Ahead of their performance at Electric Picnic next month, New Young Pony Club will be mixing things up at Transmission in The Button Factory this Saturday. Their own music is a hybrid of supposed nu-rave and a more pop-based sensibility, and a recent blog post on Myspace suggests that they’re currently into everything from Vampire Weekend and Lykke Li to Yellow Magic Orchestra and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. With all of that in mind, I imagine it will be a suitably eclectic and interesting set.

I recently had a dream in which NYPC’s Tahita Bulmer was, together with her aged grandparents, living in my house. As I was trying to walk up the stairs, her grandmother began to tell me in a bizarre language about a soldier she danced with during “the war”. I’ve absolutely no idea what all of this means, so the two people with the most interesting interpretations of this dream get themselves on the guestlist for Saturday’s event.

With the show looming, the first two to post below will get on Saturday’s guestlist.

The good people at Shock have given us 2 tickets to give away for Ewan Pearson (Partial Arts/Berlin) this Friday in Kennedy’s. Support comes from Sol O’Carroll and Jon Averill. I can’t think of anything more imaginative right now, so the first 2 people to leave a comment below will win. (Please include an email address)

Doors are at 10.30pm, and if you’re not one of the lucky two, tickets are €15 + €1 booking fee from City Discs, Temple Bar.

In the meantime you can check out some of Ewan’s wonderful mixes here and here.

Ewan Pearson, DJ, remixer & producer par excellence, plays the final Shock of the Summer in Dublin’s Kennedy’s on June 27th. In advance of what will no doubt be a very special night, he answered some questions for the good folks at Analogue.

For the uninitiated, how would you describe your sound?

That’s a job for PR people, journalists and bloggers and other pundits. I’m the last person you should ask.

Your methods are much more cerebral than many might expect of an international DJ. How do you reconcile your intellectual approach with the mindless hedonism of the dancefloor?

I don’t think I’m more cerebral. I’m interested in talking around some of these things we do, and wonder about them, sometimes privately and sometimes publicly. That’s not so weird is it? And hedonism and intellect aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re both vital parts of life. The head is just another part of the body after all.

How do you feel living in Berlin has changed your work?

I don’t think it’s affected my work in terms of what I make, apart from maybe that I’m generally happier all round and that might feed into what I do, I guess.

I was quite taken with your blog post entitled “The Supreme Overlord of Dance Decrees,” where you encourage producers to “throw away everything you think is not genuinely going to add something to the world.” Is this a viable option for everyone?

Well, that piece was half a goad and half a joke as manifestos should be. I do think we should probably all try and make fewer things and make them better. Al [Usher] and I are putting out one Partial Arts single a year at the moment and trying to make it a damn good one each time.

You are quite vocal in your condemnation for illegal downloading. Can you see a viable solution to the problem, or are the days of small artists and labels getting by well and truly past?

I don’t think there is a solution. The cat is out of the bag and musicians are going to have to rely on playing live, or working in cafes or living off trustfunds or something. But I think that we shouldn’t ever stop pointing out to people that what they are doing is actually stealing other people’s hard work, and that it’s wrong. What’s more that if they’re independent music fans they’re hurting the thing that they purport to love by sharing it. In the end to me it’s about whether you’re always taking, or whether you’re putting something back. In that sense we need to have a more folk model, where fans feel like they’re contributing to the scene they love by supporting the people that help make it.

With blogs giving out free tracks every other day, it’s almost impossible for DJs to constantly stay ahead of the clubbing public. How do you bypass this challenge?

It’s about how you put it together; it’s not just about having this or that track. And it’s about the experience of hearing it in a club, with all the other people and the sound system, not just coming out of your laptop speakers.

With a global recession looming, where do you see the future of dance music, both in terms of record buying public, and clubbing?

People never stop wanting to go out and lose themselves; in fact during recession they probably want to do it more and more.

In such a climate one might imagine that DJs might cut back on their schedules, but it appears that the superstar DJs of this world are still booked for nearly every night over the summer months. Is this a question of bringing their music to as many people as possible, or getting as much as they can out of the scene before the bubble bursts?

Erm, that’s kind of a cynical question isn’t it? I can’t answer for everyone; I can only say that most of the people I know play because they are genuinely passionate and love what they do and want to do it as much as possible. So to imply that if people play a lot they’re only motivated by money is kind of insulting isn’t it? They’re entitled to make a living from it too aren’t they? Or can you only be pure of heart if you do it for free? Personally, I try not to be away playing all the time as I want to have some normal life too. I know people that play too much and damage their personal lives and their health in the process.

What DJs and producers inspire you?

Ivan Smagghe, Andrew Weatherall, Joakim, Matt Edwards [Radioslave], Carl Craig.

You had two significant releases last year; a collection of your remixes and a Fabric mix CD. How did you decide which remixes to include on Piece Work?

I just tried to whittle down 6 years of mixes into most of my favourites, and ones that would work together on a CD. I could have happily made it a triple CD though.

What is your approach when you’re given a track to remix?

Just to think really carefully about what the music and the artist would benefit from; to try and be sympathetic to what’s there. Not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m quite picky with what I choose to do, and if I know I can’t add something useful to it then I always say no.

You blogged in detail about each track on the Fabric mix. Were there any constraints imposed by the label?

Constraints on my selection or constraints on my writing? Neither. Fabric were great to work with and cleared everything I wanted to put on there. The rest was just a question of making 15 or 16 tracks work well together.

The mix closes with a memorable juxtaposition of tracks, as Aril Brikha’s Berghain sits alongside Carl Craig’s reworking of Beanfield’s Tides. Was this a question of just playing the two records together, or did it require more delicate studio work?

I’m absolutely honest and have always been clear that I put the mix together using a computer. But I discovered the mixes from DJing in clubs in front of people – that combination I found at a gig in Cookies in Berlin a couple of months before doing the mix. They are in the same key at the same tempo so you can try it live yourself. It’s great when you discover records that go well together like that – you can see me sometimes scribbling in a notebook at a gig – that means I’ve just found two things that work really well in key together and I want to make a note of them.

How much of your own production do you incorporate into your sets?

I’m usually quite shy of playing my own stuff until I’ve heard someone else do so.

You refer to yourself as a librarian trapped in a DJ’s body. Is there any part of you that regrets leaving the academic world behind?

Regret is too strong a word. I definitely made the right choice I think. But I miss the reading and the writing. That’s why I still do the blog and write the column for Groove and so forth.

Even now, it can be difficult for people to take seriously the idea of an academic study of clubbing and its associated proclivities. How did people respond to your publication Discographies: Dance Music, Culture, and the Politics of Sound?

People have been really positive; the book sold out its print run and has been translated into two foreign language editions – Korean and Spanish. I was a bit scared when I wrote it, but that’s because there is an unfortunate tendency in the UK for people to distrust or diss anyone that dares to take popular culture seriously. That kind of anti-intellectualism doesn’t exist on the continent at all. And things have only got worse since we wrote it; music journalism is in quite an awful state now. When I started reading the NME as a kid it had lots of lots of passionate, intelligent critical writing about music in it. Look at it now. A comic.

What, if anything, do you have planned for your set at Shock in Dublin?

I never plan; but the last gig I played for them was ace. Loved the crowd and I can’t wait to come back.

Ed Banger parties have a reputation for being a bit wild, and last night’s sets at Transmission in The Button Factory from label head Busy P and DJ Mehdi were not about to break the mould. Playing to a packed and wildly enthusiastic crowd, the Ed Banger head honcho took over from local boy Arveene shortly before 1am, and, opening with Sebastian’s Motor and Mr Oizo’s latest, Z, things got off to a rocking start.

Ed Banger has come in for its fair share of criticism recently, on account of a couple of lacklustre releases and the label’s extended association with the seemingly less popular US electro scene, but when you find yourself in an atmosphere of such reckless abandon, surrounded by people having this much fun, it’s difficult not to join in.

DJ Mehdi took over an hour and a half later and gave a set that lived up to his delirious standards. Looking slightly surly before the gig, as soon as he hit the decks out came that mile-wide smile, as he sang along to the tracks he was playing with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning. His set encompassed the expected Ed Banger/Institubes/Boys Noize Records fare, together with other French stalwarts such as Daft Punk (until recently managed by one Pedro Winter, aka Busy P), as well as taking in influences from further afield, such as the Baltimore-inspired Be from Steve Angello and Laidback Luke, and Debonair Samir’s original Baltimore anthem Samir’s Theme.

The last time I saw Busy P and Mehdi on the same bill was a few days before Christmas in 2006, and, given the date, the crowd wasn’t huge. While a few characters surrounded the decks, the stage was full of dancing girls, with the odd stray male being promptly removed by security. This time around, a much bigger, and largely male, crowd ascended towards the stage, again meeting the same fate, all except for two girls who were called specifically to stay on stage by one of the DJs. What a life they lead.

The night closed in a slightly bizarre fashion – while Mehdi’s show in October with A-Trak ended with Junior Senior’s irritating Move Your Feet, the last track played this time around was The Buggles’ “classic” Video Killed the Radio Star. I scoff now, but maybe in three decades Junior Senior will be held in the same regard that The Buggles are today. Shortly after the music stopped, the fire alarms went off for an uncomfortably long time, prompting cries of “I’m in love the disco sirens” … Well, maybe it was just me. Midfield General is playing Andrew’s Lane in a few weeks time, maybe I’ll have someone to sing along with me then. Anyway, fire alarms blaring, P and Mehdi were led out of The Button Factory through hordes of adoring fans, male and female. After the reaction the two DJs had last night, one can only imagine how well a full Ed Banger lineup would go down on these shores. The guys themselves might like the venue, but I doubt The Button Factory could hold the multitudes that would flock to such an event.

Canadian DJ A-Trak first came to the world’s attention when he won the prestigious DMC World Championships at the tender age of 15. From such auspicious beginnings, he went on to win the International Turntable Federation World Championships in both 1999 and 2000, the 1999 Vestax World Extravaganza and, with Miami based DJ Craze, the DMC Team Championships in 2000. While these early days saw him cement his reputation as an expert beat-juggler, recent years have seen him move away from the world of turntablism: over the past four years he’s travelled the world as Kanye West’s on-stage DJ; in the last year he’s remixed artists as diverse as Architecture in Helsinki and Digitalism as well as setting up Fool’s Gold Records with Nick Catchdubs. A quick look at his friends on Myspace will show the direction his career has taken of late: tours with the likes of MSTRKRFT, Boys Noize and the Ed Banger DJs have shown he’s much more interested in rocking the party than anything else. All that said, his early achievements were so momentous that they continue to follow him through his career. So, talking to him before his recent set in Crawdaddy, I decided to ask the man where he stood in relation to the scratch world in which he has his roots. “Pretty far,” was his initial response, “because the scene itself became really stale and stagnant in the last couple of years. What I always wanted to do was to keep my foundation in terms of that stuff, the turntablism and everything I come from, and bring it forward.” His sets might be more dancefloor orientated nowadays, but he’ll still use the methods he knows best to keep it all interesting. “The main point of my set is to get people to dance, and it’s definitely something I have to deal with, this phenomenon where every show I do there’s always going to be a few guys who are going to stand in the front row and look at me and wait for me to do something crazy, when I want the technical stuff to be woven into my set.” This is not a DJ who is eager to rest on his laurels, but rather one who is constantly trying to challenge himself and those around him.

A-Trak is also keen to see others do the same. When I asked him about MSTRKRFT’s decision to feature rapper NORE on their recent single Bounce, he was very enthusiastic. “I think it’s cool that they’re not doing what people expect them to do.” With his background in turntablism, as well as his more recent forays into the world of straight up blends and bootlegs, this is hardly surprising. “I love party records, I love dance records that sample hip hop vocals. One of my references for my identity as a producer today is early Armand van Helden stuff. You can tell he’s a hip hop guy with the drum sounds and the way he programs everything.” Another recent producer who’s impressing A-Trak is London’s Sinden. “It’s the fact that there’s a new sound to it, in terms of the basslines, and the whole fidget pattern and everything but there’s all these rap samples that give it an edge you know. I love doing that with my tracks, so I think it was a great idea for MSTRKRFT to do that. That’s why I wanted to remix it, cause I just thought “wow here’s a NORE acappella that’s just waiting for me to do something with it.” As for that remix, unfortunately it’s still sitting, unfinished, on his laptop.

In recent times there’s been a tendency on message boards on both sides of the Atlantic to slate and deride the work of LA-based DJ Steve Aoki. He refers to himself as Kid Millionaire, and his style of DJing isn’t as universally popular as that of someone like A-Trak. At the same time, he’s managed to surrounded himself with extremely talented and respected people, like the Fool’s Gold and Ed Banger crews. “I think the reason why you’ll see guys like myself and Busy P associate ourselves with him, first of all, Steve is a super nice guy, lovely guy, and he really loves music. As a DJ he can get the crowd going crazy – I don’t want to play after him. I play before him, because I play stuff that’s a little bit more funky. He’ll come on and play One More Time, and the crowd is… you can’t compete with that. I understand that as a music fan, or as a DJ, you can think what you think of someone playing One More Time for example, and you can have an opinion on that. I wouldn’t play that record. But Steve is a great showman, he’s got great energy, when you see him on stage he’s got this magnetic presence.” One thing that must be said is that Aoki is one of the hardest working DJs out there, with a schedule that sees him playing gigs almost every night. This work ethic has, according to A-Trak, created a scene in LA where DJs like himself and MSTRKRFT, who are neither über-mainstream nor completely underground, can play the music they make to a mainstream crowd with open ears. “People in Europe might not realise that, but Steve really helped create a scene in Los Angeles where nowadays guys like us can go and play there. LA is a really tacky city, and for a long time it would be hard for me to go and do a good show in LA, because it would either be the super slick, VIP, tacky Top 40 spots, or the ultra caricature underground scene in LA, and I’ve always between those two. Even when I was doing hip-hop I wasn’t all the way on the backpack side, but I wasn’t playing Puff Daddy songs all night either. Not only did Steve create this middleground audience in LA, but he also plays for the Top 40 audience, he plays for the high class Paris Hilton crowd, but he goes there and he plays Justice records or whatever, or Diplo records, or Fool’s Gold records. And then as a consequence of that these upscale crowds hear our stuff, and I can go there and get paid shitloads of money to play a Hollywood party but not have to change what I play all of a sudden.” The ultimate manifestation of this partnership was Screaming Bloody Murder, a joint Fool’s Gold and Dim Mak tour taking in eight cities across North America last month.

And it’s not just the Americans who are showing an interest. “Yesterday I was at Steve Angello’s studio. I don’t expect a guy like Steve Angello to know who I am. But he reached out. I know Angello’s records, Sega knows Angello’s records [Sega recently remixed Angello and Laidback Luke’s Be], but we don’t expect him to know us. We go and we get stuff from different scenes and we put into DJ sets and we make it make sense. That’s the way that we all DJ. Angello’s a big house guy, he’s at Ibiza every week. I don’t expect him to know who A-Trak is. So for him to be like ‘hey come to my studio, let me give you some new songs’ and stuff, I’m still tripping off that. It completely baffles my mind. I don’t expect those guys to know me.” That said, he tries to keep his feet on the ground. “I think it’s really cool that I can see Little Brother one day and Steve Angello the next day. The reason why that’s possible I think is that I really try to stay thorough with what I do, and keep my roots in hip-hop but make it interesting I hope, with the newer stuff I do and Fool’s Gold and everything. The electro guys find my hip-hop stuff interesting, and the hip-hop guys hear my Kid Sister beats and think “oh yeah he’s doing some new shit, that’s cool.” So I don’t wanna lose sight of that, I gotta stay grounded with that.”

His most important venture of late was undoubtedly his work on Jay-Z’s recent Heart of the City tour. Even for someone as talented and successful as A-Trak, recognition and understanding is always the ultimate goal. “Jay came to a lot of Kanye shows over the years, but I really remember the one show in Manchester where he came and he really kind of took me aside after the show and was like ‘yo, that was crazy.’ As much as he’s a huge star and stuff, Jay is so hip hop. I mean he comes from that era, working with Clark Kent and guys like that, and he’s just got such a thorough background in hip-hop. For him to have gone from that to where he is, and see something I do and understand the reference, and be like ‘oh yeah he’s taking the hip-hop shit, that’s where I’m from, but playing it in the Kanye crowd in front of 20,000 people, that’s cool,’ like to have him pay attention and to have that reaction, is already an incredible feeling.” A-Trak was initially asked to be Jay-Z’s tour DJ, but for several reasons he turned down the job. Undeterred, Jay’s people asked him at the very least to be one of the musical directors, and to tie in the work of the DJ with the band. “For him to reach out is crazy, and to work with him, and see him be there everyday at rehearsals. I mean Kanye doesn’t even go to rehearsals. So to work with him, and with ?uestlove being there as the musical director, just to be in that room and to have that dialogue, it’s incredible. And to go from that to playing dance parties in Europe, to Coachella, I love the way everything’s coming together and I really just want to stay thorough with what I do.” It was this determination to stay thorough that led to his initial refusal of Jay-Z. “I already had a Fool’s Gold tour booked, I had some records coming out, and I had just told Kanye I wasn’t doing his tour. Beyond simply being his DJ on stage, over the years I’ve managed to build a really good dialogue with him where we can really consult each other, it’s really a two way conversation, and that’s something I want to preserve, and for me to be like you know ‘hey Kanye, you know what, I need time to do me. I can’t do this tour, I have this Fool’s Gold thing I gotta do,’ and then if I turned around and did the Jay-Z thing…”

Another of his recent successes was the mind-bending mixtape Dirty South Dance, where he took some of the most popular tracks from the world of fuzzy electro and layered over them the sounds of mainstream hip-hop. Lil’ Jon over Etienne De Crecy; Clipse over Alex Gopher; Twista over New Young Pony Club. This venture was a way in which to open doors and introduce himself to people in worlds outside of his own. “The first time I talked to Erol Alkan, I had just finished Dirty South Dance, and I talked to him on iChat and I sent him that track that I did where I took his Klaxons remix and put a Pimp C vocal on it. That was a way for me to break the ice, like ‘hey you know what, maybe you haven’t heard of me or whatever, I’m this DJ, I work with Kanye, but listen to this thing I did with your track’. And he was like ‘Yo, that’s so cool’. And right away you can have a conversation.” In terms of how he arrived at a track selection, there’s no great mystery behind his approach. “I just tried a bunch of stuff and whatever sounded good I kept. There’s just as many that I scrapped.” Many of the tracks move beyond simple layering, and have a definitive A-Trak stamp all over them. “It was me wanting to make these tracks more like bootlegs and not just blends. Sometimes you’ll have a blend that you can play live. And sometimes you’ll get tired of having to keep the acapella and beat together so you’ll put it in Ableton and just recreate it. There’s always stuff that can be moved around to make it sound better, and you produce it a little bit. On the Erol one I added some drum sounds and re-sequenced the whole thing.”

Since he mentioned it first, I decided to bring up the contentious issue of Ableton DJing (Ableton automatically beat-matches tracks for DJs, thus bypassing a building block of any DJ’s set). “Surkin kills it. I love Surkin with Ableton. He’s so fucking good on Ableton it’s scary. He’s kind of the only one I like. Surkin’s the only guy that I’ve seen on Ableton that’s made me think, ok he’s on Ableton because what he’s doing there, no one can do on a CD or on Serato, unless they make edits of everything. I mean it sounds like a 2manydjs mixtape or something, live.” Where other advances in technology are concerned, his approach was definitively analogue up until very recently. “There’s always been this contradiction with me where I was always the youngest guy in my crew, but I was always the most traditional guy.” When his erstwhile partner Craze started working with Final Scratch, A-Trak was not impressed. “It’s only recently that I’ve kinda let go of that stuff and adopted the newer train of thought that’s just like yo, whatever works for you, if it’s good it’s good. There’s still part of me that sees people mix in Ableton and sees everything line itself up for you and it’s kinda like, that’s not DJing. But if you do it really well, and you’re gonna wow me like Surkin wows me then do it, I don’t care.”

With the summer approaching, the one thing that’s on the mind of every music lover is which festival(s) to attend. As a DJ A-Trak gets the chance to perform all over the globe. Does he have a “festival set,” or will he playing new stuff every time? “A little bit of both. Coachella I started. Well, no. [For] Good Vibrations in Australia in February, I built a rough set, but I can still move stuff around, but I knew what I was starting with, I knew certain mixes I wanted to do but I could just move stuff around between, and Coachella I kinda updated it.” The Upper Crust tour is both a preparation for the Summer ahead of him, as well as a chance for him to prove his mettle on his own two feet. “For American DJs to play in Europe is a different reference point, and for me I’m kinda looking at it like boot camp. I’m here DJing by myself most of these parties. I mean tonight I’m with Floss[tradamus], the other night I was with Diplo, but last night in Stockholm, it’s an 800 person venue and it’s just A-Trak on the bill.” For someone who started his career on his own and then move into team battling and tag team parties, this represents a full revolution. “At this point in my career, I don’t care that I’m a world champion, I don’t care that I’m Kanye West’s DJ, all that shit, I just don’t take it for granted. I treat myself like I’m a new guy. Every night I think ‘ok, what worked tonight and what didn’t work,’ and fine tuning it, and hopefully I’ll be able to continue to come up with stuff that works for different crowds and mixes that are really unique to me. I don’t wanna play like the next guy. So every night when I play I’m like ok, cool the crowd is dancing, but did I bring something that’s different. And like did they look and they say ‘hey this is different from this guy last week/this guy next week,’ it’s always gonna be like that.” Given the lazy antics of certain turntablists recently, A-Trak’s attitude is refreshing, one which I wish more DJs would adopt.

With his constant touring, finding new music to keep his sets constantly fresh and interesting is undoubtedly a challenge. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the time to go online for an hour every day. I’m always on iChat of course, exchanging songs stuff with people. Every couple of days I’ll try to block off an hour or two and just hit the blogs and download stuff. If I do a gig with a guy after the show maybe exchange a few songs. It’s mostly when I’m home between tours that I get to really re up on stuff. ‘Cause not only do you have to get the songs you have to sit and listen to them. I might still be on iChat for half an hour and have enough time for a guy to send me a song, but am I gona have enough time to listen to it and figure out what I’m gona mix it with, that’s the part that’s not always there.” Like many DJs out there, he sees the importance of blogs in terms of disseminating new music, but as for the more thorny issue of downloading music, where does he stand? “You can’t fight it. It’s there. That’s the reality. I have a label, but I know you can’t fight it.” When most of your releases are in 12” format it’s not so much of an issue, but Fool’s Gold bravely stepped into the world of CDs with the release of the Super High Shine Edition of Kid Sister’s Pro Nails. “She’s signed to Downtown now. So Downtown wanted to do a new release. Fools Gold is the creative team behind the whole record, so, Downtown has the muscle, they have the machine, the staff and everything, but they consult us every step of the way.” Downtown were keen to find ways of infiltrating the public consciousness, to really push Kid Sister, so Fool’s Gold threw some remixes in their direction. “I got this Bag Raiders remix that never came out officially, I got this Gant-Man jackin’ house remix that everybody’s gonna love, sounds like 90s house.” An iTunes bundle also came from the Fool’s Gold side. “They’re preparing a bundle on iTunes with the video and the original version of the song with these remixes, and they made a CD, just to have that retail presence for her. So that’s the first concrete result of Fools Gold and Downtown working together for Kid Sister.” The results of these efforts have yet to be seen, but with this set of releases, and Kid Sister’s appearance on The Count & Sinden’s anthemic Beeper, her pending superstardom seems academic.

While A-Trak is ultimately very serious and thorough about what he does, that’s not to say he can’t enjoy himself on stage. “I talk on the mic a lot. Me talking on the mic, and kind of dancing on stage and acting a fool, is me saying ‘you know what, this is me this is who you came to see, this is who I am, this is who I came to see, I’m gonna say stuff on the mic that’s probably really silly and doesn’t make much sense, but it’s my personality, so you know, I’ll give you all of me, If you like it you do, if you don’t then don’t come to my show.’” A short while later Crawdaddy witnessed a rocking set featuring tracks from current favourites such as Switch and Para One as well as perennial classics from the likes of Eric B & Rakim and novelty acts such as Kriss Kross, all mixed to perfection. More important than the mixing, was the fact that everyone was dancing. “I’m a DJ, I’m here to entertain.”

Hip-hop shows can be quite hit and miss. Unfortunately, I’ve been to more bad shows than good shows, so when a good one comes along it’s hard to tell whether it’s only good insofar as it’s not as bad as something else. This weekend, I had the (mis)fortune of going to two shows, one bad, one good, but even without the other each show stood alone in its respective successes and failures.

On Friday I went to see DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist’s The Hard Sell show. Long sold out, I was lucky to get a ticket about an hour before the doors opened. The evening started well, with a great support slot from Kid Koala, a Canadian DJ whose skills are best demonstrated by this video.

The main event was, to say the least, a disappointment. On Thursday night I foolishly had a listen to the show’s CD, which, though quite indulgent and just a bit lacking in focus, was interesting, if nothing else. Unfortunately, that CD is exactly the same as the show I saw on Friday. The premise of The Hard Sell is that the two DJs are playing nothing but 7” records, which is more taxing due to the smaller size of the records. That’s all well and good, and it’s admirable that they’re trying to challenge themselves. They may as well have sat at home in their bedrooms doing it though, because it seemed that they were the only people getting any enjoyment out of it. “Welcome to The Hard Sell,” said Cut Chemist at one point, “the show where you’re not sure if you’re being educated or entertained.” If they had taken a little bit more time to focus on one or the other of these angles, the results could have been mesmeric, rather than just plain confusing.

Edan’s show last night, however, was mind-blowing. One of my biggest regrets of recent times is missing his show in Crawdaddy in October 2006, but thankfully this year I have the chance to see him twice (last night and next May at Primavera). He raps. He mixes. He raps and mixes - cutting and rhyming as he calls it. He dances. He plays guitar and kazoo. He plays theremin. When was the last time you saw a rapper perform with a theremin? How many rappers would you say even know what a theremin is?! Then there was his rendition of Rock and Roll (performed acappella, no less), during which his on stage cohort Dagha held up a pile of classic rock records, from LA Woman to Remain in Light, and even In The Court of The Crimson King, removing each one in time to complement the lyrics. I’ve gone in search of a Youtube to illustrate my point, but alas my search is in vain. It was pretty awesome anyway. The show was undoubtedly one of the best hip-hop performances I’ve ever seen, and it completely blew that of Shadow and Chemist so far out of the water I almost forget I was out Friday night. Until I see the rather gaping hole in my wallet that is…

I had originally intended to blog about the current climate of good hip hop gigs in Dublin – Aesop Rock, The Cool Kids, Cadence Weapon and Edan – but after The Cool Kids’ show in Crawdaddy the other night, I felt something else required attention. Arriving at Crawdaddy some time around 8.30, I figured I’d already have missed some of the support show, coming from Irish rap crew The Infomatics and Carps, whose music is described as “Punk Rock with a gun to R&B’s head on the Dancefloor.” I was wrong. The schedule seemed to suggest that these two groups would play short sets, and that The Cool Kids would come on at 9.50, to finish at 10.30. As short a set as that would seem, the Chicago duo don’t really have much of a back catalogue – they’ve yet to release their debut album, The Bake Sale.

However, by 9.50 The Infomatics had barely finished their set, and Carps were seen wandering around through the audience. As soon as they kicked off their set with some brash, noisy punk rock, I found myself drifting back outside. Now I’m all for variety and open mindedness, but I really question the sense in billing Carps in the middle of two hip-hop crews. For one thing, my gig-going buddy repeatedly compared them to Fall Out Boy, and, if hip-hop is known for anything it’s its braggadocio. This Canadian pair seemed so caught up in their nation’s own reputation for self-deprecation that they almost seemed to apologise for their presence on stage.

Meanwhile, keeping with hip-hop’s propensity for delay, The Cool Kids finally came on stage some time after 11, they asked the crowd if they had work the following morning. “F*ck work” they encouraged us to chant, “f*ck early!” That’s easy to shout when your job consists of flights and shows, not so much when you’ve to get up and get a bus to sit in front of a desk the next day, bleary eyed from jumping around and throwing your hands in the air the night before. That said, their show, which flew through verses from their debut EP, Totally Flossed Out. Taking their retro themes to the extreme, they referenced early hip-hop heroes from NWA to, err, Kriss Kross, as well as getting the crowd to rap along to the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Mikey Rock got so much into it that he danced old-school style while his partner Chuck got with the beatboxing. All of this was enhanced by the duo’s lyrical flair and wonderful sense of humour. Put simply, it was a great hip-hop performance, as the pair reverently kept with the traditions of the genre while looking to their own future as would-be superstars.

All of this was unfortunately overshadowed by the awful timing and dreadful programming. I left the gig wondering why The Cool Kids haven’t released an album, and why the powers that be at Crawdaddy saw fit to keep the crowd waiting such a long time. Hopefully the same won’t be the case at Cadence Weapon, playing Shock on Friday the 22^nd, or in the Tivoli for Edan on March 16^th.

Brazilian trio Bonde do Rolê have come a long way since their first Irish show last October. They’ve gone from playing a half-empty Crawdaddy to filling up the Bodytonic Arena at this year’s Electric Picnic, as well as countless other festival performances across the Globe this summer. I spoke to DJ Gorky ahead of their November performance in The Button Factory. Of course, this being my first interview, the recorder stopped working and I lost the first five minutes of the conversation. I can tell you however, that they will be performing Gasolina for the first time on this tour, as Marina has finally learned her cue points. As well as that, the next album will (hopefully) feature a full brass section, provided by none other than the Brazilian Military Brass Band. The rest of the conversation went something like this.

You play a lot of Brazilian music [in your DJ sets], but you’re kind of like Erol Alkan and 2manydjs, that kind of style? But then the Bonde do Rolê sound is much more inspired by 80s rock. Do you ever have a difficulty keeping the two of them separate?

No, not really. The whole influence for Bonde do Rolê was 2manydjs as well, blending stuff, but the difference between us and 2manydjs is that we blend with Brazilian influence. If we were doing with anything else it would sound just like 2manydjs trying to be a bootleg band. Not Soulwax though, they’re completely different.

You know the first Solta o Frango single? The track Bondallica that’s on that CD is different to the one on the album [the original version features the voice of a heavy metal fan shouting “Heavy Metal rules” etc].

Because we couldn’t clear the Heavy Metal Parking Lot sample. That’s from a documentary from the 80s called Heavy Metal Parking Lot, and we couldn’t clear the sample. That release that was out on CD in Brazil only, had the sample. We put all those tracks there, because we didn’t have any other songs to put on, and then it ended up on the album as well.

I got that at the show in Dublin last year.

I remember that show, we were so happy, we sold so many t-shirts and CDs, we were running back to the hotel, it was fun. [Gorky had earlier mentioned that it was after this particular show that Bonde do Rolê were signed to Domino.]

Do you ever find that you have a crowd that doesn’t really want to party the way that sort of crowd did, have you ever had any bad reactions?

Yeah, we played this show in New York, but New York’s like that, especially Manhattan, they’re over there just to be at the place, and talk about it afterwards. We played at the Natural History Museum, that couldn’t be a worse place for us to play. There was like ten, fifteen, of our friends having fun with us, and then I could see fifty-year old couples, drinking wine and not paying attention at all. But we managed to have fun by ourselves. It’s funny because in Manhattan it’s always like that, but if you go to Brooklyn it’s completely different, and it’s the same city.

Crazy. I was going to ask about DJ Chernobyl [aka Freddie Van Halen], he’s a big legend in Brazil, right?

Indie-wise yeah, not like mainstream wise, he was one of the first people who mixed baile funk with rock and stuff like that, like ten years ago. It was really fun working with him, and he’s our friend.

He worked with you guys on the album?

He recorded the album with us, cause he was the one with the good microphones, we only had the cheap ones. We recorded the whole album back in our place with him, it was fun.

Who’s been your favourite person to work with so far?

Freddie is really good to work with. Yeah, probably Freddie, because if we go on to him at 4am in the morning “So he’s like “yeah yeah, sure, just gimme a beer and we’ll do it.” Diplo is like, [makes explosion sound] we have to be babysitters, “Let’s work right now” and we have to sit him down and put his computer [away], and not let him check his emails, and put away his cell phone, and his sidekick. We have to put all that away, “No, let’s work.” But he’s fun.

And what about Radioclit?

The only track we did with them on the album was something we recorded in five minutes, and we kept doing re-edits between us, using the internet, one sending each other the stuff. They’re really professional as well. I lived the whole summer with Johann, one of the guys from Radioclit, and I know he’s really committed, he’s down for you. We needed some help with some stuff and he was the first one to help.

Oh, cool. The artwork on the singles is pretty crazy.

Thank you. It was done by this friend of ours from Curitiba. For the first Domino release, the Solta o Frango one, we were like “oh, we want a girl in a bikini doing barbecue, and you have to put a weird setting.” For the second single [Office Boy], I was like, “I want a naked guy”. But then we couldn’t do the whole naked guy, so we had to cut him in half. For the Gasolina one, we actually didn’t say anything to him, he used the lyrics. It’s a gorilla smoking a pipe. It’s fun. It’s my favourite one so far.

And then the second Solta o Frango one has some chickens coming out of a barn [Solta o Frango translates roughly as release the chickens, or to go crazy].

The second Solta o Frango one had a better version, but Pedro and Marina didn’t like it. I kind of liked the old version, but we’re never going to use it. Maybe on a box set in like 20 years, “Oh this is the cover we never used.” There’s like tons of different versions of the tracks on the album, but I don’t have half of them. I’m asking all my friends that I sent the tracks at the time, “Do you have this version of blah blah blah?” For instance, Office Boy had a different chorus, it was something in Portuguese, but I don’t have that one anymore, and everyone keeps asking me about it. The new version’s better.

What do you think of the remixes that people have done for you?

Usually I get to choose them, since I’m the DJ. I’m really happy about them. My favourite batch is going to be the Gasolina single. The Buraka [Som Sistema] remix was already out, but we’re re-releasing it because it was really good, there’s also going to be the Crookers, and Fake Blood, Peaches as well. That’s my favourite pack. And the Brodinski remix and Shir Khan ones [of Office Boy] as well. I tried to call people that we liked but they’re not really big. For instance, we would love Soulwax remixing us, but they’re too big for us. I tried to call people who I admired but it could be easier to work with, like Brodinski and Shir Khan. I hope they get big, so I can go like “Oh, we had one of their first remixes”.

Is there anyone else you want to work with? I know Marina worked with The Go! Team.

Oh, yeah, and she’s working with TTC right now. I really want to work with a lot of people, on the second album, like Switch, and the Crookers, and Simian Mobile Disco. We want to finally ask Spank Rock and Amanda Blank to be on the album, they’re always at our gigs, and we sing together on some songs as well. It would be nice to actually have them on the record. Who else. I would love to work with Soulwax, but that’s impossible.

I know you like Surkin, have you tried talking to him?

Yeah, maybe for like a remix, for the second album.

Do you wish there was something you could say in an interview, but it never comes up?

We always say everything we want to, even the bad parts. Even when my mom gets a magazine, especially the Brazilian ones, and we say a lot of crap on them. She’s like, “Why did you say this Rodrigo? Your grandpa could read this!” I’m like, oh whatever.

Words & Photos: Aidan Hanratty