break (of) dons: stanton warriors

Monday notes:

-Stanton Warriors (above) do Fabriclive 30, a mix-CD out Dec. 5. It's a wicked, up-tempo break-beat mix, with some Spank Rock, Booka Shade and old school Miami bass thrown in.

-American techno hero John Tejada has a new album, Cleaning Sounds Is A Filthy Business, out on Palette Oct. 26.

-Indiana University is hosting what it claims is the first academic conference exploring the African American roots of techno, a genre born in nearby Detroit in the early 1980s. "Roots of Techno: Black DJs and the Detroit Scene" happens Oct. 21 in Willkie Auditorium, 150 N. Rose St, Bloomington, Indiana. Juan Atkins will be at the podium for the event.

-The Detroit Free Press gives Underground Resistance's Interstellar Fugitives: Destruction of Order compilation a rousing thumbs up.

-Ministry of Sound's online music store will allow other labels to sell songs there, so long as they don't restrict how customers use them (as in no Digital Rights Management technology that limits how many computers, copies or burns can be involved). Sounds original, but Beatport has been doing this sort of thing from the start. Spotted via Coolfer.

-And, speaking of credit where credit is due, I have to note a New York Times piece yesterday that trumpets the rise of Sawtelle Boulevard in West Los Angeles as a new beacon of pop and culinary culture. The piece gives credit to the Giant Robot store for "kick-starting the trend" in 2001. I respect owner Eric Nakamura and his contributions to the area (I believe he grew up there) and to Asian pop in general. His magazine of the same name definitely kicked off the new Asian craze in pop culture, and I gave him credit for such in the Los Angeles Times in 1997. But that year, I was already a fixture on Sawtelle, hosting weekly DJ nights. In fact, my friends (DJ Steve Phunk, another area native, along with Mar Vista/Venice's Ger-i Lewis, and Jam E Jam) and I were bringing a new kind of life to Sawtelle as early as 1996 at a place called Cafe Muse, where we hosted DJ nights, along with other crews we helped hand-pick, Wednesday through Saturday, long before Giant Robot or the Black Market Gallery were there. Guest DJs included Dave Dresden of Gabriel & Dresden, Deepsky's J. Scott G., Swedish Egil, Hiro, Holly Adams, and more. We had the place hoppin' on and off through 2005. It's now called Zip Fusion Sushi. A little credit?

-If you have any doubts about the future of electronic dance music, I think this will raise your hopes: A brand new high school in an affluent northern San Diego County district has opened an "electronic-music composition studio" that "enables students to compose, record, practice, manipulate and create music for instruments they've never handled," states the Union-Tribune. "Just about anything that can be done digitally with music is possible." One class is called "MIDI Comp 1."

-Tracks have been offered for readers of the blogga: Down load them.

Zero 7, "You're My Flame (Dabrye Remix)."
Zero 7, "Futures (Rub N Tug Remix)."
Tony Devivo, "Percussion Suite (Osunlade's Yoruba Peoples Remix)."