Last month I joined Jan Peeters to interview Ben Westbeech, protégé of Gilles Peterson on his new label Brownswood Recordings.
A couple of hours before Ben Westbeech’s gig in Leuven, we join him for a beer and a relaxed chat in front of Leuven’s train station.
After having launched our joint criticism on the strange and not that well succeeded architectural combination of the neoclassical train station, its ultramodern canopy and the red brick bus station, our conversation takes of with Bristol, a safe haven for new electronical sounds coming from for instance Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead and Roni Size. Bristol seems to be quite a heavily bass-influenced town… (Read the rest of the interview.)
Last month I’ve made the EPK that’s accompanying the release of Soul:Id’s highly anticipated debut album ‘Sex, Love and Philosophy’
I’ve had some great times getting to know the band and I must say I’ve rarely seen such dedicated people, focussed on doing things the right way. Seeing things happen made me realise it actually is not so surprising they’re debuting on the infamous ABB Soul label in the States. (with releases in Japan and the UK following shortly after)
The album is a killer, it was featured in Billboard. Still, no press interest in Belgium, strange, isn’t it? I guess it’s the stereotypical story, you’ll have to succeed abroad before you get noticed. As you’ll see in the video though, the band has been touring internationally already.
A video interview with tons of exclusive video material will be featured on on-point tv somewhere next month. Busy times on the editing tip, learning a lot of new tricks. Stay tuned for more tv, and needles to say, please spread the word. Because here’s what to expect:
- Graffiti Royal Video (ft. SozyoneGonzalez, Shake, Rekto, Olivier Stak, etc.)
- Ben Westbeech Interview
- Dave Decat Interview
- Soil&Pimp Sessions Interview
- BlueNoteRecordsFestival Interviews
- etc. etc.
And after that I’ve got another round of jobhunting to do.
Last week’s interview with Martha Cooper was one of the nicest in a long time. So nice I forgot some of my questions, what can I say, I’m an amateur…
Martha Cooper gained international recognization for her pioneering photos of early hiphop culture, being the first ever to capture graffiti and breakdancing.
The final edit ended up being over 10 minutes of video, in which I didn’t want to cut, so take your time, watch, listen or in other words: check it out. And spread the word if you’re feeling it:
Check out her latest book Street Play, The Hiphop Files, We B* Girlz and Subway Art, for some classic material!
But Bonom and Lork seem to be on some bigger things now. Bigger as in, the size of an office block. Check out what these cats recently did, just a small walk away from Central Station, Brussels.
A baby in front of the King Boudewijn statue, could this be a clever provocation, or am I overthinking this one?
Just a little further, Bonom put up a big hand together with Bambi. See for yourself.
After the huge success of the Olivier Stak interview, on-point tv is back with the niceness for you and yours, putting the spotlight to the man called Boris Tellegen, the legend that goes by the name of DELTA!
This one cost me a whole lot of time and effort but it finally resulted into an 11minute feature, so sit back and check it out!
After you saw this, run to the shop and cop the Kroonjuwelen dvd (I know in Ghent it’s for sale at Toykyo), featuring a 48pages booklet and an amazing insight in Amsterdam’s graffiti scene in the early nineties. One bloody must-see it is, believe you me!
I told you some work was in progress, so here it is: the Olivier Stak video interview, filmed chez Alice:
The expo is currently running at Alice Gallery, till the 3rd of May, so go check that out! And don’t sleep on the upcoming Graffiti Royal event either, featuring Sozyone Gonzalez and Olivier Stak, amonst many, many others.
After this On-Point TV has a well wicked Delta video interview coming up (over 10 minutes of pure niceness!), thanks to Alice and Raph, and digitalovers for the support!
Capturing the vibe of a live concert with merely one camera is always a task, but might I say, I think I did quite a good job last Wednesday at Egon’s Jazzbreak gig. Loved the vibe these cats laid down, with a scatting drummer and a slightly psychedelic fusion atmosphere from time to time, that’s how we like it, keep an eye open for Egon!
Been down with them since day one and by what I’ve seen them do last week I can only forsee a bright future for them. Too bad if you’ve missed the gig, but no worries if so, because on-point tv was there, and you know it:
Tonight’s the second gig of the new Jazzbreak season: NToumos More info right here.
Ever since I was told to get on down I’ve been into this underground type of vibe. Literally, can’t nothing beat a good old trip down to the nitty gritty belly of the city - you can say that out loud if you want, three times.
The Brussels network is of course a bit pathetic compared to the real metropoles, but still it’s enjoyable to me. Let’s have a look around though, the underground worldwide. There’s a whole lot of things happening down there!
The best movie made about the underground is probably Marc Singer’s Dark Days. The documentary tells the story of a community living in the New York Amtrak tunnels. Singer spent 5 years of his live capturing their lives on camera and eventually even had to join them when he ran out of funds.
And then there’s the London tube, that might be on a whole other level too, ideal for glocking girls - or so I was told.
As always artists saw the light in Brussels we have our personal favourites: Bonom & Lork’s animated wall at Etterbeek Station (you’re right this one is located above the ground, but you’ll see why it’s in the list when we move on to the next):
The marketing boys quickly adopted the concept and are now investing in them concrete underground walls, can’t blame them for that - they’redoing it in New York so it’s only a matter of time until we’ll see this type of promo in Brussels:
In Paris graffiti veteran Psyckoze claimed his part of the city’s underground and has been working in the tunnels for years:
And then there’s music. Underground music:
To round it up, be warned and don’t fall asleep when rolling through town - sleep is the cousin of death, always keep one eye open:
One can also ski down the longest escalator in Europe, deep down the London underground.
Into the Sao Paulo undergroud with the artist Zezão. Yup, it’s that time again, another underground newsflash, and this time around it’s not about trains, trams, metros or catacombes. We’re talking sewers here. And one artist literraly getting down to the nitty gritty.
Not really a video, but a flash presentation with photos and an audio interview, killer soundscape straight out of the underground. (subtitled in
English)
I’ve loved their live show in Ancienne Belgique early last year, but now that I’ve heard they will do an exclusive full live band show at the upcoming Jazzbreak series in Le Tavernier I’m getting really excited. The idea sure sounds promising to me. That’s April 18, don’t miss out!
It’s safe to presume you’re all big Moodymann fans, so I just had to upload this next video. Kenny Dixon Jr. aka Moodymann holding it down in his own trademark style. Lo-fi footage but Kenny’s killing it when a local cat steps up! “Not you mothafucka!” Brilliant!
Big up digitalovers for capturing these moments! Digitalovers.net soon online peoples!
Most of you are already familiar with the on-point tv channel, broadcasted through the tube. Because of extra posibilities and cooler features overall I decided to take the whole thing to dailymotion as well.
Latest additions: Lefties Soul Connection live at De Kreun and ESG live at Petrol. For the RSS heads, a feed has been added to the list, feel free to subscribe to the video rss feed.
I told you this week would be all about video. Here’s some live footage of Kortrijks freshest funkateers: Brothers On The Run, warming up for The Lefties Soul Connection, shot about a month ago. My apologies for the poor sound quality.
The Brothers will be kickstarting the new Jazzbreak season, March 6th! Don’t miss out on that one, I say!
I gave it my best shot to make this edit a little more exciting than the Moiano live videos (one and two). Lefties Soul Connection playing DJ Shadow’s Organ Donor live at De Kreun in Kortrijk. I hope you can dig it because this capture was quite the one-man-army action, which is kind of ridiculous to do, I realise now. The video is a 10-minute killer, half of it is intro, half of it is the actual track.
Big up to Lefties Soul Connection. Shout out to De Kreun. Whole lotta love to Theborntojazzmovement. And a good day to Thierry Steady Go as well, he’s a jolly good killer promoter and I think he’s rocking the Clark’s Wallabees, which is always a plus, as you will notice in the video!
This is the story of four ghetto sisters in the South Bronx, New York. They went by the name of E.S.G. and gained immortality by making killer music, simply structured and heavy on the bass. All-time classic being Moody.
I won’t get all biographical on you but here’s how allmusic.com puts it: “The four Scroggins sisters — Deborah (bass, vocals), Marie (congas, vocals), Renee (vocals, guitar), and Valerie (drums) — formed a group with the support of their mother, who bought instruments to keep her daughters busy and away from trouble”
The following is a short video of their performance in Petrol, Antwerp last November. Since their debut in the eighties the line-up was changed a few times (male players were kicked out one after the other), the revamped line-up includes Renee Scroggins’ daughters, Nicole and Chistel. Filmed by digitalovers. Huge shout-out for that!
My favorite backing vocalists: Stef Caers & Nina Babet, Live at Jazzbreak last month. Earlier footage was posted right here. Really though, watch them go! Doing it real big with Moiano.
The long-awaited live footage of the legendary Moiano-crew workin’ it out at Jazzbreak last month. Thanks to Peter and the fam, Ugo and the loving Tavernier posse! (More footage might be uploaded later on, for now you get a neat 10 minutes featuring 3 tracks) Dig it:
Especially loving Nina going for hers at around 7 minutes, brilliant! (Don’t forget about the youtube rating system peoples, click the fifth star to rate 5 stars, I know you want to!)
Het was me een gezeul met codecs, cracks en plug-ins maar na uren gezwalp door audiovisuele wateren is het dan toch gelukt: een kort verslag over een expo van Brussels street-artist BlancBecincl. interview met de galerijhouder. Nu online op youtube.com/vicnlloyd, jawel.,
Een interview met de artiest bleek door tijdsgebrek niet mogelijk, maar wie weet wat de nabije toekomst u nog brengt. Voelt u zich ondertussen vrij om de video op uw eigenste blog of site over te nemen (dat doe ik zelf ook altijd, niewaar) For now, a video:
De expo liep begin dit jaar en de reportage kwam tot stand met de aimabele hulp van vrienden-collega’s Jill Mathieu, Cemil Belek, Sammy Follet en Rebecca Joris. Dank ook aan de Brusselse Montana Shop voor de medewerking.
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