Pre-Bloom Interview/Mix with The Digital Connection

We are super excited to release an exclusive Sonic Bloom Mini-Mix and interview with our good friend Ricky Shine aka The Digital Connection. Ricky has been surging in the Denver bass music scene the last half decade with his all original take on melodious yet crunchy bass heavy music. I've been following Ricky's career for the last year pretty closely, watching him perform multi state tours, BIG festivals like Gem and Jam in Tuscon, AZ, and I even brought him to Grand Junction with Joman for a show at Mesa Theater earlier this year. I'm a HUGE fan of his music, and am pleased to present you with another Fix Your Face interview, AND his super dope Sonic Bloom Minimix FULL of BRAND NEW ALL ORIGINAL tracks!!!

FYFR:

Ricky,

For those who don't know, tell us a little bit about your sound?

Ricky:

I go by the alias The Digital Connection, I’ve been producing electronic music for about 5 years now. I would describe my sound best as being a combination of a little of everything, mainly Melodic Dubstep/Glitch Hop/Drum&Bass. I come from a background of playing guitar inbands and listening to lots of Metal/Rock growing up, it’s had a huge impact on the sound that i’ve been able to develop over the years. One of my goals with this music project is to break the barriers of the norm and leave the comfort zone completely to explore new untouched areas of both composition and sound design. I want to make something unlike anything out there right now.

FYFR: 

I for one am SUPER excited about Sonic Bloom, the lineup is STACKED.

What artists are you most excited about seeing this year?

RICKY:

Sonic Bloom has been my favorite festival over the last couple of years, they never disappoint with the lineup. I’m most excited about getting to see Opiou, Bluetech, Truth & Thriftworks. Plus some awesome friends of mine will be playing as well such as NastyNasty, Ill-Esha, Phutureprimitive, Russ Liquid plus many more, it’s gonna be such a blast!!

FYFR:

This is your second year playing at the festival correct? How does it

compare with other festivals you've played? Please describe the difference,

if any, in crowd vibes at the festies in other states?

RICKY:

This is actually my 3rd year playing, I’m so happy i could be apart of this amazing festival again. The thing that’s awesome about Sonic Bloom is that people are so open to hearing new things that it’s a perfect environment to really test the potential of your music. It’s also really great that it’s a unity of both artists and fans camping/partying/enjoying live music together. It’s something totally unique from the big name festivals , we’re all family here.

FYFR:

With all the advancements in technology over the last decade, especially in

the realm of electronic dance music, what are your weapons of choice?

RICKY:

Guitar will always be my primary instrument, but when it comes to Electronic Music there are a few select plugins that are my goto tools. I use Ablton 9 for all my production and live sets, the plugins I use the most all come from Native Instruments Komplete instrument bundle. My plugins of choice would deffinitley be Massive for any lead/midrange bass tones, Studio drummer for layering with my drum sounds, and Reaktor which features a wide array of complex synths to choose from. Probably the coolest thing to me about making electronic music is creating sounds completely from scratch and twisting and bending and splitting frequencies until you get something that’s out of this world. I never get bored of making music because everytime i still learn something new, I can’t imagine what sort of tools we will have 10 years from now.

FYFR:

I'm dying for some Digital Connection swag, where can I get some??

RICKY:

I’m actually working on a few things right now, I just made some stickers which will be available for free from my website  (TheDigitalConnectionMusic.com) and at shows. But a few other things are in the works such as T-shirts/Hat’s/Hat Pins which should start being readily available online/at tour dates around fall time.

www.facebook.com/thedigitalconnection

www.soundcloud.com/the-digital-connection

www.TheDigitalConnectionMusic.com

www.facebook.com/sonicbloom
www.sonicbloomfestival.com

END FEED

Sonic Bloom: Final Lineup Announced!

It has finally arrived!!! The final wave of artists was announced earlier today with some VERY pleasant surprises :) Some of my favorite cats in the Denver game: The Digital Connection, Samples, Cloud-D, Late Night Radio, Kruza Kid, White Robot, and more! Check out the full additions list on the Sonic Bloom FB Page. Plus, with SOOOOO many other things to do at the festival, is there ANY reason you don't have your ticket yet?? I'll make it easy for you, go get one NOW, because if you don't, you will probably regret it for the rest of your summer. And did I mention they are nearly sold out?! BUY A TICKET HERE

So just in case it's not painfully obvious as usual, here's a comprehensive list of the artists I will be covering this year (schedule permitting). I will also be doing interviews with as many artists as possible, as well as holding shows at camp FIX YOUR FACE on the late night tip. I will have my portable Lucid Visions Video rig and doing visuals for anyone who will let me. I'm hoping to also interview one of the resident festival VJ's Jonathan Singer or Aeonchild. (Click any links to visit the artist FB page)

• Lucent Dossier Experience
• Opiuo
• VibeSquad
• The Grouch and Eligh
• Minnesota
• Phutureprimitve
• ill.Gates
• NastyNasty
• ill-esha
• Wick-It the Instigator
• Love & Light
• David Starfire
• Desert Dwellers
• Thriftworks
• Robotic Pirate Monkey
• Mat the Alien
• Unlimited Aspect
• Russ Liquid
• The Floozies
• Crywolf
• Samples
• Papa Skunk
• Goosebumpz
• Whitebear
• Mikey Thunder
• Krooked Drivers
• Coult-45
• kLL sMTH / 2NUTZ
• The Digital Connection
• Sauce
• Cloud-D
• Late Night Radio
• White Robot
• Kruza Kid
• Atomic Reactor

Shadowboxing Remix EP Drops!

I been listening to Zion I since the True & Livin album dropped several years ago. Since then, I've seen them perform at many festivals, and even if I don't see them live, someone during the show manages to drop a track or a remix of one of their SICC tracks. Today, their Shadowboxing Remix EP was released for Name Your Price on Bandcamp, and IT IS DOPE. Remixes from my homie Timeline of Pretty Ugly, Robotic Pirate Monkey, Bassnectar, Butch Clancy, and many more.  Peep Game :)

Sonic Bloom Wave 3 Artist Lineup Announced!

Where to begin? I've been to a lot of Colorado festivals, but Sonic Bloom 2013 is looking to be the most involved, across the board awesome festival I have ever been to. The lineup: AMAZING. Wave 3 was released last week and with Wave 4 still to come, I couldn't be more excited. The lineup runs the gauntlet of EDM genres; from IDM to Trap, Glitch to the grimy Dubstep, Downtempo, Livetronica and everything else in between. I've seen the festival circuit evolve in the last few years into something very different from the general idea of what you might think even a four day concert is like. Sonic Bloom is an entirely different beast all together. Complete with over 10 workshops packed into 4 days ranging from sound therapy to beginners aerial gymnastics, and that doesn't even include the daily dose of sunrise yoga sessions.  There's river rafting, hiking, art galleries, live painters, inspirational and informational speakers, festival film viewings, even a Silent Disco where everyone in a big tent has their own headset with a feed from the DJ instead of a big sound system. I tried this at Snowball earlier this year- very cool!
Of all the different festivals I have been to in Colorado, I have to say that Sonic Bloom is by far the most impressive in terms of variety of activities. I spend a lot of time defending these big shows I go to from criticism across the board. Many people, younger and older feel like these big shows and festivals are just another excuse to get buck, drop dangerous designer drugs, and have unprotected sex with strangers. While this still holds true for some, EDM has been around now for over 20 years, and most of us true heads are getting too old for that shit. We have real jobs, real families, and real responsibilities. I'm so happy that we've found a way to keep the music in our lives without needing all the sub culture bullshit that goes along with it. That's going to be a big subject of conversation in  my interviews with artists at the festival this year, so stay tuned :) Here's my part 3 of the Preparty Mixtape. Tickets are still available (BUT NOT FOR LONG) on the Sonic Bloom website. See you all in a few weeks :)

Exodus: Daytona's Bon Voyage

Well, the time has come. Our good friend Daytona Velasquez is leaving Grand Junction to finally take grasp of a bigger scene. I have been following Jays career since I moved to GJ over four years ago. I was immediately impressed by his DJ skills from the first house party I saw him play, only to find out the most of his tracks were original productions. Now's he's got originals on Beatport Top 20, and exclusive releases on the hottest blogs and music sites. His collaboration with another homie, Paul TimeLine Jarvis, became known as Pretty Ugly. Some of my favorite tracks of all time are written and performed by these two gents, and I am proud to be sending Daytona off PROPER with a RAGER at Audio Underground @ 601 Pitkin this Friday, May 17th. We are bringing down from Denver one of Beta Nightclub's Resident DJs JONTRON, along with Daytona himself, and Chris Epic, with S.Mayjor kicking things off at 10pm. A full size Lucid Visions Video installation will be in effect, and the beautiful ladies from Pandamonium GoGo will be in the building breakin hearts :) RSVP to the Facebook event HERE. It will be sad to see him go, but even better to see him live out his dreams :)

Sonic Bloom Wave 2 Lineup Announced! (For Real This Time)

The Aprils Fools joke Sonic Bloom Festival played on us all yesterday via Twitter set the bar pretty high for the actual Wave 2 Lineup Announcement released today, but they did not disappoint! Even though a reunion party featuring Pretty Lights, Bassnectar, and STS9 would be super rad, I was definitely excited to see that Lucent Dossier Experience had been added, along with TRUTH, The Floozies, SubSquabi, Robotic Pirate Monkey, The Werks, Luke the Knife (Luke Miller from Lotus), Unlimited Aspect ( ProJect Aspect x Unlimited Gravity),and more! For more information about this amazing 3 day, 4 night festival, head to www.sonicbloomfestival.com 

As promised, here is Part 2 of the Sonic Bloom Preparty Podcast. Enjoy!

Fix Your Face Podcast to air on Sub.Mission Radio!

Sub.Mission has been running the Dubstep game in Denver, CO for the last 6 years, and the sole reason that Denver is now known as the dubstep capital of the USA. So it's no surprise that I was ecstatic when I heard my fans were requesting that I do a podcast for Sub.Mission Radio. Well, I'm very excited to announce I have just finished up an hour long podcast to be aired soon-so stay tuned! The mix is not yet public, but just for my loyal blog readers- I'm letting you be the first to hear it!! It's all tracks produced/remixed by local COLORADO based artists, cause you know I like to keep it in the family :) Enjoy!!