Mr Elephant favourites Munchbreak, (this time with multi genre skills of Home Cooking djs) & the mighty Jam Jah once again showed us why Birmingham is packed full of flavour with 2 inspiring live performances and 4 dj sets which kept our last live and free event of 2009 nice and toasty all the way until the 4am close.
Here’s a little video of part one of Munchbreak where they took us back to their seminal jam session days.
Despite being probably the wettest, coldest night we’ve had thus far, nothing seem to hinder a whole pub full of revellers. Robin from Jam Jah kicked things off with their unique blend of roots, reggae, and dancehall.
Followed by some choice genre hopping funk style crowd pleasing cuts from Maxwell from Home Cooking
Then it was time for the headline live act of the night in the first of two sets. First the Jam session you can see above, and then their full live set. Here’s a little more footage this time from their 2nd set.
and if you want more, do go check out their album. It’s well recommended
P.s there are more photos here and our mr elephant facebook group is here.
Headliners of our first Live & Free, the fabulous Munchbreak are back!
They truly rocked it last time so we well pleased they’ll be back (if you missed you can hear some on the radio show, or check the vids from the last event)
Home Cooking is amongst others Munchbreak on the decks – real turntablists with a classic selection of funky hip hop, classic funk, and proper ass shaking grooves. As the rest of the band are there – expect some live jamming action similar to that of the classic sessions they used to pioneer in Moseley and the weekly Home Cooking sessions they fill the yardbird with each month.
Jam Jah – If you know Mr Elephant, you must know jam jah by now. If you like reggae or dancing or just pure uplifting vibes Jam Jah are serious delivery men. They rock crowds from whole tents at shambala to their weekly parties at the bulls head and of course their hugely respected monthly events at the hare and hounds which have bought so many great names in roots and reggae to our city. They also release great music with their live bands and talented artist roster and to be fair are just simply, brilliant. They can rock it with roots, ramp it up with jungle and chill it out with dub. Great men on a musical mission with music that truly inspires.
All of this is FREE and is on til 4am with all the usual venue treats like pool table, nice drinks, friendly staff, and nice smoking area and really cool late night vibes.
Some exclusive live recordings this week from our 1st Live & Free event back in April, followed by a Mr Elephant Mixtape “Mr Elephant’s Journey Around the World”
1. The mighty Thievery Corporation start us off. A Washington DC-based production and DJ duo consisting of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton and their supporting artists. Their music can be characterized as downtempo/electronica with influences of dub, acid jazz, indian classical and brazilian styles fused together with a lounge aesthetic, and they really know how to produce bass!
2. Then it’s to the city of Birmingham with the inspiring Friendly Fire Crew, reggae collective, featuring the talented Paradox on the vocals and Robin Giorni on the production, with this proper track called “Web Of Deceit”
3. Down into the the south of Spain we find the beautiful voice of Yolando Rayo, with an equisite traditonal salsa track “Salsa Con Sabor”
4. Then its to the bright lights and big show tunes of Broadway, with Catherine Zeta Jones blasting out her rendition of “All That Jazz” from the musical Chicago (reedited for full dancefloor effect)
5. Thrown onto the streets of London with this dirty classic track from Noonsday Underground
6. Going Deeper into the capital for the inspired fusion of Tricky (with great vocals from Martine), with their seminal track “Black Steel” from the album Maxinquaye.
8. Staying East we get treated to the combined musical skills of Shankar and the Epidemics.
9. Then lush African Marimba sounds from Batanai Marimba with a track called Shangara.
10. To the streets of Barcelona is where we find the Minimal Acoustic Band, and their track “Saraha”. Mainly using traditional didgeridoos from Nepal, and steel pans from Jamaica their fusion is/was a highlight from the Catalunyan streets.
11. Then its a quick trip back to the U.K to catch the hugely talented fusion that is Nitin Sawhney, with this title track from his Beyond Skin Album.
12. Then were off all the way across the globe to New Zealand with a brief stopover in Australia and a classic track from Crowded House
13. Over to now Europe for two short vists. One is to France to see the excellent French Hip Hop Sounds of Nuttea
14. And then over to Germany to check out a light hearted Dauerfisch
15. A business trip to Japan allows us to let our hair down and catch the pure funk of Major Force, with this wicked track taken from Thievery Corporation’s “Outernational Sound Mix Album”
16. Then its over to the west coast with a little bit of deck skills from Dj Shadow with this bit of Walkie Talkie,
17. and then NWA give us a slice of Compton life with the classic “Fuck Da Police”
18. Manu Chao is a Latin folk singer of Galician origin, fusing all sorts of …well you probably heard of him too.
19. Over to the continent of Africa to visit Mozambique for a Maputo based multi generational collective. Mabulu are one of a number of nu-generation African bands balancing dance music, traditional roots sounds, and the verbal acrobatics and conscious social lyrics of rap and hip-hop. This track is called Aids.
20. Then of course, The Pink Panther from North American composer Henry Mancini
21. And to bring us back home, we haved the inspirational soundtrack esque Barry Adamson, with the very cool “Jazz Devil”
Last night went down a blast at our new live & free residency at the Adam & Eve! Three truly special live sets and it was 4am before we could blink!
Thankfully we captured audio, video and photo’s thanks to Gary, Mike & Pyn, so if you weren’t there you can catch it on our site.
In short though, Mikes set was the best he and us have seen of his one man live looping show, really vibing up the early crowd, and totally in his element.
Playing Django created something truly magical, with style, charm, and exceptional playing, taking us through a whole history and getting people dancing and shouting in equal appreciative measures.
And finally at almost 1am, Munchbreak quite simply rocked it, delivering an hour long crowd pleasing set with tight musicianship, great audience connection, and selling most of their cds before they’d even left the stage.
Our resident dj had the crowd jiving and moving with his new swing, and the sound engineer, bar staff, and security were among the friendliest we’ve met, delivering a stellar service.
What was really special was how many people had come out for the event. A friday night, with around a week of promotion, in between two bank holidays and it was full of fans of one or another of the acts, with loads of elephant regulars and lots of people who’d enjoyed the dj sets, coming to try something different.
If you’d like to know when audio recordings go up, please subscribe to the rss feed via email option and you’ll get a message as soon as they are posted.
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One love
Mr Elephant
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We are very excited to announce that we have not 2 but 3 fabulous live guests for our first live & free outing on Friday 24th April 2009!
Next Friday 24th April we start a brand new live (and free til 4am) elephant residency at the Adam & Eve in digbeth, and we’re more than excited to confirm that Munchbreak, Playing Django, and Smiley Mic will all be appearing live!
Munchbreak – www.munchbreak.com need no introduction and have been a firm brummie favourite since forming in 2001. Described as “a hungerbusting fried funk special with crispy hip hop and lashings of reggae gravy”, this collective of muti-talented musicians, djs, and producers have been igniting and filling venues all over birmingham since their legendary moseley jam sessions, with 2 albums to date, and a third one just been released. Munchbreak are due on stage around Midnight.
Playing Django – www.playingdjango.com are a 5 piece gypsy jazz band made up of equally pioneering birmingham musicians. While Playing Django is a relatively new project, its members have made up some of the city’s most well loved bands, and extraordinary musicians in their own right. You need to really be able to play to even think about playing some of the music of the legendary Django Reinhardt, and Stephan Grappelli, so we are more than excited to be hearing them perform next week. Playing Django are due on stage around 11pm.
Smiley Mic – www.smileymic.co.uk – is a live-looper and effectively a modern day one man band, creating whole arrangements live on stage by playing several instruments into a loop pedal. From acoustic singer songwriter stuff to hip-hop style beats with some funk thrown in, Smiley Mic plays guitar, bass, glockenspiel, and while he doesnt class himself as a beatboxer) he creates all the parts organically, whilst looping vocals into harmonies and mixing all of these elements together into one live show. He performed a great show at the Gigbeth fringe event with cid music, so we cant wait to see what he creates next Friday. Smiley Mic is due on stage at around 10pm.
Marc Reck – www.marcreck.com – Our residente will be filling in the gaps with his other side of djing. Expect reggae, swing, funk, and ska, with more party style tunes as its gets later.
The Adam & Eve is a legendary music venue with a great atmosphere. Its open til 4am, has a pool table, and hosts one of the best bars in brum.
All events are FREE entry all night, so we really hope you can join us.
For more information on the Adam & Eve, please visit their myspace – http://www.myspace.com/theadammusic , and for more info on forthcoming Mr Elephant events, please join our facebook group. Invites to interested friends are always very much appreciated.
P.s On May 30th we’ll have our 2nd live and free event with Paper Tiger, and on June 20th we’ve got the Heels as our 3rd headliner.
So thats around 6 hours of live and djed Swing, Gypsy Jazz, Funk, Hip Hop, Soul, Reggae and Ska for free! Hope you can make it
