Roach McKrackin's Journal

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Come See The Murder's First Show

That's right, my band, The Murder is finally playing our first show! Come and check it out!

Boston Drivers
Man oh man, why does it seem that everytime I'm running late (ie, trying to get to work) there's always an accident or traffic backup of some sort?

Today I was quite behind schedule by the time I got on the road. As I got to the split for the on-ramp to Storrow I realized there was a HUGE backup. A number of drivers, myself included, proceeded to go into reverse back up the ramp so we could get on Storrow going in the opposite direction, to turn around and avoid the backup. I was provided some entertainment when one of the cars behind me (who's driver apparently never learned the finer points of driving in reverse) managed to bring his car up onto the curb and scrape the paint off of his side onto the retaining wall. I was amused.

Of course, I wasn't so amused that I had to take Storrow toward Downtown, get off at the Copley exit and take Beacon all the way back down to Memorial via Mass Ave, but such as life, I suppose. Once I hit mem I took it back to Storrow, past the backup, and saw that the other side of the road was also getting backed up at this point. Whatever the cause, it's a big fuckin' mess.

At least I made it to work, if only 90 minutes late...

Getting ahead in the rat race...
So I haven't updated in over a year... I guess I'll start by saying that I'm souped right now.

This morning I came into work and was called into my supervisors office, where I was presented with a letter informing me that I have received a promotion, which comes with a nice salary increase, I might add.

I am very pleased with this turn of events, especially since I have been extremely involved in supporting many of the new and ongoing projects at work.

My boss told me it was well deserved for all of my hard work when he congratulated with me, and without being to ego-centric, I must concur.

Fangoria!
Hey all,

Just a quick update to let you know that I'm super psyched right now because Fangoria posted an article about our upcoming film Terrace St!

Check it out here: http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=3357

Also, we're still casting for the movie, so if you or anyone you know would like to try out, get all the details here!

Terrace St: Teaser Poster

I just made a mockup teaser poster for the film. Let me know what you think!

Coming Soon
Ok, I guess it's time to let the cat out of the bag. Some of you know, but most of you don't that I have been directing my efforts toward directing and producing a horror movie, tenatively entitled "Terrace St". This will probably be the only post about it here, as I will be logging our progress in the Production Diary on the official website.

The basic premise: Four teens head off to a rave being held at an abandoned factory. They end up at an abandoned factory, but, due to bad directions, it's the WRONG abandoned factory. Unfortunately, by the time they realize they're in the wrong place it's too late, as they've already bore witness to a group of masked men midway through production of a bona fide snuff film.

The kids are captured, and one by one brought like cows to the slaugher, living on in infamy as their deaths are caught on video.

That's about the size of it. I've been working on the rough draft of the script since January, and hope to have it completed in a week or so. Then I'll send it you my friends (Yes, that's sure to include some of you here) for review, after which I'll polish it and revise it, while beginning to work on the pre-production aspects.

It's going to be filmed in MiniDV, and I've already gotten the camera, a Canon XL2. I'm super psyched, as I've been lusting over this camera for a while.

Let's see, what else...

fantazmah has been invaluable helping out behind the scenes with the production and business aspect of things.

We're going to be filing to incorporate an LLC after the script is compelted, which we'll use to sell shares of the film to raise the $15-20K budget.

Filming will be happening around Boston beginning late May or early June, with a target release date of October 31st, 2006.

If you're interested in helping out in any way, please drop me an email at David@TerraceSt.com, as we'll need plenty of support for this project to run smoothly!

Keep checking the website for updates, and wish us luck!

My Letter To Santa...

Dear Santa...

Dear Santa,

This year I've been busy!

In August on a flight to Colorado Springs, I stole the emergency flight information card (-40 points). In February I turned

fantazmah in for farting in church (3 points). In April I pulled over and changed

niquattx's flat tire (15 points). Last Monday I had a shoot-out with rival gang lords on the 5 near LA (-76 points). Last Friday I helped

minion287 across the street (6 points).

Overall, I've been naughty (-92 points). For Christmas I deserve a spanking!

Sincerely,
roachmckrackin

Supprisingly Accuratre

Your Birthdate: May 25

You excel at anything difficult or high tech.
In other words, you're a total (brilliant) geek.
It's difficult for you to find people worth spending time with.
Which is probably why you'll take over the world with your evil robots!

Your strength: Your unfailing logic

Your weakness: Loving machines more than people

Your power color: Tan

Your power symbol: Pi

Your power month: July

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

This Week In The Boston Jungle
Last Sunday was Dubplate Culture's first night at our new venue, The Brendan Behan Pub in JP... It went better than I ever could have hoped, with a large crowd, lots of drinks and friends, great music and great vibes. I have a good feeling about how things went and hope that they will continue on that way...

Wednesday I played at Heavy Dread at The Enormous Room. Again, I was blessed with a large and receptive crowd, with people dancing and grooving. Played mostly roots and culture type reggae, but switched off to more modern dancehall near the end of my set, which really got a few people out of their chairs.

Saturday I played at Nice Up! in Hanover NH... The night was OFF THE HOOK! The venue was fairly small, but people were crammed in like sardines, and the vibe was awesome, with a full dancefloor of people feeling the tunes I was dropping! It's nights like this that make up for all the events I've played to 3 or 4 people, or even when there's a full house, but noone is really grooving on the music. I definitely want to make it up that way again soon, there's a great scene going on up there.

That brings us to yesterday, with our second outing at The Behan. It started off somewhat slow, and I was worried for a bit, because the weather was shitty and I was expecting it to keep people away, but around 10 or so the place started filling up nicely, and there were a great many people who stayed all the way till last call. Again, good music and great vibes made the night a real success, with a few people dancing for a bit, which was really cool, considering the size and layout of the room.

so I have to say, this past week I'm 4 for 4, as every show I played went extremely well. Hopefully this trend will continue. And I just feel that I should mention that I couldn't have done any of it without

fantazmah, who spends nuff time booking and promoting for me. I really do appreciate it so much, even though it always ends up that I'm in the limelight while she's doing all the legwork behind the scenes.

For fantazmah

You scored as Jayne Cobb. The Mercenary. You are in this for the money, plain as that. You like things simple that way, but mainly as anything else confuses you. You get the job done, and don't care what people think. Not as long as you get paid anyway.

</td>

Jayne Cobb

81%

The Operative

63%

River Tam

63%

Kaylee Frye

56%

Simon Tam

56%

Hoban 'Wash' Washburne

50%

Inara Serra

44%

Capt. Mal Reynolds

38%

Zoe Alleyne Washburne

38%

Shepherd Derrial Book

25%

Which Serenity character are you?
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Dubplate Culture Rises Like The Phoenix!
Last night was the first night at our new venue, The Brendan Behan Pub in Jamaica Plain, and I have to say, it was off the hook! Great vibes, a great room, great crowd (Yes, I mean that in the literal sense, a CROWD!) and awesome tunes!

Drinks are cheap, they stock Red Stripe and they have Magners on tap... Magners! Needless to say, I was CRUNK!

I started out playing Dancehall and people were really digging the vibe, including the cute bartender who saw me for the amazing DJ that I am ;). Then, to cap off the night, Burning Babylon stepped to the decks for something a little more downtempo, playing lots of great selections of Dub, running the entire gamit of the genre, with a hearty helping of his own home cooked selections! Selecta running tings for sure!

Big ups to everyone who came out, it was a really great time, and is just a taste of things to come! Big tings a gwaan for this night, for sure! If you missed it, you missed out, and the only chance you have for redemption is to come out and party next and every Sunday!

Come out to Dubplate tonight!
ok guys, I don't usually use my personal journal as advertising space, but seriously, try to come out tonight for the last Dubplate Culture before we move to our new venue in Jamaica Plan. Let's try to go out of Somerville with a bang!

DUBPLATE CULTURE
A Dancehall & Jungle Event

Big tings a gwaan! Come out and show your support as we have our last Dubplate Culture event at The Skybar before moving the event to Jamaica! Jamaica Plain, that is, at The Brendan Behan Pub on Centre St. We'll post more about that in due time, but in the meanwhile, come out this Wednesday to see RXM, WhyNo, Nuggs and The Sunsets Down rock the decks till the wheels fall off!

As always, there'll be open decks from 8:00-9:00pm, so bring your reggae, dancehall, dub, ragga, jungle or Drum 'n' Bass records and throw down for us!

Dubplate Culture @ The Skybar
518 Somerville Ave, Somerville MA
$5.00 | 8:00pm | 21+, Proper ID Required
www.DubplateCulture.com

NYC Trip Recap
Ok, so Nate and myself took the day off from work on Friday to head to NYC, so I could play at the Active Beats final party. I had to run around like a madman when I woke up, doing a million things to get ready, like sorting all my recs, and shaving my head, and showering and burning CDs, etc (all of which I could have done the night before but declined to do).

We finally headed out at 11:00am, and after running to Dunkin' Donuts and the ATM we walked to the T to get to South Station, so we could take the Fung Wah out. We ended up on the 12:30pm bus out, and man, I gotta say, for $15 it's the best deal you can get to get to NYC. I also have to say that carrying a backpack and a 50lb bag of records even a short distance a couple of blocks to the T station, and then all around in South Station really sucks... Note to self, for future endevors of this kind, get some sort of dolly, hmm, maybe like this one.

Anyhow, the bus ride ended up being really fast, as it was less than a 4 hour trip (Sleeping along the way didn't hurt, either) and the next thing I knew, we were pulling up to the Fung Wah ticket booth on Canal St in Chinatown at a little after 4:00pm.

I was fucking STARVED, but luckily for me, right next door to the ticket booth was a $0.92 hot dog stand. I ordered one up and devoured it in about 2.3 seconds flat. Really good, really big too.

We then proceeded to walk toward the club, but I wanted to hit up a few record stores and such first. We found our way to Orchid St, heading toward our first destination when this older, 50ish guy jumps out of a storefront and asks Nate (who was carrying the records at the time) "What are you carrying?". "Records", Nate replies, to which the man says "Oh, Buy a leather coat, it's only $99" and sure enough, the sign above the store said All Leather Coats, $99. It was a bit hot in the city, though, and we had to decline, but the guy was very insistant. He then proceeded to tell me to look in the window of the bar next door, and see the two losers sitting at the bar with 5 girls, and how we should go in there, so into Lucky Jack's we walk for the first beer of the day. I ordered a Red Stripe, and Nate had a Highball, which I find disgusting, and the guy proceeded to ramble on about how even though he lived in NY he was a Mets fan, and hated the Yankees. If he was to be belived, he was a metalworker who installed the handicap seeting at Yankee Stadium, and while he was there he pissed on home plate. We quickly finished our beers and ran quickly for the door.

Our next stop was Breakbeat Science, which only a block or so down from Jack's. I spent a bit of time in there while Nate milled around bored out of his mind, but I scored a bunch of new vinyl, mostly N2O and Big Cat stuff I've been sleeping on, so I was happy about that.

After we left BBS we headed to East 3rd St, which is where the the venue, The Apocalypse Lounge, was located. We got to the door and it was closed. I was like "Fuck, I don't want to carry my records around until I play" but as luck would have it, just as we were walking off again the bartenders got there to open up shop. I dropped my record bag off with them and off we went to do more shopping and find something to eat.

We headed in the opposite direction down East 3rd to go find Jammyland, one of NYC's premier reggae record stores. It was only a few blocks down from the club, and was pretty easy to find, which was cool. I actually only spent a few minutes in there, and didn't get anything, because there were a bunch of people already in there and it was impossibly small, but since I have a wholesale account with Ernie B's anyway, I guess it didn't really matter.

We turned around yet again, walked past the Hell's Angels NYC headquarters, contemplated going inside, decided against it and instead walked into The Edge Bar, which seemed to be sort of a local watering hole. We had a few more drinks there, with me drinking Red Stripes and Nate still on his Highball kick, and then headed next door to the Dance Music store (I don't remember the exact name, but I think that was it). It wasn't really what I expected, as 90% of it was house music, but I asked the guy at the counter if they had any Drum 'n' Bass and he informed me that Satellite Records was only like 3 blocks away, so off we went, to Nate's dismay. We walked back down East 3rd yet again, and ended up back on Bowery. We took a quick left, went a few blocks and what do we pass, but the legendary CBGB's. We kept going, promising to stop in on the way back, and a couple more blocks down we found Satellite.

We didn't stay long there either, because while it was ENORMOUS compared to the Boston location, selling both records and equipment, the selection still sucked for the type of stuff I was looking for. We left, and like we said went back to CBGB's to have a beer before it closes for good.

Unfortunately, when we got there there was a show about to start, with a $15 cover. Luckily, though, there is also the CBGB's 313 Gallery right next door, which also has a bar, so we went in there and drank more, with, as you guessed it, me having Red Stripe, and Nate STILL sucking down Highballs... Actually thinking about it now, I can't belive he didn't puke. But I digress...

By this point we were pretty hungry from all the drinking and walking, so we started looking for a place to eat. We saw a few different places, but finally settled on Lil' Frankies, and I have to say, this place was AMAZING. We started with Fried Calamari, which was a HUGE order in and of itself, completely fresh, never frozen, with both rings and the other dangly things (I have no idea what they are, but they were good). I then had the greatest ravioli EVER and Nate ordered some sort of Pizza Sandwich I don't recall the name of, and it was out of this world. The bill only came to something like $50 too, which, for the food, wasn't bad at all.

After we were finished, we headed back to the club, even though there were a few hours until the show started. We ordered up another round and I started chatting with the bartender. Apparently she was an audio engineer, so we hit it off, and I started getting many free beers. There was a shitty cover band scheduled to play before Active Beats started, and damn... I don't remember what their name was, but they should have changed it to The Clichés... Every song they played was one I've heard on the radio 100000x times, from Bush, to Hole, to Green Day, AC/DC and everything in between. They had a female singer who had a nice voice, but the vocals were turned up WAY too loud in the mix, so it really detracted from the performance.

Finally it was time to play... Unfortunately, this was supposed to be the highlight of the day, but instead it was the black mark that marred the rest of the trip... I don't have a problem playing on all different types of equipment in many different situations, and I try specifically not to be a pretentious prick becuase I've seen so much of it from my own experiances promoting my own events, but goddamn, the equipment and organization SUCKED. I was scheduled to play upstairs, which was ok with me. However, the left turntable was broken completely, so one of the employees at the club went home and brought over his belt drive deck as a temporary substitute until Willie Ross arrived with a replacement. Besides that, the gain on the right channel didn't work at all, but that was ok since everything that went through that channel was SUPER LOUD. That all would have been bad enough, but the right CD deck didn't work either, giving a display of No Disk to whatever CD was put in it, so we couldn't even mix CDs properly. Add to this that the sound system was basically just large floor monitors, and that there was NO booth monitor, and I was pretty bitter at the whole situation. I did my best, mixing in the phones and off of the PA as best I could for an hour or so until Mike Vertex showed up. As soon as I saw him I asked him if he wanted to take a turn up at the decks. He agreed, so I stepped down and proceeded to drink heavily... Willie showed up with a replacement deck, but that only lasted for a couple hours because apparently there was some miscommunication between him and Mike where his timeslot got fucked up, and so he took his shit and left without ever playing... THEN the original belt drive replacement turntable stopped working as well... Fucking perfect... I was supposed to be in rotation with Rexx and Vertex all night, but I ened up just doing that one shitty hour at the beginning... Event wise, the whole night was a bust, but I can't say I regret going out there. I got fed shitloads of free beer and still got paid enough to cover my travel out there. It was nice just to have a vacation and hang out just me and Nate for the day, which is something I hadn't done in quite a while.

It was cool too, cause all the TVs in the club were playing cool sci-fi and horror movies all night. Of course, there was no sound, but they had close captioning on and alot of it meshed with the music playing. I saw, over the course of the night, "Brazil", "Nightmare On Elm St" and "Total Recall", all great films.

After the party started winding down (I guess the downstairs didn't experiance nearly as many problems as we did upstairs) and people started leaving, we chilled and drank until last call, then helped pack everything up. At that point it was about 5:00am, and there were still a couple hours to kill before we could take the first bus back, so we went off in search of some breakfast.

We ended up at 7A, a nice little diner on the corner of, you guessed it, 7th and A. I ended up having scrambled eggs and sausages, while Nate opted for the 1/2lb burger. Needless to say, neither of us was able to finish our meals.

After we were done, we took a cab back to Canal St to wait for the Fung Wah, which wasn't due for a little over an hour. It wasn't too bad, and even though we wern't really doing anything, the time seemed to pass somewhat quickly.

Once we were on the bus we both fell asleep. I guess Nate slept the whole way through, but I kept waking up every so often. Even still, the ride back was fast, clocking in at a little over 3 1/2 hours.

Nothing really eventful happened after that, with the exception of the Hare Krishna parade that came by chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama,Kama Kama, Hare Hare...

At that point it was time to take a taxi home and go to sleep...

Good times though for sure. I definitely fell in love with the Lower East Side and forsee myself going back to that general area again in the near future. I love Boston so much, but with that being said everytime I go somewhere else, especially to play I realize and rerealize just how limited the Boston music scene is, and it's really unfortunate. Oh well... More later.

RXM Is In The Mood To Kill a Sound!
Hell yes, I had to wait a month for this shit, but it was so well worth it!

Custom dubplate voicing by the legendary Hopeton James of The Techniques!

Hopeton James!

For those who don't know, here's a little bit about Hopeton:

Hopeton James is a gifted singer inspired by Slim Smith, Curtis Mayfield and Sam Cooke, and is often refered to as one of Jamaica's sweetest Falsetto's. His career started when he joined the legendary Techniques vocal trio in the late 70s, while also appearing regularly on Killermanjaro Sound. In the mid 80s he started singing solo and recorded for labels like King Jammy's or Roof International, hitting the charts with his "In the Mood" recut alongside Jigsy King over the Taxi riddim. Always at work, he recently toured Europe in 2003 alongside the Heartical Sound while recording new titles for the Heartical Label like "Chain Gang" (tribute to the great Same Cooke) using a Danny Marshall rebuilt cut of Studio One's classic Heavy Rock riddim and mixed by the original Fatta at Anchor Studio in Kingston. In The Mood To Kill a Sound!

Check it out: Hopeton James - In The Mood To Kill a Sound (RXM Dubplate)

Da Bling!
OMG, I need a pair of these:

In case you can't tell, they're turntable rings, best shown on the cover of the new Ali G DVD... Of course, they're about $170 each, plus shipping, from the UK :/

Ignition
Played Ignition @ Milly's Tavern in Manchester NH last night. Great vibe, I had alot of fun. Only thing is it was laaaaaaaaaate.

I figured I'd be smart, so after dinner myself and Michelle decided to try to take a nap... Didn't really work out well. I imagine I must have slept a little bit, but honestly I feel like all I did was stare at the wall and toss and turn for 2 hours. When we "woke up" I had to rush to get my stuff together and run out the door.

Got there and caught the end of NickDawg's set. Apparently he got there late though, so I split the difference with him and let him go till 11:45, instead of 11:30pm. Got some drink tickets, met Issac (DJ Ekko) and just milled around for a bit... Good microbrews there... I recommend the Fisher Cat Ale... Very tasty...

When I finally got on I am not too humble to say that once again, I killed tings! I don't know what it's been lately, but I've just been on point. With my mixing, with my track selection, with all the lickshots and samples I played... Everything just seems to fall into place and all my problems and fears and worries just seem to sort of slip into the background... It sounds a little clichéd, yes, but it's the truth... I think that's why I love music so much, because it's so easy to get lost in it, especially when performing to a receptive crowd. People were cheering, dancing, grinding and generally having a good time, and it was because of me. That's what I love about this. People screaming "RXM" when I drop the sample on the 303, people going nuts when you mix in a familiar record... It's really invigorating...

I dunno, that pretty much sums it up. Again, big ups to Ekko & the Clean Break Records Crew for having me, big ups to NickDawg for coming through proper, and a great many thanks to everyone who came out to see me, drink, dance and have a good time.

Suprisingly accurate for a Meme

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Born Fi Kill CT Sound!
RXM kill the dance in CT for sure! More events soon come! Mash Dem Down! CT crews come correct with much love for the one like RXM! Big ups to the Vernon Junglist Massive! Now mi find more fi drink!

First Phone Post
* Note: I typed this all out already, on my phone, and somehow something got fucked up during the sending process, and it all got lost, so here I am, typing it all out again (On my phone, of course)

Man, I've been so productive today. First I reavtivated my LiveJournal paid status, and proceeded to set up Mobile Phone posting. I then proceeded to set up my phone to send ougoing email messages via SMTP. And finally in a grand culmination of these events, I am posting this message that I typed out in it's entirety on my phone, even though I am sitting at my desk in front of the computer.

It's sort of funny, now that I think about it, that someone as introverted and socially inept is as well connected and wired in to the outside world as I am. Just one of life's little paradoxes, I suppose.

Ah well, I suppose I should be off to do some "real" work...