Jesus the Christ!  Rocktits DJ collective main man Russell Alexander presents a completely devastating brand new mixtape consisting of a 70 minute 60 song all beat matched and blended heavy psyche mix. I gotta be honest, I am usually pretty skeptical of computer assisted mixtapes but this mix is the absolute truth. These guys are true fans and true record crate digging - obscure tune finding machines. Plus, this is heavy rock - it’s a lot harder to mix that whatever bammer bloghouse junk I see out there on mixtapes where DJs front like they did it manually and live. Russell isn’t fronting - he comes correct and brings the real deal heat. We sat down and asked him a few questions about the mix. Keep reading for the interview and a link to enable you to download the tunes

Fun Vampires: Holy shit, Russ! This mix is wild!

Russ: It’s The Rocktits! Heavy Cosmic Groove mix. The mix had all of our (Rocktits DJs) input although I did all the computer nerdery.

FV: For real, this mix is impressive! Where can people catch you DJing?

Russ: Currently I am regularly doing RockTits at Making Time and Immediate at The M Room. I’ve been doing some nights in Brooklyn, NY, too. At RockTits we play a lot of the tracks that are on the mix or tracks of a similar style. Plus the usual rock party hits. We are currently looking to get a weekly or monthly going where we spin nothing but these obscure heavy groovers that we all have tons of.

FV: I love DJing but I have to admit that I am computer-dumb. How’d you make this thing?

Russ: I started with the idea to make a Hip-Hop/Electronic style mixtape but with all of these funky rock tracks - many of which have been sampled in Hip Hop songs. Initially, I was messing around with a progam called Ableton…mixing funk tracks and then I started messing around with more rock tracks. I was able to get a few track to fit together with good results so I decided that this could be done on a larger scale. At that point, I switched over to a program called MixMeister which did exactly what Ableton was doing for me in this context, but much more effectively. I called up the other fellas and said “Bring all your tracks over - we’re making a beat-matched/blended rock mix!” Over the next several months, Nez and Joel would come over weekly and we would rip new tracks. Slowly, I got each track to fit together. Nez and Joel would critique. I would get defensive and we’d argue back and forth and then make the changes. We just kept doing this from January until about June. Finally, in September, I got motivated and got Starkey, who mastered Dave P, Adam Sparkles and Julian Pink Skull’s stuff to master it. He did a great job. We asked Dave to host it on RVNG and he was down….now it’s here for everyone.

FV: For real, I’m not kidding - I don’t know shit about computer recording. I still make my dumb hip-hop mixes on cassette tapes! How do Ableton and that other thing work?

Russ: As far as the actually process in MixMeister goes…basically you start with a track. The program calculates the tempo and the key. Key is pretty important when trying to get rock tracks to fit. You have to go through and add warp markers so that each bar is the same length. Next, I would try to find another song with a similar tempo and the same or relatively close key. I would try to get that song to fit with the original. Often times I would have to loop the intro or outro drum break to allow more time to mix. There was a lot of editing of tracks, too. Next, you just EQ and maybe mess with transforming or some other tricks to give it a little flare. The EQing part was definitely really important. Most of these songs really didn’t want to fit together at first and took a lot of messing about to get them to blend together.

FV: Man, I don’t even know what that shit means! Someone teach me on how to record my dumb mixes! More importantly, when are you and/or the Rocktits Crue DJing again?

Russ: We’re gonna be at the next two Making Time events - October 12th and 19th. Possibly at CMJ October 20th. Plus, I am a DJ at Immediate.

FV: Awesome! Thanks, dude!

Track Listing:

1. Sweet Green Fields - Seals and Croft - 0.00
2. The Rock - Atomic Rooster - 1.20
3. Tomorrow Night - Atomic Rooster - 1.32
4. I’m A Mover - Free - 2.27
5. Rock & Roll Stew - Traffic - 3.19
6. Collage - James Gang - 4.01
7. Rödluvan - November - 5.48
8. Druganaut - Black Mountain - 6.28
9. Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll - Blue Oyster Cult - 7.33
10. All You’ve Got Is Money - Grand Funk Railroad - 9.02
11. Hear The Good News - Jesse Harper - 10.40
12. I Can Tell - King Harvest - 11.34
13. Mongoose - Elephant Memory - 12.41
14. Hot And Nasty - Black Oak Arkansas - 13.55
15. Easy Woman - El Ritual - 15.54
16. Love Love Love Love - Wool - 16.16
17. Break the Ice - Atomic Rooster - 17.53
18. Longtime Wait - The Richard Whittington Adventure - 19.05
19. Shop Around - Neil Merryweather - 20.57
20. Ghengis Khan - Mick Stevenson - 21.49
21. Up on Cripple Creek - The Band - 23.15
22. Door to Door Love - Bones - 24.04
23. Borstal - Fresh - 25.00
24. Feel too Good - The Move - 26.26
25. Isn’t it About Time - Manassas - 27.28
26. How Far - Stephen Stills - 28.08
27. Apostrophe - Frank Zappa - 29.15
28. I Just Want to Celebrate - Rare Earth - 30.22
29. Last Train to Clarksville - Damnation - 32.46
30. Good Love Man - Universal Jones - 33.52
31. Highway - Human Instinct - 34.34
32. I’ll Bet You - Funkadelic - 36.14
33. Long Red Live - Mountain - 37.26
34. Baby Baby Baby (Live) - Los Dug Dugs - 37.56
35. Everybody’s Clown - Lucifer’s Friend - 38.58
36. Fido - The Byrds - 39.32
37. Hold Your Fire - Patto - 40.52
38. American Woman - The Guess Who - 41.47
39. Good Times Bad Time - Led Zeppelin - 43.23
40. The Word We Seek - Alamo - 44.20
41. Blue Rose - The Third World - 46.16
42. Black Betty - Ram Jam - 47.21
43. Gypsy Eyes - Jimi Hendrix - 48.37
44. Mina Fotspår Fylls Av Vatten - November - 49.08
45. Supernaut - Black Sabbath - 52.27
46. The Beast - Aphrodite’s child - 54.09
47. My Dark Hour - Steve Miller Band - 55.42
48. Spider’s Web - Hard Stuff - 57.04
49. Marie’s a Woman - Five Day Rain - 57.37
50. Just Wanna Make Love To You - Group Called Smith - 57.53
51. Johnny - Maypole - 58.30
52. Minus-Plus - Smith - 59.05
53. Fools - Deep Purple - 60.07
54. K.C. Funk - Blackstone - 61.53
55. Klis Ta Matia Son Akou - Socrates Drank the Conium - 64.11
56. He Ya - Geronimo - 65.40
57. I’m Chief Kamanawanalea - The Turtles - 66.28
58. Hey You - Corporal Gander’s Fire Dog Bri - 67.10
59. Toe Grabber - Freedom - 67.50
60. Archangel Mesafeler - Amon Duul II/Erkin Koray - 68.34

Check it out by clicking HERE!