Burning Up - Blast & Shit The Bed
The parties that are setting the trends and smashing up their cities...
WHERE?
The Thekla, East Mud Dock, The Grove, Bristol, BS1 (every first Friday of the month)
Motion Skatepark, 74 – 78 Avon Street, St Philips, Bristol, BS2 (sporadic Shit The Bed specials)
THE SOUND?
Jumped-up party bass music served with smiles and sweaty abandon
IF bowel-loosening basslines are what direct your rave compass, then Bristol’s Blast should be on your radar. Bringing the cutting-edge of global bass talent to Bristol, Blast have been causing massive ruptures on the city’s underground with line-ups that lurch effortlessly from the ghetto-house of Sinden across the rule-smashing dubstep visions of Skream and the bass filth of cats like Drop The Lime, Diplo and Mumdance, taking in everything from Fake Blood’s alien electro and Rustie’s wonky madness to Remarc’s amen jungle and The Ratpack’s retro rave rush for good measure. Basically, if it’s got a big heaving bassline then it’s fit for Blast off.
“We’ve always been big into our drum & bass and jungle, from that we were into our garage and over the last few years we’ve been drawn to people like Mumdance and Prancehall but there’s no set sound at all,” explains Blast’s Rob Cracknell who along with Assquake DJ partner Tom Hoyle and Olly Ball, aka Blast resident Dubious, makes up Blast’s promotional triumvirate.
“We’ve been booking people like Bonde Do Role and were one of the first promoters to book Sinden in the West Country. At the same time, we’ve had names like Shut Up & Dance and The Ratpack. We just want to put on party DJs with a sense of humour and go right across the genres.”
If their music policy is alive with the genre-smashing eclecticism of the iPod generation, vibe-wise Blast is everything that is good about clubbing in 2009 — sweaty, exuberant, smiley and powered on an insatiable thirst for good times.
“A lot of people come for the night, a lot of people come for certain DJs, but once they’re inside it’s just one big party,” explains Rob. “Lots of smiling faces, lots of casualties. It’s just a really happy, messy party for people that want to have fun. It’s not a heads party. We do sometimes get DJs in that play a little deeper — we’ve had people like Appleblim — but our crowd just love good music of all forms.”
Settling their monthly Blast mooring at The Thekla after spells at Dojo Lounge and Native, it’s the Blast crew’s sporadic, super-sized Shit The Bed specials where their expansive imaginations run at their wildest. Currently held at Motion’s Skate Park, their talent-stuffed Shit The Bed events would give FabricLive a run for its money.
“About two years ago, we were talking about line-ups down the pub after a few pints — which is how most of our events come together,” explains Rob on Shit The Bed’s origin. “We wrote our dream line-up on the back of a beer mat, when one of our mates who has a bit of a penchant for the bizarre wrote Shit The Bed over it, because he thought it was such an awesome line-up. The name stuck. We’ve since sold 1,400 Shit The Bed t-shirts and sold out every one in advance for two years now!”
Get a ticket, buy the t-shirt, check your pretensions at the door and see what all the fuss is about.
2/10/09
Blast @ Thekla
Tayo, Gemmy b2b RSD, Reso, L-Vis 1990 and residents
10 – 4am £9 adv
10/10/09
Blast presents Shit The Bed 10 @ Motion
Skream, Joe Goddard (Hot Chip), Sigma, Drums Of Death (live), Jackmaster, Lynx, Breakage, The Heatwave, Redlight, Seven, Boy 8 Bit, Troublevision DJs and more
10pm – 8am £15 adv