Degrees of Freedom present Atomic Hooligan @ The Church, Canberra (23/07/2004)
Before you say “another run of the mill international breaks gig”, bite down hard on your tongue, clamp your jaw, and see if you can’t draw blood. Seriously, I mean shutup and read. Because this wasn’t your standard “meat and two veg” event – this was a party; a fun, freaking tops night party. No slave to the DJ vibe here, because you could get up on stage and dance with him if you so choose (and many did). You could even take off your top and shake your breasts around, or bare your arse to the dancefloor. There was enough ass and titties at this event to make even the most hardened ghetto tek kid blush, and perhaps spend the remainder of the night getting intimate with himself in the gents. But if you want debauchery, go to the ITM photo section. Let’s get on with the music.
I arrived to see Ravi finishing up his set. Only hearing the final track of the set prevents me from commenting too much on his style, but I am of the opinion that promoters should probably refrain from DJing unless their skills are of a reasonably high standard. There are literally scores of DJs busting their gut to even get a sniff of supporting an international, and when a promoter picks himself over others it can seem a bit unfair at times. Nonetheless, Ravi’s taste in breaks is of a relatively high calibre, so the punters can at least be thankful that he doesn’t drop cheese, which can’t be said for a lot of the more technically adept and acclaimed DJs around the world.
Next up was the newest addition to the Canberra’s big nuts DJ elite, Anjay. Having one of his tracks listed in Hybrid’s top 10 recently, he swaggered up to the decks like a man still adjusting to a newly acquired endowment. Meanwhile, his track selection was totally on point, one of the best sets I’ve seen him do in ages. It was a treat to watch and listen to Anjay spin records. Every now and then he leaned back a bit, looked at the record spinning on the turntable a bit quizzically, as if he was thinking “Is this the right track?” Don’t worry Anjay, it was. And although I was drinking more than I was trainspotting, I noticed the lovely Hyper remix of Stupid which, despite receiving quite a caning lately, is still a welcome part of any breaks set.
The nu-skool breaks duo, Tarlo and Akev came on next. With a set of driving, progressive breaks, the dancefloor started to slowly fill. The night still felt youngish, and for a while it seemed as if everyone was waiting for either the right amount of people, or perhaps, the right amount beer, to start dancing. This is not to say the music wasn’t good up until then – far from it – but at that stage people were content to just chill and drink to the music. I managed to spot another Hyper remix in Tarlo and Akev’s set, this time his remix of Born Too Slow. But, like Anjay’s set, I was still paying a lot of attention to where the next beer was coming from.
Although it seemed at one stage that The Church would close up before Terry from Atomic Hooligan even cued up his first track, the crowd was of a decent enough size to keep going into the night. And when he did, those who had reached critical mass in terms of alcohol content got up and started to dance.
This is where the night kicked up a gear, and went from pretty rad, to damn awesome. Now word got to me that Terry had some of his records confiscated by Customs. Considering that other round discs of the illicit variety seemed to be in abundance at the gig (or maybe everyone was just enjoying the cheap Stella Artois as much as I was), I put it to Customs (if you are reading this) that they have failed. I also heard that Customs managed to detain the other half of Atomic Hooligan, Matt, but this I cannot confirm or deny.
Yet despite the problems with the lost records, Atomic Hooligan played a rollicking good set. In essence, it was party breaks, hold the cheese. One might even call it Intelligent Party Breaks or IPB. Starting out with dirty and hard breaks, into techier numbers, then back, topped off with some well-placed scratching it was an awesome half hour opening to the set. In fact, the scratching was the highlight for me, with Atomic Hooligan producing beats with the CDJ and scratching up the turntable with outstretched arms, like some sort of musical albatross.
The party type atmosphere was progressing nicely, and about hour in Terry decided to slow the pace down. We then got hit with a Jay Z track, but thankfully it was Jay Z’s best work; the Rick Rubin produced 99 Problems. After about 15 minutes of hip hop it was straight back to the fast paced break beats. There was a slight twist to the breaks this time, although there was a consistent theme – Underworld. Three of the bigger tracks, Rez, Cowgirl and Born Slippy were dropped, and although this reviewer thinks Underworld is a bit played out these days, I have to say that mixing out of a bowel disturbing, dark and nasty drum and bass track, to the sweetness and light of Atomic Hooligan’s remix of Born Slippy would be quite a challenge, and remains a must hear for the uninitiated.
Unfortunately before the night ended I needed sleep, and I missed the end of what I felt was a great set and a great night. I can only imagine what the night might have been like if Atomic Hooligan had all of his records, if more people had attended, and if I had been drunker. Perhaps I wouldn’t remember the night that well. Who knows? What I do know is that I’ll be going to more Degrees of Freedom events, I’ll be hoping that The Church continues to allow dance events to run later into the night, and I hope to one day again see Atomic Hooligan, in full complement of members and records.
