Rodney Hunter (G-Stone, Vienna) @ Zubar Saturday September 23rd

[djoffbeat]

Zubar and FutureHistoryOfHouse.com present

Rodney Hunter (G-Stone, Vienna)

Saturday September 23rd @ Zubar

special downtempo opening sets from
DJ Offbeat (FutureHistoryOfHouse)
Sona (Unified Records, Grin Music, Project Records)

Demarkus Lewis playing HOUSE in the backroom all night long!!

more details to follow...

[Coconutfetus]

hell yeah! NICE!

[Luca Brasi]

NICE!!!!

g stoned is the ish! top quality once again at zubar!

[Luca Brasi]

anymore info. on this date yet? i'm really stoked about this!

[djoffbeat]

Demarkus Lewis - HOUSE in the backroom all night long!!

more to follow...

[-timcojones-]

dammn.. i'm going out of town that weekend!! grrr.

[djoffbeat]

special downtempo opening sets from

DJ Offbeat and Sona

[Osan]

hot biz!

[jeffspock]

busy weekend

Groove Junkies
Rodney Hunter
Danny Howells
Chuck Love

Dallas is Awesome!

[Luca Brasi]

Originally Posted by jeffspock

busy weekend

Groove Junkies
Rodney Hunter
Danny Howells
Chuck Love

Dallas is Awesome!

no doubt! very impressive.

[Suckimus Maximus]

I be there.

[djoffbeat]

flyer
Rodney Hunter Sept 23rd, 2006 Zubar

[djoffbeat]

Originally Posted by jeffspock

busy weekend

Groove Junkies
Rodney Hunter
Danny Howells
Chuck Love

Dallas is Awesome!

we're getting there, let's keep it going!!

[djoffbeat]

Here is a write up taken from RE:UP Magazine on Rodney Hunter....


"Those were all taken with the camera at my waist. I was doing some undercover work for the booty mission, looking for the perfect shot.

Rodney Hunter is referring to the matrix of photographed rear-ends that cover the rear-end of his first solo LP, Hunter Files. The up-close and personal, multi-lady rump-shaker pictorial is exactly what you´d except to see on a record from Kruder & Dorfmeister´s G-Stone label - unattainably sexy and primal, yet all the while tasteful. Hunter encapsulates this very essence both in his music and through his unabashedly polite accent sprinkled with Euro-Ebonics (We don´t give a fizzack ???)

This may bet he first time youve heard his name, but Dr. Rodney Hunter has been around the hi-fi block a few times, literally. Having grown up in the states, Hunter and his family moved back to Vienna (Hunters mother is Austrian and his father was a G.I Joe) when he was 13. It so happened that he moved next door to a kid named Martin (Forster, aka Sugar B., resident entertainer of Viennas legendary Dub Club party) and down the street from another nice boy named Peter (Kruder). Hunter was the youngest of the neighborhood clique and it was only a matter of time before he and his cronies started playing music together. Hunter, Forster, Kruder, and their buddy Stefan (Leiwand, aka DJ DSL) became known as The Moreaus. Not the best ever (DSL shuddered to even mention it in his RE:UP .. 002 interview), but according to Hunter, the Moreaus were the first hip-hop group in the German-speaking territory. It was an enthusiastic live hip-hop outfit emulating their love for EMPD, A Tribe Called Quest and Stevie Wonder.

While getting his hip-hop on with The Moreaus, Hunter also received an education in classical music in the same city that Mozart called home some hundred years ago. Hunter attended The Schubert Conservatory of Vienna at the young age of 14. He explains, Everything I learned there, like reading notes and stuff, Ive forgotten. But I kept the things that were most important to me like song structure and the feeling for harmonies. Hunter clocked post-conservatory music production time with Uptight Productions (a now defunct partnership with Werner Geier, aka Demon Flowers) and his post-pubescent hip-hop group Aphrodelics. Uptights production of Leena Conquest´s 1995 mammoth track Boundaries etablished Hunter as a world-class producer. And you might recognize the Aphrodelics from their Rolling on Chrome banger on The K+D Sessions. Yes, thats Hunter and friends chanting All the beat heads, all the fly chicks

Hunter was smack dab in the middle of Viennas hi-fi lounge worldwide-explosion in the mid-nineties, mostly due to the success of G Stone as well as Uptights collaboration with Leena Conquest. He shrewdly observed that A&Rs were all trying to fly over and get the boys to sign a deal. It really blew everybodys horizon. No one thought it was possible that you could make music that good where people would come overseas to hook up with it. The buzz in general inspired other people to try it out and it was really amusing to see everyone acting all crazy about it.

After a heavy year of touring, he and the rest of the Aphrodelics went on a planned two-year hiatus, and the next logical progression for Hunter´s musical journey ensued: make an album on his childhood friends label. I met Peter [Kruder] for some dinner and some glasses of wine and he just asked me. Why dont you do an album? It made so much sense, I mean, it sounds so obvious, but I was so used to the band thing.

Hunter Files, save the latest Tosca record, is the best full-length release to come out on G-Stone in several years. Mixing the typical but oh-so-tasty headz tracks with sublime brokenbeat gems, there are no fillers on this record. Providing an updated blueprint for the international downbeatempo massive without relying on nostalgia, Hunter Files is sophisticatedly sweaty.

And though the album has the same high quality studio production of any material that G-Stone releases, Hunter had greater plans than just DJing around the world to promote this record. Hunter relates, I actually wrote the songs in a way so that I could play them live. He has been working on a full ensemble to recreate Hunter Files on stage and so far, so great: I think people have been surprised, including us, how onpoint its been. Weve played at some festivals and have opened for Angie Stone, and its gone really well, I mostly played bass, otherwise I was just taking care of the midi and vocals. Wait, did he say vocals? Yes, thats Hunter crooning over half of the tracks, though he didn´t notice that his own voice was such an integral part of the music until he was playing with the band on stage. Thats where I realized how much I did vocals there were only a few songs that I would have break. Otherwise I felt like Prince, logging all these kilometers walking around on stage from instrument to instrument.
He might have to work on his James Brown split, shave his chest, or rock some frilled-sleeved shirts, but so far, Hunter is well on his way to the good life of musicology.

[djoffbeat]

damn, i got y'all reading like crazy...here is an album review for Rodney's last album 'Hunter Files' on G-Stone...


G-Stone doesn't release very many records. I'd almost be tempted to call it a boutique label, but for the fact that it also happens to be one of the most influential electronic music labels of the past ten years. There is really no mistaking a G-Stone release for anything else, despite the fact that everyone and their brother have been trying to sound like G-Stone since the day Kruder & Dorfmeister's G-Stoned EP dropped way back in 1995.

G-Stone belongs to Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister. The label is dedicated solely to releasing their music, in addition to the music of their friends. As such, even though the label has been around for over a decade, Hunter Files is still only numbered at G-Stone CD020. So, the release of anything is cause for celebration. Nowhere near as much a cause for celebration as an actual honest-to-God Kruder & Dorfmeister full length LP would be, but at this rate I think we'll see that one about the day after we get Chinese Democracy.

The esteemed Mr. Hunter is an old confederate of the G-Stone crew, having known Peter Kruder since the third grade. He played with Kruder in a Viennese hip-hop band called the Moreaus. About the time that Kruder met Dorfmeister and split off to form the G-Stone massive, Hunter and Werner Geier formed Uptight Records. After over a decade's experience producing and remixing in the classic Vienna style, K & D finally asked Hunter to come play in their yard by producing an album for G-Stone.

The distinctive G-Stone sound is definitely in full effect. Every beat on this album sounds as crisp as a fresh $100 bill. There's a certain intangible bounce to everything that comes anywhere near Messrs. Kruder & Dorfmeister, a slightly indistinct yet totally vivid shock to the system. I would hesitate short of saying that it totally recreates the experience of smoking massive amounts of pot, but that is only because the enhancement of illegal narcotics is hardly necessary to appreciate the bountiful gifts of the G-Stone catalog. They smoke all the marijuana so you don't have to.

But despite the sonic similarities, there are certain striking differences between Hunter and his labelmates. For one thing, Hunter isn't afraid to write a track that someone might want to dance to, instead of just shuffling around the house in your bare feet.

The album kicks off with "Electric Lady", an effusively funky slab of pseudo-salsa with a smattering of odd doo-wop vocals in the background. "Work That Body" is a loping, sinister and slightly sensual track, which manages to mine a singularly hip groove for over five and a half minutes, (despite the fact that it sounds for the life of me like the groove from the Stereo MCs' "Connected").

The energy ramps up with "Let Your Soul Guide Your Heart", which features the kind of stuttering syncopated hi-hat and bridge-cable bassline that signifies funky from sea to shining sea. My personal favorite off the album would have to be "Quero Saber", which is something like a stoned electro track with some sexy Spanish mutterings courtesy of Orieta Pires. "There's a Reason" spits some hip-hop into the mix, with guest appearances by Clumzy T, Ra Face, and Ken Cesar. Despite the laid-back groove that dominates the album, it must also be noted that much of the album, including this track, hearkens to an earlier era of electronic music when house and hip-hop commingled much more freely than they do now.

Taking a break from the midtempo, "Take a Ride" drops down into the type of samba-inflected Brazilian nu-jazz so popular with the Glucklich crowd (albeit with the odd vocal house element thrown in). "Is This Your Boy", featuring another vocal from Ken Cesar, places a standard male house vocal over a shuffling Latin beat to interesting effect. By the time the album wraps up with "You're Not Alone", an elongated smooth funk jam, you realize that Hunter is a master craftsman with every intention of putting a blissed-out smile on your face before the night is through.

Hunter Files is hardly a perfect album, but its flaws are so modest as to be easily forgiven. As with much of G-Stone's scant output, it lacks the gravity of Kruder & Dorfmeister's distinctively elliptical brand of trip-hop. But what it lacks in gravity it more than makes up for in the realms of soulful craftsmanship.