Dance News

The lineup for the Overflow At The Bay Festival has been announced, and headlining is Chicago house legend Derrick Carter. Pioneering a style of tech-house characterised by rolling basslines and a different shuffle on the drum beat, Carter is definitely a more underground house DJ to watch out for. Multi-instrumentalist Chuck Love is going to be playing along with Carter and the rest of the lineup includes La Fiesta Sound System, Mobin Master & Karina Charvez, Katch (Resin Dogs), Lara H, Ben Hopkins, Sharif Galal, Damion Pell, Madusa, Jorge Watts, Ezee G, JvE, Guy-Fi vs Reload, Solace, James Corbett and MC Renard. There's been some noise made by the media about this festival - larger media, that is, not the friendly, free, local music newspapers you might be thinking of - especially regarding the spilling out of drunken patrons onto Glenelg streets after the festival finishes. Whether the disapproval stems from worries of drunken behaviour or the awful pun on the festival's name is yet to be known. The good folks organising the festival are giving $2 from every water sold to the Wilderness Society, though. So that's good.

The first Saturday of every month brings us a brand new club night and the Crown & Sceptre - Cameo Disco. Organised by the Eclipse promo group, the night is set to feature some of the best DJs from Australia and occasionally international. Primary genres are electro, indie, house and (interestingly) fidget house, which is a more cut-up and breakbeat-orientated form of house. Ivan Gough from TV Rock is the first guest on the list, and it kicks off on Saturday 6 December.

Mr Scruff is going to be playing at Rocket Bar this New Year's Eve. Anyone that caught his set at Womad a couple of years back should know the deal, but if you onn't, he plays a diverse selection of really laid-back grooves, with elements of funk, house, downtempo and lots of breakbeats. Mr Scruff's playing a 6 hour (!) set, and is bringing a couple of AV artists along with him, so the whole thing should be pretty spectacular. 9pm-11pm is also all you can drink cocktails.

Jurassic 5's DJ Numark is playing on Saturday 3 January next year, at the Electric Light Hotel. Known to hook electronic toys up to his system and play part of his set on them, he's an innovative DJ who's definitely worth checking out if you like hip-hop and turntablism. Groove on New Years Day, Summer Break, and this all within a week or two of each other? It's going to be a pretty crazy New Year's.

?uestlove of live hip-hop band The Roots announced recently that they will officially retire from touring in March 2009 to begin their new endeavor as the house band for the Late Night show. On the upside, they're coming back to Australia early 2009 to play the Good Vibrations Festival. Which, incidentally, has one of the most amazing lineups that's been to Australia in a while. Fat Boy Slim, the Presets, the Roots, Deadmau5, the original lineup of The Pharcyde (with Fatlip!), Sam Sparro, Roni Size Reprazent, Chromeo and a whole bunch of Australian acts like the Potbelleez, Stanton Warriors and Kid Kenobi. Of course, it wouldn't be complete without one of the world's best freestyle MCs (if not the best), Supernatural. You'll have to choose from Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast or Perth, though, because it's not coming to Adelaide.

One of the strangest label signings in a while is Omar Rodriguez Lopez, from At The Drive In and The Mars Volta, signing to hip-hop label Stones Throw Records. Stones Throw is host to artists like Madlib, Percee P and the late J-Dilla, so it's going to be pretty interesting to see what Lopez cooks up. A teaser track is available on http://stonesthrow.com, and in my extremely biased opinion it's a fair shot cooler than anything the Mars Volta ever put out. Think textured layers of guitars, strings and percussion making a pretty a simple groove, then Omar shredding like hell over the top of it. Ok, so it's not that different from the Mars Volta.
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