Saturday sees Dublin junglist crew Bassbin take over one of our most cherished basement spaces in the city for a 21st birthday bash. It brings many of their original residents and MC’s back together for a once off.
People have been talking about this one for weeks. Tickets were snapped up long ago. As one wise guy cracked on Twitter:
“There are more people on Facebook saying they are flying home for the Bassbin birthday than have come back to visit their own mothers.”
One of my earliest memories of going out to “proper” nights in Dublin was heading to the Metropolitan. We’d read about such clubs in copies of The Slate picked up at college, but this was the heydey of a guitar band led indie counter-revolution against dance music, it was nigh impossible to get folks to head in with.
Eventually, we did and were greeted by some guy in a corner pounding into a mic and people throwing down with real abandon over rattling bass and rolling snares. There’s a flavor of that Metropolitan madness here.
The above video dips into some extra material from Notes On Rave In Dublin. Bassbin residents Kenny and Don Rosco talk about MCs being a dirty word in Dublin, and then give props to some of the toasters that set a fire under the arse of their dancefloors.
The track coming in at the end is off Naphta’s Long Time Burning called Soundclash 1 (VIP Mix). It was out on another stalwart Dublin label, and of Bassbin called The Fear. We drew heavily on this generation of Irish producers for the documentary’s soundtrack. Earlier parts of the same track come in eerily over the doc’s opening, with a bassline that leaves shivers on the back everytime it wallops in.
The photo is by Jay Safety Boy. There’s great clips from Stephen Rennnicks Last Night At Phunk City in the main doc. They give a flavour of The Funnel at the time where some of the early Bassbin nights were held.
Other clips from Switch were extracted from a raw video we received along the way. It was simply titled Junglist! Amen to that!
If you want to check out the full version of Notes On Rave In Dublin come to our screening and party on December 1st in Liberty Hall.