The second night of the festival kicks off with what is sure to be a stomper with the appearance of the legendary Kool Keith. Appearing courtesy of Choice Cuts, Dublin based purveyors of regular hip hop flavoured nights, Kool Keith is known as a rappers' rapper. Starting off as one element in the Bronx based incendiary rap outfit the Ultramagnetic MC's, a group that would effectively lay the template for the work of groups like Public Enemy, raping the break beat sections of James Brown tracks to provide a backdrop for the smooth verbal verbosity that would characterise East Coast rap.

Kool Keith is one of those figures that lurks in the background of popular music, seldom fore-grounded but when he is – we all hear about it. His work has been relentlessly sampled, most obviously by The Prodigy, whose obsession with him led them to define some of their most successful tracks around his vocal lines. On “Out Of Space” he threatened to take our brains to another dimension, later a chunk ripped from the Ultramagnetic MC's 1988 “Give The Drummer Some” provided the infamous vocal lines in “Smack My Bitch Up”, he rapped across “Diesel Power” on the same album and on their last release he collaborated directly.

Once describing his own rhymes has having the effect of hand grenades, he has been thrown up by critics as a Bowie for the 1990's. Skiding as he has through an assemblage of personalities over the years. Since the demise of his highly influential Ultramagentic MC's outfit he has taken on the character of Dr. Octagon releasing one critically acclaimed album under that moniker before killing this side of himself off with another alter-ego Dr Dooom. Having worked with producers of the talent and scope of DJ Q-Bert and DJ Shadow, this gig sees his current producer Kutmasta Kurt on decks to provide a back drop of bombastic beats and noise.

October 27th in the Village

Admission : 20 Euro

Tickets available from:
Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2 Selectah Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, City Discs, The Granary, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, All-City Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

GOLDIE

He's just turned forty and at the moment is probably best known for getting dumped off Big Brother or posing menacingly, typecast as the regular goon in Snatch, Bond and Eastenders. Whatever about his acting, Goldie has always been something of a visionary. One of the original British B-Boy's he gained fame in the eighties for his work as a graffiti artist. He was featured in an Afriakaa Bambaataa documentary on the British graf scene, before ditching England to follow hip-hop to the states. His nickname derived from selling gold teeth in markets in Miami. Arriving back to London he hooked up with old graffiti mate 3D from Massive Attack and quickly became engrossed in the hard core scene, discovering drum and bass amidst the regular Fabio and Grooverider sets at Rage in London.

From the start Goldie revolutionised drum and bass, with time stretching and the grafting on of orchestral over lays and the sort of saccharine soulful vocals you'd expect on an Orbital track. Depending on who you listen to, Goldie lost all relevance ten years ago. Tracks like “Inner City Life” had pushed the production values of drum and bass, but he had lost the plot with hour long symphonic wank-fests like “Mother.” . The original bite of drum and bass as the aesthetics of the wrong side of the E honey moon, was exchanged for a darkness that was more cathedral than squat party. He broke the mould of the jungle producer opted for celebrity, and became prone to self grandiose, over intellectualising his music and attacking the hard-core hordes that created the scene to begin with. With the DIY dynamic foregone for an ethereal, epic bullshit, effectively he had taken the genre off the dance floor and introduced it to the dinner party. But then again, ten years ago this man reigned supreme over the junglist massive and if minimal isn't your thing and you want at least some pounding bass lines then I'd hedge your bets with Goldie.

October 30th in Traffic,

Admission : € 18.50
Tickets available from : Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2
Selectah Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, City Discs, The Granary, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE

It might be easier chasing a greased pig than trying to make sense of Underground Resistance. The sheer scale of their back catalogue is overwhelming and there's little point in expecting a “best of” from this popularity shy Detroit label/collective. In one way they echo the ethos of a label like Fugazi's Discord, formed in the wake of the original hardcore punk scene, but breaking with it to push the music forward. Emerging as the second wave of experimentation in Detroit techno, Underground Resistance was formed by Jeff Mills, “Mad” Mike Banks and Robert “Noise” Hood in the early 1990's.

Clothed in a shell of political imagery, UR are renowned for shying from the limelight to take on the mantle of the political consciousness of the techno scene. With titles like “Message to the Majors” and linear notes echoing militant manifestos Underground Resistance have cultivated an aura of electronic musical resistance to the whims and wishes of the dance floor. UR have a creed, to “combat the mediocre audio and visual programming being fed to the inhabitants of the earth, this programming is stagnating the minds of the people.” They regular emerge with scattered shots at the mainstream before retreating to the underground, eagerly entering into guerrilla skirmishes with labels like Sony who released a less than consensual cover of UR's most commercially successful EP, DJ Rolando's "The Knights of The Jaguar."

But leaving their creed aside, if anyone's wondering just what the fuck Detroit techno is then, imagine it as Kraftwerk and George Clinton thrown into an elevator, as originator Derrick May once described. So expect lots of slap head techno purists, stroking erudite paths into their aficionado chins at this one. The organisers of DEAF are billing this as the gig of the festival, a seven hour lapse into the purist side of techno with Underground Resistance members performing live as part of the Galaxy to Galaxy band, and when we say live, we mean just like the olden days. UR are coming on very early in the night, so if you want to see them there can be no pissing about. D1 artists will be stepping up to the plate later in the night for a showcase of the labels talent.

October 30th in The Village.

Admission : € 29.50
Tickets available from : Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2 Selectah Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. City Discs, The Granary, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
EARLY SHOW !! 7.30 PM SHARP

Underground Resistance / Galaxy 2 Galaxy are performing the early part of the night

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THE WEEKENDER GIGS

Not so long ago DEAF was hosted in one venue, with the added bonus of being able to buy a single ticket to cover the whole festival. Unfortunately, the past two years have seen it scattered to the wind across a kaleidoscope of city based venues, with events clashing in venues across the city on most nights. Whatever about the mania of weighing up which of the headlining gigs to check out, there's another way to do the festival by exploring the rather incoherent Dublin underground presented as it is in the concise format of the DEAF Weekender series of gigs throughout the festival which are show casing some of the regulars on the electronica circuit in Dublin.

Among those to check out are Chymera who is interviewed elsewhere in this issue, Skkatter, tongue in cheek re-mixer of that atrocious “G-g-g-Galway” tune will be banging out infectious techno and electro, Don Rosco a prime mover in the early drum and bass scene here, Invisible Agent’s Corrugated Tunnel, and D1’s Toirse will all be making appearances throughout the weekend at gigs based in and around Hogans and The Globe. Undercurrent will also be holding its annual DEAF showcase over the weekend, while regular freeform club Lazy Bird, Electric City and anything goes head bangers Monkey Tennis will be holding events over the weekend too.

VISUALS AT FILMBASE

As if some projections weren’t good enough, DEAF@Filmbase is the part of the festival where the visuals begin to supersede the music, it’s where worries about the dance floor stop and the art begins. The event kicks off at 6pm and carries on until 11pm, stretched over three floors with the admission price including three free beers. This is where the shit gets weird, any idea that electronica stretches maybe as far as Kraftwerk gets dumped and suddenly the idea of looped timbres and revisiting base compositional values takes on an importance. DEAF are engaged in the project of creating a linear history and mythology of their niche music and a stream of composers and electronic avant-gardes are swept into the electronica cannon displacing the origin myths of pills, raves and better technology.

Elsewhere the Darklight Symposium will be hosting a seminar to explore the shifting relationship between technologies of surveillance and the citizen while Electric City will be hosting a film on the highly charged electro scene in The Hague in the 1990’s before their regular club night kicks off.

Admission €15 (the price includes three large bottles of beer free per person, courtesy of Tiger).

Tickets available from : Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2
Selectah Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
City Discs, The Granary, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

If you fancy taking an audio tour of some of the music to be expected at this years Deaf festival then click here

Labels: festival, Music