BIG

How Ya Livin’ Biggie Smalls?

STORY BY: THE FADER , PHOTOGRAPHY: IAN BAGUSKAS

226 St. James Place in Brooklyn, Biggie’s childhood home

I bumped into Big and realized we lived two blocks away from each other. We started hanging out regularly. His house was on the way to the train, so it was pretty much an everyday thing that we would bump heads. Making his first album, a lot of the tracks were beats that he heard at my house, producers that I was working with. Once Big became a little more successful, he couldn’t really be on the block like he used to. He was dealing with a lot of bullshit that happens when you come from an environment where everybody is fucked up and now you’re not. [After that] we saw each other less because he moved to Jersey.

—Matty C, author of the Unsigned Hype column on Biggie in The Source

Me and Big, looking back at it, not knowing he was gonna be Big, it was interesting. He came to the office with his army fatigues on, but he was almost 6’4″, 6’5″? And, you know, 300 pounds. He was a funny guy, but you see this guy in his army fatigues, bandana on and the boots on, you expecting some intimidation. But he was a kind, fun guy, everything was jokey joke.

—Dan Smalls, former intern at Uptown Records

The level of flavor he was kicking? Black and ugly as ever…Coogi down to my socks. That was ridiculous. Rings filled with rocks… He took it crazy, he epitomized the whole 
Versace era.

—Andre Harrell, founder of Uptown Records

I met Big when he came to Uptown Records where Puff’s office was. I went into Puff’s office and he had on these big army fatigues, a hoodie, some dark glasses. I remember saying to myself, “What the fuck is this?” He had such a presence. Honestly, at that time I was so green. I didn’t have a feel for him professionally. It was like if I went to go pick up my kids from school and there was this big, huge dude sitting in class. I wasn’t thinking like, “He can do this.” I wish I could say that, but I was just thinking about his size. His look was dark, but his personality was colorful.

—Mark Pitts, Biggie’s co-manager

DJ 50 Grand’s Basement Studio in Brooklyn

I was the neighborhood DJ. Me and my man D-Roc, we used to hustle together. Because I knew a lot of people, he asked me to be Big’s DJ. I went to the basement at my crib, we made about four demos and it went from there. After we finished making money, we’d go get beer, weed, some movies and just get in the basement and make tapes for the rest of the day and night. That’s where it went down after the money was made. He taught me a whole lot. He changed me. Breaking down songs, he knew what he wanted, how he wanted it.

—DJ 50 Grand, Biggie’s neighborhood friend and first DJ

I’m not proud of the writing in Big’s Unsigned Hype column and, to be honest, he was a little offended at a line that I wrote. I said his rhymes were as fat as he is. He’s not that fat. He was a big framed guy, and I guess he was a little self-conscious about it.

—Matty C

Me and Big, we developed a good friendship. They call me the Supreme Bigga Figga Big Kap. I got that from Big. Big used to have this rhyme he used to say all the time, like, “Yo, Supreme Bigga Figga, ta da da, something something.” And I was like, Yo, that’s hot! And he was like “Yo, you can have that.” Big was a funny, funny character. Like, he was a comedian! He never really called me Kap. He used to call me by my real name Keith Carter. He’d be like, “Yo, Keith Carter, Whattup?”

—DJ Big Kap, Biggie’s earliest tour DJ

Bedford Avenue and Quincy Street in Brooklyn, the site of Biggie’s famous teenage freestyle

I started working with Big in ’91. I was 21, he was 15. I met him through a friend of mine. They hustled together on Bedford and Quincy. People in the neighborhood knew him as the hottest rapper around. Everybody that stepped in his path, he ate ’em up. He earned that stripe from that one battle he had on Bedford and Quincy. I was the one that was playing the music. This man used to live right upstairs from the pool room. Every day in the summer we’d play the music out. It just so happened that Big came around, so we brought the grill out, we brought the music out. They got on the mic and went at it. It went on from there. Cars stopped, it got real crowded out there. We rocked it ’til 12, one o’clock that night. It was a good look. Everybody that came at his back, he took out.

—DJ 50 Grand

I remember sharing Ntozake Shange with him. She wrote this amazing book called The Love Space Demands. It’s a book of poetry, and there’s an amazing poem in there called “Crack Annie” and its about a crack head selling her daughter, her eight year old for sex, for crack. And I remember him reading it on the train and it just blew me away. He could memorize Ntozake’s fuckin’ 40-verse poem after one read. His mother is a huge reader. And Jamaicans have that British shit, so he knew all that stuff. He read more Charles Dickens than me, for sure. I’m more of a Mark Twain type of girl.

—Dream Hampton, journalist and Biggie’s close friend

The illest memory of Biggie is seeing him so drunk that he was passed out on the corner of his block. Me and my friends was coming from a club one night, this was early, early ’90s, and me and my best friend, Swan Gotti, drove past Fulton Street and we saw this big guy laid out on the hood of a car. And I said, “Who the fuck…?” And I stopped the car because it looked like Big. And Swan said, “I know that ain’t Big.” And I backed up, and sure enough, it was Biggie. He wasn’t laid out like passed out, he was laid out like it was a nice day out and he’s just chilling. That was the finest moment. I swear to god I wish we had YouTube back in the day.

— Buckshot, Brooklyn rapper and co-founder of Duck Down Records

I remember taking them to Sylvia’s [a Harlem soul food restaurant], Puff telling me that he needed me to go with him to convince Big to sign because he wanted Big to sign to Bad Boy, and Biggie needed to know that Bad Boy was connected to Uptown Records and would have all its services and energy and commitment from me. So I went and big-brothered that with Puff. But Puff was the director of Biggie’s movie. Biggie was coming out saying whatever his truth was and Puff knew how to create narration on a visual level.

—Andre Harrell

House in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Biggie stayed while hustling

Nobody in Raleigh had no idea that he was a rapper. I just knew him by Fat Chris and I knew he always had good product. He was a sharp dressing dude. He wore the little leather jackets and the matching hats and matching Kangols. He was a respectable kind of dude, had a nice, clean, humble game. Everybody was making money. It wasn’t no recession, it wasn’t no depression going on. Everybody had their own business, all the night clubs was making money. I had the west side of town locked down, and I guess he had the south side locked down. We partied at this joint called Groucho’s and this joint called Tremors and Fevers. Raleigh was booming. Houses was getting built in North Raleigh, and all the New York state folks and the Ohio folks moved there. It’s different now; everybody is locked up or dead.

—Smoke, Biggie’s friend in North Carolina

Quad Studios, where Biggie recorded and Tupac was shot

Biggie was on one floor, SWV was on one floor and we was on the floor with Little Shawn with Tone and Poke producing. We all ended up in the lobby of the studio on the second floor where I was, laughing and joking and then Tupac and Stretch get off the elevator and Tupac is bleeding from his head! I’m the first one standing in the front and I address Tupac like, Yo, you bleeding from your head, what happened?! He says, “Yo, they tried to stick me downstairs.” So then he says, ”Stretch, roll me a joint.” And he’s looking suspicious at the motherfuckers who was there. So Stretch rolled him a joint and Tupac smoked that motherfucker straight. I mean straight down like it was a James Cagney movie—and then the mothefucker passed out. And then we had to pick this nigga up and put him on the couch. Biggie wasn’t even on our floor.

—Andre Harrell

The first time I was in the studio with him I realized he didn’t write. I’d never seen anyone do that before. It amazed the heck out of me. At that point I’d be in the studio with some of the greatest artists, but I’ve never seen no one on either side of the spectrum—whether it be the R&B side or the hip-hop side—be able to create the type of songs that he created from his mind. No pen, no pad. Getting in the booth and just laying it down in damn near one take.


—Wayne Barrow, Biggie’s co-manager

Big taking 112 under his wing meant so much to us. Everybody thinks when you sign to Bad Boy it’s all gravy, money’s flowing. But at that point we were just getting our feet wet. We walked back and forth to the studio sometimes in the rain and snow. Every time Biggie saw us, he would make sure we had something to eat, he would make sure we had rides, he would personally sit down and listen and encourage dudes. Towards the end of recording there was this one song that had an up-tempo sample that Puff really, really loved. We was all thinking in the back of our minds like, What if Biggie got on it? But we didn’t really want to ask, so we told Puff. Puff was like, “Shit, he’ll be at the club tonight. Ride with me.”

I remember we were standing outside the car—
Puff had just got the black 500 S Class, the big four door. Biggie’s just nodding his head, he’s like, “I fuck with it, I fuck with it.” This is my first group, my first single. To get the Notorious BIG on the record was just the most incredible feeling. We knew it was a dope record, but we knew that with Big on it, it was a no-lose situation. The next time we heard the record…Je-sus! The Notorious just pleased us with a lyrical thesis.

—Courtney “Brother Bear” Sills, former manager of 112 and Biggie’s occasional barber

When Big met Tupac: When we get to LA they put us up at the Sheridan in Studio City. Puff rents us 5.0s, which was the hot car convertible at the time—I remember we had a green one and a black one—and you couldn’t tell us we wasn’t doing it. Two cats from New York, in LA for the first time… So we had to have Fat Burger, we had to have Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles and Big had to have chronic and he wanted to meet Tupac. I had a guy that I knew from LA that supplied us with some chronic, and it so happened he had a line on Pac. So he made a phone call and when we pulled up to the hotel, sittin’ in his convertible is Tupac. And as we’re standing there, as Big and Tupac is talkin’, Greg Nice of Nice N Smooth comes downstairs. So Big is talkin’ and Tupac is like “Yo what else you gotta do today?” And Big looks at me, and I knew at that point, cancel anything else we had scheduled. It was gonna be a wrap. Pac’s like, “Let’s go to my house.” So Tupac and Big, Greg Nice, myself and Groovey Lew [Big’s stylist], we all go to Tupac’s house. Pac had this bag, I mean, a clear, big freezer bag of the greenest vegetables I’d ever seen. Big was so happy!

We went back to Pac’s house and they just rolled up: Big was rolling, Pac was rolling, Greg was rolling, Groovey Lew was rolling, it was just going back and forth. Next thing you know, they started a cypher. We sitting at the house, Big is flowing, Pac is flowing, Greg is flowing, and me and Lew is just sitting there like, Yo, the moment of hip-hop for us has reached its high.

After the freestyle session, Pac went into his room and pulled out this green army bag, and dumped it onto the floor. And it was, like, 25 guns. Handguns, machine guns… So now, here we are, in this backyard running around with guns, just playing. Luckily they were all unloaded. While we were running around, Pac walks into the kitchen and starts cooking for us. He’s in the kitchen cooking some steaks. We were drinking and smoking, and all of a sudden Pac was like, “Yo, come get it.” And we go into the kitchen and he had steaks, and French fries, and bread, and Kool-Aid and we just sittin’ there eating and drinking and laughing. And you know, that’s truly where Big and Pac’s friendship started.

— Dan Smalls

KMEL SUMMER JAM ’95: All right, KMEL Summer Jam is the thing that really made me a good DJ. I guess it’s like when you come from a boy to a man, as far as DJing. It was like 100-and-something degrees out there. We were outside, and it was like an amphitheatre. People were up on the hills and the grass, laying out and everything. Big never wanted to use no DAT machines, none of that. He loved Run DMC and their whole show, so he wanted everything live from the turntables. Back then, people had started having their whole shows on DAT machines, but Big wanted strictly vinyl. So we used to travel with everything; turntables, mixers, all of that.

So this day, it’s hot as hell, and I knew it at sound check. I’m setting up and I’m saying, It’s hot, it’s hot as hell. Me and Cease, Money L and D-Roc—we run through sound check real quick, boom. That was early in the day. So now, it’s show time, the middle of the afternoon, and it’s like a 105 degrees, and that sun—it’s like its right over the stage. I’m dying, sweating.
So we go on, the show starts. I’m throwing the records and it’s like, alright, cool we’re going through it. But it’s so hot the heat is actually warping the records. The records is melting! So the records are warping right before me and it’s just like woooommp. And Big looking at me. We had this thing like, every time you make a mistake on stage during the show, you get fined $100.

So during the show, Big heard the first womp, and he was like “A hundred dollars!” The record is crumbling up right before my eyes. Then it’s getting bad and Cease is like, “Two hundred dollars!” And then Big, he just stopped everything and was like, “Yo! What the fuck is going on?!” I’m looking and my records look like a piece of bacon back there. Big is tight! He had a water bottle, he threw the water bottle at me, and just walks off the stage. And there’s like 20,000 people out there. Then the guys from KMEL that was hosting came on the stage, and they was like, “Yo, technical difficulties!” And I’m still on the stage cause I got all my stuff there! You know, I’m in charge of breaking equipment down, everything.
So I’m sitting there and I gotta pack up the turntables. I bring everything off the side of the stage. Now the manager, this guy Hawk, he was the road manager. Hawk slipping in, and I’m trying to explain it’s not my fault. You know, but you can’t explain that to nobody at that moment. But it showed me that maybe I should’ve been more prepared. I knew the sun was out there, maybe I could’ve gotten something to put over [the turntables]. But it showed me you gotta be prepared for everything. There’s no excuse for nothing.

I was just so embarrassed. And hurt behind it, you know what I’m saying? Everybody was waiting for Big to come on, and our show was crazy. I’ll never forget: Jermaine Dupri and Jagged Edge was right there, too, on the side of the stage, so they looking at me, too! Jermaine Dupri knew because he saw what was happening. He was the only one—him and one of the twins from Jagged Edge—they were the only ones that was like, “Nah, it wasn’t your fault.” I’ll never forget that, yo. They were the only ones when I came off that stage.

This is the funny thing: After it all went down, everybody left me. I had to take a cab back to the hotel! Niggas was mad. Hawk and those dudes were really mad, cause I didn’t really see Big at first. After Big threw the water bottle at me, he was gone. When I get back to the hotel, I’m in my room and I’m so hurt. I’m so, so hurt and everything. And D-Roc and them they come to my room and they’re like, “Yo, what happened?” So I’m explaining it to them and everything. They were like, “All right we understand, but Big is tight!” So, I go to Big’s room, and I knock on the door. And then he opens the door laughing! And he got a bunch of girls in the room! I’m bashful and I’m like, Yo, I’m sorry, I apologize for all that. He was like, “Man, I knew! I saw those records. I knew it was the sun and all that. But I couldn’t let them think that it was me out there messing up!”

— DJ Big Kap

Madison Square Garden, site of the inflammatory 1995 Source Awards

Going into it, it felt like a playoff game. That was the intensity of it. It felt like this is for all the marbles. Dr. Dre is here, I’m here, Snoop is here, Biggie’s here, Faith is here, Diddy’s here, Method Man is here, Nate Dogg is here. This is it. We’re uniting hip-hop. That’s what it felt like to me. Call me naïve, but I had no idea Suge Knight was about to get up there and say that. We were actually a little disappointed and a little angered that he did that. It was like he was playing with our lives. It was uncouth, it just wasn’t classy. That’s not how you take over. You take it when it’s given to you. You accept it, you don’t jack people for it.

—DJ Quik, LA-based rapper and producer

I was in the audience at the ’95 Source Awards. Working at The Source, I knew Suge, I knew Q-Tip really well. Seeing all the bullshit going on in the public eye, as an adult as I look back on it, it’s like fighting in front of your kids. You know not to do that because you look so stupid, but people still get caught in the moment and do it. It’s just such an ugly perfect storm to look back and see the obvious lead up. They created the monster that created the tragedy. Regardless of whether or not you’re tying the specifics together, what that created was so sad. Everybody was so much a part of a small community. It was like high school.

—Matty C

Me and Method Man used to work together so I remember introducing Big to Meth, and when they met each other, they hit it off, they started rhyming. I mean, Big loved Meth, too, because that was the only guest appearance on the first album. Raekwon and Ghostface Killah kind of had a little issue with Big so at the Source Awards, before all that other bullshit popped off, I remember having to try to bridge this gap between Rae and Ghost and Big. I had a personal relationship with them, and I had a personal relationship with Big, and I’m like, Yo, this has gotta get deaded. Big, he felt like they was talking about him, but [they] were just talking in general, so it was really nothing, but the media took it to a whole ’nother, trying to make it more than it was.

—Dan Smalls

2nd Street Tunnell in Los Angeles featured in Biggie’s “Hypnotize” video

I saw Biggie perform a couple years before [directing the “Hypnotize” video] in New York. I was just breaking into the business and a couple years later, filming him was really exciting. We filmed in ’97. I was maybe 30? It was the first time I’d done a video with that big of a budget. I wanted to tell stories and do something that was cinematic and felt like we were taking a piece out of an action film. I was in JFK and Puffy called me and he’s like, “What’s your idea?” And I was literally walking through this tunnel in JFK and I was like, I see you guys driving backwards through a tunnel. That was kind of off the cuff, and he was like, “That sounds hot.” Then we kind of just built it around that idea. The car driving backwards was something that I thought, “How could you get out of [a tight situation]…?” I thought about this movie A Bronx Tale, and I thought it was so cool that Chazz Palminteri— he was so lazy—didn’t want to do a U-turn in the street, so he literally just backed his car up around the corner to wherever he was going. So I kind of flipped that. What saddened me was Biggie never got a chance to see the full video. I showed him a rough cut, an early minute that I put a Prodigy track to, just like as a teaser. He was totally blown away by what he had seen, and I was nervous because I had taken some of his music out and mixed it with Prodigy. I thought he would take offense to that, but my thing was mixing genres. The chase sequence we cut with just Prodigy behind it, I think it was “Fire Starter.” I was like, Is he going to like this? But he really dug it. He was into the whole thing.

—Paul Hunter, director

This one time I remember specifically was at the Soul Train awards, and I was at my hotel and Puff called—he used to call me Huggy Bear—he wanted to know if I could cut Biggie’s hair. I went to the hotel and it was hot as fuck in there. He was sweating, I was sweating. Wiping his head to keep his hair dry. I gave him a fade, but I really didn’t know whether or not Puff was supposed to pay me or Biggie was supposed to pay me. This was my first time going to LA ever. Big says, “Shit, what do I owe you?” and I say, “Shit, whatever. We family.” He gave me about a quarter ounce of chronic. I’m talking about LA super stinky chronic. I’m looking at it like, I don’t smoke! I gotta get on a flight tonight, how am I going to get this shit back to Atlanta? Dude gave me a quarter ounce of chronic as payment for his haircut. After I finished cutting his hair, he was getting dressed for the awards and that’s when his road manager discovered that his shoes were too small. Biggie might’ve worn a 12 or 13 and these were an 11. Everyone was trying to push his foot into the shoes. That’s when they ended up folding the back down like slippers. He ended up having to walk out of the hotel like that.

— Courtney “Brother Bear” Sills

Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, the LA intersection where Biggie was shot

I never felt like I had any obligation to go to every party. Parties were for work. It wasn’t like I was gonna go and have the grandest time. I’m better off with a couple honeys and a bottle of wine. But the party at the Petersen Museum I remember feeling like we should go or something like that. There was some level of responsibility to being at that event. I remember walking in and the air felt different. The vibe was just off, and it just seemed really forced. I wasn’t the only one that felt it. And I didn’t stay long. I kind of made sure that everybody was straight from all sides, and then I left, I went back to the Four Seasons to have some cocktails and meet a few people over there. And that was it. My assistant called and said Biggie got hurt. She was like, “Yeah, outside the party there was a shooting.” I got to the hospital not too long after they had brought Biggie in, but it was over. There was 
no rational reason for someone to hurt Big at all. Like, he hadn’t done anything 
to anyone. There was no fight. There 
was no argument. There was no insult. There was nothing.

—Jeff Burroughs, former VP of Bad Boy

Read more: http://www.thefader.com/2011/05/25/how-ya-livin-biggie-smalls/#ixzz1dyDVQ5ft

The Audit-for Valerie with M the Special Guest

Watch live video from The Audit on Justin.tv
We all live times when we are left to think that all we have are the same looks and beats, punching on our brain and face telling us who we are and where we will go, but as we all know time flies and looks change as well as our hearing, We morph in to all we are, friends, looks, beats, loves, parties, drugs, bacterias, all in all, it defines us and creates that transformation of life.

Electronic music production: A beginner's diary Words by: Hannah Briley

Electronic music production: A beginner's diary They say anyone can make music these days, so we asked RA's Hannah Briley to enroll in an online course at Point Blank and document the trials and tribulations of her 12-week crash course in Logic. I was nine years old when my mother took me to piano lessons in a small town near Dusseldorf, Germany where we were living at the time. My teacher was young, kind and patient but after a short time, my father's job moved us back to the UK. My mother found a new piano teacher for me there, but after one lesson I announced I wasn't going to continue—apparently I didn't like the teacher because she was "old and strict." Despite my parent's objections, they allowed me to put extra-curricular music aside and instead concentrate on my beloved ballet lessons. To this day, I have no music education to speak of.  Fast forward five years and I inevitably ditched the ballet and began a burgeoning love affair with dance music and everything that surrounded it. By 2002, I was living in London and thrusting my electroclash shoulders at The End and The Ghetto for Nag Nag Nag. By my early 20s I had moved on to minimal techno and my social circle to DJs and budding young producers. I had never felt such community, such unison between people. We were bound together by something stronger than I had ever experienced before. Regardless of the lack of professional place for me in the industry at that time, I felt I had no other choice but to find one for myself. The following years saw me intern and work as a booking agent, a label assistant, a promoter and eventually a writer and journalist for artists, labels and magazines. I adore what I do and despite having every confidence in myself as a writer, there is one aspect of my occupation that concerns me. With no technical knowledge of electronic music or production software, how can I analyze, document or even criticize other people's music? With today's software and a plethora of accessible education options am I giving our artists too much or too little respect for their work? Can just about anyonemake electronic music these days? To find out, I enrolled in an online course at Point Blank, and kept a diary of what happened along the way. Week 1 Monday 6th June Other than email, Microsoft Word and Excel my IT capabilities are limited, and it's fair to say I have a slight computer phobia. Learning software feels more intimidating than the musical side of this project at this stage. After installing Logic I log in, familiarise myself with the layout of the page, and begin Week 1's course notes. My tutor introduces himself as Alex Phountzi and explains that alongside his job with Point Blank he produces under the pseudonym Greenmoney and is part of Bugz In The Attic. I'm not surprised to discover I am the only female and the only one with no previous music education, production or DJing experience amongst the five students on the course.  Our first course notes cover the history and evolution of sequencers from early analog through to MIDI, DAWs and onto how MIDI messages, notes and files work in relation. I can't see myself being able to reiterate exactly how a sequencer works, but I get the basics. I work through the course notes, there are video demonstrations that show me around the interface. I move onto music theory; bars and beats, measures, tempo, time signature and how Logic displays them. There are embedded audio players to demonstrate examples of time signature in recognizable songs so we can relate. I vaguely remember some of the music theory from school but other than a few hazy memories it's new to me and I'm grateful the course begins with such basics. Logic's interface is not unfamiliar. I've observed it in use numerous times in various studios. But as I sit in front of it as the user for the first time, I suddenly feel as if I'm looking at the control panel of a Boeing 747. Saturday 11th June Our first week's assignment is to simply "create a piece of music in Logic. It can be absolutely anything, any style, incredibly basic and any length you wish." I clean up an M-Audio Radium 49 keyboard that's been gathering dust under my bed since a friend left it there in storage three years ago and plug in my tiny but trusty Logitech desk speakers. I begin my first assignment, but can't remember how to load an instrument and immediately regret not starting straight after I completed the theory on Monday. I re-watch the demonstration videos and open a new project. Tempo set and metronome on, I create a MIDI channel and select an instrument. I start with a kick drum but it sounds horrendous. After an hour experimenting with a series of hollow thuds I switch strategy and record a down tempo loop with a harp and strings, adding a hi-hat last. It takes me forever to navigate my way around the interface and my finished loop reminds me of the musical ballerina jewellery box I had when I was 6 years old...only worse. Week 2 Monday 13th June Week two's assignment called for us to create a new drum pattern. Using Ultrabeat for drums seems so straightforward on the video demonstrations, but then when I try to do it myself everything I record sounds like absolute shit. I think I spend about three hours trying different kick drums just to find one that vaguely resembles what I hear in house and techno music. Every drum pattern I record sounds static and cold with no groove or movement. I'm convinced that when I add a bassline it will all fall into place. I'm wrong, it sounds worse. How can one of the most rudimentary parts of a rhythm section be so difficult for me to get right? In my increasing frustration, I forget the most basic of commands time and time again, lose my patience and don't complete the assignment. Highlight of my day? Apple Z. Tuesday 14th June As this is an online course, my weekly assignment feedback is sent to me via DVR video. Alex has access to my submitted Logic assignment and works his way through, verbally advising and physically demonstrating as he corrects my methods and mistakes before sending the recording back to me. Today I received my first DVR for Week 1's assignment. Alex's feedback was really positive and at first I feel so much better after my failed attempt last night with drums. But then he started talking about "quantize" and how I could have "quantized" my MIDI notes? I'm lost. What is quantize and why are we talking about it? I thought I just had to record the notes. Alex is flying around my project at what feels like the speed of light, altering things and using terminology I don't understand. I immediately go from feeling inspired to pissed off. No time to re-attempt the drum assignment, I have a flight to catch to Sonar for work. Sunday 26th June Finally got my head around the drum assignment, I just needed to have patience and actually think about what I was doing. I'm very impatient, and will either find my own way of doing something if the correct route is not immediately apparent or—failing that—I'll just walk away and give up. Unfortunately for me, there is no "my way" when it comes to the rudiments of programming and my stubborn attitude isn't helping. I take it slowly and methodically, putting into practice soloing and muting my drum parts to ensure they all talk to each other. I make two different drum beats in the end: The first one sounds overcomplicated so I try a different style and send them both to Alex. It's becoming apparent I need to re-asses my impatient attitude and resistance to keep going when things get tough.  Week 3 + 4 Saturday 2nd July  Opened up Logic twice in the last week only to shut it down again a few hours later with my stomach in knots. I can't remember the things I learnt in week 1 & 2 and every time I click on something I think does one thing, it does another. I can hear what I want in my head but can't get my recordings to even vaguely resemble my ideas. My drums sound like static thuds and—once I eventually get them right—any percussive flow I had in my mind for the next stage is gone.  I feel so stupid. Why is it so difficult for me? I even feel embarrassed to ask for help from friends who produce. They've been doing this for so long that those initial stages are as natural to them as waking up in the morning. I ask my partner who DJs and produces professionally to come and sit with me to help. I play him my kick drum and explain that I can'thear past it to layer further. Within five seconds he is making a series of "boom," "clack" and "tsss" noises with his mouth. He's literally beatboxing an entire drum kit without even thinking about it. "See? It's easy, listen. Boom and clack and tsss, tsss, boom and clack—OK? Stop looking at the screen and just feel it."  After he leaves the room I desperately cling on to the boom, the clack and the tsss; whispering them out loud while I stumble haphazardly around the interface to find the right drums. My first snare doesn't sound right so I go to change it but my whole channel disappears. I relocate it, but for some reason now my kick is falling on the up-beat. I don't know what I've pressed but the arrange page looks different, I can't see my media page and the kick is pushing the shit out of the DB. My pointer tool has morphed into a pair of scissors that are snipping the shit out my kick drum which has subsequently doubled in tempo and is very much falling "off" the beat by now.  The next two hours follow a similar scenario with each attempt and so I eventually I go to beg, but his answer is simple. "You're never gonna learn if I do it for you." Tears and tantrums follow, but before I reach the breaking point and dispose of the laptop out of the window we meet in the middle: He calmly talks me through what I'm doing wrong until I get it right. Having the on hand advice is invaluable, and with his reassurance that my struggles are normal after just four weeks, I complete my two late assignments and for the first time since week 1 my desire to carry on is back. It's emotionally exhausting, frustrating and I can't quite believe that something so impersonal like computer software is dredging up so many insecurities and anger within me.  Week 5 Sunday 10th July  This week's assignment is to "write a chord sequence of at least three chords over one of the rhythm tracks" that we've created over the previous weeks and to "add a bassline underneath." I take the rhythm track from the previous assignment as suggested and begin to put into practice the structure and sequence of chords that I've learnt about in the course notes. It comes naturally. These simple piano chords sound glorious to my ears; warm, elegant and if played in the right sequence more beautiful than any drum beat. I grew up with Enya, Sade and classical compilations. Other than Phil Collins' epic drum fill on "In the Air Tonight," drum-heavy music was sparse in our house. I spend hours switching my chords through various synths, piano and string instruments. The satisfaction of being able to transmit what I hear in my head onto the arrangement page is incredible.  Later that afternoon we go out to party. As I'm dancing a familiar scenario unravels; I am drowning in the sound, the rhythm has hold of me and I'm utterly lost in the music. But something is different this time; I'm only listening to the hi-hats, noticing there is just one that falls off the beat and in doing so lifts the entire rhythm. My ears move onto the snare drum, its precise placement imperative for the hats to do their job. I then drown out everything bar the bass and the kick: They are talking and dancing with each other, watching each other's every move and reacting accordingly, pausing for a cymbal crash and reclining to allow the drum fill their moment of glory. I listen to the entire kit, bringing each element in one by one, seeing how they exist as singular parts but as a group as well. I have unknowingly mastered the art of soloing and muting drum structure in my mind. I snap out of it when a friend asks if I'm enjoying my Logic course. I say yes. And for the first time in five weeks, I actually mean it.  Week 6 Monday 18th July  I boycott work for the day and switch on Logic as soon as I wake up. I log in to Point Blank, skim read the week's notes while watching the video demonstrations intently. Discovering Apple loops brings instant inspiration. While I don't agree with professionals constructing their music using a heavy amount of pre-recorded loops, I realize their positive influence for inspiration. Using one MIDI drum loop and one MIDI harp loop, I record in eight other channels of my own. I'm a sucker for classical, orchestral music and this combined with my new drum phobia means this week's assignment ends up downtempo and ambient.  I submit my piece, but instead of closing Logic, I open a new project and spend the rest of the afternoon attempting to put into practice what I've learnt so far. It's the first time I'm doing it because I want to and not because I have to. Determined to fight my fear of drums and basslines, I start to make a dance track. It's a slow process, I make countless mistakes but I now know how to fix them and move on.  "The following morning the first thing  I say to him is that I think we should  move the last note in the bassline...  I'm hooked." My partner arrives home from working away for the weekend and I'm so excited that I persuade him to join me. We start to work on the track together, one of us humming a melody, the other one finding the corresponding notes, playing and recording them in. We add a bed, more hi-hats and the bassline I created earlier is improved upon. We are both hearing the same things, feeling the same vibe and any envy of his enjoyment for making music that I felt before is now replaced by understanding. It's magical, and not because it's with him per se, but because I have turned a corner of understanding the software and the core structure of electronic music to feel confident enough to share the experience. I don't know what time it is that we shut the computer down but when we wake up the following morning the first thing I say to him is that I think we should move the last note in the bassline to give it more movement. I'm hooked.  Thursday 21st July  An online chat is held every Thursday evening for an hour between Alex and all the students. A huge part of the Point Blank online course, it's your opportunity to ask questions and resolve issues not covered in the course notes. For some students, this may end up being their only real-time contact with anyone. Tim and I are the only students based in England, so it's no surprise that the other two are absent for the majority.  Everyone is naturally encountering different problems and has individual questions to ask. So when I have a question to ask and Tim and Alex are conversing about another subject, I try not to interrupt the flow of conversation and the benefit that Tim is receiving in having Alex's attention. By the time they are finished, the one hour time slot for the week is over. The scenario works vice versa, and when I am in conversation with Alex I see Tim drop away. I begin to realize that other resources like YouTube tutorials, outside online forums and friends are going to be just as essential in helping me with technical queries.  I feel that one hour per week per student would be of huge benefit to the online method. It would allow privacy, eliminate embarrassment and allow each student who is at a different level to receive the time and attention they need. The other two students begin to hand in less and less assignments. It is only Tim and I who finally complete the course. This is in no sense a criticism of the chatroom system as it was a crucial part of my development. But it's obvious that if you're taking an online course that proactivity is essential. There is no price I can put on the time I have spent with friends who produce, observing them in their studios and equally having them come and sit with me while I learn.  Week 7 Sunday 24th July  My thoughts are becoming increasingly dominated by music and its production. I'm restless at work until I can come home and switch on Logic, and my way of thinking about—and hearing—music is changing more than I ever expected. I am listening, dissecting and analyzing in new ways, the results are immensely satisfying but in a strange way, my naivety of listening to music as a whole has been taken away from me and the experience of simply enjoying music is gone. When I first got into dance music years ago I heard it as one piece of sound that in its entirety had the power to alter my state of mind in a split second. It was genius, an art form so far out of my reach or understanding that I could do nothing but let it blow my mind. Not once did I separate its elements, scrutinize its technical effects or pick flaws in its arrangement; I couldn't, I didn't know enough about it to do so.  As I begin to progress through understanding music's construction, seeing how that bleep has gone from flat to full and why that bassline creeps from nowhere and unexpectedly wraps itself around my ribcage. There is—and I pray to God always will be—a vast amount of music that is way beyond my assessment. But I miss my innocence. This week we're given one continuous piece of audio, full of separate beats and sounds. We need to deconstruct it into separate segments and then arrange them to make something cohesive. I separate the parts easily, snipping and chopping them with the scissor tool but struggle with the arrangement. I don't like the sounds we are given to work with, which doesn't help my desire to keep pushing until it's perfect but I get by with the bare minimum for this assignment and it sounds OK. My lack of enthusiasm for the allocated audio makes me think about remixes and how difficult it must be for producers who are asked to remix stems of a track that, quite frankly, they don't like. "Don't do it" may seem like the obvious answer. And that may be the case for the lucky ones, the already established artists. But for those still trying to make a name for themselves, refusing an opportunity at exposure might not be the wisest decision in the long run. Week 8 Friday 29th July My laptop is out of action for a week so I e-mail the college to see if I can go into their studio and use one of their computers. I've been thinking a lot about how my experience and progress would have differed if I had gone to a physical class to learn with a tutor in a studio. The online method is invaluable for a number of reasons. It gives you the freedom to continue everyday working life. And there's no other method where you can do an assignment at 3 AM on a Sunday morning, or stop a lecture mid-sentence, rewind and replay the teacher 32.5 times if necessary. But does the lack of personal contact and inability to ask spontaneous questions inhibit the results?  Alongside using the college's computer I ask if I can have one of the college tutors sit with me while I complete this week's assignment. I want to compare the process with a real life lesson and teacher. Point Blank agree for me to go along on Thursday afternoon where I can use their studio and one of the college tutors, Paul Crossman, AKA General Midi, will sit with me for three hours. It's not part of the standard syllabus and whether this would be agreed to for someone that wasn't writing a diary for a publication isn't asked or answered. I have no idea, but I see an opportunity and take it. Thursday 4th August It's the first time I'm using Logic in front of anyone other than close friends, so I feel defensive about showing my beginner standards to someone who has been releasing records since the late '90s. I eventually loosen up and take full advantage of the one-on-one studio session, though. Paul and I go through the assignment's pre-assigned audio files together, detect and change their tempo, Paul verbally instructing and me following on the computer.  I learn how to use flexing and slicing tools so that all our channels are running at the same tempo. I ask questions that are answered within seconds; Paul's hand gestures, repetition and physical demonstration aiding my understanding a huge deal. Our rhythm begins to take shape, Paul is getting into it, I am getting into it and, together, we create a mutual vibe and buzz for our piece. I begin to hum a bassline that's been rolling around in my head since we started piecing the audio into its arrangement and Paul plays and records it into our arrange page. We fiddle around with our bass, altering the notes and experimenting with sounds. He shows me a little about EQ and automation, and when I see what both of these do to our music, I begin to understand why everything I've been attempting sounds flat and dry. We touch only the tip of something so deep that an advanced course now seems even more of a necessity than it did before. Just as we begin automation, our three hours is up and I begrudgingly walk away from my studio session with Paul. I take away with me an adrenaline for making music that I doubt I'll forget in a long, long time.  Week 9 Wednesday 10th August Carrying on my buzz of working alongside a studio partner, I ask my friend if she'd like to come and do this week's assignment with me. I'm interested to see what she, as an Ableton user thinks of Logic. Initially the more complex interface of Logic seems a little daunting for her, but I see her mentally processing the difference between the two program's features as we work. There are numerous moments of disbelief as she realises how Logic performs a task in comparison to Ableton. Logic's Audio Scoring capabilities, for example, blow her away. We learn how to record our own lyrics/voices/sounds into audio and play with vocal processing, transposition to increase or decrease the pitch, harmonic correction and time stretching. We're not the best singers in the world, but it's an interactive, fun exercise and once again I am inspired by having a studio buddy. Week 10 - 12 Monday 15th August There are no set assignments for week 9 and 10, so I am left to study "Structure, Arrangement and Basic Mixing" via video demonstrations and course notes as my aid. Basic EQ theory, reverb, the usage of buses and effects are all covered thoroughly but without an assignment and feedback DVR, I can't be sure if I am getting it right.  Friday 26th August My final assignment is to create an entire track from start to finish, arrange it and mix it down using what we have learnt over the last 11 weeks. I make a list of all the things about house music that stand out to me, the elements I can't fail to notice and fall in love with every time and try to think about what I want to produce before beginning. I am determined to make something for my final assignment that I am happy with and I am also determined that I will go it 100% solo to analyze exactly what I've picked up. I go out, buy a rather obscene amount of alcohol to aid my "creative process" and close the curtains and door. I emerge three days later with two things: 1) a track and 2) my illusion of producing something that could come anywhere close to the standard of house music that's on the market today firmly in tatters.  I begin with a four chord synth sequence that I really love. It's slow, warm and emotive but unfortunately opens the trap door of being too mellow and I then struggle to get out of it. I don't want to lose that ambient edge so I stick with it, layering my synths, adding strings, beds and doubling up in sections. Aware that it's way too drawn out for a dance track, I start to program the dreaded drums to pick it up. One bass, one kick, two snares, two claps, various shakers, bongos, rim shots and seven layers of hi-hats later I'm still not happy. My bass doesn't seem to have any depth or power behind it or lift the rhythm as I want it to; my kick drum is dry and my claps generic. No amount of altering them seems to work so I move on, adding more instruments to bring movement and some kind of groove. It continues to sound linear, predictable and amateur. But while I'm not happy, I just don't know where else to go with it. I play it literally hundreds of times and it gets to a point where I cannot hear anything anymore. I arrange what I have and using what little effects I've learnt automate my strings, synths and pads, reverb my piano chords, set up and send through two buses and EQ a couple of my percussions. I listen to it on two sets of speakers and headphones before bouncing it down and hesitantly sending it to Alex. I'm suddenly very aware that it will be published alongside this piece and a whole new set of emotions open up. I feel exposed, shy and torn between an honest account of what I have learnt in 12 weeks and my ego of not wanting to be criticized. What I realise in the days after completing my course and being able to finally step outside of it being "me," however, is that this project has in fact only just begun. In order to fulfil creative potential, enjoy that process and even think about making good electronic music, I first had to learn how to make music at all. Only after that will I be able to begin a much longer journey into making music sound how I want it to. Can just about anyone make good electronic music these days? Yes. Good electronic music? Give me another 12 weeks, 12 months, 12 years. We'll see.

ATP AMERICA PRESENTS I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR CURATED BY PORTISHEAD & ATP

DnB NOR: Lucky in Life

DÍA DE NO USAR AUTOS!

World Carfree Day is an annual celebration of cities and public life, free from the noise, stress and pollution of cars. Each year on September 22, people around the world organise events of all sizes to showcase alternatives to the automobile!

"Rum Diary" Hunter S. Thompson

La indignación, el triunfo de la derecha y la Iniciativa

La indignación, el triunfo de la derecha y la Iniciativa

POR TITO OTERO  | 9 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2011 | 1:08 AM – 1 COMMENT

1

La indignación ha movilizado a centenares de miles en Europa.  Es maravilloso que miles de personas hayan dejado la comodidad de su casa, la televisión y el consumo, por bastantes días, para ir a la plaza pública y expresar su malestar.  Sin embargo, es tristísimo ver cómo la derecha ha capitalizado ese malestar electoralmente.

El resultado neto de la masa indignada que se abstuvo de votar en las elecciones municipales de España, fue que el Partido Popular (PP) ganó hasta en municipios en que nunca había ganado.En las elecciones parlamentarias españolas (ahora adelantadas) pasará lo mismo.  El Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) va a perder miserablemente y el PP se va a levantar con una mayoría parlamentaria a pesar de tener una minoría de votos.  Como sucedió en Portugal donde el 54% se abstuvo y la derecha ganó la mayoría parlamentaria con sólo un 28%.

Mientras tanto, los indignados se indignarán más sin convertirse en una fuerza política que sustituya a los dos partidos principales. La indignación se ha dirigido concreta y electoralmente contra el gobierno de turno aunque declare que aspira a un cambio sistémico total.  Es decir, este grupo termina siendo uno de presión que no genera los cambios a los que aspira.

En Egipto la indignación tumbó a Mubarak porque allí no existían las instancias democráticas que existen en Europa.  En Egipto el gobierno no tenía más alternativa que reprimir salvajemente y prolongarse en el poder por un tiempo más o sucumbir ante la presión de la gente y salirse.  No había alternativas de compartir poder, no había los mecanismos.  Igualmente en Libia.

En Europa, aunque con limitaciones y con privilegios inmensos de las corporaciones, existen procedimientos democráticos.  No usarlos es abrirle el paso a los que los usan.  Así, la derecha va a ganar porque los otros se retiran.

El poder está en la calle, tanto en Egipto, en Libia, en Europa como en Puerto Rico. No obstante, la articulación efectiva de ese poder varía según las circunstancias. Ignorar la vía electoral en Europa es, me parece, darle la victoria a la oposición.

Entonces, ¿qué se podría hacer?  Involucrarse y crear una fuerza política que sustituya tanto al gobierno de turno como a su oposición.  Así, desde la legitimidad de ser gobierno, entonces crear nuevos mecanismos de participación y de mayor democracia comunitaria para limitar las ganancias de las corporaciones, asegurar una mejor salud, proteger la naturaleza, etc.  O sea, llegar a ser gobierno para construir una governanza de mayor participación directa.

En Europa es mucho más fácil crear organizaciones políticas nuevas porque el sistema es de representación proporcional.  Es decir, si un nuevo partido obtiene un 5% del voto al parlamento, la cantidad de escaños que tendrá en el Parlamento será igual a un 5%. O sea. que si ninguno de los partidos grandes saca más del 50% de los votos, tienen entonces que gobernar con la ayuda de otros partidos hasta conformar una coalición que supere el 51% de los escaños. Esto permite que el elector a la hora de votar por un tercer o cuarto partido, no pierda su voto.  Su voto estará representado por ese 5% u 8%, o el que sea, que su tercer o cuarto partido ha obtenido.  Y estos partidos a su vez tienen la capacidad de negociar con los partidos más grandes.

¿Qué permite esto?  Que se pase legislación de los partidos chiquitos y que no se pueda ignorar olímpicamente a los minoritarios, que haya que contar con ellos.  Así, se podría aprobar legislación para instituir la Iniciativa Ciudadana por ejemplo.  La Iniciativa Ciudadana es un mecanismo democrático mediante el cual cualquier ciudadano o ciudadana tiene el derecho de recoger un número de firmas establecido con el propósito de que una propuesta suya se le presente a votación a la población y si es favorecida por el voto mayoritario, se convierte en ley.  Es un mecanismo de legislación directa del ciudadano.  Éste sería una herramienta extraordinaria para los indignados porque a través de él podrían legislar muchas de las demandas y aspiraciones de su movimiento.

En Italia, por ejemplo, el pueblo italiano le ganó cuatro plebiscitos a Berlusconi. Dos de ellos sobre la privatización del agua, uno sobre la energía nuclear y uno sobre la ley del legítimo impedimento (ley de impunidad para funcionarios públicos) que el mismo Berlusconi impulsaba para provecho propio.

2

En Puerto Rico, lamentablemente no existe la representación proporcional.  Por esta razón, la constitución de nuevas organizaciones políticas electorales tienen escasa posibilidad de obtener suficiente poder político como para lograr hacer alianzas legislativas verdaderas.

En ¿Y por qué no un MUS Party? he propuesto que organizar grupos políticos para participar en las primarias de los partidos principales eligiendo candidatos comprometidos con la iniciativa, con la representación proporcional, con la protección de la naturaleza, con un sistema de salud universal, con las energías alternativas podría crear cierta fuerza legislativa que adelante estos proyectos.

La insastisfacción de la gente con la legislatura es uno de los asuntos importantes en las elecciones que se aproximan.  La gente está harta de la mediocridad y del abuso de los líderes legislativos que aprueban legislación a las millas y sin considerar las opiniones del electorado.

Desde la huelga de la Telefónica en el 1998 hemos promovido la Iniciativa Ciudadana en la Isla.  Al finalizar el cuatrenio de Sila Calderón logramos, vía el entonces Presidente de la Cámara de Representantes, licenciado Carlos Vizcarrondo, la aprobación de un proyecto de ley que viabilizaría una Iniciativa Ciudadana consultiva, o sea, no vinculante.  Al menos se aprobó algo.  Lamentablemente el Senado presidido por Fas Alzamora no llegó ni a considerar la pieza legislativa.

Creo que es el momento de volver sobre la Iniciativa Ciudadana y de hacer de ella un asunto de discusión para las próximas elecciones. Con la Iniciativa Ciudadana, el poder que está en la calle y las aspiraciones de muchos podrían concretarse en leyes propuestas y aprobadas directamente por los ciudadanos y ciudadanas.

¡Vamos a hacerlo!  Estén pendientes para participar.

80grados.net

Santurce Es LEY 3

JA! el sueño no es...

Aqui es para que la lengua se desenvuelva!!!!!!!


es un es un es un es un es un
tarta un tara que fluye que ve, que hace que se mueve!!!!
Hayyyyyyyyyy, grito a grito, y grito, grito, grito.
lo vez no sabes, comprendes, no vez
explícame yo soy, yo estoy al réves........

Cojo ando, sin una cosita que ruede.....
sin una........
hayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
aveces duele

que usted cree?????????

ni vez ni veo,
usted esta ciego, por que ciego
no estoy,,, aun que sea ingenuo
la cosa esta enserio....

nuestro sentir
nuestro calor
el ser borincano, jíbaro
el que late y nutre......

....Se que es que somos
sabemos que el flojo sentir
no es posible solo que
el sentir posiblemente es
visible'