and Digi

Dropping tracks!

Cecilia's seal of approval

Mixing so fast, fireballs are flying.

My MPD preset.

Tags: gigs

Live at West End on Thursday

Monday, September 1st, 2008

I’m going to be DJing at West End in Boulder this coming Thursday at the Boulder Freeride party. I don’t know if you have to be a member to get in, but you should come check it out if you’re in town.

Setup:

• Ableton Live
• Behringer BCR2000
• Behringer UMX49
• AKAI MPD24
• iMac

Hope to see you there!

Matt.

Tags: gigs

Anatomy of a Back Break

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

As I fell backwards — my skates just inches off the ice, the boards a perfectly awful four feet away — I knew I was heading for disaster. I could picture in my head, in that split second you have to think before the inevitable occurs, watching hockey on TV and seeing a player about to incur a career-changing injury. I knew it was me this time, the only difference being that hockey is far from my career.

I hit the boards with my upper back and the ice with my butt simultaneously, and in an unmeasurable amount of time, a pain so vile as to procure no conscious reaction spread across my lower back as my body clam-shelled.

I laid on the ice for a couple seconds without any real thoughts while the pain sunk in. Once thoughts returned, I knew the next hour of my life wouldn’t to be spent playing our championship game. Fifteen minutes went by before I was able to move enough to be helped by my teammates to the dressing room. Contrary to other stories I’ve heard, that fifteen minutes didn’t feel like an hour, bur rather, a couple minutes. It wasn’t until after that I found out I was on the ice for a quarter of an hour.

The car ride to the hospital is what felt like an hour. Every bump in the road sent shards of pain through my spinal column. I grasped the oh shit handle like never before, my eyes closed, trying with futility to take some pressure off my back.

Once the dilaudid kicked in at the hospital, my life got a little better. Unfortunately, moments later, the doctor told me I had a compression fracture in my L1, and I would be out of commission for a month or two.

So here I sit, day two, hospital two. My new back-specialist doctor tells me he can send me home tonight with some pain killers, an appointment in a week, and a guarantee that there will be no permanent damage. Not the end of the world, by any means. And considering what was going through my head between the red line and the end boards, not such bad news after all.

So I’ll be on my couch for the next month… I guess it’s a perfect time to put together another mix, eh! The Hapless Techno Weenie Series has run its course. Coming up next? Maybe a Law & Order remix. Hah!

Thanks a lot to everyone who has been with me here at the hospital, bringing me things like smiles and bad jokes. Time to push the “stop the pain” IV button once more and get on with it.

Matt.

Hello from the hospital. Thumbs up!