DJ Mixes

Coachella 2009 Mix

Leave a comment

Seriously? Another DJ mix from Who Shot JR? Wasn’t the last one posted only a week ago? Yup! Coachella is coming up in just a few days (Friday, April 17, to be exact) so I was under a tight deadline. The mix contains artists and DJs who are going to be performing at Coachella this year. But before the mix, some words:

I tried a couple new things in this mix:

  • At 26:32 I start the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ song “Heads Will Roll.” Then at 28:22 I put the song in again. So basically I’m mixing the song with itself all over again. A type of recurssion, if you will. I did this because the remix I was using (by John Roman — still the only mix out there of the song and a great remix, I might add) didn’t have quite the build up/as much of the “heads will roll” singing that I wanted going on at the same time. So I just combined them! In the end, I think this only sort of worked. It was a little sloppy, but I do like the idea.
  • At 31:56 I stop using the Bloody Beetroots remix of “Bounce” by MSTRKRFT and splice in the Tommie Sunshine remix. I did this because the Bloody Beetroots mix just kept on going “All I do is Master Craft” and I thought that was a little repetitive and I liked the original lyrics: “All I do is party.” I’ve tried this out a bunch of times but this was the first time I think I got it right. Chances are you won’t really be able to tell that I used two different songs, so I consider that a success.

To be honest, I’m really happy with this mix — especially considering the fact I basically completed it in a little over a week. There are some parts that don’t go great, but there are also parts that might be my best mixing/transition work yet (I’m particularly fond of “Kilometer” -> “If I Know You” -> “Like You” -> “The Deep End”). And I’ve wanted to close a mix with “Under the Sun” by the Junior Boys for a long time, and this was the perfect opportunity.

There are a few artists that I didn’t manage to get in that I wish I would’ve: Leonard Cohen (yah, good luck!), Crystal Castles (I feel like I’ve used them enough anyway), Thievery Corporation (but they are too damn downtempo), Peter Bjorn and John (their best song still is “Young Folks” and that song is so 2006!), the Orb (I removed most of their songs from my iTunes and didn’t want to dig around my CDs), Friendly Fires (ugh again!! I swear the Aeroplane remix of “Paris” is gonna make it in a mix soon!). On the other hand, I’m super proud of myself for getting The Cure and My Bloody Valentine in there. And I’m also proud of myself for doing a bunch of songs where the artist and the remixer are going to be there.

Bolded arist or DJ means that as of April 11, 2009 they are planning to be at Coachella. When the arist and the remixer are both going to be there I bolded the entire line.

00:00 – Dallas Theme Song
00:07 – Chemical Brothers – Get Yourself High (Felix da Housecat’s Chemical Meltdown remix)
01:20 – Paul McCartney – Temporary Secretary (Radio Slave re-edit)
04:31 – The Ting Tings – Great DJ (Calvin Harris remix)
07:42 – Étienne de Crécy – Am I Wrong
08:58 – Lykke Li – Breaking It Up (Pocketknife’s Loosefoot remix)
11:16 – The Killers – Human (Thin White Duke club mix)
14:53 – Sébastien Tellier – Kilometer (A-trak remix)
16:40 – The Presets – If I Know You (Heartbreak remix)
19:23 – Gui Borrato – Like You (SuperMayer remix)
23:12 – Curses! – The Deep End (Holy Ghost! Day School dub) Curses! is aka Drop The Lime
26:32 – Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll (John Roman remix)
29:57 – MSTRKRFT – Bounce (The Bloody Beetroots remix)
31:55 – MSTRKRFT – Bounce (Tommie Sunshine’s Class of ’89 mix)
34:07 – M.I.A.N.A.S.A. – Whatchadoin’ (Villains remix)
38:03 – Groove Armada – Go
40:27 – Drop the Lime – Hear Me (Buraka Som Sistema remix)
43:11 – Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses (Keith & Supabeatz remix)
46:09 – Surkin – Next of Kin (Todd Edwards Re-Kindled remix)
49:39 – Ghostland Observatory – Sad Sad City
51:36 – Late of the Pier – Space and Woods (Switch remix)
56:04 – The Kills – Cheap and Cheerful (Fake Blood remix)
58:03 – Cazals – Somebody, Somewhere (The Bloody Beetroots remix)
60:38 – My Bloody Valentine – When You Sleep (Le Monde’s Blur Highly Illegal Bootleg edit)
62:29 – M.A.N.D.Y. vs. Booka Shade – O Superman (Felix da Housecat remix)
65:41 – The Cure – Fascination Street (extended remix)
71:45 – Junior Boys – Under the Sun

[save]  Download “Coachella 2009” by Who Shot JR?

As always I love hearing feedback! Enjoy!! Also, while I’m at Coachella next week (Friday, April 17 through Sunday, April 19) check out my Twitter — I’m going to try to update it with what I’m doing there, who I’m seeing, etc.

DJ Mixes, Music

Music of 2008

7 Comments

Music of 2008
Now that it’s only four months too late, I’ve finally finished my “Year 2008” mix project.

Before that, though, I wanted to share some of where I came from and do some year-end lists. Don’t worry — I actually compiled these lists way back in December before I was swayed by all of the other Year End hype.

Albums

  1. Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours
  2. Sébastien Tellier – Sexuality
  3. Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak
  4. Santogold – Santogold
  5. Lykke Li – Youth Novels
  6. Hot Chip – Made in the Dark
  7. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
  8. Portishead – Third

Songs

  1. Cut Copy – “Hearts On Fire”
  2. Little Boots – “Stuck On Repeat”
  3. Estelle – “American Boy”
  4. Hot Chip – “Ready For The Floor”
  5. Crystal Castles – “Courtship Dating”
  6. Annie – “I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me”
  7. Ladyhawke – “Paris Is Burning”
  8. Lykke Li – “Breaking It Up”
  9. MGMT – “Kids”
  10. The Ting Tings – “Great DJ”

DJs/Remixers

  1. Fake Blood
  2. Fred Falke
  3. LA Riots

Others

  • Best Live Act: Cut Copy
  • Best New Artist: Ladyhawke
  • Most Disappointing Album: Girl Talk – Feed the Animals
  • Best Reunion: My Bloody Valentine

Who Shot JR’s “Year 2008 Mix”

00:00 – Dallas Theme Song
00:09 – MGMT – Kids (Soulwax remix)
03:04 – Kid Cudi – Day N Nite (Crookers remix)
04:18 – Wiley – Wearing My Rolex (club mix)
05:45 – Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor (Hot Chip V.I.P. remix)
09:45 – Little Boots – Stuck On Repeat (Fake Blood remix)
14:15 – Cansei De Ser Sexy – Move (Stockholm Syndrome club mix)
17:48 – Cut Copy – Hearts On Fire (Calvin Harris remix)
19:43 – Britney spears – Womanizer (Benny Benassi remix)
22:08 – Crystal Castles – Crimewave (LA Riots remix)
23:37 – Estelle – American Boy (Soul Seekerz club mix)
25:50 – Rihanna – Disturbia
27:09 – Eric Prydz – Pjanoo (Fred Falke remix)
28:27 – The Kills – Cheap and Cheerful (Fake Blood remix)
29:56 – Cut Copy – Lights and Music
32:44 – Katy Perry – Hot N Cold (Jason Nevins extended mix)
35:17 – Kanye West – Homecoming (DiscoTech remix)
37:02 – Kanye West – Heartless (DJ Kue Klub mix)
39:17 – Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor (LA Riots vs. Villains remix)
41:54 – Hercules and Love Affair – Blind (Frankie Knuckles remix)
44:06 – Ladyhawke – Paris Is Burning (Cut Copy remix)
46:38 – The Ting Tings – Great DJ (7th Heaven remix)
49:08 – Treasure Fingers – Cross the Dancefloor
50:55 – Moby – Disco Lies (Spencer & Hill remix)
53:23 – Madonna – 4 Minutes (DJ Barletta remix)
54:26 – Annie – Two of Hearts (Skatebård remix)
55:58 – Presets – Talk Like That (Dave Spoon’s Televized mix)
58:12 – MGMT – Electric Feel (Dskotek remix)
60:13 – Tiga – Mind Dimension (Kid Legit remix)
61:44 – Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream (Treasure Fingers remix)
63:59 – Kylie Minogue – The One (Freemasons vocal club mix)
67:15 – The Whitest Boy Alive – Golden Cage (Fred Falke remix)
70:49 – PNAU – Embrace (Fred Falke & Miami Horror remix)
73:36 – Santogold – Shove It (Boy 8-Bit remix)
75:15 – Little Boots – Stuck On Repeat
77:19 – Cut Copy – Hearts On Fire (Knightlife Nam mix)
77:41 – Adam Freeland vs. Daft Punk – Aer OBAMA

[save]  Download “Year 2008” by Who Shot JR?

If you download my mix, please leave me a comment with your thoughts. It encourages me to do more mixes, tells me that people actually listen to them, gives me ideas for new mixes, etc.

Movies

FWWM on Blu-Ray

Leave a comment

A deleted scene from FWWM
Dugpa.com has some news about the possible release of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on Blu-Ray. The short version: it’s not “in the cards at the moment” but there is a good chance it will at some point.

As Dugpa notes, this is basically our last chance to fight for the infamous deleted scenes for a long time. This has been a movement I’ve been involved with since DVDs first arrived on the scene. There are all sorts of complications around ownership and getting the scenes to DVD-quality would require some restoration efforts and involvement from Lynch himself. We almost got the scenes on a French special edition of FWWM but it didn’t quite happen.

Seriously: I very much want to see these scenes. I urge you to send feedback to Warner Brothers. For reference, here is what I told them:

i believe that you now own the rights to twin peaks: fire walk with me. this is one of my favorite movies (one of lynch’s best, in fact) and i’d love to see it on blu-ray… and i’d love even more to see the infamous “deleted scenes” that we’ve been fighting for (around the world) for years now.

i’m a huge fan of the work you did on the matrix collection (i had it on dvd and now have it on blu-ray). and i’m VERY eagerly awaiting your box set for the 1990s batman films. and of course i have batman begins and the dark knight. and once you release the alien quadrilogy on blu-ray, you know i’m replacing the dvd set i currently have 🙂

so i’d love to see your commitment to putting out great discs for the sci-fi/fan community and think fire walk with me would be a great addition to your already awesome catalog.

thx

I thought it’d help to show I support Warner Brothers releases and am already looking forward to stuff they have coming up. I also wanted to stress the fact that they already have made concessions to the “fan communities.”

So yah, please join me in trying to get this awesome film on Blu-Ray with the elusive deleted scenes!

Television

Finale Thoughts

3 Comments

After last night’s disappointing (to me, at least [but I don’t have any overly insightful thoughts on it so I won’t really elaborate — I just thought it was too normal/straightforward/not-twisty-enough]) Battlestar Galactica series finale, I started doing some thinking on the nature of series finales (I seem to be watching a few this season: Boston Legal, The L Word, and now Battlestar Galactica (but unfortunately not Smallville which seems to keep going and going and going…).

Overall, I’ve been watching so much television lately that I feel like I’m starting to uncover some of the basic formulas and tropes used so much in television: there is often a single home/gathering place that everyone hangs out at… and, well, that’s the only one I can think of now — but I know I had more at one time.

Anyway, in my “analysis” of series finales, I’ve noticed that they tend to fall into three main categories. I purposely didn’t elaborate on my reasoning behind the shows so as not to spoil them. I think it’s safe to continue reading even if you haven’t seen some of the finales for some of the shows, yet.

Also: there is a bonus “type” of finale: The Flashback. But in my “studies” this seems to overlap with the three other categories, so I’ll note the episodes that use flashbacks with a *.

Total War: Especially in sci-fi shows with a “big bad” or overarching enemy, the series finale will involve confronting this big thing in a huge all-out war. It’s almost certain that some of our favorite characters will die in the process and in the end good will win. In non-sci-fi shows, this could also be considered the Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again ending: something huge happens that affects the lives of everyone on the show (someone gets married, the office where people work closes, etc.) and the show has to end because, like total war, the premise of the series would be so different if it kept going.

  • Battlestar Galactica
  • Buffy
  • Angel
  • Boston Legal
  • Star Trek: Voyager (my favorite ending to a sci-fi show so far, by the way)
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  • Sex and the City
  • X-Files *
  • The L Word *

Just Another Day: As opposed to Total War/Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again, the Just Another Day ending tries to show that while this may be the final episode of the series, the lives of the characters we’ve come to love will keep going on just like normal. That’s not to say there won’t be any big events or resolutions to long plot lines, but for the most part Things Stay The Same or don’t change too much. The show could conceivably keep going after the final episode.

  • Six Feet Under
  • Roswell
  • Roseanne
  • Veronica Mars (this one sort of doesn’t count since the show was canceled…)
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation *
  • Arrested Development
  • Knots Landing
  • The West Wing
  • The Sopranos (depending on what happens…)

The final type of series finale is by far the worst (depending on the circumstances): The Unresolved. Sometimes this happens when a show is unexpectedly canceled and the creators cannot create a proper ending. Or sometimes it happens when a show is unexpectedly canceled and the creators don’t want to do a proper ending. While I am usually a fan of twists and strange endings in a show, these endings are mostly “I wish it wouldn’t have ended so soon”-type of endings.

  • Millennium (I think the show should have ended with the Total War ending that season 2 had)
  • Twin Peaks

So what do you think about my categorization? Am I off the mark on some? (I’m sure I am!) Looking to the future, which finales am I most looking forward to based on the shows I watch now? Lost, Weeds (this show goes in all sorts of crazy directions!), Desperate Housewives (so long as it’s not an overly-sentimental flashback-based one), and Damages.

Video Games

The Guild

2 Comments

Vork, Zaboo, Codex, Clara, Bladezz
I found this show while looking at the top downloaded videos on Xbox Live. I remember sort of hearing about The Guild a year ago and about how it was an online-only television show that was getting a big following and how it was going to be the future of media, etc. etc. For whatever reason, though, I never sought it out to watch.

But then last week I did and after the first episode I was hooked. And you too can get hooked — if you have an Xbox it’s on Xbox Live (seasons 1 and 2), otherwise you can find the first season and most of season two (Microsoft/Xbox made a deal with the creators to exclusively have season 2 a few episodes ahead of wide release) on The Guild’s web site or YouTube or wherever.

Basically, The Guild is about a group of online gamers who are in an online guild together but up until the first episode hadn’t met each other in person. Then Zaboo, the warlock of the group, decides that he should romantically pursue Codex, the healer/priestess, in real life. Online he thought she was always flirting with him because she somehow never seemed to hit the shift key when making eyes for smileys and everything turned out to be 😉 instead of 🙂

So after Zaboo crashes at Codex’s place she calls a meeting in real life and after years (?) of playing online and talking into microphones at each other, they finally meet face-to-face. Hilarity ensues.

The show focuses exclusively on the real-life aspects of the characters’ lives. There aren’t any in-game shots and even events in the game don’t have too huge of an impact (though one season two storyline does involve some scandal around a treasure the guild finds).

As I mentioned in my 25 Things post, a long time ago I used to play these things called MUDs. They were an early version of online games but without graphics back when having a 14.4k modem was a big deal.

The first MUD I played was called Dark Saga (which was an LPMud using the TMI-2 Mudlib). I was in seventh grade or so at the time and I remember when I had the first opportunity to meet one of the “Gods” of the MUD in real life (he was a college student where I went to computer camp). I totally balked on the opportunity and didn’t. When you have online relationships like that it can be very weird to meet in person. And back in those days, there weren’t enough people online for people to form “local guilds” with people in the same geographical area, but I can imagine that if we were ever able to meet in person, it would’ve been something similar to The Guild (though maybe not as funny).

So despite the fact that I don’t really consider myself a gamer (or, maybe, a gamer-in-the-making) and I haven’t ever played World of Warcraft or Guild Wars, I could still relate to the experience and the people and the gaming aspect and found it highly entertaining. And the amount of story they manage to fit in to five-or-so-minute episodes is amazing — you really get to meet the characters. Fun times!

Cooking

Pineapple-Cashew-Quiona Stir-Fry

Leave a comment

Pineapple-Cashew-Quinoa Stir-Fry
I first had quinoa (seriously if you don’t know much about quinoa checkout the Wiki article — the background info on it is very interesting) a couple years ago when my friend Justin (who has, unfortunately, since developed an allergy to it and cannot eat it anymore!!) introduced it back when we used to cook dinner then watch Desperate Housewives every Sunday. Since then, I haven’t been able to find it at QFC and every time I go to Whole Foods I forget to pick some up.

Then last week while looking for nutritional yeast (which I couldn’t find, unfortunately) I stumbled across Bob’s Red Mill quinoa. Despite costing $11, I picked up the bag and haven’t regretted it since.

Tonight I tried the Pineapple-Cashew-Quinoa Stir-Fry recipe from the Veganomicon.

The recipe is fairly simple — like any stir-fry, it just takes a while to prepare all of the ingredients. Under the ill-advisement of the cookbook, I didn’t prepare the quinoa a day early nor did I use fresh pineapple. Also, I opted for Thai basil and didn’t include mint leaves. In the end, this is basically a sweet-and-sour dish. And I’m not a huge fan of sweet-and-sour, but this was yummy enough. Next time I’m itching to use quinoa, however, I’ll probably do something else.

One thing I wanted to call-out for people who might have Veganomicon and want to make this: In the instructions, it starts off telling how to cook the cashews, but then it doesn’t tell you when to add them back. I totally forgot about them until the last six minutes or so of cooking, so that was unfortunate.

We had the dish with some store-bought pot-stickers.

So overall, if you are in the mood for quinoa and in the mood for stir-fry and in the mood for sweet-and-sour, this would be a great dish. Or, if you haven’t ever had quinoa and really like sweet-and-sour, this would be a great introduction.

Cooking

Lentil Soup + Beet Salad

3 Comments

Roasted Beet and Green Bean Salad and Lentil Soup
Tonight for dinner I made a beet salad and French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme. It was all yummy so I took a picture since I want to try posting more about recipes I’ve tried, etc. on here.

The idea for the salad came after I ate at Andaluca for my birthday on Saturday. The “Green Bean” salad there had roasted carrots, beets, goat cheese, marcona almonds, and a sherry shallot vinaigrette. I had been wanting to “get into” beets for a while now, and the salad convinced me that I should give them a try.

To make my beet salad (I didn’t use a recipe for it), I first roasted two beets. I hadn’t done this before and roasting things is pretty new to me. Per the advice of my chef friend Troy, I wrapped the beets in foil and drizzled some olive oil and salt and pepper on them. I also roasted some green beans.

For the dressing I just mixed together a little olive oil, black pepper, red wine vinegar, and balsamic vinegar. I also chopped up some shallots and threw those in.

One thing that the Andaluca salad had that I felt mine was lacking was something like the goat cheese. Since I wanted to make this all vegan, I intentionally didn’t buy goat cheese. And then I realized that I had some vegan cream cheese. I heated that up and added it to the salad — and it was very goat cheese like!

The lentil soup recipe came from my favorite cookbook: Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook. I would have never thought to make this soup (I don’t really like tarragon) but my friend Shannon highly recommended it. And to my surprise — it was great.

Overall, I think I can definitely improve on the salad. I forgot that the Andaluca one had nuts in it so I should’ve included candied walnuts or something. I also want to work on refining the dressing to be perfect. And next time I doubt i’ll include the cream cheese — if anything I might add some pieces of tofu.

So there you have it — another yummy vegan dinner!

Television

Everyone’s Waiting

Leave a comment

The dinner for Claire in the finale
I watched the final episode of Six Feet Under again last night. This is the second time I’ve gone through the entire series start-to-finish. I’m not one to cry very often from movies/TV shows (I can pretty much count the times: I cried once during Buffy the Vampire Slayer and twice during Friday Night Lights). But both times now I’ve completely lost it during the final scene of Six Feet Under (the final episode is titled “Everyone’s Waiting”).

Spoiler alert: If you haven’t watched this episode, I wouldn’t continue reading…

Continue reading Everyone’s Waiting →