Who are you and what do you do? 

I'm Andy A-Force and I live in Dublin, write beats and help put on parties & release records.

 The last few years have been really healthy in terms of underground music, mainly I'd say because of the amount of new producers and general supportive atmosphere in the scene. We try and do gigs with other promoters or collectives as much as possible, the more diverse the better really. Generally we get a good mix of people at the gigs, workers / students / on the dolers, we're not fussy mind ;)

What have been the mainstays of the Dublin underground over the years, and how do you see yourselves fitting into that? 

Er, house parties and festivals mostly! The Alphabet Set were one of the first crews to start doing gigs that were a bit different and experimental before !Kaboogie got up and going, also there's quite a few people who were doing similar ish stuff way before then as well on the free party scene and beyond, like the Audio Terrorists crew. Gigs wise with !Kaboogie, we try and change it up a bit and do stuff in different venues, although if we find a nice venue then usually we'll stay for a little while.

 What have been some of the highlights from the Kaboogie parties? 

I guess everyone would give you well different answers to this but a few that spring to mind are the 4th bday bash (where we had a bit of a klezmer / grime mashup with Terror Danjah and the North Strand Kontra Band), DJing at the Secret Wars jams last year (right craic), Scratcha DVA at Sibin Festival last year (he killed it), Krome & Time, and Warrior Queen & the Bug in 2007. 

What inspired the launch of the label, and what do you have coming up? What's the ethos behind it? 

!Kaboogie was always meant to be both a collective and a label, and has grown organically on that basis over the last few years, focused on promoting the Irish scene and linking in with international artists too. The release schedule for next year is getting busier - KBG004 will be out early in the new year with two tracks from Belfast producer T-Polar and two on the flip from Kansas City Prophets from London, featuring Linton Kwesi Johnson and Soom T on vocals. Other upcoming !K stuff includes releases from Eomac (Dublin), Lord Jackson (New Zealand), Shatterfreak (Dublin), AL-PD (Bay Area) and Automatic Tasty (Wicklow). The other label I'm involved in, Ghetto Quietly, is on a global bass tip and the next one out on that is a Lady Grew EP with a couple of remixes lined up including one from Mad EP.

Yeah, a few places have closed this year sadly... Next year will see lower door prices and as a result it will probably be a bit harder to do as many nights while keeping the physical releases going, as the venues will be feeling the squeeze. On the plus side there are some new alternative spaces that have opened up this year, which is good to see.

Who's coming up from Dublin that we should know about? 

Meljoann, who has a great debut album out on her own label Boy Scout Audio; Automatic Tasty from Wicklow, who has 3 releases on Ireland's best net label Acroplane, well worth checking out; Manus Goan has some sick beats; Frankie Bingo on a future garage tip; and Prince Kong and T-Woc are dope producers too - T-Woc has a new EP dropping soon on Rudimentary.

Is there a fair degree of unity between the different Irish cities? I noticed adverts for nights in Cork on one of the blogs you linked me to... 

Yeah you could say so - one of the best nights of last year was a Dublin v Cork soundclash which went off, and Galway is good buzz for gigs as well. People link up at various times during the year especially festivals. 

The !Kaboogie 5th bday bash is on January 14th, keep an eye on the website www.kaboogie.net for the full lineup for that, and shout outs to everyone down the front, see yiz there!

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