Dan Cates has spat an interview out over at the Death Blog covering hedgehogs, Day Release (no that’s his band), and even some skating. Check the clown out below from the old Squadrophenia days. Word has it that Dibble has threatened court action…
The European VANS team are about to head out on the road this week on their Roll with Us tour of Europe.
Look out for Chris Pfanner, Danny Wainwright, Flo Marfaing, Hugo Laird, Ross McGouran, Tomas Vintr, Ignacio Morata, Kris Vile, and Sam Partaix ripping up the following dates.
Go to www.vans.eu for blogs and stuff and whilst you are here, check out the latest Chukka review.
31st May – Milan (I)
2nd June – Winterthur (CH),
4th June – Vienna (A)
6th June – Berlin (D)
8th June – Copenhagen (DK)
11th June – Amsterdam (NL)
12th June – Antwerp (B)
14th June – Bath NASS Festival (UK) + Ben Grove, Ollie Tyreman and Pete King
15th June – Bristol (UK)
17th June – Paris (F)
21st June – Madrid (E)
Camu Tao has passed away.
The rapper, who was part of the Weathermen Crew and a Def Jux affiliate lost his battle with lung cancer. El-P said of Camu:
“We, his friends and family, have truly had our collective hearts broken by his passing. Not only because of the loss of our friend, but because of the loss of his contribution to those who never knew what we knew about his talent and his potential. He was the secret that no one wanted to keep and we always knew that one day his vision and his heart could change music forever the way he changed all of our lives.”
R.I.P.
Parkway Drive will be heading up the Never Say Die! Tour.
The band will be joined on the road by Unearth, Despised Icon, Architects, Protest The Hero, Whitechapel and Carnifex which will hit the following dates:
10.11.2008 UK Yeovil Westland
11.11.2008 UK Manchester Academy 2
12.11.2008 UK Glasgow The Arches
13.11.2008 UK Sheffield Corporation
14.11.2008 UK Peterborough Cresset
15.11.2008 UK London Forum
Mark Hoppus, bassist extraordinaire formerly with Blink 182 and now with +44, is to produce the next album from New Found Glory.
Hoppus’ former production credits include Idiot Pilot, The Matches and Motion City Soundtrack.
Feist and Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard have joined forces for charity.
The Red Hot album will benefit AIDS research and will also feature the likes of Sufjan Stevens, The Decemberists, Sharon Jones and Dirty Projectors. David Byrne, who will also feature on the record, said:
“I’d been told more than once that we should all work together, and it seems the suggestion was fated to be realised…The tune is as oddly structured as any of their pieces, but you sort of don’t notice because it is really catchy and it all flows as if nothing untoward is going on whatsoever.”
The as-yet-untitled album is set to be released in the autumn or in early 2009.
2007 is looking to be the year it all kicks off for London based five piece Lights.Action! Having spent the last 12 months touring incessantly, recording their mini album and enjoying their first festival appearances, the band have had a financial shot in the arm this spring after winning backing from Slice The Pie – the website that enables artists to raise money directly from their fans to professionally record and release an album.
With the music industry in transition, and labels slashing their budgets – could this be the way forward to up and coming bands to get that vital foot in the door? Lights.Action!’s frontman Patrick Currier took some time off from working on their new album to give Dee Massey some insight into their Slice The Pie backing and the world of Lights.Action!
Hi! please can give us an introduction to who Lights. Action! are? where are you from, and how long have you been together?
Lights. Action! are a group of five incredibly determined, and possibly deranged outsiders from around the UK & US, who magnetised towards one another over the space of a few years. We had all been in different bands before and kind of knew of each other by reputation. (With the exception of Karl and Steve who I’d known for years.)
The line-up is myself (Patrick Currier) on vocals, Karl Bareham on guitar, Chris Moorhead on guitar and keys, Alex Leeder on bass, and Steve Durham on the drums.
How would you describe your sound to a Lights. Action! virgin?
Well, Lights. Action! are primarily a rock band, but our sound ranges from the epic to the much more dynamic and sublime; encompassing big riffs and lush electronic soundscapes backing catchy but heartfelt vocals.
Who are your main influences?
We are influenced by a lot of different types of music, something from every genre. Especially vocally really, as I try and draw from everything I hear and love in other people’s styles.
I would say that the most instantly obvious comparisons are with bands like The Killers, Foo Fighters, U2, but we bring in a lot of other elements like edgy Bloc Party Drums, Police style vocals, and Buckley inspired falsetto vocals. Our most recent stuff brings in a lot of more bluesy/rootsy influences. It’s basically a marriage of different styles: Something old & something new, something borrowed & something blue! It’s a real mix, but it works.
Your Mini-Album “All eyes to the morning sun” has just been released, can you tell us a little about it?
“All Eyes..” Is a sort of look back over the last year. It’s the first place where people can get a collected works of Lights. Action! that really shows where we began, and how we are changing. The title itself is all about hope and the start of a new day. It’s the first step on our journey as a band. It’s got some fan favourites as well as a few tracks which mix it up a little.
It includes your version of Imogen Heap’s song Hide & Seek – what was behind your decision to include that? Have she heard it yet?
Yeah, we decided to put that track on there because it was a big learning process for us arranging and changing that song. It really opened our minds to what we were capable of doing, with it still sounding like us. So the main reason was really to prove something to ourselves, that we were ballsy enough to take something that delicate and risky and put it on the record. A few people tried to sway us from putting it on there, but I think we were right to include it, and people seem to really respond to our version, which is great.
Has she heard it? I don’t know. I would love to know what she thinks of it, I know she is a rock fan, so I’m hoping she would appreciate the effort we put into making it different. I have a couple of close friends who are acquaintances of hers and I’m trying to get them to ‘accidentally’ get her to hear it.
With the music industry in such a hugely publicised transition, many major labels are cutting their rosters and the signing of bands is in decline. Budgets are being slashed and as a result lot’s of bands are going the DIY route and making records without the signing a ‘record deal’. Lights. Action! are no different and have become the latest band to win album funding through website SliceThePie.com – could you tell us a little about SLP and what’s it’s means for the band compared to signing a traditional record deal. How will it affect how you make, market and distribute your record?
Well, basically we had become sick of waiting for a company to jump on board for the band. We have been sort of talking to different A&R people for ages and ages now and we are not the kind of guys to sit around and wait for someone to say “go”. So we decided to take matters into our own hands and just “find” the funding from somewhere less traditional.
Ours came in the form of a website we’d heard about called Slicethepie.
The site, sort of breaks down the industry and puts it into the hands of the listeners and bands. So the listeners become A&R people, and they decide who gets financed but reviewing a band’s merit against that of others. It’s quite complex, but essentially a financing engine that finds good bands through it’s users, and gives them money to make a record.
It’s not heaps and heaps of money, but it’s enough for a resourceful band like ourselves to make a decent record. It also puts all of the decision making process in the hands of the band themselves. So, we answer to no one and we can make the record we want to make. Which is great for us, and will hopefully help us create a much better piece of art.
The flip side is, we have to run our band like businessmen as well, we do the budgets and the schedules and the sourcing of materials etc. It’s completely different to how band’s have run in the past. And you have to balance a lot more different stresses. We will have to market it ourselves, find licenses ourselves (if we choose to) and essentially be our own label. But ultimately I think it’s worth it.
You played Download and Leeds last year, how did you find playing the festivals?
Download was really amazing last year. We played in the afternoon to a pretty full tent of about 1000 people. I thought it was amazing that so many people would show up to see a fairly unknown band! And, considering that we are not a metal band, we’re a rock band, people were incredibly responsive.
I had been planning for years my first festival appearance, and it was incredible really. Leeds was great too, and it was cool that they allowed us to be on the unsigned stage when the majority of other acts were fairly local to that area.
Will you be heading out on the festival circuit again this year? What does the summer hold for you?
We will be doing some festivals this year, yes. We are confirmed for one so far, called ZooThousand. It’s got people like Mark Ronson, Dizzee Rascal & Funeral for A Friend Playing it. We’re really excited about it, mainly because it’s in some sort of massive wildlife park! We want to see the lions!
Other than that, we are touring right up into June. Then taking a break for a month to write and record our debut album. We’ll be doing this in various studios around London, and possibly even in a stately home or church as well! We’ll be doing this with acclaimed up and coming producer Richard Wilkinson. He’s a close friend of the band and really understands our ambition for this project.
You’ve been touring with Kids in Glass Houses, I was a Cub Scout and Boy Kill Boy amongst others, what’s the best and worst things about being on the road?
Well, playing live is obviously great for us, because that’s the natural environment of a rock band. It’s a chance to really connect with people on a personal level, and get responses first hand. It’s amazing to play to packed crowds, and sometimes it’s even more amazing to play to just 5-10 people, but completely convert every one of them, you know?
So yeah, obviously response is one of the best things. Getting people to actually care about the band etc. And then the next time you play there, seeing those people sing along. Those bits are great. Sometimes just the fact that you are hanging out with 4 of your close mates is a big highlight too.
The worst bits about touring are probably in not having money to eat all the time, sleeping on people’s floors, having to argue with promoters if they try and not pay you. All that stuff. I mean, crashing at random people’s houses is good in some ways because it forces you to make friends. But the problem with that is that everyone wants a band to come back to theirs and party and show them a great time, but half the time once you’ve finished a show you just want to chill out. [laughs]
What are your three essentials to take on tour?
Towel, Toothbrush & Telephone. The 3 T’s.
So why should our readers come see you guys live?
Well, firstly, we are a tight band and we rock. [laughs]
Secondly, they’ll get something that listening to a recording simply won’t give them… the dynamic part of our music which microphones can’t really capture.
Thirdly, I think that are part of a resurgence in real rock music which is about to happen, and I think that’s something to get excited about. Taking it back to honest, powerful live performance, and songs that really mean something to the band. It’s such a good time to get in at the ground level with bands like ours, because people can really take ownership of the music and get much more satisfaction out of it.
And lastly…could you give the Crossfire readers some words of wisdom?
Get a good job and work hard at it. Singing in a rock band is for mugs.
Cheers Patrick – and good luck with the album!
For more info on Lights.Action! check out www.myspace.com/lightsactionband with photos by Emma Hampson-Jones
Turweston Aerodrome
24.05.08-25.05.08
When you see a poster for an event that features a cow with an acid house logo for a face, you’re basically going to have to go aren’t you? Yes, yes you are. So off I went to the middle of Northamptonshire with forecasts of torrential rain looming across the weekend.
The Saturday saw us finally pitch our cheapest-tent-in-Argos a mere 2 hours after we’d started, thanks in no small part to our mallet destroying every peg we needed to get ourselves locked in. Regardless, we set off to the field after sharing our haribo [the actual sweets, rather than some new fangled drug] with our neighbours and got into the Electric Stew tent in time for Radioclit.
With Ears on hype duty and a nice cameo from Esau Mwamwaya, the duo were on fine form, even having Marina [formerly of Bonde] come out to give some flair to the proceedings, the highlight being Wiley’s Sorry Sorry Pardon What. From there we mooched over to see Ed Banger head honcho Busy P play in a tent that was basically the size of my spare room, laying out some dirty electro for us to wind around to. We then moved over to the main stage to see the end of the CSS set, which was a little more understated than the usual colour-fest the Brazilians put on. Nevertheless, we stuck around to see The Prodigy bust out their stuff, incorporating old and new to satisfy the younger generation of fans as well as the old school ravers.
A firework display behind us, we trudged back to the Electric Stew set and saw the last part of Sinden‘s set, which was full of basslines as you’d expect from one of the best DJs around at the moment. Annie Mac followed and delivered some nice tunes to bop around to before the Audio Bullys came on and literally forced us to leave. I’ll be blunt, they were shit. The good news was Goldie was on in the DnB tent so we caught some of his set before heading back to see the brilliant Kissy Sell Out [pictured, right] who included some Wham! and Beastie Boys in his set. Crookers followed and we caught a little bit of their booming tunes before finally retiring to bed.
That’s when the torrential rain kicked in, though our tent [lovingly named Brutus] stood firm and though we had to huddle a little closer than normal, my best mate and I stayed mostly dry. Waking up on the Sunday full of excitement, we hit the hot chocolate stand [because we’re fucking gangster] and headed into see Shortee open up with some headnodders and then witnessed the arrival of Plastic Little. Having a pretty unknown-to-most hip hop group on seemed a strange choice, but by the end of their set, everyone was dancing, so it was a job well done.
Then came the surprise package of the weekend, the 2 hour set from Benga and Skream [pictured, below]. Now, I like Dubstep, it’s great and comes from my manor – South London. However, thinking about having 2 hours of it made me worry that it might be a little much. No chance, the duo came out and played such a diverse set, a Klaxons remix included, that I wanted even more, pumping the air with pistol fingers and bumping around with a pocket of South Londoners.
Following that were D Double E and Footsie, aka Newham Generals, who brought 15 minutes of grime before the OG Dizzee Rascal came out, opening up with his best track I Luv U. Despite the crowd not moving until my mate and I moved into the middle and got them going, it was a great set, even the average Where’s Da Gs? sounding brilliant.
A breakbeat set from Freq Nasty followed before the highlight of the weekend came on – DJ Yoda‘s Audio/Visual set. From the very start, with his Star Wars style intro, the hip hopper mashed up great tunes with brilliant videos, the highlights being a medley of Carlton’s Tom Jones dance from Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, Beeper by Sinden, Biz Markie being Biz Markie and mixing in Wearing My Rolex with Night. Absolutely the greatest thing I’ve ever been witness to.
We left the tent following Yoda and heard the mainstage had been shut down with The Chemical Brothers‘ set being cancelled totally, upsetting a lot of people. Not us though as we were always going to head to the Turbo tent for some camp Chromeo action [we couldn’t stop singing Bonafide Lovin’ for the rest of the night and next morning] and the French wonder duo that is Justice. We Are Your Friends rang out across the tent for a long while after the set had finished, drawing a close to a fantastic weekend.
Our motto for Gatecrasher 2008? Fuck tents, let’s dance!
Abjekt
The only thing Public Enemy ever sold out on was ticket sales – Raps biggest outfit, performing Raps biggest album of all time at possibly one of the most famous venues in the world was always a “publicists dream”.
Before we get to the main event, a strong, and unique set of opening acts took the stage – I totally missed AntiPop Consortium due to a 2 for 1 deal on beers at Plan-B round the corner and of course, the skatepark needed checking out (almost done!) – but made it to the Academy as Kool Keith/Dr.Octagon took to the stage – with masked DJ and hype man en tow. Keiths a veteran of the stage and is unfazed by the 5000 strong predominately white crowd and succeeds in making it feel like a small tight venue. Dropping classics like Blue Flowers and the weirdly hooked Half-shark-alligator-half-man – the crowd know his work and flaunts himself with ease on the stage. Finishing with an UltraMagnetic classic “Poppa Large” which has more than stood the test of time, the question is, who are these two DJ’s setting up after their set…? (Z-Ed – and secondly, was Kool Keith actually rapping or was he miming tonight? The debate goes on…)
The Bombsquad produced and created Public Enemy’s immense soundscape. The Shocklee brothers will be found in the production credits of many of the late 80s/90s hard hitting hiphop tunes from the likes of 3rd Base, RunDMC and Ice Cube’s Amerikkkas Most Wanted album. So given solo-time to shine warming up for PE was something to be more than curious about, I was half expecting a DJ of their instrumentals of their famed tracks – what I got was a total opposite! These guys have been busy in the lab cooking up the heaviest dub-step style beats of all time, Brixton was literally shaken to the core. Definitely worth linking up their constantly advertised on the night myspace page to see some true progression from the classic production team.
When I was in my early teens, two things really got on my nerves, one was clancking my truck on fakie rocks, the other was the S1Ws, the militant (looking) dance troupe that shadow PEs live shows – tonight they look a little lost as Professor Griff was denied an exit visa from America, I don’t see that a necessarily bad thing – the last time I saw him on stage he was spitting all kinds of hate, but tonight we are just left with the dance act, which is pretty embarrassing with people around me laughing! The main ingredient that is missing is the original DJ, Terminator X, who retired from the group back in the mid 90’s – but DJ Lord is more than capable on the 1s and 2s and is flanked with a couple of guitarists and a drummer too, so the stage is set, but “they aint rocked us yet”
The concept of the night is to celebrate 20 years of the platinum plus “Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” album. So the show blasts off with a patented “Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy” which means PE is definitely about to explode on stage. Bring Tha Noise hits hard, and instantly gets to fists pumping in the air, leading in to a full mixup of the track listing. A tribute to the former DJ, Terminator X on the Edge of Panic gets everyone firmly back to the first time the rocked the album, and Chuck D and Flavor Flav are as fresh on stage as the first time I saw them almost 20 years ago, its like time on Flavor’s clock had stopped, he is 50 years old this year and though merely a hype man on the albums, but comes in to his own “Cold Lamping” on the live show, and although looking like Souljah Boys dad, he still has more than enough energy for this crowd.
Chuck D, ever the ‘hard rhymer’ is on form, in shape and hungry, and eagerly rips in to Don’t Believe the Hype like it’s fresh out of the studio, although some of the politics have changed, they stick to the original messages and still cant resist having random digs at the Iraq “war” efforts and American Penal system between tracks. The angst hasn’t faded a bit, which is just as well as Prophets of Rage would be devoid of meaning without it.
After working through the album in style, they just won’t let the show end and the venue has a midnight curfew – Chucks determined to go the distance and they go off-topic with a medley of standout cuts from the rest of the albums, standouts being Welcome to the Terrordome, Flavors 911s a Joke and notably Public Enemy #1 which ensures nobody is leaving for the last tube!
What a show, totally exhausting and nobody could feel let down after such a strong performance. I wouldn’t say PE ever topped this album, but one thing is for sure they still have enough fight in the tank to perform at the highest level and are around to inspire yet another generation of artists. Undoubtedly the album, and the movement that is Public Enemy has certainly more than stood the test of time, this was epic.
Phil Procter
Greenpeace are offering budding skaters (and good fakers) the chance to win tickets to Glastonbury Festival.
The skateboard park is one of the highlights of the Greenpeace Field at Glastonbury. This year’s festival will see daily performances by pro skaters, already confirmed are riders from Vans, Santa Cruz and Death.
The park was designed by Heathensk8 and Third Foot and made to showcase Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified wood kindly donated by B&Q who sell FSC timber throughout their home improvement and garden centre chain.
The FSC logo guarantees wood comes from environmentally and socially responsible sources. That means it won’t have come from one the of the world last ancient forests – 80% of which have already been destroyed. It also proves that the timber isn’t the product of illegal or destructive logging – which is still devastating forests in places like the Congo, the Amazon and South East Asia.
To win a ticket to Glastonbury Festival this year via Greenpeace you have to send video footage of yourself to win, easy. Go to www.Greenpeace.org.uk/Skate to enter. This ends Friday 13th June so get filming.