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Mastermind Street Jam #3 – October 22, 1994
Mastermind Street Jam was a great Golden Era hip-hop mixshow on Energy 108 (107.9 fm CINJ) that people from Hamilton to Toronto enjoyed back in the day. I taped it religiously and have started digitizing those cassettes to share with all of you. This is Tape 3 from my extensive collection and it features an…
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MIDI Changed Everything
“In 1981, Roland developed a standard for electronic musical instruments called Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI. This was a standard for unifying the signal that connected the keyboard and sound generator. By unifying all the different types of signals that manufactures had been using into the MIDI standard, we were able to give electronic…
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Mastermind Street Jam (Oct 1994) Tape 2
Welcome back to Mastermind Mondays, the day you can visit here to take a trip back in time to hip-hop’s Golden Age. A time when you could turn on commercial radio and hear a great mixshow by DJ Mastermind. The Mastermind Street Jam could be heard from 5:00 to 7:00 pm EST on Energy 108…
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Chasing Content – The Best of Last March
It’s time for another edition of Chasing Content, that monthly feature that has us looking back at the best content featured on this blog from this month one year ago. Read all of the posts from last March . . . or just these highlights Billy Danze of M.O.P. on Word is Bond’s 7th Anniversary Special…
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The Pirate Planet – The way it was Meant to be Told
Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet by James Goss from a Douglas Adams story Douglas Adams got his first television writing credit for this story in the 16th series of Doctor Who. He had a very elaborate story in mind and left behind several drafts and notes for how he envisioned it. The four episodes that…
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Mastermind Mondays – Tape #1 of The Mastermind Street Jam
Mastermind Street Jam was a radio show on Energy 108 (107.9fm) that served the Hamilton, Burlington, and Toronto areas in the mid to late 1990s. This hip-hop mixshow was required listening. It was unique because it was on commercial radio Saturdays from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. It then moved to Monday and Tuesday nights from…
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Use the Right Communication Tool
“I have found that once people have texting, chat, and email available, they stick with them even when they suspect that these are not the right tools for the job. Why? They are convenient. They make us feel in control. But when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and less in control, our relationships, creativity,…
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The Magic of Creativity
Sometimes when I am writing or creating, it feels like I am merely the channel that helps the work express itself. There has always been a magic to creativity. In her book, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert explain it like this . . . “I am referring to the supernatural, the mystical, the inexplicable, the surreal,…
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A Black Woman Created This Tour – Rapsody in Detroit
On Friday, Rapsody brought her A Black Woman Created This tour to Detroit and it was an amazing show. The duo, Better in Black, kicked off the festivities with a short set that captured the audience’s attention. Nappi Devi is seen above on the right and Junii is on the left. It was nice to see a…
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Great Picture Books
I’ve have been reading a lot of picture books to my little Gizmo over the past year. Most are completely unremarkable. Some are absolutely terrible. And a sparse few are fantastic. Here are two of them that deserve to be on your bookshelf if you have young children or teach them. The Doghouse by Jan…