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THIS AIN'T YOUR BASIC VEGAS MASH UP!First of all I would like to thank everybody that made it out for this event and to all the people that put so much elbow grease and brain power to make this such a great (and unique!) event. I think the best feedback I heard for the night was DJ 88 saying "I doesn't feel like we are in Vegas" while working up a sweat on the dancefloor right in front of a bumpin' speaker stack. It's a curious thing, all of Vegas' grandiose hotels and casinos try and transport you to some exotic destination but they never "really" make you feel like you are not in Las Vegas.The Crime On Canvas/Kilowatt v.02 definitely did create a different atmosphere than the Vegas nightlife scene is accustomed to. It felt more like warehouse party in major cultural hubs like NYC or Los Angeles. Sure, Vegas' nightlife is on the map, but it still has a long way to go as far as having events/parties that people keep tabs on from all over the world like NYC's "Body & Soul".Upon entering the event, the party people were treated to a gallery show in the lobby of the Aruba Hotel featuring canvas prints of original paintings by guest DJ, Ge-ology. As the mingling carried into the main room of the Aruba, guests were immediately blown away by the 20ftx10ft ghetto blaster stage set/DJ booth. If that wasn't enough...customized, real-time video artistry by Greg Leeper of Opticus Video made the whole set jump to life as the moving images were projected from the back of the ghetto blaster where the speakers would be. Not only did the whole set-up bring the boom box to life, it really brought the whole room to life and gave the crowd something they could just bug out on.
The music started of perfectly with a very solid set by special late add to the roster, Theory (Check out the DJ mixes 4 Download on this blog!). Setting a nice tone for the night, the room began to fill up as The Martinez Bros. (Danny Boy & B-Boy Steve) stepped up to the decks for second set of the night rockin' that funky stuff.Next up in the prime time slot was our guest DJ for the night, Ge-ology. Let me tell you...Brooklyn was most certainly in the house! Ge-ology picked up where the Martinez Bros. left off and proceeded to take us all on an unbelievably smooth musical journey that moved effortlessly from soul to hip-hop, to house and drum and bass then back again. This was not even close to your basic Vegas mash up as Ge-ology proceeded to push the musical boundaries with abstract sounds mixed with underground hits that you never knew were hits (Until you heard them jump out of the speaker stacks!).
Crowd-wise there was a great mix of downtown hipsters, clubbers and house heads alongside our favorite posse of gay party animals led by our fearless promotional firecracker, Rachel Wenman. There were even a couple of stray glamour-pusses that made their way away from the strip to shake a stiletto or two, sparkly dress and all.Last but not least, I would like to apologize to all of those that came to hear me (DJ Sensé) close out the night with some bumpin' house beats. The crowd kind of faded out a little earlier than we expected as well as the fact that Ge-ology was right on the money for his entire set...we just had let him stay on til the end!Be sure and check out all the pictures that are posted up on SpyOnVegas.com shot by the one and only Hew Burney!Stay tuned to this space for the next episode, Kilowatt v.03 coming to a speaker stack near you!
Special thanks to all of our sponsors for contributing to the arts and helping us put Las Vegas on the map for more than gambling, strippers and excessive partying...not that there is anything wrong with that, we just like to mix it up a little bit ;-)
Zappos.comKing "888" Energy DrinkRacket Magazine
Smirnoff
SOUL KITCHEN LIGHTS A CHILLY VEGAS NIGHT ON FIREIf you know anything about house music then you will know the scene is built around the concept of community amongst many other things. Last night Vegas' house community came together as we celebrated the 36th birthday of Soul Kitchen resident DJ and creator of the longest running house music weekly in Las Vegas, Edgar Reyes. The night started off slow but the drinks were flowing and the music was perfect as the night eventually got jumpin' around 1:30-2am.Ending off his set with classics like Jaydee's "Plastic Dreams" and one of my all time favorites...Blaze's "Lovlee Day", Edgar Reyes got the energy up and set the stage perfectly for guest DJ Rudy V. hailing from the City Of Angels.Rudy V. kept the fires burning with a very solid set of vocal house peppered with some Latin house gems alongside classic vocals like Joey Negro's classic feel-good remix of Erro, "Change For Me".The party continued to rock the spot as local house diva Jessica Lynn killed it with a sultry rendition of "Happy Birthday" live on the mic for el birthday boy.Next up was guest DJ Will "Reel Soul" Rodriguez as he came out of the happy birthday intermission with all time favorite and NYC classic, Basement Jaxx's "Fly Life". Will continued to capture the audience with an onslaught of some proper house music as he played with some big hits like Martin Solveig's rock guitar laden "Everybody" and then brought us back to the head nodding grooves that Soul Kitchen has been known for over the years.If you can't tell, Red Room was on fire last night and let me just say this...all the "real" movers and shakers in Las Vegas had their feet firmly planted on the dancefloor. Nice one indeed!
GIANT GHETTO BLASTER WILL SET THE STAGE!We have just added a very special feature to the stage of the Crime On Canvas Kilowatt event that you will have to see to believe. We will be doing a set design for the DJ booth that will be a giant 20ft x 10ft ghetto blaster with a cut-out for the DJ booth that will be 4ft x 3ft. We also have some other great surprises in store so stay tuned!DESIGN NOTESI started by illustrating this entire thing in Adobe Illustrator almost entirely from scratch (some of the little icons were iStock illustrations). From there, the background and all of the ghetto blaster parts were imported into Photoshop as 2 separate layers. I then put a brushed steel background image on top of both layers separately. By doing this I was able to get 2 different levels of the brushed steel on each layer to give it more depth and some texture variation.
Ghetto blaster illustration and design by Nathan Charles AKA DJ Sensé
FRIDAY | JANUARY 25th | 2008 | THE ARUBA HOTEL LAS VEGASNO COVER!Welcome to the second edition of Kilowatt as we zap you with another full on cultural electrocution. For volume 2 we have secured the Aruba Hotel on Las Vegas Blvd. (just north of the Stratosphere towards Downtown) which is one of those wonderful Vegas haunts that still echoes the Vegas days of old with a fully intact Tiki theme to boot. Teaming up with Racket Magazine and their infamous Crime On Canvas series of art shows, we have recruited the wonderfully creative and talented Ge-ology (Brooklyn, NYC) to headline the show. Ge-ology will be on DJ duty as well as being our featured Crime On Canvas artist whom will be showing and selling original pieces and/or prints in the lobby gallery of the Aruba.FOR MORE ON GE-OLOGYhttp://www.myspace.com/geologymusichttp://www.opus22nyc.com/djprofiles/geology.phpBe sure and keep your eye out for the promo sampler CD/flyer with selections featuring the music of Ge-ology along with some very "special" collaborators.Rounding out the music for the night will be The Martinez Bros. (Danny Boy from "The Get Back" & B Boy Steve) plus Casa Del Soul's own DJ Sensé. From rare groove to old school, funk to hip-hop, to disco and to house, the Kilowatt Electric Soul Sound Generator resident DJs plug into that sweet soul music that you can shake a leg to.VIDEO FOOTAGE FROM KILOWATT VOL. 1"JIVE TURKEY" w/ TORTURED SOUL @ TAO LAS VEGASSPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OUR SPONSORSWe gotta give a big shout out to all our sponsors for contributing to the arts and helping us bring a true urban culture to Las Vegas as we push to make this city a whole lot more than a tourist destination.Zappos.comKing "888" Energy DrinkRacket MagazineEvent production by Noah Ray | Collateral design by Danny Martinez | WENDOH Media Companies
The original concept of Casa Del Soul started in the early nineties when DJ Sensé converted his parents garage into a makeshift clubhouse of sorts. Back then he was going to college at Syracuse University and caught the electronic music bug by way of Colorado's early rave scene as well as getting huge influences from his frequent trips to NYC. There DJ Sensé gained much of his dance music roots and sensibilities while going to the original Disco 2000 at the Limelight, going to Danny Tenaglia's seminal D-Tour nights at the Tunnel and of course taking note from the magical nights on the dancefloor at Twilo. All of which contributed greatly to the sound and influences of Casa Del Soul on so many levels.Eventually the turntables, mixer and a home stereo system came to be the centerpiece of this makeshift clubhouse and DJ Sensé and a small group of his friends began collecting records in '91. Through the years DJ Sensé created tight bonds and relationships with a very tight knit crew driven by house music. This creative space became the original Casa Del Soul. This clubhouse was the starting point for friends to get together and more times than than not, it was the place to come to after the raves. There DJ Sensé and many of his friends shared memories, music, art, and more that would go on to last to this day.Years down the road as the crew began to build their collections of dance music and really learn the craft of DJing, Casa Del Soul also came to be a collective DJ crew. It eventually came to be a crew of DJ's who shared the same ideals and love for dance music. For this crew, music always came first. Fuck trying to be a superstar, fuck trying to be cool because we were DJ's, it was always about the music and it has continued to be about the music even now.After graduating from Syracuse with a degree in Advertising design, DJ Sensé worked the odd job out of school and eventually started doing graphic design with an upstart design firm called Factory Design Labs started by fellow DJ and dance music lover Jonas Tempel. Factory Design Labs has become one of the nations hottest creative agencies and is responsible for the hugely successful online dance music site, Beatport www.beatport.com.While working at Factory Design Labs DJ Sensé had always dreamed of opening a record shop, which eventually came to fruition in '98. On a shoestring budget and a dream Casa Del Soul Records was born and eventually became Denver's premier record shop for all genres of electronic dance music from downtempo to drum and bass, to house and techno, to progressive and trance and beyond.Scraping together some money to start a record label to coincide with the store, DJ Sensé released Casa Del Soul's first record in late '99. The record was DJ Foxx "The Collective EP" which went on to appear on the very first Tyrant mix CD mixed by none other than Lee Burridge and Craig Richards. From that point on DJ Sensé truly realized he had more to contribute to the world of dance music than just a record shop. Casa Del Soul Records continues to put out underground house records and will continue to release music as long as it can.Casa Del Soul Records originally set out to be the musical line that ran through the entire DJ crew. Each individual DJ had something fresh to bring to the table from their influences and personal tastes behind the decks. These individual musical tastes covered a very broad spectrum of dance music and the result, a hybrid record label was born that many have categorized as “tech-house”. Though somewhat accurate in its description, DJ Sensé describes the music that he has released on Casa Del Soul as "Music that rides the line between genres and give DJ’s those crucial records to get from one place to another."Coming from a collective of 6 core DJ's, Casa Del Soul had become a hybrid label that sounded fresh and new, but best of all it came from a unique perspective that was distinctly Denver. Denver, being situated in the center of the country has always had a lot of different influences when it came to dance music. Denver would get breaks from the South, techno, disco house and booty house from the midwest, that laidback house sound of the West Coast, tribal and garage sounds that DJ Sensé brought back with him from NYC and of course the many different sounds that came in from Europe.In March of 2003 when the crew was packed and ready to go to WMC in Miami, disaster struck as Denver experienced one of its largest snowstorms in years dropping over 3 feet of wet snow overnight. The rooftop of a 3 story nightclub next door to Casa Del Soul collapsed on top of the record shop and was deemed unsafe for anyone to enter by Denver's civil engineer. The entire contents of the store and everything in it was destroyed and the remains were demolished and taken away. It can be described none other than devastating to the whole crew and to Denver's dance community as a whole.After months of dusting off the rubble so to speak, DJ Sensé eventually got back on his feet, moved to New Jersey/New York City and began rebuilding the label with the help of a newly inked P&D deal with Syntax Distribution in Long Island City. There the label got back on it's feet and began releasing records once again.After two years in the Big Apple DJ Sensé moved himself and the label operations back to Denver to produce music and DJ with longtime friend and colleague DJ Dealer (Look At You Records, formerly of The Pound Boys). There he began to take the label in a more US House direction with the newly formed partnership and newly found spark for all things house music once again.Presently DJ Sensé now resides in Las Vegas and continues to own and operate Casa Del Soul Records with the same ideals and ethos that he started with from the beginning. He has also brought Vegas house DJ Carlos Sanchez on board to help run label operations. Carlos is one of the partners of House Society and has been an integral part of bringing REAL dance music back to Vegas through events and his numerous DJ residencies throughout the city.As you can see, Casa Del Soul has weathered quite a storm already but one thing is for certain. House music saved it's life in more ways that you can imagine. Peace, love and beats...viva Casa Del Soul...and the saga continues.Record Label Discography:www.discogs.com/label/Casa+Del+SoulDJ Sensé (AKA Juke Joint, Rhythmcentric, Slade Stiles) Discography:www.discogs.com/artist/DJ+Sens%C3%A9www.discogs.com/artist/Juke+Jointwww.discogs.com/artist/Rhythmcentric
