4x4 tickets

INFESTICONS

15 October 2010

"Gun Hill Road" tells the story of the epic battle in New York City between the Infesticons (the good-meaning-good guys, basically) and the Majesticons (jiggy automatons intent on robbing the world of reality). It’s a dirty, dangerous battle (as battle’s tend to be) and the troops have been rallied in the mind of one man.

Mike Ladd has been writing since he was four, hooked on Langston Hughes since eleven and performing in punk bands, funk bands, solo and with DJ or DAT since he was thirteen. Born in Cambridge, Massachussets, it’s in current home NY where he’s made his name, sharing stages with the likes of KRS-One, De La Soul and the Last Poets, winning the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Slam competition and having his words published in collections such as In Defense of Mumia and Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican.

1997 saw the release of his self-produced debut album, Easy Listening For Armageddon (Scratchie\Mercury) which picked up excellent reviews and interest all over the shop ("A rare album, free of commercial considerations, so alive with creativity it’s scary" - Straight No Chaser). Things didn’t pan out with Scratchie long-term, however, and Ladd began working with a number of people to get his music heard.

This included his Blah Blah single for Big Dada, critically acclaimed and described in the press as "paving new paths any cerebral b-boy will enjoy walking". He has recently released a second solo album, Welcome To The Afterfuture and a Live In Paris CD. Future projects include a 12" for Grand Royal, a guest appearance for Ken Ishii and a remix on the new album from Enrico Macias.

Right now, though, the focus is the Infesticons. Mike is Infesticon #0. The rest of the Infesticon army is made up by fellow stalwarts of the NY underground such as El-P of Company Flow (who also named the insurgents), the Anti-Pop Consortium, Saul Williams, the Sonic Sum crew and others who names must remain secret for now. Mike being a firm believer in the right to free speech, the Majesticons get their say, too.

It all adds up to one of the most intense, outrageous, off-centre, funny albums of the year. With music which veers through cheesy rave, Bollywood, punk, ecclesiastical and elastical, you never quite know what to expect. And that’s only what should be expected. This is guerilla war - surprise is everything...

THE INFESTICONS

The location: Gun Hill Road, north Bronx. The story: war. Enter the Infesticons and their arch enemies, the Majesticons...

The rumour persists that there are GIs in the jungles of Vietnam who still believe Richard Nixon is president. In much the same way, there are people living in the jungle of our cities who still believe in reality. People who - even after thirty years of massmultimedia - seem to think we’re living somewhere other than Disney. Call them the Infesticons and think of a Vietcong for reality’s last (virtual) battleground.

Robots in leather boiler suits are being blown up all over New York. Pipe bombs are going off inside booby-trapped bottles of Crystal. Little metal limbs go flying. Still, they’re jacking their pneumatic hips to the sound of Kenny Gee, beating their metal meat as PM Dawn gyrate for their pleasure in sequinned thongs. Moving ever closer. Call them the Majesticons - the shock troops for the final jiggification of the Five Boroughs of the city.

Nobody knows where the Majesticons have come from (though many people harbour suspicions). Looking at their clothes, you would guess they were built in the mid-eighties, the work of a man (or alien?) desperate to turn the world into a jiggy paradise, a Dynasty template multiplied and turned global, a Shalamar promo all night long. But as to where they have been for the best part of fifteen years? Stored away in some dark basement, maybe, forgotten and dusty.

Until now. Awakened, they take up their mission like the last ten years never happened. They aren’t to know that most of New York has already fallen to subtler means. From Yonkers, the Majesticons march south.

The Bronx chapter of the Infesticons respond first. Skirmish becomes battle. Battle becomes war. Their one aim - to stop the Majesticons by any means necessary: "Is it possible? What is selling out? What is the power of language in this battle? Ugly vs. Beauty? Pick a side and carry out your mission..."

MAJESTICON ALLIES:

Nostalgicons: A crew in downtown Manhattan that thinks everything from the 70s and 80s is cool no matter how bad it sucked at the time.

JiggiDons: The Record Exec Secret Society.

INFESTICON ALLIES:

Rejecticons: Kids that caught shit in grade school, did well in software but stayed cool (could Bill Gates be a Rejecticon? probably not).

Eclecticons: People down for a lot of different styles.

Instructicons: The ancient leaders of an ancient order of "regular guys".