Tour Diary: Monsters Of Bass Part 4

Tour Diary: Monsters Of Bass Part 4

14 March, 2011 | 5.45AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: freq nasty, martyparty, monsters of bass, opiuo, tour diary

America, hide your children: the Monsters Of Bass tour is rolling its way across North America, and FreQ Nasty, MartyParty, and Opiuo are taking no prisoners! They are taking plenty of notes and snapshots, though, which they’ve generously offered to share with the Beatportal massive in a tour diary that can only be described as epic.

Read on for their take on the coast-to-coast madness, which we’ll be updating with frequent installments as they roll from gig to gig. In this episode, they unleash the hippos.

Day 16: St Louis

FreQ Nasty: Koken Arts factory is a great underground venue. Kinda like a ‘90s warehouse that fills up with day-glo hoopers and costumed burners, and has some good sound to carry the tunes. The vibe is squat party rave all the way ‘round, and the hard core crowd were up for some MOB bass therapy. What’s with the rain that has started to follow us around?

Claire and I did our “Yoga Of Bass” talk again at Koken’s sister venue in town on the same night as the gig, which is always a bit hectic. I rely on MartyParty and Opiuo to sound check the system, and then I roll in ASAP after packing up at whichever studio we did it in, so this eve was always going to be a bit of a mad one for me. I have been using Yoga to keep me sane on the road for 10 years now, so it’s a subject close to my heart and we always meet incredible people at these talks. It’s worth the extra effort and organization on tour just for the people we meet … some hardcore music fanatics, some serious Yoga heads who love music, some left-field thinkers, and some who just know there is more to the musical experience than what you hear…. as any bass junky will tell you!

Day 17: Atlanta

MartyParty: I love Atlanta - some of my favorite musicians hail from here. On this weekend it was raining and muggy - we flew in Opiuo, FreQ Nasty, Claire and me, and Chris picked us up at the airport. We headed to the Palomar and were blown away by the luxury Chris had provided with this jackpot hotel. After eating a stunning meal at the hotel restaurant, Pacci, we headed to check at Masquerade. A real rocker club with a legendary vibe. We all checked and then headed back for some chill time.

Chris got me at 12:30 and I arrived to a ruckus crowd of fans chanting “MartyParty” - THANKYOU!!!! MUCH LOVE - This was my second set in Atlanta and it was a humdinger - everyone was jumping up and down for 25 minutes at one point in harmony - which is the vibe I go for with my purple tunes at 140. The place was rocking for a rainy night with Ice Cube in town, and the monitors were blown by the time I got on - but I did my best and the ovation at the end was long and heartfelt - TRUE FANS in the ATL – I’LL SEE YOU SOON for a PANTyRAiD gig in a month.

Day 18: Knoxville

FreQ Nasty: Valarium has a SICK sound system! I don’t know what make it was, but it was big enough to fill the big main room with ease and was sweet on the ears too. I tested it with a sine wave sweep from 120 to 20Hz (as I do every night) and there was not a single weak spot in the bass frequency range. It was a Sunday night and I’m not sure the kids who had rolled up knew what to expect. There were a few furrowed brows and confused looks at first, but I knew we had the system on our side so I played drop to drop, bassline to bassline, and by the end of it they and I were leaping about and sweating buckets. It was one of those nights where we felt we had won over a crowd that could have gone either way, and helped everyone have a good time to music they didn’t necessarily know and maybe wouldn’t otherwise have listened to. One of the most rewarding parts of the job.

I finished up and was about to head back to the hotel when I spied two blow-up swimming pools in the dressing room that Marty and Darla (the promoter) had bought earlier (as you do). After deliberating for all of about three seconds with the tour manager Chris, I couldn’t resist and dragged them downstairs onto the stage and threw them out into the audience while Marty played his tripped out crunkstep to the Knoxville raver crew. Very surreal. Apparently a blow-up hippo tent was offered up next, but I was well tucked up asleep in the hotel by then. Probably just as well. When the blow up hippos come out, you can’t be sure you aren’t going to come around the next day in a small church in Mexico dressed in a bullfighter’s outfit marrying a Chihuahua.

Day 19: Drive - Knoxville to Chicago

Opiuo: With no shows booked in and a giant drive ahead, today was a chance to grab some sleep. We drove through five states, eating our millionth serving of Subway, while in between hundreds of windmills powering the central east American dream. We realized our tour manager is a nutter, tape emulation touches FreQ Nasty in that special way, MartyParty is addicted to Angry Birds, and I officially don’t like Twizzlers.

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