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interview 0080 added 29.08.01 words Spoon
An eternity ago (well, he's been busy) Spoon nipped along to the Coventry HipHop Festival to check out a brilliant set by Def Tex. Whilst there he grabbed some words with the DJs for the afternoon - Skeg, Rob Life & Tufkut from London's best club - Breakin Bread
Ok then, describe Breakin Bread
[skeg] We play hiphop and we play funk. It’s a hiphop club aimed at the dancing side.
It’s a collective. We do clubs, radio,
[life] We’ve got a record label
[skeg] So its just a collective about hiphop and funk basically
Well that's the breaking...where's the bread?
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How longs it been going for?
[life] About 3 years.
[skeg] Record label year and a half, two years.
With the club down the Plug?
[skeg] We’ve moved around a few but we stayed at the plug for two and a half years and we quite liked to take a break, but now we’ve found a new place in London bridge
[life] The plug was good to us but it was getting a bit cramped
[skeg] and the sound wasn’t that good, and the air conditioning…
[life] and then they sold it
[skeg] but now we’ve hopefully found a better venue now. The sound’s a bit better, it’s a bit bigger, better location.
[tufkut] its more central cos a lot of people from north London had stress travelling on night buses getting back from south London
[life] falling asleep on tubes….Disorda!
What capacity have you got in the new club?
[skeg]About 500
And you’ll fill that
[skeg] Yeah should do
[tufkut] We had some cramped situations in the last venue so it’ll be nice to have a bit of space
Your line-ups always seem to be DJs rather than acts. Is this a conscious thing?
[skeg] it’s a bit of a deliberate policy cos there’s enough clubs with people doing showcases and that. We don’t want to do that cos we just want to keep the crowd moving. It sounds cheesy, but we just want to have a party, that’s what its all about really, we play tunes to make people dance. And so we deliberately book djs. We have an open mic session, there’s always breakdancers there, and this is the good thing about the new club - it’ll have a lot of space for the breakers and space for everyone else to dance as well.
[life] we couldn’t have got many live acts on in the plug to be honest. It was too small. There was no stage or anything.
Do you think you’ll move into live acts a bit more then?
[skeg] I think we’ll stick with our ‘it’s a jam vibe’ really cos it works better
Tufkut & Disorda wonder why people are still recognising them
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you seem to get a wide range of DJs, like people known for it - Mr Thing and then you get Disorda who…well, can’t mix!
[life] yeah but Disorda’s a geezer
[tufkut] he plays to the crowd and he knows certain tunes to play to get the crowd
[life] he’s got charisma. He may not mix very well but he’s got charisma. When he gets on the mic and before he even plays a tune he knocks his pint over and knocks the record off the deck and the crowd loves it
[tufkut] he’s definitely a character…Johnny Zig-Zag
[skeg] we’re just getting people, who we respect in the scene, to come and play.
Who’s the best DJ you’ve had in then for moving the crowd?
[life] Mr Thing was really good…. Kam from Bongo’s
[tufkut] Huw
[life] Greenpeace. I mean, he’s more a tune selector but he’s always got killer tunes
[skeg] MK plays some tunes
[life] we’ve had loads of people
[tufkut] everyone plays a slightly different set so you get certain crowds feed into certain DJs
[life] we try and pick good DJs. To be honest if we haven’t heard them then we try and get a tape off them so we know that they’ve got some kind of skills or got good tunes or whatever.
[tufkut] some people think we’re funny like that…but we want people that want to come and play rather than just turn up for the money
[life] I’d say that pretty much all the DJs we’ve had have got a good level of skill and the crowd like them
Do you get a regular crowd that know what to expect?
[skeg] yeah but we’re still getting newcomers but it’s grown with the label as well, people have gone ‘shit, we’d better check the club out’ and it sounds cheesy again but we’ve seen a few faces down there recently and it’s weird. But I suppose we’ve been going for three years now. It’s been spread word of mouth, we’ve kept it deliberately low key and it seems to have worked.
Tonight was the Coventry hiphop festival. What did you think?
[skeg] it was alright actually
[life] I played last year here and to be honest I thought the crowd was a bit more up for it last year…I dunno, I thought Def Tex were wicked and the crowd kinda got into it half way through but not especially. But it was still a good night. It’s always nice to play somewhere different
[skeg] and we’re from round here. Rob and I are from round here and Tufkut’s from Banbury so it’s nice to come back and see people we haven’t seen for ages.
And you’re doing Brighton tomorrow night. How often do you play outside of London?
[skeg] we’re getting asked to play out again, it’s because of the label, it’s bizarre. We’re getting asked more and more often. It’s nice to be asked. We play down Brighton every other month and a few other nights in London
[tufkut] and Norwich as well
[skeg] it’s quite nice really.
Onto the label, you’ve done 6 7”s so far, one more and then you’re killing it?
[skeg] it was always a 7 series to promote the label and so we’re trying to build it up and then we’re doing an album after that which will be some of the tunes off the 7s plus some new tunes. After that we’ll be doing 12s. First thing we want to do is release a sort of hiphop EP so we’re working to get MCs together for that. We’ll still be releasing 7”s, they just wont be in that 7s series but it was originally to launch the label and then we’re going into different formats so that’s why they’re ending
You’ve had material out before on beats in progress and chopchop
[life] we’ve dabbled here and there
[tufkut] had a quick tinkle
Are those labels dead now then?
[life] yeah, for me, the chopchop thing was a one off
[tufkut] its all still running in the background for me, got things in the pipeline, keeping it on the low at the moment.
What sort of sales have you been getting on the 7”s?
[skeg] the first one we did was limited so that doesn’t really count. We’ve probably done about a 1000 with represses so we’re probably shifting about 1200 with UK and we’re selling quite a few to Australia and Japan and places like that
How are you managing that?
[skeg] well we thought people would just sort of do it, that UK distributors would do it because there is money to be made there but we’ve just done it through the website and nicking peoples email lists and sending our own out. It just spreads
You haven’t got a distributor over there then?
[skeg] people do but basically it happens ourselves.
[life] people want to cut out the middle man so they come straight to us
[skeg] the internet….helping things happen….
You’ve got your own studio setup?
[skeg] robs got a little boxroom studio at Uni
[life] it’s not really got everything but I manage to do tunes out of it. There’s a long way to go but its adequate at the minute.
So you’re all at Uni?
[life] yeah, I’m at Uni down in London
[skeg] I don’t really want to say…I’m an accountant; I work in finance for HMV
[tufkut] I’m in engineering
[life] he spends most of his time chasing Yaks
[skeg] and crumpet
[tufkut] yeah chasing crumpet and getting greasy fingers…
Skeg, Tufkut, DJ Life
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how did you all meet then?
[skeg] through tunes really.
[tufkut] I met rob…1990. He came to a friends I was DJing at
[life] some time ago
[tufkut] we both had 4-tracks and were making tracks that way, before we got bigger and better. I met skeg through rob when they came over to Norwich
[skeg] me and rob hooked up…must have been 86/87
[life] I can’t remember.
[skeg] we went round his house cos we were trying to make music and heard he was a DJ, fourteen year olds
[life] I don’t know who told you that…
[tufkut] come into my bedroom….
[skeg] You could never get in his bedroom cos there were too many records in there
What tunes are rocking at the moment?
[life] we’ve just got this tune which apparently is five years old, it’s by the 45 King, ‘la t rocks the bells’ and it’s got a bit of an old school twinge to it
[skeg] twinge?!
[tufkut] there’s a nice sort of old 93/92/91 twang to these tunes.
[life] oh yeah, Devotion, Peanut butter wolf’s Stone Throw 7”s, they’re really good
[skeg] jerry beeks....just general funk 7”s
[tufkut] deepfunk have been doing their stint of 7”s
[skeg] we went to see Breakestra last Saturday at the Jazz Café and they were absolutely awesome.
[life] generally just digging for old tunes as well, digging up old breaks
[tufkut] carbooting…
[skeg] and there’s some better UK hiphop as well, which is nice
[tufkut] A lot of the PA’s at Scratch… that’s a good showcase. Skitz, Mark B and all that lot
[skeg] we’re into Skitz, Mark B
What did you make of Mark B and Blade on top of the pops?
[skeg] I thought they were excellent. Rob met mark digging for breaks a long time ago and blades been around for years, and they make good music so fair play to them. The whole feeder remix and all that sort of stuff is very well marketed. It’s not available on commercial 12 but got loads of radio play. So it’s all well done, not getting overplayed. Nice one david laub!
[life] they’re working really hard and they’ve released a decent tune at the end of the day
Where can you see the future for uk hiphop
[life] it looks like its finally gonna get some exposure
Do you think it will, or will it just get to a point and then disappear again?
[life] I think it will
[skeg] this is lasting longer than it has before
[life] and the quality’s better I think. I rate a lot of British production and MCs a lot more than the American stuff. Personally I’m not into the jiggy stuff
[tufkut] likewise
[skeg] yeah, likewise!
[life] so it doesn’t do a lot more for me and even though there’s a lot of decent underground American stuff I think British MCs are really running it at the moment
[skeg] some of the funk flavour to UK production is really what we’re into…
[tufkut] it’s growing as a business, a couple of years ago it wasn’t ready. A lot more people are getting interactive into the business side of things so it’s becoming more prepared as an industry. It’s a lot more independent than it was a few years ago with a lot more heads clued up to the business side of it and how to support it.
Where’s Breakin Bread going to go?
[skeg] we’re happy at the level at the moment. Hopefully the album will get some exposure. Upping sales will be nice but its nice just having tunes out there
Can you see yourselves being fulltime DJ/producers/label men?
[skeg] it’d be nice if it happened, you never know
[tufkut] we all do it for the love and passion of it, so if it comes that we can make a living off it as well that’ll come as a bonus, but it’s not the be all and end all
and onto my standard ukhh questions, what’s your favourite flavour of crisps?
[life] salt and vinegar
[skeg] cheese and onion
[tufkut] Worcester sauce French fries
If you had your own pub what would it be called?
[pause and laughter]
[tufkut] Captain Jazzmags Jazz Emporium
[life] I can’t top that…
[skeg] yeah, we’ll go with Tufkut’s
In UK hiphop the movie, who’s playing you three?
[tufkut] I dunno, do you know any 5ft 4 Chinese…
[life] Jackie Chan?
[tufkut] ah yeah. I dunno. Any porn stars?
[skeg] dirk digler
Any shoutouts?
[skeg] def tex, all the artists on the label
[life] and the Coventry massive of course. Big up yourselves.
[tufkut] …everyone that’s related to Breakin Bread, beats in progress and yeah, anyone that knows us
Cheers to them for doing the interview, sorry to the bloke who's car we were leaning on and sorry for the delay in getting this inta up here.
Breakin Bread 7"s are all quality, get them all. The club night is now at Jax, London Bridge, check the guide
Images were purloined from the breakin bread site
 
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