a CHRIS CASUAL (of POSR) DJ set

Oh hey there, I didn’t see you come in…

Well, since you’re here

Absent Agenda by ChrisCasual

the Golden Filter “Thunderbird” Chris Casual Re-Edit

So, in October I got my hands on Ableton and decided to try my hand at a little production work. I instantly decided to mess around with a Golden Filter track… because damn, it’s hard to make them sound bad. This re-edit was a learning experience more than anything… but I like the arrangement of it and I hope you do to. You can download and stream it as much as your cold little heart desires…

here’s the link:

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and if that isn’t working then get it here:

http://soundcloud.com/chriscasual

MAPS – Turning the Mind (Chris Casual’s review)

The new maps album, Turning the Mind, is definitely not to be missed. It has the dark, drug rock feel of an early to mid career Spiritualized record – organs and all!  However, it never feels too heavy or bogged down. It’s quite the opposite; with uplifting vocals, chord progressions, and strings, as heard on “I Dream of Crystal”, it is connotative to that of the polyphonic spree in it’s many moments of glee and ecstasy. It’s as if James Chapman, the man behind Maps, is killing himself in his pursuit of happiness; there is even a track entitled “Die Happy Die Smiling”. There are intense minimalist moments, such as the opening of “nothing” that make me want to cry like a Muse song sometimes makes me want to cry; but then Maps drops a nice beat with plenty of interesting, and sometimes dirty, synths to make me feel like dancing… and maybe crying and laughing too.

So many emotions come and go as I listen to Turning the Mind, but boredom is never one of them. It is a very cohesive work, which I never found any tracks that are there just as “fluff” or “fillers” in. The project has conquered one very big quality that I look for in music: two opposing sounds working synergistically to create something familiar yet so new that you can’t quite put your finger on why you love it so much. Turning the Mind is both dark and uplifting. It leaves me feeling warm with a tinge of cold shudders, like I just got home safely from a long, harrowing journey. This is an LP full of gems that I definitely recommend digging up.

Fucking Fab II w/ DJs Chris Casual of POSR , and DETAILS

I’ve wanted to post this for a while but just got the flyer today. It’s going to be another amazing party. I’ll be spinning during the fashion show.

Fashion Show featuring designers:
-Bekah DuBose
-Audrey Macabre
-Teddy
-Holden
-and the stylings of Makiki and Bradiamond
(show at 11pm)

w/ special performances including the return of Ana Borschins
there will be fire, water, glitter, some male stripping & more!

B-day girl, the always lovely, Clara!!

DJs: Chris Casual & Details
Photos: The Peen Scene & www…brainold.com
Photobooth: Alison Narro

And afterparty!

Little Boots / Golden Filter

Little Boots is a rising star that I instantly fell in love with the minute she showed up on the music blog scene. She has a track so perfectly titled “stuck on repeat” that is such a phenomenon, I’ve literally had it stuck on repeat for days before. Her lyrics are clever and relatable. It helps that this girl is obscenely adorable. Her voice sounds so young and is often hitting such innocent high notes.

 

And I have to say, she doesn’t disappoint in person. I was fortunate enough to catch her this year during SXSW . She was very cordial, just as you’d expect a lass from the mother land to be. Captivating is the only word I can use to describe her presence. There was enough moving around to make it hard to capture her on my iPhone; an energetic show beats lousy camera phone photos any day. Plus she was playing her Tenori-on, a Japanese electronic instrument that gives an amazing sound AND a light show. I’ve always been intrigued by this machine and i love that she uses it as effortlessly as a theremin.

So if all of that isn’t enough to captivate your eyes and ears… you should hear some of the amazing remixes that have been released. My favorite include:

Meddle (AC Slater & DJ Skeet Skeet Remix featuring Goldielocks)
and
New In Town (Golden Filter Remix)

The Golden Filter is also one of my favorite things happening in music right now. The project appeared one day very mysteriously on the interweb, without revealing as much as faces. It sparked a lot of interest and they have been quoted as becoming “music blog darlings”. They released a couple of tracks, Solid Gold, being the most… well… solid. I instantly started throwing it in my DJ sets. The heavy synth with the spacey lyrics always seemed to flow effortlessly into the mix.
They have gone on to do a bundle of, dare I say, perfect remixes the likes of:
Cut Copy
Peter Bjorn and John
Polly Scattergood
and our lovely lady Little Boots

Beerland

So I had a pretty good weekend. Saturday, 3 of my friends had a birthday party at the Tiniest Bar in Texas (on 5th street). The staff and the regulars were NOT prepared for the bar to be over run by hipsters and trannies… SURPRISE. In spite of overwhelmed bar tenders, they asked my friends to come back and throw more parties. Of coarse they did, the place was packed. I’ve been asked to DJ the next party, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Then Sunday I slept in and got ready for my DJ set that night at Beerland (7th and Red River). It was an after party for the TX Roller Girls… always a fun group. Most of the girls seemed to be really into it. But I knew not everyone was going to be ready for an electro/ house set at a place like Beerland. I got several older dudes and stupid girls asking to hear 80′s… and even HIP HOP! I had already been throwing in a little 80′s here and there but that’s really never my focus. I wanted to tell them to go next door to Elysium where Sunday nights are actually devoted to playing the same 80′s jams that have been playing for 30 years. And PS… hip hop was totally out of the question and wouldn’t have fit at all. Hip hop girl laughed at me when I told her I kinda had a set list. My set wasn’t carved in stone, but I did have a few things planned out. Hip hop was obviously not on the agenda. After my set, I went next door to Elysium and ran into a friend that told me all his friends had scurried over to Beerland from the gay bars because they had heard “it was really happenin’ over there”. I was glad he told me that because I had really let 3 people with no taste bring me down. I had just forgotten how frustrating it can be to get “requests”… I’m not a wedding DJ, sorry. Next time I spin for the roller girls, I am going to bring in my old DJ partner b/c he’s good at pleasing those kinds of people. We work well together, mixing in his top 40′s with my beats. So, also be on the lookout for that set… probably in about a month.

Ps. I played a few POSR reworks and they definitely kept everyone dancing.

these hands of mine

I’ve been playing bass since I was 13 years old. However, through a multitude of moves I have lost all 3 of my bass guitars and the amp of my dreams. (edited for legal purposes) It feels SO right to have gear in my possession again. I have practically been playing bass in my sleep.

So I’m working on building my callouses back up. I had forgotten the first step is blistering. The other night I was pretty sure the pulsating sensation was going to turn into an eruption, but my fingers just throbbed through the night. It’s definitely made my day job a little bit more interesting. I am a hair stylist, and suddenly I’m having to switch up how I do every day tasks. For instance, steam towels will hurt my little blisters so I wear gloves when I make them and try not to use the affected fingers when I place them on my client’s heads.

The photo on the left was taken on April 23, the night I thought my fingertips were going to explode with puss.

The photo on the right was taken on April 24, after the blisters simmered themselves down a bit!

My hands are always torn up from cutting hair. Also, after 2 years in the salon business I have starting to feel like I am coming down with carpal tunnel syndrome… or something like it. Switching up the repetitious motions of my hands between day and night seem to have helped relieve some of the symptoms (sort of).

Basically I break my body to do the things I love to do. I will be decrepit by the time I’m 50, but will cross that bridge when I come to it. Hell, it’s rock and roll…