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You are browsing our Features, they're long so get comfy cos it's a long time till you get your summer ice cream kid-o.
Free Energy
18/11/2009
 Free Energy
tags: | free energy | conspiracies | dfa records | james murphy | lcd soundsystem

Geekfest photodiary
Geekfest photodiary
07/11/2009
Comic Con – a convention of comics. Or a comical convention of comic book aficionados who dismiss conventional clothing for a whole weekend and crank their geek knobs up to 11? Henry and Keith headed to London’s exCel Centre for the recent MCM Expo (or as we affectionately call it, ‘the geekfest’) to find out…. Whilst it may not attract as many ‘hardcore fans’ (or some would cruelly say, nerds and sociopaths) as similar events in America, there were still plenty of colourful characters out and about and a smattering of sweet memorabilia to gawp at. This was the event ’s 16 th year and highlights included meet and greets with cast members from cult shows Merlin, Warehouse 13 and True Blood, and the Comic Village had over 80 creators/writers displaying their work. There was also a heavy video game presence as well as previews of movies from Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox & Optimum Releasing. For people who didn't go, there’s a video of it here that makes it look like it would have been the best weekend of your life . Henry and Keith kindly took some snaps of their fave bits of the expo… After the cancellation of their show, two of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers got stuck in to steroids. Comics! That’s unexpected! Simon… you really shoulda gone to Specsavers. Who you gonna call? Probably Yvette and the Most Haunted team, to be fair. Girl you a sexy bitch... and your owner ain't bad neither. A replica of the Ecto-1 went on sale in 2007 for a staggering $149,998.000!!! "Hey, Ho! Let's go! LEGO !" Remember, they’re not losers, they’re people with a ‘specalised interest'. Henry keeps an eye on the Delorean whilst The Doc popped out to take Einstein for a quick walk.
tags: | comic con | expo | london | geek | cosplay | comics | xmen | true blood
LADYFAG GOES TO THE BABY FAT SHOW!
LADYFAG GOES TO THE BABY FAT SHOW!
27/10/2009
Amber Rose broke my camera. Before you begin twiterring rumours, I fully admit it is was my fault. I rarely take a photo of someone I don't know, celebrity or not. While at a party last week I chose to snap a photo of Kanye's sexy alien arm candy and my lens froze....serves me right. I got my faithful little point and shoot fixed just in time for the Baby Phat show, and then lo and behold there was Amber Rose again... Kimora Lee Simmons IS Baby Phat. She makes clothing for what she calls the "glamorous hip-hip lifestyle" Her brand is about celebrity, her brand is about her. The spring 2010 collection did what it does best, branded, wearable, sexy street wear. In between a far too loud hip-hop soundtrack a sprinkling of shirtless sixpacked males in baggy jeans walked the runway between girls in swimsuits, and a collection filled with crisp corals, bright aquas, rich purple, gold's and bohemian prints inspired by Morroco but ready for urban living. While I'm not one who thinks herself a Baby Phat customer, I could easily see myself slipping into the glittering disco leggings, metallic gold stilettos and sling one of the amazing oversized purses around my shoulder....Kimora knows her market. The show ended with four models wearing a different coloured shirt spelling out BABY on the front and PHAT on the back. Each girl sported one matching coloured sequined glove and strutted out to Pretty Young Thing in a sweet tribute to Michael Jackson. A tribute to celebity in a show packed with celebrities like Russell Simmons, Ice-T and Coco, Kim Kardashian, Sherre Whitfield, Tinsley Mortimer, Miss Jay, Lisa Rinna, Amanda Lepore, and Amber Rose. Of course the grand finale is always Kimora herself coming down the runway with her daughters and new born baby.I could practically see the lightbulb go on over Ms. Kanye West's head as she watched Ms. Russell Simmons from the sidelines....I think I see a new line of streetwear coming to a runway very soon. -- Ladyfag Amanda Lepore, stylist Tre Knight and Ladyfag are off to the show! Amanda Lepore in a Baby Phat gown styled with a Dolce and Gabbana belt. They put me in the UK press area and I was surronded by Cockney! Soon to be a full house. Doing runway beside the runway. Ms. Kanye West. Finally my shameless moment with Amber Rose!!
tags: | ladyfag | baby fat | kanye west | kanye's missus | amber rose | lfw | more...
EH1 FESTIVAL PHOTOBLOG
EH1 FESTIVAL PHOTOBLOG
20/10/2009
Notion went undercover to capture the gossip, collaborations and shenanigans that emerged when the genre’s biggest stars gathered for an 18 hour mash up in Edinburgh, to celebrate 20 years of dance and 21 years of Gio Goi clubwear. Words by Abigail Outhwaite. Upon arrival, Notion was ushered to the Gio Goi VIP area, where a host of hand-picked DJs were spinning the decks from the top floor of the brand’s white Routemaster, whilst the likes of Jeremy Healy, Black Box and Shaun Ryder propped up the VIP bar and reminisced over BBQ food and pic ‘n mix sweets. With the festival starting at midday (an hour when only the most hardcore would brave watching djs outdoors), Notion and the dedicated early bird crowds were treated to exceptionally intimate sets, before acquainting themselves with the fairground rides, oxygen bars and food vans scattered about the site. After a couple of hours spent hobnobbing in the VIP area, Notion witnessed an enlightening set by Peter Hook (of Joy Division and New Order fame) in the Hacienda tent, with an audience of no more than thirty. Referencing both contemporary and classic tracks, Hook layered thick, throbbing house beats over some of Joy Division’s best tracks, before spinning remixes of MGMT’s ‘Kids’, David Bowie’s ‘Rebel Rebel’ and laying an assortment of Lady Gaga tracks over Queen’s ‘Radio Ga Ga’. Afterward, Notion headed back to the Gio Goi bus and arrived just in time to hear the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder tell a gaggle of VIPs an outlandish anecdote about what he alleges is his current residence – a green wheelie bin in Manchester’s crime-ridden Mosside suburb. But, before there was chance to elaborate, Ryder was whisked away to the Hacienda tent, where a packed-in crowd awaited his live PA, which he –rather dubiously- delivered amongst a shower of silver confetti. Several songs and a twisted melon later, Notion happened upon an unlikely celebrity punter, in the shape of The View’s Steven Morrison, who - somewhat surprisingly - admitted that he was eagerly anticipating Carl Cox’s oldskool set. Before we could express our dubious surprise, Lisa Lashes (who’s set would later wow the Kiddstock arena) bustled into the green room, accompanied by Above & Beyond. “It sounds like it’s going to be a pretty crazy night.” She gushed airily. Notion was then treated to a natter Godskitchen Manager, Neil Navarra, over the pic ‘n mix bowl. “This is really exciting - I don’t think we’ll ever get a line-up like this ever again. We’ve got an amazing cross-section of people from the last twenty years; I’m like a kid in a sweet shop.” “I’m especially looking forward to catching up with a lot of people I haven’t seen in a long while – I’ve got so many friends who are djs that I don’t get a chance to catch up and have a drink with, but tonight I might actually get a chance to,” he told us, before running off to do just that with Above & Beyond. After diving into the pic ‘n mix bowl for our twentieth sugar rush of the evening, we whisked off to catch the end of Adamski’s set, where he and Jeremy Healy shared the decks for the last few tracks. “It’s nice running into people I haven’t seen for like 18 years,” Adamski admitted when Notion collared him afterwards. While milling about the festival site later on, we caught up with long-standing Streetrave comrade, Hooligan X, who was reminiscing about the Hacienda years: “The last time I was with Shaun [Ryder] was in 1989. Me, him and Bez were coming out of the Hacienda and we were going to The Kitchen, right in the middle of Mosside, but we couldn’t get in so we went to a club called Buttons. A couple of weeks later, someone was shot outside of it.” And on that happy note, we joined the throng of neon-clad dance lovers, to spill into the Godskitchen vs. Colours arena, to find the newly-reformed Orbital wowing the crowd with an emotional and euphoric set. If anything was to banish the clubbers-fatigue Notion began to experience as we came down from such a blinding return, it could only have been a 20-year-old set from Godskitchen mainstayer Carl Cox. Attended by what must have been the majority of the festival’s punters, it even included a wry nod to Colours’ birthplace, with bagpipe samples signalling the finale. Safe in the knowledge that we had witnessed a live, blow-by-blow soundtrack of dance’s 20 year history, and having ticked off about half of our ‘people we’d like to see before we die’ lists, Notion retired into the strobes, to soak up the last of the birthday celebrations.
INTERVIEW: Brodinski
INTERVIEW: Brodinski
06/10/2009
We dropped Brodinski a quick email to find out about how he chose what to include on his recent Suck My Deck compilation and get the latest on his new side project The Krays, which sees him and fellow Frenchman and partner in crime Yuksek get gansta with an ex-Channel 5 soapstar! --Kara Simsek So you’re the latest curator of a Bugged Out! Suck My Deck compilation - how did you go about selecting the tracks? I just choose the track I love since a while. A lot of friends’ stuff too, I think it's the trick :) I'm in good contact with the people from Bugged Out! and I play a lot for them. Big up to Johnno & Charlotte. How does clubbing in Paris compare to clubbing in London? I prefer the London one. It's totally different; in Paris it's not possible to see something really different all nights. In London the scenes are so distinctive and they have so much different place. This is pretty crazy… and they have bugged out of course...:) Who would you most like to remix and why? Maybe 50 Cent, or The Very Best because they are so much different from my original music. I love to work with different stuff. You’re well known for working with Yuksek, how did you guys meet? He lives in the same city of me, in the same street actually :D Do you have any recommendations for hot acts/bands/DJs that we might not know about? Noob, Marina Gasolina, Jaimie Fanatic, Roska, Soko, shortstuff...and so much more. Do you like playing in large state of the art clubs or do you prefer smaller, grottier, venues? I love all the different venues, even really small club for 80 people. This is amazing, you can play different set every times. What can we expect from ‘The KRAYS’? Why did you and Yuksek decide to set up this side project? Does it allow you a different sort of creative freedom? You can expect track, remixes, and maybe some show too :D It's a really good project for us because it's totally different of our own style...and when we have something to do together we does it with this project, it's more interesting. I see that The Krays are remixing Ebony Bones. I don’t know if you know this, but she used to be a soap star in Britain in a show called Family Affairs. If you were in a soap opera, what kind of storylines would you like to be written for you? I don't know i'm really not a good writer.... :D Merci, Brodinski!
INTERVIEW: Paul Woolford talks shop, space and ticking clocks
INTERVIEW: Paul Woolford talks shop, space and ticking clocks
16/09/2009
So another summer draws to a close, and Ibiza shuts up shop for another year. But, for one lucky bedroom DJ, a chance to play at Space’s closing party is up for grabs thanks to G-Shock and The Burlington Project. As part of this collaboration, three of the super club’s super residents have designed limited edition Casio watches. One of these is techno maestro and Intimacy label boss Paul Woolford. We caught up with him to talk shop, Space and ticking clocks. The BurlingtonProject competition has a fantastic prize. When you were starting out as a DJ where was the place you most aspired to play? Have you achieved this goal? It does have a fantastic prize, and to whoever will win, it's important that they know that this is an opportunity that needs to be used as much as enjoyed. It's by no means the end-result, it's a huge push upwards, albeit one that very few people have the chance to take. It's an interesting question you ask, but my trajectory was not always based solely upon which clubs I wanted to cross off the list. You have a huge amount of different things that show themselves to you as being things that you want to explore. What happens then is down to how much work you want to put in. Assuming that you have the skills to do these things, it's of the optimum importance to then work as hard as you possibly can and really go for it. Basics was the first club that I really had the urge for, and that urge started when I was 17! Since then there have been many clubs that I've had that desire to play. Electric Chair in Manchester, Warung in Brazil, Panaramabar in Berlin, The Sub Club in Glasgow, Il Muretto in Venice where I ended up playing a summer residency in 2007, there have been so many different establishments that you have on your list, and over time, as long as you keep to your ideals musically, you cross everything off. I'm making my debut at D-Edge in Sao Paolo in October which will be another one of these type of nights. It's a constant process that never ends. How much did you have to do with the design process of your G-Shock watch? We had a number of discussions with the team at Casio and I went to their main store in Carnaby Street in London to do some exploring. I had worn a G-Shock watch for years so when the opportunity presented itself there was no hesitation. The team at Casio have been a lot of fun to work with and very open to different ideas, although some of my ideas were a little too complicated to work on these watches. I had proposed the idea of a decibel meter so you can actually see how loud it is in any club situation, but understandably this would create a whole new set of design solutions that needed to be found. In the end, I looked at 2 classic G-Shock shapes and used the iconic Acid House smiley face which we'll get into next.... Do you think it’s ironic you chose to use a smiley face associated with rave culture when Ibiza is arguably the total opposite of the rave scene? What was your reasoning for choosing this imagery? Well if you are alluding to the cliched utopian hippie ideals of the rave scene - then you could be correct in thinking that Ibiza is the exact opposite of this. That was a ridiculous and simply unrealistic fantasy anyway. If you're actually talking about raving itself then you'd have to be a hardened cynic of the most pernickety persuasion to try and tell me that the rave scene and Ibiza has no parallels. Every Sunday for the last 14 weeks I have watched about 5000 people per week doing an activity that is exactly what you're saying is, arguably, the opposite of Ibiza - raving, to the music of people such as Joris Voorn, Carl Craig, Derrick May, Metro Area, Steve Lawler, Miss Kitten, Chemical Brothers, Grace Jones, Ivan Smagghe, DJ Hell + loads more people I could mention. If you asked most of these, roughly 70,000 people what they would say they have been doing, I'd think most of them would say "raving" or something very similar... One of Paul Woolford's Casio G-Shock watches. What was going through your mind when you produced Erotic Discourse. It sounded like nothing else I’d ever heard at the time, was it your intention to produce something that sounded completely abstract? It was the result of an instinctive muting of most of the channels on a Freeform Five remix I was working on at the time. I had used the main noises that were the theme of 'Erotic...' during the introduction of this remix, and in working on the myriad of dub versions, I ended up muting everything off except the kick, and THAT sound. I then pressed record on the hard disk and set off the effects manually as the sounds came and went. There was never even an arrangement on the screen and, as with the best pieces of music, it was entirely without thought, it just came out. The irony here is that you always strive to produce your best work in the studio, and I had particularly wanted to innovate in some capacity at some point although in reality the chance of this happening is minute. The time comes when you are not thinking about anything, just working instinctively, and this is what happens! The track took on a life of it's own and I still didn't truly believe the reactions that we had in for the track from people such as Francois K, Laurent Garnier, Trevor Jackson, Erol Alkan, Richie Hawtin + so many more, until I played it our for myself. It was crazy. People from Leeds in dance music really seem to look after their own, do you think there’s a special type of camaraderie that comes from up there? I would say definitely, although it's very easy for people who are not strong minded to get swept up in a drug culture that can be so corrosive. We all like to have a party but I always know that I need a good reason to be out for days, not just out for days because that's all you have in life. There is more to life than the next after party, so make sure the next after party you are at is WELL worth your attendance...! It must be a special relationship you have with the 2020 Vision people, as they have done a lot to push forward Leeds artists over the years, will you be helping them to celebrate their 15th birthday this year? Indeed I will, 2020 Vision have pushed Leeds acts very hard and it's fantastic to see them reach the 15 year mark. Do you think people down South realise how good some of the nights up in the North are? For techno it gets a bit overlooked, events up there are easily equal to London parties, do you think Leeds gets enough recognition? Well it depends on where you want to see this recognition - it's no secret how healthy Leeds' techno-based events are. Especially now with what the guys at System at the Mint club are working on. They have nurtured their links with the scene over the years and are now capitalising on this, and it's fantastic to see a promoter re-investing in their venue to the level that Mint have. Their work with Cocoon was something that was fresh for Leeds, and I'm looking forward to playing for System in December alongside an amazing pioneer whos name I can't mention just yet... How important is Basics to you? It’s helped you to be in the position you are in as resident at Space – one of the biggest, most famous positions in dance music. But do you view your success as a 2-way street, with your Basics residency a helping the club to move forward as well? Would you consider being resident there again? How much impact on your profile has the Space residency had? Basics was an incredible opportunity, which came to me through Ralph Lawson, as he'd let me open up for the first hour of his residency at the Mint all those years ago. Slowly I worked my way in and then became a full resident. The experience of breaking records and learning how to open a club properly, how to warm the floor and begin the evening in the right manner was something I taught myself at Basics. These things are the building blocks of a career to any DJ who is worth their salt. I was a resident for about 7 years in total, and I went from occasionally opening to closing the club regularly and breaking various records there as you do in any residency. It was a moment in time, and one that I'm very fond of. What I'm doing at Space is in a different place entirely, in that it's in a larger, more globally-visible environment, and it's more intense in certain moments. The pressure is greater, and it's rewarding in a very different way. Although you use the skills you have learnt from all those years ago in places, there is a whole new set of codes to observe and the method, especially in the late closing hours, is different. It's important for any DJ or producer in this scene to have a clear forward movement and not to be too caught up in nostalgia or reverence for the past. Whilst I have some amazing memories from that time, my eyes are on the future. You’ve now got a monthly residency at Matter. Do you like the job of being a resident, building up your own following, knowing what the crowd wants and helping to shape the identity of the club? Of course, these are the building blocks of any residency as we've discussed. I equally enjoy opening a room as I do closing or the peak-hours, it's a different way to play and can be more rewarding sometimes depending on the way the night happens. Do you feel Matter on the whole has been a success? It doesn’t have the same identity as Fabric, the way that if you go there on a Saturday you’re going to hear house and techno, if you go on Friday you’ll more than likely get drum & bass. Matter’s programming seems a bit more haphazard, do you think it’s important to have variety? It certainly has been a success in terms of giving London and the surrounding areas something on a different scale to Fabric. It would be foolish to compare the two as they are providing a different experience. The sheer scale of Matter means that it needs to be a larger lineup in order to fill the club, but having said this, there are a number of artists that do not play Fabric, who are playing at Matter regularly, people such as Funk D'Void, Derrick Carter, Josh Wink, and so on, so as well as the huge headliners such as Trentemoller & Carl Cox, there are some excellent high quality artists surrounding these bookings. I'm at Saved on Saturday with Nic Fanciulli, Kevin Saunderson & Trentemoller, and then I return the following Saturday for the first birthday with Carl Cox & Josh Wink. These are excellent events run by a dedicated team who do an impeccable job. As a DJ, you KNOW that every element that affects your performance is going to be taken care of so you can concentrate on being creative. This is the core thing you need to know before you step inside the venue and with Matter, as with Space, I can relax knowing everything is in the right place. You have a residency at Space, Ibiza, but if you could take residency anywhere in space where would it be? Thanks for the offer but there's not enough atmosphere up there.... -- Kara Simsek
tags: | interview | paul woolford | casio | g shock | interview paulwoolford
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