12th Planet, Jack Beats, Devlin & Ghostdad at Home Base

January 24, 2012

Monday the 9th of January saw the first day back for the weekly Heaps Decent Homebase at Redfern Community Centre in 2012. Starting off the year with more than a bang, we had not 1, not 2, but 5 international artists join us as guest facilitators. All the way from the USA were 12th Planet, Devlin & Ghostdad, and then hailing from the UK were 2 piece Jack Beats, all of whom happened to be in town for Fuzzy’s Field Day festival in The Domain on New Years Day. We were very appreciative that they took time out from their busy touring schedules to come down and spend a day in the studio and it was fantastic having them there!

Ghostdad immediately felt at home setting up camp as engineer in the main studio with Devlin. The two worked on a beat for Kut who then laid down a nice little rap over a trademark Devlin/Ghostdad beat.

Outside the studio, 12th Planet and Jack Beats pretty much became a beat making sweatshop, first busting out a killer beat for Tyrone, and then next Fowl Murk and Tama and then lastly one that featured Monica on the guitar!

With a pretty amazing beat in hand, Tyrone enlisted Levins the lyricist to help him start with a catchy hook talking about the summertime. Tyrone then sat down with me to record the hook, where we continued to build up the rest of the structure and even played around with singing some harmonies and adding other vocal layers. We played Jack Beats and 12th planet what we had come up with and they loved it, with 12th planet suggesting we record some add lib’s towards the end of the track – which we promptly proceeded to do!

Meanwhile on the other side of the room, Hugh worked on sampling some old school songs and recording guitar and vocals with Tashx, while Fowl Murk and Tama wowed our guests with their ability to write so quickly as the Terrible Twinz, and Henry showed everyone exactly how to record a verse in one take back inside the studio.

On top of all that Homebase headmaster Bozzetto found some brand new recruits from the Redfern Community Centre and gave them the opportunity to record and make music for their first time.

By the end of the session the music that was created was super impressive and everyone there is showing such amazing skill. Something else I really noticed that was great to see, was the general team player vibe and everyone’s ability to take direction and listen to the facilitators/guests. It makes such a difference when an artist can take on advice and try out different things in order to come up with the best results. Such a good atmosphere all in all.

Words/Photos: Kristy Lee