Mile High Makeout: Michael Trundle tries his hand at production with new remix

Yesterday, Eryc Eyl discussed Michael Trundle's debut remix. Today, he delves into Trundle's musical background a bit and unveils the remix itself.

"The entire song is there," says Trundle, with a hint of pride. "In some places, it's separated by some beats, but it's all there." The DJ is now working on a treatment of the Pixies classic, "Hey," and he says he'll be taking the same approach with that track. "These are songs I love," he says. "It'd be kind of a shame and an insult to the artists to not include the whole song. I want all those lyrics present. I want Danzig to hear it and not completely hate my guts."

Michael Trundle is, first and foremost, a lover of music. He plays several brass instruments -- "everything except the French horn, because that mouthpiece is too small" -- and first connected with Tyler Jacobson, with whom he would later launch Lipgloss, over a mutual love for music. "We met at Paris on the Platte back in the day," he reminisces. "When I was nineteen and he was seventeen, we practically lived there. We'd be hanging out at the tables, making fun of the meatheads. I was the waver kid and he was the indie rock kid with the indie rock haircut."

Eighteen years later, Trundle is proud and gratified to have created something that has his own fingerprints on it. "I don't try to pretend I'm a musician or a rock star," the 37-year-old DJ insists. "I never claimed to be making music. I'm a DJ. It's a different fucking thing. Deejaying is kind of like translating music into a new form for people to appreciate it in a new way."

In creating his remix, Trundle drew upon nearly a decade of experience as a dancefloor DJ, where he has developed skills and some strong opinions about what works. "There are a couple of key elements for someone who's deejaying to a dancefloor," he explains. "Number one is your song selection. You have to be able to read your crowd and know what they want to hear. If you can't do that, you're gonna fail," notes Trundle. "After that is the technicality of your playing. You can play the most beautifully mixed set ever, but if people aren't dancing, you're not doing your job."

When it came to producing, however, Trundle didn't have as much experience to draw on. "Chase Dobson's the one who gave me my real footing in production," says Trundle. "He came over a couple years ago and gave me the basic tutorial. On this remix, he helped me add the effects and mastered the whole thing." Dobson, who now joins Trundle on the decks at Lipgloss once a month, is a regular fixture at Beta, where he performs using Ableton Live, one of the key pieces of software that Trundle used to create his monster mix.

With Dobson's help, Trundle says the remix came together surprisingly quickly. "It took about a month from when I first started messing with it until I asked Chase to come over and help me finish it up. I probably would have taken two more weeks, but I wanted to have something for Monolith. There are things I'd tweak, but I'd rather focus on getting more mixes out."

Trundle freely admits that his interest in production is as much practical as it is artistic. "Over the last six months, I sat down and said, 'I'm not gonna make much more than I'm making now if I don't start doing something," he confesses. "That's why I'm gonna try to remix stuff that isn't being remixed. There are so many people doing remixes of MGMT and Empire of the Sun. You can send it out, it'll be everywhere and nobody'll notice."

He's also counting on his connections to help his remixes get noticed. After nine years at Lipgloss, Trundle counts MSTRKRFT, the Presets and Andy Rourke of the Smiths among his friends and supporters. "Unfortunately -- or fortunately -- it's who you know," he concludes with a grin.

You can catch Michael Trundle on Thursday nights at Shag Lounge's Panty Raid party, at La Rumba on Friday nights for Lipgloss, and back at Shag for SCuMBaG SuNDaYS.

And now, the remix: "Mother (boyhollow Found Hell mix)"