Dj Marc Reck Djing Events Tutorials and life in Birmingham

I’ve been getting some really interesting djing gigs this week, so thought i’d post them.

Tonight, i’ll be hosting the back bar again, this time with local legend Sam Redmore, and in between checkin out the man Giles Peterson.

Actually i need to go do some prepping, as i been working til 6 in the morn this week on the dance on film piece. Its going well, with the rough 12 minute track now with the dancers, and rehearsals have started, with filming to begin next monday. Its been a lot of work but i think this track could also be my first breaks release! (cut down of course)

Anyway provisionally here’s my current gig list..I’ll add the links when i have more time.

Fri 27th Jun 2008 - Giles Peterson @ Hare and Hounds
Sat 5th July 2008 - Scratch Club @ The Rainbow (if back in time)
Fri 18th July 2008 - Big Beats Fun Fair Festival @ Custard Factory
Sat 26th July 2008 - Custom Made @ Rainbow
Sat 8th Aug 2008 - Ultra @ Custard Factory
Fri 15th Aug 2008 - Surfs Up Festival @ Newquay
Fri 22nd Aug 2008 - Shamabhala Festival (t.b.c)
Sat 13th Sep 2008 - Project X Presents 4 @ Busc
Sat 20th Sep 2008 - Mr Elephants Beach Party @ The Rainbow Beach/Warehouse

This taken from our Mr Elephant website sums up just how much fun it was in that back bar on saturday! So many lovely people, and such a fantastic atmosphere, it was a really great djing experience, and we’re all really chuffed by how well received the room was.

“A massive shout to everyone who came into our room on saturday night at the aforementioned Longest Day Festival! It’s certainly fair to say that you (and the Mr Elephant djs and vj), created one of the most electric atmosphere’s ever seen in the back bar at the Hare and Hounds, and huge thanks once again to Bazaar for making it all happen.

Sound setup was handled expertly by Andy the sound man, with our resident visual artist Liam (and Charlie), setting up a huge video screen ready for his inspiring projections. Emma and Bazaar had invited Zen and a tarot reader down, and there was a friendly masseur who gave great head massages.

Pyn made the place look more beautiful with some nice bits supplied by Emma, and we welcomed Justin from Loafers Lounge back, who kicked things off with his beautiful blend of diverse sun kissed electronica and downtempo.

By 7pm the back bar was unusually busy, and it time to invite Olly Badaboon, (our “newcomer dj” from our first Mr Elephant event at Epic in March 2007), back to see where he was at musically. Just off a plane from Ibiza, Badaboon has certainly been honing his skills, and took over the decks with some new and classic funk and some choice scratching, raising the tempo and shaking some asses, as the place filled up, (and Chris the chef got his head massaged!)

8.30 came and the mighty Dani C from Funkatronic was up.

Dani is a great dj we’ve been wanting to invite down for a while now, and it certainly became apparent why, when after a few records, he had people coming up and shaking his hand and pulling all sorts of shapes to his summer and latino style house! A sure sign of an old pro

While our rooms was free entry all night, the two rooms upstairs, hosted by Bazaar, and B-Music were open from 8pm and were £7 quid entry to cover a great line up of musicians and djs. We managed to sneak a peek at around 10.30, when dropping up a backup deck (thanks Rob!) after one of the hired ones had gone down. While there wasn’t many people around yet, it looked fantastic, and full of promise to go off in true solstice style, with a bevvy of instruments adorning both stages.

Back downstairs however it was (fortunatly) rammed to capacity and time for our resident dj Marc Reck to take to the decks. The dancefloor was now nicely full thanks to some great mixing from Dani, and Marc dropped his diverse blend of cut up trip hop, classic soul, and upbeat swing, which got the place shouting, and the people smiling.

It was nice to see some scratching from Marc too, before he raised the pace into his more familliar breakbeat territory. Liams blendstate’s visuals and intelligent use of colour set the ever changing mood with real skill.

By 11.30pm, the back bar was now full to capacity, with people from the more chilled out front bar apparently taking it in turns to come and have a dance! This all paved the way for a return set from our friend (and headliner from our first event), Mr Boogie Dave.

Boogie most known for his pioneering dubstep, and of course the legend that is Drop Beats Not Bombs, threw down an amazing set of booty breaks, which got the crowd shouting and jumping, and ended with the most amazing remix of Rage against the Machine’s classic “Killing in the Name Of” track.

It was great to see such a huge reaction, as Boogie is a great and well deserving dj, and sometimes dubstep can be a little hard to grasp for some dancefloors.

12.30 upstairs, and there was some great music being played by some of Birmingham’s most talented musicians. There was some apparently some confusion as to who was actually playing as the flyers had been printed early, but we imagine that it was suitably going off, and the price had been thoughtfully dropped to reflect the time of night.

Unfortunatly we couldn’t go and see for ourselves, as 12.45 downstairs, the temperature had raised to sweating temperature! Dani C was back on the decks and by the time he dropped a huge remix of Cj Bollands Sugar Daddy, the whole place was on fire (literally!)

Handing over to Marc Reck for the last stretch, (who was so excited by this point he was bouncing around like Tigger on speed…or Marc on Staropramen!). Marc raised the pace with each record, quickly switching into Drum and Bass, and igniting the crowd into a jumping bass driven mass sinaglong!

All in all a most memorable night, and an atmosphere created by the local people in a local pub that will be very difficult to forget.

The full set of pictures we’ve got so far are here (thanks marc), and there was also a roving professional camera man (who had a proper camera, and was asking people to pose, etc) so there should be some good ones on the way.

We’ll post them as soon as we get a copy, and if you want to be notified when they are up, click on the rss subscribe button, and they will be delivered automatically to your chosen rss reader.

Wishing you all a most glorious rest of summer.

One love

Mr Elephant x

“

I’ve copied this from our Mr Elephant website, as it’ll be a djing gig for me this saturday, and i havent got time to write a post about it! (Plus it’s got the links to the people involved)

I’ll be djing some downtempo type stuff, and then hopefully we can pick it up a bit after midnight. Hope you can make it as looks like a great event

“Hey humans.

Firstly, apologies about the lack of posts these last two months. We realise they’ve all been about the events, (which to be fair have been dominating our focus since april, alongside switching servers), but we will be back on track very soon, with your tasty tips (thank you!), Ruth’s next installment of her reports on Birmingham, and Marc’s 3rd Mr Elephant Radio Show.

Remember Elephant’s never forget..its just takes them a little time to work out technical bits and bobs.

Anyway we have some news and yet another invitation for you! This week we have been asked to host a room at the Longest Day Festival! It is to be at the Hare and Hounds this Saturday (21st June), and its being organised by local promoter and Bazaar’s very own Emma Cutler.

We will hosting the back bar all day and night, and will be inviting some of friends from the previous Mr Elephant events to come down and play stuff they might not usually bring out (and some they would).

Our room will be free entry all day and night, and will feature some mr e style treats from Bazaar such as knitting (with instructions), a bbq, jewellery on sale, tarot readings, massage, origami and a host of other treats.

The upstairs rooms (one of which will be hosted by B-Music btw), will be £7 in after 8pm, and will feature some great live music from local bands like the Mama Matrix, and djs such as the bee’s tour dj.

All rooms will be on til two in the morn, and it should be a fitting local celebration of this years summer solstice.

Details are actually a little incorrect on the flyer for our room, as we have different timings and running order than those advertised, but suffice to say it promises to be a lovely day out, with a host of great music and activities, so hope you can join us.

Music wise our room should look like this :

Justin Bond (Loafers Lounge) - Eclectic Summer Chillout
Marc Reck (Project X Presents) - Eclectic laidback Mr Elephant type diversity
Badaboon (Digi phunk) - Funky biznizz
Dani C (Funkatronic) - Diverse downtempo up through to choice house
Boogie Dave (Drop Beats Not Bombs) - (Chilled Electronic Breaks up to more dancefloor breaks)

All of us from midnight with our party style tunes), and visuals will be hosted by our resident visual artist Liam Blendstate.

Happy Solstice to you all”

I’ve just checked out this very interesting post from Rich Batsford in response to this other 2 interesting posts from Simon Jones and Pete Ashton . It inspired me to write a very long comment, so i thought i’d blog it (now we back to normal transmission again!)

I’ve been keeping a keen eye on this debate on brum’s talent for some time now, and it seems with blog posts like this and Simons/Pete’s that its getting another welcome ignition of interest again.

It seems that one common thread is that the Birmingham venue owners, promoters, artists, and audiences often seem pretty well connected with each other in this city, but that the national media and the council don’t really get behind whats really going on, therefore meaning the view of Birmingham from other cities is somewhat different from the reality?

I don’t think things like so much money being spent on shopping malls, buildings that are structurally sound, and broad street’s nightlife do much for the cities cultural reputation, and i wonder what i might think if i’d just got off a train from another city/country, and how easy/difficult it would be for me to find out about all the stuff we have going on.

This from a tourist point of view i imagine keeps things more underground, which while it might have benefits in terms of creative freedom, might also be contradicting that tagline of Birmingham as a global city with a local heart.

I expect the current housing developments and “eastside regeneration project might further affect this perception, but i do often wonder what it would be like if a tiny portion of the money could go to support promotors, and if there is a way of creating a dialogue with the people who make the decisions and the local promoters who create the events.

The process of funding applications don’t always seem to lend themselves to the nature of building up events, and i wonder if there could be also be a dialogue between local companies or suitable sponsors?

Also having events which happen in areas of our city, which might not have been utilised, like green spaces, and disused buildings could also be another great way of shining a light on our culture and bringing it to different demographs, (i.e those that dont go to night clubs), although from what i gather it seems that is increasingly difficult, extremely expensive, or impossible to do, because of the amount of red tape you have to battle with.

I don’t know very much about the workings of this side of things, (hence the reason for the latest Mr Elephant exploration), but the support seems to be the difference from other cities, and certainly is internationally, which i assume is more to do with the national government, than local?

We all know how time consuming and financially difficult it is to promote events, (and of course the real reasons for doing it), but i imagine if there was financial and promotional support from the council, and to(and from) all the venues, then it would allow a lot more growth, collaboration, and freedom for people who work hard to create these events, and the city’s culture would have a much larger platform to express itself.

Then maybe our visiting tourists and the national media would be able to see a lot more of what’s going on, and everyone could benefit?

If you’re subscriber to the rss feed, you may have just have a barrage of posts! Apologies for that. Normal service should now be resumed.

At least 4 people have recommended i check this out this week, so i bought a couple of tickets, and after a meal at the ever tasty wagamama’s, it was on to the gig…

Here’s the write up

Capsule present in collaboration with Integra: The Bays with John Metcalfe and live ensemble - The Bays incorporate a classical ensemble into their improvised electronic performance, using a unique system of real-time music scoring devised by The Bays and projected for the audience to see as well as hear.

It was a great evening out, and i really enjoyed the music. I think the visuals were by the guys who do the prodigy stuff, and there was lots of friends there to see it.I took quite a few pictures, and captured a few bits of video, which i’ll add when the links uploaded.  I also tried to record it binaurully, but unfortunatly, my irivers been playing up, so it didnt come out

Well worth checkin out if you get chance.

So the good news is that the dvd track fits really well apparently, and that all the hard work has been worth it, and the bad news is we’ve had to postpone Project X Presents on the 14th of June, as we have no place to do it

Apparently our last chance (which was the Que Club in Birmingham) is not feasible as there is so much other stuff going on, and there are simply no other options at this stage, which means we are going to have to postpone it.

No matter though, as we do have a new venue to break in, in September, so it’s looking like we’ll just have to say a sad farewell to the NGA funding, and take this sparkling show we have to september, and go with all our guns a blazin.

Bigger, Better, Badder, and bolder!

P.s this news was actually decided last week, but i forgot to blog it then.

P.P.S Other unfortunate news on a personal note was i had to give up my course, as June’s session fell on the project x week.  Now its postponed and too late to get back on it