The Gang may be the hottest troupe of Djs in Dublin but that doesn’t mean we gotta hog the limelight month in month out. So this coming May Bank Holiday weekend we’re bringing y’all our first international guest of the year, London’s Jitterbug.

A friend of the gang and a friend of Gary, Jitterbug has been doing his thing with little fanfare for the last few years, releasing 3 sublime 12”s on Uzuri and most recently featuring on the latest 12” on Metrolux, the label run by the gang’s last guest, XDB.

We’ve caught him upstaging Boo Williams at one of the infamous Sud Electronic parties and he also delivered one of the highlights of Free Rotation in 2011 and now it’s your turn to see him try and upstage Gary. No mean feat, but he’s more than up to the task. As usual there’s no cover charge ‘cause that’s how Gary rolls, free n’ easy…

RA Event
The Facebooks

Happy New Year and we hope to see you on Sunday!

The 6th and final Forza Italo party of 2012 is un grande maximus festino with another two-floor extravaganza to bring us full circle after our debutto back in guigno. This time we welcome our friends Lunar Disko in to make the middle floor of Odessa their very own lunar landing.

For more info. check – http://lunardisko.com/events/forza-disko-especiale/

Some recent mixes -

Part 1: Lunar Disko mix for the Sunday Times biys

Franz Falckenhaus – M.I.T Research Team
Chris & Cosey (Elemental 7 Soundtrack) – Temple Bar
[UR - Transition (Accapella) ]
Rhythm & Sound feat. Sugar Minott – Let Jah Love Come (Sweet Substance Remix)
Lee Scratch Perry – Kentucky Skank
Mobach – Alternate Moods
The Upsetters – Groovy Dub
Augustus Pablo – Skateland Rock
Jackie Mittoo – Wall Street
Bonobo – Black Sands (Duke Dumont’s Grains of Sand Reconstruction Edit)
Boards of Canada – In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country
The Connection Machine – X Manray
Legowelt – Airwaves
Jan Turkenburg – In My Spaceship

Live recording of Giles Armstrong @ Lunar Disko in the Sweeney Mongrel.

And, one of many highlights this year; putting out our first LP

The 6th and final Forza Italo party of 2012 is un grande maximus festino with another two-floor extravaganza to bring us full circle after our debutto back in guigno. This time we welcome our friends Lunar Disko in to make the middle floor of Odessa their very own lunar landing.

Joining us for the evening as our special guest on the Terrazza is the mysterious DJ Benetti. This italo-disco legend has been a regular spinner at parties such as Coca Disco, Zazou, Cry Parrot, Gallery Event in Berlin whilst curat
ing the awesome Disco Caligula mixes as well as compiling an exclusive italo mix for Vice Magazine. A collector as well as a DJ, don’t get too close to his dischi d’oro or he’ll cut your hands off. Serving up white-hot-house Hi-NRG and Italo platters, DJ Benetti will see Forza out of 2012 with une stile massimo.

Our guest DJ Benetti also shares with us a passion for classic Giallo and as such has selected a personal favourite, “Death Laid an Egg”. No amount of words can do justice to this wilful, bizzare, almost art-house giallo. Director Giulio Questi has the honour of creating one of the best-looking, but hardest to follow, Italian thrillers of all time, with the influence of French maestro Jean-Luc Godard going some way to explain it’s impenetrable plotline and experimental meandering.

Our featured slice of calcio will be the European Cup semi-final 2nd leg between Roma and Dundee United. A more spite-filled tie it is hard to imagine. Leading 2-0 from the first leg Jim McLean took his his side to the Stadio Olimpico which had been transformed into a latter day Coliseum, where they were to play the role of the Christians. Amid allegations of drug-taking the tie was rearranged for the middle of the afternoon, presumably to take maximum advantage of the effects of the Roman sun on the pasty Scots. The hateful atmosphere continued in the stands with the giallorossi pelting the United players with apples and oranges as well as displaying welcoming banners in English such as “GOD CURSE DUNDEE UNITED”, “McLEAN FUCK OFF” and “ROMA HATES McLEAN HE’S A ****”.

Meanwhile on the Lunar landing, Lunar Disko presents…

DJ Overdose aka Model Man [Lunar Disko / The Hasbeens - Rotterdam]
Lunar Disko DJ’s [Andy Doyle / Barry Donovan / Shane O'Meara]

Rotterdam’s electro master, DJ Overdose returns to Dublin this festive season at a very special ‘Forza Lunar Italo Disko’ party. A veteran purveyor of all things electro, hip-hop, and Miami bass, DJ Overdose has been one of the main players in the Dutch electro scene for as many years as we can remember. The Model Man has produced some timeless records as DJ Overdose, and under other aliases / collaborative projects such as, Novamen (with Mr.Pauli), Get it Boyz (with DJ Technician), The Hasbeens (with Alden Tyrell), Dream Disco, and of course more recently as Model Man. He has graced the wax of labels such as Murder Capital, Bunker, Viewlexx, Monotone, Strangelife, Clone, W.T. Records, and of course Lunar Disko, with another DJ Overdose 12″ on LDR hitting the streets in the not too distant future!

His DJ skills are just as impressive as his back catalogue, a freestyle turntablist, who grew up in a golden age for electro and hip-hop. His DJ sets always encompass the very best in this sound, aswell as modern electro gems from Detroit, Den Haag and beyond. This Hasbeen is sure to have the body’s popping on the Odessa dancefloor all night long!

Before signing off, we’d like to thank all the Jocks who have been down to rock the Forza coliseum this year – DJ Ken Hanzlo, DJ Barri Di Novano, DJ Andrea D’Olio, DJ David Vunk, DJ Leonard Rossiter, DJ Sergio Omerta, Kid Machine, DJ Benetti and not forgetting our Minister for Visual Propaganda, Don Manus Sweeney.

Molto grazie to all the dancers & chancers, the schmoozers & carousers, and most importantly, the hammers & heartbreakers that brought us all together on the Forza dancefloor.

We hope to see you one last time in 2012 for this molto grande festino.

Forza!

Forza Terrazza

DJ Benetti [Cut Hands / Whitehouse]
DJ Sebastian Simonetti [Forza Italo]
DJ Stefano Crosserini [Forza Italo]

Lunar Landing

DJ Overdose [Lunar Disko / The Hasbeens - Rotterdam]
Andy Doyle [aka Andrea D’Olio / Lunar Disko ]
Barry Donovan [aka Barri Di Novano / Lunar Disko]
Shane O’Meara [aka Sergio Omerta / Lunar Disko]

Festive season is nearly upon us and the parties will soon be flowing thick and fast, but nobody will be able to offer you better value for money than the Gary’s Gang Xmas bash!

This December, the Gang will be flying Göttingen’s XDB to these shores for a FREE party in the basement of the Sweeney Mongrel. A tennis coach by day and DJ / producer by night, XDB has smashed home a series of ace records on labels such as Patrice Scott’s Sistrum and Steffi’s Dolly, as well as his own Metrolux imprint. But what really caught our ears over at Gary’s Gang HQ were his versatile and mesmerising vinyl only DJ sets. For our Christmas extravaganza, he’ll be taking to the newly laid carpet surface of Sweeney’s basement to serve up a Grand Slam set of the finest house and techno this side of Flushing Meadows.

Remember, this is a free party so get down early. It’s going to be a cracker and you’d be a turkey to miss it.

If you’ve any better (or worse) Christmas or tennis puns that you feel we’ve missed out on, post them below. The best (or worst) will get a copy of Gary Barlow’s lastest CD signed by XDB.

Merry Yuletide!

Lunar Disko presents…

Friday November 9th @ The Sweeney Mongrel [Basement]

Giles Armstrong (Electric City)
Shane O Meara (Lunar Disko)

Adm: FREE

A new month is here, and as ever that means another free Lunar Disko party. This November brings a very special guest to Lunar Disko in the form of Giles Armstrong. Last seen behind the Lunar controls supporting Legowelt a few years back, Papa Armstrong will be mixing up a stellar selection of house and techno which is sure to have the Lunar diskofingers in action all night long! Known to many as a techno stalwart in Dublin for over a decade now, Giles has hammered out house and techno in pretty much every club across our fair city, now he gets his long overdue chance to see out the night at Lunar Disko..

Shane O’Meara will be kicking off the sounds on the night…expect anything from disco, funk, house, and techno from the eclectic LD favourite!

German producer Vertical67 debuts on Lunar Disko Records, with a 10″ consisting of 3 deep & dreamy tracks, crafted somewhere in Berlin. The uplifting ‘In Space’ covers the A-side with bright and protruding soundscapes, glistening like stars in a far away galaxy. The B-side opens up with ‘Craic Memories’, portraying a house groove throughout, yet still retaining an electro mood amongst some delicate and twinkling melodies. Finishing up the EP is the affectionate ‘Mutuality’, displaying adept drum programming alongside a lush female voice which rises sporadically above dreamy melancholic sounds and a soft brooding vox…

Release date: Oct / Nov 2012
Distribution by www.dnp-music.com
Cat#: LDR_12
Mastered by Alden Tyrell
Voice on “Mutuality” by Julie Dillon

Lunar Disko presents…

Friday October 12th @ The Sweeney Mongrel [Basement]

Lunar Disko DJ’s (Andy Doyle & Barry Donovan)

Adm: FREE / Doors:11pm

Lunar Disko’s FREE monthly party returns this October, with Lunar Disko residents Andy Doyle & Barry Donovan taking over the controls for the night. The last all-night outing for the Lunar Disko CEO’s came at the ‘Lunar Disko Retrospective’ night a good while back, and we had some craic playing that night! So we thought it was about time we got behind the turntables again to play Lunar Disko’s favourite records…from the past, present, and future.

Some LD Mixes:

http://www.mixcloud.com/LunarDisko/lunar-disko-djs-lunar-disko-retrospective/

http://www.mixcloud.com/LunarDisko/lunar-disko-djs-slabs-mix/

http://www.mixcloud.com/LunarDisko/lunar-disko-djs-bodytonic-podcast/

LDR News:

Next up on LDR is a 10″ from Berlin based Vertical67. Although he’s put out many things to the digital masses, this will be his first release pressed on wax. The test pressings have been approved and we’ll have samples up in the coming weeks. In the meantime check out his mix for us along with some answers to his graffiti past and Various Vegetables night…

http://lunardisko.com/blog/introducing-vertical67/

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The live recording from the VC-118A album launch party @ Twisted Pepper last month is now online for your listening pleasure…enjoy!

Next up on LDR is a 10″ from Berlin based Vertical67. Although he’s put out many things to the digital masses, this will be his first release pressed on wax. The test pressings have been approved and we’ll have samples up in the coming weeks. In the meantime check out his mix for us along with some answers to his graffiti past and Various Vegetables night…

The title of the EP ‘Craic Memories’ is inspired by a visit to Ireland, can you tell us a bit more about that experience, and how the visit influenced your music?

Hey guys! Well, the title song is very much inspired by the time over in Ireland, yes. It was a leftover track from the “Wicklow House EP” I released on Acroplane a longer while ago, one I just finished a bit after the release. At the time I came over to play the Gateways Festival and visited this guy Aromatic Roasty, you guys might know him, and we just had a lot of great craic, as you say. I met lots of lovely people, discovered some great nature and it felt really nice and refreshing to me. It was my first proper holiday in ages so I felt very inspired and emotional when I came back and just made a lot of tracks, and one of these tracks was this one. The other 2 tracks were done in another phase, but the title for the EP made sense to me because both tracks also were inspired by some things I like to remember when looking back. To me the name just means having some nice memories about good times.

You also designed the artwork for the release, can you tell us a bit about the image used?

The image used there has my little godchild on it, sitting on a slide at a playground round the house. I thought it would be nice to use some personal image for the release which means something to me. So I went with a picture of her, it is so great to see her growing up, discovering and just enjoying the simple things, and having a lot of “great craic”. She gives me some good vibes when I see her and reminds me of “the good old times” like my own childhood. I thought the picture suited the EP perfectly.

You already have some impressive digital releases on Acroplane Recordings, although for anybody unfamiliar with your sounds, can you tell us more about V67, and the music you make under this alias?

Well, maybe I would describe the music I do at the moment as something between techno, house, electronica, acid, a bit of electro and ambient or something, if I have to categorise it. But when I work on music I do not really think in genres or aliases, I do not work really conceptual or something. What I try while working on a track or jamming around with my machines is to capture some of the vibes I feel at the time. I just try to put some emotions into my music and hope it reflects a bit in the tracks. A bit of variance is healthy to keep going, so I do not restrict myself to one style or way to produce tracks, I would get bored. I try to do tracks with a personal touch though, whatever that may be. I like it melodic and emotional, a bit “psychedelic” mostly in general I would say. A lot of my music has a dreamy vibe to me.

I bought some gear over the years aswell, and got a bit nerdy with synths and all that stuff, so this also changed the sound and approach a bit over the years. These machines also look pretty cool.

What artists and labels have most influenced you, past and present?

I just got into some lovely electronic music through a friend who has a collection of a lot of great music. First “eye opener” was Autechre’s “Incunabula” for me, I borrowed this one day after hearing some of the tracks, that album opened up a whole new world of more experimental music for me which I not heard before. I got into a lot into stuff like Aphex Twin, Plaid, Squarepusher and lots of other stuff on Warp, and from then on I found lots of other interesting electronic music of all sorts and started collecting. I always loved acid and jungle music aswell, I still love to freak out to some chopped and mangled amen breaks.

Some of my favorite electronic music labels is Rephlex I would say, I love a lot of their output. I have a special love for old music like Krautrock and stuff like that, psychedelic and trippy music in general. I discovered Ghost Box a while ago, I am really into that aswell. There are tons of good music out there I really like though, not only electronic music, too much to mention. All these things influencing me in a way I guess, often more or less unconscious, because I do not have the approach to copy anything while working on tunes, but if you listen to some music you like for a longer period of time it surely has an impact on your own music.

You have lived in Berlin all your life, how was growing up in Berlin and how has it influenced your music and creativity?

I grew up in the east of Berlin, I was 8 when the wall came down and I am part of this generation who could not understand at all what was happening at the time, but things felt exciting and special around with all the changes, you could feel it even at that age.

Berlin gives a lot of space for creativity these days, and the city inspires me as a person of course, maybe a result of living here all my life is being open minded to a lot of things, but I don’t know really. You can meet a lot of interesting people from all over the world here these days if you are open to it, lots of different cultures living together in a mostly peaceful way. I mean Berlin can also show his rough, ugly and bothering face, but in general it is a quite open minded place to me. I can not say at all how Berlin reflects in my music exactly though, it maybe does in a subtle way. I never thought about that much to be honest. We are quite spoiled here with good music and art and things like that, which is nice and is inspiring I guess, but I do not go out too much besides my own parties and gigs these days. I prefer to hang out with friends, making tracks or whatever in my free time, doing lots of other things instead of going to a club every weekend, so the “scene” has not a big impact on me I would say. I live a bit in my own bubble.

You also have a keen interest in graffiti art, can you tell us more about this passion?

It started as a bit of an action thing years ago with friends, maybe it was also my kind of rebel thing against society or something. It was some adventurous time though. The interest in doing some more complex graffiti pieces came a bit later though, after I got a bit better technically and I was more free to bring something on the wall I had in my head. Doing a graffiti piece is about the relationship between twisted letters, forms, colours, contrasts, all that stuff, thats how I feel about it at least, and what interests me the most about it. I am not really trying to transport some deeper message to be honest, painting some sociocritical street art or something. Its just this kind of passion for forms and colours I have probably. And of course its just good fun doing a wall with some friends!

You recently set up a club-night in Berlin ‘Various Vegetables’, how is that working out so far?

Yeah I organise it with 3 friends, that is going well so far. Sure you have a lot of cool music events in Berlin, but still we felt a little lack of nights with music we really like, stuff that would maybe not be played on a genre based night you often find. I mean there are a lot of lovely things going on here really which we like, but to do nights on your own is great because you can throw in your own vision and taste. So we got the chance to set up a monthly night sometime last year at a venue called Naherholung Sternchen, and we thought to give it a go. We like varied lineups on a night though, so on one floor we mostly have some slower experimental music paired with some visual art and stuff, where people can sit down, sometimes it is chilled and melodic, sometimes glitchy, challenging and noisy, or we play jazz and things like that. It is not really moving the feet at all, it is more something for the mind. Then there is a dancefloor with the more danceable stuff, electronic dance music of all sorts we are into. It is a platform for music and visuals from friends and stuff we like in general.

There are a lot of talented people who do things we like and who not often get the chance to be heard or seen somewhere because it is not suiting the “genre conventions” or they are not making this trendy thing which everybody loves at the moment etc. Much of the stuff we are into is not a so called big thing in Berlin really. So we have no big budget and make no money with it, but I can say it goes really well because we had some amazing gigs and guests so far. We also try to put a lot of love into the details, decor, food, gimmicks and stuff like that, with the help of a bunch of lovely friends who come up with creative ideas and lots of energy. The whole thing has a pretty familiar atmosphere to me really!

So, what lies ahead for Vertical67? Upcoming gigs, releases, new projects?

Gigwise there is not much on the cards so far I think. With releases I can say there will be a V67 cassette tape coming out on 100 % Silk end of fall. I also released an album on cassette a bit ago on a good friends label called Zanderhythm under the name “The Coloured Chaos”, which is a bit more of an experimental hazy ambient thing, or something. I dont like to throw around with genre names, so maybe have a listen for yourself. I also make some music with Oxynucid from London as “Moth Conk Midi” via the interwebs from time to time, we may put something out again in the future aswell. But I do not plan too much, I just will keep going on with what I do and see what happens. It is easier this way.

some links:

www.vertical67.com
www.various-vegetables.org

If you haven’t picked up a copy grab it now at  Clone, Juno, Hardwax, Phonica, Crosstalk, etc. and locally at All City, Earwiggle and soon to hit Plugd in Cork.

It’s now also available digitally via Junodownload, zero-inch, Beatport, etc.

Saturday Sep 15th @ The Twisted Pepper [Basement]

Andrés [Mahogani, US]
VC-118A (Live – Album Launch Party) [Lunar Disko, NL]
Lunar Disko DJ’s (Andy Doyle & Barry Donovan)

Adm: e12 / e10

Lunar Disko Records presents its first album this coming September, and to mark the release we will be hosting a launch party alongside Pogo in The Twisted Pepper on Saturday, September 15th. VC-118A aka Samuel van Dijk will be performing his live show, before Detroit master Andres takes over the controls to finish off a night of the finest music..

Andrés aka DJ Dez, a KDJ-picked up beat mastermind has been turning many heads over the past 12 months with some killer releases, most notably ‘New 4 U’ on his label ‘La Vida’. His ‘Detroit Bailout’ radio shows / live streams have also become very popular amongst his loyal following, which in his own words feature ” worldwide appeal soulful music, hip-hop, Carribean music, aswell as live beat sessions with intent to inspire and motivate others”. You can check out recordings of his show over at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/detroit-bailout . Most definitely a DJ not to be missed!

Leeuwarden native Samuel van Dijk has been releasing atmospheric electronic music since 2009 under a variety of monikers such as Mohlao, Multicast Dynamics, Inward Content together with Delta Funktionen and his latest project VC-118A. His productions range from spacious, hi-tech electro, techno and textured ambient electronix in which atmosphere and emotion play a leading role. His live-set has a narrative structure with concealed melodies, spatial beats and an overall vibrant sound palette that will appeal in both clubs and in the comfort of your own home. VC-118A is sure to take you on a trip through his intelligent and emotive soundscapes. Check out a recently recorded live performance from VC-118A below:

International Airlines LP samples:

Interview with VC-118A

Media:

Junodownload

RA