B.Dolan shows up at a Rave in Brighton...

Photos by Rachel Watson - sexpest.

Right then, let's see.
Have I ever written a gig review? No I have not.
Is my first one going to be ridiculously biased? Almost certainly.

I think the closest I got to a gig review was years back when I somehow got to see Tom Waits and most likely bored people to tears on an old radio show.
I gushed on and on for ten minutes or so as I recall.
Around that time I would also stop complete strangers in the street.
I must have been inducing the similar glazed feeling you get when people tell you about the "Weird dream" they had last night....

And once again, I digress.

B.Dolan finally came to the UK and I very nearly didn't get to see him.
I had planned to visit "home" back in Portsmouth to see some friends and go check out the show at the Wedgewood Rooms.
Financial issues, some other crap and the fact that it was sold out meant I just used the time off work to sit up in the attic making music instead.
As it turns out EVERY single UK show had totally sold out due to the guys he was supporting on tour being so insanely popular over here.
After going to Resident Records and being told there was no room at the Inn, I went home ticketless and pissed as hell.

Facebook time. Compose a message.
"Dear Mr Dolan. I am a loser. Please help..."
Two minutes pass.
"Yes Mike you are a loser. I'll put you on the guest list"
(Please note: not exact words)

What a lovely beardy man he is.
Maybe I should get down to actually telling you about the show?
Tangents for president. Shoot me.

Concorde 2 - Brighton. Monday night. Pissing with rain all day.

Dolan comes shuffling on to the gloomy stage just after nine and starts fiddling with his little mixing board as Rachel fiddles with her camera and I fiddle with my nuts.

The opening weirdness of "Reptilian Agenda" starts and he faces the crowd in half a George Bush mask miming the opening speech of the track.
Slightly unnerving to say the least.
As the first line hits the crowd "The cameras eye dilates..." I realise three things:

1) This is going to be a sick show.
2) Holy shit that bass is going to knock my teeth out.
and
3) I may have just pooped myself.

Seriously - from where we were standing the bass in there was insane!
I remember doing a turntable routine with a bass tone in there years back and I realise now that I must have been damaging the audiences internal organs.

It's always interesting to see a huge unhinged guy in a boiler suit getting a very young and perplexed crowd to scream "The Queen of England is a Lizard"...
That's got to be one of the most unique Hip Hop call-and-responses I've ever heard.

Dolan's set consisted mainly of material from the new "Fallen House Sunken City" LP which I highly recommend.
If you are new to this guy and rate solid, intelligent, almost early Public Enemy in it's intensity Hip Hop then do yourself a massive favour and check out "Fifty ways to bleed your customer" - you'll be sold.

I'm pretty sure "Bail it out" was next up.
The crowd got to learn that since being in the UK he'd been learning some new words ("How many people in here are skint?") and sampling new animal based products ("Bag of meat"...) before he threw a bunch of fake money into the crowd who went batshit for a while.

"Earthmovers" came on and pounded my eyes back into their sockets which is possibly why he chose to wear dark glasses while he performed it. Highlights there included an impromptu booty shake to the line "back that thing up" - Nice.

The amazing Buddy Peace remix of "Joan of Arcadia" was probably the highlight for me (although it's a tough call) and the crowd pretty much tore the roof off with the "Frowny Crucifix" at the end.

It's possible that, earlier in the night, I may have been a little rude to a guy at the bar about the price of drinks - "has this got gold in it or something?" or words to that effect. Sorry about that.

I'm always slightly concerned when I meet people whose work I admire that they might turn out to be a dick.
I've had the illusion shattered a few times before and now I find it almost impossible to listen to the people in question.
It's highly unlikely but I think if that happened with Tom Waits I'd throw myself under a bus.

I remember feeling the same when I first met Mike-J from the Demon Boyz. Turns out he's an incredibly humble and decent human being.
So I'm glad to say the same about B.Dolan.
Despite the aggressive "Bombzo" stage persona he is, as I'd always suspected, a friendly, approachable and almost quiet guy.
Maybe it's an age thing, I dunno.

He told me that back in Portsmouth the crowd set fire to the fake money he threw out after he came on stage and slated their football team!
How proud I am. Hilarious.
I was born in a town of fights, booze and mainly idiots.

Have you ever seen a guy peel off a boiler suit to reveal an Evel Knievel outfit while shadow boxing to the sounds of "Eye of the Tiger"?
What do you mean no???
He must have been sweating his arse off under all that after nearly half a show of shouting his guts out.
Pretty nuts to witness.
Nothing quite compares to seeing Godzilla personified jumping an imaginary motorcycle over a schoolgirl... It's what Hip hop is all about.

Oh yeah - ONE BREATH LEFT - Go here immediately....

I spent the remainder of the night at the back of the venue chatting to Rachel and watching a couple of middle aged lost-its scream at each other whilst raving their tits off.

Only real bummer about the night was the absence of "Fifty Ways" and "Heart Failure" due to time issues. Not to worry. Next time perhaps.

This isn't much of a review is it?
What do you want from me...
The moral of the story is - B.Dolan = Very good.
Go make yourself acquainted.
Thanks a lot.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering - I didn't really soil myself.

"...Yeah, You heard me right, so go check it online..."

If you're not a DJ or an MC I fully expect you to be bored to tears by the end of this....

Quite a few years back when The Plastic Soldiers were still entering battles - Oh yeah, you probably don't know what I'm talking about already.....Start again.

Plastic Soldiers was the turntablist (dumb word, sorry) "Crew" I was a part of with Taz (who has vanished from the face of the earth...) and Shanks (who still cuts and is still exceptionally tasty at it).

So yeah, when we were doing the battles/shows etc we were always trying to think of new and weird crap that had never been done before.
Taz would try to steer our routines towards the kind of more accessible "party" type stuff whereas I would sit firmly at the other end of the spectrum and just want NOISE and blood - I figured if it's a battle then treat it that way and let's have a good old fashioned punch up.
I actually did manage to REALLY offend some people I went up against - apologies for that.
Shanks was great because he always sat somewhere in the middle of all this and balanced us out.
Plus he ALWAYS came up with something truly nuts.
I still like that classical, static, label/needle drag thing we came up with.
Note to self - need to dig out the 4-track tapes at some point.

So yeah, anyhow, Shanks told me he was trying to learn to beatbox through his headphones (turned around and clamped to his face) and cut at the same time. I could be wrong but I think he saw someone awful trying to do something similar - and failing miserably.

Shanks wanted to make it far more complex (as usual) and was trying to actually cut normally while doing the beats himself - which is tough as hell.
I can understand how to do, I dunno, stabs or something while you beatbox but anything beyond that is ridiculously difficult. It's like you need two separate brains.
Seriously - even if you can't beatbox at all get on the turntables and try it out. See what I mean???
I haven't seen anyone do it to any degree of "wow" yet and I'm guessing it probably won't happen.

But that's Shanks.
It did make me think though and to be honest, I don't think I would have learnt how to do this (down there) if it wasn't for his weird little brain.

I started trying to learn how to combine MCing with beat-juggling on the turntables a long, LONG time ago.
Way before I saw Buck 65 live and way before Edan had came out.
I'm just putting that one out there before I go any further.
My first attempts were absolutely dreadful of course and I pretty much gave up on the idea for a while as I couldn't figure out a way of doing it live.

I picked up the straight backspinning and rhyming thing the first time I tried it - It's pretty basic to a certain degree. Then I remembered the old "clamp the headphones to your gob" thing and started to think about taking it further again.

I eventually nailed it and then tested it out live one Halloween - and then forgot about it until I saw the Edan video that someone posted on Youtube on his behalf.

Now not everyone knows what beatjuggling is which is fine (obviously) but dope as that video was, it did read "Edan Rhymes and Beat Juggles Live" - which he's not.
It's backspinning the break with one hand while the other holds the mic.
Still fresh as hell though and they both kill it. Severely.

That's why I swiftly recorded this little clip here.
I start with the backspin/rap thing and various quick cut variations on that before I slow it down to a beat juggle and keep it going that way.
I've searched quite a bit to see if I could find anyone else that does this (and I'm sure there must be?) but I haven't found anything as of yet.
Post this wherever you like. 

Just so you know - I'm really not as much of a nerd as I sound right now.
Generally I don't care about the geeky, dull world of scratch fiends. Honest.

This was recorded in our ex-flat on Brighton seafront.
Our landlady was a Voodoo priestess who couldn't cook for shit and collected fire hazards to leave on the stairs.
Glad to be shot of it. I love our new house.

Radio Rust Podcast Episode 12?

So i've been doing this podcast for a year? Is that all???
Seems like something I've always done some how....

Anyway - it's raining out there once again but I've got leftover Daal sitting in the kitchen that Rachel made last night so who cares.
Day off, it's 2PM and I'm still in a dressing gown - amazing.

Yeah I know the podcast is horrifically late again - the music within will make up for my tardiness I promise.

This month I've stuck some hip hop action in there along with a bunch of weird and wonderful rarities from the late sixties/early seventies that should freak you out a little bit.
You don't need a track list - she's delicious.... so eat it up. 

Now back to finishing a load of new music. It's going to wreck you. 

GRAB RADIO RUST 12 HERE - YAY!

Social Phantoms?

Apologies in advance for this post but it's been a motherfucker of a day.

As is usual I was falling in and out of sleep on the train home and for some reason I had this little epiphany... 

"Social networking sites will eventually become the worlds largest cemeteries".

Quite a statement.
Weirdly enough, that line came to me before I actually thought about the words.

Let's just take Facebook as one example of many.
What happens when that person keels over?
Seriously - think about that for a minute. It's kind of eerie.

Most people don't share passwords with friends or loved ones (although I do) so if they suddenly kick the bucket they just er... remain.
They stay behind to haunt the lonely, intangible land of cyberspace - forever.

Therefore you are going to have potentially millions of people sending friend requests to the dead.

Even as you read this people are trying to track down ex school friends, ex lovers, ex colleagues and long lost family members who are all dead.
You are going to find people that haven't updated their "status" for years because they've long ago returned to the dirt.
People will remain smiling in photos, sharing old jokes with friends, you'll know what they used to enjoy musically, learn about film preferences, past relationships, sexual preferences, desires, hopes, dreams etc etc....while at the moment you are reading it they will be caring about nothing at all.

Just a thought.

This right here was taken by the incredible Rachel Watson - and yes that is a real skull. She's called Elsie and we discovered her after I crawled under some trees on my stomach in the ancient cemetary behind our house.
It's older than Facebook but won't be for too much longer.
This is all true folks.

Sorry about the downer.
Go listen to the Skelton Music EP and wonder how many of the people on the first track are now internet ghosts.

GRAB IT HERE

Damn I need a drink.....

Bad Back

Woken up this morning to a big plate of ouch.
Too much time spent in the attic yesterday. Must remember to go and get some sunshine today.

This is the track I did for last years RISING STYLES CD - For those that don't know Rising Styles is a Hip Hop Festival that runs every year here in the Brighton village.
I'm saying nothing else on the subject for fear of removing myself from yet another Christmas card list.

This one is called "Who's He???"

Go to the SUSPECT PACKAGES site if you want to buy the CD and give the organisers your cash.
We get air.

I yoinked the picture here from Rachel's documents because she's very naughty.....I should go wake her up. Maybe she'll want some crumpets.

Enjoy.

WHO'S HE? MP3 HERE DUMMY.

Charity Shop Nasties and Strangers Boobs.

I live in Brighton now with all the "cool" kids and stupid hats - subsequently the Charity shops round these parts are generally pretty dry and devoid of goodies.

I'm not even sure if this is the result of people like me. I know there's a bunch of sensible people in the area who go out constantly to bleed these places of crappy retro clothes to then go on to peddle a load of day glo nightmares for a ridiculous profit in trendy boutiques to the ever flowing stream of dumb fopp tourists and hip arty students. There's good money in it too - If I could be bothered I'd probably do the same.

Me not being the worlds greatest follower of fashion (which can also be read as "give a shit?") when I walk through the doors of these places I'm generally looking for old VHS flicks, cassettes and LPs.

In Brighton mostly this results in a big zero. Nonetheless I can't walk past even the really bad haunts without having a quick rummage. It's a habit that I share with the rest of the nerdy perverts of my ilk.

Anyway, where the hell is this going? I don't know really.

I've been woken up far too early by a big van delivering furniture for the studio and now I've got the cat on my lap who is trying to stop me typing this rubbish. Here he is...

Mum and dad used to run a video rental store back when I was pretty young and even more impressionable. We're talking the days of anything goes cinema here. Any old crap. The pre BBFC golden age of VHS.

Up in my bedroom at night I used to watch all kinds of tapes that I'd shoved into my school bag in secret. Purely based on the garish cover art or some fierce tag-line or something weird that tapped into odd feelings that I didn't yet understand. This was before the 'video nasty' act and the tape seizures came about so I'm talking about covers like "Driller Killer", the rape-revenge flicks, the original "Oasis of the Zombies" cover, "Evil Dead" (obviously) and "Mausoleum" (That one had monster boobs in it that chewed through a guys ribcage in the bath - I shit you not...). Most of the time the cover art was incredible and the film inside was atrociously bad. But that was half the fun. I guess when you're pumping out hundreds of straight-to-video flicks you need to get peoples attention. Sex and violence.

Like this abomination.... "Galaxy of Terror".... Seriously now this one is a real piece of piss! I've included this one because it got me sent home from school with a note for my parents (not good...). I only had the case in my bag too. Still don't know why I was showing it off at school. I remember there being a weird bit where a glass splinter (maybe...) gets stuck in some guys hand and then takes on a life of it's own and crawls further up inside his arm as he desperately tries to get it out.... I stuck this on briefly the other day and took it out pretty much immediately. It was the cover that sucked me in I think. Back then I can't have known why it did - but it's pretty obvious now though (i.e: girl, peril, zombie type thing). Just for the record - Sci Fi or any space crap is not my cup of tea. I have NEVER seen any of the Star Wars series and nor do I want to..... I realise that I may have just lost a bunch of readers and/or fans. Sorry about that.

So yeah, I pretty much saw it all at a probably far too early age - whether or not it's screwed me up much is open to debate. I reckon I'm OK. Rachel might tell you otherwise.

I hate these 24 hour DVD slot machine shops that are springing up everywhere now. Everything is becoming so sanitised and all the fun and interaction of going to a local independent store is all but lost. I remember people coming in to our shop and asking advice and talking crap while I was up a stepladder blu-tacking a "Demons 2" poster above the counter while I looked down some ladies top.

That's what's missing- screwed up pervert children.

You don't get that in Blockbusters bitch!

And Blockbusters? Jesus....That one will have to wait for another post - I hate those scum bags.

If you don't know then you need to know. Evil, evil, evil.

Again, sorry I ramble and digress -  the cat is trying to get his hands in my mouth.

Sometimes you do get lucky and the promise of that never allows you to stop hunting. 

It's a curse/blessing kind of deal. We were in a stinky charity/furniture shop a while back and, un-friggin-believably, Rachel dug these two gems from the bottom of a huge box of old tapes.... 

....Jorg Buttgereit's almost art-house, depressing-yet-amazing "Der Todesking" and the animal lovers favourite "Cannibal Ferox" - Utterley mental! I can honestly say that I've never picked up any seized VHS from a charity shop. I did once pick up Lenzi's "Eaten Alive" and the delightfully sordid "Don't go in the House" at a car-boot though. Ahhh such happy days....

I can't claim to actually enjoy Cannibal Ferox all that much - It's hardly a Vegan friendly film after all! - but any flick of the era with John Morghen in it is usually pretty funny - he's such a dick! Not only that, he hated the film and tried a few times to beat the crap out of Lenzi over the animal naughties he filmed. Good lad.

Der Todesking was a new one to me and it was surprisingly good in a very serious/slightly depressing way. It deals with death (obviously - it's called the king of death, numbnuts... having said that I may have translated that wrong so blah...) suicide, murder and decay in a very matter of fact almost documentary type way. There's also hardly any dialogue whatsoever.

Before I go, here's another VHS tape directly from the old shop that I only include here because I embarrassingly discussed this one a little too honestly with Miss Redstone the other night! I watched this one up until the end of the "grave dance" scene one morning before school and all day I couldn't stop thinking about it or understand what these "weird feelings" were - yes folks these were my very first "stirrings"..... Which I guess explains a hell of a lot (!!!) and my "thing" for ladies with oddly coloured hair - along with all things sex/death.....  

.....And these are just to brag a bit more to Redstone who likes her junk. One of which isn't even the story of the film - pretty weird as it's supposedly written by the same guy. Oh yeah....both of which are written like a ten year old. You know...something like this. 

Over and out.