Fatboy Slim

Mr. Slim is among the reigning masters of DJ-dom, successfully blending big beats with all manner of retro sounds - when I saw him in LA a few years ago, his set ran the gamut from James Brown to the Chemical Brothers. Wonderful stuff to dance to. But calling Fatboy Slim 'techno' would be like calling raisin bran just 'cereal'. Please. You're missing the subtleties - the delicate balance between the dangerous rough textures of the flakes and the succulent chewy sweetness of the devious raisin. Cereal? Ha. A veritable breakfast extravaganza...but enough about that. Fatboy Slim is actually the alter ego of one Mr. Norman Cook who has been involved in a number of various other projects under several names over the past few years. In this incarnation, he is a genius behind the turntables - taking snippets of retro sound and mixing them with tremendous drum loops, but his sound diverges from 'just techno' - I would say it's quite clever stuff. Yes, these shows will attract the loopy rave crowd, I'm sure, but this will be a good time indeed. Be forewarned, his shows often run well into the wee hours. Mr. Slim's new album "Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars" is out now - don't expect a repeat of his prior efforts, as he's moved on a bit musically away from the classic big beat sound.

Links of note:

Fatboy Slim at Astralwerks Records: http://www.astralwerks.com/fbs/.

Fatboy Slim's current homepage: http://www.gutterandstars.com/.

If you'd like, you can email me here: richard@hearingmusic.com.

Oh, and all content on these pages is copyright Richard Lewis.