So I was over in Tilburg at the weekend playing at / checking out Incubate courtesy of the mighty Generation Bass. Had a completely awesome time and saw / heard some completely awesome stuff so I thought I'd share some of it...

This is going to be a long one, so check it out after the jump there's gonna be:

Les Trucs, The Drip Dry Man, DJ UMB, Bomb Squad, DMDN, Hyetal, Boogie Dave, The Puddle Parade & Studio Menagerie!! Oh: Also R Kelly

Side note: could people stop using myspace please? I hate linking to myspace since I never follow those links myself because I'm guaranteed a horrible experience (as ubu.com says 'It's ugly, crowded, filled with ads, blares music at you, and nine times out of ten, crashes our browser.') SOUNDCLOUD PLEASE GUYS

On Friday we popped in to Kafee t'Buitenbeentje and checked out The Puddle Parade - a one woman toy orchestra using teeny instruments, her voice and a loop pedal to make almost unbearably lovely music. Her performance was perfectly, delicately tiny, down to the way she ended all her songs by crouching down so she was almost hidden and just pressing 'stop' on the loop pedal. Check out this free track which I grabbed from her website - head over there to check out her releases.

The Puddle Parade - Claim

That was all we really caught on friday before the Generation Bass madness began in 013 (and other venues, but we managed to completely miss whatever was happening in them). Friday and Saturday night both became a bit of a blur if I'm honest, but there were some wicked sets so Ima do my best to remember.

First up was Bomb Squad, or more specifically Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad, legendary producers for Public Enemy. I was fully expecting a set of classic old skool hip hop, and I was pleasantly surprised. Hank came on after a band who I won't say much about save that they fairly much cleared the room (Friday wasn't very busy anyway, but seriously) and so on came this legend to an audience of about five... he started his set with about 5 minutes of just a pure bass tone, a call to prayer... then busted out the dubstep. The classic hip hop vocals were there but the production was cutting edge! Also I'm not sure if it was intentional or problems with the sound, but for the first couple of minutes it was extremely quiet - Lizzie and I were having a conversation without having to really raise our voices, and I'm terrible at hearing anything in loud environments. Anyway after a couple of minutes everything clicked into place and the sound was loud and perfect, and the place went off..! Well, exactly half the place went off. It was bizarre. Lizzie & I had to cross to the other side of the room to avoid the strange looks from the stationary folk on the left side. You could have drawn a line exactly down the centre of the room, with exactly everyone on one side going totally nuts, and exactly everyone on the other standing completely still.

Anyway, awesome set (though for a legend some of his mixing was a little shaky!!) which set the mood for a highly dubstep oriented weekend...

Celt Islam turned in an amazing set, but the place had emptied out quite a bit by then (like I said, Friday was fairly sparse) which really brought home how much the crowd brings to a club... when something filthy is going down you want to look around and see that filthy joy on everyone's face, "ooooh that's nasty" and everyone just getting down, but the crowd just wasn't there for Celt Islam. Such a shame. Anyway, check out this free track he gave away a little while ago, and check Celt Islam Soundcloud for more!

Celt Islam - Al Jihad (The Struggle)

After this point on Friday it's a proper blur, but I know we saw / heard combinations of Hyetal, Ku Bo, El B and Max le Daron, and had a wicked time dancing to some filthy beats. I only really remember it being dubstep but apparently El-B was playing some UK Garage classics which makes me wish I hadn't been quite so drunk. Don't actually know how I managed that when 013 serves such tiny beers AND has a ridiculous system whereby you have to go off and buy tokens from a machine to exchange for drinks at the bar...

Outside 013 there was a screen set up showing shorts, including this one by Studio Menagerie which was one of the highlights of the festival (especially the ten seconds starting at 1.44 which was one of the highlights of my life):

Later on when we wandered out the screen was playing episodes of Trapped in the Closet, a reminder, in case any was needed, that R Kelly is truly the greatest genius walking amongst us today.

We spent some of Saturday exploring Tilburg a little more. We'd had a lil look around on Friday but not ventured particularly far and hadn't got the impression it was a particularly exciting place, but on Saturday found that the area around the Antenne record shop is full of lovely designy vintagey antiquey shops and cafes and such.

Antenne is run by DMDN, dubstep producer/dj and all round nice chap, and is one of those genius shops which combines records and vintage clothes, so it's hard to get bored in there. DMDN had played in 013 the previous night, but we'd staggered back to the hotel by that point so we missed him which is a shame. He's not your typical Dubstep kiddie, in fact he looked more like he'd be in some sort of heavy rock band... DJ UMB has pointed out the connections between heavy metal and dubstep before and Incubate made this totally apparent, seeing all the rocker kids headbanging.

Check out this DMDN mix:

Dmdnmix61 dj dmdn @ www.antenne-tilburg.nl [dubstep] andy stott cyrus chimpo deleted scenes etc by DMDN

We also spent some of Saturday checking out some of the visual art on offer at Incubate, which was frankly underwhelming, so I'm not going to go into it any further... And wandered to the canal, since we've already spent half of the summer in Holland looking at boats and it seemed frankly wrong not to do so this time. Tilburg being in the south east though, it's clearly a less boaty place than the parts we'd been exploring before.

Thinking about it we didn't actually see that much music on Saturday night, until my set at the Studio. The place was rammed but there was a fairly sedate bar type atmosphere, I'd planned to go in hard with a filthy genre hopping global bass set but it just didn't feel right, so I stayed within a global housey / uk funky area moving into some dubstep towards the end to set 'em up for Boogie Dave, who came on after me with a heavy heavy dubstep set. As is completely standard, I forgot to hit record before I started; I'd planned to have my mix from the night to post here, but alas it wasn't to be.

After checking out some of Boogie Dave we headed back into 013 where it was time for some - wait for it - dubstep, this time from Neil Landstrumm and GB's own DJ UMB. Was great to finally see UMB playing out, and the man kept it filthy for sure. Here's a taste:

01 APOCALYPTIC DUBSTEP II - THE PREQUEL (Jan 2010) by djumb

We headed back to the Studio to check out Globalibre - but as it was after 3 they weren't letting anyone else in to the venue, which was a real dissapointment since I've been trading blog love with those guys for months. We just headed back to the hotel after that, since we were half way there... the mixed blessing of staying right in the thick of things!

After an extremely long lie in and about 100 back to back episodes of The Dog Whisperer we ventured out on Sunday just in time to catch the second half of Les Trucs at Weemoed cafe and OH MY. They're a live 2-piece chiptune/8-bit breakcore outfit, one boy one girl, who had a table in the middle of this tiny cafe overflowing with machines and wires, and people crammed in around them. The guy had a backpack on with a table lamp jammed in it so that he could illuminate himself when necessary, the girl had a cap with torches and a microphone on a stick duct taped on. They had incredible, bonkers energy, prancing around and barking into the mic whilst making an insane noise, cutesy 8 bit melodies hardcore breaks and gabba kicks. My live highlight of the festival for sure.

Check out this video, though it doesn't by any means do justice to the experience:

Les Trucs - I Am Sizzling by fettkakao

Later, also in Weemoed, we checked out The Drip Dry Man who played dirty, hypnotic delta blues, whilst chanelling Zombie Tom Waits. Just awesome, and threw in a couple of Jolie Holland covers which was a cherry on top of an extremely tasty filth cake.

Closing the festival on Sunday was HalloGallo 2010, which I really wanted to like, but couldn't quite manage it. The first tune conjured up an amazing atmosphere, a big, open, hot, abstract space, but ultimately went on for ages without really doing anything.

Lizzie: this is just elevator music! Me: That's not true, even if it's kind of boring, it's intense and really atmospheric, lets give them a chance...

But then the second track started and for reals, that's the stuff they play in B&Q. Except longer. We didn't stay for long after that. Maybe I should have heeded my own advice and given them more of a chance, but I was knackered and had had my fill of awesomeness over the weekend... it was sleepytime! So sorry HalloGallo if you are actually totally great, i fully concede that I might just have been in the wrong frame of mind, or just plain wrong...

Crikey! what an epic post. Well done if you actually read it all, you'll get a lollipop next time I see you.

Thanks Incubate! Thanks Generation Bass! Thanks Tilburg! Until next year...!