Most of this is from a post I popped in Sunday night.
Somehow, I think this matters right now and will pop up from the whack-a-mole game board in the future to bite everyone…… Then again, it all may be nothing.
————
Interpol’s boss is a gent named Ronald K. Noble and right about now he’s got a bug on his back about cyber crime.
Part of that bug is buzzing because Mr. Noble had his ID compromised and phony FaceBook pages were set up in his name. Now, there’s a big meeting about ‘cyber crime’.
Don’t know Mr. Noble ?….. I actually think you do…….. Here’s something from Lloyd Bentsen (Sec. Treas. under Pres. Bill Clinton) on Mr. Noble’s past experience: Assistant Secretary for Enforcement Ronald K. Noble has conducted a comprehensive review of the adequacy of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ (”ATF’s”) procedures, policies, and practices, and whether they were followed during ATF’s investigation of Vernon Howell, a/k/a “David Koresh,” and his followers.
A background and other stuff on Mr. Noble is at Wiki……. take anything at Wiki as you may, but it all seems to be sourced proper-like……… Mr. Ronald K. Noble, Secretary General Of Interpol.
================
My two (and a half) cents: Looks like the recent exec order ‘change’ giving Interpol open access to America is starting to come into a bit more focus now.
Given the current governmental attitude for giving a ‘nudge’ to and sidestepping all things legal and Constitutional, my guess is (begin snark) none of the following is even remotely possible (end snark). However, inquiring minds want to know……..
Approximately when was Mr. Noble’s ID compromised and those Facebook pages run up ?
If the deeds were done after the exec order……. Hmmmmmmm.
If the deeds were before the exec order, life is beautiful - for about two minutes……….
That’s because, with all that’s going and the true Statist/Totalitarian power grab involving ‘net neutrality’, (to use the legal term) is it “beyond a reasonable doubt” this is not some sort of a setup ?………. Meaning that it’s within the realm of possibility that Mr. Noble’s ID was ‘put out there’ and the ‘unauthorized’ Facebook pages set in as just one more reason to force in ‘net neutrality’ and maybe more dire, for Interpol to actually begin operating here - not just being ok’d on paper to do so by exec order.
Think about it - really think - try and lose the ‘it can’t happen here’ idea……….. Let the extrapolations begin as to what truly is possible in the current socio-political scene through technology…… legally or otherwise.
To people like Cass Sunstein, Eric Holder, Harold Koh and our current president - plus orgs like ICR2P, The UN and others - there isn’t much more dangerous of an ‘international crime’ than published simple dissent that instantly goes world-wide.
Thanks for your time.
……. and Neil……. Thank you again for keeping Tech at Night going……. We’re entering some seriously dangerous territory for individual Rights and overall freedom….. with many more than just the average person completely unaware of it all.
PS…….. I’d give a nice donation to some Minnesota children’s charity to see Senator Franken perp-walked out of the Dirksen Building, or even better still……. from his home at 3am in a rain storm.
I'm a DJ (well, more like I used to be at this point). I've played gigs opening for some of the biggest DJs in the world (Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Crystal Method, etc). I've met a bunch of DJs and producers, I know a bunch of promoters and agents, I've booked headliner DJs for a party I promoted, and I was involved one of the biggest weekly parties in the country for a few years, so I know what I'm talking about.
Being a techno DJ is not a career. Don't get into it planning on doing it as a career. The vast majority of local techno DJs do it for free or for very little money. You will almost definitely not become a professional techno DJ if that is what you set out to do.
Also, the reality is that you are going to be dealing with a lot of organized crime, alcoholics, drug dealers, drug addicts and general sleaze balls. Club owners are rip off artists, promoters are disorganized and shady, etc. Getting involved as a DJ can be rewarding when you play a successful party and everything goes well, but man when you first start it's just a lot of hard work for almost no pay off. I did get to play for 3,000 people who loved everything I played and were screaming and yelling once, but man there were hundreds of shitty gigs playing for disinterested assholes that I didn't get paid for that led up to that.
I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying keep it as a hobby, and be realistic.
However, you can be a producer without going through any of that shit, and its a shortcut to skip past the local DJ scene and go straight to the big time. Also, if you know how to produce, there are plenty of tools (notably ableton) that are basically a shortcut to DJing, so you won't need to learn how to beatmatch or scratch to get gigs if you have a couple of big remixes out.
It will probably take you 8-10 years to get good enough to have make a successful dance record. This is why most 'big name' producers are in their 30s and 40s. It takes that long to figure everything out.
You're 17 and you have music training, which puts you ahead of 90% of the beginning music producers out there, so you have a head start. If you can get some quality records out by the time you're 25 or so, you'll have a good shot at actually being a headliner, but you have to not give up when you're doing it for 2 or 3 years and your stuff still isn't good enough. I'm not exaggerating, I have friends that spent 5 or 6 years failing before they made anything good at all and started selling songs.
As soon as you turn 18, you NEED to start going to clubs, because I don't think you can understand the music on a deep level until you actually dance to it at a club with a room full of people. You don't need to go every week, and you don't need to drink or do drugs to understand it, no matter what anyone tells you (and lots of people will tell you that you do).
Don't hyper-focus on one subgenre. Go to see dubstep shows, hip-hop, drum and bass, trance, house, all of it.
Join the messageboards or facebook groups for every club that you go to. Send emails to local DJs and producers that you like. Make friends with them. Believe me, they all love to hear from people who like their stuff and most DJs will talk endlessly about the stuff they like and what they do and why. Try to find a local DJ or two or three that will reliably play your songs and give you feedback on them. And if you can write melodies and understand harmony and chords, you will be way ahead of 90% of local producers, and a lot of them will want to work with you. Believe it or not, many of them write by trial and error and don't have any clue about music theory, chords, etc, having someone who can take all their awesome synth patches and make a decent pop hook out of them is like striking gold.
If you focus on going to one club or party, it's not hard to get to know the promoters, which will let you make contact with big name DJs when they bring in headliners. Don't harass them to listen to your stuff, but it doesn't hurt to be a face or a name they recognize for when you do have something worth listening to, but don't waste big name DJs time listening to your stuff until you start getting positive feedback from local DJs.
As far as equipment -- Get a laptop with Ableton. Optionally, get an APC 40 controller and a midi keyboard. That's all you need. Everyone uses it, it's relatively simple to use and you can use it for both production and DJing. Beyond that, once you start meeting local producers, find out what they use and ask them to show you how to use it.
Once you get ableton, get a local DJ that uses it to show you how. You can pick up the basics in a few hours. Then start harassing your friends to let you play at house parties. They will mostly hate your music but that's fine, you'll still learn a lot. You'll find out what songs they like. Start downloading them and have them ready to play. Eventually they'll stop hating you and you'll have enough stuff to play at non-techno gigs, when you get offered. Knowing how to play a good techno set is important, but knowing how to play every genre of music is key to actually getting a lot of gigs and making you better with crowds, etc.
FWIW, I don't know any producers who actually went to college for it. Taking a few audio classes can be useful for a variety of things, but I wouldn't get a degree in it. Almost none of the professional producers I know have a degree in it. If you want something practical, that you can apply to a DJing career, then go with either Marketing/PR/Business (I know a lot of mediocre musicians who made careers out of it entirely because they know how to market themselves well), or Comp-Sci/Electrical Engineering, if you really want to get deep into programming synths, etc it can be useful, and obviously there are a lot of jobs out there if the DJ thing doesn't work out.
Sorry, that was a bit of a ramble:
tl;dr -- Techno DJing is not a great career, but if you want to get involved: Start going to a lot of clubs, try to avoid hanging around with sleazeballs and drug addicts (which is harder than it sounds), and get to know local producers and djs, (which is easier than it sounds).
If you have questions, feel free to memail me.
posted by empath at 11:49 AM on September 26 [4 favorites]
robert shumake
Gates Foundation Backs ABC <b>News</b> Project - NYTimes.com
The Gates Foundation gives a $1.5 million grant to ABC News to support the network's reporting on various global health crises.
Reflections of a Newsosaur: 'Community <b>news</b> sites are not a <b>...</b>
Although Jan Schaffer just produced a masterful analysis of how to run a grassroots news site, she came up dry on the crucial question of how to turn those journalistic labors of love into sustainable businesses. ...
The Hockey <b>News</b>: Special Features: VIDEO: THN Puck Panel - Was <b>...</b>
Mike Cammalleri was suspended one regular season game for a slash on Nino Niederreiter, but was the rookie's initial hit a mitigating factor? The THN Puck Panel, with Jason Kay and Ryan Kennedy, discusses the incident.
robert shumake
Gates Foundation Backs ABC <b>News</b> Project - NYTimes.com
The Gates Foundation gives a $1.5 million grant to ABC News to support the network's reporting on various global health crises.
Reflections of a Newsosaur: 'Community <b>news</b> sites are not a <b>...</b>
Although Jan Schaffer just produced a masterful analysis of how to run a grassroots news site, she came up dry on the crucial question of how to turn those journalistic labors of love into sustainable businesses. ...
The Hockey <b>News</b>: Special Features: VIDEO: THN Puck Panel - Was <b>...</b>
Mike Cammalleri was suspended one regular season game for a slash on Nino Niederreiter, but was the rookie's initial hit a mitigating factor? The THN Puck Panel, with Jason Kay and Ryan Kennedy, discusses the incident.
robert shumake
Most of this is from a post I popped in Sunday night.
Somehow, I think this matters right now and will pop up from the whack-a-mole game board in the future to bite everyone…… Then again, it all may be nothing.
————
Interpol’s boss is a gent named Ronald K. Noble and right about now he’s got a bug on his back about cyber crime.
Part of that bug is buzzing because Mr. Noble had his ID compromised and phony FaceBook pages were set up in his name. Now, there’s a big meeting about ‘cyber crime’.
Don’t know Mr. Noble ?….. I actually think you do…….. Here’s something from Lloyd Bentsen (Sec. Treas. under Pres. Bill Clinton) on Mr. Noble’s past experience: Assistant Secretary for Enforcement Ronald K. Noble has conducted a comprehensive review of the adequacy of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ (”ATF’s”) procedures, policies, and practices, and whether they were followed during ATF’s investigation of Vernon Howell, a/k/a “David Koresh,” and his followers.
A background and other stuff on Mr. Noble is at Wiki……. take anything at Wiki as you may, but it all seems to be sourced proper-like……… Mr. Ronald K. Noble, Secretary General Of Interpol.
================
My two (and a half) cents: Looks like the recent exec order ‘change’ giving Interpol open access to America is starting to come into a bit more focus now.
Given the current governmental attitude for giving a ‘nudge’ to and sidestepping all things legal and Constitutional, my guess is (begin snark) none of the following is even remotely possible (end snark). However, inquiring minds want to know……..
Approximately when was Mr. Noble’s ID compromised and those Facebook pages run up ?
If the deeds were done after the exec order……. Hmmmmmmm.
If the deeds were before the exec order, life is beautiful - for about two minutes……….
That’s because, with all that’s going and the true Statist/Totalitarian power grab involving ‘net neutrality’, (to use the legal term) is it “beyond a reasonable doubt” this is not some sort of a setup ?………. Meaning that it’s within the realm of possibility that Mr. Noble’s ID was ‘put out there’ and the ‘unauthorized’ Facebook pages set in as just one more reason to force in ‘net neutrality’ and maybe more dire, for Interpol to actually begin operating here - not just being ok’d on paper to do so by exec order.
Think about it - really think - try and lose the ‘it can’t happen here’ idea……….. Let the extrapolations begin as to what truly is possible in the current socio-political scene through technology…… legally or otherwise.
To people like Cass Sunstein, Eric Holder, Harold Koh and our current president - plus orgs like ICR2P, The UN and others - there isn’t much more dangerous of an ‘international crime’ than published simple dissent that instantly goes world-wide.
Thanks for your time.
……. and Neil……. Thank you again for keeping Tech at Night going……. We’re entering some seriously dangerous territory for individual Rights and overall freedom….. with many more than just the average person completely unaware of it all.
PS…….. I’d give a nice donation to some Minnesota children’s charity to see Senator Franken perp-walked out of the Dirksen Building, or even better still……. from his home at 3am in a rain storm.
I'm a DJ (well, more like I used to be at this point). I've played gigs opening for some of the biggest DJs in the world (Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Crystal Method, etc). I've met a bunch of DJs and producers, I know a bunch of promoters and agents, I've booked headliner DJs for a party I promoted, and I was involved one of the biggest weekly parties in the country for a few years, so I know what I'm talking about.
Being a techno DJ is not a career. Don't get into it planning on doing it as a career. The vast majority of local techno DJs do it for free or for very little money. You will almost definitely not become a professional techno DJ if that is what you set out to do.
Also, the reality is that you are going to be dealing with a lot of organized crime, alcoholics, drug dealers, drug addicts and general sleaze balls. Club owners are rip off artists, promoters are disorganized and shady, etc. Getting involved as a DJ can be rewarding when you play a successful party and everything goes well, but man when you first start it's just a lot of hard work for almost no pay off. I did get to play for 3,000 people who loved everything I played and were screaming and yelling once, but man there were hundreds of shitty gigs playing for disinterested assholes that I didn't get paid for that led up to that.
I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying keep it as a hobby, and be realistic.
However, you can be a producer without going through any of that shit, and its a shortcut to skip past the local DJ scene and go straight to the big time. Also, if you know how to produce, there are plenty of tools (notably ableton) that are basically a shortcut to DJing, so you won't need to learn how to beatmatch or scratch to get gigs if you have a couple of big remixes out.
It will probably take you 8-10 years to get good enough to have make a successful dance record. This is why most 'big name' producers are in their 30s and 40s. It takes that long to figure everything out.
You're 17 and you have music training, which puts you ahead of 90% of the beginning music producers out there, so you have a head start. If you can get some quality records out by the time you're 25 or so, you'll have a good shot at actually being a headliner, but you have to not give up when you're doing it for 2 or 3 years and your stuff still isn't good enough. I'm not exaggerating, I have friends that spent 5 or 6 years failing before they made anything good at all and started selling songs.
As soon as you turn 18, you NEED to start going to clubs, because I don't think you can understand the music on a deep level until you actually dance to it at a club with a room full of people. You don't need to go every week, and you don't need to drink or do drugs to understand it, no matter what anyone tells you (and lots of people will tell you that you do).
Don't hyper-focus on one subgenre. Go to see dubstep shows, hip-hop, drum and bass, trance, house, all of it.
Join the messageboards or facebook groups for every club that you go to. Send emails to local DJs and producers that you like. Make friends with them. Believe me, they all love to hear from people who like their stuff and most DJs will talk endlessly about the stuff they like and what they do and why. Try to find a local DJ or two or three that will reliably play your songs and give you feedback on them. And if you can write melodies and understand harmony and chords, you will be way ahead of 90% of local producers, and a lot of them will want to work with you. Believe it or not, many of them write by trial and error and don't have any clue about music theory, chords, etc, having someone who can take all their awesome synth patches and make a decent pop hook out of them is like striking gold.
If you focus on going to one club or party, it's not hard to get to know the promoters, which will let you make contact with big name DJs when they bring in headliners. Don't harass them to listen to your stuff, but it doesn't hurt to be a face or a name they recognize for when you do have something worth listening to, but don't waste big name DJs time listening to your stuff until you start getting positive feedback from local DJs.
As far as equipment -- Get a laptop with Ableton. Optionally, get an APC 40 controller and a midi keyboard. That's all you need. Everyone uses it, it's relatively simple to use and you can use it for both production and DJing. Beyond that, once you start meeting local producers, find out what they use and ask them to show you how to use it.
Once you get ableton, get a local DJ that uses it to show you how. You can pick up the basics in a few hours. Then start harassing your friends to let you play at house parties. They will mostly hate your music but that's fine, you'll still learn a lot. You'll find out what songs they like. Start downloading them and have them ready to play. Eventually they'll stop hating you and you'll have enough stuff to play at non-techno gigs, when you get offered. Knowing how to play a good techno set is important, but knowing how to play every genre of music is key to actually getting a lot of gigs and making you better with crowds, etc.
FWIW, I don't know any producers who actually went to college for it. Taking a few audio classes can be useful for a variety of things, but I wouldn't get a degree in it. Almost none of the professional producers I know have a degree in it. If you want something practical, that you can apply to a DJing career, then go with either Marketing/PR/Business (I know a lot of mediocre musicians who made careers out of it entirely because they know how to market themselves well), or Comp-Sci/Electrical Engineering, if you really want to get deep into programming synths, etc it can be useful, and obviously there are a lot of jobs out there if the DJ thing doesn't work out.
Sorry, that was a bit of a ramble:
tl;dr -- Techno DJing is not a great career, but if you want to get involved: Start going to a lot of clubs, try to avoid hanging around with sleazeballs and drug addicts (which is harder than it sounds), and get to know local producers and djs, (which is easier than it sounds).
If you have questions, feel free to memail me.
posted by empath at 11:49 AM on September 26 [4 favorites]
robert shumake
Gates Foundation Backs ABC <b>News</b> Project - NYTimes.com
The Gates Foundation gives a $1.5 million grant to ABC News to support the network's reporting on various global health crises.
Reflections of a Newsosaur: 'Community <b>news</b> sites are not a <b>...</b>
Although Jan Schaffer just produced a masterful analysis of how to run a grassroots news site, she came up dry on the crucial question of how to turn those journalistic labors of love into sustainable businesses. ...
The Hockey <b>News</b>: Special Features: VIDEO: THN Puck Panel - Was <b>...</b>
Mike Cammalleri was suspended one regular season game for a slash on Nino Niederreiter, but was the rookie's initial hit a mitigating factor? The THN Puck Panel, with Jason Kay and Ryan Kennedy, discusses the incident.
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