French Disconnection are hitting Kilburn with a new event – The Summer Collection, after the huge success of the sold out Spring Collection. This time round, you’ll be able to see Bertrand Burgalat and The Konki Duet, have DJ Oof on the decks and Piney Gir curating the night.
Tickets are £10 in advance or £12 on the door and the event will be at Luminaire on July 25th.
Some Zero team members will be in the country from this week, and will be in Leeds, Stoke and Glasgow. If you’re around, make sure you check it out!
Brother Ali
Koko
11.07.06
Brother Ali and Slug were back to these shores after only a few months away and came back stronger and better than ever. Last time they came over, Slug had a live band creating his backdrop and Ali had his DJ BK-One on the decks, but this time they both had the same DJ – The one and only Ant! Ant is the beat maker for Atmosphere and does many of the beats for Brother Ali and so, for the first time in the UK it was actually Atmosphere that played [as opposed to Slug appearing as Atmosphere].
Ali kicked off the party in perfect style with his brilliant tracks like Forest Whitaker, Champion, Rain Water and even threw in a track from his upcoming album The Undisputed Truth, which is due out next year. One thing you know when you see Ali is that you’re going to get a smiling, happy emcee who just wants to perform and see the people out there enjoying themselves. As he said during his set, anyone can see a show, you can see a show on tele, but if everyone feels the music and gets hype, then the show turns into a party and that’s what he wanted to see.
Slug came out to the hero worship he must surely be used to from underground hip hop fans and when he blew open the track from Ali’s album Blah Blah Blah, we knew that this wasn’t just any show. And when Ali strode out to be Slug’s hype man for the Atmosphere set, you knew that you were standing inches away from greatness and a show you would never ever forget.
Hitting up the obvious favourites like God Loves Ugly, Fuck You Lucy, Trying To Find A Balance, Slug breezed through the set with ease, talking in between tracks as if the crowd were his best friend. But it was when he threw in older tracks that everyone’s smiles turned into grins and the hands, which were constantly in the air, pumped that little bit harder.
The lights went down, the spotlight beamed down on Slug and he took the hyped crowd down to The Woman With The Tattooed Hands, which didn’t stop the energy and was arguably the loudest sung track of the night by the crowd, but it just showed that he can mix it up, bangers and ballads, and still have the crowd in the palm of his hand.
With Ant chain smoking his way through untold packets of fags, chugging his way through who knows how many beers and generally being the ultimate don that every Atmosphere fan knows he is, Ali bopping around at the back of the stage and Slug being everything that a frontman should be and more, this was better than any other time I’ve seen them. This was, in fact, the best show I’ve ever been to and I can’t see that changing any time soon.
Whilst they might be rapping about partying for the fight to write, we’ll just be partying to their tunes and long may Atmosphere and Ali continue.
Betrayal and break ups – countless bands have covered the topic before, Blink have done it with wisecracks and piss takes, but Tom DeLonge’s take on the topic with Angels and Airwaves is the other end of that spectrum. Following up their debut single ‘The Adventure’, “It Hurts”is an interesting choice for second single.
Instead of going for one of the harder, cinematic tracks, they’ve chosen one which really puts distance between DeLonge and his Blink days – with a track that examines the feeling of betrayal in a break up.
There’s no irony in the title, no jokes, no smiles, he’s cutting himself wide open on the page, lyrics are emotive and bittersweet, full of that self knowledge we’ve all felt at some point. “You’ve dug yourself into a liar’s hole. You made a little spark to live inside. It’s now a fucking fire out of control…”
Shimmering effects and a swathe of electronica keep the track pushing forward; the mix has a swooping broad sound, an epic quality that resonates throughout the album.
Repeated lyrics engrain themselves into your head ‘Your best friend is not your girlfriend‘, the tearing guitars tumble and fall – “It Hurts’ adds another string to DeLonge’s bow, showing that the goofy punk pop guy has matured into a very different animal indeed. Released on Monday 24th July.
To win a copy of the Angels and Airwaves album and a pair of Macbeth Shoes this month, click here.
London Mean Fiddler
29.06.06
It must be great fun being in a band as good as Sonic Boom Six. This Mancunian crossover quartet mix genres effortlessly and seamlessly, whether ripping through the vitrolic ska-core of ‘Blood For Oil’ or downing instruments for the triple vocal hip-hop attack of ‘Monkey See, Monkey Do’ – and they certainly get the crowd moving. The Movement don’t fare quite as well, their sharp suits not compensating for the fact that there’s nothing particularly memorable about their scratchy, Jam-esque rock n’ roll.
The Mad Caddies’ popularity seems to have waned in recent years (they have previously sold out the bigger Astoria) but they’re still an entertaining, if somewhat predictable live band. The couple of new tracks aired tonight are fairly typical Caddies fare, but it’s brass-punk nuggets like ‘Macho Nachos’ and the swashbucklers’ anthem ‘Weird Beard’ that get the sweat-drenched crowd bouncing and skanking like monkeys on hot coals. Tonight is all about having fun, and the closing brace of ‘Road Rash’ and ‘All-American Badass’ ensure smiles all around. Till next time, then.
Belgium’s up and coming new band Goose will be releasing their album Bring It On, featuring the tracks British Mode, 3T4, Everybody, Bring It On and Black Gloves, in September and will be playing some UK dates beforehand to give you a chance to hear the album material. The dates are:
Sat 22nd July Nottingham Liars Club
Wed 26th July London Barfly
Sat 5th August London Turnmills
Fri 25th August Leeds Carling Festival
Sun 27th August Reading Carling Festival & London Cross Central
Check out goosemusic.com or www.myspace.com/goosemusic for more.
By Sean Cliver
www.disposablethebook.com
Put it this way, looking back to the year 2004, it was a great year for books about the history of skateboarding in general with the Independent book being the one that really sticks out a mile from the rest but as I started to read this book by Sean Cliver, I realized that we had another corker in the making!
This book review went missing from this site when we launched it, don’t ask us how, it just did and the other day i was reading this book and thinking, everyone should own this who skates, it needs to go back up online.
Cliver answered an advert in Thrasher offering work to the best young designer that came their way over at Powell Peralta and ended up getting the job designing graphics with VCJ, the design icon at Powell who had single handedly created the wonderfully striking Powell graphics for their riders who in turn saw their sales rocket into million dollar sellers worldwide.
Cliver then worked with Steve Rocco and various other heads during the tumbling times of the late 80’s when the skateboard industry fell on its arse and a new breed of graphics, riders and terrain dominated the industry that had always stuck by its own guns.
The graphics that were being designed at that time were most influential to the kids that bought them and these graphics today are still discussed in forums across the globe with the rarest ones selling for up to $5,000 per board. This book takes you through all of those board graphics and the artists that designed them, plus quotes from all of the pro riders that remember why they chose them or designed them themselves in the first place leaving you with an array of information relating to the most influential art and design concepts of skateboarding.
The book also delves into the darkness too covering the back stabbing that went on during and after the scene changed, the board graphics that would not be accepted by main stream shops, the Mums and Dad’s that thought they were too graphic in detail for their children and also the cease and desist orders from stolen artwork from big companies like Warner Bros. It’s a fantastic story once you open the cover.
Overall, this book is incredible, I could not put it down once I had started and will definitely read it again in about a month. It has quotes from Natas Kaupas, Jeff Grosso, Danny Way, and a thousand other pro riders plus words from various artists like Wes Humpston, John Lucero, Pushead, and many many more.
If you owned a skateboard once, or indeed if you are pushing on one today, you need a copy of this book, so go get one.
Zac
The Go! Team will play Brighton’s Dome on October the 28th, which will be their last gig of 2006 and they will be previewing material from their upcoming album.
Check out the group at www.thegoteam.co.uk
Great news for all your Pippettes fans out there, the group have announced some tour dates in September and October. The dates are:
September:
20th – Birmingham, Academy
21st – Cambridge, Corn Exchange
22nd – Brighton, Corn Exchange
23rd – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms
25th – Manchester, Academy 3
26th – Glasgow, The Garage
28th – Newcastle University
29th – London, Koko
30th – Sheffield, Leadmill
October:
2nd – Belfast, Spring And Airbrake
3rd – Dublin, TMBC
It’s been a while, but The Slits are back and have announced they will be releasing an EP later on this year.
Ari Up and Tessa Pollitt have reformed the band and have said that the release, The Revenge Of The Killer Slits EP, is due out in mid-October.