Fuc51 and Camerap

Manchester music is going through a funny old phase. Revivalism appears to be the buzzword - Hooky is reworking Joy Division as part of his plan to rape every last flake of Ian Curtis' corpse for as much cash as he can. Liam Gallagher is forming a new band called Beady Eye - and that's about it. When the Whip are the hypest act a city currently fronts, then perhaps you're in trouble?

The FUC 51 blog is a massive digital whinge about this unfortunate state of affairs.

Check out Fuc51 here

My buddy Paul Sleaze has also put this piece of beatladen electronica together under the guise of Camerap. It's big and should make the corners of your mouth crease...

Bang a baby's Face

After piecing the Bang Face weekend back together via the power of hazy and distant memories, Resident Advisor ended up publishing my thoughts on the event. After careful consideration I took out some of the more obvious references to drug taking. I know. I'm a fucking sell out bastard.

Check the review on the link below.

Bang Face resident advisor review

Extensive gluttony

Food has been high on the agenda of late - It's basically a munchie ting. I've been sampling a weird array of culinary 'delights' ranging from burgers to iced coffees. That's right. Get me and my extravagant palette. It's off the hook ain't it?

One of the highlights was having a little bbq on our small balcony. It rained on the burgers and went dark as we didn't get round to lighting the fucker until 8pm. One member of our small two man party was also sick - so all in all great success!

Also tried Purdeys for the first time. That's the sort of mood which has been kicking round our way for the past couple of weeks. It's been all go let me tell you...



Burger meets egg - they get along. It's magic.



Fire flex



Fags and bones



Juked



An expensive alcoholic shake



Energy boost sans taurine



Battered sausage business



Mocha frappo babes

Adventures in sleep deprivation

2010 has been a savage year on the synapses thus far. Perhaps no more than usual, but still it occasionally feels like surviving until another birthday comes to pass maybe more of a struggle than it should be.

Anyhoo, in a vain attempt to be civilised, I spent last weekend volunteering (Have I ever mentioned my tireless charity work? zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...) and then watching my pa drive a formula 3 car round the track at Silverstone as part of a lovely xmas gift organised by my sister on the Sunday. The volunteering ting went smoothly despite a thick lagery hangover. This was shaken off by chasing a small 13 year old lad on a bike around Victoria Park followed by assisting with a nappy change. Standard.

The second part went mildly awry as sleep never really materialised on Saturday evening. One thing basically led to another with the only stolen winks of kip taking place on the tube as a I sailed past my station and ended up 12 stops further down the line than planned. Whoops? Cue being 45 minutes late, cue sweats, cue a Macdonald's Big Mac meal being the only thing between me and madness.



The birthday gift goes down



Man up big poppa!



A natural athlete highly attuned to the intricacies of the road



After a couple of confessions, the day went off relatively smooth - Pops went round the track at a leisurely pace while we cheered him on and I beggared about in the midst of the family bosom. I think they're used to it....

However, the final song in the boozer we were drinking in on the previous eve was this little ripper. It has vague connotations of being to do with mortality, which in these times of fast living could be quite pertinent. Or maybe not. Whatevs, it's a big little tune.

Kiss the Fist...

If you're free on Thursday evening, then we're doing a little bit of Djing at the London Fields boozer in Hackney. Kiss the Fist is all about vests and hi-nrg. Whether any of us will be wearing one on the eve in question is a moot point but you can keep your fingers crossed...

You can check our first forays into the murky world of podcasting down below... We're hoping to polish the banter as even having a burn half way through didn't exactly get the vibes growing... Although the tunes are hype. Expect big music and sloppy mixing (on my part anyhoo).

Yippe-ki-yay motherfuckers...

Kiss the Fist

Hip hop and you don't stop. Ever.

The weekend was drunken. Like very sozzled, soused, too pissed, too drunk.

I'm not proud to confess I visited the 'Chicken man' at the bottom of our road on consecutive nights - on the first occasion I was too shitfaced to even eat the disgusting pizza and 4 hot wings I ordered, instead opting to fall asleep on the sofa fully clothed like a tramp with no appetite. Critics would suggest heating up said dishes for breakfast but the former resembled road kill with a bread base and extra olives. Yum.

The second time was slightly more dignified - I managed to successfully stay awake while ramming 8 hot wings down my gob in the street. A tactic to help avoid becoming all comatose on our couch with uneaten fodder on me lap.

However, Saturday prior to the wings binge was pure laddish class - a daring bike ride across the smoke to procure some acid 12s before getting wifebeatered up in an east end boozer. This was followed by accepting honey from a stranger in the street (real bee business - not poontag) and then a lengthy blaze up featuring a collection of hip hop's biggest hits.

It was the sort of behaviour I wish I'd indulged in when I was 18 rather than 28. As a teenager this would have been considered the coolest look ever. Now I'm not so sure. Big tunes though and fuck you if you disagree...



















Props to C-weezey for the playlist. Almost too much

A Sticky Situation?

Lady Chann's video for her latest single Sticky Situation has actually been finished. And lo, we weren't edited out of it in the post production. Look out for the white gok wan, the man with the moustache and an ugly, specky twat in a garish mac. That's us.

Let's hope it tickles dem charts like a man with a salmon. Only time will tell...

It's a Sheffield ting

The weekend just gone found us boarding the National Express coach for a lovely trip to Sheffield. The two days in the field were lovely but the journey up there less so - the stench and the heat was like being smothered in a pissy pillow. But despite the uncomfortable travel arrangements, we went up to catch a slice of Rough Disko party action.

Scratcha DVA and Martin Kemp were the big names on the bill. They both slayed it with plenty of bass bin bothering business, funky and tropicala. Predictably it resulted in another late night somewhere in High Storrs...

The next day involved relatively wholesome activities based around meat, house viewing and beers. Top conkers? Top conkers...



Sean's heart attack in a bap. Google that.



Again some of the tunes were almost too much but were more ghetto than the usual business we expose oursens to in the smoke. Perhaps we're not going to the correct parties...



And this woozey number from Deadboy - big fucking tune...

Armband Van Helman Province

It's not often you can claim to be in the same room as a bona fide pop star. But Bank Holiday weekend saw us pull this feat off... Armand Van Helden was in Elephant and Castle and curiosity got the better of us. Would he be shit? Would he be the most life affirming ting since grown men started putting cheese in tins? Armband's DJ set definitely fell in the latter category. He rinsed it for two solid hours of euphoria before we headed back to chat about potential new income streams for Google and where the best location for a stairlift would be. Other than on the stairs. Obvs.

He also played a large amount of big room house tunes that I'd refer to as 'stonking' if I was a right fucking nerd. Stonkers. They included this ball room bouncer from French electro child Surkin...



.... and this latest Duck Sauce business has Ibiza terrace etched into its plant food-based heart. Strong.



While we're on Surkin, this is also the absolute Macdaddy. My heart is palpitating just thinking about it....

Revenge of the Bang Face Weekender

Just the other week me and "the accomplice" journeyed to the south coast for the Bang Face weekender. It was a total spur of the moment decision to head down after wangling a guest list place. Preparation on the Friday involved consuming a pot of bombay mix (see above) and watching a documentary on Chanel head honcho Karl Lagerfeld.

The man is right leg end - anyone who has a notice in his toilet saying 'Pissing on the floor isn't very Chanel' as well as enough rings on his fingers to attract a really massive magpie is all reet by me.

Watching Karl fiddle with his many iPods was a solid mental foundation for the unhingedness which unfurled over the next 72 hours. Little in the way of kip apart from brief stints of passing out and sit downs, it was a hectic mash up full of big vibes, dinosaur costumes and hard electronic music.

Some of the funniest tings which occurred at BF went down out of eye or ear shot of the words I put together for an ickle review. Watching a Planet Mu artiste blow chemically enhanced dust into the face of the 'singing man' was a real moment. As was listening to Normski calling out for valium on Bang Face TV and hearing the Squire of Gothos drop this at well pasttime bedtime on Sunday morning in one of the arenas...



Props to everyone who put us up/sorted us out while we there. It was a character-building couple of days topped with a restful game of scrabble and a gourmet burger. The review which I concocted when the synapses began exploding in the correct manner is below... I managed all of four very shit photos while I was there... Cripes...

“Are you still alive?” “Are you off your chops communing with prehistoric types?” “Does no reply mean you’ve given all your possessions to a hippy?”

When I eventually regained full use of my fingers, eyes and limbs sometime on Tuesday and got to grips with my mobile, these were the sort of messages coursing through it. We’d just returned from the Bang Face Weekender on the south coast, the three day and night blow out celebrating all things hard and ravey. Like a radioactive glow stick, the festival retains this sort of unholy aura where relatives (if you dare tell them what you’re up to) and chums (who fully know the score) are worried about your ability to survive the weekend with everything intact…



While physically set by the seaside at Pontins in Camber Sands, BF’s mindset is located at the coal face of the rave - it’s gnarly, grimey and arguably difficult to navigate without the aid of a canary. It also attracts a full gauntlet of electronic adventurers incorporating a mix of fresh new
blood (Numbers’ Jackmaster and Night Slugs’ Bok Bok played on the Friday) and more elderly statesmen of acid, jungle, techno and children’s entertainment. Dave Benson Phillips was down this year, apparently spending much of Friday evening gunging festival goers. It’s simple, yet heart warming fun for all the family. In a way.

The location adds more layers of hype to an event already bloated on the stuff. The chalets are run down to the point of semi-disintegration while the number of leisure activities available provides a sharply naive contrast to the sledge-hammer hardness of the line up. Bouncy castles rub shoulders with go-karts, grabbers and the swimming pool. It‘s nice to see the promoters offering ravers an opportunity to truly unleash their inner child other than through buckfast and balloons.



The popularity of this year’s bash meant that the chalet system was somewhat oversubscribed by the time we’d sorted ourselves with wristbands. So without beds and not being complete sickoes, we decided to venture down on the Saturday afternoon and take our chances - We shouldn’t have worried. I didn’t even get to open the tiny bag of spare nappies I’d packed.

When we arrived after getting revved up on prosecco on the train journey, the place seemed relatively calm and sedate. Apart from the odd blast of break core from the chalets, and the occasional vacant eyed dancer staggering about, the do didn’t appear all that unhinged - until we caught a viewing of the pool party on Bang Face television in the chalets. The cameras appeared glued to the various cracks and crevices of the minority of females in the pool while male swimmers thrashed around to the savage jump up soundtrack on offer. I’ve never seen the like. It was made all the more surreal by host and BF resident DJ Normski screaming for valium throughout the show.

From that point in, Saturday night rapidly descended. We ventured into the main body of the arena to take in the sights at sunrise, which there are almost too many to clock at BF. The ‘Juracid’ theme meant many of the crowd were dolled up as dinosaurs complete with masses of signs - ’Hungry and chalet less - spare 10 pence for meow’, ’Need money to buy Stephen Hawkings-style computer’ were some of the pick being brandished by the BF Hard Crew.

Out of the line up on the Saturday, we had a wide range of heavy business to get our teeth into - Older party boys Altern8 proved they still had it in the main room with an abrasive volley of broken dance while Matthew Herbert took a massive detour from the wispy electronica of his current One One solo album and opted for the wonk high way. He lay down some snarling Berghain style techno a la Weatherall. The boffin’s sound of funk, big lazers and general messiness belied the meticulous mixing and his smart attire.



Dubstep poster boy Joker stood up to the plate next and slayed the main room with a crunching dose of purple, large enough to demolish a stadium. A remix of Rihanna’s Rude Girl knocked the venue sideways while his own rerubs and productions did similar levels of damage. I’ve never seen a DJ drop such danceable business while remaining so nonchalant behind the wheels. Sheffield’s Squire of Gothos mopped up the second room for the final slot at 5am and got a suitably ridiculous murk on for the occasion. The visually peculiar pairing - one gigantic of stature, the other much shorter - provided relief to their own bassline boom boom via Mariah Carey‘s Honey, Seal’s Kissed by a Rose, and Livin’ Joy’s Dreamer. It was a suitably bizarre climax to a deeply bizarre eve.

After time was called on the onsite naughtiness, the only place to continue the antics was in the chalets. It’s in the depths of the accommodation that your physical and mental agility gets its most extreme testing and one can really look those personal demons straight in the face. Old skool garage leads to old skool damage.

Sunday was more about the fun and games after the hard crew had calmed down - Despite the massive amount of sleep deprivation, we even ventured out to the Camber Sands beach for a brief spot of sun bathing before continuing with the party. 1Xtra’s Tim Westwood proved to be the star turn on the Sunday, dropping a lorry load of hip hop bangers from behind a laptop and egging the BF crew onto a higher plain. Elsewhere the Countryside Alliance (featuring the brilliantly named Farmer Giles Peterson) did damage and the Orb got all floaty and electronic for the finale. By this stage mindlessness was beginning to set in and we ended the evening raving in the Bang Face TV room while the likes of Midnight Star & Usher’s Touch That Midas Girl were laid down to those still stupid enough to be up.

We managed to avoid sleep for the most part of the Sunday eve, then head off at a respectable time to meet the cold shower of reality. Despite only being on site for less than 48 hours, it felt like we’d been residing at BF for weeks - bumming fags of strangers who 16 hours later are your best mates - sitting in chalets chatting total rubbish with men in bright headgear and generally losing the plot in mindmelting fashion. If you like your rave, hard, stupid and wearing big bovver mates made out of bass then Bang Face is the place for you. Although there might not be any point in taking any spare clothes…

Crystal Castles to Herbert and little tings inbetween

Yes yes yes - It's been a reviewing business of late and this has been the verse... Fact have been kind enough to let me lay down my thoughts and witterings on these two monsters - First is Herbert's Leizpig and the second is the latest effort from Crystal Castles.

I'd avoid the latter and head straight to Herbert... Check dese out below...

Herbert review and Crystal Castles review