Author Archives: Ed Metaphysical

by Ed Metaphysical and Trevor Keen

Don Cornelius was the father of the modern dance show. Soul Train opened new audiences to “urban” music, helping to make Disco, Funk, Soul, R&B, even Hip Hop the giants they are today. He also set the standard for other revolutionary dance shows like Detroit’s The Scene, which helped popularize Detroit Techno, or the UK’s Top of the Pops on BBC One.

We pay homage to the immortal Don Cornelius tonight, Friday, March 2nd, at the Black Cat Backstage with four of the area’s top disco DJs throwing down—including some classic disco, all-vinyl sets—at the Soul Train Don Cornelius Tribute Party. Be one of the first 30 to enter and get a free Soul Train DVD! To get you ready for the disco mayhem, each of the DJs is sharing his favorite Soul Train artist.

Yesterday we featured picks from DJs William Devon and Mr. Bonkerz, and today we conclude with favorites from The Metaphysical and Trev-Ski.

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A common expression I hear whenever I mention H Street to Northwesters is “Oh it’s sooo far away, I never get out there.” Yet Saturday at the H Street Festival, there was a mix of the usual Capitol Hill crowd, the Capitol Heights hipsters, DC families, bar industry folks working and hanging out, scene kids, kids who wished they were in the scene, and your usual H street debauchery.

You can see almost a direct correlation with Adams Morgans Day. Ever since Adams Morgans Day (and Adams Morgan itself) started dying off, H Street has continued to grow, grow, grow. I can see it in the bar industry. It used to be that bartenders in Adams Morgan would move to bars on and off of U Street. It seems like most of them are taking the trek out to H Street because the bar industry there on the weekends is continuing to boom. In the words of James Woods, “Death to Video Drome! Long Live the New Flesh!”

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As a DJ, you develop a special art-form. It’s called: ignoring requests.

You hone this skill over years.

I have learned that trying to explain to party-goers why their requests are unwarranted and inappropriate is a futile act. Most of the time, people who are requesting tracks are intoxicated on one substance or another. They know they will feel it if you drop a certain track, but what they don’t understand is that they are asking for a country song in the middle of a house set.

I find myself using rhetorical phrases like “Are you having a good time?” or “I’m planning on playing that genre in the future if you want to wait around for a while.” If the person is really insistent, I will say, “I forgot to bring that track today.” If they are really, REALLY insistent, they will say things like, “Don’t you have the internet? Can’t you download it right now?”

This is when I call security over to deal with it.

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So this month I wanted to write about sampling. Sampling is an art form mostly devoted to vinyl, the art of making sound out of sound. When talking about sampling, you need a reference. So I decided to write about samples, or more specifically, tracks I like to sample. This is a daunting task, for there are thousands of brilliant tracks out there that are waiting to be sampled. I needed a theme. So I hit up my good friend and rare groove aficionado Mammalsounds up for some ideas. This month we are proud to present:

Dinner & Dancing with Neil deGrasse Tyson
(a soundtrack to the perfect first date with the freshest astronomer)

Arthur Verocai – Na Boca Do Sol
(Arthur Verocai, 1972)
So I wanted to start strong, set the mood at a hard, yet soft level. The contrast with the hard brass and wind instrumentation and the vocalization on this track are heart wrenching. Mr. Verocai is a Brazilian Jazz musician of the highest caliber. I’m pretty sure the Portuguese translation to this track is, “Lets get down and do the nasty this second.” Notice the flutes between the vocal segments—great little segments to separate along with the horn intro.

Lupin III – You Are Like Breeze Variation
(Castle of Cagliostro OST, 1979)
Taken from the soundtrack to the Japanese Anime classic Castle of Cagliostro. This track is more laid back, it almost has a Muzak quality to it. Though there is a strange, almost comical slide guitar throughout. If you take the flute trills, ignore the cheesy vibraphone action in the middle and the stabs at the end of the chorus, you could make something unexpected.

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This Saturday (6/4) is the DC Record Fair! Brought to you by Som Records, DC Soul Recordings, and The Vinyl District, almost thirty dealers will be taking over the space at vitaminwater® uncapped LIVE near the U Street Corridor, presented by Brightest Young Things, Art Whino, and G40.

As always, we’ll have vendors from up and down the East Coast augmented by our ever-revolving Guest DJs, plus food, drinks, and everything you’ve become accustomed to.

The Washington, DC Record Fair
Saturday, June 4, 2011
vitaminwater® uncapped LIVE
2217 14th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
11-Noon early bird $5 admission
12-5PM $2 admission

All week, the DC Record Fair DJs will be talking up some music and some vinyl to get you ready for the DC Record Fair. We’re so, so ready… First up, our charismatic Spinning the Truth columnist and local DJ extraordinaire, The Metaphysical.

Photo Credit: Lauren Jaslow, Snarky Studios

In 2002, two Breakcore artists went on tour, Venetian Snares and Hecate. During this time, they recorded their sexual escapades, including penetrating each other with microphones. The two of them dissected the recording, rearranging, manipulation into drums, and synthesis, and released this record under the name Nymphomatriarch.

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It is rare to find two people who are natives of the DC Metro area. Chris and John grew up in “NoVa” amongst the planned communities of suburban Hell. They bonded over their nostalgic affection for mid ’90s East Coast Hip-Hop. It didn’t take long to go from playing tracks for one another in their basements to buying turntables and spinning.

Ender – Drums and Flowers | moonbouncedj

While off at different colleges, they honed their abilities on the wheels of steel. Reconnecting after college and John’s Peace Corps stint, they did their first gig together at Claire and Dons Beach Shack—a bar/restaurant, formerly in Clarendon—a starting point, for those in pursuit of a DJ career in the Washington area, much like Galaxy Hut or Dr. Dremo’s. They have played together ever since, offering listeners a little bit of everything with their signature styles.

Under the name Moon/Bounce, these two have married their styles not only musically, but through technology. They are a hybrid of vinyl and computer, a union of eclectic and fresh. They don’t stick to musical fads or fashion, they stick to what sounds good. A true test of a DJ is not whether he can seamlessly mix two house tracks together, but instead, if he can mold tracks into new ideas. Moon/Bounce has this kind of communication: speaking together through music.

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We’re thrilled that Staff Writer and local DJ extraordinaire Ed Metaphysical will be writing a monthly column at The Vinyl District, “Spinning the Truth.” In today’s first edition, he gives a guide to the places on H Street where you can throw back some drinks and get down. Beckys and Chads beware; I think that some of these places are hidden on purpose.

Before doing his successful Comedy Central show, DC native Dave Chapelle released a live stand-up recording talking about how crack affected DC. He reflected on how white people sat on the borders of DC looking in throughout the ’80s, saying to each other “not yet.” He was talking about gentrification in our nation’s capitol.

All Photos: Lauren Jaslow, Snarky Studios

Since Mayor Anthony Williams was elected, many neighborhoods throughout DC have been highly gentrified. This is one of the remarks people make about the Atlas District, or the H Street Corridor, as it’s been called more recently. Many people don’t remember the time when the U Street Corridor was sketchy or when Adams Morgan was a lower-middle-class black neighborhood.

The Atlas District is still feeling the effects of that recent gentrification, yet compared to when The Argonaut opened its doors in 2005, a lot has changed. As a result of this gentrification, the Atlas District has become home to a vibrant music scene that looks to shape the new face of the District’s nightlife. Here are the venues at the forefront of this community, where you can expect to hear live music or DJs.

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Basically, we got a lot of shit.

Recently, several of the cities in the TVD Network ran stories on the popular mashup DJ Girl Talk. This resulted in accusations of hypocrisy from readers because Girl Talk is a MacBook DJ, although he does release on vinyl. While The Vinyl District Network does promote the superior form of music media, vinyl, we are firstly a network of music blogs and do not limit ourselves to only reporting on vinyl.

DJing is an art form, and both vinyl and MacBook DJs have a place as artists in this field, as there is a place for both oil painters and sketch artists. When comparing vinyl and laptop DJing, perhaps it’s as if one is comparing Raphael to Dalí.

TVD Contributor and local mashup DJ extraordinaire The Metaphysical is one of the first DJs trained to spin on digital, but he is a laptop DJ who still appreciates the vinyl medium. The Metaphysical took a break from his busy schedule to reflect on vinyl for TVD:

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