"Hectic Eclectic 2.0". Behind the scenes

After the successful release of Hectic Eclectic in 2008 (over 25.000 downloads) on The New Worck I finally released a second mix called Hectic Eclectic 2.0. I didn't want to name it like this at first but after a extremely hectic last day of recording, (with everyone calling, mailing and shouting at me) I thought it was only right to call it Hectic Eclectic 2.0.

One of the reasons that it took 3 years to release this mix is that I did record it but didn't like the quality of the sound. I used a lot of mp3's. It also didn't feel too good to release a mix with songs I got for free on the net (yes I download stuff for free too, what do you expect, it's 2011!!!). So I made a list of all the songs I was missing and went record shopping. My journey first brought me to Utrecht for the annual CD and Vinyl Market in the Jaarbeurs, where I spent way too much money, leaving the place with some 20 kilo of vinyl on my back. But unfortunately my list was still half full (or half empty, but I'm not gonna discuss this matter at the moment cause it's pretty endless...)

Last April my girlfriend and I went on holiday to California. We rented a house in Oakland, nearby San Francisco and also a house on the north side of LA. The actual occasion was that we were celebrating our 10 year anniversary and we thought it would be fun to celebrate it in California. After looking on the net for things to do I realised that California is the place to be when it comes to secondhand record stores. So there I went again. Dragged my girl along to Berkeley where I found out they had a record store called Rasputin. In the window shop there was a plaque saying: "we've got the vinyl you want". And they weren't lying. I had a great time. If you ever get to be around San Francisco and you are into vinyl (or cd's for that matter) I highly recommend visiting this store. At Rasputin I found a lot of records I was looking for like James Brown's 'Black Caeser' and Bob James 'Sign Of Times'
I had no idea  Amoeba was right next to Rasputin so I must have looked like a kid seeing the ice cream guy when I discovered it! Needless to say my girlfriend wasn't as amused. Her idea of a good time was not seeing her boyfriend spending a couple of hours and hundreds of dollars in a record store. Specially cause she's not half as much into music as I am. The experience in Amoeba was a little less pleasant due to a bum that was listening to some records and while doing so, making weird ass, loud, humming type sounds that kinda creeped me out. Nevertheless I did find a few very cool records I was looking for.

Some of the records I bought in Berkeley and San Francisco

The next day we went to San Francisco and BAM! Another Amoeba! What a city!!!  Not only was there another Amoeba but the street where it's located (Haight street) had about ten record stores, one even cooler than the other. I can't remember any titles of what I bought there but I do remember it was mad fun. In one of the stores I heard the owner complaining about how high the rent for his shop was and that E-Bay was killing his business. His records were indeed pretty expensive, but he still gave me 10% discount, god knows why! Must have been my aura or something. Anyway the whole shopping experience got me pretty jealous of the dj's and producers that live in San Francisco. I could now understand how guys like J-Rocc and DJ Shadow have those humongous record collections. Believe me, if I had lived there I would have too.

My girl loves her Adele

After a week in Oakland we were headed to Los Angeles to stay there for another week. I didn't do that much record shopping there. Mainly because I had spend way too much money already. I knew LA had a Turntable Lab. A few years back I had visited the shop in New York and I remembered it was a cool spot where the staff knew what they were talking about. Unfortunatly in LA the guy behind the counter had decided to bring his dog to work and that damn thing was all over me, licking my heals and legs. I don't wanna come of as one of those girls of that MTV program "The Hills" but dogs licking me is the last thing on my mind when I'm digging through records. So I was quick to leave the place, although I did find d a copy of Oh No's 'Move' and that joint's the bomb! So it wasn't a complete failure, but I wouldn't recommend going there. There was actually another Amoeba in LA so I went to check that out ones... actually twice... oh fuck who am I kidding... I went there at least 3 times. One of the cooler things I bought there was the 'Vinyl Killer Van', a small toy van that has a needle and a speaker, so you can let it spin on a record and it actually play's the record. I saw the Van in the movie "Scratch" by Doug Pray but you don't believe it untill you see it right in front of you. And then it's still hard to believe. But as cool as the 'Killer Van' is, it had nothing to do with the Hectic Eclectic mixtape so I'm not gonna continue yapping about it.

The Vinyl Killer Van. Boys will be boys

After all that shopping I had over 25 kilos of vinyl to bring back to Holland and I had no idea how to do it. I ended up buying another suitcase and a bigger backpack to make it work. Hoping not to get caught at the Dutch airport, ending up paying tax over my vinyl. Luckily I saw a big group of Chinese people passing the border, filled with all kinds of crap, so I joined the group assuming they looked more suspicious then I did, and I was right. No offence to my fellow Chinese earthlings...

So when I got home I started recording the mix, tweaked around a little, combined my old records with some new ones and Whoomp! There it is! Hope you enjoyed my little behind the scenes story.
I sure had fun writing about it and I hope you enjoy the mix as much as I enjoyed making it!