Event

DJ Food – ‘The Search Engine’ Live at SAT, Montreal

DJ Food ‘The Search Engine’ live at SAT, Montreal from Solid Steel on Vimeo.

This is what I got up to in Montreal recently. Many, many thanks to Anne-Marie Bergeron who put this together at very short notice. If anyone seeing this works at a dome or planetarium, anywhere in the world, and are interested in hosting it in the future then please get in touch. I realise not every dome has a surround system or space to lay on the floor, it doesn’t have to, I will happily work with you to tailor the show to your needs. Contact details are up on the right there…

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Film. | 2 Comments |

1000th post! ‘The Search Engine’ at the SAT, Montreal

_MG_7195_sebastien_roy640_MG_6695_sebastien_roy640DJ Food-photo Susan Moss-57Ju_Graphee Foodmg_6632_sebastien_roymg_6717_sebastien_roymg_6765_sebastien_roymg_6847_sebastien_roymg_6871_sebastien_roymg_6961_sebastien_roymg_7007_sebastien_roymg_7010_sebastien_roymg_7195_sebastien_roy640mg_7400_sebastien_roymg_7416_sebastien_roymg_7591_sebastien_roymg_7596_sebastien_roymg_7603_sebastien_roymg_7688_sebastien_roymg_7718_sebastien_roymg_7741_sebastien_roymg_7759_sebastien_roy

As it always does, the day of the show came and went in a blur. By 7pm on July 19th we actually had everything in place, there was no last minute rushing around or ‘that will have to do’ decisions. The only thing I was worried about was doing a short introduction in front of the assembled press, I’ve never been comfortable being center stage, even less when speaking through a mic. By the time the first show kicked off there was little to do but sit down and play, or even lie down and shift sound around as much or as little as it needed for the 50 minute show.

I should have done this years ago, I get to lie down with the audience and just play with the sound, no one is looking at me up on a stage, they’re concentrating on the dome and I can watch it too whereas most projections are usually behind me when I DJ.

Sébastien Roy – the SAT‘s photographer – took an amazing set of photos that really capture the scale as well as working well with the low light levels (see above and below galleries).

_MG_7195_sebastien_roy640_MG_6695_sebastien_roy640DJ Food-photo Susan Moss-57Ju_Graphee Foodmg_6632_sebastien_roymg_6717_sebastien_roymg_6765_sebastien_roymg_6847_sebastien_roymg_6871_sebastien_roymg_6961_sebastien_roymg_7007_sebastien_roymg_7010_sebastien_roymg_7195_sebastien_roy640mg_7400_sebastien_roymg_7416_sebastien_roymg_7591_sebastien_roymg_7596_sebastien_roymg_7603_sebastien_roymg_7688_sebastien_roymg_7718_sebastien_roymg_7741_sebastien_roymg_7759_sebastien_roy

Sam from Vinyl Junkies made this video clip compilation. That’s his 6 year old daughter at one point at her first ever gig, she loved it. I also did an interview with him the day after about the shows which will be online soon.

[youtube width=”640″ height=”390″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIP1mAHZdOw&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

Thursday, post show comment: Thanks so much to everyone who came out last night, it was such a thrill to finally see it up on the dome. So happy to be hosted by the SAT in one of my favourite cities in the world, everyone who helped on this has been amazing, especially Olivier Rhéaume who helped me mix the sound all week. Looking forward to coming back for the Friday night crowd. Tickets have been selling so well that a Saturday show was announced too.

Here’s a review (in french) by Olash Bacon and a nicely put together set of pictures by Jü|Graphee

Friday, post show comment: Just back, another two down, we tweaked the sound during the day and it’s now sounding a lot better, less top end in places, the spoken word stuff cuts through a lot better too. One more show for Saturday at 8pm, tickets still left but selling fast, a lot who came tonight couldn’t get in and bought for tomorrow instead. I met so many cool people tonight and the posters are selling really well too.

[singlepic id=4017 w=640 h=480 float=left]

Also, more fantastic photos: this time by Susan Moss

_MG_7195_sebastien_roy640_MG_6695_sebastien_roy640DJ Food-photo Susan Moss-57Ju_Graphee Foodmg_6632_sebastien_roymg_6717_sebastien_roymg_6765_sebastien_roymg_6847_sebastien_roymg_6871_sebastien_roymg_6961_sebastien_roymg_7007_sebastien_roymg_7010_sebastien_roymg_7195_sebastien_roy640mg_7400_sebastien_roymg_7416_sebastien_roymg_7591_sebastien_roymg_7596_sebastien_roymg_7603_sebastien_roymg_7688_sebastien_roymg_7718_sebastien_roymg_7741_sebastien_roymg_7759_sebastien_roy

I should take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped me, especially people who supplied some of the footage and gave invaluable advice before I even got to Montreal. Jan Zehn and Stefan Berke from Germany for their CymaSonics sequences, very happy to have their input. Paul Bourke, something of a legend in dome projection, and the sequences he sent, very generously at the last minute. Thomas English for the Red Epic footage, again donated very kindly. Phil Mayer and Ben Stern at Fulldome UK for advice and who will be staging the next version of this show in Leicester this coming November. Also Mario Di Maggio from Thinktank‘s Digital Planetarium in Birmingham for a special preview show which opened my eyes to several possibilities.

At the SAT it’s thanks to LP, Dominic (it was a boy!), Olivier, Guillaume and Alex that it all went smoothly. Evelyn at Evenko for helping stage it, Jeff Waye and Danna Takako Hawley at Ninja Tune N. America for setting it up and doing all the nitty gritty stuff. Finally a big man hug to Pat Hamou (that’s him below) who initially suggested it, helped out and designed the poster to boot – thanks all. I hope to make it back soon with a better show, each one is a learning process and there’s still work to do and plenty more domes to visit.

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Film. | 4 Comments |

Setting up at the SATosphere

Some of this content appeared on the Facebook page for the event as this was the most direct way to explain what was happening to the people who were going, so apologies for any repetition.

Pre-gig article by Lucinda Catchlove for CBC Music on what it’s about and what I intend to do.

Now some background on the process of getting it to the screen:

July 9th: Currently rendering footage from both After Effects and Final Cut Pro as well as preparing images in Photoshop. To show films ‘full dome’ (ie covering the whole surface of a dome) you need to have an image between 3000 and 4000 pixels square. Only Red cameras can shoot over the 4k image size but this is only on the long side, and the raw footage for one frame this size is 36MB. As a result most full dome films are animations and I’m attempting to make a 50 minute sequence to go with my mix of the album.

July 12th: Another late night, nearly ready to put the whole thing into the final arrangement. Most of the animation is done in After Effects but AE isn’t too great for synching visuals and sound together, especially a 50 minute sequence. So image sequences are loaded into Final Cut Pro for an easier handle on editing to a timeline although low res versions are made because of the huge file sizes needed for a dome and not a regular projection screen.

Once everything is in it’s correct place an XML file of the session is exported BACK to AE so that a plug in that simulates a 3D dome environment can be added in various different ways to sections. More on that later, that’s the really tricky part where you go from thinking in 2D to 3D and start placing things in space…

Trying to render FX on 2700×2700 pixel footage from a R3D Epic camera inside a 3600×3600 pixel video sequence. “Computer says no…”

July 9th: Animating images is largely done in After Effects then rendered to Image sequences of huge jpegs at 30 fps (frames per second). That’s 30 jpegs per second x how ever many seconds in a sequence. I’m making a 50 minute + show: 30 x 60 x 50 = over 90,000 images. Here’s one below…

I’ve already broken the whole soundtrack down into ‘stems’ (each instrument or part isolated onto a separate track) and this has been sent to the SAT where they are busy making ‘sound maps’ for each song in the mix. With over 150 speakers inside the dome we can place each sound from each track wherever we want. Even better, once the show has begun I should be able to move sounds around the dome manually as it plays using a program on an iPad.

So if you wonder what I’m doing if you come along, I’m not surfing the web or checking email, I’ll be moving sounds around to mess your head up. The song I’m most excited about for this is ‘A Trick Of The Ear’ – this track was actually written with the intention of each part panning around a sphere. Besides various polyrhythms working in tandem throughout the track, I wanted it to feel like you were inside a gyroscope when you listened to it. Hopefully we’ll get somewhere near that next week.

Friday 13th: Last day putting the finishing touches where I can before bouncing it all over to After Effects and applying the full dome plug in to certain sections. Off to Belgium today for a gig too so going to leave stuff rendering no doubt but some will have to be done at the SAT next week.

Monday 16th: Well, I’m in Montreal, about to head down to the SAT and plug everything in, still need to do work on parts today before we push the ‘render’ button. Had to pull an all-nighter Saturday in order to make sure everything copied over to 3 external hard drives. Today should be a pivotal day in getting this from my machines into the SAT. For anyone thinking of getting into dome projection in the future, I’d say… think very carefully. But if you’re determined you’ll need a very fast machine / graphics card, huge amounts of hard disc space and lots of time on your hands…

It’s 9.40pm and I’m still at the SAT, today has been trying to say the least. The Mac to PC file exchange got off to a flying start when trying to copy 300GB to their servers was going to take 9 hours. Luckily they have a Mac Drive program now which enables them to read drives formatted in HFS+ (Mac read/writable) and we needed the time to finish fine tuning the show.

Dominic, who is helping me with all the visual side is about to be a new dad, I mean imminently, not any day, but any hour or minute. He was giving me tips by mobile whilst at the hospital :) The initial render time direct from my drive for the 50 minute piece was over 30 hours so we’ve stop that and are now copying the files needed to the server for a multi-machine render tomorrow. Here’s a shot of the mini dome that they have in their computer lab and the bar and terrace on the second floor outside the dome.

On the audio side we have 164 separate tracks to sort out and bounce to a manageable amount before ‘spatializing’ them into different parts of the dome for each song. This will create song maps unique to each track and enable me to move certain parts around at will. For everyone back in the UK, the sun was out this morning and I’m in shorts and a T-shirt. But lo and behold, what happened this afternoon? It pissed down, exactly like London, I couldn’t quite believe it.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say, at one point the master drive I’d bought as back up with EVERYTHING on it wouldn’t show up on my laptop after being pulled out of the SAT server. ‘The drive could not be found, would you like to reinitialise it?’ Luckily Disc Utilities saved the day.

Tuesday 17th: Day 2 in Montreal: Woke up to rain at 5.45am – WTF? I’m beginning to think I brought the bad weather with me from the UK. Monday was full on, got home around midnight with ‘homework’ on the audio to do. Couldn’t face it so got up super early this morning to get a few hours in before heading out.

Dominic was here (still no baby arrived) and set the visuals up on 6 machines to render, he thinks it will be done by tomorrow morning when it then has to be re-rendered for the various projectors in the dome. Making sound maps and spatializing all the tracks this afternoon hopefully – I need some lunch.

Wednesday 18th: Mixing, mixing mixing, all day and into the night with Olivier Rhéaume… The downstairs floor of the SAT is open plan and there’s been a full orchestra ‘practicing’ most of the week. Insanely good players, completely perfect to my ears, we’re working on the 2nd floor and hearing Holst‘s piece ‘Mars’ from The Planets suite wafting up the stairwell was amazing. Apprarently we really pissed them off with the volume we were mixing at unfortunately. Had a midday break to go and record a mix for CBC (see last post) and do an interview for La Devoir paper then dinner and back to the mix until 11pm.

Thursday 19th: Show day – last minute emergency, some donut (me) left a reference film in place of the last sequence. When we watched the whole thing through we got to the end and it looked like someone had used an animated gif in place of a hi res image sequence, not a good way to end the show. Currently re-rendering from the proper source files…

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Film, Gigs. | No Comments |

Around Montreal last week

It’s been a bit quiet on the blog this past week as I’ve been away in Montreal doing the ‘Search Engine’ shows at the SAT (Société des Arts Technologiques), I fly back to the UK this evening so I’d like to share what I’ve seen and done all week. It’s three posts until the 1000th entry so I’ll set the scene before the big 1k reveal. First off, I’m sure anyone who’s visited Montreal will know that it’s a city full of great street art and unique architecture, once hosting Expo 67 (the Buckminster Fuller dome is still there if not in its former glory).

The view above was taken from the 15th floor of the CBC building (Canadian Broadcasting Company) where I was doing a mix for a late night show, Bande a Part, the Fuller dome is just out of shot on the righ. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to make it over to the old site but I’ll be back and then it’s top of the list. It’s impossible to walk around though without being confronted by huge murals, graffiti pieces or interesting signage, the best of which I’ve put in the small gallery here.

Rolling Stones 3D 1990Rolling Stones 3D 1967Chipperfields Circus poster webYardbirds Doors original Bonnie MacLeanYardbirds Doors poster

Pat Hamou, an old friend who worked for Ninja Tune North America and was responsible for suggesting this whole project to the SAT, had curated an exhibition of screen printed gig posters called Music On Paper which was held in the crypt gallery of a church. It’s just finished but there were some great posters on display including the one he designed for my gig.
The next two posts are quite content-heavy so I might not get time to post them before I leave, more when I return to the UK…

Posted in Art, Event, Poster / flyer. | 1 Comment |

DJ Food – The Search Engine at the SATosphere, Montreal

I’ll be playing at the Société des Arts Technologiques in their SATosphere in Montreal, as part of the Osheaga Festival of Music & Arts 2012 this July. Bringing a revised and remixed version of The Search Engine show I presented at the London Planetarium in January to North America for four performances. Not only will the dome be bigger but the sound will be controllable with over 150 speakers providing a 25:4 surround sound system which I will be operating during each show. Here’s a short I did with the Evenko team, who are putting it on, whilst I was in Montreal recently – marvel at my inability to describe what it will be like.

[quicktime width=”636″ height=”380″]http://www.djfood.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DJ-Food-–-The-Search-Engine-evenkoTV.mp4[/quicktime]
On sale at the SAT box office, Atom Heart and La Vitrine
July 19 & July 20 – 7pm + 9pm shows – $22,50 advance ($25 at the door)

The SATosphere is located at 1201, St-Laurent Blvd, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Posted in DJ Food, Event. | 3 Comments |

Flint & Food at Factory Road

So much to say about the last few days and the opening of the DJ Food & Henry Flint exhibition at the Factory Road Gallery in Hinckley, Leicester with my friends Sarah (aka Inkymole) and Leigh. I’ve known them for around 15 years now and always enjoy their company so it was a no-brainer when they asked if they could host the work I’d got together for the Pure Evil Gallery earlier this year. What’s unique about this is that the gallery is in their own home, on the corner of a quiet suburban street, not in the middle of a hip part of a big city. A few years ago they did some major architectural restructuring and turned the downstairs of their home into a workspace cum gallery, dependent on what was on at the time. This is the third or fourth exhibition to be held there and, with the help of their intern, Brook, and amazing chef Jed Smith, they managed to make it a very unique event.

The difference between this and the Pure Evil show is that they were keen to feature a sort of retrospective element of my design work with Ninja Tune over the years alongside work that Henry and I had generated for ‘The Search Engine’ album, his book ‘Broadcast’ and past comic work. This took the form of a whole wall running the length of the downstairs plus a tabletop collage under glass of all manner of flyers, sleeves, proofs and other ephemera. Two sides of the central supporting wall were taken up with Henry’s past comic work with prints and original art from the album near the entrance. Near the rear of the gallery we set up a turntable and zoetrope disc to project animations that were also meant for London but didn’t happen as well as a 55 minute mix with visuals based on my planetarium show of the same time.

tea towelsSpace Chocolateset-up-1set-up-2set-up-3set-up-4set-up-5set-up-6set-up-8set-up-9

To add to this Sarah and Leigh always do special merchandise to go with each show, a regular item being a tea towel – or rather a visor / helmet polishing cloth (ooer) – printed locally and hemmed by Sarah’s mum. Also for sale was a limited edition ‘Skullstronaut’ giclee print and locally sourced chocolate bars, cleverly playing on the outer space theme and packaged like freeze-dried astronaut food.

Speaking of food, the killer addition of the night was Jed Smith in the kitchen, whipping up amazing bite-sized, space-themed eats for everyone. The cubed chips, baked pea shells and sauce were the hit of the night, a bowl of ‘space dust’ (homemade sherbert) looked like a moon surface and the dried rice and beetroot dip was literally out of this world (sorry). Everyone who came looked uncertainly at it all, took the plunge and were instantly in for seconds.

It’s rare to attend an opening and to ask the guests if they’ve been to the toilet yet (unless it’s for some sort of nose up) but the bathroom had it’s own charm in the form of Will Cooper-Mitchell’s press shots of me in an astronaut suit, alongside a hand-painted shuttle (by Sarah’s sister, close family ties going on here) and a short musical loop of space-themed sounds.

This, alongside a big barrel of local ale for refreshments, rounded the whole event off beautifully and added to the homely vibe of the exhibition. A steady stream of visitors arrived, both local and from further afield from 6pm until midnight and I talked to everyone from fans to friends, university professors to the local record store owner. Having been there since Thursday afternoon setting up and rearranging things I was beat by then and we had an early start the next morning but that’s another story.

Thank you so much to everyone who came but especially Sarah, Leigh, Jed, Brook and everyone who helped to make it such a success, some of the photos here are by their friend, Nigel, who was also the architect who helped them build the gallery. We realised, once it was all hung and arranged, that we’d fitted in twice the content than in London, in a smaller space too so there’s twice the reason to go and have a look. The show is at 71 Factory Road, Hinckley, Leicestershire, it’s free and on until June 15th, all merchandise is on sale on the Factory Road Shop now.

Posted in Art, Comics, DJ Food, Event, Ninja Tune, Openmind designs, Packaging, Photography, Records. | 3 Comments |

Factory Road Gallery goodies #2 – Skullstronaut print

Here’s the ‘Skullstronaut’ print, specially made for Friday’s exhibition opening at the Factory Road Gallery, Hinckley, Leicestershire. Taken from the cover of the recent DJ Food vs The Amorphous Androgynous 12″ single and measuring a hefty 55cm x 55cm this giclée print on Somerset Rag paper will set you back just £25 at the show. It’s an edition of 25 and will be signed by myself, any unsold stock will be on the Factory Road shop once the exhibition has finished.

Posted in Art, DJ Food, Event, Openmind designs. | 3 Comments |

Factory Road Gallery goodies

Only 3 days to go until the DJ Food & Henry Flint show reopens, revitalised at the Factory Road Gallery in Hinckley. I sent a last load of sleeves, posters, flyers and other assorted memorabilia off for it today and there will be more of Henry’s old 2000ad artwork than we had in London, different pages too – all from my personal collection.

Also on sale there will be these space-themed chocolate bars in requisite silver foil packaging featuring the ‘skullstronaut’. There’ll be more exclusive merch on sale but I’ll post about that later. Sarah and Leigh, who run the gallery from their home, really take care and go to extra lengths to make bespoke items for their shows so that each one is a unique experience. I’m so pleased to be doing something with them after knowing them for over 15 years.

Posted in Art, Comics, DJ Food, Event, Packaging. | 2 Comments |

SATosphere, Montreal – a small preview

The reason some of the posts this week have been coming from Montreal is that I’ve been spending a week there working with people at the SATsosphere in the downtown area. They’ve been giving me lessons and advice on creating content for their dome, where I will be presenting a newly remixed version of The Search Engine planetarium show I did in London for them in July. Getting your head around the software is mind-boggling and forget 5.1 sound, theirs is 25.4 (!) Here are a few shots – you can’t get much of an idea of what the dome stuff will look like because it’s such an expanse and there’s no way to get it all in the frame.

Posted in DJ Food, Event. | 5 Comments |

Star Wars Identities exhibition, Montreal

I went to the Star Wars Identities exhibition yesterday at the Montreal Science Centre which is full of over 200 props, costumes, figures, ships and production designs from the six films and beyond. The whole thing is tied together with a ‘quest’ to find your SW identity which you complete by selecting various characteristics from 10 steps amongst the exhibits which are then compiled into an image when you exit. I went for the original props though which are well worth it as there’s a lot and it’s pretty comprehensive, good for kids and adults.

carbonite 2img_1954img_1955img_1957img_1958img_1961img_1959img_1960img_1962img_1963img_1964img_1966img_1968img_1969img_1971img_1973img_1975img_1982img_1987img_1990img_1993img_1994img_1997img_2002img_2003img_2007img_2010img_2011img_2016img_2017img_2020img_2021img_2022img_2024img_2028img_2029img_2030img_2031img_2032img_2033img_2036img_2038img_2039img_2040img_2041img_2042img_2043img_2044img_2077img_2045img_2046img_2047img_2048img_2049img_2050img_2052img_2055img_2056img_2057img_2063img_2066img_2068img_2071img_2075img_2078img_2079img_2081img_2083img_2084img_2085img_2086img_2092img_2093img_2094img_2097img_2099img_2061


Posted in Event, Star Wars. | 2 Comments |

RIP Maurice Sendak

Another visionary artist gone, first Ralph McQuarrie, then Moebius (not to forget MCA on Friday), now Maurice Sendak!

I love his books, especially ‘In The Night Kitchen’, of which I made a huge poster for my kids’ bedroom when they were 2 years old. I also loved the way he was so outspoken about encroaching political correctness and what could and could not be shown to children. A true original.

Obviously ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ is his best known work, and deservedly so but there’s a lot more in his catalogue than that classic. When I was digging through the archive at Sesame Workshop in 2003 I found a cartoon of ‘Bumble Ardy’, voiced by Ken Nordine written by Sendak and illustrated in his style. This became his last book, published last year in a revised form and you can find it on a Sesame Street DVD called ‘Old School’.

[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2TVYdQU3-I[/youtube]

This is a post I had over on my old MySpace blog from Jan 2008:
“On December 27th I installed a ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ window display in the Tales on Moon Lane bookshop in Herne Hill, London. It will be up until Easter and then move to their Primrose Hill shop. I highly recommend the shop for kids books as they have an excellent selection and the shop is packed with loads of fun stuff.”


I just saw this via Twitter which is just beautiful:
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

– Maurice Sendak – RIP, you left a great legacy for generations to come.

Posted in Art, Event. | No Comments |

Kofie – ‘Working An Angle’ exhibition, Known Gallery, LA

Augustine Kofie: Working An Angle @ Known Gallery Los Angeles from Augustine Kofie on Vimeo.

Promo for Augustine Kofies' Solo showing at Known Gallery as well as his first solo in Los Angeles in over 3 years.

AUGUSTINE KOFIE / WORKING AN ANGLE Opens: May 26, 2012 | 8-11pm Runs: May 26 – June 9, 2012 KNOWN Gallery, 441 North Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036 [email protected]

Posted in Art, Event. | No Comments |

Flint & Food at Factory Road

On June 1st I’ll be traveling up to my friends’ Sarah and Leigh‘s place in Hinckley, Leicestershire for the opening of a rejigged version of the DJ Food & Henry Flint exhibition that we held at the Pure Evil Gallery in January.

Their Factory Road Gallery will host a lot of the posters and original art and there will be local ale, special food and prints, CDs and books for sale. More details here.

There will be special limited editions available at the show, a 20 copy giclée print of the recent 12″ cover, printed tea towels (!) and chocolate bars in silver space-type wrapping. There will also be food on the opening night, local ale and I’ll be around to answer any questions.

Posted in Art, Comics, DJ Food, Event, Openmind designs. | No Comments |

R.I.P. MCA of the Beastie Boys

To most kids of my generation, only a couple of years behind Adrock in age at the time they blew up, the Beastie’s were super heroes. Who didn’t want to be them? Signed to the coolest Hip Hop label, growing up in public and doing the rock star thing for their first album and then moving to the west coast and hooking up with the Dust Brothers for the second.

They were a gang, you knew all their close friends from shout outs on the records and collages on the record sleeves, and you knew what they were into from their lyrics. Skateboarding, snowboarding, hardcore, rap, funk, rock, playing basketball backstage, making films and building their own recording studio. Always flipping the script with artwork and videos and always one step ahead of a trend as evidenced by countless articles in their Grand Royal magazine and the Yauch-directed ‘Sabotage’ video. Never taking themselves too seriously, you knew they were doing exactly what they wanted and having a ball.

The news that Yauch is gone is just unfathomable, I mean, he had throat cancer a few years back and he beat that, didn’t he? As far a we knew he did – of course he did, he was a superhero, beating cancer was childs play for him – “hang on, we’re just going to postpone our album for a bit while Adam battles cancer”. 6 months later, job done, the album’s out, let’s move on. You never doubted he’d beat it, it was just a formality, he was a Beastie Boy, a super hero. The news on May the 4th came out of the blue like a left hook you never saw coming, this time there would be no comeback for a new cross-over series starting next month. Now I’ve had time to take it in I’ve written some memories of the Beasties – who it will always be impossible to separate MCA from – who have been part of my musical merry go round since 1985.

I (unknowingly) first heard MCA’s gruff tones over the early Def Jam oddity, ‘Drum Machine’ by Burzootie, shouting, “Now there’s a thing called the drum machine”, repeatedly over a DMX beat that sounded like Tackhead. One of those weird one-off records that only happen when labels are finding their feet, it was a collab between Jay Burnett (Burzootie) MCA (Master Def Yauch) and Arthur Baker (Shakin’ Baker) with edits by the Latin Rascals. Next was ‘Slow & Low’ which turned up on a free 7″ with the NME I think and by the time ‘Hold It Now, Hit It’ surfaced they were most definitely on the radar.

Raising Hell Tour ’86 at the Hammersmith Odeon with LL, Whodini & Run DMC: Beasties were first on, they did ‘Slow & Low’ and ‘Hold It Now, Hit It’, wisely leaving the metal of ‘She’s On It’ off the set list for the Hip Hop crowd, and that was it. They had precious other material released at that point that anyone had heard (‘Cookie Puss’ was still under the radar and even ‘Rock Hard’ and ‘Drum Machine’ were not that well known). ‘Licensed to Ill’ wasn’t out then but they tore into the 10 minute set they had with Rick ‘DJ Double R’ Rubin as their DJ.

Less than a year later ‘Licensed To Ill’ was the soundtrack to the summer holiday of ’87 and I painted the Beastie Boys’ logo from the tail of the plane on the cover on the back of my jacket. A kid at college asked me, “what’s does ‘Licensed to three’ mean?”. After seeing Mike D on the cover of the NME wearing a VW logo round his neck I went out and pulled a big silver one off the front of a van the next weekend. Saw them in Brighton at the Conference Centre and they had the caged girls, inflatable penis, beer throwing and we saw them walking along the sea front, I still have the programme. I bought the tour T-shirt which I wore into an exam that bore the legend ‘Get Off My Dick’ on the back, I was told not to wear it again.

‘Paul’s Boutique’ – still one of my top 3 Hip Hop records and one of my favourite albums of all time. The haters at the time were wrong, it was a classic all along, they were far more than just a white rap act with rock riffs. The bad press didn’t make sense at all, this album was way better than the debut – just too far ahead of the game I suppose. It’s widely acknowledged that, along with De La‘s ‘3ft High & Rising’, ‘Paul’s Boutique’ was one of the last albums made with huge samples. They were sampling the Beatles for godsake, you can’t make records like that anymore.

‘Check Your Head’ – summer soundtrack of ’92, up their with PB as a favourite, but this time they were playing as well as sampling! I used to walk around with this on my Walkman trying to find a job when college finished for the summer. I had no money and had just come out of a long relationship, it kept me sane. Saw them with the Rollins Band at the Town & Country Club and crowd-surfed  – awesome gig.

‘Ill Communication’ – blasting it out of the warehouse in the first job I had post-college, that and Grand Royal magazine after it just cemented the legend. Video for ‘Sabotage’ was a classic and I saw them at Glastonbury in the rain in ’94, and sought out the bootleg tape of the set later.

‘Hello Nasty’ tour, Brixton Academy ’98, I was one of the support acts alongside Kid Koala, Money Mark, Invisibl Skratch Picklz, X-Men, Ollie Teeba and the Scratch Perverts. Ollie and I practiced a 4 deck routine for weeks but I was so nervous I couldn’t enjoy the gig for one second. Had dinner backstage with Mixmaster Mike and Kid Koala and MCA sat on the next table, no big star trip, just a regular guy. The gig poster still hangs in my kids’ bedroom and they have a gang that they want to call the Beastie Boys.

I always thought that MCA came across as the more mature member of the group, the one keenest to put the events of their first album behind them. He seemed to grow out of that the quickest and his support for the Tibetan Monks just cemented this, his concerns were far wider than just the group. Out of all the lyrics that MCA threw out into the world this one always comes back and I think it would make a fine epitaph:

“I want to say a little something that’s long overdue
The disrespect to women has got to be through
To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends
I want to offer my love and respect to the end”

Thank you MCA, Adam Yauch – I will miss you but I have so many good memories because of what you and the Beasties did.

Posted in Event. | 7 Comments |

The 1st East London Comics & Arts Festival

Gorgeous poster for the 1st East London Comics & Arts Festival by one of my favourite artists currently – McBess. 7th June is the date with McBess as the artist in residence; live drawing relay races from Luke Pearson, Jack Teagle, Kyle Platts, and many more; a process talk by  BLEXBOLEX, chaired by Paul Gravett; 600 second interviews from Avoid the Future; a kids workshop organised by Anorak; Screenings by Nexus; panel discussions with Karrie Fransman, Darryl Cunningham and Simone Lia; stalls from the very best comics publishers, including Jonathan Cape, SelfMadeHero, Blank Slate, Nobrow, Knockabout, Landfill Editions, Solopsistic Pop, WAWAP and more. Alos there will be a ticketed concert featuring the Dead Pirates (McBess’ band), the Vuvuvultures and a special guest running from 8 ’til late.

Posted in Art, Comics, Event. | No Comments |