Hey-oh! How was everyone’s pre-haloween weekend bashes? I have to say that escape from zombie island in Bristol aka the Ghetto Funk 3rd Birthday party was off the HOOOOOK! Great to see everyone dressed up and getting into the vibes.. at one point previous to the gig I managed to stumble into the ACTUAL Zombie march! hundreds of zombies all heading towards me.. the first few were actually quite scary, I prefered the ones at the back, all dressed up but when confronted with a choice of acting as a zombie or smashing back cheap cans of lager, they oped for the latter.
This week’s mix is a BIIIIG one! It’s exclusive.. these guys have been waiting to drop it on you and you have been waiting to hear it.. I am lucky enough to have teamed up (ok tagged along) with none other than The Allergies to bring you this HUGE mix from their set at Bestival this year.
While they were waiting for the perfect time to drop this, I managed to get an interview in with Adam Rackabeat.. have a read of this!
SAMMY: You guys are very well known but for those that are just discovering you, tell them a bit about what you do!
RACKABEAT: Well some of you may know us as DJ Moneyshot and Rackabeat. We met a few years back touring with a festival venue known as Chai Wallahs. We’ve been producing and writing music together, releasing it ourselves, and on Riddim Fruit Records. We try and steer clear of obvious samples and create our own original sound by digging for stuff the average Joe won’t have heard before. In early 2013 we released our debut ‘Heartbreaker’ EP which gained a lot of airtime and radio love on Radio 1 and 6Music which really got our music out there.
SAMMY: I honestly didn’t know it was you and Moneyshot at first.. it was a great little surprise! This is your mix from Bestival this year.. how was it? What were some of your other favourite festivals this summer?
RACKABEAT: Well anyone who has taken the ferry across the water to the world of Bestival will know that it is worth the long journey. Rob Da Bank was kind enough to book us for a very special evening at Club DaDa on the opening night, which went off with a bang. You can catch a live video of what went down on our YouTube channel and cop a free download of our last single ‘Here I Am’ in the same motion.
Another big festival highlight this year was the Riddim Fruit takeover we did at Boomtown on the Boom Box stage, and Fusion festival in Germany was a riot too.
SAMMY: Ah man I was gutted I missed Boomtown this year, NOT next year though.. its game on. You guys are from Bristol and from what I’ve seen so far it’s a great music scene. Do you play locally a lot? Do you travel around too?
RACKABEAT: Bristol certainly has a vibrant music scene, although dance music certainly seems to take the lime light compared to the Hip Hop/Funk scene, much like the rest of the UK we would imagine.
We’ve definitely been trying to make our dent on that by recently starting a weekly, straight up Hip-Hop, Funk and old school Breaks night at Start The Bus in Bristol town centre. The night runs every Thursday night from 10pm-2am, and is free entry. The first few months have gone really well and we’ve managed to draw in a real following of b-Boys and b-girls. The whole experience is nostalgic back to the ‘good old days’ affair, something we’re trying to bring back to Bristol.
Otherwise our main bookings seem to be outside of Bristol. We play in Cardiff a lot and people down south can catch us in Brighton on the 23rd on November, supporting our good mates King Porter Stomp at the Blind Tiger.
SAMMY: Excellent mate, I really look forward to getting to your thursday nighter next year, as much as I love mid-tempo breaks straight up hip-hop is always where it all began for me! NOW tell us about your tracks, I for one have been loving (and playing) them a LOT!
RACKABEAT: Thanks! We put our production before DJing, really, and spend a lot of time in the studio. Between us we are blessed to have all the skills needed to do what we do. Moneyshot has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to samples, and some killer editing, drum programming and arrangement skills, where as Rackabeat comes from a background of professional production techniques and has a real ear for mixdowns and mastering. I think we have learnt a lot from working with each other and each release seems to get a little tighter every time.
SAMMY: Sounds like you guys are a killer combo! What can we get excited about after this mixtape? Anything planned?
RACKABEAT: The next big thing from us will be a new EP. It’s a step in a new direction for us in a way as we’ve collaborated with other artists like the horn section from King Porter Stomp, guitarist John Fairhurst, and rappers Skunkadelic and Figure of Speech. It’s been a learning curve, but we are feeling good with the results. We’re currently recording a video for the lead single and people can expect it to be released in the early new year. We might lead it with a special 7″ single too.
Keep it locked to The Allergies on on the normal channels for any breaking news.
Awesome! Thanks for your time and for this amazing mix.. and speaking of the usual channels let me quickly drop a few links incase people don’t have em hooked up yet.
The Allergies Twitter
Riddim Fruit Records
And now let’s get straight into it!
The Allergies – Bestival Mix 2013 by TheAllergies
Back next week folks.. stay tuned!
PEACE!
Sammy Senior
posted by Sammy Senior