Scratching for a Crimadome beat
Check out this beat from Crimadome that I threw down some cuts on top of.
Getting Down @ The Red Room
Choppin up the decks with Hot Rod and Michelle
The show at The Red Room was a blast and such a dope venue, loved the mugshots on the wall and the sound man had it hooked up right.
Much love to Flowmatik, Lessin, Cleen, Daniel Blak and Lumis for letting us shut it down and allowing me to tear up the turntables on their Portland stop. Oh yeah and can’t forget DJ Ozroc One, dude was killin it. Scope out the new myspace page for Hollywood Africans, Daniel dropped the bug and convinced Hot Rod to set it up and I’ll work with him to get new beats and tracks laced up on there, gotta get stuff cooking in the studio. Check back here within the next week and I’ll be posting some new beats and probably another mix, it’s been too many months since I last decided to record but I snagged some choice tracks and have a few ideas floating around for what to drop.
Gig tonight September 3rd @ The Red Room
I’m going to be headlining tonight with Hot Rod at the Red Room we’re hitting the stage around 11:30 doing original material and I’m gonna be cutting it up on the ones and twos.
2530 NE 82nd Ave
Portland, OR 97220
about those more regular updates…
Yeah so July was a heck of a month and I capped it off spending a long weekend at the coast during this crazy heatwave Portland’s been having. I need to get back to a more regular schedule so I’ll just put nods up to my weekly gig which is every Thursday. Scope out me and A-Minus laying down the cuts at
Good Neighbor Pizza
800 NE Dekum St.
Portland, OR 97211
We’re there from 7pm to Midnight rockin it for free for y’all.
Post show wrap up
Welcome anyone who may have caught me on Portland Dance Party Live. If you haven’t already check out the mixes tag on my blog to get directed to a free mixtape I have posted here, I’ll have more to come in the near future.
Technical difficulties and lack of dancers aside the show went pretty well for me. I had a good time and kinda changed my set midstream to accomodate the improvised script update and tore through more records than I had expected. Also from what I hear (I haven’t actually watched the show yet) the sound guy didn’t turn off my mic which meant everyone heard me pulling records and I think it caused a light phasing to the music being played in the studio speakers. I’m going to have to get a hold of the tape and see if I can’t figure out what went wrong cause I know it sounded solid in my headphones. Still fun times and props to Rodney for sweating his ass off breaking and getting funky.
Dance Party Portland Live
I’m in a rush to get out the door in time so I’ll be brief. I’m going to be on Dance Party Portland Live tonight, July 5th on channel 11 from 6pm to 7pm. I’ll post more about the show after it wraps up and I’ll see about getting a video posted up here too.
Wow it’s been a month already?
Seriously where does the time go. I have been living in my new place for over a month, but between that, starting a new job and all my other time spent spinning records I just didn’t make time to update things here and I’m starting to feel bad about that. Sorry internets, I’ll make sure to try and spend more time with you.
So like I mentioned I’m moved into my new house and I’m close to getting my studio setup, I have almost all of my gear here but I need to get everything wired in through my big mixer and I’m waiting until I grab my patch bays to get that done, hopefully I’ll have that done this week. The new house is great only downside is I’ve spent so much time cleaning and unpacking that I just haven’t had much energy and there is always more work to be done around this place. Put on top of that starting a new job as a database admin which is a really sweet gig working for an amazing non-profit in Portland and I just have been brain fried most days. But I’m getting it together and things really feel ilke they’re starting to turn around for me.
I was out at Good Neighbor on Friday doing what I do on the 1′s and 2′s and it was a great night. A-Minus was out of town so I was holding it down on my own which I think I did pretty well, although I was definately much more tired at the end of Friday night. Still I got to meet some cool people who were digging what I was up to and even got asked about possibly working another house party coming up in July which that would be cool if that comes through. Then on Saturday I was out dj’ing at my office for the Cirque Du Cycling event that was held over on the Mississippi avenue area, it’s awesome working in the fundraising department, hopefully I’ll be able to dj more and more at the miscellaneous events we have. That was a good day, got to play some good funk and motown records for a bunch of kids and some of them had never even seen a record before so it felt good to drop a little knowledge. I even let some of the kids who were interested in scratching come up and play with the record for a couple minutes trying to teach them a little bit of what it is that I do. It’s always fun to see a kids face light up and let them come up and try something out.
So other than that I’m getting ready for what looks to be a pretty busy summer. I’ve still got my weekly on Thursdays at Good Neighbor Pizza, I have another wedding coming up in about a week and a half, I have a few house parties planned out, and I’m also going to be spinning on a public access dance party show on July 5th. I’ll post more details on when that will be televised and what channel as soon as I have em. Things are feeling good, incredibly busy, but still good. As soon as the studio gets all wired up I’m going to get A-Minus over here so we can collab on a mixtape and I’ll have that posted here as soon as it’s done; I’m being relistic in saying that I probably won’t have that ready until mid July sometime, but hopefully sooner if I can swing it. I’m also working on getting some professional business cards printed up and need to think about designing a new webpage, maybe buy a URL and get some nifty flash animation and stuff going on. I’ve got some ambitious ideas, I just need to start putting in the legwork to get this done.
Post party wrap-up
Thanks again to the folks at the halfway house for letting me come out and rock the party, it was fun. Another party another late night till about 5am with lots of good tunes, good people, and most everybody did alright. One or two people might have had too good of a time and I’m sure were regretting it Saturday but all in all I’m pretty glad I came out, it set the tone for the rest of my weekend.
Saturday was awesome, caught the new Star Trek movie at the Roseway Theater and I’m surprised how much I liked it, then went over to Eric’s house to play with his new Roland TD-12 digital drum kit and man oh man I’m glad I moved within walking distance of his place cause I’m going to be over playing with that kit on a regular basis I’m sure.
Mother’s day was nice, cooked brunch over at my old house with my brother and his girlfriend and watched Planet Earth on blu-ray which is always pretty. I then packed up more stuff and a decent amount of the studio equipment and got it moved into the new place, going to set it up tonight after work.
Great news for me too, today is my last day in Clackamas and I’m starting out full time at SEI starting wednesday. I’m super glad to be going back there, I’ve always enjoyed working at SEI and think it’s probably the best fit for me and the added bonus of DJ OG-One works there and I’ll be dropping by to say whats up to him from time to time and maybe get his opinion on some mixtapes and beats that I’m working on. Alright time to get back to work, 4 hours and counting till the day is done.
Good Neighbor Mixtape uploaded finally…
Sweet I finally sat down and figured out this wordpress nonsense and have uploaded a mix, check out my Good Neighbor Pizzeria mixtape below, track listing after the jump.
Good Neighbor Pizzeria Mixtape
01 – Asher Roth – I Love College
02 – Lupe Fiasco – Superstar
03 – Tom Petty – Don’t Come Around Here
04 – Gorillaz – Clint Eastwood
05 – Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer
06 – Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On
07 – David Banner – Cadillac’s on 22′s Part 2
08 – Aaliyah – Back and Forth
09 – Kanye West – Heartless
10 – Jane Jackson – Nasty
11 – Kid Cudi – 50 Ways To Make A Record
12 – Blacksheep – The Choice Is Yours
13 – Michael Jackson – Billie Jean
14 – Fatboy Slim – Love Island
15 – Franz Ferdinand – Lucid Dreams
In case you’re not in the know I’m appearing live every Thursday night with DJ A-Minus at Good Neighbor Pizzeria 7pm to Midnight. We throw down fresh cuts to compliment the freshest slices in town made with local organic ingredients. Stop on by say DJ Torsion sent ya, you won’t be disappointed.
Good Neighbor Pizzeria
800 NE Dekum St.
Portland, OR 97211
Post weekend wrap up and upcoming events
This weekend was a lot of fun, started off Saturday doing some moving and then headed out to a BBQ at DJ A-Minus’ house. That was crazy fun, the mustache party was worth the trip, good food, good drinks, good tunes, open turntables to cut up, and a drum kit to do my neil pert impersanation. Even with the crazy thunderstorms it was still all good and just too damn much fun, I almost didn’t make it out to Astoria on time Sunday because I almost overdid it while at the BBQ but left early enough to get some sleep.
DJ A-Minus, myself (I'm the one rockin the glasses in the background) and the rest of the crew at the mustache BBQ
Astoria was beautiful, couldn’t have asked for a better day for a wedding at the coast. Got a chance to catch up with some friends that I haven’t seen since the last wedding I worked, had some tasty grub (food at weddings is almost always a guaranteed awesome meal), refreshing cold beers on tap and then there was me there rocking the music till we shut the place down. Thanks to everyone who came out, especially to Kate and Dave for letting me DJ their wedding and extra thanks to all of you who stayed and kept dancing, the big ol’ dance circle reminded me of the dance line on Soul Train, and that’s not a bad thing.
I’ve got some events coming up this week.
Thursday, May 7th. Good Neighbor Pizzeria – 7pm to Midnight, 800 NE Dekum St. Portland, OR 97211. This is my weekly with DJ A-Minus where we’re always rocking something different and fun, I think I’m going to try and break out some more classic rock this week, feel like I’m obligated to drop some Steely Dan for those not in the know.
Friday, May 8th. Free Swine-Flu Dance Party @ The Halfway House – 9pm till I can’t stand anymore or we get shut down by the police, whichever comes first - 5614 SE Milwaukie Ave. Portland, OR 97202. C’mon out, you might or might not catch something you can regret on Saturday.
I’ve also got a few more things in the works, I’m probably going to be spinning down at Ground Kontrol in downtown Portland on the last Saturday of this month, I’ll post more info when I know for sure if that’s happening. I’ve got another wedding lined up for early June, and I’m going to be spinning some records on the first week of a Public Access Dance Party program that should air sometime around the first week in July, more info to come as it is available.
