DJ Chicken is my favorite DJ in New Orleans. Whether it’s one of his artfully mixed power throwback lunches on power 102.9, or his morning Chicken and Waffles mix, his wit and stoked-to-be-DJ Chicken attitude mixes with his insane knowledge of hip-hop from New Orleans and beyond and if I’m at home or driving around listening to it, makes me feel like we’re all in this shit together in New Orleans, all really part of something. Check out this guest mixtape he made for Offbeat magazine.
If you’ve never seen What Cheer? Brigade, prepare thyself! I’ve gotten to do all kinds of stuff with the 16 person Providence marching band over the last couple of years–DJ with them, remix their songs (Check my soundcloud page) and most recently tour with them and a bunch of other crazy performers on B. Dolan’s Church of Love and Ruin tour. Now they’re coming to visit, performing at the Hi-Ho with me and New York’s incredible Apocalypse Five and Dime (Check out their adorable video here). All of this following the Krewe of Eris parade, the highlight of Carnival! This is gonna be bucknanas…
So I’m in the thick of the East Coast tour with Vockah Redu and the Cru, gearing up for our Philly Show on Wednesday at Kung Fu Necktie, then hopping on to the Church of love and Ruin Tour with B. Dolan, Providence’s What CHeer? Brigade Marching Band and more! We’ve got fabulous New Orleans photographer Nico Krebill on tour with us, and he’s just put up a tour blog to show off his photos. Click HERE to check it out!
I’ve had the pleasure of DJing after KaraokeCrime (aka Holmes whose last name I don’t know) twice now, once in a sweaty living room in Worcester, Massachusetts and once a week ago at a raging New Year’s party in Providence. Explaining KaraokeCrime always falls a little flat of the actual experience, but I’ll give it a shot: A spastic dude with a microphone (Holmes) has cleverly hooked up a laptop running Ableton Live with a projector that shows the lyrics to the songs real big in whatever venue you happen to be in. Pretty straight forward. The music, however, is a frantic mash of pop songs from Madonna to Ludacris and everything in between. At the New Year’s party there was even a special Auld Lang Syne portion of the show. The audience is encouraged to sing along, with haphazardly distributed microphones that are passed around, thrown and snatched. And it works. Sort of. Of course, getting someone to sing Phil Collins lyrics over Daft Punk (or whatever, I just made that up, but it’s along those lines) can get somewhat confusing. Luckily, Holmes is there to keep the whole thing from completely derailing, teaching by example, keeping everyone sort of on beat. It’s pretty awesome live, boiling down all of the good things about Karaoke, dance parties, mash-ups and mosh-pits into a tightly condensed little crack rock of pop culture. I shot a video of the New Year’s party but my camera is new and I didn’t realize what a huge, internet-unfriendly file I was creating, so here’s another video I found somewhere.
We are going on tour! Vockah Redu and the Cru are taking their sci-fi, booty-shaking, bounce rap antics on the road, with me, DJ Beesknees, in tow. In New York we’re meeting up wit rapper B Dolan and the amazing What Cheer? Brigade brass band, among others. This will be the best show since, uh, Ren & Stimpy went off the air. Come see us.
WANT TO HELP US PROMOTE SHOWS? DOWNLOAD PROMO POSTER HERE!
So of course your average post-modern, blog-working, serato-using, show-booking 30 year old D.J. is going to throw up little photoshopped flyers and tell you just how “hype” and “dope” his party is going to be, all the while not quite telling you what the hell it is and making you feel somewhat alienated and out-of-the-loop for not knowing what it is you’re supposed to be so “stoked” about. Well…that is what I was going to do with this post, but in this case the party is with Ricky B., who really, truly is a New Orleans Bounce legend if such a thing exists. Around 3 a.m. the other night at the John, oh seediest of Marigny bars (Whatever that means), some vague acquaintance next to me struck up a conversation about New Orleans Rap and out of nowhere said, “What about Ricky B.? Whatever happened to that dude?” Well, needless to say I was pleased as punch to be able to say, “Avast Ye, scurvy knave! I’m DJing with Ricky B. on Saturday, January 15th, at the Hi-Ho Lounge!” Check out “Shake Fa Ya Hood” if you’re unfamiliar with Ricky’s canon, he put out a bunch of classic bounce/hip-hop tunes in the nineties, including songs with the John Mac high school marching band. Those horn parts went on to be sampled over and over in Bounce songs. I have some old tape where, like, three songs all use the same track. If you can find the radio version of Shake Fa Ya Hood anywhere, I’m particularly fond of that one, in which Ricky says “Little Ricky kicking lyrics that’ll cater to your Gramma.” Little Ricky’s not so little anymore, but he will be at the Hi-Ho in New Orleans on Jan. 15th with me, DJ Beesknees, and Michael Bateman, who has an awesome collection of Bounce and Louisiana rap records, which he will be spinning for your pleasure on the wheels of steel. As you were.
Bounce rapper Magnolia Shorty was shot and killed, I believe in New Orleans East on Monday. Shorty’s put out tracks since the nineties, recording songs like Monkey on the Stick/Dick when she was, if math serves me, like fourteen years old. More recently she had a fair amount of local success with the songs Smoking Gun and My Boy with teen r&b diva Kourtney Heart. Her song “Juvie” was recently sampled by Texas rapper/Def Jam recording artist Bone for his song “Homegurl”.
Check out this video that she made with my buddy 10th Ward Buck for his new song “Make it Jump.” This is kind of the best thing ever. Shorty appears around minute two.
Hey All,
I’m having the good fortune of going on tour and djing with Vockah Redu and The Cru on the East Coast in February. If you’re unfamiliar with the Cru, their show is like a New Orleans Bounce Block party from Space…Bounce meets Sun Ra, Outkast and Prince all at once, with choreographed dancing, spoken word, Bounce and Hip-hop beats and, of course, tons of pneumatic booty shaking. If you’re on the East Coast be sure to check it out, and if you can help setting up shows, email me at ethansleep@gmail.com. Here’s the cities we’re aiming for, beginning Feb. 3rd:
Asheville, NC
Washington D.C.
Baltimore
Philadelphia, PA,
New York, NY
Providence, R.I.
Well, all this talk of oogles (if you’re up on your lingo), crusties (if you’re a couple years behind) and gutterpunks (if you’re ten years behind or a reporter) got me thinking about this thing I wrote for the Powell’s books blog a couple years ago. Enjoy:
