New Remix

So after swearing off remixes we just took on another remix in the middle of tour on the condition that the label would pay for a studio for us to work in during our week off in Paris. On very short notice we found a great place thanks to frantic emails to the many wonderful people we know in this wonderful city. So we've been waking up at 9:00, getting our coffee, recording, eating some delicious baguette sandwiches, recording some more, then going to bed. But the studio is full of fun stuff we've never used before. So, if this remix sounds different, you know why.

Mmmmm, Jupiter 6.

Alex plays a cowbell on loan from ParaOne who was also kind enough to lend us a MIDI/CV converter. That's nerd-speak for "important."

Korg MS10, UA-6176, Roland Space Echo RE201. Just below it and out of the picture is an old Roland Flanger that Alex liked so much that he promptly bought one for himself on eBay.

Old Slingerland kit with fancy microphones. The remix has a drum solo. For real.

String synths. Arp Solina (totally out of tune) and an ARP OMNI MKII which, if I'm not mistaken, is what was used on "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Tomorrow we mix. Then we DJ at the Social. If you live in Paris, you should come...Nick

Homemade DFA Merch

So I forgot to include this picture from Bergen. some dude made his own DFA tote bag. He didn't want me to take a picture because he was worried James would sue him. Seriously. I told him James wouldn't sue him if he would be kind enough to give me the bag. He wasn't. Cute just the same...Nick

House De House (Again)

So, we did another two gigs with Liv and Saheer and they still rule. Here are some pictures from Bergen.




And, here's Alex and our buddy Wolfram. That's his real name. Wolf. Ram. We made a song with him. Hopefully it'll be out pretty soon.

I don't have any picture from Fabric but if you were there, or have a cyber friend who was, you know House of House fucking destroyed and that "Holy Ghost! was just, um, okay." Word...Nick

So, we recently took on a new remix and have been having a difficult time with the original vocals. Nice melodies and stuff, just sonically didn't fit with the new backing track we made. But today we stumbled upon apple's "text to speech" program. Using the voice of "Fred," we redid all the vocals, then doubled them with a vocoder. Here's Nick doubling "Fred" with a vocoder...Alex


Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

Trophy Bar

We're going to play records at Trophy Bar tonight because we love it there and the drinks are cheap. I've been kind of sick all week so it's probably not the smartest thing to do but whatevs...Nick

European Weekend

We just got back from the UK/Europe and the highlight of the long weekend by far was watching Liv and Saheer play "Rushing To Paradise." Sorry the pictures are shit, but I was busy shaking a tambourine like an asshole. I'm sure you've heard it, but if not, enjoy. It was generally one of the highlights of our sets from the weekend too.

Buy it. Oh, wait. You can't. It sold out everywhere before anywhere actually had the records to sell. We don't even have a copy. Other highlights from our sets this weekend included the Joakim mix of Pocket Piano...

And, much to my surprise, the Levan edit of Inner Life's version of "Aint No Mountain High Enough" which I couldn't find a proper video of...

...but you should find it because it's beautiful. It didn't quite go off like Body & Soul, but people dug it...Nick

Jerry

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was a decent drummer. Not great, but good enough. Then I met Mr. Jerry Fuchs and I pretty much gave up. He is, without a doubt, my favorite drummer ever. He has MIDI jacks on his arms!!! Literally. Okay, not, like, LITERALLY literally - they're tattoos - but, like literally in that obnoxious way where literally actually means figuratively...because he plays as though he does in fact have MIDI jacks in his arms.

Behold him with his band Maserati as he does with one hand what I and most drummers could only dream of doing with two. Literally.

Bonus cool points for the Corsica t-shirt...Nick

Q-Tip Is Cooler Than You

And most people for that matter. Check as he ignores the MPC to his left and loops up bits from a 45 with his pointer finger...Nick

(Edit: Video seems to have been deleted. Arg!)

Autotune the News

This is amazing. A little slow at first, but just wait for Katie Couric. And Nancy says we have to sign our posts...Nick

Mike McD On The Mic

One of the songs we were mixing at Plantain ( see post below) is a track that features the great Michael McDonald. So here's a relatively boring video of us listening to his acapella at the end of the session. After listening to the song about 2 million times, his vocals still make Nick and me smile Every. Single. Time.

Plantain

We just spent a couple days at the lovely, and recently cleaned, Plantain studios in DFA HQ mixing two new songs (more on that later). I took some pictures.

Matt and Alex comparing compressors on Alex's vocals. The main rack of gear, recently gutted by James who took most of the good stuff with him to LA. The beautiful and rarely used "Live B" room. While making the Automato record, this is where James and Tim set up a TV and an XBox and temporarily rechristened it "The Halo Room."Boneless Buffalo Wings from Atomic Wings. This is what you eat at Plantain. It's a rule. Once upon a time, Tim Goldsworthy did all his editing on big, old Akai samplers (if you're not a nerd, this is incredibly difficult and time consuming). In a stack of Zip disks I found some gems including a blast from our past in the form of an old Automato song. And...
...almost half of the Rapture album crammed onto one 100 meg disc and "House of Jealous Lovers."

Gavin's homemade modular synth, AKA "The Dream Machine." This is what he and Delia used to make their amazing "Days of Mars" album.

Jessica 6

As you may know, Andrew, Nomi and Morgan, once of Hercules & Love Affair, started their own band called Deep Red. But then some speed metal band from Florida with the same name threatened to sue them so they changed it to Jessica 6. Elle Magazine is doing an article on them or something so last night they had an impromptu show at someone's house on Bond Street for the photo shoot. It was really fun. They were really good.

we all put our pants on one leg at a time, but when james does...

So, we walk into the DFA offices the other day and we see this monstrosity sitting on James' desk.



A gold fucking record! I mean, who actually sells records any more!?!?! Let alone a 100,000 of them. What an asshole.

Pretty amazing. Kudos buddy.

Mixin'

Here's a totally boring clip from my cell phone of us mixing our next 12". That's Nick sitting in front of the board at Plantain (dfa's studio in nyc) and me on camera duty. The lovely Matt Thornley ( dfa front-of-house-genius) is off camera somewhere. The mix session was smooth sailing thanks to Eric Broucek, who did all of the hard stuff at his studio a few weeks ago.....Alex