Multimedia outlet, DJ group, and party-promotion company Mucho Culo hosts footwork parties at Subterranean’s downstairs lounge on the first Saturday of every month, and this weekend’s festivities look especially choice. Teklife DJs Manny and Earl headline the event, which will focus on footwork battling—dancers will compete for a $500 cash prize. Mucho Culo DJ Erik Voit, aka Pranas, tells me the format will be informal, with dance circles breaking out where they please throughout the venue and the best four chosen toward the end of the night to face off for the big pot.
Even if you have no chance of walking away from a dance circle victorious, the Mucho Culo parties are still a sight to behold—it’s an adrenaline rush just to watch the hungry battlers’ feet flying in front of your face and feel the air stirred up by their bodies. And that’s not to mention the music! I’m particularly excited that former Chicagoan DJ Earl will be in the house—he lives in New York now, and he hasn’t played in town since January, when he spun at Mucho Culo’s benefit show at Subterranean. Earl will drop an LP in mid-August called Open Your Eyes, the second release on Teklife’s label; street-art luminary Shepard Fairey did the cover art, and the album features contributions from some of Teklife’s finest (DJ Manny, DJ Taye, Taso) as well as Oneohtrix Point Never.
Open Your Eyes comes out only a few months after Earl released the EP Reggie Sackz, which New York label Never Normal put out on cassette. The bonus track “Grind” piqued my interest before I even pressed play—it features vocals from Wiki of noisy NYC rap group Ratking, and if any rapper can match the gnarly rush of footwork, it’s him. His half-audible raps perfectly fit the glistening, distended synths and burbling bass on “Grind.”