Ethan Hein's Blog

Tag Archives: dance

Doctorin’ The Top Forty

Saturday, August 14, 2010

In 1988, a pair of British acid house DJs named Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, variously known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), The Timelords and The KLF, had an improbable number one hit with “Doctorin’ The Tardis.” The track isn’t so much a song as it is an early mashup. Aside [...]

Filed in music, tv | Also tagged book, doctor who, eighties, looping, mashups, memes, michael jackson, pop, production, recording, rick astley, songwriting, uk, whitney houston | Comments (2)

Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

This song represents a lot of firsts for Michael Jackson. It was the first single from Off The Wall, and the first recording MJ made that he had complete creative control over. Many of his hits were written by Quincy Jones or Rod Temperton or the guys from Toto, but Michael wrote this one himself. [...]

Filed in music | Also tagged beyonce, disco, drumming, harmony, hip-hop, jay-z, mase, math, michael jackson, mixolydian, music theory, pop, public enemy, sampling, seventies, slick rick, tritones | Comments (3)

Drum machine programming

Thursday, May 6, 2010

I wrote a general post about what makes a hot beat hot. As a followup, here’s how to program some generic patterns and a few famous breakbeats. The basic unit of dance music is a sequence of sixteen eighth notes, two measures of four-four time. Drum machines like the Roland TR-808 represent the sixteen eighth [...]

Filed in music, software | Also tagged drum machines, drumming, funky drummer, hip-hop, hone, honey drippers, james brown, led zeppelin, looping, programming, rhythm, rock, time | Comments (0)

Revival Revival May shows

Saturday, May 1, 2010

May 22nd at 9:30 Parkside Lounge – 317 E. Houston St 9:30 pm Revival Revival – Babsy Singer, Ethan Hein, Pam Adams 10:30 pm Danger Pin – Sam Gurewitz, Matt Horton 11:30 pm DJ Babsy No cover!

Filed in autobio, music | Also tagged electronica, ethanhein, funk, mashups, remixes, revival revival, rock | Comments (1)

Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition

Sunday, March 14, 2010

I’ve had a lot of music teachers, formal and informal. The best one has been the computer. It mindlessly plays anything I tell it to, over and over. Hearing an idea played back on a continuous loop tells me quickly if it’s good or not. If the idea is bad, I immediately get annoyed, and [...]

Filed in music | Also tagged beatles, book, country, electronica, fela kuti, hip-hop, jazz, looping, memory, modules, recursion, remixes, rza, structure, symmetry, theodor adorno | Comments (0)

Let’s Just Dance

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

My friend Adam suggested combining “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie and “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga. Here’s the result. Let’s Just Dance [Audio clip: view full post to listen] Revival Revival vs Lady Gaga vs David Bowie mp3 download, ipod format download

Filed in music | Also tagged david bowie, eighties, electronica, fashion, lady gaga, mashups, nile rodgers, remixes, revival revival | Comments (2)

Le Freak, c’est chic

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Meet guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers, one of my favorite musicians in the world. He founded Chic along with the late bassist Bernard Edwards, and he’s on Twitter. Nile Rodgers has led an action-packed life. As a teenager, he played with the Sesame Street band, and then with the Apollo Theater house band, where he [...]

Filed in music | Also tagged bass, bernard edwards, chic, david bowie, disco, duran duran, eighties, funk, gremlins, guitar, hip-hop, madonna, nile rodgers, pop, sampling, sugarhill gang | Comments (5)

Copyright Criminals

Monday, January 25, 2010

This PBS Independent Lens documentary on sampling culture is a good one, and you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. Their resources and links page includes my Biz Markie blog post. Thanks Beautiful Decay for posting the videos. Part one:

Filed in movies, music, software, tv | Also tagged a tribe called quest, audio editing, beastie boys, biz markie, book, clyde stubblefield, computers, copyright, dj, eighties, george clinton, hip-hop, improvisation, james brown, jeff chang, looping, mashups, memes, michael jackson, music, pro tools, public enemy, recording, remixes, rock, sampling | Comments (1)

Bloom County and Michael Jackson

Thursday, January 21, 2010

A little late but it took me this long to track down: Steve Dallas channels the King of Pop. Thanks Adam G for scanning this from his extensive Bloom County collection and sending it. Click for full size.

Filed in books, music | Also tagged anxiety, billie jean, bloom county, comics, eighties, fan art, michael jackson, steve dallas, white people | Comments (0)

Apache makes you go hmmm

Sunday, January 17, 2010

DJ Kool Herc likes to say that The Incredible Bongo Band’s version of “Apache” is the national anthem of hip-hop. Its famous drum and percussion break reliably put bodies on the dance floor through hip-hop’s prehistory and has been sampled untold numbers of times. Here’s the break: [Audio clip: view full post to listen] On [...]

Filed in music | Also tagged apache, book, breakdancing, copyright, dna, double dee and steinski, drum n bass, drumming, evolution, funk, goldie, grandmaster flash, hip-hop, history, kool herc, mashups, memes, missy elliot, nas, pop, questlove, roots, sampling, seventies | Comments (0)

Tag Archives: dance

Doctorin’ The Top Forty

Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

Drum machine programming

Revival Revival May shows

Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition

Let’s Just Dance

Le Freak, c’est chic

Copyright Criminals

Bloom County and Michael Jackson

Apache makes you go hmmm

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