25-year old Luca Venezia, aka Drop The Lime, has influences that range from Brian Eno to rockabilly (he’s well known for his 50s doo wop and soul sets) to Sonic Youth to Wu Tang. But things don’t just stop there. He also runs Trouble & Bass, an influential New York club night and label since 2006. The Trouble & Bass crew are the DJs who are defining a new New York sound. 2008 has been a year of serious breakthroughs for Drop the Lime; a moment when the talented lad who stuck to his guns in making bass heavy tunes to slay dancefloors all over the world has finally started to make it to the bigtime. London superclub Fabric were so gobsmacked by his DJ skills and vocals (yep, he sings like a bad boy Sinatra as he plays) that they instantly offered him a Main Room residency — a move that packs the club out every time. He’s also somehow found the time to complete remixes for Moby, Blaqstarr, Rex the Dog and Midnight Juggernauts, as well as writing songs with Diplo and Herve. No wonder the likes of MSTRKRFT, DJ Mehdi, Switch, Diplo, Sinden and ATrak are raving about him.
Here’s a great interview that XLR8R did with him, what a ham!
What I love about him is his wide ranging styles of production. For gods sake, he started off in the breakcore scene. He’s als0 got some solid support from locals Beyonda and Hoop Dreams
When I first started DJing many years ago, the house parties I was doing never wanted to hear electronic, so I would blast mostly top 40 hip-hop party jams. In my own bedroom however, I jammed to the more intelligent jazzy hip-hop sounds of Arrested Development, Black Sheep, Black Eyed Peas (before Elephunk), A Tribe Called Quest, and Digable Planets. You know, pre-2000 hip-hop.
I loved Digable Planets Grammy-winning 1993 debut album, Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) since I could pick up on the samples from jazz/R&B greats like Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, and Curtis Mayfield. After the trio’s second release Blowout Comb, they separated to pursue their own projects (of which Ladybug Mecca’s work stands out the best, she even released some jams on Om Records!). They reunited a decade later and promised the release of a third album in 2005, of which I’m still waiting to hear.
I do have the opportunity this week however to go here them live here in Portland with other great hometown hip-hop heroes Dj Rev. Shines and Nico Luminous. Thank God it’s at the 2410 N Mississippi space and not the Roseland.
In celebration of the election, I’m releasing a new mix I have been hard at work at for the past several weeks. “For several weeks?!” you say? yes, that’s right, I’ve been building it bit by bit using Traktor DJ studio 3.4. I don’t care what you say about replicating the authenticity of a live set, this mix is awesome and all the levels sound spot on because I can go back to any point in the mix and change the frequencies as much as I need.
So here it is, my “Fidgetal Love October 2008 mix.” For you Portlanders, if you like this, come to ElectriCity this Friday and every Friday after that; you’re likely to hear much of the same.
You’ll often hear words like ‘Haunting’ and ‘Reminiscent’ when hearing about the new Castanets album City Of Refuge. What with all the echo and reinterpretation that probably wouldn’t be the worse way to describe it. Nothing is more ‘Haunting’ or ‘Reminiscent’ however, than watching Ray Raposa preform live. As anyone who saw him on tour in support of his fabulous In The Vines will tell you, there is no folk show more freaky, no dirges quite so dim. Don’t assume he’ll be performing alone though. While he will undoubtedly spend most of the time facing a wall hunched over his guitar and effects, the very pretty voiced Annie Palmer will be doing double duty on bass and banjo (as well as some singing), and intriguing Yoni Kifle (from the last tour!) will be drumming and bassing as well.
FBM is a blog written about all kinds of music. We often focus on small acts and DJs, promoting and loving what we consider to be the very best in Indy, Dubstep, House and far beyond. We are a collective of (currently) unpaid kids based out of Portland Oregon. We urge you to support this music and hence we will provide the the most accurate show listings and heads up on things to do in Portland.
This is all those things but more then anything else this is about community, about having as many authors contributing as much as possible and promoting all of our friends. I believe in politics as still being important and I believe in this generation still being relevant. Our culture is all we have.
Almost all of this music is sent to us by the creator and is entirely legal to download, if something slips through the cracks and you are the owner of a soundfile you wish removed, simply email us. Thank you.
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massive crowd in the main stage room at 2410 N Mississippi, Portland Oregon.
Gray bringing in the New Year from 11:30-12:30
