Archive for 2007
Drum Circles
In the recent months, many of my colleagues found it strange and surprising when I suddenly acquired a djembe, an African drum, and began hanging out with some new crowds, playing rhythms. The term for these gatherings is more easily known as Drum Circles.
The Montreal Experience
In my efforts to fulfill a goal of seeing more of the world, I decided to stay within North America and see our neighbor to the North, Canada. Upon invite from a lovely lady, Montreal was my destination with much excitement.
My initial expectations of the city were mostly that of a more European kind of city within North America; namely a more French environment. I did look forward to the idea of being in different settings, maybe some similar to my experiences in Greece. What I found was much to my expectations as well as much, much, more.
RIP: Tony Wilson
It's hard to say goodbye to those who made aspects and elements of our scene, and the loss of Tony Wilson does hit hard on everyone. I never really even knew of the man until the movie "24 Hour Party People", but it's amazing how his work hit me right from when I started spinning in 1992.
RIP: DJ Arguru
It's a shame when the world loses a talented artist so short in life, before they even took the world to further greatness.
On June 4, 2007, the world lost Juan Antonio Argüelles, aka DJ Arguru. While many can read this and think that we just lost a DJ, Arguru was way more than that. He was probably one of the most talented and creative software engineers for the digital music industry, with deep roles in the development of Fruity Loops Studio 7, the sampler DirectWave, and many other VST plugins used by digital music producers all over the world.
Deckadance – The Review!
Two months ago, I did a usability look at the interface of the demo of Deckadance. While I seemed harsh on the developers for some parts of the interface, I still held great hope in this program as a replacement for Traktor DJ Studio on my Final Scratch setup. The end result didn't disappoint me one bit. Deckadance in my book stands as the future for digital DJs out there.
Disciplining Children
Today I was watching TV and saw an ad that came off as rather disturbing in my eyes. It showed a High School cafeteria where every kid in there was unruly and noisy. An older gentleman who looked like the principal then came walking in and lowered what looks like a small screen where a DVD played, and the cafeteria went silent. The ad basically was advertising ceiling-mounted DVD screens that you can get in a family minivan. I later saw another ad from the same campaign where it was instead a school bus. Yet again it sent a message to me that children can be easily disciplined and controlled by putting them in front of a screen.
