Dabbling in the drum n' bass gene pool only occasionaly, never really making a point to go see any of it live, I grabbed my girlfriend the other night headed on down to check out I Kamanchi. I had only heard of them by accident, stumbling totally hung over into a record shop months ago where one of their tracks appened to be playing. The nice fellow behind the counter told me who they were and what they were about and that they'd be here in August and I should go. The track was so darn good that I couldn't resist and ended up plunking down my 40 bucks for two tickets.
We walked into a semi-dead club with a few kids bopping around on the dance floor to some godawful soully, housey, drum n'bass spun by what I suspected to be the product of some shitty local DJ. Turns out I was right and decided immediately that the local "electronic music scene" (for lack of a better description, hey I'm a layman leave me alone...) was eating itself on pace with the local punk rock scene. I resided myself to the fact that this would be some dead ass show played to a handful of dead asses, myself included, in a dead ass part of town on a dead ass night in a dead ass city.
Still, though, had to have hope, maybe the next DJ would be better. But no. Of course not. Things went from shitty to shittier as the next dude that came on played even more gawdawful soully, housey, crap. with a few more cranks hopping about like floundering lemmings. My girlfriend had to go outside to get some air and get away. I went to the bar. Met some cat who was in a similar situation to mine. Punk rock guy checks out dnb show, not down with the soully shit. Said that tonight could be quite soul filled as the MC had tendencies of such. "Fuck", I thought and went back to the bar. Club was beginning to fill.
In line, I saw some girl blow past. Looked kind of rough around the edges. Sixers hat bent sideways, short, '70's-ish faux leather jacket . Thought she was one of the junkies from outside. Thought she was the epitome of a dying music scene in a club in a city trying desperately to be something its not. Felt bitter. Contemplated, grabbing my girlfriend and high tailing it out of there, but went to where we were sitting to at least check out the beginning. Then to my surprise, leather jacket girl made her way up to the dj booth and announced in thick accent, that she was Tali, and the other two cats were Krust and Die and together they were Kamanchi all the way from "fucking Bristol, UK" and here we go. In disbelief, I turned to my girlfriend and announced that she didn't just say that. She didn't just say they were from Bristol, UK in full British accent. It was awesome. Being Johnny North America I was totally stoked that people actually say that shit for real, not just Ali G or something. It reminded me of another story I read on this board about some cat from London going to California and hearing ebonics spoken on the street for serious and not believieng that people actually talk like that, not just on TV. I
Anyways, the club got really packed. The show or set or what ever it was fucking awesome, and this Tali chick that I was judging earlier in haze of bitterness turned out to be really amazing. I went up to the front and bopped around like a madman. |
