Cheebah and all that - Limerick, Ireland

Tourist trappings

‘I'm not a tourist, I live here’ is typed on Dj Adam Whitakers shirt. With typical London brashness he's wearing it here adjacent to the Treaty stone in the midst of weary looking day trippers who grab composed shots of the stone and the Castle together as travel boxes are ticked on two day visits. Adam is on a dedicated short trip also with a box of records that cost more to transport on the plane than himself. When not on tour he resides in the magical land of House music, a special place where he respects the original rules of the WARE-house i.e that funky music must be delivered via an organic dancing manifesto. I pulled a cheesy 80s comp lp from my stash at one stage to get a cheap laugh but in serious tones he says ‘ I grew up with that record’. His yearly trip to the Cheebah house of wax this time extends to a Saturday in the Trinity Rooms where each week the courtyard showcases a different style to complement the mighty Webb in the Main Room.

Each time he vists theres more stuff to offer. Not only just musically representing a distintive London vibe, this guy has made a couple of instrumental-beaty records himself as part of the ‘Unusual and Electric’ crew.These are now i tuned and available to buy online as well as being currently for sale on vinyl from All City in Dublin. A designer and photographer with a eye for detail that extends on ocassion to personally screen printing his record sleves , our man uses these trips to road test product in front of one of his favourite euro crowds.

Caits warming up the crowd in Mickeys cutting funk with tracks DJ Monkleft behind.Wearing a fashionably ripped Cheebah Shirt her look probably had notions of being Debbie Harry but kind of arrived at Debbie Gibson, still a vibrant look though. Adam then steps up, tossing a salad of the Nevilles ‘Hercules’ with Young Mcs and sprinkling a few sounds like Will Powers ‘Adventures in Success’. The main course is rolled out with Sidney Youngbloods ‘if only I could (a polarising classic from the early 90s). This it seems was a big Limerick track judging by the reaction from an older section of the crowd. Some loved it and some didn’t but it was remembered as the start of those halcyon mainstream House years . Everybodys here as a goth trembling version of Bauhaus,s ‘Kick in the eye’ fills the alley and the Dj is playing cupid behind decks to an English guy and Polish woman on a date in a peep show kinda way. Now bring on the dancing Adam and watch as he whips up chunks of pumping quirkiness that alternate between reggae tinged breaks and house before his own tracks and cheeky bootegs are wheeled out (Candi station with ‘Crazy’ and a daft Queen one spluttered in the mix) Our Dj had just finished a 90s house night in London recently and brought that energy and a few of those records over with him notably a storming D Train cover. The rain stayed away but the crowd didn’t, making it a very busy night for “team mickeys’ as glass pint towers swayed to that ‘Break my stride’ song thing he always finishes up in Limerick with.

Nuns and monk getdown

 
Cheebah presents Dj Monk one in Mickey Martins Sat june 21
I had never realised the striking resemblence Dj John Greenwood has to Oliver Reed in his 1970s prime. Tonight, after sidesteping waves of stag parties around town I led Dj Monk One to Augustinian Lane. ‘What ever we see when we round this corner will determine the vibe of the night‘, I offered hopefully as a form of reassurance. There in the alley stands Greenwood staring back at me in the middle of an aviary of Nuns. The attention to detail by these women on a Hen night has allowed the scene to reflect a tableaux as a recreatation of Ken Russells ‘The Devils’ starring our own version of Oliver Reed here resplendent as the films potent priest.
Inside Peter Curtin was soundtracking the Holland and Russian match with leftfield hiphop and shards of latin horns over the shouts of Iggy the Latvian bar controller whose match this was. Lets just do it all tonight then, the Match, the music, the madstuff. Mistakenly a cleaned up group of football fans wandered in and after deducing that they had entered the beginning of something going down, they reclamped jaws and bolted to a more traditional stage. A mumbled appreciative outgoing comment by one of them to our transsexual in resident Cait made her night and sprinkled some goodwill as this disparate crowd began to gell. More feathered boas arrived and more make up became smudged as Father Greenwood now wearing spiked latex headgear of some sort (‘its not a rash, ok’) welcomed all and sundry to this rain splattered fiesta.

Monk cues up some mid nineties Hip hop bangers and begins to limber up, scanning the crowd. Sure, there are a couple of heads posted round the box checking out the yank with his impecable Waxpoetics credentials but its not really that type of thing any more, everybodys here to get down and reputations gotta be flexible when you're in this spot. Our Mans early sounds tonight were party rockers that immediately loosened up the swinging Hens. There was that Saturday night craziness to stoke before the groove became his own. Another disciple of this approach would be Cool Dj Marv who is no stranger to our town and its no surprise that these two are best pals. There was some tidy building going on the decks as the classics became punctuated with obscure bits of raw funk and 8os untill the flag of Disco Boogie was unfurled .This is the reason Cheebah and Mickeys treated ourselves to a visit from monk, for the chance to listen to pure New York city Gold as part of an educated party set as well as spreading the word on a Saturday night.

The games you play

The Games you play. Sound by Wax Tailor directed by Tenas from Tenas on Vimeo. Voice who rocked Limerick earlier this month is on a new track "The Games You play" with Parisien producer Wax tailor. I'm trying this platform, if it doesn't work for you try youtube link here.

Adam returns

After his last successful visit, DJ Adam returns this weekend, Mickeys on Friday night and Trinity Rooms on Saturday. Support from Cait. Full size poster here.

back by dope demand

More sauce, photo by Paul Tarpey

Vinyl

Nice short piece from Last Light Films on record shops in Dublin. Concentrating on freebird and Sound Cellar, think this might have been on TV. Features Goldy, worth watching. Thanks to colz and doobs for the heads up.

Shane

Balls

It is two years now since photographer Deirdre Power captured four men playing cricket on a side street in the heart of Limerick city centre. The image which appeared in EV+A symbolised an imminent image change for the sport in Ireland. Since then we have had the Ireland world cup story and now local gardai are getting involved with the Limerick cricket cup in running a 6 a side 10 over cricket competition in UL next month. They are looking for participants to represent as many countries as possible. Full details here.

Also looking for participants is a slimmed down version of hurling, called hurling cubed. It comes to Limerick on the 17th to the 19th of July in Arthurs Quay. According to An Fear Rua along with the four cubes there will be a DJ arena! If you want to check how it is played you can see Limerick's Aoife Sheehan play it in Gameball an online sports show, that she presents. Watch it here on youtube or much higher quality stream here (episode6).

Apart from that may not be much more to look forward to on the hurling front this year, (although bookies today making Limerick 40-1 to win outright seems ridiculously long odds). For a number of reasons I didn't make it to Thurles so it gave me a good opportunity to turn on the TV, kill the sound and listen to radio commentaries. I decided to leave RTE 1 out this time and instead moved between the locals. Clare FM had three on the mic with Jamsie O'Connor proving some of the analysis. Not really matching the comic or indeed passionate heights reached by Matthew McMahon, it was still worthwhile if only for the rapid fire commentary which sometime came into play. Over on Live 95, Liam Ahern is now in the slot previously occupied by Mal Keaveny. Very slick and professional, Ahern keeps the flow going with very little dead air. His analytical side kick on Sunday was TJ Ryan. Shortly after the second half began TJ confidently declared that Limerick were now getting their gander up. Within five minutes Clare had two goals and that goose was cooked. However my favourite duo came from community station West Limerick 102. Ger Downes and John Fitzgerald, with their commentary (not Daddy Freddy but fast), on point analysis and tremendous passion and energy are two that I will return to again. Hopefully they will be working right through August.

Shane

Monk One in Mickeys

Wax Poetics editor Monk One comes to Ireland this weekend. In Ri Ra on friday he plays in Mickey Martins on Saturday. Big gig, check some of the great podcasts and mp3s available over here. As with all Mickey Martin gigs- admission is free.

Shane

Cait in Copenhagen

Excellent article by Paul Tarpey in this stylish Copenhagen magazine on DJ Cait Collins. To read it click here and go to page 76.

Shane

Voice in Leader

Great gig from Voice in Cornmarket last Saturday week. Really enjoyable vibe and we have some great photos. First set of shots up now on myspace. Some videos to follow. In the run up to her gig the Limerick Leader ran a large feature on Voice. An edited version of the exclusive interview that Alan Owens did with Voice appeared in the weekender. Here we have the full version

Interview with Erin Toure aka Voice by Alan Owens of the Limerick Leader Newspaper

 

Alan Owens: How was the gig last night (in Paris)?

 

Voice: Oh it was crazy, it was a packed house. Tons of people, tons of energy and the Olympia is this huge venue so it was amazing to be on the same stage that Tina Turner and James Brown have appeared on.

 

AO: What kind of a show will you be bringing to Limerick?

 

V: The show that I am bringing is a classic hip-hop set, I have a DJ and a height man who also doubles as my backing vocalist, he sings as well. It will be high energy with lots of soul and tons of lyrics, precision lyrics - that is what it means to me. There will also be Moonstar who is my DJ as well as being my co-label owner, his label helped put out my record. He is one of my long-time collaborative partners, we have been working together since 2001. So it will be high energy, lots of entertainment and lyrics.

 

AO: Lyrics are very important to you it seems, you rap about real issues - life and the world and hip hop itself?

 

V: Yeah, stories - telling a story is very important to me, whether it is my story or a story I see you know? It needs to come back, at least for me - that is what made me fall in love with this music in the first place. It was just like wow they are our modern day Ginsberg and James Baldwins - you know, you can do it over a beat and get people's attention and really say something - that is what it is really about for me at least.

 

AO: You seem to rap a bit about anything and everything?

 

V: I'm a studier of people, so I guess I am kind of like a rap psychologist - I really like watching people and seeing what they produce in each situation. So sometimes it is stories of relationships - I'm a mother so sometimes it is about family, you know, struggling, I know what it is like to be a hungry artist trying to make it. We are just being open about how you feel because I think that is lacking in hip-hop - there is this wall up and for me as a woman I kind of get a free pass to be expressive because people don't really expect that from men, and I guess as a woman it flies through a lot easier.