General thoughts on DJ Salty Flavor’s New CD, “Keeping It Salty”
Some general notes behind the songs on DJ Salty Flavor’s New CD, “Keeping It Salty.”
1) Track 1 is called Undignified (Remix). The vocals on this one are by Sterling Allen some of you might remember him as being the previous worship leader here at Bethany and I had the chance to work with him while I was here a few years ago. We sat down one afternoon in the Sanctuary and he sang this song, I recorded it and this is what I came up with. The original version of it is by Matt Redman and so let’s kick it off with Undignified (Remix)
Sterling comments on the CD here:
“DJ Salty Flavor has done it again with this great album of remixes and dance music! His music is clearly put together with the hope of enjoyment by all who listen. Anyone looking for club style music with clean content should go immediately to this cd.” –Sterling M. Allen, A&M United Methodist Church College Station, Texas
2) Last Spring I took a class at Austin Community College called Remixing. Francis Preve a respected DJ and producer of electronic music here in Austin taught the class. We had two projects in that class and they were to create a 3 minute remix basically half of a song for the mid-term and then create a full length 6-7 minute track for the final. As a class the 10-12 of us voted on which song we wanted to remix. In the middle of doing this class Francis or something on his website or something taught me how to really make a track groove.
When you are dealing with electronic music you can make it so precise and mechanical that it just feels to computerized, rigid and weird. Francis showed us that by moving different parts around in the software program several milliseconds forward in time or backward in time the track has a significant groove to it. There is a certain move your head to the music groove that certain songs have. This next song called Blip Your Body came out of that class. It wasn’t an actual remix that I did for the class but I used the groove and some sounds from the class to make this song.
One of the instruments I used in the song was called Body Bass. And another song I used was just called Blip. Thus the title of the song Blip Your Body.
Hope you enjoy this one. Several of these songs have what is a called a DJ friendly drum intro. Basically that means that there is about a minute or so of just drums so that when a DJ mixes it into his set he can easily use the drums to transition from one song to the next. So here we go. Blip Your Body.
3) Mr. Blister is another song that comes out the remixing class I took at ACC with Francis Preve. Basically this was the mid-term song I turned into another song. The name of this song also comes from one of the names of the instruments I used in the song called Mr. Blister. The Mr. Blister comes in about 4 to 4 and half minutes into the song. So maybe you can listen for it.
4) I am always looking for new remixing opportunities and new songs to remix. To remix a song the way I think of it is to take is to take an existing song, strip it down to just the vocal track, and then rebuild it into something new mostly to make it into a new techno electronic song.
The next song I did was exactly that. Rachel Keagy is a local Austin songwriter and singer that I was introduced to when I was working with Sarajane. Rachel sang at Wimberly gospelfest and she seemed like a cool person with a great voice. I asked her if I could remix a song of hers and she contacted me earlier in the year about this track. She was released a new CD earlier this year called Masterpiece. The song is called Dare to Dream.
(http://www.rachelkeagy.com)
5) As I said early I am always looking for new remixing opportunities and this next track came out as a response to something I posted on a website called shoutlife. (http://www.shoutlife.com/djsaltyflavor) Shoutlife is a like a myspace type of site and community and I joined there in April of 2007. I posted that I wanted to remix your music and along came a guy by the name of Ricky B and he asked if I could remix a rap song called Hot or Cold. And I said sure and I would give it a try. The very interesting possibly God inspiring thing about this track is that when I was looking to remix it I went back through some of my old material to see if something would work with this song. I had started a song called This is Hot and felt it would work great with this track. Not only that but one of the lyrics references being the salt of the earth. In addition this song was my mastering engineers Josh Woodhouse’s favorite song on this CD. This scripture below may or may night go with what the song is talking about officially but I think it ties in well.
The Message to the Church in Laodicea
Revelation 3:15 – 16 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! 16 But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth
6) This next song is a remix of my friend Paradox’s song Help Wanted. I met Paradox through another friend Andrew Mabry. Andrew Mabry helps run eternal light productions. (http://www.eternalifeproductions.com) Andrew has helped me with my website djsaltyflavor.com which I encourage you to visit often. Signup to receive my blog updates listen to my music find links to purchase my music. The Help Wanted remix talks about how we need one each as brothers and sister in the body of Christ.
7) I have talked about how I have entered remix contests before and this is the first song that won a remix contest. It is called Why by the reel band. I found this remix contest through an internet google search. So listen to this song called Why.
8. Supernova Remix – The Supernova remix was a remix I got an opportunity to do as part of a community I belong to called tastyfresh. (http://www.tastyfresh.com) Basically it’s a Christian online community for people who love dance music. There are lots of great conversations on the forums, they have a couple of podcasts and it’s been a cool place. Carl is from Australia so it’s pretty cool to remix a song from there. He offered this track as a remix opportunity on a post on the forums and this is what I came up with.
9) This next track is called We Are Not Afraid and this was another remix contest that I found through a google search. There were not enough entries in this one for the contest to take off but Bernhard liked my track. Bernhard lives in Germany. I shipped him my CD last week and I don’t think he has gotten it yet. He said something about the address might have not been quite right or actually what he said was that sometimes the mail people are too stupid to find his mailbox. I hope you enjoy this slow, mellow track.
10) The final track I want to share with you tonight is called What You are Doing is Not Good. This one was inspired by a sermon from Tom Deviney the head pastor at Bethany UMC. Thank you Tom for providing the sermon material for this one. I was working here a couple of years ago and was the sound and media Team leader and so I has easy access to all the sermons I wanted because we recorded each one for the congregation if they wanted to hear it again on tape and/or CD. The sermon was about Nehemiah. It’s a commentary on the current state of the church today. So I hope this one makes you think a little bit.
