DJ Jester sez: Gumby can kill your ass

August 13, 2009 1:15 PM

For your entertainment, the music of DJ Jester the Filipino Fist joined with visuals by Samaro (aka Kid Kotex): River Walk Riots, the video (includes NFSW moments of blue cartoon nudity and some vocal profanity). Originally made in 2001, the rediscovered video is part of DJ Jester's River Walk Riot mixcd, because of which he met renowned turntablist Kid Koala. The Filipino Fist joined Kid Koala, P-Love, and Lederhosen Lucil in the 2003 "Short Attention Span Theater" Tour. The three turntablists took the stage in separate sets, and joined forces (as seen here in 5 parts: Stompin' At Le Savoi, Nufonia Must Fall: Page 275, Drunk Trumpet, Skanky Panky, and N.M.F. Page 298).

There are more DJ Jester clips on his YouTube account, including DJ Jester the Filipino Fist appearing on Great Day SA a San Antonio (TX) morning show, where he talks about his mixsets showing off "the greatest hits of Texas" mixed with hip-hop and 1980s pop, and he tries to teach the newscaster the baby scratch.

posted by filthy light thief (15 comments total)

Thanks. You just reminded me of a thing called MySpace.
posted by jsavimbi at 1:27 PM on August 13, 2009

I'm watching the River Walk Riots video. Does anyone know where the animals are from in the clip that starts at 7:25? They look familiar, but I can't place them.
posted by zarq at 1:36 PM on August 13, 2009

I remember catching the Short Attention Span Theater tour at the Middle East in Cambridge. Jester's opening set was a 45 minute turntable romp through the 80s that sounded like the best highschool dance party ever.

Watching the trio perform Stompin' at Le Savoi was pretty jawdroppingly awesome, too.

or at least the best highschool dance party if you attended high school between 1988 and 1992
posted by bl1nk at 1:38 PM on August 13, 2009

The one link to MySpace is there to provide an artist page for DJ Jester. This post was started from the Archive.org hosted River Walk Riots video, including music by the previously mentioned musician.

zarq: the people rocking out in animal costumes? They do look familiar, but I have no idea.

I loved DJ Jester's live set, and his other recorded material is pretty fun, too.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:48 PM on August 13, 2009

Seeing Kid Koala live is tremendous fun. I really enjoy what he does with "Moon River."
posted by Bookhouse at 2:04 PM on August 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

DON'T YOU HAVE A JOB?

How do you manage to keep making such awesome posts?
posted by spiderskull at 2:14 PM on August 13, 2009

Hey, I saw that guy a few years back when he was touring as guest DJ with Grand Buffet.
posted by contraption at 2:39 PM on August 13, 2009

Haha, awesome, I TOTALLY know that guy! Go Mikey!

I first discovered him from this review on Pitchfork and ordered the album. This was 2002, well before the mashup thing blew up, and it was freakily fun to listen to. Then I think I brought him to Houston once or twice (maybe). Either way, our mutual tight friend Ceeplus Bad Knives certainly has and I've gotten trashed in front of his Technics on several occasions.

Jester and I have kept in loose touch since. The last time I saw him was when he asked my Dead Milkmen cover band to play with him in San Antonio; he's a huge DM fan. Fun-ass show. I wish I could have talked my bandmates into doing the tour he proposed.

He's seriously crazy fun live, go see him if you have the chance. There's guaranteed to be a moment during which you're dancing your ass off and you think to yourself, "Really? How did I end up getting down so hard to THIS?" In my case it was the theme to Fraggle Rock.
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas at 3:38 PM on August 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Thanks! I'm loving this!
I was reminded of the "Couche-Tard" dvd by the spank rock guys, which I've been meaning to order for a while but never seem to find anywhere.
posted by robinhoudt at 3:47 PM on August 13, 2009

Holy shit bookhouse, that's amazing.
I'm having a hard time visualizing what's going on. So he has the same record on three turntables? And how come these guys are never using headphones?
posted by robinhoudt at 4:43 PM on August 13, 2009

robinhoudt, they use visual ques, as seen here (note the little yellow sticker on the outer edge of the record itself). It's faster than finding the right spot by ear, especially when the mixing isn't about the flow of the set but timing exact moments in sequence. Lots more stickering can be seen on Kentaro's "Space Shower TV" advert. DJ Kentaro discusses the video and his techniques here.

spiderskull, I find weird things and collect links over a few days or weeks, then compile the post in a spot of downtime.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:06 PM on August 13, 2009

I've never loved Kid Koala's recorded stuff, but his live act is absolutely incredible. One of my favorite concert moments was seeing him cut up Jessica Rabbit's song from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" over his label-mate Amon Tobin's song "Slowly" - somewhat approximated in this video.
posted by TheRoach at 6:55 PM on August 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Great post, filthy light thief.

(robinhoudt: There are also records made specifically for scratch DJs, whole sides of vinyl composed entirely of long loops or stretched-out instrumentals or tones and drones or drum fills or soundbites or, yeah, you see what I mean.)
posted by box at 7:18 PM on August 13, 2009

Cool, thanks for the 101.

Still, it all looks like magic to me.
posted by robinhoudt at 8:06 PM on August 13, 2009

zarq: I think I just stumbled across the answer. The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, a an hour-long, packaged television program that featured both live action and animated segments. The series was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, and ran for 31 episodes on NBC Saturday mornings, from September 7, 1968 to September 5, 1970.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:46 AM on August 14, 2009