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Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Trailer
Filed in GamesRocker Plus at 11.28am on 19 October 10
The Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare expansion featuring a full new single-player story with all new gameplay and multiplayer modes – along with new weapons, zombie animals, mythical creatures and even a brand new secret location – the Undead Nightmare Pack will be available very soon for download via Playstation Network (£7.99) and Xbox Live (800 Microsoft Points).
Paul's London Diary »
Opening this weekend .... ‘The Nest’ in Dalston
Filed in Paul's London Diary by Paul Artrocker at 10.04am on 15 October 10Claimed by some to be the most exciting and creative new area in London and by others as simply being 'Hoxton overspill' it can never be a bad thing that London has two new venues arriving on the scene in quick succession.
Perhaps more high profile is a complete overhaul of a venue much loved and often used by the most avant garde and underground of bands and promoters, Bardens Boudoir in Dalston.
The Nest is a new bar, club and live music venue opening in Dalston to the public on Friday 15th October 2010. Occupying the former site of Bardens Boudoir, behind The Nest are Fabric founder Steve Ball alongside Riz Shaikh, who already run many of London’s finest venues, including The Old Queens Head and Paradise By Way of Kensal Green.
The promoters, whose other venues are not primarily live music venues claim,
"The Nest will act as a figure head to a new breed of clubs that have the diversity and talent to embrace the new rather than hold on to the old, embracing Dalston’s fantastic creative scene, and supporting the best in live music, art and fashion, whilst also introducing worldwide new talent into an area which has fast become London’s hottest night spot.All of this will take place within a fantastic space, designed by Riz Shaikh, who has captured a dark and industrial feel using bare exposed concrete and neon lights. With bespoke lighting designed by award winning Alex Randell, The Nest will be full of intimate cubby holes and caged alcoves."
The Nest launches this weekend and it will be interesting to see ift he launch events reflect the balance of commitment at the venue between club acts and events and live music.
October 15th features DFA co founder Juan Maclean alongside Big in Japan resident Capita! and Jac the Disco.
October 16th lines up new comers Flight Facilities from Australia and remixers C90s and Kid Who
October 17th finally features some live music in the shape of Artrocker faves and soon to be Klaxons tour support, Fiction, alongside Phantom, Bones, EVRYONE.
These nights are free entry before 10pm on Friday and Saturday and 8pm on Sunday.
Meanwhile, just down the road another new venue opened in Dalston last weekend at The Victoria in Queensland Road. A pub with a "tragically un-used 150 capacity back room, decent stage and PA" kicked off with a 5 band lineup featuring Cowbell, Barringtone, Lot Lizards, Daddy LongLegs and the Loveburns.
With perhaps a more rough and ready approach, The Victoria shows its foward looking booking policy with a show on 22nd October featuring the very hip Youthless, Ghostcat and Rory Atwell.
It looks at least like there is a chance to 'take your pick' now in Dalston. With these new developments, the onus is now on you, dear reader, to get out there to some gigs !
Paul ArtrockerWelcome to my World »
Gary Numan and Star-Struck Tom
Filed in Welcome to my World at 11.37am on 13 October 10Artrockers,
I'm not a big fan of conducting interviews by phone, but last night I spent a most enjoyable hour talking to Mr Gary Numan . And I can report that the 'Numan' is very 'Human'; chatty, disarming, humble, amusing, wistful, honest and perceptive. Not what I expected at all. What did I expect? Awkwardness, mumbling, an unwillingness to answer questions, a guy, in short, troubled by Aspergers and apart from the world. I couldn't have been more wrong. When will I learn? Every time I have to speak to somebody 'famous' who's music is important to me I go through all sorts of horror-scenarios involving them throwing a glass of something over me, walking out on the interview and having me beaten up by their inevitable heavies. And it's never like that, the 'stars' are generally polite, patient and grounded. I arrive a bag of nerves and leave thinking: 'What a nice person!' And I reliase that no matter how long I'm around this crazy business, and take it from me it's been a while, I never get over being 'star-struck'. I'm just a great big teenage fan flapping about, winding myself up about actually meeting the folks who have soundtracked my life.
I hope I never get over it, every time the 'big' interview comes up I become 16 again, and short of the fountain of youth or a time machine I know of no better way to re-discover the
adolescent me in his poster lined bedroom, the fan, surrounded by the images of his heroes.
If I ever lose that feeling I'll give it all up and never write another word about music, but I can't see it happening. I'm hoping to talk to Phil Oakey and John Foxx soon and I can assure you I'm already bricking it. Maybe they'll throw their drink over me...
Tom ArtrockerWelcome to my World »
Spotify & Boring Cities
Filed in Welcome to my World at 16.02pm on 28 September 10Artrockers,
First, an apology, Jonas, John Power, Charlie, Daniel and about 50 others all noticed my 'deliberate' mistake last week - yes indeed, George Michael was sentenced to eight weeks in jail and not, as I stupidly claimed, eight months. And many pointed out that he'd been canned not because he was a toker but because he's a danger behind the wheel - which is certainly the case, he does seem to like driving under the influence but hey, it must be some awesome weed 'dude', wherever he gets it I can tell you for a fact that it isn't South London, there hasn't been anything worth rolling round these parts for months, just nasty rubbish that seems to have been sprayed with a perfume called 'Vaguely Like Skunk'. Yuck! But I did get this response which makes it all worthwhile: 'Very moved by your excellent piece on the jailing of George Michael.
'Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?' indeed. Thank you. -BP Fallon [bpfallon.com]
Thanks BP.
I saw an advert for Spotify on TV last night, still offering free membership, which prompted the question once more: Why would I buy music? Now they're advertising it on TV I guess we might as well pack up and go home. I have yet to have one person explain to me why Spotify is a good thing for the industry or the artists - can somebdy enlighten me please?
And news just in: London gas failed to make the top 50 of the most liveable cities (whatever the hell that means), the top 10 are; Vancouver, Canada- Melbourne, Australia - Vienna, Austria - Geneva, Switzerland - Perth, Australia - Adelaide, Australia - Sydney, Australia - Zurich, Switzerland - Toronto, Canada - Calgary, Canada. Which is a major coincidence because that just happens to be my list of the most boring cities in the world, so by 'liveable' they must mean 'incredibly dull', plus New York of course, or at least Manhattan which carries off the prize for going from 'most exciting city in the world' to 'most boring, smug and middle-class city anywhere in the universe'. Why do people go to NY? To shop. Cultural hot-spot to shopping destination in one generation - quite an achievement.
Tom ArtrockerWelcome to my World »
George Michael - Butterfly Upon a Wheel?
Filed in Welcome to my World by Tom Artrocker at 16.54pm on 17 September 10Artrockers,
The first mistake George Michael made was not employing Pete Doherty's legal team. After all, serial court attender Doherty has spent a total of four days in Pentonville Prison, George Michael however has been sentenced to eight weeks in Pentonville for harming nobody but himself. Sure, he crashed his car into Happy Snaps and was a bit wasted when he did it - but eight months? Is this a case of breaking a butterfly upon a wheel? Forty odd years ago Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were sentenced to jail in the Redlands drug case. At the time William Rees Mogg, hardly a bastion of the counter-culture wrote in The Times: "If we are going to make any case a symbol of the conflict between the sound traditional values of Britain and the new hedonism, then we must be sure that the sound traditional values include those of tolerance and equity. It should be the particular quality of British justice to ensure that Mr. Jagger is treated exactly the same as anyone else, no better and no worse. There must remain a suspicion in this case that Mr. Jagger received a more severe sentence than would have been thought proper for any purely anonymous young man."
And here we are in the 21st Century doing it all over again. If anything drug laws have gone backwards, the enlightenment has not happened. A naturally occurring weed is still the harbinger of destruction. And this time there's no Rees Mogg to talk sense. Optimists might have seen the Jagger-Richards case as a break-through, a precursor to a new found weed liberality - how wrong can you be? The laws, and their enforcement by the police are more aggressively enforced than they were in 1968 - as George Michael's case proves.
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? We do.
Tom Artrocker
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