Feature article with Hilltop Hoods

My interview with the Hilltop Hoods is the Feature front page story in dB magazine.

CLICK HERE to read it, or pick up your copy of dB where ever you see it!

Mew mix online!

I've got a new mix online!

It's called OneTake, because it's one man's take on breaks, and was done in one take* - I was just pulling these out of my record box and trying to mix them as I went along...

Click HERE to download

Track Listing:
Fasten Your Seatbealts – Pendulum vs Freestylers
Overneath – Aquasky & Meat Katie
CreepShow (Soul of Man remix) – Plump DJs
Mindfunkpsychedelic – Elite Force
7 Nation Army (Adam Freeland Mix) – White Stripes
Lovers not Fighters – Evil Nine
Midnight – Breakfastaz
Bullet Time – Autobots and & Deep Impact
SwingPunk (Aquasky & Masterblaster Remix) – Factor E
The Spanish Tune – Autobots and & Deep Impact
Ultrafunkula – Autobots and & Deep Impact
Get Into It – Far Too Loud & Code Zero
Rock That Shit (Smithmonger remix) – J-Bass & Journeyman


*technically it was 2 takes, but during the first take my minidisc recorder ran out of batteries

Getting Up: contesting the ban

The guys at jumpbutton, an excellent Australian games and culture startup magazine have posted An open letter to Philip Ruddock regarding the OFLC decision to refuse classification to the computer game, Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure

Head over, give it a read, blog about it, and then write to Mr Ruddock and have your say about how wrong this decision is.

Google

How come on the one hand google is scared the Chinese government, but will stand up against the USA government?

I hate this type of hypocrisy.

Obviously Google see see more profit in supporting the barbaric and opressive laws of China than supporting the oppressive and barbaric laws of the USA...

Good Vibrations 06

Myself and a whole heap of South Aussies headed to Melbourne to see Good Vibrations last weekend. What an amazing party!

I got there early because I wanted to see Danielsan and Agent 86. They were both pretty good. I wandered about for a while, checking out the stages and settled in front of the main stage to see a band - now the set times says it was Mr Jigga, but I have a feeling it was actually the Sneaky Sound System... either way they were rocking the funk very well.

When my friends rocked up it was a case of simply hanging out and walking about, so I caught bits of DJ Peril, RU Cl and Data Rock, all of whom were fantastic, particularly Data Rock.

One of the standouts were Breakestra, who were very funky and played some of my favourite Breakestra tunes, such as Impeach the President. I also managed to catch some of Estelle, who was pretty spunky!

I just had to see Shaun Ryder and Kav of the Happy Mondays on the Laundry Stage... and I gotta say time has not been good to ol' Shaun... he was so pale, fat and splotchy, and could hardly mumble the words to his own songs! Although it was good to hear some Happy Mondays, Gorillaz, Stone Roses and other great Madchester music.

I wandered over to the B Bar to catch The Nextmen, who were one of the best at the show. Fantastic tunes, played very well. I simply love the happy breaks / hiphop they were playing, and I can't wait to see them again!

After them, I bolted to the Roots stage to catch the end of Talib Kweli and Jean Grey. Apparently Jean rocked it, but I only caught one of her tracks and about 2 of Talibs, which was disapointing, but they still rocked.

DJ Z-Trip was one of the main reasons I went to Melbourne, but he also played Adelaide on the Friday night before, so I was a little disapointed with his set as it was essentially the same. He still rocked it though, and Supernatural has an unnatural talent on the mic! Most amazing MC I've heard.

But the whole reason I went was to see was the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. Although the warm up was good, with the band jamming and the other MCs shouting "James Brown" alot, he took about 10 minutes to arrive on stage. But when he did - OH MY GOSH! Even though he's almost 80 years old, he's still got it. Resplendent in a red sparkly suit, he funked out big time! Ok, so he may not have been as active as he was 20 or 30 years ago, but he is still a consumate performer! And that's yet another one of my all time favourite "must see performers" I've witnessed, and by gosh it was great.

It was fantastic that so many South Aussies headed over, there were about 30 of us all up, and running into everyone here and there was simply awesome. There probably won't be another time when there will be so many of my friends interstate! I had the best time in years!

Big Day Out 2006

This years Big Day Out wasn't really all that memorable or spectacular, apart from me DJing of course!!!

I DJed after Ian, the guy who used to do Pop... he plays 80s/90s 'goth' and alternative music, I couldn't hear what I was mixing AT ALL, I just had to mix in the headphones and hope it sounded ok, but it was HEAPS of fun!!!

I played some Finger Lickin funk and bootys, then dropped jungle... Had HEAPS of people come up to me and thank me for playing it... one guy even ran off and got all his mates to come back to listen to me

I played for nearly and hour and a half, and dropped some harder breaks to finish...

I couldn't record it, and I have absolutely no idea what it sounded like, but I think I did a good job... had heaps of people dancing, and knew they were dancing to me coz they all cheered when I dropped certain tracks, like Super Sharp Shooter and Fasten Your Seatbelts...

Man, it was so much fun... I gotta make sure I do it again next year!!!

New interviews online!

I have recently added some more interviews to the website, bringing the total to 55 interviews...

The latest additions are: Statler and Waldorf, Kosheen, Roots Manuva, Bass Kleph, Depeche Mode, Ils, Krafty Kuts, and Stereo MCs.

My Space

Yes, I've succumbed to peer pressure and got a My Space page set up.

I'm going to use the blog to refer back to this blog, which will probably refer back to there... oooh, so po-mo!

But check out my My Space page and add me as a friend, and I'll return the favour!

Job Status...

OK, well, it seems I've gone and got myself a job.

As a games tester.

In Adelaide.

As you may imagine, I'm stoked. Although I would like to move eventually, probably to Sydney, I have been getting into the Adelaide groove once again.

I know that as long as I don't let it become a rutt, by being silly about certain things, I will enjoy living here again.

And having a new job, doing new things, is always good for the soul.

Oh, and I'm DJing at the Big Day Out!

I'm playing 6-7pm on the Silent Disco Stage, which sounds freaky but cool...

This from the BDO Press Release:

From the Netherlands we will be presenting what may be the future of dance parties…The SILENT DISCO. Take one dodgem ring, remove the cars, add 400 specially made radio headsets and start the party. The real head spinner is ha you have two DJs to choose from. The effect is quite surreal.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Someone mentioned to me that I haven't posted on my blog for a while, which was good twofold because it reminded me to blog, and also indicates somebody reads my shit!

Well, I had a massive Christmas and New Year!

It all started on the 23rd, when I went to see Calyx, Dom & Roland and Pendulum at Earth Nightclub. Rather than me letting you all know how it was, I'll direct you to read my review!

Christmas this year was a million times better than last year - no bad dreams, no missing busses or tains, and no racist pricks! I went up to mums and I got some Joop, a pillow (which hasn't helped my shoulder at all... dodgy physio!) and some cash. I gave her a portable phone with an inbuilt answering machine.

Christmas night was cool - went up to Maz's and had a bit of a spa. My girlfriend (I think that's what I can call her... she's a girl who is a friend... and we are kind of seeing each... kind of...) was acting a bit weird though... Well, I thought she was... maybe i was just paranoid! I don't know, we have an odd relationship. She has some issues with her ex, but don't we all, and on top of that I don't know where I'm going to be working/living, so it's kind of hard to start something serious... although I think I'd like to with her... She's a little hottie and we get along quite well. She has the cutest butt... but I digress...

Then on the 29th I headed out to see Krafty Kuts and Stanton Warriors. I've been pushing breaks for years, and finally it seems Adelaide is getting into it! Again, rather than me typing out what I thought, I'll let you to read my review! Suffice to say that that was the BEST breaks night in Adelaide, and a sign Adelaide is finally accepting breaks!

Right after that finished, at 6 am I flew to Sydney for Shore Thing and Field Day. I wanted to shop in the city on Friday, but I ended up sleeping the day away. Lisa and Simon took us out to one of their friend's girlfriends birthday dinner, and I wasn't really impressed with the food... I think we have better Thai resturants in Adelaide.

On Saturday caught up with an old friend Venita, and realised there's lots of ex-South Aussies living in Sydney. That night we visited some more of Lisa and Simon's friends, then went out to see Fat Boy Slim at Shore Thing. I had a ball! James Taylor was rocking it before Fat Boy Slim stepped up, and Fat Boy Slim played a lot of classics - both his and others - and wasn't too housey or cheesy!

Field Day was a scorcher... 44 degrees! It was an amazing day though... Evil Nine were awesome, but pity they weren't on later. Stantons rocked it again, and I enjoyed Sanchez and I'm not normally into his sounds. DJ Format played some nice funk and hiphop and made me not too sad I missed out on Andy Smith in Melbourne. Infusion were good, but Stereo MCs were better, even though the crowd was rather muted. Kid Kenobi was rather average, but Soul of Man were another highlight! After a 44 degree day, we had 100 km/h winds, and the breaks stage was closed down, so I had to see Bob Sinclar play... I hated every tune I heard Bob Sinclar play, especially that whack one with the whistling 'Love Generation'... OMG Can a tune BE any more annoying??? Moving Krafty to the main stage was the best decision they could have made, but MC Dynamite was whack though... he can do heaps better! KISS came on at the end, and although it was weird, I saw the humour in it, even if every other person around me complained.

I had to fly back at 6am the next day... well, thought it was 6am but it was actually 7... oh well, better to be early than late for a plane!

When I got back I slept all day, and then on Thursday I went saw King Kong with Lisa. I really enjoyed that. What I didn't enjoy was having to bail on her at 4 in the morning because my shoulder is so fucked!!! I don't know what I've done, but if I lie down for more than a few minutes it aches like hell. I really, really hated to bail on her, but I had to come home and take painkillers.

We caught up again on Sunday and went to see the Goonies at the Moonlight Cinema, which was also really nice...

Midway shafts Ratbag Studios...

Midway shafts Aussie developer, Ratbag Studios

OK, here's what happened.

On Sunday, Greg Siegele got a phone call saying that Matt Booty and the HR guy were coming down. They arrived Tuesday, and we held a meeting at 2pm. We were told that we hadn't reached suitable quality levels in our deliverables, and that as a result Midway had decided to close the Adelaide Studio, and that we were all laid off. We were told that we had a day to offer suggestions to keep the studio open.

We suggested - bringing in people from OS, reducing the scope of operation, reducing the size of the team, and moving to another budget title, and a few other things.

We also had calls from the Premier and Federal Government asking if there was any assistance they could offer. With only one day notice, we had to decline.

Yesterday we had to go in, grab all our personal stuff, and delete our music, pictures, documents, emails, etc off our hard drives. We were given our redundancy notices. We went into the Ballroom next door, Greg put a tab on the bar, and we got hammered. They also ordered Pizza, which was always an in-joke around our office. When we've had bad news in the past, beer and pizza were ordered for the staff.

Some people have already found work interstate and overseas.


Now, I'm going to take off my journalist cap, and say what I really feel...

Midway are CUNTS.

We were exstatic when they brought us out - it was our chance to work on a game and not pander to different publishers and be fucked around like we had on Saturday Night Sprintcars, Dukes of Hazzard, and our Activision project.

The testers were given full time contacts, and I saw it as a chance to get into game design or more senior QA role down the track. But Midway have dashed all those dreams.

I feel sorry for those who've moved from Interstate and overseas. We had one guy move from the UK and start on Monday. He worked a total of 15 hours and then was told he was sacked. There's people who bought houses and land here, moved their families here.

And of course, it wasn't REALLY about our game. It was about the $29.1 Million loss Midway made this quarter. But instead of looking about why they're losing money (could it be because they're making generic, bland, MTV-audience friendly games, like LA Rush perhaps??? Maybe if they didn't pay Matt Booty and the other Senior execs $millions a year) they decided to close down two of their studios, thus destroying an Australian gaming insitiution in the process.

Our game was looking fantastic. They looked at a November 15 build, which admittedly wasn't great, but we had and made a Verticle Slice (which is essentially like a fully fledged demo of the game) deadline last week, with some people working from 6am to midnight every day of the week, Saturday and Sunday included.

We looked at our PS2 game on identical monitors next to the major games in the genre - True Crimes 2, GTASA, Driv3r and the original GTA, and our game looked like an Xbox game - even I was amazed at how much effort and work had gone into the game in the last 4 weeks.

The game featured stuff never attempted before in a driving / GTA style game, and it was stuff that was actually working as a mechanic and looked great too. If you've got a mechanic that's fun to do over and over, you've essentially got your game. Bungie said that about Halo.

I am of course utterly devastated and heart broken. This was my dream job. Not only that, the people I worked with were amazing. You simply don't find talent like that anywhere else in Adelaide. Those people made me realise Adelaide isn't all that bad, that people can be creative and intelligent and different here and get ahead in life whist still living in one of the nicest cities in the world.

I guess you can't get ahead here.

I'm at a total loss as to what to do. There's not many jobs for games testers in Australia or really elsewhere in the world, not permanent anyway.

There's NOTHING else for me to do in Adelaide, except call centre work, which is a soul destroying, meaningless existence according to most of my friends.

I am totally shattered.

When Robyn left me Ratbag was the only thing that kept me from losing it altogether. Now what the fuck do I do?

One Enchanted Evening

Ok, so I've been busy / lazy and not updated my webpage...

Lots going on in my life, but not much I really want to share with the world... it's kinda personal, and I don't want to jeopardise things by blogging about it yet.

BUT

I do have a new DJ mix for you to download and enjoy...

It's called "One Enchanted Evening" and I did it on the evening of a rave called "Enchanted Forest 2006"...

Tracklisting:
Spin Spin Saccharine – Sneaky Pimps
Gonna Keep On – Soul Of Man
Good Times (Atomic Hooligan remix) – J Cat
Direct Hit – Aquasky
Bump & Grind (Krafty Kuts remix) – Friendly
Tricked – Bootylicious
Once Upon a Time – Dreadzone
Put Up Your Hands – Scam
Murder in the Jamrock – Cut & Run
Boom Blast (Deekline & Wizard remix) – Freestylers
Greenlight – Breakfastaz
Both Knees (Breakfastaz remix) – Split Loop
Obssessive Nature – Kiro Vs Undecided
Kinky – Plump DJs

The difference a year makes...

Ok, I normally don't blog about feelings and shit... I generally leave that for all the whack emo kids on MySpace, but I had to post this.

This time last year I was probably at the lowest I had been since a high school kid.

I felt worthless, pathetic, unloved, and rejected.

Most of that was because of my break up with Ribbon, which hit me harder than I ever expected. She was the first real love of my life. When we broke up I was shattered. And it took me a REAL long time to get over it.

Part of the reason it took so long is that DAMN houseboat trip... STUPID STUPID STUPID!

Anyway, a year later and everything is looking up. Job opportunities are opening up new and exciting horizons, I'm making lots of friends in and out of work, and I'm just feeling overwhelmingly happy with the way things are going.

I'm disapointed Ribbon and I never became close again, and probably never will because she's in the UK, but I hope everything works out well for her.

Newsfeeds & Podcasts!

For the more observant of you out there you may notice a slight change to the website, again a shameless attempt of greater promotion of my website.

I now have Feedburner links to this Blog and my two podcasts - FunkyJ's Interview Podcast and the City Zen Radio Archive.

Feel free to subscribe to the feeds and download my podcasts!

Doom the Movie

Saw it last night (for free... thanks Dan!)

quick review:

Good:
The music score is by Clint Mansel of Pop Will Eat Itself (he also did music for Requiem For a Dream and Sahara)
The Rock's face does indeed look like the hapless marine in the original Doom game, especially when he gets the BFG.
Good lighting that matches Doom III's feel (although this is probably more a reflection on the goodness of the game than the goodness of the movie)
The first person scene is pretty good.
Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike)

Bad:
Doom I (the game) had a better storyline. The film was predictable and lame.
The acting is pretty dull. The Rock is the Rock, Keith Urban is under utilised, Rosamund Pike doesn't get her tits out, and the dialogue is pretty damn awful most of the time.
NO HELL! Doom is all about demons from hell. Anything else is NOT Doom.
Moreover they kept refering to Mars being "Hell" and the monsters as "Those Demons", but the creatures were genetically engineered... make up your friggin mind.
Not enough gun play - Doom is all about killing demons.
The end credits are whack... what were they thinking!?!

oh god, I've turned into an old man who writes letters to the editor!

But I couldn't help myself!

RAP & RnB IS NOT HIPHOP!!!

read my letter in the latest Escapist Magazine...

iTunes Australia Finally opens!

yeah, it was yesterday, but I didn't get a chance to blog about it... although I did make a forum post on XBWAustralia.

Here's part of the Press Release I got about it:

Apple today launched the revolutionary iTunes Music Store in Australia, giving Australian music fans the same innovative features, breakthrough pricing and seamless integration with iPod that have made iTunes the world's most popular music jukebox and online music store. The iTunes Music Store is now available in 21 countries and features the most music of any digital music store in Australia with over one million songs from major and independent record labels and over 1,000 music videos. Priced at just $1.69 per song, $3.39 per video and with most albums at $16.99 including GST, the iTunes Music Store in Australia is the best way for Mac and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online.

"We're thrilled to bring the revolutionary iTunes Music Store to Australia," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. "iTunes features the largest catalogue of local and international music in Australia with over one million songs, enabling music fans to purchase their favourites with one click and have them automatically sync to their iPod."

Exclusive music featured today includes tracks from Australian artists Missy Higgins, Bernard Fanning, Paul Mac, Evermore, Gyroscope and The Dissociatives. Extensive catalogues are available from Australian greats INXS, Hunters & Collectors, Paul Kelly and Slim Dusty. In addition, there are iTunes Originals from local heroes Spiderbait, and international stars R.E.M., Alanis Morissette, LL Cool J, PJ Harvey and Sting. International exclusives include Madonna's entire catalogue, digital box sets from U2 and Stevie Wonder, albums with digital booklets from Jack Johnson and Elvis Costello and more exclusives from Black Eyed Peas, Tiesto, Bloc Party, Elbow, Hayley Westenra and Jamie Cullum. Exclusive videos include U2, an online Beastie Boys exclusive and an extensive Madonna catalogue. The iTunes Podcast Directory features over 25,000 Podcasts, including featured Australian Podcasts from ABC, Triple J, Triple M and SBS Radio.

Interestingly enough, today the iTunes store from within iTunes keeps timing out... must be getting hammered pretty hard I suspect.

I'm going to spend the weekend editing my interviews, and converting my CityZen Radio shows into MP3 format, and add them to the podcasting section.

Considering my Grand Master Flash interview has had over 200 hits, I'm hoping my podcast will bring more people to my website...

Maybe I'll even put some adverts on it to get a bit of cash from all this work I've done... ;)

Lego!

Jengo Fett

There was a mini lego showcase on in Adelaide at the Myer Centre over the school holidays.

This is one of my photos.

More Here

More Apple Hate!

Why do people think Apple is the bizniz when it comes to "user friendly"?

For example, I listen to LOTS of mix CDs, and when I import them to iTunes it does it by Artist / CD Title, so now I've got about 14 million 'artist' folders with one 'album' folder with one song in them. That's NOT very well organised, and I can't see a way to change that.

The ONLY way I can see around this every single time I put a mix CD, is to make sure I press "ctrl + I" and mark as "record is a compilation", which of course isn't user friendly at all, BUT A FUCKING PAIN IN THE ARSE!

Oh, and god forbid if you ever let iTunes organise your music folder... I did that at home and it RUINED MY MP3 COLLECTION.

I have lots of mashup and legitimate user created MP3s that have a name like "artist_TrackTitle.mp3" and nothing inside the file - I know what it is by it's MP3 name. But iTunes doesn't like that.

It took me 6 hours to correct the "organising" iTunes decided to do, which was more like coming into a library, grabbing anything that doesn't have the title and author written on the inside cover, and throwing it into the air.

And yet Apple / Mac users claim Apple is better than PC / Microsoft... pfft!!!

Parklife Review

I walked to the venue as I was in a walking mood, and whilst it was a fair away from the city centre, it was a lovely spring day and I enjoyed looking at Sydney on the way there.

The area of Parklife was massive, probably the equivalent of Adelaide’s Rymill Park. There were 3 main stage areas, plus lots of space in between. The line up to get in wasn’t too bad, taking about 10 minutes to get in once the gates actually opened.

After grabbing a drink, the first set I listened to was James Taylor and Price Cuts, who were spinning on the main outdoor stage. Nice funky breaks and a little bit of hiphop.

On the smaller Dedouin stage, Uncle Ho was doing a live thing, and that was really cool. Nice sax playing under trippy beats. I stayed in that area for FunkTrust, who rocked the gathering crowd playing funky hiphop. I love hiphop DJs who scratch and cut, and was very impressed with these dudes.

Kid Kenobi was on the Outdoor stage with MC Sureshock, and basically from this moment on I stayed listening to the music at this stage. It was mostly breaks and hiphop – my two favourite styles. Kid Kenobi and Sureshock tore it up – I was glad because Kid Kenobi can rather cheesy at times, but this was a rather good set. It’s funny how the Sydneysiders pay out the MC, whereas in Adelaide it’s Sureshocks’ skills as an MC that give’s Kid Kenobi a little more respect amongst Adelaide’s dnb loving heads.

Ugly Duckling was up next. I love UD, they remind me of the early Beastie Boys. They did mostly older, well-known tunes such as eye on the gold chain and just a little samba, but also did a new tune that takes the same riff as a Solesides tune, which was pretty good.

Rennie Pilgrem jumped up onto stage next, with MC Chick-aboo busting out rhymes for him. I was very impressed with what he played, lots of new TCR stuff, as well as a few Pilgrem favs such as Emit/Collect and Cous Cous. He played some pretty rocking tunes – filled with guitar samples and a fairly rock and roll vibe, much like Evil Nine’s stuff.

During his set I had to take a breather, and headed to see A Skillz at the Bedouin stage. There were a lot more people now, and unlike earlier, there was little noise bleed from the main stage. From where I was sitting I couldn’t see A Skillz, but I could hear him cutting it up wildly.

Roots Manuva and his band begun on the main stage, and I sauntered over to check him out. Man, he is GOOD! It’s bloody criminal he’s not played in Adelaide. He’d go off here big time. I wasn’t able to stand for much of his set, but sat down near the lake, facing the stage grooving away.

I wanted to see some of Numark, as he’s one of my favourite DJs, but the Drumattic Twins came on the main stage and got my booty off the ground and shaking again! These guys are fast becoming my favourite breaks act - they were ‘best of show’ for Winter Breaks last year, and were easily the best set of the night. Playing lots of Finger Lickin’ stuff, including Plump DJs, Soul Of Man, and their own stuff, and lots of acapellas and making on the spot naughty bootlegs by looping hiphop and RnB vocals over the top… fantastic!

One word springs to mind with the Freestylers – inconsistent. They started off really strong with fasten your seatbelts and Cut & Run’s Starwars sample laden Dark Side but then they went into hiphop, and then cheesy breaks like push up, then drum’n’bass and then back to heavy breaks. I expected a much more flowing set, and better mixing. They seemed to be cutting in with other tracks too soon, or too late. I’ve heard countless Freestylers live sets and they were much, much better than this. MC Sirreal was calling for more foldback, so maybe the sound was fucked. I was just disappointed that they weren’t mind blowing I guess, but it was still good to hear some of that nasty breaks being played and seeing the crowd go off.

The crowd was awesome, filled with some right trippers and some absolutely fantastic looking women... although the Sydney peeps I was hanging out with said that was a little unusual to see so many fine bods... they must have heard I was going and made an effort =)

I took some pictures and you can find them >HERE<

All in all well worth the trip over and getting Bronchitis ;(

I enjoyed it so much I got a ticket to Field Day