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Fat Freddy's Drop
Fat Freddy's Drop will perform at The Big Chill festival 2008 A-Z line up | Ticket infoFrom the underground to the higher-ground, Fat Freddy's Drop is the South Pacific soul monster doing it for the love of music, and food!
The essence of Freddy's hi-tek dub-soul boil up is hypnotic live performance, mixed with savvy independent CD, vinyl and DVD releases, all served on Island Time.
Fat Freddy's Drop - Biography
Freddy's watershed year was 2005 when the bros dropped their debut full-length album, Based On A True Story, re-writing musical history at home and unleashing the slow burning, future-funk voodoo worldwide.
It's been a fantastic voyage so far for the midnight marauders representing Aotearoa/NZ, the land of the long white cloud and there are plenty more jams and paua won tons to follow.
Too much Freddy's!
The Freddy's
The Freddy's family of musicians evolved in Wellington through a multitude of musical incarnations, from funk jam bands, reggae sound systems and jazz improvisation cliques to live hi-tek dub-soul experiments.
Fitchie AKA Mu is Freddy's technician, bandleader and ‘Master of Reality'.
Armed with an Akai MPC sampler Fitchie crafts bottom heavy beats, bass lines and sublime samples that kick off and touch down every musical journey.
Fitchie picked up Best Producer and Most Outstanding Musician at the b-Net NZ Music Awards 2005, and Best Producer at the b-Nets in 2003.
Joe Dukie AKA Dallas Tamaira is Freddy's lyricist and singing sensation. Gifted with a golden honey voice and the creator of conscious lyrics, Joe Dukie is regarded as one the best soul singers in the world today. Awarded Best Vocalist at the b-Net NZ Musi c Awards 2005, Joe Dukie credits Bill Withers, D'Angelo and his mum as inspiration. The stage name/alter ego is drawn from his father Joe, also a singer, and grandfather who was a musician nicknamed Dukie after Duke Ellington.
Freddy's thunderous wall of sound and bootae shaking horn section is led by Tony Chang AKA Toby Laing on trumpet and flugel-horn, and Ho Pepa AKA Joe Lindsay on trombone, tuba and ‘Bad Ho Jelly Roll' dance moves. Notice to the ladies; Hopepa scored ‘Male Fox' at the B-Net NZ Music Awards 2006.
Scott Towers on sax is the third horn player who has filled the void left with the departure of founding Freddy's sax player, Fulla Flash aka Warryn Maxwell.
Scotty had subbed for Flash in the past including one of the first Freddy's gigs in London at Cargo in 2003.
All Freddy's horn players are graduates of Wellington Jazz School and can be spotted playing with other NZ bands such as Scribes of Ra, The Eggs, The Yoots and Tyra and the Tornadoes.
Flash has meantime gone bush to focus on whanau and sychedelic blues band, Little Bushman.
Jetlag Johnson AKA Tehimana Kerr plays electric and acoustic guitar, breaking out the skank, roots and mind bending Jimi Hendrix riffs, while Dobie Blaze AKA Iain Gordon is Freddy's analog keyboard scientist and collector.
A founding member of Ebb and Bongmaster, Dobie's analog synth lines provide the funkadelic backbone to Freddy's.
2 Mystic Soul Connection Fat Freddy's Drop is first and foremost a live collective; no two Freddy's gigs are ever the same.
Freddy's unique boil up of bottom heavy beats, future funk and freaky sidesteps drops over two to three hour-long jams of sonic unity between band and audience.
Fitchie maintains "What's great about live performance is that it belongs to those in the audience on that night, it's a one off experience".
With Joe Dukie's soulful voice and lyrical prowess upfront, Freddy's musical palette shifts across a fusion of dub, soul, skank, jazz, funk and electronica vibes, enriched by the bros South Pacific Pacific roots.
Awarded Best Live Act at the b-Net NZ Music Awards 2004, Freddy's play selected festivals and clubs nationwide, and since 2003 have embarked on annual tours across the seven seas to Europe, UK and Australia.
Freddy's kicked off new year counting down to the midnight hour at The Big Drop Off, a hometown gig at Shed 1 and other shows confirmed for the year include A Bush Party, Matakana, and off-shore Hammersmith Apollo, London and Elysee-Montmartre, Paris.
Stage time is part of the process of evolving Freddy's tunes, live jams are where the magic is at, and the Freddy's sets increasingly feature tunes likely to make the new album, such as The Camel, Pull The Catch As One, Shiver man and Breakthrough.
The Drop Freddy's HQ is affectionately referred to as the beach, home to Fitchie's studio and The Drop, the bands independent label.
FFD Manager Nicole Duckworth is at the helm, collaborating with the bros to deliver FFD unorthodox business and ‘tribal' philosophy.
Life at The Drop exists on Island Time, the bros working at their own tempo, under few pressures from the outside world and yet behind the languid laid-back image lies hours of hard work.
The original beach studio where Based On A True Story was recorded, is literally 6 feet from the surf, situated underground in the basement of a 19th Century Bath House in Lyall Bay, one of the oldest buildings in the capital city.
In 2007, the rented beach house was sold, and Fitchie packed his studio and moved a few hundred metres down the road to another classic beachside location in Lyall Bay.
The Band That Eats Together
Meals are a sacred pastime for Freddy's. The band are fortunate to have Dobie Blaze double as Kai Khemist who is frequently researching local and international cuisine to experiment with in the kitchen.
Dobie Blaze's culinary excursions and love of kai moana and fishing on the deep blue sea help keep the soul in Freddy's music.
As Fitchie says ‘the band that eats together stays together!'
We spoke to Fat Freddy's Drop just after their last performance at The Big Chill, in 2006.
Did you enjoy playing your set?
Great experience for the Freddy's to play to such a supportive crowd at one of the UK's best festivals. Thanks to all who turned up and supported.
What did you think of The Big Chill?
We all thought the Festival was grouse, we had a good time (some of us a little too good!). Particularly enjoyed watching Son Of Dave, The Nextmen and Alice Russell.
www.fatfreddysdrop.com
Fat Freddy's Drop will perform at The Big Chill festival 2008 A-Z line up | Ticket info
Written: 1st Mar, 08
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