RIP Skrillex

Sorry - hoax. Wikipedia had his date of death as Jan 2, 2012 from a cocaine overdose.

When I started working on this drawing yesterday for Computers Club Drawing Society, electro/house/dubstep producer Skrillex was still alive - according to CNN he died today.* I felt a little weird posting it on CCDS now, where the tone or motivation wouldn't be very clear, so I'm putting it here with my own collected drawings. It was meant to be sympathetic but not a memorial - now it's that.

*Update, ha ha, well, if this drawing's going to serve as a memorial it'll have to wait till the man is actually deceased. You gotta love that Wikipedia still has trolls. Some wag inserted the date of Sonny John Moore's death as "January 2, 2012" and said CNN had reported that he died from a cocaine overdose but no official statement had been made. That was enough to spare CCDS from this drawing.

Amazing songs

The year 2011 saw many artists release amazing songs and some, well, not so amazing. Either way, we enjoyed them!

From the amazing Adele to new entrants such as Bon Iver, Skrillex and Nicki Minaj, all fought profusely for the top spot. No questions asked, it belongs to Adele, obviously.

I decided to find out the top 20 songs of 2011 as we don't have much of year-end charts in Bahrain.
So here they are, and remember they are based on the music, not popularity.

I'm sure most of you haven't heard some of these songs. If you haven't, then you must. They are amazing. The Top 20 Songs Of 2011:

1. Adele - Rolling In The Deep
2. Adele - Someone Like You
3. Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks
4. Jay-Z & Kanye West - Niggas In Paris
5. Frank Ocean - Novacene
6. Bon Iver - Holocene
7. Lady Gaga - The Edge Of Glory
8. Chris Brown Ft Busta Rhymes & Lil Wayne - Look At Me Now
9. Nicki Minaj - Superbass
10. The Joy Formidable - Whirring
11. Katy Perry - Firework
12. Beyonce - Countdown
13. Radiohead - Lotus Flower
14. Nicola Roberts - Beat Of My Heart
15. Lady Gaga - You And I
16. Drake Ft Rihanna - Take Care
17. SBTRKT - Wildfire
18. Pistol Annies - Hell On Heels
19. Rihanna - We Found Love
20. Tony Bennet & Amy Winehouse - Body & Soul

HARD's Gary Richards Captains One Holy Ship!

For the past half decade L.A.'s HARDfest brand has been behind some of the most riotously wondrous shows on the West Coast and beyond. Now the electronic music events activator is taking to the sea with a few dozen of its very favorite racket-makers, among them Fatboy Slim, A-Trak, Diplo and Skrillex. The voyage is called HOLY SHIP!, and it kicks off Thursday night at Revolution Live. Niteside got with HARD's Gary Richards and had him fill us in on all the action.

What the hell's a Holy Ship and why should we ship out on it? People know us for the HARD Summer and HARD Haunted Mansion festivals, and for a few years I've had the idea of doing a HARD Cruise. Take the acts I book at the festivals -- i.e. Diplo and Skrillex and a lot of the up-and-comers -- and use a giant cruise ship as the venue for the festival.

The name HOLY SHIP! started as a joke, but we all grew to love it. Europeans know that MSC (based out of Italy) is one of the top five cruise fleets in the world, and the Poesia is one of their largest ships. It has a tennis court and gym and spa and sushi bar and the list goes on.  When you really educate people with what we're doing in music and vacation, their eyes pop out of their head. That's why the name HOLY SHIP! just fits.

Who have you got to top this maiden voyage? One of my all-time favorite musicians in the world, Fatboy Slim, is a big draw for me and anyone that partied over the years. Diplo and A-Trak are like the two guys that have really been HARD superstars since early on. I like that you have kids in college or whatever just finding out about them now because they fell in love with a Major Lazer song or a Duck Sauce song; then they come and see these guys in front of an audience. As a DJ, they just own it. A-Trak and Steve Aoki and a few others (Jason Bentley, Gina Turner, Rory Phillips) were all at my first HARD event ever in 2007. That was a crazy night, and right now I feel like I did right before that, like this party is going to be insane.

We also have Rusko, who I first brought to the states in 2009 for his live USA debut.  He's known for really launching dubstep, and I've toured with  him around the country. He's such an awesome performer. Then I got a little lucky with Skrillex. When I started hanging with Sonny a year or so ago, he was really excited that deadmau5 had even listened to his song, nevertheless that he was going to put it out on his label Mau5trap. He told me then he'd been in the audience at my show at HARD Haunted Mansion and always wanted to play it. We made that happen this October, and now Skrillex is like the biggest phenomenon in music in the past year.

That's not all though, right? We have over 40 different bands and DJs performing, plus all their musician friends are on board because it's the vacation of the century. There's four different parties going at any given time and you can hop between them all at your leisure. It's a cruise ship, so you can eat all day for free  and never make your bed because the cleaning crew will come and tidy your cabin. It's a resort that travels to the Bahamas (and a private island) with a whole HARD music festival aboard.

Isn't there also a pre-cruise kickoff? Yeah, we found people are coming in the night before and booking hotels, so we found the best venue in Ft. Lauderdale and we're going to do a whole night of pre-partying there. Major Lazer tops the bill, but we're using two rooms simultaneously and there's a half dozen artists playing.

Will your alter ego Destructo be making an appearance either on board or before the embarking? Yes, I'm going to play both. I've been working on the pre-party set and I think I'm just going to go all out from the get-go. On the boat I'm probably going to do one set that's really grooving, pool party style music like I used to play on vinyl in the summers in L.A., and maybe another set of my newer, mental stuff I've been producing and DJing.

I don't know for sure, one of the things about being a DJ (or being a performer in any capacity) is reacting to what the audience is feeling.

If you had to recommend one item for each Holy Shipmate to bring along, what would it be? Sunscreen.

Anything else we know about Gary Richards before you go-go? "Make it happen" -- those are words to live by.

The Holy Ship! kickoff party takes place Thursday January 5 at Revolution Live. Holy Ship! disembarks Friday January 6. More information about both can be found here.

Skrillex drops new beats in time for the New Year

Rating: 5/5

 

The day before Christmas Eve, dubstep sensation Skrillex announced he had bestowed a new batch of electronic music upon the world. It was an early Christmas miracle for fans, over 2.6 million of them.

One of Bangarang EP’s major highlights is the list of guest artists, including 12th Planet, Wolfgang Gartner, Ellie Goulding and Sirah. 12th Planet is currently finishing up a tour with Skrillex that stopped by Tallahassee during finals week. The timing didn’t prevent the show at the Moon from selling out.

Bangarang makes an evolution in Skrillex’s sound very evident. Elements like the signature high-pitched voices and shouting are still mixed in, but the songs definitely have more depth and are driven by better beats. A lot of it seems more groovy than heavy. Fans of house music should notice some similarities, too.

Overall, Skrillex is demonstrating that it’s not just about bass drops. There is still plenty of innovation left to do in the genre.

Skrillex also has something bigger to prove. He’s nominated for multiple Grammy Awards this time around. The rising star of this genre competing with the world’s most popular recording artists would have been unthinkable only a couple years ago.

The album is legally available through the BeatPort website at a total cost of $17.43. For only seven songs, the price seems uncompetitive with what you would pay on the iTunes Store, for example. It is unknown whether it will be available elsewhere or for less money any time soon.

“Go pirate it if you don't have money..I just want you to have it... or you can buy it here..either way I'll love you,” Skrillex said kindly on his Facebook wall. Fans can make the call whether to follow that advice or not.

Into the trance zone

They gave psychedelic trance a fresh sound — triggered it with a new electronic buzz, gave it a dose of heavy metal licks and offered a generous fill of hypnotic arrangements. Twice ranked among world’s 10 Best DJs, the Israel-bred, LA — based duo, Amit Duvdev Duvdevani and Erez Eisen are Infected Mushroom! The duo was in the country to perform at the Sunburn Festival.

The band’s latest offering, Legend of the Black Shawarma sounds more intense, boasting of a strong heavy metal influence. “The album definitely pushes a heavy rock sound, but there are also traces of our typical psychedelic riffs and infectious melodies. We were very happy to collaborate with some of our inspirations such as Perry Farrell and Jonathan Davis. We’re extremely happy with the album’s outcome,” says Erez. Both artistes claim to have been influenced by artistes like Metallica, Pantera and Primus. “Our current favourite electronic artistes are Skrillex, Nero, Feed Me, Randy Seidman, Eitan ‘Fatali’ Carmi,” says Erez.

The first of four singles, Pink Nightmares hit the market early last year. “Pink Nightmares turned out to be a hit, but it started out as a nightmare — it was a bad dream one of our daughters had. When we first performed the tune at Coachella this past year, the dance tent went mental. We recently finished a music video for the single, quite dark and psychedelic,” he adds.

Talking about the latest album, due to release in 2012, Erez says, “We are very excited. The album will be a little less ‘rock-and-roll’ and a little more dance-oriented. You will hear our signature sound applied to a contemporary scene. I don’t want to ‘toot our own horn’ but, for example, dubstep has spread like wildfire and we think our interpretation is strong. What you will hear on the album will make you say ‘oh! this is what it sounds like when dubstep is done well’.”

Back home, in Israel, the duo has a huge fan following. “Many people tell us that they can hear the Middle-Eastern influence in our sounds. I guess this is proof that we are from where we are”, he says, adding, “Over the years, we have spent a lot of time in India, so it is a very special place for us. When we travel to India, we look forward to hanging out with good people. In terms of graciousness, generosity, kindness, warmth — the people of India are second to none.”