This is the first music video production from my new Long Beach studio, live drums and video by me, and featuring the Beatboxing skills of Taylor McFerrin as well as vocals from Philadelphia area vocalists Ryat, (as Human) and Shara Dae. The music was almost entirely written and produced on a quick coast to coast trip from California to Philadelphia for a old friend’s wedding, mostly on the many connecting flights and train rides. Following the slamming reception, extended after party, and impromptu late night hotel break-in pool party, I got these 3 artists to come back to my hotel room to lay down some of their stuff along to the semi abstract 7/8 Drum and bass piece I was working on. After getting home, I did a little mixing and editing, then re-recorded the drums live. The results are what you see here.

At a reunion gig of their abstract hip-hip group “L Maestro Presents”, backing band “The Cell Theory” which features Taylor McFerrin on beat box and keyboards, Jason Fraticelli on upright bass, and Nigel Sifantus on drums were in top form. These are out-takes from the video “L Maestro Presents live at the Grog Shop” which also features mc’s Jubei and K.B. When the video was shot by a willing audience member, it turned out a lot of what he captured was not really the whole L Maestro Presents band but instead was a bunch of the instrumental jams by “the Cell Theory.” this video might as well be entitled “Jason and Nigel go bananas” because we go pretty much off the hook.

This is my brand new video I created on 9/5/09 using a Mac running ableton Live 8 with and akai MPD 24 (like my old MPC) roland v-drums, and a small trumpet sample from Nils Petter Molvaer, all filmed on a flip share micro video camera. I just obtained this Akai controller and and it’s giving me flashbacks to when I used to make all my electronic sounds with the original mpc 2000. Using this thing with Ableton Live allows me to recreate all the digital mashup tricks I developed over the years when samples were much harder to edit and create. This is the second song from my upcoming solo ep to be released later this year!

A polyrhythmic farewell to my place of residence of the last 12 months. Huntington Beach is a city of amazing contrasts. A beautiful shoreline with the best surfing in the country littered with aging offshore oil wells. Cookie cutter housing developments side by side with rusty oil drills. Opulent wealth next to abject poverty. Almost as though you mixed Ohio, Texas, and Hawaii into one city. I love California but Orange County, it turns out, is not the place for me. It was good while it lasted….Off to Long Beach!
All the music was recorded with live performed v-drums, cut up, and edited using Ableton Live 8, then mapped to my MPC style controller and triggered in real time along with loops.

A video tribute to Luke Vibert, JoJo Mayer, KJ Sakwa, and the health care reform debate insanity. This is a
live drum n’ bass performance video from Nigel Sifantus’ upcoming solo ep. Like a line of dominos, The sounds are set up and then knocked down using digital V-drums, nobs, sliders and effects. Prepare to be transfixed!

This is the brand new video for my new song “From 10 to 11″ featuring Jubei on vocals (of L Maestro Presents). I recorded mixed and edited all the music as well as shooting and editing the video itself. The drum beats are all cut up clips from my own drum breaks mashed up into crazy time signatures. You can also find samples from the Cell Theory’s recent album ‘Memory is Energy,” and lots of other strange warped sounds. The results are something a little different then what you’ve yet seen or heard, and something brand new for me.

A few nights ago I found myself in a full fledged battle with me on one side, and my miscommunicating computer and new audio interface on the other. I had a simple project in mind for the evening: record few drum clips into Ableton Live from my v-drums so that I could cut them up and begin making a new piece out of them. However, nothing was working. As soon as I plugged my new m-audio interface into the computer there was devastating digital chaos and, as the night wore on it became clear it was not my destiny to accomplish this little project that night (I have since figured out the problem) and was filled with anxiety at not being able to do what I had set out to do. Sitting in a chair twitching, I decided I needed to get up and do something creative quick to get my mind off of the failure. I then decided I’d attempt to program a sequence on my Roland MC-909, set up the video camera, perform a piece live and fully cut and edit the video in the quickest time possible. In the end it was about 28 minutes thus the title “30 minutes or less”.