The Bag Messenger BlogBag Design and Urban Living

Here they are! Some winter music conference photos from last weeks trip. We had a great time running around hitting events and meeting folks. Thanks to everyone who showed love! Extra special shout to Tamir Z. Brown from Lyrics To Go, Al Swaki of Chung King Studios, 4th Pyramid, Cosmo Baker, Greg Nice and Big Al. See you next time in Miami!

-THE BAG MESSENGER

Swaki in front, Greg Nice, 4th Pyramid, Tamir Z Brown, Big Al,  Case Bloom

Check those placks out....Greg Nice and Tamir Z. Brown with the man.

Cosmo Baker has more Dashiki's than you.

The gang on the set of the Wire Miami.

Rich Medina getting on the good foot at Yuca Lounge with the North To South Messenger.

Bobbito Garcia is the man. If you don't know hit your googler. 

Uber crate digger KON in the b-boy stance (Kon and Amir/Waxpoetic's magazine)

Get the North To South Messenger bag here, and start planing for next years WMC trip.

Welcome to another work week everyone! Those of us on the East Coast have been getting hammered with rain for a few days now and with that in mind we present to you, the perfect rainy day mix "In The Rain" by DJ STEVE1DER. It would be fair to say that this mix is rain themed, but unfair to not explain what that means. Being that I have a full weeks worth of WMC sleep to catch up on and all this typing is getting in the way, I'll let you listen to the mix yourselves and take a nap. I will tell you that Steve will be visiting Philly this Friday to rock a video set at The Barbary. Come out and ask him yourself.

-THE BAG MESSENGER

Dj Steve1der presents.... In The Rain by DJ STEVE1DER

TRACKLIST: 

1. IN THE RAIN - THE DRAMATICS
2. IN THE RAIN - CHOSEN FEW
3. SOMEBODY CAN STAND THE RAIN - NEW EDITION/BIGGIE
4. THE RAIN/PAIN - BILLY PAUL/MURS
5. COME IN OUTTA THE RAIN - PARLIAMENT
6. I CAN'T STAND THE RAIN - LARRY GRAHAM
7. I CAN'T STAND THE RAIN - MISSY
8. MEMORIES LIVE - REFLECTION ETERNAL
9. RAIN OR SHINE - COUNT BASS-D
10. RAIN - FELICIANO/THE BELLS
11. RAINDROPS...-
12. ACID RAINDROPS - P.U.T.S.
13. RAIN IS GONE - FRANKENSTEIN
14. RAINZY DAYZ - RAEKWON
15. RAINY DAYS - PHAT KAT
16. RAIN - CHAMILLIONAIRE
17. RAIN - CUNNINGLYNGUISTS
18. AIN'T NO SUNSHINE - LYN COLLINS
19. AIN'T NO SUNSHINE - JIM LINDS
20. AIN'T NO SUNSHINE - MICHAEL JACKSON
21. AIN'T NO SUNSHINE - BILL WITHERS
22. AIN'T NO SUNSHINE - EDDY SENAY
23. AIN'T NO SUNSHINE - WILLIS JACKSON
24. IT NEVER RAINS IN SO. CAL - T.T.T.
25. RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY - BOB AZZAM
26. RAINMAKER - HARRY NILLSON
27. RAIN ON ME - ASHANTI
28. QUIET STORM - SMOKEY ROBINSON
29. U CAN'T STOP THE RAIN - SHAQ
30. STOP THE RAIN - A.W.B.
31. RAIN ON THURSDAY - BOBBY HUTCHERSON
32. RIDERS OF THE STORM - THE DOORS
33. RAINY DAY, DREAM AWAY - JIMI HENDRIX
34. GO AHEAD IN THE RAIN - A.T.C.Q.
35. STORMY - THE CLASSICS IV
36. PURPLE RAIN - PRINCE
37. WALKING IN THE RAIN - GRACE JONES
38. WALKING IN THE RAIN - LOVE UNLIMITED
39. WALKING IN THE RAIN - O.J. JONES
40. 17 DAYS - PRINCE

Get the North To South Messenger bag here, add our waterproof liner to keep your goods dry while looking fly. 

As Winter wraps up and everyone is packing away sweaters and heavy jackets, I morn the end of soup season. Is there a more perfect food? One of my favorite soups is the humble minestrone, a nourishing  alchemy of vegetables and water that is a meal in itself. Don't forget to bring this one out from time to time. They say eating soup in the summer helps keep the body cool.

-THE BAG MESSENGER 

Ingredients 

 
red cabbage ( any type of cabbage will do but I like the color red cabbage adds)

dried large Lima beans

dried navy beans

2 potatoes

celery

carrots

1 red onion

quart crushed tomato

water

salt & pepper

crushed red pepper

garlic
 
Process
 
saute 2 cups of cabbage in a large pot in olive oil till cabbage begins to brown

fill the pot about half way with water

add 2 cups of dried Lima beans

add 1 cup navy beans

2 potatoes

celery

carrots

1 red onion

quart crushed tomato
 
Allow this to boil for 2-3 hours

Add crushed red pepper and minced garlic
 
Continue to boil but turn down heat and put a lid on the pot for another 1-2 hours

Add salt & pepper to taste

Serve with a nice hunk of sourdough bread and enjoy!

Get the simple messenger bag here. The perfect bag for a day of running around with room for life's large and small ingredients .

This week's interview is a repost from a while back, our interview with DJ Ayres of The Rub.

-THE BAG MESSENGER 

The Bag Messenger: What's in your bag at all gigs?

DJ AYRES: Serato records, headphones, laptop, serato box, and allergy pills

The Bag Messenger: What is one track you can pull out at any time, that is guaranteed to always rock it?

DJ AYRES: I do so many different gigs. Umm..Hot Music by Soho.

The Bag Messenger: Bathroom break song?

DJ AYRES: We have these records that we made...rough edit records that are mega mixes. Each side is 15 minutes long but it changes songs like every minute and a half to two minutes. We just recorded ourselves djing really good sets and did a rough medley. So I put that on and it sounds like I'm still djing. So I can do whatever and come back.

The Bag Messenger: Most influential DJ?

DJ AYRES: Jazzy Jeff. DJ Spinna. Guys that can play hip hop, R&B, house, classics, reggae, rock, or whatever and are really good at all of those things. I like really versatile sets.

The Bag Messenger: Strangest request?

DJ AYRES: Oh god! At Lotus about year and a half ago they would transition over from a being a restaurant to being a night club. When I would get there they would make me wait till everyone was done eating. So you would get there at 10:30, but it might not happen till 11o'clock depending on how much people were spending. So anyways that would bring really odd people into night club situations who wouldn't normally be there, because you have a dinner crowd rubbing elbows with a nightclub crowd. There were these girls who must have been ether teenagers or college kids, they were very young with their mother and her friend. You know, two middle aged women, two younger women. So the girls come over and they bring me a napkin, and usually when you get a napkin its gonna be like "Can you play Chingy" "Can you play Black Eyed Peas" or Brittany. You know some pop shit or something like that, but she had written on the napkin "Can you play some old music? My grandmother just died and it would really mean a lot to my mom." This is still in the warm up part of the night, so I did a Motown Set, which I would do anyway. Its not a stretch at all (for me) to play oldies. They loved it and came over afterwards. They were really happy. It was so weird. You look at them and think Brittany Spears fans, or you know.."These cougars are gonna want to hear some bullshit", but all they wanted to hear the Temptations. It was great and weird. That happens like one in a million.

The Bag Messenger: Have you ever had anyone who didn't know you were a professional DJ come up to you and emphatically demand that you switch the song or turn off what's playing?

DJ AYRES: Yeah all types of shit. You know you will have people who are going to the club for themselves or with their little group of people, and a girl will come up and be like "Can you play Motley Crue? Everyone would really love it if you played Motley Crue right now." No...I'm not gonna do that because the crowd here. It's ten o'clock at night, so even if I were to play it, it's the wrong time. These people want to here Total or 112, they don't want to be banged in the head with bottle service rock. Than another girl comes over and is like "Can you play Motley Crue?" and you think, "Didn't you just come up here?" Ooh...that was your friend. They send all their friends over . I get it. EVERYONE wants to hear Motley Crue right now, but I'm still not playing it. You can't trick me.the demographics don't work. A lot of times people just want to hear something and don't understand that there is a room full of people your entertaining. And that you're trying to hold on to 90%, not trying to please 10%. If I can get to the other 10% over the course of several hours I'll be really happy, but you cant just shift gears just to make one person happy because its their birthday and loose everyone else. You have to make them feel like they are a part of something and not in exclusion to everyone else.. You have to explain to someone in so many words that it's not all about you. It's not all about me. I don't love this song that I'm playing right now but look at the crowd. Other times at The Rub, its just like "Fuck No","We've been here for seven years, and there is a line around the block. Please leave so someone else can come in and I can make ten more dollars from someone who would love to get in and be very happy to be here." Sometimes I'll be doing a wedding or something and someone will come over and say "Can you play some metal?" and its like "hummmm."That actually happened to me at a venue in when I played a wedding for this music executive guy who was very emphatic about wanting this song, and this song, and this song, and this song. "This is my second marriage and I just want to hear what I want to hear." So you're just gonna do what this guy wants and try to make it a good wedding. A woman comes over and asks, "can you play metal?" and its like...let me figure out who this person is. If it's the bride, fuck yeah...I'm playing what ever you want. If its just some drunk asshole cousin, than no...what are you doing? Your making a huge mistake. This guy wants world music. Metal is definitely not gonna get me tips.

The Bag Messenger: Do you still dig for records? How has Serato changed the way you dig?

DJ AYRES:  Yeah I still dig but its changed hugely. Now getting the record is like a last resort because it used to be that you were judged for your selection, but now with Serato everybody has everything. Even with CDJs it was like this before Serato. You could play the stupid song that they did on Saturday Night Live the night before and get a reaction. So the digging from that perspective...nobody cares. Nobody is gonna come in the booth and be like "Eww, he's playing that off an Ipod", or mp3, or he's using Ableton with a midi controller or whatever. Nobody gives a shit. If people here a hot song, they like it. On the other hand, there is a ton of shit that you can get on record that you can't get on amazon.com or itunes. Stuff you can't find it on a blog, kids don't know about it, that's still really hot, that excites me and my peers. So for that reason I'm still buying records because that stuff just hasn't made it to mp3 yet, or you've looked for it and a mp3 doesn't really exist. Nobody has it and you just have to spend $100 on it because the ten other people who have that 45 aren't trying to let that song get out. There is much less of that than there used to be. Every year it gets less and less. I think that now it's less about getting really exclusive records and more about getting really exclusive edits, getting tracks from DJs before they come out. Not on some breaking a record shit, but just a cool version of something before everyone else has it. 

DJ AYRES edit of Curtis Mayfield "Move On Up". This one moves the dancefloor.

Check out Ayres rocking the North to South dj bag in gray, get it here .