DJ Dax J Learns People of Other Religions Don’t Take Kindly to Remixes of Sacred Music
London-born, Berlin-based DJ Dax J has been sentenced to a year in jail in Tunisia for playing a remix of the Muslim call to prayer at a club during the country’s Orbit Festival in Nabeul on March 31st. The club Dax J was performing at was shut down as video of his remix surfaced on the Internet. The DJ has now been charged with public indecency and offending public morality in Tunisia, but the conviction will be dropped in five years. In a lengthy response on Facebook last Friday, Dax J said he “is incredibly saddened that anyone would believe that I played a track, featuring a 20 second vocal of the ‘Call to Prayer’ for any reason other than its musicality and the beauty of the vocal.” He also said all the right things about understanding his mistake, wanting to make the world a better place, and all that jazz, so hopefully, lesson learned.
Sgt. Pepper’s and the Super Deluxe
June 1st is the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album that marked the group’s permanent shift towards being a strictly studio-bound entity, fixated on experimentation, and however intentionally, paving the road of rock and roll. To celebrate the album’s Golden Jubilee, a new “super deluxe” set of reissues are being released, largely mixed and assembled by Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George Martin. Running six discs deep, the super deluxe version includes unreleased alternate studio takes of every song, an additional set of 15 studio outtakes, refurbished versions of the 1992 documentary chronicling the album’s creation, alternative tracks and promo films from non-Pepper tunes, and a 144-page book about Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, featuring new introductory essays from Paul McCartney and Giles Martin. The reissues are due out May 26th.
-Taylor Wallace
