Here's a new 8tracks.com mix I put together with some great smooth and mellow deep house, techno and tech house tracks. Hope you enjoy!
Author: Tony Zeoli
An accomplished tech house and house music DJ with a music industry and DJ culture career spanning over 30+ years, Tony Zeoli brings a unique blend of accessible underground dance music to a global audience through his Netmix Global House Sessions Podcast broadcast over Netmix.com, iTunes and MixCloud. Originally from Boston, Tony is a former Billboard Dance Chart Reporter who held residencies at The Loft, Roxy, Europa, Venus De Milo, M80, Cat Club, and other notable venues. Tony Z is also known as an influencer, innovator, and entrepreneur. He was a founding member of X-Mix, Inc DJ Remix and Management company, he inspired DJ and remix culture globally and subsequently went on to launch Netmix in 1995 - being the first to bring mix shows to the Internet.
Netmix Global House Sessions Podcast Episode 10
DJ Tony Z's Netmix Global House Sessions Podcast, Episode 10.
Trident, Steve Aoki and Duran Duran come together for a social music campaign
You know electronic dance music (otherwise known as EDM) has truly hit the mainstream when big brands get into bed with DJs who are rock stars, rock stars who are simply rock stars, or a mash-up of both. Big brands have been down with EDM for some time. Red Bull was practically invented for nightclubs and Absolut has always done cool stuff with the genre for years. Of course, those brands had a vested interest in club culture, because that’s where their products are generally consumed.
For their “See What Unfolds” campaign, Trident, a division of Kraft Foods and makers of the popular chewing gum of the same name, virtually unfolded (pun intended) a YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, which put rock star DJ, Steve Aoki together with true 80’s rock stars, Duran Duran.
First, let’s put aside the fact that gum is a virtual anathema to nightclubs. For as long as we can remember, nightclubs have pleaded with punters to leave their gum at home, lest they have to peel the sticky stuff off of the underside of champagne soaked tables. Well, maybe Trident didn’t get that message, but that’s okay. We know big brands don’t really do their homework when it comes to the fine details. Chalk it up to a rookie mistake. Sort of like Justin Bieber’s publicist pitching a scoop on the teen pop-star to XXL Magazine.
It all started on June 13, when Trident published a Tweet on their Twitter account @tridentgum announcing tickets for the first in a series of national “See What Unfolds” events at Brooklyn’s Terminal 5.
After an hour of Aoki warming up the crowd, Trident tweeted Duran Duran’s appearance on stage.
In preparation for the campaign with Aoki and Duran Duran, Trident put the superstars together in the studio, where they collaborated on an updated remix of the classic, “Hungry Like The Wolf.” The resulting New York Werewolf Mix stays true to the vocal integrity of the original, while soaring, epic Trance-oriented stabs instantly transform the song into something you might hear in a peak-our set at a summer EDM festival.
To spur viral action on the campaign, the video above was released on YouTube and that track was made available as a free download from Trident’s Facebook page.
Fans could remix the video using the radio version of the .mp3 and footage and images available for download at Genero.TV. Winners were announced on June 27th.
See the full story in Ad Age here: https://bit.ly/KLa5qh
Maya Jane Coles: Watcher
One of my favorite producers of late, Maya Jane Coles, is a rising start in the house music arena. She’s been tagged on a number of lists:
- ‘Producer of the Year 2011′ by DJ Mag
- ‘Best Breakthrough DJ 2011′ by Mixmag
- Debuted at No. 9 on the Resident Advisor ’2011 DJ Poll’
- ‘Best Newcomer 2011′ at the Ibiza DJ Awards 2011
Here’s her latest track, Watcher, take from a Dogmatic Records EP. This track is a throwback to early Strictly Rhythm, Nervous, and King Street deep house tracks. It’s impossible for me to say whether Maya was actually influenced by these labels, given her relatively young age and the fact that she produced Hip-Hop and Drum’n’Bass earlier in her career. But, I can’t imagine from hearing this track that she wasn’t influenced in some way by early house pioneers to create this melodic and soulful, deep house experience.
You can buy it here on Beatport.
Bon Iver at Air Studios (4AD / Jagjaguar Sessions)
Speaking of the Grammy-winning, Bon Iver, a friend sent me this YouTube video of a gorgeous 24-minute set at AIR Studios. It doesn’t get any better than this. Such a simple concept–piano and vocals with some electronic sounds interspersed. Really, just amazing. One of the most beautiful performances I’ve ever heard.
Bon Iver on SNL
Every once in so often, a band comes along with a magical sound that defies description. In February, I’d caught two performances by Bon Iver on Saturday Night Live. I’d never heard of the band before, but give props to SNL, once again, for bringing a band to the nation’s consciousness.
As far back as I can remember, SNL has introduced to me to new music. In an era of social media , late night TV shows probably aren’t as popular as they once were. Now that you can see these shows on the web the day after they air, I think they’re going to continue to be a prominent source of music discovery, mainly because of the live performance element that you can’t get with music videos.
Here are there performances. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Beth/Rest
Holocene
Bon Iver’s Holocene Music Video
Music Tech Business Rules 101: Call Me
Music Business 101: When you’re seeking to speak to someone over the phone, the catch phrase is: “Let’s get on a call…” LOL. I say that far too often. I think it’s going to be etched on my tombstone.
Of course, if you’re too successful (or at least you think you’re too successful), you say, “Call me.” No exclamation point. Just kind of matter of fact. And, you have to be turned half-way towards wherever you’re going when you spit that one out. Like you’ve got somewhere to go and something to do.
If you’re really looking to add some style, then you can append a word like, “babe” to it. Something like, “Yeah…babe, call me.”
Just a little Music Business humor to chuckle at on a Friday night.
WordPress Networks, MediaTemple, Plesk and bouncing email
Over the past couple of days, I’d gotten a few phone calls from prospective clients who told me they were using the contact form on my Digital Strategy Works website to submit an inquiry about our services, but they hadn’t heard back from me. Huh, I wondered. Really? How could this be?
I did some preliminary investigating and there didn’t seem to be a problem with the Contact Form 7, which I use for my forms. WordPress itself and my server were running normally. After clicking around, it was time to test the form for myself.
I sent myself an email through the form and got back the following (removed the @ symbol to obfuscate address):
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at netmixsupport.co. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out. <az(at)tonyzeoli.com>: This address no longer accepts mail. --- Below this line is a copy of the message. Return-Path: <tonyzeoli(at)me.com> Received: (qmail 25887 invoked by uid 110); 13 Jan 2012 21:47:22 -0500 Delivered-To: 1-admin(at)netmix.co Received: (qmail 25882 invoked by uid 10001); 13 Jan 2012 21:47:22 -0500 To: admin(at)netmix.co Subject: tonyzeoli(at)me.com X-PHP-Originating-Script: 10001:class-phpmailer.php Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:47:22 +0000 From: "tonyzeoli(at)me.com" <tonyzeoli(at)me.com> Message-ID: <4742bf2ae62bb12327fd973a8fd9380c@netmix.co> X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: PHPMailer 5.1 (phpmailer.sourceforge.net) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" From: tonyzeoli(at)me.com <tonyzeoli(at)me.com> Subject: test Message Body: test -- This mail is sent via contact form on Digital Strategy Works https://netmix.co/digitalstrategyworks
I though, that’s odd. The qmail-send program should be sending an email from the server to the email address I’d set in the admin panel of the Contact Form 7 plugin. But, I was getting a bounce back to the email address I’d tested in the form, saying that the address I was sending to was undeliverable. Why was it undeliverable, when I get email to my tonyzeoli.com address all the time?
There were a couple of reasons. First, I am using Google’s hosted mail service to handle mail for a couple of my domains: tonyzeoli.com and tonyzeoli.com. Second, when I set up my WordPress network on MediaTemple VPS, I needed to add a “domain alias” for each domain name that would be included in the network. While I added Netmix.com and DigitalStrategyWorks.com to the MediaTemple administration panel, you’re required to access the root domain of your WordPress network and add those domain aliases.
My root domain is netmix.co and my domain aliases were added to that account in my control panel. The image below is a screenshot of the control panel. Under “Websites and Domains,” click the “Show Advanced Operations” text link at the mid point of the page, which will drop down an extended set of options. Highlighted in the red square is the link to “Domain Aliases,” where you can add or manage all of the alias domains you’re going to use in your WordPress network. Remember, just because you’ve added them in your MediaTemple account center, does not mean that they will work. They must be added as a domain alias in your primary domain’s control panel or none of your domains will resolve correctly in your network.
After you have clicked on the Domain Alias link, you can add the domain aliases. In the image below, you can see a list of domain aliases that I have added so that the domain mapping plugin for WordPress can redirect to each domain alias assigned under the primary domain.
Now, here’s what I found that was causing the inadvertent mail issue. Since I’m using Gmail hosted mail services for two of my domains, tonyzeoli.com and tonyzeoli.com, I am not using the qmail feature of the server to send email directly from the server. The two domains in question, tonyzeoli.com and tonyzeoli.com inherit the local functionality of the qmail server, but we don’t want that, because my email DNS entries are listed as Google’s and not MediaTemple’s. Aha! Therein lies the problem. The domains are not accepting mail, because they are set to use the local mail server and not the 3rd party Google hosted mail server!
If you are hosting your email through a 3rd party service and not using the local mail feature, you’re going to get this issue where mail cannot be delivered to the domain, because the server is trying to use local mail and not the Gmail system. How do you fix that? Easy, just click on any one of the domains that you’re hosting mail for using Google or another service, and then turn off the local mail service. Problem solved!
Photos of iconic artifacts at the Newseum in Washington D.C.
Over the Christmas break, I got the chance to check out the Newseum in Washington D.C. Two very powerful exhibits are remnants from of the Berlin Wall and the damaged antennae that sat atop one of the World Trade Center towers. The two extraordinary artifacts represent two of the most powerful, life-changing news events of the three decades.
The Newseum is a necessary stop for anyone interested in journalism or working as a journalist. There is much more to the museum than just these few snapshots, but I hope they spur on inspiration to check it out for yourself next time you’re in Washington D.C.
For me, seeing the World Trade Center antennae was very emotional, as I had stood on the roof of one of the “Twin Towers” many years ago and I watched both towers burn when I was living in New York City. On the wall behind the antennae the front page of newspaper from all over the country and around the world. It definitely brought back memories of that fateful day. When I see others viewing these sorts of exhibits or memorials, I always think to myself if they can really understand the impact of the tragedy simply by viewing photos? I doubt they can, but I’m glad there is something left to observe and reflect on.
Sunset at RDU Airport
I don’t often get the chance to post my iPhone pics. I’m not in the habit of blogging my personal stuff. So, I’m really going to try and ramp that up.
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