Tuesday 27 July 2010

LED Festival

The summer of London festivities is far from over.

LED (aka London Electronic Dance) Festival is in the very splendid Victoria Park in Hackney on 27 and 28 August.

The lineup looks pretty nang, particularly on the Saturday - featuring Leftfield, Aphex Twin, Sub Focus and Boy Better Know.

General tickets start at £40 for one day and are still available. Go get'em!

www.ledfestival.net

New Gravity Skank feature

Hey y'all, just a little note to let you know Gravity Skank has a dapper new feature - sharing posts with your mates. Pop the champagne corks!

At the bottom of each post you can now click a funky link to Tweet it, re-blog it or share the news on Facebook. Get interactive on this shit, why dontcha.

While I'm here, just a reminder that you can follow me on Twitter: @GravitySkank. I thank you. x

Saturday 17 July 2010

Lovebox 2010 review


Ignore the weather reports, folks - Lovebox has returned sunnier and more spectacular than before.

I headed to the Victoria Park festival on its opening day - the first time the event has been held on a Friday - for what was possibly the best one-dayer in the capital so far.

The Friday lineup was irresistible to a grimey bassline lover like myself. I could have spent three days dancing to all those DJs. Actually, my legs now feel like I have spent three days dancing, the music was so darn good.

I was gutted to miss my buddy Smurfie Syco's set on the main stage, but that's because I was delayed by a magical mystery tour of London to get cheap tickets off some dodgy African dudes. Thankfully though, the tickets themselves were not dodgy. An auspicious start.

I did, however, arrive in time to have a brockout in the sun to grime collective Newham Generals. On turntable honours was DJ Tubby, a dubstep and grime regular at nights such as FWD, as well as Dizzee Rascal's occasional tour DJ.

Waving goodbye to the sunshine for a bit, we headed into the NYC arena for the end of MJ Cole's set. As usual, it was off the hook; I've seen that man DJ about 50 times over the last ten years and not once has he failed to smash it. Whenohwhen will he release another album?

The delightful Joy Orbison took control next, playing a summery, funky, garagey set which, despite being awesome, couldn't contend with the sunshine outside, so I headed off to catch Toddla T at the Rizla stage.

Bestival heads will know what I'm on about here: the Rizla stage KICKS ASS. Totally. Always. Everywhere. The setup, the production, the lineup, the vibe - the dudes at Rizla know a thing or two about facilitating fun, don't they? So we were mighty pleased to see them set up camp at Lovebox and boy, did Toddla T do us all proud.


The slightly geeky-looking Sheffield producer (pictured above) - boyfriend of Radio One's Annie Mac, dontcha know - plays the most skankatronic sets, mashing up styles from dancehall to electro. And it was brilliant!

But Rizla, is that all the fun you're going to throw at us? NO?

Holy moly. Next up, a supremely chirpy Todd Edwards played classic garage, house and generally rather funky stuff. As a garage devotee who used to write in depth about the scene, I'm ashamed to admit I had never seen 'The God' DJ. Now I can die fulfilled. And hopefully as happy as him.

Dizzee Rascal closed the party with one of his best performances ever (trust me, I've seen a lot of them). It could have something to do with the streamers, the smoke effects, the lights - production levels were ramped up to the max for this show - or the amount of cider I'd consumed by this point. But in honesty, his oeuvre is so well suited to festivals, and he's such a charming  performer, that the crowd loves him. I'm not the biggest fan of his most recent tracks so it took me by surprise how well they worked live.

If you're umming and ahhing about whether to go to Lovebox over this weekend, there really is no question. Run to Victoria Park now! 

Garage night, 6 August


This one's for all the original UK garage fans out there. 

Days Like That, a brilliant little party down at The Russian Bar in Dalston, returns for its next knees-up on Friday 6 August.

DJs making you go brockwile include Sunship ('Try Me Out'), Dem 2 and DEA Project's DJ Para.

Those of you who loved garage the first time round should come to relive the good ol' days - minus the attitude. Dance music lovers who aren't familiar with the scene will soon discover that this is the root of a very a la mode style (even Rusko's making it), future garage. Go figure.

Click here for the event Facebook page.

Wednesday 14 July 2010

Free festival, 7 August


London is generally a fantastic city for free events but unfortunately, music festivals here don't tend to come cheap.

So hurrah for east London, which is playing host to the Little London Fields Festival on Saturday 7 August - a brand new, independent, freebie event that runs from 11.30am to 8.30pm.

The organisers claim it will host 'contemporary art, cutting edge fashion and dynamic new music'. At risk of sounding sour, I must admit I'm wary of events that mix fashion and music - it smacks of hipsters more concerned with appearance than getting sweaty to a filthy bassline. But perhaps this ghetto approach betrays my 90s roots. Either way - this bash is free, it has a dance tent and my mate Allan is going, so I'll be there!

For more info, visit the (rather sparse) festival website.        

Sunday 11 July 2010

DJ Fresh 'Gold Dust' video

This weekend is turning into a visual feast! Yum.

Check out the latest video by DnB don DJ Fresh. 'Gold Dust' is out on 1 August on Data Records, a Ministry of Sound imprint. I'm not usually a fan of MoS videos but this one is pukka.

Filmed in Brooklyn, it features skipping champs Jumpers in Command and various other New Yoik types doing some pretty dope hopping about. Me like.

Saturday 10 July 2010

Kele 'On The Lam' live

Here's a clip that should be your soundtrack for the weekend.

Bloc Party's Kele recently released his first solo album, 'The Boxer', produced by the very talented Hudson Mohawke and XXXChange. And a couple of days ago he performed one of the tunes from that album, 'On The Lam', live for Steve Lamacq on Radio 6.

I absolutely love his voice - really original and sounds great on this. Watch the video (sadly it cuts off a bit short) and let me know what you think...

Friday 9 July 2010

Wiley sacks manager – then leaks his music


The supremely erratic but addictively bizarre grime artist Wiley has hit the news again this week.

On Wednesday he sacked his manager via Twitter, saying: ‘This is why I sack people cos they think they can do shit john woolf you are sacked forever’.

He later added: ‘I would rather not do a deal with that manager he lies day and night’.

In another diplomatic turn of events he later claimed his label, AATW, wanted to sack him. But he later retracted that, saying they ‘jus need to get the right deal across tho lol’.

Wiley has also announced he is leaving Boy Better Know due to friction with crew member Skepta.

Speaking on the phone to Lynnike and Sefa's grime show, Wiley talked more about the split with his manager, explaining that he did it via Twitter because the only other option was to ‘go to his house, kick down the door, and…’

Steady on.

In a quiet moment I suggest you listen to the full interview, because it certainly beats the crappy storyline EastEnders is currently rolling with.

In his break-up fury, Wiley has now decided to leak all his music for free on the net – and the grime forums are going mad for it.

Wiley adds: ‘Then I'm going to be quiet, but while I'm being quiet I'm actually not going to be quiet, I'm going to make new music but definitely hide it and not let a soul hear it until the day it's meant to come out.’

The free Wiley catalogue is apparently only available until the end of today. Check out Grime Forum for links.

Sunday 4 July 2010

Hospitality moves to Brixton Academy, 24 September 2010

Hospital Records has just announced that its most excellent flagship night, Hospitality, is moving to Brixton Academy. This is the London leg's second move this year, having shifted to Fabric last Friday following the closure of Matter.

We've got a while to wait until the next one - Friday 24 September - but this isn't surprising as most promoters take a break over the summer, when everyone's busy with weddings, barbecues and holidays.

Brixton Academy is an awesome venue for live gigs. Lots of promoters use it for club nights too, but I find these don't work so well. I remember being at a rave there years ago and one of the arenas was actually in the entrance hall, which was a bit weird.

On the plus side, Brixton Academy has a capacity of nearly 5,000 - almost three times the size of Fabric. Hospitality has always been a sell-out in the past, so at least this time you won't have such a scramble for tickets.

For details, visit the newly relaunched Hospital Records website: www.hospitalitydnb.com/2010/09/hospitality-at-the-brixton-academy

Bass music takes over


I told you so - bass music is the future.

It's interesting to see that Dub Pack, the flyer pack that was all about dubstep, has now added the strapline 'bass music specialists' to its promotions.

Also Outlook Festival in Croatia - which looks utterly wicked - had previously classed itself as Europe's largest dubstep festival, but now has flyers calling itself Europe's largest dubstep and bass culture festival.

These may seem like minor moves to the casual observer, but they reflect a wider shift in the dance music scene.

Bass music is a catch-all term for UK sounds reaching from two-step to dubstep to breaksy electroey tech housey stuff - anything with a hefty bassline, basically. It really is splendid and there are lots of clubs in the capital where you can rave to it. And after more than a decade in which club nights had singled themselves out by a particular music genre, we're now back into an era of mish-mashed music styles in one room.

If you want to catch some bass music next weekend, try Numbers at Fabric on Friday 9 July. Alternatively that night you can toddle on down to the more grimey but equally stompin' Jamm in Brixton for the Dub Pack night. I'll be honest - I don't recognise most of the names on the lineup, but as Dub Pack is now the 'bass music specialist' I trust they will deliver.