The Brisbane turntablists and hip hop community are organizing a fundraiser for The Masta (The Master / Da Masta / Jason Belzer) (twitter tag #Funds4DaMasta) who is also suffering from cancer. Initially they are asking for people to donate items for the eBay auctions - details below.
the auction has started! all the profits will be sent to The Masta to help ease his battle with cancer - already an amazing response - from such high quality & often rare donations, to people spreading the word, and bidding on items. still a few items to put up, but the majority are there. thanks so much to everyone involved - it feels like the whole Australian hip hop community has come together to help with this. (I will add more to the tumblr site over next few days) auctions run for another 9-10days - there's a range of items (& some aren't hip hop, if that's not your thing). I think there's something for everyone. single items & packs - if you can't afford one item, maybe consider doing a 'joint bid' with another/few people. &/or help spread the word. all help is greatly appreciated!! http://search.ebay.com.au/?sass=aliak77&ht=-1 is the direct ebay link
I remember seeing The Master DJ at gigs and in competitions (eg DMC & ITF) in Brisbane in the 1990s and early 2000s. He always had the flair to entertain the audience with crowd pleasing moves. At the time there was a fair bit of rivalry between some of the turntablists - there were battles between DJ Angus / Bribe and The Master. Angus was a friend of mine so I always went for him of course, but I thought The Master was a good turntablist too - his skills often had the crowds cheering. I remember seeing them battle it out on the decks at Rics in the Valley and at the bar in Paddington (which I've just forgotten the name of, will update when I remember).
:::
I have a copy of his "From Dole Cheques to Rolex" album also, which I'd discovered a couple of years after its release (as I'd left Brisbane officially in mid 2001, though traveled back there often throughout 2001 on weekend trips) - it's a great cd, once again, very entertaining. He's also one of the fastest Australian rappers that I've heard. His raps on this album are very funny, but in the same way a little sad in that there always seems to have been something going wrong in his life or a quirky situation in his lyrics. It's good he handled it with humour though. He used to have really long hair back then - a Samson-like character. Or an Australian version of a Philip K Dick book character, the Aussie battler.
Hunter used to speak about him very fondly on twitter - we had a few chats about his CD and DJing and Hunter would sing his praises. I found some of his tweets from 6th & 7th April 2011 - this was one occasion - I'd sent Jason a message on facebook to see if he'd like to do a video for turntabletag and had mentioned it to Hunter - he told some stories and talked about some music they were working on together. I know he wanted to help the Masta also, and mentioned that he spoke to him on the phone often. The Master lives in Melbourne now - MC Reason has posted on twitter too that he's gone over to Jason's place to help support him, and I've heard Bigfoot has been a great support also. It's just a heartbreaking situation, and we've already lost too many good people with Hunter's passing.
NEIL GAIMAN
Supported by FourPlay String Quartet
WED 28 DEC @ 8:00PM
Neil Gaiman is best known as a writer, he's been a bestselling writer for over twenty years. He's won awards for his books and stories and comics, from the Hugo and Nebula to the Carnegie Award. He's also a famed and accomplished reader of his own work: his reading of his novel “The Graveyard Book” was awarded the Audie Book of the Year (The Audies are the Oscars of the Audiobook world).
His last Australian performance was a sold out Sydney Opera House appearance for the Graphic Festival, with famed Australian string quartet, FourPlay and the inestimable Eddie Campbell where he read an hour-long story w/ prepared visuals to an enraptured audience.
He recently completed a sold out American tour with his wife, Amanda Palmer. He read and she sang. This time he’ll be appearing both alone and with FourPlay reading stories and poems, things unpublished and things beloved.
Tom Ellard from Severed Heads has re-released an electronic version of the three cassettes called "One Stop Shopping" which were originally included with SLUG Magazine in 1981.
Hunter's new charity cd is available today "Australian Hip Hop Supports CanTeen". 100% of the money goes to CanTeen to help kids with cancer. he would have loved to have seen it released, I'm sure. I hope you can all support it.
In collaboration with places+spaces' Cockatoo Calling, Utility Fog presents a very special afternoon at Warehouse 15 on Cockatoo Island, with some of our favourite Sydney post-folk-rock-tronic artists.
Postfolkrocktronica Picnic, with FBi's Utility Fog
Saturday 26th November
1:00pm - 6:30pm
Cockatoo Island, Warehouse # 15
Artists in order of the day:
Underlapper
AFXJIM
Option Command
Thomas William (formerly Cleptoclectics)
Ollie Bown (Icarus) (solo + duo with Raven)
Pimmon
with DJing by Utility Fog's Peter Hollo and associates between acts.
The event will run from 1pm to 6:30pm and is BYO. The summer bar will be open on the island, and there is a picnic area outside the venue.
WIRED OPEN DAY is your opportunity to experience the immense range and creative applications of the 'wires' and The WIRED Lab arts initiative.
Featuring artists from our annual residency program WIRED OPEN DAY presents performances and installations in response to the wires and their immediate environment.
WIRED OPEN DAY includes 15 artists from around Australia who will realise a new composition by Alan Lamb, David Burraston and Sarah Last, with appearances by William Barton on didgeridoo and his mother Delmae Barton on vocals.
Joyce Hinterding and David Haines will expose us to the electromagnetic world(s) that surrounds us. Garry Bradbury & David Burraston present their ‘Dormative Fields’ wire music installation. Chris Watson’s installation unveils Box Gum Grassy Woodlands habitat through a 24-hour time compression of field recordings.
ALAN LAMB : DAVID BURRASTON : JOYCE HINTERDING : DAVID HAINES : GARRY BRADBURY : WILLIAM BARTON : DELMAE BARTON : SARAH LAST : CHRIS WATSON (UK)
I was really excited to hear that Brisbane band Step It Up had a new EP, "Push", out in 2011 on Zyl Records, as I'd loved their earlier work on their self titled album released in 1996 and I'd seen them perform in Brisbane when I lived there in 2000/2001 or so. The new EP has different versions of the song "Push"—which includes a sample from their popular song "Flex" with mixes by Obese Bass Beast and Unison Sound System. There's also a new song called "Nudge" by Blunted Stylus (aka Geoff "Jigzaw" Blunted/ex Resin Dogs/Hydrofunk). The musical lineup has changed slightly over the years, but there's still a range of music styles and techniques explored on this release—from house, to jazz, to drum'n'bass, to bass-music and beats'n'squelch styles. All in all, it's a pleasure to listen to and I'm looking forward to hearing their future sounds, as well as the cache of songs yet to be released. Des Reid was kind enough to answer a few questions about the band and its future directions. Keep an ear to the ground for their live gigs in Brisbane and elsewhere—you'll be in for a treat from these talented musicians!
>> for the "borrowed moog and juno mix", song #1 on Push—what's the story here? who'd you borrow the moog and juno from and can you keep them for a while?
> The Moog Prodigy belonged to Manny, our old keys player. I should have bought it when he sold it. The Juno 60 was DJ Damage's. They're both killer synths. I've since acquired a Juno 60 and JX-3p.
>> are there any favourite gigs, or memories of them that you'd like to share?
> The "Vibes on A Summer Day" festivals were always great. They were before festivals became commercial and unaffordable. Bondi Pavilion was a great venue. It's always nice to see a thousand people jumping up and down to your music in the sun from the stage.
>> for your live set: "Their new show has wide variety from instrumental hip-hop through Asian and Arabic influences to banging house". can you talk about some of these influences? particularly, the Asian and Arabic ones
> I have been learning some Arabic music and playing with some great oud players. We have an unreleased track called "Ïntefada" and a new one called "Free Gaza". I've always been interested in Indian music since seeing the Mahavishnu Orchestra, although I haven't studied it thoroughly and authentically. One of our best new tunes is an Indian groove tune called "Only One I know". That's partly because it's the only raga I know properly! Rohan plays in proper Indian ensembles in recitals at the Hindu temple in Virginia up here in Brisbane.
>> who are the band members of Step It Up?
> We've had some fantastic players in the past who have left town like Craig Hanicek, Darren MacPherson and Gavin Manikus on sax, Godoy and Steve Falk on percussion and DJ Frenzie. Terepai recorded the drums on "Flex" for us too.
The current line up is :
Steve Francis—drums
Steve is a great drummer and is in great demand in Brisbane. He tours with James Morrison too.
Neil Wickham is our great new sax player. He has a brilliant fusion type sound. The sax can't be too mellow in this type of music or it loses the edge and blands it out a bit.
Rohan Somasekaran is on keys. He is an awesome piano player and leads his own straight-ahead jazz outfit too. We're adding more synth to the live sound too.
I [Des Reid] play bass mostly live, but also a bit of guitar and guitar synth. I want to start contributing to the percussion too, but only in a support role—I'm only a simple player.
DJ Damage does the cuts on the EP. He's also in Terntable Jediz and The Optimen. He's one of the best turntablists I've ever seen.
Roger Gonzalez is our percussionist. He is a conga and cahon specialist, and a fantastic groove player. Marcelo, who played on the "Push" EP moved to Canberra unfortunately. We have loads of percussion recorded by him in the vaults though. Also heaps by his brother, Luis Schiavi—a killer timbales player.
Overall we have a giant backlog of tracks which we will be finishing and releasing soon. Although we haven't been playing out as often over the last few years, we never stopped writing and recording. We're sitting on a few albums really. The new label—Zyl Records will be our outlet now that we're organized.
>> do you improvise during the live sets too?
> There is a lot of improvising live. We follow the jazz tradition of arranged head—improvisation—head. We try to keep some tightly arranged sections too. One big feature of our sets is the breakdowns. We don't just have horn or keys solos—we have big sections where the drums, percussion and DJ are improvising together, feeding off each other. According to Cuban tradition, when two or more percussive players are resonating, that's when the spirits come. We're a bit tribal really.
Step It Up are a premier funk and new jazz band, creating music since the 1990's in Australia. Their releases include the classic self-titled first album, plus numerous compilation tracks on labels including Ubiquity, Creative Vibes and One Movement. The band have received much airplay on Australian national broadcasters JJJ and ABC, and also on UK Jazz FM. Their instrumentals have been found to be a perfect match for movies, tv and multimedia synchronisations.
Monkey Marc's studio was recently broken into and his equipment was stolen. You can help support him replacing his gear by purchasing one of his albums.
Tura New Music and WAAPA@ECU invite proposals for formal papers, lecture-performances, artist talks, master-classes, and panels of three or four papers for
The 2011 TOTALLY HUGE NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL CONFERENCE
Perth, Western Australia, 16 – 18 September 2011
@Peakstreet Also make sure to check our second #Ciecmate leak straight outta the @BrokenToothEnt HQ. This is some catchy shit www.peakstreet.com [via @Peakstreet tweet]
the Flood Money Auction is a fundraiser that is bringing together the Australian hip hop community to support those who have suffered after the devastating floods in QLD. The biggest and best have all donated some amazingly rare and valuable items to be sold with all proceeds going towards the Premiers Flood Appeal. visit http://floodmoney.org for more details and to see the items up for auction. as at 13th feb, @PeakStreet mentioned "$4,500 rustled up for this #FloodMoneyAuction already & counting!" great work everyone
In 2007, Shame File Music released the landmark compilation CD Artefacts of Australian experimental music: 1930-1973, to critical acclaim. Praised variously as one of the first serious investigations into the sparse recorded history of experimental sound practice in Australia, and its historical importance is as palpable as the often exciting and exhilaratingly experimental sounds it contains, the compilation and its extensive liner notes opened Australia's (and the world's) ears to a vibrant history that most previously thought had never existed.
The Australian hip hop community is holding a fundraiser on ebay for Hunter SBX - organized by Len One & Bias B with records & cds donated from various hip hop DJs, MCs and groups. Please help raise money and get the word out. This is one of the reasons why I love the hip hop community - the guys really look out for each other.
This is a general call for contributions to Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture. Entering a new era with a new and expanded editorial and production team, Dancecult is extending its deadline on submissions for its next edition.
New deadline - December 20, 2010.
As the issue is hosting a special section on The Love Parade, submissions on this theme will be welcome, in both From the Floor and Feature article categories.
CALL OUT FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR "THE SOUND OF RED EARTH" COMPILATION http://soundofredearth.tumblr.com/artist-submissions
Kaldor Public Art Projects are currently seeking submissions from sound artists and musicians for a free, digital compilation to be released later this year. The compilation is aimed at framing Stephen Vitiello’s work from ‘The Sound Of Red Earth‘ in a wider context, one that seeks to explore the prevalent themes of isolation, remoteness, distance, nature, environment and ‘earth’ through sound and music.
'This is a great chance for me to put together a couple of decades of my favourite stories and songs. They tell a whole different story.' Laurie Anderson
Transitory Life is a solo retrospective performance by Laurie Anderson drawing on her life’s work. The collection of songs and stories includes pieces from Anderson’s acclaimed solo shows The Speed of Darkness, Happiness, The End of the Moon and Homeland.
Tom Ellard from 
In collaboration with places+spaces' 
WIRED OPEN DAY
