MixRevolution Blog

So keeping up with the holiday shopping gift guide theme, here are my suggestions on gifts for your DJ!! The items below can be purchased at two of my favorite one stop DJ spots… Fat Beats or Turntable Lab! ENJOY =)

Tshirts!!

$27 at Turntable Lab

$32 at Turntable Lab

DJ Accesories

$19.99 at Fatbeats
$22 at Turntable Lab

$115 at Turntable Lab
Besides looking super cool this bag is can hold up to 40 records, it’s fully padded, has an inner compartment for your laptop and has a removable case for your Serato!

DVD/CDs

$20 at Turntable Lab
Learn the history of digging with an all star line up which includes Marley Marl, 45 King, Pete Rock, Ced Gee of Ultra Mag, Grand Wizard theodore, Jake One, DJ Muro, K-DEf, Domingo, J-Zone, 88 Keys, King Of Chill, DJ Doc, Tony D, Moss, Marco Polo, Easy LG, Lord Digga and more!!

$15 at Turntable Lab
$16.99 at Fat Beats
I’d like to think I’m lucky that I live in NYC. Set on a chilly fall Wednesday night… (yes it was that memorable that a girl like me with the absolute worst memory remembers the day of the week this went down!)… when DJs from all over the US came to battle it out at NYC’s S.O.B’s for the title of 1st EVER Gong DJ Battle Champ 2006. DJ I-Dee was victorious, Lord Sear, Lord Finesse and Fat Fingaz had us in stitches, and there was a grudge match!!

$13.99 at Fat Beats
$13 at Turntable Lab
You heard the man tell us about this mix cd on our interview with him for Mix Revolution TV now go and get it!

$13.99 at Fat Beats
Legendary DJ Premier takes us through a collection of some of the very best James Brown put out that influenced Hip Hop.

$16.99 at Fat Beats

$16.99 at Fat Beats
Your favorite DJ and mine, A-Trak takes us through a journey, the journey of a boy who became a world wide sensation. The CD is from his tour to promote the DVD with The Rub! Both are soooo worth your time but I like the DVD better!

$9 at Turntable Lab
I came across this Mix reading a blog for ladies who love fashion, music, beauty and themselves! It’s got a great selection of tracks all by LADIES. Props to DJ Jaclyn!!

$5 at Turntable Lab
If you love you some MUSIC this CD is a MUST! My love affair with MixCDs began with DJ Neil Armstrong CDs, it wasn’t this one but it didn’t take me long to get to the Original series. These mixes are full of flavor giving you what is necessary in the basics of funk, soul and R&B with a flare of hip hop fundamentals! It’s on sale right now at Turntable Lab, at $5 this is a STEAL. If you don’t get hooked hit me up and I’ll make sure to put you on!

Christmas is DAYS away so make sure to put in those orders ONLINE with those super fast get it to me quick shipping and handling charges at
Turntable Lab
Fat Beats

OR better yet hit up the stores themselves if you live in the NYC or LA area!!

Turntable Lab
MANHATTAN STOREFRONT
120 east 7th
Street New York, NY 10009
212.677.0675

LOS ANGELES STOREFRONT
424 N.Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323.782.0173

Fat Beats
NEW YORK STORE
406 6th Ave
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10011
Ph: 212.673.3883

LOS ANGELES STORE
7600 Melrose Ave.
Suite J 2nd Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Ph: 323.655.8997

HAPPY HOLIDAYS everyone and make sure y’all let me know what awesome gifts you got this year?!?!!

I stumbled up on this product today and have to say that this would be an AWESOME PRESENT for ANY DJ that still has a lot of vinyl. I mean setting up pro tools, and recording the records track by track. BUT THIS THING HERE!!! It’ll convert your records to mp3 and store it in your iPod. Then all you would have to do is just upload it to your laptop to use on Serato or whatever other program you guys use. Sure it only saves one step, but since I’m getting lazier as I get older, I would actually enjoy this.

Check it out here >>>

If someone buys this, please let me know how it is!!!

I guess this is the month to let everybody know you’re pregnant. Well, from a different perspective Ed Simons of the Chemical Brothers has a baby on the way with…. LILY ALLEN!!!

Here’s a statement from Lily Allen’s publicist…

“Lily is thrilled to be pregnant and can’t wait to become a mum,” a source close to the singer tells the paper. “She’s a real family person. Ed’s very happy. He is really looking after her. Lily could not be happier. It’s the icing on the cake for what has been an incredible 18 months for her. She is looking forward to finishing her new album early next year and releasing it before the birth of her first child.”

We only posted this because its one of the Chemical Brothers! Don’t you think that was kind of fast though?

Our great friend DJ Ron posts his picks for Holiday gifts. Umm yeah, well I posted it for all you last minute shoppers. I haven’t done any of my shopping. Hopefully I can sneak out of work tommorow and get a stack of Best Buy gift certs. This is what Ron posted for the DANCE MUSIC FAN…

Hot Clothing

A large portion of the price of the Tiesto Tshirt from Armani Exchange ($38 of the $48) benefits the Mercy Corps. American Mutt encourages global unity through spunky tshirts with a good message. Ferry Corsten designed some hot gear for IKY clothing in DC.

Armani Exchange - Tiesto T-Shirt
American Mutt
IKY Clothing - Ferry Corsten

Hot Artist Albums - Established Artists

MIA’s cd, co-produced by fidget house maestro Switch is great for those with an adventurous ear. Seal steps onto the dancefloor by working with Stuart Price, the producer behind Madonna’s last cd. ATB returns with another trance masterpiece.

MIA - Kala
Seal - System
ATB - Trilogy

Hot Artist Albums - New Artists

Myspace phenomenon Calvin Harris came large with this DIY electropop CD with a heavy 80s influence. The debut artist album from Jes, the voice of Motorcycle, is a great blend of electronica and rock. Ror-shak brings vocals to the drum and bass world - a welcome interpretation.

Calvin Harris - I Created Disco
Jes - Disconnect
Ror-Shak - Deep

For more tips, CLICK HERE > > >

Not the most clever tittle but hey, the year is ending and my mind is out of it!

So to finish off the year that was 2007 and pretty much MixRevolution’s first complete year in action, we reached out to many of our friends and asked them to send us their Top 10 albums and/or single of 2007.

For me I find it only fitting that the first two list come courtesy of some close friends of mine, Shala Esquire of Qualo and JustinJay (The DJ to break in ‘08).

Shala is a member of Chicago’s most infamous undeground group Qualo. They are Chicago’s hype masters! With appearances on CNN defending Hip Hop and representing the new Chicago sound all over the US, Shala is one of the men behind Chi Towns new musical movement. So here is his list of favorite albums that came out in 2007:

1.Graduation- Kanye West
2.American Gangster- Jay Z
3.Make Sure They See My Face- Kenna
4.Finding Forever- Common
5.The GetBack- Little Brother
6.Kala- M.I.A.
7.The Cool- Lupe Fiasco
8. The Big Doe Rehab- Ghostface Killah
9.Fancy Footwork- Chromeo
10.As I Am- Alicia Keys

If you want to hear more about THE MOVEMENT he is behind in the Chi then go download Shala’s latest mix for FADER magazine HERE.

On a different note, JustinJay, is sort of part of the MixRevolution.com family, he helps with some of our behind the scenes junk you all don’t care about. But, on the side he has been mixing it up for over 10 years and has been helping promote raves in the LA area for over 15 years. He loves spinning the Indie/ElectroClash sound that is killing LA right now Most recently though, he was the winner of Beatport’s “Open for Felix Da Housecat” contest. he was flown out to NYC and open for the Master at Club Rebel back in November. Click here to read more. Here were his favorite albums of ‘07, even though one was released in ‘06. I’ll let it slide.

1. lcd soundsystem - sound of silver
2. Goose - Bring it On
3. The Chemical Brothers - We Are the Night
4. Justice - Cross
5. !!! - Myth Takes
6. Radiohead - In Rainbows
7. Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
8. Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City
9. CSS - Cansei De Ser Sexy
10. The Black Ghost- Self Titled

Head on over to JustinJayMusic.com and download some of his latest mixes including his set from Rebel.

Well there will be more lists to come. So enjoy, check out new music and spin some dope tracks this Holiday Season. Peace!

Growing up one group that influenced my life greatly was the Clash. I loved them. Not sure why, I found a box set of theirs in the 7th grade at the local library and loved the cover. Then i listened to the music and was sold!!!

So many years later, one of my new Favs, M.I.A., samples “Straight To Hell” by The Clash on her latest single “Paper Planes.” Some may be scared of her, my old Universal colleagues thought she sucked, but with this choice for a sample she will be on my list of favs forever!!! Check out the video above and ladies, Peep the style this Sri Lankian beauty has!

Correction: Per a recent interview and request MIA asked that no one post the censored MTV Video. So above is the uncensored version with NOVA’s #1 band of all time THE BEASTIE BOYS!!!!

If you find yourself with some free time and you wanna have a good time I highly suggest hitting up this event. Craze and Evil Dee are worth it alone.

Studio B
259 Banker Street
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Saturday December 15, 2007
doors open at 9pm
18 to party
21 to drink
Since it’s a Holiday Food Drive for City Harvest:
$5 w/3 can or box of food donation before 12am
$10 w/3 can or box food after 12am

Think about it this way… if you go, win a raffle, or are lucky enough to get a giveaway and it isn’t so much your steez you can totally give it to a friend as a holiday gift hahahaha. Hope everyone is getting their holiday shopping on. What will you be treating yourself or your favorite DJ to this year?? I think I’m about to give you guys some suggestions in my next entry… stay tuned!!

Here it is everybody, the new Serato Scratch Live 1.8.0 version. Update your Serato now…

Mac Users >>> CLICK HERE

PC Users >>> CLICK HERE

What’s different? >>> CLICK HERE

On a side note, I was speaking to somebody at Rane. I might get in trouble for saying this, but Serato 1.8 WITH VIDEO is scheduled to be released at NAMM 2008!!! We will be there with Roc Raida reviewing all the new products for the year. Who’s upgrading with me? I also hope it’s real stable so our computers don’t crash in the middle of our set.

Over the weekend Vestax had their Turntablist Extravaganza World Finals in Japan!

These are the results for the night, they were posted by Etronik on the Turntablistnetwork forum.

1st Unkut (Germany)

Judges were
Swamp
Shortkut
D-Styles
Hi-C
Hanger

Hopefully people will post videos of some of the routines and when I find them fear not for I will share! Don’t forget to check out some of our footage of Etronik from this year’s Gong Battle Miami in the Mix Revolution TV section.

Between events like this and hearing about my boys experiences out in Asia…man I need to get myself to one of these countries to check out the scene. If anyone would like to sponsor a trip to send *ME* to Europe or Asia please feel free to do so.

So I was going to write the title of this entry as “DJ’s in a 3rd world country” BUT I didn’t because not all parts of Ecuador are 3rd world status. Ecuador is a beautiful country and I hadn’t been to in nearly 13 years and in those 13 years so much had been redone, made more modern and I want to go back. I’m aiming for the summer of 2008!!

So back to the topic at hand. I went to a big party that had 2 of the biggest bands in Ecuador performing. During the down time a DJ played music to get the crowd hype and me being the nosey girl that I am made my way to the sound board area to see what was going down. Just as I had suspected, CDs!! I wasn’t hating I was just being nosey. Two days after that I was at a house party thrown for me and my fams and I was able to check out what exactly the DJ was using. CDs again! This time I was able to take a closer look at the equipment which was in a super cool set up thing. I should’ve taken a picture. I don’t know the model of the equipment but I did notice it was all Denon.

During my ride to the airport the following morning, it dawned on me why CD turntables, CD player systems are so much more popular in this country… the music. The popular music in Ecuador is spanish music DUH, but to be more specific cumbia type music. Even on the radio cumbia is the hot ish… that right there boggled my mind because I’m accustomed to hearing cumbia only at parties. This music isn’t pressed on vinyl only CDs!

I wasn’t able to hit up any bars or clubs because there wasn’t enough time, but I’m almost certain that if I did and would’ve made my way over to the DJ area I would’ve found CDs! I wonder if something like Serato will make it’s way over my motherland better yet WHEN?!!

Until next time!