England!

Back from holidays with a weekend in London under the belt, excellent.

Canada was pretty ace and relaxing with one quite spectacular hangover smack bang in the middle resulting in my lack of attendance from a little dub/reggae festival, oh well.

First night back on Friday, August 24th and off i went to watch my friends in The Daze play at 333/Mother Bar, whatever it's called these days. That was pretty, with many old friends i hadn't seen for a long time appearing for the party. Though it could be said the evening went rapidly downhill shortly after the set... Without delving into any details one could say that unpleasantries occured...

SUnday brought an afternoon barbeque downb Kingston way and much Champagne, always appreciated. Ha. Then, of course, TDK in the evening.

As an event it was great fun, though the organisation was not all that great, it has to be said. I think I had to queue around 54 seperate tims before i'd entered the festival. Then couldn't find anyone selling (i've now accepted the terrible fact that one will always have to pay extortionate ammounts to find out simply who is playing and when...) laminates with the details of stage times on them, thus meaning the night turned into somewhat of a lottery. Still, i managed to make my way to see Alex Under (live) soon after arrival, with some friends, and his dark throbbing techno made a good start to the proceedings. I moved soon though (upon hearing that a lot of acid was being swallowed around me (more on that later...) and fucked off next door to the band room and found my friends in To My Boy knocking ou a cracking set with few people watching and being vastly unnapreciated. A tragic shame, as these guys nevr fail to put on a llive show that is anything less than thrilling, yet seem to frequnetly to be playing to only a small number of people. This needs to be rectified shortly. So check this out,

To My Boy - Outerregions

Knowing that Shitdisco were on son after To My Boy (i hoped... fearing they may have been before) I waited around and grabbed a beer, which i found out were £4.50. Ouch. Luckily Shitdisco did play next, and were probably the best thing i saw all evening. Playing most of the songs from their album, Kingdom of Fear as well as their cover of (what i can only assume) Oxide and Neutrino's "No Good 4 Me" The room had filled out a lot more by this point and the crowd were dncing quite enthusiastically to the likes of "Reactor Party," "I Know Kung Fu" and recent single "OK". Top stuff and i was exhausted by the end. ANd it was only 12:30/1 o' clock at this point!

Shitdisco - OK

After this point, due to the lack of a laminate, i'm not fully sure of what i saw for a while. But to the best of my knowledge it was James Holden, Jamie Jones, Green Velvet and ISSST djs, anything else has been lost in a haze...
James Holden, as expected, packed the room to the rafters and knocked out a killer set of his own brand of wareped eletro and techno. Seriously, go see him, it was really quite special! Jamie Jones is another character to watch out for, i think 2008 could really be his year. Having made a name for himself accross the techno map with regular slots at Fabric and recent slots for nights such as Product in Nottingham. Playing it in the Mulletover hosted room we found him playing a set of severely wonky techno and incredible, wobbly bass lines that had us enthralled the instant we stepped through the door. I intend to see a full set by this guy as soon a s i possibly can. Awesome. I think we took a break for a while after this beofre cathcing the end of Green Velvet, which seemed good, though i swear some of it was verging a little too close to Trance regions for my liking. Next up was Kevin Griffiths of ISSST fame Knocking outa style of electro that would be to the genre what Jone's set was to Techno. Really good stuff, as you'd expect from one of the men who run the rapidly becoming infamous ISSST nights. Booby M, also behind the decks, seemed quite content to merely dance behind the decks, though may have taken to the decks later.

Basically, great evening, marred by overpriced beer, too many people making moving between stages a truly tiring experiencer and a good friend of mine having to take an acid riddled friend to the local hospital.

Tales of the Jackalope was a very simialr story, a great day marred by the same problems with beer, seemingly no provision of free water (though it turnbs out there was a tap doing such, hidden in a corner undiscoveed until Sunday morning, thougbn luckily we'd brough our own). Highlights of the day were Late of the Pier who were the first band of the day to really get things going. They played a great set, again, though tracks such as "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" and "Random Firl" seem to be getting little airtime these days... Shame, though we were treated to a new song which takes a completely new direction and needs a little work on it, but sounds promising.
Also, don't forget thier new single, RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 10TH (in the UK), Bathroom Gurgle. Here's a couple of Old Demos...

Late of the Pier - Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Late of the Pier - Random Firl

(apologies for the poor quality, i believe they are quit eold demos, not sure how available they are, so... give them a try).

They also once again provd themselves to be charming gemtlemen as well.


Uffie, who i only managed to catch half of (reasons later) seeme dto be in good form and "Pop the Glock", "Ready to Uff", and "First Love" sounded wicked. And she looked good, as always. Ha.

Fucked Up easily ruled the day with a mere 3 songs, bneing dragged off after this due to noise complaints and the bouncers having no idea how to deal the the insanity that was unfolding before them.

They appeared around two hours late (at 2:15 rather than 12:00) at exaclty the same trime as Uff, so i had to split both sets and it sems i chose about right, catchingall of Fucked Up's short set and only missing "In Chrarge" and most of "Hot Chick" from Uff's. Oh well. So, Fucked Up take the stage, singer Damien Dressed in Big basketball shorts and a wrestling mask (oh yeah, and his nipples taped up) and prceeds to ditch the mask while jumping onto a fold out table and decimating it beofre jumping off stage and sending the crowd into a frenzy. Three songs later i was off to see Uffie and it seems they were back off to Canada, soon to be followed by me.

Others, such as Chromeo, Shy Child, Tapedeck, The Fall, Get Shakes, Autokratz (recently signed to Kitsune) and the Neon plastix also rocked it, but the abovew three were what i came to se and i did not leave dissapointed. The rest of the night ws spent dsancing around the campsite with an Ipod and minispeakers to Chromeo and Daft punk. Cool...


Not much else going on at the moment aside from trying to get a place in London and then finding a job (fun stuff, eh?), so we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, i think i'm going to be heading to see LAte of the pier at Fabric on the 21st and then to see Passions at Dollop in Nottingham in October (i think). Dollop is a great night in friendly and intimate surroundings, by the way, so if you're around please head down, it's cheap and Sam's always offering cheap list all over the place so keep your eyes open.

Oh yeah, i found some big and some wierd stuff recently. For instance, Fucked Up covering Justice and Soulwax Nite Versions doing their thing with that French duo as well.

Fucked Up - Stress (Justice cover)

Justice - Waters of Nazareth (Part 2) (Soulwax Nite versions mix)

Then there's that whole indie-dubstep crossover thing i mentioned. Over the past few weeks i've decided that i do like that Skream/Plastician (though i always wonder if they mean Plasticman, as i'm sure Plastician is a collaberation between Holden and someone i've forgotten... Hawtin or someone like that i guess, or maybe Hawtin and Acquaviva) remix of The Black Ghosts.

The Black Ghosts - Some Way Through This (Skream and Plastician Remix)


And, of Course, Hot Chip's summer anthem that seems to have been crimianlly underplayed so far:

Hot Chip - My Piano


Take care people.

Chuck

Xxx