Lexicon Issue 006 - On The Road

Rollercoaster joins an abundance of brand new nights to have swung around recently. Does anyone smell a trace of a once again thriving scene with these wave of new promotions? Yes? Well then bring it on. Dropping a taste of pure culture for your ear at their opening night at the WKD Bar in Camden tonight was the one and only and original nutta Normski alongside the Dirty one, Filthy Rich, Slow Motion afficianardo Gambit and residents including Manga.

Having just missed Normski’s set I was well informed of his playing style and was glad to see he stuck around to vibe, chat and dirty dance with the women and on occasions demand the odd replay or two. It was clear that quite a crowd had been drawn to the legendary ‘Ski as he filed through his selection of classic jungle – circa mid 90s with Ganja Cru / True Playaz / Shy FX anthems all in and hit the surprised onlookers with a medley of breaks to finish things off!

Up next was the rolling sounds of chief Pyromaniac Filthy. Switching to pure up-front dancefloor business was now the order of the day letting off with some Twisted Individual/Reprezent and such business you know it’s gonna be heavy! Also great sets from Gambit representing the Slow Motion sound, could hear some of his trademark studio work in their too!

This looks to be the first of many at the WKD for the Rollercoaster crew. With the selection of deejays from you know you are going to be in for a different ride too with this crew. Big up to Kate, Deborah, Darren, Norm, Rich, and Becky.

We got to the Sanctuary at about 12, we had no trouble getting there, no trouble parking and no trouble getting in other than the obligatory search and almost getting knocked down by Bryan Gee making a swift exit. After getting over the fact that I had missed out on a bass onslaught from Bryan, we made our way past the steaming masses and inside the venue. Here we were greeted to everything you expect from this scale of an event, we waded through the crowd and hooked up with the rest of our crew who were supporting the cause.

I had just got settled, head bobbing, cold beer and ciggie in hand when Shy FX dropped ‘Thugged out Bitch’, no words can describe the next 60 seconds... It was just full on. The night went on, Dillinja & Lemon’s ‘Big Bad Bass’ LP was caned by everyone, along with all the 12”s that are due out of their camp soon. We ventured upstairs to check out a bit of Nicky Blackmarket’s old skool set, he seemed to be loving it, as were the crowd. Then a quick visit to the dodgems was in order, messy is the only word to describe that decision. All in all, a great night was had, I think we fell back into the car at about 5.30am after Mampi Swift had murdered us with a shocking display of crowd control.
By Andrew Neill

It’s a thursday night at Cambridge’s hot spot ‘The Junction’, which also hosts the infamous Warning, for the crew’s 1st birthday bash. And what a year. Starting out in a little underground jazz bar, and staying consistent with quality of content, BREAKAGE has accelerated into the realms of popularity. The junction is Cambridge’s premier venue and everyone was extremely pleased to be giving the 12 and a half K turbo floodlight 4 way sound system a run for its money. Cambs new breed certainly made the right choices bringing the masses a quality line up, including the one and only Mampi Swift, the ever benevolent Andy C, Jumping Jack ‘flash’ Frost and Fearless Microphone Controlling.

Backing up this awesome little line up for a ‘thursday night’ were the Breakage residents, including DJ’s Surplus, Sarah Tonin, Spawn with MC’s Sheeva and U.K. On top of all this, Breakage were also in alliance with ‘Rawganicks’ who were showcasing there U.K. Hip Hop style’s in the upstairs bar. Let me say now that the warm up session was second to none with qualtity tunes and mixes coming in from all angles, especially from DJ surplus, whose scratching technique always spices up the evening. The totally multicultural crowd came from far and wide had simmered and it was time to turn up the heat

Enter Mr Fearless and Mampi. Senor Swift definitely had the master plan and was charging up the venue as expected. Holy shit that man has got some killa plates. I saw the name ‘Rebirth’ on one plate if that rings any bell’s? I know there was a ton of bell’s being rung when I heard it. Nicely done Swift, and on to Andy C. Fearless still maintaining just like he always does. Where those MC’s get there energy from I’ll never know. Andy was as responsive to the crowd as ever, playing a multitude of rollers. ‘M.O.P’ was a slammer for Andy as was the ‘Pacman Remix’. Time for a drink.

At the bar I bumped into Cambridge local, DJ surreal of the Wide Open Music corp. Also ducking around were other acclaimed locals Dubshock. In the vicinity was Frost, who is anything but frosty. Summer had most certainly arrived. In complete JJ style we were given the full spectrum.

Well done Breakage, thanks for the Free CD and I look forward to attending the next ripper.

DJ's: Souljah, DJ Producer & Terry T, Usual Suspects and Universal Project, MC Demolition Man.

We arrived soon after midnight and were alarmed because the club looked deserted as we approached from the car park. However upon negotiating the door staff we were pleased to find that the Congo Natty crew had just taken over the decks, and were wasting no time in rockin’ the crowd beginning with the Xzibit sampling 'Paparazzi'. Souljah and Producer continued to bus’ out tunes such as 'Original Junglist', 'Freek Me' and other timeless classics. Everyone in the place was havin’ it! Even the bar staff were brockin’ out behind the bar for the duration, big up to them.

Big up to Demolition Man too, best MC'ing I’d heard in a while, he was equally happy adding a harmony to the tunes playing or chattin’ hard rhymes. He ruthlessly controlled the crowd and managed to squeeze into a confined space (avoiding the system man who seemed to take up half the box!). His vocal skills were varied, original and totally expressed the jungle flava.

Anyway, shouts to Anil for sorting it out, and shouts to all the lovely ladies who foolishly posed for us... Absolutely wicked (don’t forget to check some of the pictures in the ‘On The Road’ section). Keep your eyes peeled for them. Once again big up's to the bad boy Illusion for driving us all down ‘n’ back on the night...

Until next time... Peace!!

By Andrew Neill & Gordon Abbotts

The first outdoor festival of the year gripped the early may bank holiday and saw the Essential festival branch out to the Westcountry, Bristol to be exact. For the first time last year they stepped out of their traditional festival home of Brighton amidst the scares of the dreaded ‘foot and mouth’. The weather although pretty shitty for the majority of the week before hand would prove to be good for the first day of the fest. A word of warning first if you haven’t visited Ashton Court – try and get a lift as far to the site as possible! It’s a very scenic and steep ascending walk to the summit and even the oxygen is a little thin up there, but it’s worth it!

Stopping off at Essential’s proclaimed Dance Day (the saturday) we were treated to one hell of a line-up and the entire spectrum of dance music. Legends, Knowledge, Drive By and Full Cycle were toasting up the dnb, whilst ‘the Godfather of Noise’ Rahzel, lyrical mad man Busta Rhymes, Orbital, Lamb and Royskopp took to the main stage. Other main acts like Richie Hawtin, Leftfield’s Paul Daley, Gilles Peterson, Scratch Perverts, Norman Jay, Stanton Warriors, Fila Brazilia, Layo & Bushwacka!, Freq Nasty, Judge Jules and Sonique all descended on the day.

Legends once again got top marks for most rammed jam tent of the day with Kenny Ken and Randall warming things up nicely mid afternoon for an already lively crowd. Following were Adam F, Ed Rush, Krust & Die, Hype and then the grand finale with Fabio, Grooverider and Roni Size. Just one thing to say about this if you weren’t there get your butt down to their forthcoming shindig at Hackney Marshes to witness the drum & bass section leading the way.

Rahzel was his usual excellent self, not coming out of the shadows till his technician was 100% satisfied that the system was tight. A true showman Rahzel flowed through his programme matching his equally brilliant deejay complex scratch pattern for complex scratch pattern. Then turning out his own rendition of Brandy’s ‘If You’re Mama Only Knew…’ breaking it down layer by layer until the penultimate lyrics and beats were delivered at the same time! Needless to say he left the stage with a rapturous applause, this was undoubtedly the highlight of the day as I’m sure if you speak to anyone else who witnessed it would agree.

The only grumble this day was the no show of De La Soul, whose absence was only noted when finding the tent they were scheduled to be in and seeing their names omitted from the line-up. Shuffling of times and an extra long deejay set from Orbital didn’t quite quench the crowd’s thirst in the same way. Last set on the main stage was handed to Busta ‘Rhymo’. An already unsettled crowd of hip hop lovers weren’t helped anymore by the very late turn up of the man himself with no signals from the stage and a painfully tasteless looped interlude CD.

With still no indication of whether he was actually going to grace the festival and drawing closer and closer to the hour of nine (the official closing time of the day’s music) an Essential representative kindly informed us that he was held up in traffic but that the local council had granted an hour extension. You better believe there was a cheer at this point. Over an hour and a half after the listed time a distinctly New York looking cat dressed head to toe in dapper turquoise blue sports garb strolled over to take his position behind the decks. Then from outta nowhere Mr Rhymes burst on to the stage along with accomplice Spliff Star in tow. For the last hour they turbo charged their way through the performance and very cleverly rehearsed trademark, comical dance moves just stopping every now and then to mock their audience on how lack-lustre they looked in true hip hop fashion! It is well worth the wait.

DJ's: XO, Tri-Oxide, Optical (replaced by Fierce) & Klute

An enjoyable night was had by all even though Optical didn't turn up, but as MC Flux pointed out it was the day before his wedding so he did have a feasible excuse. We arrived minutes after XO played and were disturbed by the clanging of Tri-Oxide's mixing, out of the three of them only one was actually beat-matching, the other two were havin’ a torrid time and clanged and clattered their way through a messy set.

Next up Fierce stepped in as a replacement and played the set of the evening beginning with Capone's belting 'Twist ‘Em Out' and turning up the heat from there. He dropped a variety of bitz including ‘The Hornet’ by )EIB( all tightly mixed. The club was modern and the atmosphere was well good especially when the latecomers arrived and made the place busy. Klute (alledged first appearance in Bristol) then stepped up to the decks and finished the job with a rolling set...

Big ups to Jordan, Pete, Jake and Gav who we randomly bumped into on the night. And props to Illusion 4 drivin’ us over there ‘n’ back.

Saturday morning, I awoke with a pounding head and tried to remember how I had gotten into bed. The sunshine was bright and streaming through the curtains, I thought what the day had in store whilst I skinned up a phat one. I wondered downstairs and my housemates were making preparations to have a barbeque due to the glorious sunshine. So I helped tidy the house and smoked another spliff before deciding that I was gonna go to Homelands. I didn't have a lift, a ticket or any actual idea where I was heading but I knew it'd be worth it so I jumped in the shower, threw some stuff together in a bag, grabbed a few mini-discs and went to catch the 14:41 to Reading. I spent the next couple of hours travelling to Winchester via Basingstoke...

Upon arrival at Winchester we (for I had been joined by numerous other young hedonists on my travels) were sheparded out the station and onto waiting coaches. It wasn't long before we arrived at the drop off point where upon we got off the buses and trekked the half mile or so to the site... I met up with Heather who very kindly sorted me out with a ticket and I made my way through the front gate which brought me out into Homelands 2002... I went straight over to the d&b tent, set down my things and skinned up another joint.

Bryan G was on the decks when I finally made it inside the tent, he was followed by the Brazilian sounds of DJ Patife. Anyway things progressed until 9 pm when Roots Manuva turned up an’ kicked it... Well he tried but the sound system did a good job of fuckin’ things up by being so wack-a-licious. Bukem came on next and i left the area altoghether for a while as the pace and stamina of his tunes seemed a lil’ amiss a for this time in the evening... After Bukem had not really done much for the atmosphere it was lucky Krust was goin back to back with Die to get things goin again... MC Dynamite voiced the concerns of the crowd and had a good old moan about the state of the volume in the tent (you could happily hold a conversation on the dancefloor without the music drownin’ out your voice). Not that anything got done about it... Anyway, after Krust & Die Roni Size stepped up with MC Tali and killed it.

Best of British offered the perfect hangover cure for England’s first and disappointing game of the World Cup against Sweden. This Sunday night seemed as if summer may have well come and the weekend was peppered with a host of great nights including Homelands on Saturday as well.

On arrival an abundance of England and Union Jack proud shirts plagued the BOB queue. Swan-E was first up on the ones and twos tonight and my eyes were drawn to the old school telephone boxes on stage. Then scanned the venue for other great British motifs but sadly couldn’t see any. So no bulldogs and no fish and chip bars in sight tonight!

Swan-E played a great first set with dancefloor faves like Undiluted’s ‘Remics EP’ and ‘Time Ticks Away’. Up next was co-promoter R-Type to bring on the hour of anthems featuring Origin Unknown’s remix of ‘Stand Clear’ and Total Science’s ‘Make Me Feel’ remix. Jumping Jack Frost turned up just a little late carrying an enormous record bag and clutching a shed load more records under his arm looking consumed with excitement. His usual blend of smooth jazz notes went down a treat.

Think co-promoter Playa was next turning up the anthemic heat where R-Type had left off. Next up were the Oxford duo of Total Science who stepped in with The Narni Shakas now taking their place on stage. Surprise appearance by TZ Islam accompanied by Navigator in rotation with the Ragga Twins switched up the vibes to another level now. The crowd by now were transformed into a sea of St George Crosses and Union Jack emblems and paraphernalia. Absolutely rip roaring sets followed by the mighty Grooverider, Randall and Andy C alongside Det and Skibadee.

Nice to see a lot of heads down at the Rex just bubblin’ on their night off including Fearless & IC3 amongst others. Big shouts to Swan-E, Ross, Little Joe and Rollercoaster crew.