Creature Dubble Feature / Haunted Castle EP
Happy Halloween Y’all! I love this holiday because its the time when everyone gets to dress up and act like a kid again. I also like creepy, crawly, dark and dusty places…’cause there are sometimes records down there. So, to celebrate, here are a few tracks with a horror theme for your enjoyment. I’ll break ‘em down below.
Count_Dubula.mp3
Creature_Double_Feature.mp3
Haunted_Castle_Pace_Remix.mp3
The first one, Count Dubula, is all Darren really. We were hanging out at my old apartment in Cambridge making beats and watching horror flicks. We had the audio of the DVD running through the mixer so we could mix it in live with whatever else we were doing. Classic. Finally, we had two lexicon JamMans locked to each other and some midi gear. The live sampling and midi/tempo locked delays on these make them great units for doing live dubs with samples. That’s just what Daren does here.
First, he grabbed a loop of the death scene in one JamMan. Then, he used the other JamMan to create dub effects and additional loops while the dialog of the death scene whispered and gasped and screamed along in the background. The whole mix was live, though the original was somewhat longer. No changing the timeline/looping/rearrainging though. Just condensation of the ideas that emerged and removal of the real clunkers.
Next, is Creature Double Feature. This is also a live mix, but with me on the decks playing a classic breaks record that ends with Godzilla screetches and then a big bass tone. I am doing a simple little improved doubles thing to which Darren was adding the bass drops (this might have happened after, I dunno). But its also basically a live jam. We got a kick out of the insanity of the dueling godzillas at the end and you can hear us laughing like jackals at the end (though some live mic apparently).
Finally, Haunted Castle also started at my pad, but this time used Def Rock’s MPC3000 and some freestyle from the wizard himself. Darren did some heavy clean up and post production on the original jam and then I added the scratch track live using Tino’s Halloween record today. I include this to give respect to a friend who has been a 4 elements b-boy since the early 1980s. He was taught by Dr. Freshh, was behind the legendary Monstamind/Megabug madness, is sick on the decks, is a true sensei and was featured in the important early graf book Freight Train Graffiti — all before most of you were even out of diapers. Like I said. Respect due.
He is also releasing a new record tonight Progress/Regress at Bullmoose Music up in Portsmouth NH. Get down there at 8pm to see a modern day horror author and b-boy original in action. Stick around for some other limited release Def Rock in the weeks to come.
