In the waning days of the Disco era, Larry Levan crafted a new style of dance music, which, like House music in Chicago, came to be named after the nightclub where it was most played, the Paradise Garage. Garage music may have started with disco, but over the decades, it's evolved in some surprising ways: [more inside]
posted by empath on Oct 27, 2009 - 62 comments

Paintings of President Obama, Naked with Unicorns (SFW)
posted by empath on Jul 29, 2009 - 63 comments

Since 1993, Pete Tong has been hosting the Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1. A group on imeem seems to have uploaded them all. Tracklistings here. Some of the best of all time: Carl Cox - 1996 (tracklisting), Paul Oakenfold - 1994 - (The Goa Mix) (TL), Leftfield - 1994 (TL). A few good ones from the last couple of years: Justice, (TL), Soulwax (TL), Eric Prydz (TL). And one of my personal favorites -- Scott Bond - 2000 (TL)
posted by empath on Feb 23, 2008 - 61 comments

Like free music? Like Blogs? Try putting them together: To start, search Hype Machine and Elbo.ws to find music you like. Then start following the links and blog-rolls, and before you know it, you'll have dozens of blogs just begging to give you songs to download. If you like indy dance music like I do, here are some blogs to get you started: Digital Eargasm, Missing Toof, Palms Out Sounds, These Rocks Pop, Kiss Atlanta, Resonator Magazine, Fluo Kids, Discobelle, Disconap
posted by empath on Sep 21, 2007 - 24 comments

Baltimore House is the New Dylan? Probably not, but Baltimore Club is an interesting sub-genre of dance music, anyway-- taking influences from Hip-Hop, House, Go-Go, Miami Bass, Detroit Ghettotech, Rave and TV theme songs(!) and merging them into a sound that's unique to Charm City's underground dance clubs. You can sample (and buy) some of the classics here. (warning, horrible web design, IE only) or listen to a whole mix CD here here. (lyrics NSFW)
posted by empath on May 8, 2006 - 19 comments