Too. Hot. To. Blog

It's been summer for a minute and the brevity with which the sun gets a hard on is so small, you've got to really make hay while the sun shines. It sent us so mad when it was at its height that we started punching each other in the face and arms for kicks. I shit thee not.

Ambulance outside Super Kebab. There's been a marder!

Pensionable pride vibes

DJ SOPHIE

Whatever you do. don't get in this bin

Semi balearic smoking vibes

Taking on the Turks at their own game

Cool

So shit faced it's almost hard to comprehend what was going on

Elephant's knee - aka - tea

Tapas ting

Summer tapas

The Skinny jeaned gardeners - aka 'cunts'

Brighton wedding ting

We had a wee blast of a trip to the seaside at the start of July to celebrate the wedding of our chums Hannah and Si. After dropping our shiz at the chintzy Air B'n'b we'd plumbed for, we descended on the beach where the public bit of the nuptials was all kicking off. There were drinks, we smoked fags, there were tears, laughs. Indeed it was as delightful as you can imagine with gallons of cava and beer all poured in to lube up the romantic vibe.


This romance turned increasingly wet and bashy as the day went on, partly due to the roasting heat and the huge amounts of ales being quaffed, supped and ingested. There was dancing, there were burgers and kids roaming as well as more dancing, more kids and more burgers. Woop.

It was all over too soon but big up to the happy couple for having us and congrats for tying les knot yeah. It was a total hoot. The following morning we attempted to seek out a greasy spoon only to be confronted by a veggie breakfast plus all the smug and white dreads you'd come to expect from such an eatery. The place was called Iydea. Don't you dare...

drunk

The wedding yard

Cakey ting

Shiiit

Inedible vegan nonsense

The perpetrators

Going round Luke Solomon's gaff

Last week me and my work buddy Carl got on the Northern Line and didn't stop until we got to the end. High Barnet is the final destination of the northern part of the tube and it goes on and on and on until you're in what seems like the countryside. It's definitely green and full of trees. 

These are the ends of Classic Music Company DJ and producer Luke Solomon. It's leafy, suburban and about as 'unhouse' as you can possibly get. However, our trip was all about interviewing LS in his home studio and having a right old manly geek off about his equipment, gear and records.

After knocking on his door and finding a hungover chap ('Derrick was over last night' As in Derrick Carter - oof), we soon got to waffling in his laboratory. He was incredidbly genial about my technical incompetence with the video camera being waved in his face and Carl did a mint job of stitching our ramblings together into something positively coherent. Here are the fruits of our labours.


There was so much of our chat going on, we had to split it into two parts...


If this all a bit too techy for thee, you can also stream a riotous late night set from Luke and his buddy Rob Mello below. It's from this year's Glastonbury sometime on Saturday night/Sunday morning...

Blogging doesn't get any tougher than this

Masterchef is a big look round our way. Not just for the competition or the delicious looking scran but for the sizzingly rapport between the presenters, John Torode and Greg Wallace.

Their bromance over buttery, biscuit bases and big big flavours might be fucking weird and oddly homoerotic but makes for the kind of telly you can spend days fully immersing oneself in. It also seems like the real deal but that could just be down to the magic of telly and very wishful thinking. Even weirder, Gregg seems to be a bit of a player/sleazebag...

The latest celebrity edition is on and is proving to be gripping stuff. Shane from Boyzone is favourite to win. G'wan Shane. Sock it to these self-confessed foodies...

Dancing Shangaan style

'No one cares what you look like when you dance' was a spot of advice recently heard at a wedding 'do'. These words were ones of encouragement while I was nervously dribbling a toe around the outskirts of an underpacked dancefloor attempting to decipher whether it was worth jumping in.

Whether they ring true is a moot point. Does anyone care that I look like octopus man being brought back from beyond the grave when shaking a limb? i might but whatever your skills, African dance troupe Shangaan Electro make dancing look fucking cool without seeming to have any cares in the world. Which is probably the whole point. 

Shangaan Electro's flex is a combination of ludicrous bumpy boiler suits, smiling enthusiasm, broad range age and mental lo-fi music. When we caught them at Gillett Square at the start of July on what must have been one of the day's hottest years, the vibes were ludicrous and the music getting so fast it was almost catching its own tale. The crew totally owned the joint for 45 minutes performing pure dance music at speeds verging on dangerous.The final song in particular sounded like summat one might hear on classic Helter Skelter tape pack.

By contrast, the live drumming afterwards, although loud and enthusiastic didn't have quite the same life giving grin-inducing wonder. However, one little drumming lad stood out for me. Bespectacled (not in shades), not giving it any attitude (as many of his youthful colleagues were) and concentrating hard, he was the token geeky dude doing it cos he was into it regardless of whether he seemed cool or not. Or so it seemed. Big up the specky dude doing it for ostensibly all the right reasons. 'No cares what you look like when you drum.'

Kendrick had a dream

There are many things one likes doing on Monday nights after work but they don’t often involve hot footing it up the backbone of the UK to the midlands to go and watch a gig. Usually following Sunday’s cold beer sweats, mild fear and hot flushes, the first day of the working week is one to be endured rather than enjoyed. Your standard Monday finishes in a large hot meal and an early night in a bid to ease the panic and make the next four days more palatable. 

However, on a Monday eve at the start of the sweatiest July we may have ever had, we went into work hungover, slogged through the office hours, then scarpered off to Euston to train it up to Brum to catch a gig by US hip hop hero Kendrick Lamar. When booking the tickets, our adventure seemed like a reasonable proposition. But the reality was we were spending the best part of 100 notes on a Monday night out in Birmingham when we all lived 200 plus miles away. It was even more ridiculous when the majority of the party all needed to be at their desks the next morning for more work-based pain. Indeed some suffering was on the cards as the final choo choo home meant we wouldn’t be tucked up in bed until near 2 in da am. 

But without such agony we wouldn’t have had a chance to witness Kendrick in full flight. And fly he did with a live act that sounded satisfyling meaty to the ears. Rather than just the two turntables and a microphone vibe that we were pessimistically anticipating on the journey there, he brought a full band to a crowd which was far more Saturday night in Ayia Napa than a sticky Monday eve in Brum. 

The Guardian’s Mark Beaumont has recently been banging on about the difference between gigs in the capital and those across the rest of the country. His premise is that those outside London are always more appreciative of watching music being performed in the flesh. And he’s correct. Us in the south have enough going on to be disinterested when it comes to catching a show. The mosh pit at the Birmingham Academy put going to a gig in London into sharp contrast. And this initial burst of heavy slap and tickle was only to the ‘EDM’ flexing warm up DJ. Oof.

The mosh only became more fierce when Kendrick appeared and proceeded to dance us through the finer joints on his second album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and beyond. Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe, Swimming Pools (Drank) and Money Trees all sounded fucking large when they barrelled off the stage and sparked the baseball-hatted, weed-toting hoards to pummel each other and those aroud them even harder. 

Kendrick’s svelte self and super live outfit managed to sound both fucking lean and even more fucking mean during their 90 minute set. He conducted the crowd through an explosive sweatfest which culminated in one all mighty jump around before vanishing in a cloud of crowd moisture leaving us to the last train and a mighty drunken snooze. Kendrick definitely has had a dream. It's loud and has taken him all the way to the midlands and beyond. This kind of hip hop should neverrrr stop.

mosh pit

Godlike

Kendrick

Monday night in Brum

Running tings

Running doesn't seem like a very dreamy act. But when you're on the canter, there's a certain amount of soul searching with every step. And the longer you go, the deeper it gets. Eek. Some writers have documented it - like Haruki Murakami and his tome What I Talk About When I Talk About Running  or The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe are like real intellectual works about the nuts and bolts of getting a wriggle on.

In keeping with these great motivators, my main preoccupations while trotting about have included Macdonald cheeseburgers, kebabs, pints of Kronenburg and cigarettes - plus the extistential meanderings of where are those football socks. Where are they?

Indeed it was the thought of a pint and a fry up which kept me mentally meandering while taking on the glamour and the glitz of the Shrewsbury Half Marathon.

We made it in time on the Sunday to binge on bananas before running around this very grotty place for less than two hours in the pissing down rain. Vibes. Greasy eggs and beer have never tasted so sweet...

Berty Big Bollocks

Yes mum

Fuck you Shrewsbury

Pre-run prep

Pre-run prep