Dutty Bok Bok Interview X Monts (Broke&Famous)English Version
Subject: Bok Bok (Night Slugs) X Craig Monts
Title: Dutty Bok Bok
Date: 21.02.2010
DJ Tuco & Quime have been running the Mean Bucket blog alongside their Dutty Weekend Club night for some time now. In my humble opinion these chaps are the most progressive & forward-thinking DJ’s in the Czech Republic right now. The Dutty Weekend club night has gone from strength to strength, successfully bringing the best DJ’s to Prague’s party animals. London based Alex Sushon AKA Bok Bok (Night Slugs) will be the the Dutty Weekend guest DJ this Saturday 26th at Zizkov’s Central Station Club. I caught up with Bok Bok to have a quick chat before the imminent sick party!
What did you get up to at the weekend?
This weekend I’m playing a charity grime event and building tunes and eating nice food.
I heard your laptop got nicked, what the fuck??!! How has it effected your work? Feel free to name & shame the club.
Yeah its pretty much everyone’s worst nightmare isn’t it? You never think it will happen!! It got taken straight out of the DJ booth after me and L-Vis 1990 did a back2back set in Paris. I would be seriously fucked if it wasn’t for some good friends who came through for me. Big shout to Riot Kid. I’m not done with it though, I’m gonna find that guy. I had a thing on my that laptop that you activate if its stolen and it shows you a picture of the guy thru the webcam, and his location on google maps. I hope he’s reading this right now!
What’s London night life like these days?
It’s pretty good these days. We have a nice crowd at our nights who appreciate the UK style of club music that’s all about broken rhythm patterns and sub bass. There’s a much bigger audience now for this music than there was when I first started out, so its really good. I couldn’t really move anywhere else right now!
So tell us about the night Slugs night..how did it start?
Back in ‘08 me and L-Vis kind of got on the same wavelength and wanted to work on something, so when he moved up to London we started the Night Slugs club. It was only a small party in South London but we moved to our current venues Egg and East Village and now we do a small party and a big party at each of those respectively - it’s about bi-monthly between the two clubs. Me and L-Vis play back 2 back sets at all of the nights, its the best time for us to try out new material and play loads of new shit from our friends and we’ve also had some really good guests ranging from Kode 9 to Drop The Lime to DJ EZ as well as many up and coming friends like Oneman, Brackles, Ikonika, Greena, Braiden - the list goes on. I’m happy because I feel like we’ve carved out a nice niche for ourselves in the London world without sticking to any one single style. What holds it together is a specific sort of vibe..
What made you decide to branch out into the label?
A lot of new tracks were always getting played at the nights and in my DJ set and the same for L-Vis. Over time somehow, really organically a whole lineup of producers sort of came together, with everyone making different kind of stuff but all of it kind of makes sense together. So we were getting all this really good material, plus stuff we do ourselves - we had to start putting it out!
What collaborations do you have in the works for 2010 and beyond?
Hopefully as many of the people involved in the label as possible - Kingdom, Greena, Girl Unit, Mosca, L-Vis 1990, Egyptrixx, Manara. Me and Greena have already made some tracks together that will come out later this year. We need some vocalist though!
You play on Sub FM. It’s a net station right? Did/do you ever do Pirate? Do you think pirate radio stations are still relevant in the UK, now most people use the Internet to listen to the radio?
I actually just moved to Rinse FM. L-Vis and I do a show on there every other Monday 1-3pm UK time, on rotation with Braiden. But yeah before that I was on Sub FM for years, which is a streaming station and a good community of people. There’s some really sick DJs on there right now.
But it’s pretty good to join Rinse, I’ve listened to it for so many years its amazing to be a part of, its legendary. I guess most people do listen to radio through the stream but I love the fact that FM is there. I used to listen to so much radio growing up - it haunts the city. I’m glad its still there.
I checked your design work, how long have you been doing it? Also, which came first? Production/DJing or design?
Yeah… ha I’m a “trained” designer, I studied graphics and the whole time I was DJing alongside, I’d say it was a distraction if it wasn’t so inspiring and key to any design work I would do. I then worked as a designer in an agency for a few years and freelanced alongside. And then one day I decided to just quit - best decision I ever made, because I started making so much more music. I still do some freelance design work but mainly I work on the Night Slugs visuals for both the night and the label - it’s my baby, the best thing to design for!
How did the Fact Magazine link come about?
They’re like-minded and support good, new music, so it makes a lot of sense! Some of the staff have pretty similar taste and interests in music as me. We did a big versus party across two floors with them last year which was big, we’ll no doubt do more of the same this year.
Have you traveled/played in Prague before? What have you heard about Prague on the grapevine?
Sadly Prague is stigmatised as a stag party destination - but I’m sure there’s a lot to it than that. I haven’t been before, no. What I’ve heard is that the party I’m playing [Dutty Weekend] is great - Spyro says he played grime there and it popped off - if that’s the case then I’m on it! I’ve also heard the club has some questionable murals, but this doesn’t dissuade me at all.
Any plugs?
The first EP on the Night Slugs label is out now - it’s Square One by Mosca, its good. More to come. My track Citizens with Bubbz is dropping on Blunted Robots in early March.
www.myspace.com/djbokbok
www.myspace.com/nightslugs
Useful Links
Dutty Weekend Advance Ticket Link
Central Station
Galerie Central Station Bar
Sabinova Street 2 | Prague 3 | Žižkov
http://www.meanbucket.net
