The beauty of ghetto-tech/booty is how unashamedly sexist, rude and downright funny it is. I mean really, who doesn’t like throwing political correctness out the window and just acting like a misogynistic prick every now and then? Well, feminists I guess. Though DJ Assault would probably tell them to suck his dick, in that case. But, casting the political incorrectness of the music aside, what it also does is create a damn fun atmosphere and it makes for the backing track to one hell of a party, which is exactly what punters were treated to when Detroit’s DJ Assault played at the Oxford Art Factory last weekend.

Before discussing the music, a couple of complaints need to be made, which hopefully the OAF will take into consideration. Having never been to the venue before, I was excited to finally get a chance to check it out. The layout and design of the room are excellent: there are no ridiculous bottle necks, the dancefloor is a good size and there’s ample seating up the back. But what it really lacks is decent air conditioning (one fan up the back of the room is not enough to cool one hundred-odd people shaking their booties to ghetto tech, hell, it’s probably not even enough to cool ten people looking at the floor during a shoe-gaze act). The heat in the room is almost unbearable once the party gets in full swing, however reports were that there is an air conditioning system being installed this week – fingers crossed! Also, the sound, while nice and clear, and thankfully not at ear-bleeding levels, really needs more bass. When Assault asked “are y’all ready for that booty bass?”, I think he was expecting us to feel it when it finally kicked in.

Gripes aside, once the party train departed, it was all stations to booty-smacking town. The support acts were solid, albeit a little mismatched to the star of the show. Tha Fizz opened with some great classic Miami Bass and booty numbers (including some 2 Live Crew and Quad City DJs), all mixed impeccably on vinyl, but Ajax seemed to miss the memo that he was playing at a booty/ghetto-tech night. Sped up crunk and modern electro-house tracks with hip-hop acapellas over the top doesn’t really sound any better live than how you, the reader, are imagining it in your head. 001 brought the tunes back in line with the vibe of the night and went for a similar approach to Tha Fizz, focusing primarily on Miami Bass cuts, though seemed to lose his way towards the end with some fairly derivative hip hop which seemed just way too slow as a lead-in to DJ Assault. To be honest, it’s really bemusing why Typhonic wasn’t booked as the main warm-up for this party, unless maybe they were worried he’d completely put the headliner to shame with his skills.

About twenty minutes after his scheduled starting time (technical difficulties were responsible for the delay), DJ Assault stepped on stage to rapturous applause. Bitches’ booties were ready for shaking and their titties were primed for jiggling, players were itching to smack some ass, and the dancefloor was just about ready to explode in a frenzy of moving bodies and sexually suggestive dancing. After about five minutes of teasing the crowd, Assault finally launched into his first record: DJ Funk’s classic JB Trax. I’ve never been so happy to hear the words “hoes in the house” in my life. What followed was nigh-on two hours of fast-paced, intense – and most of all fun – music. Classics like Ass ‘n’ Titties, Relatives, and DJ Deeon’s Let Me Bang were thrown down along-side newer cuts (including a booty remix of Simon Says by Pharaoh Monch), as well as some old school techno and electro jams such as Timeline by Underground Resistance and Model 500’s No UFOs. And while his mixing was not exactly awe-inspiring (in fact I saw a few Sydney DJs in the crowd cringing at times), the tunes were so fun and his stage presence, personality, and hilarious microphone antics were so entertaining that it really didn’t matter at the end of the day (and to be honest, I was too busy calling girls bitches and trick ass hoes a lot of the time to even notice when he did make a mistake). Overall: two thumbs up, would smack booties to it again.

All up, it was a quality night of fun music at Oxford Art Factory, and a good excuse to go out and enjoy oneself without having to engage in too much pretentious chinstroking wank (yes I’m aware of the irony of me saying that). Just fix that damn air conditioning, please.