Deftones have announced they will be playing a one off show at Camden’s Electric Ballroom on October 12th, tickets for which go on sale this friday. The band’s new album, Saturday Night Wrist, will be in the shops on October 30th and feature guest slots from Serj Tankian of System Of A Down and Giant Drag’s Annie Hardy.
Plan B has postponed all the dates of his upcoming tour, with no official reason being given as yet. However, all the dates will be rescheduled for January 2007 and it is thought that there will be details of new dates released very soon. The dates that have been postponed are:
September:
29th: Dublin, Spirit
30th: Derry, Nerve Centre
October:
4th: Sheffield, Leadmill
5th: Manchester, Academy 2
6th: Liverpool, Academy
7th: Glasgow, Arches
9th: Leeds, Cockpit
10th: Preston, 53 Degrees
11th: Bristol, Anson Rooms
12th: Cardiff, Solus
14th: London, Shepherds Bush Empire
15th: Birmingham, Academy 2
17th: Southampton University
19th: Norwich, TBC
20th: Cambridge, Junction
21th: Oxford Brookes
Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow made a surprise on-stage appearance at a Jay Z concert this week. The Coldplay frontman and his wife got on stage during Jay Z’s show at the Royal Albert Hall with Paltrow providing the backing vocals to Song Cry.
As reported on Crossfire earlier this week, Chris Martin will be providing a track on the new Jay Z album Kingdom Come.
Make sure you check out the live review of Jay Z’s Wembley show by clicking here!
Morrissey has unveiled the news that he is to collaborate with Ennio Marricone on a piece that will be played in New York’s Carnegie Hall.
It won’t be the first time the two have gotten together, with Morricone doing the string arrangements for the track Dear Gold Please Help Me on Morrissey’s Ringleader Of The Tormentors album. The former Smiths man said:
“For the immediate future I am excited to be asked by Morricone (yes, Morricone) to sing and supply words for one of his musical pieces with a view to presenting this song at Carnegie Hall. Joy, joy, joy.”
Wembley Arena
24.09.06
Jay Z is the greatest mainstream rapper alive. It’s as simple as that. So when he plays a show in London, you know I’m going to be there. Having seen him before, I knew he’d put on a great show, but nothing could have prepared me for what lay ahead. After having seen Kano rep for the UK and then seeing the crowd go crazy for latest up-and-comer Lupe Fiasco, DJ Green Lantern dropped a nice medley of Jigga songs to warm the crowd up before the man himself stepped on the stage with a casual demeanour which was his own way of swaggering.
Joined on stage by his hype man Memphis Bleek, Jay Z belted out What More Can I Say, Hola Hovito, IZZO [Hova], and even dropping AC/DC’s Back In Black as he rapped his huge hit 99 Problems. The crowd was pumped already, enjoying the music and the man himself as he split the arena in two, the people on his left being instructed to say “Jigga What” with us on his right shouting “Jigga Who” as that classic blasted out.
Personal favourite Dirt Off Your Shoulder was followed by Is That Yo Chick, with the Missy Elliott sample firing up even more cheers, and the old classic Can I Get A… brought the house down. Basically, Jay Z’s laid back flow and his calm interaction with the crowd was perfect amongst the pyro and shooting pillars of fire coming out from behind the stage. But something was coming that no-one was ready for and as soon as it happened, the volume was cranked up that bit higher.
Enter Nas. The rapper that famously had beef with Jay Z, but has since patched it up with the man who is now his boss, stepped out on stage and for a second there was silence as no-one could believe their eyes, but soon order was restored and the noise was deafening. If I Ruled The World, Hate Me Now and Made You Look were peppered at the baying thousands, before the highlight of the night happened – Jay and Nas teaming up on Dead Presidents.
After the heartfelt Song Cry, we had another special guest, with Jay Z’s current squeeze Beyoncé stepping to the stage to perform Crazy In Love, gyrating against her man during his verse. With Hard Knock Life gaining a sing-a-long, Jay performed a medley of tracks to celebrate the lives of Tupac, Jam Master Jay, Eazy E, Aaliyah, Left Eye and Biggie and ended with his encore of Big Pimpin’ and Encore. As glitter fell down on the crowd and pyro shot down from the ceiling, Jay Z told a male fan wearing a pink shirt that “you gotta be strong to pull that off”. He is a born entertainer and everyone left the Arena that night knowing that they got one hell of a show.
On Monday October 9th, The Hedrons, in conjunction with their upcoming single I Need You, are going to make history as the first British act to ever host a live virtual concert. They will do it in front of a 3-D social netword in Second Life’s fantasy land.
As they play live in Glasgow, 3-D animated figures of the girls will be playing Second Life’s “Hedro Dome”. The concert will start at 7.30pm and they group will play material from their forthcoming album One More Won’t Kill Us, which is due in 2007.
If you want to check out this virtual gig, all you need to do is register a character at Second Life and download the client, which you can do on PCs and Macs for free. Once you’re in the game, type “The Hedro Dome” in the search field and you’ll be at the venue. The audio from the gig will be streamed live to the band’s website too.
Bonnie Prince Billy will be coming to London in January of 2007 to play 2 special shows at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
The shows will take place on the 26th and 27th of January and will be his first major UK dates since 2005’s Green Man Festival. Tickets are on sale now priced £22 and £22.50.
In other news, it has been announced that Cold And Wet will be the second single from the album The Letting Go and will be put out on November 13th. And there is now an official trailer for the album, which you can check out by clicking the link below.
Cargo
20.09.06
Cargo is busy at the calmest of times, but when I walked into the venue just before Kid Koala stepped on stage, I knew exactly how Japanese commuters feel when they get crammed into their high speed trains. Sardines have more breathing room than this. Soon after DJ Sparky had done his thang, Kid Koala stepped on the stage to huge noise from the crowd as a siren sounded out, beginning what is a rare occurance – A Kid Koala live show in the UK.
I was excited to see what he’d do, seeing as his stuff on record is a lot of fun as he scratches up and jumbles all sorts of samples. His set began with some nice twanging guitars and harmonicas but the problem which carried on throughout the set occurred almost immediately – the bass was far too loud and often covered up the scratching he was doing on stage.
Playing a sample which said “bridging the gaps”, Koala did just that, playing big swampy bluesy numbers and mixing them in with hip hop vocals before his piece de resistance – the blues mosquito. Manipulating his equipment, he made a noise that sounded like a mosquito’s buzz before changing the pitch so it sounded like it was humming the blues. It was original and cool but the music he did it over didn’t fit and it sounded a little bit out of place.
Playing Spank Rock and De La Soul was a big crowd pleaser as was his Skanky Panky track which turned everyone in the crowd into a Jamaican, but still I felt a bit disappointed. He hardly scratched, the mixing sounded a bit lazy and as I said before, the bass blasted out a fair few of the tunes. Still, everyone else in the crowd seemed to be enjoying themselves, so it seems as though Kid Koala can still raise many smiles to many faces.
Count Bass D is set to release his fourth album, Act Your Waist Size, on Fat Beats. The album will feature 20 tracks which will include boom-bap hip hop, instrumentals and even a ballad! You can check out the first two singles to come from the album by right clicking the links below. The album will hit the shops in mid-October.
It’s been almost ten years since The Lemonheads disintegrated post Reading ’97, following frontman Evan Dando’s very public battle with drug addiction, and following a ‘Best of’ release by Atlantic, all went quiet on The Lemonheads front.
But, you can’t keep a good man down. A decade later, Dando is clean, coping with bipolar, and this week sees the much anticipated release of a brand new self titled album on Vagrant/Polydor.
Recorded in seclusion at Allaire Studios, NY, the album brought together two of Dando’s strongest influences, drummer Bill Stevenson (Descendents/Black Flag) and basist Karl Alvarez (Descendents), who along with Dando’s long term Australian colleraborator from Smudge, Tom Morgan, co-wrote an album of melodic, emotive and wonderfully reflective rock. The overall sound is wonderfully familiar, as the saying goes, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
‘Become The Enemy‘ is already a mainstay on their live show, a husky break in Dando’s vocals, that overwhelmed feel to the lyrics adding to the pumped up guitars. J Mascis adds his scuzzy guitars to ‘No Backbone’ and ‘Steve’s Boy’. Other guests include Garth Hudson on keyboards and Josh Lattanzi on ‘Let’s Just Laugh’ adds to pumped up drawling power pop – its the kind of infectious animated and melodic tune that Dando and Co did so well in the 90’s.
It’s almost as thought Dando’s simply been on pause for the last ten years or so, and are back with an album that’s every bit as infectious and endearing at ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’. So often you dread a favourite band’s ‘come back’, but this is a welcome exception. If you were a fan back in the day – you’ll be happy Dando’s stayed true to his sound, and at only 35 minutes long, it’s a short but sweet return to form from Evan Dando. Long may it last.
Catch The Lemonheads on tour in the UK in October.
5th – Norwich, UEA
6th – London, Forum
9th – Leeds, Met University
10th – Oxford, Brookes University
11th – Cambridge, Junction
12th – Liverpool, Carling Academy
14th – Coventry, Coliseum
15th – Nottingham, Rock City
16th – Manchester, Academy 2
17th – Glasgow, ABC
21st – Bristol, Academy
22nd – Wolverhampton, Wulfrun Hall