Nerd Talk Sessions Vol. 4 - Urban Nerds

Nerd Fest. Berlin made an online rendez-vous with UK-based music junkies Urban Nerds. These nerds really love bass heavy music so much they started their own party series which soon turned into one of the coolest events in London, if not whole England, ah forget it: the whole wide world!

Enjoy our fourth issue of Nerd Talk Sessions with James of Urban Nerds!

NERD Fest. Berlin: Welcome to our NERD Talk Sessions, Urban Nerds. Tell us who you are and why you choose that name?

Urban Nerds: We are bass heavy underground London party starters. One of us used to be called an Urban Nerd by a mutual friend back in the day. We were Nerdy about Urban music in all its forms, so when the night was formed, Urban Nerds seemed like the right way to go!

NFB: What’s an urban Nerd? Are your parties any different from other parties…or are you ultimately just using the word because it’s become ‘hip’?

Urban Nerds: The word ‘Nerd’ has become ‘hip’? Damn. We’ll take some credit for that, in that case. Anyway, no, we don’t do anything because it’s ‘hip’. To be a Nerd you don’t have to be sat in the library or the science lab, being a Nerd just means you’re extremely passionate and really into something in a deep way and that’s how we feel about the underground British music we promote, be it dubstep, garage, grime, electro, D&B or anything else!

NFB: Aren’t party promoters and DJ’s the ultimate “cool guys”? So you can be both, huh?

Urban Nerds: Looks like it!

NFB: You even have your own T-Shirt or merchandise line….

Urban Nerds: Yes, the limited edition Urban Nerds T-Shirts have been around for a while now, on and off our website and given away to like-minded Nerds. This year the clothing label is stepping-up in a big way, with a new Spring/Summer line of fresh colour ways dropping in a few weeks time on a re-vamped T-Shirt store at urban-nerds.com! We’re also collaborating with the crew at Addict Clothing this year to put together a sick capsule collection. Stay locked!

NFB: A few years ago being called a Nerd would have been a total insult. Now people stream to your parties. What do you think has changed?

Urban Nerds: To quote DJ Zinc, quoting something else…”The Nerds shall inherit the Earth.”

NFB: You’re into bass heavy music. What’s the nerdiest record you have, you’d say?

Urban Nerds: I ashamedly own the Arsenal football team ‘Hot Stuff’ theme tune. Yes, they do have a theme tune and no I’m not proud of it.

NFB: And what’s the nerdiest set one of you has ever played?

Urban Nerds: Our resident Rattus Rattus always drops The Prodigy ‘Out of Space’ but the title aside that is a badman tune! He used to drop that classic Super Mario tune though, this dance remix of it, now that’s pretty Nerdy!

NFB: What’s your favourite record of all times? Do you play it – or keep it to yourself?

Urban Nerds: Between us there are far too many to mention, a lot of classic jungle, reggae, dancehall, acid house between us. If it’s good, it’s played!

NFB: Are you connecting with other urban Nerds worldwide? What’s the place you’d least expect to meet others?

Urban Nerds: All the time, check out my website, check out my website! The place we’d least expect it? Probably a cave in the middle of Austria but Springnine Festival proved us wrong there.

NFB: This is the chance of your lifetime: you can go and let out the most nerdiest rant about music (or other stuff you’re into) now! Go!!

Urban Nerds: Big, bad and heavy!

NFB: Any last words or confessions?

Urban Nerds: Last words are…Urban Nerds are 4 years old this year. Big respect to everyone who’s supported us and kept the party alive since way back when in 2007!

We need all the Urban Nerds out in full force representing at our massive 4^th Birthday Party on Saturday 28^th May at Scala, London, featuring the biggest line-up of bass heavy party starters we have EVER hosted. Ms Dynamite, DJ EZ, Roska, Redlight, Doorly, Netsky, MJ Cole, N-Type, Mumdance, Elijah & Skilliam, Marco Del Horno, Marcus Nasty, Rattus & Klose One, Warrior One, RackNRuin and many more will all be playing! Stay locked to www.urban-nerds.com for tickets and don’t miss out!

NFB: Urban Nerds, thank you very much for the interview!

Urban Nerds: Boom!

Urban Nerds @ Snowbombing Festival 2011:


Urban Nerds Channel @ Youtube
Urban Nerds @ Soundcloud

Introducing Exhibit A: The Dubstep Geek

Tua is a producer, rapper, all-around-insanely creative geek hailing from Reutlingen, Germany.
He's a perfectionist too, sometimes a little on the darker side, so when we found this new song he did, we thought: "hell yeah, let it all out!"

Check out his song "Geek Chic" aka "Love to be a geek":

Nerd Talk Sessions Vol. 3 - Perfect Loosers

We are happy to present to you a new issue of our Nerd Talk Sessions. The last time, we spoke with Argentinian artist and graphic designer Mariano Nerd or nerdisena, representing Buenos Aires nerd-to-the-core.

Today, we bring you some French flavor. Three supertalented guys from Paris. They are musicians, fashion designers, artists, illustrators, producers, grafitti artists, all in one crew. They probably don't need sleep and have robot alter egos, we're not sure. What we of NERD Fest. Berlin are sure of is that they totally rock!!! Okay, now make way for the PERFECT LOOSERS!

NFB: Welcome to our NERD Talk Sessions, Perfect Loosers! Let's start off with your band name: Do you consider yourself Losers?

Perfect Loosers: To be honest, we don’t consider ourselves as real losers. But part of us is nerdy, when we spend hours and hours doing beats in studio, playing with some machines, mixing tunes. Nothing else exists around.

NFB: How would you define being a Nerd, especially a Nerd that’s into music – and DJing and partying?

Perfect Loosers: Music is our life, that’s kind of nerdy. Being on stage with some turntables, machines or whatever we use is what we enjoy the most and that’s why we work hard to get there. Being a nerd for us, is a state of mind where you are ultra focused on what you do or create, be it music, painting, designing clothes....

NFB: All three of you are from Paris, France? What’s the music scene like that you’re in?

Perfect Loosers: Sigisbert and Mast are from Lille, Waly is from Paris. But we all live in Paris.
Music scene is quite rich actually, some people are doing great job like Sound Pellegrino, Youngunz, or ,Club Cheval for example. But we wish we had more crossover scenes, mixing different influences like dancehall, funky, house, garage, dubstep in the same crowd.

NFB: Tell us about your musical style. We saw that you are signed to Akwaaba Music, a label that is mainly bringing out African music, right? How did this come about?

Perfect Loosers: We like all kind of music, from reggae to dancehall to house to African music to techno to electronica to funky to garage to dubstep to hip hop to rock to pop to everything. We don’t want to be put in a single box. We produce music that we like, no matter what it is.

We are signed to Akwaaba on some particular projects. We participated to a remix contest for Angola Kuduro artist Figura on his tune “Ze Bula” a year and a half ago. This track was the starting point of our collaboration with Bbrave (boss of Akwaaba Music). After this project, he came to our studio in the suburb of Paris with tones of traditional stems by Ahmed Fofana, Baba Salah and Onyenze. Treasures he’d accumulated on his travels to West Africa. It took us some time to put the stems in order and sample them. Then we wanted to go a few steps beyond remixing classic world music and instead piece together a full length compilation where Africa would meet the club scenes from all around the world. “Perfect Loosers present Akwaaba” was born.

NFB: All three of you have different artistic backgrounds. One is a fashion designer, the other a graffiti artist/graphic designer/illustrator and one a DJ/producer. How did you end up forming a band?

Perfect Loosers: Yes, that’s right, we have different backgrounds. Mast and Waly are doing the beats when Sigisbert is doing some clothes. Mast is a graffiti artist/Graphic designer as well. We all work in the same warehouse. One day, before a party at Social Club in Paris, Waly and Mast asked Sigisbert to entertain their set as he’s doing that for his reggae crew “12Sound” from Lille. That’s how we ended up forming the band.

We sometimes do our music separately and sometimes together in the studio, it really depends. We share sessions as we work on the computer when we create separately. And we have jam sessions on the machines when we are together in the studio. We have different kind of hardware drum machines and synths. We like to work analog because it’s lots of fun compared to the usual work with computer and mouse.

NFB: You’re doing your album cover and other designs yourself?

Perfect Loosers (Mast): I started doing graffiti when I was a teenager, then I went into the world of graphic design, painting and illustration. It was a natural consequence that I make the artwork for the band. That’s part of our project, of our concept.

NFB: Do you think the idea or perception of what it means to be considered a Nerd - or loser - has changed?

Perfect Loosers: We all grew up watching some American TV shows where the nerd is also a loser that doesn’t know how to dress up or talk to the ladies…. That perception of the nerd hasn’t changed!!

NFB: Last questions: Who’s the “perfect looser” to you? Do you have any role models?

Perfect Loosers: Oh, yes, we have one. The French actor Pierre Richard!

Here is an extract of their next EP coming out in June 2011 :

Perfect Loosers @ Soundcloud

To top it all off, they have this amazing website called
Badwinners.

Steve Urkel revisited (slightly altered)

Sooooo, we have been busy, lazy, chose to name it as you please.
But this superawesome blog is way too good to let it be forgotton so to start of our spontaneous revitalisation, here's a cool video for all music nerds:



OFWGKTA, aka Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, short Odd Future, made an appearance at Jimmy Fallon last month. The best part starts around 1:38.
Now, what does the dance of this one guy (Tyler, The Creator is his name, btw) remind you of...???



Yeah, right.

NFB will be back regularly, we deeply apologize for making you wait for that next post so long.

BNN - Black Nerds Network self explained

This is great! Like our Nerd Talk Session, just that someone else asked the questions we would have asked this time. :)

BNN, the Black Nerds Network is a collective bringing together Black people, Black nerdy people, from all over the world.

I think their idea, concept and definition of being a Nerd and of Nerdiness is very similar to ours - or that of our previous Nerd Talk Sessions guests (for example Mariano Nerd from Argentina).

So here's the vid. Listen and enjoy!

Nerd Talk Sessions Vol. 2 - Mariano NERD (of nerdiseña)

Hi folks!

Here we go with Round 2 of our NERD Talk Sessions.

We "virtual-ly" met with Mariano NERD, an Argentinan-born artist and graphic designer and one half of the design duo nerdiseña. He lives in Buenos Aires and answered some of our questions.



(San Solar Parravicini)

Enjoy!

Why do you call yourself mariano NERD? That means you consider yourself a Nerd?

Yeah, I consider myself a Nerd about design, and that's also the reason for the name of our design studio, "nerdiseña" (nerdisign). We're both Nerds (Juan Pablo and I. We are the founders of nerdiseña) and we love it.

What's your definition of a Nerd?

Well, that's something that everybody asks me, cause I don't look like a regular Nerd jaja, but I think that "nerdism", it's a quality, a part of someone's personality, not the whole, that would be too simple, people are complex beings. The nerd part of somebody it's for me the part that gets passionate about some little and specific area of knowledge. I mean, you could be a Nerd on music or mathematics, design or whatever you really like and you wish to investigate and know alot about.


(Take the Power back)


You are an Argentinan artist and illustrator. Tell us a little about the nerdy aspects of your work and art. What's nerdy about it?

I think that in order to fully understand my work you have to be a little of a Nerd. I like to make jokes and indirect references to history, political characters, mystical and religious ideas or facts, maybe too Argentine for somebody who is not from this country...but also movies, books, TV series, even video games all of which are mostly well known but kinda nerdy too, like maybe Star Wars or the Simpsons.

You've mentioned it already: Together with some friends you have this design studio called nerdiseña. What exactely are you doing?

We're two guys who like to have fun basically. We're editing a visual magazine which is called finde mundo" (something that literally, in English, would mean "endofthe world" but in Argentina, "finde" is an abreviation of "fin de semana" meaning "weekend"). We also paint on the streets, make graphic and web design, a little bit of motion graphics. In this processes we involve people of every kind, artists, photographers, friends, etc.


(project finde mundo)

Who's your favorite artist or illustrator and why?

There's a lot of artists I love. I can say that pop art is one of the strongest influences that I have. Artists like Warhol, Charles Burns, Jorge Alderete, Augusto Costhanzo...the list goes on and on. All these people's works have in common a strong line, high contrast, powerful and flat, plain colors and I think that's why I like them. Simplicity, power, massiveness - it's like the result of mixing art and graaphic design, both things that I love.


(every idle folk needs an IDOL)

Would you say that Nerds have a different way of thinking that the 'average person'?

I think that no one is 100% Nerd, so I'd have to say no, but I also think that that Nerd part of you, or anybody's, make you do things that are not average, because it makes you get specific about something, get involved, get passionate, and that's the way I think we gotta live. :)



(Evangelizacion NERD)


http://www.nerdisenia.com.ar/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nerdisenia


*All pictures of art works were used with the kind permission of the creator of the works (Mariano Nerd). 05.2010*

Germany loves Tina Fey too!

Yesterday, Germany's most-read online news website, spiegelonline, published an article about Tina Fey. I think the author was supposed to write about her movie, Date Night, but instead he wrote a homage, or a kind of love letter, to Tina Fey the most successful and charming female nerd in comedy at the moment.

Here's the link to the (German) article:
http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/kino/0,1518,688683,00.html

And here's a little Best of from her role as Liz Lemon in 30 Rock:

Nerd Alarm in Berlin: re:publia 2010

Hm, after a longer absence, we're feeling very, very guilty but will try to make up for it.

Ahaem, here's one (belated) try:

Berlin is actual Nerd heaven at the moment, at least for all the blogger nerds out there. The fourth issue of re:publica was already sold out before it started yesterday. Woah.

At this very moment, thousandss of bloggers from around the globe are networking in Berlin-Mitte.

Check out re:publicas website, facebook, twitter, flickr and all the other sites for updated info!

http://re-publica.de/10/

Is the President of the United States of America a true Nerd?

I came across this great video.
John Hodgman is a well-known American humorist and author. In his 2009 speech he addresed U.S. president Barack Obama directly to find out if he is a "true nerd" or not.
Veeeeeeery funny.
My favorite part: 12:00

Nerd Talk Sessions. Vol. 1

Welcome to the first issue of the NERD Talk Sessions.

In our Nerd Talks, we will have conversations with all kinds of Nerds, creative masterminds, geniuses and 'beyond-thinkers' who are not afraid to do their own thing and are proud Nerds.

We will post new Nerd Talks regularly (our plan is to do it at least once a month).

Vol. 1 of Nerd Talk Sessions introduces Antje Ebert, founder and owner of General Robots, www.generalrobots.de, an Online Shop specialised in all things related to robots.



Hello Antje, here are my (Nerd) questions for you:

Q - Why robots?

A - Robots are no longer only unaffordable SciFi or High Tech objects, people can go out and buy them. It's interesting to see how many different styles and shapes they come in nowadays - as gadgets and toys, as retro designs and even as technical everyday objects. Robots combine the kind of SciFi-Metropolis nostalgia with people's desire of technical progress and development. And they also represent the dream to make life easier or even to control it in a way. But most of all: robots are fun!

Q - Where do you get you get your robots and all the robot-related stuff from? How do you find it?

A - Company secret. ;-)

Q - What's your definition of a Nerd?

A - To me, a Nerd is someone who very intensely deals with a specific topic that everyone else around him or her regards as rather strange and who therefore is often put into the role of an outsider.

Q - Do you consider yourself a Nerd?

A - In a way yes, because I have a robot mailorder shop, which is generally looked upon as something unusual, and also the fact that I as a woman am into robots and Science Fiction. But I've gotten used to this outsider role and I don't care what other's think about it. I am doing something I really enjoy.

Q - What's your favorite item in the shop?

A - I really love them all. A new item has to be liked and approved by me to make it into my shop.

Q - The geekiest item in your shop?

A- That's the Thingamagoop! An analog synthesizer in the form of a robot.

http://www.generalrobots.de/product_info.php/info/p720_Thingamagoop2-schwarz.html

Thanks, Antje!
See you at the next NERD Fest. Berlin!