Alright Baby!!!

Some of this is taken from my bio page.

Long story short I DJ'd in a trip hop band called "Detective Honey."  While I was in the band we had three different lineups and sounds.  The first was heavily produced and had a darker tone.  Melinda Baker did a large majority of the production including keyboards and guitar.  (she was amazing)  We had a Portishead, Massive Attack vibe and were part of the downtempo electronica scene in Seattle.  This version of the band only had one gig, but thankfully Michell Meyers, the original vocalist, had it recorded.

Detective Honey - Alright Baby (live at Toast) Dawhud by Dawhud

This is the ONLY version of this song that really exists.  (outside of some practice recordings)  This was the jammie that would turn the party out when ever we would throw this on.  Later on, as the group evolved, lineup changed, the song did too.

I'm hoping to up some more of the music we did.  Unfortunately some of the studio recording we did, the engineer messed up my tracks and they were all of beat.  BUT, I found the original versions of some of the tracks w/o my parts on them.  I may redo those cuts after all these years.  HAHA  Like Godfather III.

Harry Potter and the Boring A$$ Camping Trip of Magic

^^^The poster pretty much sums up the movie

Alright, let me start this off with saying I dig the Harry Potter franchise.  I will admit, when the books were blowing up I thought it was stupid and didn't understand the whole thing behind it.  (much like the Twilight hype) 

Although I saw the 1st two films in the theater, I honestly didn't really like the series until the 3rd installment.  The 1st two films suffered from UBER Chris Columbus family itis and honestly that was the main demographic for the early books and films.  But, like many franchise films, after the basic characters are developed, the later films can just kick it in 5th gear and drive.  (much like many of the comic book films... X-Men, Batman, Ironman etc.)  This is what was able to happen by the time "The Prisoner of Azkaban" hit.  The characters were pretty well developed and the ultimate storyline throughout the books were set in motion. 

Sit, and enjoy the ride. 

"Prisoner of Azkaban," "Goblet of Fire" & "Order of the Phoenix" all kept everything in motion as Harry dealt with the problems given to him in each installment.  By the time "The Half Blood Prince" was finally released, after about 6 months to a year after it was finished, the films took a different tone.  Not on action, but on moving pawn pieces.  Granted you had your splashes of action here and there, but the focus was more on drama and setting everything up for the ultimate showdown.  (which will be the final and 8th film)

Enter "The Deathly Hallows" (part 1)  Granted the last book has a lot to cover and from where we leave off after the last film, the crew has to really get down to brass tacks if they're really going to wrap it up.  So, what to we do with SO much stuff to cover?  If we have one movie that's about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, it's too short to really cover what's in the book and if we split it into two films... well, much like the two Matrix sequels it feels really disjointed.  The only time I've seen a film/series that did this and it worked well was with the Kill Bill films.  Between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 you had two completely different films, styles and tones that ultimately would have made one real disjointed movie if it was released as one.  So, that's the elephant in the room with the latest Harry Potter book.  What do we do?  We break it up.

The result is a film that finds our heroes on the run and trying to discover how to defeat "you know who."  It starts off with a great pace, but then loses steam after they narrowly escape those who are chasing them.  The majority of the rest of the film then is mostly dialogue with little action as they are dealing with inner conflicts within their circle and trying to figure out how "you know who" can finally be destroyed.  When looking at the bigger picture, I understand that the film maker is trying to put our heroes at their lowest lows before wrapping up the 3rd act in "The Deathly Hallows (part 2)" BUT, with this film it does not translate like "Empire Strikes Back" or "The Two Towers" where you can look back and argue that it's the best film in the series. 

Now does that mean that this film is a complete let down?  No.  Although I didn't like the pace of the film and thought it lost steam after the one hour mark I understand where this film sits and how it plays in the ultimate storyline.  This may end up being one of those films that later on when everything is said and done, I'll probably dig it more, but I don't know and can't say at the moment.  I will say that when watching this in the theater I honestly wanted them to wrap it up and I haven't felt like that in a movie theater in a long time.  Maybe it is because this film is all build up with no release and therefore the audience, i.e. me, feels cheated.  The payoff that we want we don't get for another half year, so the 2 1/2 hours we spent in the theater was all just to prep up for the summer.   It reminds me of when I went to see "The Fellowship of the Ring."  There was a middle-aged couple sitting in front of me and when the credits rolled the husband turned to the wife and said, "3 and 1/2 hours and that's it?!"  "There's 2 more movies," the wife replied.  "DAMNIT!!!"

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1)    3/5

Dawhud goes to the movies!!!

I'm a big movie nut.  I always have been.  My 1st job was even at a movie theater.  At one point I was working at a movie theater during the day and a video store at night.  Those days were long, but are what paid for my Technics 1200SL and Vestax 06 Pro.

Anyway, I was thinking, this spot doesn't ALWAYS have to be about hip hop.  So, I will be posting reviews of movies I see.  Some, that are in the theater and some that I see on video. 

I got this idea when I kept throwing up very short reviews of movies on my Facebook page.  Why reserve that only for Facebook or Twitter?

I'll be posting some reviews shortly and fell free to comment on the reviews as I'm down to turn them into an open discussion.

Dawhud Drums from the EPS

Back in June I threw up an SP1200 kit with drums that were featured on "Basement Sessions" along with some other dope kicks and snares.  A lot of cats DL'd the joint and I heard several cats use them in their mix.  I'm glad cats were diggin' the drums that were straight off of my collection of disks. 

Back then I said I was thinking about putting together drums from my EPS, MPC etc.  Well... after finally getting some time and having the right person to get me motivated, here are some classic drum kits off of disks from my EPS Classic. 

These drums are NOT from projects, but instead classic kits that have been run through the EPS to get that 12bit sound.  You MAY have these drums from another source, but do you have them from an EPS?  My guess is no. 

Check it out

Alesis HR16B
Alesis SR-16
Boss DR550 Mk2
EMU Percussion kit
EX7
Korg M1
Korg T1
Roland JV-80
Roland MC-303
Roland R8
Roland TR 808
Roland TR 909

Dawhud EPS drum kits (12bit) link here

Dig the drums and I'm hoping to put more up soon.

Keep it LOCKED!!!

If you're having issues with the link, throw a comment in the post and I'll find another site to upload the folder.