Amazing vibes and inspiring performances from everyone involved, Mr Elephant is full of good vibes after last night.

Massive love, props and gratitude to all who bought the vibes and all who made it happen.

Together we raised just over £300 for Haiti, and created a night we wont forget.

Here’s a little video of some footage of a few of the artists caught on camera last night, until the “proper” footage shot by our man Jack, gets edited together.

(There’s also proper photos coming from Emily)

Party Rockin’ Mammal Sessions at Jibbering’s 10th birthday

Mr Elephant Presents gave a giant birthday trumpet to Jibbering in in honour of their 10th birthday at the Hare and Hounds.

Jibberings main room was full of great music from start to end, featuring artists like Mc Xander, Dj Rubbish, and Smerins Anti Social Club

In room 2, it was the first Mr Elephant Party Rockin’ Mammal Sessions in the Hare since moving from the Bulls Head last month. The venue seemed to suit the diverse vibe granted from the great line up of DJs. At the tender age of one, Party Rockin’ gave its all with our mighty residents Skeleton and Dolhastz (The Beat Suite) whilst Roy Roastbeef was welcomed back by Mr Elephant, playing a fine blend classic funk.

A sneaky selection of Jibbering’s residents also took time out from the main venue to seduce the room with some cutting edge and vintage hip hop, funk, reggae, jungle and dubstep.

Skeleton and Dolhastz did their usual duty of playing floor filling underground hiphop, glitch-hop, funk, breaks and drum ‘n’ bass – with some skilful scratching which made people’s ears twitch.

And the mr elephant room also featured some arts and crafts, with the “Best Dressed Elephant Competition” keeping many occupied for hours.

Over 70 elephants were dressed up with glitter and rags, and the winner came in the form of an Elvis elephant wearing some impressive shades. A year’s free entry to all Mr Elephant events was the generous prize from the elephant pride.

To close off the evening everyone was herded into the main room for a live set from Gentleman’s Dub Club. This awesome Leeds based 9-piece filled the room with an electric energy, and their heavyweight dub and roots reggae combined with the band’s larger than life stage presence made for a mesmerising experience.

Our camera had unfortunatly ran out by then, so here’s a little footage of Jibbering Jon mixing it up with some dubstep and our Liam Blendstate’s visuals

Catch Cinephonic vs Party Rockin mammal Sessions xmas special at Hare and Hounds on Fri 11th 2009

Mr Elephant Presents – Party Rockin’ Mammal Sessions 1st Birthday – 2nd October 2009

The Party Rockin’ Mammal Sessions have become synonymous with playing floor filling underground dancing music, guaranteed to make your tail feather shake, and a reliable way to find some of the best underground djs in the city.

Celebrating it’s 1st birthday, and final party at the Bulls Head, great vibes were in full effect, with balloons, kazoos (& those lighty up things) adorning a lovely and well up for it crowd, whilst superb sets were thrown down with celebratory style from Marc Reck, VJ Blendstate, DJ Lopan, & The Beat Suite, all of which kept  the birthday mammals stomping with a dancefloor journey through hip hop, glitch-hop, funk, breaks, drum ‘n’ bass and jungle!

New residents, The Beat Suite, are a Birmingham-based duo, who can scratch, genre hop, and rock the party, joining the Mr Elephant collective at the 2nd Cinephonic. Comprising of Skeleton and Dolhasz, these two DJs began their journey at the venue filling (and much missed) Open Beats events alongside Skeleton’s residencies at Trigger. Now they host their own radio show live on rhubarb radio every Wednesday at midnight, and watch out for big things from the new 4 way partnership in 2010.

DJ Lopan was welcomed back with his record bag full of party breakbeat, and dirty electro, with some fine turnatablist skills, alongside fellow resident VJ Blendstate who delivered without doubt the finest visuals yet seen at the venue.

whilst resident sock-rocker Marc Reck once again brought his magic to the turntables with a massive crowd pleasing breaks and drum and bass set,

followed by The Beat Suite’s 2nd set of the night with some huge jungle which set the place on fire.

One of the 4 regular nights from the Mr Elephant collective, the next Party Rockin’ Mammal Sessions will be on Saturday 14th November. Sadly saying farewell to the Bulls Head, but happily taking up a new Saturday night residency at the Hare & Hounds, where it will be on rotation with Cinephonic every 2nd Saturday of the month (though the next Cinephonic will be on Friday Dec 11th for a xmas movie mashup!)

Look out for other nights belonging to the Mr Elephant family including Live and Free @ the Adam & Eve, (great live music til 4am for free!), the return on Intermix in 2010, the bi yearly festival style events, and of course the Mr Elephant radio show live on www.rhubarbradio.com every Monday evening from 6pm – 8pm.

More photos of the night can be found here

One year after the start of our Party Rockin Mammal Sessions and almost 3 years since the birth of Mr Elephant we have combined the two to bring you the best dancefloor rockers under one roof to celebrate our 1st Birthday Celebration @ the Bulls Head in Moseley.

Party Rockin Mammal Sessions is a night of party rockin dancefloor music, building through party style underground dancefloor genres featuring funky hip hop, phat ass funk, a lil monkey swing, party breakbeat, old school jungle and big room drum and bass.

We need people who can rock the party and thats why we are pleased and excited to be welcoming our very first special guest from 2007, the breakbeat, electro and drum and bass heavyweight turntablist, Mr Dj Lopan, who will be recreating that huge VS battle from our first event back in Epic Skate Park in Feb 2007 with our resident sock rocker Marc Reck. And our new residents the very versatile and talented duo – The Beat Suite.

You may remember the Beat Suite from our very last Cinephonic event and their performance was so good, we are very pleased to be welcoming them as our two new residents. Skeleton and Dolhasz can scratch, they can genre hop, and they can sincerely rock the party.

Vj Blendstate will also be stepping it up back with the multi screen visuals and we have live percussion and a very special turntablist battle to kick us off.

If you get there before 10pm its free entry (£3 after) and for the first two hours until 11pm, you can enjoy these drinks promos courtesy of the upstairs bar.

2 bottles of beck for the price of 1 !!
Glens Dark Rum / Imperial Vodka Double £2!!
A bottle of house wine for £8 !!!
And shots of Tequila for £1 !!!

Aside from knocking a tenner of your night, it also means you you will get to witness 2 real turntablists battling it out dmc style with funky hip hop, big bottom funk, and classic breaks.

Free Kazoo on entry, Streamed Live on Rhubarb Radio, Filmed Live for Mr Elephant T.V. More attractions to be announced and if you’re on facebook, here’s the event page if you’d like to attend – http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=134749128924

After kicking off to a great start with Quantic back in June, Cinephonic well and truly settled into its groove with it’s second outing this month. It was a monster weekend with the Mr Elephant team also ramming the bull’s head the night before with a funk flavoured Party Rockin Mammal Session. A little sleep later and we’re back again at the Hare and Hounds for a very different animal.

Video by Jack Brabant

As always with Cinephonic we base the visuals of the night around a theme. This time around it was all about the road movies. Marc Reck opened us up with a great bit of chilled trip-hop, the room nicely filling up to the warm sounds of artists such as Kruder & Dorfmeister, Thievery Corporation & Barry Adamson.

Mr Vj Blendstate was on the light fantastic, craftly mixing up some killer clips from Thelma & Louise, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103074/ David Lynch’s lawnmower powered movie “The Straight Story” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166896/, and the classic Easy Rider http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064276/ as the pace picked up ready for our special guests.

Rhurbarb Radio favourites Skeleton and Dolhasz perfectly translated their radio show ‘The Beat Suite” http://thebeatsuiterhubarbradio.blogspot.com/ into a live environment. Covering a massive range of genres just like a certain resident of ours loves to do, the experimental pair seemed a perfect match for Marc and the night.

The Beat suite’s 1st set saw some great scratching from Skeleton & some seamless blending from Dolchasz. Taking it from the trip hop into the hip hop and building up into choice dubstep and big room breaks, their style, vibe and mixing was 2nd to none and kept the tension building and the party rockin vibe flowing!

Despite the soaring temperature the place was nice and full by 11:00 and our DJ’s responded accordingly cracking the tunes up and getting everybody moving. The visuals hit overdrive with some feedback powered cliff driving, motorcycle acrobatics, and Lawnmower action for good measure.

Midnight came and it was time for Marc’s 2nd set. Starting from breaks and switching it up with each track, it seemed our resident was looking for what was the crowd wanted in order to set the place off.

After breaks, a little swing, it was the huge bite from the liquid drum and bass which set the place on fire and took us into a great hour of crowd pleasing jungle & drum & bass!

Blendstates visuals were creating a filmic visual narrative that bought the cinema to the dancefloor with impressive skill and inspiring imagination! Skeleton & Dolchaz took to the decks for their 2nd set and displayed why they are two of the moste versatile djs in brum, effortlessly jumping from jungle to drum and bass, from breaks to dubstep, dropping in some cheeky numbers and keeping the floor locked and jumping all the way through.

Massive thanks to all those who came out and created a truly lovely vibe creating a proper night to remember. Also special thanks the venue for staying open an extra half hour allowing our DJ’s a unanticipated B2B set at the end!

Cinephonic will return on the 10th October with details to follow soon. If you’d like to keep posted automagically, please subscribe to the rss, or join the facebook group (invites for each event)

Settling nicely into its new monthly slot Mr Elephant’s Party Rockin Mammal Sessions, saw Dr Pepperspray joining our residents for a Moseley Festival special.  A hot day, so took a while to fill up, but as the sun set, the basslines kicked, until a big singalongafinale and an expected heartwarming comment.

Long running DJ and producer Dr Pepperspray demonstrated his unique diverse style & sound building up through about 10 different genres of music and picking up the pace with each record. A  wholesome concontion of strangely Trip Hop, Hip Hop, Breaks, Tech, Funk, Bass & lashings of sample based humour! You can check his many aliases – http://www.myspace.com/doctorpepperspray & http://www.myspace.com/3d2m

We were also joined by our Mr Elephant cameraman, Mr Jack B, who bought along some of his classic Jungle tracks for the floor. A dj in his days in Manchester, and a vinyl lover, it was great to see the roles being shifted in true elephant stylings. Great tunes from a top bloke.

The other visual maestro of the night was also on fine form, with his super power projector and a whole load of new clips he’d been working on. Liam Blendstate rarely has a free weekend these days, being booked out by most of the underground promoters in Birmingham, so we feel pretty priveliged that he’s such an integral part of the elephant crew. Check his visuals on this video here

Our other resident sock rocker Marc Reck was on devastating form, with a whole load of new promos, and some really filthy drum and bass. The last hour was pure joy/bedlam, and an impromptu b2b session created that special party rockin atmosphere synonymous with the mammal sessions.

After a big finish we got treated to 3 classic elephant encore tracks – The Correspondents mix of I wanna be like you, and end of night elephant faves – The Banana Boat Song, & Dont Worry Be Happy, which left many a happy mammal leaving the bulls head, and chilled out the pace beautifully.

Next Party Rockin Mammals is on Friday August 7th 2009 @ the Bulls Head, with brummy Funk King – Roy Roastbeef

Those lovely people at the Night Times have featured Mr Elephant twice in this month’s issue! An interview and a review! Click on the pics for a readable version

Update : It seems the workshops were also covered by the BBC website too – http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2009/05/21/half_term_highlights_feature.shtml

Thanks to Rich for the heads up

(Its only a week away til the launch of Cinephonic @ Hare & Hounds, so time for a little overview

https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/buy_tickets/events/?id=10007316

Cinephonic
Born out of frequent collaborations between Marc Reck and Blendstate Visuals at Mr Elephant’s various events as well as with Project X and The Night Times, this project aims to take the relationship one set further…

A new night from Mr Elephant, Cinephonic aims to be something a little different. A treat for both your eyes and ears, each night will take you on an audio visual journey. We take two films from a genre and remix them together VJ style with a carefully selected choice of tunes to take the audience on a trip start to finish. Expect seriously danceable tunes of all flavours wrapped up in beautiful big screen visuals.

We are launching the night with a very special headlining guest DJ, none other than Quantic, aka Will Holland. In honour of our guests beautiful South American surroundings, the tropical vibe of his latest albums and with a nod to Mr Elephant the first Cinephonic will be based around a nature theme.

Quantic
Jazz sensibility with future dance floor orientated grooves, deep funk and tough drums.

Will Holland is one of the most talented and prolific artists in the world of alternative dance music today. Recording under various guises, Will first found acclaim as Quantic. As well as Quantic and the Quantic Soul Orchestra Will is one half of The Limp Twins, a duo he formed with Russ Porter. Initially a deejay partnership, it wasn’t long before they started recording, with Russ taking on the vocal duties and Will adding the magic with his savvy production.

He has enjoyed consistent success with his Quantic moniker, releasing his first album, ‘The 5th Exotic’ in the summer of 2001. It was picked up on by some of the most respected names in underground music. Richard Dorfmiester, Mr Scruff and LTJ Bukem all rated it very highly, not surprising when tunes like “Common Knowledge” and the near classic “Life in the Rain” had blazed across dance floors all over Europe. With elements of Jazz, Funk and Afro blended with tight breaks and Will’s distinctive production, ‘The 5th Exotic’ proved irresistible and won him many plaudits.

He built on this acclaim with the release of ‘Apricot Morning’ less than a year later, dispelling any talk of “the difficult second album”. His sound seemed to expand in every direction on ‘Apricot Morning’ and he became the first Tru Thoughts artist to collaborate with Alice Russell as well as recording with MC EQ and Bristol’s freshest hip hop crew, Aspects. ‘Apricot Morning’ is a perfect snapshot of everything happening at the jazzier end of underground music in 2002, as proved by Gilles Peterson who ranked it amongst his albums of the year.

The release of the album ‘Mishaps Happening’ in 2004 saw Quantic continuing to work with Alice Russell as well as recording two tracks with the legendary Spanky Wilson (with whom he went on to collaborate on a tour and an electrifying album for his Quantic Soul Orchestra…but that’s another story).

Quantic released a two-disc ‘One Offs, Remixes and B Sides’ album in 2005, which featured a collaboration with Mr Scruff and remixes by Pilooski and Seiji; and his fifth long player, ‘An Announcement To Answer’ followed in 2006, cementing his reputation as a 21st Century Quincy Jones.

Quantic regularly DJs across the world (and we mean the World not just America, Europe and Japan) spreading the unique Quantic sound with each set. His music has been featured on countless compilations and appeared in TV soundtracks, and as ever he has a busy schedule of remixes from respected labels across the board. In 2007 he relocated to Colombia, where he has had a studio built and is continuing to create exciting music at a characteristically prolific rate, taking inspiration from the heady mix of rhythms and sounds on his doorstep.

2008 saw a new project come to life, under the moniker Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno, a summery dub and reggae-inspired affair with an authentic tropical vibe. The album, ‘Death Of The Revolution’ came out in July 2008 and features Will Holland on various instruments with contributions from a host of Latin American musicians, including the legendary Peruvian pianist Alfredo Linares. This album pricked up the ears of many tastemakers and fans alike, including Gilles Peterson and Mark Lamarr (BBC Radio 2), who have been excited and curious about the new progression in Quantic’s music – and impressed that it sounds as stunning and original as any Quantic album to date.

The big story for 2009 is Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro, a handpicked band of internationally renowned musicians set to take over from The Quantic Soul Orchestra in realising the next stage of Holland’s musical vision.
(www.quantic.org // www.tru-thoughts.co.uk/artists/quantic)

Tradition in Transition: A Postcard from Cali

Shot in Cali and Buenaventura in Colombia. A Postcard from Cali is based around the music of Quantic and his Combo Barbaro from their forthcoming Tradition in Transition album on Tru Thoughts Records . (Screening starts 9pm)

Tradition in Transition: A Postcard from Cali (TRAILER) from Quantic on Vimeo.