Dan Amitai

Photos from the first meeting of our electronic music project (to be named). Featuring Retrospect, Axios, Ryptide, and myself. Future sessions will also include Immanent Voiceless.

This mix is a full hour long! Yikes! This one’s a little hard to swallow because I tried to throw all my ideas in one mix, so you have five-minute pockets of great shit in a sea of juxtaposed nonsense. Also I just upgraded to the latest Serato with auto-loop, and those of you who’ve seen me live know that when I have effects at my disposal, I abuse them to the maximum. But trust me, some good shit in here!

I’ve bolded the important parts so you can skip to them.
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Some more ideas. Just came up with this one, that is going to fucking rock everybody because it’s rock music. It sounds great, I just need to remember to bring my other laptop from the office so I can record it. Are you ready for this one!

As they say… “Share the knowledge, compete on execution.”

These six songs… The first three go together, and the second three go together, and all six together are just a bundle of alternative rock except for the first two, that are really only there because they have the same time signature as the Smiths song, and also because they are awesome. So here it is:

1. Outkast - The Whole World
2. Vitalic - Woo
3. Smiths - Panic (Live — the Rank version)
4. Death Cab for Cutie - We Laugh Indoors (EP version)
5. David Bowie - We Prick You
6. Foo Fighters - Everlong

OK here are some notes… YES I know Death Cab is lame, and Foo Fighters is lame. But these songs work so fucking well that I can’t not put them together.

Here are some more ideas I had since the last batch…
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So the Freeform DJ Collective has existed for about a year and a half now… Here’s a little bit on our individual projects.

Amitai – for the past eight months we (myself + Ivan, along with Adrian) have been hosting Beyond, the weekly downtempo happy hour everybody’s talking about. Other than that I have been playing dubstep with the Dubstep Legion of Doom, dcdubstep.com.

e-rock – Erik is teaching in Annapolis or something, and playing out once in a while.

Ivan – Ivan has been DJing once in a while but is focusing more on live acts. He is currently in the experimental noise outfit Immanent Voiceless, as well as a new doom metal project called The World That Summer.

Jacob Daniel – Jacob is protecting our country at this time, but already has gigs scheduled in DC upon his return in February.

King Koopa – grad school in NYC, spending all his money on coke and vinyl.

Soft Scientist – playing out in Baltimore once in a while, and freelancing for Baltimore City Paper. Check this article she wrote about Toypunks.

D3J – playing regularly at the Ottobar, and also doing live shows as Jakuta and Carl.

Jill T – Jill is keeping it extra real as usual, but I really don’t know what’s up because I haven’t talked to you in a minute, what’s going on Jill?

DJ Nomi – yeah haven’t talked to Adnan in a minute either. I left him a VM a week ago. What’s up with that?

retrospect – retrospect is the newest member of the collective. He, along with Ivan and myself, are starting a new project involving analog synths, ableton live, and four turntables, collaborating with Peripheral Fission’s Ryptide!

Video taken by Anh Dang of The Anh and Dan Show.

I don’t usually post about my upcoming gigs here. To stay up-to-date you should check the Freeform DJs‘ RSS feed.

However, I’m playing a couple of cool shows this week:

Thursday: Marquis @ Napoleon with Michah Villain and Outputmessage.

Saturday: Sub Kontinent @ Rock and Roll Hotel Dubstep Legion of Doom Takeover!

• TAG TEAM: beatcarnival vs amitai (1:30-2:30)
• TAG TEAM: ricky ricardo vs whighzguy (12:20-1:30)
• TAG TEAM: bario brothers (11:15 - 12:20)
• TAG TEAM: mob barley (10:10 - 11:15)
• TAG TEAM: heider vs lycan (9:00 - 10:10)

Dubstep is the freshest new genre out of the forward-thinking UK electronic music scene; it’s been laying waste to dancefloors all over the world and garnering massive critical acclaim in the last year, and DC is next. If you like drum & bass, dub, reggae, hip hop, breaks, or techno, just imagine all of those genres having a truly wild-ass party and you’ll get something of an idea of what to expect. Or, to put it another way, Dubstep is music designed by cyborg rastas from far-flung future-wastes to crush tectonic plates via earthquake bass and smash down Babylon as the drums rush the gates.

FREE | 2nd FLOOR | 9PM-230AM | 21+$2 PBR’s till 11pm and pint sized rail drinks for $5 till 11

Ivan and I played at my friend Alba’s surprise birthday party on Thanksgiving. It was tons of fun. DJing at clubs etc. is great, but when you’re playing for friends and with friends, it is the best!
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I had to take off the Rane’s faceplate the other day to lubricate the crossfader… So I decided, “well shit, while I’m at it, I’ll spray-paint it.”

illustration by tcgiant
This was originally a mix I made for my girlfriend but I kept changing it as I recorded… Took tracks out, added others, and now it’s something totally different. Anyway, this is the winter mix. A short mix for what will hopefully be a short winter.

Very minimal mixing in this one. A lot of just fadein-fadeouts. Easy!
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At Beyond this week, we had this really good turntablist guesting, and Ryptide said “Dan, your next ten posts are going to be you trying to do the same thing.” He totally called me on it.