Ballincollig hip-hop and California soul!

Sorry bout the delay folks! It's been a very busy week! Aosdana joined me on Teenage Thursdays. This young hip-hop band from Ballincollig have stood out from the start for me. They've appeared at Jam Junior aswell as my Steppin' Into Tomorrow workshops in the Triskel and they combine live instrumentation with funky hip-hop. One of their rappers, Cheb (Samir) has been through a lot in the last year or so and he has recently come out of Rehab. Having known him both before and after this personal trauma I have to say I am overwhelmed by the chage in his personality. He is like a new man and he is hungry and motivated more than ever. I'm delighted for him and Aosdana, who's new lease of life is summed up with the banging jazz-influenced tune, "Cheb's Back"! Watch these fellows closely, they are shit hot-Maximunm respect!

Marlena Shaw has been a massive influence on me for years. Again she is another jazz/soul legend who I discovered through hip-hop! I've borrowed some of this from my Downtown column in the Echo but it's worth repeating. “California Soul” is perhaps her most well known record, recent appearances in a well-known TV commercial aswell as countless samples by some of the world’s top producers have instilled the track into our subconscious. Pete Rock
looped it for a classic tune by ADOR ("Let It all Hang Out") while DJ Premier used it for a vintage Gang Starr number ("Check the Technique”). The Wiseguys also used a vocal hook from this track on a big downtempo number called the "Sound Ya Hear"

Blueboy famously used the refrain from the mesmerising “Woman of the Ghetto” on a Guidance B-side for ‘Remember Me”, a track that became so popular with DJs that it ultimately got released as a single itself, and smashed the pop charts open in 1996! It was a very big track for me on Radio Friendly and in the Back Bar of Henry's. An earlier vocal piece from the same song formed the centrepiece to the massive “Rose Rouge” jazz house track by St Germain a few years later, a tune
which is probably in the top ten biggest club tracks that this city has ever seen!

Marlena Shaw has made music that blurs the lines between soul, blues, jazz and r&b and her albums still stand up to repeated listens today. Tracks like “Liberation Conversation” are some of the finest soul tunes ever written and one of the wonderful things about her is that she is still performing excellently. I met her briefly before the gig and was stuck by how much of a star she still was today. I'm never star-struck normally but I have to admit I was initially nervous talking to her. She is not-to-be-fucked with but i respect that.Overall, she was cool though and provided excellent jingles. She was delighted with my "California Soul" shirt too, though, since Ashford and Simpson wrote it, she observed that she would not be entitled to get any royalties!

Aside from a dodgy Diva moment the gig was excellent. Her voice and delivery are still top class and she is as bout as funny as any performer I have seen. I must mention that the Flying Monkey's played a nicely received and accomplished jazzy instrumental warm up too while Marlena's band (featuring ex-members of Galliano) were unreal too! I spun a soul set after and it was great to play some of my favourite tracks of all time to a nice, if dwindling, crowd! A lot of them were old friends from my early days of Sir Henrys and it was great to catch up. Later on I ended up with a few of them back in Jim Comet's gaff and we had a relaxing end to a very nice evening!

Jesus Walks on the River Lee!

Been a pretty good last few days! The show is going very well this week, easily know the schools are back by the volume of texts! I'm running a really good competition on the show where a listener plus two friends gets to go to the states for a wicked holiday worth 5,000 grand, courtesy of Coors Light Draft! The listeners have to map out their own dream journey starting and ending in New York and we are getting some interesting finalists so far! Denise reckons she might head down route 66 on the back of a Harley with some dude covered in Tattoos while Sandra has dreams of a shotgun wedding in Vegas, a bungee jump off the Golden Gate bridge and a trip down Niagra Falls in a barrell! Nice!

I'm delighted to be back playing footy a few times a week. It's only casual five-a-side stuff but I love it and I'm playing well, though curiously losing nearly every game-It's a bit like Holland in 74 and 78 though, I'm killing it in moral victories! I'm swimming a good lot too so I feel pretty good. I'm a crap swimmer (I only learnt about ten years ago) but it gives me good time to think and clear the head! One of my best buddies has just been diagnosed with a serious illness so visiting him in hospital yesterday gave me a good dose of appreciating the small things we take for granted. He's gonna be okay though, I'm convinced positive thinking is very important.

Today was a big day for me. I normally hate launch's and media junkets but another friend (in PR) told me that I better go to the brand new announcement about the Live at the Marquee gigs this summer at the Showgrounds. When protesting slightly over the phone, she said "No Stevie, YOU, HAVE TO BE THERE, you are gonna love this" It immediatley got me thinking and knowing she knows my music taste, I speculated that it was gonna ne a good hip-hop/r&b addition! I was pretty convinced it was gonna be one of my all time favourites, Mary J Blige, so I went along today very excited!

I walked into town from Ballinloch (I usually do) and took in a relaxing and nice Spring day in Cork. By some weird quirke of fate I met a good old friend of mine on the bridge over the Lee, a friend I was contemplating ringing that day for the first time in about a year! Joe Kelly is one of my most long term friends, and we worked together in both Sir Henrys and the Savoy (He used run it) for years. We had many good times and I can safely say if it wasn't for his vision artists such as Run DMC and the Jungle Brothers wouldn't have played in Cork and guys like me probably wouldn't have had the all important support and encouragement for what we are doing. I had only yesterday met his former promoter partner Denis (who used run our Mor Disco night and the Soul and Disco Weekend with Joe) at his Gusto cafe so It was cool to meet a second person important in my life for the second day in a row! Typically I was in a rush, but we had a good chat and agreed to work together on a few things before we headed our separate ways! Later that night I met yet another of our mutual friends, Mushy, so it was a good day for catching up! I hooked up with RedFM's KC and our prodcution queen Murph (Caroline) and in we went to the restaurant for lunch and the BIG announcement.

I admire successful people who maintain their hard-working credentials and are not at all filled with bullshit. Peter Aiken and myself once crossed paths, when I did a gig for his company at time in my life when I was struggling (2001, myself Greg and Shane had just left Sir Henrys and money was too tight to mention) I did a few gigs for them up in Dublin and was very impressed by their professionalism and smoothness, putting up with cowboys has been part in parcel of my life as a DJ and when you work for proper organisiations you remember. Two seconds after sitting down today Peter Aiken rose up, told us that KANYE WEST was coming to Cork as the latest addition to the Marquee, and barely breaking his stride, asked us to enjoy our lunch! No bullshit, no fireworks, no problem! Respect! I nearly fell off my chair, Kanye was probably the only living artist who could have out done Mary J Blige in my book and my day (not to mention year) was suddenly made!

I enjoyed that lunch and couldn't wait to get back to work and spread the word. This is a huge gig for Cork and as a hip-hop junkee who could barely score my fix of vinyl only 15 years before in a tiny second hand record shop across the road at Leeside records, I couldn't help but thinking how far we have come to be welcoming the biggest and most popular and exciting rapper in the world to our doorstep, less than a mile from my gaff, in only a couple of months time! Back then there was NO hip-hop on the radio and hardly nowhere to hear in clubs or anywhere else. We have come along way since I first started playing records and now every kid in Cork knows Biggie and Kanye and Mary J Blige. Sitting across from Leeside in a highly respected restaurant I couldn't help but think of the times back in the day when I was told that hip-hop wasn't club music and that it was only fit for the back rooms and bars! At parties I wasn't allowed to spin till about 9 in the morning, as everyone was winding down! Now the biggest rapper in the Universe is gonna be playing to 5,000 people outside the ground which has treated us to great moments from the likes of Sean Og and Teddy McCarthy! To paraphrase Biggie himself "I never thought that hip-hop could take us this far"

Kanye West in Cork!!!!!As media partners my chances of getting interviews and maybe even a DJ warm-up are good too, so fingers crossed. I'm trying to help organise an after party too, and am busy setting up a Kanye Special for Saturday night on Black On Red betwen 8 and 9PM. As expected the texts and emails went through the roof later, the general consensus being, is Kanye West really coming to Cork or is this a wind-up! I was delighted that on the some of the national websites people reacted by saying, "Why the fuck is he playing Cork this time-not Dublin and Belfast" Now that makes a change from the norm! Jesus can walk on water and Kanye is taking us higher than ever before-Now I wonder can he clean up that river of ours..............

An evening with KVX!

KVX joined me on Teenage Thursdays and it was great fun! These five young girls took time out from their studies (as if they minded!) to come up to RedFM for a chat about their recent gig at Coolaboola, their appearances in the RTE TV show (coincidentally known as Jam) and their general musical background. Again, from talking to them, straight away I knew they were gonna be great on air, and we had an interesting chat about rock n'roll females before we opened the mic to everyone else. From Kim Gordan to Tanya Donnelly, I've always been a fan of rock chicks but there was one band that kept reminding me of KVX.

I finally remembered who it was, Lucious Jackson! They were never that big but I was a huge fan in the 90's and saw them at Loolapooloza in the United States back in the day! They were really raw and had great songs and though their subsequent career dissapointed me a little, I used love their early material! KVX don't really sound like Lucious Jackson (and they would have been too young to remember them) but there is definitely an echo of them in their own work, which is really impressive considering their young ages! With five excited girls we decided to adopt an interesting system for questions-At their request, when I asked a question the girl who wanted to answer had to raise their hand, which was kinda funny! Inevitably, it went out the window and it became one big clamour for the mic but that's good, because it shows that they have something to say and I found them very interesting to talk to. I played a few of their own tunes from Coolaboola and the girls helped me with tune selection aswell, delighted to be playing two of the big rock tracks at the moment (by The Zutons and the Kooks).

They were buzzing and enjoying the texts feedback and the show just flew, which again is a credit to KVX. Catch them on Network 2 on the first of May at 11am and check out the footage of Coolaboola! This Thursday I have an excellent young hip-hop group from Ballincollig called Aosdana.

Coolaboola Birthday/Babyshambles/Radio Soulwax!

Jam Junior was sandwiched between a number of other interesting events in the last few days. Last Thursday Coolaboola celebrated their first birthday in Cyprus Avenue. Coolaboola is four young girls, Ali, Lorna, Meg and Kari, who got fed up with not being old enough to go to music gigs and decided to set up their own all ages events! I've known the girls since the start and helped them with their early events but it's amazing to stand back and watch how they are now putting on better and better gigs each time! They have had incredible bands play there, from Playtoh and Lotus Lullaby, to Wallmark and Fred and this time the line-up was excellent once again.

KVX are five young girls from in and around the Douglas area and they started off the proceedings! They were confident and assured and really got the large young crowd rocking at 2 in the afternoon! They are joining me for Teenage Thursdays tonight on RedFM so I'll have more from them soon! I only caught the start of the energetic RumbleStrips but I was impressed while I had to head away before the Chalets gig, to get ready for my show at the Savoy. The Chalets are one of my favourite Irish bands however, and I've been watching them closely since I first saw them at Oxegen about three years ago. I'm delighted they are doing so well but I'm even more delighted for Coolaboola as they are one of the best success stories in Cork music over the last 12 months-Happy birthday girls!

I had two Rapture gigs in the Savoy over the weekend but it was the Saturday one which rocked most! Between them I checked out Babyshambles on Sunday, Pete Doherty's band playing the early gig in the Savoy. There was a lot of talk about this gig because of the tabloid fuss regarding Doherty's drug problems and relationship with Kate Moss. None of that interests me in the slightest as I'm not the biggest fan of the U.K. tabloids, the hypocrisy in which they dealt with Moss in particular disgusts me. What about the music though? I haven't been that impressed with Babyshambles as a band, compared to his music with the Libertines I don't think it stands up to be honest. Not expecting much was handy though as the charismatic Pete and his band played an interesting gig on a mellow Sunday evening. He is certainly a facinating character on stage and has got a certain rock n'roll magnetism which is what it's all about really. The band were rough as fuck at times but as a child of punk who was too young for the 70's, I've always enjoyed watching a group of people just playing as rough and free as they wanted more than technically accomplished bands who play two hour solos. That's what punk rock is all about!

Soulwax and 2 Many DJ's share some of these ethos too. On Tuesday Heineken brought another of their clever one-off nights to Cork with their Green Room Spheres. Essentially a big act in a relatively small room, this night see's the beer brand take over the club in a more stylish and subtle way than simply throwing their brand up everywhere. They use their signature colour green to create a furturistic look and spare no detail in turning the club into something different. The Savoy looked fantastic and an eager crowd who got tickets through their website turned up the day after the bank holiday and kept the party rocking! I was more impressed with Soulwax than when I had previously seen them, and some of the other acts were very interesting too and got the place jumping to some great music. By the time Soulwax morphed into their 2 Many DJ's set the club was absolutely going mad and the mixture of electroclash/dance classics/modern rock remixes sent everyone over the edge! The atmosphere and vibe were first class and I went home thinking, it would be great to do something like that every Tuesday!!!!!!

Jam Junior Part 1

Jam Junior rocked on Thursday! A lot of the people there reckon it was one of the best ones yet and I have to agree. I set up Jam Junior four years ago in the Savoy. I had been involved in teenage discos for years in Sir Henrys, but I always felt that the kids were treated like crap at them and shoved in and outside the the door as a mere money making scheme. With Jam Junior I took that on board and made sure it would be different. A lot of youngsters are involved in the promotion of the event and they also DJ, rap, sing and do just about everything else at the event too.
It's a specialist music event, one of the first of it's kind anywhere, and has boasted guests of the calibre of Trevor Nelson from MTV's The Lick in the last few years. Generally, I keep it to local and upcoming acts though and it has formed the launch pad for everyone from GMC, Bony and Jaae, Dutch Gold Kid, to my residents Suzi K and Neil Mulcahy, Aosdana, Claire Spillane, The Trilogy featuring Ross Brown, Scooby and B Wonder, Peter the Kid, Mickey Gatch and lots lots more. This year Jam itself celebrates five years of hip-hop and soul while Jam Junior will have it's fourth birthday!
We had a really good line-up at this one. Hoopy mixed up the tunes with Scratchy and Neil in the foyer while Suzi K warmed up for myself in the main room. We had loads of live stuff and MC Squared, Jennie and KissMeQuick all rocked, as did Samir and some of his Aosdana crew, aswell as Brozy (Dutch Gold), Mickey Gatch and Bony. The Impressionists went down really well and even though Cliff had rapped there a few times, the addition of Kev on drums and Denis bass gave the full live band a much fuller appeal. These guys are evry young but already sounding like a cross between Funkadelic, Prince, Snoop and Cameo so watch them in the future! Check the pics in this and the blog below. Well done to everyone involved , it was a rocking night!

Jam Junior Part 2

Walk Tall

It’s a track by Cannonball Adderly and one of my all time favs. It’s a positive and uplifting philosophy that always helps me when I need it and I’ve been walking tall since Jam with Jeff on Friday night. No sleep but the sun was shining and I was in town by 9AM. He burnt me some savage tracks over breakfast and played me about five tracks of “The Return”. The Jean Grae and Musiq Soulchild ones are the bomb and there’s much more to come! As he explained in our interview, there is no point in finishing it unless he is entirely happy with things. I got some good exclusives and he even burnt me some samples of a 2 day session he recorded with jazz (and indeed hip-hop) pioneer Herbie Hancock! Jeff was eating breakfast and burning CDs but he was dead cool and we had a great chat about music. Check his studio set up in his room, complete with MPC!!!!! He was working on a track called “Cork” the previous evening! I got some radio drops off Skillz and Jeff and bid them good-bye, before I went back into town to buy new headphones and more music.

When I got home I checked my emails and got about 10 messages on Bebo saying how great Friday was at Jam. I was wrecked by 7PM but still walking tall and my show was enjoyable. I got loads of texts about the Jazzy Jeff gig and played loads of his new stuff, including a class remix he did of the Black Eyed Peas “Feel It’. A young sports fanatic called Alan Smith who I know sat in on both the sports show and my Black on Red show and we headed into town after for Rapture. I quickly showed him the Savoy before he got collected and then it started it all over again.

It wasn’t exactly Jazzy Jeff but Saturday was jointed again and I played a good and very varied set. The crowd were going crazy so it was all good and after a bit of unwinding I eventually crawled into bed at around 6AM. I would have loved Sunday off but I was doing my All Day Music Day with Bellyman and since I was still walking tall tiredness went out the window. United comfortably beat Arsenal so I was buzzing and playing some lovely jazz and soul before moving into reggae with the Bellyman. He owns Roots Records in Kinsale and is an old friend of mine but we haven’t spun together much in recent years. We used run a cool night called Expansions in Sir Henrys back in the day.

It was a nice evening and the tunes and nice crowd kept me going. I was well up for it and Bellyman played some absolute killers, a good few of which I ordered from his shop on the spot. I’m well up on my reggae but there’s always more you don’t have! He is really well connected and cutting edge so it was a pleasure! Got home by midnight and watched highlights of the game again before getting some badly needed sleep. Cannonball Adderly’s intro to “Walk Tall” was still racing though my mind as I finally succumbed to the inevitable and slept like a baby till 10!!!!

Stompin at the Savoy!

What a gig! What a night! What a DJ! At least this time I knew what was coming! Myself and Darnell headed over to the Savoy before Jeff and Skillz and he set up Serato scratch for the main man. After a couple of minor technical difficulties we were underway and I started the warm-up with some nice underground hip-hop. I played a lot of Jay Dee stuff and also some mid 90’s flavours before moving into bits of funk and soul and old skool hip-hop. The crowd was fairly rocking by the time Jeff arrived and he gave me the go-ahead to spin “Crazy” which really lifted the place. He was vibing away himself next to the decks and I could tell he was really up for it straight away.

I played his classic “A Touch Of Jazz” which sampled Grover Washington, Donald Byrd, Marvin Gaye and Bob James amongst others. The Mizzell brothers are musical heroes of mine and I read recently where they were talking about some of their classic Donald Byrd productions and how they heard this incredible hip-hop record, which chopped up some of their sounds. This was the late 80’s when their sound was out of fashion and they were talking about how records like this (produced by Jeff) helped give them their just dues. I became a jazz and soul junkie through hip-hop and it was great to see older jazz and soul legends giving hip-hoppers like Jeff respect for re-awakening interest in their music. I told Jeff bout the interview (in the classic mag Wax Poetics) and he was understandably happy. I left him with Special Ed’s “The Magnificent” and let him to it!

I could talk about his set all day. He played everything and joined the dots of music in an intelligent and entertaining way. Roots Manuva, James Brown, Kool and the Gang, The Police, Crystal Waters, Herb Albert, Jill Scott, Michael Jackson, Lynn Collins, Aretha Franklin, The White Stripes, Tribe, Mobb Deep, Run DMC, KRS One, D’Angelo and lots lots more. As I say, I could go on and on and on! Does he ever make mistakes? No! He represented to the max and tore the roof off the sucka! Skillz performed the “Nod Factor” and a few more and even got on the decks at the end to display some good cuts himself! It was another great night and everyone was happy.

Went back to the hotel with the lads and Jeff started playing me exclusives off his new album in his room. His track with CL Smooth is a killer! He gave me a few jazz CD’s including some remixes he did for a class compilation, which was ironically called “Re-Bop-The Savoy Remixes” It features the best contemporary guys like Jeff, King Britt and Large Pro remixing classic jazz by Dizzy, Byrd and Miles. Jeff takes on Duke Jordan’s version of “Night in Tunisia” and rips it up. He also did a wicked track with Rhymefest for the “Return Of the Magnificent” album which re-works Gang Starr’s “Wordz I Manifest” (also sampling “Nights in Tunisia”) Wait till ye here this guys! I had no CDs with me so agreed to come back bright and early at around 9 the following morning and burn some of his exclusives over breakfast! Got home for about 5 but there was no way I was gonna miss the opportunity for these tunes and I had little trouble rising at 8 after only a couple of hours sleep!

The Return of The Magnificent!

Friday was one of those days where it was all go. I was pretty anxious all day (as I always am on big days) because there was a lot that go wrong. I was more at ease when I found out that Jazzy Jeff had arrived safely in Cork and after a brief chat on the phone we confirmed that we was gonna come to Red at 7PM for an interview and stuff.
I got all my records ready for that night and sorted out some other stuff before my show at 5. By half 7 Jazzy and company still hadn’t arrived and since my show only goes till 8PM on Fridays I was slightly worried. Still though, one of the major things I’ve learned over the years is to always stay calm and on air I acted as if I knew all the time he wasn’t gonna be late. He arrived with his sound engineer Darnell at about 7.45 and we cut straight to our interview.
It was great seeing Jeff again, there is no-one I think more highly off in the music business and he is a warm and very interesting individual. I never have too much time for superstars and divas but this guy is a million miles away from that image. When he first came to Cork a few years ago I kept my distance till after the gig, as I didn’t want to be filling him with bullshit before he knew that our club and out night was the real deal. Of course after that gig he knew how special Cork was and he was even more enthusiastic than usual as he provided me with excellent radio drops and signed about 10 record covers!
He developed a genuine love of Cork since and he talked off this both on and off the air on Friday. He was delighted to hear some of his classic tracks on air and he told me how he hadn’t heard some of the ones form “the Magnificent” in awhile! In the cab on the way back to the hotel he explained that “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley hadn’t really taken off in the U.S. yet and it was his first time hearing it- Later on I gave him one of my copies and imagined the damage he will be doing throughout the world with it in the next few months! After dinner at the hotel it was on to the club!

Loose Change proves very useful!

Loose Change joined me on tonight for Teenage Thursdays! This young trio are based in and around the Douglas area and their drummer Tiz (Paul) is a cousin of one of my cousins. He contacted me recently and asked for a shot at Teenage Thursdays. I didn’t really know Paul or the gang but although I’d heard some good things about the band I wasn’t expecting them to be as good as I heard when they played me their demo once we hit the studio.
Even before that I knew these guys were gonna be good on air as they were really enthusiastic and the four of us got involved in a big chat about music. They told me about how they actively promote their gigs and music on Bebo and I was impressed. I always admire people who are pro-active and try and hustle for themselves. The music industry is cut-throat and you will get nothing for nothing so you have to use every positive angle you can to get exposure. Bebo is just another angle and I’m glad these youngsters see it as an opportunity to promote their stuff.
On air we continued in much the same way and the lads got a great response. Some of the texts were really funny and the few tunes we played got a massive reaction, their tribute to former TV icon Bosco becoming a bit of a cult number!!!! Loose Change are young, vibrant and energetic and I reckon they will be ones to watch in Cork. They were very interesting to talk to and their music rocks and I wish them all the best in the future!

The world at our fingertips!

Loads of talk about Bebo again lately. It's all gone mad really. During the last number of months It's taken off big time and It's not difficult to see why! For students in both school and college it 's proving to be a welcome distraction from their studies but it's defintely getting out of hand for some people. A few youngsters that I know from my teenage disco have told me they are totally addicted to it already. I suppose being a bit older and in a long term relationship it's different, but I can defo see the attraction from the social point of view and it's a lot more personal than regular message boards.


I use message boards myself every day and I find that they are a really useful way of knowing exactly what is going on in Cork and beyond. Here in Cork the peoplesrepublicofcork.com and thegaff.net/forums would be my main ones but I'd also occasionally check boards.ie and the excellent irishhiphop.com. In the wider scheme of things i'd visit U.S. websites such as stonesthrow and ubiquity aswell as the excellent on-line music community that is okay-player. As a sports fan I'm regularly checking out the website of my favourite Manchester United fanzine, United We Stand, while BBC's site is good for breaking stories. I haven't had the heart to check out how crap my fantasy football team did this week at the Premierships site but all I can say is, watch out for Jam United next year, we will be in the reckoning!

I buy a lot of my specialist music on the net too and frequent Fat City and 2Funky's sites regularly but I've avoided E-Bay in the last while, saving for my imminent wedding does not sit comfortably with my vinyl addiction! In recent years I've finally found a certain kind of peace with my music addiction and I have 90% of the music I want on vinyl (about 15, 000 records) but there's always more. Always more......but I don't want to think of that now! I must post some pictures up of my collection soon!

The two biggest sites that have taken off are Myspace and the aforementioned Bebo. My Space is almost like a Bebo for older people but the music section of it has taken off big-time recently. We only just set up our one for Jam (http://www.myspace.com/jamatcork) but I can see already how useful it is for promoting underground music to a worldwide community.



Bebo is probably seen as more of a fun thing but i find it useful for getting feedback on shows, events and music aswell. It's really interesting to see what young people are into musically and it's great that they can communicate directly with you aswell. The white boards (right) and pics are interesting and the whole set-up of the site seems to tap into the almost voyeuristic nature of most human beings today. As long as it's not abused though, it's all good, and the fact that most of the activity is carried out publically is a good thing. Sure, there's a few idiots spamming the site and harrassing people but that's always the way with the internet and you are best ignoring them really. It's amazing how quick you can build up a network of friends and contacts though, I've only been on it a few weeks and already the page is quite busy. Check out bebo.com if you haven't already and if ya want to visit my page I'm at http://djstevieg.bebo.com/

Hey Ho, Let's Go!

Here I am on Monday trying to remember the weekend. I knew it was a good idea giving up the drink! Friday was spent in town and on the radio before I headed to the Savoy for the GMC launch. Fridays are much quiter in general but there was a healthy crowd and the launch went well-GMC and all the Hip-Hop Rebels (Pic on right) performed to an enthusiastic crowd and Colm Kenefick took over on the decks after. Since I was there Colm asked me to spin aswell so we both DJ'd which was cool, cause it was just the Mezzazine and Foyer open and it was an intimate vibe. It was rocking pretty much from the off and there was all sorts going on, including some impromtu breakdancing comps by the Rhythm Rebels and some other not so well practised participants!

I relaxed during the early part of Saturday and headed to Red for 7Pm for my show. I had a good show and a great reaction to my Jazzy Jeff Competition, ahead of his return to Cork this Friday. I played some of his mixes too and remembered why I think he's the greatest DJ in the world-Can't wait for Friday! My Rapture gig (pictured left) was full early and I decided to mix it up every 20 minutes and play a bit of everything. Highlights included loads of old skool hip-hop (LL Cool J, Cypress Hill, Eric B and Rakim, Special Ed), some nice soul (Curtis Mayfield, Supremes, Marvin Gaye) and some rock stuff aswell (Blur, Ramones and even Bill Haley!) Afterwards I headed back to a friends apartment with some other buddies and hung out till way too late.

Missed my first alarm call on Sunday morn and barely got up in time for footy. Not ideal preparation for my first game back in ages and after only a couple of hours sleep I was feeling groggy at the start. It's only non-competitive five-a-side though and I was soon back in the groove and my ankle held up okay so I was happy. Sunday afternoon and evening were spent relaxing at home. And here we go again It's the start of a new week and there's work to be done!