Backyard Bangers

The hip-hop-derived-electronic music production/DJ team of E.Moss and The Troublemaker make for an interesting combination of creative styles and personalities, to say the least. While E.Moss concentrates on nice little chord changes and melodies to warm the soul, the more mischievous Troublemaker is concerned with cracking you over the head with hard snare snaps and giving kick drum stomps to the gut. E.Moss prefers to take his sweet time crafting their mostly sample-based tracks, whereas The Troublemaker tends to push things forward at an accelerated pace. And though E.Moss may be the monogamous type, the so-single-you-can-tell-by-his-unshaven-face Troublemaker finds inspiration in, uh . . . well, he happens to find it in gorgeous women everywhere. But when the two collaborate in their backyard self-built home studio known as Hollyrock, hidden comfortably in the LA neighborhood Atwater Village, it all adds up. Before combining their talents, both E. Moss (a NY native) and The Troublemaker (from Los Angeles) were busy working on their own individual projects. They both began their music careers as college radio DJs -- E.Moss at WCBN (University of Michigan) in Ann Arbor, MI, and Troublemaker at ACRN (Ohio University) in Athens, OH. After school was done, E.Moss headed back to NY where he began spinning DJ sets around town and providing beats for the hip-hop group Atmos (with MC Proven Self). Atmos released a couple of 12-inches on their own indie 4M in '99 and 2000, which caught the attention of acclaimed UK label Mo' Wax who subsequently dropped Atmos' Shock Therapy single in 2001. E.Moss has also released electronic tracks under the alias Beatboxes at Dawn, and remixed Super Furry Animals' Alternate Route to Vulcan St. The Troublemaker is certainly no slouch either. He broke out of college early and moved back home to Southern California and took a job at punk powerhouse Epitaph Records. After a few years spent at Epitaph learning the ins and outs of the indie biz, he went on to co-found the acclaimed underground hip-hop and drum-and-bass label Celestial Recordings in 1998, along with the Celestial-affiliated weekly Konkrete Jungle Los Angeles. Groundbreaking sound experiments were conducted by The Troublemaker with Celestial partners like the intergalactic rapper Phoenix Orion including the Secret Wars LP on atomcandy - and junglist mastermind Hive - Nu Planet, featured on Urbal Beats 3 (Universal). After several years of trading self-created music as cross-country music industry buddies, E.Moss moved west and the duo was formed. Their debut track was called Backyard Banger, a collaboration with renowned culture-clashing turntablist DJ Z-Trip (who at the time lived across the street from their pad) on the 2002 next level compilation Constant Elevation (Astralwerks). While submitting various remixes and commercial work, their re-interpretation of Linkin Park's Runaway was picked over more established studio wizards by the top-selling rock group for their now-platinum '02 remix album Reanimation (Warner Brothers). And the high profile remixing gigs continue: next up is a remix of DJ Z-Trip featuring Lyrics Born. Meanwhile, their party rockin', body movin', turn-the-party-out 2X4 DJ sets are not to be missed (note: E.Moss is pretty nice with the cuts and scratches), and that turntable wizardly helped Backyard Bangers to win URB Magazine's annual mixtape contest. Backyard Bangers are bringing forth blazing equations powerful enough to knock down the front door. Get your Backyard boogie on. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.