Going down to Kemp Town to see a bearded man perform can mean any number of things, but on Friday it was the high-tech human beatboxing and live mixing show of Darren Foreman AKA Beadyman and DJ JFB. An impressive array of laptops, mixing desks, guitar pedals, keyboards, cameras, projectors and wires stretched the length of Audio's stage, for the pair to manipulate, punch and skew in their live dance show: Battlejam.

When I arrived, JFB was already into a DJ set, scratching and mixing up a Dubstep-style sound. With a camera positioned right on the desk, I witnessed the intricate movements on a projector, half-dancing half-spectating. Eventually the clean-shaved Beardyman joined in and provided more grooves for JFB to mix-up, with his beatbox sound wonderfully boosted by the cool Korg Kaoss unit. Using a microphone and occasionally a keyboard, Beardyman switched styles smoothly, from Reggae to Drum + Bass, seemingly every few minutes. The pair worked together well, despite a few technical screw-ups that seemed inevitable with so much gear on the table. "It's fucked-up at a vital moment" laments Beardyman - but it didn't really matter at all- the entire show had the feel of being precariously held-together and it made it all the more exciting.

Unfazed by the sound-check-as-you-go, repairs-under-fire progress, the pair push the music back out into the audience, sampling the front-row audience making sex-noises. Some sounded more authentic than others, some worryingly close to bear-mating; but once routed through JFB's mixing desk
all became a symphony of grunts, groans and 'fuck-me's.

The interactivity didn't end there. With the caveat of expecting it to fail completely, the Battlejam successfully mixed live video, sampling the mumblings of one drunken patron and cranking it up to 140bpm.

It just looked like a really cool and fun thing to try, so I ran out the next day and grabbed a microphone and rigged it up to my Korg Electribe. I'm still playing around a couple of days later, but I reckon I've been inspired to try out some vocal shenanigans by the terrific live show that is Battlejam. I highly recommend!