John Eden: BM Box 3641, London, WC1N 3XX, England UK
Archive for the ‘grime’ Category.
Dan Hancox’s great interview with one of the best Grime artists right now, plus photos from Ms Drumzofthesouth. Killer combination!
Get Goodz’s Axiom EP from here if you’re curious about this stuff - you won’t regret it. For me this is another cornerstone of the UK MC lineage - up there with all those Saxon soundtapes. Certainly one of my releases of the year.
I’ve somehow managed to get through the last few weeks without writing about the new series of blogariddims. Points off for me, but you’ve been on board this anyway, right? Eclectic one hour podcasts down the wire every fortnight.
Episode 28 is the bizness - mentalist Brazillian funk stuff which veers off into awesome retro territory about half way through. Courtesy of Greg Beatdiaspora, check these sleevenotes.
Episode 29 comes courtesy of grime urchins lower end spasm. A screwface tour through some impossibly hard to find early grime instrumentals and vocals. Their sleevenotes make the point that the music was never (and isn’t) just all about a handful of mouthy MCs. That - at its best - it’s about bangers as much as any other genre. But, unlike any other genre I know of, brilliant tunes are stacked so high that some of them only partially exist - blink and you will miss them. Forget hearing dancehall promos on rotation and just missing the sevens in the shop, this mix includes rips of mp3s which never saw release, that only existed as the backdrop for pirate radio interventions.
A perfect soundtrack to wandering through a bleak London weekend…
ok ok, I know I’ve gone on about this a lot recently, but the response to the first issue has far exceeded my expectations. Feedback has been great and we’ve got 90% of the print run out there in less than a month.
Our ideas really were “already in everyone’s heads” this time!
Thanks to everyone who bought or blagged a copy, who told us what they thought and who offered to contribute to future issues.
Issue 1 is still available (but maybe not for long?) direct from the website and now also from a load of shops and other distributors. It feels really good to have something I’ve worked on stocked by all those great places I have bought tunes from in the past…
We want to make issue 2 even better…
Time for a Bug Update. Been too long.
You all got the Jah War 12″, right? And you need something that can actually sit next to it in your record shelves - without melting?
SKENG.
First heard when Loefah unleashed it at JME’s birthday bash at FWD in May. Never forgotten since.
Is out at last on Hyperdub 12″. Proper.
SKENG.
Check it. Featuring Flowdan and Killa P. Total carnage. Menace with a smile on its face. So completely bleak that the brief aside about “Sodomite” is subsumed under a torrent of totally sinister misanthropy.
SKENG.
With Kode9 mix on the flip.
SKENG.
That’s not all, neither. “Poison Dart” will follow shortly on Ninja Tune. Warrior Queen! South Rakkas remix! Rumours of another vocal cut!
For audio get to http://www.myspace.com/thebuguk
And the less abrasive/more blissful/just as intense King Midas Sound side-project, soon come on Hyperdub also. In fact, while we’re at it, props to Hyperdub full stop. They’ve also released a record featuring veteran UK soundsystem vocalist Errol Bellot, last seen in action with Jah Tubbys, Unity Sound etc.
In the meantime check out the lengthy interview with Bug man Kevin Martin on the Boomnoise & Pokes show on Sub FM - you might be surprised to hear who he’s been remixing recently. There is an archived mp3 of the show here. Good to see something from the dubstep massif which focuses on the people. Still not convinched about 90% of the music though :p
Here endeth The Bug update. Invest.
Order via paypal through: http://www.woofahmag.com
Distributors/shops to follow (get in touch!)
Hold tight interviewees and contributors - you should receive your copies soon 
Our ‘zine is at the printers, and may even be printed by the time you read this.
While you wait for it to become officially available, why not have a look at the rather nice Woofah website?
Alternatively, you might want to check out this slightly abitrary account of the project’s origins.
Woofah #1 - coming very soon.
My review of this awesome mix CD is in the new issue of The Wire (with Polly Harvey on the cover).
This issue of the mag also features Dave Stelfox’s interview with Trim and Simon Hampson’s review of his Soulfood Vol 2 CD. And of course Steve Barker’s excellent reggae reviews, Dave sneaking in some bashment to the hip hop reviews and so on. Great mag, great CD…
D.O.T.S. last week was just excellent. A great little club with some amazing djs (and me).
I kicked off with some 70s roots and dub, brought things up to date with some 21st century reggae sevens and then closed with a digital selection. It went down well and I even managed to throw on the odd CD without cocking things up.
Jason Munro from Dallas followed me with a load of his own dubplates. What he does is take whopping great bits of reggae records and put gigantic wobbly basslines underneath them, which is often very effective. He is a very animated chap behind the decks as well.
Benga, tho - wow. This was proper legendary stuff. His set was of old 8-bar 12″ - basically the ancestor of dubstep and grime circa 2000. The tunes were fantastic - there was an incredibly fluid swing to them with space and womph in exactly the right combination. I have no idea what records he played. I imagine very few people would! It felt very special witnessing the set and everyone in the place was grinning like a loon throughout.
Woofah contributor Alex Bok Bok kept up the momentum with some bassline house, but I missed Boomnoise’s performance art dj set of 80s classics cos I had to get home.
Get down there if you are on the southside for definite - it’s a great night. Hello to everyone I had a good natter with as well.
Next month:
D.O.T.S DANCE N PRANCE at PLAN B
6TH SEPTEMBER
SKREAM (exclusive funk / disco / soul set)
WADADDA (punk / reggae / dub)
ONEMAN (dubstep / garage / house )
VERSION (dub / reggae)
SUBEENA b2b DOT (dubstep)
INFINITE (no idea!)
8pm - 2am
£5 / £3 conc
CHECK SKREAM’S recent FUNK podcast courtesy of RINSEFM.BLOGSPOT.COM
“Hold tight all the mums and dads”
Punky reggae party
Letter from John Lydon to a fan who asked about what reggae to check out, circa early PiL era. Courtesy of Greg Whitfield.
BTI. You’ve bookmarked this, right?
Underground literature
Paul Nomos on subterranean living/troglodisation.
K-Punk on Tom Vague. I did have a chuckle at Mark bigging up the contributions to Vague from Mark Downham. Easily the most inaccessible verbose stuff to appear in the ‘zine. Which I guess is a bit of a value judgement on my part but I much preferred the cartoons, rants, mad collages from people like God Told Me To Do It and so on. And of course the neoist/SMILE stuff which was probably quite difficult in places but just appealed to me a whole lot more.
Ribcage rattlers
Drumzofthesouth on idiots/haters and folk music (with bassbins).
Prancehall on his new mix “Anger is a gift”, which you should go and download right now. Lots of specials on there and some laffs as well.
Dan over at Dot Alt with a nice grime round up.
A number of us are putting together a new zine about reggae, grime and dubstep.
There are some amazing things in the first issue. It is nearly ready to go to the printers.
Hold tight all the contributors. More news soon.
EDIT: thanks for all your interest in the `zine. I should add that you will be able to buy it direct from the two sites above if you have paypal (and from me) and we are also hoping to get it into some shops and online distributors.
We have been plagued by a few last minute glitches which have been masterfully dispatched by Paul Meme and Droid. Massive respect to them for keeping their heads as I went into meltdown…
