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Coming to prominence as a member of the hip-hop duo The Whooliganz with Scott Caan, Daniel Maman was first spotted rapping at a party by Cypress Hill's B-Real in 1991, who invited the duo to join his crew The Soul Assassins. The duo took all the tuition they got from artists who were now their peers, like House Of Pain and Funkdoobiest, and released their first single “Put Your Handz Up” in 1993. Unfortunately, the single tanked, and their label decided to shelve their album indefinitely. Wounded, the band decided to split up, with Caan going into acting and Maman looking into production. Fortunately, Manan still had a place in The Soul Assassins, and Cypress Hill's DJ and producer DJ Muggs took him under his wing to show him the production ropes.
After gaining some genuine respect for his work on some Cypress Hill tracks, Maman joined Dilated Peoples, the band of his childhood friend Evidence. He debuted with the band in 1998 and almost immediately the band got some serious praise for their beats, and Maman became a hugely in-demand producer almost overnight. After some high-profile work producing for Mobb Deep, Maman found himself producing tracks for everyone from Nas, to Ghostface Killah to Snoop Dogg, but also remained steadfastly committed to hip-hop's underground artists, working with as many unsigned rappers as legends of the genre.
Ever since then, he's remained one of hip-hop's true artists, as renowned in the mainstream for his work as Eminem's official DJ as he is for he collaboration albums with underground sensations like Action Bronson, Boldy James and Willie The Kid. For this true dedication to his art, and his sheer skill behind the decks, behind the mic and behind the mixing desk, The Alchemist comes highly recommended.
I was lucky enough to see Australian singer John Butler live at Crossroads as part of the John Butler Trio. It was an excellent performance and John is an excellent performer. They performed the fun and funny song "Treat Yo Mama" and it was a lively, upbeat, fun performance. It was interesting to see a country twang sound come from Australians. But they also rocked hard and had more to offer than just that. I also loved that they had big band instruments in the mix and not just rock guitars, drums, and keyboards.
The audience found the whole show quite compelling and fun. Everyone clapped and moved around to the music. It was very cathartic in both the music and just the show itself. Something about it felt like just letting off steam and having fun with friends. We all loved the music but we also loved just having fun to the beat.
It was a great atmosphere to be a part of, and John Butler and his Trio helped facilitate this very well. I highly recommend John Butler or the John Butler trio as live entertainment for any concert. You should see him as soon as you can, he is an amazing performer.
I would say that Alchemist shouldn’t be confused with the prolific hip hop producer who also goes by the name The Alchemist, but to be honest, it’s difficult to envisage how you could really confuse them with anybody else. Hailing from Canberra, Australia, the progressive metal outfit were hugely experimental even by pre-ordained standards of the genre; over the course of a career that lasted around thirteen years, they made a sound their own that incorporated a basic death metal sound and built around it influences from Aboriginal records, Eastern musical disciplines and even psychedelia and electronic cues, too. They put out six records over the course of their career, all of which were critically well-received within the metal community; album titles like Austral Alien and Lunasphere should give you an impression as to the kind of lyrical content that they generally tended to concern themselves with. Most impressive, though, were their brutally noisy live shows, which were exercises in serious technical proficiency whilst still being able to ignite mosh pits and a moment’s notice. Since 2010, though, their website’s been claiming that Alchemist are ‘hibernating indefinitely’, leaving fans on tenterhooks as to what - if anything - their next move will be.
Joeg_67
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