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Music Music News

Less Than Jake Talk New Material


Less Than Jake have announced they will perform new material at this weekend’s Reading & Leeds Festivals when they play the Lock Up Tent. Lyricist/Drummer Vinnie Fiorello comments:

“Reading was our first ever show in the UK and it always holds top spots for our favorite festival to play. We are beyond humbled to be able to continue to play such a legendary festival.”

The Ska-punk bands forthcoming album has been named as Greetings and Salutations, with a released date set for an October 15th via Rude Records. The first single, “Goodbye Mr Personality” is available now and you can watch the video below.

In addition to their R&L performances the band will also take to the stage at the Vans Warped Tour UK as well as a small UK tour prior to that show. The dates are as follows:

NOVEMBER
(w/ New Found Glory, Man Overboard, The Story So Far)
4th Nottingham Rock City
5th Manchester Academy
6th Leeds University
7th Glasgow Barrowland
9th Cardiff University Great Hall
10th London Alexandra Palace – Vans Warped Tour UK (Featuring Lostprophets, Bring Me The Horizon and many more)


Words: Emma Wallace

Categories
Features Music

Must See Shows: August 2012


Not only does August host some of this year’s best festival line ups, there are plenty of gigs going on too. Here is the lowdown from Crossfire HQ on what dates to put in your diary and who to see over the coming month:

Deez Nuts

7 SECONDS

Hardcore legends 7 SECONDS are in the UK for the Winter Gardens festival in Blackpool and a show in Leeds this Saturday at the Brudenell Social Club with Agnostic Front, but Monday’s show at the Underworld in Camden with Madball should be killer.

DEEZ NUTS
Combining Hip-Hop with hardcore, Deez Nuts are a one crazy band to see live. They are also the sort of band you will either love or hate but in their own words, they ‘Don’t give a Mother-Fuck!’.
2nd Club Revolution & District 7 –Peterborough, 3rd Hevy Festival – Kent, 5th The Venue (formerly Krash) – Newcastle, 6th The George Inn – Andover, 7th Hobos – Bridgend

FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND
Now joined by ex-Rise To Remain drummer Pat Lundy, Funeral For A Friend are playing a couple dates over August to subtly remind everyone that they are one of the UK’s best live acts.
2nd Sub89 – Reading, 3rd The Pavillion – Weymouth

GRIZZLY BEAR
Grizzly Bear are one of the most experimental indie bands out there at the moment. Fusing a whole load of different instruments (including banjo, keyboards, omnichord and glockenspiel) with electronics this Brooklyn based band are sure to put on a mesmerizing performance.
28th The Junction – Cambridge, 29th The Albert Hall – Nottingham

HEAD AUTOMATICA
The pop/rock n roll side project of Glassjaw’s Daryl Palumbo should be on everyone’s guilty pleasures list. The band haven’t been over to our shores in goodness knows how long and with some pure pop genius they will definitely get the crowds dancing.
5th Cellar – Southampton, 6th Relentless Garage – London, 7th Sound Control – Manchester, 8th Garage – Glasgow, 10th Rescue Rooms – Nottingham

HEVY
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a bit excited about Hevy, the line up is unbelievable. Be sure to party hard with Andrew W.K. on the Saturday night and check out what other bands we recommend catching here.
3rd – 5th Port Lympe – Kent

Polar Bear Club

POLAR BEAR CLUB
As well as an appearance at Reading & Leeds, the brilliantly named Polar Bear Club squeeze in a London date in at the end of the month. For fans of Small Brown Bike, Third Eye Blind, Silent Majority, Hot Water Music and Lifetime. The tour continues into September with support coming from the exquisite Into It. Over It.
24th Leeds Festival, 26th Reading Festival, 31st Borderline – London

RADFEST
Presented by SEXBEAT and Nudie Jeans Co this years festival has expanded to a secret warehouse complex in Hackney after selling out in previous years. The prospect of Ceremony, a Poster Roast exhibition and a Kristina Records pop up store all in close proximity sounds mouth watering to us.
19th Hackney Down Studios – Hackney

READING & LEEDS
The Cure, Gallows, The Gaslight Anthem, Enter Shikari, A Wilhelm Scream, Alt-J, Cancer Bats, Mastodon, At The Drive-In, Every Time I Die, Pure Love, Anti-Flag, Trash Talk… Don’t need to say much else really. Oh other than there will be a whole load of awesome newcomers to watch on the BBC Introducing Stage.
24th – 26th Reading & Leeds

YOUR DEMISE
Having put out a record that divided fans earlier this year, Your Demise are back on the road to promote said album ‘The Golden Age’ on the ‘Golden Monster Tour’. The YD boys always put on a good show and with these being some of their most intimate dates of late its sure as hell going to get sweaty. Support comes from the ever promising Last Witness (Holy Roar Records).
13th Sub89 – Reading, 14th The Mill Arts Centre – Rayleigh, 15th Waterfront – Norwich, 16th Club Revolution, Peterborough

WORDS: EMMA WALLACE

Categories
Features Music

Introducing: Proxies


Not many underground bands have such a buzzing hype around them as UK newcomers Proxies do, and what’s more, it’s well deserved. Proxies are one of those bands who have turned their passion into something tangible through hard work and dedication, actually getting off their arses and doing something rather than waiting for the industry to fall into the palms of their hands.

Producing records in their bedrooms, recording vocals under bunk beds, relentlessly networking and gaining the right contacts has put the band in a promising position at the start of their career. We catch up with keyboard player/programmer/vocalist/general-busy-body Jordan Fish to find out more…

Hey Jordan! First off can you explain how the formation of Proxies come about?

Kind of by accident in that we never planned to be a band. I had begun exploring electronic music with a couple of friends, who way more talented than I, mostly for fun but also to see them in action and learn from them. I knew Joe from college and it turned out he was doing something sonically similar around the time and suggested working on a song together. So we did. Then we worked on some more. Alex lives down the road from my parents and I asked him if he could play the songs so we could try and reproduce them in a live environment, we tried them a couple of times in Joe’s university house and had fun with it. We didn’t ever expect to play live, so when a couple of our friends that liked our music asked us to support them at a few shows, we were a little on the spot. I asked my friend Josh to play bass live for us, he played in a band I’d actually stumbled across via YouTube a while back. He added some vocals in rehearsal and as officially joined a couple of months later. A little while after that I think we realised we were a band.

Proxies Live

Proxies mix many different styles and genres together, what artists have influenced Proxies?

So many. Each of us have such a wide variety of influences that when you include all of our influences together it begins to sound ridiculous. I think we’d all agree on artists like Brand New, Manchester Orchestra, Muse and Daft Punk being amongst the most influential. I know Joe listens to a lot of pop punk, particularly that New Jersey pop punk kind of sound and we share a lot of favourite bands. I listen to a lot of electronic music lately, but mostly am a rock music fan at core which might explain our sound a little. As a rule I could say everything Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen work on is golden, the first Panic! At The Disco record is a masterpiece and Katy Perry‘s singles are only ever the best pop songs… I don’t know if that’s relevant.

Considering Proxies are a relatively new band you have toured with some high profile artists and worked with big names such as Sean Smith & Gareth McGrillen. What has led to your involvement with these credible acts so soon in your career?

We had to pay them one million pounds in hookers and drugs and cash and sexual favours. We got the cash by selling our insides to The Church Of Scientology. Not really. Our band has been really fortunate that super talented people have taken us under their wing and helped us out. Gareth has been a friend for a while and liked what we were doing. Gareth introduced me to Sean a while before our band started and the feature came naturally – we all knew each other and Gareth and I were kind of on the same brainwave with the song and both had Sean in mind to do the additional vocal on it and kind of mentioned it to each other at the same time. Gareth is the nicest dude on the planet and we wouldn’t be where we are now without his help.

You have created an impressive online following and are well known for networking with fans via social media. But the internet often comes under fire with regards to illegal downloading. Do you think the internet is the future or the demise of the music industry?

The music industry is changing a lot, so in that respect the internet probably does bring about the demise of the old model. That said, our band would not exist at all without the internet. That’s really simple. It has been how people discover our music, how we’ve distributed music, how we keep people that care about our band informed on what we are doing. Beyond word-of-mouth and the little touring we have done, it has been the only form of communication we have had. Online merch orders have come in from Chile to Argentina to all corners of the US and Australia. Those people will only know about our band because of the internet. YouTube makes an almost level-playing-field for the discovery of music and great undiscovered content goes viral every day thanks to sites like Reddit. So it is the demise of an old model but it is also the future of the industry. The faster bands (and labels) can adapt to the internet generation instead of trying to control and dictate it, the quicker that will be realised I think.

‘Lost Tapes Volume 1’ epitomizes a DIY attitude to music by self producing the EP and hand-making the physical copies. What are your thoughts on the EP now that it’s complete and out there for people to hear?

I’m really glad we did it. The response has been overwhelming. To hear people singing along at shows to songs we wrote and recorded in our bedrooms is really strange and makes us even more proud of it.

'Lost Tapes Volume 1'

It seems Proxies never stop working! Do you have plans to release new material anytime soon?

Yes! We started working straight away on a sequel to the free EP, which we are recording in our bedrooms and producing ourselves once again. It will be released in the next few weeks. We have also been working for a while with back with Gareth and another producer Andy Gray on an official release. So that’s on the way too.

Selling out physical copies of your EP in seconds and being announced for Reading & Leeds are impressive achievements, how does it make you feel?

I am convinced it is a big elaborate prank that one of my friends has planned and everybody is in on the joke. It definitely has just crept up on us and been a huge surprise. We’re all a little bit shocked but determined to try and make the best of it.

So finally, after an impressive start, where do you see Proxies in 5 years time?

Haha, wow. Hopefully we will have put an album out properly. I’d like to be able to perform a headline tour too. But I don’t even know what we’ll be doing in 5 months time, 5 years is such a huge scale. Maybe Joe will be working on a solo experimental acapella folk punk album and Alex will be trying his hand at movies. Maybe people will say they liked us better when we recorded EPs in our bedrooms and struggled to survive, before we sold out and recorded in one of those “mainstream recording studios”. Or maybe nobody will care. Regardless, I like to think we’ll still be making music.

Make sure you check out Proxies at their up coming UK dates and of course at this years Reading & Leeds festival.

WORDS: EMMA WALLACE

Categories
Features Music Preview

READING & LEEDS: MUST SEE BANDS – BBC INTRODUCING STAGE

BBC Introducing Stage, Reading & Leeds 2012

As always Reading & Leeds has an impeccably strong line up. Headliners The Cure, Kasabian and Foo Fighters are joined by numerous big names across several stages including Cancer Bats, At The Drive-In, The Gaslight Anthem, Enter Shikari, The Maccabees, Every Time I Die… The list goes on! But for those who are more interested in finding some fresh blood, the recently announced BBC Introducing is the place to be.

33 up and coming bands have been selected by various BBC Radio Introducing shows and the festival promoters Festival Republic. We’ve handpicked our favourites below with the full stage line up as follows: Attention Thieves, Backyards, Bearfoot Beware, Black Moth, Crooked Tongues, Cut Ribbons, Danica Hunter, Dear Prudence, Dingus Khan, Empror & Duppy Beatz, Escape To New York, Escapists, The Establishment, Family of the Year, Fish Tank, Glassbody, Hawk Eyes, Hildamay, Ifan Dafydd, Lady Lykez, Marmozets, Marsicans, Max Raptor, Mikill Pane, Park Bench Society, Proxies, Rachel Sermanni, Samoans, Sarah Williams White, Seasfire, Wet Nuns, We Walk On Ice, We Were Frontiers.

Proxies:

After selling out physical copies of their EP ‘The Lost Demos’ in a matter of minutes, having toured with the likes of Hadouken! and Canterbury, releasing a single featuring The Blackout’s Sean Smith, and, with over 16,000 followers on Facebook is a bit of a surprise that Proxies are on Reading & Leeds smallest stage! Well we can assure you they won’t be there for long, watch this electric young band up close and personal while you still can!

Hawk Eyes:

Describing their debut album as, “sleek and modern and hardcore and suitably post-post-everything,” and themselves as, “Band, four people, Leeds, riffs, spend a lot of time in a van,” Hawk Eyes are a no frills, yet exceptionally fun, British rock band. We can guarantee that Hawk Eyes won’t be playing these smaller stages for much longer so catch their intimate set while you can…

Samoans:

Samoans are masters of the fretboard. Their distinctive brand of progressive math-rock draws influence from the legendary Reuben and Maps & Atlases. The raw emotion in the vocals is comparable to early Biffy Clyro, making Samoans are compelling and intense live band.

We Walk On Ice:

After featuring on Fred Perry’s Subculture ‘Best New Music’ section and filling out some of London’s coolest venues, We Walk On Ice are one of those buzz bands that you need to catch. Renowned for surf-pop-soundscapes, We Walk On Ice are the perfect accompaniment to a British summers day (weather permitting).

Attention Thieves:

Born in the vibrant Reading music scene, Attention Theives combine straight forward rock with some gutsy punk spirit. You may recognize front man Alex Green from tech-metal band The Arusha Accord, but Attention Theives are on a completely different end of the alternative spectrum with a much more accessible sound. Constantly living life on the road and frequently treating fans to new music videos, Attention Thieves deserve this exposure.

WORDS: EMMA WALLACE

Categories
Music News

Reading and Leeds festival line ups announced

The first announcement of the line up for the Reading and Leeds Festival 2012 has been isued and is as follows. The Cure headline the Friday night at Reading, Kasabian Saturday and Foo Fighters Sunday. The Maccabees, At The Drive In and Justice headline the NME/Radio One Stage at Reading and Metronomy have been announced as headliners of the Dance stage so far.

Check here for the full line up. tickets are now on sale at £197.50 for a Weekend Ticket, £85.00 Day Ticket, £60.00 Campervan *, £15.00 Locker *, £15.00 Early Bird Ticket * £5.00 Car parking*. * = no booking fee.

Reading: August 24 (Fri), Leeds: August 25 (Sat)
Main Stage

The Cure
Paramore
Bombay Bicycle Club
You Me At Six
Crystal Castles
Angels and Airwaves
Coheed and Cambria
Cancer Bats
Deaf Havana

NME/Radio 1 Stage

The Maccabees
Foster The People
The Courteeners

Reading: August 25 (Sat), Leeds: August 26 (Sun)

Main Stage

Kasabian
Florence And The Machine
The Vaccines
Enter Shikari
The Shins
Odd Future
Mystery Jets
Special Guests
Blood Red Shoes

NME/Radio 1 Stage

At The Drive-In
The Cribs
Billy Talent
Miike Snow

Dance Stage

Metronomy
Katy B
Azealia Banks
Jaguar Skills

Reading: August 26 (Sun), Leeds: August 24 (Fri)

Main Stage

Foo Fighters
The Black Keys
Kaiser Chiefs
Bullet For My Valentine
All Time Low
The Gaslight Anthem
Eagles Of Death Metal
Band Of Skulls
Pulled Apart By Horses

NME/Radio 1 Stage

Justice
Two Door Cinema Club
The Horrors
SBTRKT

Categories
Music News

Tyler the Creator wins Best New Artist at VMA’s

tyler-the-creatorOdd Future’s rapper Tyler the Creator turned up on stage at Reading Festival on a pink girls bike this weekend with fellow band mates, made a few thousand middle class, white teenagers who were out celebrating their private school GCSE results think they were gangsters for 45 mins and left the stage stoked with their performance without their clothes after stagediving.

Today though, OFWGKTA’s front man celebrates winning the Best New Artist award at the VMA’s in the US. In classic style Tyler slammed Bruno Mars once again by saying: “He put on a good performance, but I still hate that dude’s fucking music.

Read our review of his debut album Goblin here.

Categories
Music News Skateboarding News

Crossfire Sound System to play Reading Festival

Going to Reading Festival this weekend? If so, the Crossfire Sound System with both Zac and James Sherry onboard have been confirmed to host a headline DJ slot on Saturday night.

If you are there backstage, you can find Crossfire’s founders spinning party tunes with a punch backstage in the Relentless Energy Drink VIP tent from midnight until 2am. See you there for total carnage…

crossfiresoundsystem

Categories
Live Reviews

Reading Festival – Live

August Bank Holiday 2010
www.readingfestival.com

And so Reading Festival was finally upon us. From the moment the first acts are announced early on in the year, you can’t help but be excited about it. You’ve just never heard of anyone having a shit time at Reading, have you? We certainly never have. Despite almost blowing it by getting rather out of control on the Friday night, we managed to last the distance and ended up having one of the best Reading experiences ever, helped along by a multitude of excellent bands, an endless stream of good people, power ballads, mainstream hip-hop, vodka in Capri-sun containers, a fair few pints of cider and a gallon or two of Relentless energy drink. Relentless eyes ahoy!

FRIDAY

Unfortunately, we missed Young Guns open up the main stage but by all accounts, they had a monstrous crowd and did their job of kicking off the festival very well indeed. A Day To Remember followed on in style with their enthusiastic combination of pop-punk and hardcore getting the crowd in a tizzy despite it only being 1pm. Judging by the intense reaction they got, there will be no stopping their rise in popularity any time soon. Everyone present seemed to be relishing in the great melodies mixed up with great chugs.

Two Door Cinema Club continued the theme of humungous crowds for their poptastic set over at the Radio 1 / NME tent. Despite never having consciously listened to their music, they’re one of those bands whose songs I apparently know anyway through some sort of mainstream osmosis process. The band’s set was rapturously received by the mass assembled and it’s safe to say they were the perfect choice for that stage. They probably could’ve even been billed higher. One of those cases of a band blowing up so quickly that, by the time Reading and Leeds come around, they’ve kind of outgrown their slot. Due to the Festival Republic stage running behind schedule, we managed to catch a bit of indie-pop duo Summer Camp who rattled off some dreamy ditties to a moderately enthused crowd. Pulled Apart By Horses were the next to provide the rock as they proceeded to lay waste to the tent in spectacular fashion, bounding all over the place, banging out riffs and generall just being awesome. NOFX sounded good as we traversed the main arena back to the guest area where we heard tales of Strike Anywhere’s Lock-Up stage set being sadly empty.

Biffy Clyro kicked the festival up a notch into another league with their polished yet somehow still raucous epic rock. A fair few classics from back in the day mingled in with the standard modern hits like ‘Mountains’ meant their set was enjoyed by all. Not least all the ladies present who were no doubt swooning at the three shirtless men, despite frontman Simon Neil looking kind of like Father Christmas now he’s bleached both his hair and beard. Plus pink jeans – wow. Phoenix continued the wow-factor of the weekend over on the Radio 1 / NME stage. The French act had the most amazing pulsating lights, flashing all the colours of the rainbow and hypnotizing the crowd in the process. Luckily, they also have the tunes to back up the lightshow and everyone present was dancing along to their effervescent pop hits.

SATURDAY

We failed a bit on Saturday in terms of watching bands. What can we say – got a bit too enthusiastic at the power ballads DJ set the night before and it somewhat dampened our enthusiasm for Saturday.

Paint It Black, Trash Talk and Gallows were the main casualties of our laziness though by all accounts they were every bit as rad as we knew they would be. The Gaslight Anthem kicked off our band-watching activities for the day in style though. An intense main stage experience, though it could’ve been improved upon tenfold if the soundman had turned up the volume a bit! In spite of this annoyance, the set was enjoyed by a  massive crowd as the band reeled off hits like ‘Old White Lincoln’ and ‘American Slang’ and the crowd sung their hearts out to make up for the lack of volume from the stage.

Cancer Bats rocked the Lock-Up stage to its core in a set that put them up against Dizzee Rascal’s Main Stage appearance. Still, their scuzzy riffs were clearly a draw for the rock kids at the festival. We went on to catch a bit of Dizzee, including his now-legendary Nirvana-mashing with ‘Stand Up Tall’ versus ‘Teen Spirit’. An excellent performance as ever, enjoyed by all. The Get Up Kids played to a half-full Lock-Up tent but that didn’t matter. Everyone there was a complete superfan and it was a great set of newbies and classics and also included their cover of The Cure’s ‘Close To Me’. Lovely. Passing by Arcade Fire for a song or two, it sounded pretty incredible, although it kind of looked like everyone was watching Pendulum on the NME / Radio 1 stage instead…

SUNDAY

What a day! This has to be one of the best main stage line-ups of all time. So we’ll get to that. But our day started with a bit of Lights on the Dance stage which was all very pleasant girl-fronted electro-pop. Kvelertak were slightly louder on the BBC Introducing stage and definitely did more to wake us up with their Nordic metal inclinations, fused by good old-fashioned rock’n’roll. Foxy Shazam wow those who make it to the Festival Republic tent for their set. Pure genius showmanship. And acrobatics to boot. Debut UK single ‘Oh Lord’ sounds tremendous. We nip out to catch a snippet of Thrice on the mainstage including the massively brilliant ‘Silhouette’. Next up we’re excited to see local youngsters done good You Me At Six on the Main Stage. The band do an immense job of getting the crowd involved even though the big screens have been taken down due to a freaky bit of stormy weather during All Time Low’s set. Hayley from Paramore even comes on to sing ‘Stay With Me’ with YMAS. The screens come up again during Limp Bizkit’s procession of stone cold hits. In fact, their choice of setlist is suspiciously similar to that of their set at Reading 10 years ago. Not complaining though. It was ace. And Fred Durst is definitely a legend, even when not wearing the obligatory red cap (a white cap?!) As a friend quite rightly points out, Wes Borland is dressed as a cross between a witch and a Guylian chocolate. Entertainment at its best. Well, not quite.

Weezer are up next and what they do is phenomenal. Simply put, this is probably the best Reading festival set I’ve ever seen. The sun is shining and Rivers is in the best mood ever. He also has props. A Lady Gaga wig (they cover ‘Poker Face’ mixed in with MGMT’s ‘Kids’), a cat hat, a fucking trampoline. This is the exact opposite of every other performance I’ve ever seen Weezer do. AND they play the good shit. Nothing off ‘Pinkerton’ which is definitely a shame. But we don’t even care, it’s THAT good. ‘Surf Wax America’, ‘Say It Ain’t So’, ‘The Sweater Song’ are definite highlights but even the more frivolous ‘Beverly Hills’ and ‘Troublemaker’ sound awesome. Everyone has a permanent smile on their face for the rest of the night and I’m pretty sure it’s all because of WEEZER.

We caught a little bit of Paramore. Enough to be able to tell that they’re still great at what they do and we’re going to be excited when they return to the UK for TWO o2 arena shows. Blink 182 got everyone more excited than I ever thought they would… They pulled an entertaining set out of the bag, as was to be expected, and they also proved that they’ve got better at playing their instruments in the years since they last played the festival. Not that Travis ever had anything to prove. Obviously. Hits that provided a constant stream of crowd singalongs included ‘First Date’, ‘Rock Show’ and, of course, ‘All The Small Things’. It was also great to hear the songs from further down the line in the band’s career like ‘Feeling This’. I think it’s safe to say that a good time was had by all, not least the main stage bands on this final day, all of whom clearly reveled in their participation in such a well-placed rock line-up. One that will not be forgotten in a hurry.