The Band that Started and Ended my Guitar Whaling Career

I will never forget the day my brother walked through the door with the Nevermind album. The year was 1992 and CD's were just starting to take hold. My moms boyfriend already had a nice collection of CD's but neither my brother or I had one of our very own. It was unique for us to even have a CD player at that time. It had been 6 years since the first tape my brother and I had bought at a yard sale that changed our lives musically. Licensed to Ill was the album that shaped the youth of my family. That tape was played morning, noon and night at my house. I even bought it on CD in high school and played it tirelessly. Buying music back then was not only expensive, but a big deal to accomplish. The parental advisor labels were taken very seriously. I remember trying to by an N.W.A. tape in 4th grade and being turn down at the record store for being to young.  Within a few days we did however cop that tape. We would play it at night in the dark when we were supposed to be sleeping. This form of rap at the time was really unknown and certainly frowned upon. 

Anyways, I just remember grabbing the Nirvana CD out of my brothers hands and staring at the album cover. I thought it was so bad ass that a naked baby was swimming after a dollar bill. I flipped through the album sleeve to see the artwork and hopefully find the lyrics to every song. The coolest part was my mom's boyfriend was stoked on the album and immediately popped it in for a listen. I thought for sure we would be hiding this from our parents. This was the beginning of music sharing with the adults in my life. I became obsessed with the fact that we shared the same music. This was also when I discovered Jimi Hendrix. From that moment forward I was going to learn to play the guitar. I knew just where to go to get the equipment I needed to start whaling. My spoiled rotten little rich neighbor had every toy known to man. He had a bright red Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, and amp to go along with it that I was sure he was ready to part ways with. I bought everything cool I ever owned as a child from him. from my Mongoose BMX bike to my first pair of Air Jordan's.  This kid had it all.  Within a few weeks I was ready to go. I had every parents nightmare going on in the basement. I cranked that amp up so loud and just crushed it. Their truly is nothing worse that a 10 year old trying to learn the guitar on his own. 

Shortly after my mom and I were in search of a place to take lessons. I was convinced I didn't need lessons but my mother felt otherwise. We finally found a guy but he didn't have very many time slots available. Somehow I got lucky and got to leave school every friday 15 minutes early to go to my lesson.  We would sit in this little room with no windows, that felt much like a prison cell and practice every friday afternoon. I remember the first song I ever learned was GLORIA by the Van Morrison, The Spectres, the Doors??? I'm not sure which version we were learning but I was familiar with the song. All I know is I was playing a song and it sounded damn good. I never did a whole lot of the practice exercises he taught me be but I was learning a few songs. Black Sabbath, Bruce Springstein, Rush, The Rolling Stones were all songs I was starting to play. Sort of....This lasted for about 6 months until that devastating friday. This day as I walked out to the car for lessons I was really excited. It was April and spring in Baltimore was rearing it's pretty little head. I turned on 98 Rock as I did every time I got in the car and immediately heard the news. Kurt Cobain was dead in alleged suicide at his home. I switched over 99.1 WHFS and the news was confirmed. When I got to the lesson we basically just ended up talking about what had happened and I was un-interested in playing that day. It wasn't but a few weeks later that I stopped taking lessons. The guitar soon moved to my little cousins new toy. I was over it. You see every teen drop in "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the song we requested the DJ to play. We literally would hear it 10 times every friday night. We would play it at home , we would hear it on the radio, and even on MTV. This song and the video along with it was the soundtrack to growing up. Head Banging as cliche as it sounds was something everyone was doing. I will never forget being in the gymnasium on a friday night and a few select bad boys and a girl or two would sit in a circle on their knees and shake their heads while the song would play in its entirety. This is the song we played when all these new and exciting grown up things were happening around us. People were starting to drink a few beers, smoke a little pot, make out with a few girls. We were becoming adults. Well at least that is what we thought at the time. We were discovering new things on our own and this song gave us the balls to do so. 

Nirvana feat. Bowie - Space Oddity (live)

Sunny Garcia and Jeremy Flores Fight with Aussie Locals

Sunny Garcia may have gotten a little out of control with Aussie locals over a scuffle his son was involved in but we all know the Hawaiians don't back down when it comes to family.  Jeremy Flores was also involved and both surfers have been barred from the event thats starts next month. This video that follows covers the story in detail.

Eli Escobar // Heavenly Break

This is a great transition track that the ever so talented Eli Escobar created and I use quite often.

Ron Hardy in the HOUSE

Ron Hardy is the only man who can test Frankie Knuckles' status as Godfather of Chicago House Music.

Though he rarely recorded under his own name and left little evidence of his life, Hardy was the major name for Chicago's dance music from the late '70s to the mid-'80s. By 1974, he had already effected a continuous music mix with reel-to-reel machines plus a dual-turntable setup at the club Den One. Several years later, Hardy played with Knuckles at a club called the Warehouse and though he spent several years in Los Angeles, he later returned to Chicago to open his own club along with Robert Williams, the Music Box.

While Knuckles was translating disco and the emerging house music to a straight, southside audience at the Power Plant, Hardy's 72-hour mix sessions and flamboyant party lifestyle fit in well with the uptown, mostly gay audience at the Music Box. A roll-call of major Chicago producers including Marshall Jefferson, Larry Heard, Adonis, Phuture's DJ Pierre and Chip E all debuted their compositions by pressing up acetates or reel-to-reel copies for Hardy to play during the mid-'80s.

Lingering problems with heroin addiction forced him to leave the Music Box around 1986 and though he continued to DJ around the area, Hardy wasn't around when Chicago became house music's mecca later in the decade.

Deejay Ron Hardy died in 1991, and that's the only reason why he's not a star today. With the clubs he's been spinning for (especially the Music Box from 1983 to 1988), he was drawing the way of the new sounds of the night. Something was definitely changing, and he was part of the change. You know that one day 'Jack Has a Groove'... but did you really know when late Disco turned into early House music? Ron Hardy was it. Icon of the gay House nights of Chicago, that man was a deejay like some others are monk... it was everything for him, a sort of religion. Mixing speedy electro-pop with accelerated disco, edited disco-classics with acid tracks, when other deejays used to mix it warm... he used to mix it cold. One of his very close friends told me that he was almost never sleeping... mixing records all the time, doing weird things with his turntables. There was about nothing in his appartment, nothing but black shiny records, and a bed... and that for years since the 70's when he left for westcoast, the 80's when he came back to Chicago, until 91 when everything stopped. Too much drugs and awaken nights... he killed his own batteries for the music

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New York Night Train

So I got to check out Night Train last thursday in Baltimore at the Golden West in Hampden with my buddy DJ HOFF. A friend of mine Emily Rabbit was hosting, along with a guy I have met a few times, that holds down the nightlife scene in Baltimore, Simon Phoenix (An amazingly entertaining DJ by the way part of the TaxLo crew) So this party consisted of real deal un-prentitious hipsters who don't give a fuck what people think about them. They were looking to cut loose and have a good time. These aren't the "scenester" types that are too cool to dance and care more about the way they look and what they drink then how much fun they have. You see Hamden is a place where people are who they are and if you have a problem with it you can go fuck yourself. If you have ever seen Edward Furlong in "Pecker", a John Waters movie, it takes place mostly in Hampden and you will get the picture.. Check it out! Great flick. Anyways Jonathan Toubin spins all 45's and plays Rock and Soul that you can dance too.  I was tired as hell and didn't know what I was getting myself into but the music was truthfully fun. I'm hoping to get in touch with this guy and see about bringing him to the west coast. I think he would work well in S.F/ and L.A. but hope I could figure something out for S.D. to make it worth his while. Read more below and enjoy the video.

New York Night Train - "home of the extraordinary 45rpm maximum rock and soul sets and wild parties o fDJ Mr. Jonathan Toubin continuing to prove that neither nightlife nor music need to be mediocre"

I’m not one of the Schmucks who will lament over New York not being “what it used to be”, but I will say that we’re not fans of this dismal wasteland of Eurotrash tourists and guidos with polo shirts unbuttoned down to their navels grinding to the repetitive pounding of bad electro… Enter Jonathan Toubin, and his simple-yet-visionary approach to revamping the entire lanscape of New York and Brooklyn from midnight till the after hours. His New York Night Train parties have become stuff of sheer legend do to the simple fact that Toubin actually seems to care about what he is producing. His meticulous approach has paid off quite handsomely as pretty much each and every party with the Jonathan Toubin stamp on it seems to be the biggest party going on for that given night.” 

The dawn of 2010 finds New York Night Train conductor/soul proprietor Mr. Jonathan Toubin the most popular, prolific, and highest-earning rock and soul DJ on the North American nightclub circuit – taking the 45rpm dance party to a whole new level conceptually, culturally, and commercially. Though known for “maximum rock and soul” dance club sets and multi-media “Happenings,” his Soul Clap and Dance-Off party has, in the last year, put Mr. T on the map as soul man and left a huge footprint on contemporary urban nightlife. Working over 600 gigs the last two years, Mr. Jonathan Toubin has managed to keep one boot in the counter-culture from which he emerged (punk bars, DIY basements, loft parties, art galleries, music venues, and shady afterhours spots) while crossing over to dance clubs, prestigious festivals, boutique hotels, museums, ivy league colleges, fashion parties, gay events, arena pop/rock shows, and even raves – receiving nominations for nightlife awards from the fancier side of New York culture in the process.

Mr. Jonathan Toubin conceived the Soul Clap and Dance-Off more than three years ago as a monthly outlet to play his soul 45s to a small north Brooklyn underground art/rock social community in the spirit of the mid-1990s indie/punk scene parties. He added a brief dance-contest to the mix to make the event more interesting. As this humble makeshift neighborhood underdog evolved into an institution, Mr. T employed the party’s popularity as a weapon against tired hit nights, 80s nights, and other mediocre contemporary dance culture – offering an alternative in the possibility of dancing to exciting music most of us have never heard before. The epic size, frequency, and geographical breadth of the Soul Clap the last couple of years has been a seed for a new wave of soul dance culture among indie rockers, punks, and hipsters first in Brooklyn, next in Manhattan, and, in the last year, around the world – garnering slews of imitators and developing a new nightlife economy everywhere from Portland, ME to Portland, OR, from Canada to Mexico and even as far away as the Middle East.

Fresh Ingredients Make a Simple Delicious Snack

A little something I whipped up at work tonight. Heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, balsamic vinegar, chive oil, salt and pepper

Bag Raiders - Sunlight (GLOVES Remix)

Bag Raiders are from where every other hot act is coming from these days...Australia. Jack Glass and Chris Stracey have remixed some of the past few years most electrifying artists including: Cut Copy, Headman, Los Valentinos, Kid Sister, Midnight Juggernauts and Sneaky Soundsystem. This particular track is off their new album and was remixed by G.L.O.V.E.S.  another Australian who is the one man remixing machine who has been spreading his love muscle on some of the of the finest music on the market. He has quickly become infamous for his ability to turn a track into an anthem fit for any dancefloor. 

I LOVE SF!!!

Salomon Freeski TV S4 E16 Wave Skiing 2.0: JAWS

Smalltown Romeo - Party Motion

Hot Track!!!!

Puerto Rico

I went to Rincon the week before Christmas with my girlfriend, her mother, her brother and some of his knucklehead friends. We scored some fun waves, drank so cold beers, and ate some dank food. I fell in love with this place and want to return again for sure.

Some shots the lady snapped of me getting wet.

Them O's with Pase Rock at U-31 in San Diego

Them O's

 Pase Rock