Direct Music Service

NEWS: Insomniac Founder Facing 29 Counts & Over 13 Years in Prison

Pasquale Rotella appeared in a Los Angeles court in a pretrial conference for a case by the Los Angeles County District Attorney, which alleges that the event planner used more than $2.5 million in funds from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where he hosted raves, to pay off city officials.

Rotella was indicted alongside five other men involved with his company, Insomniac events. Currently out on a $1.8 million bail, he could serve up to 13 years and 8 months in prison if convicted.

Last year his attorney, Gary Jay Kaufman, said that his client, “has always acted lawfully and appropriately with respect to all of his dealings with the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Any allegations of wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Rotella by the District Attorney’s office are completely baseless and flat-out wrong, both on the law and on the facts.

“All transactions between Insomniac and the Coliseum were transparent and approved by the Coliseum General Manager, his staff, and the attorneys representing the Coliseum. Any charges against Mr. Rotella are clearly politically motivated and publicity driven.”

[via radar online]

NEWS: Chris Kelly of Kris Kross Dead at 34

Chris Kelly, one-half the hip-hop duo Kris Kross that scored a radio hit with “Jump” in the early Nineties, has died, The Associated Press reports. According to a medical examiner, Kelly, 34, was pronounced dead at Atlanta Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon; the cause of death is unconfirmed.

Known as “Mac Daddy,” Kelly and his groupmate, Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith, were discovered by a 19-year-old Jermaine Dupri while performing at an Atlanta shopping mall. The budding hip-hop mogul brought the duo to Ruffhouse Records, which released their debut album, Totally Krossed Out, in 1992, when Kelly and Smith were 13 and 12 years old. As Kris Kross swiftly gained popularity among teens with their radio-friendly rap and trendsetting style (they wore their clothing backwards), the album reached Number One, selling four million copies, and its lead single, “Jump,” topped the singles chart for eight weeks. The group was embraced by older music stars, t0o, appearing in music videos by Michael Jackson, Run-D.M.C. and TLC.

[via rollingstone]

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KRIS KROSS

NEWS: Jimmy Fallon Has Love For Thre3style

The refined atmosphere of a TV studio is the last place you’d expect to learn about DJ battles, but when DJ Jazzy Jeff appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, he couldn’t wait to educate the talkshow host about the ins-and-outs of Thre3style.

Jazzy Jeff was a guest on Monday night’s show, and when Jimmy held up a poster for the US National Final and said, “Tell me about this contest here,” the highly respected Thre3style judge was happy to oblige.

“Red Bull Thre3Style is a competition for DJs all over the world, and the U.S. Finals are in Los Angeles this weekend,” said Jeff. “You have to play three categories of music, you’re judged on creativity, styling points, mixing skills… it’s the best DJs in the world!”

Jimmy was enthusiastic about the competition, and encouraged his viewers to take an interest in the forthcoming event. He said:”If you’re going to be in LA, make sure to go check this out and see DJ Jazzy Jeff, that’s my man!”

Jazzy Jeff also showed off some of his own DJ skils. He performed for Jimmy, the studio audience and the show’s other guests, Alec Baldwin and Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke.

Stay tuned later this week we will have exclusive interviews from Thre3style contestants DJ Scene & DJ Konflikt. US fans who missed Jazzy Jeff’s appearance on the show can watch again after the jump. (more…)

NEWS: Macklemore Opens Up About His Struggle to Stay Sober

Seattle rapper Macklemore says it’s been a challenge to stay sober since the Number One “Thrift Shop” turned him and producer Ryan Lewis into overnight pop stars. “The last three months haven’t been good for me – the pressure, the expectation, the lack of sleep, the stress, the traveling,” the 29-year-old rapper tells Rolling Stone. “I can’t escape Macklemore. I just want to get the fuck out of my own head.”

Macklemore has been sober since August 2008, when he went to rehab for a drug and alcohol problem. In the middle of a busy week of SXSW shows and events, he took Rolling Stone to a late-night Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Austin – his first meeting in close to two months. “It’s been a struggle the past year,” he admits. “It’s very important to go into the rooms of AA, smell the shitty coffee and be reminded that without sobriety, I would have no career.”

Macklemore also opens up about his unusual DIY path to the top of the charts. He and Lewis release all their music themselves via a self-run label, and their music videos, T-shirts and posters are produced in-house. “I spent a lot of my life rapping and not making enough money to live, and gratefully, that’s not the case anymore,” he says. “But not having a foreseeable end date in sight is a little bit scary.”

[via rolling stone]

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MACKLEMORE

NEWS: The 50 Most Powerful People In EDM 2013

Welcome to the first inthemix Power 50 – the 50 most powerful people in EDM globally. To compile this inaugural list, we conducted an exhaustive process that included speaking to many of the industry’s key figures to help us form a view on where the foundations of power in EDM exist. Not over the course of history, but right now, today, in 2013. The list is peppered with quotes, both attributed and anonymous, from the people who helped guide the construction of this year’s inthemix Power 50.

It’s worth noting this list is not about DJs or artists. Sure, there are some names like Gary Richards and Pete Tong who do make music, but they’re included because we believe their DJing is secondary to their business interests. (more…)

NEWS: Questlove’s Weeklong Master Class on the Gospel of Prince

Questlove is in a large dressing room backstage at Carnegie Hall, getting his Afro picked out before going onstage to lead a concert honoring the music of his all-time favorite recording artist, Prince. His mother is sitting beside him, beaming at her boy. Back when Quest, now the Roots drummer and Jimmy Fallon bandleader, was a teenager, she and his father only listened to Christian radio and behaved like “the black Ned and Maude Flanders,” he writes in his upcoming memoir, Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove. When she found Prince records in his room, she would throw them out. “When Prince’s 1999 came out,” he writes, “it touched off a saga that lasted half a decade. I would say, conservatively, that I purchased that record eight times between 1982, when it first came out, and 1987, when I stopped getting on punishment for having it.” (more…)

NEWS: TomorrowWorld 2013 Location Revealed

The new location for TomorrowLand’s global expansion (TomorrowWorld) has just been announced in the United States and will occur on September 27th, 28th and 29th. The epic festival will be taking place in the lush green hills of Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia, near to where Counterpoint Festival takes place.

BBC Radio 1′s Documentary On 808, 303, & 909 Drum Machines

Listened to much hip-hop or dance music? If so, then you would have undoubtedly heard the sounds of either the Roland 808, 303 or 909 – but what are they and what do these numbers mean?

BBC Radio 1′s Kutski discovers how three small electronic boxes from the 1980′s sculpted the sound of both Hip-Hop and Dance music. He makes it his mission to track down the team that worked on the Roland 808, 303 and 909 machines to see if they had any idea their inventions would have such a massive influence on contemporary music.

He plots their integral role in the development of hip-hop, house and techno; and the myriad of sub-genres that have spawned from these. Kutski chats to DJ Premier, Richie Hawtin, Seth Troxler, The 2Bears, Flostradamus and Pete Tong amongst others as he founds out why producers around the globe continue to be obsessed with these sounds, more than three decades after they were first created.

STREAM THE HOUR LONG BROADCAST HERE.

[via bbc]

NEWS: Twitter Acquires We Are Hunted, Readies Standalone Music App

Twitter acquired the music discovery service We Are Hunted last year and is using its technology to build a standalone music app. The app, to be called Twitter Music, could be released on iOS by the end of this month, according to a person familiar with the matter. Twitter Music suggests artists and songs to listen to based on a variety of signals, and is personalized based on which accounts a user follows on Twitter. Songs are streamed to the app via SoundCloud. Read more HERE.

[via CNET]

NEWS: VEVO Launches A Live Channel To Bring The Next Generation Of MTV

It seems so long ago now. The days when MTV was cool. The days when MTV actually played music videos. When it was actually music television. Those days are long gone now, but once upon a time, MTV was the channel you would turn to when you wanted to find out about new songs or bands you should listen to.

The Internet has changed a lot of things about the way users relate to music. Services like VEVO and Spotify are great if you want to find the most recent music video or album from a band you know you already love, to add it to a playlist and save it for later.

But what about all that music you’d never heard of? There are any number of music blogs and top lists or whatever available, but nothing that was ever quite as easy as tuning in to MTV back in its music television heyday. To be honest, this is one reason that I had preferred Pandora over Spotify — while it’s great to be able to have access to a huge, on-demand catalog of music, there’s nothing quite like tuning into a Pandora channel and being introduced to new music similar to stuff I already knew I liked.*

Anyway, I’m not the only one who misses those early MTV days. Apparently the folks at VEVO do as well, since they’ve just rolled out their first new live and programmed music video offering, VEVO TV. The idea behind VEVO TV is to enable viewers to just sit back and have a stream of videos continuously shown to them, introducing them to new artists and allowing them to relive some old music videos that they might have forgotten about. (more…)