Preview: Kid Koala 12 Bit Blues: The Vinyl Vaudeville Show

Kid Koala is an innovative beats renaissance man, meaning not only is he a master turntablist and DJ producer, but he is also a musician, as well as a graphic novelist, visual artist and overall showman. His upcoming appearance in Prague features his newest project, or, rather, musical circus - 12 Bit Blues: The Vinyl Vaudeville Show.

As a Ninja Tune recording artist, Kid Koala (born Eric San, in Montréal, Canada) has been active since 1996, manipulating on vinyl the essentials of hip-hop, i.e. all phases of earlier jazz, funk, rock and practically any spoken word (including TV and comedy snippets) that he can get his hands on. After a rock project called The Slew with Dynamite D and Wolfmother rhythm section Chris Ross and Miles Heskett, San came to an epiphany of sorts.

"I found much of the music I enjoy has its roots in the blues," he says. "If you follow that musical road far enough, you end up at the Mississippi Delta."

San found he had been particularly influenced by the earliest of road blues, 1930s travel recordings from the Deep South by guitarists and singers such as Charley Patton and Son House, done as single-takes with all the foot stomps to keep their time - all the ingredients of a full band in one man.

Similarly, the 12 Bit Blues concept is based on using an obsolete drum machine and drum sampler, the E-mu SP-1200, employed in the late 1980s by classic hip-hop acts including Public Enemy, KRS-One, Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill.

Compared with today's state-of-the-art samplers, there are many limitations to this machine, such as its 12-bit resolution and limited memory (10 seconds of sound storage and two seconds for samples) stored on floppy discs; however, these limitations are also the reason for the unmistakable productions of the era: choppy gritty beats, murky bass and crunchy, even off-beat, drum patterns.

San decided to use the SP-1200 to retrieve this gritty sound, but, instead of trying to do a retro hip-hop record following his original inspirations, he chose to employ hip-hop tools for a blues album, blues being very broadly defined.

"It can be many things," San says. "Some say it's a feeling; some say it's music. Everybody has the blues in one form or another. It's something that ties us all together somehow."

Of course, there is another deeper level to the blues that San is also acknowledging with this project. "I think as music it deals with the heavier things in life. Sometimes in everyone's life things get a little bumpy. Sometimes making or listening to music can help you cope with those tougher times," he says.

Meanwhile, 12 Bit Blues: The Vinyl Vaudeville Show seems intent on getting the audience both to lose that feeling and relish it at the same time.

For San, the vaudeville aspect of his current tour is important not only to keep the dance floor feeling more upbeat, but it also takes things back to the roots of live entertainment, so, hand-in-hand with the traveling blues, there is also a troupe of burlesque dancing girls and a Muppet-style puppet show.

Though Kid Koala has been in Prague before on Ninja Tune tours, this one seems to be unlike any previous engagements. "This is the first time we will be there with The Vinyl Vaudeville Show!" he says. "There will be dancers and puppets and many turntables. There will even be turntable trampolines, and an 80-foot robot dragon. It's the silliest show on earth!"

Tony Ozuna can be reached at
features@praguepost.com