so the big day out came through melbourne last weekend, and because i live not too far from princes park i got the priviledge of driving past the bdo exit gates as people were beginning to file out at the end of the night, roads were closed and i nearly killed some kid pedestrians whose judgment had been perhaps impaired by that heady and dangerous combination of alcohol and flags that the big day out is so renowned for.

the big day out brought to town, amongst others, hot chip and diplo. i’m not going to insult the blogosphere by offering up descriptions of two of the most hyped acts of the last couple of years on this modest blog. i’m just going to mention a personal experience or two that got me thinking. i heard diplo go into woody’s show on triple r on monday night and spin a whole bunch of records that would make a large proportion of people’s whose musical instincts i respect go ga-ga – i’m too much of a dork to know if you still label these things baile funk anymore or bmore or whatever. but you know, there were common threads to the stuff that he played, those now ubiquitious brazilian rhythms, semi-shouty foreign language rants, big booty bass and simple simon sampling. every track he played, i thought to myself “yep thats diplo alright. this is the stuff that he plays.” from snoop dogg to angola to baile funk. its stuff that i want to like but i can never quite get there, and i get left wondering a little what the fuss is about. i’m left thinking diplo is some kind of genius whose taste is obviously too advanced for a mere mortal like me to understand. i feel stupid even trying to talk about this stuff when i’m aware that there is a vocabulary and system of labelling surrounding some of this music that i am just not familiar with.

things started to make a bit more sense when i saw hot chip at the corner on tuesday night. from what i can tell hot chip have been hanging with diplo (and spank rock too, who are also in australia for the big day out – despite visa problems) some – they did a shout out to diplo and spank rock during their set, and they were also rumoured to be all dj-ing together last night at a benefit gig to raise money for a series of workshops diplo is planning in the outback (!). i’d been worded up not to expect the hot chip show to be anything resembling a straight reproduction of their faux-tough but actually quite cute album “the warning”. the live versions of the album tracks were hard, and the new tracks (of which they played many) were close to being what one might technically term “bangers”. basically hot chip had everyone going crazy. and i couldn’t help but think to myself how the same rhythms i’d dismissed during diplo’s radio set the day before were now being thrown at me again but now, in a different context, i was helplessly shaking my geeky ass, smiling ear to ear, spraying half of melbourne’s indie cool crowd with my sweat (maybe you can sell it on ebay) and trying to take mental notes about how i can drop everything to become the next hot chip.

so this leaves me drawing two conclusions as to why i never understood baile funk – and i like one more than the other
!) baile funk et al doesn’t make any sense on the radio or on your computer, you have to actually leave the house and get sweaty to enjoy it
2) as a 20-something white guy whose formative years were spent listening to rock bands full of 20-something white guys i feel more comfortable when this stuff is coming at me channelled through five nerdy guys from england rather than hearing it at the source – i can only appreciate the second wave because i’m indoctrinated into a certain approach music that excludes me from… leaving the house and getting sweaty to enjoy it

the quest to get jiggy continues. but if you want to learn more about baile funk and all these things that i am classically inarticulate about, the best place to start is stu buchanan’s fat planet blog, one of the best.