The Surecut Kids

The phenomenon of fixed-gear bikes, or ‘fixies’ is now well and truly massive. I’ve got nothing against them, although I can’t say im really down with them either. I’ve never ridden one so i suppose i don’t know what im missing. But either way, this youtube clip about fixed gear skateboards is hilarious!

Whoa, this is going to be nuts! This saturday night KillaQueenz are doing their thing at Neverland in Coolangatta. If you don’t know of them, check them out… They are absolutely killing it at the moment! They were voted ‘Best Local Hip Hop Act’ in 3D World Magazines 2008 poll, and their tune ‘Bitches’ is making some serious moves (out on Ajax’s ‘Sweat it Out’ label). Plus they have been remixed by the South Rakkas Crew, which is a massive ’seal of approval’ in my opinion!

DLUXX is supporting, and so am I. Benji is away sunning himself in Bali right now so im going to fly solo for this one. Ive put together a bunch of tracks that im stinging to play out… heaps of club tunes, dubstep, and plenty of tough girly club-rap! Its gonna be buck-wild! Also it will be our last show for three weeks (im pissing off to bali too) so come have a beer with me and lets watch KillaQueenz!

Last Saturday night we played at Afterlife (the afterparty for Parklife) in Brisbane and WHOA was it LOOSE!!! Definately one of my favourite sets in ages. It was a massive back to back set involving us, Aniki, Cutloose, and Danny T. So there was five djs taking turns playing a few tracks each, plus an mc, and a lighting guy, all squeezing in and out of the booth at Empire’s Middle Bar. So funny! Theres only enough room in there for maybe two people. At one stage i remember Danny T climbing up on my shoulders instead of going back in the booth because there was already four guys in there. Everyone was really pushing each other making every track count. And somehow all our different styles worked really well together. I had to go on first straight after A-Trak which was fairly daunting. The crowd was amazing and stayed to the bitter end. And the sound in that room is so fucking great… we all took advantage of it and played heaps of bass music. I think my ears are still ringing. Big ups to Aniki for plying us with an endless stream of booze, and to MC Sausage Roll for saving me when i was talking to the crowd on the mic trying to buy time when Cutloose was switching laptops. I’ve only got about two sentences worth of banter when it comes to talking to crowds and i think he could see me running out of steam so he jumped in and kept it moving like a professional. Anyhoo, click on to see some photos….

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Im sad to say that the world has lost a great person. Beau Velasco (of The Death Set, Black Panda, and Beat Traffikers) passed away this week. Here’s a few memories i have of Beau…

Beau Velasco was such a massive inspiration to Benji and myself, its hard to imagine what we would be doing these days if it wasn’t for Beau’s influence. Back when we were just getting interested in djing, Beau was in a group called ‘Beat Traffikers’. It was a two piece dj act consisting of Beau on the scratch and on the mic, and Dan Walker (now known as NineLives the Cat) both djing, both rapping, and both incredible party rockers. When we saw them do their thing it was a real turning point for us. We stopped going to raves and started rapping and learning to scratch records. We ended up becoming friends and Beau fueled our fire so much in those early years.

One time we threw a hip hop party at the breadbox (my place) where the Beat Traffikers came over and dj’d for us, on a weekend, for free. That was their job too and they came to rock a party without any talk of payment. Of course we passed around a hat and got them some money for their troubles, but thats just an example of the size of this guys heart. That wasn’t the only time this happened either – my first ever art show featured the Beat Traffikers and again, they offered to do it for the love.

Another time we had just bought our first set of turntables, Beau came around to teach us the basics of how to use them, what this lever does, why you shouldnt touch that bit etc etc.. He ended up giving us this massive comprehensive lesson on everything from setting up the needles, to dealing with record companies haha! Things that were waaaaaay beyond our understanding at the time, but we sat their wide-eyed and taking in every word.

One of the early mixtapes that Ben and i made featured Beau as a guest doing some scratches and a rhyme. I remember so clearly when he came over to record his parts. We were stressing out doing our bits a million times trying to get them right (we used to rap back then) and Beau just saundered in with that happy, relaxed vibe he always exuded, and dropped the hottest rhyme that id heard at the time. And then went to do some scratches and just grabbed any old battle record and proceeded to tear it a new one. I listened to those takes so many times studying and trying to analyze it all. What an inspiration!

Our first ever public gig was thanks to the Beat Traffikers. In Burleigh they have this street party once a year for the solstice. The guys were playing and invited us to come and jam with them. I don’t know if i can describe how it felt to be asked by our heroes to come and dj with them but man ive only had a few experiences since then that have come close.

I lost touch with Beau in recent years. He started a successful band called ‘The Death Set’ and moved to the states. We kind of drifted out of touch and id hear occasional reports that he was becoming a tattooist or doing a show with Spank Rock or some other mind-blowingly amazing news.

Beau i thank you for your influence and friendship. You were truly a kind hearted and talented individual. I’ll never forget that. I hope that one day i can give someone just half of the inspiration that you gave to me.

One last thing – Beau used to change his dj name about once a week. It seemed like every time we saw him he would be going by a different alias. Here’s a few that i can remember: Cat Food, Slow Kid, Little Fighter Pilot, Kid Amaziatic, and so on…. eventually we stopped trying to keep up with the names and just called him Captain Alias.

-Mikey.

Fashion? There is no arguments, even if you study fashion and its your world. It’s weird as fuck! Im using the wonderful Lady Gaga as my poster girl for this ‘how weird is’ entry. The reason being, when she came out, all you would hear is “oh lady gaga, i love her! she’s like soooo into fashion!. Now i see her on tv saying ” blah blah blah fashion”. Im going out on a limb here to say that she looks ridiculous every time i see her.

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Hey peeps happy thursday! Got a new remix here for you from our boy Cutloose. This time he’s got his filthy mits all over the Villains track ‘Im on it’. I wasn’t really feeling the original (sorry if you liked it, nothing personal we can still be friends, it just didn’t appeal to my taste, and hey – im just one guy) but i will definately be letting this remix shine in clubs. Its got Cut’s trademark glitch-hop sound to it and a beat thats tough enough to stare down a juggernaut.

Im On It (CUTLOOSE REMIX)

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If you’re heading to Parklife in Brisbane this weekend you can catch Cut in the Jager tent performing tracks from his upcoming album. Also, here’s a photo of him pretending that his teeth are made of chopsticks..

Hey friends, if your up for a party tomorrow night – come check our set at The Clubhouse. Some of you may know if as the old corner bar at Empire. Well its had all the filth scraped out of it, and now the FANS boys have taken control and have turned it into an awesome indie/party spot!

There will be bands, djs, nintendo controllers in the dj booth, probably some dancing, and Boozy B might even get toilet paper stuck to his foot again!

We will be playing from 11:30 so if you’re in the area come have a beer with us! Heres a couple flicks from last week…

This is so fucking awesome i cant even begin to describe it. Perfectly on point, it hit me right in the corner of my heart where the sarcasm comes from. And if you’ve never seen animation by David Firth before, do yourself a favour and look up his ’salad fingers’ series on youtube, its beyond weird. And if you’re feeling even more adventurous, look for his ‘Spoilsbury Toast Boy’ episodes…. I think theres two of them. They will seriously ruin your day, but you wont be able to look away, and you will feel a strange sense of accomplishment when you finish.

Well i cant believe its already Parklife time again. Those of you who got tickets, we’ll see you there this weekend. If not, you can always come along to Afterlife. They’ve got all three levels of the Empire for the night. We will be playing in the corner bar from 3am till 5am. Come party with us if you’re not too worn out from the big day. Its gonna be off the chain!! The lineup is star studded to say the least and im frothing just thinking about it! Oh and festival attire is ok as long as you have shoes on.  ….and no crocs.

Being in the party business, you get to observe some interesting aspects of life and social behaviors. It all began one night while playing a set, i looked around and noticed how people were gyrating around and shaking they’re limbs. Thats when i thought……… how weird is dancing !!!. So that has had a chain reaction to “how weird is…” observations coming up all the time. So here it begins. How weird is dancing! everyone has their own little style of moving and jiggling about to music. Some how we’re expressing ourselves, break free from society’s rules and have fun. Not only is the fact of dancing in general weird but there being different style of dancing, different rules depending on the culture or genre of music. So next time your busting out your uncontrollable wiggle, look around and realize how weird it all is.

Even tho this video looks pretty much like a lame funniest home video’s clip, it shows the extent of the weird things that your natural jig can make you do.

Happy Friday kids! We’ve got a new song for ya to celebrate with! Although its not really a party tune, its a bit of a moody one this time. Made it yesterday when i was feeling shithouse, but i like how the song came out! I think Ive been heavily influenced by Portishead and Edit on this one. I didnt intentionally set out trying to make something that sounded like them… but now that i listen back to it, its definately the lovechild of those two groups/artists. Isnt it crazy how your sub-conscious works?

DOWNLOAD: 80/20 – Surecut Kids

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Hello and welcome to sleepytime! This is something we’ve been doing on Facebook for a while now but i figured it was time to bring it over here to Facebeard Neckbeard and share it with the world. ‘Sleepytime’ is our collection of photos of people asleep in loud clubs/parties/BBQs/environments which are not ideal for sleeping. Sometimes people just need a little nap. When we spot one, the inner ‘wildlife photographer’ takes over and we get all David Attenborough on it!

This will be an ongoing collection, but for now – heres where we’re at…. click to see more… (continue reading…)

The last few weeks we have been busy putting together some routines for our upcoming Sydney shows and for the summer festival season. Thats meant a lot of practicing, a lot of coffee breaks, a bit of procrastinating, and also making a few re-edits of some old classics that we wanted to use in our set. Here’s two of them – we stayed as true to the originals as possible and just fattened them up a bit and made them a bit more ‘dj friendly’. We will post a sneak preview of our MPC routines soon as well, to give you an idea of what we are working on. But for now, here’s these…

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I just noticed this morning that Featurecast has also done a version of ‘Jump in the Line’. His remix is out on Goodgroove Records and is awesome as you’d expect. It’s arranged a bit differently and has more of a ‘party breaks’ thing happening, whereas ours follows the original song structure but with a bit of added ‘knock’ to it.

Not many things in life make me cringe harder than ‘crocs’. You know those rubber clogs? Designed for when you are negotiating terrain so rugged that you need grip, airflow, water drainage, and ridiculously optimistic colours. For a long time i thought the worst thing that could happen to a kid is when you see whole families wearing MATCHING CROCS!!! but then today i saw this… a crocs tote-bag. now your upper body can look equal parts ‘ridiculous’ and ‘ready for anything the wilderness throws at me’. Needless to say i recoiled in horror so badly that i could see my own ass.

this is what happened recently when our discussion about ‘who is more relevant: brittney or christina’ got heated …