Our favourite Italian ragazzis, Il Crookers – currently sweating in the studio on their upcoming studio album – sent us a link to their brand new “We Make It Good” mix. Crookers say about the mix: “it seem like have pizza with spaghetti with Chocolate and Caramelle inside..strange…but sounds good!”. Enjoy this spaced out mix with a nice fat spliff.

Download it here: http://wemakeitgood.com/mix-series/volume-07-crookers

TRACKLIST

Marino Marini “Era scritto nel cielo”
DATA “Rapture part2″
Rusko “Boo Woost” / Caspa “Where’s BEST SH*T RIGHT NOW!
Equipe84 “Io ho in mente te”
Bombaman “Exia” (Setsuna mix)
Isa GT Feat. Crookers “Pelao”
DropTheLime “Hear me” (BSS Mix)
Hugo Moya “Move”
Dj Mujava “Township Funk” (Radioclit mix)
Sound of Stereo (Nic Sarno re-trix)
Dj Cleo “Rutheless”
Mr.Oizo “Cut20DIck”
Lucio Battisti “Il Veliero”

Just got off tour with MPHO as support for Mongrel last weekend. It was two weeks a heck of a lot of fun. During this trip, I managed to break my headphones and get addicted to Roast Chicken flavoured crisps. Everything went pretty smoothly, everyone showed up on time for the gigs, except for one time when Drew, Mongrel’s guitarist, who missed his train from London to Sheffield. Dude turned up ten minutes before the show, calm and composed, just picked up his guitar and do his thing. Respect! I guess being in a band with Pete Doherty means that nothing can faze you, eh? Anyways, Here’s a pic.

Now to why this post is called what it is.

After the Brighton gig, we went and checked out Dj Donaeo play. Man, I love me some UK Garage/Funky. Donaeo smashed it, as well as Nice and Niche, who gave me a mixtape. The tape is sick (you can down download it from their myspace here), and the last track freaked me out. The tune is called “Make it funky for me” by Attaca Pesante ft. Shea. Its a Funky version of the Will.i.am track “Make it funky”, which is his take on Baile Funk. I’m being a music nerd now, but I get excited about stuff like that! You know, just how one type of music influences another… maybe I’ll come up with a UKG inspired Baile Funk track someday.

So attached are the two tunes I was talking about…. I had to take the Attaca Pesante track straight off the mixtape… I couldn’t find it anywhere! If anyone knows where I can buy UKG tunes online please let me know!

Will.i.am – “Make it Funky”

Attaca Pesante ft. Shea “Make it funky for me”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

DJ Edgar, Rio´s world famous baile funk MPC slayer sent us his new 2009 mixtape. Edgar is currently gearing up for his Europe summer tour 2009 – if you´re up for booking him, please contact Halleluja Booking, lars@blenda.com

DJ EDGAR MIXTAPE 2009

Prelude
Na Europa é assim ohh (Mr Jack feat. DJ Edgar)
Push it (Salt-n-Pepa feat. DJ Edgar)
Funknotronic (Technotronic feat. DJ Edgar)
Funk com Kuduro (Buraka Som Sistema & Pongo Love feat. DJ Edgar)
Funk com Reggaeton (Don Omar feat. DJ Edgar)
Everybody Dance’Funk’now (C&C Music Factory feat. DJ Edgar)
Boogie Down Beat (Earth, Wind and Fire feat. DJ Edgar)
MSN (DJ Edgar)
Money 4 nothing (DJ Gordura)
Out of Space (Max Romeo and The Upsetters feat. DJ Edgar)
We don’t play (MC Shy-D feat. DJ Edgar)
Made in Brazil (Mr Jack feat. DJ Edgar)
Samuel vs Mister Doubalina (Del Tha Funkee Homosapien feat. DJ Edgar)
DNA (Feat. MC Gi feat. DJ Edgar)
Sax Survive (DJ Edgar)
Back To (DJ Edgar)
Ser amante (BomBom feat. DJ Edgar)
Hello Moto (DJ Edgar)
Solta esse ponto (DJ Edgar)
Fogo no Put… (DJ Edgar)
Pianinho Mix (DJ Edgar)
Miss Fatty-Funk (Million Stylez feat. DJ Edgar)

Download it from here: http://www.zshare.net/audio/545658374a027f04/



For me, The Specials are one of the best UK bands of all time, right after The Beatles and The Clash. Inspired by 1960s Jamaican ska, Jerry Dammers, Terry Hall and their band The Specials started with cover versions of Jamaican ska classics such as Prince Buster´s “Al Capone” or Dandy Livingstone´s “Rudy, A Message To You” in 1978, entering the UK charts with their fresh new sound. One of their most classic tunes is “Ghost Town”, probably the biggest song to emerge from the 2 Tone label (which defined the 2nd wave of ska produced in UK ). “Ghost Town” still mesmerizes with it´s Oriental melody, Rico horns and child choirs embedded in a song about the decaying UK inner cities of the Thatcher years. If you look for one of the main roots of, err “tropical”, use this as your late early 1980s starting point.

Wtf? Timberland going baile funk? You´d sweat yo ass in Rio with those uglies:

Kuduro kings Buraka Som Sistema will tour Germany in the coming week on a four city tour. I´ll warm up for them throughout the dates, so you get a baile-kuduro-booty triple whammy live and direct all for less than 15 €. Cologne on Carneval´s Sunday should be the craziest. I played Stadtgarten last year the same day with MC Gringo and it was nuts. I´ll post a tour diary from on the road.

For all of you who won´t make it to any of the dates, I have a special tune from Angola´s kuduro don DJ Znobia for you. Znobia´s been a major inspiration for Buraka Som Sistema, which can be told from his answer version to “A Bit Patchy” by Switch:
A BIT PATCHY – DJ ZNOBIA REMIX

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

There has been a bit of a fuss round the brazilian music blogs lately that has even reached the mainstream press. This concerns some very early recordings of João Gilberto from 1958 turning up online and are generally considered to be the birth of Bossa Nova. The recordings were taken off-line but have now appeared as a torrent so I guess now it’s a free for all.

This reminded me of a little known album that I have always loved by The Gilbertos (no relation) called Os Eurosambas 1992-1998. This was released by the indie label Midsummer madness from Rio and has long been a long lost classic of Lo-fi Bossa Nova as far as I’m concerned. The Gilbertos is basically Thomas Pappon, a member of the 80s post-punk group Fellini, who were featured on Man Recordings first release “Não Wave – Brazilian Post Punk 1982-1988″, and his wife Karla. The album is a collection of home recordings, apparently recorded in Cologne, with sparingly used samples and lyrics sung in English, French and Portuguese. The songs vary from cute to  lovely to quite mad, an example being the 2nd track, Esguicho, which is delicate bossa type tune with almost random 303 over the top and some screaming at the end, it’s my favourite track from the album and is one I always put on mixtapes for friends. The last I heard Thomas was living in London and working for the BBC.

The label has made a fair amount of the Gilbertos discography available for download here (go to the sidebar)

and you can find Os Eurosambas here

here are 2 tasters:

amor-amor-amor

les-trois-maries

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Barbamamma look a like M.I.A. performed “Paper Planes” at last Sunday´s Grammy awards introducing a supergroup of rap, consisting of Jay-Z, Lil Wanye, T.I. and Kanye West. While the tuxedoed rappers banged over M.I.A.´s line “No One On The Corners Got Swagger Like Us”, I was thinking: Werent the mid 1970s rock supergroups the signifyers of the genre´s last breath – just before punk kicked in and turned rock music upside down ? Isnt´t this memorable performance shown at the Grammy´s a sign for a similar development in rap? Maybe it had to take a pregnant UK MC to show what the future could be all about…

KU BO, the sci-fi Afro-Brasil project by Vienna´s Stereotyp sees its third vinyl release this week (Man 035). The KU BO vinyl triptychon, consisting of a red, black and green cover (the colors of the Pan African flag) is now complete. Buy the vinyls at your trusted dealer – they´ll be collectors items soon.

Here´s a previously unreleased KU BO track in extra full length version, taken from the forthcoming album, featuring Joyce Muniz.

KU BO Vaza feat Joyce Muniz

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Check MC Gringo´s newest tune. Heavy on Rio´s radios these days….

DJing in small Western German towns only rarely is a pleasure. Usually, DJs are confronted with a pretty disinformed audience, with girls asking the DJ to play “something danceable like Rihanna, Rammstein or Tokyo Hotel” or pilled-out teenagers demanding the DJ to play something “schranz”. Ulm, a small town in the South of Germany located in between Stuttgart and Munich, is a big exception. There you have the guys who run the “Untitled” parties – easily one of the best club nights in Germany at the moment. With its anything goes music policy, an open minded and party hungry crowd, and promoters that make any effort to entertain their audience with extra sensations, it´s a hell of a good night. When I played “Untitled #15″ last Saturday, an Ulm based breakdance crew was dancing next to the DJ booth, and a confetti cannon was getting all loose – plus eloquent MC Mankind MCing alongside to it. The crowd went nuts to anything from 144 bpmed Ghetto Tec to Dub Step, Kuduro and Baile Funk. With prior DJ guests like Edu K, Shir Khan, Sick Girls, Schowi , Zombie Disco Squad, Steed Lord, Jahcoozi or Justin Martin, “Untitled” has featured the creme of the crop in the last couple of months and is now gearing up for a festival in summer. If you´re happen to be in South Germany soon, check out “Untitled” at Su Casa club – next up is DJ Beware on Feb 28th. Big up to Daniel Zedelmair, MC Mankind, DJ Cool Kid Dewey, Flo, Johannes and Dennis for the great night.