(MUX): Announcements, Gigs, Demo

[mux]

MUXLIST ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1.) Where is MUX?
2.) UPCOMING SHOWS
3.) New Live Recording (full set!)
4.) 2005 Demo CD Completed!
5.) Promoter Callout
6.) Gear Changes

Holas,

This is the eleventh email to this newsletter since the inception of the list in September 2003. News time!


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1.) Where is MUX?

For those new to the list, MUX is an all-hardware live-pa acid/rave techno musician in Vancouver, BC, Canada. MUX music is pounding and energetic, and is best enjoyed at a loud volume very late at night.

As for where I've been - well, for the last few months, I've been trying to balance a fulltime day job with a few little side projects - like buying a house with my girlfriend, getting ready to move, etc. :) The house we're buying doesn't have a room for a studio, so we'll be digging out the floor of the basement (6.5' ceilings just aren't high enough!) and refinishing it custom, with sound-treated walls and ceilings, hardwood floors, etc. Lots of work, but it should make for a very pleasant place to work on music.

Currently, I'm in the studio, holed up and working on a new set of rave techno for the 2005 party season. I'm looking greatly forward to playing at many parties this Summer! If you liked last years music, just wait until you hear the music this year...



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2.) UPCOMING SHOWS!


Well, ok, currently it's just "upcoming show" - I have a second booking in June, but no info about that show yet. I'm confident that that'll change soon enough, as I've been giving out demo CDs like mad. :) I've had to turn down a few shows since Christmas, as I've decided to build a new set of tunes from scratch rather than keep playing last years music.

I'm booked for a performance on April 28th at "Kcuf Uoy", the techno clubnight held at Lick ever second Thursday. This will be the third time I'll have played at Lick, this time with my good friends Ross "DJ Granolaboy" Kakushke and Jody "GI Jody" Marshall both spinning records, making up a night of Pod6 debauchery. Cheap drinks and good techno
people abound!

I've told the guys at Kcuf Uoy that I will probably not have a full hour set of music ready in time for April 28th - like I said above, we're busy buying a house and moving into it, which is taking up WAY more of my free time that I'd like - I'm aiming for 30-45 minutes, and I'm considering this show a trial run of a bunch of new ideas I've been working on.

Lick is at 455 Abbott Street in Vancouver, BC - doors open around 9pm, with techno starting around then and continuing until 1am or whenever they kick us off the (excellent) soundsystem, whichever is later.



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3.) New Live Recording!


Not so new anymore, but new as of the last mailout (way back in November; I told you this list was low-traffic!). I got a decent stereo-mic recording of my set at the "Just What The Doctor Ordered" rave on November 27th 2004. Sharing the bill that night were Aya, Dr. Doom, Crazy Dave, Goa Pete, AkHentek, Ninjaboy and Logik.

The recording is available on my website, in the 'Live Recordings' section:

http://mux.ca/livetunes.html

I consider this recording to be an excellent example of my 2004 live sets - my set was from 2am-3am, and you can hear from the recording how much the crowd enjoyed it. :) I've received some excellent feedback from folks on the net who've downloaded it and had a listen.

(I'm always interested in hearing what you think of my music, good or bad - any feedback helps!)



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4.) 2005 Demo CD Completed!


This is the really big news for this announcement email - after many months in the studio learning to use Ableton Live and struggling to learn how to be a recording engineer, I finally finished. My "MUX 2005 Live-PA Demo CD" is four tracks of audio, recorded and mixed together in Live in "Stu-Stu-Studios", my home studio here in the heart of East Vancouver, then mastered by Steve Venter at Dirty Bass Studios in London, UK.

The four tracks are:

1. Collaborate (7m15s, 138bpm) - Collaborate, and LISTEN!
2. Complex (6m08s, 138bpm) - YOU ARE INCONSISTENT
3. Seamripper (6m15s, 138bpm) - That's just the drugs talking...
4. Channel 58 (6m39s, 138bpm) - 57 Channels and nothin' on

I would have liked to have included more songs (my 2004 liveset was approximately 14 songs), but I just didn't have time!

If you'd like to download the demo tunes, they're available on my website, of course!

http://mux.ca/studiotunes.html

If you would like an official CD copy of the demo, write me back at drew@mux.ca with your full snailmail address, and I'll get you a copy in the mail - I only have about 30 custom-painted "CD mailer" envelopes left, though, and would like to get them into the hands of folks in other cities, so if you're in Vancouver I'd much prefer to get you a copy in person rather than mailing it. :)

If you're like me, and just want to download a single file and be done with it, I recommend you grab the following MP3, which is exactly that; a single file with all four songs, mixed together:

http://lfo.fsck.org/~drew/2005_demo/...our_Tracks.mp3

Thanks muchly to Chris Thomas (aka XFive) for hosting these files on his very fast server!



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5.) Promoter Callout


Given that the 2005 season is beginning, and booking for the Summer parties is already started (or is already completed, as is the case with the biggest of the events, like Shambhala and Motion Notion, d'oh!), I'm now looking to get my demo CDs into the hands of every promoter I can find. I'll have my live set ready for full shows after the end of May, and will be available from about June 1st onwards.

I'm not just looking around Vancouver and surrounding areas, either! Later on this year or early next year, I'm interested in looking at a tour of a few major cities in western Canada, and would like to build contacts in other cities. Promoters don't necessarily have to be bigger crews with the financial ability to fly me in, I'm just as interested in playing for smaller parties and free parties, if I happen to be in town. For instance, we visit Toronto at least once a year, and I'd be happy to bring my gear along if there's a party waiting for me.

So, if you are a promoter or know of any party promoters, big or small, who'd be interested in hearing a demo from an awesome live-pa rave techno guy, please forward me a mailing address to drew@mux.ca and I'll get a demo CD out ASAP!



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6.) Gear Changes


I've made some more changes to the rig, in preparation for the 2005 party season - major changes include a bunch of rewiring, the removal of the Korg ER-1 drum machine, and the addition of a Future Retro FR-777 analogue synthesizer and a Shure Beta57a microphone.

For the gear geeks: I've changed the routing to my DBX 166XL compressor, which now has my kickdrum on one channel and my bassline (from the Waldorf Pulse Plus analogue monosynth) on the other channel, with the kick sidechained into the bass channel. This lets me duck the bassline out of the way so the kick punches through, giving me a lot more control over the low end of my mix. I've also changed a lot of the routing of the two lead monosynths, including the SH-101 - I'm still trying to sort out a problem with major noise from the 101 and 777, but I think I have a line on a fix, so I'll have some new studio pics on my website when that's finished. :)

Expect my sound for the 2005 party season to be much updated as a result of these gear changes!



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Anyhow, that's it for this edition of the MUX announce list. Stay tuned, check out the free downloads on my website (http://mux.ca), and if you're in Vancouver hit me up for a copy of my new demo CD if you see me out at a club or on the street. :) I hope to see lots of you out at Kcuf Uoy on April 28th!

Cheers,
- Drew.