Ckwal New Year Candidate #1

Right now I have only one mix, but it’s still 2017 in the US. I tried to do another one a couple hours after, but it wasn’t happening.

​A typical process (for when there are several ‘tough to choose’ from mixes) with notes made during mix. Post mix notes added between double dashes.

Candidate #1
UTC +8

Woke up early and checked the times for the New Year around the world after some breakfast and walking in the cold. Found out it was approaching 2018 in China and did this mix starting at 9:17 am or 11:17pm . I really felt the ball drop and the people celebrating. Meanwhile it’s early in the grocery store… I’ve attempted to make it to China several times and have had an offer and some interviews, but it never really panned out for timing or other reason. Once I went to the Chinese consulate and a woman became possessed in Chicago. She was nice before lunch and soon after completing the requirements I was denied a visa and had to forfeit a non refundable plane ticket. Anyways, this mix really gave me a buzz watching all the times and trying to line it up while blending everything. Will Smith’s song started at exactly 12:00. Ironically Chinese New Year isn’t even celebrated traditionally in the same month, but as far as all the countries on this timeline and the standard years go, it’s 2018. If my spirit of the mix wasn’t actually traded to make this, maybe I’ll end up there as I was jokingly talking about in an earlier post, but China isn’t as easy to get into as people once thought (at least legally for a teacher). Happy New Year you everyone in these zones (I love you Taiwan) and I expect to make it over there somewhere at some point in the future to do some living or visiting someplace other than Hong Kong!

-positives: timing is unbeatable and placement of every song is really ideal for theme and transitional vibes
-negatives: 13-15 (14min:10sec-14:23-25) seconds of transition after Cold Hearted is a little dissonant (in tempo and didn’t notice on first review without notes)
-could go either way: dark and generous warm-up period

Sunday 31st December 2017 10:13am (Central Time USA)
Monday 1st January 2018 12:13am (China- Beijing, Shanghai, Macau, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia-Bali, Mongolia, Brunei Darussalam, Russia-Irkutsk , Bratsk, Ulan-Ude ; Australia- Perth, more … reference)

57:08
(start times from clock listed before track with the New Year countdown from the countries above in parenthesis)

9:17am (11:17pm) Always Come Back 2 U – J.Lauryn
Game Changer – Max Vangeli
Cold Hearted – Seven Lions & Kill the Noise
Cold Wave – S.P.Y.
tempo up to Witness – Jordan Feliz
down to Prayers Up (feat. Travis Scott & A-Trak) – Calvin Harris EXPLICIT
– -bass up gradually to treble down, verb going nextward overlap- –
up to Shadow Play – S.P.Y. sync
down to 64 9:47 (11:47) Crazy Maybe (feat. Anjulie) [No Mana Remix] – Feed Me & Kill the Noise
– -use delay with transition (min-max // left, bottom to right, top)- –
9:51 Time – Swanky Tunes & Going Deeper no sync
9:54 to 9:56ish (11:54 to 11:56) Magneto – Madison Mars
up to 9:57 (11:57) Time (Tiësto’s Big Room Mix) – Z.Tao sync
down to 10:00 (Midnight) Will 2K – Will Smith
– -use delay and reverb with cities at end going to…- –
down to 10:04 (12:04) The King of Wishful Thinking – Go West
10:08am (12:08am) Keep on Searching – S.P.Y.

This mix is dedicated to Anna (last name unknown)

New Year’s Mix Talk

I have bought most the tracks for the third annual year bridge today. I won’t have much practice or planning and it isn’t the easiest combo, but it’s sort of futuristic. You know if you were a regular reader, I check two music feeds almost every day – thissongissick.com and nesthq.com. A lot of times they are like my mirror. Do you ever feel that way with your favorite sites? It seems impossible and when it is something way off you think about whose mirror it was that day. Sometimes I see someone else. Sometimes it’s easier to be someone else. The biggest plus about being a DJ, mixer or even producer as I was as SKMillion is that you always know what you are doing next. Less as a producer because you can disappear off the map and no one else is there. If you get lost, start following feeds and mixing music, I swear you will find your way. I can’t promise that I will be able to average five mixes a month this next year or even two, but I will finish this 2017-2018. If you are just starting off, try one a month like Avicii or something, but don’t stop practicing. Be prepared for major changes in your life and try to hold on to anything when the music takes over. I’m not being symbolic, I’m dead serious. I’d like to celebrate and go out like I used to, but keeping the stuff alive I have talked about on the blog has taken everything and everyone away from me. I regret more from before than I ever have, but I don’t regret this journey. Thanks to all the musicians, DJs and artists at every level; those I know and those I may never know – because it can never all fall apart.

Ckwal

Vegan update

My new hobby is contacting food and other products’ businesses and trying to get to the bottom of their animal usage. First lesson learned is that there are a lot of websites that say there are animal procucts in all batteries for instance or these candies are approved for your eating in another example. This is too bad because even when contacting businesses, the person on the other end might not know the answer and if they are kind-hearted enough may do some disapponting research for the both of us. If they are trained to answer like a machine and only care about their job or have no other choice, they may be concealing information or not answering your questions. We are about to go into 2018 and even grade school children can see through a typical lie. So, why is it still going on? Does sugar really have to be filtered through animal remains? Why would you pride yourself on a product and not know how the main ingredient is made. Obviously we arrive at veganism=trust at some point. Possibly I’m too strict, but I’ve seen habitual benders who end up not following any rule or principle and can’t figure out why they can’t be saved. This life isn’t for me a lot of the time, but I feel like I’m fighting for a ‘pay it forward’ type battle that as easy as it is to make beautiful and tasty products that ‘don’t kill’, on a budget, major companies like Hershey recently have decided to make me not important enough to answer my question with a definite answer. Glad/Clorox has given me a time-sensitive run-around. So far what could be good news is that Duracell ‘cans’ as they call them no longer use gelatin. The batteries themselves may not do animal testing, but I’m not sure about all their products because by-law (which I think is a bad law) some products require animal testing. Since they cannot volunteer to do the testing, then it is unfair. There are plenty of starving, poor, jobless or underpaid humans that would rather be tested on. We sign a waiver and our right away for the littlest of things everyday. I’ll test a chemical. Why-not? Rats are cuter. Who else? Dynex batteries are OK on some level and the HP monitors in this library do not have animal fat in them. I would email every company before you buy a product in question, especially monitors to make sure you aren’t watching ‘Burn Notice’ through pigs’ byproducts. Also, to see if they care about your business (even if you aren’t vegan). Best Buy may be a cool store with great workers, that doesn’t mean the products’ companies are true to that. Other good news so far, is that Bubba’s bagels seem to be safe to eat except the honey wheat. Honey is an arguable one for some people. It talks about milk and honey in the bible. Did the bees make it for us? I heard one stat that said when there are no more bees there will be no more life on earth soon or something like that. So just to recap. My biggest sacrifice today is going to be Twizzlers. Nothing confirmed of bone-char, but a response that makes them inedible to me. If there are updates in this new hobby of mine, that raises more questions then answers, I’ll post them. Any company out there reading, please don’t send a hitman. This is the future of eating and making things. Anyone getting comfortable doing things the same way without adapting to major revolutionary ideas like these being adopted by someone like me, will have huge wake up calls since mine started. The generations younger seem ahead of me even. Jesus knows and so will others.

This is the closest thing I have to X-files. We can call them the C-Files for copyright concerns. To stay vegan I made bread and sugar cookies outside in the fresh snow on Christmas.

Update 1.3.18
No confirmation of bone-char sugar or source for Twizzler candies. A different representative says Nibs (5oz) and the Pull-N-Peel (Cherry 15.4oz) are Vegan and ‘some Twizzler varieties’. Of course they are not at the moment vegan verified, but it is being passed on. There is a costlier sugar-free option. Also, an increasingly important thing to me is the NON GMO project label. Genetic modifications seems wrong and I’m reading now it is against veganism. Just because you see this NON GMO doesn’t mean it’s vegan however. Not every food is verified with labels, so many consumers are gambling with their assumptions.

Ckwal’s Christmas Mix aka Leftovers

I’m doing this mix a little differently. Actually mixing it right now and if it’s successful, I’ll type the time stamp and post. I call it a ‘leftovers mix’ because it has a few songs I was keeping around that never really fit into a main or were of an album I already played from at least one track. I bought two new songs to spice it up and it’s done.

Thursday 21st December 2017, 17:22
37:43

Another’s Arms (Live At the Beacon Theatre, New York) – Coldplay
Skrt On Me (feat. Nicki Minaj) – Calvin Harris EXPLICIT
Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It – Will Smith
Fight for Us (Prins Thomas Diskomiks) – Sepalcure
Trust Me (feat. Soul) [Cid Remix] – Adrian Lux & Savage Skulls
Destinations – Alesso
Dust Clears (feat. Noonie Bao) – Clean Bandit
The Spark (feat. Spree Wilson) – Afrojack
White Christmas – Gwen Stefani

Tenth Day of Christmas

10 Lords a-Leaping.

​Like I said in an earlier post, I don’t drink anymore. However, I would be a fool not to have some of these in the fridge for the company on the day after the party of the eighth day and ninth day get-away.
Somehow you woke up in New York City and your true love left you with some tickets to The Nutcracker in your inner coat pocket. If you don’t see any lords leaping in that, possibly it’s because your Carol Scavenger Hunt competition stayed in Vegas and showed up to Cirque Du Soleil’s ​Mystère. I guess tomorrow you’d have to go back and see if they were right. What time is the show on your tickets? Was your flight on time? What casino did you just run into? Pretty soon you’ll be leaping over the tables trying to get to the show and someone is checking their list off for Christmas as they snap you into instagram.

Ninth Day of Christmas

9 Ladies Dancing.

Only about six days left until Christmas depending on where you live and only three more days in our countdown.
There are a lot of possibilities for this line, but no one is going to send you nine ladies dancing or give them to you (unless it is a strip club party or something). In that case your true love must be a wing-man who has given up on trying to get you in a relationship. Choose Las Vegas or Amsterdam. Skyscanner is a great app and website for searching plane tickets. The reason is because you don’t need a destination, only a budget. So, that is what I am sharing for this theme day which was my favorite website and app for looking for plane tickets. Special thanks to another friend of mine from Wales who referred this app to me in 2013 when I was living and teaching in Thailand.

In other updates:
We have a total of fifty-seven mixes thus far in 2017. This counts UNP (unpublished) Series Mixes and SKM Mixes that were revealed this year as well as re-dos and encores or several parts (So a four part mix would count as four mixes). I plan one more mix closer to Christmas possibly and then of course still hoping to complete the New Year Bridge Mix successfully. Thanks for those who stuck with us all year through this nearly impossible feat; full of sacrifices and hardship.

Eighth Day of Christmas

Eight Maids a-Milking.

On today’s line I am having a dairy-free party. Therefore I am only making a shopping list for the items I have tried before and can vouch for their flavors. Of course these are dairy-free alternatives. Playing live first at the ‘Let’s Imagine’ Eighth Day snack and music celebration is Maid Kyoko – Instagram. Meanwhile hors d’oeuvres are served. Guests talk about new releases and latest vegan food discoveries. Later a band from Denmark, Pretty Maids – Instagram. Other diversions will be playing ‘Barnyard’ for Wii on a huge TV, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for Nintendo Switch and sharing/making recipes in the dance music kitchen with vegan DJ, Rebekah – Instagram.

I discovered Rebekah from this list of vegan DJs.

So Delicious (Yogurts, Ice Creams and Milks) – Try dipping Boulder Canyon’s Jalapeno Avocado Oil Chips in the yogurt. Many of these chips say vegan on them and these were at one point strict vegan, but always recheck when you are buying products that you assume have stayed the same.
Daiya (Caesar Salad Dressing) – Great with arugula or try grilled broccoli rabe, a side from a restaurant I served at some time ago (Oliverii Family restaurants, Chicagoland).
Daiya also makes frozen pizzas, mac & cheese and more.
***Silk (Almond Coconut Blend) – Substitute in cookies or great for cereal, if the party is still going the next morning.

Lyrics for this song are found at Wikipedia’s website.
Other good lyrics sites are Genius, MetroLyrics and AZLyrics. Disclaimer: A lyric website cannot ever be completely accurate. Even published lyrics directly from the publishing company may be just one hearable version.

***Update 7.3.18 Pareve Dairy (Shared machinery)