Archive for the ‘Rant’ Category

Who is Mikael Johnston of Dresden & Johnston?!

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

I’ve had many people ask me over the past year or so on Facebook, in email, at Dave’s shows etc. who I am and how did Dave and I get together. While there are a few interviews due out soon that explain exactly that, I felt I should write a post about it so you guys can get the answer to the question, “who the hell is this Johnston guy?!” So scroll down to read my mini bio, but first here are a couple of links to help explain the story.

Mikael Johnston Pre Dresden & Johnston Press Kit
MTVx aired this top 20 video of Mikael with his old project Mephisto Odyssey

Mikael Johnston Mini Bio
I got my start in San Francisco with my own project Mephisto Odyssey and label Mephisto Records in 1993 with the single “Dream of the Black Dahlia.” a few years later the label was absorbed by OM records but not before I released compilations of our labels singles on Crammed/SSR in Europe and City of Angels records in the U.S. From there Mephisto Odyssey signed to City of Angels, a label that was also home to The Crystal Method, Uberzone, Sandra Collins, Simply Jeff and others. While at COA we met Troy Wallace who was an A & R guy working under David Kahne at Warner Bros. Records. Troy had ambitions to bring dance music to Warner Bros. and had been scouting us for a while. About a year before we were actually offered a deal at Warner Bros. Troy came to us and was like “hey Jane’s Addiction is back together and I’m their A & R rep do you want to remix their new original?” We were like, “FUCK YEAH!” This was in 1997. That remix project turned into a maxi single project with us doing several remixes in various styles to showcase the track to the DJ world. Warner Bros. had expected the single to flop and when it did well in the Billboard Maxi Single sales chart it bought us a lot of credibility and david Kahne let Troy offer us a major label record deal. While at Warner Bros. we collaborated with and remixed several other Warner artists including, Soul Coughing , Los Amigos Invisibles and Static X. I met Dave Dresden when he interviewed Mephisto Odyssey at Groove Radio in 2000 and we became friends. When I left Warner Bros. at the beginning of 2002 I took a break and spent my time working as an engineer producer (even though I actually continued to write original material). This eventually led to me co-engineering “The Sounds” record “Dying To Say This To You” in 2005, alongside producer Jeff Saltzman (who is best known for producing The Killers Hot Fuss). Around that time one of the songs I had written while at Warner Bros. was licensed for the Film Hostel which was produced by Quentin Tarantino. This sparked my interest again in resurrecting my career as an artist producer under my old name Mephisto Odyssey. A few years later in 2008 I reconnected with Dresden while collaborating with my friend David Penner of Andain on song ideas. David is still collaborating with us on material which includes his contribution to the upcoming single with Nadia Ali “That Day.”

That’s the short version of the story, but I think this should clear up most of the questions you all have. :)
-Mikael

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Thank you Bank of America for ruining my Birthday.

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

Well, those who know me also know I’m not usually as outspoken as Dave but there is an exception to every rule. I’m here to rant a little bit about a terrible injustice that was done to me by Bank of America this week. Most people even those that see me every day rarely hear me speak so harshly about anything, so when I do it’s for good reason.

This December my 88 year old grandmother sent me a check for Christmas. Her eye sight is poor and thus her handwriting is admittedly not the best. However the check was legible and was filled out correctly, albeit her signature was a bit diagonal and the date kinda ran off the paper a bit. But never the less correctly filled out and legible. So I cashed it and waited a couple of days for the check to clear (which it did). I used the money to purchase gifts, pay bills etc. fast forward 9 days from deposit… I check my bank statement online and at just before midnight the night before (incidentally on my birthday!) they un-cleared the check removed the money from my account which caused a chain reaction of 12 overdraft fees at $35 a piece totaling over $400, plus the amount I was over drawn making the grand total owed to B of A over $800… more than the original check was even for! I was livid, but somewhat hopeful this could be resolved as it was obviously a mistake, right?!

I called customer service and they told me the check had already been returned and there was nothing they could do and they would not reverse any of the fees. I then proceed to my branch to complain. After investigating further by calling various departments within their system the branch associate was told that I was being investigated for fraud, and that they believed I had forged the check! By the way I’ve had this bank account for 9 years in good standing! Long story short I had to post another $1000 of my own money in the account to cover the overdraft and overdraft fees just to get them to unlock my ATM card! It’s unclear as to whether they plan to pursue this fraud investigation against me.

So I called my grandmother who is in assisted living due to a broken hip, and I have to explain to her what happened. She calls her bank which happens to be Wells Fargo, another f%&cked up institution but perhaps not as bad as B of A… Wells Fargo tells her that the check cleared and the money was withdrawn from her account. So where did the money go?! She then asked her bank if they would please fax a letter to my B of A branch stating the check was indeed written by her so I can have some recourse to try and recover my $420 in overdraft fees (and stop their fraud investigation against me). Wells Fargo tells her she has to appear in person in order for them to do this even though the check cleared, and even though she explained to them that she has a broken hip! WTF, she’s been with this same bank and branch for over 20 years! Trust me Wells Fargo sucks almost as much as B of A… So now I have to drive 30 miles from my home to try and take my grandmother with her broken hip, who hobbles with a walker in extreme pain just to get across the room to her bank to get this letter. Maybe a letter from Wells Fargo will be enough to get Bank of America to reverse the fees against my account, but while logic would tell you a letter from Wells Fargo should mean case closed give me my money back, I have a bad feeling based on other horror stories I’ve heard that this could only be the beginning.

For those who are interested and even those who aren’t I’ll be sure to update this post regarding how this turns out. …And for anyone from Bank of America that might stumble upon this article I just want to tell you that I hope you rot in hell for all eternity (if there even is a hell it’s too good for you)… and while you might not think I matter in the grand scheme of your business model (i.e. criminal enterprise) I actually do. Our website gets about 10,000 hits a month so far, and that number is growing every month. I suspect it will grow significantly once we release our first single in early 2010. If you don’t think our fans will be effected by this story you’re dead wrong.

And to our fans that Dave and I do care deeply for do yourself a favor and at all costs steer clear of doing business with Bank of America! I’d like to say this was an isolated incident but it’s not. I’ve had less severe problems with them on multiple occasions over the years but was too lazy to switch banks, now I’m paying the price. Many of my friends and family have also reported moderate to serious problems with B of A. To me they’re actions are criminal and I can only hope that congress investigates practices by banks like B of A one day and puts some laws into effect to protect the consumer against unwarranted and exuberant overdraft fee practices.

Last but not least if you have had a similar experience with Bank of America please post it in the comments. I’d like to hear what you have to say.

Thanks guys for listening to my rant and thank you Bank of America for ruining my birthday!

-Mikael

UPDATE:

I went into my bank branch yesterday… luckily I had a photocopy of the check from my grandmother as I deposited it in the ATM. The girl that helped me Francisca Ortiz knew right away that it wasn’t fraud because she knows my family. She was able to get all the overdraft fees reversed and she’s working on getting the money returned to my grandmother’s account. However in spite of her good customer service I received from Miss Ortiz I still have a great deal of contempt for B of A.

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random thoughts from a random guy

Friday, November 27th, 2009

hello fans, friends and detractors

yesterday was thanksgiving. the day where we sit down to a huge feast of (generally) turkey and stuffing and gravy (ironically that stuff can put you in a grave, i love words), and you sit around the table with your family and friends and trade stories about the past year and the “remember when’s” are a-flying. it’s a day of reflection, food and overeating. if i was a regular american guy, it would also mean football, but football reminds me of the jocks i didn’t like in high school, so i’m about as knowledgeable about the gridiron as i am at women feminine hygene products.

but thanksgiving always gets me thinking…i don’t know, i suppose i’m weird, but it gets me thinking about the winter music conference.

last year i decided to sit out the conference. i wanted to come upon miami and “just be” for a week. go out if i wanted to, stay in the hotel room and create if i didn’t. i didn’t want to be pressured to play gigs with my half-baked unfinished tracks to highlight. 2008 was the year as the year of starting over for me. pretty much anyone you ask who has come in contact with me will tell you. “shit, we couldn’t pull him away from his laptop and logic – it’s like he stayed glued to that thing for 12 straight hours” it’s not a secret i became a studio rat with a child-like desire to learn more.

the persistence i feel has paid off greatly. alone, i am making beats and tracks that make ME dance, and when i’m in the studio with mikael johnston, i feel we are a force to be reckoned with.

so today i was thinking about the conference. and what the plan should be. by the time march rolls around, i will have essentially an album’s worth of material finshed with johnston. we are going to have worked with mezo, jennfer rene, jan burton, jes brieden, nadia ali, samantha james and emma hewitt. and these are just the singers we planning on working with. there are new ones that pop up weekly that get me excited about what i do. plus the instrumentals…one day last week, mikael and i pulled up patches on the studio electronics ATC-X synthesizer and i heard track idea upon track idea. let me tell you, we are gonna make some killer instrumentals in our time.

there has been talk about a gabriel & dresden reunion show. don’t know where i heard it, but i heard it. i don’t know how i feel about doing a show like this. surely it would be great to bop around in the booth with my old buddy and studio partner. fuck yeah! josh and i made history. but we also decided that the well was dry for us, and that we had all this music in ourselves that we needed to get out. well, i can’t speak for josh, but my brain is overflowing with ideas that rock my world. re-visiting gabriel & dresden too soon would be a bad idea for the committment we made to ourselves.

well, my brain didn’t get too much further from that, but i did get excited about what ever parties i do play this coming spring in miami at the conference. because i will have some killer tracks to play. ones that are going to define the future of my career.

i’m gonna try to use this blog more often than just once a week. i have so many thoughts that id like to expound on that i limit to a cute little tweet, i think it’s time to start s’plainin myself more freely. not to mention all the great music i’m hearing on a daily basis that is making me fall hard for dance music once again. i need to start posting little 320 clips of these tracks so you all can hear what i’m talking about. just like a real blogger does.

i’m also gonna point my revolver around johnston’s head (well, maybe just the beatles’ “revolver” ) if he doesn’t start abusing these pages too. you should hear the shit we talk about when we’re making music. trust me, you’ll like this guy.

i know a lot of you are angry or mad because gabriel & dresden broke up. a lot of you won’t even listen to the individual works of josh and myself outside of the duo. well, i can tell you all that you’re going to be missing out. by shutting us out, that is not going to force us to get back together. only time and NEW SUCCESS outside of the duo will even inspire us to one day collaborate again.

so there you have it…a bunch of random thoughts from me. check back in a few days for more. and if you are into getting music, go into the player on our homepage and grab the edit i did of passion pit’s “little secrets” – i took the dubsteppy remix done by jack beats, married it with the l-vis 1990 mix and then added a massive kick drum over the whole thing. the key is in the arrangement. check it out.

peace, love and beats

- dave

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finding the reasons to hold on…

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

it seems today with all the stresses and strains on our everyday life, all of us have been trying to locate the deeper meaning of our existence. when g&d ceased to exist last spring, i found myself with the weight of the world on my shoulders. i also found myself with a studio date with my longtime friend john debo. i have known john since 1989. we used to frequent moby’s juice bar club called the cafe as well as dj ralphie gomez at krypton’s – these are the clubs and scenes that inspired our careers. john came out firing on all cylinders in 1993 with his first releases on stress records (dave seaman’s old imprint) and was a mainstay in the boston club scene. he grew in popularity over the course of the 90′s with his affiliations with the top dj’s mostly due to his production style, djing ability and also his knowledge as a top promoter.

fast forward to memorial day weekend 2008 and debo, the singer mezo and myself were in john’s home studio in orlando, fl. we had an idea for a track based around a song we all liked, and all wrote lyrics that supported the topic. the idea was to make a universal anthem that gave people hope. hope was in the air and was the major focus of barack obama’s campaign. With wars, storms and the end of the world predictions in our mind, we came up with the song “keep faith” – we recorded the vox and built the track over the course of 5 days and then over the next couple of months on and off over the internet.

the result was a predictably uplifting stormer that was an immediate standout first time i dropped it in brazil last september @ the week in rio de janiero. i sent the track around to labels and there were no bites, but i knew this song was something more than just a song you hear and then forget just as fast. but i wasn’t convinced it was finished.

late last year i decided to forgo being a “solo” act and put together another duo project. rather than do what most dj/producers do and hide behind a talented engineer, i’d rather share my talents with someone who i have a like mind. enter mikael johnston, and we quickly formed the partnership “dresden & johnston” – one of the first things i suggested to mikael was that we collectively try and finish the song i started with debo and mezo. the result is what you are going to be able to hear starting november 18th at 8am pacific time in our player. both the original and morgan page remixes of “keep faith” will be listenable for the first time.

so be here tommorrow morning, wednesday november 18th, and be the first to hear “keep faith”

- dave

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