commendation for outstanding service to human race: resident advisor

Presumably Resident Advisor is wholly reliant on advertisers to actually keep publishing so I'm kind of surprised this thing doesn't happen more often, on this site and elsewhere. Maybe it does and RA just dealt with this in a cackhanded way (ie spiking it after publication rather than before it).

I'd be a bit more worked up about being unable to trust any future reviews if I thought RA writers in general were very good at being able to crystallise why a record is good and bad, and with a few honourable exceptions they aren't.

I wouldn't agree really with that assessment Vahid, but Jeremy can probably explain his own review here I guess.

I think the most surprising/disappointing thing for me was how many people based their reaction to the idea that a review was pulled on whether they liked John Digweed or not.

I mean, the actual fact one was pulled seemed to be an afterthought as people debated the merits of JD.

Just goes to show how partisan it all is, to some people it's irrelevant what somebody writes, how it's treated, who's controlling a site, apart from 10/10 or 0/10 at the end to spew disagreement at.

That sounds quite pompous I guess but it is pretty sad.

Yeah exactly Ronan, I was astonished that so many people would immediately use the term "biased" just because they thought Jeremy didn't accept without question the reigning principles of prog.

If Jeremy's review had just blasted Digweed for being Digweed I'd maybe agree with Vahid's take, but Jeremy was pretty careful to note that Digweed's previous mixes were much more interesting, and that the specific problem with the new Digweed mix was how all the natural edges to the tracks had been smoothed out with ableton or whatever.

That accorded perfectly with my memory of Sasha's last big DJ mix so I understood perfectly what he meant. Really I'd be more interested in an honest to goodness mix of whatever prog producers are actually doing right now than a mix of minimal carefully edited to sound like prog.

What interests me is this idea that people aren't particularly respectful about the whole practise of reviewing things. Judging by RA that's the case.

I don't think it's right to just say "oh people have no respect for reviewers" blah blah blah, or to tell people what they should/shouldn't respect, I'm more interested in wondering if, for dance music, we're at a point where some new model for talking about it does more than the traditional review model. Or where some new way of using the net to discuss it is better, even say blogging or something.

Or I guess whether forums have just replaced the need for reviews entirely to the point that people don't actually have any respect for somebody doing a review, because why would they, everyone is literally a critic in that they sit down and type their opinions about stuff constantly.

Your last point is probably the key here Ronan - much in the same way that the democraticization of DJ mixing has made people less shy about micro-criticizing DJ mixes from name DJs ("I was disappointed that I knew all these tracks already"; "the mixing is only so-so" etc.)

What has surprised and disappointed me a bit lately (not connected to the whole RA incident) is how many people including established music critics seem to be very quick to dismiss out of hand the critical insight afforded by other critics e.g. "Oh, I find that writer to be very shallow / self-obsessed etc. etc."

Most of which seems to be an ad hominem strategy to avoid actually engaging with differences of opinion as they emerge. I mean, I think Pipecock's full of shit most of the time but I still can't resist trying to beat him point-by-point.

I think that's true, though probably a consequence of the sort of solidifying staleness of some of the rivalries/arguments if we're talking about just house/techno.

People think "I could disagree but I've done this already", that's how I feel a lot and other people too I think.

More than anything the RA stuff has made me think of some new ideas for dance writing and some that aren't writing at all that I am really looking forward to doing, I think the lack of conversations about clubs and clubnights is really kind of crazy.

Sometimes you read blogs (probably including mine lately!) and if you didn't know you might think that nobody actually played house/techno in clubs, that there were no clubs, no scene, no stupid parties etc.

Isn't that as much about the international nature of music writing though? Records are transferrable, club nights less so.

I feel it particularly being in a city which has not been the centre point of any interesting dance scene ever except mersh electro-house and Modular stuff, the club nights for which are kinda hard to write about positively (most dispiriting experience ever: seeing Booka Shade with a haircut house crowd).

I guess....but doesn't it seem weird sometimes when everything is so divorced from that culture? Maybe just things have been so serious and political of late that I want to read more gonzified takes...

can't be worse than seeing booka shade at ULU (the london students' union) at 9pm, finishing at 11pm, with a crowd of students treating it like an indie gig (ie stand still with pints in hands, act offended at people trying to dance)

xp

also 99% of critical conversations about dance music - and i include ilm in this with v few exceptions - are dispiriting exercises in dick-waving about how much you know/have heard. sick sick sick of seeing people reel off 100 names which might have influenced a record instead of talking about the thing itself

Club night reviews seem even harder than live show reviews to do well. And I've no real interest in reading live show reviews even.

Ronan u should be the gonzo Lester BAngs of dance writing. U can do it.

x-post responding to ronan: Oh totally, I'm so over the lineage handwringing that seems so in vogue at the moment.

I wish there was some sort of popular and good dance music at the moment that could totally escape this (e.g. the class of 2002 - "Take Me With You" etc. - that was the music that coincided with your own emergence as a dance music writer), that made these considerations seem utterly irrelevant.

But current commercial electro-house isn't good enough, and UK funky house isn't popular enough...

we don't need a lester bangs of dance writing ffs

well I am addicted to indigestion meds if that helps

I wish there was some sort of popular and good dance music at the moment that could totally escape this (e.g. the class of 2002 - "Take Me With You" etc. - that was the music that coincided with your own emergence as a dance music writer), that made these considerations seem utterly irrelevant.

yeah it's annoying! some vulgarity is needed, tho I do think this is where the clubbing comes into things.

btw ronan i was going to post on yr blog but i can't remember my blogger password, you still want to check out the dubstep scene? i'll let you know when i'm next going to a dubstep night if so

you don't need a blogger password! my blog is free for all to post on!

tbh i still haven't got to grips w/posting comments on blogs, it always seems to go a bit wrong

we don't need a lester bangs of dance writing ffs

-- lex pretend, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 11:24 (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

It must happen!

Just a bit of background to mine and Tami's decision.

Renaissance didn't protest about the Digweed review. They had complained about the last three out of four reviews, and we were told that they were a annoyed that their records were not being reviewed "fairly" (they're an advertiser). The root problem was that over our two years editing RA we could never find a good progressive reviewer - we either had bitter ex-proggers railing against the genre or GU types who never had much to say.

So the review went through two drafts, both of which weren't publishable. Sales/management kept pressuring us with "Where's the Digweed review?" for like two months, and finally to relieve the pressure on Tami I decided to write the review myself. We put it up, it was taken down, and then sales commissioned, edited and published a new review without our knowledge and put it up.

Nothing to do with prog vs. minimal. It wouldn't have mattered if the new review was a masterpiece - we still would have resigned. It just goes against my sense of decency that sales dept should be able to dictate editorial. Whereas the big kick in the teeth for Tami was that sales got Todd Burns to edit the new review in secret. He didn't say boo to us - even when we met him in person. RA management had driven a wedge between us and Todd and Tami felt betrayed.

Which is to say: Nick in sales had been banging up against a brick wall of our editorial judgement for a long time, and then in Todd he found a way to bypass the system. Anyway, suddenly we had a situation where salespeople were commissioning reviews (and features) without our knowledge, and our new editor was taking direction from sales and not from us.

It was time to leave.

But anyway – I really shouldn’t be too hard on the parties involved - I imagine people are just doing their best. The bigger issue is what kind of system you have in place to separate sales & ed and whether all parties agree on that system. We couldn’t agree at RA. It’s a common problem though— Nick Hoppner said to us he struggled with the issue during his time at Groove, and then you’ve got PR people writing every day who seem to take it as a given that they can buy coverage. And yeah, I do think the lack of outcry about this incident speaks to how little readers care about the issue directly.

OTOH, it is a question of quality. The fact is that you can only get to a certain level when X% of your content is advertorial. And I do think readers care about quality.

I'm convinced a dance mag with a proper system in place can work, especially on the web. It's possible to be independent & also professional & profitable. But yes, the consensus to do it that way has be there among the people running the mag, which in the end wasn't really happening at RA. As I said, we couldn't agree on a system.

Just came to plug the Appleblim mix and read all this. Shit is pretty :/

Why didn't they just post one of those OTOH 2nd opinion reviews. Or have the two reviewers battle it out in a feature. Or have Digweed review the review, he could've complained about how all the paragraphs flowed too smoothly into each other.

mark e!!!

"so crucial" say vahid!
e for essential say me!

dl-ing now.

STL - Foggy Beats - Something
Amp Fiddler - You - Genuine
Try to find me VOL 1 - Make Dance - Golf Channel
Cole Medina - Love You Inside Out (Pinches Mix) - House Arrest
Mark E - Untitled - Unreleased
Grace Jones - La Vie En Rose (Mark E edit) - Unreleased
Bogdan Irkuk - Carpice - Rollerboys Recordings
Rondenion - Precious Time - Parker Music Works
Mark E - Get Yourself Together - Unreleased
LTJ Experience - I Love You - Irma
Marvin Gaye - Heavy Love Affair (The Revenge Rework) - Unreleased
Birth Control - Plastic People (Medit) - Unreleased

oh god this bee gees edit could just go on and on and i'd keep smiling

So looking forward to this but not gonna be able to get it onto my iPod till next week.

I had overlooked Resident Advisor for a long time because of their constant harping on progressive, but after seeing this thread a while back I was motivated to go back and give it a second chance - just in time for the defection of the staff they had with any real scruples? Feh.

Anyway -

The Amé one is yoga flame for all time...

Anyone feeling overly generous and want to share this with me? I'd love to hear the Trickski mix too, and if you haven't heard his Beats In Space mix, it's well worth a listen. Nice slowed down throbbing dark and erotic techno with a touch of soul:

http://www.beatsinspace.net/audio/2008/jan22/bis012208part2.mp3

Thanks.

all the ra episodes are archived here shhh :

http://www.podfeed.net/episodes.asp?id=5782&ct=1

Thanks for the effort, but it looks like they just link to the RA archives, which for the most part are, you know, dead. They don't even provide a dead link to the Ame mix for some reason.

I can upload it the now if you want? Fact I'll just upload it.

http://rapidshare.com/files/131994981/2007-01-24_RA042_-_AME_.mp3.html

mark e is really great

Yer a helluva guy Jim.

I co-sign the above two statements.

I was listening to RA114 (Aeroplane) in the car this morning and didn't realize that I missed my exit by 10 or so miles.

^^^^^^great. whats the song @ about 36 mins or so where they keeping singing "had enough"?

Sorry Deej can't remember the answer to that but yeah how good is it!! Nice to see Aeroplane expanding into house music proper with their Shortwave Set remix, and the John Daly remix of Toby Tobias is just @_@

Don't know. The track listing for it is:

01. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal - Bella Union
02. Quixote Feat. Lisa Li-Lund - Before I Started to Dance (Prins Thomas Diskomiks) - Versatile
03. They Came From The Stars I Saw Them - Moon Song (Holy Ghost! Remix) - This Is Not An Exit
04. The Shortwave Set - Now Til 69 (Aeroplane Remix) - Wall Of Sound
05. Dolle Jolle - Balearic Incarnation (Todd Terje Mix) - Permanent Vacation
06. Eine Klein Nacht Muzik - La Serenissima - Modular Recordings
07. David Rubato - Circuit (Aeroplane Remix) - Institubes
08. Eddy Meets Yannah - Solid Ground (Crazy P Remix) - Solid Ground
09. Toby Tobias - The Feeling (John Daly Remix) - Rekids
10. Mugwump - Yajna - Disco 45/Kompakt
11. Bostro Pesopeo - Communquis - Permanent Vacation
12. Maelstrom - Enter The Cosmo (Sankt Goran & Erik Sidung Remix) - Solar Disco

the John Daly remix of Toby Tobias is just @_@

-- Tim F, Tuesday, August 12, 2008 7:01 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

im guessing this is what it is? looks positioned right

deej, that's Eddy Meets Yannah - Solid Ground (Crazy P Remix).

aka crazy penis.

Can't wait to hear this one.

http://mnmlbeats.wordpress.com/tag/ra-mixe/

Archive ^^^

-- jim, Tuesday, 5 June 2007 19:43

gone:(

any leads on a new one? i've been looking without much luck

really loving the Portable/Bodycode one

New podcast is Black Dog doing an Underground Resistance mix! Tracklist:

01. Underground Resistance - Antimatter - Underground Resistance
02. Voice Of Electrifying Mojo
03. Underground Resistance - Afrogermanic - Underground Resistance
04. Underground Resistance - Mirage - Underground Resistance
05. Underground Resistance - Windchime - Underground Resistance
06. Underground Resistance - Talkin2Z - Underground Resistance
07. Underground Resistance - Final Frontier - Underground Resistance
08. Underground Resistance - In Or Out - Underground Resistance
09. Underground Resistance - Maroon - Underground Resistance
10. Underground Resistance - Death of My Neighbor - Underground Resistance
11. Underground Resistance - Baghdad Express - Underground Resistance
12. Underground Resistance - Inversions - Underground Resistance
13. Underground Resistance - Technology Gap - Underground Resistance
14. Underground Resistance - Antimatter - Underground Resistance
15. Underground Resistance - I Am UR - Underground Resistance
16. Underground Resistance - Tazumal - Underground Resistance
17. Underground Resistance - Hunting the Program - Underground Resistance
18. Underground Resistance - Toxic Broadcast - Underground Resistance
19. Underground Resistance - Detonate - Underground Resistance
20. Underground Resistance - Orbit (Black Dog edit) - Underground Resistance
21. Underground Resistance - Riot - Underground Resistance
22. Underground Resistance - Base Camp Alpha 808 - Underground Resistance
23. Underground Resistance - Entering Quadrant 5 - Underground Resistance
24. Underground Resistance - Adrenalin - Underground Resistance
25. Underground Resistance - Gamma Ray - Underground Resistance
26. Underground Resistance - Ambush - Underground Resistance
27. Underground Resistance - Sea Quake - Underground Resistance
28. Underground Resistance - Kill My Radio Station - Underground Resistance

!!!

That's what I thought!

best RA podcast in ages.
the fact its mix #123 for RA is not by chance i would suggest.

the numerological genius of ken downie