on "underground alternatives", nick holder's second full length outing for nrk sound division in '00, he opened up the album with the track "america eats it's young". it's a swinging housey affair with spoken word artist joanne geiry aka jemini going off on the american societal problems back around the turn of the millennium. none the less i reckon it's still relevant today in the same way the gil scott-heron's "the revolution will not be televised" still holds up. both are loaded with references to specific events and pop culture for that particular time but carries the message through despite that.
for holder's following album for nrk, "the otherside", released three years after "underground alternatives" once again jemini was invited to collaborate. although on "no more dating dj's" the focus was shifted towards jemini and less on the rhythm. in fact holder's production is a bit too basic for my standard but i know its purpose as it's completely built around geiry's words and the track drops out at ever punchline of sorts.
the single release in '04 some remixes came up by john ciafone, yam who and pete rock. the first of which had the job of doing the 120bpm uptempo mix as nrk is more known as a house label. yam who did a small radio version that added some pads and bass and works quite well. pete rock did his thing with the track and this usually involves a new groove and it's a really good one.
pete rock also punches the drums in and out at every punchline but i like this version the most as the groove doesn't come to a halt. then again the beat is almost secondary with jemini's spot on observations of the life of living together with dj's. of course some of it is very tongue-in-cheek but it's also stories and revelations of people interested in music outside of actually practising instruments. even on that note i think it can be applied to as well since the personal lives of a lot of male artists include being tools to everyone that likes them, or at least so they say.
the only thing i could criticise jemini's story about is that it revolves the relationship male dj and female girlfriend & fellow musicenthusiast. the song was made over ten years ago and the ratio male to female dj's in the consciousness was without exaggerating about thirty to one, where as now it is maybe ten to one. part of which why i brought this up was as i was noting on a tweet by a swedish journalist and dj. this person wondered why the relationship of mockery falls together on mostly a male dj as there is more female dj's working out there now, in a true sense of equality of sorts.
my answer and reaction wasn't the normal stereotype of "there isn't any female dj's" but that "female dj's are less of a douchebag" (as in females are gentle human beings compared to those savage males) and less subjected in mockery in that sense. they are in general critiqued for if they actually have skill, you know because females couldn't possibly be dj's and selecting songs in an order and transitioning them is a thing for people with penises.
with this a separate thought came to mind about two special cases within the trance-related community with sandra collins and dj irene* especially in regards to other dj's with penises like sasha and dj keoki. collins had a reputation of heavy drinking and so had sasha, although sasha would consume all sorts of drugs at his most mental phases. only sasha's stories of him being off his tits in a ditch an hour before going on and mixing is regarded as legendary and are told with refrains, where as sandra collins stories are told with judgement and critisism.
for the other case with keoki and irene it has to do with both had used a heavy marketing ploy of the big egocentric rockstar dj. even though i know keoki has been in and out the gutter in his career, keoki has stand up with all of the mockery of this image but the backlash of dj irene is something you cannot imagine. the problematic is that with the sexist and judgemental society you do not want to bring up these cases as i don't think it does good for anyone.
i think men as a collective should be able to take the critism or mockery as females are subjected to a boatload of unjustified hate and discrimnation to a much bigger extent. in most cases of the critism that falls upon men it's for lowering or shattering ego's of individuals that take their role a bit to seriously. ultimately in a true sense of equality you should be able to do talk about female dj's as douchebags without the judgement but i still don't see this happening in the following years.
anyhow, i'm stepping down from the soapbox now. also the tune is brilliant.
buy here (junodownload)
*yes i know irene plays hardhouse and sandra collins went into progressive house but it's still all clobbmuzik over 135 bpm, even though collins hasn't gone over that tempo in years.
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