Oceans of Noise

>Start To Move

Posted on December 28, 2010 by carsk

>And now some music to send the year off right. Having music that strikes that balance of getting people in the mood to dance before dropping them deep into the world of David Guetta is always a fun challenge at parties. Unless its preTurkey cocktail hour with Alli, Weis, and Dowks. Then you just throw on GirlTalk and call it good. But without the assist from our friends Jack, Bullit, and Jameson, here is a couple tracks to transition your night into the dance phase. Happy New Year and cheers to my favorite house dance partiers, drink inventors and coffee-table jiggers

Note: also works well as music to try and recap the night before with friends on the couch. Funny that.

Posted in Blackbird Blackbird, Toro Y Moi | Leave a comment

>Shell Games

Posted on December 27, 2010 by carsk

Unlike the illustrious Dowks, I didn’t celebrate anything until yesterday and spend most of the 25th drinking whiskey with the grands and working on a puzzle. However, the one day weather delay on Christmas worked out swimmingly for me, with Santa bringing the most epic present ever. So I’m packing a bag for Maui, and to offset any seething jealousy coming from Dowks general direction, here is a new and free download from Bright Eyes. Its apropos cos its called Shell Games and I’m headed to the beach….

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>A Christmas to Remember

Posted on December 26, 2010 by dowkstar

>If the pain of the headache is proportional to the fun had last night (culminating this afternoon), then I had one heck of a time at G & J’s Christmas party. Perhaps free musiks will help to dull the pain.

Enter, The Fall, the newest Gorillaz installment after Plastic Beach earlier this year. Check it out here, and sign up for the mailing list to get access. It’s one of the first albums to be recorded and mixed entirely on the iPad. Damon Albarn used 20 different apps (below) to mix and record the album over the 32 day span between their Montreal and Vancouver tour stops – so no studio work here, but that doesn’t seem to impact the quality…

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F8444733 Gorillaz – Detroit by Wewanttobeyoung

If you’re a fancy shmantzy iPad owner and mixologist, and want to try stuff like this yourself, this is the list of apps they used to create the tracks:

Speak It! / SoundyThingie / Mugician / Solo Synth / Synth / Funk Box / Gliss / AmpliTube / Xenon / iElectribe / BS-16i / M3000 HD / Cleartune / iOrgel HD / Olsynth / StudioMiniXI / BassLine / Harmonizer / Dub Siren Pro / Moog Filatron

Posted in Free Musiks, Gorillaz | Leave a comment

>My Oh My!!

Posted on December 24, 2010 by dowkstar

Seattle sports teams and I have had a tempestuous past. The Seahawks were cool until, needing a scapegoat for their disappointing loss in Super Bowl, their ENTIRE fanbase took a personal vendetta against my Steelers. So yeah, make the playoffs with a losing record this year, see if I care. Go Black & Yellow!

On the other hand, the only “real” professional team to win a national championship for Seattle, The Sonics, bailed on Seattle for the Midwest. This has left Key Arena largely empty for the past several years, although our WNBA team, the Storm, have recently done rather well for themselves there.

Then there are the Mariners. Although they have been mis-rib since I’ve come to town in 2005, managing only one winning season, still falling short of making the playoffs (69-93, 78-84, 88-74, 61-101, 85-77, 61-101), I’ve still had some amazing times at Mariners games with the besties. I love it when their eyes glaze over as they transport themselves back to a better time – 1995, when Griffey was young (which did not, unfortunately, preclude him from being hurt) the Mariners were the talk of the town and Dave Niehaus was electrically, emphatically and emotionally describing the games to a rapt Seattle audience.

Unfortunately those days are over, and Dave Niehaus recently passed away, marking a sad day for a lot of my own close friends, and a morose nail in the coffin for that era of Mariner baseball. Thankfully, another local Seattle-ite, hip-hop artist Ben Haggerty, aka Macklemore, teamed up with Ryan Lewis to release a tribute song to the announcing legend. I heard it and couldn’t help but feel like it’s fitting. Brother, Dirty Curty, Timbo, Yoshida, Drewseph (edit: and Jascha) and to all the Seattle Mariner and Niehaus fans…this post is for you.

Merry Christmas a day early from the Dowkstar…

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F8363176 Macklemore and Ryan Lewis – My Oh My by Siegs

Posted in Dave Niehaus, Macklemore, Seattle, tribute | Leave a comment

>Lullabies and Love Songs

Posted on December 22, 2010 by carsk

The first time I heard Nicki Minaj’s ‘Right Thru Me’ I had to do a double take. I really dug the song but it kind of freaked me out that she was rapping over the song El Captain used to blast to get me to go to sleep. I often get nervous when pop songs sample already superb musical works, and switching up my go to lullaby song seemed mildly sacrilegious. To her credit- the song is growing on me, but it won’t ever eclipse the badassness that is Joe Satriani. Compare below! (oh and the Nicki Minaj track is a free download….)

Posted in Joe Satriani, Nicki Minaj | Leave a comment

>TRON with Tron

Posted on December 22, 2010 by dowkstar

>Ok, just got back from seeing TRON with the Tronnonator herself. We went to the threeD IMAX show, which left me with just 3 words.

Ah. May. Zing.

Yeah, sure, it’s cheezy at times. Yeah, sure, not all the acting is great. But, how can you turn down a perfectly CGI’d young Jeff Bridges?! The bike scenes are also tres cool, and make me realize I can’t wait for the springtime when it will at last be time for me to get a bike of my own!

Thennnnnn there’s the soundtrack. Daft Punk did a great job – the whole thing is sick. The two even make an appearance as DJs in the movie (in a pretty sweet sky club on top of the Grid). If you’re planning on being silly and missing the movie, don’t be daft and miss the badass beats. Synopsis is one of my favs

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F6256068 05 Daft Punk – Synopsis by tdubb

Posted in Daft Punk, Movie, Soundtrack, TRON | Leave a comment

>Tribute to Friends

Posted on December 21, 2010 by dowkstar

>I remember back in college, we played a game where we had to rank certain items in order of importance. If you really know me, it comes as no surprise that “Friends” topped my list. I am constantly reminded of why this is, whether it’s playing late night Halo at Google, hitting up caverns at exclusive Napa wineries, a night out in Seattle, chilling on a Christmas tree lit porch, a slopeside cabin in Crested Butte or even just heading back to the Valley for some good R&R, I have amazeball friends.

While frontman Ryan Tedder intended the song All the Right Moves as a personal diss – they got their break via connections with Timbaland, unlike all the “cool-ass” bands that had to really “work” for it – every time I hear it, I can’t help but think about how I am the one with friends in all the right places. I’m totally ok with getting in on my friend’s benefits and hopefully sharing some of my own!

So here’s to conquering the world (or just reliving Leo’s The Beach), and having plenty of peeps to enjoy it with…

Posted in Friends, One Republic | Leave a comment

>Bah Humbug.

Posted on December 21, 2010 by carsk

So Christmas is the only time of year I’m guaranteed that all my family will be in one place together. Except this year. Europe decided some snow was grounding flights for the next week and now my TBS is stuck until the 26th. Needless to say, I’m not amused, but am fully prepared to not acknowledge the holiday until my family is all together to celebrate it properly. Until then, I’ve put a moratorium on the super cool indie Christmas mix I was putting together and will force you to listen to the melancholy and wintery stylings of Sigur Ros instead. So happy Winter Solstice and we can talk about the holiday when I get Tres back.

Posted in Sigur Ros | Leave a comment

>Sabali

Posted on December 14, 2010 by carsk

>
I’m a little obsessed with Amadou and Miriam and apparently they are releasing a remix album next month. I can’t find this anywhere else, so go click through to Stereogum’s very awesome premiere of Miike Snow’s remix of Sabali to enjoy a little warm sunshine on this particularly gloomy day. If this sounds like your kind of thing, go listen to all of The Very Best that Dowks and I constantly talk about.

Posted in Amadou and Miriam, Miike Snow | Leave a comment

>Something To Roll To

Posted on December 9, 2010 by carsk

>I’ve been digging Kisses EP for a while and something about this song’s hook always makes me laugh. (‘I would like to take you out for a nice steak dinner’ is pretty funny to a lifelong vegetarian) Regardless of the silly chorus, this song is high on my list of dancing in the car on the way to Napa muzak.