3rd time was the charm, and what a filthy charm
See what I did there? Hopefully not too corny a beginning. However I don’t think that being corny would really be too inappropriate a tone to discuss the third installment in Wrong Music’s monstrous mega marathon of musical mashup.
Now let me start by pointing out that “mega” was an accurate description of this event- loads of DJs literally crammed into timeslots despite the many hours it ran. No one man could ever help to see it all, and one (often intoxicated) Basschimp never really had a hope. I can only say it how I saw it, so if I miss anyone out, it’s probably from lack of input rather than lack of opinion- sorry!
Drum guy, devil man, dubstep, 90s set, good dubstep, scotch egg, atmosphere, crazy karaoke, techno, happy exhaustion.
The first act I saw was the dark rock and live set of Devil Man- a duo including DJ Scotch Egg. They really pulled off the contrast between the resonant chords and the up-beat drum machine. This was not only fun to dance to, but great to watch.
Next up was an extremely impressive display of real-time drumming.Ruairi Lazers, who, despite having his own gear damaged by the trip over from his home country of Canada, settled himself in front of a replacement kit and proceeded to slam out some sick rhythms with some beatboxing over the top.
My comment about this at the time was that, had someone told me I would be able to dance to a drummer like I dance to jungle, I would have said it wasn’t possible. I was wrong. I spoke to him afterwards and he confirmed that his usual setup includes a sampler to sample the breaks & beatbox sounds to create an entire routine. It’s a shame we couldn’t see it, but I felt it was an impressive start to a night that was for me all about variety and fun. The Wrong Music raves have always striven to sample a wide spectrum of audiovisual talent, and this time I felt they really hit a jackpot.
Unfortunately for Ruairi, he was constrained to what he could produce with the equipment to hand, which, while impressive, wasn’t quite consistent enough to hold the audience.
Then the DJs kicked off with an enjoyable set of electro/dub which got the crowd moving. Before I go any further I should point out that dubstep isn’t really my cup of tea. I enjoy it sometimes, and I like to hear it at parties, but it’s not something I can stand an hour long set of, let alone more- I just can’t womp to it. Doesn’t make me wanna just go “fuck yeah that’s so good” but without even saying that cos I’m too busy dancing and sort of looking like this.
Shitmat/Fruitpolos masked megamix of 90s awesomeness was a highpoint of the evening
That being said, I can appreciate it on an objective level, and I can appreciate good DJing that gets the floor moving. This definitely ticked those boxes! Nonetheless after dancing for a while I started to lose focus, feeling that subtle “hmm” that drives me into the other room in search of new bass. What I found drop kicked my temporary malaise through a bass cone. Shitmat, in his megamix alias as DJ Fruitpolo, wearing a skull mask, singing along horrifically to some extremely well mixed 90s pop. If you haven’t heard it, his megamixes, and those of his partner in crime DJ Dickfingers, are available here. I’d definitely recommend them.
Next on the list were the headliners 16bit and Kanji Kinetic. Now spoken as someone who, while appreciating dubstep, wouldn’t attend usually attend a night with dubstep headliners, I have to admit I was impressed. Nice thematic music, very filthy basslines and quite unique in both texture and style. The crowd literally heaved. However I have to say, they were outshone by the man who came on next.
DJ Scotch Egg easily took set of the night with his mindblowing performance of balance, dexterity and 8 bit hardcore
Henry (Shitmat), had mentioned that Scotch Egg had been “saving his best stuff,” for this event, despite having a short set time. If that’s his best then I just hope he FUCKING KEEPS MAKING IT! Absolutely blinding both sonically and the associated performance- crowd surfing, foot pedal, three gameboys and a brutal handheld techno wompfest! One of the best DJ performances I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending. Managing to crowd surf three times in a 20-30 minute slot without missing a beat, you can only imagine how rammed the floor was. Really a blinder.
Let me start by saying, Krank 2 was a really good night. A short disclaimer is that I know the organisers of this event personally, and we’re good friends. That said, I think it’s unfortunate that, when it became clear that the numbers weren’t quite enough to fill the two rooms they didn’t respond by quickly moving the remaining crowd into one room to keep what I like to call “critical mass.” That is, the minimum number of people in a club/room to encourage people to stay and newcomers to remain.
