Sunday, January 31, 2010

Together Through Megabytes #3-Midnight Conspiracy-Chromeo Remix Edition



The boys of Midnight Conspiracy have hit a dinger with their new remix of Chromeo's, "Night By Night." In honor of its release, LOUIS KHA, 1/3 of Midnight Conspiracy, was kind enough to answer some questions for the third edition of "Together Through Megabytes." Results below.

MRLT: How did the remix for "Night by Night" come about?

LOUIS KHA: Graham was actually working on another remix, and I took what he had and just randomly started playing with it, mixing it into other songs as part of a mix tape. And miraculously, it sounded fantastic with Chromeo's Night By Night. So it got reworked and we sent a rough copy to Dave from Chromeo and he loved it! It was funny because we had 2 remixes of the same basic underlying instrumental. We debated for awhile what to do with it, and in the end decided to release it as a Chromeo remix. We might go back and release the other remix one day. We'll see haha.

MRLT: What else does Midnight Conspiracy have cooking in terms of remixes, parties, shows, casseroles, etc?

LOUIS KHA: The next remix we'll release will be a dubstep take on Esser's Headlock. That should be out in a few weeks. After that we have on deck official remixes for MSTRKRFT, Editors and Cool Kids x Hey Champ to name a few. Plus Crystal Castles will feature a remix we did of Crimewave on their upcoming remix album, which should come out around the same time as their original album, whenever that may be.

In terms of parties, we've really been focusing on this new party called Delorean Nites on Feb 6 at Lincoln Hall. Headlining will be Designer Drugs along with Skyler, Broken Disco 1980 and Punky Fresh.

We've been trying to do less gigs in hopes of really focusing on making this a huge party. You know how all those other cities have giant electro parties at concert venues with stages and all you see is straight up crowd surfing mayhem from the likes of Steve Aoki and Le Castle Vania? Well, we're really trying to bring that to Chicago. We feel that's lacking in Chicago. And Designer Drugs is perfect for the first party. They play really hard, banging electro, so it's going to be crazy. Plus they've been gaining a lot of momentum. They recently sold out a 1000 plus venue in El Paso, Texas of all places!

And hopefully the size of Lincoln Hall will be able to support bringing in larger electro DJs that often overlook or skip Chicago on their tour because the market isn't big enough here. And we made it 18+. The kids tend to make it crazier, and plus it's good to expose the youth to the music and artists that you really want to push. They're more open minded and going to be the ones that determine the future of electronic music, or of anything for that matter.

We've made a mix tape for the party which features 2 of our remixes and should be representative of the kind of music to expect.

MRLT: You go by the name of Midnight Conspiracy, you play a night at Angels and Kings called "Disappear Here," and you're now doing "Delorean Nights" over at Lincoln Hall. I'm sensing a sort of "dark" theme here. What's up with that and are you guys open to sunshine and playing beach parties?

LOUIS KHA: I see you've caught on to the dark theme. The 90s were happy and full of sun-worshiping candy ravers. The 2000s kind of smacked everyone back and made them aware of the worlds troubles. If the 90s and 2000s were like the roaring 20s where everyone got rich off of the fed's excessive liquidity orgy, and everything came crashing down at the end of the last decade, then the 2010s will be like the depression of the 30s. Hence, the dark theme. That being all said, one of the set of Mikul's T-shirt and album cover designs for us is in the style of bright, colorful cartoony art. So that really set us back in terms of going for this dark theme. Ooops.

"Night By Night"-Chromeo (Midnight Conspiracy Remix) MP3 (Zshare)

Check out Midnight Conspiracy at "Delorean Nights" on 2/6 at Lincoln Hall. Tickets are going fast....

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

"Beginning of the End"-New Track From Justice



UPDATE: It's a fake. Everyone got duped.

Your second favorite French electronic duo just dropped this track on the internets...


Download and enjoy.

"Beginning of The End"-Justice mp3(zshare)

Monday, January 25, 2010

"Radiohead For Haiti"-Los Angeles- The Music Box at the Fonda


Last night, Los Angeles was lucky enough to witness this little band from Oxford, England called Radiohead perform in front of a very intimate crowd of 1,300. In town recording new material for their upcoming album, Radiohead decided to do their part and contribute all ticket sales to the victims of the Haiti earthquake. Fans paid a minimum of 452 dollars a ticket towards a great cause and their Radiohead addictions.

Due to distance and 452 dollars we were not able to attend. However, our dear friend and L.A. correspondent, Chris Johnson did! Here's what he had to say...

"The setlist was created by the gods and the sound was better than I have ever heard them, easily. My favorite show is still Liverpool the day Kid A came out, but this is easily a close second. The band was just having a blast, the sound was phenomenal, seeing Radiohead with actual walls was just ridiculous."

Well said, Chris. Setlist and video below...

01 Faust Arp
02 Fake Plastic Trees
03 Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
04 The National Anthem
05 Nude
06 Karma Police
07 Kid A
08 Morning Bell
09 How To Disappear Completely
10 A Wolf at the Door
11 The Bends
12 Reckoner
13 Lucky
14 Bodysnatchers
15 Dollars & Cents
16 Airbag
17 Exit Music

Encore #1
18 Everything In Its Right Place (Thom)
19 You And Whose Army?
20 Pyramid Song
21 All I Need

Encore #2:
22 Lotus Flower
23 Paranoid Android
24 Street Spirit (fade out)

Friday, January 22, 2010

Canada For Haiti "Help I'm Alive"-Metric

You probably missed this one if you don't live in Canada. Ms. Emily Haines does a wonderful acoustic version of "Help I'm Alive" off of Metric's latest album, Fantasies.




"Help I'm Alive"-Metric (Album Version) mp3 (zshare)

Thursday, January 21, 2010

VCR-The xx

The xx has just released this video for "VCR" off their amazing self-titled debut. This song's my jam.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Coachella 2010-How Are Things On The West Coast?


It's that time of year again... In about 12 hours or so we will all know the lineup for the 2010 edition of Coachella aka Disneyland for music lovers. I have been to many festivals around the country and year in and year out, Coachella always comes out on top. It's like Christmas, Prom, your birthday, and the last day of school combined. This festival has done it all.

Pixies reunion-Check
Madonna-Check
Radiohead-Check
Black Star-Check
Gang of Four reunion-Check
Rage Against the Machine reunion-Check
Prince-Double Check
Daft Punk-Triple Check

Seriously, the last two on that list are my #1 and #2 shows of all time. Daft Punk, who had not played in the U.S. in years, took all the money Coachella gave them and spent it on kick ass robot suits and a ridiculous stage set up. I'm sure everyone inside that tent was expecting a great time, but I don't think anybody had any idea that two guys in robot suits were gonna play from the middle of a pyramid that lit up. I will never forget turning around during Daft Punk's set and looking at all the faces behind me that were simultaneously expressing total awe and pure joy. You could hear people randomly screaming out, "Oh, My God!" as if God was actually on stage. And then in '08 he was. His name is Prince.

I could go on and on about Coachella's past, but it is Coachella 2010 that is upon us. Though the fully confirmed lineup will not be out till the early morning it is most likely that you will see all of these bands on the poster...

Muse, Gorillaz, Phoenix, Passion Pit, Miike Snow, Echo and the Bunnymen, The xx, Delorean, Faith No More, Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, The Beastie Boys, The Dead Weather, Vampire Weekend, Devo, Yeasayer, Spoon, Mayer Hawthrone, Deerhunter, The Ravonettes, Beach House, and Them Crooked Vultures. And that's only 22 bands! There's about 80 more that I haven't mentioned (not that I know who they are, but Pavement and Thom Yorke might be on there...). Rumors are flying as to who will be the last headliner (Muse and Gorillaz are the other two supposedly) Names being thrown around include Jay-Z, the Rolling Stones, and definitely not David Bowie. In other words, this year is looking pretty amazing.

Like I said before, nothing is set in stone till that poster appears on the Coachella website in a few hours. We will just have to wait and see... Tune in.

Till then watch some of Daft Punk's set from Coachella '06, my #1 concert of all time. I get goosebumps from head to toe every time I watch this.



Oh, what this?!? Daft Punk Coachella '06 Set 1 and Set 2. Click for download (Zshare)

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Blur-"No Distance Left to Run" Double Disc DVD


Blur is set to release "No Distance Left To Run," their documentary chronicling last year's reunion, on February 15th on DVD. Included with the documentary will be another DVD of Blur's massive reunion show in London's Hyde Park. If you can't wait till February, I highly suggest you head over to Itunes and purchase "All The People," which is the audio portion of said reunion show. "All The People" has been available for a couple months now and it is most definitely worth a purchase. Nothing like hearing 50,000 people singing all the words, but also all the guitar parts. This is probably my favorite live album ever and if I would have put live albums on my top albums list for 2009, it would have been at the top, it's that good. I get major chills every time I hear the crowd singing along to "The Universal." A small crime that Blur decided not to bring the reunion to the States. Can't one of these festivals pay them a boatload of money and get them over here? What the french, toast? Trailer for the Hyde Park show below.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Earthquake in Haiti


I would feel pretty ridiculous blogging about something else other than the earthquake in Haiti. I had plans of posting a review of the new Vampire Weekend album today, but it would seem foolish and frivolous of me to talk about something like that when so many people are suffering right now. Some people are estimating over 100,000 deaths. That's alot of human lives. That's alot of fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters whose lives have now been torn apart. This is a massive tragedy.

My cousin who has been living in Haiti for the past 5 years tells us that there is nothing. No food, water, nowhere to sleep and that everything is just destroyed. Anyways, don't want to sound too preachy, but I do want to say that if you stumble on this blog today and are reading this and you haven't donated yet, please do. A few dollars can go along way in the such a poor country, the poorest in the western hemisphere. Instead of buying a couple songs on Itunes or eating out, use that money to help the people of Haiti. You know you can afford it. They need that money more than we will ever know.

Here's some links and info of where you can donate. Sometimes it's as easy as just texting a few numbers.

Text YELE to 501501 to automatically donate 5 dollars. YELE is a foundation run by Wyclef John.

Text HAITI to 90999 to automatically donate 10 dollars to the Red Cross.

Click here for a list of very reputable charities working in Haiti

Partners in Health. If you're curious about Partners in Health and Haiti I suggest you pick up "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracey Kidder to get a feel for the situation in Haiti.

Thanks for listening.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

"There's Space For Ol Dat I See"-M.I.A. Brand New Track and Video

M.I.A. is just the coolest girl in the world. Be Mine.

Warning: Song and video are rather hypnotizing.

Monday, January 11, 2010

LT Slide-Electric Glide

This video has already received a WTF from Pitchfork today, but what they fail to mention is that it's got some serious Chicago roots. The lyrics were written by Mike "MikeShot" Warzin and his homeboy Brandon Pierce. Together they will be famously known as Night Sweat. Though MikeShot now resides in Portland, he is a Chicago native, and a very serious Bulls fan (and he might be the only other straight man that I know that likes shoes as much as I do). We like this, and without getting into too much detail, you should most definitely keep an eye and ear out for Night Sweat in the future.

Guess what else? The music for "Electric Glide" was done my Chicago's own, Flosstradamus!

CHICAGO! STAND UP!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The White Stripes-Under Great White Northern Lights Trailer


2010 will not only be filled with amazing albums, but also some pretty sweet music documentaries. Between the Blur reunion doc and the White Stripes, Under Great White Northern Lights, music nerds will be rushing to theaters to get their rock on as they daydream of being Damon Albarn or Jack White.

Under Great White Northern Lights, follows Jack and Meg White through a 2007 tour of Canada (Canada is the country right above the United States) as they play weird places like bowling alleys, hockey rinks (duh), and igloos. Ok, maybe I'm lying about the last one, but they do play "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round" on a bus. How cool, weird and Jack White is that? They also play a show that consists of one note. Not one song, not one verse, just one note. Just one... Thanks guys! While all this rock n' roll is occurring, Meg White is falling into a quiet depression which eventually leads the current hiatus that the White Stripes are on. Folks, what we got here is a movie! Can't wait. Trailer below.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Flavor Flav-I'll Never Let You Go

I really want to believe that this is a joke, but I think Flav is being serious, and has finally, and officially, lost his mind. Hey yo, Chuck?!? Do something about this! Flav is destroying PE's name! Make it stop!

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Don't Block My Shine, Shawty.

Watch the new video for "Shine Blockas" by Big Boi feat. Gucci Mane below. Free Gucci!

Big Boi Ft. Gucci Mane - Shine Blockas from SNORT THIS TV on Vimeo.