Losers (Tom from Cooper Temple Clause, singer friend, Eddy TM)

Last night I went to the Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip warmup show, and mighty fine it was too…not been to the Borderline before, squirrelled secretly down a side street I’d passed through many times without knowing it was there, quite small so I got quite a close view of proceedings.

First on wass Losers…I’m ashamed I didn’t spot who this was, I’d heard the name but friends on Twitter reminded me this was Eddy Temple Morris’s band with a former Cooper Temple Clause and a drummer…what proceeded was a mashup/glitch/dance/indie crossover, kind of a mix of DJ set including samples of the likes of Gossip, Passion Pit (?), Candi Staton and many others I didn’t recognise – and a few live numbers – I thought the live numbers such as debut single ‘No Man is an Island’ (available free at that link) with a cheeky ‘Losers – Just a band’ drop in the middle – see video clip) were best, but liked the controllerism mashupglitchsampletronica DJ set meets heavy bass and real drums approach. After a quiet start really began to rock the crowd they finished on a cool version of You Got The Love with Candi on vocals…I do think a later slot would do them more justice.

Also blowing my mind was their VJ – rocking some cool animations/video live in sync, seemed to be using a MacBook with what looked like Ableton for video, loads of faders on screen with a small central video panel – any ideas what that was? ME WANT.

So after the warm up Dan Le Sac came onstage with a cheery wave and fired up a wonderfully stuttery ‘The Beat that My Heart Skipped’ and Scroobius Pip arrived, bottle of rose in tow. After some shenanigans involving a too-low keyboard and Scroobius admitted he was bloated and a bit slow due to ‘too much Venison pie’! they then launched into the first of the new songs, ‘Sick Tonight’, which with rapid fire rapping and evil dub/drum and bass bassline and skittery snares it’s a definite progression from Angles.

After that was a mix of oldies and newies – stand outs for me of the new tracks were ‘GB’ a ranty political track that should stoke some revolutionary flames and of course a triumphant ‘Get Better’ (which they reminded us is released as a single March 1st) which I have in full here: (most of the time out of respect for Dan & Dave I decided not to record whole bits, and anyone I hate those cunts who hold cameras and mobile phones aloft for hours at a time getting in the way – I was lucky where I was a pillar was behind me so I wasn’t blocking anyone’s view…I was dancing as well at parts hence the rather shakycam…well if you have a problem with that then you should’ve been there, you lazy fuckers

Oh and GB apparently went wrong providing unintentional humour as Dan said to the soundman straight-faced ‘Great Britain is broken!!!’ – also Dan had a new toy in the shape of a controller and was having fun stuttering, looping and swooping everything so apparently a few technical issues but I didn’t hear any! Loads of intentional humour too – Pip’s on-stage manner is less hiphop braggadacio and more music hall and very dry and arch – you can see why he likes Tommy Cooper.

Another good one was ‘Stake A Claim’ which I can’t remember much more of apart from the fact it was indeed, good and like all the new tracks very uptempo and bloopy (that’s the technical term)…less so was The Beat which as they say in ‘Fixed’ (which they also played) ‘I’m not dissing Dizzee Rascal’ but sounded more closer to a cynical ‘Bonkers’ cash-in ploy than it should coming from those two, rhyming the beat with the feet, just seemed a bit lazy dancefloor filler (in the other sense). They also played ‘Last Train Home’ which was a story about – surprisingly – the last train home to Essex and the slightly dodgy people that you meet, which was OK, could be a grower.

Of the old stuff as well as Fixed they played Angles with costume changes, and a great version of Thou Shalt Always Kill which I have in full on video, and
humorously someone kept requesting Tommy C but they weren’t going to play it so the last track ‘Letter From God to Man’ became ‘Letter from Tommy C to man’! That ended with a total Dan Le Sac knob-twiddling wig out, where it turned into a dance stormer – by then everyone was dancing like crazy.

Overall the new songs sound great – social commentary and conscience but with an uptempo danceable backing…the production seems less mid-range and rock/indie and more deeper, with subbass and rave basses coming to the fore (at least one track was totally a dirty MOAR WOBBUL bassline stomper that would make the likes of Jack Beats and AC Slater happy), sort of a more politically conscious ‘Bonkers’, with skittery beats and glitchy chopping. If there is any justice and going by the reaction to ‘Tongue in Cheek’ it should be massive…

It bodes well for the album ‘Logic Of Chance’ which drops on March 14th, and the tour a week or so later….rilly they should pay me for this promo, but I shall declare my interests in this matter – I think they are a fucking brilliant group who deserve far better exposure. That is all.

Despite the weird and cruel nature of the universe atm (look at my twitter or Livejournal if you need to know) I’ve been taking comfort listening to People Like Us’s Do or DIY end of show compilation ‘Awful Fun’ available over at WFMU. Some crazy collages and manic avant-retard action, my fave bit so far is Spike Jones going into Mistabishi via what I think is a V/V/M sick-music style version of Funkytown (?), and then a brief cutup about Goodman and Buchanan getting arrested (presumably over copyright LOL).

Another freebie I’m wading through atm is Ultimate! Ultimate! Ultimate! by DJ Superix which is a mix made of the 160 songs of the legendary Ultimate Breaks and Beats series…nothing to shout about numbers wise compared to say Akira the Don, and slow starting, but when it gets properly going half way through CD1 with the funky tunes you don’t know you know, it certainly has the retro ‘OMG that’s where it’s from’ and ‘OMG I remember that sampled by X’ recognition factor, as well as the classic ur-grooves that still work 20-30+ years later. Includes longer sections of great classics like JB’s Payback and Lowell Fulsom’s Tramp. One for sampling hiphopheads, definitely.

The ‘how many tunes can you cram into a mini?’ challenge continues – well this went out earlier in the year but I missed it – Jaguar Skills mixing 30 years of hiphop in one hour…it’s a total nostalgia fest for me, especially as my interest in bootlegs coincided with hiphop & RnB getting it’s act together after years of boring gangsta posturing and chin-stroking 70’s soul samples. This mix confirms what I’ve always thought – that the years 1997-99 were the worst in hiphop – I lost interest in all that 2Pac/Biggie shit and was frankly relieved when they were killed (I wonder if it was by music lovers? ).

May have made for headlines, books and films but made with a few exceptions (cohort Puffy, Dre’s California Love) for terrible introverted dirge-like music. A bit like crunk is now but with less ‘yeahs’. So I was happy when 1999 was the year that TUNES and FUN and ELECTRONICS came back, although 98 was a lot better than 97, the lowpoint. Thankfully it seems with Kanye, Lupe and Kid Cudi that the intelligent and POP is now again back in hiphop? Hope so…

Anyway you can find this mix here (it’s a radio rip, as you’d expect as it was only available on BBC Radio 1). Let me know if the link goes down and I’ll up it somewhere…deserves to be up, no way this could ever be put out legit as the rights on 538 tunes alone would take years to clear and probably hundreds to buy!

Beat This: A Hip Hop History BBC documentary from 1984 about the roots of hiphop – contains an interview with the legendary DJ Kool Herc, the father of hiphop…and Afrika Bambaataa, Malcolm McLaren, Arthur Baker and more.

Happy New Year! No it’s not suddenly jumped forward to 2020 (after a year like that, I personally wouldn’t mind though) but a track by the The Herd. I featured them previously on the Radio Clash international hiphop show, they’ve got a great new video and like a few things reminds me of what’s going on with the shocking situation in Gaza – history repeats again and again, and people just don’t see to care, unless it affects them directly.