Bugged Out! Weekender

Ooooooooooooh Bognor Regisssssss. At the fag end of January we got a great little group of guys together for a ravey trip to the seaside. The Bugged Out! Weekender was the first big festival of the year and we were foolish enough to take it on only weeks after the arrival of the new year. My guts were already quaking in the days running up to it - and with good reason - the affair was as debauched as you'd expect. My phone captured a few moments but it's a measure of how much of a dangerous time was being had that these are the only ones. You can read my Hyponik review here.

There were shitloads of highlights outside of the aural menu - speaking to a painfully shy Hudson Mohawke while being totally on one in the amusement arcades. Smoking cigs inside the chalet. Getting locked out of the chalet on the first morning, then being forced to have a piss in a bush. Fried breakfasts. Having an internal, sweat-based meltdown. Playing the grabbers while being totally on one. Finding an unconscious old guy outside our chalet on the last night. It was bigger than big. And the festival season can't come soon enough. Bring on the sunshine motherfuckers...



Fake Blooooooooooooooooooooooooded



Joy Orbison and a pint



Darkness brothers



The 2 Bears



Life saving




Rave piff



Inner City



Spoons + Bloody Mary + shithead = perfection



Post rave Monday breakfast

January is dead - Long live January

January is nearly kaput - and pheweee at times it's been tough. A classic case of post-NYE blues, no dosh and the outside occasionally being colder than the uncovered willy of an eskimo. But despite the standard January fare of chilly despair, there's still been some shit out there worth crowing about. The BDO World Professional Darts Championship at the start of 2012 gave us a reason to get out of bed at the weekends, despite the early departure of favourite Martin 'Wolfie' Adams from the tournament. Our shit telly even decided to work for a brief, wonderful weekend when there were more 'Shanghais in the madness' than you could shake a stick at. The only downer was witnessing Stockport's Silverback lose out in the final. Tony! - gutted for you mate.

January was also large for a delicious cocktail of reasons - not only did we watch a shitload of darts but we started playing it courtesy of investing in a set of 'arrows' and throwing them in the general direction of the board. Many domestic culinary master pieces were nailed. I started a new job. Which I like. Wonders will never ruddy cease...



Winning



The tell tale sign of 'The Child' (our flat mate) being in ... Number 1 - an open loaf



Number 2 - open (obvs) jar of peanut butter



Number 3 - The cupboard door is ajar...



The Child cooking up a frozen soup - Sisters are doing it for demselves...



Barbecue Xpress - Fried chicken stand up!




Mateeeeeeeeee



Poached eggs - In 2012 we're doing things differently...



The sort of sartorial elegance of which even Bobby George would be proud



New shoes



Power, corruption and lies. On a mantlepiece



Darts fucking darts



Taste sensation

Are we not bears?

Housey housey housey - If 2012 is gonna be the year of 'house' (as Tim Jonze claimed in the Graniad late last year) it may also be the year of the bear. Make it the 2 Bears. The duo have emerged in January with their claws sharp and gnashers bared ready to do battle on the world's dancefloors and bring about maximum uplift.

Their album 'Be Strong' has pretty much every fucker in the universe yapping - including me. Check out what I had to say about it for Stool Pigeon - and check the Toddla T reworking below. It's a total boomer and has been ruling our kitchen on Friday evenings for the duration of 2012. Check it collective babes...

Never Too Much

Sheffield is the place - and if Sheffield is the place, then 'Never Too Much' is THE lo-fi dance night for the more discerning fan of all things raw, hype, disco and electronic. This has been getting me through the post-Bugged Out! Weekender come down. The horror, the horror! Tracklisting under the widget - widgety widgety...



MASAmatix – In Your Eyes (Maurice Fulton Remix)
DJ Mujava – Township Funk (Crazy P Remix)
Moby – The Right Thing ft. Inyang Bassey (Cosmonauts Remix)
Diskjokke – 1987
Kolombo – Waiting For (Michael Mayer Remix)
Discodromo ft. Hard-Ton – Build a House (Tensnake Remix)
The Knife – Heartbeats (Rex the Dog Remix)
Claude Von Stroke – Beware of the Bird
Osborne – Bout Ready to Jak
Home & Garden – In and Out (D’s Nu Vo Vox) it’s a Derrick Carter rmx if that wasn’t obv
Azealia Banks ft. Lazy Jay – 212
CPEN & JT Donaldson – Next to You (Marko Militano Remix)
Connan Mockasin – Faking Jazz Together (Michael Mayer Remix)
Kraak & Smaak ft. Romanthony – Let’s Go Back (Solomun Remix)
James Blake – The Wilhelm Scream (Poindexter Remix)

Locked Groove is young and big ont' road

Locked Groove is a Belgian dude who is only 23. 23! When I was 23 I could barely tie my own shoe laces, never mind make the sort of music that would have techno-heads chasing their fucking jaws. This is druggy, druggy, druggy and I freaking love it.

Here's Drowning - and here's what I had to say about it on Hyponik - yagga yagga yagga

Drowning [on Scuba DJ-Kicks] by Locked groove

Jurassic Park!

Dr Doolittle was a man who forgo interactions with humans in favour of administering love, care and conversation to animals. 'Trailblazer' some people might say. 'Pervert' others might declare. But whatever his true flex was, the notion that animals present a totally different allure to human beings is one that cannot be sniffed at. It's probably possible to watch a rhino taking a shit for as long as it takes for the task to be completed. Adopting the same voyeuristic persona with a human bean would definitely be less appealing.

So it's true dat that animals possess plenty of big, stinky, hairy vibes. And the best possible way to capture those vibes in one fell swoop is by taking a visit to the zoo. Just t'other week we did this by journeying up out of London and into the dark recesses of Dunstable to Whipsnade Zoo. I've no fucking idea where this is in relation to anything but you definitely need to get in a car, get on a motorway and fuck off northwards out of the capital.

This was my first jaunt to Whipsnade and it turns out that the place is much less of a zoo and much more of a safari style park - one can drive around, stop and get out to discuss how easy it would be to steal one of the animals. When we went, it seemed like it would have been almost too easy to p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-pick up a penguin, stick it in the boot and do one for the surrounding hills. We bottled it. Obvs.

Instead we chose the well-worn path of the gormless tourist and did our best to watch shitloads of beasts going about their daily business. Rhinos, elephants, zebras, lions, tigers, cheetahs, hippos, deer, wolves - you name it, we probably cooed at it and saw it taking a shit. I took a few choice snaps of our savage friends but my favourite part was when we attempted to drive past a pair of camels in the Passage of Asia. This is a bit of gravel path where you can drive through without getting out and go up close to nature's finest. Check the video footage after the photos for the site of a grown woman being sent into a melt down by a camel. In Whipsnade, no one can hear you scream...



Horny



Stick that in yer trunk son



A wild, hairy cow



Just like in Jurassic Park



Hippos love to shit in clean water



Camel attacks tree while we watch placidly



'Adult mooses live a solitary life' - true dat



The back end of a shy buffalo



An unloose moose not in a hoose



Watch yer sens



March of the mallards



Fake scat

Pinch - FabricLive61

Bristol bass dude Pinch has been a big man in the profession of speaker shaking for time. And his latest mix for Fabric is suitably large on road. It does a pretty fine job of joining the dots between dub, grime, jungle and soundsystem biznarse.

I trotted out some words for Hyponik here - Pinch Fabriclive 61 Review - and this Addison Groove banger is one of the biggest on there. Watch out...

Toronto-shaped dreams

Disposable cameras used to be a minor pinnacle of image-capturing technology. Overpriced, throwaway and like a red rag to the amateur cos you could just pick 'em up and immediately begin clicking. As part of a very minor experiment (and an attempt to busy my brain with increasingly less important and self-indulgent tasks) I acquired a couple of the bad boys when we did one to Canada last autumn.

In 'omage to Oneman, one of the best, tightest DJs spinning around the current block, I'm gonna 'bite' his notion and use a Tumblr platform for these disposable graphics. I'm pretty sure any images I post up will be about a million years less exciting but f.u.c.k. it who cares.

I also found these videos on my phone while having a little scroll through my memories of the big trip from last year. There are more but some are so incriminating I daren't put them on the Internet. It'll break.



Toddla T in Toronto



Canada's Wonderland

Krystal Klear and Olivier Daysoul make beautiful slow jam

Slow jammmmmzzzzz - Not the preserve but the sensually inclined calling of the horn. It's not often any true slow jam emerges in this day and age but Krystal Klear and Olivier Daysoul have combined creative juices to produce a pure killer. I challenge you to not get the horn listening to this. Go on. Try. It's impossible...

I tickled out a little review for Hyponik over here. Oooh matronnnn.

Metal Jacket - Trevor Jackson

With the New Year now mounting our collective frowns like a vicious slug, it's the turn of all musically-inclined magazines, websites and periodicals to list and line up their great hopes for the next 12 months. I'm doing my best to keep up with all the new names and faces out of all the fresh young pups, but it's hype to see old flame Trevor Jackson move back into the frame. He's got an ace looking compilation/mix emerging on Strut Records in February. Check the mini-mix below for a sly preview of the goodness which lies ahead...

Metal Dance - Promo Minimix 2012 by Trevor Jackson

Decemberrrrrrrrrrrrr

2011 has come and gone in a right blur of activity - Here are the last few weeks of December in fleeting, shaky-handed camera glory. Check it. Don't wreck it.



New year, new diary, new vibes



The last Scotch egg of the '011



Christmas dinner innit



Cleaning up spillages on Christmas day



Bagel-tastic



Our new flat mate - equipped for all weathers



Ben's big, fuck off bath



Post work's do mash up



Xmas office suffering



Darts!



Total darts!



Stating the obvious in pen and post it notes



Shoreditch pizza in the house



Secret Santa speaks