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The night's proceedings were supposed to get underway at 7pm so Ladycook and I were keen not to miss a second of this massive gathering of underground talent. In spite of our best efforts, we didn't reach The Kings Cross area and the Camden Centre until 8pm but as we approached the enormous queue that snaked round the block, we were glad not to have wasted our time stuck out in the drizzle. The doors did finally open an hour late and after a hurried sound-check, producer Jel took to the stage at around 8.25 to perform a twenty-five minute long "SP set;" looping and manipulating weird and wonderful sounds with the wrack of buttons, knobs, pads and switches at his disposal. Starting out with the original record from which Sole got the break for Respect pt. 3, Jel soon set to work on his equipment and the music wafting out the sound system became evermore warped and wonderful. While Jel continued to crate dig and beat sculpt from his position on the raised stage, proceedings fast took on a surreal turn for the weird off-stage when, a couple minutes into the set, there took place a spontaneous gathering of punters sat in clusters on chairs and on the floor of this auditorium like this was some mad hippy picnic or something. This flower-power psychedelic atmosphere was further nurtured by the coupling of the drowsy, fuzzy 8-bit sampling of Jel and the wicked lighting that had shapes slowly winding their way across the ceiling. Speaking of the ceiling, it is appropriate to now address the only thing that marred Jel's set (and all other subsequent performers' sets) that night, namely the venue's dire acoustics. The venue Lex Records were using to host the night's huge line-up was a municipal hall which certainly had the floor space to accommodate the enormous demand to see the night's acts. However, this large unfurnished hall also had a really high ceiling and in the absence of anything to absorb and dampen the noise being made in this wide open room, the space between high, hard walls and wide floor and ceiling turned the venue into an echo chamber. For those stood close to the front and at an equal distance from the speakers at either side of the stage, the sound was reasonable but for those further back and more toward one side, all that could be heard was an evermore thick and muffled echo.
Tes left the stage and I hit the bar.
I wasn't in the hall to witness the night's fourth act because I was busy backstage blagging bagels, beer and catching a quick interview with Tes. However, I have the full set recorded on minidisc so I didn't miss a thing. There was nothing wrong with punctuating this long night of proper acts with a deejay set or a musical interlude - and if anyone was going to play boom bip's bewitching music and get paid for it, it should be him but it wasn't really worth putting him on the bill because cueing up mp3s of mostly ambient music on a powerbook isn't a performance. Especially when the first twenty or so minutes of his set comprised the most "ambient" of his material which sounds like somebody leaning on a stack of synthesisers. Once again, as with Fat Jon and Pole, this would have been ideal as a pre-show "get your drinks and merchandise" set or something to round up the evening but slapping it in the middle of the night made no sense and killed the already flailing atmosphere.
So with the orthodox hiphop of Tes fast becoming a distant memory, the night was beginning to descend into one long dull thud. Due to delays getting released from prison, the night's original opening acts (minus one emcee) were only now available to perform. There was no time for Dangermouse to do a deejay slot so it was straight on with a set fronted by his man, Jemini the gifted one. It was odd to have a set of what appeared to be disposable bublegum pop rap after so much alternative and abstract material and whilst the duo did their thing with gusto, nobody was rushing to feel their ample energy or to catch their catchy hooks. In all fairness to the duo, I, much like a lot of others, were too drunk and baffled to want or be able to listen too carefully to a group they'd never heard before. Gigs don't really work when nobody has heard any of the material and with their album only now dropping, this set by this anti-ReflectionEternal outfit didn't work and Jemini's use of terms such as "hata, bitch, nigga (and) shit" felt out of place. If all had gone to plan and they had been able to perform at the top of the running-order, DM & Jemini would have been the perfect warm-up act. As it was, If the show was a human being, the DM & Jemini set cut its wrists And so the Night was left haemorrhaging punters fast.
© CD Goldie/ukhh.com 1999 - 2003
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Lexoleum launch party The Camden Centre, London 
As I handed my kit over to the night's impromptu cloak room down in the building's basement, I could hear the night's second act already taking to the stage. So it was a rush back up the stairs to catch every minute of the performance by Brooklyn emcee/producer Tes. Tes is out of this world and he showed and proved this in spite of the hostile acoustics. For the uninitiated, Tes's incredible music combines ambiguous personal musings relayed via fragmentary visions and delivered in an old skool whiny sing-song style With instrumentals which, like the recent output of Big Dada artists, synthesise the best of today's underground sound with a classic electro vibe - but with none of the piety. With his forty-five minute slot, this supreme song-writer, backed by deejay Raydawn, performed pretty much all of his full length debut; adding new dimensions to his music and so opening up further appreciation of his vision. His album, X2, is only about half-an-hour long so there was plenty of time for Tes to venture off script. Once he had stuck a rocket under the still subdued audience with his "when I say tes, you say one, when I say London you say lex, when I say fucking you say sex" routine, Tes put aside his profoundly personal music for a couple minutes to become his alter-ego "Pro-Tes" to then bust a political rap loosely based on Slick Rick's Childrens' story, speaking on "the war on terror." It was then back to the album tracks for a while and to introduce Fool Time he complained about having a 9-to-5 and asked if anybody in the audience felt the same. He was treated with silence which prompted him to ask what the hell people did - one guy toward the back shouted "we're all rich students!" This probably wasn't the case but so early on in the night, the audience were reluctant to let go of their daytime inhibitions. People attending Lex events are not usually so reserved and hard to impress but the night was early. Lex gigs always draw a very varied bunch of people ranging from a thug necking a Champaign bottle through to a lot of stocky, middle-aged men who could have easily been undercover police officers - as well as the deputy editor of Undercover. Of course those people who are more interested with being seen than seeing were there too in full effect including, I'm reliably informed, some teenaged chaps sporting flat caps and pencil moustaches. Anyway, I digress - with performances of a decent chunk of what turned out to be a showcase of every track from 
When I returned to the hall, the next act had already started. after a five-ten minute set of drear broken beats by pole, Five Deez's Fat Jon took to the stage to deliver weird, abstract, monotonous pulsing tracks which, thanks to the echo chamber in which he was performing, took on the air of a monged out dub sesh. I was, and remain, unfamiliar with their material beyond a track they contributed to Much record's seminal Ropeladder 12 compilation. Fat Jon's short set went down reasonably well but I think that had more to do with its tranquillising grooves than it's lyrical content. If this was a warm-down set at the end of the night then it would have been great but having previously been roused by Tes, it felt like a premature snuffing of the energy that Tes had worked hard to kindle in the crowd.
And speaking of no sense, the no musicians Dose One and Jel (but not Dax Pearson) were up next with a set from Themselves. Given the inconsistent acoustics of the venue, I had feared a repeat of my experience at Cardiff's The Welsh Club. Fortunately, with the emphasis being on their first album, their playlist featured a lot more of the old stuff which had a more regular beat so it didn't get all fuzzy and smudged on it's way between the speaker and punters' ears. Unfortunately however, they could have been crystal-clear and this would not have stopped their set from being another disappointment. I am beginning to fear that there will never be a fully satisfying Them/selves set. Dose's free-form word painting, vocal shapes and Jels jagged soundscapes conjure such vivid and massive images in the infinite innerspace of imagination I fear that no matter how many props and plants Dose brings on stage, reality will never compete. Unless they can hook up with Lucasarts or Dreamworks to create some epic visuals to fully realise their work, Themselves are not an outfit that are suited to a gig context and they should concentrate on putting together a complete theatrical event or a DVD rather than mere selections of songs in the gig context.
As Saturday night became Sunday morning, the night slumped dangerously close to flat-lining. A mixture of alcohol, the acoustics and just general weariness saw the vibe change from one of cool enthusiasm through to irritable Apathy. The night dramatically picked up for those who had stuck it out when the third of the night's more recognisably "hiphop" and more distinctive acts took to the stage. Buck65 took his fifty minutes to refine the set he's been doing recently with flashlight, book and confetti. the selection was good including food song, centaur, pack animal and other favourites but the guy's got at least seven solo LPs out there and he could have slipped you know the science, Pants on fire - or any other of his many tracks he hasn't been performing at all his recent shows. Apart from achieving a People's record for saying "son of a whore!" the most times in one hour, he did play some lesser known tracks like the one about his father. However, you know that a venue is no good when even the performer notices "it's me and you against this ceiling!" He may have refined a playlist but he's also one of those artists who can roll with the punches and adjust his act on the spot. Having been confronted with kids doing that drop-bass "Bhooo!" noise at gigs in the UK, Buck decided to have a go at this himself to try out the place's acoustics. Satisfied that those at the back could hear what he was doing, he stopped the music for a while to tell an incredible anecdote about how he got signed to Warner Bros which involved a duck-billed platypus, some pickled eggs and a hall of photos signed by America's most useless, and yet most famous people. Still sincerely concerned as to whether people in the centre and back could hear the detail of his music, he performed an acapella interpretation of the track that originally featured on the anticon music for the advancement of hiphop compilation which later became the germinal fragment for man overboard. In the final hour and a half of the night, Audience numbers were dropping fast but I did notice that the proportion of women grew fast for buck and he got a great reception from the people who had persevered with this municipal echo chamber. His set peaked with a rendition of Stella that was screaming out for a sea of zippos waving in the air which was a much-needed reminder of the festival vibe that had once filled the air.
I feel sorry for all the people who left during the Jemini and Buck65 sets because they not only missed those two quality acts but more importantly, they missed out on seeing the highlight of the whole night! The final forty-five minutes of the night belonged to a joint set by Edan & Insight; two emcees and hiphop renaissance men conducting a perfect melding of minds. The pair's perfectly choreographed performance found the guys ruling stage and working the audience like some ferocious two-headed monster who feeds on a strict diet of dope beats and crowd energy. Even if the venue in which they were performing did resemble a "school disco!" Nothing, not even the laws of sound, were going to stop this pair from giving the audience everything they'd got. Picking up Buck65's "it's me and you against this ceiling" baton, the duo went back and forth, dabbling with the decks and then turning the echo back on itself with the help of an effects peddle hooked up to their mics…
Overall, I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed witnessing all that talent in the one place for one long hiphop variety show. Those expecting half-a-dozen full concerts for £15 went away deservedly disappointed but those who embraced the event as an act-packed night got their money's worth. That said, even without the major disruptions to the schedule, this was a night where you had to be there all night, following the thread from start to finish. It wasn't really a show where people could drift in and out nor one where one could turn up at 11pm and get the full experience. In defence of Lex Records, a label who can be depended on to sign and book the most interesting and entertaining acts, if all had gone to Tom Brown's best-laid plan, the night would have been even better and the problematic acoustics wouldn't even be an issue. I found out from the label boss himself earlier on in the night that the festival vibe was no happy accident. This event was originally conceived as one third of a three-day in door festival but at the last minute, the other two parties (a rock and a dub label) putting on the other nights pulled out leaving Lex holding the baby. If the festival had gone ahead, there would have been a tent structure erected inside the hall with a much lower roof and therefore more warmer acoustics. I guess that this knowledge is not much comfort to disgruntled punters but if people are going to bitch, they might as well bitch about the right people.
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