You need to see / hear / go to this – all this artists playing the same sets each night
Tickets:
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Gigs
Well, last Friday was a blast in Ramsgate, a packed room with an up for it crowd is all you could want but to have that crowd open to experimental turntable jams was even better. Myself and PuttyRubber overcame our pre-gig nerves and rattled through an hour plus of the set with a few hiccups but ultimately a banging show. Andre, Al and Conner at the venue bent over backwards to make it as easy as possible for us and Pleistoscene Megafauna did a fine job warming up for us. They really have a great venue and a good scene going on down there.
Some great photos came out of this, not least the one above taken by Pete Woodward which has to be one of my favourites ever taken.
Here’s a short clip of an acid moment, also taken by Pete Woodhead, if you like what you hear then there’s some of this coming to my Infinite Illectrik label on Bandcamp in the coming months as I’ve been recording recently and have a bunch of stuff to finish that will be released digitally. There may even be a physical release too later this year…
Below are some more photos from my good friend Jude Greenaway, aka Scan One and owner of the Yellow Machines and Modified Magic labels, who’s a newly installed resident of the area.
We’re actively looking for gigs for this audio visual set up so please get in touch if you want to book us.
This Friday at Ramsgate Music Hall – the first full Quadraphon turntable set with PuttyRubber on visuals + support from Pleistocene Megafauna – A night of improv electronics and visuals
Tickets: https://www.ramsgatemusichall.com/tc-events/dj-food-quadraphon/
Below, mine and PuttyRubber’s set ups, they don’t all pack down to a handy travel bag.
Footage from rehearsals with new collaborator PuttyRubber up in Bristol at the weekend. Shot at Stuart Warren-Hill‘s Holotronica studio by DJ Cheeba and re-edited to include some of PuttyRubber’s video feedback.
We’ll be debuting this partnership at the Ramsgate Music Hall on Feb 24th where I’ll be improvising with my 4-armed Quadraphon turntable and a bunch of locked groove records whilst PuttyRubber provides live video feedback visuals.
I just picked up two new upgraded tone arms for it from Ned Hawes at One_db in Staple Hill, long time coming, from sourcing the turntables, my dad helping make custom pods to house them and then Ned transplanting a tone arm into each pod. With a bit of additional fitting attention they’re now in place, replacing my earlier efforts which are now relegated to back up status. Also in the pic, new styli by 100 Sounds from Japan and custom slipmat by Sureshotshop
No idea how it’s going to fully manifest but it’s pretty exciting working it all out. Come and see if we crash and burn at Ramsgate Music Hall on Feb 24th
Tickets: https://www.ramsgatemusichall.com/tc-events/dj-food-quadraphon/
Not too much to say about this set, it does what it says on the tin, a live DJ mix from a couple of dates in the lesser-known reaches of Canada, Nelson and Tofino. I think it was for Nelson that I had to fly in a tiny plane to get to the town as it was in the mountains. Sometimes the smaller gigs are the best ones though, towns that don’t always get people coming through party harder than most when they do and I have good memories of these two.
Drum n Bass, hip hop, RnB, 2 Step and a dash of funk at the end best describes this party set. I’m not sure at which point the Nelson set becomes the Tofino one but there’s a part 2 up next week…
Many tracks don’t need an intro here, Zinc’s ‘Reach Out’ Remix is a classic, PC’s ‘Mirror In The Bathroom / Square Off’ mix had been heard the year before on our Now, Listen Solid Steel mix and he’d been doing it for years before that. I’m replicating it here as best I can, still learning the intricacies of when The Beat speed up and slow down to keep the tracks in time. The Bubba Sparxxx ‘Ugly’ remix was one of many at the time pairing RnB pop tracks with slamming Drum N Bass, I’ve got a ton of them, Britney, Beyonce, Christina, all way better than the originals too.
Tali’s ‘Lyric On My Lip’ was her first release on Full Cycle and DJ Suv went for the shuffle beat so popular with the Brazilian style of DnB doing the rounds and this time. Popularized my DJ Marky and the next track, Shy FX & T Power’s excellent ’Shake Your Body’, this bought the much needed swing and funk back into the genre after years of dark tech step. Cujo – aka Amon Tobin – fits in with the cheekiness of ‘The Sequel’ before another classic, ‘Body Rock’ does that swing thing ever harder.
The acappella of Rodney P’s ‘Riddim Killer’ precedes the actual full track, not sure what I was thinking there, might have been stuck for a next track and had to improvise quick. A switch down in tempo to half time and a mix I used to do a lot around this time – Ritchie Hawtin as Plaskitman’s ‘Panikattak’ rolling under Eve’s ‘Let Me Blow Your Mind’. I was loving the RnB hip hop pop a lot around this time as the Neptunes and Timbaland seemed to have an endless supply of amazing collaborations every month as you can hear later on.
Another section from the Now, Listen mix is recreated in the Blackalicious / Four Tet sequence and into Natural Self – another Tru Thoughts artist, who I’d collaborate with years later – with the Ramsey Lewis-sampling ‘Raise The Game’. Running Jammin’s ‘Unstable’ into this for quite so long probably wasn’t such a good idea but I couldn’t get enough of this DJ Zinc track and – after a rap track I can’t identify – it winds down nicely into the end section with two of the aforementioned Neptunes productions. What were those guys on at the start of the decade? No one could touch them, they seemed to throw this stuff out with the barest of elements in the immaculate mix, bringing the funk without the samples. We end with the ‘Funky Robot’, one of Rufus Thomas’ many records about dances, although he doesn’t exactly tell us how to do it, just that it’s the latest thing and better than all the other dances.
* Shout out to John Power and the Spectrum/Kinky Voodoo crew who held nights at the underground ‘club’ on Rathbone Place that housed the Bastard club.
Track list:
DJ ZINC – REACH OUT (REMIX)
THE BEAT – MIRROR IN THE BATHROOM
MASK – SQUARE OFF
BUBBA SPARXXX – UGLY (REMIX)
TALI – LYRIC ON MY LIP
DJ SUV – DO YOU REMEMBER ME?
SHY FX / T POWER feat DI – SHAKE YOUR BODY
CUJO – THE SEQUEL
SHIMON & ANDY C – BODY ROCK
RODNEY P – RIDDIM KILLER
PLASTIKMAN – PANIKATTAK
EVE feat. GWEN STEFANI – LET ME BLOW YOUR MIND
BLACKILICIOUS – ALPHABET AEROBICS
FOUR TET – GLASSHEAD
NATURAL SELF – RAISE THE GAME
JAMMIN’ – UNSTABLE
OL DIRTY BASTARD feat KELIS – GOT YOUR MONEY
BUSTA RHYMES – PASS THE COURVOISIER Pt 2
RUFUS THOMAS – FUNKY ROBOT
On Sunday evening I took part in a sound and light event at the Royal Foundation of St. Katherine in Limehouse called Candlemas – a Christian celebration of light. Organised by Heena Song and Julian Hand and featuring Paul Naudin, Joe and Janie from Whyte Light Visuals and myself, we set up various points around the site with music and light projections. Joe lit the chapel (above and immediately below) with Heena providing an ambient soundtrack for the master of the house to give hourly sermons over. He stole the show in his all in one, bright red tunic and packed the chapel out.
Julian, Heena, Paul and I were outside under a canopy which we projected all over using liquid and FX wheels whilst boiling and manipulating ink on slides from tables full of projectors whilst I provided music for the outdoors.
Meanwhile Joe and Janie used glass bowls, inks and projectors in one of the on-site Yurts to show their skills to punters in the cafe area.
Photos and videos by Karen Steadman, MadVinyl and Pat Grimm.
I spoke to Tom Ellen at ES Magazine a few weeks back about attending the Def Jam tour with Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim and LL Cool J back in 1987. The piece is primarily with Chuck D in reference to the new documentary Fight The Power: How Hip Hop Changed The World on BBC 3 which started last week and is on iPlayer now. I was being asked for my take on the first appearance on a London stage by PE back in 1987 and how the gig was a seismic event in the history of hip hop in the UK. Tom was led to me by the photos I posted on my blog a few years back, some of which were used in the article and are apparently in the documentary at some point. The article is online here to read too.
Love this poster, well worth checking out Francis Castle‘s Clay Pipe Music label and this night. She does all the design and has been producing a run of 3″ CDs recently, the fourth of which will go on sale at this event, sad I can’t go as I’m out of town that day. See the first three below
Next gig – something a bit different (hopefully the first of many different gigs in 2023)
I’ll be working alongside light artists Julian Hand, Heena Song, Paul Naudin and Whyte Light Visuals on the evening of Sunday Jan 29th when they light up The Royal Foundation of St. Katherine.
I’ll be mainly providing music but these guys really know how to project light, boil slides, work with ink and microscopic media. Expect ambient to krautrock and psychedelic visual projections.
Ticket entry is by donation – more details here
The main thing I’ve been doing this year is learning new software, lots involving AI algorithms that still seem like some kind of strange magic.
It started last year with the Moises software that can split stereo sound files into individual stems which opens up all sorts of possibilities and continued with NightCafe Creator where you can create incredible images from inputting a line of descriptive text. This has yielded a huge bank of images to draw from, some that have already become record sleeve illustrations (I just didn’t tell anyone). It’s all old hat now because AI art is everywhere on the web with thousands of images flooding our feeds on a daily basis but when I first wrote these words in early 2022 it was extremely addictive, if at an infant stage in its development. Just in the last six months alone AI has taken huge leaps in definition and feels like a giant shift in the art of image-making even if still has trouble with hands, it’s certainly divided people’s opinions.
Another AI app is the Topaz suite of image enhancers, the foremost being Gigapixel AI, the best image enhancer / upscaler I’ve ever seen, this has become part of my daily usage now alongside Photoshop and Indesign as a necessary tool to clean up images along with its Denoiser and Sharpener sister apps.
I (finally) got myself an iPad so that I could learn Procreate and again, a whole new world opens up with the possibilities this incredible app gives you. I never could justify getting a tablet, but seeing one of my sons drawing on his, wanting to go digital with some of my comic-buying and having a decent surface to learn Ninja Jamm on made it a necessary piece of kit. Learning to paint on it with one of my sons was among one of my favourite moments this year.
In the analogue world another revelation was a record cutting process pioneered by Ben Soundhog at Plastidisc where software that can convert an image into a waveform then cuts that image as a playable disc. The possibilities are endless and you can make a record without even playing one note.
My own experiments with the refining of my Quadraphon turntable have made for a sleeker, more portable and adaptable design along with the fantastic 4 channel Omnitronic TRM-402 mixer and the Ninja Tune/Erica Synths Zen Delay FX unit. I can make analogue tracks via one deck on the fly and jamming with this set up can yield hours of material, a refreshing new way to make music. Also becoming an author on good old fashioned paper felt pretty good too, I think I might have the book bug now. I hope you all have a Happy New Year and a riproaring 2023…
Music:
Clocolan – Empathy Alpha LP (Redpan)
Brian Eno – The Lighthouse (Sonos HD)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Omnium Gatherum LP (Flightless)
Twilight Sequence – Trees in General: and the Larch 12″ (Castles In Space)
WTCHCRFT – Drugs Here 12″ (Balkan Vinyl)
Ghost Power – Ghost Power LP (Duophonic Super 45s)
Dexorcist – Night Watch 12″ (Yellow Machines)
Project Gemini – The Children Of Scorpio LP (Mr Bongo/Garden’s End)
Regal Worm – Worm! LP (Quatermass)
The Advisory Circle – Full Circle LP (Ghost Box)
Fenella – The Metallic Index (Fire Records)
S’Express & Daddy Squad – Music 4 The Mind DL
Podcasts:
The Bureau of Lost Culture (Soho Radio)
Cartoonist Kayfabe (YouTube)
We Buy Records (We Made This)
The Jonny Trunk Podcast (Patreon)
Oh God, What Now? (Podmasters Prod.)
The Tone Generation – Ian Helliwell
Peel Acres – Tom Ravenscroft (BBC Sounds)
The Bunker (Podmasters Prod.)
Gigs / Events:
Lux @ 180 Strand, London
Victor Vasarely – Universe exhibition @ Selfridges, London
Premier of Who Killed The KLF? @ Leake St, London
The Orb play U.F.Orb @ The Fox & Firkin, London
Bring The Paint festival, Leicester
Staying in a restored Futuro House, Somerset
Fogfest @ Iklectik, London
Glissando Guitar Orchestra @ Club-85, Hitchin
Funki Porcini’s Lasarium @ Iklectik, London
Wheels of Light launch event @ Raven Row, London
The Trunk Groovy Record Fayre @ Mildmay Club, London
At Home With The Boyle Family film launch @ Iklectik, London
Magnetic Flow exhibition, @ LaVallée, Brussels
Design / Packaging:
Night Cafe / Midjourney – the most fun/frustrating web AI creation tools
Jed St. Christopher – The Further Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 10″ lathe cut (Buried Treasure) by Nick Taylor
Twilight Sequence – Trees in General: and the Larch 12″ (Castles In Space) by Zeke Clough
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Ominium Gatherum LP by Jason Galea
Sculpture – Malculus / Photo Synth 7″ + zoetrope pack by Rueben Sutherland
The Advisory Circle – Full Circle LP (Ghost Box) by Julian House
Clay Pipe Mini Pipe 3″ CD series by Francis Castle
Monochrome Echo – The City & The Stars LP (Castles In Space) by Nick Taylor
Drumetrics – Phuzzle 10″
Artists incorporating AI into their work:
Ko_Computer
Douggy Pledger
Alex Klim
Will Toulan
Scott Wetterschneider
Stuart Smith
Steve Scott (image below by Steve Scott)
Books / Magazines / Comics:
Grrrl Scouts – Jim Mahfood (Image)
99 Balls Pond Road – Jill Drower (Scrudge Books) – now reprinted in text-only paperback and retitled ‘The Exploding Galaxy: Performance Art, LSD and Bent Coppers in the Sixties Counterculture’ – an absolute must for 60s counter culture historians
Radio Spaceman – Mike Mignola & Greg Hinkle (Dark Horse)
Mental Hygiene – Kate Gibb
A-Z of Record Shop Bags – Jonny Trunk (Fuel)
Mud Sharks – Dave Barbarossa
Good Pop, Bad Pop – Jarvis Cocker (Vintage)
House Music – Andy Votel (The Modernist)
Judge Dredd – Brian Bolland (Apex Edition)
Contemporary Collage magazine (digital)
Defying Gravity – Jordan Mooney w. Cathi Unsworth
The Delaware Road deluxe edition – Alan Gubby, Dolly Dolly (Buried Treasure)
69 Exhibition Road – Dorothy Max Prior (Strange Attractor)
Judge Dredd – Mike McMahon (Apex Edition)
It’s Lonely At The Centre Of The Universe – Zoe Thorogood (Image Comics)
The Black Locomotive – Rian Hughes (Picador)
Film /TV:
The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+)
Get Back (Disney+)
Who Killed The KLF?
Pistol (Disney+)
The Boys (Amazon Prime)
In The Court of the Crimson King (Toby Aimes)
Another year over and what have I done?
Finished The Real Tuesday Weld’s ‘Dreams’ LP/CD and ‘Late Night Reveries’ cassette artwork
Appeared on the Bureau of Lost Culture podcast, 45 Live show, mixed an episode of new online show, Genius & Soul (still not broadcast)
Re-designed an old classic logo for The Herbsmen
Adapted The Designers Republic’s Humanoid artwork for a FSOLDigital CD release
Designed Hawksmoor’s ‘Head Coach’ CD for Spun Out Of Control
Recorded with Dave Barbarossa for a future music project
Finished and published the Wheels of Light book for Four Corners Books with press coverage from The Quietus, Shindig!, The Observer, Velocity Books, Moonbuilding, Electronic Sound, Creative Review and more.
Had a track featured on the Diary of a Madman compilation on Bibliotapes in aid of Ukrainian Red Cross
Refined my Quadraphon turntable into a Mk.3 version
Got featured in the 2000AD Summer Special, music edition, talking about my love of the comic
Made a record by etching a playable image into a disc
Compiled, remixed and edited 30 years worth of games footage for DICE’s anniversary, making an 11 minute version then condensing it into 90 seconds.
Redesigned The Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘Every Day’ LP for the 20th anniversary edition from original design concepts
Designed Stasis, AsOne, Paul ‘Damage’ Bailey and Humanoid 12″s and reinterpreted Mike Dred’s ‘OverMind’ LP art for De:tuned
Also designed the AsOne2 LP for De:tuned
Had a collage featured in Contemporary Collage magazine
Mixed a new religious-themed set for the Tales To Enlighten 2 Kickstarter
Reformatted Dave Barbarossa’s Mud Sharks book for publication.
Interviewed Zoe Lucky Cat Baxter, Andy Votel, Alex Paterson and DJ Format for Dust & Grooves book 2.
Designed The Real Tuesday Weld’s 3″ CD Xmas card.
RIP:
Sidney Poitier, James Mtume, Meatloaf, Barry Cryer, Ian Kennedy, Douglas Trumbull, Bamber Gascoigne, Betty Davis, Jan Pieńkowski, Philip Jeck, Chantal Passamonte, Garry Leach, June Brown, Jordan, David McKee, Klaus Schulze, Neal Adams, George Perez, Vangelis, Rat Records, Alan Grant, Bob Rafelson, Bernard Cribbens, Olivia Newton-John, Lamont Dozier, Raymond Briggs, Queen Elizabeth II, William Klein, Jean-Luc Godard, Ramsey Lewis, Pharoah Sanders, Kim Jung Gi, Robbie Coltrane, Joyce Sims, Keith Levene, Nik Turner, Wilco Johnson, Tom Philips, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Manuel Gottsching, Terry Hall, Martin Duffy, Mike Hodges, Pelé, Vivienne Westwood, Anita Pointer.
Looking forward to:
The Out in 2000AD
Supporting the Art of Noise at the Jazz Cafe on Jan 4th/5th
Conform to Deform – The Weird & Wonderful World of Some Bizarre – Wesley Doyle (Jawbone Press)
The The – 1$ One Vote 7″ (Lazarus)
The conclusion of The Real Tuesday Weld’s Swan Songs trilogy?…
Tales To Enlighten: The New Testament
The Kevin O’Neill Apex Edition (Rebellion)
The return of Rave Wars
Spider-Man – Across The Spider-Verse
The Delaware Road deluxe edition unwrapping, the omnibus edition is out today via Buried Treasure and neatly brings together years worth of work and research by Alan Gubby, aided by poet Dolly Dolly, designer Nick Taylor and illustrator Jarrod Gosling. Originally conceived as a documentary film by Alan 15 years ago then rewritten as a fictional account of the Radiophonic Workshop’s perhaps two most famous practitioners, Delia Derbyshire and John Baker, the Delaware project then expanded into a compilation album and live performance.
I went to the first incarnation in Reading back in 2015, you can read about that here. For the second, more ambitious outing at the disused Nuclear Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex, I was on the bill – more about that here. The third incarnation then morphed into a mini festival in a Salisbury Plain army base which nearly didn’t happen but was an incredible collection of performers and people the likes of which haven’t been seen since, see photos from that here.
A six part comic series that followed – illustrating the whole story as originally envisaged – and now the whole project has been collected into a smart omnibus edition with notes, photos, preliminary designs and more, all wrapped in a beautiful cover that brings to mind the Festival of Britain. Out today, I think the limited deluxe edition with 4″ lathe cut disc has now sold out but this book tells the whole story, both fictional and then from the inside, of this most amazing series of events.
Order it here, right now, plus it’s Bandcamp Friday so more of it goes to the artist and label.
The Ramsgate Music Hall have taken the chance to book me a headline set featuring the Quadraphon deck next February. I’ll be flying solo with this most experimental of turntables for the first time, four tone arms and a lot of locked groove records, this won’t be your usual DJ Food dancefloor set.
Tickets available here
Video from my recent support slot at Iklectik by Robin Reynolds
Funki Porcini returns to Coventry’s Commonground for a week-long residency from Nov 25th to Dec 2nd. This is his new show, The Laserium, which I had the pleasure of seeing debut at this very venue last year and also was a support act for at Iklectik recently. The set has come a long way since it was first in Coventry and was amazing in London last month. Go see it if you can. Tickets here
The second Groovy Record Fayre, hosted by Jonny Trunk and Ian Shirley, took place on Saturday at the Mildmay Club on Newington Green, N16 and again, it was a blast. Pete Williams and I had a stall again and many friends and faces passed by. It was celeb central at points, from superstar DJs to stand up comedians and supermodel it girls. I missed a chance to chat to Stewart Lee who was looking through the Krautrock box because I was explaining what Go-Go and cut up mixes were to a younger buyer but Lee wasn’t buying anyway.
Pete with our stall, notice my Wheels of Light book placed in prime position bottom left.
Pete sleevefaces with Buried Treasure’s Alan Gubby
Andy Higgs digs
Marc Mr Thing journeyed up from Hastings for the day
Paul Putner bought my book shock!
A right pair of tits, and Martin & James of The Karminsky Experience Inc.
Richard Norris also picked up my book and Children of the Stones (like everyone else)
Rat Records mini reunion with Ronan and Philippe
Comix legend Edwin Savage Pencil Pouncey bought six of my underground comix, a true seal of approval.
Pop quiz winner (later on) Simon Gitter with smooth dancer and pop quiz secret weapon 2 Tone Tony.
Everyone was packed up and out of the hall by 6pm and people disappeared for dinner. Around 7.30 the pop quiz kicked off and 90 minutes later the team Jonny Trunk happened to be on claimed victory to cries of ‘fix!, fix!’. The fact that there was a 10 point Trunk section might have helped. Martin Green and Jarvis took to the stage as tables and chairs were cleared in record time, the glitter ball ignited and the bar besieged. Much drink was drunk and dancing had until 1am with a packed dancefloor and singalongs to Plastic Bertrand, Bowie, The Beatles, Adam & The Ants, The Sweet, Prince, Double Dee & Steinski, Beastie Boys, Sparks, B-52s and so many more.
Meanwhile in the toilets, Alex Chung had other things on her mind…
A selection of gig posters for the Retinal Circus. The Circus nights, promoted by Roger Schiffer, ran from summer 1967 to the end of 1968 in a basement venue in Vancouver, Canada and would play host to many of the top bands of the day in the late 60s. The main poster artist was Steve Seymour who managed to weave all sorts of intricate typography into each image including dates, bands, start and end times and even a dot-to-dot puzzle which spelt out ‘surprise’ when filled in. The main exception I can see being the Velvet Underground one by Frank Lewis who also did other posters around Vancouver, early Afterthought ones being an example, Vancouver’s psychedelic venue before the Retinal Circus.
There was also a light show called The Retina Circus in Seattle at the same time but they weren’t connected, the main two house lighting crews were called Addled Chromish and Ecto Plasmic Assault.
*Thanks to Greg Evans from the Acid Rain light show in Victoria, Canada for additional info.
Another London-based light show event, the Boyle Family were some of the first artists to work with fluids and projection on the avant garde art scene in the sixties. Staged on Sunday Nov 13th at the now-endangered Iklectik venue in Waterloo with talks, music, film and projection performances. Go and support both the film and the venue.
More info here
A few gigs coming up – supporting Funki Porcini on the Sunday date of his weekend residency at Iklectik, London, showing his Laserium set which has to be seen in a dark place. I’ll be bringing my Quadraphon turntable for some multi-armed action.
Tickets: https://iklectikartlab.com/funki-porcinis-laserium/
In two weeks I’ll be opening the Create Music Village festival at Coachworks in Ashford, Kent with an Audio Visual DJ set – come to party.
Tickets: www.ticketweb.uk/event/dj-food-support-casey-coachworks-tickets/12480335
Mid October I’ll be honouring a gig that was cancelled due to Covid all those years ago and returning to Belfast to play what may well be the final outing of my Selected Aphex Works audio visual set at the Ulster Sports Club.
Tickets: forthcoming…
There’s also a launch party in East London for my forthcoming book on Oct 19th, more about that soon…
This gorgeous Riso print with metallic gold ink by Raimund Wong will be on sale at the Suzanne Ciani gig this October at EartH in Hackney. The line up is a no-brainer with The Oscillation / Vanishing Twin / Tomago’s Valentina Magaletti also on the bill. Tickets still available here
I’ll be joining Funki Porcini for a Sunday matinee version of his new Laserium show this October at Iklectik. This will be the first time it’s been seen in London and you’ll have 4 chances to catch it with other DJs performing on Friday 14th and Saturday 15th (matinee and evening shows). I’ll be joining him with my Quadraphon turntable on Sunday 16th for an afternoon show to finish the run. Tickets for all shows are here:
https://dice.fm/bundles/funki-porcinis-laserium-r3vw
You may have seen that Kool Herc‘s estate is going under the hammer at Christies this month. Everything from turntables and disco equipment to glasses, photos, belt buckles and records from the man called The Godfather of Hip Hop. Most interesting to me are the reams of flyers for the old Bronx jams featuring home made, hand drawn and collaged examples of the earliest form of Hip Hop promotion. There are plenty by Buddy Esq. probably the most gifted and well known exponent of early rap design work and there are fascinating little details dotted throughout about the way jams used to be from a time long since passed.
Below are my favourites and you can view the full auction online here:
“no drugs, no weapons, no sneakers”
“first 25 jazzy ladies free” – who decided?
“sneakers one nite only” love how cut and paste this is
How young are the Furious Five here?
That’s a lot of acts on the bill!
Lot of Zulu crews there
‘Guaranteed to perform’, the others might not be there but…
How many typefaces?
“giving away $50 to some lucky person, sincerely, Flash” – also “Creole’s got something special for the young ladies”
“Shea, please call me, love always, herc” – flyer done by Herc
Do you think that’s Shea?
