The world’s best hip hop festival is back once again and the Rhymesayers guys behind the Soundset have dropped a preview video for the event which takes place in Minnesota on May 29th.
Taking in tunes from De La, Atmosphere, Big Boi and more, the visuals by the homey Adam Garcia come to life and make our resident rap fan Abjekt very excited. As per usual, Crossfire will be there to report on what’s going down.
Remind yourselves what went down last year by clicking right here.
Influenced by progressive and psychedelic sounds of the 70’s from bands such as Arthur Lee’s Love mixed with the electronic, sampled sounds of Radiohead, Here We Go Magic are about to set off on a new journey and could well be one of the most talked about bands of 2011.
Based in Brooklyn, New York, this 5-piece signed to Secretly Canadian (home of Yeasayer, Suuns, Antony and the Johnsons and many more) have been courted by Snow Patrol and signed to their publishing company this month ahead of their new album scheduled for release this summer. Get hold of a copy of their most recent EP that was released this January, aptly titled the January EP and discover Luke Temple’s amazing songwriting and musical prowess for yourself before the masses claim it was theirs.
For fans of Radiohead, Animal Collective, Yeasayer, Body Language..
The Isle of White has produced a gem lately that should be heard. Welcome to the world of The Shutes, a 3-piece who have a laid back sound that will be buzzing in your ears this summer.
The band met filmer Henry Edwards-Wood a couple of months ago and shot this new promo for forthcoming single Noah’s Ark that will be released on Cross Keys Records on June 20th. Watch his first music video with the band here and find them on Facebook.
Hevy Fest have announced more bands to appear on their line-up for this year’s event.
The Festival, which takes place on August 5th-8th has already announced Four Year Strong, Funeral For A Friend and The Ghost Of A Thousand [their last ever show, sob sob] and these bands will be joined by:
Trash Talk (the band performed their first ever festival appearance at Hevy last year)
OFF! (with Keith Morris from Black Flag)
Title Fight
The Xcerts
While She Sleeps
More Than Life
Me Vs Hero
Arcane Roots
Don’t you dare miss it.
DJ extraordinaire Z-Trip has put together a free 23 minute Beastie Boys mix in preparation for the NYC trio dropping their new album.
Mixing up stuff from the new album and old classics, it’s the perfect way to kick off any day, so head over to Z-Trip’s Bandcamp page and download it!
Plus it gives us another chance to watch the awesome Make Some Noise video!
It seems like Raekwon releases videos every other day, just like his albums, but this is definitely worth a watch.
Harking back to the days when Wu Tang first burst onto the scene, the beat on Butter Knives is killer and The Chef’s vocals are as potent as ever. Kick back and enjoy!
Raekwon – Butter Knives from LRG on Vimeo.
Fugazi fans will be stoked to learn that the band are currently trawling thorugh archived live recordings from shows all over the world whilst they were still an active touring band for release online. The band have recently agreed a deal with Spotify to finally stream the Dischord catalogue and Ian Mackaye was quoted a zine called Frontman Ian Mackaye told blog Approaching Oblivion:
“I wanted it to be up last fall … We had to digitise every show, they are on cassette and DAT for the most part. So we got that stuff done. Now we’re in the process of mastering all the shows so they play at the same volume. That stage is not too hard, it’s pretty mechanical, there’s a mastering program that does most of the work. Then we have to edit the shows which means we have to put in index points in between every song so they are not these two hour long files. It’s a fuck of a lot of work. We’re hoping it will be up in the near future. The idea at the moment is to start it with 100 shows. Then put 20 more on every month or something. We’re still building the site, it’s an interesting and complicated process“.
He also replied to the question we all want to know about if Fugazi will get back for another album in the future or more shows. He said:
“The four of us love each other dearly. We didn’t break up, I coined the indefinite hiatus term specifically because I thought it was absurd to break up. It is entirely possible that we will play again and it’s also possible that we won’t. We’ve been offered an insane amount of money to play reunions, but it’s not going to be money that brings us back together, we would only play music together if we wanted to play music together and the time allowed it“.
Fingers crossed they come back as they in our eyes one of the all time greats.
This Sunday we will be at the Barfly for our evening of party goodness at the Gaymers Camden Crawl and will be expecting a night full of tunes and live bands from 6pm. The venue will be open all day of course if you are planning to get amongst the daytime entertainment but our evening line up is looking pretty tasty and can now be released so here’s what we have planned for you.
Live Schedule upstairs at the Barfly:
8.20pm – HOLY STATE – visit www.myspace.com/holystate – Traveling from Leeds and signed to Dance to the Radio, this angular, post punk 4-piece should please fans of Hot Snakes and Jesus Lizard. Don’t miss them as they give a great live show and will be a band you will hear much more about this year.
9.25pm – DELS – visit www.myspace.com/imdels Signed to Big Dada Records (offshoot of Ninja Tune) DELS is an MC who pushes what he can say with words as hard as he can and combines it with a really adventurous attitude towards music. His debut album ‘GOB’ is released on Monday so this should be quite a party!
10.30pm – CEREBRAL BALLZY – visit www.myspace.com/cerebralballzy Our headliners are set to take the roof off the Barfly in true hardcore style. The Brooklyn based punk 5-piece play fast, skate punk that Bad Brains and first album Suicidal Tendencies fans will be proud to hear so expect total mayhem!
DJ Schedule, downstairs at the Barfly
6pm-9pm: CROSSFIRE SOUND SYSTEM with Zac Slack and James Sherry. Expect a mixed bag of punk rock, psych-garage, stoner and classic alternative and indie tracks.
9pm-11.15pm: SWEET DREAMS DJs. Returning for more since last year’s Camden Crawl these 2 ladies who know their dirty hip hop and also love a party classic!
11.15pm-12.30pm: The CROSSFIRE SOUND SYSTEM will be charging on all fronts with mash up, rock and punk classics once Cerebral Ballzy take your ears off. Expect a sing-a-long.
12.30-2am: RITA MAIA. West London’s electronic slayer will be dropping Hip Hop, Drum n Bass and dubstep hammers until close at 2am.
SEE YOU THERE!
Flavor Flav will not have his name attached for a Fried Chicken restaurant any more.
In a move which will no doubt break hearts of millions around the world, the Public Enemy hype man will now not be lending his name to the Iowan Flav’s Fried Chicken, which opened four months ago. Reports of unpaid staff meant the restaurant was under the microscope from the off, though Nick Cimino, the co-founder, claimed it was due to a “credit card glitch”.
Flav won’t be out of the food game for long though as he plans to open Flavor Flav’s House Of Flavor in Vegas, saying that Cimino wasn’t running the business currently, though Cimino said “I’m just glad I’m free of somebody like Flavor Flav”.
At least Flav won’t have trouble getting to work on time, right?
Is Snoop going to play the Royal Wedding?
Whilst it’s far-fetched, some whisperings are saying the Doggfather might join the London Chamber Orchestra at Friday’s wedding, after his outrageous claim of attendance last year.
The LCO conductor has refused to confirm or deny anything so we’re just going to go ahead and imagine how awesome it would be for Snoop to be up there giving his all in a diamond-encrusted Adidas sweatsuit. Awesome.
Do we care about the Royal Wedding? No. Do we care about it if Snoop is there? Hmmmmm maybe, yeah. Imagine if he dropped this one for Prince Willy…