Heathen Skateboard’s rider Josh Walters has taken over the Get Lesta blog this week with a day of concrete action at Fleckney.
Peep the video below for the radness.
www.heathenskateboards.co.uk
www.getlesta.co.uk
Categories
Author: Dave
Categories
Shred with Shier at CPH
This week, Blueprint’s head hat-wearing honcho Paul Shier takes us on a guided tour round this year’s course at the DVS CPH Pro which blew up in Copenhagen last month.
Expect lot’s of crusing, a little bit of homo-erotic shredding and constant narration from the only person who could get away with talking to himself while skating the park.
Head over here for the clip and see below for a reminder of what went down at the event in Copenhagen a few weeks ago…
Categories
First Aid Kit – Live
with Peggy Sue & Meg Baird
The Garage, London
13.07.2010
Wichita Recordings have covered a lot of ground in the last ten years. Wichita is the colourful phoenix that flew out for the ashes of Creation Records, guided a lovely bearded Welshman that was partly responsible for the signing of some the 90s most incredible acts. Though they began with releasing some of my favourite albums of the decade (Bright Eyes’ ‘Fevers and Mirrors’ and Bloc Party’s ‘Silent Alarm’), it was Dick and Mark’s discovery of two girls from Sweden with stunning voices and an inexplicable talent for melody making, First Aid Kit, that made me actively fly the Wichita flag.
There wasn’t any other choice for who was to headline the ‘folking excellent’ Tueday night in their string of celebrations for the record label’s tenth birthday. New Jersey’s Meg Baird was tremendous and continued to draw attention from NJ’s sore shore rep and point us in the direction of the spectacular and pleasantly haunting music that emerges from the garden state. The folk or ‘anti-soul’ revival was in full-force when Peggy Sue mounted the stage in front of a now-rammed Garage. These were two brilliant sets, but First Aid Kit made me cease to function properly like jeeping shit.
First Aid Kit burst onto the web with an acoustic cover of Fleet Foxes’ ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song‘ in a nearby forest that can only be described as the loveliest viral video ever created. Since then they’ve released an equally lovely EP and a stunning debut that was matched by one of the most heart-warming, awe-filling live performances I’ve seen in some time at Wichita’s birthday feast of folk. They open with ‘Tangerine’, a gentle world-weary and refreshing blowback of Cat Power smoke which lingers like a surprisingly pretty moth as they power into the delicately perfect ‘You’re Not Coming Home Tonight’. They are utterly unaware of their flawlessness and play to us almost as if they we were peer pressured into playing the lonely looking guitar that’s placed against the wall of their bedroom. The Garage isn’t a large venue but it certainly isn’t small, and to render the entire crowd fully silent during an entirely unplugged rendition of ‘Ghost Town‘ speaks volumes about their natural talent that doesn’t require any further lexical amplification.
Of course their Fleet Foxes’ cover proved favourable with a perpetually beaming crowd but the highlight was a foot-stomping march through melody and powerful choruses in ‘Own Our Pretty Ways‘. They’ve come a long way from recording inconspicuous videos in forests and regardless of their admirable ‘aim for the hearts, not for the charts!’ motto, could very easily win the love from both.
Stanley
California’s Avenged Sevenfold have announced that they will be embarking on a co-headline tour of the UK with Stone Sour in October and November.
The band who were recently voted 2nd best band in the world by Ultimate Guitar Magazine are very excited to return to the UK. Gutiarist Zacky Vengence commented ‘you have been warned’.
Their fifth studio album, ‘Nightmare‘, will be released on July 26th.
They will be playing the following dates…
26th October – Glasgow SECC
27th October – Manchester Academy
28th October – Birmingham NIA
30th October – Hammersmith Apollo
2nd November – Newcastle 02 Academy
3rd November – Leeds 02 Academy
4th November – Manchester Academy
6th November – Plymouth Pavilion
7th November – Brighton Centre
Destructo Trucks have posted some exclusive new footage of the inconspicuous east coast killer Jake Johnson.
Can anyone switch wallride as good as this guy? Wonderful stuff…
Categories
Plan B Vamdals
Felipe Gustavo and Scott Decenzo are under spotlight here as Plan B’s Am team are accused of disgustingly good skateboarding.
The new Plan B promo, ‘Vamdalism‘ dropped online today and is a fine example of how fast skateboarding is progressing and how more baffled the rest of us can be made watching it.
It’s 2010 and tricks are becoming too difficult to become trends. Woah.
Categories
Element – Get Busy Living
In the past year Element have gone from strength to strength; the online release of Trio gave skateboarders an unexpected tour de rad from three of their most ‘proper’ skateboarders. That is to say that none of them have ever had to politic-tac their way out of a bad reputation for their activities outside of skateboarding. Why this was unexpected didn’t surprise me too much, even if Element have consistently provided skateboarders with excellent hard goods and above average videos it’s always cool to turn your nose up on the big guys. But for people to still be surprised when the Europe-based Get Busy Living exploded on the web (for free, again) that Element were capable of something so worthy of reaching for that rewind button (or for our generation, awkwardly finding the exact spot on the timeline of the stream and failing but not complaining because the whole section was bonkers), is beyond me.
Let’s just look at the roster for the Euro team: Michael Mackrodt, Janne Saario, Ross McGouran, Marcus Apes, Pirkka Pollari – all are names associated with very good things, maybe one or two funny looking hats but nothing more. The hype machine for this video should have, theoretically, exploded into a cataclysmic fireball throwing shards of excitement into everyone. Hopefully, with this and Trio combined, everyone can expect more gems like this in the future – these were both free, don’t forget.
Talking about what’s in the video itself is essentially redundant given the obviously amazing content, whatever I say is guaranteed to be filled with hive mind commentary. The skating is otherworldly. Marcus doesn’t hesitate to make heads explode with one particular 5-0 grind that’s probably better than any other. His ender is a bed-shitter too so watch out. Phil Zwijsen does some late shoves and fullpipe airwalks to a heft cover of Prodigy’s Fuel My Fire. Ross McGouran has more board control than more or less everyone in the continent. Pirkka has a disgustingly good section, Janne Saario’s first trick (or line on two wheels) is impossible even in video games and Mackrodt dances on ledges and skates mammoth spots. And to close, Guillaume Mocquin get’s hesh and if that isn’t proper then I don’t know what is. The gap to backlip aint nothing to fuck with.
Basically, it’s one of the sickest videos (not online video, not DVD but all encompassing video) to drop in a very long time and that’s exactly what everyone else who’s seen it is saying. The filming is perfectly framed, and HD looks so encouragingly awesome when it’s not subject to an editor who’s a little too liberal with the slow-motion. The colours, man, everything looks sublime.
You can watch the video online, in HD for free below. Let’s shut the door on politics and welcome radness with open arms.
Stanley
Element Skateboads Europe – Get Busy Living from ELEMENT SKATEBOARDS on Vimeo.
Categories
Vessels – Live
with These Monsters
Lexington, London
12.07.10
Despite liking my fair share of post-rock, it’s a genre that has a lot of very boring bands. While the Explosions in the Sky template of long songs with big climaxes might have been exciting once upon a time, the huge numbers of bands offering only slight variations on this formula leave much to be desired. Although some of these bands are noticeably better than others, there’s only so much excitement I can gain from another nine minutes of tremolo picking concluding in another swirling crescendo climax.
Thankfully tonight’s bill is free of any such predictability. I have to say, when Leeds’ These Monsters appear on stage wielding a saxophone I begin to fear the worst, yet somehow they manage to break one of rock music’s golden rules and are great in spite of it. There’s something about the overdriven guitars and jazzy brass that doesn’t sit well together, but These Monsters’ sax player overcomes this by screaming into the instruments mouth. It’s a short and engaging set that while difficult to pigeonhole, avoids sounding like a mish mash of disjointed ideas.
Next up are headline band Vessels, who are a breath of fresh air in terms of post-rock; writing songs with strong composition, varied song structures and excellent all-round musicianship. Stripped down slightly since I last saw them (now with just the one drum kit on stage), the band are back with a set of all new material which the crowd are only too happy to feast on. Fans of 2008’s White Fields and Open Devices shouldn’t be disappointed, as Vessels retain their knack for creating music as intricate as it can be vast. Even as band members swap around instruments at will, they appear air tight working their way around complex riffs and arrangements.
As well as streamlining their percussion, the band has also removed the few vocals that littered the band’s debut. This seems a sensible and positive move, as I’m sure the band would admit they have no great vocalist among their ranks and are much better off sticking to their instruments. While this might reduce any crossover potential the band might have had, by focussing their sound they stand more of a chance of being aligned with the likes of Mogwai, who carry the torch for post-rock success in the UK. If any band deserves to follow in their footsteps, then Vessels have made a very good case tonight.
Sleekly Lion
Categories
Violent Soho in the studio
Brisbane four-piece Violent Soho have posted footage of what the happenings are during the making of their new self-titled album.
The album is out on August 2nd, and you can have a look at the studio video diaries just down there on this very page. There’s three of them and each one is packed with everything you could imagine would happen when the cameras are turned on an Australian band in Wales. Not too sure what that this exactly but rest-assured these videos are full of it.
Categories
Big Boi
Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty
Def Jam
www.bigboi.com
Outkast have always been boundary pushers both with their music and their attire, though the limelight always seems to shine on Andre 3000, thanks in no small part to the huge success of Hey Ya. But for that one track of Andre’s, Big Boi had Ghettomusick, he had The Way You Move and he had The Rooster. So when his long-awaited album finally dropped, it was always going to be huge. Nothing could quite have prepared me for just how good it is though – a fun rap album with huge beats, great guest appearances and the smiling-swagger of Big Boi firmly in the foreground.
The early appearance of long-time collaborator Sleepy Brown on Turns Me On gets proceedings going with a simple keyboard melody and backing chords before the first really huge track comes in. Normally a guest vocal from a band that seems to be some kind of Gym Class Heroes-lite group would have me reaching for the skip button, but somehow Antwan Patton makes it work with some boom bap drums and another simple melody. That’s why the beats on this record work so well, they’re not too dense, but they pack a punch and are the ultimate in sing-a-long-ability, and from Follow Us [“Before the fame I was the shit and now I’m just big, y’dig?”] the energy ramps up even further.
Shutterbug is going to be a staple hip hop club track in years to come, alongside Dead Prez’s Hip Hop, Joe Budden’s Pump It Up and anything Snoop or Dre put out in the late 90s, Scott Storch’s production is just what Big Boi needs to go in on and it’s followed by General Patton, which features fast-paced hi-hats, squashed horns and a handclap snare, the definition of a banger if ever there was one. Following that might not be easy but the Andre 3000 produced You Ain’t No DJ featuring my favourite new rapper Yelawolf [who states “Yeah you might be famous so what? I bet you can’t hitch that semi up to this tow-truck”] is just what Southern Rap should be.
There is no let up as the record nears its end either, Fo Yo Sorrows managing to bring together George Clinton and Too $hort in perfect harmony, Night Night which is the most Outkast sounding song on the record reminiscent of ‘Morris Brown’ from the Idlewild soundtrack and ending with a track featuring Gucci Mane. Big Boi has put together a record that was a long, long time in coming [and not without its problems] but was well worth the wait. Quite possibly the album of the year right here. Bangers.
Abjekt