I was just messing around with the Virtual DJ for M(h)ac(k)intosh and made this in about 15 minutes…Link

I just fooled around with cue points…it’s a really nice program and has a cool plugin that you can use to make sort-of breakbeat stuff with, but sort of difficult to use without a MIDI controller (I haven’t tried to get my M-Audio Trigger Finger working on Mac yet).  The program also beatmatches really well and is very responsive…unless you try to drag-n-drop from a network share in OSX.  Maybe this works better in the windows version?

Anywho, check it out at http://www.virtualdj.com

http://www.amazon.com/Split-Bonus-CD-Thursday/dp/B001GJ2ZBG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1223244491&sr=8-1

In other news, Thursday is supposed to release a split with Envy on November 4th…I already have it, of course, but I’m glad that Geoff Rickly finally decided to put out an album that is a bit closer to real screamo.  This is not to say Thursday is a bad band, they are the closest thing to actual screamo that you will ever hear on the radio.  The album is going to be released on Temporary Residence Limited (of Explosions in the Sky, Grails, and Mono fame) will be a 12″+CD set, with both containing the same music.  It is rumored that they will also be releasing a hand-printed limited edition via their web store.  I’m really glad to see them break free of the BS relation with Island Records.

Geoff is also still involved in his side project, United Nations.  It’s really refreshing to see a band go from mainstream to playing more traditional-eqsue screamo, although they seem to want to call it “emo-power-violence”…which basically seems like real screamo.  “The band was started by Daryl Palumbo, vocalist of Glassjaw and Head Automatica, and Geoff Rickly, the vocalist/lyricist of the band Thursday. Other artists involved in the project possibly include Ben Koller, drummer for Converge; Christopher “Chree” Conger, former drummer of The Number 12 Looks Like You; bassist Eric Cooper of Made Out of Babies; and Jonah Bayer of The Lovekill. However, due to contract obligations of all members except Rickly, the official lineup isn’t well-known, with the exception of Rickly and Palumbo.^[3][4] Since Rickly is the only member whose primary band is currently not under contract, his name is the only one that can legally appear in press materials.^[5] Press photos of the band released in 2008 depict 4 people wearing Ronald Reagan masks.^[6]“

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_(band)

Hopefully other bands will follow in Thursday’s footsteps and break away from the mainstream.  The record companies forget that this is the age of technology and they can’t get away with selling a $15 cd with one hit single on it anymore…people will just download it or buy it on iTunes or some other online music store.  Also look into the latest release of Radiohead, Girl Talk, and Y.A.C.H.T.    — they all were involved in some form of digital release of an album, and I hope this trend of bands releasing their own material continues.

Let me qualify this by saying that lately I have been enjoying a lot of MSTRKRFT’s stuff espescially the remix of Death From Above 1979′s Sexy Results and Justice’s D.A.N.C.E, but I think I finally figured these guys out.  At live performances they just use a standard DJ set with two turntables, MacBook Pro for Serato Scratch Live, and a DJ mixer.  In the studio, they use probably a lot more stuff, but most notably:

• very similar drum beats that are usually a variation of, or exact replica of kick, hat, snare, hat with some occasional fills.  Don’t get me wrong, it usually fits in very nicely, but it is seriously used in just about all their songs.
• usually has a simple driving loop on an analog synth, usually Moog-ish in tone, sometimes arpeggiated, sometimes not.
• short clips of sampled vocals, if any.

And yes, I do realize the above describes a fairly large quantity of music, but damn if MSTRKRFT hasn’t taken this formula and ran with it.  In fact, I am currently planning a track based around this formula, however many times it has already been done.

Old Forever Ending fansite is up again over at seanp2k.com/fe.

Ahh, my first real site…brings back memmories.

If anyone needs anything from my old site (seanp2k.com), I have all of it still, or at least most of it, as my old hosting provider screwed me and deleted my account a few days after I didn’t renew a few years back, and I lost the MySQL database for the image gallery I had up there which a few people used quite a bit.  So, if you do need anything, shoot me an email (dot com [ÀT} seanp2k.end junk.c o m) or leave a comment here.