No Doubt - Settle Down (Major Lazer Remix)

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NERVO Nation July 2012

Nervo nation july 2012 is the Blond bombshells monthly radio show on SiriusXM

tracklist after the jump

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Z-trip Slams DJs "People are performing with a Net"

Another day, another vinyl DJ speaking out.  This go around we hear from the mashup master Z-trip.  He comments on uneducated crowds, DJ talent or lack thereof, and the Wizard of Oz gimmick that he is seeing to much of.

By Z-Trip

(Inthemix) I recently played at Coachella and eighty percent of DJs were just playing songs, not playing with the songs. Or they were just playing pre-mixes of songs, which is totally counter to the culture I grew up with and respect and admire. Not to knock them, they were cool, the crowd was cool, everyone was cool with it, but it’s just not what gets me inspired.

It’s getting harder to see DJs up there mixing it live in front of you. I miss that. I used to get inspired when I saw DJs play. I still do, but it’s becoming less and less. A lot more DJs are pre-planning their sets or doing premade mixes. It’s becoming more about the production of the show and the spectacle rather than the skills of the DJ. You can do both, but a lot of people choose not to.

You wouldn’t see The Black Keys crowd-surfing while the music keeps playing. In electronic music there is a grey area.

I equate it to you like this. You wouldn’t see The Black Keys playing a live concert and midway through their set they start crowd-surfing but their music is still playing. Then when they come back on-stage the next song is on. It doesn’t happen that way. You wouldn’t see that and, if you did, they would lose all their fans. In electronic music there is a grey area.

People like Deadmau5 say, “I just pushed some buttons” or “It’s super easy to DJ, I can do it in a few hours with a laptop”. I understand where he is coming from and don’t want to knock him. He has his hustle going on, but I clearly come from...

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Boys Noize: Today's EDM Feels 'Too Generic'

(Rollingstone) With a headlining set at Los Angeles' Hard Summer fest that was a relentless techno assault – and a reminder of a time, only a few years ago, when big-room house wasn't in pop radio rotation – German DJ and producer Alex Ridha, better known under his nom de techno Boys Noize, showed that he's sticking to his guns even as electronic music has moved into the mainstream. Relaxing with a beer in his trailer a few hours beforehand, Ridha acknowledged that he wanted to challenge his audience, not just play the hits.

"I always love to play jacking stuff and harder stuff," he said. "Right now, like in the last two years, a lot of the electronic music, or what you call now, EDM feels generic for me sometimes and a bit soulless."

Ridha's answer is...

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What’s Behind the Sudden Explosion of Electronic Dance Music

(techvibes) This last weekend saw Canada’s biggest two-day electronic music festival of all time at Downsview Park in Toronto, VELD. The famous Canadian DJ deadmau5 headlined alongside Swedish DJ Avicii, who is immensely popular in Canada.

I recently sat down with the prominent blogger for Toronto’s infamous Guvernment nightclub Sean Moffatt to understand what’s behind electronic dance music’s explosion in popularity in the last few years.

He is the co-creator of Toronto dance music blog ibizadreaming alongside walking music librarian Justin Patoka. EDM is now at the point where it has become mainstream and other major artists from other genres are incorporating various forms of electronic dance music. For example, Moffatt says that Avicii remixed a Madonna record and DJ Calvin Harris produced a number one record for Rihanna.

The electronic synthesizer was invented in 1876 by Elisha Gray, who lost out to famous Canadian Alexander Graham Bell for the telephone patent. However, it wasn’t until the widespread introduction of the electric guitar in the 1960s by legendary bands such as The Beatles that electronic music would take off.

It eventually gave way to the creation of...

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