The Making and Demise of the Perfect Recording - Part 1

The Behind-The-Scenes Story of My Work With Freedy Johnston and the Making of Can You Fly

Can You Fly was the album that put Freedy Johnston on the map and it set the tone for his future recordings. It was well received and made several critics "Best Of" list that year. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice called it a "perfect record." In a way, I think Freedy attempted to return to the quality and mood of Can You Fly on his subsequent works, while trying to demonstrate his independence from it.

As The Silos crumbled, I started playing some live shows with Freedy Johnston. It was a great time to live in the Hoboken, N.J. area. There were gigs at Maxwell's and The Beaten Path. There were recording sessions at Water Music on Grand Street and rehearsals on 2nd Street. To this day, I can smell steaks broiling from Arthur's kitchen downtown. Maxwell House had a coffee factory uptown on 11th Street and River Road. The smell of roasted coffee beans permeated every inch of the mile square town. You couldn't walk down the main drag, Washington Street, without bumping into someone from bands such as The Bongos, the db's, Bob Mould, and Television. Speaking of Television, my initial gigs with Freedy would be with Television's bassist, Fred Smith. The other characters would be Mark Zoltak, Bob Rupe, Kevin Salem, Marshall Crenshaw, Jimmy Lee, Jared Nickerson and Graham Maby. Freedy's project couldn't have come at a better time. I was jumping from the burning ship that was The Silos to a more promising Freedy Johnston. To boot, I was still working with the "crew." Once again, I was lucky. It wouldn't be long before this situation fell apart.

Get Your Feet Off of My Dashboard

I met Freedy Johnston when he was the opening act on The Silos Bird tour. He opened for us on a handful of dates in the Northeast, promoting his first record, The Trouble Tree. He was a wiry, awkward guy from Kansas. His music was a blend of Country, Indie and Redneck. More than singing, he had a loony bin vocal style of screeching through his songs. He consciously tamed this vocal style by the time Bad Reputation was recorded. In my opinion this "improvement" was a mistake and not representative of the Freedy I once knew. "Get your feet off of my dashboard. What do you think the damn thing's for? At least try and look pretty. Tonight we're goin' into Tucumcari" he sang at the Iron Horse in Northampton, MA. The combination that was Freedy Johnston was brilliant. I was instantly taken by him.

The Silos' manager, Mark Zoltak recognized Freedy's talent and pounced. Within days they had a working arrangement and were already planning a new recording (Can You Fly). Graham Maby and I were the bass player and drummer in The Silos. So it was a no-brainer for Freedy to hire us to play on his sessions. In the interim there was hard work to be done. The new songs needed to be shaped and sharpened. Rehearsals were in a stiflingly hot studio on 2nd Street in Hoboken. In the period leading up to the sessions, all Freedy could offer us was the promise of playing some good songs. Otherwise it was unpaid rehearsals, gear schlepping and club gigs. A cross between a musical workshop and an internship. There were some good gigs opening for more established acts like The Connells and Pere Ubu, but they were few and far between. With Freedy and Jimmy Lee on guitars, yours truly on drums, and Television's Fred Smith on bass, we forged ahead playing club gigs and shaping the songs for the upcoming sessions for Can You Fly.

Holland

In the summer of 1991, Freedy enjoyed some good fortune, lining up gigs in The Netherlands where The Trouble Tree was well received. In true singer/songwriter form, with each step forward, he shed those that helped him along the way. Before the Holland Tour Fred Smith and Jimmy Lee were fired. They were replaced by Jared Nickerson and Kevin Salem respectively. Bassist Jared Nickerson always was, and always will be the epitome of cool, in addition to being a damn good bass player. Kevin Salem was a great guitarist, but had other ambitions clouding his mind. Our first gig in Holland was a music festival headlined by Golden Earing and Modern English. Unlike our gigs in New York, we were jazzed because there were plenty of fans who knew the songs. We played many shows in Holland including festivals with Dinosaur Jr. and Nirvana. We enjoyed leisurely dinners and plenty of fresh Heineken. Life was good!

Brian Doherty is best known as a drummer for groups like They Might Be Giants, XTC, M2M, Freedy Johnston, and Ben Folds. He grew up in Randolph, NJ and earned a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. Brian also holds a Master of Teaching degree from The City College of New York. He is currently a music teacher in the Bronx and remains professionally active in the NYC area. Read my story, see rare video, pics and more on my website http://www.briandoherty.net

Download Unlimited Songs Easily And Quickly - 4 Options Laid Out For You

Everybody who loves music wants to find the way to download unlimited songs. After all, you can never have too much of a good thing, and it only makes sense to find the best deal you can get. There are a few options open to you to download unlimited songs. It is up to you to choose the one that suits your needs best.

1. Pay for Each Song

There are plenty of websites that have huge databases that will let you download unlimited songs, as long as you pay for each song you download. This option works out great if you have that one catchy tune stuck in your head that you just have got to have. However, if you want to download really an unlimited number of songs, this will burn quite a hole in your pocket. If you do not mind shelling over a dollar for a song, this way you can get very good quality songs in whichever format you want, with no risk of viruses.

2. Free Databases

There are some websites that let you download unlimited songs for free, like mp3realm. Unfortunately, these databases are not extensive, and if the song you are looking for is not a recent hit or a popular classic, you might not find it.

Another thing about such websites is that many of them place the condition that you must delete the file within a specified time from the day you download it. Songs downloaded from some of these sites automatically become unplayable after this time, but this rarely happens. You will be agreeing to their terms and conditions when you download the song, so you are bound to honor it.

3. P2P File Sharing

Everything is completely free in P2P file sharing networks, of course. You can find just about anything under the sun. However, if you respect copyright laws, you have to be aware that the legal status of these networks has long been debated.

If that does not cause you sleepless nights, you are free to opt for this, but before you do, make sure that your computer's antivirus and spyware software, as well as your firewall, are impregnable. There are a lot of infected files on these networks. You can download unlimited songs at no cost at all, but if you are not careful, you will find your computer crashing very often.

4. Lifetime Membership Offers

Some websites with huge databases of music and other media files offer lifetime membership for a nominal fee. Once you become a member, you can download unlimited songs, with no further payments and with no worries regarding the safety of your computer.

This way, you will get safe, good files, and if you plan to download quite a bit, the initial payment works out to very little. Lifetime membership at these sites is the best option if you want a wide selection and want your computer and music player to be safe.

Discover how to download unlimited songs and much more at my blog.

Davion is a music addict and cannot do without them. Find out about hot and limited offers for unlimited music downloads. Also read his wildly popular article on unlimited music downloads.

Downloads For iPod - iPod Downloads

If you've been getting your iPod Downloads from iTunes you'll notice that it can be quite expensive. Who wants to pay $300 for 300 songs? Or $100 for a few movies and tv shows? Doing it the iTunes way is simply costing the average iPod user too much. Thankfully though, there is a much cheaper way of filling your iPod with all your favorite media files.

There are many alternative sites that offer unlimited access to their iPod download networks for a fraction of what it would cost to download multiple files from iTunes. In fact, for under $40 you can gain unlimited access to a life times supply of high quality digital files with no limits or restrictions on the amount of files you want to download. You would have to be crazy not to take advantage of these incredible deals.

Because there are so many of these sites offering the same sort of deals we decided to give them all a good going over to find which ones really are the best at supplying quality Downloads for iPod. We're all iPod lovers like you so we want the best deals also. Through our testing we discovered that most of these unlimited iPod Downloads Sites have huge selections of files. I mean they have everything from movies, music, games, videos, tv shows, software, ebooks and anything else you can think of that you might need for your iPod. What's available is truly outstanding.

As part of your membership you'll also be supplied the tools and software for searching, downloading and converting your files. Most sites have different tools suitable for both Microsoft and Mac operating systems. What separates one site from the other is basically the 'ease of use' and 'customer service'. Some are simply better at it than the others. Some sites will respond promptly to any query you may have and some sites don't get back to you at all. Some sites have a simple download process while other sites make a real mess of it and can confuse the hell out of you with too many steps and inadequate tutorials.

Also all these unlimited download sites offer a money back guarantee but not all honor it. On a couple of occasions when we requested a refund we just kept getting the same reply stating all the advantages of our membership with never a possibility of getting a refund. One site in particular never even supplied us with a user name or password when we joined, as was simply an absolute scam. This site gets a big 'dishonorable mention' on our website.

All that being said there are some really good sites available to us users that offer great deals on unlimited downloads for our iPods. There is no better way to load up your iPod with all your favorite entertainment files. For a one time fee, that gives you a life times access to any file you want to download, there is just no better way.

So follow the link below to our website and check out our genuine reviews of the top sites from a members point of view. It will hopefully aid you in your decision of the best sites to join and the ones to avoid when it comes to downloads for the iPod.

Mark Frahm and his associates are iPod users who have endevoured to supply you with genuine reviews of their experiences as members to these Unlimited iPod Download Sites. In the hope they can give you as much information as possible in your search for a reliable supplier of unlimited iPod Downloads. Visit their review page at

[http://www.downloadsfortheipod.com]

Get Your Music Heard - Don't Make This Big Common Mistake

If you look at the blog and forum comments left by producers on the sites across the Internet, you'll notice a pattern. I'll just be straight up instead of trying to sugar coat it, since we're here to help. What you'll notice is a pattern of really bad attempts to get their music heard and get some type of deal.

Here's an example:

"Yo! I got hot beats! Check them out at myspace.com/anonymous-producer"

I understand that everybody starts somewhere so I'm not knocking anyone's hustle - but is that really even hustle.

Let's look at this from the other side of the conversation. Let's say I'm a label head (which I am) and I'm actually looking for hot beats (who isn't?) What about that comment makes me want to click that link and listen to that producers beats?

The answer is nothing. That producer hasn't given me ANY reason to click that link or to think he has anything special or even worth my time. Industry cats get that "pitch" every day. In the beginning, before you have any contacts or connections, you actually click some of those links looking for gold. 999 times out of 1000 you just get dirt.

Before long you learn to get stingy with your time. You start to do what everyone else does and filter out the noise. That "yo check out my beats" comment is noise.

Here's what you need to do instead. Think of what you're up against. Every producer with a couple of beats in his catalog thinks his beats are hot. You need to give people a reason check you out and stop looking for handouts. There are no handouts in this business.

If you want in, you have to prove that you have something I want, something that will make my life easier and move me closer to my goals. Notice how everything I'm looking for is about me. That's what everybody cares about, and that's what everybody is looking for - what THEY need.

People in this industry are not surfing the Internet, going to conferences, and answering emails and phones calls to find out what they can do for you. They want to know what you can do for them.

Here's the bottom line. If you don't change your thinking and start to position yourself as a solution to peoples problems, you won't change your position from aspiring to working. You need to build yourself up and have something to say that places you above the noise.

Don't blow it when you have a real shot. Tell the person you're trying to connect with why they should consider your music. What can you do for them.

Here's an example:

"Yo - I make beats in the style of RZA and DOOM. I've placed beats on 6 mixtapes this year and local artists are paying $75 a beat for my production. I'd like to connect with artists like xyz and saw that you worked with him on his last album. Do y'all need tracks? I have examples online at (URL)."

That shows that you've got their interest in mind and you're not just sitting at home making beats. You're actually doing work to build yourself up which shows that you might be worth working with as a partner in some type of deal. On top of all that, THEN you also have to have hot beats and be persistent.

In other words, put some effort into helping the people you want to work with. In a best case scenario, you know what they need and can offer it to them. If you have no idea what that person wants, ask. Just trying to help them instead of asking for help will put you above the noisy 90% who are looking for handouts.

Don't take a half-ass approach to this business and expect people to give you handouts. Do the work to build relationships and eventually partnerships.

A. Zar is a producer, songwriter, and author of How To Sell Beats: The Underground Beat Sellers Report.

For more business tips, opportunities, and resources for beat makers, visit http://TheBeatBusiness.com

Download Hip Hop Instrumental Beats

So you are a great rapper and just need some hot hip hop instrumental beats to lay your lyrics over? Are you looking for the type of beats that are radio friendly? Choosing instrumentals can be so easy to do, but there are some things you should know before purchasing a rap beat. Here are some tips to look for when purchasing hip hop instrumental beats.

1. Know what you are spending money for when it comes to the beat. Do you plan to release this song for profit? Or are you just using it for demonstration purposes only? Make sure you let the producer know what your plans are so you'll know whether to get a non-exclusive license or an exclusive license. If you plan on making a profit off the song you are using the producer's beat, they usually charge more and make an "exclusive" license or agreement. If you are going that route, make sure you are the only artist that will own that beat. You don't want to pay for an exclusive license and there are other artists using the same beat. If you are choosing their beat for a free mixtape, or to perform to, or just have fun with...it would be less expensive and also referred to as "non-exclusive" agreement.

2. Are you interested in getting your music heard on radio? If so, then your hip hip instrumental beats should be radio-friendly. You should be able to tell whether or not you can hear that track on the radio. They need to be commercial. Does the beat sound like something you could hear a rapper hear on the radio now? Can you hear a popular artist today rap over it?

Looking to download hot, radio friendly hip hop instrumental beats? Visit http://www.squidoo.com/buyhiphopbeats for the best prices

How to Make a Music Beat Using a Beat Making Program

Making your own beats is fun to do once you know what your doing. Some people make beat making more difficult than it needs to be. The easiest way to make a music beat is to learn and follow all the basic fundamentals.

The first thing you are going to need to start your music production is a music program you can quickly download and install onto your computer. Once you have a beat making program the first thing you need to focus on is the drum beat of your music beat.

You see, the drum beat is important because everything builds up around the drum beat and it's tempo. So make sure you take great care when you implement it into your beat.

Now that you have your drum beat it is time you add some depth to your beat. You can use a synthesizer to produce a variety of riffs and sounds you can add on top of the drum beat.

Many professional beat makers add up to 5 different layers of sound to add depth to their beat. When you make a music beat you are going to want to use different instrument sounds and come up with some more note riffs that you can use for the chorus parts of your music.

Depending on the beat program your using you can cut and paste different riffs you recorded in relation to the drum beat. This process can take a long time since you can tweak the beats for hours until you are satisfied with it.

Some programs come with some pre-programmed beats you can use to make a music beat even easier. If your beat program comes with hundreds of pre-programmed beats from different genres of music then it makes it even easier.

You can take a country beat and turn it into your own hip hop or rock n roll beat by adding and removing different instruments. This method is effective but is not as satisfying as making your own music beat from scratch.

Check out the best programs to make beats that will allow you to make your music online easily. Also check out the resources and step by step beat making guides that can take your beats to the next level.===> Click Here

Kelly Clarkson & Music

Kelly Clarkson was born in Fort Worth, Texas on April 24th 1982 and is an American pop rock singer, songwriter and occasionally an actress. She made her debut under RCA records, after she won the highly publicized first season of the television series American idol. She was originally marketed as a pop musician with her debut thankful.

She is the third and youngest child of a first grade teacher and a former engineer. Her siblings include her brother Jason, and her sister Alyssa. When Clarkson was six years old, her parents split up after seventeen years of marriage. As a result, her brother went to live with her father, her sister went to live with an aunt, and Clarkson remained with her mother. She frequently moved around Texas while her mother managed several professionals in order to support the family. The family settled in Burleson, where Clarkson mother married her second husband, Jimmy Taylor.

While growing up, her family had a hard time financially and often argued about money. From this experience, Kelly Clarkson learned to be financially responsible and independent at an early age. Music became her refuge after the first divorce, but she didn't embrace it as her salvation until her teens.

She started singing after college and released her first and second albums but the second was the most successful. Kelly Clarkson moved to a more pop and rock oriented style of music. Her third album, entitled My December, was released on June 26, 2007. Clarkson has sold over 19 million albums worldwide She is the most successful idol, with eight of her singles becoming Top 10 hits on the billboard hot 100. She joined Vh1's list of 10 sexiest women of the new millennium at number 8. She also hit number 28 on Vh1's Top 30 Hottest Rock Front women.

Peter Gitundu Researches and Reports on Celebrities. For More Information on Kelly Clarkson, Visit His Site at Entertainment And Celebrities

Simple Tips To Downloading Music To iPod

So, you are tired of the complex illustration that you have been getting on how to download music to ipod, then you are lucky to find this article because I hate too much complexity as well.

Before we go on,ask yourself. Do you want to download music from the internet or you want to get from your cd? Downloading music from the internet is simple but be careful with free download sites because of malwares, spywares and adwares.

If it is from your CD, just insert the CD into your computer.It should come up in your itunes browser. Select the CD and click import. It will be imported to your itunes music library where you can put it on your ipod. (This means you should have itunes installed on your computer already. Itunes is a software application that allows transfer of data to ipod. Download for free at http://www.apple.com/itunes

Let's continue. Connect your computer with a USB cable to the ipod. Since you have imported the music to your itunes library, your ipod will automatically get the music from your computer.

Almost the same thing applies if you already have the music on your PC or you just downloaded it into your computer.
Here, all you have to do is connect your computer to the ipod with the USB cable(Itunes must be installed)Simply drag and drop the music files from your itunes library into the removable disk(USB-IPOD)
icon in itunes.

That is it.Simple tips for downloading music to ipod.

Feed your ipod. Get hot movies, tv shows, sports, mp3 music downloads. Visit http://my-ipod-downloads.blogspot.com for unusual ipod tips you should know.

Affiliate Marketing is the "Hands Free" Business Model

Affiliate marketing is a method by which you can sell other people's products, and you never have to touch the products or deal with the big customer service issues at all. You just pocket a percentage of the sale for leading the customer to the product. This is how affiliate marketing gets the nickname "hands free"

If you are unfamiliar with affiliate marketing, here is hypothetical scenario that will help you understand the basic principle behind it. Let's say a friend of yours is selling off his guitar collection.

He asks for your help in finding people who might be interested in buying his guitars, and tells you that he'll give you 20% of his take for every guitar sold if the buyer mentions your name.

In essence, your friend is paying you for the referral. This is affiliate marketing, which is also sometimes known as "referral marketing", in a nutshell. As an affiliate marketer, you can earn 'commissions' by referring others to all sorts of products and services. There may even be an affiliate program out there for 'used guitars' ;-)

Affiliate marketing encompasses far more, however, than the sale of physical goods.

You can also promote intangible items, like e-books, video or music downloads, software, memberships and online services. What's great about this is that the products are downloadable. The customer you refer receives his product right after the sale.

A focus on this type of 'digital' product is often referred to as information marketing, because it is information that is most often sold in these formats.

If we were being picky about our terms and definitions, we could also call it 'entertainment marketing' in some cases.

The important thing, though, is that people are motivated to purchase these types of products in order to fill one very important need: to find a solution to a problem. When you think about it, even music or other types of entertainment solve a problem, the problem of 'boredom.'

Now, you can start any kind of online business you like, but my recommendation is that you start an affiliate information marketing business. This model is proven to be the easiest, most cost-effective and most profitable for home business newbies to master.

If you still aren't convinced, have a look at this site called Clickbank:

http://www.clickbank.com

Look at the top of your screen for the blue tabs, and click on the one that says "Buy Products.' Now, click on any link in the list from the List of Categories table near the bottom. What you'll see on the next screen is a list of link to products in that category being sold through Clickbank.

The Top 10 products in the 'Health and Fitness' category, for example, include product 'solutions' for things like fat loss, anxiety and panic and even hypnosis. These are hot topics and you can be that there are people online in search of this information.

You might wonder why someone would pay for this information when plenty of web sites offer information on these same subjects for free?

The truth is that not much of the free information online today is truly premium information. Not only that, but you have to spend quite a few hours compiling information from different sites just to get a big picture, and even then you may not discover the solution to your problem.

Most people don't want to pour through medical journal articles to find a 'drug-free' solution to their anxiety problem. They just want to feel better NOW.

Products such as the ones found on Clickbank promise to deliver that premium information quickly and easily. Purchase the product online, download it, and you've got your solution in minutes instead of hours.

Now, imagine yourself marketing those types of solutions. You can build an entire business around marketing those kinds of solutions! Every product in the Clickbank marketplace has an affiliate program associated with it, which means you can earn money promoting them.

Chris Stirling has written several aarticles on Affiliate Marketing and how you can start earning in this "hands Free" Business model which you can read on his blog: http://top-work-from-home.com/blog/category/affiliate-marketing

You can also read a report he wrote called "How To Get Rich From Affiliate Marketing"

Guitar Books - Three Music Theory Books For Guitarists

Sooner or later any serious guitarist comes to realize that a solid theoretical background is the only way forward. Your ear can only take you so far, that's when your musical theory can kick in and remove any musical obstacles in your way to fully expressing yourself.

Seems pretty straight forward... just go to the music shop and pick up a theory book and away we go; away we go alright... pick up the wrong book and you'll end up more confused than you ever were before.

Musical fact of life # 1: Not all theory books are created equal.

I remember when I started my first job, it was at a music store teaching music; I had a bit of a reputation as a player in the local area playing in dance bands etc., and since I had already sold quite a bit of musical equipment for the music store based on my track record they thought I would be the obvious choice; if
the store had a potential guitar or amp customer they would leave a message with my mum, then after school I would go down to the store and demonstrate the gear.

Everything started out fine, I stumbled and fumbled my way through the guitar lessons, I'm not sure who learnt the most me or my students I know I learnt heaps everyday mostly about how not to teach.

Anyway, very early in the piece the store manager informed me that if I was going to continue teaching for the store I would need to be "qualified"; I didn't know exactly what that entailed but it did sound scary

As it turned out what he meant was I needed to be formally qualified... just being able to play the guitar was not good enough if I was going to teach guitar for them.

The good news was they were going to pay for my lessons so that was neat... there was even more good news I could go to the theory lessons instead of having to work at the shop.

So I began my theory lessons and very soon became frustrated, confused and perplexed... things I knew worked on the bandstand the night before didn't match up with the theory lesson the next day.

The more confused I became the more determined I was about finding the "truth"; so I started studying with other teachers to augment my "paid" lessons from the music store... boy, did that make matters worst; it seemed as if each theory teacher had their own slant on things many basic concepts did not match up.

Long story short... after a lot of playing, thinking and research I discovered....

Musical fact of life # 2: there are different types of theory... in fact there are three distinct types of theory: classical, jazz and rock/blues!

These are very broad categories they are all important and the complete musician needs to be aware of their similarities and differences.

They world is full of traditional classical theory books so I won't discuss them here. Modern theory as applied to improvisation and the music of our time is what I'm about... it's great to know what happened 400 years ago but it's unlikely to help you secure that rock gig next Friday night,

Here's my top three modern theory books for guitarists

Title: Modern Method For Guitar - By William Leavitt (Berklee Press)

Available from: Berklee.com

Overview: if you want to get in on the ground floor and study guitar and theory as applied to the guitar fretboard, this is the place to start!

Available in three volumes; the first sixty pages of volume one covers the basics of reading music in the first position of the guitar.

Part two of Berklee volume one introduces the five standard fingering patterns for reading music over the fretboard.

Title: Jazz Studies - by Bruce Clarke (ed clinch v.i.s.e text)

Available from: BillyHydemusic.com.au

Overview:A fantastic book that takes off were the Berklee book volume one finishes; the Jazz Studies book is ideal to use in conjunction with Berklee Volume two.

Fantastic explanations of how modes, cycle 5 and cycle 7 concepts work Jazz studies is a great introduction into the world of improvisation, if you have studied traditional theory this book will "blow the lid off" how you look at theory. Step by step instruction, very easy to understand. Highly recommended.

Title: "See It - Hear It / Hear It - Play It" - by Dick Grove

Available from: DickGrove.com

Overview:A complete course with DVD/text instruction from the man himself Dick Grove, you could easily pay $100,000 in college instruction and never get this type of tuition.

Everyone learns differently the DVD's bring the written text to life helping to maintain the student's motivation and enthusiasm. Any one of these individual courses or combination of all three theory texts will clear the way for you to express yourself on the guitar.

And now I'd like to invite you to get free access to my "How To Remember 1,000 Songs" eCourse. You can download the course for free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com

You'll learn about hit song templates, easy chords simple scales, red hot rhythms, and successful practice strategies in text, audio and video.

From Mike Hayes - The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar System

How Hot Electro Sounds Can Mesh With Heavy House Beats

Electro house music has quickly become one of the most popular forms of house not only in dance clubs around the world but also in soundtracks to video games, TV programs and movies. Its uncanny ability to combine harsh, gritty funk with the four to the floor rhythms typically associated with house have created a hybrid form of music that is oozing with down and dirty grooves.

As a genre on its own, electro can be traced back to the 1980's and the formation of the b-boy sound. This style of music used beats that were similar to that which were found in contemporary rap tracks, but instead of lyrics the focus was primarily on the break, in order to give break dancers a chance to flaunt their stuff. Gradually this music drifted into the mainstream where it was infused with poppier vocals and appeared sporadically on the charts. Electro music didn't exactly break through with the same crossover appeal as hip hop, but it has served as an important influence to an entire generation of electronic music producers.

Electro house uses some elements of traditional electro music but it has evolved from a somewhat different perspective. In the 1990's, some artists began to experiment with reducing the bit rate on their samples and creating more lo-fi vocals and percussion while maintaining smooth, very electronic sounding basslines. This 'dirtier' house sound was sometimes accompanied by vocals which had been heavily filtered to drop out the lower frequencies. Gradually, this type of music began to add course synth sweeps and an even fatter bassline until a thick bottom end came to define the genre. Vocals remained spooky and distant for the most part, sometimes being heavily slathered in reverb and delay to make them a part of the foundation of the track rather than the focus.

While the foundation of a heavy, almost sleazy-sounding beat is the primary marker of electro house music, some artists have chosen to play around with some more creative interpretations of the genre. 'Exceeder' by Mason, for example, gradually introduces a heavier and heavier rhythm track over an initially light synth lead that itself chunks up until it erupts into an abrasive glory. The use of strings to highlight certain sections of a track is also a noteworthy characteristic of this type of house music. An almost piercing string accent can be heard as a repetitive element in the D. Ramirez remix of 'Electric Disco' by Plump DJ's, an electro house anthem released in 1999.

For more articles on house music visit http://www.onlinehousemusic.com/