DOTTA - ‘Young, Black, And Gifted’ (Beat Tape) - download here…
#ATFU simply doesn’t stop. Dotta is back on the scene with a free beat tape for y’all out there that need something to ride to, something to rhyme to, something to vibe to.
Click the pic to go to DatPiff.com to download ‘Young, Black, And Gifted’.
or use this Mediafire link…
POW.
#ATFU
Download @DOTTA9’s new beat tape here.
Man, #ATFU got that WORK.
RR
NEW TYLER KNAPP! ‘LISTENING SKILLS’!
AHHHHHHH!!!!! Tyler Knapp (ELP-MASS, the producer of Mudkids) has a dope album out!!
Tyler told me he’s “catching up with technology” when I saw him the other night. It was so great to holler at the homey! He’s still crafting those super dope tracks.
If you’re into Dilla, Madlib, DOOM or any other producer that really crafts tracks that speak on their own, you would definitely enjoy Tyler’s work. I think he is an absolute genius that made me a better artist just by being around him. I have five Mudkids releases and a legacy of incredible memories and lessons to show for it.
Check out Tyler Knapp’s website to catch up with him as he catches up with technology.
Mudkids for life.
RR
#LOWER #MyBowieAlbum #ATFU
I produced and recorded this last night. It just came to me, so I did it.
I knew I was gonna cover ‘Golden Years’ and had toyed with the idea of forming a band to do so. Nothing permanent, just wanted to try it with a band. As inspiration hit me earlier this week, I told Muhbabay, “I’mma get on top of covering ‘Golden Years’.”
Reality is I’m hella busy, so the idea of trying to find players, practice, get a song tight, buy studio time, wait for a mix down..? Well, I just don’t have the time I would like to dedicate to it. I don’t wanna get into a band situation where I can’t give it my all…even if it were for one song. I can knock something like this out myself pretty quickly, relatively speaking. It also gives me a lot more time to mess around with the vocals, which I have come to appreciate.
I’m in the process of creating my own sound too; that’s how we end up with stuff like this and I guess that’s how you become a ‘producer’.
I’m also still in the process of learning to produce and play. I hear the stuff in my head, then I tap and tinker around, figuring out what will work and what won’t. I can’t read music, I have no training on instruments, I could never play this stuff live on the keys myself. What I got is an ear for GROOVE and DETERMINATION. I’ll be the first to tell you I can’t play. I’ll be the first to encourage anyone out there with music in their head to use this technique.
Just. Play. Music. You. Can. Do. It.
I’ll also be the first to tell you I’m coming up with my own sound as a producer. The more you mess around with the tunes, the more you figure out what works for you. I make music all the time, man, so I’m finding what I think works for me, what I enjoy making and what suits the music I write.
One cool way for me to show you are working on your own shit, ironically enough, is to cover songs. I’m not a big proponent of covers, man. You either hafta be totally faithful to the original or totally flip it. There’s a lotta ways that can go bad.
This is the second cover I’ve done since the formation of the Iron Man Monster Factory, the first being Nirvana’s ‘School’. I think you can tell something about an artist by what they choose to cover. I’m figuring out what I can get away with. My personal rule; I gotta absolutely love a song to bother trying to cover it. I ain’t tryna cover something because it’s popular right now (unless it’s for a stage show)…and even then, I am cool on that. I’m all about reinventing the song if I gotta cover it.
Well, just felt like breaking it down a bit. Go on and jam. Play how ya like, play what ya like. ‘The Tinkerer’ on iTunes now, and ‘LOWER’ is on the horizon.
Peace,
Me and the homie DeFakto teamed up for what seems to be (one of) the most popular song(s) on the whole album. Produced by Pat Preezy!
Follow @Nerd_Ferguson and cop #BitchWheresMySandwich #TheAlbum
Follow @PatPreezy too, yo. He got TRACKS.
#ATFU AND THEM CATS TOO.
#ATFU #Lower #MattSaysBOWIE
I been telling you guys about how David Bowie has taken over all the stereos I have access to. It’s been kinda crazy; for the last two months I really haven’t listened to anyone else’s work other than his, my own, and that of friends and people I consider my peers. I haven’t had time to check on a lotta recent releases because I was working so hard on my music…and listening to David Bowie.
I had a gang of catching up to do. All I had from Bowie before this was a singles collection…and I didn’t really listen to that that much. Obviously, the dude has had some major hits that I am very familiar with, but I never checked for his albums, despite having friends that I trust tell me to do so. I just waited on it, man. My pal, Matt, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in October of last year used to give me the BLUES about that.
When Matt and I would work together at Northside News, I’d take a grip of CD’s in for him to check out while he was making soups and stuff in the kitchen. He’d sweat me to bring in David Bowie albums and I was like, “Man, I really don’t have anything by him other than a ‘Greatest Hits’ thang.”, then Matt would give me the BLUES…”Bring in some Bowie, man. He’s got some great stuff…stuff you could sample, dude. And aside from that, he’s cool as fuck. Go get some Bowie. Get this crap outta here.” We’d laugh and he’d take off with whatever he thought was worth checking out from the pile of music I brought in. I turned him onto music, he turned me onto all KINDS of stuff, man. The dude was one of the best conversationalists I’ve ever known and an absolutely AWESOME friend.
Anyway, every time I didn’t show up with some Bowie for the homey, which was every day, he blew me shit. I would blow him shit about not liking The Beatles (smh, he meant it. He ain’t like them dudes.) and he would tell me what a tool I was for not having any Bowie albums but buying The Beatles’ albums every time they remastered, remixed, or repackaged them (he was kiiiinda right about that too. I stand by the last remasters though. Whatever…) It kinda became another one of our running jokes. “NAW…AND I AIN’T BUYING NO BOWIE TIL YOU ADMIT THAT ‘ABBEY ROAD’ IS THE SHIT, MAN. C’MON, DUDE!”…
(I just thought of this…if Mattie was still here, I probably never woulda bought a SINGLE Bowie album, just so we could continue having that to talk about, amongst the gang of memories we had and new ones were making every day. I mean, we played this ‘Naw…NAW!’ game for years. LMAOOOOOO!!)
When I got the call that my friend was gone, I obviously couldn’t believe it. You never can. They just ain’t supposed to go out like that. It happens though, man. His Mama, whom I love, asked me to speak at the memorial service. I had to, man, and I am glad I did. I was honored to be asked to pay tribute to my dear friend. I have been onstage in front of thousands of people and never felt the pressure to deliver that I felt when I was asked to speak at Matt’s funeral. It was a good pressure though. I wanted to make sure that people understood the man I knew and what he meant to us, to me…
Now, back to this Bowie thing and what this is all about and what is happening now. The day Matt died, after we all got together and started figuring out what the fuck was going on, I knew I had a new mission. My dude never steered me wrong, so it was time to pay homage to the dude. I knew to go to what God has always used to speak to me…music.
I headed to Luna Music and saw my guy, todd (his lowercase, y’all. That’s how he swags it out. #swag.) I asked him what the best Bowie albums were. I also had to let him know about Matt. We’re a neighborhood over here, man. We’re connected and we stay that way. We talked and todd offered his condolences (such a great dude, man.) and we went to the Bowie section where he put me up on ‘Low’, which was co-signed by everyone working. I copped that and ‘Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’. I had to do it. It was my way of being able to think about Matt without freaking out..and not only that, Matt was right; Bowie gotta TON of jams.
I just started putting together that my buying every Bowie album started cuz my dude, Matt made the push for Bowie, man. It’s like the last thing he taught me. Matt had a way of smacking you in the face with stuff on the cool. If he was gonna make a point, it WOULD get made. Hey, man…you have no idea how hard I fought the Bowie thing. Matt was Bowie’s last chance with me, dawg. My homeboy, Mark, tried. Chaz tried (that dude even did it the same way I’m doing it, buying an album a week. He was already hip to em though), nobody could get me to get into Bowie, man. I guess I figured it was time to stop being stubborn. Maybe it was ‘record-store guy pride’ (record-store guys sometimes wanna put YOU up on stuff so bad, they can’t let YOU be right about something they weren’t already up on. That. Is. Real. It’s part of the breed.), I dunno, but I’m glad I got over it…and now his music is always gonna be connected to good memories of a great friend.
Well, I wanted to talk about this ‘Bowie Thang’ and where it came from and where it’s going. I made this track that accompanies this post, ‘A Game I Made Up’, two days ago. I guess I’m already working on a follow-up of sorts to the album I have coming out on Tuesday. hehe. It never stops, man. I think it feels kinda like some ‘Berlin Bowie’ stuff with a bit of The Tinkerer’s special brand of whatzit and funk. I was just listening to it on the way home and thought I’d share it with y’all.
Alright, peace to all of you. Tell your friends you love em. Rock to the track. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s show.
Shade Cobain-Lie (Regret) The Conclusion ft. Stone Jonzon
#Producers #Tracks
@ShadeCobain is nasssssteeeee…. follow him. Listen to him.
![#ATFU #TheMinion #Production
I meant to write a bit about my production technique for some of this stuff. I didn’t make anything that I would deem an official ‘track’ until August 9th of this year. I love what I’m discovering and learning. I wanna talk about it, so I will. Consider this some kinda ‘digital liner notes’ or something for ‘The Minion’.
‘Dead In The Disco’ was the first track I produced using the method that I used for ‘The Tinkerer’. Whenever I make a mixtape, I have about 10-12 minutes at the end of the CD. I’ll usually make a ‘breakbeat/talkbed’ by mixing a break with some kinda loop, then freaking the blend a bit, playing the faders, cutting the loops into different lengths. My natural instinct is to play the loops/breaks as verses and choruses, just from years of writing songs and DJing. ‘Dead In The Disco’ started as a looped baseline and some funky drums. I don’t know what led me to attempt to put keys and other sounds on it, but I did…and when I did I liked it, so I ran with it.
I’ve never learned to play instruments or anything, but I think I can hear what works, so I just kinda ‘tinker about’ till I find what I hear in my head. At the time of these recordings, I didn’t even have a Midi keyboard. I played all the instruments on the very keyboard that I’m typing this post on. Call it ‘QWERTY Hop’, yeaaaaah…! That’s it!
Lemme tell ya; when inspiration hits and the tools are there…GO DO THAT.
‘Hello?’ and ‘Lifetime’ were produced and written specifically for this EP. By the time I was on those joints, I had been blessed with a Midi keyboard, allowing me to play some chords I’ve been trying to teach myself with feel on ‘Lifetime’ and giving me a wider range of ways I can freak the funk. ‘Hello?’ is one of the first ‘sample chops’ I did that I KNEW I wanted to write a song too as soon as possible. I’m glad I did. The resulting vibe was so good I sent to track to the team and the Maxi-Single came out real fly…
Oh.. download the ‘Hello?’ Maxi-Single here if you ain’t got it.
‘Jhobon’ and ‘Royalty’ are kinda tribute songs for friends AND artists that I love. Big shouts to Radiohead all over ‘Jhobon’ and my idolization of a certain ‘His Royal Badness’ will be obvious when you hear ‘Royalty’ . The original track for ‘Jhobon’ was a lot different. I felt like it was too murky though. The homey I wrote it for ain’t murky. “She’s 40. She’s a MAN!” \[._.]/ …so I had to redo a whole buncha stuff to make it funk right.
‘Royalty’…man I love that record. Everybody has a story about that dude and I had to tell mine…ALL OF THEM. The track is actually entirely produced on the turntables. I flashed the break, then I blended a beat in back of that…then I blended a loop in back of that…then I scratched on top of that. Considering one of the highlights of my career as a DJ was getting to spin his after party while he was in the building, creating this song entirely on the turntables was a no-brainer and felt mad natural.
‘High Chops (The Tinkerer’s Extended Dead In The Disco Dub)’ is a remix of a track that is featured on ‘The Tinkerer’. I always loved those radio promos back in the day where they’d just shot out all the bands they played on the station. That’s kinda what I was going for here, giving you a bit of insight on some of the influences on ‘The Tinkerer’ and paying homage to a buncha artists I wish everybody was into, at least a lil bit.
Oh…you ain’t heard this EP I’m talking about…click the pic or the link to go download it. It’s free, man.
Rusty Redenbacher - ‘The Minion’ EP
I hope you like that, feel the need to tell people about it and do. That’s why ‘The Minion’ is here…to pave the way for ‘The Tinkerer’.
Aight, check that out. Rawkawn and be great. Thanks for rockin with me, y’all.
#ATFU and U 2.
RR](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsvqvhPmzs1qeaiero1_400.png)
#ATFU #TheMinion #Production
I meant to write a bit about my production technique for some of this stuff. I didn’t make anything that I would deem an official ‘track’ until August 9th of this year. I love what I’m discovering and learning. I wanna talk about it, so I will. Consider this some kinda ‘digital liner notes’ or something for ‘The Minion’.
‘Dead In The Disco’ was the first track I produced using the method that I used for ‘The Tinkerer’. Whenever I make a mixtape, I have about 10-12 minutes at the end of the CD. I’ll usually make a ‘breakbeat/talkbed’ by mixing a break with some kinda loop, then freaking the blend a bit, playing the faders, cutting the loops into different lengths. My natural instinct is to play the loops/breaks as verses and choruses, just from years of writing songs and DJing. ‘Dead In The Disco’ started as a looped baseline and some funky drums. I don’t know what led me to attempt to put keys and other sounds on it, but I did…and when I did I liked it, so I ran with it.
I’ve never learned to play instruments or anything, but I think I can hear what works, so I just kinda ‘tinker about’ till I find what I hear in my head. At the time of these recordings, I didn’t even have a Midi keyboard. I played all the instruments on the very keyboard that I’m typing this post on. Call it ‘QWERTY Hop’, yeaaaaah…! That’s it!
Lemme tell ya; when inspiration hits and the tools are there…GO DO THAT.
‘Hello?’ and ‘Lifetime’ were produced and written specifically for this EP. By the time I was on those joints, I had been blessed with a Midi keyboard, allowing me to play some chords I’ve been trying to teach myself with feel on ‘Lifetime’ and giving me a wider range of ways I can freak the funk. ‘Hello?’ is one of the first ‘sample chops’ I did that I KNEW I wanted to write a song too as soon as possible. I’m glad I did. The resulting vibe was so good I sent to track to the team and the Maxi-Single came out real fly…
Oh.. download the ‘Hello?’ Maxi-Single here if you ain’t got it.
‘Jhobon’ and ‘Royalty’ are kinda tribute songs for friends AND artists that I love. Big shouts to Radiohead all over ‘Jhobon’ and my idolization of a certain ‘His Royal Badness’ will be obvious when you hear ‘Royalty’ . The original track for ‘Jhobon’ was a lot different. I felt like it was too murky though. The homey I wrote it for ain’t murky. “She’s 40. She’s a MAN!” \[._.]/ …so I had to redo a whole buncha stuff to make it funk right.
‘Royalty’…man I love that record. Everybody has a story about that dude and I had to tell mine…ALL OF THEM. The track is actually entirely produced on the turntables. I flashed the break, then I blended a beat in back of that…then I blended a loop in back of that…then I scratched on top of that. Considering one of the highlights of my career as a DJ was getting to spin his after party while he was in the building, creating this song entirely on the turntables was a no-brainer and felt mad natural.
‘High Chops (The Tinkerer’s Extended Dead In The Disco Dub)’ is a remix of a track that is featured on ‘The Tinkerer’. I always loved those radio promos back in the day where they’d just shot out all the bands they played on the station. That’s kinda what I was going for here, giving you a bit of insight on some of the influences on ‘The Tinkerer’ and paying homage to a buncha artists I wish everybody was into, at least a lil bit.
Oh…you ain’t heard this EP I’m talking about…click the pic or the link to go download it. It’s free, man.
Rusty Redenbacher - ‘The Minion’ EP
I hope you like that, feel the need to tell people about it and do. That’s why ‘The Minion’ is here…to pave the way for ‘The Tinkerer’.
Aight, check that out. Rawkawn and be great. Thanks for rockin with me, y’all.
#ATFU and U 2.
#ATFU #Seaside #ListenHere
This is what happens when you start talking about vegemite sammiches and such with your pals online…
*shrugs*…just made this…messing about. Tinkering. Kinda mellow. Have fun with it.
Your Friend at the Iron Man Monster Factory,
#ATFU #SHRUGLIFE #TBM #LANON #NAPTOWN ADIYM
#ATFU #FreeDownload #FreeEP #5iveOnTheBlackHandSide
Ok, friends, here it is…and I didn’t know it was coming either, so let’s just have some fun with this one.
This is ‘5ive On The Black Hand Side’, a collection of five tracks I made in the last 36 hours all inspired by Blaxploitation films, soundtracks, and style. I’d like to think of it as an introduction to a bit of my style as a producer. The zip #also has six covers, so you can freak it on your iPod how you want.
I hope you enjoy it.
Click the pic to download ‘5ive On The Blackhand Side’, totally free, man. Just jam.
…and get ready for ‘The Tinkerer’.
(P.S. - if you dig it, share it. If you got #BARS, record em. Just holler at me sometime. Enjoy.)
#5OnTheBlackHandSide, #FreeEP. Reblogging for the cheap seats.
#ATFU
#ATFU #TheTinkerer #TheNocturnalStomp #ListenHere
I posted an early version of this here…actually at the time, I thought it was close to done. HA. I was very wrong.
During the process of mixing this album down, I learned a lotta stuff I really had no idea about and I think I applied it pretty well. I finished the final mixes of everything yesterday. I spent seven days producing, writing, and recording the bulk of the album and a month mixing it down.
I’ve never been responsible for every sound on an album before. Shit, I’d never produced anything that I woulda called a ‘track’ before August 9th of this year and I surely never mixed an album down. I threw every ounce of energy I could into this album. It led me new places, taught me stuff about myself AND this here Garageband program. (You can get funky with anything, man. That’s the whole point of ‘The Funk’. It’s in YOU, not the instrument.) I made no less than 40 ‘whip test’ CD’s of this album…I have literally lived with it since it got here, like a child, and raised it to a point where I think it can go into the world and represent me and #ATFU well.
I’m hoping to be able to release this thang before Halloween, but I don’t wanna get y’all gassed up. I’m as proud of it as anything I have done and I’m promising myself that I won’t rush any part of the process of releasing it. Although it SEEMS like ‘The Tinkerer’ came outta nowhere, when you consider the actual hours per day spent on it, man…I put a GANG of actual time into crafting this album, giving me a whole new respect for what ‘producers’ (REAL ones) and engineers do, #aswell.
Aight, y’all. Be great.
‘The Tinkerer’ is coming…
#ATFU #SHRUGLIFE #TBM #LANON #NAPTOWN
#ATFU #FreeDownload #FreeEP #5iveOnTheBlackHandSide
Ok, friends, here it is…and I didn’t know it was coming either, so let’s just have some fun with this one.
This is ‘5ive On The Black Hand Side’, a collection of five tracks I made in the last 36 hours all inspired by Blaxploitation films, soundtracks, and style. I’d like to think of it as an introduction to a bit of my style as a producer. The zip #also has six covers, so you can freak it on your iPod how you want.
I hope you enjoy it.
Click the pic to download ‘5ive On The Blackhand Side’, totally free, man. Just jam.
…and get ready for ‘The Tinkerer’.
(P.S. - if you dig it, share it. If you got #BARS, record em. Just holler at me sometime. Enjoy.)
#ATFU #5OnTheBlackHandSide #CoverArt.
I’m uploading the zip of this right now and will be posting it here tonight. 5 tracks, yo, from concept to posting in approximately 36 hours. Yup. I friggin love making music, man. I’m glad to offer this little instrumental offering to y’all, man. If you dig it, share it with whomever you feel would feel like you do about it.
I really wanna send a big shout out to Mr. Kinetik who pushed me back into considering making tracks about six months ago. We were in the car and I was playing some ‘tracks’ I had made on a four track utilizing my buddy, Paul Bunyon’s oooold mixer with about 4 seconds of sample time. When he said, “Man, we could rhyme to some of these…”, I was like, “#Maby?…” but the sound quality is so lo-fi, and actually, a lot of it was made specifically to be heard instrumentally.
Due to the limitations of the equipment, I was forced to learn how to count the beats out (something I do naturally, but when it comes to making beats live, chopping loops and stuff, you gotta know where you are or you’re not making a ‘track’, you’re making noise…’on beat’.), trigger samples and parts live, all the way thru, learned a bit about mixing down a tape on a multitrack recorder…this was a while back, man. Basically I was making a ‘pause tape’ on a four-track.
I use a lotta those same techniques now. I made all the rhythm beds for every track on the ‘The Tinkerer’ live on my turntables. Every rhythm bed is performed on the turntables live, chopping loops, flashing, blending the breaks with a sample…and then the instrumentation was added. In all honesty, the idea of adding instrumentation was totally foreign to me. I don’t have musical equipment and at the time, I didn’t even have a Midi keyboard. Shit done changed and I’m teaching myself more techniques. ‘The Tinkerer’ is Tesla, figuring things out…working on it, and if you ask me, doing not too bad. (I’m really happy with it.)
‘5ive On The Black Hand Side’ is a different in a few ways. 1) I learned how to chop and loop on my computer, so all these were actually composed in Garageband. 2) I got a Midi keyboard now, woo! 3) No rappin, yo…tracks.
I’m releasing this cuz I love ya and I had a great time making it. Hope you enjoy it. The zip will be posted before midnight, #Naptown time, tonight.
