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Has anyone had the displeasure of having to suffer and listen to the absolute torture that is FM Radio lately? Holy. Fucking. Shit. I really don’t think there is anything more painful to listen to. Instead of torturing terrorists with Metallica, put them in a room and and make them listen to 102 Jamz or XL 106.7 for a 8 hour time span and I guarantee they will be reaching for the nearest gun to blow their brains out after the 10th time “Party Rock Anthem” (or now “Sexy and I know It) comes on, and if that doesn’t do it then surely they will be hanging themselves by the 20th Adele song in a 2 hour period.


My distain for FM Radio is an unbelievable hatred. I despise it more than anything. If I get into your car and you are listening to the radio, you are immediatley failing in my eyes. Why would someone choose to listen to the same fucking songs in a 45 minute period? I do not understand it. This just isn’t Top 40, this is ALL genres. Country (that stupid fucking “I Hear Voices” song, or “Farmers Daughter” bullshit), Hip-Hop, Rock, its all the same shit, constantly. Are these companies really surprised that people are turning to Pandora, Grooveshark, or their own choices on their smartphones and mp3 players? Some people do not though, some people willingly get into their car, fire up 106.7, and start “Rolling In The Deep”.


Working in the 9-5 world has reignited my absolute hatred for this awful format of music. I sit here, and hear Adele, every. fucking. twenty. minutes. Is it really that hard to believe that this chick has the #1 album of the year? She basically owns the radio. How can people stand this? How are they able to just tune out Pitbull, LMFAO, Lady Gaga & J-Lo coming on repeatedly through an 8-hour day? Then whats funny, after their work week, they come out to the clubs, and harass the DJs to play the same shit! Isn’t the point of going out to the clubs to hear something you can’t hop in your car and hear? Apparently not, because we are still getting “Moves Like Jagger” requests every single night. I understand that you’re drunk, and that makes it better, or that you want to hear it on a big sound system and dance to it because you can’t in the office, but that still doesn’t change the fact that you probably have already heard it 7x today, and when you’re driving home you are probably going to hear it again.


Can we talk about 102 Jamz playing things that aren’t anywhere near hip-hop? Since when did Maroon 5 crossover into that genre? I must have missed that. LMFAO I can kind of undertand, because they have that little tingent of Rap in their songs, but there is absolutely no reason I should be hearing “Someone Like You” on what is supposedly a hip-hop station. Is DJ Nasty going to mix “Set Fire To Rain” into the 5′oclock traffic jam? I highly doubt you are going to hear him drop some Marc Anthony on his Friday nights at Roxy, so why is it being played on the station that is promoted on all the flyers of the clubs that he is playing at? I don’t get it.


FM Radio has always and will clearly continue to be awful and thats why I will gladly bring my iPhone in and play things off it whether it be custom playlists, podcasts, SoundCloud mixes, or just firing up the I Heart Radio app (ironic, I know) and listening to talk radio. Do you hate FM Radio as much as I do? I ask you to please “Like” this blog at the bottom, tweet about it, repost it, comment about it, do whatever you can to get my rant out there because I am positive there are other people out there that feel as strongly as I do about this.

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Well the remix that everyone has been waiting for since the live footage of him playing it came out has finally arrived.

Or has it? After careful dissection by myself and @swaglipple, this version is either heavily changed by the former From First To Last frontman since the live videos have come out, or this is just a fake put out by someone with very similar presets.

If you watch the video in the top right corner (or the one below) you will notice subtle differences in the version that has leaked today and the version that is played live. For one, the build-up at the beginning in the video has the signature Skrillex high-pitch vocals, where as the version that leaked, just has the sample from the original Levels. Second, the sample used before the big drop is completely different in the leaked version that in the one in the videos. Third, in the leaked version it has a drop-out with the “Get a Good Feeling” build-up and the videos do not.

Now could this just be a very early version that leaked today that had yet to get all the bells and whistles that the video has? Possibly. Could Skrillex have changed his mind on a lot of the things that we are saying is missing? He could have but I really find it highly unlikely, especially because the two videos take place in two different venues and the tracks plays out almost identically. Is this just an extremely elaborate impostor? It very well could be.

 
I’m not believing anything until I hear it on this…

 

Download Levels (“Skrillex” Remix) here and be the judge.

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There has been a lot of talk about the “PROTECT-IP Act” and “Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)”. Maybe you went to download a torrent of your favorite show from “The Pirate Bay”, or opened your Tumblr dashboard to see a message about stopping the passage of these bills. You probably just ignored it, or thought to yourself there is no way that they will EVER put restrictions on our internet. After all this isn’t China or Iran, this is AMERICA, and in AMERICA we say, read, type, and do whatever we want to do on the internet. You may say to yourself “I am sure if they do restrict our internet access it will only limit the ability to share and download copyrighted content.” Correct?

How can we be sure that is as far as it will go?

The PROTECT-IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) will endanger the internet as well all know it. If passed, they would officially bring Iran and China-style Internet censorship to the US as a matter of LAW. I could attempt to describe every detail of the damage this will do to the internet, and explain how this WILL impact your life, but it can all be summarized with two clicks.

ONE.

Watch this video. It will explain the danger we are facing by the passage of these laws.

TWO.

Read Paul Geller’s blog. Yes, you may know him as “Pauly Crush” (AKA the DJ who beat me out in the 2008 Best of Orlando voting for “Best Club DJ”). He has since moved on to much more important work “like consumer protection, privacy, ad ops and other digital absurdia” as senior vice president of external affairs at Grooveshark. Start with this article: “Digital wars, Round 2: Killing the golden goose”, then make sure to bookmark this blog and read it often.

STOP PROTECT IP NOW.

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Well we’ve heard the rumors, now all we can do is wait for the press conference. The NBAs most powerful big-man and Orlandos hometown hero, Dwight Howard, is apparently being sought after by one of the most talented teams in the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers.


It’s almost like its 1996 all over again. The Orlando Magic, have made playoff runs, shit, they even made it to The Finals a couple years ago, but have yet to capture that brass ring that they have longed for since becoming a franchise in 1989.  In the 90s, the big man that brought them to the finals, Shaq-Fu himself, couldn’t do it. Now, in 2011, the new self-proclaimed Superman, has yet to do it either, even in a new arena.


Is this not like a weird case of Deja-Vu for Orlando? Same position, same nickname, same team offering him a spot, everything. Will Dwight leave Orlando? Of course he will, He wants a ring just as bad as Lebron does. Sadly, he wouldn’t have the coaching of Phil Jackson behind him but he would be joining Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest Metta World Peace, former teammate Matt Barnes, among other superstars.


I still say that cute little celebrity basketball game that Dwight put on was him sugar-coating all the fans so when he leaves he isnt looked at as too much of an asshole because “he brought basketball to the city when there wasn’t any”, right?! What a swell guy that Howard is. I would have rather had a rap album with heavy Fu-Schnickens features than that game.


How awesome would it be if Dwight said fuck the Lakers, and took his talents to South Beach to join Hulk Hogan & the N.W.O Lebron James? Then Orlando would have an actual reason to boo the Heat when they come to town as opposed to this bizarre hatred for Lebron James that Magic fans have for no reason other than just to be ignorant. There isn’t THAT many people from Ohio in this city.


We still have one more season with Dwight unless some crazy trade happens, but one thing is for sure: Superman is leaving the building sooner or later.

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The guy who sold out House of Blues Orlando 4 months early and THE king of dubstep whether you like it or not, Skrillex, has been nominated for a Grammy.

The obvious nomination is for Best Dance Recording which features his breakout hit “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites”. The curve-ball nomination however, is for Best New Artist, a category for which no DJ/Producer has ever been nominated for, ever. Who would have thought the guy inspiring 14 year olds to shave one side of their head and wear thick black frame glasses would break a Grammy mold.

Although I would love to hear this kids acceptance speech, thanking Deadmau5 and all the kids buying his tracks on Beatport, he is going up against some stiff competition, one being the Queen of Hip-Hop right now, Nicki Minaj. Other nominees are Bon Iver, J. Cole, and The Band Perry.

Now the obvious choice for a winner would be Minaj, but let’s not forget this is The Grammys and they like to make stupid decisions when it comes to picking a winner. Case in point would be Metallica losing in 1988 while in their prime for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance to Jethro Tull, or Will Smith beating out Notorious B.I.G. a decade later in 1998 with “Men in Black over “Hypnotize”. Maybe it was because Biggie was actually lighting the cigars and Smith was doing it just for the look? We’ll never know.

Tune in February 12th for The Grammys on CBS, or just watch Twitter that night and see if Skrillex wins. In the meantime be sure to check out the video in the top right corner for the preview of his remix to Avicii’s “Levels” which just sounds fucking incredible.

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Photo by Hey Mr. Riot

If you were at The Beacham this past Tuesday Night then you got to witness true greatness as the #1 scratch DJ on the planet graced Orlando with his presence.

He’s not just the guy from Duck Sauce, or the guy who put out that catchy hit “Barbara Streisand”, this is the guy who at 16 years old was a DMC World Champion and has played venues worldwide for years before acclaiming fame from those songs. He also was Kanye Wests touring DJ while everyone still hated him, this is A-Trak and he put on a 2 hour CLINIC.

When I arrived to The Beacham, Henry Fong and some other guy I didn’t recognize were finishing up their set and I saw that they werent using a computer so that was commendable to see in the year 2011. Anyways, they finished up,  then A-Rock and Nova started their 4-turntable set, which I had never seen before outside of maybe a song or two. Those two were more than impressive the way they went back-and-forth with each other I must say. I know A-Rock didn’t wanna completely steal the show, so he held off from playing the new Flo Rida single.

After A-Rock & Nova, the man himself was ready to take the decks. Starting out with a blistering scratch routine like only he could,  A-Traks set was full of Disco-Funk with a touch of Electro flavor. If you have ever listened to one of his Fools Gold Radio entries then you recognized most of the tracks but he kept it fresh by throwing in enough tracks not played. The absolute highlight of the set for myself and The Donk was when he pulled out the Dirty South Hip-Hop. Dropping “Tupac Back” by Meek Mill, followed by the highly unexpected “Tony Montana” by Future. To hear these tracks with the bass that The Beacham provides was sooo fucking sick. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, he drops my favorite rapper, Juicy J, and his “Who Da Neighbors” track off his Lex Luger produced mixtape Rubba Band Business 2. Sadly he only played the chorus but that was good enough for me. After he was done with the Dirty South, he went right back to the dancefloor and did his famous Daft Punk scratch routine for their hit “Robot”. Now, I’ve seen this routine on YouTube but it still is just mind-blowing to see how much control this guy has over two 1200s (check out Mr. Riots Facebook for a clip of the jaw-dropping  routine). I was also surprised to see that A-Trak, once a very vocal spokesperson for Serato, had switched his tune and was using Traktor for his performance. Now whether they paid him to start using their software (most likely) or whether he just had a true change of heart, I do not know but I did find it interesting.

Now the show was amazing, the venue had incredible sound, but there was one let down and that is the turnout from Orlando. This show was very reminiscent to when DJ AM came to town years before his death and he played at Club Destiny on I-Drive and there was LITERALLY 50 people there total, one being a young Brian Dawe.

When I first heard about A-Trak coming to town I was sure that it would be a sell-out show, without question. With how many times we bring Steve Aoki, Diplo, Avicii, etc. and the turnouts they receive as if they weren’t just here less than 6 months ago, I was sure that the city would show up in droves to see someone way more talented than those guys and brought here much less (and I like those guys so no disrespect…well, maybe not Avicii).  I’d say there was maybe a total of 400 people there, and that is being extremely generous. Of course all the local DJs were there including myself, Rincon, Y-Not?, Justin James, Justin James’ hair, and Justin James’ 5 o’clock shadow, among others, but where was everybody else? Our good friend @TheHollywoodHog took his talents to Roxy that night and said it was packed and that was for Chuckie, another DJ who has been here 3 times in less than a year. Chuckie and A-Trak are obviously two totally different DJs when it comes to track selection, but when it comes to skill and technical prowess, A-Trak will blow that guy out of the water blind-folded. This night truly showed that Roxy and the Smile For Camera guys can seriously book any DJ they want right now, even if it is that DJ standing on stage brushing his teeth into a microphone with a 128-140 bpm bass-line, and the kids will flock to it no matter what. Kind of sad really, but good for them.

All in all it was a great show and afterwards A-Trak came down to take pictures and meet everybody in the crowd. I, of course, had already left at this point and I could kick myself in the ass for doing so. If you were one of the few people in the crowd then you know you witnessed something truly great and I hope the small crowd didn’t taint Orlando from having the opportunity to have him play again.

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