Mini-update time:
Sadly (for my colleagues) I’m back to work next Monday - boo. Still, it’s only 2 1/2 more weeks left before Ibiza - yey!
Posted by Alex on Wed 9th July 2008
I haven't done much in the way of recording mixes lately, but I did have a chance to have a play about on the decks last week while I was setting up Lux for Orange Fridays. It's a bit/very (delete as applicable) rough round the edges 'cos I was trying to rush around doing other things at the same time, so if I was grading myself I'd probably rate it somewhere around “could do better”.
Hope you enjoy it ;o)
If you can see the player below, then all you have to do is click “play”:
style="width:410px; height:25px;"
codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0">
value="http://www.upsu.net/mambots/content/plugin_jw_allvideos/jw_allvideos_player.swf?file=http://www.votealexh.co.uk/music/Chopper Harries - funky chunky house nuts - May 18th 2007.mp3&autostart=false" />
value="false" />
style="width:410px; height:25px;"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" />
… or you can right-click and “save as” to download it.
Posted by Alex on Fri 25th May 2007
Yes, it's true - I'm running in the 2007 Sabbatical elections.
I'm running for the Media & Publications position, because it's the area in which I have worked almost constantly for the last 4 years, and because I think I could probably do a fairly good - ok, a very good job of it.
That, of course, is assuming I don't insert my foot in my mouth any more than is absolutely necessary, that I don't upset too many people, and that I don't inadvertently break the rules due to me being daft.
Oh, and of course, I'll have to beat the socks off the competition - I've heard rumours that there are no less than six candidates running for MAPO this year, including myself. Apparently, that means 2nd and 3rd place candidates will get a boost from the transferable votes of those in 4th, 5th and 6th places as they're knocked out.
All I have to do now is figure out how this transferable voting thingbob works…
Posted by Alex on Mon 19th February 2007
Ok, this is a bit scary - I've just been told I have a radio show on Pure:FM, starting tomorrow evening.
So that gives me a mere 24 hours to prepare a house and chillout show. Should be interesting then… Eep!
You can listen online at purefm.com/interact - I'll be on from 7pm to 9pm, assuming nothing goes horribly wrong. I'll probably cheat for the first show by playing a mix I recorded last year for most of it as I have a ridiculously busy day tomorrow.
I'll set up a web page for the show shortly with track listings and other gumph shortly :o)
Posted by Alex on Sun 18th February 2007
(Bedroom DJ mode on, work mode off. Again ;o)
Posted by Alex on Sun 18th February 2007
(Sorry about the gash title! ;o) )
I made it onto the decks for a couple of days last week and recorded some of my latest and favourite tunes on my favourite (and totally underused) toy - Final Scratch.
There's about 7 hours of music to wade through, and it's split up into a chilled mix of laid back house, three commercial/chunkier mixes, and a threesome of dirty house to finish off with. There are some random suprises in there, and I'll sort out a track listing shortly, but for now you're more than welcome to download the demos (but remember there's a bit of small print below about copyright and usage, etc - please read it before you download).
Oh, and I'm ashamed to admit my DJ name at the moment is “Chopper Harries”. Honestly, it's the best I could think up…
(Everything's recorded at 320Kbit/s).
Downloads are offered as-is and are provided solely for the attemped whoring of my DJing abilities (or lack of). Copyright remains with the owners of the tracks where appropriate. Files are not endorsed or hosted by UPSU - for comments, complaints, enquiries, etc, please see www.DJstalker.com.
Oh, and I didn't go swimming today - Fraggy dragged me down to Route last night and I am still, as I type, working from home thanks to having spent most of the night trying not to drive the big white porcelain bus. While Fraggy reckons it's down to my impending old age, my inability to handle my drink is entirely down to genetics. And being a wuss… ;o)
Posted by Alex on Fri 18th August 2006
(The tooth is out. I'll refrain from posting the picture of the remains since there's little point apart from the “ewww” factor which you could probably find easily enough elsewhere on the 'net…!)
It's Friday night. It's 6pm. Somewhere in the Balearics, Pete Tong is going out to the world live on air, playing - almost certainly - to an adoring crowd of sun-kissed Ibiza clubbers gearing up for possibly their biggest Friday night out of the year. It reminds me of something I wrote last summer, and I reckon it's almost time for me to pop my Ibiza cherry - anyone want to tag along? (I'll need someone to carry my records… ;o) ).
Meanwhile, back in reality (or at least, “Portsmouth-without-the-students”), I'm sitting in the Union preparing to babysit a sound system for The Listening Company (you may not know the name, but you've probably dealt with them on the 'phone at some point in your life, whether you like it or not…!) while six hundred-or-so Italian summer language school kids get fed and watered by our catering bods, upstairs in Lux.
Although I can't say I enjoy the music - apparently it's going to be a fairly rocky night - I do enjoy the babysitting work I do with UPSU Ents. Usually I work the Friday night babysit in Lux and CO2, which for the last year or so has also seen me on the decks for a brief spell most nights (my apologies to anyone unfortunate enough to have had to listen to me playing on abusing the soundsystem on a Friday night - who'dathunk I've been bedroom DJing since I was fifteen, a good 7 years ago. And yup, I'm really that old mature …. no, I definitely meant old).
Sadly, for me at least, I don't know whether I'll be able to play in the Union at all next year, as the line-up on most nights is being “tweaked” (as happens every year). I don't know if anything is changing or not, but the bosses will naturally be taking an ever closer look at how things are run on the nights to make sure things are at their best, and naturally having a relatively unknown person behind the decks like myself might not exactly thrill them to bits. I don't know; this is just speculation.
In any case, the whole point of this post is simply that October can't get here soon enough - Pompey's pretty dull during the summer, so short of me managing to escape the country and get out to Ibiza, or hooking up with some house music lovers, or even moving into Fabric London, I'm probably just going to have to become a workaholic to pass the time until the fun begins again (along with, of course, the small matter of my much-delayed final year of my degree needing attention then as well - argh, work!).
Ah… Boss has just informed me that TLC want a karaoke machine running tonight. So much for a quiet one…(!)
P.s. big thanks to a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, for the text last night - while I was doing some laundry - letting me know she and her friends had just blagged VIP guest list at Ibiza's Amnesia. I spent the rest of the night drafting plans for an escape tunnel from my house to the White Isle…
An update of sorts: (I call this one, “Tales from behind the speaker stack”) It's 10pm and my poor ears are being assaulted with the sounds of Batman's The Joker singing “Dizzy (I'm so dizzy)”. I don't think it's *the actual* Joker; it might (possibly) just be some random telesales exec. I'm not so sure, but Superwoman just walked past, and I can see Uma Thurman in Kill Bill outfit from here, too. My brain hurts…
Update #2: I just checked my maths. 15 years old plus 7 years does not equal my age. My physical age I mean; my mental age is hovering around the top of single digits… ;o) I should have put 9 years… Possibly even “almost 10″ to be reasonably accurate. I really need to graduate, before I'm too senile to be of any use to anyone…!
Posted by Alex on Fri 7th July 2006
(Excuse the rare ramble not connected to the site, but I have new toys and am telling everybody who doesn't run away first… ;o) ).
Having received Final Scratch 2 yesterday (and nearly giving myself a black eye trying to unwrap it at the speed of light) - God bless student loans ;o) - I'm going to be trying it out in anger at FRFs in the Union's Lux tonight (well, unless DJ K Ray and chums get all upset at the extra cables in the DJ booth or it gets beered…).
So, an advance apology to anyone who might be in Lux around the start of the night and who catches me making a pig's ear of having a mix.
This of course assumes I can make the thing work and that the real DJs let me have a play…!
UPDATE 10.30pm: well, I'm standing in the DJ booth in Lux; only had a little mix so far but blimey, this thing's rather good. “But then, it damn well ought to be for the amount I paid for it” says the Northern part of my genes… ;o)
UPDATE 2: 12.30am: I've just played a few more tunes in Lux and dear God I can't believe I haven't bought this toy before now - having 5,000+ records at the end of a search (and a drag-and-drop), to play on vinyl… Blimey, it's all rather fun! If that's not geeky enough for you, here's what I played: The Beginnerz “Reckless Girl”, Benjamin Thieves “Texas”, Dave McCullen “B***h”, and Switch “A bit patchy”. Then I got chucked off the decks to make way for some more Kev Ray ;o)
Interestingly, Fabric are the only London club listed by Stanton as having FS2 installed - it's a shame really 'cos it's such a cool toy, but I guess most DJs would rather spend their hard-earned chasing down elusive white labels rather than put their faith in technology. Understandable, but if you're thinking about getting FS2 (and you can afford it), I'd definitely recommend you go for it. The software's very very easy to use and runs very fast - and is very stable - on my 1.8Ghz lappy. 9.5/10 (half a mark knocked off 'cos it costs
Posted by Alex on Fri 28th April 2006