Hi,
I spent the last 2 days in Amsterdam at the drum rhythm festival. Here are some highlights.
Jephté Guillaume; nice band, great musicians, nice groove, wicked african female dancer...too bad they were the first to play as not many people were in yet and the sound system had yet to be fine tuned as well. Then Joe Clausell spun some records. When I saw him on stage I suddenly realized that I had seen him before that afternoon at The Rushhour record store buying a lot of jazzy house stuff. The flutist of Jephté's band told me that his records were lost during his flight to Holland...so nothing very special was to be expected. At least I could recognize almost all the tracks he was playing.
Fila Brazillia sounded a lot better with a live band than on their last records. Cinematic orchestra did a warm cosy set which people were enjoying a lot. Then off to see Faze Action..very nice indeed. Also playing with a band but with the help of a lot of samples and dats...I changed to Papo Vazquez which rocked hard. He's got himself a wicked team of musicians..not to be missed. Then the highlight for the evening (for me) was the show of Les Gammas. They tore the roof of with a groove set that had the place go wild. Definitely recommended. I peaked in on Kirk DeGiorgio and London Elektricity, both too loud for me at that moment. I missed out on Rae&Christian who did a set with the Pharcyde. The place was too crowded and I couldn't force my way in. After the festival some friends dropped me and a friend of at The Paradiso club where Jephté and Joe Claussel would do an afterparty. We bought a ticket and went to eat something first after the people at the door had told us that Joe got already got his records back. To doublecheck we called the club and were told that his records were still missing! We inmediately sold the tickets again and went hitchhiking back to Rotterdam. Not a good idea at 3.00 a.m...so it took a while before I was in my bed.
The second night was a lot better. I saw Zuco 103 do an amazing set which had people screaming and jumping the whole show long. They will be playing in Central Park, NYC in 3 weeks. And the dj will be taking a lot of records with him to sell (he works in a very good rare vinyl store in Rotterdam) and he'll be on a hunt for material for the store as well. It was a good night for hiphop: Common, Mos Def, D.I.T.C., Talib Kweli (awesome!), Pharaoh Monch were all assisting in each others shows. Neon Phusion were nice but not too impressive. Kruder and Dorfmeister did an absolutely marvellous dj-ing set for over 3 hours. The hall was so crowded they needed the police to keep the people out, some people fainted because of the heat and lack of fresh air. I sat on top of the speakers which gave a nice view on all the people who were dancing like mad. I couldn't recognize very little of what they played (sigh)
that was it. The Dunya world festival in the park today was canceled because of the bad weather (wind 9 bft!).
I picked up the Silent Poets album, M.T. aka Bayaka - Mi Latino Americana Flor 12" (nice jazzy house tune with spanish lyrics), bobby Hughes Experience - piper cherokee 12", friends from rio 2 - cravo e canela 12"(i.g. culture remix), Be Bop Dawg - Les Enfants 12" (Catalyst bossa mix), Earthbound - reggie's escape 12"(hidden agenda&attica blues mix)
ciao
Jeroen
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