Movement Festival lineup announced

Well, OK, its only a partial list so far for the Movement Festival in Detroit, but still, WOW! 😯 Great to see NZ headz Fat Freddy’s Drop in there as well. I wish I was going… 😥

Aardvark, Alden Tyrell live, Amp Fiddler live, Barbara Preisinger, Biological Live, Camp Amp DJs, Claude Young, Cloud 9, Danny Krivit, Derek Plaslaiko, DJ Cosmo, DJ Genesis live, DJ Nova, Duplex Live, Ellen Allien, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Francois K, Garth Trinidad, Goldfinger (AML), Greg Mudge, Groove Junkies, Heiroglyphic being, Highfish, Jeannie Hopper, Joris Voorn live, Kai Alce, Kelvin Larkin, Kenny Larkin, Kevin Reynolds, Kevin Saunderson, Language, Legowelt, Louis Haiman, Madlib and PBW ft Jay Dee, Malik Alston, Painted Pictures, Marques Wyatt, McKay, Mike Geiger, Mike Grant, Mike Huckaby, Novamen Live dutch, Osunlade Live, Ramon, Recloose, Red Nose Distrikt, Reel People, Remy, Rockid (DMC Champion), Rolando, Ron Trent, sean deason, Shortround, Stacey Pullen, Tortured Soul Live, Wajeed

Creative Vibes also picking up Peacefrog

Wow, Creative Vibes are really on a roll now. Looks like they’ve also picked up distribution for the awesome UK label Peacefrog in Australia.

PEACEFROG: Peacefrog Records have been one of the leaders of the cutting edge techno/house scene for the past ten years. The UK based label was formed in 1992 by Pete Hutchison and Paul Ballard from the suburbs of London and has nurtured acts in the early years such as Luke Slater, Paul Johnson, Wamdue Kids and more recently the likes of Moodymann, Charles Webster, Theo Parrish and Ian O’Brien, X-Crash, Apogee, Solid State, Dan Curtin, Purveyors Of Fine Funk, Neil Landstrumm, Dusk, Glenn Underground, John Beltran, Placid Angles, Planetary Assault Systems, Roy Davis Jr, Plaid and many more. The first release up is Moodymann’s Black Mahogani, a collection of rare classic 12″s from the Detroit genius with some new tracks thrown in for good measure. Look out for new albums from Kenny Larkin, Lucien & Luciano & Moodymann’s “Black Mahogani Part 2” to come later this year!

Creative Vibes picks up Submerge and Clone

Slightly old news:

The Submerge announcement:

Detroit techno has a home in Detroit at 3000 East Grand Boulevard. A home built on vinyl sweat and percussive dreams. Submerge’s three-story music building is in the heart of Detroit’s cultural center, a short distance from Berry Gordy’s original Motown headquarters. From the beginnings of Detroit techno and house to the latest electro, soul and hip-hop, Submerge is one of the world’s hubs for electronic music. Submerge was established in 1992 by Christa Weatherspoon Robinson and Michael Banks as an administrative hub for Detroit’s independent dance music labels. The company has served as a channel for many labels, who have come and gone and taken on new direction over the years. As Submerge’s casts of characters has changed and evolved, the spirit has remained strong. With support from many of Detroit’s most talented and dedicated producers, label managers, promoters, DJs, writers, booking agents, and vinyl technicians, Submerge has remained afloat beneath the surface. The current line up of Submerge labels includes, Black Nation, Electrofunk, Hipnotech, Hitechfunk, Ignitor, KMS, Los Hermanos, Metroplex, Motech, Red Planet, Renaissance, Submerge Recordings, Transmat/Fragile, Tunnel 7 and Underground Resistance. Creative Vibes are proud to announce the addition to their already reputable roster of labels and look forward to bringing you the very best of Detroit’s finest!

The Clone announcement:

Creative Vibes has another welcome addition to the family in the form of one of the most influential and well respected techno and electro labels from the Netherlands. While the Clone imprint has released techno gems from artists such as Duplex, Drexciya, Cosmic Force, Underground Resistance and Bangkok Impact, their sub-label is also making it’s mark in the music world. Dub Recordings has made a name for itself with quality electronica releases from Funkstorung, Speedy J and a host of other producers, and has become one of the labels that truly specilises in modern electronica and IDM. Also into the CV fold come labels distributed by Clone: Viewlexx, Murder Capital, 4Lux, Bunker and Nature. Stay tuned in 2004 for a swag of the freshest electronica, techno, disco and house releases, direct from Rotterdam!

Good on you guys! The addition of these two labels along with Groovy Gordon’s unstoppable partying power, Creative Vibes can now take on the world! 😉

MAME 0.82 released

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

  • Star Gladiator
  • Street Fighter EX
  • Street Fighter EX 2
  • 1945k III
  • Tylz (prototype)
  • Dynagears
  • Super World Stadium
  • Various Megatech sets
  • Agress
  • Time Crisis (Version A)
  • One + Two

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

  • Continental Circus (US set 2)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

  • Racing Beat
  • Mission Craft

DJ Orion

He’s, ummm, back

Well after 3years hibernating in Byron Bay I’ve decided to set the record straight. Over the next few weeks I shall try to dispell any myth or rumour about my private life and my life as a promoter dj and at the same time be equally honest about some of my fuck ups along the way. And let’s face it, to those who know me me I certainly made a few wrong decisions along the way but at the same time I had some of the best parties in Sydney happening at the time. It was always about quality and in saying that I always over stepped budgets and as a result cut profits down which maximized risk and when things didnt go as well as planned people didnt get paid.

Last.FM

I’ve been getting some artists that I like into my Last.FM profile. Looking at the details for Theo Parrish’s First Floor album it had some similiar artists such as Queen, Limp Bizkit, Wu Tang Clan and Sonic Youth. Riiight…

For those of you unfamiliar with Last.FM is a personal radio station that “builds up a personal profile of your music taste, consisting of tracks you added to your profile and tracks you listened to on Last.fm.” It also ties in nicely with Audioscrobbler which is developed by the same people. Audioscrobbler is “a computer system that builds up a detailed profile of your musical taste. After installing an Audioscrobbler Plugin, your computer sends the name of every song you play to the Audioscrobbler Server.”

Their both worth checking out and its fun to see what your friends have been listening to.

Audioscrobbler also offers RSS feeds of what you’ve been listening to so you can extract that data and use it like I have in the side bar of this blog in the “10 recently played songs” section.

MAME 0.81u8 & u9 Released

0.81u9
New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

  • Strider 2

New Non-Working games / clones supported:

  • Monster Bash (2 board version)
  • One + Two

0.81u8
New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

  • Atari Mini Golf (prototype)
  • Inca (clone of Maya)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

  • MACS (Multi Amenity Cassette System)
  • Namco FL (Speed Racer / Final Lap R)

Pointer Sisters – Automatic

Pointer Sisters - Break Out album cover

Look what you’re doing to me
I’m utterly at your whim
All of my defenses down
Your camera looks through me
With its X-ray vision
And all systems run aground
All I can manage to push from my lips
Is a stream of absurdities
Every word I intended to speak
Wind up locked in the circuitry

Chorus:
No way to control it
It’s totally automatic
Whenever you’re around
I’m walking blindfolded
Completely automatic
All of my systems are down
Down down down
Automatic
Automatic

What is this madness
That makes my motor run
And my legs too weak to stand
I go from sadness
To exhilaration
Like a robot at your command
My hands perspire and shake like a leaf
Up and down goes my temperature
I summon doctors to get some relief
But they tell me there is no cure
They tell me

Chorus

Happy Birthday Nadia

A late happy birthday to me mate Nads. Not that she reads this. Or does she? Anyway, much fun was had at her party on Sunday night at the Hollywood Hotel. Everyone has fun there don’t they? Well Joanne and Thommy got hassled by some random blonde for not playing enough “current” music (for crying out loud, it was Nadia’s party ya scrag!), Adam put in a good effort of trying to get into a fight and Matt C got hit on byone or two random girlies on the prowl. I had an awesome time, cumulating to my kareoke performance of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” (Too cold! Too cold!). I feel I now have a calling… but I have to deal with that meddling Cyia first. I feel she may be a hinderance to my future in the kareoke industry…

Oh yeah, I’ll try and get photos from the party online tomorrow, I swear!

The nasty side of retrogaming addiction…

So I’m currently in the market for an old Sega Saturn. Not too much of a problem. They go for under AU$100 and a guy from work is considering selling me his old Japanese Saturn with all the games and lightgun controllers. So I’m looking for good games. Apparently Radiant Silvergun is an amazing shoot’em up (or shmup as apparently the kids call ’em these days). I love shoot’em ups. So I’m looking around on Ebay for second-hand copies of the game. Bloody hell, starting bids of US$150 for that game!!! There’s a few copies in the UK starting off nice and cheap though. Perhaps I’ll keep an eye on those auctions. Or perhaps pursue other avenues.

Apparently other great shoot ’em ups for the Saturn are Soukyugurentai and Thunder Force V. And it looks like the pricing on those are a little more sane.

Kraftwerk Announce Plans to Reissue Entire Catalog

From Pitchfork Media:

“Kraftwerk have just revealed to the Toronto-based music magazine Now that they’re in the midst of an ambitious project to reissue their entire catalog– including their first three albums, which have been available only via UK import for years. Speaking by telephone from the band’s Kling Klang studios in Dsseldorf, Germany, Kraftwerk co-founder Ralf Htter told the publication, “We’ve been digitally transferring all of Kraftwerk’s original recordings and sound sources from our badly degrading master tapes while our engineers, Fritz [Hilpert] and Henning [Schmitz], have been working in parallel to remaster our early albums for re-release.”

New job stress

Well some of you may know that I recently got a new job. Its still with the same company, but in a different area doing something close to my heart, Linux. 😀 So I thought I was supposed to be starting my new job on Wednesday. I decided to chat to my now old manager this afternoon just to make sure and everything.

Me: “So, just to make sure. I’m starting this job tomorrow right?”
Old Manager: “Ummm, I thought you were starting today?”
Me: “Uh. OK. I got told by Mr X (temporary manager while old manager was on holidays) that I was starting tomorrow”
O.M.: “OK, let me just check my emails… Hmm. OK. Its says here the 27th, but it doesn’t say whether your finishing or starting on that date. Let me give your new manager a call.”
Me: Wow, vote of confidence. I walked back to my desk while O.M. called my new manager.

Turned out Mr X kinda sorta agreed to me starting or something around that date, but didn’t get back to my new manager. I think. And O.M. had assumed that everything had been sorted out. Not so. Arrgh. Well I start next Tuesday now after my trip to Wellington to visit my good mate Martin. So hopefully I’ll be happy and refreshed after that. I was kind of dreading starting tomorrow anyway. Not sure if its new job jitters, the fact that I haven’t started a new job in almost 5 years or the combination of too much caffeine and the new asthma medication I’m currently on (it does contain pulmicort (sp?) which has made me feel pretty anxious in the past 🙁 ).

MAME 0.81u7 Released

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

  • Twin Eagle 2 [Olivier Galibert]
  • Megaplay : Sonic the Hedgehog [Barry Rodewald, GreyRogue]
  • Megaplay : Tecmo World Cup [Barry Rodewald, GreyRogue]
  • Megaplay : Golden Axe 2 [Barry Rodewald, GreyRogue]
  • Megaplay still has a few issues (continue without extra coins etc.)

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

  • Area 51 (R3000 Version)
  • Ninja (clone of Sega Ninja)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

  • Battle Balls (Asia)
  • Super Pang