Dannyfest

I really should have posted about this earlier, but better late than never I suppose.

Comedian Danny Robins has a show on at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival right now. It's called Dannyfest and is a very entertaining take on festival culture. So if you happen to be going to Edinburgh this year, do check it out, it is genuinely a very funny, "feel-good" kinda comedy act. Danny delivers a thoroughly enjoyable, energetic performance and really gets the crowd going.

Dannyfest is on every day in the Pleasance Courtyard (check listings for start time) and runs through to the end of the festival - August 31st.

Oh, and mixed in with the fun are a bunch of animated sequences done by your's truly. :)

Damn you London Underground

"London...you will get what you paid for. We are still Velvet Revolver and we still play Rock n' Roll." said Scott Weiland to the crowd after 3 explosive numbers at the start of their set tonight at Brixton Academy. Sadly, thanks to Brixton Tube station running their last train AT 10PM, I didn't catch much more of the show for fear of missing the train, and thus getting screwed for work tomorrow. Yeah, I have a day-job, early meetings and in hot pursuit of a separate burgeoning career.....all good excuses, but still, not very rock n roll, I know. If I was my spotty-faced jobless 17-year-old incarnation, I'd still be rocking out to the encore right now.

I did manage to catch the first 20 minutes of their performance and they were awesome. Obviously, this is no way to experience a rock band, particularly one of such calibre as VR. I had barely started to get into it and the experience was cut short....sigh, responsibilities. However, there IS a silver lining:

Flynn to the rescue.

As Fi and I raced back to the tube station, I rang up me old mucker Flynn and asked him to check for tickets for tomorrow night's performance (Brixton again). You see, the last train tomorrow night is miraculously at the more respectable time of 00:30. Not only could Flynn see tickets still available, but they were of the stalls/standing variety! Right on!! That's what you get when you're NOT a spotty-faced jobless 17-year-old: options.

So, this post was supposed to be a sort of review of the gig, but I'm sure you'll agree tomorrow or thursday may be a better day for that. I can however talk a little bit about Pearl, the warm-up act. I hate to do this but my inherent laziness means I'll chose to describe them using comparisons - think leppard, snake and heart but heavier and without the catchy riffs. Apart from a couple of real duds, their set was power-chord central with balls to the wall blistering hair-metal-worthy solos from both guitarists. Considering one of them is Scott Ian of Anthrax, one expects no less. The group is fronted by Pearl Aday, Meatloaf's daughter, so you should now have a decent indication of the Power Rock / Thrash Metal hybrid sound Pearl bring to the stage. They played an excellent set for an opening act. No real memorable melodies or lyrics, but who needs that when u gots da rock.

More soon.

Dog Soup

On Monday night I went to see Dog Soup perform at The Oxford in Kentish Town. These guys are seriously off-the-hook. Some of the best original Jazz I've heard in a very long time. The band is part of The Loop Collective - an organisation that is so my thing, I can't believe I hadn't heard of them until now. Check out their site to learn more, but essentially they are a group of young musicians and artists that band together to write and perform original compositions. A burgeoning movement that forms the truly exciting end of the contemporary jazz scene in London.

Anyway, back to Dog Soup. The band's sound has strong ties with Miles Davis's electric-era, namely Bitches Brew (see what they did there with the band name?). I've always enjoyed this period. Bitches Brew is arguably the album that kick-started the movement that eventually culminated in On The Corner - my personal all-time favourite Miles Davis album ever.

Dog Soup played two sets of entirely original compositions and startled me with the seer quality in their playing. It amazes me that these guys aren't signed to a label yet (that I know of). Musicianship was top-notch throughout and the arrangements played, blurred the lines of free jazz/rock, fusion, with added electronic sounds, loops and the use of wah-wah, delay effects employed by the trumpeter and keyboard player for live sampling and manipulation...all adding up to an incredibly deep sound.

This isn't a Miles tribute band - these cats are cooking up their own thing in the spirit of Miles' seminal electric-ear output. They've got serious talent and impressed me with a far-out jazz sound of furious rhythm and tight arrangement balanced with swelling soundscapes of electric twists and live instrument manipulation that work superbly in the jazz context.

The sound was also fantastic in the top floor of The Oxford. Tim Giles's wicked drumming sounded crisp, matched by Johnny Brierley's double-bass. Their patterns reverberated around the room - a rich rhythm section levelled briliantly with the Bernie Worrell-aspirations from the keyboard player. The immense sound mass is rounded-off with Robbie Robson's solid trumpet playing.

For the encore they did a shortened interpretation of Bitches Brew and Wayne Shorter's Sanctuary, noth really complicated tracks in their own right, Dog Soup delivered well- their love for this material is obvious as is their sensitivity towards the source material and deep appreciation of the work of the pioneers of that era.

I've been longing for an act like this to show up somewhere, but never fully expected one to ever materialise. I had no idea it was all happening right on my street in North London, and to my delight, the band I heard on Monday night were better than I dared anticipate.

The Loop Collective is the hub to all the great new material that's currently brewing. I'm seeing Acoustic Ladyland play at The Luminaire tomorow night, so more on that in a future post.

Dr. Funkenstein

George Clinton was in town last Saturday (Nov. 3rd) to perform with Jack Ashford and other members of The Funk Brothers for a one-off gig at IndigO2.

Well into his 60's now, George still gots da funk. This is the only dude that can keep a band tight enough to play funk loose, keeping it raw and jamming on the one. Despite not being the P-FUNK All Stars the band didn't disappoint. Top-notch musicianship all-round, not least from the Funk Brothers present. Lead guitarist was off the hook, wish I could remember his name - not quite Michael Hampton but stellar none the less. A true Funkadelic.

It's worth mentioning the Funk Brothers did a warm-up set of Motown tunes (I was late, so only caught the end), before moving on to the main show which opened with a favourite - Red Hot Mama. Opening with the blistering chords the guitarist just tore it up, rhythm section kicked in and as the groove rose to a fever pitch George walks on to an insanely excited crowd. His gravelly voice sounded great as they jammed from one stonker to the next, including Flash Light, Atomic Dog, Give Up The Funk, Up For The Down Stroke - grooves of immense proportions.

Half-way through he also did a cover of Curtis Mayfield's Gypsy Woman, that worked surprisingly well.

The last time I saw him play live was at The Forum (in 2005). He had the P-FUNK All Stars with him - including Bernie Worrell. That gig ran well over 3 hrs. In contrast, last saturday's gig was a tight 90mins. I put this down to him not having his usual full band - there's just too much material for another band to learn when they've got their own tour going on as their main thang. Still, they never missed a beat and like the audience, were having a ball.

After finishing with an extended jam that, appropriately enough, sounded like the Mothership taking off, the house lights came up and we were informed George would be signing CDs. I rush out and sure enough there's Dr. Funkenstein chilling in the merchandise area. So I got to hang out and chat with him briefly:

Dr. Funkenstein meets Funkadelic Fan

I said "George I already have that album, but I'll buy it anyway 'coz you've just signed the cover". He looked at me and said "Oh. Well let me draw you a picture too", so he flips it over and draws on the back...

...a genuine dawg!! Atomic of course.

Buy the album:How Late Do U Have 2b B4 Ur Absent

Kentaro at Cargo

Last week my mate Mark and I went to see DJ Kentaro play at Cargo. If you've ever been to Cargo (Old Street, London) you'll know that in addtion to the stage/dance floor area and bar, there's also a restaurant. Seeing as we were 2 hours early (we thought it would be packed) we decded to grab a bite to eat. Big mistake. We sat at a table with drinks (we bought at the bar) and menus for a good 45 minutes going completely unnoticed by the one waitress working that night. Eventually she came up and said "hi guys, did you want to order food?". We said yes, she nodded, and then walked off - not reappearing for a further 10 minutes. When she finally took our order, the food took about 5 minutes to appear. Microwave job. Some places are just too cool for school.

Anyway, the point is while sitting there, we could here the supporting act through the resataurant speakers. They sounded terrible - like a bloke yelling generic meaningless hip-hop chants accompanied by a tin drum kit. He seemed really loud in comparison. So after quite a lot of moaning and finally getting to eat, we paid and went around to the stage area - dreading having to see this act performing.

To our surprise, the closer we got to the gig area, the better and better they sounded. As we got our hands stamped and stepped throgh the curtains and through the doorway we were greeted with this:

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
Uploaded by rafianimates

Awesome. I was blown away. These guys were fOnkay! I tried to forget how we slagged 'em off in the other room (not our fault Cargo has rubbish speakers in the restaurant) and while gutted that I'd missed the rest of their set, we did catch this track and an encore. Outstanding and so refreshing to see a brass section and one drummer, belt out some supreme funk and jazz. They're called the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and have their own blog too. Musically they are tight and standing there by the stage the vocals I heard earlier were actually well placed. I bought a couple of their CDs after they were done, also very good.

Having been floored by these talented players I was ready for the main event. Kentaro came on played a fantastic set, accompanied by some cool visuals, interspersed with live footage of his turntablism skizzils:

DJ Kentaro live at Cargo
Uploaded by rafianimates

While Kentaro has impeccable taste in the records he plays, has mad scratching and mixing skills and his album Enter is seriously off the hook, an hour into his set I started to notice a little repetition in the effects and transitions he was doing. A few more tricks to broaden his repetoir would make this awesome act truly ouitstanding IMHO.