Tuesday 10th May 2011 will see a tantalising bill of Hip Hop royalty at the HMV Apollo venue in Hammersmith. The line-up for this once-in-a- lifetime show is a roll call of hip hop’s finest ever and most intelligent talent.
For one night only BlackStar’s Mos Def and Talib Kweli reunite in the UK for the first time since 1999. De La Soul bring their snappy brand of old skool cool to the fore and Rakim – widely respected as one of the best rappers of all time – completes the line-up for this exclusive show.
We had a rad time at Hevy Fest last year and this year looks set to compete with a line-up that shows great potential for another fun weekend packed with great music.
Back in Port Lympne in Kent, at the Wild Animal Park, Saturday night will be co-headlined by The Dillinger Escape Plan and Architects. Dillinger aren’t even doing any other European festivals this summer. NONE! The rest of the line-up is looking like this so far:
The Dillinger Escape Plan (European Festival Exclusive), Architects (co-headline), Bouncing Souls, We Are The Ocean, Zebrahead, Capdown, Ceremony (UK Festival Exclusive), Polar Bear Club, Your Demise, Rise To Remain, Touche Amore (UK Festival Exclusive), La Dispute (UK Festival Exclusive), November Coming Fire, Awaken Demons (UK Festival Exclusive), Man Overboard, Lemuria, Brutality Will Prevail, Spycatcher, Death Is Not Glamorous, Rot In Hell, Polar, Cheap Girls, Heart In Hand, Hang The Bastard and Hildamay.
Weekend camping tickets are priced at £89 and will include free entry to Port Lympne Wild Animal Park for the weekend. Tickets will be available online from www.hevy.co.uk / 0843 221 0100 / and from selected HMV stores across the UK.
Probably worth it for Dillinger, Architects, Ceremony, Polar Bear Club, Touche Amore and La Dispute alone. OK, that’s quite a lot already. Roll on the announcement of the rest of the 80 band strong bill!
Tommy Guerrero put the street skate into the Powell Peralta days whilst Tony Hawk and the the rest of the Bones Brigade were keeping vert skating nice and neat and since then Tommy has carved out one of the best skateboarding companies in Real Skateboards and is also a musician who loves a jam. Here’s his latest work, a track titled Nomadic Static from the album Lifeboats & Follies released on Galaxia Records that is out now and also available to stream on Spotify.
This latest video was directed by Greg Hunt known for his amazing skate video productions such as last year’s Dylan Reider short for Gravis, AWS/Mind Field, The DC Video and Sight Unseen.
The Black Angels are back with a new video for their song Haunting at 1300 McKinley, a track lifted from their 3rd album Phosphene Dream that was inspired by a real ghost in an apartment they lived in, in Austin, Texas from 2004-2007.
“We’ve also seen several on Civil War battlefields and at the Alamo,” boast the band. “At Gettysburg we heard rifle fire and cannon fire. We saw old lanterns dangling from trees in the distance. Up a tower, we saw a Union soldier slam his face against one of the windows; blood splattered everywhere and one of his eyeballs was dangling, then he disappeared.”
The video for “Haunting at 1300 McKinley” was shot in Paris, France, and was directed by Phillip Andelman, whose previous work includes videos by Rihanna (“What’s My Name”), Band of Horses (“Dilly”), The Jonas Brothers (“Lovebug”). He did this video purely out of love for the band. Watch it here and look out for the single release on Blue Horizon Records on March 28th.
Beastie Boys fans will be stoked to hear that the boys will be back to release their new album Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2 in May this year. The record was put back in 2009 due to Adam Yauch’s cancer condition which has got better but MCA is not confirmed as being out of the woods on that front just yet.
The track list for the album is below and for now you can check out the track with NAS called ‘Too Many Rappers‘.
‘Tadlock’s Glasses’
‘B-Boys In The Cut’
‘Make Some Noise’
‘Nonstop Disco Powerpack’
‘OK’
‘Too Many Rappers’ (feat. Nas)’
‘Say It’
‘The Bill Harper Collection’
‘Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win’ feat. Santigold
‘Long Burn The Fire’
‘Funky Donkey’
‘Lee Majors Come Again’
‘Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament’
‘Pop Your Balloon’
‘Crazy Ass Shit’
‘Here’s a Little Something For Ya’
Tubelord are pareparing a new album in Bristol right now and have released a new video for track Bazel to the web this week that you need to hear.
The band that captured our attention throughout 2010 enough to be featured in our interview section have reformed with original members Joseph Prendergast (guitar/vocals) and David Catmur (drums/vocals) being joined by Tom Coulson Smith (bass) and James Elliot Field (keys).
You can Help a Brother Out and pre order their new album from this very link. Fans will be able to receive a deluxe package of the album once it’s finished so click thorugh and see what they have in store for your support.
The Kills have announced new UK tour dates this week and will be on the road throughout the end of May and early June 2011. Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart will hit the road to promote new album ‘Blood Pressures‘ scheduled for release on 4th April via Domino Records. Check out the new video for new single Satellite available for online purchase on 28th March.
Here are those tour dates:
27 May: Manchester, Central Methodist Hall
28 May: Newcastle, Evolution Festival
29 May: Glasgow, ABC
31 May: Leeds, Met Uni
1 Jun: Oxford, Academy
2 Jun: Bristol, Anson Rooms
3 Jun: Roundhouse, London
Sonic Youth’s vocalist and guitar slayer Thurston Moore will be releasing his fourth solo album ‘Demolished Thoughts’ on 23 May.
The new record has been produced by on Matador produced by the one and only Beck Hansen, yep, the very same that released Loser all those years back. The album titled ‘Demolished Thoughts‘ also includes previous collaborator Samara Lubelski on violin and Kurt Vile’s some-time harpist Mary Lattimore and will be releasd through Matador Records.
Having released his debut album Lights Out Paris in 2005, it took a good while for Sims to bring out the follow-up but it was most definitely worth the wait. Bad Time Zoo is 14 track record full of cutting lyrics which range from the apathy of modern society to the simple fact that the MC loves his girlfried all layered over supremely powerful production from Lava Banger creator Lazerbeak.
Opening up as he means to go on, the Minneapolis rapper claiming that we “dropped the borders but we kept them walls” and being “so close I could almost see your breath / but so far I can’t hear your words” before lamenting the so-called “time of plenty” whilst all the while feeling like something is missing.
It’s a theme that runs through the album but never once falls into the preaching category, which is a testament to the ability of Sims’ lyrics, who despite all the problems we face implores us to “drop that cynicism” on Weight. Listening to these beats, that task doesn’t seem quite so difficult.
Relying more on his own talent than bringing in scores of guests, Sims does relent on Too Much by having P.O.S. giving his take on a near-disasterous road accident. Far from taking away from Sims, it simply goes to show how talent the Doomtree camp are as both mould their flows over the beat in their own inimitable style.
It’s impossible to pick a stand-out track on the record, such is the quality of the output – every time the play button is pressed, a new favourite presents itself. Suffice to say it’s worth multiple plays, so that every layer of the rap patchwork can get its time to shine, something it does brighter than ever.
The production is similarly tight all the way through the album from the horn led melody of Burn It Down to the dub-influenced, piano sampling LMG, the heavy drums of The Veldt and In My Sleep to the scratched vocal samples in Radio Opaque. Lazerbeak has one-upped himself once again, providing the perfect backdrop for his crew mate. The beats fit the rapper and the rapper’s flow fits the production, it’s rare that this happens over such a consistent period of time, yet that’s what you get on Bad Time Zoo.
Whether you’re into rap bangers or introspective backpack tunes, you need to check out this album. Doomtree just get better and better and with this latest release, Sims announces himself as a bonafide king. Absolutely brilliant.
See for yourself by listening [and then supporting great independent music by buying] here.
Back in 1992 a wonderful punk rock record hit Rough Trade Records called Kerplunk by a little 3 piece punk band called Green Day. It was their 2nd album on Lookout! Records and the band had that cheeky pop punk sound down backed up by amazing songs and 3 characters to back it all up.
They flew over to the UK, picked up a shitty van and played Euston Rails to about 100 people for their first UK show. The band then released the album Dookie in 1994, that catapulted their popularity overnight. Their next visit to London saw these punks play the Garage in Highbury where they joined us for a skate and we all enjoyed wall ride session on the banks outside the Highbury court rooms. From there, the band became known in the mainstream, hit radio playlists, did a Nirvana and went on to headline Wembley in 2010.
The success for this band has been tremendous and success can only be measured by what mistakes band’s make along the way. They managed to get so carried away with their notoriety that they decided to become part of ‘American Idiot‘ – the Green Day Musical, probably someone else’s dream to make some wedge that they signed up to. This Broadway show grossed over $1.3 million but it turns out that singer Billie Joe Armstrong left the show this month and ticket sales have now plummeted by as much as a million dollars, damn.
“Welcome to Paradise” Billie, you jerk. We are glad you woke up.
Tuesday 10th May 2011 will see a tantalising bill of Hip Hop royalty at the HMV Apollo venue in Hammersmith. The line-up for this once-in-a- lifetime show is a roll call of hip hop’s finest ever and most intelligent talent. 
