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Many might scoff at the statement I’m about to make but… I challenge anyone to think of a better ACTIVE current hip-hop duo than Clipse. Raekwon/Ghostface are far from active, Mobb Deep and M.O.P. both have fallen considerably from the days when they were considered legends of east coast rap - and after taking those three away who are you left with?

The Clipse.

Imagine my excitement a few months ago when I learnt they’d be playing a few small venues over here in the UK to promote their new critically acclaimed album “Hell Hath No Fury”. I booked the tickets so fast that I got the 9th and 10th tickets to go on sale. That’s how excited I was. (more…)

Yesterday was the Evolution Festival in Newcastle. A day of free music spread across two stages located on the quayside of Newcastle/Gateshead. One stage, where I spent the whole day, focuses on live acts/bands, and the other is made up of DJs and stuff. This year the Spillers Wharf stage (live act based) hosted Kano, The Enemy and Maximo Park (headlining) as well as a few others. Not a bad line up when it’s completely free to get in!

It all started at 1.30pm with The Motorrettes, who we missed, but followed by them was Kano at about half 3 I think:

Kano was pretty unspectacular. I’ve seen him four or five times now and I’m a big fan of his. In Newcastle yesterday he turned up late (twenty minutes or so) and sluggishly performed only five songs. He was blessed with a great sound system and he was crystal clear, but I don’t think the crowd knew much about him and he didn’t really seem like he wanted to be there. He performed some of his best stuff like “Ps & Qs”, “Reload It” but not “Typical Me”? His new stuff also sounded pretty good, but I can’t help but think he couldn’t be arsed when he wasn’t getting a decent reaction from the crowd.

After Kano me and my mates…

… sat down and people watched for about two hours, had some food and then some hot drinks to warm us up. After all, this whole thing was taking place on a cold, windy afternoon by Newcastle’s quayside. It was NOT warm at all. So we missed Joe Jackson and someone else I think. I can’t remember.

We picked ourselves up and found a nice spot to watch Coventry band The Enemy:

I can’t tell you much about The Enemy except that the lead singer thinks he’s Liam Gallagher. But they were pretty good. I enjoyed their set. They played a decent hour’s worth of material, so my interest kind of faded because I didn’t know their songs, but I was tapping my feet along for most of it. Now I’ve listened to some of their stuff since Evolution I must say that they’re nothing special, but if you like the current indie-pop era then they might do something for you.

After this we stayed in position, foolishly I might add, to watch soft rockers Echo and the Bunnymen:

Our alternative to this was Simian Mobile Disco Live on the Baltic Stage (a 30+ minute walk away) and I knew we’d made the wrong decision as the youngsters around started to phase out to be replaced by middle aged men with grey pony tails. Not good. Echo and the Bunnymen, who played a few songs I recognised, can only be described as dad rock. Status Quo without the pop. They were so so bland. Stage presence: 0. And worst of all there were no bunny suits. Shame on them.

But the real highlight of the day was seeing Newcastle’s own, Maximo Park:




(I couldn’t get a decent picture for the life of me. The natural light disappeared, my phone camera is rubbish and there were dozens of spotlights dazzling my lense. But these will do!)

Everyone seemed to cram into the Spillers Wharf car park to see Maximo Park, and what a great show they put on. I don’t know too much about Maximo Park but every song they played that I knew, I absolutely loved - “Apply Some Pressure”, “Books From Boxes”, “Velocity” and a couple of others. The crowd were so much better than they had been for Kano, although that’s to be expected, and the atmosphere made the show even better. I’ve not seen Maximo Park before and I was stunned at the energy of their frontman. Wasn’t so impressed with his verbal diarrhea between songs, but he himself pointed out that he was “talking shit”. Your words mate, your words!

By the time they finished it was gone 11PM. And we’d been in Newcastle since about 2ish. That’s a lot of free music. And a lot of stiff legs too. We had to use these cardboard legs to run to the metro station (a good half hours walk! if not more) and we only just made the last metro. As we got to the platform the train pulled right up. Such a close squeeze, especially as it was the last one back to Sunderland.

A very good day was had by one and all. I wish they’d do more of these festivals. I’m already looking forward to next year’s (where I’ll avoid dad rockers and try to see more DJ-ing).

Utopia FM, Sunderland’s student radio station, has one jewel in it’s crown every broadcast - and that jewel is Utopia Live. Billing itself as a “new music station” Utopia always gets hold of a handful of decent local acts and plays them across the airwaves… and then at the end of the broadcast they all come together and play a gig, which we in turn broadcast. Hence Utopia Live. Us Utopia folk love it. Well, I say ‘us’, this was my first broadcast and thus my first Utopia Live. Although everyone else was very excited!

I attended the gig with my very enthusiastic partner in (radio)crime, Daniel…

Daniel went on to get incredibly drunk, so much so that after spilling someones cider-n-black he ran to the bar and replaced it with a cider-n-double vodka? But he was dancing around having a great time like only he can do!

First up we had electro-folk band The Catchpennies:

I wasn’t sure if it was worth coming to see the opening acts, because the opening ones hadn’t gathered much airtime, but I’m glad I came to see The Catchpennies. They were decent live. A strange concoction of people, who all looked VERY young and pretty nervous on stage, but they were all rather talented. Especially the lead singer who played the banjo! The banjo! I couldn’t believe it, I only know the banjo from “when I’m cleaning windows” so this definitely gave them an individual element. I was a big fan of what they were doing anyway. Listening to their stuff on Myspace I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that they were good live, but are maybe not so good otherwise.

After that was A Garden Story:

A Garden Story are from Sunderland. Let’s hope Sunderland’s musical future doesn’t lie in their hands because they weren’t upto much. Very average indeed. To me they sounded very American and weren’t at all original. I don’t want to say much more because I don’t want to rip them too much. I’m sure they’ll have some fans in sunny Sunderland but they weren’t my cup of tea in any way, shape or form.

The third offering of the night was Newcastle based, The Mosaics:

The Mosaics were breathtaking. I’m almost never satisfied with live bands because I don’t know their songs and usually there’s a reason I’ve never heard of them (excuse the ignorance, but to a general extent its true). The Mosaics however were different. I’ve played a few of their songs in my Utopia broadcasts, and they’ve remained memorable but not necessarily enjoyable. But from the word go they had my attention. Their sound is very much like Coldplay meets Keane (I hate Keane by the way)… but the lead singer is just incredible. I urge you to go and check out their myspace page http://www.myspace.com/mosaicmusic1 and listen to “Runner”. If you don’t like that then you probably won’t enjoy the rest of their stuff, but to me they’re simply brilliant. Their was a point in their set where they were having difficulty with the bass guitar I think, and whilst the rest of the band tried to sort it out lead singer Dan McLew played his acoustic guitar and sang a song by himself… and even that was brilliant. I need to find other words to describe them, but all you need to know is they are so, so good. Go listen to “Runner”… NOW.

Following The Mosaics was Odd Shaped Head:

Knowing that there were still two more acts to come after The Mosaics I was kind of like “whoa, maybe there is actual real quality in local gigs - especially if The Mosaics are third from finish - these next two bands must be bloody good!”. And you know what? They weren’t. Maybe I was still trying to digest the magic of The Mosaics but Odd Shaped Head, like A Garden Story, did absolutely nothing for me. Very run-of-the-mill indie music. Not my sort of thing at all really.

To finish the night off was Seven Heroes, who will be playing Newcastle Evolution Festival next week:

Everyone at Utopia has been raving about Seven Heroes for a while. Especially “Start It Again” and “Don’t Call” which are two songs you can find on their myspace page, http://www.myspace.com/sevenheroes. Seven Heroes were too much about melody and not enough substances for my liking. For example they had a song which raved “lets start a revolution!” and not once did they follow that up with any reason as to why. Just kind of “hey, you know what we should do that would be jolly good! a revolution! yeah man this music is upbeat it’ll get us in the mood!”. It’s the exact kind of music that dumbs people down rather than enlightening them. “Don’t Call” sounds like a song from Byker Grove or Saved by the Bell. But, to their credit, they’re a well polished band with catchy songs. I needed more than that though.

Utopia’s own Ian Gordan hosted Utopia Live, and also took all these photos which I’ve stolen from his Facebook… well played to him.

Overall: great, cheap night. The Mosaics were outstanding. The Catchpennies and Seven Heroes held my attention, but the other two weren’t that great at all. I got real drunk and that’s always good. Not quite as drunk as Daniel mind. Anyway, go check out the Mosaics myspace page.

That is all.

Pretty surprised by this! but Saigon is to do three dates in the UK next month. London, Brighton and Birmingham. Tickets available from Seetickets.com.

I can’t really afford to go, plus I don’t really know anyone willing to accompany me. Which is a shame, because I’d love to see Saigon before he gets big in a year or two. The “Return of the Yardfarther” mixtape is great, and I’m really looking forward to his album “The Greatest Story Never Told” which is due out some time this year. Oh well, I posted this because maybe someone else will end up going… and then they should hook me up with any pictures or videos… hint hint. I *MIGHT* be able to get to the Birmingham show, but I doubt it :(.

Anyway. Here’s some various new tracks to brighten your day:

Pharoahe Monch - What It Is

Kanye West - Can’t Tell Me Nothing

Common - The Game

Common - The People

What I’ve learnt from being at Uni in Sunderland is that you should be prepared to travel for gigs of high profile artists. When you live so close to somewhere like Newcastle, it makes more sense for artists to play at a larger venue, where they’ll make more money yet still attract people from the surrounding area. In my two years at Sunderland I’ve seen many established artists stop off on tour dates at Newcastle or Middlesborough, but rarely do people opt to play Sunderland instead. Because the people of Sunderland will travel to these places if they have to. That being said, the Arctic Monkeys did play our Students’ Uni last year before they ‘made it’. This is also true of Leeds/York, whereby I have to travel from York all the way to Leeds to catch even a C-list artist. I imagine many people living in cities with larger neighbouring cities share my sentiments. Humbug.

This scenario applies more so in the rap world, where someone like NaS will come to the UK and play three shows - one in London, Manchester and say Birmingham - he knows that people will travel from all over to these cities and he doesn’t have to branch off to places like Norwich or Swansea. Fans will travel to see him. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that hip-hop artist Coolio, of Gangsta’s Paradise fame, was not only going to be gigging in Sunderland, but he was going to be performing in a little bar that holds no more than 1,000 people. I was gob-smacked. Here is a guy who was one of the biggest west coast rappers in the mid-90s (or one of the biggest one hit wonders of the mid-90s, if you want to be cynical), and he was coming to Sunderland!?!?

Here are some photos of Coolio, now 43, doing his thing on Wearside:

And the man rapped about the same thing any 43 year old would rap about - guns, drugs and bitches of couse. Credibility still in tact at 43? Well Sunderland doesn’t get many multi-platinum rappers and certainly doesn’t see the violence of Coolio’s Compton-background, so I guess in Coolio we trust.

Most of the people crammed into this tiny bar could probably only name you two Coolio songs, and to be fair, I was only there for C U When U Get There/Gangsta’s Paradise too. Infact I used the rest of his 1-hour set for photo opportunities. While he performed songs that hardly anybody knew (and he had an album out last year which again, hardly anybody knew) I was very aware that this guy was nearly the same age as my dad - and still rapping about shooting people ‘just to get by’. Bizarre.

There was one horrifying moment in his set where he ushered about 10 girls on stage, and whether it gave a fair representation of Sunderland or not is open to debate, but there was one black girl, a couple of 40+ year olds (who weren’t hot either, I might add) and a handful of girls so big that I certainly wouldn’t be able to get my arms around. Not a pretty sight when you consider a stage full of such girls. Coolio then made them perform a dance-off, where they all basically simulated sex on stage to music. It was so cringeworthy but you just couldn’t look away. Coolio even dry humped one or two of them! The fat girls and the middle aged women were all eliminated by Mr-O, and the only black lass amongst the crowd was selected as the winner. She was sent to ‘VIP’ (a table behind the stage that was reserved, very glamorous!). This girl was pretty ugly but as the stereotypes go, she sure could shake that ass! Wasn’t a hard choice really, she was probably the only one either under 25 years old or under 25 stone.

Me and my friends couldn’t decide whether 43-year old Coolio got to have his way with this girl, but came to the conclusion that of course he did because he’s a rapper, why wouldn’t he?

I still don’t know if I enjoyed it. Was nice to have a hip-hop night in a very indie-orientated music scene. Was nice to see an artist that I never thought I’d get the chance to see (although probably was nowhere near as good as seeing him when he was in his early 30s!) and it was especially nice to have Gangsta’s Paradise (a song I love) performed in such an intimate venue. But at the same time… Coolio’s 43… probably has a son or a daughter my age… and it would be fair to say he’s a has-been. I later learnt that he earned £3,000 for his brief appearance in Sunderland, which is easy money I guess seeing as he’s been performing these same songs for about 10 years. Fair play to him!

I caught the important bits on video. If you would like to see the man himself performing live in Sunderland, I have uploaded some of my vids, here is a snippet of “C U When U Get There” and also the whole of “Gangsta’s Paradise”.

Hello.

Awesomely-awesome rap duo Clipse are making the trans-atlantic trip from their Virginia homes to the shores of the UK. Why? So they can play a six date UK tour in June.

Yeah. That’s right. Clipse. In the UK. Rapping.

Here are five of the six dates for their tour:

Dublin Vicar Street
Wednesday June 13th

Nottingham Rescue Rooms
Friday June 15th

Bristol The Thekla
Wednesday June 20th

London Shepherds Bush Empire
Thursday June 21st

Cambridge Junction
Saturday June 23rd

I don’t know what the other date is.

Clipse are ace. They rap about drugs, guns and bitches. So by default they are heroes of mine. You should go and see them so that they make more money and will tour again next year. I have bought three tickets for the Nottingham gig. Most likely you can find me front row centre being hassled by some young gangsters who make gun noises while using their hands as would-be firearms. I love rap gigs.

It is of no use to you, but I went to see Ricky Gervais’ new stand-up tour last night, entitled Fame.

Following Politics and Animals, Gervais now sets his sights on his own rise to Fame, and boy does he lap it up (walking onto his elaborate set/stage with a crown and cape on). The tour has set records for how fast it sold out in the UK and I was lucky enough to be 3rd row centre for tonight’s show in Sunderland. The first two rows were reserved for Gervais’ fan club members, so because of a contact at the theatre I got almost first dibs on the tickets! There were four tiers/floors at the theatre tonight and I felt pretty priveleged not to be in the nose bleed section, and believe me there were some pretty high seats!

It was a great show - if you’re a fan of Gervais’ previous stand up stuff then you’ll enjoy Fame. The usual jibes at obesity, religion and celebs are present. As are more controversial digs at cancer, aids and the third world… Gervais really sails close to the wind but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy every single joke going.

I now have an aching jaw.

:/