Beiträge von Cozmo D

    Yes, it's illegal to distribute them without permission, and a bigger bugaboo if you sell them. However, if all you are planning to do is distribute them and/or sell them on a minor basis, to family, friends, local customers and the like, then go for it. However, if you plan to do something major like selling them in a store online you should be careful.

    OK... UPDATE TIME!!!!!

    This has been the worst year of my life... bar none... by far, yet in the midst of it I have been extremely blessed! This is a secret of life that has long kept me sane, that even amidst the worst it is possible to find blessings. I only wish that more people understood this, the blessings are there, seek them out.

    Anyway, my mother passed away in the middle of this project, so very little has been done on my end. However, since bills have to be paid business must go on, and in the process of this business I have gone into partnership with an international physical distributor who is enthusiastic to put out anything I send his way. I will now be doing CDs... and yes, VINYL... internationally!

    As for the "Teknology" project? AMAZING!!! I have gotten some fantastic remixes... a few of them INCREDIBLE... and many from peeps who frequent this forum. All in all at last count I have 12 remixes that I intend to release. I am not expecting any more to come in but if any do that knock me out I will include them as well. However, the selection for the CD is now made and full so the only way something new could make the CD is to knock one that has already been selected out, which would be one hefty task!

    Because my new distributor would like 2 months ideally to pre-promote I am targeting the release for January. We WILL be doing vinyl as well. I figure the original plus the most danceable 3 remixes. I have not decided which those will be yet. In fact, I am asking for help with that.

    Next week Saturday, October 27th, on our show Jam-On The Groove on Global Funk Radio at 10pm GMT (5pm EST) We will play EVERY remix that has been selected for release! Please tune in and check them out, and then let me know which one YOU think should be put on vinyl. Remember, I'm not looking for the best remixes for the vinyl, but the ones that are most likely to rock a dance floor. Please help me figure this out.

    BTW, anybody who wants to sneak peek or preview their remix please feel free as long as it's not downloadable. Contact me if you are not sure whether yours has been selected for release or not. If I have decided not to release it please feel free to do whatever you wish with it (short of selling it of course). There were a couple of remixes that were actually pretty damm good, but had nothing to do with the original other than the vocal sample. I know that this is how some people make "remixes" these days but I'm sorry, I'm from the Old School and if the remix has no elements at all of the original then it is NOT a remix. A sample of somebody saying "Teknology" just doesn't cut it.

    Aiight... hope to see everybody at GFR on the 27th! 8)

    Zitat von lj;65789

    It's crazy that you feel "Jam on it" was just a quick track to satisfy the record company … for me (and I guess for many others), that track still stands to be one of the greatest Hip Hop tunes of all time!


    Oh, don't get me wrong, I am VERY proud of it! I knew right when I made it that it was dope and the only track I ever made that I fully expected to be huge. BUT, the only reason I made it was because the record company wanted us to do a rap record... I wanted to put out "Computer Age"... and I put the track together in about 45 minutes. So, it WAS in fact a quick track to satisfy the record company. ;D

    Zitat von lj;65789

    Re: Computer Age:
    I always thought the drums were a bit like Trans Europe Express .. in that you had a lot of 16th kicks, with a slightly less syncopated / more straight feel (compared to numbers).

    I guess that you mean the break in the middle because there is only 1 16th kick in the main beat. Not sure where I got the idea for that beat change, and I never really cared but so much for that beat. In the new version I took it out. I don't think that either beat sounds very much like TEE though.

    Zitat von lj;65789

    Btw, do you have any rights to the phrase "Push the button"? I noticed that the Chemical Brothers used it in "Galvanize" .. and the way they used it sounds quite similar to Computer Age:

    jdDwxdqLyGg

    Nah man, if anybody should have those rights it should be whoever wrote the soundtrack for Jamaica. I flat out stole it from them. :D

    OK, sorry this took me a minnit, but I've been mad busy and this topic is not easy for me. You see, by the time we had gotten to the Positive Messenger tracks that would later be used for Newcleus we had already developed our own styles and methodologies. I would start with a bass line, then a beat, then either chords or a sequence. At this time Chilly was playing in a Reggae band (that I had been fired from... again) so most of the tracks I either wrote and completed myself or I saved an element for him to contribute. So, whereas "Jam On It" years later would be a conscious bite of another record ("Situation" by Yazoo) just to make a quick track to satisfy the record company, the Positive Messenger tracks were almost completely original. However, almost all music has it's influences.

    So, anyway, I have been thinking about "Computer Age". Now, I remembered that the break was definitely inspired by "Numbers". The vocoder and vocals as well were Kraftwerk inspired. The "Push The Button" came directly from a song by the same name from an old Broadway play "Jamaica" that my mother loved and would play the album constantly when I was little.

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    at the 5:11 mark

    The bass line to "Computer Age" was definitely mine, but the entire groove itself had been such a step forward for me when I did the track in '81 that I felt that there had to be some underlying influence for it somewhere. I knew that it wasn't Kraftwerk or Giorgio, because outside of "Numbers" Kraftwerk never appealed to me as a dance influence and though Giorgio did, all of his bass lines were arpeggiated. I was just beginning to think that maybe I had just drawn on some mystic inner voice or something (LOL) when I asked myself what was my favorite electronic dance record of the time (and perhaps all time). BINGO!!!

    The influence for the electronic rhythmic noises, vocoder and vocals was Kraftwerk. The "Push The Button" line was Lena Horne. But everything else was influenced by Don Ray's "Standing In The Rain" :)


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    The beat is all mine though. :D

    Zitat von Simmo;65349

    'Im Not A Robot' is possibly my favourite Newcleus recording, in fact it is one of my favourite songs ever, any group, any genre. So this dicussion is good stuff, very interesting.

    I am not familiar with much Kraftwerk material though (imagine that on an electro forum!!), so I will have to check out those tracks to see if I can hear the similarities.

    Funny enough I always made that connection with the Warp 9 track, didn't really think about who was first they just reminded me of each other.

    I was always dissapointed that 'Im Not a Robot' didn't get released on a 12" single, I would have loved to have heard a dub version, in fact I reckon a great dub version could have been made it's a perfect track for it, a nice remix would have been good as well. It's never too late Cozmo!!


    It's too late when you don't have the master. ;D

    I wonder if the master turns up will the original vocal be on it. Probably so, there aren't many instruments on the track so there should have been tracks open on the master, so no need to record over the original.

    Zitat von lj;65336

    nice!
    i have to admit i prefer the lushness and big production of the album version, but the smoooooooooth vocals of the original recording are way cool. :D
    the lower key seems to suit the song better.


    That IS the album version. It was a rough mix taken right after we recorded it. I guess that it just wasn't fast enough for Fearing so he pitched it up. He could have done the exact same lushness and big production (translation: effects and reverb) without pitching it and you would have the exact same album version you have now, except slower and in a true, lower key with a MUCH better vocal. ;D

    Yeah, the hi-hat pattern is from the break part. Yep, just like you wouldn't know that the "Jam On It" bass line was a bite of "Situation". The key to biting something properly is breaking down the essence of what makes it dope or funky, and then applying that to something of your own creation. That's the difference between a steal and a bite. I stole the hi-hat pattern, but I bit the bass line and other elements. So, I didn't "get away" with anything, biting is how most music is made. :)

    "Light Years Away" came out in '83, I wrote and first laid down "I'm Not A Robot" in '81. ;)

    Zitat von wex;65306

    Oh man...
    I'm never said that!

    I just said what you've just confirmed :)


    ???

    Well, basically what was said was...


    Zitat von wex;65024

    You mostly used electro rhythmic structure, that different from funk rhythmic structure.

    Zitat von Cozmo D;65028

    NO! I was using a Brooklyn street rockin' structure. The beats were straight from funky breaks that I played as a DJ. The Bass lines were ALL Funk inspired. Only the arpeggios and sequences came from Electronic Music, and they were MUCH more from Moroder and Jarre than Kraftwerk, so there was no Electro Rhytmic Structure (since you guys don't consider Moroder and Jarre Electro)... unless I invented it. ;D

    I found Kraftwerk to be boring for the most part, though I was impressed by the ideas used in TEE, and I loved "Numbers". However, I don't think that I ever used any of the ideas of TEE, except I bit the hi-hat pattern for "I'm Not A Robot". I bit the rhythmic noises ideas of "Numbers" for "Computer Age", and maybe the vocoder a bit, but that's it. My usage of pads is straight from Gary Numan, and he wasn't Electro either. :)

    Zitat von wex;65030

    Ok :) what's the first track with the Brooklyn street rockin' structure?

    Zitat von Cozmo D;65033

    Newcleus, Featuring Cozmo & The Jam-On Production Crew. - "Jam-On Revenge". 1983

    That's when MY structure was born to the public! Show me ANY other track that followed a formula similar to mine! 8)

    Zitat von wex;65035

    If it's first in history, then KW was first.

    So, you didn't say that I used a Kraftwerk rhythmic structure, you said that I used an electro rhythmic structure that was started by Kraftwerk. Which I STILL deny! 8)

    Except for "I'm Not A Robot". I straight-up channeled Kraftwerk for that one! ;D