Free, Hot Tapes

After Chris De Luca split from Funkstorung a few years ago, he paired up with friend of Apparat, Phon.o. Together, they’ve mashed booty bass, acid house and breaks into a grimey, hands-up assault on dancefloors across Berlin and the rest of Europe. After several gigs and side projects, the album Supercontinental by CLP (their initials), will be out in time for Halloween parties everywhere. To whip up some hype, they’ve posted mix sets all over the interwebs. Get into the Euro-crunk groove with three free Hot Tapes here.

Michna, Magic Man

Urb magazine was the first to publish any of my scribbles after I quit Vibe and started freelancing. After a few pieces, things kind of dried up.

So when the opportunity came along to do a quick short piece for them again, I took it. The subject was Michna, an artist on Ann Arbor’s boutique Ghostly label. Apparently, this guy Michna did magic tricks and played the trombone. Whatever his gimmick, it was working – “Triple Chrome Dipped” got a lot of play via the Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” campaign which had previously collaborated with alt.hip hop stable Stone’s Throw. And Adrian Michna was intriguing – ethnically ambiguous and previously part of a Miami electro/bass crew, anointed by all the right hands, and the location chosen was Republic, my favorite noodle house.

On a Friday after work, it was raining heavily. I arrived early and texted Michna, who was around the corner at the photo shoot. The restaurant is notoriously loud, so we opted to have dinner, then go next door to Starbucks. A couple of hours went by quickly, and we talked a lot more than we needed to for such a short piece, but it was a good time, so we rolled with it.

The piece ran in the December 2008 issue.