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The Silver Pesos – “Born at Midnight”

gary-o — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:19:00 +0000

Back in October 2009, I posted about a song I’d heard while working a late night at Topspin called ‘Regresando’. The band was The Silver Pesos.

A little more than a year later, The Silver Pesos released their debut album “Born at Midnight” and the complete work was everything I expected, and more. Peter Brambl and Chloe Conger, two very talented individuals, collaborated with a handful of top notch musicians to bring this album to life. It’s an eclectic blend of electronic rhythms, soulful vocals and a contagious Latin thread that runs through the album. Peter’s penchant for Caribbean and African music also fills the record with warmth and uplifting, soulful energy, even in the most mellow of songs. My personal faves on this record are ‘Regresando’ (surprise) and ‘No History’, but the entire album is quite the package as a whole.

I was fortunate enough to not only interview Peter, but also give you, Paper Buddha listeners, an opportunity to get the entire album in digital form (320kbps MP3) for free. All you need to give in return is an email address – a more than equitable exchange, no? Just enter your email into the widget below and you’ll get a link to download the album from Peter’s marketing partner, Topspin Media. And, if you like what you hear, I encourage you to support The Silver Pesos by purchasing an upgrade of the album in physical form as well as a limited edition T-shirt and even a Deluxe Edition complete with tracks stems for remixing.

Stream the full album as well as exclusive remixes (sold separately).

My interview with Peter:

How and where did The Silver Pesos come to be and who are the members?

Chloe and I are basically the nucleus of the group, with help from co-producer Robert Weber and a variety of additional musicians, most notably Doddy Sambodo and Deny Surya. Chloe, Rob, and I are old friends from university days, and we’ve stayed in touch over the years and worked on various projects together. A couple of years ago, Chloe and I got pretty focused on this current batch of songs and decided to give it a name and turn it into a little enterprise. We’re based in Los Angeles at the moment, but much of the recording took place around the world using mobile equipment. Rob also has his own studio in Indonesia, so we tracked quite a bit of the songs there too.

What was your involvement in the project?

I wrote and arranged all of the instrumental pieces, and co-wrote the lyrics and vocal parts with Chloe. For the recording of the record, I shared production duties with Rob.

What was the recording process like?

It probably took longer than it needed to. We had a idea for the record in our heads, which was going to be a mix of live instruments and sequenced elements, plus a lot of vintage sounds— Jamaican dub effects, old sixties reverb tricks, things like that. The songs were first recorded with a full band— meaning bass, drums, guitars, etc. Later on, we used software to restructure the songs, or in some cases sample the songs and do dub remixes of them. We even sent a bunch of tracks to a guy to transfer to analog tape, do some work, and then bounce it back. Getting everything to gel together was a challenge, but I think we pulled it off.

The other challenge was that the band was not always in the same room. So we came to rely upon the internet for collaboration. We would do session recordings in places like Bali and Mexico, post the stems to our server, and then shoot mixes and overdubs back and forth. A lot of bands are doing this type of thing these days, and it really does open up some new possibilities.

What would you say were the musical influences for Born at Midnight (and for the band’s style overall if it’s relevant)?

We like all kinds of dance music and also more abstract genres like dub and ambient. Rob and I are really into west and south African artists like Thomas Mapfumo, Fela, Ali Farka Touré, and so on. On some of the songs, like “Remember the Land” and “Garifuna,” you can hear a bit of west African guitar influence. Other influences would include producers like Diplo, Lindstrom, and Daniel Lanois. In terms of sound, we found that the combination of Chloe singing her style of folk-blues on top of these skittery, funky tropical bass tunes was an interesting combination, and one that allowed us a lot of freedom to mix up genres.

Some of the lyrics are in Spanish, and some in English. Can you talk a bit about the songwriting process?

At first, we used other languages as a way of laying down temporary vocal tracks without worrying about the meaning. We would literally grab fragments out of Pablo Neruda books and just use them as grist for the mill. Chloe is actually fluent in Spanish—she lives in Mexico part-time—and as as time went by we decided it might be interesting to incorporate some original verse in Spanish as well. It’s certainly a beautiful language for singing, and we found that it added an interesting effect to the song, adding a new voice and sometimes causing the listener to shift attention for a few bars.

Chloe and I are big fans of songwriters like David Byrne, Neil Young, and Lou Reed. One thing that all of those writers have in common is the ability to shift between different types of voices or points of view between songs— it’s often not the singer who is the subject of the song, but another character. That’s really interesting to us, and I can see us continuing to develop a songwriting style along those lines.

How has the album been received so far by the media, fans and other taste makers?

We were very lucky to have great feedback early on. KCRW played our first single on the same day they received the CD, so we took that as a sign that we should probably finish the record! There’s also been some great feedback from blogs and fans reaching out to us on Twitter. It was not immediately obvious a few years ago, but Twitter is a great medium for discovering new music and connecting with folks directly.

Why did you decide to release this album directly to your fans vs. seeking a label deal?

For a somewhat non-commercial act like us, it may be the only way to go. Regardless of how you do it, releasing a debut record has its challenges. It’s not really possible to do a lot of advance press or publicity, because you don’t have a long track record or a fan base that is waiting ardently for the release date. It may take 12-18 months for this record to find its audience. Most of that will depend upon our own efforts during this time— playing out, putting out new content, and so on. We’re assuming most of the risk anyway, so why not do it ourselves? Down the road, it may make sense for us to partner with someone else, but for right now we’re having a lot of fun connecting fans ourselves and watching the band grow on a grassroots level. It’s great to communicate directly with folks and let them participate in our development.

What plans do you have to distribute Born at Midnight via more traditional retail channels, specifically digital service providers like iTunes?

The album is now available on iTunes and Amazon, and we may even do a little work with indie retail. If we were ginormous, there would be some advantages to releasing it exclusively on our own site, but for now we’re trying to make it as easy as possible to find our songs.

That being said, the best place to buy the album is our site— www.thesilverpesos.com — because we offer the record at a better price and with a lot more options than you’ll find anywhere else. You can get it with additional remixes, and you can even get the remix stems for your own dabbling. There are also things like t-shirts and posters that come bundled with downloads as well.

When will your fans get to hear The Silver Pesos perform live? Any tours planned?

Most definitely. We’ve started rehearsing our live act and we plan to play some dates in Los Angeles this spring, with the intention of playing more cities this year. I doubt we’ll do a full-blown tour, but we’ll probably try to do a string of dates in various places around the world. If anyone out there is interested, please do get in touch with us at: info [at] thesilverpesos.com.

Whats next for you and the band?

2011 is going to be pretty fast-paced. We’d like to get out of the album release cycle and into shorter release cycles with smaller batches of original songs, remixes, videos, and things like that. There are new folks joining our live act, and I’m looking forward to adding their influences to our recordings and songwriting.

Gary-O

Transitionism – A Mix by DJ Gary-O

gary-o — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 07:37:12 +0000

The past seven months have been insane. New work, new friends, new surroundings, and a relocation that seems like it will never end. Good thing I’ve got incredible music to listen to non stop! I cranked out this mix tonight to relieve some stress and escape for a bit. All new tunes – all tech house – all groovy. Just what the doctor ordered to shake off the craziness and recharge.

BTW – I make all of my mixes live on Technics SL1200s with Serato. No Ableton or other cut and paste apps.

Hope you like this thing – it’s a roller.

DJ Gary-O

Transitionism – A mix by DJ Gary-O

01) Shonky – Carnage (Original Mix)
02) Cesare vs Disorder – Schonleinstrasse (Original Mix)
03) Cesare vs Disorder, Rainer – Battle For Mouths (Kate Simko Remix)
04) Paneoh – Psicoilogical (Original Mix)
05) Falko Richtberg, Sebastian Wojkowski – Salt ‘n’ Bread (Audiojack’s Bottle ‘n’ Spring Remix)
06) John Tejada – Sweat (On The Walls) (Donnacha Costello Remix)
07) Sam Ball – Fill it Up (Original Mix)
08) Max Cooper – Chaotisch Serie (Maetrik Abstract Beats Remix)
09) Cesare vs Disorder, Rainer – I Didnt Mean To Kill You feat. Rainer (Original Mix)
10) Sabb, Maetrik – Marinda (Original Mix)
11) Satyr – Roadrunner (Original Mix)
12) Chic Miniature – Escandalo (Original Mix)
13) Marshall (aka Luigi Rocca), Manuel De La Mare – Blackbird (Original Mix)
14) Digitaline – Kaya (Original Mix)
15) George Thompson, Andre Kraml – Laid Back Snack Attack (Accapella)/Safari

Old Skool DJ Gary-O EDGEClub Midnight Mix – 1995

gary-o — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 20:12:18 +0000

A few weeks ago I got an email from Clynt Breeding, a head from back in the day, who had one of my EDGEClub mixes in his possession – one that I had misplaced over the years. Here it is for your listening pleasure – March 18, 1995 – a blast from the past. Sorry I don’t have a complete track listing on this one, but you may recognize a few of them. The first song is one of my top 10 tracks of all time called “I Shall Be Released” (DiY Love Cabbage Mix) by Alabama Three, followed immediately by “Talk to Me” (Sasha’s Full Music Master) by Hysterix. Jeff K (host of EDGEClub at the time), has the complete playlist here. Just look for March 1995.

Gary-O

DJ Gary-O EDGEClub Mix March 18, 1995

Britton Spring ’10 Mix

dj.michael.todd — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:11:16 +0000

This week, I have a very special guest. It’s not often he has the time to put together a mix, but when he does, it’s something I really enjoy listening to. He was pretty much my partner in crime for a good decade; we threw so many parties and events and had residencies at clubs I can barely even remember. Our Groov-E Company days were so memorable and just make me smile everytime I think about them.

DJ Britton was pretty much the first dj/promoter to bring underground dance music to the unsuspecting masses in Ft Worth TX. Our Nervosa night on Sundays at 8.0 featured some killer talent, local and nationally. From Rob Vaughan and Redeye to DJ Love and Lance Cashion, just about every Dallas dj played there in our 5 year run. But enough about the good old days……

Keep up with Britton and his mixes here and on his Soundcloud page. Or hit him up on Facebook. Time to get ya groove on!!

Britton Spring ’10

01. Superstar (Curtis B) – Sue Cho + Heavygrinder
02. Bass Association f. Louise Marshall – Far Too Loud
03. We Get Wicked f. MC Vex (General Midi) – Vespers
04. London Town (Foamo) – Man Like Me
05. 128 Trek – DJ Zinc
06. Baddest DJ f. Matt B – DJ Hero + Matt B
07. T.E.A.S.E. (Dustin Hulton) – Hot Mouth + Yacek
08. Back To The Old Jack – Freerange DJ’s
09. The Law Of Life – Elite Force
10. Hitman – Tony Faline
11. Detox (Project Access Denied) – Lee Coombs
12. Feedback – Vent

Elite Force DIY

gary-o — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:02:18 +0000

Happy New Year everyone! Sorry I’ve been away so long, but some big things happened in my life that required my undivided attention – the most important being the birth of my son, Griffin. He graced us with his presence in October, which was a few weeks earlier than expected. Next to meeting and marrying my wife, Kelly, he is the best thing to ever happen to me. As I told my cousin over the phone yesterday, my heart is full.

The other thing that required my attention was the continued and accelerated expansion of our artist roster at Topspin. We closed the year with more than 250 artists marketing and selling music directly to their fans using our platform. Part of this expansion has involved the onboarding of artists who appeal to my electronic tastes and one such artist that decided to take the plunge with us was Elite Force. If you’ve been a frequent visitor to this blog, you know I’m a sucker for some good tech funk and Elite Force is the reigning king of tech funk.

If you drop by www.eliteforcemusic.com you’ll find a ton of free and for-sale music in digital, CD and vinyl formats. The most recent Elite Force offering is a re-release of the 2003 record ‘No Turning Back’ only this time it’s available for download in 320kbps MP3, FLAC and Apple Lossless formats, and there are also a few bundles with complete sets of stems for remixing and limited edition CDs and Vinyl. You can also pick up a few free tracks using the widgets below, the most recent being an Elite Force vs. Yeah Yeah Yeahs re-fix of Maps.

There’s a new record called ‘Re:Vamped’ on the horizon – check out the streaming player below for a good tease of what’s to come. Get on his mailing list and you’ll get notified when the pre-order starts.

No Turning Back

Re:Vamped – Coming Soon

Some Free Tracks

Perfect Strangers – “Effer”

gary-o — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 14:52:34 +0000

I got my hands on the latest Boogie Basics release from Perfect Strangers and it’s slammin’. “Effer” is a solid groove featuring straight up house and tech mixes from the likes of Riche ‘BoOm’ Stanley, Jabwai, and PointBender, among others. The Perfect Strangers are Patchen (Harmonious Discord) and Sean Anderson (Grey) – very talented cats from Dallas who now call Austin home. They’ve been cranking out choice tunes for a while and this collaboration has resulted in some really good shit.

Riche came out to visit us on the Left Coast a few months back and gave me the rundown on Boogie Basics plans. They’ve released a ton of good music over the past year or so and I’m expecting even bigger things to come.

Have a listen to two mixes of ‘Effer’, then go to Beatport to get them all.

Perfect Strangers – Effer (Riche BoOm BB Edit)
Perfect Strangers – Effer (Jabwai’s Emergency Mix)

DJ Gary-O & Scot Gray – “Q-bass’d”

gary-o — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:02:02 +0000

13 years ago, I spent a weekend in Austin, TX at the studio of a very talented DJ/producer (and good friend at the time), Scot Gray. Scot and I had a fondness for acid breaks and we spent this particular weekend creating what would be one of only two dance tracks I would produce as an active DJ. The things I remember most about this particular studio session were that we did most of the work in one weekend and we used Cubase as the sequencing software and a Mackie board (can’t remember the rest of the equipment). I was also committed to using a snippet of James Brown from “Make it Funky” and the baseline from “For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays. If memory serves me right, we also did the bulk of the work the first day and auditioned the track live that night on a DAT at a now defunct club on 7th Street called OHMs. Scot was a resident DJ at OHMs and I was his guest DJ every now and then. I think Saturday nights were also broadcast on a local Austin radio station. Anyway, that night was the only time someone other than me or Scot would ever hear that track. A few months later I retired as a full-time DJ, and Kelly and I moved to LA to start a new chapter in our lives. I ran into Scot in 2000 when I was in town for SXSW and that was the last time our paths crossed.

So, I was rummaging through two big boxes of mix tapes yesterday and decided it was time to begin digitizing and posting them here on Paper Buddha. The first tape I pulled out was one called “DJ Gary-O & Scot Gray – Untitled”. I dropped the cassette into the deck, hit play and what started playing was not a mix tape, but that track from 1996. It sounded great for a 13-year-old tape so I digitized it for you to enjoy. It’s long – almost 11 minutes – and there are a handful of breakdowns and change-ups that could easily have been the foundations for alternate remixes. I guess we decided to throw everything together for that live audition at OHMs. Suffice it to say, I think it sounds pretty good for a mid-90s acid funk track that was never fully produced and mixed down. Maybe with sprucing up some elements could be repurposed. Only problem is I don’t have the original source file and the tape deck I’m using has a recognizable hum in the background. I’ll have to do some work to get this cleaned up, but I’m posting what I have for now so you can have a listen. I think I called this track”Q-bass’d” back in the day so I’ll leave it at that.

Scot – if you see/hear this and you’re interested in re-connecting, please drop me a line. I’d love to catch up.

DJ Gary-O & Scot Gray – “Q-bass’d”

New Album – Freeland’s ‘COPE™’

gary-o — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:46:17 +0000

Back in March, I published a post re: the lead single from Freeland’s debut release ‘COPE™’. The record debuted today and you can stream it from end to end in the streaming player below. I really like what Adam Freeland has done with this new band and the cast of contributiung artists makes the record that much more diverse and unique (Jerry Casale from Devo, Brody Dale from Spinnerette and Tommy Lee, to name a few). The record is getting great reviews, like this one from musicOMH which dubs ‘COPE™’ a modern counterpart to The Prodigy’s third record, ‘The Fat of the LandFat of the Land‘.

You can pick up ‘COPE™’ directly from freeland.fm in a variety of digital and physical formats including CD, vinyl and and even a Deluxe Edition that comes complete wth a hardbound COPE™ book, vinyl, CD, digital (high quality MP3, FLAC and Apple Lossless) and an ipod compatible video of a complete album listening party shot in Adam’s studio with his closest friends.

FREELAND – “Under Control”

gary-o — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:34:55 +0000

One of my favorite producer/DJs Adam Freeland is gearing up for his first full-length record release in more than four years, only this time he’s doing it with a full band – appropriately named FREELAND. The album title is “Cope” (a fitting name given these challenging times in which we live), and Adam is making first single “Under Control” available for streaming. And, if you give an email you’ll get a bangin’ MP3 of the Alex Metric remix for free. Check it out the tracks below, get your free download, and visit www.adamfreeland.com often to get more info about the record release plans as they unfold. “Cope” will be available in a variety of formats, one of which will be a deluxe package with some special goodies for you diehard Adam Freeland fans.

BTW – if you’re headed to SXSW in Austin, Texas next week (like me!) you can catch FREELAND and Adam doing the solo DJ thing at the following joints:

Thursday, March 19
- 3:00 p.m. Little Radio/Topspin Party @ Red Eyed Fly (FREELAND LIVE)
- 9:15 p.m. BIG STEREO @ Canvas Bar & Gallery (DJ set)
- Midnight – The Great Escape Party @ Rooftop/Maggie Mae’s (FREELAND LIVE)
Friday, March 20
- Midnight – Official SXSW Showcase @ Vice (FREELAND LIVE)
Saturday, March 21
- Midnight – Firehouse Lounge (DJ set)

Manalive…Inner City Revisited

gary-o — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:32:06 +0000

Bush Records recently released a minimal tech house track by Devilfish and Roel Salemink called ManaliveManalive. A few seconds into the first mix and main synth line from Inner City’s Good Life (Original 12'' Mix)">Good Life reveals itself. Now, as sample rip offs go, Manalive is not very high on my best-of sample/remix list (especially given the original is a true house anthem), but I have to tip my hat to the production duo for creating something that is unique in and of itself. The Good Life sample just throws it over the top. Have a listen to a few of my favorite Manalive remixes and the original mix of Good Life below. You can pick them up at Amazon.

Manalive (Roel Salemink Remix) – Devilfish and Roel Salemink

Manalive (Jon Rundell Remix) – Devilfish and Roel Salemink

Good Life – Inner City