Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Banksy hits Camden





4 new pieces all unveiled over this weekend. Quite easy to find along the Regents canal once you head off in the right direction, that is.
The decorator one seems to have upset some of the graffiti fraternity though. It appears he's gone over a very old piece that had been there for 20+ years, even though others had scrawled over it in that time.

Soulwaxmas

At the start of December a few friends and I had our annual concert thing and having seen Chemicals and Fatboy Slim in previous years it was the time of Soulwax and 2ManyDjs.


Warmup in a very empty venue was Gyratory Sound System. A sort of weird brass band trio arrangement where the trumpet seemed to get smaller as the set went on.

Next up was someone called Micky Moonlight. He was really really bad! His music was alright but as soon as he tried to mix the tracks together disaster ensued. Perhaps it was nerves but he'd have had a better response if he played the tracks one after another. I guess he wasn't that popular as I can't find any clips on youtube. People must have prefered to save the memory cards for later.



Up next was Soulwax who played a really good, if short, set. The 50 minutes or so were really good with a quite disorientating light show. The final track which seemed to be jive-bunny mix of old skool anthems went down particularly well.



Errol Alkan was up next. He was really good too! Friends are into his stuff and I hadn't really given him a chance but he did a great job getting us ready for the main event. Not sure why all the people were allowed on the stage though, none of them could dance.




2ManyDJs were up next and they were superb. Not much to look at when they play but some great visuals to go along with the mashups they were playing. A simple trick of taking the single artwork and animating it slightly in time to the music. Big tunes of the night were the MGMT tune that every DJ has been remixing this year (Kids, I think its called) and Prodigy's Out Of Space (can never go wrong with that).

But there were loads of other good tunes too. It's definitely the first set that's had me dancing to Sparks, Can, Beatles, Beethoven, amongst others.

I guess they must have impressed everyone in the Academy as even those filming it on their phones were jumping up and down, hence the poor footage.


But they do have lots of videos, used as visuals, on their youtube page.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Arturo Brachetti

Quick change artist Arturo has a show at the Garrick Theatre until January and its mind-blowing. I love trying to figure out how magic is done but this guy was too quick to figure it out. He must have gone through 100 costume changes during his show.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

My Korea Report is completo!!

The link is over on the left or you can click here. Apologies for taking so long but I think you'll realise why it took so long to put together when you start reading it.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Where have I been?

Korea and Japan, that's where.
It's taking me a little bit longer than expected to put the report together but its underway and should be done in a week or so.

In the meantime here's something to chill you out.

Click here

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Tiesto @ Victoria Park

25,000 people gather in East London to see the "biggest DJ in the world"(TM) and once again I was there, now the fifth time I've seen him.
Warm up act on a very warm day were Hadouken, Calvin Harris and Sneaky Soundsystem

Cyber bunnies not impressed with Hadouken (they were just going for a drink really!)

Somehow this little kid managed to gatecrash an over 18s event. His mum was trying very hard to make him wear these ridiculous headphones. If you're wondering why its looking empty
a) its still early
b) the area immediately in front of the stage was called the gold circle and the tickets were more expensive. It meant those of us in the cheap area couldn't get close to the stage unless we were prepared to leap the no-mans land between the barriers and evade the security...which provided a lot of laughs during the days events.

and who's that strolling off beer in each hand?

Sneaky Sound System from Oz were pretty good even if the lead singer did look like Justin Lee Collins

That's what 25 thousand people look like. The crowd were very friendly actually and there was an amazing vibe all day.

Tiesto came out a little earlier than expected catching most of the VIP lot off guard who had to come running into the gold circle en masse.
Not sure who this clown is? Someone who managed to blag a press pass by the looks of things. His pics can be seen here.

The soon to be Mr and Mrs White, beers in hand.


Being in the privileged circle, Adam was able to borrow my camera and take some close ups. Thanks Adam!

Supposedly there was a bigger police presence today than at all the other events that had taken place in the week, but I think that's because they knew the music would be good. At the queue line in there were lots of people being pulled over and randomly searched. I only saw 2 arrests at that time.


The light starts to go down and the lights start to go up!

Some clown decided to climb the speaker stack and he was being very brazen up there, dancing whilst not holding on etc. I think there were a lot of people filming in the hope he'd slip.

Hey look, I have a little man dancing on my finger!

Arm the confetti cannon and FIRE!

Clown up the scaffolding was soon joined by 2 others and quite understandably the organisers cut the sound and would only put it back on when they came down, which they did to a barrage of boos and no doubt some waiting officers at the bottom.

Fireworks

Flame throwers

Ticker tape cannons

Fireworks

Lights on arms that moved and a cheap "let me hear you" message to the crowd. Actually the visuals were superb, and probably the best I've seen him use.


and here he is at the end throwing his earphones into the crowd.

A wonderful show on a day with wonderful weather and a wonderful crowd. What more could be asked for!

oh, yeah some youtube clips from people who were happy to film the event on their phones so I didn't have to.


Rock anthem given the trance remix early on in the set.


Cheesy sing-a-long lets get the crowd as one tune...




Some of his own tunes

Wykahmix Update

I've realised that I've only posted links to my first two Wykahmixes on here. Well there are two more that you can have a listen to, and I'm now hosting them on soundcloud.

Wykahmix 1 - Angelic
1. Spring Breeze (Martin Roth SummerStyle Remix) - DJ Tatana - Armada
2. No More Alone - Giuseppe Ottaviani ft Stephen Pickup - Vandit
3. Redemption - Sophie Sugar - Vision Soundcarriers
4. Ocean Drive (ft Phillipa Joy) - DJ Shah - Armada
5. Lost (Club Mix Edit) - Sunlounger & Zara - Armada
6. World Gone Mad - Mannix vs Kaymak - A State of Trance
7. Hide & Seek (Tiesto's in Search of Sunrise Remix) - Imogen Heap & DJ Tiesto - Black Hole Recordings
8. The Way It Should Be - 4 Strings vs DJ Shaine - Liquid Recordings
9. Hyper Intelligence (Ian Betts Remix) - K90 - Dataless Recordings
10. Fake Awake (Original Mix) - Andy Moor - Anjunabeats
11. Brazil (2nd Edit) - Deadmau5 - MOS
12. Not A Lot Left - Myon & Shane 54 - Anjunabeats

Wykahmix 2 - Descent
1. Let Go - Kandi & Neumann - Anjunabeats
2. Nailed - Paul Webster - Armada
3. The Last Pluck (Fluffy Mix) - Marcus Schossow - Tone Diary
4. Ipanema - John Miller - Vision Soundcarriers
5. Edward Carnby (Tiesto Vocal Mix) - Tiesto presents Alone In The Dark - Kontor Records
6. Ways and Means (PVD Remix) - Jon O'Bir - Dance4Life
7. Dream Way (Arctic Moon Remix) - Dereck Recay - (Redux Recordings)
8. Don't Wake Me Up (San Antonio Harbour Mix) - DJ Shah ft Inger Hansen - Armada
9. Upgrade - Will B - Vision Soundcarriers
10. Pandora (Daniel Kandi's Emotional Mix) - Rapha - Armada

Wykahmix 3 - Dry
1. Your Loving Arms (JA Sunrise Edit) - Jose Amnesia & Karen Overton - New State Music
2. Not Falling Apart (Tiesto Remix) - Maroon 5 - Octoscope Music
3. Battery Life - Chunk & Twist - Anjunabeats
4. Bounty Island - Black Pearl - Armada
5. Read My Mind (Gabriel & Dresden Unplugged Mix) - The Killers - Def Jam
6. The Reward is Floating (Markus Lange Mash Up Remix) - Deadmau5 vs. Jape - White Label
7. Work It - Daft Punk vs Flapsandwich - http://flapsandwich.blogspot.com
8. Closer (Than a Heartbeat) - DJ Tatana & Andrew Bennett feat. Tiff Lacey - MORE
9. Albion (Original Mix) - Myon - In Trance We Trust
10. 63b Clerkenwell Road - David Newsum - Armada
11. Liberate - Daniel Kandi & Robert Nickson - Armada

Wykahmix 4 - Fallen
1 - Chinook (Uplifting Mix) - Dakota - Armada
2 - I'm Not Alone (Tiesto Remix) - Calvin Harris - Sony Music
3 - Beyond the World - Mike Sonar - Infrasonic
4 - Leaving London (Mac & Taylor Remix) - Team SR - Five AM Records
5 - Timewave Zero - Ummet Ozcan - Cloud 9 Dance
6 - Don't Look Back - John O'Callaghan - Armada
7 - Poppiholla (Thrillseekers Remix) - Chicane - Enzo Recordings
8 - Madagascar 2009 (Richard Durand Remix) - Art of Noise - Platipus
9 - Foldback (Mike Foyle Remix) - David Forbes - Fraction Records
10 - Body Lotion (Jorn van Deynhoven Remix) - Roger Shah & Savannah - Armada
11 - Shapeshifter (Epic Mix) - Thr3shold & Detune - A State of Trance
12 - Essentia (Fast Distance Remix) - Supercomps

If you like your trance then you might like these.

My Italy trip

In July I spent 9 days touring Italy; 4 with the coaster club and the rest doing my own thing.
On this trip I took in the following cities.

  • Verona
  • Bolzano
  • Bologna
  • Venice
  • Rimini
  • Bari

and the following parks

  • Movie Park Studio
  • Latemar Alpine Coaster
  • Merano 2000
  • Gardaland
  • Mirabilandia
  • Fiabilandia
  • Zoosafari Fasanolandia
  • Miragica

The flickr set can be found here .

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Cool Evian Commercial

I have no idea why this hasn't been shown in the UK yet. Perhaps it has and I'm watching the wrong channels. Great vid though.

Monday, June 22, 2009

One Day Only - Royal Albert Hall

As a bit of cheap publicity the Royal Albert Hall opened up their loading bay to the public to present some graffiti that had been put there to celebrate the musical history of the venue.























Tennessee

Tennessee is a landlocked state in the USA and is bordered by the following states. Kentucky to the North Virginia to the North-East Arkansa...