When I Grow Old

People who visit my website because of my DJ’ing activities probably assume that I focus almost entirely on “dance music,” or progressive/tribal house EDM, for those who pay close attention to the particular genre that I specialize in. However, I have a fairly broad background in music (as my regular blog readers must realize).

Last year, I wrote a track which I thought was pretty catchy. I'd categorize it as "indie soft rock." I recorded a rough copy of the song one Saturday evening before work at the Pub, and sent the recording to Mike Allison to listen to. A day later, Mike emailed me back to say that he really liked the song, and recorded a rough version himself. As soon as I heard it, I decided that I would try to release the song professionally.

What with all my other jobs and projects, it took a while for everything to come together, but over the next eight or ten months, I finally got the project moving forward quickly. We recorded the song partly in New Brunswick, in my own studio, and partly in Vancouver at FaderMaster Studios, with Shawn Cole acting as a recording and mastering engineer. Mike did the lead and backup vocals, and the acoustic guitar and bass. I played the drums, keyboards, electric guitar, and shaker in the new version.

I also enlisted the assistance of Deanna Musgrave to help me put a video together. We did some filming last spring, and more filming this past fall. Deanna has a lot of practice at putting videos together, and has a really interesting abstract style for some of her work which contrasts interestingly with the usual style that I’ve used in the past to put a lot of videos together. Deanna put together the first version of the video for me, and then added some additional footage with the help of Julien Strasfield as a technical guru in Final Cut (since I’m used to PC-based software). Having Deanna and myself working together as co-filmmakers and co-editors was a really educational experience for me.

It’s interesting that this project has turned into a “Mount Allison University Community” project. Mike is an alumnus at MTA. Shawn used to be my roommate while we were at university, and he worked at the campus Pub with me as the Student Manager (his mom, Filis, still works at the university too). Deanna is an alumnus. Julien is still a student, although he graduates this year. Ian Allen, another employee at both the University and the campus Pub, did the graphic design work for the CD, and helped with marketing. When we needed extra actors for the video, we recruited Dinao (a friend of mine who worked with me as a bartender last year) to act as Mike's supposed girlfriend. For the older version of Mike & Dinao in the future, we were lucky to have the assistance of Robert Campbell (MTA’s President) and his wife Christl (a professor at MTA) as characters. In fact, the only two people involved in the entire project who are not members of the MTA university community are the two kids in the video – Evan (my nephew) and Mira (Evan’s friend), which provided the "flashback" footage of Mike and Dinao when they were young. Maybe someday one or both of them will decide that they want to come to Mount Allison.

Here’s a link to the video, for those who want to watch it.





We also put together a full CD with this song as the first track on the CD, and I included eight of my favourite other Mike Allison tracks. Some of the other songs have been released on his various albums before, and some were not. The CD is called "Tilting At Windmills." I’m also working on getting a listing for the CD on Amazon.

You may be curious about the name for the CD. “Tilting At Windmills” is a phrase from Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes. Basically, "tilting" was another word for jousting (by knights) in Medieval times, and in the book, our hero thought that a windmill was actually a giant, and so he wanted to attack it by jousting. Essentially then, “tilting at windmills” has come to mean “fighting a futile fight” or “fighting against imaginary enemies,” or variations on the same theme. I suppose that you could infer that since this song (and CD) are being marketed purely through guerrilla or viral marketing approaches, rather than conventional musical channels, we are “fighting the musical establishment.” However, we’re just doing this for fun, so the “musical establishment” is really an enemy in imagination only. Don Quixote is the best-selling work of fiction of all time (for non-political, non-religious works), so hopefully some of that charm rubs off and makes the CD popular too.

Anyway, if you like the song, please send the website link and/or the YouTube link to your friends. We’re not trying to make money off CD sales, so we definitely encourage you to share the mp3 freely. And if you want to hear the song on the radio, click here to see a full list of Canadian radio stations, so you can give your favourite local station a call or an email request to hear the song. Here are the links to the video on YouTube, and also to the page on my site where you can download the mp3 for free:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJjauOyEt40

"When I Grow Old" (and the rest of Mike Allison's "Tilting At Windmills" album) is now available for mp3 download from iTunes, AmazonMP3, Rhapsody, Napster, and Shockhound. We especially recommend that you check out the Shockhound link, because you can sign up for a free account now and as an introductory offer, you can download thirteen mp3's for free. In other words, you can get the entire "Tilting At Windmills" album for free that way!



Edit, December 2011: Sorry for the low quality of the YouTube video, especially by today's standards. Remember that this was created back in the early days of YouTube video, and before High Definition video recording.

Also, here's a link so you can play the song directly through SoundCloud, or download the music, by clicking on the down arrow to the right of the track:

Bolivia feat Mike Allison - When I Grow Old (Radio Edit) by djbolivia



Finally, here's a link to a SoundCloud page with a few of Mike Allison's other songs:

http://soundcloud.com/mike-allison

Check it out, as the songs there can also be downloaded for free.

Top Ten Classical Music Works

On Friday night, I went to a performance by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (in Edmonton, at Winspear). My former roommate, Marc Carnes, is the Director of Development at the Winspear Centre. The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra is pretty small as far as orchestras go, with about 56 full-time members, and when they perform bigger pieces, they hire in extra talent where needed. The Winspear Centre has amazing acoustics, and I believe that it is known as being one of Canada’s premiere performance venues for exactly this reason. The evening included a Messiaen piece, “Oiseaux Exotiques,” which featured guest pianist Louise Bessette, whom I met after the show. The 2nd half of the evening featured Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique,” performed by the ESO under the direction of William Eddins. All in all, a great evening of entertainment for anyone who enjoys this kind of music.

People who only know me casually might think that it’s strange that I would go to an event like this. If you know me because I’m a DJ, focusing on electronica and dance music, you’d probably think that listening to classical music would be the furthest thing from my mind. But I actually like several types of music, with dance, rock, indie/alternative, and classical being among the top genres (and I don’t mind country). I actually studied classical piano for a long time, and an understanding of classical piano theory gives everyone a great building point for understanding other genres of music.

For those of you who have always wanted to learn more about classical music, but didn’t know where to begin, I’m going to give you a quick “top ten” list to think about, since I am wide-awake right now after bartending this evening, and I can’t fall asleep at the moment. All of the pieces that I'm going to list here are easily recognizable, and quite memorable. I don’t watch a lot of movies or TV, but I can think of several movies that have soundtracks which included various of these pieces, so I’ve tried to list those tie-ins where I could. Anyway, here is my late-night off-the-cuff “top ten classical music” list.

1. George Gershwin, “Rhapsody In Blue” – one of America’s most well-known and loved classical works. This piece was written by Gershwin in 1924, and many people remember it from its appearance in Disney’s “Fantasia 2000” movie. When Gershwin was asked about his inspiration for the piece, he said that he wrote it on a train trip from New York to Boston, to describe the musical kaleidoscope of America. To honor this piece, it was played at the opening of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles by eighty-four pianists, playing simultaneously. The piece is instantly recognizable for its opening glissando on the clarinet. This is a very whimsical and upbeat piece.

2. Samuel Osborne Barber, “Adagio For Strings” – another unforgettable composition for me, because it was the backing music for the “Barnes Shoots Elias” scene in the movie Platoon. This piece was written in 1936, and was voted as the “saddest” classical musical composition of all time by a recent BBC survey. That’s not surprising, when you hear it, considering its mournful tempo and melodies. Versions of this composition have been remixed or sampled for tracks by such well-known DJ’s and producers as Sean Combs, Ferry Corsten, the Skip Raiders, Paul Oakenfold, and Tiesto. In fact, it was the strength of Tiesto’s remix of this piece, from his “Parade of Athletes” album, that led to him being asked to perform at the opening ceremonies of the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

3. Maurice Ravel, “Bolero” – this 1928 composition by Maurice Ravel actually embarrassed him because of its popularity. It was featured in the popular late 1970’s film “10” (Bo Derek & Dudley Moore), and is most recognizable for its ostinato rhythm on the snare drum throughout. The piece itself is very simple, and is one of the best examples in classical music of a piece that constantly builds throughout the performance. It is basically just two separate melodies, which continue to overlap each other, and more and more instruments get added as the piece progresses, until finally the entire orchestra is playing together at the end. Some people might also recognize this from its inclusion in the theatre production Copacabana.

4. Carl Orff, “Carmina Burana (O Fortuna)” – the Carmina Burana is a manuscript from the 12th or 13th century which is really just a collection of hundreds and hundreds of medieval songs and poems. Carmina Burana means “songs of Burana” in whatever language it was written in (Latin?). In the 1920’s or 1930’s, Carl Orff set 24 of these songs/poems to music, and the most famous of this group was “O Fortuna.” If you’ve seen “The Doors” (the movie), then you’ll easily recognize the “O Fortuna” selection from that soundtrack, when Jim and Patricia (the reporter) were in the library, entering the blood pact.

5. Mozart, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” – this work, meaning “a little night music,” was written in the late eighteenth century. There are four known movements to this (with the suggestion by Mozart himself that there was also originally a fifth movement), and the first movement is the one that everyone would recognize instantly. The best way that I’d describe this work would be that it is a pretty whimsical or frivilous piece of music. This composition has been featured in a couple movies that I can think of: Alien, and one of the Ace Ventura movies.

6. Johann Pachelbel, “Canon in D” – this 17th century work, often [mistakenly] assumed to be composed by J. S. Bach, is a simple three-part canon based on a repeating two-bar (eight note) bass line. And what’s strange is that I can’t think of any movies that this was in, off the top of my head. I used to love to play it when I was studying classical piano. However, a rock arrangement was made extremely popular by YouTube, in this video by an Asian guitarist.

7. Tchaikovsky, “Nutcracker Suite: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” – the Nutcracker Suite is a ballet. Within the musical score to the ballet, Tchaikovsky wrote a series of waltzes and other works. The “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” is probably the most famous of these. The song in the original Nutcracker which introduces the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” is called “La Marche,” and that piece was used as the basis for a pop rock single that became a #1 hit in Britain in the 1960’s, although I can’t remember who wrote it. Anyway, that song, “Nut Rocker,” is one of the theme songs for Boston Bruins. Parts of the Nutcracker Suite (including “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” as an opener) were used in the original soundtrack to Disney’s “Fantasia” (1940 version).

8. Rachmaninoff, “Piano Concerto no. 2, opus 18” – Rachmaninoff, a Russian composer of the early 20th century, is famous for four concertos he wrote, and also for the “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” I really like his 2nd Concerto, although his third Concerto is notable for being one of the most difficult works to play on piano. I can’t remember ever hearing any of Rachmaninoff’s pieces in any movies.

9. Ludwig van Beethoven, “Mondscheinsonate” – most people would probably know this better by its common English name, the “Moonlight Sonata.” Beethoven’s list of produced works is enormous, such as his nine symphonies, and he is well known for the compositions that he continued to write over the years as he slowly became completely tone deaf. In fact, it is said that when his Ninth Symphony premiered, he did not hear the audience clapping so he started to cry because he thought they didn’t like it, and he did not realize until someone turned him around to face the audience that everybody had loved it. Anyway, the Moonlight Sonata is probably in a ton of films, but I can’t think of any right now.

10. Johann Strauss Jr., “An Der Schonen Blau” – this is something that you might recognize if I told you that the common English name for the piece is the “Blue Danube Waltz.” And if you’ve seen “2001: A Space Odyssey,” you’ll recognize this song. It was also used in a Monty Python skit, where there was an orchestra playing this piece in a football field, and someone kept blowing up members of the orchestra.

ETA April 5/08: I just saw "Hannibal," and the Blue Danube is also in this movie.

Alright, that’s enough about classical music for this evening, but if you have ever had any urge to start learning a bit about classical music, find copies of these ten tracks to get you started, and you won’t go wrong.

Distortion in Windows Media Player

Have you ever listened to songs in Windows Media Player and found them to be distorted in places, so the sound quality is terrible? The same files may play perfectly in all other programs - I've had files that worked in WinAmp, RealPlayer, Quicktime, Nero, and a host of other programs with no problems, yet Windows Media Player would not handle them properly.

As it turns out, MicroSoft has a Creative PlayCenter MP3 decoder resident in the operating system which is what causes the problem. Certain versions of Windows Media Player use this decoder, but there are compatibility problems. If you're not using that decoder file for whatever reason, you probably won't run into the distortion problems.

The simplest way to fix the problem, assuming that you're running on a Windows operating system, is to go down to your start menu on the bottom left side of the screen, click on it, then go into "search." You need to search your C: drive (or whatever drive your O/S resides on) and look for a file called "Ctmp3.acm" - if you can find that file, don't delete it, just rename it to "Ctmp3.bak" instead.

If you can't see the file extensions when you're doing searches (the default option on Windows, but one which I detest and disable immediately whenever I set up a new computer), I'll show you how to make your file extensions visible. Go to Windows Explorer, either through your Start menu or by holding down the "flying window" key (left of your left side alt key) and then pressing the letter "E" at the same time. Next, go into the Tools menu, and chose Folder Options in the drop-down Tools menu. In Folder options, click on the "View" tab. The seventh or eight option in that list usually says "hide extensions for known file types" and has a check beside it. Uncheck this, then click OK. Now you'll always be able to see file extensions in Windows Explorer and associated panels. If you're quite computer savvy, you might also want to set the other three options above and below that let you show hidden files, show O/S files, and display the full path name in the Title Bar (although this is only applicable if you're trying to conserve system resources by switching to Classic View, such as for intensive audio or video processing).

Anyway, now you know how to show file extensions, and how to fix the distortion problem on Windows Media Player. This may not be a problem on newer versions of Vista, but it certainly was on certain versions of WMP running on XP.


If you want a different approach to disabling the problem codec, here's another set of instructions:

The Creative Playcenter software rudely blocks the Windows MP3 codec. The following instructions show how to unblock it on Windows XP system. The instructions for other Windows versions are the same except the steps to get to the audio codec area from the control panel varies. Note that this will disable the MP3 capability of the Playcenter software. You can re-enable using the same steps or replace the Playcenter software.

1. Go to the Control Panel
2. Double click on "Sounds & Audio Devices"
3. Select the "Hardware" tab
4. Double-click on "Audio Codecs"
5. Select the "Properties" tab
6. Double-click on ctmp3.acm
7. Select "Do Not Use this Audio Codec"
8. Then click on the "Apply" button

Under The Bridge

I spent this past weekend in Seattle and Vancouver. Originally, I was going for no good reason, just because I wanted to go to a party at the Pacific Science Center on Saturday night and to visit a friend (TProphet) in Seattle. I know, that’s a unique name – but it's a long story.

A couple weeks ago, he emailed me and said that as long as I was coming out for Saturday night, I might as well DJ somewhere on Friday night. Since he is a Seattle promoter and has a full sound system of his own, he said he was going to set up an event for me. I said that I’d definitely be willing to play if he got anything together, and I asked where I might be playing. He said, “oh, maybe under an abandoned bridge.” Hm.

I got to Seattle on Thursday evening and we spent most of the night getting things organized, and doing a little bit of touristy stuff. Then, on Friday, we started getting ready for the bridge party. I won’t lie, I expected something pretty low key - maybe a pair of speakers, a dozen people, and the chance to annoy or entertain some homeless people, or to get into a fight with bikers. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The party that he and his friends pulled off was one of the most entertaining evenings I’ve ever had. After we convinced the K-9 unit at 10:30pm that the entire cube van full of sound gear we were loading up wasn’t stolen, and said that we were preparing for a nice responsible folk music concert, we hit the road. Upon arriving at the bridge, there was a flurry of action, and within about half an hour we had two full sound stages set up with power generators, propane heaters for the crowd, a small kitchen selling drinks and snacks, and an art display/sale. The equipment and sound system was better than what I’ve played on in a lot of clubs in Atlantic Canada (five bass bins for my stage alone). A couple hundred people showed up, even though it was a totally unadvertised renegade party. It was pouring all night, but we were completely dry under the bridge. With two stages, and a total of ten DJ’s playing throughout the evening, Friday night alone was worth the trip.





On Saturday, TProphet’s sound system was being used at the main stage of the party of the Pacific Science Center, so he went off to set that up while I went exploring the Seattle social scene for several hours with a couple of his friends. One of his friends in particular was quite entertaining. TProphet introduced him by saying, “this is possibly the sketchiest guy you’ll ever meet, but I mean that in a good way. Try not to end up in jail before the show.” This person, who I will leave unnamed, was quite entertaining. He was discussing his plan to take out a life insurance policy on himself, fly to Zambia to buy a death certificate in the black market, then buy a Zambian identity and passport in the black market, then come back to the States as a different person and cash in on his own life insurance policy, and then use the proceeds to tour the world as a Zambian. Or something like that. Anyway, it was an entertaining start to the evening.

When we got to the Pacific Science Center, I was extremely impressed, once again. They had a full blown party IN the Science Center. There were four stages with DJ’s from 10pm-4am, three or four full bars, and best of all, all of the exhibits were open. I had a few drinks and went straight to the planetarium, where I spent the next hour and a half looking at the stars. The butterfly exhibits were open, and there was a bar in the dinosaur room, and basically the whole place was interesting. The best thing was that the tickets were moderately expensive, which meant that there weren’t a lot of street kids, so it was a very clean and respectful crowd. This, of course, is good when you have several thousand people partying in a museum.





Seattle now ranks near the very top of my list of fun cities to visit. Click here to see more photos from the trip.

Marc Carnes in Edmonton

Last Thursday night, I was in Edmonton for the evening. I was supposed to be DJ'ing at a house party with Marc Carnes, but since I didn’t want to lug my vinyl records across the country, I suggested that he should rent a pair of CD players. I recorded part of the evening on my laptop, and I finally got around to compressing it this afternoon and figuring out all of the tracks that he played.

Marc has DJ’d for about a decade but has always used vinyl himself, so this was his first chance to try mixing with CD’s. To make things a bit more challenging for him, he had to use my music (which he was unfamiliar with), since all of his music was on vinyl. Luckily, mixing on Pioneer CDJ’s is very similar to mixing on Technics decks, because the pitch control mechanisms are designed to be almost the same. In fact, I think that CDJ’s are even easier to mix on than turntables, because you never have to worry about the needle skipping, and they hold their speed more consistently (although I can’t manipulate my placement within the track nearly as fast on the CD players).

Anyway, right-click here and choose the “save target as” option to download an mp3 recording from the evening. It’s a little over an hour long, upbeat dance music. You’d never know that it was the first time Marc had ever used CD players to play a set. Here’s a track listing:

01. Emjae feat Marcie, “Loaded Gun.”
02. Javith, Salazar, & Gil, “Kukenan.”
03. Deepologists, “History Of Electronica” (Original).
04. Marzetti, “I’m Just A DJ” (Shawn Jacobson & Jeremie Voillot Clubstompers Remix).
05. Levan, “Miau.”
06. Hedkandi, “Boogie 2Nite” (Haji Big Love Remix).
07. Tom Leeland feat Vivian Tate, “Feel My Love” (Sven Waschinsk).
08. Thee-O, “Tribal Dreams” (Original Mix).
09. Dan Sampson & Jhreal, “Solid Gold” (Thomas Penton & Jerome Remix).
10. Alibi vs Rockefeller, “Sexual Healing” (Freemason’s Vocal Mix).
11. Piece Process, “The Preacher” (Partial Vox).
12. Mike Kings, “You Want It” (Original Wanted Mix).
13. Victor Gonzales, “Better Step Up” (Bitwise Remix).
14. Dial Freaks, “28157” (Iceland Spar).

Naming Songs

I'm just going through the latest Richmond Record Pool DVD, and I'm getting a bit annoyed at the way some record companies promote themselves. Let me cut right to the chase. If you're going to name a song, use the following format:

        Artist - Song Name (Specific Remix).mp3

It is not that hard. Now I can understand someone coming up with a somewhat unconventional naming protocol if you're maybe playing around with something, or naming stuff in a hurry, or drunk. But if you're a Record Company, you need to pay attention to a simple concept. It's called MARKETING.

Let me give you an example of a "bad" job of naming a track. This is an actual example from the DVD that I'm reviewing this evening:

        drop_54_b1be_bop_DOWNLOAD.mp3

WTF? This is just ridiculous. Who is the artist? What is the track called? Why is "download" in capital letters, and what does it mean, since it's from a physical DVD? Now to assauge your curiousity, I spent a few minutes trying to puzzle it out, and the only thing I can figure out so far is that it is probably the 54th release on the Drop Records label, side B1, and the song is probably called "Be-Bop." But to be honest, after I got that far, and couldn't assign any degree of certainty to that guess, I dragged that puppy right over to the Recycle Bin (where it will not be recycled).

I'm sure there are DJ's out there who like to spend their time checking out mysterious, nebulous tracks. There is certainly a subtle appeal to a "white label" track for some DJ's. However, if I'm personally trying to quickly sort through and review 250 songs in an evening, you've just lost all hope of getting any air time from me if you don't name the song properly.

On a positive note, I'm glad to see more people starting to trade and distribute WAV files instead of 320 kbps mp3's. With the way hard drives are growing these days, it's worth the extra storage space to improve the audio quality.

Cambridge Punk Rock Show

I flew out to Vancouver last night. I’m here to do some work on “When I Grow Old,” a track I’m recording with Mike Allison, at FaderMaster Studios. One of the sound engineers and owners at FaderMaster is Shawn Cole, an old friend and roommate, who is now teaching at the Pacific Audio Visual Institute in Vancouver, helping to run FaderMaster, and doing work at a number of other studios in his spare time.

When I got into town, Shawn immediately thrust a couple beers into my hands, and said that we were going to a punk show that evening. That kind of took me by surprise, but he said he wanted to go to the “Pub 340” to see an album release show by Cambridge. It sounded good to me, so we had a few more drinks and went to the bar.





Upon getting to the bar, we had a few more rounds of drinks, and Shawn gave me some background on Vancouver’s punk rock scene. Shawn actually produced the Cambridge album, so he knew a lot of the people in the bar. Shots of Jagermeister were only $3 each (ridiculously cheap for Vancouver), so before long, I knew a lot of people too.

There were actually four bands playing, although I only saw two of them. I think Loose Tooth was on stage when we got there, and they were singing a song that went something like, “America can suck my dick, Canada’s gonna make you her bitch.” I’m not entirely sure about the lyrics – things were already getting a bit hazy by that point. And for any Americans reading this, you shouldn’t worry that this was a sign of anti-American sentiment in your northern neighbours – I think this was actually a song of affection (after all, it was a punk rock show).

I was outside while the third band played, so I missed them entirely, but we got back inside when Cambridge was about to start. Shawn got right up into the mosh pit, while I tried to stay a bit more restrained, and took photos. The band was tight, and the crowd was into the music (and seemed to know the songs very well). It was pretty amusing seeing people getting thrown onto the stage, then back off the stage into the crowd, and dancing and smashing into each other. One of the highlights was when it looked like the head of the bass player’s instrument swung around and smashed into a bottle of beer that someone was taking a drink from. I wonder if it was a member of Loose Tooth? As Monty Python once said, “Now you see the violence inherent in the system.”





The rest of the night was fairly chaotic. We ran into two guys who were getting into a fist-fight on Hastings Street, and one of them had dropped a box of pizza on the ground just before they started fighting, so I went up and asked them if I could have the pizza. I also seem to remember Shawn trying to climb onto the roof of the Price Waterhouse building, so I could get a photo of him up there, although that memory is kind of vague. Anyway, it was an interesting start to the weekend.