Friday Night Smack Down

I had already been on xbox live, played Black Ops and pinball so drew for the vodka jelly.
Also, I am way to polite to my neighbours. I NEVER play music past like 8 so that's gonna stop. Tired of hearing the chick next door play her tinny stereo at 8am when im trying to sleep.

SOOOOO this wasnt planned at all. Just stood there and picked out tracks according to the tempos. Few loops, couple of bad transitions but this stuff is hard to mix!

The download is right here. Under 60mb so you should get that quick.

Please share this with your friends if you like it or know me. Ill pay you £1 no lies.

Put it on your facebook/tweet it/burn it and leave it in your chicks car, whatever. Im easy (like your moms!)

Friday Night Smackdown By Ray Juss From Brokenhomes.Co.Uk by Brokenhomes on Mixcloud

Friday NIght Smack Down
Tracklist

Heard It All Before - Sunshine Anderson
Speed - DJ Spinna
Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See - Busta Rhymes
09 Freesyle - Gigz - Hollowman & Dubz
Experiment 2 - NAMELESS
Accordion - Madvillain
African Walk (Zamunda) - Madlib
Love Is Sold - DJ Spinna
Real - Gum Drops, The
braketime (mndsgn's sequel) - devonwho
Eple - Röyksopp
I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) - Hall & Oates
Personal Information - Jimmy Edgar
Ambling Alp - Yeasayer
Hater - Various Artists
Gettin Money - Jim Jones
Bopgunn - Heralds of Change feat. Olivier Daysoul - Heralds of Change feat. Olivier Daysoul
Soul Stew - Leonard Dstroy
Aint No Sunshine - Instrumental - Espen Horne
Witness (1 Hope) - Roots Manuva
Get It Right - Madlib
Aim For Your Goals - Ty
Yeah. - jonwayne

CLICK HERE OR ILL CARRY ON EATING THE SOULS OF BABY PANDAS

Not really an update, just more proof that I/We are pretty lazy. :)

I got this rootmusic thing like 4 months ago, way before myspace renamed its self my_ (that is lame) and way before people started wetting themselves about deleting it. Ours is still up, its free, don't cost me anything!

But I have now updated the Brokenhomes facebook page with the bandpage details. Which means you can track all our activities in one place. Share it with your enemies. We need some haters!

Keep it grimey/funky/wonky and most of all WANKY.

Brokenhomes in Miami - the lost footage

Here is more evidence that if we ever did music full time. It would last about 2 years. 2 guys, dressed up drinking 40s in a hotel room in Downtown Miami

Aint No Sunshine....

I text my brother on Friday afternoon as I knew he didnt have to go an work for the man and I was gonna see if he was going to come over later for xbox sessions and then he just asked me where to send a clip of a track. This was the result.

Ain't No Sunshine (Brokenhomes crying in the corner reshape) by BrokenHomes V2.0

My School Disco Mix

Back when I were a lad, we all used to go to the school disco to play tag 'coz we (I) were scared of girls. I used to enjoy the whole daylightness of it all. In Primary school I spent ALOT of time doing the running man and in secondary school, generally running away from girls.

But getting back on topic, the music was usually rubbish at these things and I would always wait for the jungle segment of the night. This is where I would do my best 2 step to about 2 overly played jungle tracks and then go and sit down and get harassed by some girl saying 'my mate fancies you'

So tonight I dug in the archives of what I have knocking around on Serato and came up with this mix. 2nd mix in 2 days. CRAZY. Ill do a real school disco mix one day. I know for sure it would include Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice.

My School Disco By Ray Juss From Brokenhomes by Brokenhomes on Mixcloud

Tracklisting

Criminal Minds - Baptised By Dub
Champion Sound (Alliance - Q Project
Spiritual Aura - Engineers Without Fears
Helicopter - Deep Blue
Calling The People - ZONE
Sing It Loud - DJ Vibes
Terrorist - Renegade Feat. Ray Keith
Maximum Style - Tom & Jerry-O
Angles - Krust
Roll On - Andy C
Friday - Capone
P-Funk Era - P-Funk
MA2 - Hearing Is Believing
Style - M-Beat
Valley of the shadows - Origin Unknown

CLICK HERE FOR THE DOWNLOAD OR SOME KITTENS WILL GET IT

The Jelly Brandy Mix

So I got bored and made strawberry jelly with half a pint of brandy. It had been sitting in the fridge for a while so I decided to attack it. Put half of it in a bowl and poured Hazelnut Baileys over the top

I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS!

Anyway, got a bit vibes up and had a mix. Wanted to beat match so kept to the skills I know, here it is. Download link after the stream if you want to pop it on a CD/mobile music player

The Jelly Brandy Mix By Ray Juss From Brokenhomes by Brokenhomes on Mixcloud

Tracklist

Purple City - Joker & Ginz
Get Along Gang - Wiley
Standard Procedure - Live-O & Sticky
Try A Ting - DJ Shorty & DJ Brownin
1999 - Groove Chronicles
20k - Project Midnight
Tonka - Jammin
Bongo Madness - Youngstar
Eastern Jam - Chase & Status
Can You Feel The Bassline - M-Dubs
Stiff - Terror Danjah
G.A.R.A.G.E (DJ Narrows Remix) - MC Neat & Scott Garcia
Gloop - Zomby
Radar - Terror Danjah
Taplin - Wiley
MAD - Magnetic Man
Believe Me (DJ Faz Remix) - DJ Wire
Sound Of Da Future - Menta
Bombscare (Original Version) - 2 Bad Mice

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD OR ILL FINGER YOUR MOMS

Punch in the face

This is the inspiration behind this beat I guess. I don't know but it feels pretty woozy. Keeping things moving with the beats and the posts. Call it the end of year burst.

When You Get Punched In The Face by BrokenHomes V2.0

Long time no post bitches...

Yeah its been a long time, I shouldnt have left you... without a dope beat to step to...

But anyways, not much actually has been happening in the Brokenhomes world. Louis' computer is about to breakdown and my fingers don't want to go near the MPC. Troubled times? Perhaps.

We keep it moving... so with that, here is a brand new experimental beat from the kid himself. Writing this in a 7/4 time signature it goes everywhere. 2 minutes to hear it.

When Bronze Turns Blue by BrokenHomes V2.0

We still <3 all y'all so love us back and I'll write more interesting stories

John Peel - Grime Show 2004 - Live on Radio 1

So grime has been around forever and I guess it will be for even more time but even back in 2004 it was making waves. The inspirational John Peel featured a live Grime segment on his show in 2004 with DJs Eastwood and DJ Krafty. It also featured the lyrical talents of MC Purple, GEE, IE and IQ.

Most of the music on this blog is connected to me and at the 51 minute mark of the set is the Pulse X refix that I made and sent out like wild fire. It was later re bootlegged and released as Pulse Xtra but ill write a story about that one day

DOWNLOAD FROM THIS LINK HERE.

Its been a long time - Brokenhomes do Miami (and eat alot of food)

So its been way over a month since my last post and I have a genuine reason for the laziness.



Pre tense.

Anyway, we the brothers Peakes, Brokenhomes were invited to a wedding on a cruise ship starting off in Miami. We knew it was going to be fun and if you is my friend on facebook y'all ready seen all the pics of the food and everything else that happened in Miami and on the cruise. This late write up is just on the musical slant as per usual.



So this is where we stayed in Downtown Miami. Our family was all up by the airport so we tried to stay somewhere in the middle. Mother of the Brothers Peakes was not to happy about us staying Downtown. She was probably correct, Downtown Miami aint the most exclusive place in the world compared to South Beach but it did its job. PLUS, it was opposite the best/worst takeaway I have ever been to.



CHECKERS <<<<<<<<<< CLICK LINK

Well, that was our resting and eating sorted. (also must make a special mention to S & S Diner, check the reviews. Place was toppa top) As we were not in the party zone/main tourist area of Miami, we decided to have a little stroll over Venetian Causeway one day. That was a tough walk. Check the image for distances and directions.



Daytimes were not a musical affair, although we did listen to alot of Benny Sings



When we did venture over to South Beach for the party, the first night we ended up in this horrible place CAMEOS expensive and gash. What wound me up the most was the DJs girlfriends in the DJ box doing all them lame hand movements. Gash. The music was electro I think, it was the music that is pretty much the same. Build up, drop, electronic bass line, DJs girlfriend moves her hands. We lasted 30 minutes in this club. $20 very well wasted.

The second club we partied in was Mangos Tropical Cafe. We came to party with the Canadian girls (one was celebrating her birthday and was coming on the cruise). We got to the party real late as we were drinking 40s in the hotel room... WHAT?!? BROKENHOMES LIKES TO DRANK!



This club was much better, they played a good selection of rap/rnb and reggaeton (I hate reggaeton). South Beach clubbing is different to London clubbing, only because when we tried to do the cheesy 'ooo ooo' no-one followed up!

The rest of the trip was spent on the Cruise Ship, the thing was huge. Here is a pic of the map they hand out when you get on board. When you see it and then start walking around it you appreciate how much work goes into these floating hotels



We spent most of our late nights in the nightclub on board with a DJ that hated his life. He would play the same music eveeery night and not even mix. Just play solitaire on the other pc. Ah well.

He did make this jam the song of the holiday though



We would like to go cruising and Miami again so if there is anyone that would like to sponsor us, please get in touch :)

Brokenhomes Vs Bollywood

Im at the work place and just checked pon the Facebook and seen there is a new jam for all y'all to listen to on the soundcloud.

Brand new remix of a Bollywood track with probably the best track title you will hear this year

Show me your Jalwa - GreedyKid's Enlivening Body Gel Feat Guarana, ginger and Organic Bergamot

Show me your Jalwa - GreedyKid's Enlivening Body Gel Feat Guarana, ginger and Organic Bergamot by BrokenHomes V2.0

Dubplate Drama - Season 1, Episode 8 - A G.C.S.E in Japanese will give you cool titles

Side A1 - Imosheroy produced by Greedykid

Apparently, the title of this track is a Japanese word. Google cannot find it so that goes that story out the window. Dance music always has strange names. At the height of Greedykid's production there was tracks like this coming out once a week. Its hard to put this track in with much else. Heavy hiphop esq drums but programmed in a slowed down UK Garage style. Its not a reload track but it is a nice piece of music.



Side A2 - Shizuka produced by Greedykid

Shizuka is another Japanese word. This one is a bit more popular in the ol' search results. My fave result was this one here. Brokenhomes are keen fans of Anime, (Fist of The North Star) Shizuka sounds like Godzilla made out of Meccano rigged up to the national grid. The bass is like Zilla sweeping down and chewing up some buildings. Empty sparse production, plenty of room for you to fill the gaps with your mind or new skanks.



Side B1 - Allstars Instrumental produced by Ray Juss

Most of what needs to be said was done so here. Here was the popular instrumental version. A hiphop 'stroke' Garage jam built for MCs before they started thinking about making rap tracks.



Side B2 - Grimey Hip Hop produced by Greedykid

This was a beat Louis had that was never finished or was ever going to be finished. Its just one of those loop tracks. All it needs is a vocal and it turns into an instant classic (somewhere). The noise after 16 bars is actually made from phone tones. Maybe it could dial people?! 555-....

Dubplate Drama - Season 1, Episode 7 - Where it all began

Side A - Intro Vol 1 produced by Ray Juss

So this is where it all started. This was the very very first dubplate I ever cut and I will always remember it because of the day I cut it, a terrible terrorist act was happening across the pond. Music House was the most famous cutting shop in the world for a while. It was based in Holloway behind a Taxi mechanics. It all pretty much worked on a word of mouth basis. All I knew was, get there early or your going to have to wait ages. The day I went was 9/11. The 9/11. All that didn't really kick off until my plate was cut and I was on my way home.

Intro 1 was based on the popular soca beat garage tunes like Decoy. I wanted my own to carry that same sort of energy. Guess that's how you want to start a set. UK Garage times anyway. Unfortunately for me and me also being a bit of a shy boy, this dub was cut all on one channel. Makes it more collectable but not every good for playing out. I don't have to worry about that now with the advent of Serato.

The track also features the trademark speak and spell letters spelling out my name. Loads of other weird sounds knocking around in this as well. Think there are some Timbaland esq bird sounds too.



Side B - Baby produced by Ray Juss

Baby was a re working of a garage track at the time which was pretty easy to dissemble. This is how I learnt/got into the remixing side of music. I would take the existing parts of the track. Samples, vox, drum kit and re work it into my own style. When I listen back on this, I don't really like it but it was pretty popular at the time. Maybe I'm getting old! This track gets pretty frantic. Classic memory from this is when a DJ called Spin-e-b cut it and played it on Ice FM. My brother and I was dancing round the stereo on a Saturday afternoon!

Dubplate Drama - Season 1, Episode 6 - Re Work a (not so) Classic

Side A - Me Leave (Believe Me) Bootleg produced by Unknown

The original track was part of the 8 bar revolution that was kicking off in garage all started by this track. DJ EZ really got behind this track and it probably set DJ Wire up for the musical career he has now. This tune was being handed out by the guy at the cutting house. I didn't have anything to cut and on a whim decided to cut the bootleg because it sounded good out loud. I hardly played as I really like the original and DJ Faz mix.



Side B - Gotta Find A Way (Liberty X) remixed by Ray Juss

Up the road from me was a studio called 206, that was the number of the shop it was in. The guy who ran it managed to get hold of some Liberty X parts for a remix they wanted doing. As I was always round the studio, he gave me the acapella. Within a day of two I had made a 4x4 and 2 step remix. The 4x4 mix seems to be lost but I really liked the 2 step version I did and decided to cut it. The remix never got picked up but was fun process.

For a DJ, I dont do many mixes...But I'm working on it

So my life is pretty hectic in my crazy little mind. It's like I'm too busy to do anything but in reality... my flat is comfortable and I enjoy the silence.

But the other day, after my consignment of new CDs I thought id make a mix for practice.

Uploaded to the ever growing mixcloud site, you can stream and tell all your buddies about me

Uk Garage Todd Edwards/Tuff Jam/New Horizons Mix by Rayjuss on Mixcloud

Hit that play button!!

Dubplate Drama - Season 1, Episode 5 - Team Sports

Side A - B4 Its Ova produced by Ray Juss

This was another track I made on a Saturday afternoon. I had the parts of this knocking around for a while. The vocal came from an RnB acapella record someone had left round my house. Interested in finding it to see what it sounds like now. The other obvious sample of you ever followed UK Garage is the 'Wookie' Organ on top of the bass line. Later found out it was a stock sound from the Roland JV sound module. I spent a lot of time working the vocal chops into a whole new song. Works for me.



Side B1 - Slugger produced by Greedykid

Slugger is one of those tracks that if I ever lost it, I would be deeply upset. My ears dont really tollerate rubbish music and I try to stay impartial to all the music we have made. I wasnt one for cutting crap tunes. Hence the reason only a few other tracks make it into dubplate drama. But to think, this track was made by a 15 year old almost a decade ago is scary. The break downs, sparse drums, atmospheric element to the track. It could be early dubstep, it could be a branch of UK Garage. You could even get wanky and throw IDM at it. Whatever you want, Slugger (and its better never to cut remix Slugger Unleashed) will remain a Brokenhomes classic.



Side B2 - Who's Next? produced by Greedykid

You are probably aware of Benga's track 26 Bass lines. Where the tracks bass riff changes every 8 bars?? Well this was of the same ilk, but for MCs. The MCing element was just becoming prevalent in UK Garage with the likes of The Heartless Crew from North London, The Pay As You Go Crew from East and North West's very own BVC (Black Vinyl Crew). Every 16 bars, a new MC gets called in and given a different bass line. An almost hip hop/grime/garage track.

Dubplate Drama - Season 1, Episode 4 - The toy that spoke the future?

Side A - Intro Vol 2 produced by Ray Juss

Intro dub plates were made very very famous in garage by DJ EZ, this record alone could make 2000 people scream very loudly. As these stories are not in chronological order (obviously, this is vol 2) my second intro dub plate was much different from my first. The track spells out my DJ name at the time, which was Outraygeous. I sampled the letters from an actual Speak and Spell that a friend lent me. Some of those letter have been dropped from my name now. DJ names sound like super hero names to me so I tried to get one as close to day job name of a super hero.. Tony Starks, Clark Kent, Bruce Banner... you get my drift.
Intro 2 took a 4x4 route again and was more of a pumping track. If you listen really carefully you can hear a camera shutter sound inside the beat. Yeah, I had a lot of time on my hands back then. There was also an acapella of the spelling of my name at the end of the track which I used as a DJ tool now and again.



Side B - Impossible to Belive (sp) produced by Ray Juss

Impossible to Belive or Believe as its meant to be was probably a bit out there once again. Big tracks around this time was like Sweet Female Attitude - Flowers and soft 'girly garage' as it was known on the pirates. I, wasn't into that... at all. So, I made a track with the sound of someone walking alone and the sickest most droniest bass line I could find. I once played this at a pub and the bass was so loud from the track, the speaker stack fell over. Wobbly bass lines are all the rage now.

Creation date of this track? End of 2001 early 2002, maybe I could see the future?

Dubplate Drama - Season 1, Episode 3 - Like a 4x4 Truck

Side A - Roofer produced by Philosopha

This weeks episode is a single sided affair. The deal with cutting dubs at Music House (where this one was done) was if you paid your £25, you were paying for the actual plate so you could come back and get the other side cut when you needed to. I never got anything cut on the other side...

Before Louis came up with the name Greedykid, he was making tracks under the moniker Philosipha. I cannot for the life of me remember where this name came from but, it didn't stick.

This is a rare excursion into the 4x4 sound for Louis, heavily shuffled beats made once again on the decrepit laptop that is now languishing in the top shed under all of Mom's junk. This track got its first spin on Lush FM 107.6 when I had Laze Breaks hosting the show. I'm sure my brother told his friends whilst he was at school that his music was going to be played.
This one is tricky to mix because of the potential 'over shuffle' but still a classic in every way.

Dubplate Drama - Season 1, Episode 2 - Bring 'em in

Side A - Jeopardy produced by Greedykid

Louis/Greedykid/Brokenhomes V2.0 or whatever name he goes by now features for the first time here. He was about 14/15 when he made this track using an old laptop that was given to my mom by our family friend Tommy. The laptop was so old that it only had a 6GB hard drive. That's retro! When this track was only a few tracks coming out that used a distorted 808 as a bass line. Also the use of 'live' drums was just coming into the garage scene with the likes of DJ Zinc starting the whole 'breakbeat garage' sound and the Bingo Label. As you can tell from the start of this track, I've played it a good few times. One of my favourite Greedykid beats.



Side B1 - Slimey produced by V2G

Now Slimey was made by one of the best MCs out of North West London, Versa. Not only did Vers now how to command a dance, he was pretty nifty on the beats. We would spend hours making stuff on my MPC back in the day. He would bring round cassettes of samples we had found and we would create proto grime tracks. Its a shame that Serato and CDJs were not around back then. Slimey wasn't made at my studio but when Versa played me that track it was like..'I'm cutting that!' The drums bang, just a shame the bass line didn't hold up to well on the dubplate.



Side B2 - Musical produced by Ray Juss

Round this time there was a fad for beat less tracks. It all stemmed from the 'devils mix' of Eskimo by Wiley, where a strong riff could stand out and be a tool for the MCs to really go in on a track. My personal favourite was the creeper bass mix. A friend of mine had it on plate but only because the guy at the cutting house let him cut a copy. You see the person cutting the tunes would sometimes be left the CDs of 'masters' and it was down to him if he wanted to share them. More times, they would. The sample for Musical was picked up off a library music CD I picked up in my local cash converters. Its just a quick loop and I used it as a tool for switching between tracks. Its pretty effective.

Dubplate Drama - Season 1, Episode 1 - Sample Heavy

Side A - Perfect produced by Ray Juss

This track was a cut up of a few Todd Edwards tracks. At the time I was experimenting with the 4x4 side of garage and to be honest, stealing other peoples sounds and trying to make them my own. Perfect was something I was pretty proud of at the time and decided to cut it although it didn't really fit into the type of garage I was playing at the time. This track also featured on my only vinyl release, Rushgroove Vol 1. This dubplate version has an extra set of hi hats in it making it a kind of exclusive.



Side B - All Stars (Full Vocal Mix) produced by Ray Juss

Round the time of making this, there was a fashion for making multi drop tunes as made famous buy the Pay As You Go crew and DJ Slimzee. I wanted to have my own type but I used acapellas from records I had that would fit in the garage tempo. The beat was fashioned from a Lil Kim record that I heard out in Canada whilst on holiday and the spin back between each vocal was an idea of a friend of mine, Amish. He came round on the Saturday I was making it and from there it stuck. The instrumental version became quite famous getting plays on Choice FM from DJ Chrissy G. Oh and the 'outraygeous' vocal sample came from one of those Stephen Hawkins esq computer programs!

(Out)Ray Juss is the starter of great debates

Pretty good forum if you click here. A lot of the influential people of the music game comment and debate over there. I hit em up with the big ol' debate about those black discs made of wax/plastic.

Brokenhomes, not only good at making food disappear but well versed in igniting intelligent debate ;)

Christmas has come early (?) or Santa was late (?) (Like me)

Good things come to those who wait, or you see a banner on ebay and some company is giving away 500 business cards. That's what really happened.

I got 500 made up with email and web details printed on them, didn't put my number on because spam is so much easier to ignore than a couple of bored teenagers on a Sunday night. (We've all done a few prank calls in our time... aint we?)

If you get handed one, well done... if you find one... it will probably be on the floor of a chicken shop

*walks off singing* 'Juss gimme that 2 for 2...'

Dubplate Drama - New Season

You may or may not of seen on my to-do list but I wanted to do a regular feature sooo here is one of them. Dubplate Drama is not the TV show but a historic look back at some of the dubplates I have sitting around.

Dubplate (from wikipedia) - A dubplate is an acetate disc — usually 12 inches, 10 inches or 7 inches in diameter — used in mastering studios for quality control and test recordings before proceeding with the final master, and subsequent pressing of the record to be mass produced on vinyl. The "dub" in dubplate is an allusion to the plate's use in "dubbing" or "doubling" the original version of a track. The name dubplate also refers to an exclusive, 'one-off' acetate disc recording pioneered by Reggae sound systems but also used by drum and bass and other dance music artists, DJs and sound systems.

Ill be going through adding a little story to the plate and giving the track away for download recorded from the dubplate with all its crusty glory. These records are unique, one off's and each one of these records cost £25. Some of these records were cut at either the world famous Music House in Holloway or Liquid Mastering in Staples Corner.

I hope these stories will give you an insight into how tunes come around and the production process that goes into it.

Keep an eye out for Season 1, Episode 1

The TO DO list. (In OCD format for your viewing pleasure)

So in true disorganised fashion I decided to have a brainstorm (I am aware this word is now un-pc). I sat in a room today at work away from everyone else on a rare internal lunch break and made this list of things I need to do.

Parts are what I need to do to get others involved but that's a whole different story.

Whilst it was good for getting all these ideas down, it wasn't all that great for productivity in the day job. I hear girls suffer from email fatigue more than guys. I suffer from 'answer/fix/tell me/will you/can you/is it possible to/do/this/that' fatigue.

June 23rd - 11am Flight departs from Heathrow...

(I dont have OCD by the way, maybe a lil... perhaps..)

That Was...11th March 2010 Run down

Just getting round to doing this write up, has been a busy week-ish in the world of brokenhomes.

That Was... took place last Thursday at one of the best styled venues in NW London, The Gallery, Hendon. Location is probably lacking but you cannot fault the interior. Anyway, due to some unfortunate circumstances, Lazy Eye from the Black Vinyl Crew had to pull out. (we with you brother). I called the venue and let them know that I would like to start the event at 8pm. I got the all clear so got everything set.

On reaching the venue, I wrote out the guest list for the evening downstairs whilst having a cup of tea and going through the texts and emails from the week with names.

After all that was done, I popped upstairs to check the system. Technology seems to have something against me at the moment. The left deck had no slip mat and then on further examination, it was only pumping out the left channel. So to remedy this I made both decks play one channel and pumped the volume up. DJ Leisure brought a spare slip mat which was lucky and we sorted out the CD decks whilst no one was in the venue.

As it stared early it stayed empty for a while. My brother, Greedykid/Louis/brokenhomes v2.0 turned up. He wanted to have a quick clang/mix so I decided to let him take over. Turns out that he did the first set up until 9pm. His first ever play out. I stepped up from 9 and luckily as Louis and I were working from the same bag, he didn't play all the A-Sides. From the DJ box I could see the venue slowly filling up. It wasn't going to be a road block affair as I hardly promoted it. It was a Facebook and word of mouth thing only. By the end of my set, just after 10, we had hit maximum which was 60 people. Pretty good for a venue which is normally closed on a Thursday and just a local word of mouth promotion. I was told by the head doorman that a promoter came in and brought 3 people the last week. #epicfail.

Next DJ was Grumpy aka Steve James aka Solo G. He provided the soundtrack up until 11pm. DJ Leisure stepped up after going home to get more CDs! As he was playing CDs, he played last as he was going to be the loudest DJ of the night. After some unplugging and plugging back in we got the CDs working again. I don't know how they stopped working. It was a good plan as by 12 we had some people on the dance floor.

Feedback from the evening was it was a real good get together and people were asking me if I would do another one. I probably would but I think for that venue to be a success, there would have to be a compromise in my music integrity and I'm not sure if I could do that. We shall see, its a big moral question.

Big thanks to everyone who came through.

Brainfeeder March 10th 2010 Run down

As we got into the trilogy of Brainfeeder events, the location had moved from the Hearne Street car park to the old abattoir, Fabric nightclub. The line up (as you can see from the flyer) was pretty nuts. During the week I got an email telling me that the event had been fully sold out and with that they furnished me with the set times.



NOSAJ THING (LIVE)
21.00-21.30
TOKIMONSTA (LIVE)
21.30-22.00
DIMLITE (LIVE)
22.00-22.30
GASLAMP KILLER
22.30-23.15
DAEDELUS (LIVE)
23.15-00.00
FLYING LOTUS (LIVE)
00.00-01.00
J ROCC
01.00-02.00
DORIAN CONCEPT (LIVE)
02.00-02.30
MARTYN B2B KODE 9
02.30-CLOSE

There was a change up in set times as Tokimonsta was up first. We walked into the venue shouting, DRAPPPPPPPESSS and CLEAAAAARRRRRRRR from Tempa T's new track Next Hype. Toki was laying the beats down pretty thick. She grabbed the mic and asked everyone to come closer which was really sweet. Tokimonsta is less animated than the other live beat performers that I have seen but the power was all in the beats. Her set finished and the next live show was coming from Nosaj Thing on the other side of the stage. Now I am aware of this guys work but only through previews from Boomkat so I was pretty interested in hearing this guy get down. We were not disappointed. He moved from banger to banger with the fluid Flying Lotus esq body snap that comes with these type of digtal sludge music. His set was unfortunately interrupted buy a technical failure. Checking out his twitter, looks like his MPD had failed him. It was a brief rest bite and kicks and snares were banging through the meaty Fabric sound system in a matter of seconds. A lot of NEXT HYPESSS and CLEARRRRS were being let off from the BROKENHOMES boys.

Next up was the shy beat smith who goes by the name of Dimlite. He approached his equipment hooded up but not in an aggressive way. More to shield himself from the eyes of the crowd. He picked up headphones which is not normal for anyone from this scene and then sang on his first track. Dimlite's music isnt as hype as some of the other beat makers. The tempo is reduced but the bass... increased! This stuff can make you feel drunk. Its so wooozy but I really got into it. Gaslamp touched mic to heat up the set and Dimlite moved into his final tracks. It was only due to an incorrect button push that Dimlite's set ended. I think he had another few minutes left in him. He shied away from the crowd and thanked us.

Up on the Serato was The Mother Fucking Gas Lamp Killer! We were waiting on this set because he always brings the heat to the dance. We also wondered if he would play Unicron's Toothache and what our reaction would be. It was agreed that some girls would get punched in the face if it came on! He started off with some incidental music to clear our heads and slowly moved into the wobble-fest. I had never seen him so animated, he was running up and down the stage and doing some serious moshing. It was nuts, that energy just transferred into the crowd! He hit us with a VIP version of Chase and Status' Eastern Jam and some tune with Take me higher sample. It was madness. After the wobble fest he brought us into the rock and roll side of the set and then showcased his track with Warp records latest signing, Gonjasufi. He hit us with Cowboys and Indians of the album which is out now. The set came to a close after he went back to playing the beats, probably one of the most memorable DJ sets I will ever see.

Deadalus was ready to start on his custom light box playing all sorts of beats. Now its pretty hard to follow on from The GLK and for us boys it showed. Not that we didn't enjoy it but we knew what we wanted to hear and the constant teasing of tracks and multiple layers was a bit too much for our ears. He did sneak in a little bit of Red and Yellow toys and some other things I noticed but they never got a full play out.

This was all a pre cursor to the main man behind Brainfeeder, The Flying Lotus. Now the last time I saw him, I wasn't that interested. He played a lot of dubstepy stuff that I wasn't feeling and I had that 'play something we know' head on. FlyLo has made some certified classics in this scene. Tea Leaf Dancer, Orbit Brazil and Massage Situation to name but a few. BUT, we had to give him a chance tonight to unleash the new stuff and most of the crowd were here to see him. He didn't disappoint, most of the tunes we didn't know but they all banged. We did hear the faint synth sound of Mono/Polys - Red and Yellow Toys but he didn't let it fly. We just went nuts at the hint of it. He drew for a massage situation edit and everyone raised their hands for that.

Overall it was a great Brainfeeder. We only stayed for 30 mins of J.Rocc's set where he did the whole Sample/Dilla beat that he did when he was over with Madlib.

It would never touch the car park vibes but lets see if they all pop over again in the summer

SHANGOOLI

That Was... @ The Gallery, Hendon 11th March 2010

So the day has arrived and the first event in the Brokenhomes self promotion calender has arrived.

I am nervous/excited about this one tonight because I really want a good turn out so I con potentially do more things there. The venue is overly plush and the management have been really helpful with everything.

It all kicks off at 8 and Ill be playing some hidden UK garage gems

Here is the set list for the night

RAY JUSS - 8-9
LEISURE - 9-10
SOLO G - (DJ GRUMMMMMMMMMMMPY) 10-11
BVC (LAZY EYE AND DJ KNOWLEDGE) 11-12
12-2 WHO KNOWS

HOST FOR THE EVENING - MC LYRICAL DEEEEE

Went to Brainfeeder last night so I am kinda dazed by the whole experince. Blog/review will follow after tonight. Double bubble on the reviews.

Anyway, hopefully see you there. £1.95 a wine girls... cant go wrong!

HI5

Genre @ Wax Jambu 6th March 2010

So after much emailings and harassing of people, I got put on to play some tracks. Wont go into how it all came about but will thank Bensamba and the people of Wax Jambu for having me. Was really good to be able to play music I liked.

The day didn't start to well as we lost at football 2-1, I took a nasty tackle which left my ankle quite purple but didn't really feel it until after the game. Because of football and my timing skills I was a tad late to get to the venue. Was greeted by Louis and Nathan and then shown the booth. (I have no camera on my old skool blackberry so it will have to be words for this report). This was going to be the first time I had ever used Serato outside of my house and I was pretty nervous about it. Technology has a habit of failing. I <3 computers but sometimes, you know..
Didn't help realising that my Serato laptop only has 256mb of Ram, Serato needs 1GB min. I went with the 'its worked before so why shouldn't it now?' ideal.

After much wire swapping and moving things around, I was ready to pick my first track. Some ladies in front of the booth were already dropping in requests. The first one of Candi Staton - You've got the love got batted away. Then in a weird coincidence or my skill of selecting, she asked for Last night a DJ saved my life... I had already lined it up on the deck. (ROOOOD BOY, TOP SELECTAAAAA). The laptop was on the other deck at this time, when I switched off in house music to go with my stuff it all stared going weird. As the track was playing it was dropping out and changing speed. I crapped it and drew for the emergency CDs from the bag, once the laptop was seated on the shelf, it all kinda levelled out. There was one other drop out and a loop that I set went crazzzy but its all teething problems with a new system.

Once all was up and running, I went in with the tracks. Was picking anything and everything from the 90-110 bpm range and just getting drunk with the crowd. One guy asked for some names of tracks so I helped him out. Also met some big Dilla fans and had a great chat about hip hop and beats. I also witnessed some of the craziest dancing I had ever seen.

My set finished just after 11 and Bensamba took over, first track - Bullion. The roof got a good slap when that dropped. He picked up the pace and took us through house, tropical vibes and even the garage staple God Made me Funky. By this time I was full of grape and doing some crazy shapes with the girls (shower rangers).

So hopefully I will be down at that venue again. And for those that are interested, below is the track listing from last night.

Ray Juss - Live @Genre
Wax Jambu - Angel, London
6th March 2010

Artist - Title
Indeep - Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (12" Mix)
Evelyn "Champagne" King - Love Come Down
Edwin Birdsong - Cola Bottle Baby
Phoenix - Listomania (Album Version)
Hall & Oates - Maneater
Ayah - Pusha Man (Original/ No Rap) - Ayah
Karriem Riggins - "12's in 8" - Karriem Riggins
Baron Zen - Burn Rubber (Dam Funk Remix)
Morgan feat. Steve Spacek - iiiiiii
Flying Lotus - Massage Situation
Dam Funk - Mirrors
DJ Spinna - Speed
Beem - Ducker
Bullion - You Still Believe In Dee
Bullion - Caroline, No
Heralds of Change feat. Olivier Daysoul - Bopgunn - Heralds of Change feat. Olivier Daysoul
Nino Moschella - Better Off
Tom Brock - There's Nothing In This World That Can Stop Me From Loving You
Jay-Z - Girls, Girls, Girls
El Michels Affair - Shimmy Shimmy Ya
DJ Spinna - Galactic Soul
Hudson Mohawke - Rising 5
Herlads of Change - Asswank
NUMBERS - Slugabed/La Roux - Numbers. #018 - LaRoux - In for the kill (Slugabed rekindle)
Roots Manuva - Witness Dub
Dam Funk - Killdat aka Killdatmuthafu*ka
Dizz1 - Here we go again
Dorian Concept - The Fucking Formula
Gum Drops, The - Coming Up For Air
Michael Jackson - Burn This Disco Out
Royksopp - Remind Me
Elmore Judd - You Said You Were Different
Ray Juss - Human Nature - Ray Juss Refix
Dorian Concept - Sandwich Terror - Dorian Concept
Ayro - Moving on - Ayro
4Hero - Hold It Down (Bugz In The Attics's Co-Operative Mix)
Amy Winehouse - In My Bed (Bugz In The Attic Vocal Mix)
Louis - Brokenhomes.co.uk - Colour
Bugz In The Attic - Happy Days
Jesse Rose - Pop Yer Porn
The Rapture - Whoo, Alright Yeah...Uh-Huh (People Don't Dance No More) - Claude Vonstroke Pantydropper Vocal Mix
Ben Westbeech - Hang Around (Karizma's Kaytronic Dub Mix)
Osunlade - Casablanca Soul
Shaun Escoffery - Space Rider
Mj Cole - Never Say Never (Original)
donaeo - party hard
Tuff Jam Todd Edwards - Xavier - Tumblin' Down (Tuff Jam)
Simian Mobile Disco - Audacity of huge
Marc Mac - Takes Over Me - Marc Mac
Basement Jaxx - Oh My Gosh (Bugz In The Attic Remix) - Basement Jaxx

Dates For The Little Black Book (or blackberry/iphone)

February being a short month and all, not much really happened. But much good news to bring from now!! Here are the details of a booking and a potential regular night in my old area, Hendon.

First up is


Ray Juss - @Genre - Wax Jambu, 144-145 Upper Street, Islington, London N1 1QY

Ill be playing the 8-11pm slot so warming you up and making sure you hit the bar allot and not mess with your senses to much!

Ill be playing some serious beats, nothing to hard but ill be aiming to make someone pull a grime face when I play some 8-bit induced space funk. Expect a good time, full Brokenhomes team will be in attendance so we will see you there!

Next up is...


The return of the local DJs to the best looking venue around. THAT WAS... @The Gallery, Hendon - 407 - 411 Hendon Way, London, NW4 3LH.

I have tried to reassemble some of my mates/djs to come down and play some records of the UK Garage variety. I really hope this does well so that it can be potentially moved to a weekend or we can get a nice vibe going on a Thursday once a month. The word has been put out and there are 10 DAYS TILL THE DAY!!!

Drinks are at ASDA price so come down and listen to some Anthill Mob and Steve Gurley!

That pretty much wraps up whats going on at the moment, you can find us on facebook now, Brokenhomes has a page so become a fan and stay in the loop.

I have this tea to drink so hopefully see you at one of the event, if not....... BRAINFEEDER ;)

Toodle pip

Brief Update - Dates and Non stop emailings

So after many emails and calls the Brokenhomes team have had some results.

This will just be a brief outline before I get all the proper details. Guess you could say, check them out after the jump. But anyway first off, big thanks out to Bensamba and the Genre crew, Ill be down there on 6th March (Wax Jambu) playing some beats from 8-11

Next up, Ill be launching a night down at the Gallery, Hendon on 11th March playing the best in UK Garage. That date is going to come pretty quick but I am sure I can fix things up before then.

Further updates to follow, will update the calender and set up a few more things webwise so you can keep track of your favourite beat junkies

TTFN

Brokenhomes Euro Tour

So I am out in Switzerland on a holiday to see my friend with my friends and I thought I would do some reconnaissance on the club/bar scene.

My DJ teacher is also out here in Switzerland but I plan to come back and see him soon. I can imagine he parties hard so im gonna have to go into training for that one!

Back to the point in hand, reconnaissance wasn’t really all about just going to as many bars and clubs as we could fit in over the few days but its kinda worked out that way.

Our travels have taken us to small intimate bars, large dancehall venues and a plush west end club.

I cannot remember all the names of the venues I had been to so far but I luckily got pics of a couple flyers and the interiors of them. Ill go through each one

The first is at the end of my mates road, he lives in what he calls the Old Street of Zurich.

Down stairs played some deep house but the main attraction was the very low ceilings and hundreds of light bulbs running really low wattage through them. Upstairs held about 40 people and had its own bar and DJ corner. Another bonus was the pole for the girls. This place would be sweet for some beats

The second venue was much larger, it was kind of like bagleys/canvas before it went away. The night we went on was a dancehall night with DJ Ali Baba. Lame name but he is quite a name.

The view from inside the dance. Everyone knew the tunes so dancehall seems top be pretty popular out here.

When the lads were getting take away from the Thai place i saw the flyer for the night we attended. Check the dude out, he knows Paris Hilton (lucky dude?)

The last place we hit up was Jade, this was the swankiest place. It was like the London West End night clubs im guessing. I don't go to those places but everyone here was well dressed and very good looking. Guys and Girls. Here are a few choice snaps from the evening

Poster on the back of the toilet door

Branded glasses go along way in these sorts of places

Here is a poster of the event that was on the same wall as the other one

Overall, doing something with regards to music in Switzerland would be a really good time and experience. Seeing as my mate lives in such a lively area of Zurich, this could happen?

Cheers to DLINK for the free wireless :)

Numbers live at Fabric Jan 8th 2010 - The Breakdown

Numbers is a collection of labels from Scotland, the info on the sub labels that make em up is easy to find online but these guys are the people responsible for putting out some of the best electronic music in the low swung future hip hop and bass right now.

Headlining the event was the almighty Todd 'The God' Edwards. A house music producer out of New Jersey, America. Now, if you were ever into UK Garage then you would of definitely been aware of Todd's cut up re sampled productions. I’ve been playing this guys records for easily over 10 years and although the detractors say that each record he makes sounds the same, there is no denying the power hidden in the sine wave sub bass and sample skills of the man.

Also on the bill was the one and only Hudson Mo. I first got onto this guys beats through the Beat Dimensions mix CD. Not much was known about him on his own then as he was laying stuff down with Mike Slott under the Heralds of Change moniker. After much searching around the internet I managed to get hold of Hudsons Heeters Vol 1, a beat CD dropped around 2006. After that, to coin a phrase, 'ITS WAS ONNNNNNNNN'. Free Mo played at loud volume can help people fly through time and the free myspace track which landed on his album ZoOoOm had my work colleges telling me to turn my headphones down the first time I heard it.

The was also alot of activity planned for the other rooms within Fabric, room 2 was host to a dubstep/dnb event and room 3 was the launch party of Fabrics latest CD, Elevator Music. An offshoot of dubstep, uk garage, elements of grime and this new UK Bass music. I didn’t manage to sample these rooms which is a shame because I hear it went down in room 3.

I spent most of the evening in the pub on my own doing a spot of Anthropology. Watching chicks get drunk, a guy pump a fruit machine (no homo) and being tempted to try and talk to an old man about football but this guy looked like he was on 'the register'. All the while I had the sounds of devonwho, Tall Black Guy and The Essentials in one ear. I also created the POWER snake BYTE, that was yummy and put me in good stead for the evening.

'Excuse my brother - The Mitchel Brothers'

Don't try this at home kids

Hudson was on before Todd and was doing a live show. I was at Mr Mo's first live show down at Plastic People last year and although I enjoyed standing next to the speaker when Polka Dot blues dropped, the set was pretty in cohesive and obviously he was working out the joys of Abelton. This time, Hudson nailed it. With the livley Oliver Day Soul on mic it was definitely a show! Im not a fan of laptop shows but I could tell there was work gone into this. Hudson kicked off the set with a live drum remix of ZoOoOm which was FUCKING NUTS! I don’t know how it worked but it did and I want that track! The set moved with tracks of the new album Butter but mainly concentrated on his more well known beats taken from Heeters and off the EP he dropped last year. His last show opened with a lot of soundscapes, Star Crackout from the album had been moved to near the end of the show. A beat less haunting track which you can tell Hudson enjoys. Oliver Day Soul got his chance to perform doing a great version of Bopgunn (hit em with the..), Joy Fantastic and Just Decided. Oliver bounded around the stage whilst Hudson gave it the Fly Lo esq head nodding (y'all need to go Brainfeeder to see that!). Oliver finished and Hudons dropped the Tweet - Opps bootleg which probably got the biggest reaction all night. This track BANGS. Can’t wait for him to work with some US artist and bring back the funk that Timbaland left behind.

After some room viewing and looking for the pill heads on the stairs, we headed back to Room 1 for the biblical sounds of Todd Edwards. Now, I use the word biblical because Todd is a devout Christian and quite a few of his tunes feature this message. Tracks such as Wanting Jesus with the legendary UK Garage outfit Tuff Jam, Shut The Door (Healed from Within Dub) and a whole host of other tracks. Now, the main reason for Todd Edwards being as big is he is, is down to DJ EZ. EZ has played and supported his music throughout the years and I think was the first person to actually bring him over to perform. An event I went to in Atlantis in Croydon, that was A LONG TIME AGO. Being fair, Todd isnt the best DJ in the world, in fact, I think with a bit of Ray coaching, my old dear could do better but this is his only outlet from behind the Akai S6000 so we have to give it to him. Todd doesn’t play anyone else’s music, it’s a 4x4 fest of straight Todd dubs and when it’s loud and there’s a vibe. It goes OFF! The thing with Todd Edward tracks is they are pretty hard to remember, you can’t really sing them or hum them but on hearing them, the track is instantly recognizable. I went with my mate who LOVES Todd Edwards tracks, not as much as The Britsh Vybes Council but he could easily play hours worth of Todd tracks.

Todd kicked off his set with new and exclusives of none I knew, but that didn’t matter, the whole of room one was jammmed and bumping up and down to the skippy chopped beats and that simple but effective sine wave sub bass. Todd was throwing out glow in the dark crucifixes for the crowd. Kinda like new 'age' rave. Probably freaked a few people out but at least he didn’t give a sermon this time. The new music was fun but I just wanted to go up to him and ask him to draw something from the archive. He did, and when it hit it was like a mosh pit! He drew for the pirate classic, As I Am (dance on pants is what we used to sing). Everyone went nuts to it and that was the hi light of the set, he even wheeled it. He moved into some other exclusives, a Craig David - What’s Your Flava dub that I’ve NEVER heard and a special track dedicated to the people of London which was banging. Was a good set by the man but would never touch the EZ and Todd sets from back in the day.

After all this I was wrecked and cut out. Was a good night held by The Numbers lot and expect good things for the future. It’s also good so see people actually taking notice of UK Garage now.

A very influential genre of music.

Brokenhomes baby