Review and Pictures of Afro Dub Sessions II feat. Subatomic Sound System @ Rose Live Music – Brooklyn 02/27/10

Mar 1, 2010 News

It’s been a busy few weeks here at the SLF. With both Joe Cuba CD release party and Soundlib last Wednesday, we were pretty hyped up about the Afro Dub Sessions. Without surprise, the party was a success with great music throughout the evening. We had a blast and it was good seeing many people come out to be part of it.

DJ Linh started the night with some massive tracks, seamlessly mixing dancehall classics with afro funk grooves. Super Hi Fi was banging as usual and we had the pleasure to have John Brown’s Body Sax player Drew Sayers sit in on some tracks and perform some insane solos. Emch, the session’s special guest, then came in and added a layer of dubby sound effects and melodica on top of the live band before starting his own DJ set.

For the next hour or so, he unleashed a diverse selection of classic dub, dubstep and dancehall bangers mixed in with some original Subatomic tracks including his trademark dubstep remix of Lee Perry’s “Blackboard Jungle” as well as a new dope remix of legendary U-roy. Halfway into his set, he was joined by vocalist Donny Yardas for an impromptu rub a dub session. By that time, the dance floor was packed and the entire place was getting down to some serious heavyweight music. Super Hi Fi then came back for a second set before Q Mastah and DJ Lil Tiger finished off the night in SLF fashion.

We’re pretty stoked that there are still clubs left in this city that support alternative music (especially on a Saturday night) so big up Rose Live Music for letting us do our thing and to everyone who came out and enjoyed themselves. See you all next month (3/27) for the next edition of the Afro Dub Sessions featuring special guest DJ DRM from Bastard Jazz Records alongside the usual resident SLF crew.

Tags: afro groove, afro-beat, afro-dub, afro-dub sessions, Afrobeat, antibalas, aphrodesia, blue man group, brooklyn, buhbOmp, DJ Lil Tiger, dj linh, Dub, dubstep, Emch, Q-Mastah, Reggae, roots, rose live music, sharon jones and the dap kings, slavic soul party, Sound Liberation Front, Subatomic Sound System, super hi-fi, the brmg, the superpowers, Williamsburg

Review and Pictures of Afro Dub Sessions feat. Ticklah @ Rose Live Music – Brooklyn 01/30/10

Feb 5, 2010 News

Thanks to everyone who came out last Saturday to Rose Live Music for the inaugural event of our new monthly Afro Dub Sessions party. We couldn’t have hoped for a better turnout especially considering the biting cold NYC winter that was in full force that night. More importantly, the vibe was great and the crowd seemed receptive to the unusual combination of dub music and afro sounds.

The night started out with our own DJ Linh, spinning some dope afro funk and old school dancehall to warm up the crowd before resident band Super Hi Fi performed their first set. With Ticklah manning the soundboard, they delivered a tight set of instrumental dub infused with funk, rock and afrobeat influences creating an irresistible groove which got the entire audience converging toward the dance floor.

Ticklah then came on the turntables, spinning  an all vynil set of rare afrobeat and dub classics. By that time, the venue was so packed it was hard to move around. Following his DJ set, super Hi Fi came back for a killer second set before SLF resident DJs Q-Mastah and Lil Tiger finished off the evening of great music with a blend of  heavyweight dub and afro grooves.

We all had a blast and we’re already working on making the next one even better. If you couldn’t make it to Rose last Saturday, make sure not to miss the next Afro Dub Session on Saturday February 27th with DJ Emch from Subatomic Sound System.  More info to come soon…

Tags: afro groove, afro-beat, afro-dub, afro-dub sessions, Afrobeat, antibalas, aphrodesia, blue man group, brooklyn, buhbOmp, DJ Lil Tiger, dj linh, Dub, dubstep, mark ronson, Q-Mastah, Reggae, roots, rose live music, sharon jones, sharon jones and the dap kings, slavic soul party, Sound Liberation Front, super hi-fi, the brmg, the superpowers, ticklah, victor axelrod, victor “ticklah” axelrod, Williamsburg

SLF Presents AFRO-DUB SESSIONS with Special Guest TICKLAH @ Rose Live Music, Sat. 01/30/10 – Brooklyn

Jan 12, 2010 News

To start this new decade, we’re proud to announce the AFRO-DUB SESSIONS, a new monthly party taking place every last Saturday at Rose Live Music in Williamsburg.

Since you probably don’t want to hear our music nerd babbles about the concept behind the party, we’ll keep the academic  details for SLF staff meetings. All you need to know is that you should come witness a unique blend of live dub music and DJs showcasing the latest in Afrobeat, Afro Groove, Reggae, Dub, Dubstep and more. There’s no cover so you have no excuse for not coming through!

Each month, we’ll feature a special guest DJ in addition to resident live band Super Hi-Fi and the Sound Liberation DJ’s. For our launch party on January 30, we called on our good friend and quintessential afro-dub advocate  VICTOR “TICKLAH” AXELROD, to bless us with his many talents. If you’re not familiar with Ticklah, here’s a bit from his bio:

NYC based producer, keyboard virtuoso, and vintage Reggae wunderkind VICTOR AXELROD, aka TICKLAH, has been a continual and integral part of the NYC music scene for over a decade – as a performer, TICKLAH is a founding member of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Antibalas, the Easy Star All-Stars, and worked with Mark Ronson on both the Amy Winehouse and Daniel Merriweather albums. As a producer, TICKLAH was behind the boards for the Dub Side Of The Moon album (co-production, mixing), remixed Shaun Escoffery’s classic “Days Like This” (alongside DJ Spinna), produced 2001’s legendary Roots Combination album, and released his own critically acclaimed solo Ticklah Vs. Axelrod LP on NYC Reggae label Easy Star. The list goes on and on. … Victor is a man in very high demand from some very big players for his untouchable musical aesthetics, his intricate attention to detail, and a true understanding of our musical past.

Hope to see you all there! Here are some more details about the party:

==========

Sound Liberation Front + TheBRMG + buhbOmp presents:

[[ AFRO-DUB SESSIONS: Sounds of the Rhythm R(evolution) ]]

SATURDAY | 30 JAN 2010
(and every last Saturday of the month)
10p-4a | FREE | No dress code

@ Rose Live Music
345 Grand Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
- Between Marcy Ave. and Havemeyer St. in Williamsburg
- G/L train to Lorimer or the L to Bedford)
718.599.0069

featuring:

[[ TICKLAH aka VICTOR AXELROD ]]
( Easy Star Records, Antibalas )
+ facebook fan page | myspace.com/ticklah

w/ resident live Afro-Dub band:

[[ SUPER HI-FI ]]
( w/ members from Aphrodesia, Slavic Soul Party, The Superpowers and Blue Man Group )

and resident DJs:

[[ Q MASTAH ]]
( Sound Liberation Front, Music Nerd All-Stars )

[[ DJ LINH ]]
( Sound Liberation Front )

[[ DJ LIL TIGER ]]
( –=(] buhbOmp [)=–, Sound Liberation Front, touch&feel:radio, Music Nerd All-Stars, Soular Grooves )

more info:
+ facebook event page
+ going.com
+ eventful

maps:
+ google
+ hopstop
+ yahoo

Tags: afro groove, afro-beat, afro-dub, afro-dub sessions, Afrobeat, antibalas, aphrodesia, blue man group, brooklyn, buhbOmp, DJ Lil Tiger, dj linh, Dub, dubstep, mark ronson, Q-Mastah, Reggae, roots, rose live music, sharon jones, sharon jones and the dap kings, slavic soul party, Sound Liberation Front, super hi-fi, the brmg, the superpowers, ticklah, victor "ticklah" axelrod, victor axelrod, Williamsburg

Interview with Planet Rump at Booty Crisis, 11/14/09 – Brooklyn

Nov 19, 2009 Interview, Reviews

Interview and words by Linh Truong, Photos by Quoc Pham

Before the co-sponsored Sound Liberation Front event Booty Crisis at Public Assembly last Saturday, I got a chance to talk backstage with Planet Rump – the monthly party’s founders and resident booty shaker – about the Casio, breaking boxes (the metaphorical kind), and just getting down with your funky ass self.

SLF: How did Planet Rump come about?

Nasty Ness: We landed here on Earth.
Miss Strawberry: Crashed our spaceship.
DJ Tantric: It was an accident.
M: We’re from the Planet Rump, and we were going on a funky space odyssey, and then we ended up here. We were, like, what are we gonna do, we really gotta get back to Rump – it’s like the funkiest planet in the universe.
D: Then we saw there was a need for us.
M: We saw a lot of funky people, a lot more lame people, so we decided to bring the funk of the universe, channel it through our bodies…
N: Earth isn’t ready.
D: And it’s not about materialism, it’s not about something you need to have to bring the funk. It’s about harnessing the funk within you. You could be wearing some Tevas, you could be wearing some Keds, you could be wearing some Fruit of the Loom. It doesn’t matter because anyone can get funky with anything you want, and that’s how our music works.

SLF: Why Brooklyn?

N: Because this is where the trends begin.
M: And Brooklyn needs it the most. We got a lot of shoegazers here, a lot of too-cool-for-schoolers.
N: A lot of conformists.
D: A lot of people who just want to buy something to make them cool, but they don’t want to be cool on the inside.
M: But we know that this is the media platform of the world, and we just want to be at the center of it all. Get the message out there that love, peace, and funk are the only things you need.

SLF: Why use the Casio as your main instrument?

D: The Casio embodies pretty much the principle of you don’t need anything to be funky.
N: Keep it simple.
D: We play little baby toys from thirty years ago, and we can blow people’s minds away harder than someone with the most updated products of blah, blah, blah production. I mean, you don’t need to buy something to be funky.
N: You can be yourself.
D: And we’ve done a lot with those little toys.
M: That shit BOOMS!
(laughter)
D: And we work with some sound generation tools that don’t actually play notes. Like, we don’t even need notes. We don’t even need a scale or melody or whatever. Yeah, we do that a little bit, but creating bass tones generated out of some sort of nonsense…we’re playing in between the notes, and the sounds are cool. That’s what works with us.

SLF: How do you get the ideas behind your songs? What’s the creative process?

N: We take our real-life experiences from going out and being ourselves every day and just enjoying life. We take real-life scenarios, and we make it something tangible.
D: We don’t really stick to any genre or anything. We’re just playing music. And we can embody anything about anything by just playing music. You don’t have to pigeonhole yourself into a certain box. We try to play across all boundaries, and some of our songs embody a lot of different elements of other types of music.
N: Like, why be negative? Why not just make something positive out of everything? Just put it on display and build your self-esteem.

SLF: Is that the whole idea behind Booty Crisis?

N: Hell yeah!
M: Definitely.
D: Booty Crisis is, like, the boundless booty party where you can have anything, and we’re sort of exposing people to things that they were sleepin’ on. Whether it’s Chico Mann or Hiro Tha Jap or DJ A-Ko from upstate New York. There’s a bunch of people out there right now dancing to a DJ from upstate New York, and they don’t know it.

Tayisha Busay

SLF: What’s the process of choosing the acts in the lineup?

N: If we don’t like them, then they don’t play.
D: It’s group knowledge, but we’re all specialists in different ways. So, we get to combine our strengths – sort of like a big net – and bring in people. If we can agree on it, see what the benefit is, and how we can draw people together with our own scene, then that’s what we do.
N: And that’s the most important thing.
M: It’s gotta be fun. It’s gotta be positive. It’s gotta be boomin’. It’s gotta be danceable. Electronic is what’s hot right now, and we love that.
D: Enough with the diva entitlement thing. We just bring people who wanna bring the funk.
N: If I can’t rock out to it, then I’m not gonna book ‘em. That’s it.

SLF: What’s the act tonight that you’re the most excited for?

Planet Rump: (in unison) All of them!
M: They’re all amazing.
N: I’ve been to all of their parties, and they all blew my mind.
D: And if we’re lucky, they’re all gonna be friends at the end of the night. We got Latin- Cuban-Afrobeat music. We got Japanese dance music. We got Israeli, Brooklyn-based dance music. We got us. And everyone’s gonna love each other.

Chico Mann

SLF: So, it’s gonna be one big group hug afterwards?

N: Of course, it’s already one big group hug. Everyone here is a friend. There are no enemies here. It’s all love.

SLF: What are your plans for Planet Rump in the future?

N: Planet Rump is more than just a group – we’re an entity.
D: It’s a movement. So, we’re booking acts and getting momentum with that. We’re cutting an album right now. One of our guests Chico Mann is a good sounding board because he doesn’t live in anyone’s world or anyone’s box. He’s a good person to talk about a lot of things like that. We’re gonna keep moving in a different direction. Use some different elements of different music, and see where it takes us.
N: As long as we keep having fun.
D: Nothing less than sexy.
N: If we’re not having fun, how could anyone watching us be having fun?

Tags: Afrobeat, Booty Crisis, brooklyn, Chico Mann, Concert Review, Interview, Linh Truong, Planet Rump, Public Assembly, Quoc Pham, Williamsburg