Flick the Switch...Now it's On!

Hi,

My name is Cameron aka Nathan Scott Phillips.
Here are some words, pictures and songs.

When Ben told me about his plan to start throwing parties again I knew I had to get involved. I'm not sure how I decided to start DJ-ing, but the two collided in a happy coincidence and I found myself playing at Now it's On! at Tings in Pretoria on the 2 May. I opened the party with a 2 hour set which was well received by a energetic crowd powered by a small core of dancing robots. I have subsequently done a mix of the songs that I played which you can download below (choose 160 for low bandwidth and 192 for high bandwidth).

Kidofdoom emerged from backstage painted silver and rocked the crowd into a digital frenzy. Sassquatch kept the electrons going before we had loads of fun playing head to head before ending off with Grandaddy's - Now it's On!

Now it's On!
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http://www.mediafire.com/file/hzowimy1ida/Now it's On! Part 1 Tracklisting.txt
http://www.mediafire.com/file/whemwtya3zj/Now it's On! Part 2 Tracklisting.txt
http://www.mediafire.com/file/mm3n2zjenw1/Now Its On Part 1 160.mp3
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wtt12mlm5k2/Now Its On Part 2 160.mp3
http://www.mediafire.com/file/zydkgu3kzgt/Now Its On Part 1 192.mp3
http://www.mediafire.com/file/nidmdmym2yj/Now Its On Part 2 192.mp3

PART 1

1. Entrance - Train is Leaving
2. The Tallest Man on Earth - Pistol Dreams
3. Devendra Banhart - Seahorse
4. The Black Keys - Same Old Thing
5. Silver Jews - Aloyisius, Bluegrass Drummer
6. Ramones - Sheena is a punk rocker
7. Teddybears - Punkrocker
8. The Velvet Underground - I'm waiting for my man
9. The Mountain Goats - This Year
10. Okkervil River - Singer Songwriter
11. 22 - 20s - Devil in me
12. Mike Ness - The Devil In Miss Jones
13. British Sea Power - Atom
14. Bruce Sprinngsteen - Radio Nowhere
15. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
16. The Go Team! - Doing It Right

PART 2
1. Self - Sophomore Jinx
2. Beta Band - Easy
3. Beulah - A Good Man Is Easy To Kill
4. Paper Lions - Strawberry Man
5. Modest Mouse - Invisible
6. Tapes n Tapes - Hang Them All
7. Franz Ferdinand - Lucid Dreams
8. Midfield General - Ricky 39
9. Lilly Allen - Back To The Start
10. The Faint - The Geeks Were Right
11. MIA - Paper Planes
12. Ratatat - Shempi
13. Grandaddy - Now it's On!

A couple months later and I was playing at Flick the Switch at Back2Basix in Joburg. The party started off early, with Kodiac, Data Takashi and myself in the sun outside

and ended with No skippy No School, Haezer & Data Takashi under neon lights



surrounded by some hardcore robots

some were very hardcore

others not so hardcore

Some confused red bull fans tried to steal the girls away from the robots,


but the robots won the girls favour in the end.

even though some had to be captured and converted

Below are links to two more mixes that you can download. Namely Honey for Honnies & Bipolar Blues.

Honey for Honnies
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http://www.mediafire.com/file/mwbmiyinlrm/Honey%20For%20Honnies%20Tracklisting.txt
http://www.mediafire.com/file/53xxz3mtjhd/honey for honnies 160.mp3

1. The Black Keys - Psychotic Girl
2. Curtis Mayfield - Pusherman
3. Bob Dylan - Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others)
4. Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs - Devil Do
5. Midlake - Kingfish Pies
6. Lykke Li - I'm good I'm Gone
7. Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye
8. One for the Team - Apples
9. Peter Bjorn & John - Nothing To Worry About
10. Ida Maria - Oh My God
11. Handsome Boy Modeling School - If It Wasn't For You
12. Subtle - Unlikely Rock Shock
13. Avalanches - Live At Dominoes
14. Does It Offend You, Yeah - With A Heavy Heart (I Regret To Inform You)

Bipolar Blues
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http://www.mediafire.com/file/azy4ywmetov/Bipolar Blues Tracklisting.txt
http://www.mediafire.com/file/yztw3jnjtdj/Bipolar Blues 160.mp3
http://www.mediafire.com/file/fnjn0amdq0j/Bipolar Blues 192.mp3

1. Animal Collective - Sweet Road
2. Noah and the Whale - 2 Atoms In A Molecule
3. Marching Band - Make No Plans
4. Ra Ra Riot - Can You Tell
5. Eels - It's A Beautiful Day
6. of Montreal - Gronlandic Edit
7. Sigur Rós - Gobbledigook
8. Regina Spektor - Fidelity
9. Dntel – (This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan
10. Amon Tobin - Get Your Snack On
11. Bright Eyes - At The Bottom of Everything
12. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Death Is Not the End
13. Air - Biological
14. Björk - Hunter
15. Goldfrapp - Human
16. Hot Chip - Arrest Yourself
17. TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun
18. Boards of Canada - Music is Math
19. M83 - Unrecorded

Dynamo - let's go!

So on Saturday night I'm properly throwing the first event I've designed in well over a year.

It'll be Halloween and I'll officially launch my new series of parties, the robot themed "Dynamo" with a night called "The Humans are Dead". We've flicked the switched and said "Now it's on!", but only on the Saturday the 31st of October 2009 will we fully unveil the future. An unstoppable force of fun and fury, a mechanical menace that will scorch eyeballs, explode eardrums and melt brains. A dancefloor destroyer we've dubbed: DYNAMO!

After two successful prototype events earlier this year, the "Dynamo Robo Parties" will officially launch on Halloween at Pretoria's finest underground venue, Hotbox Studios. The brainchild of two of Pretoria's most passionate party promoters, Sassquatch (co-creator of the Sovereign Academy) and Moe Joe (one of the beasts behind behind Kidofdoom and Griet), Dynamo intends to further push the boundaries of event design, cementing Pretoria's place as the capital of audio-visual-freak-out- awesomeness.

But beyond it's two originators, Dynamo is already a mass collaborative effort between some of the most enthusiastic and creative minds in Gauteng youth culture today. Pulling together a small army of musicians, designers, animators and stuff-creators to construct an unprecedented robot apocalypse, Dynamo's debut event "The Human's are Dead" will feature:

* 4 of the most bloodthirsty live acts around!
* 5 demonic DJs spinning devil post-spazz-disco-core-electro-noise!
* Monstrous light shows and visual projection!
* Terrifying merchandise from the KRNGY Label, Delight clothing and Mikado accessories!
* Shocking give-aways from the above sponsors, plus MK Bruce Lee mutant magazine!

So robots, zombies, voodoo dolls and cyborgs, get ready to rock out. This Halloween we'll raise our glasses high and rejoice as we scream "THE HUMANS ARE DEAD!"

AAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!

We just received these from Lewes Freakin' Herriot!!! As you may have guessed they're for the forthcoming tour of ultimate awesomeness AKA Johnny Foreigner's "Choose yr side and shut up!" South African Tour. P.S. Those brave enough to Lewes Herriot's fantasy world of eyeball-melting sci-fi horror weirdness should step into The Dark Inventory

The Hair has almost been everywhere...

Rawr!

It's been an insane past 2 months. I've DJ 13 parties and rocked the keytar for 4 shows with Kidofdoom. Thanks to anyone that's come through and rocked out with me.

Only 3 shows left, and they promise to be some of best of the tour!

On Wednesday night I'll be playing a DJ set at Cheeky Monkey in Lynwood. This has only in the past few weeks been renovated and converted into a live venue. Pretoria has been DYING for a new live house for years, so I can't wait to check this spot out. I'll be joined by my usual gang of Doomers and the band that make every other band on the continent look lame - Isochronous. Check out the event here:

The next night I'll be teaming up with one of my fav local DJs, Marc Latilla for a set in support of the JHB Kidofdoom album launch. Of course I'll also be blazing the visuals with the Doom boys. This will be our final performance of the audiovisual milestone we've been putting on at the previous launches, and something you definitely don't wanna miss. Check it:

And finally, the universe has totally saved the best for last. The final date of the tour will be 31 October - Halloween 2009. Not only will it be my final show in an awesome tour, it'll be the first party I'm officially throwing since we ended Sovereign Academy over a year ago. What's more we've assembled the most absurdly bad-ass gang of monster-creatives to realise our vision of a robot-apocalypse. I won't even begin to rant about the insane décor we're planning or the incredible soundtrack you'll experience it to, I'll just link you to the event to see what's coming your way:

And with that let me say goodnight, oh faithful friends of the Sass.

B

P.S. I've written quite a bit on my blog lately - why not pop over for a visit?

FLICK THE SWITCH - DYNAMO PROTOTYPE2 - Marketing

This is the "flyer" design we did for "Flick the Switch" - the 2nd of our robot party prototypes that we threw on the 13th of June. This show also happened to be one of the many dates of Haezer's national tour. Here's the poster for the tour, illustrated by the ultra-awesome Jean De Wet: And if you missed it here's a post with some of the visuals from flick the switch and some photos of us making robots.

We made robots pt.2

So wwwwaaaayy back in June we threw the second prototype event for a new series of parties we've called Dynamo

Before the party itself a bunch of us got together in my lounge one evening and built robots. Here's how it looked through Colin Sacket's camera lens:

Then one Sunday afternoon Cam, Colin and I got together, played with Cam's robot toys and shot some visuals for the party:

Flick the switch warm up party. from Ben Rausch on Vimeo.

It's wierd how things work out pt. 3

Johnny Foreigner are a band from Birmingham UK.

Johnny Foreigner scream and sing about being a band from Birmingham UK.

Johnny Foreigner belt out noisy, distorted pop music as well as anyone has EVER.

Johnny Foreigner are crazy prolific. In the past 2 years they've released 2 albums and 2 EPs, more than 30 of the most enthusiastic, sincere, creatively-explosive songs to have come into this world between now and 2007.

Johnny Foreigner love you.

JOHNNY FOREIGNER ARE FUCKING COMING TO SOUTH AFRICA!!!

Sometimes life is just too damn cool to be real.

It's wierd how things work out pt. 2

On the 12th of May this year I wrote about how "Sometimes life is just too damn cool to be real." About how I'd suddenly been flown to London and how I happened to be there at the right time to see one of my absolute favourite bands live and how they put me on the guestlist and how they'd put together a little package of awesomeness for my girl who was all the way in South Africa.

If I hadn't been such a useless blogger, months ago I'd have written a second instalment in the weirdness of how things work out. I'd have written about how Anja and I took a train from London to Johnny Foreigner's home town of Birmingham. How we sat on drummer's bedroom floor while he pummelled our ears with a dozen bands we now adore. How we sat up talking about robots and rock and roll and keeping the guitarist up way to late the night after the weekend they'd already hardly shooting their newest video:

Johnny Foreigner - Criminals from Johnny Foreigner on Vimeo.

But (like the rest of our awesome adventures in the UK this July) I never got round to writing about any of this. Now I have to, because what I wanna blog about next is a WAY WAY WAY more unbelievable example of how things working out incredibly, weirdly, awesome sometimes...