the cut chemist/dj swamp show at the intersection was spectacular. i had never seen swamp before. he looked like a cross between weird al & maynard from tool. swamp mostly scratched over heavy metal riffs & super fast electronic beats. there was a really dope dmx blend over some metal. he did some amazing juggles. the coolest shit was when he changed the pitch on this guitar tone & played the riffs from 'eye of the tiger' and 'smoke on the water', among others, after which he smashed the record. he smashed a couple records during the set. he didn't set anything on fire as i'd heard he's known to do. he was throwing all kinds of free shit, of which i got none, to the crowd all night. finally he said it was time to get paid and started reaching out to the crowd & selling merch right from the stage. he was crazy wasted by the end of the set. he slammed the rest of some drink, smashed the glass on the stage then stage-dived & crowd surfed a couple times. he walked around the crowd kicking some raps over some crazy jungle music sounding shit. i didn't really care for his raps, but it was apparent he was past the point of drunkenness where he could scratch effectively. it was good shit. swamp is definitely one of a kind.
i had seen cut chemist twice before, both with j5, once at the warped tour in pontiac in '99 i think, then at the orbit room back in '02, i want to say. cut chemist is a spitting image of ben hunter from recoil. i never realized how much those two look alike, but they say everyone has a twin out there. isn't that what they say? cut chemist was wearing this dope black t-shirt with a pair of scissors & a laboratory bottle on it. i wanted to buy one there, but couldn't find if or where they were being sold on the way out. he spins classic rare 60's & 70's breakbeats almost exclusively, which is more up my alley than swamp's set was. he did some really nice juggles. there were a couple of exclusive j5 remixes, at least ones i had never heard before. he spun some original 45's a couple times & seamlessly blended them in with the beats they were used to sample. i was trying to concentrate & pick up on exactly what he was doing on the tables, but the shit got so advanced eventually that i lost him. his best routine was this one about primitive man & first drum. it started off simple, but then the sample was like "then the rhythms became more advanced" or something like that. he started going crazy with the kick-snare cuts, until every member of the audience's mind was completely blown. both dj's used a cd scratcher for parts of the set. i want one of those bad, just one though. cut chemist closed off the set by talking to the crowd for a minute, recording the conversation onto a cd burner & using that to scratch for his outro. really cool shit. the show was only $5 too! the only thing that sucked is that i didn't have the foresight to not stand directly in front of the speaker right in front of the stage for the entire show, so my ears are still ringing. it was worth losing a little bit of hearing to see these sets up close though.
i had seen cut chemist twice before, both with j5, once at the warped tour in pontiac in '99 i think, then at the orbit room back in '02, i want to say. cut chemist is a spitting image of ben hunter from recoil. i never realized how much those two look alike, but they say everyone has a twin out there. isn't that what they say? cut chemist was wearing this dope black t-shirt with a pair of scissors & a laboratory bottle on it. i wanted to buy one there, but couldn't find if or where they were being sold on the way out. he spins classic rare 60's & 70's breakbeats almost exclusively, which is more up my alley than swamp's set was. he did some really nice juggles. there were a couple of exclusive j5 remixes, at least ones i had never heard before. he spun some original 45's a couple times & seamlessly blended them in with the beats they were used to sample. i was trying to concentrate & pick up on exactly what he was doing on the tables, but the shit got so advanced eventually that i lost him. his best routine was this one about primitive man & first drum. it started off simple, but then the sample was like "then the rhythms became more advanced" or something like that. he started going crazy with the kick-snare cuts, until every member of the audience's mind was completely blown. both dj's used a cd scratcher for parts of the set. i want one of those bad, just one though. cut chemist closed off the set by talking to the crowd for a minute, recording the conversation onto a cd burner & using that to scratch for his outro. really cool shit. the show was only $5 too! the only thing that sucked is that i didn't have the foresight to not stand directly in front of the speaker right in front of the stage for the entire show, so my ears are still ringing. it was worth losing a little bit of hearing to see these sets up close though.