Mash up of clips from Cheeba and Mr Nice

In support were the incredible Boxettes with their mindblowing and wholey unique show, Good friend and collaborator DocVek on live digital drawing duties, Anchorsong with some mad mpc skills and Keep Up! records’ Tom Central on the tables.

filming and edit by Mo Hague

Solid Steel in association with Serato (5th February) Cheeba returns with a mix more typical of his live DJ sets. Setting out on some re-edited trip hop from the likes of Depth Charge and Waxfactor leading through to more upbeat dance floor devastation from Diplo, Afrika Bambaataa and Peter Parker. From the Ninja catalogue, The Slew and Scruff jostle for space with King Cannibal and two edits from DJ Food’s recent EPs. Typically layered and cut up this is Cheeba back on a short break from his video adventures.

Intro – “Start To Understand”
Capitol 1212 – Shootin Stars (Inst.) – 1212
Waxfactor – Sci Fu Ism – Needlework
Psychonaughts – Invading Space – Mo Wax
Memory9 – Ricrit Shiropp – Subculture
Roots Manuva – Juggle Tings Proper – Big Dada
Jon Kennedy – Space O Matic (Ben One Remix) – Organik
Death In Vegas – Dirge – Sony
The Anomalies – Vibration (Cheeba Re-edit) – Unreleased
Santogold- Say Aha (Tepr Remix) – Atlantic
DJ Food – All Covered In Darkness (Mr P Remix Beats Remix) – Ninja Tune
DJ Food – All Covered In Darkness (Parts 1&2) – Ninja Tune
Mixmaster Mike – Surprize Package (Automator Remix) – Asphodel
The Leisure Allstars – Get Your Hands in the Air – Leisure
The Bodybeard Brothers – Original Love Injection (Boca 45 Remix) – Leisure
The Leisure Allstars – How We Roll feat The Good People (Substatic’s ‘Pork Chop You Don’t Stop’ Remix) – Leisure
Tom Jones – Give a Little Love – Virgin
Art of Noise & Tome Jones – Kiss – Rhino
Ewan Hoozami – Drinking Song – Unreleased
Two Fingers – Better Get That – Big Dada
Hexstatic – Red Lazer Beam – Ninja Tune
Bomb The Bass – Beat Dis – Camden
King Cannibal – Virgo – Ninja Tune
Afrika Bambaataa – Got That Vibe (Inst.) – Tommy Boy
Spank Rock – Put That Pussy On Me (Diplo Tonite Remix) – Big Dada
Peter Parker – Bounce – Unreleased
Plastikman – Spastik – Novamute
Depth Charge – Dead By Dawn (Space Mutant mix) – Vinyl Solution
DJ Format – English Lesson – Genuine
Lopez – Jellybean (Hint Remix) – Keep Up!
Magic Fly – Two Planets (Mr Benn Remix) – Bastard Jazz
Mr Scruff – Kalimba – Ninja Tuna
The Slew – The Grinder – Ninja Tune
Indeed – Untitled Number 7 – Unreleased
Amy Irving – Why Don’t You Do Right? – Disney
Outro – “A Whole new World Will Open Up”

2010 kicked off in spectacular fashion with 2 weeks in my favorite playground on earth… Chamonix, France. Sitting at the foot of Mont Blanc lies the most happening ski resort in all the alps and probably the world. I’ve been back to Cham for the last 12 years… the people, the steep and deep, the nightlife, hedonistic vibe and the best tap water you’ll ever experience all make this place something really special to me.

Arriving on Jan 2nd i had 1 day to settle in before a wild schedule of a gig every night for pretty much 2 weeks. Playing alongside my man DJ Irk we played both AV and DJ shows in all the prime bars and clubs in the valley… mad props to all at Terrasse, Monkey, Cantina and Bar’d Up for having us and accommodating our ever growing tequila habit.

Of course after waking from the night before’s gigs the mountains were always calling and we got out pretty much everyday to, yet again, some incredible conditions… I’m talking bluebird powder days and riding with friends… its stuff like this that really makes you feel alive!

Massive thanks to Irk for setting up these shows… I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to get a trip like this in exchange for rocking some parties. The Saturday night show at Cantina was a definite highlight… although its only a small bunker of a venue and the screen died meaning i couldn’t do videos it was still one of the best shows I’ve been a part of for a while… think the end of 8 mile, moshpits and pure good vibes all night long!

Again, thanks to all who helped out, danced, bought me tequila, heckled me from chair lifts and made the trip what is was; Irk, Felix for the place to crash and late night politics rambles, Kay Hole for the lift and laughs, Tosh for the board and heckles, Hazel at Terrasse, G & Chris at Bar’d Up, Will, Ali and all at Monkey, all the Cantina crew, Cutmaster Guillaume, Johnny for the endless props, The Mo-megaman and anyone else I may have forgotten.

“Hello? yeah, i think we’re gonna need more tequila”

Cheers to Mo (above) for the photos. The full set can be seen HERE

Next up im off to MC2 in Grenoble, a Rane sponsored event with DMC champ DJ Switch in Birmingham and also just puting the finishing touches to a mini tour of the Balkans with Tom Central from Keep Up! Records.

2010… the best year yet? Almost definitely

Cheeba

Just a quick mail about the Solid Steel ‘Mix of The Year’! its that time of year once again when listeners of the best radio show in the world vote for the best mix of 2009.

Not only does the voting fill you with a warm feeling inside but can also net you these fabulous, and undeniably rare, gifts from Solid Steel and Serato.

- A Scratch Live UDG Bag,
- An 8GB Scratch Live watch,
- Serato Pressings,
- DVD containing an MP3 of all this years shows (including all the video podcasts).
- There will also be 10 runner up prizes of Serato Pressings and the DVD of Solid Steel shows.

So what you waiting for? Mail you entries for ‘Best Guest MIx’ and ‘Best Resident Mix’ to solidsteel@ninjatune.net and with any luck you’ll be rolling in cool gifts by xmas morning!

Here’s the word from SS HQ:


It’s competition time for ‘Mix of the year’ at Solid Steel HQ. Once again, we are looking for TWO votes. The first vote is for your favourite mix from one of the resident DJ’s, who now include Boom Monk Ben, DJ Moneyshot, Ruckus Roboticus and DJ Cheeba, as well as Strictly Kev, DK and Coldcut. The second vote is for your favourite guest mix and you can see the list of guests in the drop down bar.

Send your votes to solidsteel@ninjatune.net and don’t forget we need your name and address with your vote. The competition will close on 16th December, so start your voting and good luck.

If you need any inspiration for who to vote for… read the list of mixes in the drop down menu on the Solid Steel homepage, check them out on the podcast or watch this, maybe it will help sway things.

Whatever you do don’t take too long about it, entry closes on 16th Dec!

Good luck and happy holidays!

cheeba

well not quite but i’ve got a tree up and feeling rather festive in the all new studio space here in Bristol.

This will be the first of the DJ Cheeba monthly newsletters, I promise i wont spam you with crap… just good news and the occasional blag.

First up this month is news on the comp we ran in the blog. The brief was simple: Either make a video or print/web marketing advert for the website, post a link and spread the word.

Here are the prizes (As kindly donated by Rane, Docvek and 12InchSkinz):

1st prize:

Scratch Live T-shirt, a DVD copy of ‘The Reels of Solid Steel’ and stickers.

And the winners are:

Video

1st: RBletz (823 views) Stupid people video

2nd: Gpapa (283 views) Live in Bristol video

3rd: Tisse (86 views) Dustbowl video

Print/Web

1st: Dub Cowboy (extreme abuse of twitter)

2nd: Ninja Seal (poster design from photo)

3rd: RBletz (star wars remixed poster)

Congratulations to all the winners, we’ll be in touch to get your postal address and get the prizes shipped out to your corners of the world asap

Next up is news of some shows we have lined up for 2010, these are some of the highlights so far. Keep an eye on the ‘Shows’ page on the site for more details and ticket links….

Jan 2 – 15: Chamonix, France (various venues)
Jan 16: Koko, London (With DJ Vadim & Bonobo among others)
Jan 23: MC2, Grenoble, France (this will be the postponed gig from this w/e)
Feb 4: Queen of Hoxton, London (Launching the new AV show!)
Feb 18: Glasgow, Scotland
Feb 20: Dundee, Scotland
March: Australia, New Zealand & Tasmania (various venues)
April 5-9: Snowbombing festival

Cheeba has also now confirmed for Soundwave Festival in Croatia in July. Easily one of the best festivals around in simply idilic surroundings, this one is not to be missed! Last year had artists such as DJ Yoda, The Bays, Red Snapper, Hexstatic, Alice Russell, etc and this year promises to be even better!

FFI and ticket info, see here:

The sharp eye’d among you may have spotted in the listings above that im launching my new show in February, im in the the middle of getting all the new videos together and have already been roadtesting some of the audio segments including tracks from the likes of Leisure Recordings, Ninja Tune, Ben One and Peter Parker. Its always daunting starting new projects like this but now i’ve got going im sure this one will really twist your melon while still getting you moving! If you would like to enquire about booking Cheeba for a show in your city/town/clubnight/bar/house/bedroom in 2010 then point your email at: ben@mixedbizness.co.uk

Thats all for now, I’ll leave you with some photos form the show in Bristol last weekend courtesy of Emma Catlady and a live video from Chimpski. Cheers for these guys!

For daily updates you can follow my brain spillages on Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/etc.

Word to the nerds

Cheeba

The night opened with two really cool bands, Oszibarack and Glass Diamond who both impressed with deep and heavy beats and bass fronted by really cool female singers. Check them out. The former reminding me a lot of The Cranes which took me back!

Oszibarack

Glass Diamond

Hosting the Night was Juice Aleem. Part of New Flesh and also the MC that has been touring with Coldcut for years, it was a real treat for me to be introduced by him as im a massive fan of his projects, especially his new solo album, Jerusalaam Come, which is one of my favorite albums of 2009. You should go buy it now! Click here

Juice Aleem bigging me up.

A massive thanks to Mo Hague for all of these stunning photos of the night. Boy has mad skills… and a nice camera! You can see the full set on his websitehere

Its not often you get to eat your own head!

Next up were Stonephace. Some stunning musicianship from this much hyped cornish band on the Tru Thoughts label. On this occasion they had a vj with them providing stunning visuals too…

Headlining on the night were, pioneers of the whole audio visual genre, Hexstatic, who on this occasion had one of the most important beatboxers ever on stage with them… Shlomo. He has been around for ages pushing beatbox to new levels with his vocal orchestra project, Foreign Beggars and Bjork. He came on stage with a backing video of muliple layers of his face… rather than me attempt to explain how cool this was, check it out for your self!

If you were there, i hope you enjoyed it as much as me. If you weren’t, you should have been… keep em peeled for the next one!

Cheeba

Camera: Canon 5d mk2

Mo Hague Website
Mo Hague on Vimeo

Yes yes… more free swag to giveaway.

Since the site launched a few weeks ago we have had loads of interest, lots of people joining the mailing list, a few winners of the promo gifts, loads of comments and tons of mixtape downloads! Now we want to take it to the next level and this is where our competition comes in…

There are two categories, each with prizes from our promo swag pile for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

Create a short video to market www.djcheeba.com. The video can be anything up to 2 minutes long and must promote ‘www.djcheeba.com’. The top three entries will be determined by how may views the videos have achieved by the 1st Decemember 2009. It doesn’t have to be a film with slick editing and stunning graphics, its all about how viral you can make it… that means, its a video people will watch, pass on and forward! use Youtube, Vimeo, MySpace etc but please only upload your video to one host. Combined counts from different hosts will not be counted.

Not everyone is has access to video production tools such as cameras or editing software so we’ve opened this category up to all forms of viral marketing… this means you could create a poster for print, tattoo yourself, get a djcheeba.com t-shirt on the Dali Lama, etc. Use your imagination to inspire others… The top three entries will be chosen for their ‘creativity and proven impact’ so its not just about your new djcheeba.com tattoo but where it is and how many people have seen it. hubba hubba!

For more info on ‘viral marketing’ see Wikipedia

To give you some ideas… here are the top ten viral marketing campaigns of all time according to The Times newspaper (2007)

Terms and Conditions:

- Entries for both categories will be judged by Cheeba on 1st Decemeber 2009 (gmt).
- All entries must promote ‘www.djcheeba.com’
- To enter simply post a link in the comments section of this post
- Only entries posted in the comments field below by 1st Dec 2009 will be judged.
- Entrants can enter with as many different adverts as they like but can only win once in each category.

Logo design is by DocVek, Photos by Sarah Webb and additional thanks to ‘the mystery man’ who helped with the design layout and fonts.

There’s now a new generation of DJs out there who have only ever known mp3’s or CDs. They have never been digging in the dusty back room of a record shop, hunting for rare shaped picture disks, that japanese import that only had 200 pressings, finding a copy with the poster still inside, every release on a long forgotten label or just buying a random record because it had a funny name or striking cover. They will also never know the pain of moving house when you own a ton of vinyl or the cost of transporting a flight case of records on an aeroplane.

The biggest selling 12″ vinyl record in the last 14 years is the control vinyl for Serato Scratch Live. A record that plays a control signal, a tone, a “beeeeeep”! Not only is this testament to how many Scratch Live users there are around the world but also that those users have started to collect the increasingly varying colours and designs that are being pressed.

In response to this Serato have pressed loads of colours, picture disks, 7 inches, 10 inches, etc… Some are widely available, some are hard to find, some are promotional items given to sponsored Serato Artists and some are test pressings or factory pressing mistakes. In the last year i’ve seen crazy bidding wars on Ebay for colours such as the promotional white pairs. Over $400 for a pair!?! Sorry, but that just doesn’t compute with me…. that is like a months rent on my flat… on a pair of records… with a “beeeeep” on it.

I have been collecting proper records for about 20 years and have a few treasured ones including my prized copy of the Animal House soundtrack signed by the main cast including my hero, the late, John Belushi. To me that is priceless but in auction terms my most valuable records are some of the coloured vinyl i have been kindly given as gifts by Rane and Serato. The most valuable of which are my 4 pairs of whites, 7 inches, various picture disks and a very limited pair of marble ones i was given at the BPM exhibition this weekend with this post-it note attached

There are a growing number of people who have taken collecting control vinyls to dizzying heights of obsession and cost. You can read more about their collections on the Serato forum thread on the subject.

Im going to focus my efforts on continuing to collect soundtracks and spoken word vinyl i think… All the while hanging onto these control vinyls incase i ever get the urge to match my vinyl with my outfit.

Cheeba

This was a commissioned mini mix for Smerin’s Anti Social Club. They are an incredible live band and are now working hard on their debut album as well as releasing a single and video. This mix was designed as taster of their material and live vibe showcasing about 8 or 9 of their tracks mixed in with a few live soundbites including the brilliant Dizraeli.

The track can be downloaded for free HERE

One day i’ll make a proper mixtape and put it out on cassette… i still have a decent 3 head tape recorder/player and still listen to a few tapes now and again. Digitising them just seems a bit criminal to me and i love the clucky sound of the mechanism.

The point of this starry eyed ramble was because my good friend Granpapyellaman passed this to tape to me the other week and i thought i’d share. Its a tape i made on my old Vestax PMC 03A… there’s no scratches on it, the cover was drawn in MS paint or something and it highlights how shallow my record collection was in those days. Saying that though there are a quite a few good tracks on there and the beginnings of some sampling skill (keith chegwin flexi disk yo) and it was all done in one take… well probably practised quite a bit but still, no layering and certainly no software.

‘This Side’

‘That Side’