Belgians make Brixton jump

2manyDJs
O2 Brixton Academy: 13.06.09

This was the second night of this show stopping gig-cum-club night was brought to our attention by 2manydjs aka David and Stephen Dewaele aka Soulwax. Sometimes they like to be known as Flying Dewaele Brothers, Samantha Fu and sometimes Kawazaki. These electro alternative rock collaborators who brought us Bastard pop from 1995 to present, hail from Belgium and caused vibrations quite literally through everything standing, sitting, dancing, drinking, being poured and the foundations keeping the old building alive. The place rocked backwards and forwards throughout their hour and a half set, the support djs were equally just as good, ranging from providing us with some sweet sweet electro to minimal to techno causing the rocking motion that we all felt reverberating through our bodies as the sweat from every single dancing satisfied person engulfed into the atmosphere.
This was a seriously worthwhile show; every single penny paid for one of those tickets was well spent…

Coming up this summer from the funk loving genre smashing Belgians will see them causing more chaos at Glastonbury 27th June, Hop Farm Festival 5th July, T in the Park 11th July and Creamfields 30th August.

If it stays hot, this will be one spoilt summer for festivals.

For everything you have ever wanted to know about the beat droppers bootlegs and all check out: www.2manydjs.free.fr

Ó Jemilla Russell-Clough
Jemilla_russellclough@yahoo.co.uk

Manchester: Live: Chiodos

Sugarmill, Stoke
3rd February 2009


I hear a shrill scream through the frosty pub window while waiting for the doors to open on this cold evening and it wasn’t someone getting snowballed in the face.

Through into the frost bitten night I saw a definite fan of the band. Chiodos shirt on show and boyfriend in hand, she waited eagerly, and soon after more teen girls arrive in a cacophonous sound that would put Chiodos lead singer’s Craigery Owens own high pitched vocals to shame.

First band up are Basilisk. These guys waist no time with getting to know their audience and the three members begin the assault with twisted riffs, arpeggio bass licks and some heavy drum playing. What got me with this band was despite all this cathartic energy and presence the band seemed relatively relaxed with the drummer looking as if he was watching a Saturday morning cartoon with friends. Their set is heavy on the instrumental with a few screamed vocals that work well in the right places and seemed to go down well tonight with the audience.

The second act up is a man and his laptop by the name of Sonny. Despite looking a lot like a hippy version of Corey Feldman, the kids here don’t get it tonight and are here to watch a band play. Chaos erupts!
The young Chiodos fans do what only they know how to do at band shows. Start a mosh pit! Now I hope one-day mosh pits will be ridden from this Earth, as they are destructive in the sense that you’re trying to hurt another human being without any sense of reason. But suddenly it’s not all bad and the kids begin to hug and bop up and down when a few more familiar tracks start to rise from Sonny’s set and not all was lost for his valiant effort tonight, a lot of people wouldn’t have the balls to get up and do what he did.

Next up, band Exit Ten come on stage to what sounds like a theme tune to an Alton Towers theme park ride. That aside they don’t linger too long and break into a flawless set. While not being the most original band, they play proficiently; know their instruments and the songs are very well written. The singer was a bouncy character, up on the monitor speakers at the front and seemed to levitate over the entire stage during the set; it was hard to ignore him. Riffs were heavy and catchy with breakdowns and tapping going on in the set but I felt the vocal melody’s got a bit repetitive nearing the end.

It’s what all the kids have been waiting for and all tension breaks as Exit Ten leave the stage for Chiodos to take the reigns for the next hour. All members seemed to be on fire and in a mood to party. The crowd agrees and the exchanges between them are very evident through the night when the lead singer flinches as someone gets a cheeky smack on his behind when he’s not looking. They play their songs with skill as each band member takes command of their tools of destruction and to my surprise try and get a wall of death going in the tiny venue. The security wasn’t sure what would happen as the young unknowing fans clash like pre-school Gladiators to “The Undertakers Thirst For Revenge”. It makes me wonder if this band will be around in the next two years and if these current fans will still be listening to them. Chiodos are the best of the current crop of hardcore/emo bands to come out of the states but will their current hard tour schedule save them? If they play with the passion they displayed tonight they could be around for a while longer but I think the scene died a long while ago.

Basilisk / For fans of: Fall Of Troy, These Arms Are Snakes, Circle Takes The Square

Exit Ten/ For fans of: Hopesfall, Funeral For A Friend, Hondo Maclean
Chiodos/ For fans of: Saosin, AFI, Underoath

Gig Update! Jimmy The Squirrel

Jimmy The Squirrel return to play in London after recording our new album. While we wait with growing excitement for it to be mixed we're playing a few gigs playing a few of the new songs just to keep you all interested (hopefully).

This is an all day event at the Purple Turtle in Camden and should be a really good day, so come down and see us,we've missed you!

22nd February 2009

3pm-23.30pm

Purple Turtle

Camden

Full Line Up
3.15 – The Junk
4.00 – Stick Man Army
4.45 – The Extractors
5.30 – Dumpster Pop
6.15 – Beat The Red Light
7.00 – Jimmy The Squirrel
7.45 – Near The Knuckle
8.30 – The Plan
9.15 – The Lovespuds
10.00 – Tyrannosaurus Alan
10.45 – The Apostates

Late Of The Pier, Heaven - 27.11.2008

Nowadays, electronic bands pair themselves off with tagline terminology such as ‘neon’, ‘day glow’ or ‘the klaxons’. Despite this, Late Of The Pier don’t quite lie down on all fours and surrender numbly.

Instead they take influence from a cross section of bands like Joy Division (a la ‘Bathroom Gurgle’), Gary Numan, Pink Floyd and a mantra penciled by contemporaries Franz Ferdinand, of making music that boys and girls can dance to. Add to this a skim of varnish and direction from underground super producer Erol Alkan, who even throws some vinyl’s about and makes an appearance, albeit barely visible through the excessive clouds of artificial fog tonight, and you end up listening to their debut ‘Fantasy Black Channel’, an collection of songs that should be on any wised up music fans credit crunch ration list.

Tonight, they headline a club night tailor-made by themselves at London’s Heaven, and show off Fantasy Black Channel to its entirety, making space for falling microphone stands, instruments fashioned out of planks of wood and techies punching guitar strings for ‘that sound’ – strange? No, not really considering that this is a band that pretty much verbally copy wrote the idea of vending machines filled with kebabs, and who’ve been known to microwave drumsticks during sets so that they’re “hot enough to hit that beat”. Peculiar perfectionists that they are, they allowed the crowd soften up the floorboards and familiarize themselves with the bouncers tonight during adapted versions of ‘Space And The Woods’, ‘Random Firl’, ‘Focker’ and ‘VW’ on which they throw in seasonal slurs of “Holidays are coming, holidays are coming…” to remind us it’s almost December.

If only we could put our hands on our waistlines, move your bodies to the bass lines, and get our hands on some cheap wine every night?



ANANT NAIK

Foals - Antidotes (Transgressive)

Hype, a 1920's expression for being 'shortchanged' or 'cheated'(and most probably somehow Latin for 'shit'), is a word commonly fixed to the lips of those who find themselves talking about Foals. However, its important to bear in mind that the Oxford five-piece have tried their upmost to resist this, so much that they decided to drop their two biggest singles 'Hummer' and 'Mathletics' from their debut long player Antidotes.

So that debut in question, sees Foals swap given acclaim for fresh melodies, or in the words of lead wordsmith Yannis Philipakkis "40 minutes of solid drones". Its difficult to dissect the sound of this band, there's moments in opener 'The French Open' where Swingball meets Guitar Hero, with two electric six strings plucking back and forth at each other in dub rhythm, whilst at other corners of the album there's a clearer thrust towards Jazz with the use of horn sections. Thus any autopsy or breakdown would only prove death my musical spasm. Overall though, Antidotes is almost too slow burning for its own good, so maybe it's pulling the trigger on itself? Well, no. Although it does guise itself as three quarters of an hour's worth of ripely produced jamming sessions with a few lyrics chucked in to pass quality control checks at Transgressive Records, it does hit a market. Its experimental - and that's a get out of jail free card that's only ever truly reserved for a necessary cause. Its surely not going to be shifting copies at your local Asda or Sainsbury's, nor is that feat expected of it, but as singles 'Balloons' and 'Cassius' have so far proven, Foals know how to dent the airwaves and spark mouth-to-mouth orgies.

So what has Antidotes done? To answer that question most thoroughly, it's thrown Foals a lifeline, allowing them to outlive the hype which surrounds them and to trot into the distance, to grow into five stallions.



ANANT NAIK

Barack Obama

I wonder what Barack’s doing now…choosing a puppy for his daughters, writing inspirational speeches, maybe having a beer with Bruce Springsteen. The mind boggles. The man has become one of the most iconic faces of the past 40 years, if not the iconic face of the past 40 years. But what exactly do we all know about his politics? What policies does he wish to put into place? And more pertinently, does it really matter? An ignorant question to ask in relation to the 44th president of one of the most formidable countries in the world, you may think. BUT, what we have here is the greatest orator of our times, a man whose grandmother still lives in a Kenyan village and does not speak English, the man who a few weeks ago almost realised Martin Luther King’s 1964 prophecy that there would be an African-American president “in less than 40 years.” Barack missed this deadline by 5 years, but these time specifics are irrelevant. What we saw today, during one of the masterful speeches we have become used to from the new leader of the free world, was a man who, it has been said many times before, embodies the American Dream in the purest essence of this ideal. Who cares if his foreign policy experience isn’t up to scratch? Who cares if, as Mrs Clinton said: ‘You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose’? (NB this is actually a compliment, Hil…you’re calling the man a master of language, since when has this been a bad thing? Language is freedom!) The idea of the American Dream, although difficult to define, goes a little something like this: a place where regardless of social standing, every inhabitant of America is able to fulfil their potential, regardless of social position or origin. What is so great is that a country of which the world has grown tiresome, and a land that through George W’s leadership became a farce, has a rejuvenated sense of what their forefathers expected and dreamt of once again. What Barack stands for is confidence and a reinvigorated belief in not only what it means to be American (an existence I cannot empathise with as a Brit…) but what it means to be human in the 21st century. Here is a man who partied with revolutionaries in the 70s, who worked in down and out communities in the 80s, and has overcome all the stupid and nonsensical barriers mankind has unforgivably put in his way throughout history, and become a powerful man with almost unequivocal admiration, love and respect throughout the world. I personally don’t give a damn about his lack of experience blah blah blah – look where George Bush’s more traditional ‘experience’ and dynastic connections has got the world. And now Barack has the unenviable job of mopping up after him. He seems to have made the right start –every policy Barack is gradually putting into place is a two-finger salute in the right direction of Bush’s arrogant and terrifying mistakes.



LAURA ALICE

A Chance To See What The WRC07 Should Have Been?

Freestyling is a sport, art form, weapon that has been evolving at an incredible rate over the past decade. Long gone are the ‘I slept with your mum’ lines of the mid 1990’s, replaced by searing wit and intelligent insults.

You can’t just make stuff rhyme anymore. There are many key factors to consider, like it sounds better to rhyme multi-syllabic words rather than singular, but the key element all truly excellent emcees share is this: Be as personal as possible, and flip your opponents insults back on them. These two techniques prove that you haven’t prewritten any of your rhymes, that it comes straight ‘off your head.’ Insults that can be applied to anyone are far less effective than insults that can only be applied to your opponent.

One of the most prestigious freestyle tournaments, the World Rap Championships, sees two on two emcee battles from different divisions across America, Canada and the UK. For the last two years that the WRC has been held (2006 and 2007), LA based duo Illmaculate and Thesaurus have emerged the victors. The 2006 finals saw Illmaculate and Thesaurus going up against London’s Possessed and Wa’shisface. It was safe to say LA beat UK hands down.

But after a much more impressive performance in the UK divisions in 2007, Norwich based emcees Arkaic and Eurgh beat the opposition and were flown out to America to represent the UK. They battled incredibly well, destroying Zeale32 and Phranchyze in the quarter finals, but after some very questionable judging in the semi finals, lost to NY based duo Frankie Wapps and Jaze Juce. The online following was in uproar about this. The WRC07 finals were Frankie Wapps and Jaze Juce versus Illmaculate and Thesaurus, the former of whom were utterly destroyed, coming off fairly weak and generic against the stinging wit of the now two time world tag team champions.

The opinion of many WRC followers was that the WRC07 finals should have been UK versus LA. But now, Eurgh’s own event, Don’t Flop Street Battles, is arranging for Thesaurus to fly over to the UK to battle some of the best UK emcees. They are funding the plane trip with Thesaurus’ own money and donations from fans who’d like to see what many think the WRC07 finals should have been.

With few UK emcees turning up to the WRC pre-seasonals to decide who will be battling who, the UK might have quite a weak team in the WRC09, so if you prefer UK freestylers to USA ones, you might want to keep your focus on Don’t Flop, and perhaps even contribute to Thesaurus’ plane ticket. It will be an incredible set of battles.



Apply for the WRC09

ADAM STONE