Chicago Vibe Alive

Posts Tagged ‘DJ Sneak’

I did this mix in November of 2006 mostly to impress a girl and get a few gigs, I ultimately got engaged to the girl and won a handful of gigs but I’m not sure how much either of those things had to do with the mix but there are some great tunes on this one. Heavy hitters in this genre like Switch, Jesse Rose, Chuck Love, and Joey Youngman/Mario Fabriani add to the funky ensemble. The “Dance Samba” track by Ken Christensen from East Coast Boogiemen fame steals the show on this one. The Portuguese vocal is absolutely gorgeous and the times that I’ve played it out is a show stopper, girls smile and dance harder, guys run up to the booth wanting to know what the name of the track is…works everytime.

Switch’s “A Bit Patchy”, a rework of the Incredible Bongo Band classic “Apache”, which is a rework of the original by The Shadows, is also a dancefloor igniter, when that track first broke in Chicago every DJ was playing it and for good reason, its the type of song that gets people out of their seats and moving, and subsequently stuck in your head for the next couple days. Below is a clip of the original by The Shadows…

Click here to download the entire mix tracked out with track titles and artists, ready for your Itunes or listen below…

1. Things Like That – Vincenzo & Steve Ferrand
2. Phat Boy (What’s In Your Soul EP) – Troydon
3. Da Jazz Joint (Three Steps Forward EP) – Troydon
4. Funky-Ass Beat (Joey Youngman’s Heat Index Remix) – Chuck Love
5. How Y’all Funk (Pick It Up EP) – Induceve (David Taylor & Jesse Rose)
6. Getondownz – Switch
7. A-Sided (Let’s Start Again EP) – Jesse Rose
8. Dunky Frummer (Direction Correction EP) – Subjekt
9. Dance Samba (Jamz From The Junkyard EP) – Ken from ECB
10. Wanna Eve – Dandruff Truckers
11. Chi-Town Shuffle (Jason Hodges Shuffle This! Remix from Dickens Cider EP) – Ion
12. Candela (Sneak’s Candelazo Dub) – Phil Weeks
13. Come On (Direction Correction EP) – Subjekt
14. Funky Roll Quartet (Phil Weeks Remix) – David K
15. System Sprain (Mario Fabriani Remix) – Sound Navigators
16. A Bit Patchy – Switch

This is my first attempt at cross genre mixing, turned out to be pretty challenging, luckily I had a lot of time to kill. This is an all vinyl mix and you can even hear a little snap crackle and pop in there so you know its real. Cut me a little slack as this is my first cross genre and I usually mix strictly 120-130 BPM so a couple transitions are a little shaky but most of these kids claiming to know how to DJ these days don’t even know what beat matching is, let alone have a turntable or any vinyl. Just Itunes and a laptop. What’s happened to the art and skill of the DJ? Anybody can press play on itunes and dance around behind a laptop. The studied and skilled selector seems to have been replaced by impatient, self glorifying posers who would rather cross fade Michael Jackson straight into ODB and sacrifice the mix making it sound like shit than polish their skills and do things right. The biggest problem is that their inexperienced groupies don’t know the difference and actually cheer them on, giving them a false sense of accomplishment, where back in our day the DJ would have been boo’d for pulling shit like that… This blog is for those who know the difference…

This mix ranges from 165, all the way down to 80, and works its way back up to 130. I think the most fun for me was being able to combine so many styles and eras, 1973 Cal Tjader tune, 1977 First Choice’s “Love Having You Around” from their album Delusions. It was pretty hard to decide on just one of the tracks from this album, which also includes “Dr. Love” and “Let No Man Put Asunder”, but ever since Paul Johnson sampled “Love Having You Around” on his “Get on My Camel” EP, I have been hooked. George Benson’s “Dinorah, Dinorah” (again, i would usually lean towards “Give Me The Night” but “Dinorah” just felt right this time). “Buddy” from De La, Tribe, and JB’s is like the Voltron of late 80′s orgganic hip hop coming together on one track, and then Stacy Kidd’s Chicago house classic “Let Love Enter” that is such an infectious groove that its hard not to get that wailing vocal stuck in your head for at least a couple days just to name a few…

Click here to download or listen below…

1. Midnight – Un-Cut
2. Unknown feat. Jill Scott – Unknown (Love Legalize)
3. Unknown (White Label Promo) – Unknown (White Label Promo)
4. Sandworms – Andy C. v. Darkhorse
5. Buddy – featuring Jungle Brothers, Q-Tip & Phife De La Soul
6. Love Having You Around – First Choice
7. Soul Bird (Tin Tin Dao) – Cal Tjader
8. Music And Wine (Th’Attaboy Vocal) – Blue Six
9. Dinorah, Dinorah – George Benson
10. Do What You Know (Vienna Sol Remix) – Vibezelect
11. Stoned (Inland Knights Mix) – The Littlemen
12. Let Love Enter (Club Mix) – Stacy Kidd
13. The Flow (from Bounce Back EP) – DJ Sneak
14. Rescue Me (Olav & Armin’s Xcessive Wodkawasters Filter Dub) – Sunkids feat. Chance
15. Pasilda (Knee Deep Club Mix) – Afro Medusa