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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Saturday, June 16, 2007

Hot Docs: Indie Cinema Orgy

The annual Hot Docs Festival took place from April 19th to 29th earlier on this year in Toronto, and some version or other of the following material may be familiar to you from coverage published in the latest Totally Dublin...

Before Morgon Spurlock's grease laden death diet and Michael Moore's spot-on vendetta against neo-conservative America were banking the big bucks as blockbusting summer successes, documentaries dealing with the hot topics of contemporary controversy were relegated to the art-house cinema and the rather infrequent silver-screen orgy of the film festival. For fourteen years now the Toronto Hot Docs festival has been setting the pace for the current explosion of socially minded documentaries, ripping through the mold to become one of North America’s largest documentary festivals.

This year it hosted over 129 films on a hectic ten day run, showcasing not just the North American but global documentary film making efforts that will filter down to the indie cinemas over the next year, or at the very least through your home broadband connection. In short, as Sean Farnel the festivals Director of Programming told me, it has “emerged from what was essentially an industry conference to one of the world’s largest documentary events.”

Compared to the quite aficionado only ambiance of most film festivals, Hot Docs is a bustling mess of crowds and queues. With over 70,000 admissions to this years assorted flicks, a "no guaranteed entry" system is compounded by the usual hesitation of buying expensive festival wide tickets. With rush lines stretched well beyond the norm at all weekend screenings, chasing seats became an adrenalinising experience all of its own.

The ground for the festival madness is laid through Toronto's envied year long indie-cinema culture, DIY theatres like the Brunswick screen three left of centre documentaries a day, leading to what Farnel terms "a very engaged, curious and open audience" in the city. Reflecting this mass documentary culture, Ron Koperdraad a coordinator for the festival over saw 250 volunteers who "mostly did it out of a love for documentaries, but also for the social reasons."

The audience award went to War/Dance, directed by Andrea Nix Fine it’s a look inside the lives of three orphans in an Ugandan displacement camp who find expression through the country’s national music and dance festival. Best International Documentary winged its way to Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken’s tale of globalisation's Losers and Winners, a close up of the dismantling of a German smelting plant and its reassembly in China’s growing industrial hubs.

The festival also featured the debut of Morgan Spurlock’s latest look at our modern consumer shopapacyalpse in What Would Jesus Buy? Hooking up with long term icon of the no-brand, counter culture Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, he documents the cack handed Christians attempt to save Christmas from commercialism.

Gary Hustwit's Helvitica, due a Candy Culture Sugar Club screening on June 28th, examines the rise of a typeface as the embodiment of post-war values and their eventual inertia, crippled at the hands of post-modern concerns, creating a social history where no one thought possible.

Film fascination with favella poverty continued in the Made in Brazil programming stream. Kiko Goifman's Acts Of Men delivered a cooly executed jaunt into the criminal economy, with the massacre of 29 people by local death squads in the Baixada Fluminense township setting the background for impulsive interviews with the power players in one neighborhood's deadly games.

This South American concern was furthered in Arturo Perez Torres' Super Amigos, a comic portrayal of the real life super heros emerging from the Mexican popular classes obsession with luche libre, a theatrical wrestling satirized in Jack Black's Nachos Libre. In the social war against crippling poverty, movement heroes like Super Barrio and Super Gay have become unique icons of dissent and community organisation, warding off both landlords and homophobes.

If one director and film at the festival highlighted the transformative role of the documentary lens it was the formerly homeless street-punk Roach Denis and Punk The Vote. Roach's own life was the subject matter of the Daniel Cross classic Squeege Punks in Traffic. Intertwining biography with a critique of a Conservative governments brutal harassment of a new generation of homeless kids earning a buck cleaning windscreens at intersections, Cross provided Roach with a route out "I was in the process of getting out of drugs and out of the streets and needed a passion to quit all this and find a new life. Daniel gave me this passion through film-making."

Ten years later Roach is a well known filmmaker retaining the conviction he picked up on the streets. "Inspired by Liberal party corruption and the need for electoral change" he examines the theatrics of a Montreal political process that cares little for the poverty he experienced in his youth and runs in the municipal elections leading to " a film that had to be made. I am an activist, strongly politicized and fighting against this system since I was 14 years old. So it was just a natural shift I made, but it is also the best film I made in my career."

Hot Docs is critically minded to the core and a series of festival panel discussions wrenched into the existential heart of the documentary method to explore interviewing technique, political power and directorial responsibility. This tension was exemplified perfectly by the ultimate buzz movie of the festival, Rick Caine's portrayal of Michael Moore in Manufacturing Dissent.

Some selected shorts by young directors featured in the Doc It Showcase are now available for viewing online.

Labels: festival, Film, Hot Docs, toronto

# posted by antrophe @ 5:51 AM

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Monday, June 11, 2007

Chinese Rock and Movies At NXNE

Alongside panel discussions on how bands can grind the best use out of their myspace, the NXNE organisers put on a sequence of movies related to the industry over at the Toronto Film Board Building. Kevin Fritz's Wasted Orient was a quick paced look into disaffected youth in modern China, going on the road with Joyside the director documents the Chinese punk scene in all its drunken apathy as it turns its back on society with anthems like "Johnny Rotten" and "I Want Beer" that celebrate a nihilism born out of a hunger for western culture. Rock and roll as they described it is an "addiction to chaos," most of this hour long flick was spent in pursuit of getting trashed with all the skills of four Chinese Pete Dohertys.

Don Lett's George Clinton: Tales of Dr. Funkenstein used people influenced by the king of funkedelic like Macy Grey, Andre 3000 and some dude from Digital Underground to look at how that mothership of funk landed and a movement grew from barber shop quartets to mass funk freakouts of 70 or more contributers. Reaching well back, the best movie of the sequence had to be Living the Blues - an intimate portrait of a group of elderly blues musicians that remembers the racism and poverty of their depression era youth, the very period when they first got the blues as a "teller of truths."

Labels: festival, Film, Music, NXNE, toronto

# posted by antrophe @ 6:53 PM

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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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Wednesday, June 06, 2007

NXNE Festival: What Do You Recommend?

Sometimes this blogging lark can lead to some very nice blags. As you might guess North By North East is something of a jealous sibling to the much larger industry junket that is the annual South By South West Festival, except with far more of a focus on the Toronto home grown. Armed with an all access pass for the weekend I've got to make some choices from this pretty insane looking list.

Is there anything here some of you would recommend before I get lost in unknown streets chasing cool names like Bourgeois Gypsies and Million Dollar Marxists only to find myself fiddled with acoustics and indie-fops? As most of this seems to be a Canadian showcase, I'll probably just take my cues from local free papers like Now. I'll try keep you posted with some day by day accounts of what goes down.

The photo above was nicked from the Yo Majesty Myspace, for some of the recent hype post SXSW alone I'll have to check them out.

Labels: festival, Music, NXNE, toronto

# posted by antrophe @ 8:29 AM

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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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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Electric Picnic: Georges St Arcade Comes To Laois

I’ve warbled on about the the topic of boutique musical festivals before and I still see little point in pouring the sort of praise some have been dishing out about last weekend’s Electric Picnic. While you don't have the drunken laddish twattery that characterises Oxegen , another twattery goes uncommented upon such as the flouncing foppish types that passed our encampment shouting 'where are all the scumbags' on the Friday evening or the bongloid morons pounding out an arrhythmic beat until 9am after failing to reach transcendence in the Body and Soul arena.

In Century of the Self Adam Curtis outlines how corporations in the period after the 1960’s began to incorporate the recalcitrant identities being formed in the counter culture into their brand identities. Brands became bridges to lifestyles, if any CEO represented this cultural change towards the rebellious consumer it was Virgin’s Richard Branson. What a perfect image it was when walking past the mopey Bloc Party set, the Virgin balloon was lit in the distance, the crown on this great Georges St arcade come to Laois.

The Friday was slow and chilled out with Spankrock starting my weekend with a set that sounded like Curtis Mayfield being fucked by dancehall, in a partying hip hop set that veered well into areas explored by Diplo. Mogwai meanwhile failed to satisfy expectations built by friends over the years, perhaps they really are more of a closed room sort of band as their intensity failed to reach the back of the tent. Massive Attack were quite simply boring, with a lack of mid way speaker stacks in the main arena sound failed to carry. A crowd anxious to move to the front eliminated opportunities for sitting and chilling but their rendition of that last song was incredibly discordant and refreshing.

Saturday started well with Dancepig delivering a smooth set of electro on the Saturday morning, with Hystereo providing a complementary follow up. The delay to the Skatalites set disappointed many, but eventually provided a distractingly breezy set of summer ska to wile away an hour in a drunken sway meaning I missed Krafty Kut’s set in the Bodytonic arena. Shadow’s set was the most controversial of the weekend, with opinion predictably divided right down the middle. Tearing along all hyped up and bouncy his MC implored the dancefloor to move and shift its ass it did. Comments about it ranged from the ridiculous accusations of playing pop shite to accusing Shadow of not playing proper hip hop, music of a black origin is only acceptable apparently if it delivers lyrical rhetoric on ghetto life. This was pure and simple jump up, block rocking party music - if you expected different, tough!

The crowd for Numan looked disinterested in everything except 'Cars'. Walking in as Gang of Four battered a microwave to pieces with a mic stand was my own highlight and lowlight. A highlight because as they rampaged into ‘Damaged Goods’ and a low light because I’d missed most of their set, while bands half their age look pathetically over-blown and pantomimic on stage, Gang of Four owned the place having never played into the overblown hysterics of rock to begin with. Seeing Andy Weatherhall allowed me to collect both Loneswordsmen in a forthnight, but his set languished along miserably. It was all no surprises and I left half way through. 2ManyDjs equally failed to surprise and delivered on-cue street from their released mixes to an exuberant crowd.

Pendulum were an odd start for the Sunday morning, the early drunks or the late night manglers however were not the only ones to get into them as they piled on the drum n bass to a huge crowd with the introduction of Rage Against the Machine to their 'Voodoo' mix ripping the roof off. Respect goes to Coldcut for banging out the Killercoke message in their visuals despite Aiken banning any of the 'ethical' stands from selling any thing other than River Rock. Anyway I’ve yet to figure out what’s ethical about an organic burger without salad wrapped in a cheap bundy costing 7e. Other than that their set was poor, too unhinged and slightly more dependent on Let Us Play’s chilled atmosphere than hoped, 'Atomic Moog' stormed it though.

The Rapture held no interest for me, leaving their drunk student music three songs in I headed over to Saul Williams. There the crowd were electric despite the DJ being too high in the mix and his vocals only audible in a narrow corridor in front of the stage. The cancellation of his set at the Big Tree was as traumatic as having to wipe my arse with my socks the night before. One for the toilet rim, and one for the anal rim as the saying now goes.

New Order stuck me as just another shambolic stadium rock band while I was middling impressed with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who’s performance was yards ahead of what I had seen at ATP. Convinced to stay for Groove Armada by friends I had a compulsive moment that led me over to stand between Cut Chemist and Mdslktr. Hovering between the two I was eventually drawn to the Foggy Notions tent where this Berlin outfit Mdslktr were truly rocking the shop in a full on banging rave up that took hold of a clearly mashed crowd.

Later Garnier took the piss for twenty minutes, building up records to drag the crowd along before winding them back down again. If this hadn’t been the last set of the festival and therefore compulsive to dance to most people would have been straight out of there. His mid set break was a classic moment of inspired DJ-ing, brilliantly judging the crowd he allowed a moments respite before slowly introducing some drum and bass and taking it skywards in an overall mediocre gig.

Entering into the festival site you pass this set of trees with photographed flowers pinned on to trees, in a way that’s emblematic of the festival. The organisers take a fairly typical set of woodland fields and temporarily erect these monuments to alternative ethical lifestyles within them, its all caring and sharing, good buzzes all round. Cynical as ever, lets face it - the water situation was appalling, there were no signs marking it anywhere and thats not to mention the toilets. After Garnier two us were refused entry to the main arena at 1.50 am to get water. Told to go down to the camps to get it we spend twenty minutes with no luck.

Eventually we asked a guy from Tir na gCasta who forewarned us that the only water available was mank. Right he was, what we eventually found came from these stainless steel wash basins being used as urinals by every drunk punter in the place and only dispensing this disgusting chlorine packed water. I know of three people who were turned away from the welfare tent when looking for water. One at about 5am on the first night, eventually he was given a bottle of the staffs water on the level of courteous disobedience towards policy and could only mutter about the bad old days of the early rave scene.

An equally obvious effort to embed Electric Picnic into the repertoires of alternative Ireland was the use of Tir na gCasta after their return from the summer teknival circuit as a chill out area tucked away in the woods. Forbidden to play any of their usual speedy free techno rubbish instead they churned out chilled reggae with the occasional glimpses of fifties pop till the wee hours. This was an almost perfectly co-ordinated artificial rave to add that further deepening of the picnic’s atmosphere. The area was a perfect zone to relax all weekend, far better than the conceited tripe of the main Body and Soul arena.

Until the last night of course, when word had spread too far and every party animal in the site had came down, leading to an all round cramped paranoia the highlight of which was the holding of knive to someone’s chest beside the decks before security arrived. DS were heavily factored into most people's weekends, with nearly every circle of friends I came across having a tale of a bust. One was busted by a guy in an 'enjoy cocaine' tshirt while another group had their grass confiscated by an officer feigning blindness! The DS prescence is higher than ever on the gig circuit, the lessons are to never deal or accept offers from anyone you don't know, keep your stash hidden in the tent and smoke the gange out of sight as one whiff can get a gang of mates done for possesion

The Tir na gCasta crew added a lot to the weekend, another sound system that returned from the continent also set up in the car park on the saturday night for a rave. Some more of their associates were responsible for erecting the psychotic merry go round that blazed flames near the Bodytonic and woke me up with its didgeridoo calling of the tribes everyday at noon. All it needed was Spiral Tribe kick drum and we were in crusty raver hell. The permanently K-holed mo-hawked guy involved with them was thrown out of the Bodytonic arena at the same time on two different days, collapsing at the feet of security on the second day he danced in a cross legged position with a soother in his mouth before the cops escorted him off.

A high police prescence did much to eliminate the need for heavy security numbers like at Oxegen but when they did emerge they were fierce prickish on Monday morning. Waiting for our driver to collect us I heard one fat peroxide cow shout ahead to the rest of her team who were concentrating ther effort on moving one particular guy to 'fucking bash him and get him out.' I kept my head down and continued to scavenge the ruins of the weekend, eventually coming home with 30 cans and much new camping equipment.

Labels: Electric Picnic, festival, Gig Review, Music, Society

# posted by antrophe @ 6:21 PM

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Thursday, August 24, 2006

Several Birds, One Stone: Mantua and All Thats Fit to Print

Mighty Morphin Mega Power Illegal Raves.

According to the Guardian, the bobbies across the water are on the look out for a 'mega illegal rave' due to take place somewhere in the south east of England in the next few weeks. Sarah Champion, one time music journalist and sometimes editor of mid 1990's rave zetigeist fiction compendiums has also been pushed to comment on the pheonemeon, leading to some heavy doses of nostalgia over on the Guardian blog. There's definitely something in the air, with many inhabitants on my usual internet merry-go-round asking similar questions of a rave scene revival, there was even a bit of a discussion on this over on U75 a while ago.

Its possibly all hype, with journalists eager to chase after the latest underground fads, last month it was the Artic Monkies and this month its purple dreaded psy-trance ravers on ketamine. Its tempting however to think dance culture, or at least some harder edged variant more firmly rooted in the undergound is on the up over here as well. There's a certain tiredness around how so much of the new wave of British lads on guitar have colonised the soundtrack of the city at night. As well as that a generation that grew up as kids with romantic notions of rave are now old enough to start pulling things together for themselves, there's been a nice confluence of interest as a result of this. People have been able to break away from some of the more established venues and promoters because they simply do not provide any more due to the declining fortunes of commercial dance. If there are no reliant official nights churning out what you want to hear, then people cater for themselves. Equally the mid 90s commercialisation of dance spelt the death of the rave hysteria, opening a space for its limited return outside the eyes of the cops.

Mr Oizo Impression Inducing Techno.

Of course this is all premised on you actually believing the hype, the Mantua and Leechrum festivals have come and gone again this summer with heavy doses of hardcore dance on rotation at both. That both these festivals were possible in one summer on such a small island, surely is some way testament to a vibrant underground, but you have to ask yourself why such annual stalwert events like the Jigs and Rigs weekend and the regular Creation parties have exited the building before cuddling up to any doses of optimism.

Mantua was great, a field located some where in Roscommon that for two days was domianted by clusters of people insanely dancing before finding themselves sheepishly dishelved the next morning being micro-waved in their tents. With little by way of sobriety and a critical facility intact, memories of Super Exra Bonus Party delivering a high octane bouncy set that got the crowd in the Alphabet Set tent jogging on the spot tell me they are worth checking out again. God Is An Astronaut left no surprises and no highlights, suggesting that a band that once represented something of a bright hope for Irish experimental music are going to have to significantly revise their set lisiting and their on-stage audio-visuals before churlishly churning out more by the book performances to increasingly bored audiences who have seen them all too often before. Radioactive Man turned in a stomping set of Mr Oizo impression inducing checky techno before momentarily descending into some early drum and bass. Bringing the tempo back up again, it was all I could do to sit outside the tent and stare at the light show, wondering just how much harder this head case could take people.

Later in the night, Ed Melody Masher spluttered long lines of amen breaks and staccatto gabba out for hours on end, firmly in recovery ( not like this thank christ )at that stage it was impossible to enjoy what was an impressively comptent set that machine gunned the assembled crowd until well into the next day. The reggae 'stage' was impressive, consisting of a section of field framed on either end with two walls of babylon's finest rigs sound systems in the form of Cork's Rootical Soundsystem. It was impossible to get into the mood, little crowd or dance floor dynamic developed there, harder to discern what this strange land walled in reggae was never mind where to congregate to dance to it. With no more food available than a lame Fallaffel stall, and a hippie in some sort of native American garb running around with his arms outstretched flying through his own head it was clear the best option was to leave for the creature comforts.


And All The Rest.

Back in the cold hard and rainy streets of this fair and fucked city, Duran Duran Duran delivered a sickeningly but air punching good short set in Kaboogie as the bar man decided 'ya basta' around 0030hrs. Over on Oldrottenhat, our former glammer slamming Herr Philosopher Sir Krossie has delivered another traveleouge of his mad cap antics as the GoawayRecords lads touched down in Berlin for several album launches and a dose of paddy whackery. Now on slightly related note, someone from a clubbing forum in Dublin has put together an index of all the old raver anthems up on Youtube, some of them are classics. Enjoy the vidiocy!

Labels: Breakcore, festival, Gig Review, Kaboogie, Mantua, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 10:42 PM

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Saturday, July 15, 2006

Oxegen, Poxegen: The Modern Rock and Roll Experience.

There’s a long standing tradition of music festivals in Ireland, from the Fleadh’s of yore with their bizarre intersection of trad and hippy folk revivalists, to the self organised beauty of the anti-nuclear festivals at Carnsore or the hilarity of a Dylan gig at Slane that broke out in a riot. The most romanticised of recent Irish festivals is the Semple Stadium Feiles, when sprawling night time chaos descended across a quite Irish town leading to jammed Liveline phonelines for about a week after and infuriated auld ones tearing the nation’s youth a new arsehole with verbal condemnation.

The tightening of planning legislation around festivals as a result of the chaotic nature of the Feiles led to a tragic respite from the multi-day festival from 1997 onwards. With a generation lacking any similar major rites of passage, the massive Slane one day events reigned supreme and there was always some fucker of a mate’s older brother to regale you with boastful tales of pissing, shitting and shagging all over Thurles in contrast to the placid state of Slane. But lets see these thirty something suckers dance now cos we've been pissing ourselves and getting our stomachs pumped at our own Feile - OXEGEN - or so Denis Desmond's main man Brian ‘Biggie' Spollen would have us believe.

Full rant and more discussion at Indymedia with a full set of photos..

Labels: festival, Gig Review, Indymedia, Music, Society

# posted by antrophe @ 8:31 PM

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Saturday, April 29, 2006

aLAF Keeps On Rocking Throughout The Year

aLAF has proven its self year after year to be part of the Ireland's yearly festival circuit. There mission is to "foster artistic and creative expression that promotes lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer women's visibility and identity." I say nice one. Considering how shit the music scene is in Dublin's queer world they really have reached new hights in thier musical sellection at the fest. For the past five years they have had a Grrrls Rock night at the George. Its such a nice change from the top forty djing you usually get here in the queer world. Even Dublins Q&A (Queer and alternative) looks like a gay D4 party and believe you me thats not very good at all.

So its nice to hear that ALAF has branched out and started putting on gigs throughout the year as well. Last Thursday with Hive Mind Promotions (a small all woman promotion team that brought you Party Line and Spider Web earlier this year.) Irelands own Queen Kong and Canada's Lesbians on Esctacy took the stage at Eamonn Dorrans. You can read reviews of Queen Kong on an early post on this site.

Lesbians on Esctacy were brillant . . .but I would have to say they don't really fit into the description. You would think they are a blatent rip off of Chicks on Speed but actually I would say they are closer to The Need. They really had more of an electro-rock eighties revial thing going on versus the Le Tigre, Chicks On Speed etc electro-pop. They were dressed more like eighties gay leather men then lesbians . . .but I suppose what does a lesbian look like eh?

aLAF takes place over the 1st weekend in April in DUBLIN, IRELAN. This year's festival is on Thursday 30th March to Sunday, 2nd April 2006. See http://www.alafireland.com for more info.

Labels: Alaf, Art, festival, Gig Review, Music, Queer

# posted by Reeuq @ 7:46 PM

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Thursday, March 23, 2006

Electric Picnic Line Up Announced.

For a few years I refused to be herded around corporate festivals, the end of story for me was the banning of campfires which tore the soul out of the festive experience. Those days were poverty for the soul- unfortunate enough to miss the Feiles, barely getting a glimpse in on the last "Day Trip To Tipp" and forced to survive on a diet of Slanes and Oxygen. Casting my thoughts back to life in the bog, this time of year was always filled with promise as the papers were scanned for announcements of upcoming festival dates. Little of that has really changed for anyone I know.

Well, roll up, roll up, the guessing game is over and we can all finally now rush out and join the paniced lines looking for tickets despite having nearly a whole season to get them sorted. The Electric Picnic website has just issued full details of the hotly discussed festival line up, and it is looking nowhere near as impressive as last years. Saying that would be leaping ahead like a like on Xmas day giddy to unravel its Barbie, as with all festivals there is bound to be more acts announced in the run up to the festival and thats usually where the kick in the balls comes in for late ticket buyers.

SO FAR ITS: Basement Jaxx, Massive Attack, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Groove Armada, Anthony and the Johnsons, DJ Shadow, Damien Rice, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Frames, Devendra Banhart, Super Furry Animals, Belle & Sebastian, Rufus Wainwright (solo), Bloc Party, Alabama 3, The Rapture, Mad Professor, Saul Williams, Tom Vek, Gang of Four, David Kitt, Jim Noir, Rachid Taha, Elbow, Graham Coxon, Deus, The Boy Least Likely To, The Rags, The Dublin Gospel Choir, topped off with that friend of all things Electric – Gary Numan. And it doesn’t end here, the legendary Blue Nile - this is their only performance in the world this year.

The festival organisers are also falling all over themselves with several new gimicks added on this years. One being a whole new area within the festival site called the Big Tree which is "nature foundation being set up by Damien Rice and will feature a carbon neutral oasis of music, arts and organic food. " Sounds awful. Something that is bound to bring on something of a mini-revolution in the world of female urinary habits is the organisers installation of female urinals to cut back on queing times, slap a p-mate between your legs, open the waters into its miniture trough and "hey look - I'm pissing standing up - was there anything else you said I couldn't do?"

And there was me reared down the road from Stradbally and left with the impression it was just a breeding ground for rabid GAA fans and alcoholic priests.

Elsewhere: If anyone is interested, I published a collection of photos from today's demo organised to make the 21st birthday of Terence Wheelock who is one of many young people to die in Garda custody, under my Indymedia hat.

Labels: Electric Picnic, festival, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 5:32 PM

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Thursday, November 10, 2005

From The DEAF Onwards.

If you follow this blog at all you'll have noticed that The Dublin Electronic Arts Festival rolled around the city again recently, and being sly fuckers two of us managed to squeeze guest list inclusions for quite a few of the gigs.
Despite the overwhelming hype around the festival, the stand out gig for myself was from outside its remit. Exile/Chevron was in many ways a warning of things to come. A relatively small club in the north-side of Dublin and a gathering storm of the disaffected, to witness a musical highlight amidst the chin-strokery of so many gigs. Chevron was especially given the shiteness of the Dorans he had played, the crowd at this one was well up for it. One of the more interesting things about the gig was the sense of present antagonism towards DEAF from the organisers, with the flyers stamped with the slogan "we're not DEAF - we're just fucking ignoring you."

Completely taken by surprise with the UR gig, I don't think many were expecting it to be that good at all. I was fairly sozzled, but I was very taken by the Japanesse guy who was on before Galaxy 2 Galaxy, especially with the weird vocal choppings. I thought the crowd were pretty off-putting, and looked like they weren't going to drop the muso attitude all night, but chrsit that changed during G2G. The Filmbase thing had me worried before going, it reminded me at some stages of standing around an art gallery, where the purpose was to peer at DJ's on the same level you would a painting.

But yeah, my back was shivering after the thermin one, that basement was like bing trapped in the soundtrack to a seventies sci-fi movie. Annoyed I couldn't actually see what she was doing as I was led to believe it was rather freaky. Max Tundra sucked, I didn't really know what to expect at it, but fucking hell it was dinner party music. And as someone I was with said, it was as if the crowd were too young to admit to their freinds that "yeah-this sucks." More than two people I know fled and ran straight up to Traffic for the Afuken gig. The guy on before Tundra was great though, as was Herv by all accounts.

Overkill was, well, to be as cheesy as half of the costumes worn by the partygooers there - it was WRONGTASTIC! Featuring just about every nutter you can think of in the British breakcore scene that has emerged around Shitmat in the past year. Two other rooms based around a Japanesse label called LittleBig and a UK based record label called Adaadat provided too many Slint/Fugazi templates to be reckoned with. Scotch Egg blew my puny drunken brain with gameboy filter gabber breakcore madness, spiralling into snakes before exploding out again in tense frantic bursts of distortion. Could you imagine the guffaws from audiences if a 1980's sci-fi movie attempted to present futuristic kids getting their kicks off pumped up gameboy music?

Labels: festival, Gig Review, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 10:48 PM

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Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Youd Be Daft To Mis These At DEAF

KOOL KEITH

The second night of the festival kicks off with what is sure to be a stomper with the appearance of the legendary Kool Keith. Appearing courtesy of Choice Cuts, Dublin based purveyors of regular hip hop flavoured nights, Kool Keith is known as a rappers' rapper. Starting off as one element in the Bronx based incendiary rap outfit the Ultramagnetic MC's, a group that would effectively lay the template for the work of groups like Public Enemy, raping the break beat sections of James Brown tracks to provide a backdrop for the smooth verbal verbosity that would characterise East Coast rap.

Kool Keith is one of those figures that lurks in the background of popular music, seldom fore-grounded but when he is – we all hear about it. His work has been relentlessly sampled, most obviously by The Prodigy, whose obsession with him led them to define some of their most successful tracks around his vocal lines. On “Out Of Space” he threatened to take our brains to another dimension, later a chunk ripped from the Ultramagnetic MC's 1988 “Give The Drummer Some” provided the infamous vocal lines in “Smack My Bitch Up”, he rapped across “Diesel Power” on the same album and on their last release he collaborated directly.

Once describing his own rhymes has having the effect of hand grenades, he has been thrown up by critics as a Bowie for the 1990's. Skiding as he has through an assemblage of personalities over the years. Since the demise of his highly influential Ultramagentic MC's outfit he has taken on the character of Dr. Octagon releasing one critically acclaimed album under that moniker before killing this side of himself off with another alter-ego Dr Dooom. Having worked with producers of the talent and scope of DJ Q-Bert and DJ Shadow, this gig sees his current producer Kutmasta Kurt on decks to provide a back drop of bombastic beats and noise.

October 27th in the Village

Admission : 20 Euro

Tickets available from:
Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2 Selectah Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, City Discs, The Granary, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, All-City Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

GOLDIE

He's just turned forty and at the moment is probably best known for getting dumped off Big Brother or posing menacingly, typecast as the regular goon in Snatch, Bond and Eastenders. Whatever about his acting, Goldie has always been something of a visionary. One of the original British B-Boy's he gained fame in the eighties for his work as a graffiti artist. He was featured in an Afriakaa Bambaataa documentary on the British graf scene, before ditching England to follow hip-hop to the states. His nickname derived from selling gold teeth in markets in Miami. Arriving back to London he hooked up with old graffiti mate 3D from Massive Attack and quickly became engrossed in the hard core scene, discovering drum and bass amidst the regular Fabio and Grooverider sets at Rage in London.

From the start Goldie revolutionised drum and bass, with time stretching and the grafting on of orchestral over lays and the sort of saccharine soulful vocals you'd expect on an Orbital track. Depending on who you listen to, Goldie lost all relevance ten years ago. Tracks like “Inner City Life” had pushed the production values of drum and bass, but he had lost the plot with hour long symphonic wank-fests like “Mother.” . The original bite of drum and bass as the aesthetics of the wrong side of the E honey moon, was exchanged for a darkness that was more cathedral than squat party. He broke the mould of the jungle producer opted for celebrity, and became prone to self grandiose, over intellectualising his music and attacking the hard-core hordes that created the scene to begin with. With the DIY dynamic foregone for an ethereal, epic bullshit, effectively he had taken the genre off the dance floor and introduced it to the dinner party. But then again, ten years ago this man reigned supreme over the junglist massive and if minimal isn't your thing and you want at least some pounding bass lines then I'd hedge your bets with Goldie.

October 30th in Traffic,

Admission : € 18.50
Tickets available from : Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2
Selectah Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, City Discs, The Granary, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE

It might be easier chasing a greased pig than trying to make sense of Underground Resistance. The sheer scale of their back catalogue is overwhelming and there's little point in expecting a “best of” from this popularity shy Detroit label/collective. In one way they echo the ethos of a label like Fugazi's Discord, formed in the wake of the original hardcore punk scene, but breaking with it to push the music forward. Emerging as the second wave of experimentation in Detroit techno, Underground Resistance was formed by Jeff Mills, “Mad” Mike Banks and Robert “Noise” Hood in the early 1990's.

Clothed in a shell of political imagery, UR are renowned for shying from the limelight to take on the mantle of the political consciousness of the techno scene. With titles like “Message to the Majors” and linear notes echoing militant manifestos Underground Resistance have cultivated an aura of electronic musical resistance to the whims and wishes of the dance floor. UR have a creed, to “combat the mediocre audio and visual programming being fed to the inhabitants of the earth, this programming is stagnating the minds of the people.” They regular emerge with scattered shots at the mainstream before retreating to the underground, eagerly entering into guerrilla skirmishes with labels like Sony who released a less than consensual cover of UR's most commercially successful EP, DJ Rolando's "The Knights of The Jaguar."

But leaving their creed aside, if anyone's wondering just what the fuck Detroit techno is then, imagine it as Kraftwerk and George Clinton thrown into an elevator, as originator Derrick May once described. So expect lots of slap head techno purists, stroking erudite paths into their aficionado chins at this one. The organisers of DEAF are billing this as the gig of the festival, a seven hour lapse into the purist side of techno with Underground Resistance members performing live as part of the Galaxy to Galaxy band, and when we say live, we mean just like the olden days. UR are coming on very early in the night, so if you want to see them there can be no pissing about. D1 artists will be stepping up to the plate later in the night for a showcase of the labels talent.

October 30th in The Village.

Admission : € 29.50
Tickets available from : Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2 Selectah Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. City Discs, The Granary, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
EARLY SHOW !! 7.30 PM SHARP

Underground Resistance / Galaxy 2 Galaxy are performing the early part of the night

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THE WEEKENDER GIGS

Not so long ago DEAF was hosted in one venue, with the added bonus of being able to buy a single ticket to cover the whole festival. Unfortunately, the past two years have seen it scattered to the wind across a kaleidoscope of city based venues, with events clashing in venues across the city on most nights. Whatever about the mania of weighing up which of the headlining gigs to check out, there's another way to do the festival by exploring the rather incoherent Dublin underground presented as it is in the concise format of the DEAF Weekender series of gigs throughout the festival which are show casing some of the regulars on the electronica circuit in Dublin.

Among those to check out are Chymera who is interviewed elsewhere in this issue, Skkatter, tongue in cheek re-mixer of that atrocious “G-g-g-Galway” tune will be banging out infectious techno and electro, Don Rosco a prime mover in the early drum and bass scene here, Invisible Agent’s Corrugated Tunnel, and D1’s Toirse will all be making appearances throughout the weekend at gigs based in and around Hogans and The Globe. Undercurrent will also be holding its annual DEAF showcase over the weekend, while regular freeform club Lazy Bird, Electric City and anything goes head bangers Monkey Tennis will be holding events over the weekend too.

VISUALS AT FILMBASE

As if some projections weren’t good enough, DEAF@Filmbase is the part of the festival where the visuals begin to supersede the music, it’s where worries about the dance floor stop and the art begins. The event kicks off at 6pm and carries on until 11pm, stretched over three floors with the admission price including three free beers. This is where the shit gets weird, any idea that electronica stretches maybe as far as Kraftwerk gets dumped and suddenly the idea of looped timbres and revisiting base compositional values takes on an importance. DEAF are engaged in the project of creating a linear history and mythology of their niche music and a stream of composers and electronic avant-gardes are swept into the electronica cannon displacing the origin myths of pills, raves and better technology.

Elsewhere the Darklight Symposium will be hosting a seminar to explore the shifting relationship between technologies of surveillance and the citizen while Electric City will be hosting a film on the highly charged electro scene in The Hague in the 1990’s before their regular club night kicks off.

Admission €15 (the price includes three large bottles of beer free per person, courtesy of Tiger).

Tickets available from : Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2
Selectah Records, Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
City Discs, The Granary, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

If you fancy taking an audio tour of some of the music to be expected at this years Deaf festival then click here

Labels: festival, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 8:04 AM

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