When we think of music conglomerates, music mills and all around music beasts, we can’t but think of American Idol. Now you guys might watch the show, and you might not. We watch the show because it happens to be interesting to watch unsigned artists vying for their shot at stardom. I mean you can’t deny that there have been some artists that have come from no where and become household topics of conversation. While we at Music-Is-Life don’t agree to the signing away of a year of their lives just for the chance and opportunity to be seen, touched, talked about and even pimped out, you can’t deny that some of these kids actually break away from their masters and become great in their own right. We actually like Kelly Clarkson, and we actually like Daughtry.

Before you get your knickers in a bunch and decide that we have lost all cred, what we are saying is that we respect the artist that comes from nothing, Kelly as a waitress, takes on the world and wins. Music-Is-Life is all about the underdog. So here is the WTF moment. Ellen DeGeneres is to be the Judge replacing Paula on A.I.

Take a look here at her video posting

We LOVE Ellen but as a music judge? And we loved loopy Paula too. But if you think about it, Paula did have a music and dancing background. We aren’t too sure that Ellen has that. Of course it will be entertaining to see Ellen give critiques, but really?? Ellen as a Music judge? Ellen could be doing one of her crazy funny jokes on all for us and not really gonna be the new judge or A.I. might just be crazy enough to hire a comedienne as a music judge. We guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Hmm that’s why we’ll file this under WTF

When it rains it pours. It happens in overflowing bills. It happens in emotional heartbreak. It happens in current unemployment climate. It happens when you least expect it. And it also happens in Death. In the last 30 days, we as a music community have lost 2 key players in the fight to the status quo. We, here at Music-Is-Life.com, want to express our sadness and dismay to the deaths of 2 of our kindred spirits. Not only were these gifted artists part of their own local subset of greatness, they were also part of a larger world of sound that we all know. If you didn’t know either one of these artists by their music, you definitely knew them by their lineage.

Echo and the Bunnyman- Jake Brockman

Jake was a keyboardist of the post-punk band Echo and the Bunnymen. There initially started out in 1978 from Liverpool. I mean so many great bands have come from Liverpool, right??!! And like most bands, you have the break up to make up stories of the past. However, Jake wasn’t there from the start officially, until 1987 when his predecessor Pete De Freitas died in a motorcycle accident. Horribly enough, the same fate took Jake’s life as well. Jake, who was 53, was riding on the Isle Of Man when he was in a collision with a converted ambulance. Jake is survived by his wife, Sally Mundy, and their family. Think back to this song –>

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I mean takes you back right?
We will miss you Man!

Here is a video featuring Jake with the band on the Craig Ferguson show back in 2006.
Here is a video featuring Jake with the band on the Craig Ferguson show back in 2006.

Supa DJ AM

Back in the day, Adam Goldstein was born. And a new revolution of sound was created. Not only was he known as DJ AM and one of the best DJ’s around, he was also participant of the ground breaking band Blink-182, and before that some of us even remember Crazy Town. But most notably speaking, DJ AM shot to stardom in working with his good friend Travis Barker of Blink-182 Fame. In what could be described as a precursor to his recent demise, the 2008 plane crash with Travis has been said to have started DJ AM on this course. DJ AM himself said “There’s no reason why I lived and they didn’t,” DJ AM said last month at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, referring to the others who died in the crash.”It’s something that I struggle with every day, you know, kind of wondering”

DJ AM was in recovery for addictions and speculation is that he relapsed and had an overdose. We, here at Music-Is-Life, don’t want to focus on the drama or the suspicion surrounding his death. We want to celebrate his life. We want to show that even though there were issues after that plane crash, physical and mental, we should do right by remembering that DJ AM stood for great music, great beats, and a helluva lota kick ass fun times. He would want us continue the party, listening to him spin.

So Continue on Playa! Rock The Crowd! We won’t stop the booty shaking.

With all those aspiring DJ’s out there, we knew that multiple options needed to be used to be a true MixMaster. So we reached into our little bag of tricks to bring you another wonderful mixing tool. While those out there using Looplabs.com will notice that most of the sound effects are dub beats (who who doesn’t like dub right??!!) , that isn’t the end all, be all in DJing beats, sounds and grooves. One thing that we also wanted to share was a tool that DJ’s can actually use in the field. VitrualDJ software will do just that. All that is needed is the software, the computer to run it on and of course, miles of files of music. We personally have used VirtualDJ at a club here in Portland. (For those of you in the know, it was called Booty).

What makes VirtualDJ so powerful is that it can be used on both major platforms, Mac and PC, and still perform like a champ. For example, since no 2 DJ’s are the same (yea don’t imitate others), VirtualDJ can be tailored to each specific quirk, idiosyncrasy and desire on the fly. VirtualDJ features
• One-click beat matching and synchronization
• Automatic beat-matched crossfading
• On-the-fly automatic BPM calculation
• Automatic pitch matching
• Automatic level matching
• Automatic beat matching
• Effect Plug-ins
• Video Mixing
• And of course FULL KARAOKE SUPPORT!!!!! (gotta love that for house parties)

Please take a look at this page on their site, Version 6 it’s way too much information to post here but it includes not only what I’ve mentioned, but also way more features like MusicGroups, NetSearch (which streams a song off the internet to use!!) and even the Timecode Engine which gives the real feel of Vinyl. VirtualDJ works just like mixing on a record (for those of us that remember them).

Lastly we suggest downloading the demo. Click This –> Demo If you are a currently a pro DJ, an aspiring MixMaster or just someone that wants to rock a basement party, give Virtual DJ a twirl!

If you are feeling spry, jump on these images to be taken to locales on the site.