Renegades of Rhythm Tour (Shadow Related)
RAJ
tenacious local 7,783 Posts
Anybody seen this? The concept is fantastic and it's good to see some vinyl maniacs get back to the medium that made their careers.
Comments
It was pretty fucking great. As a dj set, I must say those two are really good at what they do.
As far as the Bambaataa element, the visuals were smartly matched to the set, showed the og sleeve to the record on deck, photos of Bam matched to the time line of the era, train maps etc. Pretty cool.
I will admit I got more geeked than expected hearing Bambaataa's copies of Catch a Groove, Bounce Skate etc.
One thing that was impressive was how clean it all sounded, I kept listening for cue burn. They must have VPN'ed the absolute shit outta those records. Seeing the tattered sleeves sticking out of the crates and knowing where those copies had been was pretty awesome.
It had been a loooong time since I've seen any kind of dj show, so I had kinda forgotten what a dude fest the culture is.
Cargo shorts and Wu Tang shirts over potbellies for miles.
The only girls in attendance appeared to be corralled girlfriends.
Overall rad experience.
http://player.ooyala.com/iframe.html#ec=x2cTlnbzozDfFnER4J54EiTfQNZiWkiL&pbid=adf2ca2f4a994bb4b460f8f585bfedf3&docUrl=http://www.okayplayer.com/news/afrika-bambaataa-vinyl-crate-diggers-video.html
These two items are SOOOO true.
The concept alone sells itself.
I also was waiting for the cue burn. Never heard any really. Highly recommended!!!
His production has fallen off like
Good to know he still brings his A-game to DJing with Cut Chemist.
As soon as they came out some dude had his camera all up in shadow's face as he was introducing the show, and he snapped on the guy. I completely understand. Peoples' phones in my face is one of my biggest peeves as well. they got on and mercd it for about 15 minutes, then got on the mic again.... And again ... And again.
I get it. You're trying to share with the audience why this is so historically important. However, during one of these interludes, shadow goes off on these kids for not paying attention as if he was some sort of college professor being interrupted during a lecture.
I flashed back to every Fugazi show I've ever attended ( that's probably somewhere around 30, mind you.) where Ian McKaye goes off on an audience member or security guard or ice cream truck... when I was a kid I thought it was kind of cool, but now I'm really left feeling like these old guys are being prescious.
The kids with the phones suck. No doubt, but so does the $35 ticket they paid for to hear music, and the $9 beers I might add.
i went to see 2 of the best do what they do best, and I felt this massive gap between them and their audience last night. People were there for the music, not a patronizing lesson in why things used to be better. these two talented dudes who have been so fortunate to do what they love don't really seem to relate to their audience any more.
quite a juxtaposition of great skills and old man screams at the clouds from 2 guys that almost never really produced anything classic on they own
i see how it is.
Oh wow.
Jeremy Storch better get some of that money:
B/w: dude has twin girls. I'm never gonna be mad at anyone that takes good money. Maybe it goes against the whole 1996 it's the money thing, but its 2014. 18 years later. When those twins are 18 hre's gonna want all the money he can get. College tuition will probably be like $400,000 each.
How else are you going to get paid in this day and age?
the show was reallllly on point with audio and visuals. absolute break madness with surprisingly handful of things i didnt know.
for once i gotta agree with my man delay though...they were on some "you better learn and do the knowledge" a little too much. chill out with your self importance and let the shit speak for itself. appreciate how true to the game and dedicated you are, but for some people, there's more important things in life.
Thanks for the perspective Delay. I definitely agree with you. They are the apex of that style of djing. Too bad there's such a disconnect with the audience. Patronizing lectures aren't going to help though, that's for sure.
Still sad I missed it.
Cell phones at concerts are bullshit. Don't be that guy. You will NEVER re-watch those videos and nobody cares.
Anyway, I had a great time and hope they release the mix somehow. I figure they are recording the shows and will release the best one.
Check it out if you have the chance.
Truth. I will never understand that phenomenon. Wow, the indiscernible visuals and similarly ruined sound coming from your phone really make me feel like I was THERE, man!
Everyone was feeling the sets, and I thought that the talking on the mic was minimal but was necessary for the majority of the crowd to understand exactly what the fuck they were witnessing (we can probably all agree that exclusive use of Bambaataa's records on a global DJ tour is awesome - why not let everyone know why it's important?). There were a couple points in the mix where they went off on some deep stuff, but for the most part the entire set was highly danceable. No standing around and staring at the nerdfest on stage like with Brainfreeze and Product Placement (the latter of which I caught live at the Fillmore SF many many moons ago). Those were incredibly awkward mixes from a danceability perspective. Glad they finally got it right with this set.
the sound in the balcony was crazy, i wore earplugs for the first time ever at a show.
they had the mikes plugged directly into the dj mixer, i wasn't even sure if they had a sound guy until i went downstairs at the end, it sounded good by the sound booth.
the show was dope, the first half (third?) was old breaks (cuban, salsa, dope-as-fuck-breaks-that-i-didn't -know), that was super dope.
the produced-by-bam part kind of lost me 'cause i don't really rock a lot of his production in general.
the part at the end where they rocked the bboy classics was cool (especially 'cause of the this-is-the-original-record-that-made-this-a-classic-break factor), i'll bet there was dope breaking going on up front.
the visuals were dope with the record covers and old footage, but they looped the video stuff over and over (they didn't correlate with the records being played).
shadow and cut chemist were flawless (didn't notice one skip or missed cue). i'm not used to watching djs that use the mixer's efx/looper stuff, so that took away from it for me 'cause i couldn't tell exactly what was going on.
i had a balcony seat and was there to sit and watch them dj, i'm sure that anyone dancing and grooving out was feeling the polished/layered sound though..
dam funk was dope! i like his shit, but i didn't expect to get so pumped to watch him walk around the stage sort of singing to his beats off of his laptop.