UGLY DUCKLING live at Ri Ra next Fri 2nd April

Deaglan

Wide O presents

UGLY DUCKLING

+ Pigeon John

+ Speech Defect


Ri Ra, Dame Court , Dublin 2

Fri 2nd April. Doors 11:30pm

Limited number of ticekts for just €12 from Sound Cellar, ROAD, All City, Comet, Urban, Freebird and City Discs or at the door on the night.

Returning for their first Irish show since headlining the soul stage of the Trinity Ball last year; California's wittiest hiphop trio UGLY DUCKLING are to visit Ri Ra in Dublin as part of three date Irish tour next week.

Hailing from Long Beach; UGLY DUCKLING are most often compared to Jurassic 5, De La Soul - their sharp and incisive between-song parody on gangster rap is the hallmark of their warm stage presence. They are on tour to promote the release of the third album 'Meat Shake' - the follow up to 'Journey to Anywhere' which produced dancefloor classics such as 'A Little Samba' and 'I Did it Like This'.

In amazing value package; UD bring with them on this tour fellow Californian Pigeon John who will do a 20 minute warm up before their show and Swedish trio Speech Defect. The tour also visits Cuba in Galway on Wed 31st March and The Granary in Limerick on Thurs 1st April.

'The kind of hip hop beef we could all do with adding to our diet.' Jockey Slut
'In the style of classic hip hop of De La Soul, Jungle Brothers and Jurassic 5, Ugly Duckling blend the clever rhymes with funky street beats.' Triple J

UGLY DUCKLING - biog 2004



it all started at meat shake…



“we met each other about 1993. we were working at a fast-food place in long beach, california called meat shake. the gimmick was that no matter what you ordered, it had meat in it — even the milk shakes! so it was really a disgusting place, but it was kinda good, too. i was the blender and grill guy, andy handled the drive-thru window and einstein worked the register," recalls dizzy.



young einstein adds, “andy and diz used to get on the little microphones and do rap routines to call out the orders saying 'check one-two, i need a turkey-shake' or 'meat to the shake.' that was how it all started.”



after releasing their own single, "fresh mode" — which turned more than a few heads in the underground hip-hop circuit selling over 4,000 singles out of their garage — ugly duckling was discovered by 1500/a&m records. their ep, also titled fresh mode, now an underground classic, gave them the chance to tour throughout europe, opening for hip-hop legends the jungle brothers. fresh mode was the first-ever release on uk label wall of sound's hip-hop imprint, bad magic, and found a highly receptive audience in europe, australia and japan.



in between the release of the ep and ugly duckling's follow-up lp, journey to anywhere, the band toured with the long beach dub all-stars, del tha funky homosapien, rahzel, and the pharcyde. In between those dates, they were part of the funky precedent project (along with jurassic 5, black eyed peas, ozomatli and dialated peoples) and performed at the first coachella festival. journey to anywhere also led to the group's first chart success as their single "a little samba" made modest rumblings in the uk.



taste the secret came together over the course of 8 months of work. ugly duckling enlisted a number of guest vocalists for taste the secret to create some of the album’s big choruses and to recreate the sounds of the meat shake. ud’s conspirators include former 80’s diva stacey q (two of hearts), double k of people under the stairs, la underground rapper fat-hed, the children of silverado park, a gospel choir (on “potty mouth”) and a number of the band’s friends.



taste the secret’s first track, “opening act,” was inspired by the band’s tour with the basement jaxx. a humorous track about the struggles of being the first band on the bill, it’s sure to strike a nerve with anyone who can relate.



another track that came about as part of ud’s live show was “mr. tough guy.”

"every night, we lampoon anybody in the audience who tries to look like a tough guy. we found that most of the crowd enjoyed mocking pseudo-thugs a great deal, so we made them a theme-song," states andy.



other tracks of note include the album’s first single, the shout out anthem "turn it up" and dumb it down" which uses a big, 60's-era style guitar lick to communicate a bit of modern-day cynicism. this sound is a bit of a departure for the guys and satires today's pop culture with lines like,



take a good thing and run it into the ground/ if you're smart then you better start dumbing it down/

rounding out taste the secret is what may be the first ever hip-hop lullaby, "goodnight now." at the conclusion to taste the secret, it makes falling asleep during a record a good thing.

For more info, photos, interviews; please contact declan@pod.ie or ph: 01 478 2037