When: Friday 30 May
Where: Good Luck Bar – Basement, 126 Cuba Mall, Wellington
Featuring: Art Official, Jnr Ranks, Selecta KB and Don Luchito
10pm kick off, $5 on the door
Come to Good Luck Bar for the first session in a series of New Zealand-wide sound-clashes. This time to witness two of the heavyweights of the Aotearoa sound system scene, ART OFFICIAL (NEWTOWN SOUND) and JNR RANKS (MORE FIRE), go head to head for a strictly 45 shoot-out!
You be the judge as the two selectors bring out only their tuffest reggae, roots, dancehall and bashment, to claim the title of A-1 sound!
Support by SELECTA KB, with your host for the night, DON LUCHITO.
Round Times
10 – 12am: Selecta K
12am: Clash kick-off
Round One: Intro (15 min sets)
Round Two: Contemporary roots (15 min sets)
Round Three: Bashment (15 min sets)
Round Four: Tune fi tune
WHAT IS SOUND CLASH?
[quote from: Norman C. Stolzoff, ‘Dancehall Culture in Jamaica,’ 2000]
Each set will take a turn playing for a mutually specified time. Early in the dance, it is usually agreed, the selectors play hour-long sets; then, they shift to thirty-minute segments, and eventually to fifteen-minute rounds. As the dance moves into the morning hours, the segments become shorter and shorter. And, if the sounds are particularly well-matched and the clashing intense, they will finally reach the climactic round called “dub fi dub” or “tune fi tune,” which is a “sudden death” knock-out round.
During this stage of the clash, the selectors rely on their dub plate specials, which are custom records with a genre of tunes designed to big-up the sound system they were recorded for or to deride the rival sound system. During the dub fi dub, each special is played in an attempt to kill or lock off the other sound, to literally make them stop playing. The crowd’s response is the final judge of which system is victorious.
Unlike juggling, where the selector attempts to create a smooth flow of time, clashing punctuates time to create heightened moments. The “introduction” of the tune by the selector is all-important in building up the crowd’s anticipation about what is to follow. Ultimately, a selector is aiming to draw a “forward” or a “rewind,” which occurs when the audience’s exuberant response to a song signals that the selector must lift the needle off the platter and play the tune again from the beginning.
While no one actually keeps track of how many forwards a sound gets during its segment, it is clear to everyone in the hall, except for the rival sound system and diehard loyalists, whether a set has a scored a weak, lukewarm, or red-hot round. Getting the dance to “mash up” (go wild with enthusiasm) is part of the process of winning a clash.
