Tipper raises the Moon Bar

Tipped like Tonka

9:30pm
Mr King vs. Noodles

Code of the Streets by Gang Starr set the scene in the Moon Bar as I walked in. Looking round at all the room, I wondered just how packed it was going to be this evening. But not yet, a few ‘bar flies’ and ‘head nodders’ were the only humans in sight. If I had some washing (and was up to the eyeballs with acid), I may have tried to do some washing in the Ion Laundromat projected onto the screen. Oh Justus, what a big screen you have…....

OK, back to the music.

Mr King and Noodles with their almost trademark smooth, down the line HipHop, played one of the most intricate sets I’ve seen in a long time. Instrumentals, accapelas and big break tracks with a solid jazz style and more than a dash of scratching melded into a flowing hour and a half with many a break, but not a breakdown in sight. I got all meaningful for a while, but I’m not going to bore you more than I have to….OK??

Holy bouncing backhoes Ionman!!!!!!!
My right shoe is more bass reponsive than my left!!!!!!

11pm
Aniki vs. Shredlock

Well, what can I say about these boys that hasn’t already been said. Aniki started off this duo on the right foot with nice soul infused breaks and a touch of acid. At this point, the Moon Bar numbers were starting to swell, the bar posse was thinking about having the first piss of the night and the head nodding bboys were starting to pop, but not quite lock.
IMHO, I believe that the music (for a while) started to get a touch too serious for a party, smiles faded and asses didn’t quite swing as far as they were…but that soon changed. As the set progressed, Aniki and Shredlock proceeded to give the crowd a taste of the style that has made the Moon Bar a big name in the aussie breaks fraternity. From wobbly, disco infused, reggae rythyms to the more classic sound of the genre, these two exploited all the angles. On a side note: I really hate the milkshake song…....why would you want milk on your nuts, wouldn’t the sweat make it sour??

Hey Bender, do you know that there is a clone of you out there…..about a foot taller, and on steriods…but a clone none the less;)

That mexican is nuts man…now where did that tequila go

12:10pm
MONSTER ZOKU ONSOMB!

What a show!!!!!!!!The girls, the ass, the salt being licked off breast….so thats where the tequila went, oh well, at least she had lemon….

Ex-Nam Shub, ex-brisbanian Phil, along with his ‘harem of hardcore’, has obviously been locking himself up in a 2 foot square Big Top tent creating music that sounds like a clown in an asylum teamed up with a cartoon monster!!!!!
Crazy live acts seem to be coming back into vogue, but nothing I’ve seen compares to these nutty mofo’s. With numerous sound making equipment scattered around a big table, MONSTER ZOKU ONSOMB! pieced a set like a blind artist does a jig saw….....scattered and messy, yet compelling and sooooo funky, i mean they even had a Theromin, for gods sake!!!!

but OK, it was 12:30pm, now time for….......

TIPPER

Well, after the locals had a chance to shine, up stepped the man of the moment..Tipper.
With obviously a plethora of tricks up his sleeve, the opening to his set caught me quite by suprise. Mr Oizo style, acid frequency laden hiphop erupted from the speakers. Not knowing much about Tipper, I soon discovered why he is one of the most influential ‘breaks’ poineers around.

Good clean beats with smooth as silk mixing and rock steady levels through the entirety of his time behind the wheels. Unfortunately the
set became a bit formula…......mix, drop, scratch, mix, drop, scratch, mix, drop, scratch etc etc etc.

After leaving for a bit for some fresh air and more cigarettes, I re-entered the Moon Bar and to my delight heard some heavy electroish breaks, with more than a touch of acid!!!
All this time the system had been getting pushed louder than I have ever heard there before, and at about 2:30am(approx) the bass became to much for one of the monitor speakers to handle, so it quit in a burst of flame and smoke!!!
Always the pro, and showing not a small amount of style, Tipper responded with a song that featured a fire engine sample. Not in 2 songs time either, it was up there straight away!!
In general, I found it to be a step away from the heavily formulated breaks that get aired in most places…polyrhythmic and funky…..a true new breed of breakbeat.

Sometime during all this, boredom overtook me, so I decided to get six comments of five words or less from random people…....these are the comments.

“10 pound crew-doof kings”

“I just ground my kunt!!”

“awesome time – excellent party”

“bombastic, tubular, round, loud, chrystaline”

tipper – “master of the bottom end”

“don’t want it to end”

.............You get the idea….........

OPERON vs. ERTHER

OK, so I worked during Thursday…...by the time brisbane’s one and only RudeBwoys stepped up, I was falling asleep on my feet. I did stay long enough to have something to say however…
With an up tempo start, the rolling bass on the first track cut through the Moon Bar like a knife through butter, scaring the kids and elating the junglists (the real ones anyway). Warm as toast production gave into more of a throbbing two-step beat…..These bwoys know their shit, from straight edge DnB, to amen riffed tech sounds, Operon and Erther once again played a killer set with (except for MrKing & Noodles) the quickest cutting between the records all night!!

And thats a plus in my book.

All in all, I had a great time at Tipper. But there were some problems (IMO). With a night where there is a definate change in BPM range from set to set, there is often no transition time between sets. So the vibe was a bit stalled when the sound changed from this to THIS!!!The levels in the early stages were the same. With Mr King and Noodles I can understand, a lot of the older hiphop releases were pressed quite badly, so the levels from one record to another can chang drastically, this is not the case with a lot of ‘breaks’ though. With production standards constantly upgrading, there is no reason for sound levels to be so up and down.

But thats about the only ‘bad’ things I can really think of….....for now, speak to me when I’m drunk and I may have other ideas though.

I LIKE BASS….....WAS GOOD

ps. Before I accept The Pulitzer Prize for this remarkable feat of journalism, I’d like to thank Cam for the moral support and being with me while I was writing (when I could have been dancin’), Manath for being a grammar nazi and Sickafish for being deranged enough to think I could do his event any good at all…