Shuffling around to the very nice gypsy sounds of Forty Thieves Orkestar and suddenly one of the five or so people dancing has collapsed. Great hardly up out of bed and I get to see some one die. She's twitching and very pale - her boyfriend is screaming to her stay with him, the securities are running and walkie talkieing. All is well though within a minute or two she's back up and talking and able to take a sip of water - doctors arrive in about 8 minutes (which I thought was pretty excellent given the mud etc).

Myself and Wattser wander of around Glasto central shopping area - got the free daily guide and confirmed there would be direct coaches outa there on Monday morning.

We get back to the Jazz stage for an Australian outfit called Ganga Giri. This seems to be another band relying on the trusty crowd-pleasing format of ethno cheese, rapping and drum machines. It seems sooo, sooo easy in the hands of Bondo or the likes of Buraka Som Sistema from last night. But it quickly appears that misapplied it can bomb and bomb very badly - these guys were terrible.

Towards the end I formulated the theory that they were in fact a small hard right wing group who had set up the band as a deliberate attempt to destroy the remains of aboriginal culture through generating comically awful piss take music.

The rain returns.

Sticking with the Jazz area and the next up where a frentic Japanese jazz combo calling themselves the Soil and Pimp Sessions These fellas where astonishingly talented and crowd hypers par excellence. Quickly we all found ourselves jumping around and roaring soil soil at the top of our lungs. Full marks for the complicated “brass off” between the trumpet and sax men and the crazy “bezz style” band leader in the pork pie hat.

Nothing would do me now but to catch a bit of CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy) on the Other Stage.

These guys are tired of being sexy (I know it can be a pain like). Personally I doubt I could get tired of watching miss lurve fox changing from really over the top cat suit to even more over the top cat suit.

In the end for my money they were completely overwhelmed by the other stage, very, very bad sound and their own alcohol consumption - though it was a good natured drunkenness which had them charmingly falling around, dropping mikes and generally generating confusion.

Still and all they still managed to knock out pretty decent versions of Lets make love and music is my hot hot sex.

Off to the dance area to meet mate Simon, charming wife Caroline and Posse for some faffing. Bondo's time had being switched so headed for the wonderful roots area for Ariwa records supreme Mad Professor The Prof and the soundman were immediately at variance as the first baseline sends the speakers shaky with distortion. The crowd in here were lovely helped out in no small measure by the ferocious skunk that the Brits love so well. I found I got quite a good buzz just wandering and sniffing the weed-saturated air. Mad prof was excellent as were a couple of younger singings to his label (a girl singing and too really young rappers)- proper deep, deep dub with modern touches. A massive standing ovation and demands for more, which seemed to take them totally by surprise.

Back in the dance lounge Erol Aiken is laying down a bombardment of that cheesy breakbeat house style which some people rather weirdly refer to as electro. A crowd of insane mongers is spilling out from all round the tent and into the mud - it's the best crowd reaction I've seen so far but not really my style of stuff. After a lot of toing and foring Bondo de Role leap onto the stage.

What a fucking insane gig.

Think three cats tied up in a bag of sugar but about to be thrown into the river.

They purr mewl, bite and fight.

“Meet me after school and I'll beat you like guerrilla”

Or how about this for an intro

“This is a romantic song, this one is for you and you and you - this is a song about sharing cock”

Over the course of 45 minutes the small audience of maybe 100 or folks witness

Outrageous cod diva posses - with winkin!

Simulated “riding” from almost every position

Repeated attempts to tear of clothes!

Live biting and licking sessions

A three person piggyback ride

A wheelie mud rubbing and throwing session

A stage invasion by

1. All of CSS
2. 2. A giant cat
3. 3. A bearded man in a wonderful gold lame dress
4. 4. All of Erol Alkan and his crew

Surely there are rules governing this much fun in a non built up area

While all of this is going on the three of them manage to keep perfect timing on all beats and rhymes over a stew of beats from Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, Europe's Final countdown (oh yeah). Salt and Peppa, Summer Loving from Grease and various baile funk loops of their own devising. Is it rock and roll or simply shouting over thieved beats - I wouldn't care to speculate!

There is really not much point in crapping on much further it was superb.

I got briefly diverted to the cabaret stage in the circus area which was really nice and theatrical and there witnessed Four Poofs and a Piano (very funny) and irish crazy comic Andrew Maxell (very, very, very funny) - then repaired back to the tent and kidded myself that I could sleep for a while!

For the evening back to the Jazz Stage - a few pints of Perry pear cider and a bit of John Fogarty, then a long gap as Rodrigo y Gabriela were having technical problems. Technical problems!??! How can one have fecking technical problems with two acoustic guitars! Oh no I need my “lucky” plectrum.

Any way lots of chats with random strangers - Glasto is brilliant for this and kicks lumps out of ATP or any muso style festival in this regard. Eventually they started and I was glad to have seen em live - though I half missed it as the chat was too good. I thought the Pink Floyd stuff was silly.

The rest of the night - total waste of time. Drifted back to the Glade on the half hearted belief that a cancelled Hex static gig was going to be rescheduled - not a chance. This was a slow and painful walk against thousands of punters coming down from the main stage. But the attempt to get home was the real bastard. Traffic flow was directed all over the camp - Lost Vagueness and the mucky hill with our tents was more or less out of bounds due to (yawn) “surprise” gigs by Madness and that dribbling idiot Fat Boy Slim (the billionth “surprise” gig of his career - one punter retold an incident at Glasto one year where she was just standing minding her own business and a tank drove up next to her - out pops Fat Boy Slim to pull a “surprise” gig!) - a long long treck home and a deadly fall in the mud - left me pretty much spent for the day…

Part 3 Sunday (alert alert - boring section follows!)

Sunday dawns with rain and low moral. Myself and Paul sit in the nice Lost Vagueness crepe joint and speculate about staying there all day.

It has this advantage - dryness.

Finally a plan is roughly hatched to take in a few bands in our local hood are but that treks to the likes of the Go Team or Cold Cut are not happening - Dame Shirley Bassey is out - diamante wellies or not!

We bum around the Bimble Inn in the Avolon field and the sun comes out and its quite warm and there's mud wrestling which leaves me quite happy. Also they have Jameson, which leaves me even happier. Ah the simple pleasures!

The first band we dragged ourselves along to were a quite diverting mix of folk and electronic and, almost, rave betimes. They were called Tunng - I thought they were good - particularly liked the homemade bass thingy with the giant elastic band played by a lad they'd only just met - bespeaks confidence but seems like such instant collaborations are quite common in the “folk world”

The band I was most looking forward to were Tinariwen. OK y'all know the deal - a gun toating rebel band of fierce nomadic Tuareg desert tribesmen, no place to call there own - trained in Moammar al-Qadhafi's camps - traded guitars for AK47s and so on. They are ferociously good - playing a low key but gradually building set. They sounded something like seven Rory Gallaghers on a blissed out mellow buzz of a Sunday afternoon- except for the scarfs and robes of course! Very blues rock driven but yet subtly African in a way couldn't quite put yer finger on - OK maybe it was the chanting! Thoroughly enjoyable.

After a bit of a gap me favourite gypsy crooners Beirut are on. They were lucky by all accounts after a fierce taxi fuckup left them almost in the middle of nowhere. I looked the off kilter lutes and ukuleles and the lovely, lovely melancholy trumpet sounds - quite as good as their album. The lead singer is a bit mad though! Finally for the Jazz Field Amp Fiddler - I dunno it sounded OK if you just swayed around clicking your fingers and occasionally muttered “sophisticated” to yourself (give it a go - works for most jazz funk!) It was quite slick, very slick' in fact, but, at the end of the day, not shockingly original or innovative - but he worked the small wet crowd very well…

Darkness descending and for some crazy reason myself and Paul decided to take a gander at Kila - who of course you can see any old day in Dublin! But they were (in fairness)on top form! I've only seen them twice before I think but it was a mesmerising set in a gradually filling Avalon stage. Oh the percussion, the harmonies - the intensity, the tunes, the “progging” out (very, very prog) - the battering with percussion (at one stage every one of them was simultaneously battering something and signing!) I especially enjoyed that gorgeous tune “Glan na scamill amach as mo chroi” (clean the cloud out from my heart! It works I tell ya!) The crusties began to filter in - it was fun. The rain resumed its tiny patters…

After this (for some strange reason) nothing would do us but to go and see a weird band combining Elizabethan courtly music, traditional medivial ballads and spacey seventies rock. They're called Circulus. Sounds like it could be awful doesn't it? Sounds like the “outer limits” part of pulling yer wire magazine gone mental eh?!?

No actually they were well worth the horrific attempts to slide up the muddy slope of park and the standing around in the rain - because they were actually extremely entertaining and certainly fairly tongue in cheek - me-lord.

After that wandered home via the upper parts (Stone circle, Green field etc) there by avoiding any crazed mobs from the Who and the Chemical brothers! After that it was huddling in tents listening to a seven hour down pour, packing up tents in pouring rain, standing freezing for three hours before escaping to Bristol.

Labels: festival, Gig Review, Glasto, Guest Blogger, Krossie, Music

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Glasto 2007 Review 2: A Solo Pilgrimage Across the Wastes

OK back to Friday

My next venture was a solo pilgrimage across the wastes to see the most talented member of the Wainwright family – the mighty Martha.
No I could not persuade any other person to go to this!
The sun came along with me though.
Hello sun
Fuck off Krossie!

I took a great liking for the new Park Area – programmed by Michael’s daughter Emily Eavis, in general, I have to say.
Very few folks hanging around for this one.
Bean searbach we say in Irish:
A bitter woman.
But can she weave the straw of heart break into the shadowy, spun gold of gold that will make yer heart ache?
YES she can.
Without doubt the most intense gig of the festival – almost too intense betimes
Before things get underway she insists on not using a radio mike
And the roadie snaps to - instantly inserting the old fashioned lead.
Possibly cos he knows only too fucking well “that she’s half crazy” as some other bard once put it.
Forty minutes of cussing, and singing like a beautiful, badly damaged but still flutterin’ angel and she has another roadie rescue the joint rolled and thrown just short by a kindly fella in the crowd. She (bizarrely!) sticks it into the neck of her guitar lights it and launches into a crowd pleasing rendition of ya Bloody, muthafucking asshole.
She tells us she’s getting married soon .
44% of marriages end in divorce.
They’re the lucky ones according to Bob Dylan’s brilliant radio show!
– Oh goody - so much new material…
Now a lot of folk don’t like Martha.
Hey that’s fine - music is very subjective.
However.
It moves me to actual physical wrath when I hear people say she can’t sing!
Certain things are easily verifiable and one of those is that her vocal range and depth and intonation are nothing short of astonishing.
But maybe she just jumps from one end of the scale to another a little too fast - she gets thrown purely on the number and scale of her own transitions.
Or, maybe, there is just a physical limit to the amount of pain that one human voice can carry.

After some tasty scran (don’t let anyone say different there is a lot a lot of excellent food in Glastonbury)
While I munch I listen to schlomo
He does human beat-boxing pretty well.
Not much more to say!

I find myself somewhat mysteriously wandering back to see brother Rufus on the other stage. In a lovely striped suit he delivers some beautiful arrangements and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. I am even more pleased when he summons his sister up for a fairly ragged version of Jerusalem – but hey who hasn’t heard that number just too many times!
They make a good team though – mannered, trained, beautiful voice v crazy, raw beautiful voice and I like the way he looks out for her.

Back to the Park for its official opening ceremony and surprise (!) guest Lily Allen.
As if her vapid, semi literate, vacous whining wasn’t enough (and it surely is - I’ll give ya al-fresco ya dozy cow!)
– MIA has been cancelled to make way for her.
Jaysus – sickening disappointment.
More about “surprise” guests later
Death to surprise guests!
Meself and Paul bleed off and move down agin’ the tide as the masses rush up from the other stage.

…To find ourselves in the Glade.
Oh ho - a discovery!
While Bondo De Role have been whipping it up for the masses in Brazil – the imperialist motherland has been working on its own version of Baile Funk. These Portuguese geezers were called Buraka Som Sistema. They were utterly infectious fun with a roundy black female rapper/ranter/singer/grinner and a skinny young fella doing the most scarily acrobatic dancing ever – cartwheels head spins – you name it!
Trick of the day persuading us all to crouch in the mud and then leap up in the air in a coordinated fashion.
Mind you get a good class of punter in Glasto who take these things in their stride!

I repaired back to the tent for some sleep and then Lost Vagueness and Bjork – who did a decent stadium gig with really nice versions of some of her best stuff.
No Anthony from the Johnsons though. But there was also an astonishing green laser with a range of, jaysus, 2 million kilometres maybe.
I can see for miles and miles says a texter…
Then I went into a frenzied Jack Daniels trip which finally knocked me out at about 3 am.
Such a perfect day
and It hadn’t rained since four in the afternoon!

Labels: festival, Gig Review, Glasto, Guest Blogger, Krossie, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 7:24 PM

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Glasto 2007 Review 1: The Mud Scientist Prelude

After providing us with a chemically enhanced review of the 2004 festival, our roving raver Krossie is back with some more installments in his Glastonbury romance. All photos are pulled from this deadly Flickr collection.

Michael Eavis: Well what have you got for us in the way of mud this year my bofin-tastic friend?

Mad Scientist: Very Vell - If a vay can be found, in which, through radical agitation of the slippy mud – a partial transition can be achieved to gloopy mud we can create ze new hybridised super mud which will first of all cause zeee slip sliding avay but also trap zee victim by zeee vellies achieving a miraculous double torment for zem!
M.E: Could it last?
MS: Ze super mud vill be highly unstable at a mol ecul ar level BUT perhaps a unique combination of ze persistent light rain with occasional short clearances it can be maintained as zeee mtestable complex… But also veeeeee vill be needing zeee many feet with wellies to go tramp, tramp, tramp and then pound and pound and pound like this, like this, like this AHA HA ha ha ha ha!
M.E. That’s my knee you’re hitting
M.S: Sorry…Its just recall ze good old daze – free reign for experiments many vict…subjects for da procedures….ja ja JA! Vell
M.E: Vell??
M.S: Vell can ve proceed with these procedures – vit this new a different type of experiment ?
M.E: Yes….I do believe it could well be possible…YARR


That’s nearly all from me on the mud. I could bleat and moan and make comparisons with the battle of the Somme or Napoleons exit from Moscow, maybe the last chopper out of Saigon 1974. But this is to be mostly about the music of which there was much – a lot of it pretty decent too! However for a brilliant general article on the buzz of Glastonbury and what it involves try Charlie Brooker’s cynical but very accurate Guardian review.

Part One

(Warning contains cursin’ like- recommended for childish readers, copyleft but maybe put in a link to my Myspace.

6.15 am – Persistent rain since 4 has killed of the last sound system – thank jah for small blessings – sleep comes…

9.30 am – Awake to an interesting roasting tent scenario
– Mr Sun has arrived?
(boffin laughing in the distance…)

10 am – 12 pm rain pours like there is no tomorrow.
Strangely there never seems to be any correlation between the weather and the appearance of the sky in Glastonbury – impossible to call it – experimental weather, mental weather!

Adopt random wander strategy -
First up Tor Dogs play their guilty pleasure cover versions on the Jazz World stage
Of course comrade Nietzsche assures us that there can be only innocence in the taking (and even giving) of pleasure.
In this case full marks Nietzsche – stinking Neil Diamond covers remain stinking Neil Diamond covers – what ever you chose to call them.
Pleasure and guilt definitely ride smoother in separate vehicles methinks.

In the new Park Stage which the younger Eavis is later to officially open - the Ralph band make a tolerable racket up to a point.
The sun arrives back.
Upgrade opinion to “decentish 70s mush”.
The sun goes
– So do I.

Wandering to the dance area for two bands I want to see the weirdly monikored !!! (chk chk chk apparently is how ya say it) and eighties acid pioneer A Guy Called Gerald.
Catch the Cribs en pasant by the other stage.
Shite!
First wander around the tents to sample random DJs.
Ok break-beat seems to rule the British dance scene for now.
Punters already pleasantly mashed going by them eyes!
Crap dance music proves yet again vastly superior to crap guitar music.

Whoops - Me boots after 5 years service spring a leak – rush off for girly wellies which serve very well for the rest of the festival. Dump boots.
Glasto tip wellies >>> any other footwear including yer sophisticated 2000 quid ultra hiking boots.

They are the dogs for squelching through any conditions.

Dance tent East.
The DJ playing when I get in is called caged baby.
He should have been
(as in shoulda been caged - baby – ah ya get my drift?!)
Of he goes and out hop
!!!
Its 4 pm for you guys but its 4 am for us…they tell us…
Jaysus these guys turn out to be quite a proposition – a 28-32 legged limbed and lithe, gay funk monster from straight outa New York city – they rock out from the first chord.
The gadging about of the gangly lead singer in his massive yello wellies and his disreptutable buddy with the weird beard are a joy to behold.
He seems to have at least four extra vertebrae and be convinced that his mike should function as a spare portable cock.
Some what in the Rapture/LCD sound system mode they duck and dive around the stage like the Happy Mondays circa 1989

on crack

“tell your friends out there we’re the best mutha fookin band in the world”
he tells us bigging up their next night’s show in the Glade
(even better it was too I’m told!)
Well there ya go - now I have
– who could argue with him!?
A great start.
The sun comes out

Off across the mud track to the slightly smaller Dance Tent West…
Now who here has heard of a Guy Called Gerald?
Hmmm not many…
Who owns an early 808 state album?
Or a ground breaking piece of ambient Drum and Bass called Black Secret Technology?
To be honest I was shocked he was even playing.
I was shocked there were so many people.
But I wasn’t too shocked that it was an incredibly good gig!
His style still has much of that eighties funky percussive groove to it. In the daze before rave when house was techno and everything was subtle, funky and based on locked grooves. The tunes proceed by way of crunchy but slightly wonky industrial baselines, tinny acid squelches weaving in and out and pin point hits of 808 drum machine. The final weapon is the very occasional use of awesomely beautiful vocal samples.
He’s not adverse to throwing in lines from Detroit Grand Pubah’s sandwiches, Boogie wonder land and even an awesomely treated and isolated sample of Sylvesterout of the 1970s classic “you make my feel mighty real”?
This was the best moment for me as he froze out the entire track except that one highly treated highly pitched voice filling the tent with its
“feeeeel real, feeeeel real, feeeeel real, feeeeel real” - beat kicks in – frenzied crowd response. Finishes with a very silly version of 1988’s chart hit Voodoo Ray.
John Peel would,without doubt, have been somewhere at the back, just smiling and nodding his head…

Ah John Peel ya had to remind me!

Rant follows

(What’s the fucking deal with the John Peel stage eh eh?.

What

WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?

Drab indy smindy bollix from bands who’s names all start with “the”
Is this what I listened up for every night on my tiny radio with the crap medium wave signal and the telly smacking it around into a whistly mess?!?!
I don’t think so.
And here’s the news flash
YO
–Yeah John Peel did Occasionally play the Wedding present
He ALSO played The Bhundu Boys, Bikini Kill, Napalm death, Mantronix, Public Enemy, Tackhead and any form of minimal techno, acid, drum and base and gabba gabba break core noise terror he could get his mits on!
The fucking Peel stage was sickening insult to the mild mannered Liverpudlian and everything he stood for in the breadth, depth and range of his courageous musical meanderings.
Who ever or what ever fuck wit put together this atrocity exhibition should be fuckin lead out to a place not far from this court and there…..

Krossie is taken away up to the healing field where a team 17 trained, battle hardened psychologists fail to talk him down for over 45 hours)

Rant ends

OH wait, wait

NO

NOOOOOO NOOO no noooo noooo NoONoooooooo…

I didn’t see any of kasabian, Maximo Park, Lily Alen, Babyshambles, The Arcade Fire, the fookin Manics (jay sus wept!), The Who, The Killers, The Kooks, The Gossip, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Twang, The New Pornographers, The Artic Oasis beatles Monkeybabywipes (what ever!) or, indeed, anything on the Pryamid stage ha ha
Why?
Because they are bloody useless in my view that’s the why
–so there!
Is it because you is a lonely snobby muso git then?

Em…

Labels: festival, Gig Review, Guest Blogger, Krossie, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 6:54 PM

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Monday, June 11, 2007

NXNE Saturday and Sunday

Saturday: Toronto was pretty much kicking all weekend with this NXNE lark, most bars and clubs had 4am drink extensions and I can really be fairly accused of not making enough use of this pass business - opting instead for taking my chances on one venue for a whole night instead of bar hopping around. Harlem bore witness to some of the worst attempts at a call and response in a hip hop act during Think Twice's set on Saturday night, overly brash MC's found there was nothing they could do to move a disinterested crowd, appalling sound quality and choppy production probably explained it as well. It's numbing to see some one shout to a venue full of people "ye all want some more?" only for everyone to remain silent and look at each other awkwardly.

Ghettosocks has been touted as one of the hottest properties in Canada at the moment, bursting out of Halifax he's humorous as fuck and encourages the crowd to "Steal from Walmart" and read a booka-booka all the while rocking the off-duty accountant look he frames himself in with massive horn rimmed glasses. Is he worth the hype? Well I don't think anything could have worked for me in that Harlem shit hole.

Sunday: One night later and in the Drake, the two story epicentre leading to the gentrification of the Queen West neighborhood, it seemed like a purely Diplo sanctioned night with Bonjay, Thunderheist, YoMajesty and those hard rock head wreckers trying to pass themselves off as dance Lesbians on E all playing. I stupidly missed Bonjay, from listening to the few online tracks they have quite a dance-hall like feel to them, with a twist of heavy club electronics and bursts of chatting over the odd cowbell. They've quite a decent cover of "Staring at the Sun" over on their myspace and I was pretty gutted to miss them.

Thunderheist escaped me too, but the echo of their room shaking bass tracks wafted up the stairs to torture me in the queue before getting in. The crunching baltimore use of "Sweet Dreams" on "Suenos Dulces" over on their myspace is a perfect example of how they seem to work a club as well as something of an ode to reggaeton, part MIA and part-Modeselektor they certainly are ones to watch. There's not much that needs to be said about Tampa trio Yo Majesty except one of them was missing and they still went off with a fierce torrent of energy.

Dancers from both the Fat Femme Mafia and some nut from Kids on TV jangled their wiggly bits in some nude on-stage action as Yo Majesty taunted them on, harder and faster. What you have here is a queer and female Two Live Crew that rap about masturbation and partying to some pretty filthy grimey beats. After that it really was embarrassing to watch the hard rock antics of Lesbians on E, that band really wreck my head - iconic in the queercore scene, their outspoken identities lead people to excuse them for a real lack of musical quality. Cringing.

The Yo Majesty photo is nicked from the Beatle Jinny Flickr set. My camera is busted.

Labels: festival, Gig Review, Music, NXNE, toronto

# posted by antrophe @ 5:10 AM

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Friday, June 01, 2007

Lady Sovereign Is Well Bored

Over the past few years Lady Sovereign has released a string of fantastic singles with some of the tastiest beats and production out there, so when the opportunity to see her play a relatively small club in Toronto comes up I'm not one to turn it down. Last Wednesday it was at the Social, something of a hipster haunt that revels in its location right beside run down Parkdale with its Midnight Cowboy feel and the mentally wounded perched in the ghetto cafes.

The Social laps this environ up and drips with the irony of how it's one establishment among others spearheading gentrification of the area. One of walls alongside the dance floor reads in gothic font "an allegory for the death of Parkdale as we knew it" while the other boldly states "welfare." The path outside is full of real fashion histrionics taking photos of each other, mostly in a sort of nu-rave attempt that falls over itself and ends up a mid eighties Don Johnson dipped in day glo paint with some sideline fashion advice from Zack Moris. No matter how spot on the opening DJ's are none of these are going to admit enjoyment until Lady Sovereign orders them into it later in the night.

When she does come on, she stalks the stage in over sized sun-glasses and a t-shirt with "Ding dong special delivery" in large slogan font at the front, first she forces her way through "Cha-ching," before complaining about hating "Random" - a song she claims she wrote at 13 and is the only thing people this side of the Atlantic ever want to hear. Bored she continuously rolled her eyes at the DJ, and moaned at the crowd. She gave us "Love Me or Hate Me" before cheering the place into sudden violence with "Public Warning" and a scream of "mosh, mosh, mosh" into the crowds face. The opening intro set by her DJ was the tightest blend of dubstep, hip-hop and grime I've yet to hear and while busied posing right up in the lens of the scattered cameras, you got bored and eventually just wanted him to take over.

This was only meant to be a mini-set, having stumbled on the El Dorado of pop, SOV plays to the kids at venues like the massive Air Canada Centre on Gwen Stefani's tour before scalping the hipsters for a four song set for twenty dollars on the door later in the night. Whatever about Def Jam and her attempts stateside, Lady Sovereign was both tired and cranky -reduced to more a UK curio and novelty act. It's hard to figure where she stands as an artist now. Not so long ago she entered into this rather depressing confession at a similar small club show about being broke in the music industry stateside and how she hates what she is doing. Her tour dairies are over here.

Side note: Haven't these fuckwits seen Nathan Barley? Are these people in Super Super and the rest of this documentary for real? It actually sounds like a piss take of Hadouken - am I missing something here?

Labels: Gig Review, Lady Sovereign, Music, toronto

# posted by antrophe @ 9:01 PM

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Monday, May 07, 2007

Gig Review: Max Tundra In Dublin

"I did a Kid 606 remix and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt." Said the tee-shirt he had on him. It was an ATP festival somewhere back in the mist of time 2003, maybe? On a good day. And there he was dancing like a demented coat hanger on speed: Max Tundra. April 2007.

Four Zero looms And yer all alone. Even de ice on the bar has turned into melted fizzy sweets. You've been drinking the pear Koppleberg again
Or one of its Norwegian variations. Do they have a name for that time between periods of non-sleeping?

But hark - there he is with a cute bear hat with sticky up ears aaaw. The pocket rocket. The mini prince of the nerd geek retro scene. And aren't we all there. Beards and glasses. A touchy affair

Back in the USSA. Paisley Park is in turmoil! Purple ring Purple ring ring
Prince: Yo answa that mutha fuking 4-own
Who is it y'all?
Minian: Its y'all stoopid geek version; Max Tundra from London UK on line 1
Prince: waaaah no waaaaaaaay – tell dat mutha ####er I'm busy man!
Minian: He has a NEW hat that he wears for instrumentals
Prince: waaaah no waaaaaaaay. OK I'll take that in the romper room

And he sings like Prince on speed, Freddy Mercury on hamster, not quite Marvin Gaye on booze… And he has more Gaeilge then most of the audience. And when he says he loves playing here you strongly sense it's the full and whole truth! The crowd call out random songs

He obliges with a snatch of "Bicyle" by Queen accompanied with every note on his old keyboard. And he plays, as Herv put it to me, with virtuosity, which is neither a word nor an action you see all that fecking much of really these days.

Highlights: – All the old tunes, all the new tunes (New album very soon. Along with - both hats but most especially the instrumental one. And the mini xylophone solo in his rocking instrumental –a two keyboard special mini rave out twist on the KLF's "What time is Love"

I'm bitter - I'm twisted - Max Tundra is not ####ing my sista. (Krossie you don't have a sister!) (Krossie hello, hello – its your parole officer its very important that we talk!) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Max Tundra played Kennedys in Dublin on April 27th. The photo of the pocket rocket is by Krossie.

Labels: Gig Review, Guest Blogger, Krossie, Max Tundra, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 5:25 PM

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Bloc Weekend Review: Faceless Chalet Blocks , Techno and Arcade Machines

A review of the Bloc Weekend that went down from March in a Pontins Resort in Norfolk wings its way into us courtesy of Kyle Browne. The photo of Authechre is nicked from a Flickr set by Micheeky.

If you were to try and describe Bloc Weekend to a lot of people, they would probably stare back at you with a faintly blank slightly worried face. This wasn’t your typical, run of the mill festival, it was something a lot different and to many who attended a completely new experience.

When we first arrived at the weekend, it fully dawned on everyone that we weren’t at some dingy over-crowded field with a extreme amount of tents, we were at what many people would think of when asked about their earliest family holiday experiences, faceless chalet blocks (no pun intended), arcade machines that look like they’ve been unable to get out of the 1980’s and an interior décor of the main building which reminds you of countless cheap package holiday resorts you’ve tried to repress. But don’t let that deter you…

Once everyone had settled into their temporary homes for the weekend, and had a little intake of the fine cheap alcohol available, it was time for people to get down to why they came to Bloc in the first place…the music. First main act that everybody came to see were the Two Lone Swordsmen in the Bassbloc/Main Arena.

For most people the opening major act of a festival sets the tone for whats to follow so the crowd were expecting a blinder, which unfortunately they didn’t receive, their awkward mix of Electronica & Rock didn’t blend together at all well and the crowd were left a little shortchanged, but from here on in, things were to only get a whole lot better, in the neighbouring arena, the Techbloc, acts like Cursor Minor were getting the techno adoring crowd into a frenzy, and when DMX Krew (an odd title seeing as there is only one member, Ed DMX) the crowd were on their preverbial knees, his style of mixing up influences from Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin & various German electro-tech artists. For a one-man electronic band, he really covers a whole range of soundscapes and usage of his machines & devices.

After the rush of adrenaline DMX Krew left people it was time to return to Bassbloc, were Kool Keith aka Dr. Octagon was about to perform, a full-blown hip hop act was a bit of a different style to the majority of acts on show at Bloc but was welcomed with widespread approval, his appearance on stage with a silver cloak, tinted bono-style sunglasses and ‘gangtsa’ apparel was a bizarre sight for now intoxicated crowd, but his linguistic skills on the mike and with his impressive backing band the crowd got caught up in the beats and rhythms of the Dr.

Once Kool Keith had finished his impressive set, it was time for a quick top up of beer and back to whats on show, up and coming French hip hop group TTC were the next port of call, famous for their collaboration with German electro/techno/hip hop maniacs Modeselektor, now these guys really know how to put on a good show, three MC’s and a DJ on a laptop, they fully used to their advantage their excellent grasp of the English language with their obvious use of their native tongue, throwing in songs from their most recent album 3615 TTC, from what I observed for the brief seconds I turned my back on them to observe the crowd, they were going absolutely crazy, somewhat like being at a Public Enemy concert in their hayday.

To really stir things up a bit TTC threw a few random cheesy pop songs to really catch the crowd off guard, if you were to bet anyone earlier that day that they’d be singing along to Ace of Base "All That She Wants", you’d be pretty sure they’d bet a lot against you, and to top off a brilliant end to their set they finished with the dirty, grime influenced anthem, "Girlfriend."

After the thumping beats and growling rhythms heard so far the plan was to retire temporarily back to our homebase, but in the states that my cohorts and I found ourselves in things never went according to plan, between partying in countless random chalets and in the open areas, we eventually made it back to our chalet for some recouperation, after a little dosage of R n’ R, I and a couple others returned in the uncomfortable late morning hours to the Smashbloc were the music went on constantly, 24 hours a day, however the music in here really left something to be desired, a noted remark from one of my friends was that a) This music was wasted on the wasted and b) He has never heard such distinctly average techno in his whole life, nothing to write home about I’ll just say.

Labels: bloc weekend, festival, Gig Review, Guest Blogger, Kool Keith, Kyle, Music, TTC

# posted by antrophe @ 3:26 PM

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Sunday, April 08, 2007

Gig Review: Bonde Do Role in Toronto

When I first saw NME coin the phrase "new rave" I thought it was a joke. That they were creating a market where there was none to seem cutting edge, to create a market for their magazine. Well now I have seen the scene in action, and I’m running in the other direction. Its not that what is coined as "new rave" is all bad, far from it, there are some bands in this category that make for a damn good time. Bonde Do Role being one of these.

I saw them for the first time in Dublin at Crawdaddy. Perhaps the crowd was of the new rave persuasion but we were up front having a blast and not taking notice. Some people have said that new rave is the combination of electronics and punk, and I suppose this is how I would have described Bonde Do Role, they were fun, they were raunchy and they put on a good show.

They don’t claim to be political, they don’t claim to do proper baile funk, but they do claim to have jumped on a bandwagon that has taken them around the world. They are playing nightly on their world tour and are doing the festival circuit this summer including Irelands own Electric Picnic.

Friday night at The Social in Toronto was a disappointment; a good band ruined by the scene. Their initial Toronto gig was set for The Horseshoe tavern that was to be opened by Canadian Bonjay but that was cancelled and rescheduled in gentrified queer west at The Social, where they don’t really need a sign since the crowds of hipsters will give the location away.

They really must have friends in the city since as of last week there was no gig and on Thursday the day of it, they had an article in the Toronto Star and front page of Eye Magazine. Whether people were following and waiting for the reschedule like yours truly or the it was a regular Thursday night crowd, as the line ups at 1 am indicated, this was a jammed packed night. No room to dance only to rub up against plastic jackets and witness what one friend coined as a "New Kids On The Block concert."

They played again tonight in Hamilton and tomorrow back in Toronto at Lee’s Palace. A much better venue, for the space and the sound– hope the crowd tomorrow can enjoy a bit a room to dance because this band does inspire it and with the stage a bit higher they will have a chance to see MC Marina do her thing!

Bonde do Role will be playing The Pod on Harcourt Street in Dublin on May 30th, entry is from 8pm and is a hefty 14 squids.

Labels: Bonde de Role, Gig Review, Guest Blogger, Music, New Rave, NME

# posted by Reeuq @ 5:13 AM

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Gig Review: Modeselektor…. So tell me….

Ha ha see what I did there clever yes? No? Oh well never mind

Modeselektor are Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary a two man DJ /producer team from Germany releasing almost exclusively on Ellen Alien's Bpitch Control label their music is influenced in turns by hip-hop break beats techno and dub exemplified by their first full album Hello Mom released in 2005 and remixed and re-released in 2006 featuring the brilliant euro crunking French hip-hop crew TTC

Anyone who saw the German duo's Irish debut in the Foggy Notions tent on the last night of the Electric Picnic last year knows how crazy their live sets can be, it was easily the most explosive gig I saw all weekend. However the set up they brought to Dublin on Thursday 8th of March was very different they preformed a two hour D.J set with support from Electric City's Rian Ryan down stairs in Wax on south William street, in my opinion this claustrophobic venue is unsuited for such a gig with the dance floor being uncomfortably jammed for the majority of the set with barely room to move much less dance.

However after a slow start their use of hip hop, techno & electro went down well with "Kill Bill vol.4" and The Prodigy's "Fire" getting the warmest receptions. The crowd was once again electrified and towards the last half hour people were hanging out of the rafters standing on top of ledges and sitting on shoulders in order to dance on the packed dance floor.

As I was plastered to the glass barrier at the front for the majority of the gig I had a good view of the two men's behaviour behind the controls and it couldn't have been more different, Bronsert displayed a foppish calm, with the look of a modern day S.S. Commandant leading the crowd willingly to the aural ovens. While Szary jumped around like a 10 year old kid filled with Fanta at a wedding disco, egging the crowd on.

Infuriately the bouncers made them cut the music five minutes early just as they began to play Jeff Mill's "The Bells." To top it all off in celebration of Electric City's fourth birthday they drenched the front rows of the crowd with first a bottle of champagne and then a bottle of vodka. I left the gig sticky and highly flammable but happy and slightly stupider

There is speculation that MDSLKTR will be coming to Dublin with their full live set sometime in early summer, so keep your noses pealed people.

reviewed by Mark F

Labels: Gig Review, Guest Blogger, Mark, Modeselektor, Music, Out

# posted by antrophe @ 3:48 PM

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Keep It Rollin' Dublin!

What a night of pure bombo claat twattery there was down in Traffic on Sunday night, as the long time quite on the gig front Irish jungalist pioneers Bassbin gave us all a taste of what it must have been like a few years ago in this city when they ruled over the underground. Legandary DJ Nicky Blackmarket was fanning himself down with vinyl before dropping classics like "Original Nuttah," sweat dripped from my back in a way it hasn't in about a year.

Despite the lights coming on, he cut in and out of the record and the crowd slurred/enthuased its way through such classic chats as "Ooh-yeah-eh, ooh-yeah-eh, ooh-noo-no-no-no-no-no/Bad boys inna London" and then went mental when the breaks cut back in.

While pretty ignorant on the history of drum and bass/jungle most of the music that has really captured my ears in the past two years has been heavily tinged with its early days of ragga vocal led jump up fun. Yet I've fairly been terrified of delving into drum and bass's deep end for fear of getting swiftly bored with some of the more conceptual out put identified by Simon Reynold's in Energy Flash for ruining the genre.

With this in mind Dogs on Acid has a fascinating two part history of jungle and drum and bass, while Drod from Wearie's latest contribution to the Blogriddims series deserves some serious checking out for his studious footnoting of the evolution of ragga dancehall and how it might have pared its way into the conciousness of those early jungle pioneers. You can read an interview with Nicky Blackmarket here and have gander at some live sets here. Braap brapppp!

Labels: Gig Review, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 9:39 PM

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Thursday, November 02, 2006

Dubstep: The Sound of a City Coming Down.

This is one that has been lazying around in assemblage for some time in various noises and downloaded sign posts over the past few months and it's only now I'm getting together to quickly fire it off in a quieter moment in Buneos Aires. There's a track on Chevron's debut album where a sampled hardcore pirate station MC repeats in a maelstrom of budding effects that 'London is a city coming down.' It's somewhere within this intense feeling of a city having moved rapidly through a whole series of musical species from the 1980's, with all night parties and drugs as a constant fulcrum that dub step lies. Intertwine this musical history with the broader feelings of big city atomisation, both industrial and urban decay and then you have some sense of the puddles fertilising the concrete gardens that sprout dub step.

Mary Ann Hobbes has been playing something of an evangelical role for dub step outside of its urban heart lands. Dragging together the cream of the underground for a once off back to back mix some months ago led to the idea of releasing a compilation through Overkill and after months of pensive build, up the BBC Breezeblock show took itself off the waves and made its home for the night in a far from little club called the Mass, in the Brixton heart land to launch Dubstep Warriorz.

After going through the ritualistic shakedown from bouncers at that axis where crim culture colides with club culture on the London club door, it's in and up a spiralling set of stairs with bass echoing all around. Upon entering the cavernous venue, it's impossible not to stop for a second and feel overcome by the sheer pounding oppressiveness of the set coming from Amit. Pounding and oppressive; two words most fitted to describing this thing they call dub step. It lacks any of the warmth of other forms of electronic music, it barely facilitates the form of ecstatic release generated by dancing manically all night and is far too all engulfing to be considered minimally cold like Authecre's metallic clang.

While it moves too slow for any catharsis, amidst the weight of sound there are moments of elation in sudden tempo changes or the introduction of etheral vocal lines that massage away the tensions it wroughts from the off. Amit sat on this line for the night, increasing tensions until just at the right moment providing a hint of release through the faint hints of an angelic female voice within 'Motherland' that was reminiscent of material put out by Enduser.

In ways dub step burns with the fires and sins of old. This echoes through out the music with intense shuddering collections of paranoid bass sines swelling in these hollowed out musical shells. Its the feeling of being left standing last at a party or leaving one and coming out into the brisk air of abandoned city streets. Throughout it there is something famaliar, with nods to traditions of electronic music in vacous landscapes - where you hear the faintest echoes of foundations in drum and bass, techno, happy hardcore, jungle and dub. Loefah delicately traced these paths during his own set which proved to be the most minimal all night, as traces of happy hardcore piano lines rippled above waves of bass before setting down again on traditional dub clouds. His set stopped and started as he corrected his pace, greeting the crowd with relished rewinds. Mala from Digital Mistick pushed the crowd onwards with encouragment and claims you had to be a 'warrior to get through the step' as his dreads fought and flayed while he ran on the spot, clearly present as the master of ceremonies.

DJ Rupture commented recently how the dubstep sound was simply grime stripped of black subjectivity. The abscene of a black voice, he claims renders it void of the regurgitations of street level experience being made real to those outside the immediate cultures of London estates. ´So dubstep becomes a bit like a sonic representation of old Leith without the speed fueled inhead narratives of Welsh. Virus Syndicate provided a long lyrically fueled interlude that liad this creation of a chasm between the two scenes to rest, the violence of the Manchester grime crew shook you completely out of the idea that you had become acclimatised to the grit of the dub step sound and could spend the night bouncing easily from one foot to the other. Their song 'Dead man Walking' went on impossibly long, broken up with rants about the lack of ganja in Manchester. The Brixton audience traded back odds on their own black economy with the massive crew spewing intensely violent sonic fictions across the heads of the crowd. I had to sit that one out.

Despite his insistence on being a grime producer, Plastician overshot both genres as flavours of the month in his rocketing dubstep as techno set that left the venue bouncing all over the place in what was obviously the peak moments of the night. Nialler 9 will be glad to know that the Bug started his set by throwing it down with Skream's Warrior Queen collaboration, before meandering up similar dub step as hyped up electric dub paths.


Dup step is a sound stripped of traditional artillaries of rapid drums, it replaces them with a more dense and distant sense through their abscene. You close your eyes and fill in the rolls and sputters by yourself. You can hear it all with in it, but it's all swept away by that massive bass kick. We left the Mass in Brixton at 6am, leaving behind a cathedral devoured with a form of deep-vein thrombosisas as dubstep kicked its old nooks and crannies into new vibrating existences with echoes booming up the elevator shafts cutting through the building like thunder. At one point during the night I placed my finger over a bottle of beer for a moment, taking it off led to a fountain of beer violently erupting a foot in the air. Such is what happens when some serious bass action sends the glass encasing your beer mental.

Skip forward two weeks to Buenos Aires and we are in a majorly up market club given the devaluation of the Peso here, its impossibly stylish and ridiculously ovr priced. Clearly one not of the pueblo and more of the burges. While A lanky dreaded DJ, is playing Dizee Rascal tracks from a burnt CD without any effort at mixing them. Later in the night, a duo in early millenium street wear, one trouser leg rolled higher than the other blast away spitting lines over his awkward beats. Grime in Buenos Aires? Jaysus. Not that it was any good mind, though no doubt a city flanked with areas with La Boco and the Villas no doubt should have something more interesting than this hipster posing going on in it.

The Warrior Dubz night was impossibly 'scene' too, it was impossible not to fall prey to the hype around the gig. The daily freebie press on the tube even advised attendence. Surprisingly, I remain convinced a similar gig in Dublin with the same line up would draw a crowd of equal size. If dubstep is of the streets, then the streets weren't leading to the Mass in Brixton for this album launch. Which begs the question of how the underground becomes the overground. Music fans living on the other side of the pond can count their prayers given the role their national broadcaster plays in spreading hype. Back in dreary old Ireland, we can rest assured 2fm is advising us there is another rock band around the corner.

Labels: Dubstep, Gig Review, London, Music, Warrior Dubz

# posted by antrophe @ 4:57 AM

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