“Batty Bass” founder Hannah Holland plays this Friday, July 11, followed by Dave "Switch" Taylor of “Switch & Sinden” “Bassline” fame at the end of the month. It’s all a great follow up to Shimon’s thundering set at Siesta’s Drum ‘n’ Bass birthday bash last week.
This Friday, July 11, Club Bonbon dishes up some of the latest sounds at the core of the East London electro-fashion scene. DJ Hannah Holland's trademark "Trailer Trash" nights have run successfully for almost 4 years bringing together anyone with a itch to dance, creating a free-for-all atmosphere centered around bottom-heavy beats and an East-Ender attitude.
"It’s a total mish-mash of music, people, drag queens, gays, straight Shoreditch party guys and girls… And the crowd's always up for whatever I play. It’s wicked!" Holland said recently to Time Out London.
As clubnights continue to evolve, reinvention becomes de rigeur and it’s often the mashup up of classic styles which emerges as something new. But reinvention itself is not enough to drive a new style’s popularity, and Holland points out that a key element to the success of Trailer Trash has been the constant striving to find new and unique places for one-off parties and events which complement the weekly events in Hoxton.
"Last year we threw a Trailer Trash party in a 500-year-old prison that still had the torture chambers in it. It was mad; there were strobe lights everywhere and trannies dancing in the cells. It felt like you were on some sort of ghost ride." She recalls.
The ongoing success of the Trailer Trash parties has spawned a new event “Bastard Batty Bass” by Hannah Holland and Mama Shamone whom also fronts the party's rock-electro band. The music, as the name implies, is all about bass. "I play jackin’, feel-it-in-your-pants music – music that you can get sweaty to." Says Holland.
Getting there was no ball of wax, however, and Holland cites DJs like “Switch” (coming to Bonbon 7/25) who have helped London's bassline house scene shed its bad rep and in doing so, open the way for a new breed of DJs like Holland who, with her signature Bastard Batty Bass sound, are prepared to take the core elements into new directions.
What is Batty Bass? Think of a mashup of Chicago Booty house and Baile/favela funk, with the rolling bass of late 90s Speed Garage, yet having roots in Jungle! It’s a sound which DJs such as Zombie Disco Squad and Tron and Johan of Radioclit are also pushing forward. Holland’s drum’n’bass angle is a throwback to her South London roots where she grew up listening to DJ Hype and Goldie. She’s sure to give Bonbon's Funktion-One soundsystem a heavy duty workout.
Curious for more? Check out her 8 or 9 mix sets available freely from apple.com, just search for “Hannah Holland Batty Bass” in the iTunes Music Store podcasts.
Her appearance at Shanghai marks the 3rd LGBT-friendly monthly event at Club Bonbon with previous visits by Larry Tee (Ru Paul's producer), and Parisian fashion set founders of Kitsune's Gildas and Masaya this past May.
Hannah Holland is capitalizing on the emergence off the new sound and has established her own independent record label Batty Bass Records. She is currently working on a number of releases including a track with infamous drag queen promoter Johnny Woo.
“I love dirty minimal music but it sounds so camp and serious, I’ve always wanted to make a minimal track and stick a drag queen drawl over the top, so that’s what we’ve done. You can do such good vogue-ing to minimal music but no one has caught on yet.” says Holland.
Hannah Holland, Batty Bass at Shanghai Club Bonbon, Home of Godskitchen, China. Friday July 11 2008
This month Freaks co-founder Justin Harris headlines the special Godskitchen Worldwide GK Angel Party on Friday, June 27th.
Having built a huge cult following Freaks were catapulted into the mainstream in the summer of 2007 with a re-work of their underground classic from 2004, ‘The Creeps’ [Get On The Dancefloor]’ which became an instant summer anthem, and the most downloaded-tune in the history of DJDownload.com the track was so popular it was eventually licensed to major television advertising campaigns.
Luke Solomon and Justin Harris are currently working with a 5-piece band and co-producing a new album with Peter Hoffman of Richard X fame. They’ve now completed production of their fourth studio album, Psych, which continues where the previous album "The Man Who Lived Underground" left off – ranting and raving about life in general!
Musically, it takes its roots from 70s ,80s and 90s dance acts just to prove a point. Bands such as Skyy, Talking Heads, the B52s and Green Velvet. Combining electronic rhythm with live instruments, Freaks set about fusing the new with the old and flying the flag for "dance music" (ultimately music you can dance too).
Freaks were originally born in 1994, the brain child of Justin Harris and Luke Solomon. They began recording for Phono, home of Herbert and Swag and their first few releases, which came in three parts, saw them journey through filter disco (The Shrunken Head), quirky mid tempo house (Journey's Through Happiness), and minimal techno (The Milwaukee Stance).
Then came the time to set up their own label and they kicked off the Music For Freaks imprint by releasing a series of 4x12 inches, each with a collectable sleeve. MFF was also home for their albums, Meanwhile Back At The Disco, The Beat Diaries and The Man Who Lived Underground and tracks such as "Turning Orange", "The Creeps" and "Where Were You When The Lights Went Out" have since become Freaks seminal records. Freaks has also garnered support from the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Arthur Baker and Derrick Carter and throughout the years and the music, they have built a faithful and obsessive fanbase throughout Europe and Japan.
So there came a point when Justin and Luke knew that Freaks wasn't just about 2 blokes twiddling some knobs in a studio and hoping for the best. And so it all began a long time ago with their early work on their first album, the Beat Diaries, which featured Stella Attar on vocals. Then Diz came along, the male vocalist. Then Rub, the bass player and brain surgeon! Then Jonny Rock, the guitarist, a long time DJ cohort. To the most recent member, drummer Sasha Davis, and Freaks was born.
Justin Harris plays the headline DJ set this Friday, June 27 at the monthly GK Angel Party at Club Bonbon, home of Godskitchen, China.
Club Bonbon, Home of Godskitchen China
2F - 3F YunHai Tower,
No. 1329 -1331, HuaiHai Middle Road
Website: www.clubbonbon.com
Reservations: 133 2193 9299
Brooklyn DJ/producer Larry Tee, the orginator of the electroclash sound makes his way to Shanghai to celebrate the launch of his brand new hit track Licky, a collaboration with New York party royalty Princess Superstar.
Larry Tee originally coined the word “Electroclash” after self-styling an ambitious new project called the Electroclash Festival which he coordinated and managed in 2001 and in doing so helped launch careers of Scissor Sisters, Fischerspooner, Ladytron and Peaches, Felix Da Housecat, and 2 Many DJs/Soulwax. He also created and managed the nouveau-electro girl group, W.I.T. and held fort as manager of the genre’s one-time bastion in Berliniamsburg, The Luxx.
With roots in Atlanta, Tee’s DJ style was always progressive, even back in the early 1980s. “You’d play Depeche Mode for these queens and they thought it was wild,” he says of the early days mixing in Atlanta.
He eventually moved to New York in the infamous drag-queen roadtrip immortalized in the 1995 feature film “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar” starring Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo.
Tee hit major commercial success in ‘93 when he wrote “Supermodel (You Better Work)” with 6’4” drag queen and Atlanta cohort RuPaul. The track, a runaway hit, unabashedly praises the glamourous life in the spotlight of the original supermodels Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer and Christy Turlington.
Tee’s career soared through the 90’s in New York as he was a key component of the internationally-popular Club Kids scene, making appearances on exposé TV show Geraldo, The Joan Rivers Show, and Inside Edition, which introduced the Club Kid world—with it’s alternative views on gender, sexuality, music and fun—to the national forefront. Tee helped make the parties Lova Machine and the raucous Disco 2000 with the notorious clubkid Michael Alig whose life was the focal point of the 2003 feature film Party Monster.
After throwing 4 festivals stateside, which included Electroclash 1 and 2 as well as the Outsider Electronic Music Festivals 2003 & 2004 he moved on to playing cutting edge dance music to thousands each week at his NYC parties The BANK and Distortion Disko.
Last year Tee launched an international music festival in New York City called Dance Music Invasion 2007 which brought together everyone from Loco Dice, Lil’ Louie Vega to Kele from Bloc Party and Princess Superstar. His innovative spirit and attitude are summed up in his new style, which he has dubbed Maximal.
Larry’s been putting the finishing touches on a new collection featuring collaborations with Princess Superstar, Perez Hilton, Hervé, Sébastien Léger, Amanda Lepore, Christopher Just, Princess Julia, Tomboy, and 8 year-old Amanita to name but a few. “Licky” the first single off the album, is being supported by a huge range of DJs including Justice, Pete Tong, Errol Alkan, Judge Jules and Laurent Garnier.
Larry Tee is set to make his first appearance in Shanghai on Friday, June 20, 2008 at Club Bonbon in the first installment of a new series of monthly LGBT-inspired events. Next month we dig deep into the dirtiest dumpsters of London’s Shoreditch section to find a rare gem of a party named “Trailer Trash” tipped heavily as “a dirty eastend disco for truckerboyz and cowgrrl’s alike, playing filthy nasty electro music...” Trailer Trash head honcho DJ Hannah Holland brigs her “Batty Bass” sound to Club Bonbon July 11.
Club Bonbon, Home of Godskitchen China
2F - 3F YunHai Tower, No. 1329 -1331, HuaiHai Middle Road
Website: www.clubbonbon.com
Reservations: 133 2193 9299
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