CLUB GUIDE WED 12
OGFLAVAS With Cyclone Jermaine Cole
Hip hop doesn’t care about poor people. Recently those protesting against corporate greed on Wall Street were ‘mocked’ by affluent ‘champagnesippers’ from the balcony of the posh Cipriani Club 55 restaurant. At times it feels as if US urban is one giant Cipriani, materialistic braggadocio pervasive even amid the GFC. Sure, Diddy encapsulated the 90s Zeitgeist with his bling-bling rap, and ‘shiny suit’ videos, but it’s tacky in 2011. Kanye West ushered back in socially-conscious themes with his first three albums, but he’s lately become increasingly introspective, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy a meta-commentary on popular media culture. In 2008 West requested that journos not ask him about politics. Drake’s emo-rap, while beguilingly candid, is inherently narcissistic, his lamenting of fame not exactly relatable. Of course, blinged-out, club-hopping rap is also aspirational – and possibly empowering – for many, as John Legend told OG Flavas. “I wonder why people aren’t insulted that rappers are talking about how rich they are and what they’re wasting their money on… But maybe it’s inspiring for them and it’s a form of escapism and fantasy-fulfillment for them to hear that.” With 46.2 million Americans living below the poverty line, it’s bizarre that (mainstream) hip hop, the urban ‘folk’, has so little to say. Even West’s hook-up with Jay-Z, Watch The Throne, was a mega flossing fest, offering too few joints like No Church In The Wild. Luckily, Jermaine “J” Cole, signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, is bringing some balance to contemporary rap with his impressive debut, Cole World: The Sideline Story. Today every major MC worth his swag has a protégé: West groomed KiD CuDi, Lil Wayne secured Drake and Nicki Minaj… Jay-Z has chosen well in Cole, the mix tape stalwart who guested on A Star Is Born. It’s unfortunate that rumours of a sex tape with Rihanna preceded the North Carolinian’s premiere. Still, it may have been
to his advantage, anti-playa or not. He scored two pages in Famous with a big pull-out box, “Who is J Cole?” Cole has a history with RiRi – kinda. He laced her S&M remix, she appears in the video for his single Can’t Get Enough, and they’ve toured together. Regardless, Cole is a multi-faceted talent – like ‘Ye, he produces and MCs (though he’s yet to dabble in couture!). But he’s more into his boom-bap (cue: Lights Please, originally heard on The Warm Up mix tape) than electro-hop. Cole World is comparable to vintage Common – and, in fact, Common’s cohort No ID masterminded Never Told. It’s also not dissimilar aesthetically to West’s early work (including that on Hova’s Blueprint). Both Common and Nas are re-embracing 90s influences on their upcoming albums. Cole, too, creates soulful, funky and jazzy hip hop with samples and lavish live musicianship – and, significantly, he loves epic shit. The strings on the emotive Breakdown evoke classic Stevie J, one of Diddy’s Bad Boy producers known as The Hitmen. Cole veers off into post-electro midway. His production on the dubsteppy Mr Nice Watch (complete with Jay-Z cameo) is especially dope, with spiky guitar, but it’s disharmonic here. The chorus lines aren’t necessarily about bling, but the transience of wealth. Clever, that. Cole, the product of a struggling single parent family who nonetheless attended college, excels as a chronicler. On the compelling Lost Ones, he acts out the arguments over an unplanned pregnancy, the man’s and the woman’s, at the same time exposing the tensions that split low income families. As with West, Cole is occasionally contradictory, but he could just be the saviour of hip hop’s conscience. And, crucially, he’s an ‘album’ artist – a rap Adele. Hopefully, once more hear Cole’s US No. 1 blockbuster, his singles will fare better. (His earlier ‘flop’ Work Out is an ignominious LP ‘bonus’). The Trey Songz-featuring Calypso Can’t... is cool, as is the mellow Drake-embedded In The Morning, but for radio OG would have picked (a modified) Nobody’s Perfect with Missy Elliott singing. It sounds like the Missy of Supa Dupa Fly – melodic retro cool.
DANCE MOVES New Currents with Tim Finney Funkystepz
Perhaps inevitably, UK funky has receded slightly from its (is it too soon to call it this?) golden era of 2008-2010; after three years exhaustively mapping out every possible sonic byway and tangent, what is it to do? Previously possessing an unerring calibration for the sweet spot between house, grime and dancehall, UK funky has lately been pulled in different directions by both back-to-house types – as if more trad house is what we need right now – and macho bass-driven banger enthusiasts (read: dubstep tourists). While still churning out amazing material (check Champion’s Sensitivity, Fuzzy Logick’s Playground, Natalie May’s Clothes Off), the scene has struggled to maintain its peerless run. Ill Blu and Funkystepz have been the two artists to most obviously buck the trend, using 2011 as a laboratory in which to test their ever more bizarre sonic inventions, while their charming idiosyncrasies nevertheless keep faith with UK funky’s core promise to its listeners. Ill Blu are by now firmly established as UK funky’s most histrionic operators, offering an unmistakable sense of melodrama and bigness whether they’re creating stripped-back percussive bangers or slick, shiny remixes of pop tunes. In either mode their rhythms resemble a rolling gait, galloping and stuttering around a syncopated soca-style 5 beat groove, and filled with micro-hesitations and trips that counter-intuitively make you want to dance harder. In 2011 the duo has eased off on remixes to prepare for their debut album, and the results scale ever greater heights of overblown menace; in particular, Monsta sounds like a giant vacuum cleaner swallowing entire solar systems. But rather than simply turn the intensity notch up further,
tunes like Bhangra Knights, Do That and Warp Speed play around with rhythms and tempos, switching between menacing half-step build-ups, militaristic snare drum interludes and full-bore breakdowns with giddy excitement. So firmly established is Ill Blu’s sound that they can absorb a wealth of external sounds and ideas – from Dutch house, from dubstep, from techno – into their blueprint without compromising its singularity. Funkystepz’s aesthetic is less streamlined than Ill Blu’s, though no less distinct, all trembling synth arpeggios and intricate-but-ungainly beats lurching and staggering around a percussive house template. They’re a dab hand with a vocal tune, but their secret weapon is their expansive understanding of rhythm, recognising that complicated beats, while fun, are not enough by themselves. Instead, every component of their tunes builds into the off-kilter sense of groove: Fuller possesses an absolutely straight 4X4 house kick, but what you dance to is the bizarrely angular synth melody jumping around the beat with queasy unpredictability. Funkystepz frequently gets perverse – Royal Rumble sounds like a computer having an epileptic fit – but somehow always sidesteps the fidgety undanceability of IDM, retaining an intuitive dance floor functionalism no matter how complicated the obstacle courses they construct. Warrior is a particular highlight: with its alternately tripping and stomping beat and stuttering one-note synth squeals, it is essentially a two-bar trick, and yet in those two bars does more to challenge conventional notions and ideas of how a dance groove functions than any other recent tune I can think of. Despite releases on respectable labels like Kode9’s Hyperdub, Ill Blu and Funkystepz both remain cheesy ravers at heart, with their silly monikers, pop remixes and portentous eponymous production stamps on every track. Moreover, it’s their rejection of arid notions like deepness or hardness, and countervailing devotion to rhythm as something that can still excite and surprise, that makes them both worthy of singling out and yet utterly representative of what the best UK funky still does better than any other music right now.
D3 Amigos Latin Dance Party: Casablanca Frat Club: Pete Smith, Mark Z: Regatta Hotel Jam Club: Alloneword Miss Pit Stop Pet: Brett Allen, Apollo Flex: Republic
SIX PACK ROKEBY VENUS LOCAL BOYS ROKEBY VENUS ARE IN THE MIDST OF A HUGE NATIONAL TOUR AND HEADED OUR WAY. TONY MCMAHON CATCHES UP WITH MULTIINSTRUMENTALIST MATT BARNES TO GET ALL THE ROCK’N’ROLL ROAD STORIES.
THU 13 Convaire EP Launch: Alhambra Lounge Karaoke In The Front Bar: Casablanca Love Cats: Alloneword Machinery Hill: Beetle Bar Mbar Thursdays: Vita, DJ Climate: Fitzy’s Loganholme Too Damn Glam: Brett Allen, Apollo Flex, Tredman: Shooters Too Damn: Dezastar, Bluffsta, Flo, MC Fortafy: Republic
FRI 14 Afro Disa, Joe T, DJ Misqo, DJ Levi: Casablanca And Oh!, Nubi: LaLa Land Candyland: Brett Allen, Apollo Flex, Tredman: Shooters Kerbside Collection Launch: Barsoma Ministry Of Sound: Anna Lunoe, Goodwill, Nick Galea, Andee, Pete Smith: The Met Slim: Jupiters Nightclub The Arcade Creative Presents: Sinden, Danny T, Joey Mojo, Paul DLuxx: Platinum Nightclub Vision Friday: Ea Kut, Mister P, Flo, MC OP: Republic Vision Friday: Masta K, Mister P: Rendezvous
SAT 15 Afro Disa, Joe T, DJ Misqo, DJ Levi: Casablanca Bamboo, Mr Sparkle, Andy Priddle, Andee, Disko Diva, Malcolm, Roman: The Met Rhys Bynon: LaLa Land Cazbar: Jupiters Nightclub Regatta Saturdays: MC Bossy, Paul Bell, Marky Mark Z, Scotty R, DJ Tom Walker: Regatta Hotel Salmonella Dub, Tijuana Cartel: The Hi-Fi Sensation Club: Brett Allen, Apollo Flex, Tredman: Shooters Sensation Club: Ea Kut, Otto, Mister P, Trippa MC : Republic Sensation Saturday: Masta K, DJ LP: Rendezvous Sprung: Drapht, Funkoars, Illy, Pez, 360, Phrase, M-Phazes, Resin Dogs, Joelistics, Lowrider, Mantra, Diafrix, Lazygrey, Pure Product: Riverstage The Arcade Creative Presents: Bass Kleph, Craig Roberts, Joey Mojo: Platinum Nightclub Touch Saturdays: Ea Kut, Mister P, Masta K, MC Loudmouth Len: Fitzy’s Loganholme Young Sid, Deach, PNC, Pieter T, Dei Hamo, Sir T, Mr Sic, Derty Sesh, CXL: Fitzy’s Loganholme
“We ran into a rogue party animal by the name of Don at the Richmond Club, Melbourne. He recognized Danby [fellow RV band member Mick Danby] from living in the same apartment complex back at the Gold Coast. The next thing we knew we were recovering from a night that would be more akin to a buck’s night in Vegas.” Part of the proceeds from the band’s Worlds In Collision tour will go towards the Brisbane floods relief effort. Barnes seems to think it’s the least they can do. “We were in the studio at Byron when we heard that Brissie was flooding. It was weird getting a phone call from my upset girlfriend saying, ‘Your house is going to be 2.1 meters underwater when you get home’. Fortunately for me, the water stopped at my driveway while next door was like a soup bowl (although some asshole still managed to loot my barbeque after we evacuated). Lots of people were obviously not as lucky as me and are still struggling. By donating to the Premiers Flood Relief Appeal we can also create an awareness to those who attend our shows that ‘it’s not too late to donate’. The closing date for donations is the 31st of December this year.” Given they’ve been on the road, Barnes says that Brissie punters should be in for a very refined set. “We feel tight, we’ve also got some unreleased material in the set that we’ve been working on while being on the road. We’ve also been benefiting from touring with Adelaide band The Fridays. They have a remarkable sensitivity in their performance which I find very impressive given they remain relatively light-hearted in the majority of their lyrical content. We can take a leaf out of their book in that regard.” WHO: Rokeby Venus WHAT: Worlds In Collision (Independent) WHERE & WHEN: The Cave Monday Oct 17, Solbar, Maroochydore Saturday Oct 29, Soundlounge, Currumbin Sunday Oct 30
SUN 16 4Play: JimmyZ, Joel Turner: Brothers Leagues Club Daniel Webber, Discrow: LaLa Land Funkoars: The Spotted Cow Kimya Dawson, Aesop Rock: The Hi-Fi Play Dirty: Masta K: Rendezvous Salsa Seduction: Zouk Lambarda: Casablanca
MON 17 4Play: JimmyZ: Wickham Hotel
TUE 18 Envyus: DJ Dezastar, Eakut, Bluffsta, Oscar, DJ Owe, DJ Premix, DJ K-Otic: Shooters Karaoke In The Front Bar: Casablanca
ON THE TIME OFF STEREO Wolfroy Goes To Town BONNIE PRINCE BILLY The Future Sound Of Nostalgia THE DC3 Look Forward To Nothing KITCHEN’S FLOOR Ode To Nothing THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS Time Travel ALESSI’S ARK Worker Bees WORKER BEES Cerebral Ballzy CEREBRAL BALLZY First Four EPs OFF! In The Pit Of The Stomach WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS Metals FEIST
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