In fact, it can be considered a cover of the latter, as I used DJ /rupture, one of Vicki Bennett’s WFMU colleagues, as the source material. Specifically, I used the February 6, 2008 episode (see here), which featured his interview with Dexplicit.
I didn’t strictly stick to the bits in between words; I also left in self-identifiers (“Mudd Up”, “DJ /rupture”, etc.) and words like “wow” and “like”.
This is a short, 20-minute-ish Serato mix dating back to when I was first starting to play at Clique. There are a couple rough spots, but it’s a good view of where I was musically at the time.
tracklist:
Jamelia “Something About You (Mr Oizo Mix)” Lil Mama “Lip Gloss (Kid Fresh & Haterboy ReFix)” Lillica Libertine “Ultra 10” Cybotron “Clear” Debbie Gibson “Only in My Dreams” Federico Franchi “Electron” Chromeo “Bonafied Lovin'” Black Ghosts “Let’s Get Physical” Midnight Juggernauts “Road to Recovery (Miami Horror remix)” Dandi Wind “Stop Die (remix)” PROFF “You’ll See (original)”
I was burning it on 3″ cdrs for people for a while. Most people didn’t know what to do with them (especially people with macs) so I stopped.
I was asked to play a noise show downtown Cincinnati at a place called BASE Gallery. Instead of trying the stuff I’d been doing in The Black Fives, I wanted to do something new: play a dj set with pieces of sandpaper instead of records.
I used normal turntables & needles, along with a Kaoss Pad for effects. Someone asked, in a myspace comment, something to the effect of, “Wouldn’t that mess up your needles?”
In short, yes:
The blue needle on the left of the low-quality scanner image is a new needle; the two black ones were old, worn out needles i hadn’t yet thrown away. As you can see, the sandpaper completely ravaged them. 🙂
And for the record (no pun), I used multiple grits of sandpaper over the course of the set, and some with masking tape in a plus-sign shape across the sandpaper to make a kind of rhythmic sound.
UPDATE: The hyperlinks to the illegalart site are dead, so I’ve replaced the direct link with one to the wayback machine.
In December 2004, I curated an online mp3 compilation (click through to download) for the incredible illegal art records. I tried to make my choices quite eclectic, and to include many acts from around the world, with a special spotlight on my fellow Cincinnatians.
Here’s the tracklisting:
01. Maja Ratkje: Intro (4:20)
02. DJ DQ: Where the Sidewalk Begins, Part 1 (4:59)
03. Enduser: Dizzee (3:46)
04. Burning Star Core: A Brighter Summer Day (15:57)
05. People Like Us: Stifled Love (5:17)
06. Evolution Control Committee: Bred, White and Woo (3:26)
07. Fudgie & Fufu: God Bless America, Especially Florida & Texas (Dissentcinnati Edit) (2:11)
08. Kevin Moore: Intro / It Goes Something Like This (7:55)
Bonus Track: The Black Fives: Live at Recycled Rainbow 9.0 (36:17)
Theoretically, the numbered tracks should all fit on an audio cd, if you were to want to do that. The bonus track, of course, will have to go on a separate disc.
This is just under 10 minutes of my performance at the ExBe Showcase in Cleveland. I was plagued with technical difficulties for the first half of the show, as I remember, and you can tell from this snippet: the right channel of one of my decks was not coming through.
The tracklist on this is essentially two mashups: firstly a Venetian Snares track (something from Songs About My Cats) blended with a bit of The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame”, and then into some exercise record, which blends into something from (I believe) Original Hamster.
That show was particularly special for me, because John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask stopped into the venue to play a few songs. It was the weekend before Election Day, and they were traveling around Ohio (a swing state) to try to just get out the vote. I was (and still am!) a huge fan of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, so I was incredibly excited not only to see them, but to share a bill with them, however accidental.
I was busy playing when they were walking around talking to people, but I did manage to get one pic with John Cameron Mitchell (too bad I look silly as hell).
This live set dates from 2004, at Recycled Rainbow 9.0 in Cleveland, OH. At this point I (as Donald Spivak, or schädel) had only just joined the band, which until then had been pretty much what you hear in this set: dark electronic beats with added noise. Essentially all the beats and music in this set, other than a bit of synth stuff I played off the cuff, is Gabe (a.k.a. Harold Knockworthy)’s stuff. The noise and spoken stuff in this set is both of us.
Not long after this, these “songs”, the beats & music at least, got pulled into his Seeping Kind project, leaving The Black Fives as an improv ambient noise band. Recycled Rainbow is now an outdoor experimental music-type festival. At the time we played, it was in Every Man’s house. The event had a theme of “Classic Literature”, so I read bits of the Marquis de Sade’s Justine into a baby monitor.
download: DJ Empirical, Mix for Fashion Show, Part 123 28 aug 2004
This was a mix done in Sony Acid for a fashion show in downtown Cincinnati. I would have just done a live mix, but they wanted literally a different song for every girl/outfit (about 45 seconds each), and wanted things to gradually speed up over the course of the show. That would have been well beyond my means in those pre-Serato days, so I spent some time doing it all in advance. There were to be three catwalk segments of 15 minutes each, thus the three parts. Each time you hear a new song, imagine a new girl walking out.
Sorry, no track list on this one. The music is a good mix of stuff, from house music to 80s dance, with quite a few stops in between.
The Black Fives released the Solid Phase EP in March 2004, and to celebrate the occasion held a cd release party at Mullane’s in downtown Cincinnati.
This half hour recording holds the very short (~7 minute) set of noise from The Black Fives, with DJ Empirical adding beats, samples, and scratching. After that, DJ Empirical continues to play for a time, interrupted by a weird keyboard/vocal piece by John Caldwell. Near the end of the mp3 appear the members of the Rhyme Swing Embassy.
As a point of note, this set predates the involvement of schädel in The Black Fives, as it was still a solo project at the time.
This is a track from the very limited (23 copies!) e.p. by The Black Fives, released in 2004 with a handmade cover. At the time, The Black Fives was still a solo project, with schädel (a.k.a. Donald Spivak, a.k.a. DJ Empirical) still some time away from becoming a member.
The spoken samples come from the audio part of an adult education filmstrip. Scratches by DJ Empirical.
