photo credit: krossie

Oh yes I love a bit of Tom Waits – just muted in the background when friends come round for a glass or two of chateau neuf de P – might go and see him in July – a snip at only 116 euro…– Parking for the SUV? Hmmmm… ah yea and eh….oh I have 2 of his discs yes…whaaaaa….

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

 S1W strike with ninja sword – yuppie blood splashes in drive way…

The alternative continues after the jump..

Go see one of the best bands in the world perform the entirety of possibly one of the most ground breaking records of the 1980s in person for a measly 30 bucks or so!  I strolled through a cooling but almost Summery May evening…A figure running towards me turns out to be an acquaintance of forty something years…a long standing figure on the Dublin left…not well…forty something but looks permanently frozen at 16 some time in the 1980s…Face white as a sheet – he’s mentally not the best…

“Are ya going to public enemy”
“Hey man, sorry man, have to run, too much smoke, had an anxiety attack…”
“Ya paid in and all?”

- He keeps running

This does not portend well

Inside – PE targeted tees at 25 e – pricey but possibly their only real source of income and plenty are buying!  First up a Canadrian known as Cadence Weapon with his trusty side kick DJ Weasal. My they were fine! A sort of Baltimore beat/electro/hip house extravaganza.

They’ve just arrived from Barcelona without the balm of sleep but nothing’s gonna hold em back. Da Weapon bounces like a teenager on the last day of school – Weasel programmes slamming beats and stunning crunchy scratching’ as so often before poor old “Phresh” finds itself pawed and mashed at speed thro’ the fader. Not much of a crowd and a mega low end on the sound system.

Its only 8 pm – we’re off to a very good start.

Weasel also reveals a type of scratching I’ve never witnessed before.  Check.

Both hands at once each one sending the record the other way and no krossphdaer –a demented sweeping motion – rather cool.  The bomb squad are the Shocklee brothers plus cuz– who more or less re-wrote the entire cannon of hip hop in 1988 with a dense, nightmarish sample heavy back drop that made a Nation of Millions the innovator it truly was.

We are “pro duc cers” stresses Tee – unfortunately brother Hank sees fit to serve us nothing but Luke warm Dubstep on two CD decks (or dub bass as they call it).

Maybe he has a right  After all there are elements in that sound which could certainly trace their heritage to the Bomb squad’s innovations. Further a lot of the crowd seem intrigued with this cool new sound form the US (!sic!) – seems they haven’t been checking out traffic or Mc Grudders the past few years in between buying PE tee shirts.

Anyway over a fantastic sound system it sounds good and keeps us shuffling.

A short set of tricks from Terminator X’s replacement DJ Lord and a bit of crowd hype/technical difficulties and they are!  Well most of em.

Griff stopped at the airport due to lack of papers – we say #### Bush with enthusiasm (!)
(I notice when it comes to “#### the queen” an intense young bearded wigger just by me is shakin’ his head furiously in the negative – has he ever actually listened to a Public Enemy lyric!??)

Terminator X – retired (No not bumped off – actually retired due to old age) – But the DJ Lordy a more than adequate replacement.  But we have Chuck D and Flava Flav in great from plus the somewhat creaky S1Ws in desert storm camo with ninja swords doing some nice robotics. Plus an actual band complete with bass, drums and wailing guitar. And when they cut loose it was like twenty years never happened. And boy did they ever cut loose

– High light for your aging comrade scribbler a wailing ass version of “She watch channel Zero” almost equalled by “Night of the Living Base heads” with hundreds of aging wiggers bouncing gleefully to the beat.  In fact some like Flav look better than ever.

The show man was absolutely on point (but, thankfully, well reined in on the Jewish/Korean shopkeeper style rants!) and he some how looks younger. Flav and Chuck vib off each other like the consummate show men they are. Several tracks have never been tried live Chuck assures us.

He ##### up on one and does ten press-ups. The man is a muscular (tiny bit chubby) dynamo of political nous and good humour. Wiggers are invited to roar, wave their hands (like they just don’t care) and all the usual stuff. Chuck brings on Shocklee for triva as to where the band got their name, why the sides were switched post production and stuff.

To my intense regret I had to run bus wards before “Black Steel” – but if the Tripod is now roofless – I certainly isn’t surprised. As they say round our way – “GIG”