Saturday, August 08, 2009

August update

Rinse FM

Just a few quick updates. First news is there’ll be no more Pitchfork dubstep/grime/funky columns until October, sadly, as Pitchfork are concentrating on a big editorial push. Kinda frustrating but that’s their call.

More positively Dusk and I filled our “15 things you didn’t know about...” questionnaire for Rinse’s birthday, which is live here on the lovely new Rinse.fm website. The images in rotation on the front page are sick.

We had to have a think about this but I can assure you that eating your entire DJ wages in cake and dressing up as the Flight of the Conchords is just the tip of the iceberg of the antics Dusk gets up to. Other gems include...

· Our respective kryptonite-like weaknesses.
· What person with two number one's I'm not the press officer for.
· What indie chancer bouncers think Dusk looks like.
· What footballers would we be, if we were, erm, footballers.
· The most famous person I've interviewed.

And yeah, we’re calling Skream out because he and I have been talking about doing a disco clash with me and Dusk live on Rinse for about six months (Pokes as the ref) but he won’t commit to a date. Apparently he’s busy DJing or something.



"Watch out, W.E.A.S.E.L. Crew about..."

Anyway I warned him this list of 15 will mention his name and he called me a “W.E.A.S.E.L.” Fine fine Mr Skream, less Mustela-based merkage, more “D.I.S.C.O.”! Unless you’re... shook? Mwhahaha.

We’ve also mentioned we’d like to clash Joe Nice on a Lost Dubs show, but Joe has a, ahem, half decent excuse for this not happening yet, since he lives in Baltimore, but when he’s next over this will happen. The first person to draw for a released dub loses: everyone’s a winner.

Finally it’s been a funny week. Came back from holiday with my batteries recharged and found myself possessed by Keysound, despite "Soundclash 1 (Grievous Angel VIP)" still being delayed. I thought I was pretty focused on it before but I seem to have fire in my belly. Best of all I think I’ve come across a hoard of something pretty special. More news when things are finalised, but I thought I’d share the positivism: when you look hard, and I always am, there’s some very fresh sounds being made.

PS Looks like I'm going to be talking at UCL on the 26th September on a program about "recent cultural histories of suburban London." I'll let the organiser, Andrew Harris, reveal the lineup but I've been asked to talk a bit about the tracks on Margins Music and also perhaps talk to Nico Hogg, the photographer I interviewed here. Come down if you're about, should be fun.

18 comments:

Elijah said...

http://twitpic.com/d36m0 - skilliam and dusk would be good mates. thats all he spends his money on.

Blackdown said...

sick... er literally.

mans gotta diversify in the deserts department tho, get some Backlava or Moshi or Jalebi on the go!

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Hi Blackdown. Calling from BKK, Thailand. Enjoy reading your blog and love Dubstep. Just wanted to say "hi" to you.

West Norwood Cassette Library said...

D&B vs Skream on a Disco tip? where do I sign...

STL said...

Glad to hear and share in your optimism, long may it, your speaking engagements and LDN roll...

The future is bright...brighter than a 1,000 suns...

Trust

Boypito said...

that's a shame about the pitchfork column, since it's one of the things i look forward to each month (as well as the main reason why i pass by the site)

would be nice to see a column on here of some sorts to pass the time till october

gaijin said...

If you do the disco thing I think the ability to grow a suitably Kosmische-style beard should be included in the scoring...

namhenderson said...

Hopefully, you can share some tunes and thoughtful words via this blog during the duration.

Andy said...

What does Pitchfork's big editorial push entail?

Blackdown said...

i dont know if i'm supposed to say so kinda wont but needless to say, it doesnt involve dubstep/grime/funky...

Anonymous said...

how backward of pitchfork--- it's only (by any objective view) the most exciting/innovation/'hyped' (denigrating, but probably true) musical genre at the moment. Here are my theories (Blckdwn tell me if I'm right with any of them!):

1) canonization of 90s indie a la classic rock on FM radio in the US-- this is the abyss p4k has always threatened to recede into anyway so I wouldn't be surprised if they just changed the URL to neutralmilkfork.com

2) the remnants of the pop landscape post-MJ: or, white people (and black people writing like white people) writing about Kanye West

3) taking on the role of the NME's older brother, or more appropriately, father-- taking the sh*t the NME produces and recycling it without really knowing what it's doing-- akin to when you leave a CD in your dad's car and see him bobbing his head later and you ask "what were you listening to?" and he goes "No idea but it had a nice groove!"

4) more world (read: Scandanavian + African) music, the occasional feature on throat-singers, nusrat fateh ali khan, etc.

yuck.

Anonymous said...

Sucks about Pitchforks "push". Instead they'll just tell us what we already know-Joker is a god and Grime sucks these days as evidenced by the total lack of releases, coverage of said non-existent tunes.

Anonymous said...

Get that "Soundclash 1" rmx. out...Deep stuff...We will hound Skream until he answers the disco clash challenge...I expect total destruction...

Blackdown said...

ha yeah. Soundclash 1 being cut again asap. Keysound 12 already underway.

Mr Skreamos is not rising to the bait! Hound away!

panaripoff said...

pitchfork fail.

grime/dubstep column is the only thing i frequent on that site..

Anonymous said...

Anyone listen to the Burial & FlyLo collab?

Blackdown said...

so, this is what pitchfork are focusing on their end of the decade roundup