HALFWAY CROOKS EAST COAST SPECIAL: THIS SATURDAY!

NYHalfway Crooks kicks off 2016 with a massive East Coast rap special – playing nothing but Rocafella, Dipset, Ruff Ryders, A$AP Mob, G Unit and more all night long!

Featuring Levins, Franco and special guest, all the way from New York, DJ Equal! It kicks off at 9pm at Plan B Small Club (formerly known as Goodgod Small Club).

RSVP and make a request on the event page!

 

TEN 90s DANCES THAT NEED TO MAKE A COMEBACK

Goodgod goes totally 90s this Friday night for The Rhythm Of the Night! With an all star lineup across the entire venue from 9pm – playing 90s rap and RnB classix in the front bar and nothing but 90s dance anthems out the back. Featuring sets from Ariane, Beni, Harry Hunter, Matka, Tulett and me! In anticipation, I put together a playlist of ten horrible 90s dance crazes that are welcome to make their comeback this Friday night at Goodgod.

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Tickets are still available for Friday but selling fast – get them from Moshtix before they sell out!

1. The Hammer Dance

I’m putting this one first because the best way to do the Hammer dance is while wearing Hammer pants – so this is your chance to run out and buy a pair before Friday. I’m sure you can still get them at Target.


2. The Las Ketchup

Latin fever was high on the charts in the late nineties – from Ricky Martin’s Cup of Life to Shakira’s small and humble breasts – but nothing featured a dance as infectious as this incredbly forgettable number one hit. Oh wait, except that one song…


3. The Macarena

Still the absolute highlight of every Moby Disc DJ’s wedding set, The Macarena dance moves are forever burned into the brains of every single person who spent even one second in the 90s.


4. The Rump Shaker

Anyone can shake their rump but you get bonus points if you do it while playing a saxaphone and wearing a bikini.


5. The Hamsterdance

The instructions for doing the Hamsterdance are vague at best – “stomp your feet” is almost immediately followed by “you don’t even have to move your feet” – but this high pitched, crudely drawn piece of shit captured the hearts of the entire world.


6. The Jiggy

This one is easier to do while staring into a camera the entire time, barely moving your lower body. Don’t get ahead of yourself and whip your hair back and forth! If anyone bumps into you while getting jiggy, feel free to punch them in the face and shout “welcome to earth!”.


7. 5, 6, 7, 8

Almost as big as the latin dance pop craze was the now thankfully forgotten country dance pop craze. Steps may have been a million times more easy on the eye than Rednex, but the infectious lyrics of 5, 6, 7, 8 are no less haunting than Cotton Eyed Joe. They almost made line dancing cool again except of course they fucking didn’t.


8. Stop Right Now, Thank You Very Much

The Spice Girls needed somebody with a human touch in 1998 and this song helped people all over the world slow it down baby and have some fun with these easy to learn dance moves. This was the Spice Girls’ last single but their first song with dance moves attached to it. If you’re looking for something to blame for the Spice Girls break up, look no further than this dance.


9. The Bartman

Was this song and dance the best or worst thing The Simpsons was responsible for in the early 90s? Do people still carry this song around on their walkman to hijack otherwise boring dance recitals?


10. The Carlton

If enough people bring candles will we be prepared to play Tom Jones just so everybody can do the Carlton. We might even install a staircase for the full effect.


OTHER DANCES WELCOME THIS FRIDAY INCLUDE: The Urkel Dance, The Train, The Humpty Dance, The Achy Breaky Heart, The Tootsie Roll, Da Dip, Vogueing.

Originally posted on Two Thousand.

THE BEST OF SOULJA BOY

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Originally posted on Pages Digital.

Every few months Halfway Crooks write a playlist for the artist they feature on their poster. This month is Soulja Boy…

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Soulja Boy. He was inescapable in 2007 but he released his fourth album in February this year and I only just found that out two minutes ago after googling ‘Soulja Boy new album’. He’s still worth $25 million and Ice T probably still blames him for killing hip hop. He’s still my go to rapper when I want to piss off a real hip hop head, playing a badly mastered Soulja Boy mp3 is even more infuriating to a 2015 Zulu Nation hanger-on than playing an entire Miley Cyrus album. There’s still something appealing about his weird bratty attitude, every song he’s ever made sounds like it was made by a 16 year old – not just due to Soulja’s hilariously simple lyrics, but there’s always a youthful energy to his tracks, an energy that sounds especially great when blaring through a mobile phone on public transport. Here are few of his best tracks from his albums and tapes. Come back to me in a few weeks to see if there’s any good ones on his latest album.

Crank That (Soulja Boy)

The song that started it all. I used to get in trouble at clubs for playing the original version that I ripped from Soulja Boy’s Myspace. I never actually learnt the Crank Dat dance, but I still have a playlist filled with Crank Dat variations. My fav of the bunch was Crank Dat Urkel Dance by PLP. When they released this single properly I was given a Crank That Soulja Boy tshirt which I wore for most of 2007/8 until it mysteriously disappeared shortly after people started booing when you played Crank Dat in the club. Life is unfair sometimes.

Yahhh!

Just to show how much money Soulja Boy’s record label was throwing at him, they got Dog the Bounty Hunter to star in this film clip. This song did better in the Australian charts than it did in the States and is probably the most fondly remembered song from his first album, the eloquent lyrics and delivery still tug on the heart strings of everyone who’s ever gotten fed up with the constant adoration of their fans and yelled in their faces. That synth line is our generation’s ‘Jump’ by Van Halen, it’s impossible not to punch the air as soon as you hear them.

Snap and Roll

Most of Souljaboytellem.com was self produced, and this is probably the hottest beat on there, and had one of the best dances to go along with it. Even though it sold by far the best, Soulja Boy’s debut is my least favourite of his first three albums, with most of the album sounding dated and flat when listened to today. This one still bangs though.

Kiss Me Thru The Phone (featuring Sammie)

Soulja Boy’s second biggest song after Crank Dat is about a very low stake romantic dilemma – he’s a relatively short distance away from his girl (short enough that he’ll be able to see her “later on”) but he misses her so goddamn much that he requests she kiss him through her phone somehow. That’s the very underrated singer Sammie on the hook. To hear more from him listen to this or this. Soulja made a few more sweet R&B numbers like this on his next album, Hey Cutie with Trey Songz is almost as good as this one and Soulja sings the hook himself on Blowing Me Kisses. Even his more stupid lines work best on his R&B tracks where he’s not trying to be tough at all.

Gucci Bandana (featuring Gucci Mane and Shawty Lo)

Weird fact: Gucci Mane has two verses on iSouljaBoyTellEm. This is the better of the two, those dark piano notes setting a perfect tone for Gucci alongside Soulja and another sadly forgotten relic from the tail end of the 00s’ first decade: Shawty Lo.

Soulja Boy Tell’ em

The rest of Souja’s second album is a mess of ideas and different song structures, some which work, some which don’t and then there’s a couple of absolute curveballs like the written-and-recorded-in-five-minutes banger Hey You There. I always liked the weird High School Musical vibe of this song, and that bassline is almost as good as the one on Lemonade.

First Day of School

The first song of Soulja Boy’s third album has more plays on my iTunes than it does on YouTube. When my son starts school I’m going to blast this from the second he wakes up right up until I drop him at the school gate, just so he can blame me for all his problems in life from that point onward.

Pretty Boy Swag (Remix featuring Gucci Mane)

Another Gucci x Soulja classic, one of two great remixes from The DeAndre Way singles, the other being the T-Mix of Speakers Going Hammer. Hopefully one of the 50 albums Gucci Mane releases from jail in the next year is a collab with Soulja.

30 Thousand 100 Million (featuring Lil’ B and Arab)

The best of the collaborations on The DeAndre Way (sorry 50) features Soulja Boy one-upping the inevitable Lil’ B “hoes on my dick…” line with the unbeatable “word around town bitch my dick taste like ribs”. Nobody has written a better line about their dick since, but Lil’ B and Soulja made a few more tracks together before Lil’ B accused Soulja of biting his swag (he kinda did). Soulja Boy’s remix of Swag On My Dick is a modern classic though.

Zan With That Lean (featuring Kwony Cash and J Money)

There was a good year or two where every one of Soulja’s monthly mixtapes was worth getting for at least one banger. This song was very integral to the High IQ music movement.

My City

The 21: EP kicked off with the anthemic Swag Daddy (“Came out the water like a pretty ass dolphin!”) but the star of the EP was this dreamy melodic sleeper hit. This whole EP is worth picking up tbh.

Louis Vuitton

A real treasure for true SOD fans (like the ones I forced to watch Soulja Boy: The Movie with me) is this strange lullaby to LV, featuring Soulja Boy crooning over a head nodding bassline. The only bad thing about this song is that it isn’t an hour long.

That Booty

Who said Soulja Boy wasn’t a real lyricist?

I’ll be playing all these songs and more (including Soulja’s song with Snoop Dogg minus the Snoop Dogg parts) at Halfway Crooks this Saturday night. Jayteehazard’s playing too, and of course the good Captain Franco.

RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1440400696260799/

THE RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT

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Every couple of months I run a 90s party at Goodgod called The Rhythm of the Night. Most of the time it’s 90s dance in the backroom and 90s r&b in the front but I’ve always wanted to do an 90s alt rock party, ever since hearing Nick Catchdubs‘ awesome Radio Friendly Unit Shifter mixes. I even did my own all Australian alt rock high school hits mix in 2012. This weekend The Rhythm of the Night moves the dance to the front bar and fills the backroom with angst and powerchords. It’s the 90s alt rock special!

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For the first time we’ve got a live act playing – a genuine 90s live act at that – Swoop! You might remember their 1995 top ten hit Apple Eyes.

I put together a few articles to promote the party, as always they’re a bunch of (hopefully) super entertaining lists.

21 Essential Australian dance tracks from the 90s on Stoney Roads

This took forever to put together and then I found out In The Mix had put out their top 100 Australian dance songs of all time list the day before mine went up. Surprisingly there’s a few tracks on my list that didn’t make theirs!

6 nu metal songs you can dance to on Pages Digital

Pages editor and prince of style Christopher Kevin Au asked me to write him a nu metal article and I did (for the nookie, obviously).

Essential 90s alt rock bangers on Oyster

The DJs playing at The Rhythm of Night (Joyride, Ariane, Chux, Shag, G Coo, babygirl and myself) pick their favourite alt jam from the 90s.

Talking 90s with Swoop on the Goodgod blog

Roland from Swoop talks about his favourite things from the 90s – the music, the dances, the food and Tom Cruise.

The Rhythm of the Night is the Saturday night at Goodgod Small Club. RSVP here.

 

RO SHAM BO: THE REUNION

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One of my favourite things I’ve ever written is this RO SHAM BO: 5 YEARS OF DANCE CONFUSION post, a wrap up of the history of Ro Sham Bo, a DJ team that I started with some of my best mates in 2006. We threw a retirement party when Ryan moved to London in 2011, claiming that his absence would make it impossible to stay together as group, but to be honest Ro Sham Bo had naturally run its course by then, the up-tempo multi genre club music sounds that we’d fallen in love with had morphed into weird EDM off-shoots that we’d grown too old to keep up with.

The four of us obviously stayed close friends – Elston was my best man at my wedding two years ago, Ryan and I became dadbros after we both had kids within a week of each other and Jimmy and I still work together almost every week at Goodgod. We also kept fond memories of our old parties, and the music we used to play at them, getting nostalgic about old tracks whenever we saw each other. Jimmy and I decided it was time for a reunion and got Ro Sham Bo back together for a celebration of late noughties club music with some of our other club buddies who were playing the best shit back then too.

Tomorrow night Goodgod becomes a celebration of 2007 (a decidedly less retro era than my all 90’s dance Rhythm of the Night parties!), with sets from Ro Sham Bo, Disco Punx, Catcall, Jaime Doom, Kato, Gregg Sandwich and Shantan Wantan Ichiban. You can find all the details (and make a request!) here.

I’ve been putting together a few articles for various sites that highlight some of the best tracks and moments from eight years ago, have a trawl through them below and hopefully I’ll see you getting nostalgic on the dancefloor tomorrow night!

Sydney DJs: Then and Now, 2007 – 2015 on Stoney Roads

“In 2007, nothing sounded hotter than 96kbp MP3 that you’d ripped from some French cunt’s MySpace page.”

Goodgod’s REUNION DJs pick the forgotten hits of 2007 on TwoThousand

“Goodgod got a ahold of everyone’s number and organised an eight year reunion for 2007’s hottest DJs. Instead of serving frozen spring rolls at the local RSL they’ll be serving up forgotten bangers in the Goodgod Danceteria.”

RO SHAM BO: 5 YEARS OF DANCE CONFUSION

“The worst Ro Sham Bo set ever was us playing after Spank Rock in 2008 at Becks Festival Bar. While Spank Rock were playing the greatest set ever, Ro Sham Bo thieved everybody’s rider and stumbled onto the stage with bottles of wine in our hands and promptly forgot how to mix in front of a crowd that had just been told that the afterparty was elsewhere and were desperate to leave.”

Ro Sham Bo Survivor Mix – a mix Moriarty and I made in 2009, probably my favourite RSB mix from start to finish.

I’m now about to run out the door to host FBi Radio‘s Midday Mix with Moriarty, the first Ro Sham Bo set in years!

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NEW MIX! CASH MONEY BOUNCE

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I finally finished a mix that I’ve been working on little by little over the last year, exclusively after 2am. Blame the stupid working hours on the fun of becoming a dad – each night I was volunteering to stay up all night to look after my son’s night feeds and would spend my new nocturnal spare time answering questions like “I wonder how many gigabytes the entire No Limit discography will take up on my laptop” (the answer is 12.17). I became addicted to staying up late and delving deep into the back catalogues of my favourite artists, producers and record labels; my downloading marathons interrupted by the cries of a hungry baby, who would be fed with one hand as I spent way too much money on the eBay app with the other, bidding on old tapes and CDs with a recklessness not usually associated with new parents.

A mission I accepted early into my night rap crusade was to fill the gaps in my Cash Money discography. Cash Money has always been the label I’m quick to blurt out whenever someone asks what my favourite rap label is – but it’s always immediately followed by “until 2005!”. That’s the year Mannie Fresh left the label, the best rap producer of all time and the heart and soul of Cash Money during their best years. It was crazy to me how different the early Cash Money releases were to what they put out these days and I wanted to hear the progression of Mannie Fresh as a producer, of Cash Money as a label and of Cash Money’s influence on the sound of New Orleans hip hop. I’d become fascinated with the history of New Orleans rap scene in the 90s (spending as much money on old No Limit albums and the odd overpriced bounce 12″ as I was on Cash Money releases) so I bought a few books documenting the bounce movement, most of which were useless and referenced the articles I was finding online anyway (Matt Miller’s Bounce is a great read though). For the purpose of this mix, the best article I found was this fantastic history of Cash Money’s independent years on the Amoeba Records blog, which the perfect introduction to the labels beginnings and the characters involved in their long story. (Sidenote: last year I found Lil Wayne’s 500 Degreez on vinyl at Amoeba Records in LA for $1 but I’d parked illegally in the Jack In A Box across the road. My car was towed and I had to pay $250 to get it released. Bargain!)

A weeks worth of Paypal transactions and illegal downloads of hard to find tape rips was all it took to complete my collection and soon my iTunes library contained every single record released on Cash Money from 1992 until 2004 (even the Teena Marie album). As my son slept, I immersed myself in the back catalogue, burning dozens of comps of my favourite tracks for the car and whittling it down to the essentials. I was immediately drawn to the bounce stuff as that’s where Mannie Fresh’s roots with Cash Money are. The beats on the first few releases are rawww (especially when heard as a low quality mp3 ripped from a cassette), with fairly primitive drum machine loops and recognisable samples. With each release Mannie builds on the bounce framework more and more, adding live instrumentation and relying less on loops, eventually removing the tell-tale bounce samples and producing his more hip hoppy (but still clearly bounce influenced) signature sound.

Originally this mix was gonna just collect the bounce tracks produced while Cash Money was an independent label (until 1998) but it made sense to include the last two proper bounce tracks Fresh produced, the mega hits ‘Back That Azz Up’ (from Juvenile’s 400 Degreez) and ‘I Need a Hot Girl’ (off the Hot Boys’ Guerilla Warfare) to show how he brought the sound of New Orleans bounce into the mainstream rap charts. Plus, they’re fucking awesome songs.

At some point I’ll make a mix of all of the more straight rap stuff Cash Money put out, from the Pimp C produced Kilo G tracks, to seriously half the songs on B.G.’s two part album It’s All On U. Even if I stuck to the independent years there’s enough gold to warrant another two mixes, showcasing one of the best labels and eras in the history of raps. Until then, here’s Cash Money Bounce.

Tracklist:

LIL’ SLIM bounce slide ride
B-32 shake that ass like a salt shaker
MC HEAVY gangster walk
PIMP DADDY got 2 be real (remix)
PxMxWx mo bounce
U.N.L.V. get into it with a nigger
U.N.L.V. eddie bow
PxMxWx still smokin’
PxMxWx splift out
PIMP DADDY keep on kick it
B.G.’z true story
B-32 feat MS. TEE i need a bag of dope
U.N.L.V. 6th & baronne
PIMP DADDY god bless the dead (rip)
LIL’ SLIM feat PxMxWx blunt after blunt
LIL’ SLIM feat B-32 ho’s i used 2 sweat II
PxMxWx feat LIL’ SLIM big man got hoes
U.N.L.V. pussy c’mon to me!
MS. TEE let’s get high
U.N.L.V. jazzy bitch
MAGNOLIA SHORTY monkey on tha dick
JUVENILE feat BIG TYMERS & MAGNOLIA SHORTY 3rd ward soulja
MS. TEE i like it (MANNIE FRESH style)
JUVENILE feat LIL’ WAYNE & MANNIE FRESH back that azz up
HOT BOYS feat BIG TYMERS i need a hot girl

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I’ll be playing a shitload of bounce hits this Saturday night in Sydney at Goodgod Small Club for Halfway Crooks. It’s Mardi Gras night and every year we do a New Orleans Mardi Gras Party which is always my favourite party of the year. Huge lineup, free beads and a solid three hours of triggaman samples. Come dance. RSVP here.

Artwork by Daniel McKinley.

EGHCK!

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Originally posted on Pages Digital.

Halfway Crooks will be moving home as of tomorrow – taking over the excellent GoodGod Small Club. To celebrate this new chapter, we asked Andrew Levins from the crew to name his Top 10 tracks by Pusha T – seeing as Pusha T is the rapper to grace their very cool gig poster this month.

Pusha T has long been one of my favourite rappers. Well, that’s a lie kinda – Clipse were my favourite rap group 8 years ago. Lord Willin’ is one of the best albums of all time and Hell Hath No Fury is pretty great too. The mixtapes in between those albums are incredible. I love Clipse and was stoked to support them when they toured in 2010, with a set that garnered high praise such as “Levins showed little skill on the 1’s and 2’s.

I’m not as crazy about Pusha T’s solo output these days. He can still put a great song together, he just hides them amongst a bunch of boring ones on his albums and tapes. Also his guest verses can sometimes be really out of place (like Kanye’s Runaway). Pusha is best rapping about selling drugs or having problems with women. These topics make up about 85% of rap songs anyway, so why does he keep getting featured on the other 15%? Anyway here’s my favourite Pusha/Clipse tracks. Franco put a few in there too.

Clipse – Gangsta Lean

I had to start with this one, you know how Pusha is best rapping about either drugs or girls? Why not both? This is five glorious minutes of Pharrell, Malice and Pusha rapping about having sex with weed. So romantic.

Clipse – Ma I Don’t Love Her (featuring Faith Evans)

This is a perfect Clipse song, a perfect Neptunes song and a perfect rap song with an r&b hook. It’s actually really sweet too, poor Pusha is just trying to prove to his girl that he’s been faithful. I love how he suggests that the only way he’s been unfaithful is by keeping a second gun. I’m sure my Dad can relate to that.

Clipse – I’m Not You (featuring Rosco P. Goldchain, Jadakiss & Styles P)

At this point you’re probably thinking “is this dude just gonna list every song off Lord Willin’? And I totally could. When I had a restaurant, I once left the kitchen for about 15 minutes during peak trade to go and argue with a table of friends who were saying that Hell Hath No Fury was the better album. Get the fuck outta here. ‘I’m Not You’ is the sleeper hit off Lord Willin’. Those steel drums are hypnotic and Pusha’s ‘rappin’ n tappin’ intro is probably my favourite ridiculous rap intro in the history of ridiculous rap intros. Shout out to Rosco P. Goldchain as well. I miss you.

Baby featuring Clipse – What Happened to that Boy?

Someone else who rules at ridiculous intros is Baby aka Birdman, the head honcho of Cash Money. He’s tame on the start of this though, presumably because of how hot the rest of the song is. This song is 12 years old now and still gets played out all the time.

Dre – Chevy Ridin’ High (Remix featuring Pusha T and a bunch of other rappers who cares)

Pusha’s verse is so good on this. I had no idea it was one of his own favourite verses as well. This remix came out in the hot summer of 2006 when it was illegal to not put at least 20 rappers on your remix. This would’ve been a hit if it was just Pusha’s verse, then the hook for three minutes.

Clipse – Definition of a Roller

My problem with Hell Hath No Fury when it came out was that it was nowhere near as good as the We Got it For Cheap mixtapes that came out a year or two before it. There was so much hype and excitement about these tapes when they came out and other random tracks would leak that were incredible and now they’re almost impossible to find. When you google ‘Definition of a Roller’ the first thing that comes up is the actual dictionary definition of what a roller is. The only version of this song on Youtube is this slowed down one from M.I.A.’s Piracy Funds Terrorism tape. Try and track down the actual version if you can, it’s so goddamn good.

Clipse – Zen

This might be my favourite Clipse song ever, and nobody knows it. It’s easily better than everything onHell Hath No Fury at the very least. The beat is so hot – more songs should begin with gunshots like that! This was the only original track on We Got it 4 Cheap Volume 1 and was later re-recorded with an inferior beat but nobody knows that version either anyway. Life sucks but go download that tape and feel me on this one.

Clipse – Eghck!

You know that “yeurck” noise Pusha T always makes? They made a whole song about it! This came out during a magical time when every week a hot new Clipse song would just appear on every blog once a week. The excitement for their new album was crazy and then none of the songs that I loved ended up on it and everyone forgot about them. How am I even still alive after that?

Clipse – Mr Me Too

I’ve been running my mouth off on Hell Hath No Fury but it actually doesn’t have one bad song on it. Maybe if they released an album of all the best mixtape cuts before they put it out I wouldn’t have been disapointed. When ‘Mr Me Too’ came out the whole internet went nuts, mostly for two things: Pusha T’s line about the crackers not playing fair Jive and that tambourine that comes in halfway through the song. This is one of those songs that people still proudly shout every word to.

I spent too long bragging about how cool I am with all my obsucre mixtape cuts and ran out of spaces for all the songs off Hell Hath No Fury that I actually love, so I’ll use this spot to mention that ‘Momma I’m So Sorry‘ still gets a massive cheer whenever I play it, ‘Nightmares‘ is the shit and ‘Wamp Wamp‘ is so good that Kato and I named a party after it in 2006. Hell Hath No Fury is a really good album. Don’t be mad at me for not putting more songs from it on this list – instead you should be mad at me for not putting one song off Till the Casket Drops on here lol suck shit.

Pusha T – Let Me Love You (featuring Kelly Rowland)

When My Name is My Name came out last year I had become that shitty dude who writes off anything new that a rapper does that doesn’t sound like their old stuff (it’ll happen to all of you, don’t judge me). So naturally I was attracted to the Neptunes-y guitar song with Kelly Rowland doing a cute lil 90s hook and Pusha doing his best Ma$e impression. This is a hot song. Stop not dancing to it when I play it.

Captain Franco is a much bigger Pusha T in 2014 fan and would like to add Blocka and Hold On to this list. I hope you found a few tracks you didn’t know while reading this! See you on Saturday!

MY FAV RAP SONGS ATM

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Originally posted on Goodgodgoodgod.com

Halfway Crooks makes its Goodgod debut this Saturday and we couldn’t be more psyched. Captain Franco and Levins will be bringing their magical rap party to the Danceteria, playing nothing but rap hits as they’ve been doing for the past five years. You can hear Captain Franco’s fav songs of the month every time he puts out a new mix for Acclaim (October mix dropping tomorrow!), so we asked Levins what his favourite new rap songs are at the moment…

Rich Gang – Tell Em (Lies)

We have been listening to the Rich Gang tape non-stop since it came out. Before that we were listening to Lifestyle every single day. Tell Em (Lies) is like a weird sequel to Lifestyle. Same tempo, that similar piano beat, Thugga and Quan both passionately crooning about things that I’ll never understand. That’s the blueprint to a hit in 2014.

Yung Lean feat Travis Scott – Ghosttown

When I first saw the name of this track I thought Yung Lean had covered The Specials and was immediately disappointed. Disappointment quickly turned into fistpumping though as I heard the best track that the Swedish sad boy has made so far.

Kari Faux – No Small Talk

This one is so cool. Her voice is the best and the beat is a reprise of one of the best Three 6 Mafia songs. Her clip is cool too but nowhere near as cool as that Three 6 Mafia one – probably because they spent at least a billion dollars on theirs.

Gucci Mane – Swole Pocket Shorty

Somehow Gucci released his tenth album from jail after being locked up for just over a year. In this one he raps about relatable subjects like watching The Simpsons and rolling joints on top of shitty albums that his rivals put out.

Tre Capital feat Sean Leon – Prestige

I heard this on Xzibit’s radio show when I was in LA last month. Why was I listening to Xzibit’s radio show? I have no idea. This Tre Capital bloke is his nephew or something and his rapping is a happy balance between not that good and easy to ignore. I love that weird hook but most of all I love that weird beat that WondaGurl made. She’s great.

Future – Codeine Crazy

Future’s most recent tape is unfortunately garbage but this track is the saving grace at the end. Equal parts gloomy and triumphant, Codeine Crazy will either have you terrified of drinking lean or more excited to hit it than ever.

New Ara – KMA

I put this bro from Chicago on the last tape I made and here he is again with another weird banger that nobody will care about except you and me. I’ve never heard someone ask his listeners to kiss his ass so gloriously.

Halfway Crooks comes to the Danceteria this Saturday night from 11pm. Get the full info here!

UPDATE: Listen to Franco’s OCTOBER mix for Acclaim!

HALFWAY CROOKS MOVES TO GOODGOD

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Thanks to everyone who came to the last Crooks at Phoenix last month – and thanks even more to Phoenix for having us for the last 5 years! Cheers to 49 amazing parties!

We’re stoked – seriously so stoked, typing one handed while the other hand is shaka-ing above our heads – to announce that the new home of Halfway Crooks will be our favourite club in Sydney, the incredible funhouse that is Goodgod Small Club. No huge surprise there right? We can be found at Goodgod almost every other weekend and have run some great special Crooks parties there but we’ve always wanted to run a monthly party there. The sound system is great, the staff are the friendliest and the vibe is just unbeatable. We hope you’re as stoked as we are about this and we’ll see you on the 8th of November for the first Halfway Crooks at Goodgod – with special guests Nes and Liz Bird aka Lazer Gunne Funke!

RSVP on Facebook.

 

 

THE DIP’S LAST WEEK

Originally posted on The Dip blog.

Welcome to the last week of The Dip. Don’t be sad – be organised! Get your crew together and make a booking for one last Dip trip before it’s too late.

We’re keeping it simple all week. Only a few specials – we’re mainly focusing on our regular menu. It’s all about that last plate of Pulled Pork Nachos, that last Lev’s Dawg and that last Young Cheezy.

Here’s some of the awesome things you can be a part of during our last week!

WEDNESDAY – GAME OF THRONES TRIVIA

Join Nick Coyle for an evening exploring George R. R. Martin’s world, covering all four seasons of the HBO show. Free and first in, best dressed. Kicking off at 8pm but be early – this one will be big!

THURSDAY – ONE LAST DIP HOP

Remember Dip Hop? We’re bringing back The Dip’s weekly Front Bar party for one last dance, with Head Chef Levins, Dip Hop regular Leon Smith and Dip legends Batesy & McKinley!

To make it a proper Dip Hop, we’re bringing back The Juicy J for one night only! It’s The Dip’s take on a ‘Juicy Lucy’ burger – the beef patty is filled with gooey American cheese and served with onions, pickles, tomato, lettuce and TRIPPY SAUCE.

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Enjoy rap and enjoy burgers. It’s a no-brainer. Free from 9pm.

FRIDAY – TEARS

Come watch our kitchen staff cry as they work through what is sure to be our busiest night ever.

SATURDAY – OUR LAST NIGHT & THE RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT

It’s our last night ever – and your last chance to eat your Dip favourites! Come enjoy our menu for the last time, and then join us for a huge party out the back with our head chef Levins DJing nothing but nostalgic 90s dance BANGERS until late into the night!

One week to go! We hope we see all of you at some point!