Last Friday Hacksaw Ent. joined up with Solid Bump Records to present Carte Blanche (i.e. Mehdi & Riton). The show was top notch and featured an opening set from Shane King (half of Hacksaw’s team) followed by Eric from White Girl Lust. His set wrapped up with a short performance by SBR’s resident Diva – Alona who was accompanied by the Counter Culture Collective dancers for a full blown Burlesque style show.
We have full video we will be posting soon, but for now, read the interview from SF weekly to get a bit of the inside scoop about the full collaboration.
This Thursday White Girl Lust is performing at the Temple in San Francisco with Craze, Gaslamp Killer and a slew of the Bay’s best. The Scionify team caught up the the Solid Bump kingpins and got some insight into their approach to music, the label, as well as some tips for up and coming artist.
Our latest Bumpketeer, Mykill, has been getting a stellar response on his debut track “Love Story” of Pleasure & Pressure Vol.2. Local SF hype machine, SF Station, was so intrigued they tracked him down almost immediately to ask some questions.
If you have not grabbed his free track Flashback or his P&P mixtape, do it! Then pop over to SF Station to learn a bit more about the man and the myth.
Around the time we met Laberge in 2008, we also stumbled onto an awesome single called Your Lover by Meroz. Coincidentally when we started discussing doing a EP for Laberge, we were thrilled that he mentioned having Meroz act as remixer for the lead single. As fate would have it this has turned into a long term affair and in 2010 Solid Bump will be releasing at least two EPs from this man of mystery. To get a little insight on who he is, we sat down with Meroz. Check out this interview for a taste of what is to come…
Solid Bump: Age & Location?
Meroz: Old as shit & Midwestern United States.
SB: How did you connect with Solid Bump?
M: Did a Remix For Laberge, heard positive feedback about Solid Bump on the dealings and professionalism, Seems to be pretty rare this to happen between artists and labels these days. I continued contact sent a demo and skiggity skat music & ideas are born!!
SB: Previous Releases/ Projects?
M: As Meroz, With Respect EP, Your Lover single, Your Lover Remixes, as well as various remixes released and yet to be released. As Automatic & Silk, The Gospel According to Chicago (Bumpin City Records), Jackwars EP ( Bumpin City Records). Hystereo with Automatic & Silk, Gonna Love You (Soma Records). Driver of the Year (Future Appletree) Some Girls Would Say, Statik, Will Destroy You LPs (Indy Rock Goodness)
In celebration of Solid Bump dropping Laberge’s debut, “This Feeling EP”, we took a minute to pick the next generation of disco house’s brain on process, funk, and kittens…
Solid Bump Records: How old are you?
Laberge: I am currently aged 22.
SBR: How did we meet?
Lbrg:It was a lonely sunday, I posted on “casual encounters on Craigslist” you replied… actually I think I added you on myspace and you sent me a message about my track.
SBR: Describe your sound. What sets it apart?
Lbrg:I like to think of my sound as warm and mellow. I like to remind people where the sound comes from, vinyl.
SBR: How does the current “Disco House” revival distinguish itself from the style of a decade ago?
Lbrg:More compression and not many people getting their music properly mastered. There are lots of dudes doing great things though – Hugo van Dyck, Get Famous, Le Pimp, Skingz and Snolan.
SBR: Vancouver has a lot of up and coming artist that seem to be similar in musical vision to you with people like U-Tern and the White Light Mix series. Is Vancouver developing a sound?
Lbrg:I don’t think Vancouver has ever had a true “sound”. If you look at the pool of talent in a city like Toronto, Vancouver never has really had much of an influence on music itself. Though there is plenty of talent in Vancouver, I have to think our best artists export themselves.
SBR: What is the process of a Laberge track? Where does it start? When is it done?
Lbrg:There isn’t so much a process as a “happening”, things usually come together over time rather then in a processed form. The idea for the EP was to create a warm, consistent sound throughout all 3 tracks.This was the project from the very start.
SBR: What attracted you to Solid Bump Records?
Lbrg:The fact that your previous releases were awesome. I bought that Chat Noir tune the day I read about it, before I had even contacted you guys.
SBR: On a certain internet music forum you have been known to post Lulz cat pictures. Give us the death blow of all Lulz cat pics.
SBR: Favorite canadian snack treat?
Lbrg:While it’s not a snack or treat, the single greatest piece of food on the earth is a Croque Madame. Make one today.Its basically a sandwich with special cheese sauce, mustard, black forest ham. you top it with more cheese sauce, and put an egg on top of it. The french are gluttons.
SBR: Give us a link to a song that you consider “one of the greatest”.
Lbrg:Absolutely one of the best funk tracks ever. Few people can come close.
This halloween was the 5 year anniversary of White Girl Lust. Although we missed the final post landing on the anniversary we felt the need to share the final part of our story.
Although we DJed a few gigs previously together, we really consider Halloween the real kick off of White Girl Lust. We had stumbled on a random bar deep in the Park Hill area of Denver that was perfect for a Halloween kick off. It was a former speakeasy from the 30′s. At this time the upstairs was a multi-room brothel and had a very seedy reputation. After prohibition was lifted the place went legit but the upstairs remained a whore house. By the 70′s the whole area turned to shit and the place hit economic ruin. At some point the place was robbed and the bartender SHOT the guy on his way out with a shotgun. There was still buckshot in the wall! Rumor also had it that a girl was murdered upstairs at some point.
Soon the poor place went under and was unoccupied for the next 30 years. In the early 2000′s a dude bought it and literally just cleaned it up – otherwise the whole venue was untouched… except the upstairs. This was still in complete ruin with no working electricity. On my first trip there we were allowed VIP access upstairs with flash lights. The top floor was a series of rooms, all connected in a circle and a hallway. The original wallpaper was still intact but severely damaged with stains. Old newspapers were thrown throughout the rooms. It smelled dank and was very cold. Although I never experienced anything, the place was often visited by paranormal research teams. Supposedly the bartenders (who often had no customers for hours) would often hear odd footsteps upstairs. I am far from “that guy” who buys into this type of hype but it was hands down the most creepy places I have ever been.
We decided this would be the PERFECT place to do our first event. The bar never had more than 3 patrons and was hurting for business. This made it very easy to strike a deal. We first were going to call the event “Dead Disco” but realized “Dead Rock & Roll” was more marketable at the time. We promoted our asses off and by game night we had a huge buzz going. By 10:30 the place was packed wall to wall and the party erupted. We made the bar more money than they had ever rang in a evening. This turned into a series of events that continued until I moved to San Francisco – coincidentally because I was coaxed there by a girl I met at that party.
To this day I think it was one of the most fun gigs of my life. It is a shame that the bar soon closed after I left. I would pay money to go explore that upstairs one more time.
Here is the second half of the first WGL mix from around 2004. Starts off a bit intense but smooths out at the end into what would become more “our sound”.
Men1 – AFX
Right Way (Z Trip) – DJ Shadow
Gangsta, Gangsta – NWA
U Mass – Pixies
The Choice is Yours (Rmx) – Black Sheep
Come Out – The Avalanche
Light My Fire – Erma Franklin
Saturday – De La Soul
Love is the Message (Edit) – MFSB
Boys & Girls – Blur
You Remind (Ernest Saint Laurent Mix) – Royksopp
Halloween is the 5th anniversary of White Girl Lust. Since Clay and I are sentimental little girls, we thought we would recount the start of WGL in all it’s self indulgent eloquence in the weeks leading up to the date. White Girl Lust will be DJing as a duo at Beta in Denver, Friday October 30th. If you are in the 303 area come celebrate!
As proven with the last post, it took a while for White Girl Lust to find it’s sound as producers. Making the transition from drum & bass DJ to 2003/04 WGL style DJ sets was easy though. I was bored stiff with my 6 year residency at one of the main DNB nights in the country and was ready for anything. That anything became very possible with two gifts from the brand new Denver based company – Beatport. Shawn (our soon to be retired co-producer) had taken a real job there after years of making basslines in his underwear all day. He was marketing manager at this revolutionary new company and he was getting promo music toys daily. One day he brought home Final Scratch & Ableton. Wow. Both were in their infancy and kinda sucked. But the idea behind them was AWESOME.
We had been working on doing a whole mixtape of crazy rock, acid, and electroclash jams – all custom edited in Logic – which would then be mixed on CDJs. Doing a project like this in Logic was awful. Although these tools later became the curse of bedroom DJs making awful mash ups and everyone being a DJ, it was really fun to be able to easily loop and draw out intros to old songs. In retrospect some of our selection was pretty intense but it worked back then. Sure it’s a bit dated but I honestly think it is more interesting than most mixes nowadays.
We made a couple hundred CDs, with a elaborate handmade package and started up a gorilla campaign. All this was to promote the first WGL party at a very unassuming haunted speakeasy in a very bizarre area of town on Halloween night!
Cheree Intro
Date With the Night – Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s
Be Yourself (Laurent Garnier Remix) – Avril
PDA – Interpol
La La Love You (Break Interlude) – Pixies
Walking With Thee – The Clinic
Waiting for Cars – Felix thee Housecat
I Want to Tell You Something – Mu
NY, What is Funky – White Girl Lust
Business With Leather – Beck
Shake Your Coconuts (DFA Mix) – Junior Senior
Hashpipe – Weezer
I Am – Moving Units
* Note the original mix was track split on CDs so there may be a few jags from the import.
