Introducing the radio mix

For years I've done radio shows weekly at KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM, currently on Thursdays from 3 to 6 p.m. Pacific time.

It's a great outlet to play pretty much anything I want for a few hours, but one of my lingering frustrations with the gig is the absence of equipment that makes it possible to mix music live-- there's no cross-fader, no EQs, lousy monitoring and no way to use the turntables to control MP3s.

This interferes with my ability to present many types of music in the way I'd like to and also makes me avoid playing some things altogether. For example, plenty of dance music is constructed specifically to be mixed-- a 10-minute house song might have a four-minute intro, a three-minute vocal and a three-minute outro-- and sounds really boring played straight through.

To get around this, lately I've started recording some mixes at home to air on the radio. Each one is typically 20 to 30 minutes long and features a mix of new stuff and other things. I record them live in a single take and, time permitting, clean up the curses (otherwise I'm stuck editing them live). They're much looser than mix CDs; I don't prepare a set list in advance and I don't go back to clean up each mix so it sounds as perfect as I can get it. The mixes also differ from my live sets because I let songs run much longer in the mixes than I typically do live. Anyhow, I'm going to experiment with posting them regularly. Enjoy.


Radio Mix 2.21.8

Ying Yang Twins: "Drop"
E-40: "Turf Drop" feat. Lil Jon
Diligentz: "Aligators" (sic)
Gucci Crew II: "Cabbage Patch"
Jokers of the Scene: "Y'all Know the Name"
Thomas Bangalter: "Love"
Axwell feat. Max'C: "I Found U" [Dubfire mix]
Alan Braxe: "Palladium"
DJ Class: "Ruff Ryders"
K.I.M.: "Wet 'n' Wild" [Riot in Belgium mix]