Three on a Thursday #169

Went to see good buddies of the blog, The Allergies, at their triumphant live gig at Bristol’s Colston Hall last Friday – an epic time was had by all, and afterwards, there was a proper spotter-fest at Cosies, with all sorts of oddities and rarities being spun by DJ Format, aided and abetted by local vinyl pusher and fount of all things record related, John  Stapleton. Some of these may, let’s face it, will, feature below.

Its rare when I’m at a gig and can’t recognise 50% of the tunes being played, or at least which samples the track is using, but the DJ Format set had me foxed, and was one of the best selected sets of eclectic beats and breaks I’ve heard in a very long time.

One of the tracks which mashing styles left, right and centre was the Hank Shocklee produced Son of Bazerk with Change the Style– all early 90’s electro tinged hip-hop, smashed together with a huge sample of Yellowman’s 1983 dancehall reggae track, ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt‘, random doo-wop vocals with a random punk metal outro a la Bad Brains. Odd but brilliant.

The second track this week is also from DJ Format’s set and sums up the genre-hopping that was going on, with this one being a cracking slice of Brazilian Jazz from Som Tres. Homenagem A Mongo. Kicking of with a wonderfully crisp break, all congos and cowbell over a kick and snare, it opens up with a blistering brass blast, before building to a groove straight out of Bullit.

I’m a sucker for a good cover, especially when it’s taking a *really* popular track and doing something a bit mental with it. This week I’ve dug up an EPIC ska cover of the global smash Toxic, by the one and only Britney Spears. This is the Bluebeaters with Toxic (One Drop Version)