THE BLOODY BEETROOTS

The Bloody Beetroots were an underground DJ duo, mixing and making electro tracks. By 2008 they were becoming more and more popular. However, they came under criticism from some reviewers for only using the masks and style as a way of gaining attention, for example they were becoming known as 'those DJ's that play with masks on' rather than for their music.

However this has never been the case, the masks are not intended for show, instead they are a way of creating an identity for themselves when they play live and also allows them to incorporate their favourite, extremely violent, comic book artist, Tanio Libertore who was a huge inspiration for the band and who went on to create their debut album cover: Romborama. They are also there to represent a part of where they come from: Italy, Venice which is renowned for its masked festivals, where people can enter the streets masked for weeks on end and where you can be and release the person you really are.

Near the end of 2009 The Bloody Beetroots released Romborama (21/08/09). Romborama is the fusion of two concepts engineered by the headman of the bloody beetroots' duo: Sir Bob Rifo aka Bobermann. The concept is that the album was not so much something that flows from one track to the next but is instead a collection of all their best work; old, new, fan favourites and collaborations with their friends’ within the music world all re-mastered and formatted for CD. Soon after Romborama's release The Bloody Beetroots went off the radar. A few months passed without the duo playing or releasing new music until Rifo announced on Facebook and Twitter that he had given himself a birthday present, the band's own website:

www.deathcrew77.com

There was little information on the website aside from what they call their manifesto:

http://www.deathcrew77.com/manifesto/

Though obscure the reference is referring to how people saw the band and how it was to change, however in doing so they didn't want to ruin what the fans liked about the band in the first place; a hard hitting hard-core electronic near punk dance band. A week later Sir Bob posted on the website that Death Crew 77 was here.
Lead by Rifo on guitar, synth keyboard and Vocals with Tommy Tea (the second member of the original band) running live DJ effects on the instruments and a new third member with the alias: Edward Grinch now on drums, the band was ready for their debut. They announced a Tour starting in London (the birthplace of punk) and then to follow the other cities of the UK and Europe. They toured alongside the release of their new EP and video - DOMINO, which was darker than some of their other tracks. The new message is clear. The Bloody Beetroots are reborn. However Domino is not separate from Romborama instead as Rifo put it; it is an 'extension' of the album similar to their other EP, Christmas Vendetta.

To conclude, Death Crew 77 is not a new band but instead an 'extension' of it, similar in a sense to the album and the DOMINO EP. To keep the band constantly evolving, to keep the sounds from getting old and to show the people who criticised them that the band is more than what they think. Sir Bob, a self-proclaimed anarchist and differentiated from the other two DC77 members by a tattoo on his chest of his birth-date: 1977, claims that now the band is not as straightforward as it was in the beginning (simply an opener to his punk band; Bob Rifo’s Gang). The Bloody Beetroots: a DJ Set, a live Band, a medium of anarchistic expression and an idea that can only revolutionise the way we listen to electronic music.

Written by Joe Thornalley

Edited by Joe Leavenworth Bakali