New video up! Finally back at home and mostly settled in, streaming set up is also almost finished, got a couple of kinks to work out (you might notice the sound change towards the end as I re-recorded my outro) but getting there. Now that I am at home I have much tighter control on things.
This week I talk a bit about being back at home, G-market and their bullshit, and guys in a club who constantly stare at me while DJn… Creepy!
The extended version
Seriously 2016 will go down in the history books as the year the world went from semi messed up to straight bat shit crazy and the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it! Yes bring on those doom and gloom prophecies, that shit is fun to imagine and as long as I get my zombie apocalypse or alien invasion, I’ll be happy!
But on a more serious note personally 2016 for me was like any other year, a series of ups and downs, travel, DJn and just doing me. However even the good and bad extremes of this year were def more pronounced than previous years.
Here is my new weekly video log, check it out and I hope you enjoy. It is still very much a work in progress but my goal is to keep doing this weekly during 2017. Each week I am to keep improving and hope to be a pro at it by the end of the year!
Here is my interview I did with the one and only DJ Angelo! It was great hanging out and doing this interview with him. The final product came out pretty well. In hindsight thou I should have edited the video down for a more ‘general’ audience and spiced it up with extra bits and pieces but that is something I can work on for future interviews and projects. As far as a podcast type interview it came out great. Hope you enjoy! The video version is on Facebook and the Audio version is on SoundCloud. Chur!
https://soundcloud.com/gangnam-gamers/interview-with-dj-angelo
So, time for an update, things have been interesting in the last few months to say the least!
So, in August I had decided to start on this whole training thing and to take up competitive archery. I started training strength wise while also sorting out my weekly schedule etc etc and started doing some long term planning for it. However in September that got totally flipped on its head.
So, in September I got picked up by Gangnam Gamers to be a part of their team and to help with content for their various social media outlets which has been a very exciting opportunity and something I have always wanted to get into. Being a gamer most of my life, having an opportunity to get myself into the gaming industry has been sweet!
Now luckily as this started off, things were relatively quiet on the DJ front, so I could focus on GG and get our podcast up and running and put in a lot of work towards that, just setting the ground work and my schedule to make life easier since I would still have to teach and DJ. And as always, things decided to get busy again and I picked up a second DJ residency as well as a heap of one off events all in the space of a few weeks, so needless to say, the back half of October and start of November was stupidly crazy. But now things are looking like they will finally settle down so I can start settling into a regular routine.
While I haven’t had a chance to start going to the archery range in awhile, I have managed to keep up with the gym, not as often as I had planned but 2-3 times a week has been ok for now and I will start going to the range towards the end of November as well as increasing my gym work. DJn has settled down now too, so I have 2 sets on Friday night and 1-2 sets on Saturday night which should allow me to make the most of the days now in the weekend. Podcast once a week and a live game-stream once a week. I am also working on a fortnightly off-shoot of the podcast where I bring in friends and other guests to talk games etc as well as a few other ideas I am working on as well to further increase my portfolio in the gaming and ‘podcast/radio’ industry and of course to try and make GG successful.
As they say, when an opportunity arises, take it, but you also need to be ready for it and know how you want to use that opportunity. I have been given a great one here and I am going to use it fully to my advantage and make the most of it! Chur!
So, I finally got this mix done and finished, took awhile and I kept putting it off as other things came up (story of my life really) but got to the point where I just decided to put it down as a simple mix rather than mess around with scratch, juggles and acapellas otherwise I would have put it off even longer. So, a little bit of history behind this mixā¦
Initially I was asked to make a work out mix consisting of all female artists since the good people over at show kings have been interviewing and working with some of the local female Korean body sculptures/builders so having a work out mix catered to them would have been a nice fit. However therein lay the problem, finding enough songs done by female rappers that people not only know but that were also up-tempo enough with a strong enough beat to serve as good work out music. Needless to say, it was a bit of a fail. Why?
Well, think about it, how totally under represented are females in Hip Hop, name your top 20 artists, are any of them female? I highly doubt it, maybe 1 or 2 might sneak into some peoplesā lists but even if they do (Lauryn Hill would have to be up there), thatās still barely 10%. So my song pool was extremely limited, too limited to make a full mix of workout style songs so instead I decided to make it more of a Hip Hop/RnB classic cross mix so I could feature more female artists and still include songs that people would know (Using female artists from current music is even less of an option given how bad they are)
Still, even in doing so, there are obviously a few artists who feature more than others which is a testament to those artists but it is also sad that the industry has really relegated female artists to a mere after thought. Even more sad when you listen to what some of these very talented females artist had to say in their rhymes back then acting as really positive role modals for young females, a far cry from the female hip hop artists of today who are either too caught up on image or no one can understand what the hell they are saying (yes Iām looking at you Iggy)
Ill attach this article as well about Missy Elliot that gives a really good and clear view of how influential some of these female artists were and the legacy they have left behind
So, that was a long weekend! As Im sitting on the train heading back up to Seoul after a week in Busan, it allows me a bit of time to reflect over the week that was. Firstly, I love Busan, I would love to live there if the Seoul DJ scene wasn’t so good. The weather while I was there was almost perfect, had plenty of time to relax, catch up with friends and oh yeah, compete! So in case you missed it, on Saturday was the 3rd BeFm DJ comp, after coming second the previous 2 years, this year I finally managed to get that elusive first place that I had narrowly missed out on the years before. Now while the victory did have a small hollow point for me, overall it still felt pretty good and a relief that I managed to clinch first this year. Going into the competition as a pretty strong favourite wasn’t exactly a fun feeling for me, I’ve always preferred the underdog status and have been pretty used to that in the years now since Ive been in Korea, so knowing coming into this comp that I should win was def a bit of added pressure that didn’t really allow me to relax as much as I normally would before such a comp.
Anyways this year was a good group of DJs, we mostly knew each other already so at least before the comp it was easy enough to hang out, joke with each other while hanging around on a hot ass day in Busan. The weather was seriously great thou esp. compared to last year! However we were still waiting and waiting for Pinnacle to show up, which he finally did, just as he was due on stage! Poor bastard, gets on stage and then has a huge equipment fail, yeah that really rounded off his night, so the order got bumped and he got relegated to performing last.
So, quickly thru the DJs.
First up was ColdChillin, I remember his set from the first year where he managed to get 3rd place, this year again he came again with a nice set, struggled to get the crowd into it (an on-going theme all night) but still managed to set a nice medium ish bar.
Next was myself, after making a bit of a meal of my intro… (stupid CDJs, again, another on-going theme all night) I settled into my set well enough, I sold my soul and played Coco… which ended up being a total flop (fml so that pissed me off) but that was where my set abandoned being too technical and went straight to crowd service which worked exactly how I expected it to. With the exception of that stupid coco song, everything went exactly how I planned
After me was the Chinese entrant, DJasce, again he played a nice set with some good tracks and good transitions, but once again struggled to get the crowd into it, for his first outing thou Im sure he will learn from it
Next was Idub, another Seoul DJ and also his first year in the comp, again had some good tracks and nice set, managed to get the crowd a bit at times but again struggled to really keep them but did enough with his set to come in 2nd place
Next another top DJ, in his second year competiting, Kiredmik was up and came with a pretty intense set, something like 28 tracks in 9mins, dude playing like the world was about to end! However that kind of play style was quickly lost on the crowd and the medley style of set fell a bit flat and just never gave himself a chance to impress on the crowd
DJ Rell back again was up and again had some nice tracks and had a set a bit more crowd orientated and managed to pick up a few cheers along the way but once again nothing sustained and failed to maintain it throughout but had a couple of good moments up there which was enough to get him 3rd
And finally Pinnacle got back up this time with little technical difficulties aside got to try and bust out his set. He started out with the Next Episode juggle routine made famous by Jazzy Jeff, while I applaud the effort, it is a difficult routine to pull off and he struggled to make it work leaving the crowd standing there just gawking. The rest of his set didn’t bode much better either and in the end you could tell he just wanted the hell out of there
And so that was it, I was only partly paying attention to everyones sets but the overall theme of the night was poor track selection and an inability to get in the crowds face and really control them from start to finish. Oh and shitty CDJs… seriously, one of these years can we get the proper and reliable equipment, just once?
Anyways, after the winners announcement I was called to play a set on stage.. yeah all the preparation! But still I was in the ‘I don’t give a fuck’ stage of mind, just happy that I won so jumped on, played a heap of bangers, had more fun with the crowd, trolled them a little bit cause I now could! Got the other DJs up on stage with me, took a mean selfie that Rell missed out on and overall just rocked out, should prob have planned a set before hand but it didn’t matter in the end.
After the comp we all went, had a mean feed, then basked in free drinks at a club down the road before heading to another club where a couple of us were playing. Overall it was a dam good night!
So that is pretty much it, a great week away of chilling and DJn by the beach, catching up with friends, eating some good food and enjoying life! Here is a copy of my final set, its a rough version I just used so I could practice it in my head.
Also waiting on a copy of my interview with Chad on Nightrider on Busan eFM on Monday night. It was nice to finally get in the studio with him and hang out. As for next year, will I enter again… Well we shall see, I was thinking after this year I would like to make way for some other DJs to enter and try their luck but at the same time, the prize money and the chance to come back to Busan again is a pretty good incentive!
Yup, so once again I decided to enter BeFm again (Busan FM expat DJ competition) This year it’s on a Saturday night so should be more fun than last years Sunday night (thou it was still stupidly busy) Still waiting on the line-up but will add the poster later on. I will be heading down to Busan a few days before to hang out and staying around for a few days later. Should be a blast! Anyways here is my entry set (my final set will be nothing like this, once again it will be a festival style set)
So again its been a hectic few months, it seriously always seems that way but this time even more so than usual.
So lets start with first things first, Redbull Thre3style Korea… Once again Thre3style returns to Korea… and once again it is plagued by your typical bullshit Korean judging style, I’m not going to even pretend to pull punches on this one, while at the end of the day a good DJ won, the lead up to that and who ended up in the finals was really nothing short of atrocious and to me really kills any integrity the competition has in Korea. While I myself am not mad I didn’t get thru (thou I prob have a good case to be angry) out of the 4 DJs who made it thru only 1 def deserved to be there, while another one got thru due to their high vote count, so that is acceptable, however the other 2 DJs should never have made it thru. Ill post more about this later but yeah, thats where I stand on that. Anyways here is the video of my entry so enjoy it!
Ā So after that I did manage to get away on holiday to Hong Kong! Been on my to do list for awhile since being in Asia, mainly because I wanted to check out the infamous sneaker street… yeah its not as good as one would have you believe, in saying that it is still pretty good and managed to pick up some dope kicks!
Back from Hong Kong, next up was WDJ Festival, again playing in the DJ Korea tent thou this year was much better than last year and more reminiscent of the first year I DJ’d there. The festival itself thou was rubbish, the DJs were average and I think I head all of them make mistakes, that along side the fact that it was relatively a small crowd, I can’t imagine it happening again next year. But at least I managed to have fun during my set and then MC’n for the DJ after me!
Among this madness was the bombshell that my job was being terminated and that I would need to find a new job… In your typical Korean bullshit way, I was told that there wasn’t enough student numbers (thou they new the numbers at the start of the semester) and that they were cancelling the program, much to everyones annoyance and of course to the detriment of the kids, but its ok, the only thing that matters is money… Such bullshit. Anyways I was luck enough that the company I am still with managed to find me another position, so at least I have a job…
The good news with the new job is that I get a month off in July/Aug… the bad news is I don’t have enough money to do a big trip so will have to try and take a short one week trip, looks like China!
I did almost get a new residency as well in a bar that I would have loved… but that lasted all of one weekend…
I managed to finally get my bow!!! And its a beast! Thou maybe I should have got one that is also sold in Korea… That could come back to bite me in the ass later on.
And finally looks like BeFM is doing the expat DJ comp again… Guess I will try for third time lucky!
Ā
Only a day left to vote, voting closes I guess at midnight Wednesday night, prob Korean time, so if you haven’t yet, please vote and check out the video while your at it and let me know your thoughts!
Here is the link to vote, just click the Blue Button to Vote, then click the Grey Button to share!!
http://thre3style.redbull.com/redbull/vote_view/62
You can also view the video from there too!
akadjblaze 