Shuffle Music: Practice Mix 2. Rock

mix title: rock
shuffle music genre: rock
purpose: to develop upper body and inertia motion.
level: beginners > advanced
speed: nice and easy 90 -120 bpm
time: 25 mins

Rock is often slower than usual shuffling and uses lots of upper body motion. From simple head banging boogie to complex upper body twists and arm moves.

Melbourne had a very strong and large live pub rock scene in the 1970's. Bands from around Australia and surrounding countries would move to Melbourne to 'make it'.

From Thursday to Sunday nights every week you could choose from over 300 live bands, all with a dance floor in front of the band, where you'd find people rockin.

With such a choice, the competition between bands for good gigs was fierce, and the pub crowds were unforgiving. If you didn't have the crowd on their feet and dancing within 3 songs, you would be booed off stage.

It was tough, raw, exciting and live. This was pre disco, this was rock and roll. This is where Rockin was born.

20,000 hippies, rockers and sharpies would turn up to an all day music festival, dance, get stoned, drunk and arrested (by Police), and call it all a good day out.

The most distinctive Melbourne Rockin style of all time, is that of the notorious early/mid 70's Melbourne clans and crews, called Sharpies.

Sharps, both male and female, were very particular about their appearance. From hair style to shoes, you had to 'look Sharp'!

And when you danced it had to be the sharpie dance, which involves a very distinctive 'elbow blow' move combined with an extreme upper body twist in time with the music.

Often girls would stand in a large circle facing in, all doing the same arm movements at the same time. Guys generally staggered around the crowd.

Footwork was a 2 step shuffle done in massive chunky healed boot like shoes. Check out their style in Greg Macainsh's 1974 film Sharpies. Greg is also the Bass player with Melbourne band Skyhooks , see second clip in the mix below.

Sharpies - Melbourne 1974. Greg Macainsh

ROCK DANCE THEORY

Rock as an oldskool shuffle style did in fact exist, though it was still called stomping. It incorporated traditional Melbourne rock type dance moves such as the Sharpie dance.

Oldskoolers Voodoo Phil and Voiteck using the Sharpie 'elbow' style at oldskool parties Global Village 1993, Every Pic/TVU warehouse 1992. Pic's Garry Shepherd

Rock is an exuberant 'loud' type of shuffle that moves around far more than traditional shuffling, and has far more arm work involved.

It became most popular from about 1993 -1996 when shuffle events had more space in very large warehouses. You had more room to move, swing your hands and arms around, and generally do freeform shuffling, without fear of hitting someone - painful for both you and the person hit.

So compared to the rather confined space of classic shuffling, rockin really stood out with the energy and carefree abandon found at an indie rock gig. As mentioned before, people started saying 'this place is rockin' because of the similarity.

I wont post a bunch of vids showing the style here. I'll leave that up to future posts.

Of more importance is understanding how to dance in a more carefree, freestyle rock like style, using more of your upper body.

You begin with the music ROCK, and you dance to the music.

It's a very physical raw energy dance. You have more of a flow to it, rather than the tight strict steps of hardstyle and classic Celtic dance styled shuffle.

Firstly think of rocking as a movement, you rock backwards and forwards, using the full weight of your body. Like on a swing or in a rocking chair.

It's not the sharp sudden burst like stomping your foot in hardstyle. Your whole body becomes involved, rocking from one position to another.

• Rock and Roll, was a slang term for having sex in the 1940's/50's, that's what rock means. It was a time when polite society did not say the word 'sex' in public.

You use the inertia of your body mass in rockin.

Inertia in shuffling is like when you spin and your body just wants to keep spinning, it's the weight of your body, your body mass, that's pushing you.

So instead of suddenly stopping with a jolt, you turn that inertia into another move. You use the energy of your moving body to help start a new move.

For it to be the most effective, your next move needs to be physically complimentary.

EXAMPLE: PHYSICALLY COMPLIMENTARY
1. Sit upright in a chair with your hands resting the top of your legs. Bend forward from the waist then return to sitting position.

2. Now add a Physically Complimentary move. Hold your hands to your chest in the sitting position. Then bend forward again, but this time, unfold your arms in time with the bend. Hands on chest at start, arms wide spread when bent all the way over. Then return to sitting position with hands on chest.

You will feel your muscle attention flow from your waist muscles to your shoulder and arm muscles and back again as each set of muscles comes into strength focus. Your waist and arms now compliment each others characteristics.

For most hardstyle shufflers reading now, you will have just discovered another part of the body to dance with :) Imagine what you can do when you combine both the top and the feet.

That gives you a flow to your style. That's how you get smoothness.

The slower music for Rock gives your body time to be smooth, it's way less stressful than hardstyle, letting your muscles naturally stretch and return. It's more organic, where hardstyle is more robotic (in a good way).

MUSIC MIX VIDS

These vids in the mix below are slow paced compared to hardstyle, but are equally danceable. Rock and Roll is after all, first and foremost, dance music!

For shufflers you'll find great ways to use your upper body. Try some of the moves seen in the vids, even the head banging by Canned Heat, to loosen up and strengthen neck muscles.

In fact you will find this mix a real pleasure doing your usual shuffle moves to.

If you are a bit confused about how to shuffle to rock, watch the last vid below, AC/DC Meets Girls Shuffling in Brazil. It is a shuffle remix using the great girls shuffling in brazil footage, to AD/DC's classic 'It's a Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock n Roll)

There is no time changing or stretching between the shuffling footage and the AC/DC track. The girls are originally shuffling to hardstyle, but are shuffling in perfect time to Melbourne pub rock of 1975.

With the rock track, it's the same tempo as most hardstyle, but the bass/kick accent is on every second beat. Not every beat like with hardstyle. So it sounds slower, but you can dance 'double time' to it, as we say in Melbourne.

Try it as a warm up or warm down, or just to get greater fluid motion happening in your style.

You will see glimpses of Melbourne audiences rockin in the aisles to the Skyhooks track - Melbourne 1978. Read more about this banned track in High School Revolution.

BTW- The 1st 4 tracks in the mix, (excluding AD/DC), are what were called Shuffle tracks in rock music at the time. It's distinct for it's syncopated rhythm, a loose shuffling feel with a prominent off beat. Compared to the hard to the floor 1st beat accent of AC/DC's Long way to the top, which was just called Rock.

So have some fun :)

Ian Dury and the Blockheads - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

What ever happened to the Revolution 1975. Skyhooks Live at the Palais (Melb 1978)

david bowie - fashion

On The Road Again - Canned Heat - Montreux 1973

AC/DC meet Brazilian girls shuffling. Melbourne 1975

Shuffle Music: Practice Mix 2. Rock

mix title: rock
genre: shuffle music - rock
purpose: to develop upper body and inertia motion.
level:  beginners > advanced
speed: nice and easy 90 -120 bpm
time:  25 mins

Rocking is slower than usual shuffling and uses lots of upper body motion. From simple head banging boogie to complex upper body twists and arm moves.

You rock to get loose or get into the groove as they used to say in Melbourne in the 1970's when Rockin was popular.

Melbourne had a very strong and large live pub rock scene in the 1970's. Bands from around Australia and surrounding countries would move to Melbourne to 'make it'.

From Thursday to Sunday nights every week you could choose from over 300 live bands, all with a dance floor in front of the band, where you'd find people rockin.

With such a choice, the competition between bands for good gigs was fierce, and the pub crowds were unforgiving. If you didn't have the crowd on their feet and dancing within 3 songs, you would be booed off stage.

It was tough, exciting and live. This was pre disco, this was rock and roll. This is where Rockin was born.

The most distinctive Melbourne Rockin style of all time is that of notorious early 1970's Melbourne crews called Sharpies.

Sharps, both male and female, were very particular about their appearance. From hair style to shoes, you had to 'look Sharp'!

And when you danced it had to be the sharpie dance, which involves a very distinctive 'elbow blow' move combined with an extreme upper body twist in time with the music.

Often girls would stand in a large circle facing in all doing the same arm movements at the same time. Guys generally staggered around the crowd.

Footwork was a 2 step shuffle done in massive chunky healed boot like shoes.

Sharpies - Melbourne 1974. Greg Macainsh

 

These vids in the mix below are slow paced compared to hardstyle, but are equally danceable. Rock and Roll is after all, first and foremost, dance music!

For shufflers you'll find great ways to use your upper body. Try some of the moves seen in the vids, even those done by the musicians in the head banging by Canned Heat, to loosen you up.

In fact you will find this mix a real pleasure doing your usual shuffle moves to.

If you are a bit confused about how to shuffle to rock, watch the last vid below, AC/DC Meets Girls Shuffling in Brazil. It is a shuffle remix using the great girls shuffling in brazil footage, to AD/DC's classic 'It's a Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock n Roll)

There is no time changing or stretching between the shuffling footage and the AC/DC track. The girls are originally shuffling to hardstyle, but are shuffling in perfect time to Melbourne pub rock of 1975.

With the rock track, it's the same tempo as most hardstyle, but the bass/kick accent is on every second beat. Not every beat like with hardstyle. So it sounds slower, but you can dance 'double time' to it, as we say in Melbourne.

Try it as a warm up or warm down, or just to get greater fluid motion happening in your style.

You will see glimpses of Melbourne audiences rockin in the aisles to the Skyhooks track - Melbourne 1978. Read more about this banned track in High School Revolution.

You use the inertia of your body mass in rockin.

Inertia in shuffling is like when you spin and your body just wants to keep spinning, it's the weight of your body, your body mass, that's pushing you.

So instead of suddenly stopping with a jolt, you turn that inertia into another move. You use the energy of your moving body to help start a new move.

For it to be the most effective, your next move needs to be physically complimentary.

That's what fluiding is, it's like the energy flows from one part of your body to the next like a fluid. 

That gives you a flow to your style. That's how you get smoothness.

The slower music for Rockin gives your body time to be smooth, it's way less stressful than hardstyle, letting your muscles naturally stretch and return.

So have some fun :)

Ian Dury and the Blockheads - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

What ever happened to the Revolution 1975. Skyhooks Live at the Palais (Melb 1978)

david bowie - fashion

On The Road Again - Canned Heat - Montreux 1973

AC/DC meet Brazilian girls shuffling. Melbourne 1975

Happy (western) New Year 2009 Tesla Coil Light Show

FROM ALL THE MSO TEKHEADS
- HOPE YOUR NEW YEAR'S A BUZZ.

Yeah we know, is this for real or photoshop ? It's for real and if you wanna know how they do it...here's the place Tesla Down Under.

http://tesladownunder.com/index.html

and their Disclaimer
This is dangerous stuff. Your first touch of live primary Tesla coil voltage (10,000 volts) has a good chance of being fatal depending on circuit paths and peak current. The secondary voltage (500,000 volts) is less dangerous due to lower currents but will still cause burns with less pain than low frequency current.  High voltage capacitors as used with the can crusher are even more dangerous with many times a lethal charge.  The capacitors from defibrillators are actually designed to stop your heart.

The Dept of Energy Safety has approved the Tesla coil equipment but see Misc for details as they are not plugged directly into the mains but rather pass through a 50 V AC stage.

Read and enjoy the information here.  Do not attempt any of this unless you have read everything you can about it here and elsewhere and you have a clear and fool proof plan for safety.  See further info in Misc

Then...if you must you can do this.

Goth Shuffle crews

Goths were a big part of the Melbourne oldskool underground and they had their own shuffle style.

Being hardcore goths, they of course got fully into the role and would have goth names and characters etc who'd never be seen in full costume in daylight etc.

There were some brilliant goth crews too.

Mortisha's (a goth fashion shop) crew would do these annual goth costume balls. All the costumes were made by the wearer, or small design crews who would work with the wearer as a model. One guy had full on rubber bat wings on his back which could open out.

Goth Ball - Carnival Of Lost Souls. 1995


Another crew The Scream even had a basketball team in the local suburban comps. with a goth cheer squad who would shuffle to punk and industrial, and glare at the opponents all night psyching them out - it works.

These shots are from 1994, it's like an episode of Buffy :)



 
Other goth shuffle crews would do these elaborate choreographed stage routines in goth clubs. Local goth bands would write the music.

On Stage at cult goth club Apocalypse 1994

These were my neighbours in Commerce House in the early 1990's, they produced horror literature and a monthly mag called Bloodsongs.

You can check out all these goths in action in this compilation from mid 1990's. The tracks at the opening are by Melbourne goth bands, Love Lies Bleeding and Dead Can Dance.

 
TOE - Theory Of Everything 1993/95

ENTER-K MELBOURNE SHUFFLE COMPETITION 08’ Kuching (Mas)

*click to view large*

eiChi has just posted this great looking event in Kuching / Malaysia.

You guys will gona see this in tomorrow's 诗华日报，Borneo Post and Utusan Melayu.

The design company which i'm doing part time now is organizing a big event called December Extravaganza from 24 Dec till 31 Dec, at the out door car park of Crown Square. several events will be held there within those days, and two of the main events are the one listed above in the advert, the 24th shuffling finale and christmas countdown party, and the 31st Rock'in 2009 Countdown Party.

24 DEC ENTER-K MELBOURNE SHUFFLE COMPETITION 08’: THE GRAND FINALE & X-MAS EVE COUNTDOWN

The 8 days outdoor stage events will start from 24 December 2008 until 31 December 2008. ENTER-K MELBOURNE SHUFFLE COMPETITION 08’: THE GRAND FINALE will be the first stage event of the extravaganza.

On the night itself, the shufflers will compete among oneself on their last journey to be the winner of ENTER-K MELBOURNESHUFFLE COMPETITION 08’!

Besides that, the joint organizers has included XMAS EVE COUNTDOWN into the event, in which will be a countdown party after the shuffle competition. Local artists and bands are invited to perform, such as “LIVE BAND CHARITY 08” winners, “NEW VOICE KARAOKE CONTEST 08” winners, and of course, the judges of ENTER-K MELBOURNE SHUFFLE COMPETITION 08’ - Alicia (Tribezone), Daniel, Wallace and Nicholas (Hazard Minors).
ticket price @ 30 nett

31 DEC ROCK’IN 2009 COUNDOWN PARTY
The last day of ENTER-K’s DECEMBER EXTRAVAGANZA! @CROWN SQUARE will be hosted by invited DJ.

Besides having beers and preparing for the new year countdown, the audiences will have the chance to experience the “disc-scratch” skills and techniques of the invited DJ, together with the special stage effects, which will further bringing the audiences “live” to the fantasy world of musical entertainment!

In addition, other stage entertainments like hot dance, street dance and live band will push the countdown environment into climax. The audiences can also dance and rock at the specially created “Rock & Dance Area”, which is located in front of the stage, and blend into the atmosphere of new year countdown!
ticket price @ 50 nett

yea.. so those who are interested, kindly contact me to get the tickets. yes, i have them with me. i'm now selling tickets too besides doing graphic work XD

so people, esp Kuching people, must support Kuching's big event ah~
thank you very much for your attention :)

Brunei Shuffle Compilation

Our good shuffle friends in Brunei have been busy. Here's a new compilation, with some great editing by FHFBazz .

Check out the fantastic Brunei Shuffle forum too,  even I'm a member ;)  http://bruneishuffle.ning.com/

Brunei melbourne shuffle compilation 1

 

Brunei melbourne shuffle compilation 2