Interact skatepark in Burnley has been busy in the woodshop for this year’s endless summer. Most of the new obstacles are finished including various modern takes on ledge and quarter pipe design.
There is currently talk of a Rogie/Ollie Tyreman collaboration quarter pipe that will be super steep with pool coping on top, but those two have yet to plug the power tools in…
As always, check out www.interactpark.com for all the news.
It’s official – Wu Tang’s Raekwon has signed for Dr Dre’s Aftermath label.
Even though it was known that Dre had provided some beats for the upcoming Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2, and Aftermath newcomer Busta Rhymes is an executive producer on the album, it was thought the album would be released by one of the Wu’s labels. However, it is to be put out as a joint venture by Aftermath and one of Wu’s enterprises.
Can it possibly live up to the first Cuban Linx album? Watch this space…
Rocking badarses Helmet are back with a new album, which has just been titled Monochrome. The album will be released on July 18th and the tracklisting has been released. The track Gone has been picked as the first single from the album and should be out in June. The track listing is:
01 – “Swallowing Everything”
02 – “Brand New”
03 – “Bury Me”
04 – “Monochrome”
05 – “On Your Way Down”
06 – “Money Shot”
07 – “Gone”
08 – “Almost Out Of Sight”
09 – “Howl”
10 – “410”
11 – “Goodbye”
As reported last week on Crossfire, the line up for Mike Patton’s new project Peeping Tom had been decided for a performance on Conan O’Brien. Well now you can check out the performance, which has been uploaded on youtube.com. Hit up the link below for the fun and frolics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNgilEYZgNQ
And that’s not all, you can sample the entire album by going on Peeping Tom’s myspace, which can be found here.
The Dillinger Escape Plan have covered Soundgarden’s Jesus Christ Pose and have posted it up online. The track is taken from the forthcoming EP Plagarism, which is only available on iTunes and will be ready to be go on June 13th. You can check out the cover by clicking here.
Another group who have posted up a cover version on their myspace is Dry Kill Logic, who have reworked It’s So Easy by Guns N Roses. It’ll appear on their new CD/DVD The Magellan Complex which is scheduled for release on June 27th. To check that track, click here.
The Triffids have decided that they are going to mount a plaque in London on June 28th. The band went through lots of planning permission and the rigours of designing, manufacturing and mounting it, and 1,000 members of the group’s forum gave in £1 each to help finance the affair.
The plaque will commemorate the affection the fans have for the band and will be mounted on the warehouse next to the Mark Angelo studio in Farringdon where the album was recoreded.
If you’re a fan that wants to attend the celebration on June 28th then head on over to www.thetriffids.com
Fuck all of that metal shit masquerading as hardcore, this is the real deal. Fast, pissed off and utterly direct, The Horror plug directly into the roots of hardcore, feeding off the raw power of bands like SSD, Void, Negative Approach, DRI etc and spewing them back into the present in a wave of bile and hate. This is vicious stuff.
This is their second full album and every song’s as short and razor sharp as before. They’ve certainly not fucked with the formula and stick to what they do best – playing fucking hardcore for hardcore fucking kids. Walk The Plank and The Horror. The two best bands in UK hardcore right here right now.
If you like your classic seventies rock and think you have the best of the period covered with your Led Zep, Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple records, think again. If you dig a little deeper and peek under a few stones there’s treasures there that will blow your brain. Captain Beyond may never have achieved the commercial success of the era’s monsters of rock but their debut album is artistically up their with the greats.
The whole album just buzzes with genius, classic riffs, jaw-dropping drumming and rhythmic percussion and brilliant songs. Stoner rock greats Monster Magnet covered ‘Memorization Eclipse’ and re-invented it for their ‘Twin Earth’ single, exposing the band to a whole new generation of rock freaks. And what’s good enough for Monster Magnet, is good enough for us.
Koko
19.05.06
Each track by the Portland, Oregon sextet is completely unique, and strong enough to stand alone and hold a rooms attention. The Decemberists open into California One/Youth And Beauty Brigade. They slip into The Infanta, all while the crowd stops talking, and the only sound you hear besides the music is the applause and cheering. A band that demands respect from the very beginning!
This Sporting Life throws in a touch of Morrisey. We Both Go Down Together, is a song about a suicide pact, sung so joyously you wouldn’t even realize without special attention being paid to the jam-packed lyrics. A contradiction to some of their other songs where their music from the outside can seem intensely serious, but looking deeper into the lyrics you start to appreciate some of the light-heartedness. A gentle balance of seriousness and humour is the glue that sticks all these different songs together.
Meloy’s humour extends not only to his actions when he sings, but he considers the crowd before him. He insistently breaks into mid-gig Callanetics. He then proceeds to ask everyone to “…turn to their right, shake the persons hand, and share their favourite movie”. Everyone was then commanded to sit down on the floor, and be completely silent. All 4 tiers of Koko ceased at a grinding halt, whilst Meloy “…gave our legs a break”. I found it a little bizarre, but my friends loved the intimacy it brought.
He commands power and control over the crowd, as if he were one of the ship captains in his songs. Out of the silence, Meloy claims they not only know fellow Oregon’ers The Shins, but to also be better than them. Two quirky bands from the same town, both with a strong sense of humour…and a healthy competitive streak it seems.
Towards the end he wanted everyone to “shake their hands like they just don’t care…then to shake them like they care…don’t care…care…don’t care” after about 5minutes of everyone playing ‘Simon Says’ (and enjoying it!), they break into their next song The Engine Driver. With the sweetest harmonies of “…and if you don’t love me let me go” ringing throughout the venue, it makes you feel lucky to enjoy the Sold out gig even more.
What sets The Decemberists apart from most other bands is a unique antique sound. A far cry from the manufactured rock of the moment. Seriously riff-heavy, Celtic poems, including an assortment of strings and brass create the colourful and creative album Picaresque, it makes you feel shipwrecked back in the 1800s. The accordion on My Own True Love (Lost At Sea) haunts me on my journey home.
The Decemberists are as amazing live, as they are on their albums.
Niki Kova’cs
Photo by: Niki Kova’cs
London Electric Ballroom
25.05.06
There are arguably few bands around today that enjoy the same level of devotion from their fans as AFI do. Tickets for this one-off intimate show – a precursor to the release of new album ‘Decemberunderground‘ – sold out within minutes of going on sale last month, with the few remaining spares currently fetching a black market price of around £60. The ridiculously long queue was allegedly started at around 3am this morning, and now consists of a thousand-odd punks, goths and metalheads, several sporting AFI tattoos, and all united in excited anticipation of what the evening holds in store.
Credit is due to local boys Rainy Day Fuck Parade, who face the largely uninterested crowd with a spirited performance. The amusingly-named quartet ply a fine trade in thunderous stoner riffs and off-kilter rhythms, in a Mastodon/Kyuss vein, but are ultimately met with little more than sparse applause from an audience who are here for one band only.
The chants of “Through our bleeding, we are one” start long before AFI finally emerge, amongst a sea of dry ice and eerie blue lighting, to utter hysteria. Every voice and fist is raised in unison to the opening ‘Miseria Cantare’, before the ‘Sing The Sorrow’ era brace of ‘Leaving Song Part II’ and ‘Dancing Through Sunday’ whip the floor into a seething, writhing mass of bodies.
In front of such a rabidly partisan crowd, AFI could probably just go through the motions to keep their fans happy; but thankfully, the Californian quartet seem eager to re-assert their presence and musical worth at their first UK show in nearly three years. Whether ripping full-tilt through old favourite ‘Totalimmortal’ or slowing things down for an unexpected but welcome cover of the Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’, AFI are nothing short of thrilling tonight; with live-wire vocalist Davey Havok and bassist Hunter tearing around the stage in their determination to make tonight an event to remember.
The long-term fans in attendance may mourn the lack of the band’s early material – of which only ‘File 13’ and ‘A Single Second’ are aired tonight – but the twisted hardcore of ‘Kill Caustic’ and the stomping rhythm of forthcoming single ‘Miss Murder’ indicate a far more promising future for AFI. Clearly relishing the intimacy of the venue, Davey climbs into the crowd to lead us through the spine-tingling finale of ‘God Called In Sick Today’; and as he stands, silhouetted against the stage lights like a demonic preacher, it’s evident that AFI have not lost their ability to dazzle. When they return in the autumn, kill to be there.
Alex Gosman
[Photo by Will Lewis]