It was a golden morning in the waning days of June 1979 and I had just turned ten years old. The school year was ending for my grade four class and the promise of infinite summer adventures beckoned. The pending holiday feeling was bittersweet as I also knew that I would soon be moving away to a larger city, leaving behind all the friends and teachers I had ever known.
My teacher announced that for the last day of class we would have a party and students were invited to bring our own music. Most kids had no clue but I was a budding vinyl head having dug through my parents collection of Beatles, Rolling Stones and Frank Zappa many times. Rather than use my dad’s records I came to school ready with my first personally owned vinyl that I had received for my birthday (along with a sweet skateboard) the day before. The album was Jim Croce’s greatest hits which offered a number of potential fourth grade party rockers. Do I play “I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song ” for the ladies or maybe go with the superman referencing “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” for the boys?
The choice was easy for me, when it was my turn to play a song I went full on hardcore dropping Croce’s best hit “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” on the school turntable and letting those kids know what was up. The track went off like a firecracker and my sugar buzzed classmates leaped around the room like wild animals. As all parties do it eventually drew to a close and I bid farewell to my friends, knowing I had left with a bang. It was an awakening moment and I’ve been chasing that fire ever since.
Penis Flytrap is an ongoing DJ side project where I team up with with local digger and musician Derek Kashew to create eclectic vinyl record mixes that feature juicy 70s funk, deep soul, odd 80s and delicious rarities from our dusty LP and 7″ crates.
This latest mix is a two hour journey through funk and soul that echoes the conflicts, loves and drama of modern life but is mostly about having fun
PENIS FLYTRAP – FEEL MY SOUL MIX (FEB. 2012)
Fatback – Feel My Soul
Buddy Miles – Walking Down the Highway
Soft Machine – The Flock
Chicago – Mother
Roy Head – She’s About a Mover
Joe Tex – I Mess Up Everything I Get My Hands On
Al Wilson – Listen To Me
Chairmen Of The Board – Skin I’m In
Mandrill – Wind On Horseback
Creative Source – Who is He and What is He to You
Dexter Wansel – Theme from the Planets
Jerry Butler – I’m Your Mechanical Man
Silver Convention – You Turn Me On
Taste Of Honey – World Spin
Rufus – Circles
Esther Phillips – Disposable Society
Barrabas – Woman
Booker T and the MGs – Big Train
Shuggie Otis – Me And My Woman
Eddie Harris – How Can I Find Some Way To Tell You
Odyssey 5 – Got to be an Answer
Shirley (and Company) – Shame, Shame, Shame
The Corporation – It’s Great to be Here
Gladys Knight & The Pips – On and On
Hank Crawford – Madison (The Spirit)
The Gap – Gash Gash Gash
Brother’s Johnson – You Keep Me Coming Back
The S.O.S. Band – Just Be Good to Me
Hot Chocolate – Heaven’s in the Backseat of my Cadillac
Faze – O – Rockin
Sylvester – You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
Peppers – Do It, Do It
Dominique Guiot, Eric Mallet – Squadron
Gotta love these happy dogs leaping through a Montreal winter snow covered moon like landscape. Had to dig deep to find a track to match the cold windswept terrain and primal dog enthusiasm for snow and remembered “Ritual”, a track I recorded a couple of years ago with a laid back downtempo beat and dubbed out echoing analog beacon calling across the planet with positive vibrations.
It’s cold and snowy outside so warm up with this steamy acid ice road trucker. Smank Rock is an unstoppable analog rocker from your friendly neighborhood Insomniak featuring some rude Korg Mono/Poly tweaking, a ripping x0xb0x acid line and a stomping beat.
This all vinyl DJ mix features driving intergalactic late 70s and early 80s synthesizer music from some recently acquired, somewhat exotic production library records.
Production or Library music is royalty free music created to be used in film scores, TV shows, commercials and radio jingles. Although destined for commercial use much of this music is far from conservative and represent cutting edge sounds of the times. As you will hear many of these jams probe deep in to the future with their creative use of vintage synthesizers and advanced studio experimentation while other tracks kick back with vintage jazz and funk grooves.
I named this mix Bibliotheque, the French word for “Library” because the majority of these tracks are from French production houses with a few from the UK as well. Labels include KoKa Media,RCA Media, Spectrum Mood Library and Bruton Music.
Mixing was a challenge as these records are new to me and contain many tracks each with lots of jingles less than than a minute long. Being made for commercial use there were often descriptive track names that describe the mood and tempo which helped find the right track on the fly. There was no time to make a track list but I am happy with this selection that shows off a wide range of cool old school library tracks. Enjoy this mix of rarely heard vinyl and be taken away to a retro 80s sci-fi dramatic adventure through time and space from the big screen and late night TV.
This Friday I will be DJing at this charity event at Club Lambi.
Full mustache in effect as well as funk, indie and old school hip hop party vibes.
Represent!
Get sweaty with this dirty track from the Insomniak Acid Face EP . Raise UR Hand lays down a gritty acid dub bass line that will shake your rotten guts while cut up ragga vox, arcing aerial synths and soundboy samples bring you on travels inna dark break beat stylee. The UR marks a tribute to Detroit’s Underground Resistance.
This Saturday Montreal will re-animated from the dead of winter with a night of dope experimental local music and DJing by your friendly neighborhood Insomniak.
Insomniak is a multi-experienced music producer, graphic designer, live performer, club DJ, photographer and remixer. I make music, develop web sites and run the Insomniak Apparel label designing t-shirts, shoes and skateboards!
