I bought a bass guitar! I just went on Trademe and had a look for a giggle. Bid up to $79 and I actually got it!

Auction finished on a sunday morning – bad move for selling to muso’s, but hey – their loss, my gain.

I’m really excited about it. At first it just seemed like something cool to do, that I could do – another thing I like about being older now – often you can actually see that somethings just not going to work out.

But since I got the thing home, and realised what a good deal I got, and started playing, I got really excited about it, I got a big rush, just playing again and getting into it.

I had actually talked about getting a bass earlier on the blog, but I can’t find any of the best examples at this point, so just for your info its not exactly just out of the blue.

For a bit of history, I played bass in our high school indie/shoegaze band “Furver” which I am tending to invoke as I move forward on the next step – originally it was my Trip Hop outfit “Further” and I think that’s what it will be whenever I collaborate on non-drum and bass projects, well you can be in my band Further.

If you want.

It’ll still be a Trip Hop thing, but also a more indie, more spaced out and even dubsteppy thing. So back to the roots, but also baring fruits!

The idea of the Bass came in seeing so many white stripes type line ups emerging in my vicinity – there was cure motel and there was the neo-kalishnikovs, both which I toured with on Short Circuit tours, neither of which had a bass player.

But it was also a concept I called “Blenheim on a Tuesday” I saw singer/songwriters playing places like Blenheim on a Tuesday and I wanted to work out how I could play a cafe in a place like Blenheim on a Tuesday, so I could tour hard, playing 5 or more gigs a week.

Not with a pumping drum and bass set. But I could if I did low key trip hop/indie/alt country vibe.

This also came from a lot of discussion between darcy and I which led to him doing Cure Motel, that we felt instruments were needed to connect with audiences when the bloom came of the rose of the dance/electronica scene that grew in the 90’s. People wanted to see action, and as long as it sounded good then, great.

The common thread of course was versatility and economy when on tour or putting together a nights entertainment, and if you dig deep enough on this blog and elsewhere you’ll see how the concept of convergence led to idea I had of how a perfect performance would pitch itself.

I can play trip hop and slung back spacious and basscious stuff at the beginning of a gig, I can make it deeper and more meaningful with a vocalist there and I can progress toward more indie and alt country vibes, they can get heavier in their indie and punky disco influence, another band could take over at that point or I could just forge ahead into nu disco, indie rave, and electro, I could do some reality compound electroclash if I wanted to or just play the instrumentals. A DJ could take over playing house, breaks, electro even dubstep, or I could be the DJ, using my own way to get to the drum and bass place, then I’m able to go to the full blown shoegaze dubstep business, it could be an epic headliner, or completely slung out to be a dreamy wind down, and then back to where we started, trip hop, dreamy beats.

36 mins – trip hop / dreampop / alt country
36 mins – indie, electroclash, nu rave
36 mins – electro / house / breaks
36 mins – drum and bass
36 mins – dubstep / dreamstep / trip hop

and though each step mixes together, each can be played an individual short set, parts can be removed or added or elongated as is suitable to the venue.

If people want a drum and bass set or a live indie dubstep fusion band they can have it.

Or they can have the show I put on, and possibly, where I had to, I could carry a whole night on my own.

In good news today, work is going well, and Sali released a free song featuring m.i.a called toldya, it’s grimey and cheeky and has a fruity, psychadelic snakecharmer indian vibe.

download the track from:

http://www.salimusic.com

Check it ou, might find something you fancy

http://www.sittingovation.com/dubstep/deep-liquid-soulful-dubstep-producers-and-labels-where-to-start/

Matt arrives at Cafe 7 in his beamer to the sound of a new Soul Science track he sees the guys and sits down to have his takeaway mocha when he gets the phone call from the disgruntled client.

The client goes into a full diatribe about the poster job for the underprivileged youth art project not being completed.

Points touched on are:

The client feels victimized and leans on the concept of discrimination against the underprivileged as well as it’s importance as a serious council funded arts project

The client namedrops local musicians and infers this is a bad reflection on his business and makes misinformed statements about Matt’s role as a “teacher”.

Matt becomes more hopelessly apologetic but reveals a stressed and harried response, laughing nervously.

The client admonishes the laugh saying “Don’t patronize me.”

When Matt tries to explain the circumstances of his business, the client goes further into picking apart Matt’s business practices and making somewhat patronizing suggestions as to how he should be running his business.

Matt forces humility and responds by promising to fix this problem. Tonight.

Matt ends the phonecall and is downcast. Music plays.

At the office it is night. Matt is explaining to swifty what he must do -Drive half an hour into the deepest part of some of Auckland’s poorest areas in order to stick up posters for a South Auckland art and documentary project promoting the art of underprivileged youth.

He complains about the work situation and reveals that he considers the possibility of being robbed and / or beaten is real, and whats more as Swifty asks about the state of his BMW’s warrant and registration which leads Matt to state that if the Police do notice him, he is likely to encounter hostility if what he’s doing is seen as a variation on tagging.

Swifty goes on and on about his various issues until Matt is forced to leave his chatter to get on with the job.

This goes into a montage of Matt travelling along the motorway at 2am, leaving the city and the “leafier” suburbs slowly seguing into the less than salubrious South Auckland surroundings. This may be one of the main opportunities to showcase tunes.

The music stops abruptly as Matt finds himself in a lonely dark street in south Auckland coming off the motorway. A Large Pylon buzzes in the background.

Matt manages to put a few posters here and there, hiz gaze lingers for the first time on the subject of the posters which are examples of the “underprivileged” youth’s own personal photography.

With some assuredness Matt sets off down Hill Rd, only to become seemingly lost until Manurewa appears.

At this point Matt is becoming more aware of the surroundings of South Auckland, even at 2 in the morning on Wednesday night, some bars and run down looking eateries are still open and have a few lower class people loitering around.

Cautiously Matt continues his work as mysterious street figures pass by inhospitably.

Turning back up the street, Matt stares into a large empty karaoke bar where few people sit and a somewhat competent girl sings Sanatana’s more modern hit “Thinking of ways to make it better . . . ”

“Maria, Maria . . . living her life just like a movie star . . . ”

There are few places for posters here and figure move ominously about the street. Another run down eatery is closed but still music blares from the speakers, a soppy new romantic ballad hit crooned over washing synths by a deep voiced new romantic with a ever so slight continental lilt.

“Save your love . . . ” I’m not quite sure of the song – any help?

At this point Matt passes a rowdy bar, and continues to place posters although fearful the drunken crowd will notice him and harrass him.

In another sequence, we may become aware that Matt is fearful of the Police seeing him, but because he insists on only wearing his glasses when he drives he has no way of telling if oncoming vehicles are police cars.

Matt travels along Gt South Rd placing the posters and we see many images from the exhibit.

At a particular shut up shopping precinct the movements of individuals becomes suspicious.

Matt continues to Manukau shopping centre and stops at a gas station to get supplies. Bland mainstream R’n B plays. With a nervous weariness he ends up buying all sorts of crap. And sits in the car sipping on a bad coffee and carboard muffin listening to a song.

The industrial landscape is desolate. Big rigs roll around here ant there and also, there are road crews doing roadworks seemingly everywhere throughout the short, but this is the moment where the ongoing presence of the big rigs hauling and the road works

Matt has conquered the South with his postering, but there is more to come, the shopping centre and surrounding business quadrant are strange compared to the more familiar working class shops of South Auckland.

It is about 3.30 am. Huge Car yards, industrial big box depots, are lit up, but the streets are quiet, flags flap in the wind. A large jet flies low into Auckland Airport. The Job is very almost done. Matt could finish now and talk up the numbers. He stands in the cool, silent, bright and windy night.

He approaches a large lit up gas station, again playing some bland R’n B, on a huge bright empty forecourt. He approaches to fill up his glue bucket at a tap. There is no one there.

More Music Plays. Matt continues on through South Auckland, to Papatoetoe, and some point the optimistic beats give way to a maechanical clunking that gives away the increasingly obvious realisation that Matt has a flat tyre.

Matt stops tensely in Papatoetoe to confirm he has a flat. Two transvestites call out to him, reacting with a subdued but tense repulsion, he drives off.

He becomes increasingly more paniced as the consequences of his decision to press on to the next gas station becomes more apparently a poor decision, shops fade to industrial areas which fade to inhospitable ghettos that fade to the long stretches of the large mill and brewery plants.

Matt pleads and repeats “Why have you got to do it to me. Why have you got to fuck me in the Ass. Why ya gotta fuck me?”

Conversations with demanding clients that will happen tomorrow when matt is unable to get his tyre fixed play, he is almost in tears.

Just when it becomes apparent that the tyre is more damaged by now than a simple flat, at last before what seems to fade into a highway across a swampy inlet, a gas station sits in a darkened truck stop.

At what first appears to be an air pump is a hose. Matt stops the car.

The Tyre looks like a bowl of noodles wrapped around the wheel, it is completely shredded.

He tells the service attendant, a slightly douchie looking indian guy he haas a flat, not quite knowing why.  The dude stares back blankly, “bummer.”

Pained and irritated Matt struggles to pull out his tyre, attempting and eventually pulling the tyre out from beneath the great collection of posters and postering utensils. Perhaps at points we catch sight of Matt’s Pirate gear.

Posters from old gigs fly out. Soul Science plays and perhaps we see Soul Science DJing perhaps at Fu. John’s monologue comes on, and Matt reaches for his phone to text John. It is 4.16am.

The change of tone is subtle as Matt keys out and then has second thoughts on his messages as John’s monologues about loyalty and partnership show themselves to contain concepts contrary to Matt’s independence.

The BMW Jack is different from a normal Jack. It doesn’t make any sense,

There is conflict between Matt’s independence and self empowerment, and his concept of his role as a business guy to which a flat tyre is just another challenge in the form of an expense that needs to be minimized.

Matt is alone with his broken down BMW in a dark truck stop on the edge of the ghetto.

More slightly douchie Indian guys approach and Matt is on guard. He immediately notices that as he talks he won’t remove his right hand from his pocket which creates increasing tension.

We hear a dialogue which reveals itself as that of the drug dealer, a small time capitalist which segues into the paranoid and violent until the indian guy takes his hand out of his pocket to grab the BMW jack before remarking that they too dont get the BMW Jack and will go grab theirs.

The tension is released. They banter about “work” and “town” as they begin Jacking up the car.

Then they say it has a key lock nut. Only a special fitting will unlock the main nut.

They withdraw back to mope around the attendants bay. Matt searches for the key lock fitting. He reads through the manual but its all japanese. He studies the picture.

A big polynesian dude comes up.

Either before or after there might be the polynesian client  monologue, when polynesian guys are ordering CD’s and DVD’s.

He says his daughter has a BMW and opens the underside of the boot lid to reveal a toolkit including the key lock fitting. He then reveals how the Jack is fitted. Matt is left slightly ashamed of his incompetence and eager to confirm he’ll be able to finish the job as the guy heads off.

He is again alone and unable to make the nuts even budge. He buys more supplies and has a cigarette.

Music plays.

And he resorts to calling a tow truck, after the first few turn him down, he gets told one will be ther in half an hour. It’s quarter to 5 in the morning.

Matt waits.

When the Tow Truck Driver arrives he is the typical blokey Dad archetype, 40’s, built but not fat.

He boots the nuts with almighty stomps that twist them loose and changes the tyre, and asks for just $20.

Matt is free from his ordeal. It is after 5am and the city is stirring to life. What becomes apparent continuing the truck drivers and road works theme is lots of working class people are working and at 5am many more are only beginning to make arrangements for their long working day.

Matt heads through Mangere. Slowly he looks around and see he is a top the street which was the first property he ever owned. Matt’s Dad’s monologue comes in. It is aspirational and yet, echoes with melancholy that times have passed and that Matt is grown up and on his own.

Masculinity is solely in his own hands.

The job must be finished, Mangere must get a decent coverage, Matt is weary and warey, it is getting light. Working Class people are driving and are waiting at bus stops, even now before 6am and the streets are filling with more traffic.

It’s time to go home.

As we segue from working class to middle class back to the city centre we see more working class people.

Music plays, Matt drives on with a brittle and blank despondence. Ambrozia flashes on sceen.

“I think of her

We may hear as this fades into Ambrozia’s monologue.

Matt returns home, he is back in the city. He twitters.  He starts writing a contrite email to the client and checking google maps to see his exact route and report this to the client. At some point this becomes entangled with thewords of an email that is obviously meant to be sent to ambrozia.

He sends the one to the client, the one to ambrozia he exits without saving.

The sun is rising, it is a new day. A new day with new jobs to be completed. Matt will roll in his BMW, he will answer his phone, and he will get the jobs done.

Matt knows that not only hard work but the experience he has which has taken him to this point maybe the only thing can help him be ready to cease the next chance he has to experience something great.

Loving this from Wikipedia on romanticism. My blog is all good, I’m like totally misunderstood and a loner and I am so totally all about saying how much I hate everybody and just want to be on my own buzz.

It’s the romantechicism yall!

This from Wkipedia:

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution.^[1] It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature,^[2] and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature.

The movement stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and custom to something noble, and argued for a “natural” epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language, custom and usage.

Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval, in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar, and distant in modes more authentic than chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.

Our modern sense of a romantic character may be expressed in Byronic ideals of a gifted, perhaps misunderstood loner, creatively following the dictates of his inspiration rather than the mores of contemporary society.

Although the movement is rooted in German Pietism, which prized intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism, the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which Romanticism emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities; indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, “Realism” was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism. Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individualists and artists, which would elevate society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas.

Just about to upload these place holder pages for the new romantech archive – good gloss over exactly 27 different chapters of the musical projects I’ve been involved in.

PROJECT ARCHIVES:

Dojo Inspectors – Soul Science
Album Project 2009

Soul
Science – Music Project 2007

Beat
Dungeon Radio – Radio / Podcast 2007 -

Such
Heavy Wings – Sampler Project 2007

Special
Times – Sampler Project 2007

Reality
Compound – Mixtape series 2006-2007

Soul
Science – Club Night 2006-2007

Result!
- Sampler Project 2006

Oceanic
Chill – Album Project 2006

Get
Real – Reality Compound CD-Rom 2006

Catguts
Collaborations – Music Project 2005-2006

Reality Compound – Music Project 2005-2008

Viper
Club / Liquid Underground / DBA – Club Nights 2005

Decks
and the City – Mixtape 2005

Short
Circuit – Tour Project

Lickwicked
- Album project 2005

Who
Loves Ya? – Mixtape 2004

Distance
- Further Album 2004

Further
- Music Project 2004

Style
Over Substance – Music Project 2003-2005

Paradise
Bar Etc – Data:Bass Nights 2003-2005

Mental
Illness – Music Project 2003-2004

Data:
Bass Network – Music Project 2002-2005

Data:bass
- Club Night 2002 – 2003

Pre-August
2002

Evil
Robot – Manuscript 2000-2002

Furver
- Music Project 1995-1997

I was listening to my old mixes from 2002 which is basically just after I got my first decks and started DJing.

Well actually my first pair of decks got pinched, one of them belonged to Marek. I think at that stage I’d cobbled together an ancient pair of direct drives, or possibly one was a belt drive with a pitchfader.

Crazy business.

The reggae mix which I put up on soundcloud was pretty sweet but the D’n B mix “Doom” which I put together for a punk party I was playing at – I remember it was the night Bailey was playing in Auckland 2002 – that was just awful.

I wil put it up in the archives one day just so people can laugh at how hopeless my shocking mixing was back then.

But it was also a bit of a shock to hear how dated the tunes were. Sure most of the tunes on the mix were 98-’02 vintage and there were a couple that still stood up including one of my all time favourite dark destroyers, “Quadrant 6″ by Dom & Roland.

I definitely had much darker taste in heavier driving drum’n bass but a lot of it was just, man it wouldn’t stand up right now, that’s for sure.

Dillinja’s “Nasty Ways” was a real suprise. I remember you could always hear a Dillinja tune because it just cut through the mix and was so damn loud, now it’s as if the Dillinja tune was the only one that sounded half way decent by todays standards, all that early BC stuff, man, sounded awful!

I used to love it!

It just really gave me some perspective on it.

People often joke, “man if I’d written this song 5 years ago . . . ” I think it’s true. What was a drum and bass smasher 5 years ago is merely okay sounding now. That’s progress.

It also feeds into that idea at the back of my head that makes me think it’s really just kids shit, it’s a kiddies world, all this drum and bass, y’know I remember how rapid I was about it when I was in my early twenties and I listen back and hear this racket? What was I thinking.

I used to take it so seriously, just like all the young kids I laugh at do. I put my life on hold for this? No wonder my girlfriends and most of my friends weren’t that interested.

No, that’s just a backlash, I think the most important thing is the perspective. There’s so many opportunities to say . . . where did the last 7 years go . . . but when I listen to this music, think about the way I thought,  and the way I lived, the music I was making man . . .

come a long way in 7 years, and Drum and Bass sounds wicked now!

All that crap is out of the way, we’re writing truly mature beats . . . I can see now why guys like Calibre, Alix Perez etc. who shook the scene with a certain sound were embraced because it was part of a progression, and I may have been into this game for 12 years now but I’m still at the point where the new music is being made, I’m still about of te progression, I haven’t been left behind yet!

Check out the reggae dub mix for some chill vibes yo

Just noticed how little I’ve been blogging here when this was supposed to be way of training up for being a big proper d’n b guy – or hey wait maybe not drum and bass but um uh a something.

You know how it is – really busy with gigs and business this month but business has been starting to become manageable so I am looking forward to ramping things up.

So much to do . . .

 http://cdbaby.com/cd/djromantech

Stuff Re: Oceanic Chill  - My downbeat album compilation project released August 2006.

notes

“Oceanic Chill” is a new compilation of chill out, downbeat, trip hop, dub, ambient and all round mellow grooves featuring 23 fresh artists brought together as proof that the underground is alive, well, and very relaxed about the whole thing. A sumptuous selection is presented from artists all hailing from Pacific nations to create a rich aural repository lovingly compiled by DJ Romantech head of Data:bass, the Auckland, NZ based DJ/Producer collective.

“The underground electronic music scene is just soaked with undiscovered talent. We cant wait around for a record company to decide that deep, thoughtful music will sell, because we’re putting our souls into saying something with sound and we want people to hear it. I didn’t want to put together another compilation unless it was special, that I had a CD of artists who’s passion and integrity resonates in the soul and beauty of the music.”

And from the sheer depth and capacity of sites such as myspace, the Oceanic release feeds the best elements accessible together into a potent brew of soothing rhythms and melodic beats.

Check out the dense, dreamy ripples of Exstus, Canartic, Hazam, Monta and DJ Manik drifting vocals afloat on tracks from Virginifalame ,Plus Nueva, the groovy currents of Billy Dragon, Photoplay Prosecutor, Mercy Dirt Scheme and Antiquity the trickling melodies of Monodrama, Junk Shop Star, Sonic Stylus and Elements, plus the dubwise marinations of J Harry Long and Emu, as well as remixes and collaborations from Romantech himself, this is truly a solid collection of rich melodic downtempo beats straight off the top shelf.

This CD is perfect for meditative and relaxing non intrusive listening – perfect for cafes, resraurants, lobbies, I even sold copies to the local church and funeral directors!

www.myspace.com/romantech // New Zealand
www.myspace.com/exstus // Austin, US
www.myspace.com/photoplayprosecutor // NYC, US
www.myspace.com/jharrylong // New Zealand
www.myspace.com/monta // Kansas City, US
www.myspace.com/themonodrama // Malaysia
www.myspace.com/sonicstylus // Cali, US
www.myspace.com/plusnueva // Singapore
www.myspace.com/hazam // New Zealand
www.myspace.com/Canartic // Austin, US
www.myspace.com/antiquity1 // N. Dakota, US
www.myspace.com/virginiaflame // NSW, Australia
www.myspace.com/ourelements // Arizona, US
www.myspace.com/catguts // New Zealand
www.myspace.com/junkshopstar // New Zealand
www.myspace.com/wyvil // New Zealand
www.myspace.com/manikdj // New Zealand
www.blueamp.net.nz/emu // New Zealand
 

reviews

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• solid work. great compilation with cool sounds and professional execution.

  author: A. PASK

  hey dj romantech! solid compilation man, you’ve got a great ear for sound, and each track fits well on the cd and is an awesome song in its own right. professional execution of the mix and great choice of artists make this one of my fvourite compilations of the year so far. much kudos to you! pask ;P