The Blacklight Special

22/05/2023

A vinyl only tour through Liza weird, from new vinyl-exclusive tracks to long-sought-after represses of old school cuts. From Pampa to Defected to completely unknown labels. From microhouse to big fun

07/12/2022

SoundCloud page for "The Blacklight Special" radio show. Airing on Sunday nights from 10pm until 1am on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, CA. Primarily focusing on the underbelly of the House and Tech

01/12/2022

We investigate how Instagram links to anxiety for professionals of the underground music scene.

19/07/2022

Jo Bisso -- Lover's Concerto

12/07/2022

3 hour Ambient set.

SoundCloud page for "The Blacklight Special" radio show. Airing on Sunday nights from 10pm until midnight on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, CA. Primarily focusing on the underbelly of the House and

04/05/2022

12/04/2022

Out May 2nd, it's the deep house pioneer's fifth LP under his legendary alias.

30/03/2022

Long post incoming.

These days, as I get back on the road, I'm asked almost every weekend what I was up to for the last 2+ years. I often struggle to find a simple answer. While it may appear that I was quiet or inactive on social media for a large part of the downtime we experienced, I was actually working on the biggest project I have ever taken on to date… Let me explain.

I’m extremely grateful and privileged to live my life by playing music…specifically other people’s music. Over the last 30 years of being involved in this community, I have watched it grow from an underground culture to a global industry, and along the way I’ve tried to promote the values I hold dear to what I discovered and what changed my life as a young person.

As much as the pandemic break was terrible for my music career, it gave me a moment of clarity and time to think about how to fix a problem in our music scene. That problem is the disparity between what DJs get paid and what producers earn. Over time this inequality has grown completely out of proportion and it's only getting worse with terrible streaming royalties, ineffective PROs, collection societies, and declining music sales for the average producer.

I realized that a solution to this problem wouldn’t get solved by hoping someone or something else would offer up working solutions. I could see that if we wanted these changes to happen instead of just talking about them getting worse, we would have to take matters into our own hands. I started to share this idea with a handful of others and in everyone's excitement, we tried to find reasons why this wouldn't work and why it was too much to take on. With each talk I had, I felt the idea was taking shape and was absolutely attainable. As complex as this project was, the core concept and mission is actually simple - To create a software and online platform that would do the complicated work for us, while really making a financial difference for those that created the music that pushed our dancefloors and fueled DJs like myself.

To come up with the right answers, I brought together a group of fellow artists and industry people to exchange ideas on how a solution could be implemented in the real world. I asked a lot of questions and formed concrete ideas and directions for what I'm announcing today. I spent the last two years developing the platform and technology that will challenge this problem head-on. The result is Aslice (“A slice” of the pie), a platform that is fair and equitable for all that use it. It’s a simple system/software that captures DJ playlists and distributes a voluntary financial share directly to the producers whose music they played. Technically, Aslice is powered by a machine-learning algorithm to help match music to its source and guarantee the right producers get credited! We tested the software in a private beta for 5 months and processed over 100 playlists and generated earnings for more than 2200 individual producers. Aslice works, now it's just a matter of our community implementing this new standard of sharing.

To my fellow colleagues (DJs), I hope you will give this a shot and consider sharing some of your success. To all the producers who supply me with music, from the legends to the up-and-coming artists, I hope you will benefit from Aslice and stay motivated to keep producing the soundtrack to so many of our life experiences. Without the music makers, I would have nothing as a DJ…period.

I won’t get into all the technical details here, but if you want to learn more about the project, please head over to www.aslice.com and take a few moments to read about the idea and our mission. You will see me speak about it more in the coming days, weeks, and months as we are now open to everyone!

The launch of Aslice has genuinely sparked a new optimistic view that our community can and will take care of itself in the face of an existing system that has never quite worked. Every step we have taken and the sheer support, excitement, and positive outlook on the impact this can have on our community is the biggest motivator and reinforcement! I come from a DIY background and this is the culmination of nearly 30 years of solving problems head-on.

With respect.
Zak

29/03/2022

I have a really special mix airing for Steel City Dance Discs tonight on Rinse FM (4pm PST for those of you here in LA) 👀 Catch me on the second hour after Soul Wun. Thanks to the SCDD crew for putting me on 🖤

08/02/2022

Provided to YouTube by The Orchard EnterprisesNew Decade Dub · Jah Shaka & Mad ProfessorNew Decade Of Dub℗ 1996 Ariwa SoundsReleased on: 2005-02-22Auto-gener...

16/01/2022

Label: Staalplaat - MUSLIMLIM 018 (July, 1998) (re-pressed May, 2008)Genre: ElectronicStyle: Ambient, Experimental, TribalTracklist00:00 Mullah Said (12.17...

22/12/2021

The Pine Walk Collection is on Mixcloud. Listen for free to their radio shows, DJ mix sets and Podcasts

18/10/2021

Provided to YouTube by Sequence Sequence LimitedSmoke One For Huckaby · Byron The AquariusSmoke One For Huckaby℗ 2021 Shall Not Fade LTDReleased on: 2021-09-...

07/10/2021

Stream high-quality and support the creators on Formaviva:https://formaviva.com/system-revival-recordings/gotshell-angular

04/10/2021

Broadcasting live from KCSB-FM 91.9 in Santa Barbara from now until midnight.

KCSB-FM 91.9. Independent, non-commercial, and educational community-college radio based at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

21/09/2021

Buy: https://forestdrivewest.bandcamp.com/album/dualism-e-pForest Drive West - Dualism Forest Drive West - Dualism Forest Drive West - New Day Forest Dri...

26/05/2021

03/04/2021

"In the spring of 1968, a cargo vessel set sail from Baltimore bound for Rio De Janeiro with a shipment of musical instruments from synth and keyboard manufacturers like Moog, Farfisa, Hammond and Korg. Its final destination was the EMSE Exhibition – the first major expo of electronic instruments in South America. The shipment never arrived.

Instead, as the story goes, the ship washed ashore on the Sao Nicolau island of Cabo Verde, spilling its precious cargo onto the beach. Under the instruction of anti-colonial leader Amílcar Cabral, the synths found their way to churches and schools, where they were hidden from the eyes and ears of the Portuguese regime."

A hybrid mini-doc on the cosmic music of resistance in Cape Verde Islands.More info: https://thevinylfactory.com/films/rebel-synths-of-cabo-verde/Directed by...

20/03/2021

20/02/2021

Underground Resistance, the sound of Detroithttp://www.bobjuice.co.uk

18/02/2021

IT’S HERE :’) KCSB’s Fund Drive 2021 is officially live! While our annual Fund Drive looks a little different this year, we are so happy to be able to continue this tradition even if remotely, of celebrating and raising funds for our lil station so we can continue to be a reliable resource for our beloved community, especially as we approach our 60th anniversary next year. Tune in to all the special Fund Drive programming airing 24/7 from today until next Wednesday, the 24th.

Instead of calling in to make your donation, just visit our website www.KCSB.org, and maybe even pick out some of the new KCSB merch as a thank-you gift for your generosity 🚀 Just click ‘donate + merch’ from the menu to receive a thank-you gift, or ‘donate direct’ to donate directly with no gift.

We appreciate you! Keep an eye out for announcements about more special live on-air programming and virtual festivities ⏰🎉

13/02/2021

♫ ITALO DISCO FUNK ♫

31/01/2021

SoundCloud page for "The Blacklight Special" radio show. Airing on Sunday nights from 10pm until midnight on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, CA. Primarily focusing on the underbelly of the House and

25/01/2021

https://youtu.be/XbHkd1cwEjQ

Provided to YouTube by The Orchard EnterprisesThe Evening Country · Peter PrincipleConjunction℗ 1990 SABAMReleased on: 1990-01-09Auto-generated by YouTube.

19/01/2021

Kate Bush - Get Out Of My House - 1982 - Dreaming

14/12/2020

TONIGHT!!

29/11/2020

https://www.instagram.com/e110101.dcg https://www.instagram.com/solortega1111 /https://www.instagram.com/detroitclassicgallery Contact: [email protected]...

12/11/2020

chooned in to GRYPHN

Space Milk supports the unity of the cosmos and its stellar inhabitants ❤ Donate if you got a dollar bill ya’ll https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd

30/10/2020

SoundCloud page for "The Blacklight Special" radio show. Airing on Sunday nights from 10pm until midnight on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, CA. Primarily focusing on the underbelly of the House and

21/10/2020

Provided to YouTube by Virtual Label LLC lrp-IV · Masaya Kato Wavefront Aberrations ℗ LINE Released on: 2019-07-19 Composer: Masaya Kato Auto-generated by Yo...