Crate Soul Brothers newsletter #88: Walking on the burning hot coal
Newsflash 8.07.2002
Dear friends,
Too many stories happened in the last two weeks to tell them all. So we just
drop in a few key words. Last Monday two of the best men of our region
visited us: the Belgradeyard Sound System guys, Goran and Relja blew our
head off with their non compromising eclectic set of dirty underground two
step, ska, Northern Soul and jazzy hi hop. We heard lot of sounds that never
before... Respect to the BGSS! Also check out their first composition on
Cosmic Sounds London's' Belgrade's Burning compilation; it's a true gem!
Kisses to Suzana.
We also had another guest in the city: Henrikki of the Leftside Ensemble of
Helsinki crew. He played some splendid tunes in our last show, and you can
listen to it now. We are really glad to meet you, Henrikki! The Finnish saga
continues this week as tonight Lil Tony of Nuspirit Helsinki comes to play
some tunes for us.
Big up to AlexDrum and the Café Drechsler guys from Vienna for putting their
debut album together and for their wicked album release party.
Here come Shuriken's bits:
Reporting from the road CNN style. Or rather Hunter S. Thompson. For a week
now I've been out on my dj tour, field trip, summer vacation, or call it
what you want, and it already feels like ages. So many adventures, so many
impressions, so many enlightening moments, so little time to sleep, so much
fun.
It all started with two weeks of juggling around with dates, text messaging,
calling and e-mailing djs, promoters and friends, working on making my
college accepting my journey as a research trip for my dissertation,
checking train times, estimating costs and getting out of rainy London to
Centre-East Europe where the sun boils the roads by day and only lets the
temperature to drop to 20 Celsius degrees around 4 in the morning.
After landing in Budapest, I immediately rushed into the studio (the whole
operation set up by Keyser without whom my professional life would certainly
fall apart) to record some live elements to the rework of Swinging with Miss
Goodnight, an old tune, for a new release (to keep the tension high, we
might only reveal details later). After a 4-day period of all work and play,
but no sleep, I grabbed my dj bag and took the train to Zagreb where my
buddy, Enes from Radio 3 picked me up and drove me to his homebase Sarajevo.
This hard working fellow has been my driver ever since, and under this week
we spent together we have left behind more than 2000 kms already.
But let's not rush to the end of the story. Sarajevo is a city with the
longest main street where all the young and beautiful (and the old and bold)
walk around, sip on strong coffees, munch on ice creams and inspect others
doing the same. Some might call it a place of non-stop showing off, but for
the locals it's just chilled out Mediterranean business as usual. After
spending a day blending in the swarming life of the inner city, we took over
the Red Room of the Club that mysteriously wears the name 'The Bar'. This is
a place where it - the dj driven club scene as we know it - all started, and
the oven like quality of the red brick basement have turned the heat on the
right crowd. The sound system boomed on till the break of dawn, and the
amazing girls made the walls sweat. I won't easily forget this gig.
Enes is right now in the process of re-establishing his uber cool Radio 3
(http://www.radio3.ba) as Urban FM in co-operation with Radio Grad. Luckily
he's not alone to do his thing, Emir - Enes' brother - held all the fronts
while we escaped to a charming island on the Croatian coast for 3 days of
see and sun action. He also painted XXL seventies styled tulips on the walls
of their new HQ and kept the business rolling while we earned our sunburns.
From the coast we got back to Sarajevo again and then continued our journey
to Ljubljana at breakneck speed that might even please Kenan - Sarajevo's
solid expert on cars, rally driving and one who often comes close to setting
up new and impossible time records on the crowded Bosnian roads. In
Ljubljana, after a short session at the over-heated Student Radio studios, I
span some more records with Ozrens mob, went for a sweet wine and Swedish
hard bread treatment to a lovely little playgirl pad, and ended up seeing
the sun come up on the roof terrace of the local cultural epicentre, a huge
military complex that now functions as squat, club, bar and pulsating heart
of unorganised order and urban freedom in general. It's my first and
certainly not last visit to this amazing lively city and I'm already charmed
for life.
The next day we took off for the countryside to an old Slovenian castle
where the local crew (Martin, Zhe and the amazingly young and talented
Borka) plus me brought the noise to a really strange company. The people
gathered in the garden to shoot some stuff for a new age oriented DVD. Well
stuff is a humble expression to describe the 4 hours happening that involved
fireworks, modern dancing in weird costumes, didgeridoos, percussion and a
whole lot of fire. And of course walking on the burning hot coal. Some
people got serious burns. A night to remember I thought when the survivors
started dancing to modern beats, but the banging mainstream house from
another dancefloor kept me awake till about 7AM and made it even more
memorable night. DJing as extreme sports again.
For the fun of it, Enes, Martin and I visited Vienna for the Soul Sugar
summer grand opening session. The heat was certainly on, and it was great to
meet Cukipapa, Reka, Flow, Hannes and others in the garden, even though the
lack of sleep kept me in stand by mode all night. Next day I did my
interviews for the dissertation (thanks Mario and Tomsta!), and got blown
away by the sound system at Flex. The Dub Club is still the joint! Now back
in Ljubljana to get some rest before I continue my journey.
More stories from Budapest, Trieste and Zagreb next time!
Keyser & Shuriken (Crate Soul Brothers)
Playlist
Tilos Radio (http://tilos.hu)
Kristalykert (Crystal Garden - 23.30-02h 28. 05. 2002) - DJs: Keyser &
Shuriken;
special guest: Henrikki Matikainen (Leftside Ensemble of Helsinki)
Listen (archived till the next show):
Lo-fi: http://tilos.hu/mp3/24/Tuesday/2330.m3u
Hi-fi: http://tilos.hu/mp3/96/Tuesday/2330.m3u
1. Ruben Wilson - Inner City Blues (Strickly Break)
2. Lonnie Linston Smith - Beautiul Woman (Soul Brother)
3. Ahmad Jamal - Pattern (Impulse!)
4. Randy Weston - African Cookbook (Comet)
5. Antibalas - War Is A Crime (Ninja Tune)
6. Femi Kuti - Oneday Someday (Barclay)
7. Doctor L - Baby It's All Right (Comet)
8. Da Lata - Golden (Palm Pictures)
9. Dimenzió - Bamba (Pepita)
10. Bergendy Ensemble - Blue Light (Hungaroton)
Henrikki Matikainen (Leftside Ensemble of Helsinki) set
11. The Anita Kerr Singers - Eli's Coming (Ampex)
12. Nino Nardini - Tropicola (Jazzman)
13. Peter Thomas Orchestra - Stars And Rockets (Polydor)
14. Twitch - Blow Your Blues Away - Instrumental (Key)
15. Brother Jeff McDuff - Let My People Go (Cadet)
16. The Soul Investigators - ? (Timmion)
17. Tyrone Davis - Inter Mood (Columbia)
18. Al Green - Let's Stay Together (Hi)
19. Ben Sidran - Hey Hey Baby (Blue Thumb)
20. Cheyenne - Come Back To Me (Shadybrook)
21. Leroy Hutson - Ella Weez (Curtom)
22. Orchestra Bobby Gutesha - Special Distance (Selected Sound)
23. The Anita Kerr Singers - Eli's Coming (Ampex)
24. Carpenters - All I Can Do (A&M)
25. Blue Mitchell - Good Humor Man (Blue Note)
26. Chronik - Lifedance (GE Music)
27. BW Souls - Marvin's Groove (Round)
28. Titanic - Sultana (CBS)
29. Leon Ware - Why I Came To California (Elektra)
30. Isaac Hayes - Ike's Rap VI (Stax)
31. Doctor L - Why? (Comet)
32. Billie Holliday - Strange Fruit - Tricky mix (Verve)
33. Cinematic Orchestra - All Things To All Men (Ninja Tune)
34. Fertile Ground - Come To Me (Counterpoint)
35. Belgradeyard Sound System - There Is Always Someone (Cosmic Sounds)
36. Sun Ra - That's How I Feel (Philly Jazz)
37. Jazzanova - Soon (Compost)
38. Peace Orchestra - Double Drums - DJ DSL mix (G-Stone)
Next events:
8. July, Budapest, West Balkan: Bomb The Jazz / Keyser & Shuriken + Lil Tony
(Nuspirit Helsinki); resident: Suhaid
1.August, Budapest, Island Festival, Tilos Tent / Keyser + Leengum, Erik
Sumo, Suhaid
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