Spicy California Roll

The true geniuses that set most of us on this path of discovery (pun intended) of all things that shake   rattle. The interview goes over their best work, the Discovery EP. The true treat is the whole album    is aired after the interview! The way it was intended to be heard

That is all you need to know about Michael Morales aka DJ Kue. He is absolutely crushing it, bringing a new dynamic to the original songs he has remixed. He really does make them his own. Actually like some of the DJ's out there, DJ Kue is transitioning to remixing/producing his own tracks. Of course this is after 15 years of experience on the 1s and 2s. So you know, and we all know... he knows just a little bit on how to piece together some music.

Two recent tracks that caught my eye were Tracey in my room and Always. With these tracks he successfully brings funky melodies and catchy kicks back to his local stomping grounds throughout Cali. But he is not afraid to mix genres such as rock or hip hop. Actually he has recently started applying his mixing knowledge to mellow vocal tracks. You have no idea if you want to dance or sit back, bob your head and just appreciate life. It is a good thing DJ Kue switches it up and lets you do both in the songs.

Check out this video


It is no surprise big name DJ's across the world are starting to throw Kue's work into their own sets. DJ AM and Bloody Beetroots to name a few!

Here are some treats

At Spicy Cali we are going to start posting some hot tunes on Friday mornings for the DJ's that need to fill out the rest of their set. I will actually try to post them on Thursday morning the idea just dawned on me this morning before work.

So to kick things off I wanted to fill our your library with Christmas heavy tracks. With the season fast approaching you will need some dance worthy Christmas tracks. Mariah's Christmas CD just won't cut as far
as I'm concerned.


Bth - Last Christmas (Flexy Remix) 
A solid bass line, good way to bring in your christmas set as it has a DJ friendly intro. The vocals of Last Christmas pop out at 2:30ish, the crowd will go nuts!

George Michael - Last Christmas (Remix)
Shorter version with the vocals dropping in right away, maybe stutter it in as the vocals from the previous track are quite similar. Some vocal drops of "Let me See those Hands" near the end.

Mariah Carey (lol) - All I want for Christmas (Low Sunday Remix)
I laugh at myself for bashing Mariah but this remixed dance worthy track is a must. DJ Friendly intro. The melody is light obviously showcasing Mariah Carey's beautiful singing voice. A good way to slow the set down. Maybe get the girls on the floor if it's early in the night.

DJ Danny Digz - Little Drummer Boy (Quick Hitter)
Solid Baltimore club beat lays the foundation to this track. So much potential with the vocals on this track. They could easily be laid on top of an epic track like Wolfgang Gartner - 5th Symphony.

Benny Stixx - JingleBellz (Mix)
Such a good track. It transitions so well from Little Drummer Boy as they both use similar kicks and claps

Jay Valer - Jingle Bells Transition (Bmore Mix)
This is your exit strategy out of the Christmas tracks. This was done by the guys over at baltimore-club and it transitions from a nice soothing Jingle Bells track into a Baltimore Club Banger.

My feature article is on the artist Pogo. Let me give you a rundown of one of his most successful works to date. He took the movie Alice in Wonderland. Chopped it up and took a number of samples and turned it into a 3 minute melodic song. I seriously can not determine how many samples, wouldn't be surprised if it topped a 100. I have to stress this work is not thrown together in some hap-hazardous way.

You won't think to yourself "Oh this is cool and I respect the creativity but this is not something I enjoy listening to."

It has incredible melodies and the vocal samples are cut so short and melded together that they are treated like instruments rather than catch phrases. It is just so good. You can find yourself getting lost trying to link up the vocals to portions of the movie.

His most popular piece "Alice" does not have the traditional breakdowns and build ups in his track, but Pogo gives us 3 minutes so we don't lose any interest. I also suspect he could care less about more variation in his tracks. He puts in hundreds of hours more than the next artist in just the sampling, cutting and chopping process.

Pogo has since produced tracks from films ‘Mary Poppins’, ‘Harry Potter’, ‘The Sword In The Stone’, ‘Hook’, and ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory’.

Check out the video below. It has topped over 4 million hits. 

Now for treats

Oh the connections keep being made. So I was rummaging through various DrumAttic Twins tracks and found a sick Bass Kleph Remix of Feelin Kinda Strange'. It actually turned out to be a collabo remix with Nick Thayer. So I dug deeper and realized Nick Thayer is not a one hit wonder, he is legit! Nick is a badass DJ hailing from Australia. How badass? Put it this way, he decided to register the domain http://www.nickthayer.com/ and have nothing on it but his name spray painted on the page. Screw promoting yourself.

Now check out the work Nick and his partner in crime Seven Milligram are putting out within the club scene. I know a lot of friends that have traveled to Australia and I know others who have it on their list of places to see/things to do. When you go to Australia, make sure you see Nick Thayer. He is releasing a new album very soon titled "Just Let It Go" links for downloading will be available on his myspace page of course.


BIG NOTE: This video is a mash-up of his work, he normally doesn't 'girl-talk' all over the tracks like this. It is neat and all but most of the tracks I've peeped are not like this. This is just a sick DJ/VJ collaboration.


Now for treats

I have just discovered Drumattic Twins on the new Ministry of Sound Anthems II album. "Feelin Kinda Strange" is an incredible track. I know, I said I just discovered them. I'm still learning the history and these guys are an integral part. I just slept on them. This track is killer. The vocals just stuck out to me, they were well done here.

The whole anthems album is a great purchase. Most DJ's spinning this kind of music will have these songs already. Anyone new or still amassing a library will make a great purchase here. So here is a sample of what can be found on the album.

your treat as per usual...

Last night I sat back I sorted through a lot of electro songs and realized I've been listening to the same damn bass line with the same repetitive kick drums, endlessly.. setup in the same format with the same breakdowns and corny one liners. I think to myself, how did I ever get into this? WHY am I still feeling the new scene of electro, fidget and house music?

Chromeo's hit "Night by Night" reminded me! Check out the new video released on Green Label Sound. If you don't feel revitalized. If you don't feel like dancing. If you don't feel like taking your shirt off running around screaming at the top of your lungs, then no amount of music is going to cheer you up.

I got fam in town and I'm rocking out hard in Victoria Tomm night so I decided to be smart (what a stupid move), and stay home tonight. To make the best of it I threw together a little something something.

A lot of people don't know who Major Lazer is. Well Major Lazer is a Jamaican commando who fought and lost his arm in a secret zombie war in 1984. The US military rescued him and retrofitted him with an experimental lazer for his lost arm. Major Lazer has been a hired renegade soldier operating for M5 and the CIA. His cover, which is still top secret is that of a dancehall night club owner from Trinidad. To maintain this cover he has decided to release his first LP with the help of long time friends Diplo and Switch.

At this point we don't know if he has wavered from his mission, his songs have gone viral. His initial mission was "to protect the world from the dark forces of evil that live just under the surface of a civilized society." He primarily fights vampires and various monsters, parties hard, and has been spotted on a rocket powered skateboard.


Sneak peek into what the man looks like with his retrofitted lazer>>

Now click the big arrow, it will lead to a link to download the whole album. The link itself is an image that is labeled "Download Now" (Step 1). The next page will have you wait 40 seconds then a link will appear (Step 2). I'm sorry there is no way around this wait time until I can afford to host all this on my own server.