I can feel it

...In the air tonight. Phil Collins is the king. I had to get the "Face Value" album as soon as I got back from my trip to Italy, 'cos they played "In the air tonight" it sooo loud while we were hanging out at the pool. And at that moment the song got a really new meaning to me. I used to dig this song before (hear Kriton's remix of T.I.'s Why you wanna, and you'll find some familiar chord changes there... ), but I had never listened to it at this volume. Really, this song is at the same time the coolest chill out song (as in Miami Vice, you remember...) and a banging tune as well.

And what makes the song interesting is the urban legend about the lyrics as well:

"An urban legend has arisen around "In the Air Tonight". According to the legend, the lyrics are based on a tragic event Collins witnessed, usually a drowning (as in the song's lyrics), in which a man could have helped the victim, but did not do so. A common ending is that Collins invites this man to a show and sings the song to him, often with a spotlight pointed at him. Afterward, the man is arrested or, in some versions, is wracked with guilt and commits suicide. "

Duffle Bag Boys

I admit it. I haven't posted new music on this blog every week, like i said i would. It's my damn summer vacation. I don't have time for all that.

But, right now i have. My bags are packed and the plane is ready to leave for sunnier regions after a couple of hours of sleep.
So here you have the extra-slept-on Playaz Circle, new stuff from Ludacris' DTP label. The track is called "Duffle Bag Boys" and it's hot.

Playaz Circle: Duffle Bag Boys (320 kbs)

And by the way, duffle bags rule!

Hang ten!

I've always been digging skateboarding culture. I mean I tried it in the mid 80's but I realized I needed a lot of rehearsing to master this sport and I chose music instead. But then again I really fell into it in the early nineties, when I discovered hardcore and punk of that time, and this all was kinda connected with skating. I used to hang around skate spots and read Trasher, vear Vans shoes, Gullwing t-shirts and blast Gorilla Bisquits or Descendents outta my boom box. Musically these times were very interesting, 'cos we used to mix some westcoast gansta stuff (NWA rocked) with some speed metal (Slayer) as well. Talk about variety...

But back to skateboarding. This summer I'm gonna learn the sport. I'm not gonna break bones with no small trick board, I'm gonna concentrate on cruising, carving and slow down hill riding with my new longboard, which should arrive any day now. 'Cos I sport style in the first place, I had to order it abroad, the ones available here were filled with modern surf graphics that didn't please my demanding eye. I went for pintail (of course) and simple design, like.... hmmm. yuh know, old skool?

Once I get by board I'll be reporting here, how my skills develope. Until then, skateboarders unite!

Wild Harmaakarhu spotted in Helsinki!

This blog has been about a lot of things, from consumer electronics to latest music rumours. We’ve written about luxury food and different types of beers that we support and diss, but I guess this is the first time we go into deep R&D in the drink section.

Last nite we had a little get-together among friends to celebrate my baby grrrl’s 1 st b-day. While opening presents and banging Spindbad’s cool 80’s mixtape we also experimented with some beverages. The outcome of this R&D session was Harmaakarhu AKA Grizzly. This simple refreshing drink resembles Clara or Shandy but it’s a bit more sour. So what is it you must be asking?

You could ask the bartender to give you a large, preferably a chilled glass and start filling it with:

• 1/3 Ice cubes
• 1/3 Karhu-beer
• 1/3 Lonkero (aka Harmaa, aka Gin Long Drink. A ready mixture of gin and grape juice, a strictly finnish thang)

You mix the ingredients and enjoy. It’s a purrrfect summer drink. And when the night approaches, you could add some extra gin to get your booty in the moody. Let Harmaakarhu take over!

Zeitgeist.

It's out. Leaked on 'teh internets'. What?

It's here.

Smashing Pumpkins' new album, 'Zeitgeist'. And Shepard Fairey made the cover art.
But is it any good?

Straight out the Freezer

Every once in a while I think about blogging new music on this page. it's like one of those things that got me excited about blogging in the first place. Also beacause i like to read other people bloggin about new ish they like.

But it's not so simple. Because i write about music for a living, it kinda gets too boring sometimes, that i don't really wanna do it in my spare time. But now, it's summer vacation, so i'll try and make a "new years resolution": i'll try and blog some new stuff that's hot at least once a week. Let's see how that goes...

Anyway, here's the new Freeway track "Big Spender" with uncle Hova on the feat. This banger is just toooooo hot. The beat is by Dame Grease, i think, and it samples Shirley Bassey's "Big Spender". The Philly Freezer is on fire and Hova''s not too bad either. In fact, this sounds like the Roc/ State Prop never fell apart in the first place. Put yo diamond signs and roca-chains in the air, "Free At Last" (the long awaited new album, to say the least) is gonna be hotter than Kanye's "Graduation". If it ever comes out.

Freeway feat Jay-Z: Big Spender

What is a party?!

This is. Alppila a.k.a. Fiilin Myself, that is me, with Big Pimpin' boss DJ Henrikki spinning records at a nice bar atmosphere in Töölö, Helsinki. Well, at least, i'll be spinning records, Henrikki will be prob'ly spinning those Serato discs that i'm so jealous of him for. Fri the 29th of June. free to get in. Nyce, innit?

But this time it's not gonna be the usual "strictly bangers" law, cos it's a bar. Along with da usual hip hop, we'll play some indie disco, soul, reggae, remixes, 80's shit and whatnot. Special treatment, peoples!

Missing: A Lake

How scary is this?

"SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A lake in southern Chile has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation the ground has simply opened up and swallowed it whole. The lake was situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and was fed by water, mostly from melting glaciers. It had a surface area of between 4 and 5 hectares (10-12 acres) -- about the size of 10 soccer pitches.

"In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal ... we went again in May and to our surprise we found the lake had completely disappeared," said Juan Jose Romero, regional director of Chile's National Forestry Corporation CONAF.

"The only things left were chunks of ice on the dry lake-bed and an enormous fissure," he told Reuters.

CONAF is investigating the disappearance.

One theory is that the area was hit by an earth tremor that opened a crack in the ground which acted like a drain. Southern Chile has been shaken by thousands of minor earth tremors this year."

What happened to sXe?

Whatever happened to Straight Edge? Veganism, drug-free lifestyles, Ian McKaye?

I dunno. But do yer-self a test, here. It's funny. No, it's not. You decide yourself.

Let the Afro go and rock a Caesar

Ladies and gentlemen, it is finally the time for da Kritons to go international. And we went straight to The Bay Area, where else!

I know, we have blogged about this earlier too, when it was still under construction. But now that it's ready and released, we have to give a special advertisement blog entry about our brand new track, "That Buddy Leezle Joint", or "The Arrival", as Buddy Leezle himself calls it.

It is a remix for Buddy Leezle, a mega talented MC from San Francisco, USA. He is also a part of the group 215: The Freshest Kids, and some other bands too. I dunno if you should really call it it a remix or an original track, since none of us have actually heard the original version. But it's safe to say, that our version blows the f***in roof off yer building. Try it, homie. But don't say we didn't warn ya!

It's gonna be featured on Leezle's new mixtape-album "Hipster Jesus" (probably the best album title in long while!) and you can of course hear it on our myspace site as well as Leezle's.

OR if you are really in need of this track, you just might be able to download it from here, at least for a while...

And as they so often say in heavy metal record covers: play that sucker loud.

Casios and various other stuff too to recycle

The Kriton Boys spent last nite cleaning up our old studio / rehearsal place, the classic "4th line studios" in Kallio. Apparently the neighbours couldn't take the punk rock anymore, 'cos I have rented the place to my good friends Fumble and some other damn well rocking bands too. So I got the eviction note some time ago and now it was time to see what we had left behind. I've had the place for over 10 years, so there were more old speakers and amps than in a jamaican soundsystem. Most of it was pretty beaten, so we had to dump the stuff to the local garbage dump.

The best part is that after sweating the whole night, the Alppilounge (the place where all hotness nowadays happes, our new studio) has now a lot more instruments to play with. First we got 2 keyboards from the 4th line studios: one Casio and one Yamaha DX-? (I'll update all models and makes next week,, can't really recall all of them now), one Ibanez RG-750 el-gitarro (Yepp, the speed-picking-god), a Laney AOR tube amp + a Marshall 4x12 stack, and small FBT-guitar amp, the classic Cry baby wah wah pedal made famous by Jimi Hendrix, and some other cool effect pedals (delay, fuzz, tremolo...)

And to top it all: from the garbage dump we picked another cool Casio keyboard! Couldn't believe how much good stuff peeps leave there. We were so stoked about this recycling thing that Young JzZi also picked up a blue pogo stick (!) and a rechargeable drill from the dump. There was an electric fireplace as well, but we had to leave it there, 'cos it would have been too much, I mean it's summer and all.

I hope all this stuff works too, it would have been a shame to throw all this away. I mean, now they can get a second life as Kriton tools... Can't wait to start tweaking and modifying those Casio babies...

Legally Blend(e)

We like blends, we like doing blends. You already know that.
That's why da Hennyman and yours truly, Fiil Inc, decided to make some new party blends. Not just any party blends. But ones that fit summertime parties. The recipe is easy: step 1) Take a "older" portion, familar to most everyone from summer parties in the past. Step 2) take a newer portion, to make it current, just right for this season.

We took the time to throw together two new tracks by that recipe and here is what you get:

- Hennessy doing his thing with vocals from Ludacris' megahit "Stand Up" and the beat from Petey Pablo's recent banger "Get Me Out Of Jail". Uptempo banger alert!

-Fiil Inc (aka Alppila) effing around with a sure fire classic beat from Was Not Was' "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" version (from 1990) and Pitbull's last year's party anthem "Bojangles". Loose and funky enough to fit a bmore style or a disco set. DJ's take notice!

Enjoy these little babies at www.myspace.com/kritonhigh
(and ask for quality mp3's if you wish)

and ps... The LONG AWAITED Buddy Leezle remix coming up soon!

Make Love Not War: Gay Bomb (and Killer Bees)

You probably all read about this already but it's so funny I need to post it here again:

"In December 2004, The Sunshine Project, a watchdog group based in Austin, Tex., and Hamburg, Germany, that opposes biological weapons, uncovered a "U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting."

The proposal came from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, which requested $7.5 million to develop a so-called "gay-bomb." Using the Freedom of Information Act, Edward Hammond, director of the U.S. office of the Sunshine Project, obtained a copy which was "part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons." If completed, the bomb would release a chemical aphrodisiac "and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical... soldiers would become gay." This would cause their units to break down as the troops "became irresistibly attractive to one another." In addition to a "gay bomb" the proposal also mentions using chemicals which could make bees angry so that enemy forces would be attacked not only by our troops but also swarms of stinging insects.

Defense Department officials have acknowledged that such ideas were proposed by the Air Force in 1994, and then "quickly dismissed." They played down the significance of the Sunshine report, stating that many proposals come their way that are rejected for ethical reasons."

It's even in Wikipedia.

This is where I am coming from...

Ever wanted to know where you are coming from, dear fans of Kriton Music Blog (tm)?
Well, now yo'all can see it, thanks to our super secret high-tech visitor statistics counter system.
Just click on the map above to make it bigger, and remember that the map shows only the visitors today.

I just love maps.

B-More = Jive Bunny

Last night I was listening to the Kovalevy show on Basso Radio where Mr. Fiskars was blasting B-More or Baltimore Club Tracks or whatever you wanna call that stuff.

You know what I am talking about, right? Look HERE and read up if you don’t.

Anyhow, he played several tracks which sampled heavily those ‘60s girl pop groups and similar stuff, like ‘Please, Mr. Postman’ etc. This made me realize one thing:

B-More = Jive Bunny.

Yeah, that’s right. Unlike many of those young jocks playing that Baltimore stuff, I am old enough to remember Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers in the 1980s, unfortunately. And I can assure you that the difference between the classic Jive Bunny tracks such as "Swing the Mood" and "Let's Party" and some of those B-More tracks, is next to non-existent.

So what? I dunno. I guess nothing. Carry on, sir.

I'm Back. Like Take That.

Hi! I’ve been taking a bit of a vacation from writing here for quite some time already. For no reason at all, apparently. Whatever, now let’s see what’s going on with everything/everyone related to the Kriton Universe ™:


The Kriton Boys

We’ve been quite busy on the Alppila studio lately, with a little help of some nice Keko, I guess. The MySpace RMX of Buddy Leezle’s track we been working on is basically ready finally. It’s gonna be da bomb. I promise.

And yea, the Kriton club night in the Vinyl Bar a while ago was a blast. So much so in fact that I guess we will not re-do it too soon again. Especially because of the regulars complaining about our sound not being smooth enough for their distinguished house music tastes.

Then Mr. Fiskars, of two of Helsinki’s most Excellent clubs TOP BILLIN’ & Kovalevy digs us too, check out his TOP 10! (Ok, you need to be logged in w/ your MySpace account to see it but we are #1 !!!)

And even more, the long-overdue video for our track ‘Scared Money’ by Fiilin.com & the BCN posse should/could be out some time soon. It will be dope yet scary at the same time. Watch out!


NAGA!marque AKA Sandal Flamenberg

Mark has apparently also been quite busy in the Kriton Studio/Hangout in Alppila lately. There are two new and new-ish tracks on his MySpace page, both of which include some secret vocal contributions from yours truly, BTW!

The latest one, ‘Hector the Scrambler’ was released on Sunday on his MySpace-page. It’s mad beautiful and very shoegazer-y -too. It’s his most melodic and even ‘pop’ track so far. Congratulations, man.

The rumour has it that the dude might soon finally have enough tracks ready for his debut mini-album to be released by Kriton Music. There’ll be eventually a special limited hand-numbered CD-R run for all yo’ll Wire-reading peoples out there in the Internets.

On the side note, I guess that the Keko is also to be thanked here for keeping our favorite Aussie sitting tight in the studios…


Interflug

Giacbot also has new lovely song, ‘Rosa Mota’ out there on his MySpace-page. It was incidentally released last Sunday just like Mark's new track. It was inspired by a long hot summer day at home in his wooden house in Kumpula, apparently. And some Velvet Underground too, I guess.

The trademark Interflug-style we all love is all there. CasioTone madness, acoustic guitar, the man himself and all, and in a very laid-back and summer-y style. Nice!


Yours Truly, Young jZ

Well, I have only one week to go here at work before going on the longest holiday of my life so far. Which is nice. My Jopo is fixed again, after being broken for months, my guitar fx pedal collection just keep growing and I have already begun growing a proper German-style moustache for the summer. Let’s see how far I can take the moustache project this time, I mean this time it’s 4REAL, maybe.

Get the party started

If you're around in Helsinki and wondering what to do next weekend, seek no further! Next friday the Kriton Trio will be operating on the turntables @ Vinyl Bar. What you'll get there is genuine banging Kriton sound: you really can not be sure what to expect. The sound will be fresh, that's guaranteed: lot's of new Kriton remixes will be played alongside r&b, reggae, hip hop and rock.

See ya there!

The Eagle Has Finally Landed - The first ever Kriton Mixtape is here!

Yessiiiiir, i'm not lying to you!

This is the first ever full blooded Kriton mixtape. This little baby contains a mini-set from each Kriton member - Alppila a.k.a. Fiil Inc, Hennessy a.k.a. Hennyman & Jzzi a.k.a. Young Jzzer. The sound is ghetto through and through, there are exclusive remixes and blends, celebrity shoutuouts and innovative vocoder breaks.

The styles vary from down south rap to r&b, dancehall to roots and lovers rock, old school hiphop to electro and hippie rock. So what i need you to right now is download this lil sucka, grab a bite of that on your iPod while sippin on dat Patron and have a GOOD OLD FASHIONED P.A.R.T.Y.!

64 mins / Hella many tracks / 192 kbs/ 88 mb Download it here playboys!

***
Hell, why not. i'll throw in the tracklist for all you bad boys and nasty gals out there.

Kriton High School Bangers: The Eagle Has Landed - A Kriton Partymix


Kriton High School Bangers: Scared Money (Alppila’s Mixtape Edit)
Crime Mob: Rock Yo Hips
Young Jeezy: J.E.E.Z.Y
Brooke Valentine feat. Dem Franchize Boyz: Pimped Out
MIMS feat. Junior Reid & Cham: This Is Why I’m Hot (Blackout Remix)
Mike Jones: Mr. Jones
Trick Daddy feat. Baby: Tuck Ya Ice
Collie Buddz: Come Around (When Kriton Come Around Remix)
Chuck Fender: Judgement
Chuck Fender & Cherine: Comin Over Tonight
Kiprich & Delishus: Joe Grind
Bone Crusher feat Too Short & Pimp C: Can't Get No Helicopter (Hennessy Blend)
Collie Buddz: Tomorrow's Another Day
Buju Banton feat. Pinchers: Don & Dupes
Buju Banton: Driver A
Clipse feat. Slim Thug: Wamp Wamp (What It Do) (Hennessy Blend)
Shaggy: Church Heathen
Gwen Stefani feat Pharrell: Yummy (Kriton's United Ghettos Remix)
The Stooges: No Fun
Stezo: To The Max
Eazy-E: Eazy-Er Said Than Dunn
ZZ Top: Nasty Dogs And Funky Kings
J.V.C. F.O.R.C.E.: Strong Island
Maggotron: Welcome To The Bass Planet
Faith No More: We Care A Lot
Cybotron: Clear
Public Enemy: Public Enemy #1
KRS-One: Sound Of Da Police
Sweet Tee: Show And Prove
Ultra Magnetic MC's: Funky
Op:l Bastards: Funking
Led Zeppelin: Good Times, Bad Times
Poppa Ron Love: I'm A Girl Watcher
3rd Bass: Steppin' In To The A.M.
Stezo: To The Max

WeeMee to the rescue

This is really nerdy, but I had to blog this one... Weeworld is a new service that allows you to create a weemee, aka minime, an avatar that you can link to your blogs, e-mails and what ever you like. The fun part is that this is a live link, so once you alter your weemee, it automatically is updated wherever you have linked this little creature.

I suggest that all Kriton boys blog here their weemees, so that you can get the picture what we either are like or what we would like to be. Here's Henny...



And yeah, it's also fun to play games with your own weemee as the character.


EDIT, this be me, Young jzZi:

Gwar, what is it good for?

Yuh know , in the time of web 2.0 hype it’s so humorous that every week there seems to come more and more new ridicilously named websites and services, like tubeflocks, wikibee, roomle or googster (these names were actually made up by using an web 2.0 name generator .
Most of these r rubbish obviously, but Joost seems quite promising. Ok it’s really hyped, but once they get it up and running for good and get some quality content, it’s gonna be a bomb.

I’ve been using the service for a few weeks now, and although it’s really bugged, it’s got a lot of potential. Last good kicks I got out of watching this Scottish hat wearing Canadian interviewer "Nardwuar" interviewing Gwar. I had totally forgotten the existence of this band, they really rock. I mean Lordi is like a wimp Swedish cousin of this band. I hope that when the Eurovision song contest hype starts to spread next week, we all remember that Gwar is the real thing, Lordi is the diet version. Look at the picture above and you’ll see it for yourself…