Straight up bass party. Fresher than a baker’s whatever.

Times are fast. Stay ahead of the curve.

Ft.

DEADWEIGHT DJs;

YLEM;

BOLSTY; and

SLEEPYHEAD

UK FUNKY // GARAGE // DUBSTEP // FUTURE BASS BUSINESS

Friday June 3rd

8pm – Midnight

The Bird

FREEEE EENNTRYYYYY

Appropriate visuals by Turbo Mountain. The last party packed out – get down early booger!

..

Kickin it on a Sunday,

Crew,

Tunes,

Live Art,

Brews or cocktails in hand,

Chillin.

In collaboration with the ‘Double Lucky’ and ‘The Butcher Shop’ we invite you come and de-stress after a crazy Easter period and jump into a straight Sunday vibe on May 22nd. The town of Vincent have cut the red tape, allowing us make the surrounding laneway ours by fencing off the area and splaying out an externally located bar, sound/Dj booth, and furniture set-up for your laziness.

Slide through any time between 2pm to 7pm to catch the re-paint of Double Lucky’s three outer walls by a selection of the cream of the crop of Perth Aerosol artists. We’ve blacked out the walls to create a blank canvas for you to watch the masterpiece come together, live. After the sunsets, the party moves inside for an intimate mix-up both of tunes and dranks til 10pm!

Ol school / funky Hip Hop, Broken Beat & some melodic Dubstep sounds for good measure will be the soundtrack of the day.

Delivered by an All-star local line-up.

Angry Buda

Philly Blunt

Marty McFly

Mo’ Fly

Jus Haus?

Moe Steez

Shiftn

In 1979, aged twenty, Kurtis became the first rapper to be signed by a major label, Mercury, which released “Christmas Rappin “. It sold over 400,000 copies. Its follow-up, “The Breaks”, sold over half a million copies. He released ten albums over the next eleven years. His first album was Kurtis Blow, while his second was the Top 50 pop album Deuce. Party Time featured a fusion of rap and go go. Ego Trip included the hits: “8 Million Stories,” “AJ,” and “Basketball”. His 1985 album, America, garnered praise for its title track’s music video. From this album, the song “If I Ruled the World” became a Top 5 hit on Billboards R&B chart. In 1996, fellow rapper Nas debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with a cover version of the song.

Kurtis Blow will be joined with “Stoop Fresh”, “The Mass Appeal Allstars” “Dj Junior” and Perths top Breakers performing a rare showcase.

all attending are encouraged to dress in your flyest old school get up.

First up to bat is “The Stoops”.

This crew has been making music since 2002 and are stronger than ever right now producing some quality hip hop both conscious and party, making them the perfect group to kick off the live sessions.

They consist of local legends Arms In Motion, Coin, Nat Bonita Alley, Pronto & Roc Walla.

Joining them on the wheels of steel will be Royce and Charlie Bucket.

9.30 -10.30 – Arms in Motion

10.30 – 11.30 – The stoops

11.30 – 1.30 – Royce

1.30 – close – Charlie Bucket

$10 entry for the whole night.

STOOPSQUARED BIO

The Stoops have teamed up with acclaimed beat maker J-Squared (Illy, Pegz) to produce what can only be described as a master piece. A year in the making “StoopSquared” has got it all. I know people say this a lot but there are literally NO fillers and at 12 tracks in length that is a hell of a lot of quality! Every track has its own purpose and is there for good reason. “Bucket List” with its clever topic applicable to anyone, “Who I Be” to let the listener know that no one is perfect, “Right Time” shows how willing they are to make something of themselves and “Paperplane” with its lyrical substance. The Stoops are able to deliver clever lyrics that make you think and booming hooks by Bonita encase the whole lot in a tight package within your head. The production is what can be expected of J-Squared; straight out fire! And Arms In Motion displays an amazing digging skill with his perfectly matched vocal samples each of which are cut to perfection. I’m not even sure why I’m trying to sell this to you. I mean it is FREE after all…

This review is written with the disclaimer that I was located inside the “Bling Ring”. Supafest was set up to have only one stage and two areas. The area close to the stage, from the sound tent and closer, was termed the “Bling Ring”. To be in here you had to buy the tickets that were worth an extra $50 dollars or so. Or you know, be blessed by the gods of Perthquake (Thanks!). I can’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck all that way back for the entire concert, looking a open space over that barricade.

Anyways, we arrived in time for Ciara and she put on a damn impressive show. Hitting the stage to her part in Missy Elliot’s Lose Control she proceeded to put on a clinic for female popstars over the next 40 minutes, running through her hits and by the end of the set, not only was the majority of the crowd in love with her (me and Dan certainly were) but she looked generally thrilled to be here. Great performance.

We missed Taio Cruz (sorry to all the Taio Cruz loving readers of Perthquake out there), but made it back in time for Bow Wow. Now since releasing that song ten years ago (you know the one), Bow Wow has dropped the Lil’ and signed to Cash Money Records. What followed was seemingly a parody of a hip hop performance. It seemed almost absurd, like what Lil B or someone would do, trying to imitate a major label performance. Random video interludes, a hypeman DJ who said more lyrics than the performer, demanding chairs be brought out on stage. Entertaining yes, but kinda strange.

Up next was West Coast Gangster rapper Game. Now, for those unfamiliar with him, he has a reputation as being somewhat psychotic and obsessive. He has a habit of relentlessly name dropping in all his songs and has gotten into more feuds or at least tried to start them than any other rapper.  Highlights of his set included him pretending to scull a bottle of Grey Goose, “Hate it or Love it” and finishing of a depressing rant to the audience with “But on a lighter not, lets bring out some bitches!”

T-Pain followed on. Now let me just say, everyone in their life should see a T-Pain concert once in their life. Its seriously fucking entertaining. Starting with fireworks, T Pain came out with his dancers and oddly steampunk themed mike, and proceeded to tear through his string of autotuned hits with a sense of humor and enthusiasm that’s unmatched by anyone. Serious fun.

The crowd lost their shit for Nelly. The first twenty minutes of his set were a nostalgia trip to the turn of the century with hits like ‘Ride Wit Me’, ‘Country Grammar’, ‘Grillz’ and ‘EI’, and had even the most grizzled purists (like myself) singing along. However this crowd goodwill was cashed in for 4 or 5 songs by Nellys assorted weedcarriers from the St. Lunatics and some white guy who sang. However he brought it home in style with ‘ Hot in Herre’ and ‘Dillema’. The dude may be totally pop, but god damn if he was ridiculously entertaining.

Then following a torrential downpour, the man of the day emerged following an epic video, Mr. Snoop Dogg. His set switched between lethargic and energetic as he ran through a set list that split the difference between his g-funk classics and modern pop hits. For the most part, it was really fun, but at the end of the day, when you can see how hyped the crowd can get for his west coast styles, it really raises the question of how necessary is a new collaboration with David Guetta (which considering the weather was ironically titled “Wet”). However at the end of the day, I’m just glad I got to see Snoop Dogg, and had an absolute ball of a time. Well done Supafest.

IKONIKA [Hyperdub/UK]

Support

+ Clunk/Ben Taaffe/DYP/Allstate/Rekab

Right. Meet Ikonika. A young woman from West London. Now, the Kode 9 curated, untouchable Hyperdub label has thrown up some choice names in the last 18 months – but none more so than her. With her debut release ‘Please’ dropping back in 2008, the Londoners bleep-fuelled, percussive bass adventures have since pushed her to the top of the pile. Warm and wierd, heartbreak garage shapes, thick veins of 90s RnB.

Interivews & features in NME, Pitchfork, DJ Mag, and the Guardian as well as the unanamous love for her other worldly synth patterns, driving drums and melancholic sub bass led to critical acclaim for debut album Contact, Want, Love, Have – the latter listing her album in their top 10 albums of 2010 alongside mainstream stars Erykah Badu & Kanyne West.

The blissful semi-slumber of her unique productions have been supported by everyone from Mary Anne Hobbs to Flying Lotus and in demand DJ sets have littered the globe, showcasing the constantly mutating underground sounds of the UK, spanning from the freshest Dubstep and Funky dubplates to the classic foundations of House and Garage. These genre-hoping rollercoaster rides gained her a DJ Mag nomination for “Best British DJ”. Ikonika is truley one the UK’s brightest stars.

The night began at 9:30pm, in time to catch Greg Packer and MC Assassin do what they do best. After a drink and dance, Packer closed with a Calibre favourite: “Drop it Down”, preparing the masses for the magic about to follow.

It was 10:30pm on the rocket clock and “All You Want”, an elegant soulful dnb track off Calibre’s latest album “Even If…” pleased the ears of the 200+ audience members. The bar was set and the duo ensured that it was only raised. Calibre continued to weave several more album tunes like “Broken”, “Open Your Eyes” and “Even If” with classic liquid and deep bouncy beats all through the night. His mixing couldn’t be described as anything less than exceptional, not a beat was missed and the tunes kept rolling on. In two and a half hours Calibre explored the finest in soulful and liquid drum and bass as well as deeper, more bass orientated drum and bass when the night grew older and the crowd was really hooked. Needless to say, the tune selection was on par with the crowd’s energy level.

Not only did Calibre keep the vibes at high and the grooving at maximum with brilliant track selection and mix execution, but with help from DRS the whole set was taken to another level. Unlike many MCs I’ve seen in the years, DRS worked flawlessly alongside Calibre taking the crowd on a journey with his lyrical mastery.

DRS knew what to say and when to say it, there was no use of cliché’s such as “When I say ____ you say _____”, just deep harmonic vocals in time and on time. However, DRS did not neglect the crowd, in fact DRS did some impressive free styling using the crowd for inspiration, which rarely occurs but definitely bought much more to the night. DRS added more to the music than distracting from it which worked incredibly well with Calibre’s swift and precise mixing.

Great tunes, great people and a suitable venue, what more could you want?

By Cody George

(Here is a video snippet of the vibe from Wednesday night)

I had initially planned my day to arrive just at the start of Loco Dice’s set in The Likes Of You tent, as all the acts I wanted to see were playing there (how handy). Unfortunately, this didn’t exactly go to plan as I had to wait for 45 minutes in the guest list line to get my entry ticket. I think this is pretty poor planning on Future Entertainment’s behalf. I mean, when you have a sold out festival catering to over 40,000 people, you would imagine there would be a hefty sized guest list. You would also imagine that having one small window catering to all the patrons, media and local artists on that guest list isn’t such a great idea, but I guess Future Entertainment didn’t take that into consideration when planning for the festival.

Nevertheless, once I was in and found my bearings, I made my way down to The Likes Of You tent to catch the last hour of Loco Dice. His set consisted of mainly party tech-house tracks to get the crowd in the mood for the long day ahead. I don’t know if it was just me, but Dice didn’t really seem to be in the mood when he was playing. Whether he was exhausted from the travelling, or maybe his set was too early in the day for him, I don’t know, but to me he looked a little flat behind the decks.

Whilst only catching about 40 minutes of Dice, I decided to head out to the neighbouring Flamingo stage to check out the rest of Mark Ronson’s set. I must say I was a little disappointed with what I saw. Don’t get me wrong, I think he is one of the best artists/producers going around at the moment, but his stage show didn’t really give me that excitement you get when watching an act that you enjoy live. I personally thought that he was going to use The Business Intl. more, rather I ended up watching him perform a party DJ set for about good fifteen minutes. Dropping tracks such as Pharaohe Monch – Simon Says and a sped up instrumental of Bang Bang Bang, along with showing off his DMC skills, the crowd didn’t seem to mind as they all looked like they were enjoying it. Maybe I had just gotten there too late and had missed the good parts.

Walking back to The Likes Of You stage, I walked into a surprising, high intensity live set from Leftfield. From having hardly any knowledge about these guys, I think this was probably the highlight of my day as I was blown away with what I heard. A passionate set filled with numerous vocalists, live drumming and psychedelic-sounding melodies, Leftfield really put on a show. A track I do recall was Inspection Check One. Have a listen to this on YouTube and imagine it sped up and performed live. You could only imagine the atmosphere and vibe they had created in that tent.

Moving forward, it was time for the Future Music Mascot, Sven Vath to take the stage. Having a marathon two and a half hours to play with, Vath wasted no time in getting the party started. Keeping the energy flowing on from Leftfield, Vath’s set consisted of a more festival tech-house/techno sounding set. There were some tracks he played that I personally thought was a bit unusual, but the majority of it was filled with infatuation and excitement to keep the crowd dancing throughout the whole time.

Before you knew it, Vath’s set had come to an end, and it was finally time for the headliner, Richie Hawtin to come on and present his live Plastikman show. This would have had to be one of the most intriguing performances I have ever witnessed in the dance music realm. A full integration between audio and visual may not be that interesting to some people. But when you put into perspective an artist of this calibre presenting to you his “experiment”, it was a fascinating hour long journey of true electronic music. I find the best moments when watching a DJ/artist are the ones where they take you on an unpredictable journey throughout their set. This is exactly what Plastikman achieved throughout his whole performance where I found myself and everybody around me were purely just intrigued and fascinated about what they were experiencing.  Words really cannot describe the complexity of this performance, but I can truly say that it is one I will never forget.

Will’s day…

I obviously had the same problem as Cam coming in, but luckily I could still hear Tai smashing it out on the Dim Mak stage. He had a great stack of 2k10 electro hits to throw at the crowd, from Cassius’ I Love You So to the best of the underground electro scence with His Majesty Andre’s Cyprus. Hopefully everyone there was encouraged to increase the party with such a good selection of bangin’ tracks. Once I got into Arena, I wandered over the hill to find a sea of people watching Mark Ronson, I have to agree with Cam though, it was average and I left pretty quickly to catch the enjoyable sounds of Leftfield. Of course knowing nothing about them didn’t really keep me interested for long, but they did have a big crowd dancing and screaming pretty intensely whilst I was there.

As MGMT began I thought I’d give them a chance, but again, too many people, not enough talent. It just wasn’t enjoyable watching MGMT, the same way it wasn’t enjoyable watching Mark Ronson. Although they’re very different acts, I felt so restricted in the fun I could have because it was literally a sea of people. This sounds pretty pathetic, but it was more enjoyable to catch acts I didn’t know anything about, and have a dance with some space between myself and the next person! I’m sure it was awesome for the majority of people, so my opinion can be discounted pretty easily.

I came back for some Sven Vath love, and once again without knowing anything about Vath it was well worth watching. It was acts like Vath that made my day, well pieced together music. You don’t need to know what he was playing, it flowed from track to track with long intros and outros. You never felt rushed but you consistently have your foot tapping and can easily dance. Champion of a dj and producer. Sadly I left Vath to go catch some Steve Aoki. It was by no means dull, in fact it was the polar opposite, a crazy all out party of smashing tracks and people jumping and moshing like a punk rock gig. Great atmosphere and plenty of people were impressed, predictably Warp sent the crowd into a frenzy. Upon leaving Aoki I reflect on my biggest regret of the day…One of the things I regret the most was not going into the rave cave trance area. I would love for someone to fill me in on what it was like. Especially if you’re a trance enthusiast. It seemed like such an awesome idea having part of the festival inside, and hopefully we see more attempts at this through the winter. Let me know please!

The final few hours of my day we’re spent between The Chemical Brothers, Richie Hawtin and Steve Angello. The Chemical Brothers blow my mind every time I see them, and this time was no exception. Every single track is so enjoyable, Galvanise, Swoon, Horse Power ahhhhh it was just so good! The visuals add a simple but effect element to an already awesome set, sometimes creepy, sometimes intense, but whatever was happening it was amazing. I even got so excited I think I stopped breathing, because I passed out! Even though I hit my head pretty hard it wasn’t enough to stop me having a good time. After falling down I thought it might be some time for some air, so for the 30 minutes or so I saw Richie Hawtin’s very cool Plastikman show and spent a bit of time having a laugh in front of Steve Angello. I finally heard Steve Angello play Miami 2 Ibiza and that was all I needed to see – that track has been in almost every festival set I’ve heard all summer.

It was a great day, small problems were brushed off easily and I had plenty of fun discovering acts I wouldn’t usually see. Hope y’all had fun too and I’ll cya there next year!

]]> http://perthquake.com.au/blog/2011/03/the-future-is-plastik/feed/ 0