Let’s set the stage… The year was 1995 and I was the resident DJ at the Palladium, probably the biggest nightclub Las Vegas has ever seen, and I was also playing part time at the legendary Shark Club. I had an Apple Macintosh Performa 630, Bill Clinton was in office, I had my very first cell phone, a Motorla m300 flip complete with an extending antenna and a bulky battery, and eBay was first launched.

At the time, I had a Sclat 8 DJ mixer by Spanish manufactuer Ecler, an exquisite full size 19” rack mounted mixer that featured a modular console build, 110 mm faders and a whopping 16 inputs. I still have this mixer in storage by the way! Plus a Pioneer AV Receiver hooked up to some janky JBL home theater speakers where I had replaced the tweeters with horns, and three dual cassette decks so I could record and dub copies. I think they were made by Pioneer or JVC. Remember, this was about 5 years before I would start using Pro Tools. All this was assembled in my bedroom on a set of garage style shelving units that I got at Home Depot.

Breakbeat was a dominant part of the underground electronic music landscape, and since Pulp Fiction was a huge part of the pop culture zeitgeist, it was only natural that I used Samuel L. Jackson’s infamous Ezekiel 25:17 speech from the soundtrack as an intro… hence the name of the mix, The Funky Ezekiel.

Recorded on the highest bias metal cassette tape I could buy at the time at Tower Records, I had to do multiple takes to get the intro to line up with the big snare on the first track just the way I wanted it. And, since this was before I was using any kind of digital audio editor, if I fucked up, or if the mix wasn’t up to my perfectionist nature, I had to start all over, which I often did.

At the time, I was living in a vintage house near the Stratosphere, and one of my roommates was Greg Ryan, the founder of Scope, an alternative monthly magazine newspaper that would later evolve into The Las Vegas Weekly. He’s the one who turned me on to Adobe Illustrator. I would buy blank, white, high bias cassette tapes, cassette cases, and Avery cassette labels, all in bulk. I then created the artwork for my mixtapes, printing out the cassette stickers and J-cards. By the way, special thanks to Greg for giving me my start in Graphic Design. I would crank these tapes out by the hundreds, giving them out to everyone, and eventually mailing them out, which in turn led to my first out of town DJ booking in Denver. More on that on another episode when I feature Seoul Searching, a mix from 1996.

Featuring a bevy of tracks that defined the early to mid 90’s West Coast Breaks scene from artists like The Bass Bin Twins, Jedi Knights, Hard Hop Heathen (aka Omar Santana), Josh Wink (only known as Wink at the time,) and The Chemical Brothers! Hell, The Chemical Brothers weren’t even The Chemical Brothers back then. They were first known as The Dust Brothers. Naming themselves after the production duo famous for their work with The Beastie Boys, once they started to get international recognition, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons were forced to change their name after objections were filed by The Dust Brothers themselves.

A Big part of the West Coast Breaks scene and underground house music in general at the time, was Acid, that unique, squelchy, alien sound produced by the infamous Roland TB-303. And without going into a dissertation about Roland, this Japanese manufactuer’s 808 and 909 drum machines are staples of many music genres today, including Dance and Hip Hop.

Music was produced and mixed quite differently back then, and there are limitations to how much bass and bottom end a vinyl pressing will handle. Engineers, even to this day, have to master for vinyl differently than digital, as too much bass can literally skip the needle out of the groove! But, since we’re in the digital domain here, I remastered the mix, giving it a lot more bottom end, and a touch of sheen on the tops, using the UAD Neve 1073 EQ, the Virtual Tape Machine by Slate Digital, and the Waves L3 Ultramaximizer.

One of the descriptive terms I touched on earlier is breaks, which is short for breakbeat. So, what is a breakbeat? Well, most house music is written in a 4/4 time signature, in fact, the vast majority of music that we’re familiar with in the Western world is 4/4. But specifically to house music, there’s a variant that’s sometimes known as four to the floor, which means that there’s a kick drum on every beat of the measure… four kicks, in four beats which is a measure.

Breakbeats on the other hand, in it’s simplest form, only have 2 kicks in a measure, on the downbeats, 1 and 3, alternating with the snare on the 2 and 4 counts. Now, there are tons of variations and syncopations, but that’s the basic framework.

Now, house music is typified by a 4/4 beat, it’s one of the defining characteristics of the genre… that relentless thump that pushes the energy forward. And like I talked about in episode 74, it’s also the foundation of Disco, which is really where the four on the floor beat was first popularized, and then somewhat carried through in 80’s New Wave, reflecting the movement towards electronic beats. Not that it wasn’t used before at all, but if you listen back to the history of recorded music, it’s all about breakbeats… everything from Jazz, Big Band, Country, Soul, Motown, Funk, Classic Rock, Pop, Hip Hop, Grunge, Metal, and Top 40. And genres like freestyle, triphop, and drum & bass are defined by breakbeats.

But, since electronic music draws on so many genres and structures, why not incorporate breaks into the house music landscape? Breaks are funky! They just make you wanna sway your hips and shake yer ass, right?!

Samuel Jackson - Ezekiel 25:17 (Pulp Fiction Soundtrack),
Tales From The Woodshed Vol 2 - Brainclag [Cloak & Dagger UK],
XCalibur - Higher [Orbit Transmissions US],
Dust Brothers - DustUp Beats [Junior Boy’s Own UK],
Rebirth - Go Off [Bassex US],
Bass Bin Twins - Untitled Track 2 [BassBin Records],
Hard Hop Heathen - Ohterior Motive [Tricked Out US],
Anoesis - Trouble Down Groove [DFusion US],
Hard Hop Heathen - Free Bass [Tricked Out US],
Pizzaman - Sex On The Streets [Pulse8 US],
Bass Bin Twins - Untitled Track 1 [BassBin Records],
Bitin’ Back - She’s Breaking Up [Fokus US],
Earth Trance Interlude - Lunatrick [Silent US],
Wink - Higher State of Consciousness [Strictly Rhythm US],
Jedi Knights - Intergalactic Funk Transmission [Clear UK],
Stella Getz - Dr. Love [Mega UK],
Mindwarp - Too [Stress UK]

As always, I hope you find some joy and inspiration.