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Thursday, July 31, 2008

7's Series: July

Due to a busy scedules, 7 and I decided to skip the June edition of 7's Series.

I am proud to present the July edition with an added bonus pic.

Enjoy.

Click on images to enlarge.

Info provided below each picture.



Richmond Station 2. Artist: Unknown. Mural commissioned by Yarra Council. Train Station. Richmond, Victoria, Australia.



NZ Auckland Piece. Artists: Unknown. Mural outside of school. Auckland, New Zealand.



Melbourne Back Alley. Artist: Phat One. Hosier Lane, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.



Taroona High. Artists: Deon (NFR) and Toper. Commissioned work at Taroona High School. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.



SEN Venice. Various Artists. Beach Section Wall. Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California.



NYK. Artists: Burn Crew. Melbourne (Burn Crew Master-wall). Richmond, Victoria, Australia.



7 Caotic 2. Artist: 7. Tas Print, Rivulet. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.



Bonus Flick: Seven Cans

If you missed the first edition of 7's Series, don't know what the series is about, or just need a refresher, check out the very first edition.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Reconstructing DJ P's Hell on Wheels


Check out my recent Reconstruction with DJ P where we break down his classic Hell on Wheels mix tape series. To read the interview and get some free DJ P blends, click here.

To learn more about P's favorite horror movies, check out his installment in my Famous People Love Horror series.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Songs to Listen to After Getting Dumped

Here are some of my personal picks.

Feel free to write suggestions in the comments section.







Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Two Michael Jackson Mixes You Should Download

Attention: Due to the insane amount of traffic this year old post has been getting since Michael's recent passing, I would really appreciate it if you left some feedback about the mixes. I like to hear what visitors have to say, and it's a small price to pay for two great, free mix tapes.

If you're like me, you love it when a DJ offers up a dope mix tape for free. Luckily I have two dope MJ mixes that you may or may not already have on your hard drive.

One was composed by the homie DJ Ayres. You can download the mix by clicking here.



The other mix was composed by Ludacris tour DJ/mix tape madman Jaycee. You can download it by clicking here.



Read Jay's take on the tape by clicking here.

Both get a big time Heavy In The Streets stamp of approval and deserve your time and listening attention. Remember to post some feedback to show your appreciation for all the hard work Ayres and Jaycee put into making these.

DJ Quixotic Interview With Easy Reader


My homie DJ Quixotic was recently featured in an interview with Easy Reader. Quix was one of my first interviews and I always enjoy hearing what he has to say about the world of music. Check him out by clicking here.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

New DJ Neil Armstrong Mix


DJ Neil Armstrong is one of the nicest dudes I've ever know. He's one of those cats that would come help a friend if they were broken down on the side of the road. I don't think I've interviewed anyone as much as him and there are few people who make a better interviewee. Anyhow, enough with the soft stuff. He recently was named Jay Z's tour DJ and despite an insane scedule, Neil put together a new mix for Theme Magazine that is available for FREE download. Please take a moment to support and download it by clicking here.

15 Minutes with Seth Ferranti


Check out my most recent piece for The Smoking Section with prison author Seth Ferranti. It's a great interview about prison misconceptions, writing, his publishing company, and many other interesting topics. Please take the time to read about this very inspiring human being.

To read the interview, click here.

To purchase a copy of one of Seth's books, click here.

To learn more about Seth's publishing company, click here.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Every Lifetime Is A Lesson, This Is What I've Found


The track “Sincerely Yours” from Little Brother’s second album The Minstrel Show is a perfect example of 9th Wonder at his best. The way he brings in the intro vocal sample and changes the beat up for the chorus…it’s all unspeakably beautiful. I put this track on a mix for my car and I often find myself repeating it five or six times in a row. Big Pooh also shows that he’s a rapper people need to stop sleeping on as he brings his prime material for this one. Enjoy.

Download the track by clicking here.

Famous People Love Horror: Joe Lo Truglio's Top 5 Cronenberg Flicks



Name: Joe Lo Truglio

Occupation: Actor

Horror Fan Credentials:

a) Is currently pitching a horror movie titled Burnt with fellow State alum Ken Marino.
b) Worked on a treatment for a film about a rage virus around the time 28 Days Later came out.
c) Loves David Cronenberg.

Lo Truglio on Cronenberg: Cronenberg's brilliant. Eastern Promises and History of Violence are genius, but I'm sticking to straight horror here. Croney had a "golden period", I think, between 1979 and 1986. For seven years he was knocking it out of the park. Personally, his later horror flicks like Dead Ringers, Crash, and Existenz were too heady for me. Too much Plato and not enough Voorhees.



They just didn't keep me up at night. Granted, I was younger during the golden period. I might've been more susceptible to the heebie-jeebies.

Here's my Top 5 Cronenberg, starting with not only my favorite of his, but my favorite of all-time:

1. The Brood (1979) - Pissed-off little dwarves with cleft palates. Come on.



2. The Fly (1986) - Goldblum, acid barf, and ears falling off. Genius.



3. The Dead Zone (1983) - Scissor gouging, Hitler Sheen, oh…and Walken. Please.



4. Videodrome (1983) - James Woods and his stomach vagina. Thumbs up.



5. Scanners (1981) - Seizuring geezers, zig-zagging veins, and brain fireworks. Get the F out.



The Brood is my top dog. As for the rest of my Top 5 of All-Time…I'll save that for another time. Yes, yes, The Shining, Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween are all awesome. I love them all and they're indisputable classics. But everyone knows that. They're on everyone's fave list, so I don't let them take up space on mine. But like I said, let's get into that shit later.

To read my other interview with Joe, click here.

Also make sure to check out his MySpace and IMDB profile.

Brooklyn Where We Live At!

I always loved Smif-N-Wessen and the entire BCC. I really liked that S-N-W joint "Super Brooklyn" where they sampled the Mario Brothers beat. Some people clowned it for being corny, but to me it was mad creative. Anyhow, here is a video of my dude Jaycee killin' doubles of that song at his crib. Enjoy.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

THE SOULMAN Remix's

It ain't no secret that I have a great deal of respect for THE SOULMAN. The legendary record collection, sample recognizer, beat provider, and hip hop historian has one of my favorite blogs out and even agreed to be a part of my Can You Dig It? series. He also makes some really nice remixes. It'd been a minute since I checked his blog and while catching up on posts the other day, I stumbled upon one particularly dope remix of his. It's a super mellow, laid back remix of Blahzay Blahzay's one and only hit, "Danger".



You can download it by clicking here.

To read his post about the remix, click here.

To visit his blog and get tons of dope free music and great stories, click here.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Famous People Love Horror: The DJ P Edition


Name: DJ P

Occupation: DJ

Horror Fan Credentials:

a) His favorite holiday is Halloween.
b) Enjoys watching horror movies by himself on Valentine’s Day.
c) Played Freddy Kruger at a haunted house in Springfield, Missouri for over six years.
d) Owns a killer collection of horror movie soundtracks on vinyl.
e) Has released two horror movie/Halloween themed mixes: Hell on Wheels 1 and 2.

Favorite Horror Genre: I’m into the slasher genre with characters like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger, and Michael Myers. I’d even say that Stanley Kubrick’s’ classic The Shining has certain elements of a slasher movie. Werewolf movies are cool too. I like The Howling and American Werewolf in London a lot, but overall, those aren’t really my type of movies. I like the kind of horror where there is an actual person doing the killing. Those are my type of villains.



Favorite Horror Villain: If I had to pick my favorite villain it would probably be Freddy Kruger. He had a personality that was really cool and he was scary at the same time. I used to work in a haunted house and I played Freddy Kruger for over six years. That was nothing but fun. I’d make people scream, pee their pants, and run. The haunted house was in Springfield, Missouri and it had a three story slide at the end. It was really cool.



Michael Myers was another great villain. What made him creepy was the way that he looked with his costume, his back story, and the fact that he didn’t talk. I think a lot of people were more people were freaked by Michael Myers than by Jason. Jason was a crazy, macabre dude who came back from the dead after drowning. He was just out of control and swinging blades. He was scary, but I think Michael Myers was even more frightening.



The fact that he didn’t run when he would kill people freaked me out. He would walk and still catch people. He would walk down the stairs, walk around the corner, and the next thing you know, he’s right there killing someone. I used to have bad dreams about him. He was pure evil in human form and there was no reason for him to be that way. He just had a lust for blood. Jason was a kid who drowned because some camp counselors weren’t paying attention and that’s what drove him and his mother. Michael Myers didn’t really have a reason like that.



Favorite Horror Movie Soundtrack: I love John Carpenter’s work and Halloween had a great soundtrack. Phantasm’s soundtrack is really ill. Those two are probably my favorites, but The Shining also has a really creepy, interesting soundtrack.



Dawn of the Dead has some really crazy b-boy sounds on it. There are some samples on there you could make b-boy tracks out of.



Best Horror Movie Sequel: I think the Friday The 13th sequels are a good example of well done horror movie sequels. When the first one came out, it was a shock to everyone who saw it. A lot of that had to do with the effects of Tom Savini.



Part 2 was good, but Part 3 was better and it was the installment where Jason started wearing a hockey mask.



Part 4 was awesome.



That was the one where Corey Feldman came into the picture.



That movie freaked me out man. It was crazy. My favorite Friday the 13th’s were Part 1, 3, and 4.

Most Slept On Horror Movie of All-Time: I could be out of line saying this, but Phantasm is one that a lot of people have kind of forgotten about. To me that was one of the dopest horror flicks of the late 70’s and 80’s. It has some funny moments, but it’s very creepy.



The whole concept and way that it was shot in a morgue/funeral home is just eerie. I think a lot of people slept on Phantasm.

All-Time Favorite Horror Movie List:













Please take the time to read this related interview I did with P for The Smoking Section about his Hell on Wheels mix tapes by clicking here.

To order DJ P's horror mix tape masterpieces Hell on Wheels 1 and 2 as well as the rest of his tapes, click here.

To read about P's extensive horror movie soundtrack collection in his Can You Dig It? interview, click here.

To visit his MySpace, click here.

To visit his website, click here.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Man With a Van: A Look at Michael Ian Black's New Book


“Love is the most powerful word processor of all.”- Michael Ian Black

Michael Ian Black has played many roles in the world of entertainment. He has been an actor, screenwriter, director, and stand up comedian. Most recently he took on book writing, a most complex endeavor that involves lots of words and stuff. Find out more about the first time author’s new book, My Custom Van, by reading our interview below.

DJ Sorce-1: Explain the meaning of the title of your new book My Custom Van.

Michael Ian Black: My Custom Van is the title of one of my essays in the book. It's basically about awesomeness, which I like to think my book is about too. My rule of thumb is: the more awesomeness the better.



DJ Sorce-1: Is writing a book more difficult than writing a screenplay?

Michael Ian Black: They're both difficult. Writing is genuine pain in the ass. Sitting down and actually creating coherent sentences that fit together into paragraphs? Forget it. Very difficult. But it's like going to the gym. You may not love it while you're doing it, but you feel great afterwards.

DJ Sorce-1: Besides Andy Dick, who is your favorite celebrity to rag on?

Michael Ian Black: Whoever is acting like a fucking idiot at the time.



DJ Sorce-1: Do you listen to any music when you write, or are do you prefer working in silence?

Michael Ian Black: I sometimes put unobtrusive music on in the background, but I find that I can't really have anything too loud blaring at me when I'm trying to concentrate. I've tried listening to ball games, talk radio and other stuff, but it doesn't work. A little quiet background music, and that’s about it.

DJ Sorce-1: Where do you think this book will rank on the list of all time literary classics?

Michael Ian Black: #12.



DJ Sorce-1: I can't read. Will this book be available in MP3 format with you as the narrator?

Michael Ian Black: At the moment they have not asked me to do a book on tape, so I guess not. But if you like, you can come sit on my lap and I will read it to you.



DJ Sorce-1: Do you still love me?

Michael Ian Black: Of course I do. I love everybody.

Don't be a cheapskate. Buy this book. It can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

For a more in depth look at Michael, read my interview with him from last year.

Visit Michael's website by clicking here.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Can You Dig It? Vol. 22: DJ Apt One


Name: DJ Apt One

Claim to Fame: I guess my claim to fame is a series of parties I do with my boy Skinny Friedman called Philadelphyinz. I grew up with Skinny in Pittsburgh and he lives in Brooklyn now. We do production and take our show on the road. We rock two turntables and trade off back and forth. Beyond that my claim to fame is that I have a ridiculous mustache. People can pick me out of a crowd pretty easily.



Representing: I grew up in Pittsburgh and I’ve been living in Philly for about eight years now. The name Philadelphyinz comes from Pittsburgh slang. Yinz is like ya’ll in Pittsburgh. When I started that party I was doing it with a lot of people that I knew from Pittsburgh who had moved to the east coast. It sort of made sense as a name because it reps the two cities that I rep.



Years in the Game: I’ve been record collecting and DJing for the same amount of time. I started messing around with both when I was 16. I’m 25 now. I was talking to DJ Selecta recently and I realized that because I started out so young, I was one of the last generations to get under the bar before DJing went so digital and a lot of people started DJing without collecting wax first.



When you start with records there is a whole visual vocabulary that goes with it. You don’t get that with digital stuff. With vinyl you see the record, the label, the sleeve, and the names of the people who produced and played on the record. A lot of how you dig for records is visual. A lot of times people think things like, “I’m just digging through this big pile of shit and I’m going to find a label that I’ve heard one record on before that I like. It costs a dollar and I’m going to buy this record completely based on speculation. There’s no record player here, I’m just going to buy it.”



It could be that super secret gem that nobody knows about and you end up being the only person in your circle of music with that track. That just doesn’t happen with digital stuff. It’s an experience that is disappearing, but if you’re aware of the fact that it is possible, you can have your cake and eat it too. You can go digging and collect music the same way that everyone else does who is on a strictly digital level.



A lot of what I play is stuff that I’ve ripped from wax. I use Serato, but I feel like I have an excellent data backup with all my vinyl. The government is actually trying to backup some of their records with analog. Let’s say you’re an alien archeologist and you land on this planet in 1000 years. It’s much easier to find a record and reverse engineer a turntable than it is to find a CD and reverse engineer a computer. They’re sort of looking out for the future by going analog. You can retrofit a devise to play something much more easily, which I think is kind of cool.

Best Digging City or Town: When I tour around I don’t always have the time to go digging, so outside of Pittsburgh and Philly I’m not really an expert. Philly is a great digging town. It’s losing some of the newer vinyl shops like Armand’s that have always been around for new wax, but there are a number of really excellent used record shops. The Philly digging scene is full of really crazy characters that everyone kind of knows. Val Shively is a legendary guy, and everybody knows this guy named Stinky Steve. For some reason lots of people know the half dozen dudes that live in some random neighborhood of some random suburb and have like 15,000 records in their house. It’s really interesting.

Pittsburgh is also a great digging city. Jerry’s Records is probably the best record store that I’ve ever been in. It’s insanely affordable and it was on my walk between high school and my house. That’s one of the reasons I got into this whole thing. Cosmo Baker played with us last Wednesday and he was like, ‘Dude, you gotta take me to Pittsburgh so we can go to Jerry’s.”



Jerry’s has quite a reputation because it’s huge. It’s shrunken a bit in size, but Jerry’s at its peak had something like five rooms. Each room was bigger than the record store that your average person would go to. There were rooms with alphabetized 45’s stacked up to the ceiling that you had to get on a ladder to get to. There were two rooms of that, and every 45 was three dollars no matter what it was. These days, Jerry’s is surviving. DJ Selecta runs a record store called 720 Records, and Jerry invited 720 Records and an indie video store to move into two of the rooms to cut down on his rent. It’s kind of like ground zero for media nerds.



Also, everybody I know who lived in Detroit for a period of time has amazing records. The next time I’m up there I have to go digging, because my guess is that the records up there are just awesome.

Most Prized Piece of Wax: I definitely have an affinity for some of the 45’s I found in high school. At the time, the idea of coming across a rare record was really appealing to me. I have Dennis Coffey’s version of "It’s Your Thing" by the Isley’s on this 45 label called Maverick from Detroit. When I was in high school I loved that record.



I also collect old timey Country records. It’s the only kind of record I collect that I don’t spin or sample. I definitely have an affinity for some of those records, like old Bob Wills and Hank Williams. I don’t listen to them as much as I would like to, but honestly, the only kind of live music that I really get amped to see anymore is people playing old timey folk and blue grass. I’ve been producing music and playing guitar for a long time and a lot of it has been de-mystified, so its hard to get impressed sometimes. But there’s so many elements of old time country music that I couldn’t play if I tried. If music is my job, I guess listening to old country is my musical hobby.



Favorite Album Cover/s: Pretty much anything by the Ohio Players kills it.



Black Moses by Isaac Hayes is one of my favorites. I love the way it folds out into a six panel gigantic Isaac Hayes that you can put on your wall.



E=MC² by Giorgio Moroder is another one. My buddy Ian took a picture of me holding that record. Both of us have these absurd mustaches and it’s almost like me holding a picture of myself. It’s a dope cover because he’s wearing a swishy, white, Miami blazer with no shirt. But instead of showing his chest, there are all these really poorly airbrushed robotic wires and buttons and shit. People must have totally thought that shit was the future when it came out.



I love those kinds of covers. I was talking to a friend of mine from my neighborhood that runs a record label recently. He’s going to stop putting out everything but vinyl, and when you buy the vinyl you can get a coupon to get the MP3’s from his labels website. When I asked him why he was doing that, he said that “On top of everything you can say about how vinyl sounds, it’s a piece of art, so much more than a CD. You can hold it in your hands and you can put it on your wall.” That’s the one thing about old records. They’re like snapshots of people’s stylistic sensitivities frozen in time. You can look back and say, “Ray Parker Jr. thought it was the hot shit to wear a white riding suit while sitting on a couch. That seems ridiculous now, but I bet he was pimping it then.”



Dollar Bin Miracle: Here’s a funny story. When I was back home in Pittsburgh for the summer a couple of years ago, I went to this flea market in Washington Country Pennsylvania. I think it was in the parking lot of a horse racing track. I went with a few buddies of mine, and I was pulling awesome stuff. Some dude sold me a shoebox of dope 45’s for $10. I kept finding all these dope records, and none of my friends were finding anything.



I was digging through a cardboard box of records with my buddy Shannon. He was digging in a box next to me and looking for old school rock and stuff like that. I found a copy of The Stooges first album. I knew that he wanted it way more than me. If I kept the record for myself, I would buy it, listen to it a handful of times, file it on a shelf, go about my business, and not listen to it again for years. So I ended up giving it to him. This was five or six years ago, and I have never seen an original pressing of that album again for anything I can possibly justify paying for it. Every time I see it I think, “Shannon, you cool, but I shouldn’t have given you that fucking record.”



Total Records Owned: In Philly I have close to 2,000, but I really don’t know how many are in my parent’s basement in Pittsburgh. There are probably another couple of hundred in there.

Best Digging Story: I was 19 years old and I played a show with Peanut Butter Wolf. I played the show, went home and crashed, and got a call at ten in the morning from him. He was like, “Are we going digging or what?” I borrowed my girlfriend’s car and went to pick him up. I’m 19 and I’m about to go digging with Peanut Butter Wolf. I couldn’t believe it. When we started digging I said, “You’ve been doing this since I was in short pants. Any record that you find that you think is ill, even if you think it’s dumb obvious, give it to me.”



I must have bought $300 worth of records that day. I followed him around and he handed me cool shit. I handed him some things I thought he might know and managed to surprise him with a few things. I got some disco tracks that I still play on a semi regular basis to this day. I’ll play them and people will go, “What the fuck is that?” with admiration.

That experience totally blew my mind. It was a total head rush because I was so young. He also blew off a meeting with Madlib and Melvin Van Peebles in New York because he didn’t want to stop digging. Melvin Van Peebles was mad because someone from Stone’s Throw had sampled something from Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song and he was talking about filing a lawsuit. We were just digging and PB Wolf was like, “You know what? Fuck that” and kept on digging.



If you ever get a chance to interview Peanut Butter Wolf for this series, ask him about the story of Grand Master Lover. It’s a great digging story, but it’s not my story to tell. It’s about his favorite record ever. He bought it sealed in a dollar bin somewhere in St. Louis. He ended up chasing the guy down to try to re-release it. But again, it’s not my story, so I’ll have to let him tell it.

To learn more about DJ Apt One and The Philadelphyinz, visit DJ Apt One's MySpace, the Philadelphyinz MySpace, and the Philadelphyinz Website.

Also make sure to check out a Heavy In The Streets favorite, Apt One's Dollar Bin Jams.