|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
BELIEVE IT
|
|
|
|
:: Lockdown Project
:: Goldie Lookin Chain
:: John The White Rapper ::
|
|
13 April 2004 / Academy 3 (Hop and Grape) / Manchester
|
|
By Cath Aubergine
|
I?m not sure if Mike Skinner would appreciate being compared to John Lennon, but The Streets shook up British hip-hop in much the same way as the Beatles did pop 40 years earlier ? suddenly pretending to be American looked a bit silly. Two years on from ?Original Pirate Material?, pretending there?s a hood full of ho?s in downtown Romford is just not going to work. Rap has gone back to its roots: people telling the world about their life. There?s apparently a Cornish hip-hop crew who rap about tractors, although that could just be my mate winding me up. But John The White Rapper is definitely real, and he?s got issues. ?I?ll tell it straight / Girls don?t like me / They always say no / Even when I ask nicely?? you almost feel sorry for him! Looking a bit adrift on a Hop & Grape stage more accustomed to four piece rock bands, John swaggers around in loose sportswear, woolly hat down to his eyes, with his grinning DJ just off to the side. Over a tight rhythmic RunDMC style breakbeat, John speaks as he finds. ?Listen Tony, Listen George, if we promote guns, then you promote war!? It?s nothing heavy, but as the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin name implies, it?s brutally honest. He only does three tracks, in between friendly digs at the drunken state of the DJ who struggles a couple of times with the stairs at the side of the stage, but he?s refreshing, funny and has a certain wicked charm.
Lockdown Project are about as different as you can get without leaving the genre. For a start, when was the last time you saw a Spanish guitar at a hip-hop gig? A live drummer and bassist too. First track Dreamworld is reminiscent of our own Dust Junkys, the hard-looking frontman Ollie Maides? vocals somewhere between rapping and singing and a funked-up Chilli Peppers rhythm section. It sounds like summer, like an early afternoon pint in the sun outside Dukes with all your mates. On the second track guitarist James Newton really goes for it, flamenco flourishes thrown into the bizarre mix ? forget the pint, let?s get the margaritas in! The recent single ?Everybody In The Morning? adds a light reggae beat that?s impossible not to dance to, and you get the feeling there are about 17 other genres trying to get out too. There?s a real pop sensibility underpinning it all though; this and other tunes wouldn?t sound out of place on the album of an ex boy band member trying to ?get real?. They finish with their drinking anthem ?Down In One?, which has the kind of 2-Tone beat where you keep expecting a brass section to appear from somewhere? it doesn?t, but there?s just about everything else you ever heard of going on somewhere. This is what pop music should sound like in 2004, but you can?t help feeling it?s maybe a little too innovative and eclectic to trouble the Beyonce?d masses.
Goldie Lookin Chain should need no introduction, with their ugly mugs staring out from everything from the NME to the national press to probably Farmer?s Weekly for all I know. They bound on stage and keep bounding till the stage is rather full. The result of their recent record deal (have East West got any idea at all what they are getting into here?) is that there are a couple of items of clothing on display which may well have cost more than three pounds fifty, but you still wouldn?t stand them too close to an unguarded fire. This is their first Manchester gig and they are happy to be here, name-checking Shaun Ryder and, um, Harold Shipman. But then if you?re easily offended you wouldn't be here. First track orders us to all smoke more draw. Second track demolishes every American in popular music today, with some rather unkind musings on Madonna?s middle-aged sag and the charming refrain ?Fuck you, Alicia Keys!? which I think we can all relate to. You don?t even know where to look because if you watch one of them for ten seconds you know someone else is going to be up to something. They take turns at the front: Mike Balls aka the Soccer Violence delightfully describes how he?ll kick your head in, Adam Hussain is apparently the man with the weed, and the lanky Maggot, the one who can actually dance rather than just throw shapes, rhymes about the dirty DVDs he can supply. Yeah it?s crude and sometimes a bit silly, but somewhere in the rabble there?s some killer tunes involving samples of spectacularly dodgy crap rock records. And an entire tune dedicated to Newport?s finest taxi service which ends up mutating into the theme from Jim?ll Fix It. No, really. And it?s fantastic.
By this point everyone?s shouting along: hipsters, Ordsall scallies, students, indie kids, it?s like Madchester all over again. After 45 minutes without a spliff, the dressing room?s calling, but not before Eggsy?s dragged them all back for their most outrageous and best known anthem ?Your Mother?s Got A Penis?. If you haven?t heard it, believe me, it?s actually filthier than you are thinking, and funny as hell, ending with nine grown men in Argos jewellery chanting the title over the riff from Clapton?s ?Behind The Mask? (and no, I had to ask someone, although I?ll grudgingly admit to having vaguely recognised it!) and a hall full of fists in the air. This time, believe the hype.
|
|
Resources:
Lockdown Project Web
Goldie Lookin Chain Web - Where It All Began
Drop Out Club Website
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Inside The Black Square..
We See Foxes..
Skeleton Gun..
The Vanities..
I Am Kloot..
Mennen..
Sarah Hawley..
Nine Inch Nails..
The Rakes..
Millencolin..
Fleeing New York..
The Yards..
Reuben..
Amusement Parks On Fire..
Ian Broudie..
Ideal Crash..
Palo Alto..
The March Hares..
The Village Green..
Ellwood..
Kimeera..
Dirty Vinyls..
Dorne..
Different Shade..
The National..
Benjamin Wetherill..
Criterion..
The Features..
Interpol..
Neon..
Dead Fly Buchowski..
Kings Of Leon..
Hard-Fi..
The Boxer Rebellion..
Hal..
Secret Machines..
Razorlight..
Undercut..
The Forest..
Leopold Frank And The Kramits..
The Truth..
The Hair..
The Yards..
New Order..
This Et Al..
¡Forward, Russia!..
The Unknown..
Stickboy..
Yo La Tengo..
Dead Meadow..
I Am Kloot..
Scenes..
Post Haste..
Captain Wasp..
Hannah..
Millencolin..
The Others..
Le Tigre..
Dizzee Rascal..
The Caves..
Anechoic..
Tom Vek..
Emetrex..
The Paddingtons..
Pure Reason Revolution..
Breed77..
Arcade Fire..
The New High Spirit..
The Whyers..
The Butterfly..
Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element..
Cardboard Cowboy..
Shmoo..
Emanuel..
My Awesome Compilation..
Do Me Bad Things..
Cornershop..
Dead 60?s ..
Thirteen Senses..
Garbage..
The Raveonettes..
Help She Can?t Swim..
The Wonderstuff..
Stereophonics..
The Bravery..
Björk..
The Fremen..
Field Music..
Pimhole Group..
Neon Sleep..
British Sea Power..
The Window Right..
Ranaboy..
Omerta..
Various Artists ..
The Black Velvets ..
Tom Vek..
FischerSpooner..
The Subways..
British Sea Power..
Cherryfalls..
Various Artists ..
Be Your Own Pet..
Million Dead..
Kasabian..
Monade..
Queens Of The Stone Age..
Jimmy Eat World..
The Five O?Clock Heroes..
Basement Jaxx ..
Kathleen Edwards..
Jim Noir..
Narcissus..
The Exports..
The Yacht Club..
Cherryfalls..
The National..
Queens Of The Stone Age..
Simple Plan..
The Glitterati..
The Donnas..
Lunz..
The Tenderfoot..
The Mars Volta..
Everstrong ..
Dan Lyth..
Chas Rigby..
Gabrielle's Wish..
Mando Diao..
Rilo Kiley..
Brendan Benson..
James Yorkston and The Athletes..
The Mars Volta..
Beck..
M Ward..
50 Foot Wave..
The Mitchell Brothers..
Kano..
New Order..
Meloboy..
Loose Canon..
Pillow..
Clayhill..
Weapons Of Mass Belief..
Tsuji Giri..
The KBC..
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
MATH ROCKS...
ONLY WHEN YOU SLEEP...
RAPID UK MOVEMENT - COMPETITION TIME...
FEATURE PRESENTATION...
VAMOS - POPART DOUBLE HEADLINER...
POP ARTS AND NO TARTS...
KOR BLIMEY!...
PAPERCUT - NEW FANZINE OUT + LIVE NIGHT...
LA LA LA ELECTRICTY...
MAIN OFFENDER...
CHICKS WITH PICKS...
VMAN LISTINGS MAYHEM : APRIL UPDATE...
BLOW SHOW...
SPACE ODDITY...
GIRI RETURN - *MM RECOMMENDS*...
BEATS GO POTTSY...
OCTAGON THEATRE IN SEARCH FOR A SITAR ...
OCTAGON PRODUCTION CROSSES PHOENIX NIGHTS WITH FAME ACADEMY ...
MAX ARE BACK...
PLUCKING 'ELL: THE RETURN...
FICTION NON-FICTION...
ZU2...
CUNNING STUNTS...
ELECTRIC SEVEN...
STATES OF LOVE AND TRUST...
VOX POPS...
CITY LIFE UNDER NEW ORDER ...
INKLING LAUNCH NEW SINGLE AND LABEL...
CHEGGERS PLAYS POP...
MUSIC FEARS BLOWOUT...
SUPERGRASSI...
CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION...
COLOUR CHANGE...
SUPERDEAD EXHIBITION...
APRIL NO FOOL...
HOLY WHITE NOISE...
LAYMAR DATES...
MORE MORANGO...
ALL BAR NONE...
FRAGRANT VAGRANT...
BLOWOUT TOMORROW...
NEATLY KEMPT...
EGGS-ILE ON SACKVILLE ST....
WILD PATH...
VOLTAGE DOUBLE...
HOWLIN' WOLF...
BACK AT BEECHWOOD...
RADIO GA*GA...
TICK TICK BOOM - MM RECOMMENDS...
FANDANGO BANGO...
FIVE STAR RELEASE...
DURUTTI FRUTI - COMPETITION TIME!...
YEN NO MORE - A TRIBUTE...
DOUBLE BASS DRUMS...
INDIGO BULLY OFF...
BLOWOUT COMES HOME...SORT OF...
SINGLE RELEASED TODAY...
JEEPERS CREEPERS...
IT'S FAT UP NORTH...
DO MIND THE BUZZCOCKS...
SEEKING SINGER...
DANCE TO THE RADIO...
SOUNDS GREEN TO ME...
DIVE! DIVE IN ME! - FIGHT CLUB MARCH...
YOU ARE NOT ALONE...
MARCH BY NIGHT AND DAY: THIS MONTH'S HIGHLIGHTS...
WELSH RAREBITS...
DEBUT SINGLE RELEASED ON FIERCE PANDA...
BLOWOUT THIS FRIDAY...
WIGAN PEERS AT RETRO...
INKLING LIVE DATES...
BOOGIE WONDERLAND...
KARMA FARMER...
WEEKEND IN THE PRESENCE OF BEAUTY...
WHIP CRACK HO...
WHO'S WHO OF BLUES...
UNDERDOG VICTORIOUS...
(NO COCK PUNS)...
FRITH GOES FORTH...
MR. PHARMACIST...
NOT ABOUT MONEY BUT ZEE TUNES...
KB SINGLE AND TOUR...
EX-QUEENS OF STONE AGE COMPETITION...
ICE POP...
TOO MANY DJs? NO, ACTUALLY....
REQUIRED FOR WIRED...
TWO CURRENT BUNS...
GIRI DEBUT LP, LAUNCH NIGHT AND TOUR...
PROPOGANDA AND PORN...
UNITY RADIO BENEFIT...
INDIGO NEEDS YOU...
RESPECT FUNDRAISER...
EXPERIENCE SMIRNOFF...
ENDRICK BROTHERS IN ARMS...
VIVA ERM...SWEDEN...
NEED NEW BODY MANC LIVE DEBUT...
SEX AND JESUS...
BEECHWOOD BURLESQUE...
VOLTS WAGON...
SHOCKING PINK...
A DISGUISE A DAY FOR A MONTH...
BONE MARROW...
ACOUSTIC GARDENS...
VIVA LA REPUBLICA...
GOLD DUST - MM RECOMMENDS...
DRY BAR ROLL CALL...
STRUNG UP...
PARK YO ASS...
DRUM MUSIC THE RETURN...
FIGHT NIGHT...
BLOWOUT! FEB CARNAGE...
NEW ORDER NEW ALBUM...
DEBUT SINGLE RELEASED ON FIERCE PANDA...
POPART TREATS...
YOU EXHIBITIONIST!...
TSUNAMI RELIEF ...
JOHN PEEL 1939 - 2004...
|
|
|
|
|
