The Ultimate Music Guide to Surviving Road Trips

There have not been any educational posts in a while and I feel like DPC needs to lay down some knowledge for all of you. We all win in these "educational posts". It makes me feel smarter (really, it does) and you guys feel more enlightened and take away some very valuable information.

Exhibit A: How To Survive a Work Day after Dance Partying All Night
Exhibit B: Dance Party Education
Exhibit C: How To Find Music

Right now, we're all traveling to festivals, shows, beaches, and vacations. We're all moving and shaking and hopefully bringing along our own dance parties as we go from point a to point b.

The issue at hand is I've got a pretty limited catalog when it comes to mixes whilst traveling. I have my "go-to" mixes, forcing anyone and everyone to listen to in my car. By the end of the trip, they probably want to kill me. So... after racking my brain for more ideas, I decided to take a different route with this. You guys already know I love disco dance parties. You know I love deep house. You know I freaking like to get weird. Maybe you even know I occasionally like to blast, "Call me, Maybe." Basically, I'd just bring the same dang thing to the table, and what's the fun in that? So for the last few days I've been polling different sources to put together the ultimate "Music Guide to Surviving Road Trips".

I don't want to insult your intelligence (or maybe I'm just saying these things because I've done the same thing), but let's get one thing straight when you're on a road trip: you need to have the necessary equipment while traveling. That means you should probably have some or all of the following to ensure your road trip does not completely fail. This also means that you’ve successfully found a way not to talk to your passengers most of the trip - because who really wants to do that?

• Some type of mp3 player (Smartphones are also good if you can stream SoundCloud)
• CDs (To play in your car - yes, some of us have to do that because we own shitty cars. And by some of us, I mean me..)
• Auxilary cable to hook up mp3 player
• Headphones
• Charger for said player
• Red Bull, Coffee, anything caffeinated
• CANDY (i.e. swedish fish, anything chocolate, sour gummy worms, skittles...)

Below you'll see two categories; there are only two because as I was "researching" I found that people either recommended a mix that was for either:

AFTER THE JUMP...

Friday Mixtape Buffet

Hello Cyber Friends!  Hope everyone had a good week.  I want to give a big shout out to everyone who came out to the Don Cornelius - Soul Train Tribute Party this past Friday night.  It was quite a funkin' dance party if I do say so myself.  It was such a blast to get down to old school disco tunes in funky-fresh throwback gear and to shake it in a Soul Train dance line!  One of the highlights was the disco edit of the Star Wars theme. Things quickly turned into a dark side disco dance party.  Now if I could direct you attention to the Darth Vader Disco Ball... someone buy me one, please! On a side note, my latest batch of home brewed beer is a Black IPA called Death Star IPA.  I somehow thought that this was relevant.

Well enough random commentary and on to the music.  This week we were blessed with a plethora of mixes and many of them were heat rocks (Note: Heat rocks are different than kick rocks). Below you will find hopefully enough music to keep you dancing through the weekend. Feast your ears on these and as they say, "A dance party a day, keeps the doctor away."

 

 We've been waiting for Classy Dancer VI for a while now and here it is.  I actually just started this mix, but if its anything like the previous 5 Classy Dancers it is going to be amazing.

Tracklist: Check back soon!

 

This is the first mix from A.N.D.Y.  This is the new project of Andy Faisca, who was a part of the DJ duo Mustang, before they split at the end of last year.  Definitely a very good first mix for his new solo project.
Tracklist: 
1. Neighbour : You can do it
2. Jus' Bros. : The Truth
3. Russian Adults : Don't panic Dancing
4. Larse : So Long
5. The Supermen Lovers : Say no More (A.N.D.Y. Remix)
6. Tad Wily : Garage Love
7. Lazaro Casanova : DeLoreans Groove (LC Dub)
8. Jean Nipon : Girl Complex
9. Philosophy of Sound : Freedom, what for ? (A.N.D.Y. Remix)
10. Moonbootica : Iconic (Lorenz Rhode Remix)

 

This mixtape from Zimmer is titled "Living Large" and he categorizes it as Vertical Disco.  This was one of my favorite mixes of the week.  It has some huge tunes that are sure to keep you dancing.
Tracklist: 
1. Goldroom - Angeles
2. Chordashian - Sea Crest
3. Nathan Swiss - Heart (Moonchild Remix)
4. U-Tern - You Don't Know Me
5. Lancelot - We Can Dance (Goldroom Remix)
6. Platic Plates - Toys
7. Moon Boots - Bills To Pay
8. Astrolabe? - Cave Disco (Discotexas Edit)
9. Citizens - Reptiles (Attar! Remix)
10. Charlotte Gainsbourg - Paradisco (Joakim's "Paradisco Garage" Remix)
11. Zimmer - Bay Bridge (Moon Boots Remix)
12. Zimmer - Looking At You (Moullinex Remix)
13. Grouplove - Tongue Tied (Gigamesh Remix)
14. The Kooks - Naive (Jean Tonique Remix)
15. Carl Carlton - She's A Bad Mama Jama (Funk Manchu Remix)
16. Justin Faust - High Hopes (Jay Lamar & Jesse Oliver Remix)
17. Jessie Ware - Running (Disclosure Remix)
18. Zimmer - Slave To Your Heart (feat. Jeremy Glenn) (Broke One Remix)
19. Doi-Oing - Good Feeling

Holiday Mixtape Grab Bag

The Holidays are upon us and today is my last day of work before an extended four day weekend.  Obviously I am working hard right now and not wasting time on the internet...  Anyway, its unseasonably warm in the mid-east right now and it looks like Christmas this year, will be mild instead of white.  If you are a procrastinator like me, you will be scrambling the next few days to fight the crowds and finish some last minute Christmas shopping.  I'm excited to spend time with my friends and family and have some free time to relax (and by relax, I mean rage).  Since, I probably won't be doing any more blog posts for the next few days I decided to make this one count.  Below is 5 different mixes for your dancing pleasure (Tracklists available for most of them on Soundcloud).  Enjoy the music and have a great holiday!

Sare Havlicek delivered an early Christmas present today and released his 3rd installment of his Disco Recreation mix tapes. The first two Disco Recreations (Episode 1 and Episode 2) are stellar.  Each one is two hours of some funky-get down-disco music.  This mix is only an hour but it packs a punch and has a lot of good tunes.

The Last Robots released their "Chart Mix" December today.  I just found out about this Polish DJ duo last month and began to wonder why so many DJs have "Robot" or "bot" in their name.  Maybe robots really like disco, who knows. How many can you name?  The mix itself is really solid, filled with plenty of tunes you will recognize.






Last week Villa released the Best of 2011 installment of their "in the mix" series.  This mix features 50 different tracks and remixes and yet is only an hour long.  It jumps from track to track rather rapidly but is a nice look back on some really good tunes from the past year.







Tronik Youth also just put out a Best of 2011 mix.  This one spends a little more time on each track as it is around 30 tracks and just under and hour and half.  Another great mix of some of the best tunes of the year.








Yuksek just posted this mix he did for Triple J radio.  I haven't gotten a chance to listen to it yet because of all of the other material that has come out recently.  I am excited to get to it though because Yuksek doesn't post many mixes on his soundcloud page.  From the tracklist it looks like about half Yuksek tracks/remixes and half tracks and remixes from other artists.

Mix Tape Buffet!

Well this week has seen a plethora of mixes. I'm a bit backlogged with stuff I wanted to write about. So instead of holding out on you all, I've decided to put together a goodie basket with my favorites.

Let the dance party mixtape madness begin!

First a minimix from Savari Midnight. Old school meets nu school House and gets a little weird:

Cosmic Boogie mixes up a collection Disco, House, and a bit of other fine EDM tracks from label "Boogie Originals":

Plastic Plates does thier, thing in typical dance party fashion with their mix for MODA. (This one is super fresh and full of dancy hotness!!):

DJ Rocca (of Ajello) dropped a mix with nice blend of Disco and House tracks for Pure.FM:

DJ Rocca - ORO show #1 on Pure.FM by Ajello on Mixcloud

Woah. That should keep you dancing well through the weekend (be sure to stretch first). Have a great one!

(I may add a few more to this later...so check back!)