The futuristic retro sounds of DJ Z-Trip
This guy is my favorite DJ. He’s the inventor of the mash-up, but his skills go way beyond that. I love to DJ, but when i do, I play a lot of classics. I don’t stick to new stuff because I’m not trying to pull out the top forty banger for the club. That’s what I like about the way Z-Trip plays. He actually inspired me to start DJ-ing in the first place. He mixes hip-hop with classic rock, eighties, and all sorts of weird stuff you wouldn’t think would go together. He’ll have people dancing to Deep Purple, for instance, who would never usually listen to a Deep Purple record. It’s a real skill to be able to entertain and educate at the same time. That’s what I try and do with my art, and that’s what I enjoy about DJ Z-Trip: that ability to slip the cool, lesser known songs in there, which works because of the inertia of the stuff people do know. He understands how to navigate that balance.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Tagged: 80s music, DJing, DJs, retro music, Shepard Fairey
- 4
- 0
RELATED
I had to put up with some seriously obnoxious jocks and drunken highschool kids at a recent show featuring flavor-of-the-moment acts that did the whole ecstatic, 80s electro thing that’s so popular these days. Lots of fluorescent colors. I had to blast some death freaking metal when I got home, and Hooded Menace fit the bill perfectly with their doom-leaning, aural assault. Nothing pisses me off more than tepid, uninspired music, and nothing makes me feel more alive than real, gut-wrenching, skull-pounding, giddily sinister heavy metal.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Introducing our Guest Writers: Shepard Fairey
We featured a series of guest contributions from iconic street artist Shepard Fairey, where he wrote about the work of some of his favorite artists, photographers, bands and DJs. Fairey’s iconic image of Barack Obama was featured on the cover of Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year issue, but even before that he was well known as the creator of the ubiquitous Andre The Giant sticker. Read the posts that Fairey wrote for Lost At E Minor. Photo via LaTaco. Read more
The battle over copyright laws rages on as the old music industry continues to crumble. Copyright Criminals is a thought-provoking documentary tackling the issue via the controversy of hip-hop and DJ culture. I wonder if the people suing sample artists have thought about the fact that DJs are the primary reason why vinyl is still a viable format, not to mention the fact that they are one of the groups of people still dedicated to buying physical copies of music.
Also by SHEPARD FAIREY
I’m a big fan of Alex Turner’s side project, The Last Shadow Puppets. It’s just really good music. When I first got their record, I didn’t know if it was a re-issue or if it was brand new. It doesn’t sound like a jokey pastiche. It sounds sincere.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Al Farrow’s gun part sculptures
Al Farrow just did a show with me at the Martin Irvine Gallery in Washington DC. He builds religious reliquaries and mosques out of gun parts: AK47s and Uzis, in particular. They’re really beautiful. It sounds gimmicky but it’s actually extraordinary. The newer stuff that he’s doing is extremely time-consuming. His work is very meticulous, and the beauty of the craft is a striking contrast to how instantly and senselessly life can be taken. Read more
I bought three pieces of Spanish artist Roberto Mollá’s work at the recent Art Basel show in Miami, which we both exhibited at. He works on off-white graph paper, which immediately sets up this very firm grid, and then he paints these very graphic black and white patterns into certain areas of the composition. He also does larger things, like circles and teardrops of red paint, around which he works these incredibly meticulous pencil drawings in various styles. If a graffiti artist was also an impeccable illustrator, this is what the work would look like. It’s all based on a foundation of anatomy, but it’s drawing upon the style of traditional Japanese artwork at the same time. So in one of his pieces, for instance, there is a woman riding on a Koi fish with a screen design of trees behind her. The tension between all these elements is fascinating. At a glance they are graphically powerful, but then they also have this meticulous subtlety which is just beautiful. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (0)
No comments yet.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Melbourne-based designer Ben Williams has spent twelve years in the interactive and design worlds, doing soup-to-nuts campaigns for clients and brands including Australia’s largest music festival, the Big Day Out, Toyota, Sneaker Freaker Magazine, Vodafone, and Ford. Oh, and apparently he’s also a whiz with a ‘gently used set of Ginsu Knives’. Really! Some people have all the fun. Read more
These Stephanie Simek designed rabbit’s foot-like charms made from pussy willow buds dangle from the ears by strands of thin chains like silent wind chimes. The earrings are approximately 3 inches long plus ear wire and available for US$125.
Woohoo! Another flash game that actually tests your cognitive abilities. LightBot is a difficult, but satisfying game in which you direct a little robot using a system of simple commands in order to light up various squares on a grid. The first few levels guide you through the seemingly easy process, but when there are multiple sets of directions requiring you to write what are essentially codes, it can get pretty hairy.
Side-scrolling funage for a rainy, lazy day. I’ve been putzing around on this and sipping nettle tea. Moles are cute.
Kirk brings Molly to meet his family for a pool party but she doesn’t have her swim suit. Kirk, an average Joe, can’t believe his luck when gorgeous babe Molly falls for him even though he’s the first to admit She’s Out of My League. In cinemas April 1.
Each room in Copenhagen’s Hotel Fox is an individual piece of art. 21 international artists descended on the hotel to turn each of the 61 rooms into a unique space, featuring creative artwork ranging from Japanese manga to fluid graphic design. Read more
New York’s Infinity Window make some tripped-out, droning, psychedelic raagas that would be appropriate scoring films by Kenneth Anger or John Carpenter. Ominous and dark, the duo makes sounds like the rebirth of an ancient god.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
WE'RE RESPECTING
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Dennis Pomales is a man after my own heart, creating impulsive yet detailed, tribal-influenced monsters and aliens using watercolors and ink. Read more
Forget battery powered vehicles. Cars made from ice are the future of transportation: no pollution, no honking horns, no painful rap music blasting out of souped up stereos. And if they melt, they melt. You just swim the rest of the way down the slipstream.
I live the upbeat, feel good tempo of the new single — A Hundred Hearts — from Philly group, The Swimmers. Off their latest album, People Are Soft, this song is a strangely fitting anthem for the blustery day outside.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Damn hipster dogs coming in here with their parents’ money, acting like they own the place, not respecting us real dogs who know what real culture and art are. We were here first and we knew about all those bands before they did. Read more
Check out Mike Stimpson’s Lego reinterpretations of classic photographs. Stimpson’s version of Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 photograph of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is particularly twisted. Read more
From this artist selection of t-shirts comes this Mydeadpony illustrated t-shirt, silkscreened on a limited edition tee, and distributed in a vinyl sleeve, with a biography of the artist on the back of the sleeve. Every t-shirt is numbered and signed by the artist, and comes in organic cotton. Read more
The new Runaways movie looks at the formation of the seminal girls’ group which spawned Joan Jett’s career. We have a Runaways prize pack to give away, including Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway, the Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Greatest Hits CD, the film’s soundtrack, and Joan Jett’s photobook with Todd Oldham. To enter, just leave the name of the city you live in! Read more
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it’s not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.
