The Bug and Laneway

London dubstep and a little bit dancehall artist Kevin Martin (otherwise known as The Bug) was unleashed onto the Step Inn on Australia Day. Dank Morass brought in extra speakers to cater for the breathing-difficulty causing amount of bass expelled from Martin’s laptop (so much so that vibration replaced sound and those who lost 50% of their hearing in the first 10 minutes as a result of not wearing earplugs didn’t need it anyway). Martin showed off his dark, distorted, synthy instrumental work in 'Skeng' while staying true to themes of adversity featured on his latest album 'London Zoo'. In ‘Angry’ Tippa Irie discusses the rape of Africa and Bush's poor response to Hurricane Katrina and Warrior Queen does her own version of 'Mad World' in 'Insane'. The set was eventually invaded by dancehall champion Warrior Queen who asked for cock, had an argument with her own pussy, humped an audience member on stage and, in a throw-back to the ‘lip my stockings’ prostitute from Lost in Translation, flung herself onto the ground, her legs in the air and rode an imaginary bicycle whilst shrieking for help. This tended to fragment the set, particularly when coupled with a few rewinds. But Warrior Queen's mania is a show in itself - and only a naïve audience member could possibly expect the conquerer to behave.



A week later we all trotted off to Laneway. It was a wonderfully homegrown, well-organised and un-crowded affair. Luckily for me all of the electronic acts were situated under the one roof, which helped avoid the usual one-hour-and-i've-got-heat-exhaustion-and-my-legs-hurt-and-I-hate-everyone-here festival routine. I arrived in the late afternoon and had surprise first encounter with Dorian Concept. Later I jerked around to Harmonic 313 and got especially excited when he played ‘Skeng’ by the Bug. Rusko was dressed like a moron but made up for it by playing an awesome set featuring 'Cockney Thug', and Stereolab and Four Tet were nothing less than beautiful. El Guincho (despite having some teething problems) provided a relaxing tropical break from all the noisy dubstep while Buraka Som Sistema ended the night with some body-jolting Angolan techno courtesy of Lisbon, Portugal. I once believed that I would never like techno and there I was having my socks knocked off and being convinced that to do his or her job an MC only has to say two words every five minutes as long as the beats are amazing and he or she is outrageously good-looking (oh, and do an extended remix of Oxide and Neutrino's 'No Good 4 Me').

I don't have any photos yet because my camera is broken and my brother has conveniently popped over to Japan without uploading any of the photos I took on his. So stay tuned.