Layo & Bushwacka in Brazil

Layo & Bushwacka in Brazil

22 December, 2009 | 7.33AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: layo & bushwacka, layo & bushwacka blog

Almost every DJ dreams of playing in Brazil, the land of beautiful women, blazing sunshine, laid-back vibes, and dance fever. DJs have long returned from the country with tales of energy, passion, and excitable dancefloors, which they say, can be a liberating experience.

London’s Layo & Bushwacka have wisely decided to hot-foot down to Brazil, whilst much of the rest of us freeze for Christmas, but they were kind enough to agree to rub it in our faces with a few blog updates from the road during their month-long tour.

Here Layo Paskin gives us a taster of the boys’ first few days in Brazil, which includes private planes, new clubs, inoculations, and a tune or two.

December 18th

So writing a blog is totally new to me, though I do Facebook and so on, which is more just to keep in contact with people as so many people I know use it. I kind of preferred just getting an email and then sending one back but then again, I liked writing and receiving letters even more. I love technology but I also miss some things of the past - they carry a different romance.

Anyhow, I am doing the writing for our Beatportal blog and Bushwacka, who has an amazing talent in the area will be taking all the photos. Of course he will read all that I write before you see it, and if he wants to add anything he will. But if he wants me to edit out something that happened, well, dear reader, you deserve the truth if nothing else!

Matt (Bushwacka) arrived in Sao Paulo two days ahead of me. It was the familiar BA247 flight. I still find it strange that you can take a flight somewhere 11 hours away, but you know the route and the whole routine. That familiarity is great.

I still haven’t lost the feeling of the excitement of travel, especially when we go to Brazil. We’ve played all over the world and we love many places but I think all DJs find places they really connect with. Some are easy, some are obvious, and some are a real love affair.

I dropped my things off at my girlfriend Beia mother’s house, and went to have a meningitis shot, as apparently there is an outbreak in Bahia where we are going later. I tried to act nonchalant but I am not sure Beia bought my “used to pain in life” line.

Lunch was not so much a decision as a calling - meat at Barbacoa. Now there are many great restaurants in Sao Paulo and we’ll visit most of them over the next month but this place is unmissable. Writing this blog, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

Curitiba

We are in the South of Brazil, in a town called Curitiba. We have been here many times before, but this is a new club called Awake. The owner said we can play till 5 or 6am inside and then continue on the terrace outside which sounds very promising.

I awoke much earlier than I hoped I would having gone to bed at 8pm, but such is life. I arrived at the club at 1am alone, as Matt had gone down earlier with Luiz, our agent, tour manager, and friend. He was warming up the club but it wasn’t easy as the place felt a little cold even though it was packed. It can be that way when a club is only a few weeks old - they take time to bed in sometimes.

Anyhow, I got busy by asking the guys to turn the air conditioning down, have less lighting, and “let’s look at the EQ” and so on. Matt played and got a groove going, then me, then Matt. We kept it very housey, and not too deep, with rhythms, grooves, and FX from Traktor.

Slowly, the room found its way and we continued to find ours. Sometimes with DJing, you and the people speak a different language, and then you find a topic that you both understand and then can’t stop talking about. I don’t think we got that far last night.

For one, the sound was terrible and made hard work of everything but it was good and full of beautiful Brazilian women. So not the dream in terms of playing but a lot of fun all the same. We had the usual confusion leaving the club, as in Brazil you pay on the way out! I know strange, eh?

Clubbers are given a credit card on entry to use all night and then you hand it back on the way out to pay your bill. As DJs we are always taken in through the back way and never get credit cards, but security never believe us.

Ok that’s it for now, I need to hit the town for a coffee as we are meeting in two hours to take a private plane west to Cascavel. Yihaa!

December 19th

As you can probably see from the photos, our plane is small. Man do you feel the turbulence in there. Of course we kept the jokes going like “Goodbye, Mr.Bond, this is where you get off” throughout the flight. I know, but it’s a necessity in a private plane.

It was a beautiful day and the flight took about 90 minutes. The landing was a trip too, as you are so close to the controls and it feels like you’re a back seat driver.

Cascavel had a good feel, sleepy with wide boulevards. It was the last light of the day when we arrived at the hotel.

It’s about an hour before the gig. I have slept for three hours and I get my music together. As I said before, we are playing quite housey at the moment, well our version of house anyway, which you can hear from our DJ chart below.

We like the Jimpster Mix of ‘Bleep Me’, Federico Grazzini’s remix of ‘El Gitano’, Shiroi, The Bridge, Almost Doris, Surface, and more techy stuff by Gaiser on Minus, and Cari Lekebusch’s ‘Spindizzy’.

The Club is 33 years old and the promoter tells me his mum still vets who plays there. I guess she’s a fan? Luiz played early and then we hit it for about four hours which went by fast. The club held about 1000, had a good sound and a warm bedded in feel. It was a lot of fun, and resident Kally Hypno, who we’ve played with before, came on for the last hour. He’s a really good guy.

We then left straight to our plane. Onwards and upwards! I think Matt’s photos tell the story much better than me.

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