I was feeling a little disco today, so I decided to throw together a short little mix. We’ve got soulful grooves and punchy funky tracks. It’s a fun little mix of house music for the middle of May. I hope you like it.
Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 04, Session Mike — The Ides of May II. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Saturday, May 15, 2010. Running time: 1:19:18.
Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.
It was Jay‘s turn to drop a Digeum Mix. He pinged me by email to let me know he was throwing it down. This time, he wandered, for the first time in Volume 04, into house territory. He calls it “Lazy Saturday Afternoon”, but it’s anything but that.
This mix stomps hard, a street-hardened set of tech house that delivers a drubbing that never softens for a second. When Jay Def wants to spin house music, it’s always gritty, tough, and punches you right in the chest. It feels like three in the morning in a warehouse, where everyone’s sweaty and screaming, the DJ pulls out another record with a bassline that comes from nowhere, and the weak have left the dancefloor for the committed.
Don’t believe me. Go listen to it. And close your eyes and picture every underground party you’ve ever been to — every time it’s getting to that hour when you’ve passed the point where you’re worried about getting up and doing stuff tomorrow.
Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 04, Session Lima — Lazy Saturday Afternoon. Mixed by Jay Def in Meridian, Idaho, USA, on Saturday, May 08, 2010. Running time: 2:03:33.
Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.
My friend, Eric, came over today to work on homemade CrossFit tools. The original plan was to build a few medicine balls, which we would build out of rubber basketballs, playground balls, sand, and duct tape. We also decided to build a pair of parallettes each, per Greg Glassman’s instructions. After a visit to Orchard Supply Hardware to pick out the supplies to build parallettes, we were ready to get underway with the construction project.
I remember some time ago reading a funny story about a guy’s misadventure making a medicine ball. I thought to myself, “The worst that can happen is that I’ll mess up the cuts on a PVC pipe and have to buy another $2.25 pipe to start over with.” I knew that, whenever we built the medicine balls and parallettes, we’d be working outside. Spilled sand or miscut pipes outside damages nothing. Right.
When Eric and I got the supplies out to my car, I pointed out that the seats in the back fold down flat and that there should easily be enough room to put the PVC pipes in the car and close the rear hatch. Unfortunately, I loaded the PVC pipes in the car, put one end against the windshield on the passenger side and closed the hatch. This caused the PVC pipes to impact the corner of the windshield on the passenger side. Yes, now I have an impact fracture from the inside about the size of a dollar bill. So, my parallette construction project just added a $150 windshield repair to the bill.
Eric and I wandered to find burlap bags, found the clock ticking against us as we researched glass repair options, and finally scrubbed the medicine ball construction (which would involve running to a beach to get 50 pounds of sand and, the way my luck was going, dumping it all over the interior of my car). We decided to focus on building the parallettes.
The actual construction part of the parallettes was really easy. While Glassman’s instructions call for a high level of precision and straight cuts, we had minimal tools and cut the pipes by hand on my front lawn. Using electrical tape as a cut guide, in accordance with the instructions, was brilliant, but electrical tape never forced a straight cut from a small hack saw. While some of our cuts were weirdly crooked, once the parallettes were put together, they were as solid as they would be if we had used a mitre box.
After some testing, we were both surprised by how solid and useful these parallettes are. I was also surprised by how much more challenging kicking up to a handstand is when you’re effectively nine inches taller. Fortunately, we have photographic evidence of our adventure.
Parallette Materials:Today’s grand total: $233.77
The lesson: When loading your car with something long, don’t put the end against the windshield.
Late last week, my landlady decided to send a crew over to replace the roof of the house. After eight days of hammering and sawing, I was craving some beats that were in some kind of tempo. I’ve been downloading quite a few new garage tracks from eMusic. I also recently acquired a gargantuan compilation on 5 CDs. Might as well take them for a spin.
Of course, with all this construction, everyone and their dog had to call me while I was mixing. My phone almost never rings until I’m doing something. My landlady called me and I had to figure out a way to tactfully get off the phone before my track ran out. There were 12 seconds on the track timer when I faded in the next track after several sessions of “Oh, but one more thing…”
A couple of these tracks were tricky to mix. In other places, someone interrupted me, either by ringing my phone or wandering through my studio. Despite all this, the time went by quickly and I discovered a few new artists that I am on the look out for now.
Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 04, Session Kilo — Roofing the Garage. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Friday, May 07, 2010. Running time: 1:19:53.
Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.
Has it been 500 workouts already? This evening’s barrage of evil is my 500th since I started doing the workout of the day. After missing a bunch of days last summer, I locked it back down and focused on hitting it every day. Tomorrow marks 200 workouts in a row without unscheduled missed days.
I’m stronger than ever, but I have such a long way to go that I’ll never run out of things to do. I can’t wait until my garage has the full equipment roster, including 300 pounds of bumpers, a barbell, and a squat rack. My plan for the next year is to get that equipment, develop more, reset all of my personal bests (especially that 5K run time), and take the CrossFit Level 1 Certification.
If we know each other and you want to do a workout with me, come on over and I’ll help scale something just for you. It’s so much fun and I love the fact that I never know what tomorrow holds.
(See also: One Year of CrossFit and Two Years of CrossFit)
Today’s Jay Def‘s birthday. So, I decided to warm up the old VCI-100 with a marathon mix as a gift to my best friend. I picked out a bunch of electro tracks, ranging from minimal techno to chunky beats. I decided to deliver one track for each candle on his birthday cake.
At 39 tracks and just over three hours long, this is the longest Digeum Mix Session mix to date. At 128 beats per minute, it’s just right for a hike, a jog, or a really long workout. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed spinning it.
To the birthday boy, I hope this mix finds you in good spirits and marvelous health. I’m privileged to call myself your friend.
Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 04, Session Juliet — For Jay. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Sunday, April 25, 2010. Running time: 3:04:10.
Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.
We’re showing a room in my house to a prospective roommate tonight, so I’ve got to keep this one short. I selected a number of tracks, trying to decide where I wanted to take the mix tonight. Will it be disco? Will it be electro?
Once I locked into Atjazz’s Wurde, I started to really feel the 124 bpm tempo and wanted a more soulful set. So, I made a beeline for the lovely songs full of soaring vocals and funky basslines. With artists in the mix like Soulstice, Glenn Underground, Miguel Migs, Samantha James, Kerri Chandler, and Sunshine Jones, you’re expecting a more relaxed groove. This felt really nice. I haven’t played some of these tracks in a long time. I frequently felt like I’d rediscovered an old flame.
Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 04, Session India — Spring Fever. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Wednesday, April 21, 2010. Running time: 1:12:53.
Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.
It’s Friday, the weather is warm, and it’s time to do a mix before I go out to my evening. So, this afternoon, I started early, selected some music, fired up Traktor, and got to work.
I decided to stay under the burnable CD time limit of eighty minutes. Some friends of mine, including Arturo Garces, Uneaq, and Dubtribe Sound System, are featured. I promise that, one day very soon, I’ll mix some of my own tracks into one of these. That means I’d better hurry up and finish something that would keep your interest, no? Until then, we’ll just groove on this 126 bpm set.
Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 04, Session Hotel — Spring Fever. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Friday, April 09, 2010. Running time: 1:19:02.
Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.
While I enjoyed the three-in-a-row two-step garage mixes, I felt that it was time to drop a big set of chunky house grooves. I pushed the tempo slider to 128 beats per minute and away we go.
Some of these cuts are familiar favorites and a few others are new downloads, either from eMusic or artist websites. Most of the transitions are pretty tight and the whole thing bumps pretty nicely.
Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 04, Session Golf — Prima Aprilis. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Thursday, April 01, 2010. Running time: 2:03:21.
Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.
This evening, I threw down the two-step grooves for a third time with a fun mix that bumps pretty nicely. Other than a sloppy transition into and out of the MJ Cole track near the end, this set went off flawlessly and featured plenty of fun tracks.
This mix session is just shy of eighty minutes, because I really wanted to have a mix on CD for the car. I’m one of the very few people who own iPods or iPhones and don’t have the capability of playing those devices on my car stereo. The bouncy feel of this mix will make it easy to use as a dancefloor appetizer.
Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 04, Session Foxtrot — Garage Hat Trick. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Wednesday, March 24, 2010. Running time: 1:19:51.
Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.
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