Event Details
Date: Saturday, August 04, 2012
Start Time: 8:00 PM
Event Type: DJ Events, Special Events
Last Updated: August 03, 2012
Views: 16
Miguel Migs and DJ DanMiguel MigsMiguel Migs, who has a new album Outside the Skyline, is now moving well and truly beyond the limitations of the house scene in which he first made his name. His deep seated love of reggae and dub shines strongly through as well as his passion for classic rock, blues, funk and soul.Not that his career to date hasnt been illustrious enough. Just look the list of collaborators hes managed to attract: original disco diva Evelyn Champagne King, reggae legends Capleton, Half Pint and Freddie MacGregor, Meshell Ndegeocello, nu jazz singer Georg Levin and bossa nova phenomenon Bebel Gilberto all feature on the album, alongside Migs regular vocal co-conspirators, Aya and Lisa Shaw. No slave to metronomic dancefloor rhythms and tempos, the resulting long-player blends influences from house, jazz, reggae, soul and more, with a heavy emphasis on high-quality songwriting and equally high production values.I definitely spend more time on my studio production sounds these days Im constantly tweaking everything! he laughs. Songwriting is paramount, but so is getting the EQ right, getting the separation of the sounds right, getting the songs to sound warm with depth, dimension and musicality Im pretty happy with this album, but really I still feel like Im at the beginning of my career as an artist, as a songwriter and as a producer. I plan on doing this for another 30 years.Those early house records I made, he continues, its flattering when people tell you they mean something to them, but I was just a broke kid then rushing the productions to get stuff out there, figuring it all out on the fly as I went along. Now, I get the chance to work with some of my musical heroes, which is amazing when I started work on the album, I sent out a lot of emails to different people, mostly just via their record label or management. And when someone like Evelyn or Freddie replies, and they say they love your music thats a pretty awesome feeling.DJ DanBorn and raised on the West coast, Dan was entrenched in music from an early age, 1989 to be exact, a time when the rave scene was enduring its birth. Its a sweeping understatement to say Dan has been at the forefront of dance music culture since the late 1980s, especially when you consider how hes shaped trends and sounds in his homeland all his musical life, taking the baton from house luminaries such as DJ Pierre, Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy. Drawing influence from a wealth of musical genres, Dan charts disco, jazz and funk as precursors to his interest in more industrial forms of music including freestyle and some forms of rock.Sharpening his skills with wax at small clubs in Seattle, Dans experience in the late 80s behind the decks converted into a profound knowledge of what people want on the dance floor, a trait still ingrained in him today.The early 90s saw Dan move to Los Angeles, feeding the roots of the emerging underground scene in the US, Dans after-hours shindig No-Doz rounded off debauched weekends for the fledgling DJ, holding down multiple dance floors each Saturday. As the scene exploded Dan was at the centre of a musical revolution; underground promoters snapped up his ability to blend breaks, disco and all things funky that inadvertently placed him as the leading figure on the rave scene.In 1993; a move to San Francisco with a re-invented sound that lended itself more to acid house and electro, Dan instigated the formation of the legendary group Funky Tekno Tribe that sought to push the boundaries of house music. Dans innovative eye for promotion saw him implement the recordings and distribution of mixtapes, a simple yet revolutionary method that soon developed into a frenzied culture that remains an electronic music mainstay, in various forms, until today. With an ear for good music and eye for new talent, it was at this time that the FTT brought an unknown French duo to tear up one of their parties Daft Punk never looked back.This period marked the beginning of the burgeoning breakbeat genre that encapsulated house, dubs and techno. At the heart, DJ Dan, who generated the fused rhythms that were dubbed the West Coast House Sound.