Tech Techno experience: JoeLectrick – Tech Phantasy #Techno #TechHouse #IDM #Electronic #Experimental

Great article about “Tech Phantasy” on Acid Ted Blog!

JoeLectrick returns with an experimental techno synth jam on Tech Phantasy. JoeLecktrick is Joe Fiorello from Westchester, New York. But it was after…

Tech Techno experience: JoeLectrick – Tech Phantasy #Techno #TechHouse #IDM #Electronic #Experimental

Mix 002. Chill Techno Eventually Turns Unchill

New DJ mix up on my MixCloud. I was experimenting with layering Vaporwave over Techno and decided to just press record and run with it. Warning: this is an eclectic mix.

Full story of the mix:

I start off with a vaporwave intro from Hong Kong Express before going into the techno. From then on, I originally wanted to forward with a full chill, old school, melodic techno and IDM mix with tracks from B12, Oribital, 808 State, The Black Dog, and Autechre.

Then the journey veered to a Gabriel & Dresden track and immediately took a darker turn, going to some hard techno from Risa Taniguchi and Amelie Lens before veering to one of my own tracks which I would arguably classify as “aggressive trance”.

Throughout, I tried to keep my original concept going of vaporwave over techno, throwing in a couple more bits of tracks from Hong Kong Express before ending with a vaporwave twist for what is already an eclectic techno mix.

Oh yeah, another special vocal song surprise thrown in. Big kudos to anyone who gets far enough in the mix to find out what it is. 😉

I hope you all enjoy this journey!

Dance Fight Me

Are you ready to Dance Fight!?

This is a track with a bit of history behind it, actually. I had recently rewatched the famous Jean Claude Van Dance scene in Kickboxer. You know the one…

That dance, of course, ended up turning into a fight on the dance floor.

So it got me thinking about all the times that I’ve seen seen this sort of thing happen in a movie before. A dance scene that turns into a “dance fight”. That is as opposed to a “dance battle”, which is what you see in a movie like You Got Served. I mean like an actual fight on the dancefloor. For instance…

Airplane had a fight that turned into a dance, that turned into a stabbing, that inspired a dance move, that turned into an epic disco duet, that eventually turned back into a fight.

Zoolander had a break dance fight between the model who is so hot right now and an evil DJ.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle had a scene where a character needed to dance fight her way past armed guards. I’m sure I’m missing plenty of others.

It also reminded me of a story told by fellow wrestling team member back in High School, of how he was there to witness the most epic brawl between rival wrestling teams that happened at a club during 17 and under night. Members of the two teams were on the dance floor doing their thing, the two team captains bumped into each other. What followed were, in his words, “some of the sickest takedowns he’d ever seen”. As both teams started using their wrestling moves against each other mid dancerfloor, with the music still pumping. One of the guys event pulled off a “granby roll”. Anyone who’s wrestled in high school could probably attest to how sick it would be to pull that off on a dance floor.

So it got me thinking, there needs to be a song dedicated for this exact kind of occasion. Because while it might be cool to see people dropping kicks to the Beegees or Big Mountain or Herbie Hancock, I figured the world needed a dance fight song for dance fighting itself. So I pulled out my newly purchased TT-303 that I been itching to use on a track and I put together the bassline you hear on this track.

Of course, I advise all those listening to use caution when getting their dance fight on to this track, as the people who dance fight in movies are trained professionals and the seniors that brawled in that club were f*cking legends. Still, if there seems to be trouble brewing on the dance floor and things are about to go down, I’d humbly ask all DJs to be ready to “SPIN THIS SHIT!”

Dance Fight Me is available on Bandcamp on March 3, 2021 (303 day for those in the know)

Launching on all other platforms on March 26, 2021. Be sure to show your dance fight moves in a TikTok or IG Reels to this track!


Playing Live Chiptune Party in Shenzhen

You never forget your first time at doing anything… your first kiss, first car, first time getting chased by a gang of ruffians. This is especially is the case with your first time playing music live in front of an audience. For me, the first time I got to play my electronic music live was during a Chiptune Party at Tic Tax Pong Club in Shenzhen, China.

Many thanks to my brothers in music and video Project Soda (aka Arne Venema) and Michael Chan for videoing some clips of my performance. Check out the video clips and also a full audio of the set below. And then read the full story about my first show afterward.

The Full Story…

It was the summer of 2018, right before I was to move back to New York after 9 years of living the Hong Kong life. I had just gotten restarted producing electronic music and I was invited to play a gig at Tic Tac Pong club in Shenzhen, China Project Soda (aka Arne Venema) who was also playing a set that night.

I was nervous about the gig on the ride up. This wasn’t the first time for me playing music live, in general. First time ever for me was actually back in high school at the annual “Battle of the Bands/Talent Show”. A few buddies and I formed a band called Ganja Weed and we attempted a somewhat grungy, somewhat epic version of Tom Petty’s “Free Falling”, complete with back up singers and back up dancers? (moshers?). By the end of the performance, I would end up passed out in front of the amplifiers with the sound of guitar feedback filling the audience. That was a performance that would go down infamy, but it’s also a story for another time.

Back to the Chiptune show though, I was nervous because I was still a mere newbie to the world of producing electronic music. I had created some tracks before as soundtrack for short films I had worked on, but this was a true test if my dance music would actually make a room full of strangers actually, well… dance.

Tic Tac Pong. The calm before the show

Arne tried to assure me that I was going to do a fine job and I believed him, but I also half jokingly told him that if things started going not so right during my set, like if it got really bad and awkward, to just be prepared for a sudden slight pause in the music and then, for the the rest of my set, I would sound exactly like Deadmau5.

Arne chuckled at the joke and brushed it off, again saying I would do fine. Like I said, though, I was only half jokingly. I make a point to say this because later, after the show, I told that part of the story to another fellow friend and Arne asked me “yeah, I was meaning to ask, what did you mean by that?” So I told him.

While prepping for the show, I also prepped a backup plan, in case I really sucked. I had prepared an iPod with a playlist of Deadmau5 tracks. My plan B was that if my live hardware set really, embarrassingly sucked, I would disconnect my hardware, connect my iPod to the sound mixer, and finish the set with the playlist I made. I would “sort of DJ” a mix of Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff, I Remember, and other Deadmau5 selections. I picked Deadmau5 in particular because he was pretty much the only currently popular electronic music producer that I actually knew at that time. Most of the electronic music I knew and listened to was from the 80s and 90s

Back to plan A however, another thing to note was that it a Chiptune set and I had only recently been introduced to this genre right after Arne invited me to play. So, I had to take my set of techno-ish, synthwave-ish electronic music tracks and 8-Bit-ize them. I ended up doing this with the help of the Chiptune Dreams Novation Circuit Pack. Many of the tracks, I was busy still modifying on the train ride up to Shenzhen and even in the lounge before my set.

Here’s me doing last minute tweaks to my set right before I was supposed to go on

We got to Shenzhen and met with the whole gang of musicians and DJs that were playing sets that night. Most of them had played with each other before except for me and another guy who was invited by one of the other DJs. Unfortunately, I had forgotten his name, but we soon referred to him as “Backpack” when retelling the story later as he refused to take off the backpack that he carried his gear in. Even while playing his set, he still wore his backpack.

I bring him up in the story, in particular, because, for starters, since we both were the two newbies in the crew, the opening slot of the show would be one of us. After some discussion amongst the Chiptune show veterans, it was determined that Backpack would start the show and then my set would follow. Arne told me that he strongly insisted to the rest of the crew that I not be first one to play and that Backpack should start the show.

Thankfully that gave me a bit more time to finish tweaking my set, I was still sweating bullets that I would be able to do a good job and not have to resort to Plan B. I thought that’s why Arne insisted so much that I not start the show, but he told me later that the big reason he insisted so urgently was because he spoke to Backpack about his set up and was pretty sure it was not going to go over well… at all. In fact, every nightmare that I had about how I was going to do in my first live performance ended up being the case for Backpack.

Let me check if this is Chiptune enough for this Chiptune show

Now, I hate to talk badly about another artist and I feel terribly for him about how it went, but it just goes to show that before you do a live show, you definitely need to make sure you have a handle on your own gear. I was nervous about getting playing with one piece of gear right, just me and my Circuit. Backpack brought like five different pieces of gear that were meant to be hooked up together to make a this complex suite of ambient 8-bit sounds like an orchestra of video gameyness, including a Sega Game gear, a Korg Monotron Delay Ribbon Synth, and a couple of other devices that I had never seen before and failed to remember.

While I was working on my set in the corner, I saw him trying to hook up all these pieces of gear by the DJ booth and a couple of the guys from the crew and even the manager of the place were over there helping him hook it up. Occasionally, I would here a big, amp shattering “BWONG” coming from the speakers that would have everyone in the place covering their ears, followed by a “beep boop beep…. beep boop blip”. There weren’t too many people in the place at that point, so I figured he was doing like a soundcheck. As the occasional over loud “BWONG” and oversoft “beep boop blip” would come out, I remember thinking to myself “man, I feel bad for the guy, having a hard time getting his gear to work. I hope he gets it ready by the time soundcheck is over.”

Suddenly, Arne runs up to me, “Grab your gear! You’re up!”

“Wait, what? What do you mean I’m up? For soundcheck?”

“Soundcheck?! No! I mean, you’re playing your set! Now!”

“But what about Backpack? He’s still prepping his gear for his set!”

“What are you talking about? That was his set? He just got kicked out of the booth. The manager of the place couldn’t take his set any longer. You got to play yours now! And it’s gotta be good otherwise he might shut down the whole show.”

“Ummmm…”

“No pressure. You’ll be fine!” Arne said as we scrambled to hook up my gear to the sound mixer.

I better hook this up right

And so… the moment of truth had come and…. well, I was fine.

I won’t say I brought down the house, but I got the party started. After getting the first track going, I got into my groove. By the second track, I see out of the corner of my eyes, a random dude shuffling. And I got through my one hour set… and them-some. Since Backpack’s set cut short, the DJ that was on after me wasn’t ready yet by the time I faded out the last note of my set. So as I was ready to disconnect my gear, I hear from the other side of the booth, “KEEP PLAYING! I’M NOT READY YET!”

With no more new music ready to play, I yelled out to the still early in the party crowd “DID I HEAR “ENCORE?!?” and started playing, I think, track 7 from my set for a second time. Eventually, Arne jumped in as well with his Digitakt and we even jammed out a new track to make up for the time.

We jamming!

The rest of the show went without a hitch and it was a good night. Still, I felt bad for Backpack having the night that I had envisioned in my worst case scenario. It’s a shame that he didn’t have a plan B prepared, but I hope that the experience didn’t completely turn him off from playing live again one day.

As for me, I was just relieved that at no point in the night did I sound anything like Deadmau5. 😉 😉