Delft Station-on way to work

This tag is actually an ad for a furniture maker made by local grafitti artists in Delft.

The Spectacular View

This is the view I'm presented with for most of my daytime during week days

Automate this

Having decided to do my office work from University due to my 'Placement Report' deadline, I've had the opportunity to listen to all the albums I have downlaoded/bought recently. Curiously, all of them were produced by Dan 'The Automator' Nakamura. You see, within 2 weeks of JK giving me a taste of Del The Funkee Homosapien and Deltron 3030, I have gone searching for all Automator produced records I could get my hands on. This is the list I have:

1. Deltron 3030: Automator produced with Del The Funkee Homosapien and DJ Kid Koala
2. Handsome Boy Modeling School: with Prince Paul (De La Soul's DJ)
3. Gorillaz: Automator produced with Damon Albarn, Del The Funkee Homosapien and DJ Kid Koala
4. Dr. Octagon: Automator produced with Kool Keith (from the Ultramagnetic MC's)

I haven’t had this excitement with listening to records since I started to listen to The Velvet Underground so I’m still grasping my words for right words to describe these albums not to mention the quannum projects crew (DJ Shadow, Blackalicious and Latyrx to name a few) which I explored not too long ago. Once I do though, The Ludovico is where you’ll find ‘em.

The Lessons

For anyone remotely interested in turntablism, these 3 tracks by Double Dee & Steinksi, one of the pioneers of the art is a must:

1. Lesson 1: The Payoff Mix
2. Lesson 2: The James Brown Mix
3. Lesson 3: History of Hip-Hop

2006 goes by

2006 saw me go into hyper drive with hip hop records. My last post expressed my fascination of Jurassic 5's live performance in Amsterdam which prompted me to take a trip to Munich to see The Roots play live on December 7.

My trip to Munich also opened many chapters as the city provided me with much more options when it comes to searching for rap records. So it happened I managed to bag Blackalicious’ debut album Melodica back in ’94 as well as DJ Shadow’s Pre-emptive Strike in the form of LP’s and RUN-DMC’s Raising Hell plus Hendrix’s The Band of Gypsies on CD.

The performance of the Roots on the 7^th provided me with another view of hip-hop’s musical boundaries. The Roots largely differ to J5 as there was no DJ present and the stage set-up looked pretty much like any other band with a drum set, keyboards, a couple of guitars, a bass and percussions. Where J5 had Nu-Mark providing the basic beats, ?uestlove did the same for The Roots with totally different effect to his LA counterpart. DJ Nu-Mark was a one man producing machine with the help of 4 MC’s whereas ?questlove was largely providing steady beats helped by The Legendary Roots Crew’s® funk crew together with the rapping of Black Thought. Yet their similarities also show heavily with The Roots playing almost their entire set medley mixing tracks from 2006’s Game Theory as well as previous albums.

I never thought in my life time I would be able to see solo performances by musicians in an actual concert. Almost right from the beginning, perhaps 15 minutes into the gig we were entertained to L. Ron Hubbard’s bass slapping solo followed by ?questlove and their percussionist’s 20 minute psychedelic percussion bonanza. Half-way through the gig my man Jan commented whilst the Roots were playing ‘You Got Me’ that the song didn’t quite have the same pezzas without Jill Scott’s vocals. Luckily for us Capn’ Kirk helped us out by letting rip a guitar solo straight out of Funkadelic’s guitar solo book. Yet the fascination doesn’t end there as The Roots paid homage to their musical influences by slipping quick live samples of artists from the Police, The Sugar Hill Gang to Led Zeppelin. These live samples were slipped between solos I mentioned earlier which added to the feeling that you were half-way between a Public Enemy concert with one of Funkadelic’s.

It was a shame that we picked a spot in the hall close to the toilet passage which annoyed me no end and when the band played music I wasn’t particularly aware of, the nuisance of the passing crowd overtook the fun. Yet I can’t complain as it was an eye opening performance, completely different to Jurassic 5 yet staying to the basic values of rap and hip-hop, fat funky beats and tons of creativity.

The evening was capped by us going to ?uestlove’s DJ spinning in the Registratur, a nice small club in the centre of Munich. We stayed till about 4am after boogie-ing all night long to tracks and breaks of Soul and Rap’s past. Felt like I was in 1984!

Paying Homage as Well as Returning Favours-Jurassic 5 09.10.2006 Paradiso Amsterdam-

Why it took me half a month and a full day to finally fork out €19 to watch J5 is beyond me now. Having not heard their most recent album and the fact that a 9am morning awaited me the following day fuelled my hesitation to take the trip to Paradiso Amsterdam. However, when I remembered the last concert I attended was to watch the Infadels 6 months previously, I finally came to my senses. It turned out to be one of my better gambles.

From The Arcade Fire to Simon and Garfunkel, I don’t recall leaving a gig feeling quite this pleased. I also don’t recall seeing Paradiso as packed as last night. The crowd played their part though as J5 were the most interactive group I’ve seen live and played with the mob superbly. As they went through their repertoire of past albums and their latest release, Feedback, they never lost control of the crowd as we were entertained to everything from old skool rapping to Afrika Bambataaesque electronica to turntablism

Being my first hip-hop concert, I’m left agog on how flexible the genre actually is. Almost all the numbers were medley with all 4 MC’s mixing the standard lyrics from their albums with freestyle references to Amsterdam and its grass culture and political messages amongst others. DJ Nu-Mark played his part mixing past track samples with all sorts of wicked sh*t not to mention 3 solos. Before the encore Nu-Mark went solo playing 3 different turntables to samples from everything from Sugar Hill drumbeats to George Clinton Synthesizers. The encore started with the recent single release and ended with Chali 2na, Marc 7even, and Akil rapping freestyle with homage to golden age hip hop and the host city.

After the 2 or so hour gig all 5 stayed behind and socialized with the audience who stayed behind. After 3 spliffs I could hardly be bothered trying to get anything signed so I tried my luck getting a t-shirt from the merchandise area. Jurassic 5’s latest album may fall to mixed reviews but their live performance was certainly a spectacle and offered something different to rock or indie concerts I’ve been accustomed to. This makes it all the harder to accept the fact that both gigs of The Roots in November have been sold out. Now I have to rely on getting some tickets in Munich!!

The Amsterdam Disaster

Well, here I am. After promising to write something on the World Cup, another football tournament grabbed my attention and I've decided to report on the LG Amsterdam Tournament, especially the 2 matches that ruined United's season start. Mind you, that day was a complete footballing package.

Having bought the match tickets (that’s 2 matches for 1 ticket y'know) for a healthy 45 euros, we set off for Amsterdam on the Saturday in early August. The fact that we left The Hague guessing whether Rooney and Scholes would be eligible to play in the evening provided a lot of excitement throughout the day. How Rooney could get sent off (a straight red at that) for a yellow card offence at the most, during United's opener in the tournament the evening before v Porto is beyond me. Luckily United won that match 3-1 and with Inter playing stalemate with Ajax on the Friday, United needed only a draw to ensure victory in this meaningless pre-season gig.

We arrived in Amsterdam just in-time for the annual gay pride march in the city. The canals were clogged and the streets noisy. After a short trip to The Noon and filled up our blueberry supplies, we set off for the ArenA shortly after 5pm. Having bought a crap match programme before finding our seats, I was quite surprised on the number of people filling up the joint. LG's constant commercial bombardment prior to the match has paid dividence. With the Dutch crowed in buoyant mood, we were entertained to Inter v Porto.

The first match was certainly a curtain raiser. I was truly impressed by Inter who fielded Adriano and Martins together the majority of their star players albeit without the high profile signing of Vieira. The Italians raced to a 2-0 lead within 30 mins with the Chilean David Pizarro opening the scoring and Martins doubling the score line after the half hour mark. The fact that the Portuguese knocked the Dutch out of the World Cup in an unfashionable manner, encouraged most of the neutrals to route for Inter. With Martins adding another goal to make the score 3-0 shortly before the break, it was a relief to see Porto clench 2 goals back before the end of the match. The eve catching acrobatics of Porto's second goal (haven’t got a clue who scored that one) was one of the highlights of the first match together with Porto's new Brazilian sensation, Anderson.

After 90 minutes of footy and 15 minutes of finding a place to light a spliff, United took to the field without Rooney nor Scholes. Fergie was feeling lucky and youthful by giving starts for Simpson, Evans, Martin, Miller, Rossi and Richardson with Wes Brown leading the defence and Giggsy taking the team out against Ajax. The home crowd have been cheering on Klaas Huntelaar everytime he appeared on the screen before the match and have been rewarded with Huntelaar's inclusion in the starting lineup. Alas, there was no reunion bewteen Jip Jaap Stam with Ferguson as the former was left out from the squad due to an injury.

It was only a few minutes into the match when Carrick, United's overpriced summer signing, broke down after a challenge sometime around the 20 minute mark. From that point on, Lord Ferg seemed to lose interest in the tournament altogether and started to slow the tempo of the match down before introducing more reserves after the scores being 0-0 at half time. The most influential player on the pitch must have been Giggs as he struck the post a couple of times before the break from well taken set-pieces. It was the Welshman who provided the only goal of the game in the second half with a free kick taken just to the left hand side on the edge of the penalty box. His free kick ricoched against the woodwork and behind the goal line. Playing back in his home town, van der Sar also produced some fine form by saving Huntelaar's penalty early in the second half. The match ended with a victory for United in the Amsterdam Tournament yet with Scholes and Rooney banned for 3 matches whilst Carrick and Ferdinand were ruled out for at least a couple of weeks (Rio injured his ankle in a training session prior to kick off) it seemed like a heavy price to pay. With Carrick coming out on crutches to receive the medals, it was a sad sad sight to endure. After the players have paid tribute to the traveling fans and after hearing Huntelaar being named 'man of the match' (to ironic cheers from the Dutch crowd) we set off back to Amsterdam Centraal in an over packed metro.

The journey back provided us with the icing on the cake to what has become an eventful football day. Quite typically we ended up in a carriage chock-a-block full of loud, drunk, stoned and irate United fans. For some reason or another a fight broke out between a couple of Ajax hot heads which spread into a lot of pushing, banging, shouting and strangling which finally involved the drunken English. Being almost squelched to death between all the agro, I was relieved when the Ajax fans decided to sod it and exit at the closest metro station. For the return journey, the Red Army were singing their hearts out to what is hopefully the first of at least one more trophy before the end of the season.