Cd Arrrr! Original Pirate Material

Just got back from a wicked evening down that famous London drinking tavern, ‘Plastic Pieces Of Eight’ and their monthly ‘CD ARRRR!’ event. An opportunity for pirates of all backgrounds to come together and share their precious dub plate treasures with each other, whilst drinking cheap booze from the baskets of ale-wives and discussing beard and parrot grooming. The (Royal) standard had definitely been raised since last I visited, with a real celebratory feel in the air. Not least because all the CD ARRRR pirates were, sozzled, pie-eyed and three sheets to the wind. I blame the rum and gunpowder cocktails brought over from the New World by that Moody Tomahawk Man.

What follows, are for me, a few of the highlights of the evening.

DJ Scurvy Knees – ‘Peg Leg Termite Blues’

Jeah, pure eye-patch melter! DJ Scurvy Knees was first up with this wicked piece of dark smoking musket heat. Sick sick beats - mainly due to a diet of ‘manly meat’ rather than namby-pamby fruit and green vegetables - this Bruk Beat Buccaneer got the whole joint-a-talking and all the parrots-a-squawking. Seen? (Well 50% anyway).


 Mack ‘The Cutlass’ David – ‘Well Ahu Dolly’

Re-edit of the 1964 song from the Musical of the same name. My Gal, Carol Channing’s voice fed through an Atari Ableton to devastating effect. Mans was pure dope stupid on Rhodes an’ ‘ting. Innit.

Seaman Staines And Roger The Cabin Boy – ‘Shiver Me Timbers (They’ve Rammed Their Sloop Up Our Poop Deck)’

Jeah. Urban myth of a tune. Did it exist? What did we hear? They definitely played a tune. Sounded a bit like Fortescue Kendal (a posho rapper not a picturesque Cumbrian village) when he did ‘Trussed-Up Guttersnipes of the World, Untie!’ Pure bulk-head careened teredo worm heat.

Marlinespike – The Marooned Five

Jeah, jeah, pure shipwrecked castaway heat from this Hackney genius. Whispers amongst the beards tonight said that he is the new ‘Grime Mozart’, and on hearing his sick sick beats underpinned with Der Schauspieldirektor fortepiano samples who am I to disagree. Cat–o’–nine-tails says so, innit.


Moody Tomahawk Man – ‘Don’t Axe Me (Caltrop Edit )’

Jeah, jeah, small clay pot of a tune, filled with burning sulphur, tar and gunpowder. The shadowy, Moody Tomahawk Man dropped his tune from behind a mainsail, whilst splicing the mainbrace and getting ripped to the tits on ‘liquor’. His favourite tipple in fact; rum with a dash of gunpowder. The tune even got all the barnacles and limpets at the bar raving. The spiky Caltrop edit gave the ridiculous beats a further menace, sounding not unlike Kraftwerk scoring a Bull Baiting and Cock Fighting Documentary for Five Live.

Long John Silver Connection – ‘Guttersnipe’ (Fetid Bilge Mix)

Jeah, pure head-nodding (black) beard melter. Long John Silver Connection brought the heat with this distinctly ‘under-the-weather’ piece of dub plate BUPA endorsed sickness. Wicked lyrics about ‘chopping, lopping and topping’. Beats and rhymes straight out of Croydon. Beard straight out of lime water and saltpetre.

DJ Gadzooks – ‘Big Wenches Bloomers’

Jeah, jeah, suffocating pot of burning sulphurous brimstone! Pure tonsil melter. DJ Gadzooks, led us big dogs on a merry dance when this tune came cannoning out of the speakers. Pure hands in the air love for the call and response chorus:

He - ‘Yo Yo! Whatcha’ Got In Yo Backpack?’
Us - ‘Big Wenches Bloomers!’
He - ‘Louder! I can’t heeeeeear you! Yo Yo! Whatcha’ Got In Yo Backpack?’
Us - ‘BIG WENCHES BLOOMERS!’
And so on….