The Perth Breaks community has been treated to some very big name internationals over the last few months. Finger Lickin maestro’s  Krafty Kut’s and The Drummatic Twins had only been in town the weeks before along with the dynamic duo of the Crystal Method. Terry Ryan, one half of Atomic Hooligan was in town to strutt his break beatin’ stuff. Was it to be another “same old breaks gig” affair that seem’s to be the norm over the recent month’s?

I arrived at the Big Apple at the advertised starting time of 10:00pm to catch the first DJ of the night and good friend, Wish. Renowned for his “tougher” edge of break beat, it was good to see that Wish is able to adapt to no matter what set time he is playing. Starting the night off in any event can be tough as you have to refrain from “rinsing it out” to an empty club whilst building up a dance floor for the following Dj’s. Wish started on a funky note with Tunes such as Loose Cannon’s Superstars, Dirty Waltzer along with current Drummatic Twin’s favourite, Le Funky. Slowly but surely the dancefloor began to fill as punter’s arrived with Wish progressively getting tougher and tougher with the crowd lapping it up. Tricknology 4 , JDS – Daylight ,Generial Midi’s Futher and his remix of Nitzer brought the vibe of the small but intimate room  up a level before Echoic stepped up to the decks to a packed dancefloor at 12:00.

Echoic brought a tougher sound to the floor and the punters were appreciating it . Breakfasterz remix of Boom along with the new Backdraft tune Superstar really got  the crowd going and by the time 2am was upon us, the room was well and truely electric for the main act of the night, Atomic Hooligan.

Terry Ryan immediately got the floor moving with some forth coming material. (Terry did tell me the names of the tunes but they have mysteriously been erased from my mobile phone). JDS Purple funky monkey got the crowd going as well as some tasty unheard bootlegs. Ryan wow’d the crow’d with some skilful scratching techniques as well as punching in samples from well known other tunes on the CDJ1000, including Blur’s Song 2 which really got everyone going , and I quote one punter “Man I hated that song when I was a teenager but for some reason it was awsome the way he did it!”.

Slowing the tempo, Ryan then went into some hip hop which was a welcome change for a bit and gave everyone a rest from the mayhem of earlier. Terry played just the right amount of hip hop before going back into break beat. The only critisism I have of the whole set was when a second time , he decided to go into Hip Hop again – but for a much longer period and it felt as though he lost the crowd for a bit during this time. Back into the break beat though and the vibe lifted once the tempo increased. Ryan finishing on their remix of Born Slippy. Terry is the first to admit that it is not only an honour to remix such a classic but it’s such a big task as well – and well they have done! Upon finishing his set , Ryan “rinsed out” some drum and bass before local stalwart Gully took to the decks to close the night off. I had to leave about 30 min into Gully’s set but one stand out track for me is the new “Cat’s Groove” bootleg that is doing the rounds at the moment. When I first heard it in the shop I was thinking it was a ‘nothing’ tune but once it gets down to the nitty gritty its a real thumper!

Overall a very enjoyable night with all the dj’s putting in top class performances. Big thanks to Atomic Hooligan aka Terry Ryan for putting on such a top quality set. Was it another “same old same old” affair? Not this time I say . A good combination of skillful scratching (not over done) new material , crowd favourites and hip hop (even if the second time was a wee bit too much) really made the two or so hours that he played for something really special to witness with local bedroom dj’s faces in awe at some of the skills that were shown. Look forward to having him back again!