drums bass & bombs

PDX vs. Seattle laptop battle redux, boycotted by many local veterans for its cutthroat techniques and lengthy nature, jumped off with lovely new acquaintance Eric Prado going, “Hey, you write Cowboyz ‘n’ Poodles, don’t you?”
Dude, I got called out for my blog while judging a laptop battle. The implications are not beyond comprehension.
I was accompanied by four other judges, perched display-like on backless barstools, one of whom was Fourth City’s Zapan. The nice fellow seated to my right, Radium-Z, has Tourette’s, grabbed the mic and riffed; I will not glamorize such an affliction, but I will say that operating at manic level and spitting any ole thought outside the paradigm of social convention makes for good judge banter.
Especially considering some competitors were coming with compressed drum ‘n’ bass. My judging partners were surprisingly hyped on that; I personally would rather be chewing the leg of a live badger than hearing isolated d’n’b in two-thousand-oughty-four. One fellow by the name of “Shizzle” pasted formal, radio-shiny beats to the vocal track of “Yeah”—a quasi-okay remix move but completely out of context. Barring local faves—electro spazzmaster Senor Frio, Deceptikon—it had less energy, enthusiasm than the first and I was missing Angie Stone in Seattle.
Not to bitch totally; battle champ Rrine had the textured, graceful Cascadian IDM vibe on lock. He is also THEE laptopian doppelganger of a certain Spin staffer (Not Ultragrrl!!).
Links/video/photo/links courtesy
“>Eric Prado, documentarian of ZooBombing, one of Portland’s more exhilarating activities. [Stupidly flagged (and harrassed) by PDX terror task force for its danger potential (“bomb,” as in “the”), it’s basically a bunch of kids in helmets blasting down the hill at the Portland Zoo on minibikes.]