Customer Reviews

Mixed Live

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Donald Glaude's story is a great inspiration to DJs everywhere. He started out in the late 80's with a miss matched set of turntables and a Radio Shack mixer. An amazingly humble beginning for one of the best DJs in the world. He is without a doubt the best DJ I have ever seen spin live. He is a one-man show: dancing, bumping and pumping the crowd to insanity. He has a club residency here in Vegas at Utopia. I try to catch him every month when he comes through and I am never disappointed in his sets. He is phenomenal.

He is the epitome of the House Techno movement and deserves recognition for his fantastic influence. His skills in his own words; "It's off the hook!"

Now, there is no recording method available yet to really capture the type of performance that Donald Glaude gives live. This is about the best you can get. He is a master of working the crowd for every little bit of energy that they can spare. His mixing skills are flawless and his scratching is infectious. If this CD does not, at least, make you tap your foot than check your pulse... You might be dead. It is fast and furious and the speed slowly increases to a fantastic climax right around track 13. That would be "pistol whip" by Joshua Ryan if memory serves. What a ride!

If there is anything I love about the "Mixed Live" series it is hearing the crowd go wild. I think it gives you a better connection to the mindset of the DJ. After all, the DJ is just working the crowd. A good DJ will stay about a half a step ahead of the crowd and give what they want. You can hear it in this CD from the first second when you hear the crowd rhythmically chanting "Donald, Donald..." There is no doubt that this club was having a great time.

But I digress, and put my disclaimer here. This is a great CD but don't just take my word for it. What do I know anyway? Check it out for yourself and make your own opinions. :)

At first, this disc was a shock to my ears: I'm used to slow-building, Digweed-style trance. Glaude, in contrast, starts things out at full speed, and gets faster. But besides the fact that it took me a little time to catch up to this mix, it was simply amazing, with a relentless sense of energy that I just haven't found elsewhere. The studio mixes I'm used to may be technically perfect, but they're missing the kind of frenzied charisma that I found in this mix.

There are some astounding moments here, namely "Get On My Camel" into "Fine Ladies Only," and "Effective" into "Pistolwhip." Glaude's jaw-dropping mix of Pistolwhip is, if I'm not mistaken, the sound of a DJ bursting into a ball of flame.

Unless you absolutely hate electronic music, it's tough not to enjoy this.

Donald Glaude is by far my favorite DJ, but his skills aren't as evident in this CD as I'd probably like them to be. I've seen Donald about 5 times this year alone, and what he does on the decks is simply amazing. It seems this mix was during a transition where he was getting new stuff into his bag, as he didn't include his signiature mix of Aretha Franklin's "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" that he'd scratch for a good 2 or 3 minutes to send the crowd into a frenzy, or something like "PYT," an old school track that not a whole lot of DJs can drop onto the decks and still have the crowd in the palm of their hands.

What you get in this CD is some really funky house and some great tech house tunes that simply don't get enough respect. Joshua Ryan's "Pistolwhip" track is definitely making the rounds on a lot of DJ lists, and that's probably the track on this album where Donald's style is most evident. The middle of the disc is funky and enjoyable, and this album also includes a couple of tracks by the man himself that showcase what he's done with his new label adventure Respect Recordings ... How many times can I say "respect" when talking about Donald Glaude? Not enough. And while this CD nowhere near showcases what this man does inside of clubs or raves (the "R" word), it's a good enough start for someone who wants to try something other than what the dance scene usually offers...trance(the "T" word).

Mixed Live is such a great compilation...When I first heard Carl Cox's Mixed Live, I tought it was so well done. Moonshine did it again with Donald Glaude's installment of Mixed Live. This is hard and well thought out from start to finish. You can feel the emotion, thought, and talent Donald put into this set to make it memorable. From the track selection to the scratching...it is all so great. One of my favorite tracks off the album is "Fine Ladies Only". I think it kind of sums up the whole record almost...the thumping beats behind funky vocals. Another smash on the album is Joshua Ryan's "Pistolwhip" what a great peak hour track, and Glaude placed it just right on his album. If you love house that never stops thumping...this is the CD for you....this however is not a cd for a novice...Turn it up loud!!!!!!Donald Glaude is in the mix!!!!

There are a lot of bad electronica albums out there, but this disc isn't one of them. Glaude's tunes will keep you moving and moving and moving and moving and moving and moving.......

The first time I saw Donald Glaude was when he opened for Paul Oakenfold in Seattle. They are very different styles, but Glaude was definitely much more fun.

Ever see someone on the street wearing headphones, grinning, and almost imperceptibly dancing to a fantastic beat that only they can hear? They were listening to this disc.

I was waiting for this CD to finally come out for over 2 months. When it finally hit the stores the wait was well worth it. I have the highest expectations when it comes to Donald, and he always seems to exceed them. This mix is somewhat of a toned down version of his live performances, but it is still the best CD of it's kind out there. I don't know any other DJ who can completely cut off the music when a dance floor is packed, and then scream at everyone to "Put your hands UP!!" I actually have seen some try to imitate his signature techniques, but all have fallen short. If you love it when a CD makes you bob your head, get up and dance, or scream with joy, then look no further. When you purchase this CD you won't be able to wait for Donald to come to a club near you. Expect a much more intense and life changing experience.

One of the many things I'm a big fan of is dance music - probably because in my old year-long stint as a club deejay, I enjoyed playing dance music and watching people dance rather than being forced to play classic rock and watch a bunch of deadheads (small "d", no offense to Grateful Dead fans) just sit there and drink. Consequently, on my regular trips to the local record store I frequently seek out new mix CD's in the "techno music" section. For those unfamiliar with this particular concept, a mix CD is an album containing an unbroken stream of songs, seamlessly blended together to simulate a peak-hour set that you'd probably hear at a dance club. The CD's aren't meant strictly for dancing - they're often just as good for listening, working out, or anything else you can think of.

Although there are a whole lot of great series of mix CD's out there - the Essential Mix series on FFRR, the Global Underground series on Boxed -- the ones that usually stand out during browsing usually have an orange title strip. These particular titles are the ones released by the long-established Moonshine label. I haven't heard a bad one from this label yet.

Moonshine were one of the first labels to start issuing mix CD's of techno and related (house, happy hardcore, drum and bass, gabber) musics. Today, at least 80% of their CD back catalog is mix CD's - most of them done in a studio rather than in a club setting. There is nothing wrong with that - the discs are a great way to check out a lot of different electronic dance music without having to kill yourself looking for vinyl 12" singles, especially if you live in the middle of Fingerbang, Alabama or someplace equally isolated - but some people have accused the DJ's whose names are on the covers of having little or nothing to do with the actual compilation of the recordings, chalking up the actual work to a studio engineer with a stack of records (or CD-R's or DAT's) and a ProTools console.

That's where this particular series comes in. Last year, Moonshine inaugurated a series of live mix CD's called Mixed Live. The concept is simple: record a top name DJ spinning and mixing a CD's worth of music in front of a live audience during one of his club engagements. Not only is the output from the DJ's mixer recorded, other mics are hung around the club to record the audience's vocal reactions to the DJ's music (and whatever else he is doing during the performance). The introductory title of the series had veteran DJ Carl Cox spinning to a jampacked crowd at Crobar in Chicago, Illinois. (I first heard the song "Crybaby" by Aphrohead on this disc, and now I have that 12" in my collection.) A great way to start the series.

The next disc was recorded at one of the closing stops on Moonshine's "Moonshine Overamerica" tour in San Francisco, featuring drum'n'bass deejay AK1200 in a typical live performance - not just spinning a seamless string of vinyl, but performing with a rapper, MC Navigator, adlibbing lyrics and otherwise wholeheartedly encouraging the crowd to enjoy themselves. It was a great document of the night which held true to the Mixed Live concept, but I saw a few reviews unfairly criticizing the presence of Navigator's vocals - they apparently found his namechecking himself, AK1200, the name of the tour, and the name of the town they were playing a little too much to handle.

Now comes the latest release in the series, from Donald Glaude. Donald is well known in electronic music circles for using four - yes, four - turntables and more notably, for actively encouraging the crowd to enjoy themselves to the fullest - instead of ignoring the crowd in favor of spinning vinyl or going through his boxes of vinyl, he'll become extremely animated behind his equipment, urging the audience to "make some noise" or even doing some dancing of his own while the music is playing. And he doesn't miss a beat, actively changing, cutting and scratching the tunes as they play.

Donald's Mixed Live - his second ever mix CD - has the deejay doing his thing in front of 2500 fans at Buzz, the weekly Friday night dance event held at Nation, "a 25,000 square foot building with two large rooms of sound and a tri-level back patio," [...]The album was recorded in Buzz @ Nation's main room on March 16, 2001, with two Tascam digital eight-track recorders capturing everything, according to the liner notes, with four inputs dedicated to the music (two each for Glaude's two mixers, hooked up to four turntables and two DJ-specific CD players), one for Glaude's vocals, and four other inputs connected to mics hung around the room to record the crowd (and the ambient sound coming from the PA). All of the music comes off of Glaude's records and dub-plates (test pressings and pre-release copies of recordings), which means that you might hear the odd imperfection in the vinyl - emphasis on might, as I haven't heard a single pop on any of the tracks on any of the series to date.

There isn't a bad track in the bunch, and Glaude's mixing, scratching and occasional vocal encouragement make the album the most exciting of the series so far. Amongst the titles spun by Donald on the disc - many of them yet to be released on commercial vinyl or already hard to get (I looked already!) - are Twisted Pair's "Horny Hustle", Nick Holder's "Make U Mine", Kelly Reverb vs. Sergio Techini's "Fine Ladies Only", David Garcia & Tony B's "Robo Funk", and two of Donald's own singles, "Soul Cha Cha" and "To The Soul".

If you've been curious about the rows of techno mix CD's but were reluctant to buy one for whatever reason, go straight for this release. Guaranteed, you'll be hooked. Me, I'm gonna copy this baby to a mini-disc for my workout tomorrow.

Since Buzz actually used to be a hometown haunt of mine (I'm a 25-minute drive to the club and used to go there a LOT), and Donald Glaude rocks live (I can't even count how many times I've had the joy of seeing this man spin), I bought this CD for a mix of a Donald fix and nostalgia. But, the CD was great for the music itself! I love the beginning and the end, but my favorite moment is in track 3..Donald does some cool scratching, and a squeaky little voice says something about "The Soul Scratcher" or something that sounds like that and then Donald lays the phat beat down! It just rocks! If you were at the club, it'd go right through you. From front to back, this makes a great car CD, too. With most dance CDs, I expect a lot and end up disappointed. With this one, I expected not all that much (because great live DJs seldom come across well on CD and vice versa....but, then again, this was recorded live, so..maybe that's why), and was pleasantly surprised.

This is by far one of my fav cd's in my collection and I guess my presence at Nation that night adds a bit of nostalgia. Donald totally rocked the house! His music pumps through your soul making it hard not to just get up and dance! Unfortunately Nation is no more so if you want to feel the energy of the D.C. crowd and Donald in all his glory, BUY THIS CD!

AWESOME!

Charisse

I really like this cd because donald @ live drives a unique energy and the people really enjoy it. donald is a great dj i really like the house and tech house that he plays especialy fine ladys only that tune rocks what a energy
DJ JNO BOGOTA COLOMBIA.......