I don’t get out to as many shows as I used to. Something to do with getting older and generally busier just makes me wanna stay in a more often than I used to. When I go to shows I tend to hang back a little bit, maybe shoot the shit with the guy at the merch table. I’ve stayed out of the pit ever since I rolled my ankle at that one show a while back. Age is getting to me, and I’m not even that old! I say all of this to highlight just how much I’m looking forward to the Deltron 3030 show coming our way this week. Each year there are some shows you simply cannot miss, and this is the big one for 2013.
So, this is a sequel of sorts. The first Deltron album dropped damn near 15 years ago and sounded like hardly anything that had come before it, and it’s managed to age extremely gracefully. It acquires new fans with each passing year, which made the possibility of a follow-up more than a decade down the line a more than reasonable possibility once everyone (Del, Dan the Automator, and Kid Koala) was able to come back on board.
Produced by Dan the Automator with scratches from Kid Koala, the first Deltron album was happily added to the relatively small pile of rap super-group works that actually… worked! Dan, being no stranger to high-brow concept albums with Kool Keith’s Dr. Octagonecologyst (the spiritual A-side to Deltron 3030) and So… How’s Your Girl? (as Handsome Boy Modeling School with the like-minded Prince Paul) under his belt, was a perfect fit for the spacey vibes Del was looking to get out there into the world.
Del’s a rapper that has always embraced his goofier inclinations (he’s the one who gave us the chorus “You gotta wash your ass, if you must / You gotta wash your hair, if you must / You gotta brush your teeth, if you must / Or else you’ll be funkyyyyyyyy” after all) so while a whole album telling the story of a mech soldier a full thousand years in the future would seem out of place in most rappers discographies it feels like a casual aside in his and has for some people managed to eclipse the rest of his output.
Kid Koala has always felt more like an avante garde musician to my ears than a turntablist. He’s out there, sampling old 78s and releasing albums intended to be read in real-time along with graphic novels he’s written and illustrated. He’s also one of the most energetic DJs out there. Never content to stay behind the decks he can be seen jumping around scratching solos out on specially designed turntables that he straps on like a keytar. It’s also worth noting that there’s more than a little evidence on Event 2 of Kid Koala’s recent stadium rock explorations, which culminated in a tour with the Australian cock-rock rhythm section of Wolfmother as The Slew.
Why should you go? Well, for starters, they have two great albums of spacey tripped-out and conceptually-dense hip-hop to pull from. Secondly, I can’t help but assume there will be an insane stage and light show. And lastly I cannot imagine anyone getting another opportunity to see all three of these guys on stage at the same time doing this material ever again. And hey, it’s been a hot minute since Del’s stopped somewhere around town on his seemingly endless tour schedule, so definitely go and get your fix of one of the few rappers that apparently everyone in this city can seem to get behind.