Big Boi is Heaven

Big Boi's album has been a big look round our neck of the aural woods for time - As one half of Outkast and now as a producer and rapper in his own right, he's got a serious rep for tossing out tunes you need to file in the cupboard marked 'large'. So we jumped right on board when news of a solo London gig popped out of the internet - The location for the showdown was Heaven near Charing Crossa and the flex was turntables and microphones. In shades and tracksuit, he bounced through a bevvy of Outkast classics and the biggies from his new one. I missed Shutterbug due to incontinence issues - the fatal error was asking for the now traditional 2.5 pints rather than just the one. It's to save time in busy bar situations with the extra half thrown in at the beginning to give the discerning drinker something to do while waiting for the additional pint to be poured. Not only does it save time, but it gets you 2.5 times more hammered and in an even faster fashion than one normally does. So by the time Big Boi concluded tings, and after a slightly cringey invitation to the ladies in the house to dance on stage with him and his crew, it was before ten pm and were shitfaced. Cue going back to a gaff and cramming as much ganj and lager as possible into our minds. Cue feeling like the world was going to end the following morning. No pain no gain...

A love from outer space and Andrew Weatherall's small feet

Stoke Newington isn't the first place which springs to mind when contemplating psyche-house and slo-mo disco. You'd be forgiven for thinking that these strains of cosmic electronics would more likely be found orbiting the earth somewhere near Mars than tethered to the dancefloor of a basement in NW16. But A Love From Outer Space, the monthly club night lorded over by Lord Sabre Andrew Weatherall and his chum Sean Johnston, does the interplanetary hardwork so you don't have to. These elder statesmen of dance have been roaming through galaxies of cosmic house for time - they've plucked out throbbers from among the stars, then stashed them away in a dungeon out of sight but not out of mind - Thing is this bevy of electronic beauties are only allowed to roam free once a month in the basement of the Drop up in Stokey. So you need to act with due diligence if your ears are gonna catch a glimpse of them. Held on a Thursday eve, it's one strictly for the heads who don't care about tomorrow - or at least can get away with spending the day moping on Facebook or 'working from home'.

We journeyed up to Stoke Newington to see what all the fuss was about for the June session - having been on the pints straight from work, sustenance came in the form of sausage and chips - which is about as cosmic as it gets. When we landed at the Drop, greasey of face and mind, Weatherall was outside toking on a cig wearing prime cuts from the 'man of the sea' side to his wardrobe. There was no way of speaking to him without coming across as a fawning fan boy but I took solace in the fact he has a very small pair of feet. He may have produced Primal Scram's rave opus Screamdelica, is one of the best techno djs and producers in the land and taken so many drugs that he can't remember five years of his life during the early noughties but he seemingly owns a pair of feet last seen on a 13 year-old boy.

Once we'd stopped gasping over the size of his teeny hooves, we waded into the small dungeon. The Drop may be miniature in size but is massive in vibes and the two were laying some seriously tough digi-business. Every tune landed with a massive punching clout - it meant the tunes and the lager coursing through our veins ensured that whatever drops of 'cool' we'd saved outside were utterly lost - The two of us were whooping and dancing like loons right down at the front getting sweaty with the mixed up crowd of tourists, students and gnarled elderly gurners. The walk home was spennt banging on about what a fucking pair of genie-i these two are. The next day was spent eating stodge and attempting not to do anything too stupid at work...
Massive scenes...

Check my Resident Advisor review - I didn't send them any images of the sustenance...



Our pilot - nice tats



Having it



Pre-party late evening nosh up



Post-rave morning nosh up

Piff

The last few weeks or so have been pure and unadulterated hype with almost too much shizzle and bizzle going on. The standard bouts of extreme binging have been balanced out by behaviour which could almost be classed as civilised. Almost. Perhaps. In a parallel dream world where it's normal to consume lager all the time, sleep for an average of 5 hours and usually at a time when most folk are up and about going down Homebase to source new shelves.

Big tings include going up to London's zoo and checking in with perhaps the most distinctive of all the animals - the bearded pig. Other hype business included getting relatively close to a sloth (a sleeping sloth - natch) and the wonderful facial hair of an Emperor Tamarin monkey - Stands to reason that being a peacock is kind of a big deal round our way but these little tinkers take the proverbial style biscuit and make it their own by owning huge, white taches. They look preposterous... Other than that, we attended a 20-20 cricket match down at the Oval and Nando's have promised to open a new branch within spitting distance of the entrance to our office. Fingers crossed the birds come home to roost sooner rather than later. Big up the Peri Peri crew...




New mug - steeze? Steeze...



Hello you. That's right. You



Sheffield



A bearded pig




'Weeeeeeey' - down at the cricket

Fist kissing with fractured arms

Muscle kissing when you've fallen in the shower and done a real mash up to a limb can be tricky. But Chinchilla Price AKA The Cosmic Chef went above and beyond the call of duty earlier in the month to show that you can still drink, DJ and kiss the fist despite being injured. Props to the champ. Only hours earlier he'd been in A&E being pieced back together again...

It was the KTF First birthday bash down at the London Fields and was, as per, a suitably messy affair - the session culminated in a brief dalliance with psychedelic worlds while still physically being in our front room in Hackney. Roll on the next dance. Hopefully we'll have all our limbs and brains fully-functioning and pointing in the right direction by then...

This is how we roll

Some hype business has been thrown our way of late - Lando Kal is one half of Laser Sword and has drummed up a house ting which is suitable chopped and screwed. Check it here

Lando Kal - Further/Time Out review



Elsewhere the first collaboration from Zed Bias and Steve Gurley is sounding pretty fresh...

Bias & Gurley Roll review

Scran

Scran of all levels appears to have been high on the agenda of late - Eaten some rubbish, eaten some gold. These are the highlights...



Frying spears in a small frying pan



BBQ MA WINGS



Eggy



Ballast



Stoke Newington butty



Add to fry up for additional stodge



Cheesecake - guilty



The fodder equivalent of a dinghy to a drowning man

Getting baked

The art of baking is not summat indulged in much round our way. Unless it's the collective mind on a smoking herb flex, it's something which has been treated with a combined sense of fear and dread. Which is what those unused to getting baked would say that smoking a reefer does to them. Think about it. Pretty cosmic right? Anyhoo a copy of the Guardian ended up in our gaff the other week (standard) and one gent (who shall remain unnamed) decided to take it upon himself to bake these brownies. You can see the results directly below. They were beautiful to the eye and to the mouth...



As much of the ingredients were in the gaff after these were made, I foolishly attempted to ape our man's masterful efforts. There aren't scales in our residence so somewhat recklessly I decided to judge all measurements by eye. Yep. By mine little eye. The whole process was a gripped-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-style emotional rollercoaster ride - There was fear when it looked like there wasn't enough chocolatey paste to use as a base. Guilt after beating the peanut butter into a pulp in the blender with a wooden spoon, then realising that the spokes in the blender were now bent out of all useful shape. There was also shame when I found the other part of the blender and realised I could have used that instead of standing in the dark kitchen beating the shit out of eggs for aeons by hand in a desperate bid for a stiff peak. But in the end, they came out all reet. No one, to the best of my knowledge, died during the journey or when they reached the final destination of a mouth. Next up - pies...



Melting down £5's worth of chocolate



Striving for a stiff peak by hand



Blending peanut butter in the blender with a wooden spoon. It's just so easy



Chocolate paste



Mid-bake off



The finished product