Thursday, Dec. 8, 10 p.m.; Burt’s Tiki Lounge (21-and-over), free: DJ Swamp is stepping out from behind Beck’s turntables with his recent hip-hop release, Never Is Now, and a solo tour. Yes, he played with Beck for four years, but he’s not piggybacking off that fame; he’s making his own. Never Is Now showcases Swamp’s “turntablism” and rapping talents, and it sounds like what nü-metal should be aiming to achieve–a real collaboration of rap and rock. It’s dark, hard rock with a kickin’ beat and some majorly skilled scratching. In an interview with Alexander Laurence, Swamp said he was working as a street sweeper, even after winning the USA DMC Championship in 1996, until he posed as a reporter and dropped Beck a demo. Following in that “make my own opportunities” vein, Swamp wrote, produced, recorded and performed everything in Never Is Now. His life performance is self-produced, too—and it’s much more than dark hair hanging in his face with an occasional hand gesture. He is a pyromaniac; well, a self-described “fire retard.” He lights his hands on fire, breaks LPs–and then uses them as instruments–and, apparently, scratches his tongue with phonograph needles. Since it’s low budget, he doesn’t use flame retardant and has been hospitalized (though I don’t know if Burt’s allows fire displays of any kind during performances). In “Ring of Fire,” Swamp calls himself “the inferno, burning down the show.” I think he’s got a theme going here. So mod-clash dance partygoers: Be ready for a different reason to dance Thursday night. It’s not the kind of DJ experience we often see in Burque.
