Videos from 311 > back in the desert have been posted to the zBORED YouTube channel. They played Marquee in Tempe this February and this second dose of the Omahaliens featured 2 back-to-back sets in downtown Phoenix [plus the standard encore, that is]. This was my 11th time seeing 311 live and direct and as always it was good times and great music.
The quintet did it right opening with 'Do You Right' [one of my faves from their debut album Music] and kept it old school following that up with 'Offbeat Bare Ass' from the sophomore release Grassroots [for real!]. Over the last 12 years I've been at 311 shows, they've always done a good job at playing a variety of their gems across all albums [even the EP's and bootlegs]. Mad propers for not forgetting what got them where they are nearly 20 years later. The only issue I see with that is as they release more albums, that song selection representing those albums gets smaller and smaller; Friday's double set was comprised of about 30 songs so we only got a 2 or 3 track sample size of their album anthology performance.
Nonetheless, that show was the blastest blast and I did get to hear a bunch of my favorites like 'Beautiful Disaster', 'Amber' and 'Eons'. I'll definitely be at the next show here in the desert and hopefully on the 311 Caribbean cruise next spring. Enjoy the vids!
iPhone 4s > can and should dress for the occasion too. DJ Siri Sauce [the name of my iPhone] is the most stylishly spectacular device in the universe so she needs to dress the part.
Pictured above are 3 of DJ Siri Sauce's outfits [her getup boasts a closet of 9]. Her weekend garb is not exactly ideal for everyday since charging requires disrobing but out on the town she turns heads everywhere.
Siri-ously though, isn't it time you start treating the device that your world would likely turn upside down without, like something a little more important than a one-skin pony? Or do you wear the same shoes all the time? Same undies too? Gross. Check online at OtterBox or Zagg or any mall for a gazillion funky or subtly saucy skins and liven things up a bit. You're better than that and your sexy device deserves better too.
Videos from the Mothership Tour > with Skrillex and 12th Planet are now up on the zBORED YouTube channel. It's been a long post-Halloween hangover week so get off me! All Hallows' Eve and Sunday Funday was celebrated at Marquee Theatre in Tempe for a night filled with a sick sick roster of DJ's with ill ill filter skills.
Upon parking my beach cruiser in front of Marquee Sunday evening and making it through a standard sold-out-show line of fellow music freaks, I had to bypass the bar because I was drawn to the sounds of Two Fresh getting down on the decks. These two brothas/brothers [they're twins I think] were accompanied by a drummer and together they hit us with some dope Hip-Hop beats that sounded jazzy and lounge-ish mixed with a flare of the underground shit from the early 90's. If these dudes roll back through the desert I'm definitely checking them out again.
Next up was 12th Planet, who I got to see in Chicago at Lollapalooza this summer but only for like 5 minutes. That 5 minutes wasn't all that superb but perhaps I wasn't totally into it because I do remember being awfully frustrated trying to get ahold of 100 friends on my extremely limited signal strength [standard at Lolla] in Grant Park that day. Needless to say, this time around was better and it was also fucking fresh. He dropped a variety of wobbly Drum and Bass shit throughout his set, throwing in some Jungle here and there and setting up Skrillex proper with some nasty Dubstep [he even threw down Doctor P's 'Tetris' remix, which is one of the tracks that got me into this shit last year]. He's a hype-man at heart, you can certainly tell. He constantly moved around the stage and was always dancing and convulsing and giving us orders between drops, all sergeant-like. He's a showman for sure and I can't wait to check out another set again. Sooo dope!
Finally, the main event. Skrillex. Marquee was filled to the brim at this point and it was loud as shit while he got down with all of the illness that has made him so popular in the electronic scene the past year and half. He knew his prowess had reached the desert since his show in Scottsdale this spring so he confidently hit the kill on several occasions at Marquee and let the crowd sing hooks, bridges, verses and even samples [Call 911 now! Yes! OH MY GOSH!]. My favorite of these was when he left it to the crowd for Penny's portions of 'All I Ask Of You' and Afrojack's 'Take Over Control' which was right after he asked of the a-holes in the front to stop fighting [seriously, how old are we? and are what kind of party are we at? Jebus, people.]. Skrillex mixed for nearly 2 hours and he mixed up the tunes drastically throughout his set even dropping classic shit from Kris Kross [jump! jump!], The Jets [you found out! I got a crush on you!] and Naughty By Nature [hip hop hip hip hop hip hip hop hooray]. Of course, what Skrillex set would be complete without 'Cinema'? He threw that hit into the mix and even mixed some Nero 'Promises' into it [soo tight!]. He finished his set [prior to the encore, that is] with and uber-extended mix of his famous gem 'Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites' which was def legit. Such a fun show. Can't wait to party Skrillex-style a third time.
Skrillex d-d-d-drop the bass > hello again to all my friends, it's National Halloween Hangover Day but it's still Sunday Funday and a sick sick DJ is back in the desert to wobble our faces off. I haven't always been a fan of his, or even most Dubstep for that matter, but this electronic sub-genre has really progressed in the past few years and Skrillex is definitely one of the talents spearheading the revolution.
Since the desert blowouts of the late 90's and warehouse parties in the early 00's I've been an avid Jungle-head and Drum and Bass aficionado so it was tough to accept the erratic bass lines and their lack of pattern. I remember being at an underground club in London back in 2007 on a random Thursday when it was their Dubstep night and not really even knowing how to dance to the music that DJ was dropping. I do recall hearing a pretty filthy Bloc Party 'Helicopter' remix but for the most part I felt like Elaine Benes dancing at her office party. But last year Doctor P got me to give the wobbly bass a chance and this year Skrillex has me all about it.
I had the privilege of seeing Skrillex in Chicago at Lollapalooza this summer and it was the shit. He dropped 'Kill Everybody', some 'Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites' as well as remixes galore like 'Cinema' from Benny Benassi and Gary Go, which is what he ended his set with [check out the vid I took below]. It was a killer set at Grant Park but I'm really looking forward to seeing a headline set at Marquee and not immersed in a pool of sweaty candy kids. I hope he drops my favorite track 'All I Ask Of You' which I didn't get to hear last time and hopefully he throws in some of the other remixes I've grown to love this year like 'In For The Kill' from La Roux, 'Alejandro' from Lady Gaga and 'ET' from Katy Perry. Poppy as hell, yes, but he adds a solid level of sickness to these tracks. I'll be a happy camper and it'll cap a flawless Halloween weekend. See ya at the show!
Videos from Chromeo and The Drums > shows last week have posted to the zBORED YouTube channel. Both were in Tempe and both were fun to the max. It's so fucking superb that the desert fall weather is here again and mysteriously this brilliant climate brings about a slew of great artists doing it live night after night.
Chromeo finally made it to the desert last Tuesday at Marquee Theatre. Finally. Last week in anticipation of the show I theorized they'd never been here in the last 6 years and if they did, it was completely under my music freak radar. Well, it was confirmed at the show during a brief political interlude that they haven't but not for political reasons as I suspected last year. It made me happy to be at a performance by an artist opposed to SB 1070 [they are first generation Canadian btw] but still made the trip to Arizona despite all of the misguided efforts of The Sound Strike. Check out my post about SB-1070's musical nemeses for more of the deets and my viewpoints as a music lover.
Politics aside, Chromeo delivered a fun, funky and body-moving show as expected and long-awaited. They opened with Fancy Footwork's intro track with everyone chanting 'Chro-me-o oh oh' so they pretty much took ownership of the crowd from the get go. Their nearly 2-hour set included all of their greatest shit over the years like 'Needy Girl', 'Bonafied Lovin' and 'Fancy Footwork' as well as a double-encore featuring 'Don't Turn the Lights On'. Sadly they didn't play my others jams '100%' or 'When The Night Falls' but nonetheless it was spectac to the max and I can't wait to party Chromeo-status again.
The Drums played the patio of Sail Inn on Thursday and it sounded great out there on a paradisal Tempe night. I just discovered these dudes earlier this year and just became a fan after seeing them in Chicago for Lollapalooza a few months ago. They've somehow slid into one of favorite newcomer bands and it's because all of their songs are super fun with tons of drums and keyboard. Check out the vid below of 'Money' which is my favorite song of theirs. I also really like 'Let's Go Surfing' [I want to go surfing!] but they didn't get to that one [or maybe they did early in the set, I was like 5 minutes late]. If you get an opportunity to check out The Drums. Do it.
Videos from Soundwave 2011 > last Friday have been added to the zBORED YouTube Channel. It was a shit ton of fun and if you didn't make it into the festival, check out the million videos I just posted from that night. If you did happen to be a part of this madness, still check out the videos to relive the magic and see/hear just what electronic illness this video shooting machine captured in the midst of eating an entire vodka tree [those types of trees might not exist].
Before the party I told you how much I was looking forward to Soundwave and how excited I was to see Kaskade and Z-Trip again. As anticipated, they killed it with some high-energy sets chocked with BPM for days. Kaskade didn't get to a lot of his old stuff that happen to be some of my favorites [ie, 'Here I Am' and 'Steppin' Out'] but he did hit us with a lot of the illest dance tracks from his recent mixes as well as some other hotness in the mix this year [ie, Avicii and Laidback Luke].
Phoenix's very own Z-Trip had the best set of the night and his homecoming was probably one of my favorite performances of his in the past decade. He mashed up some classic party jams like 'Money For Nothing' and 'Show Me Love', threw in some of his own production and laid down some experimental beats [lots of nasty wobble bass remixes in the later part of his set].
But I had never seen Dirty South or Manufactured Superstars before Soundwave and to my surprise they threw down some pretty dope sets too. Actually they killed it. They set it off proper early on while the crowd trickled in and made way to the main stage and got warmed up for the headliners. Below are just some my favorite videos I got from each of the main stage DJ's, definitely check out the other videos. There are just under a million and I got mad crazy angles so you can see how bananas it was everywhere. Enjoy. Do it.
Manufactured Superstars:
Dirty South:
Z-Trip:
Kaskade:
PS > sorry it took a minute to add all these vidsbecause there were a million things going on last week [Chromeo, The Drums - videos for those coming soon so stay tuned].
PSS > I got to interview Z-Trip before his set; I'll get that up ASAP too :)
Chromeo finally > in the desert. Phoenix has been anticipating a performance from the funky duo for quite some time. I don't think they have played a show here in the past 6 years if even ever, at least not that I know of. I have certainly been on the lookout though and was more than a bit bummed that their show slated for the Clubhouse last summer was canceled. As soon as Stateside Presents announced their show last year, I began stalking Chromeo's Business Casual Tour itinerary. But as August approached, to my surprise and disappointment the Tempe show was scratched and in place was an additional Albuquerque show. Lame sauce to the max, I know, however, as a man of my word, I will forgive and forget due to the awesome sauce of last year's release.
All that said, the Canadian twosome will be at the Marquee tonight with their guitar, synths and tubed vocal chords along with Mayer Hawthorne and Breakbot. It will be a fun show packed full of electrophonic funk, freestyle tempo and break beats. Pre-party is at Rula Bula on Mill Ave. Bring yo ass. Wurd.
