Local hip-hop duo Big Quarters have just released a new 5 song EP with fellow beat architect Mux Mool entitled Fall In Love EP, which they have so generously made available for free on their website, bigquarters.com. Tonight, Big Quarters and Mux Mool will perform together at the Turf Club in St. Paul to celebrate the release. The collaboration stems from a long-standing friendship between BQ and Mux: Medium Zach worked together at a video store in high school and wiled away days sampling the thousands of available movies for use in beats. "We wanted to sample videos and make a project using nothing but videos," says Zach of their early work together. Mux Mool did a remix of the song "Test" off Cost of Living, as well as provided a beat for the song "Ladies Know", and eventually they began collaborating on beats, which became Fall In Love. The trio will perform the songs together for the first and only time at the Turf tonight.
Medium Zach (left) and Brandon Allday (right) have been hard at work lately; in conjunction with the new EP comes Big Quarters Direct, where a measly $5 a month gets you 5 brand new, unreleased songs sent to your inbox - essentially a new album every month. Zach talks about the advantage of using the internet to distribute music: "The reason we're doing this subscription service is because we can do everything ourselves," Already out on the service is the construction kit (instrumentals and acapellas) from their last full-length, Cost of Living, and coming on the 5th is the next installment, featuring "Barter System", for which Zach recently shot a video, his second after storyboarding/directing the video for "August".On top of all this, Big Quarters joins DJ Nikoless every third Thursday of the month for Last of the Record Buyers, an evening for local producers and beatmakers to showcase their beats and get in touch with others in the hip-hop community. "Our angle was, it's like a beat exhibition, like an open mike for producers," says Brandon. "We're just trying to do entertaining things production-wise, something that hasn't really been done in the Twin Cities as far as emphasizing on production." Since November of '07, the monthly event held at the Dinkytowner has been a place for unknown producers to spin some tracks and get their name out there. The event builds off events like Run Ya Jewelz and Scribble Jam: "Last year was the first production battle at Scribble Jam... We got some crates of records and we had everybody bring their drum machines and their samplers and they had to make a beat on the spot. There's a round where they just play a beat, if they get past that, there's a round where they do a Brother Ali remix, and if they get past that, there's a round where they make a beat live. When we got back from Scribble last year, we [figured] we should do something... We started doing the Last of the Record Buyers night. We got a lot of people that were interested in production to come out."
Those who have beats simply come down, put your name on the sign-up sheet, and then spin your joints for 2-3 minutes in front of a crowd of beat enthusiasts. DJ Nikoless spins each night, and every month a different guest performer does a set answers questions regarding their production process. "We added having a featured guest because I can't think of any other venue or avenue in the Twin Cities where veterans are helping out and giving tips to people that're coming up," says Brandon. "Producers across the board, a lot of 'em are antisocial, you know, homebodies, stay at home working on music; even the veterans don't get the recognition they deserve. People might know the album and know the rapper, but not necessarily know who produced it." Though Big Quarters both rap and produce beats, their love of producing came first, and they wanted to help support up and coming producers by devoting a night to the production side of hip-hop. Every night, local producers live up to that by playing solid tracks and living up to the potential of the night. The night is for anyone interested in the producer side of things: If you're a rapper looking for beats, or simply want to hear some fresh shit from untapped talent, this is the place to be.
If you're a lazy punk who isn't willing to hoof it to St. Paul to go see these guys (it's a measly 4 bucks, you cheapskate), you can always catch them on campus at Coffman Union when they play with Brother Ali, Usual Suspects, Illuminous 3 and the Green Sketch Crew on October 2nd.
Big Quarters + Mux Mool
Wednesday, Sept 3, doors at 10 pm, $4
Turf Club, 1601 University Ave St. Paul
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UPDATE: Check the recently added "Barter System" at bigquarters.com or on the YouTube.
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