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I am a huge, huge fan of these crazy cats from Sweden. I've owned and worked to death every piece of software they've ever
released, from the awesome original ReBirth to the even awesomer ReBirth iPhone app and everything in between. Pretty much every remix
that comes out of my studio at some point passes through the magic formula (ReCycle + Reason + Record), and I can tell you without even thinking
about it that Reason is my favorite app ever, period. Coming from a guy who writes software for a living, that's gotta count for something, right? :)
Go visit them at http://www.propellerheads.se
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Once upon a time, if you were lucky enough to live in the New York City area, you could hear the best dance music on the planet for free, right
on your radio, and you even had a choice of stations: WKTU and KISS-FM. Ever since the demise of that badass duo, programmers have
repeatedly tried to reboot the format, sometimes successfully (OK, the latest incarnation of WKTU *is* pretty badass), usually not (WPYM in Miami,
WNYZ in NYC, and *damn*, where did all those Sirius and XM dance channels go?!). Well FINALLY, I'm happy to say that the rescue party has arrived
via the Internet. There are a handful of dedicated web-based broadcasters who *are* getting the dance format right, and one that I've been tuning
in to for quite a while is Radio Danz. These guys have gathered together a highly combustible pile of both old-skool talent (Blake Lawrence, the
guy who started BPM on XM Satellite Radio... how cool is that?) and hungry newcomers (give me pretty much any Bimbo Jones-ified track and I will
cue it up in a sweaty, packed club on a Saturday night, ON FAITH, without listening to it first) and have been serving up a first-rate 24/7 dance
mix, with original programming, COMMERCIAL FREE (!!!) since 2006. And if you've got an iPod/iPhone, you can take 'em with you.
I've been tuning 'em in for about a year now, and in fact, I am listening to the weekly Sunday night Danz 20 Countdown as I write this.
Yeah, I still miss the old WKTU, but I'll tell you what: Radio Danz makes the boo-boo almost all-better. :) Give 'em a listen at
http://www.RadioDanz.com, and check out
Maxwell House's weekly Danze 20 Countdown podcast at
http://podcast.RadioDanz.com.
By the way, you do *not* need to own an iPod to listen to podcasts. If this is news to you, please continue on to the next post. :)
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News flash: the Killer App for Windows computers has arrived, and it's from... *gasp*, What?!! The enemy?!!
The other day, I was talking to a friend at a club (well ok, so we were shouting really) and he asked me if I could recommend a good program for
playing mp3's and CD's on a Windows computer. He said that he'd been using WinAMP for years but was unhappy with its organizational skills,
and he'd given up on Windows Media Player forever ago because of its ever-increasing user unfriendliness. (Point taken. Hey Microsoft:
who's brilliant idea was it to remove the ability to edit the title/artist/album/etc. from Windows Media Player? Don't you think that's
something that people might possibly want to do? Granted, I can go find the file on my hard drive, right click it, select Properties,
click the Summary tab, click the Advanced button, click on the title which then magically turns into an edit box [ha, didn't know that,
did you? :)], make my changes, then go back to Windows Media Player, click Apply Media Information Changes, and wait an hour or so
while my entire library is rebuilt, but come ON.... really?!!) Anyway... I shouted "You didn't like iTunes?", and he shouted back
"I don't have an iPod". Now this was a pretty smart fella, and after straightening him out on the notion that you need an i-anything-else
to enjoy iTunes on your Windows computer, I hit the Internet and discovered that there actually are a *lot* of people out there with the
same idea. So as a public service to all you Windows users, listen up: there is no reason to continue to torture yourself with the
horribleness of Windows Media Player for a single minute longer. Go to
Apple's iTunes download page
right this second, click the Download Now button, tell the installer "Yes, go ahead and find my music", and prepare to be amazed.
I don't need to say a single thing more on the subject, you'll be kicking yourself in the arse within minutes.
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The first club I ever played at was right across the hallway from a Record Theatre, and the store would stay open until after the club had closed
so that partygoers could buy the songs they'd been dancing to that night. Just inside the door to the store was an easel with Billboard Magazine's
newly-invented "National Disco Action Top 30" centerfold chart posted on it (that's right, disco wan't dead yet; yes, it *was* a long time ago).
That chart and I grew up together, and though it's changed its name several times along the way (seemed like a bad idea, so I kept mine) and
split into two seperate versions of itself (this actually *did* seem like a good idea, but alas...) it's still my number 1 go-to source for what's
coming next. Want to know what you'll be partying to on my dancefloor next month? Check out the
Dance/Club Play Songs Chart on BillBoard.com.
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