DJ Format, D-Sisive, Abdominal & Jurassic 5!

Hip Hop Bonanaza! Bonnn Nannn Zaaaaaaaa!

It's running a little late I know, but here it is. I promised I would add some videos of the Jurassic 5 Concert at some point, and I might well do it in this post. At least that's the intention anyway; hence the title of this post. I feel I should warn you though, this could be a long post as I've a lot to show you, so I might get fed up with posting before I get round to that!

About a week and a half ago, 2 days after I had seen Jurassic 5 in London, I had the pleasure of seeing DJ Format, Abdominal and D-Sisive at Jelly Jazz@The Quay Club here in Plymouth.




DJ Format.

"Ten years later, still a hip-hop slave. A prehistoric b-boy makin’ beats in my cave"

Format reinvents the old school with samples and beats from more sources than you can shake a b-boy at. He appears with Abdominal and D-Sisive a lot - both feature heavily in his new album - If You Can't Join Em.... Beat Em

MC Abdominal.

"Girls are hostile, cos my eyes are smaller than my nostrils..."

Incredible dexterity in his lyrics, he raps quick and clean. His lyrics are interesting and funny. A fine example is 'Ugly Brothers' on DJ Format's new album.

MC D-Sisive.

Smooth Flowing Rhymes. Apparently has been compared to Eminem, and although I can see (or should I say hear!) it, if he is mimicking Emimem, he's doing it better...!




So now you've met the Trio, I'll show you the photos (and maybe videos!) of them teaming up and perfoming!

Although that said, I'll include photos of the entire night. Some of these photos were taken by me, most were taken by my mate Si. You'll recognise him from the photos, he's the crazy guy who looks like (in my opinion) a Pirate. It's the beard. It always is. Yarrrr!!!


Yarr! Nuff said. :)


Si's sister (right) and friend.


What am I doing?


Boobs. That's my hand there. Nice.


...and it begins...


D-Sisive on the left, Abdominal on the right. Along with DJ Format (on the decks behind D-Sisive) an explosive combination.


As you can see, it was a bit hot in here, due the the Quay Club's atrocious air conditioning. Sometimes I cannot stay in Jelly Jazz for longer than an hour due to the heat. This night, I wore shorts!


DJ Format, working his magic beats.


Abdominal, rapping that yes, he could fit a whole baby in his mouth, see?


Not the best shot of Abdominal, but I wanted to put it online anyway. If he sees this - Sorry Man!


This'll be the famous 'human pickaxe' that abdominal mentions in the song Ugly Brothers, the noses of Abdominal and Format, back to back. Pity about that retard with her hands in the air.








"Brains. Braaaiiinnnsss!"


I'm not gonna bother commenting on all of these pics, I'll just leave you to appreciate them. Besides that, it was a rockin hip hop bonanza, what more do you want me to say?!?








It was REALLY hot. :)














Nice one Si. He at least had the clarity to get a photo taken. I was pretty drunk by the end of the evening, and quite knackered from dancing like a crazy man. I talked to all three after their set at one point or another, but I think mostly I talked shite. Mind you, I did buy 3 CDs off them, which would explain where that extra £15 had gone. Still, I've listened to them now, and I have to say, they were a bargain!

Right, well, what with procrastination/distraction/creation, editing and finally formation/of this blog, it guess I'll tell you how it really was, In the Quay Club the crowd was jumpin like a hopper bug/abdominal/ phenominal, an animal, his lyrics all around/spinnin up and then come crashin down/D-Sisive, devisive/consisive/delightive, the brain's like a sieve, too much beer swilling round in here, bouncing around with no idea, you-never-even-ever-try-conside- to-regulate, you-never-even-know-till-it-hits-and-then-it's-way-too-late, all of the lyrics have passed right through, your memory's gone it's all down to you, and beer.

- a small crappy rap about my views on the evening. Actually, it wasn't that bad. I do have a reasonable memory of the night, but not quite as good as I would liked to have had!

Right, that's it for now. It's taken me ages to get this done, so I'll post the Jurassic 5 clips and the Format ones together during the week.

Full sized versions of these photos can be found here.

Peace out. Thanks to Si for a copy of his photos, thanks to the Quay Club (well Pete Isaac really) for getting good people in, and most of all, thank you DJ Format, Abdominal and D-Sisive, for a wicked night!

We Got The Cure For This Rap Disease

What up Homies!

I've just got back from a funkalicious day (or so) in London. You rememer my old flatmate Jimbo? Well, we went to London to see the Queen, and to check out the funky beats of Jurassic 5. They were supported by some random DJ that nobody knew the name to, but played a really good funk set for a couple of hours prior to J5 coming on. In fact, the funk was so good, I think Jimbo actually creamed himself, judging by the way he was dancing anyway.

We stayed in the Holiday Inn about a mile down the road from Shepherds Bush Empire, which is where the concert was taking place. It was quite nice, nothing of note to talk about really, except for the window in our room:


Weird. I disovered what it said well after I had opened the window, by which time I guess it didn't apply any more...


The Police are hypocrites. I couldn't actually fit the number of police vehicles parked on double yellow lines in the photo! This was on the walk from the Hotel to the Concert. There were at least 10 vehicles here. It was outside a police station, but still, one rule for them, one for everyone else. Bastards.
















Just to show how close we were, and to test out my phone camera some more, I took this picture with my Sony Ericsson k750i.


And this one too! J5 Phone Stylee!


I made this from a load of leaflets given to me from a guy outside Shepherds Bush Empire. I think it had something to do with shelter, the homeless charity. You'd think they could at least afford a base of headquarters wouldn't you? Anyway, it had lots of funky artwork, so I took a picture of it all.


I saw this in a shop somewhere on Oxford Street, so I took a photo for Jimbo.


About 10 minutes after the 'Handbags for James' photo, I saw this place in convent garden. James started a company called Fuel, and the Logo text was a very similar font if I'm not mistaken. And for the record, James got ripped off by his former best friend and business partner. Nice one Clive Oakes, you cunt. If you have the chance to badmouth www.fuelcreative.com.uk on a business level, then please take it, although James designed the site, so if you like that, I suggest you take your business to him, unless you want your back stabbed by Clive that is.

After wandering around Convent Garden, Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, I headed to the station to get my train. I got there at just before 3pm, and had my tickets from the machine by 3:02, according to the clock in the station. However, I couldn't see my train on the list of departures. I thought it was at 3:15, but actually it was at 3:05pm. I got to the customer service booth at 3:04, to find out where my train was, and they told me that the 3:05 train had left.
I looked at the man, then at the big digital clock next to him (which said 3:04:11 PM), then back at him, and said, "the three O five has already left?"
"Yes" he replied sheepishly.
So then, because for the first time in the whole history of British Rail Transport, a train not only left on time, it actually left early! Because of this, I then have to go and 'upgrade' my ticket so that I can use my non-interchangable ticket on a different train. Gaylords. The human shaped slab of useless flesh behind the ticket office was as unhelpful as he was miserable, but after I paid my £16 'upgrade' fee I managed to get a complaint form out of him, which no doubt fuelled his natural disposition toward misery even further.

I then had to wait for an hour for my upgraded train to arrive. It wasn't an unpleasant experience though, as I bought myself some food, then settled down to watch fine women of many nationalities get themselves into all sorts of provocative positions whilst picking up luggage, and hurrying for trains in skimpy summer wear, etc. Ahh. It was most pleasing.

In the end I was quite glad I missed my train. I bumped into a surfer and graphic designer on the train called Jan. By bumped, I don't mean literally, I sat down at is table to avoid sitting next to some old fuckwit who always seems to hog the tables.
Jan and I chatted and drank stella for most of the journey, and it pretty much flew by for me. Probably not so for Jan, as he had another hour and a half to take him home to Penzance. Un-lucky! And just for the record, Noooo, he isn't a Pirate. There is a small non-piratic presence in Penzance, you just have to look for it.
But here's a shout out to Jan and his "Fit as fuck girlfriend!" Gimme a shout when you're in Plymouth next!


I saw this walking home from the train station. I had always suspected that the telephone system was just a more elaborate looking version of two yoghurt pots with string through them. I found my proof today.

That's it for today. I was gonna post some video clips of the concert, but I'm tired now, and I can't be arsed. Piss off, you'll have to wait till next time. :D

You can see full sized versions of these pictures here.



Word.

Flogging Molly

I haven't posted for a couple of days, mostly because I've been really busy. Doing Stuff. Although by nature I'm quite lazy, there's so much stuff that I want to do, that laziness just isn't an option.

On Tuesday night I went to my first Ninjutsu lesson. We practiced breakfalls of different varieties, and a lot of different wrist locks, punch blocks and avoidance, and take down moves. Nate and I were fairly bruised after the session, but we enjoyed it enough to go again tonight. On Tuesday the Sensei was a 2nd Dan Black Belt, but I think tonight there are two 4th Dan Senseis and there will be some weapons training. I don't know whether I as a beginner will be doing it, but I'll at least be able to observe to see what's in store. The dojo is pretty good too, with a fully padded floor.

On Wednesday, Laura, Nate and I went to see Flogging Molly in Concert. On my way out of my building, I bumped into a guy I know called Matt. I first met Matt when I went to see Incubus in Birmingham in 2003.



There were 5 of us who went to the Incubus concert, Me, Matt, Tom, Laura and Nate. It was pretty weird, cos I hadn't seen him for ages, and then I discover he lives in the same building as me, and he moved into his flat around the same time I moved into mine!

So we're walking in the same direction together, and I was asking him if he'd seen Tom recently, and then Tom walks round the corner, listening to his mp3 player! Freaky! What was also additionally bizarre was that Tom was listening to Incubus, and I was on my way to meet the other two people who formed the group for that trip!
Bizarro.

Anyway, back to the topic, the gig was at The Lemon Grove, on the Uni Campus. We went into the town centre for a couple of beers first as we had a bit of time to kill.

It took us ages to get to the Lemon Grove from town, as we weren't sure where it was exactly and we ended up walking a very long way round to get there.
We still had enough time to drink another beer before the 2nd support began. They were called The Briefs, and although punk isn't really top of my music list, they rocked really hard, and their songs were awesome.



They kinda reminded me of a cross between the Clash and the Sex Pistols. It's good to see that old school punk is still alive and kicking! They had some good imaginative songs, and one that started, "We Americans are stoopid..." raised a laugh from the crowd. Nate was so impressed that he bought one of their albums, and we all agreed that we would have paid to go see the Briefs alone.

Next up was Flogging Molly. A seven piece Punk/Irish Folk type band, headed by Dave King from Dublin. Their music has a genre of it's own. I'd only heard them once, the day before the gig in fact. The song I heard sounded alright, but it didn't grab me particularly.



They hadn't played in the UK for 8 years, or maybe it was their first time, as they were founded in a traditional Irish pub in downtown Los Angeles. All the members met whilst getting pissed, from what I gather.
The gig was in quite a small room really (in comparison to some of the gigs I've been to), but it was packed. They played with incredible energy, and the crowd responded. The entire place became one giant moshpit, filled to the brim with people combining their best attempt at Irish dancing with bouncing and wooping.

The crowd surged back and forth, like the water in your bath would, if it were strapped to the roof of a rally car. The thing about this moshpit was that there was no animosity or ego involved. Everyone just wanted to dance, and because technically there was no room for everyone to dance in their own little space, so you would just invade someone else's, and someone else would in turn invade yours. It was all good fun.




Flogging Molly were really great, and they really played the crowd, by chatting in between songs, and making us laugh. Unfortunately though, we had to leave about 10-15 minutes before they finished as we had a train to catch. If we missed it, there wouldn't be another one until 4am, and I had work the next day.



We arrived at the train station with loads of time to spare, and the train was late, so we really could've stayed until the end. Ah well, never mind.

I really must see more live bands though.

Oh, and one final point, this would've been here a lot earlier, but I had almost finished it, and suddenly firefox went mad, and took me to the blogger sign-on page. I clicked back, but all my text was gone, and it would only recover the first two paragraphs, which wasn't much. So I've had to write it all again, and it never seems as well written or amusing as the first version. This is probably because the writing then becomes a bit of a pin, because you knew you were pretty much finished an hour ago, but now you've gotta start it all again.

Bastards.