Friday 12th Nov
BFI Southbank
onedotzero_adventures in motion festival 2010

Event : BUG Ninja Tune XX Special : 20:45

Last night’s BUG and Ninja Tune special was arguably the hottest ticket of the whole festival. The crowd of people hanging around the ticket office for any last minute ticket returns was proof of that.

For anyone who needs an introduction to them – BUG: The Evolution Of Music Video was launched in April 2007 as an ongoing series of bi-monthly events at the BFI Southbank in London to celebrate global creativity in music video.

Ninja Tune are one of the most successful independent record labels in the world. Always true to the music and their roots and always pushing boundaries with audio and video. It was very fitting that Ninja Tune are currently celebrating their 20th Birthday and could be part of this years onedotzero. It is partly because of labels like Ninja Tune and its founders, the legendary Coldcut that festivals like this exist.

The event was introduced and hosted by Adam Buxton who most people will know from his early work on the Adam & Joe show. I admit i had not really been up to speed with Mr Buxtons latest work and was a bit worried how it would fit together with some of my favourite music videos. I foolishly had never been to a BUG event before so had no idea what to expect.

I need not have worried – what i found was the perfect marriage of great comedy and extraordinary music videos. It must have been a very difficult job to pick a small selection from so many great Ninja Tune videos from the past 20 years.

Before we got into the video showcase, Adam showed us a few gems from his hard drive.

To quote Adam Buxton – what a pleasure to view these classic videos on the big screen with a decent sound system compared to the “crap-o-vision” of You Tube. I will do my best to re-create the running order below, although “crap-o-vision” is all we have.

The video showcase began with the classic Hexstatic video – Ninja Tune.

We then moved on to Bonobo’s video for Flutter created by the 2 man animation team Conkerco.

Then into Amon Tobin – Four Ton Mantis

The videos were interspersed with Adam showing screen grabs of some of the comments posted on You Tube about these videos. Amazing observational skills and delivered with perfect timing. The audience loved it, i loved it, everyone loved it. I had a brief chat with Adam in the foyer afterwards and he assured me they were all real comments – well worth checking out if you have some spare time!

We then headed into a montage of all the most popular Mr Scruff videos including Sweetsmoke, Pickled Spider, Donkey Ride, Music Takes Me Up and Get a Move On.

Next up was DELS – Shapeshift. One i had not seen before but it looked fantastic on the BFI screen.

Then the classic Wagon Christ video for Shadows.

After that we were shown, Pop Levi – Semi Babe. This one you can investigate for yourselves – read the instructions and all will become clear!

Another montage followed for Funki Porcini featuring Atomic Kitten, Rockit Soul, Ritmo Di Jazz, How Banking Works and Last Night Over Norway.

After that followed Blockhead – The Music Scene…

At this point Matt Black, half of Coldcut and co-founder of the Ninja Tune label, joined Adam on the stage for a brief discussion about the last 20 years. Talking about the early days of computer based audio/visual work and how this developed over time to the advanced work we know today.

The videos were shown for HEX – Global Chaos, the seminal Coldcut/Hexstatic – Timber, Coldcut – Revoultion (see below) then This Island Earth, Mr Nicholls and Sound Mirrors.

Moving on… we were shown another masterpiece from Amon Tobin – Esthers.

Roots Manuva – Witness the Fitness (One Hope) – surely one of the greatest songs & videos of all time…

And to finish off with an exclusive premiere of new Ninja signing Eskmo with the video for We Got More.

The event was a huge success and i’ve nothing but compliments to all involved. The aftershow continued in the Benugo Bar afterwards with a DJ set from Matt Black and Offshore.

And so that was day 3 of this years onedotzero. There are still 2 more days left of audio visual treats and few tickets remaining, so you still have a chance to get involved.

More info:

BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, Southbank, London SE1 8XT
onedotzero
Ninja Tune
BUG
Adam Buxton