LED Festival review (sort of)

The first ever LED Festival got off to a bad start. Pitted against SW4 in Clapham (which sold out), not to mention Carnival the same weekend, poor ticket sales caused the organisers to cancel the Cream tent on the Friday, which was supposed to host the Swedish House Mafia dons. One stage closed in a festival with only two stages? Ouch.

You could tell LED was struggling. In the week leading up to the event, in what seemed like an act of sheer panic, they started dishing out free tickets in papers and promotions. £50 was too much to ask anyway. And to add insult to injury, a rainy week in London had left Victoria Park mudmatronic.

So not the most auspicious of starts, but by the time I rocked up on Saturday the sun had come out, the mud had dried up and the good times were rolling.

A rather bizarre door policy which allowed you to take in water bottles (but not the lid) proved to be my downfall, for I'd soon polished off half a litre of cunningly disguised vodka. So I'd love to give you a run-through of all the sets, telling you how Annie Mac smashed it, Boy Better Know rinsed out, and everyone threw their hands in the air for a mighty finale with the legendary Leftfield, but frankly I was totally sozzled by the end and not taking anything very seriously.
(In fact at one point my best mate and I ended up in the VIP bar with her breakdancing and me doing a bizarre Bez-style maraca dance around her. Damn you, vodka.)

What I can confirm is that Shy FX played a blinder, dropping some truly classic jungle circa 1995. And since the crowd were generally an older bunch, we all thought this was totally rad.

Anyway, to make up for the fact that my reporting skills went to pot on this occasion, I've compiled a gallery of the event for your amusement. See my next post.

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.

JME and Tempa T 'CD is Dead' video

As grime videos go, this one's pretty cool.

JME and Tempa T released the video today for their collaboration 'CD is Dead', off JME's new album, 'Blam'. The track is available to download from 30 May.

Tottenham lad JME founded Boy Better Know crew, which includes his brother Skepta. They're a wicked act to watch on stage and have put out some phat tracks in the past including 'Too Many Man'. They've certainly upped their game since that video...

Bloc Weekend 2010: review

My oh my - Bloc Weekend 2010 was a rambunctious affair. Thousands of dance music fiends descended on Butlins in Minehead for a three-day rinseout at the festival's fourth outing, and Gravity Skanker was there to witness it all.

Don't turn your nose up at a holiday park festival. They're actually rather fun. But I've talked about that before - let's get down to the nitty gritty.

I'm proud to report that it was the women who tore up the arenas this year. Headliners Salt n Pepa provided a damn good show, highly recommended to anyone who loves the early 90s sound. They had brilliant dancers, classic tracks (surprisingly more than I remember), and a great deal of energy and love for the crowd. It was brilliant, though Spinderella's a little out of practice.

Ms Dynamite also did a great job, MCing over DJ Zinc's bangin' set. She even did a top PA of 'Wile Out', a track that I love. Check it out in an earlier Gravity Skank blog post - woohah.

Further highlights of Bloc sets were Instra:mental and D:Bridge on the Friday night, who dropped a dutty couple of hours of dubstep in the more intimate Jac:Bloc arena. On an anthemic tip, Skream and Benga played a crowd-pleasing set in the main room, proving the dubstep pioneers still know what rocks the dance.

The Friday night at Bloc is always the messiest, but this year things were noticeably much quieter by Sunday. Two days of raving probably annihiliated a number of deserters, but I put it down to needing to get home for work on Monday. My crew raved it out till the end, conspicuous by our neon fancy dress (not many people partook in the wedding theme this year, boo).

Closing the Braindrop room on the last night, MJ Cole tore up the crowd... for half his set. Sadly things dropped off towards the end, and got progressively worse for The McMash Clan, who flipped the room into a weird blend of gabber, techno, (not very good) breaks and off-the-wall gnarly DnB. Hype came to the rescue a little too late, sadly with a mediocre set of DnB. I blame the five-hour drive from London.

I was gutted to miss Boy Better Know's grime set on the FWD + Rinse stage. Having caught crew member JME supporting Tinchy Stryder at The Roundhouse a couple of months ago, I'm now a proper convert. So hurrah for FWD and Rinse, who have shared links to mp3s of the night:

Click here for the Boy Better Know set at Bloc 2010.
Click here to download a zip file of the entire night.

It's a good old crowd at Bloc, so I was sad to see them let down by poor sound levels in almost all the arenas. In Tec:Bloc - usually the grimiest, most hardcore room - I could hold a conversation on the dancefloor and hear what was said. And this coming from someone with tinnitus. But sound issues aside, it was a rockin' festival, and Bloc always sells out for a reason. Here's to next year - see you there!