Since I was full of beans even on Thursday more than a fortnight ago,
and I was listening to Longman, accompanied by my conniver, my Friday started very roughly. I also had to fight some kind of illness under the surface, so my Friday Downtown started later, with about 5000 mg of Vitamin C running through my veins.
Indeed, a lovely evening it became. Meeting a lot of old faces, listening to crazy music, and also meeting Sonja, my Austrian DJ sister, who had also been my latest interviewee at that time (it can be read in English here, in Hungarian here), for who I was really waiting. Her main focus was on the next party, which was just a few steps away.
I was moved by EZ Rollers, she was more involved in Krafty Kuts, as there are no breakbeat gigs in Vienna, which I still find ridiculous.
Alex Banks was the man of the night. He’s just insane! 🙂 I prefer making the interviews after the sets, as it happened now, in order to get a picture from the artist in my head. As for Alex, I had the picture… but voice? Not really! I lost it somewhere halfway; his set was THIS mad.
Oldskool at its best, still, without pushing the consumer-friendly tracks (with the exception of a few, but that’s just fine – well, I love them, too, if they are selected and dropped in the right way). Songs like Brown Paper Bag, Midnight, Brand New Funk or Warhead can hardly be called top hits, but they are just so vital and permanent.
Alex wasn’t wasting his time, no fucking around: grabbed a huge bottle of Jägermeister and a (wine) glass, with certain theatrical manners, of course, and started drinking. He needed some spirit after the beer, didn’t he? After a while, he started offering it for the first row, as a kind of reward. I’m more than happy that he started on the other side of the crowd.
The atmosphere he created was awesome. Acting as his own MC and dancer at the same time: chatting, partying hard, spreading the good vibes – just evidently adored all that was happening. And so did we. 🙂 As an interviewee, he was thorough, deliberate, patient and helpful – which is a funny counterpoint of the clown on stage, but it felt all very natural. His chanelling between the two is absolutely conscious.
I heard very little of Krafty, basically just the d’n’b section in the end, which proved to be good. I was also interested in the Hungarian legend, DJ Palotai, so I pulled myself together to be able to listen to him. However, when I heard Snap in a breakbeat mix, I knew it was high time to leave.
After all, I was there till 5 am, so bitch, please. 🙂 Overall performance: 12 out of 10 (almost the maximum, congrats!) Number of rewinds: 3 (at least, that is remembered)
Decision of VB: narrow pass (you see, the rewinds… be more careful next time!)
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Thanks, Pozsonyi Photo!