Ginger DJ Rob

Sunday was a packed day of London sightseeing with almost a minute by minute travel schedule. Rolled up to Holborn at around 12pm to see the Mr Brainwash exhibition expecting the door to open at 11am only to find a sign saying opening at 1pm. Bah! Instead I had a back-up plan to watch the Men's Marathon down on bankside. With it being such a nice warm day, Londoners were packing in to see the long-distance runners. Managed to see the race just opposite the drinks pick up point. Funny to see all the pro-photographers in the lorry in front. Menier Chocolate Factory Restaurant Next on the list was lunch at the Menier Chocolate Factory Restaurant for 1:30pm. It was almost deserted when we got there but this soon filled up to capacity. Next to us was an US actor who kept us trying to guess which film or TV show we'd seen him before. Starters was the sharing platter but for two people it was a little greedy. The ham hock with chutney was a highlight. My main was t...

Image by Ginger DJ via Flickr On hearing their latest album, Black Light I was predicted they would concentrate their gig on their new 80's Roxy Music inspired sound. I was not wrong. After their excellent previous album, Soundboy Rock they new direction removes all their dance and reggae roots, everything that makes them who they. We had a nightmare getting into the venue. The gig was just one of dozens across Brighton for the Great Escape Festival which turned the town into one huge music festival. The concept is that you could buy a wristband for the whole weekend or just one day. However, Kerry and I bought priority tickets separate to this. When these tickets sold out the only option for our mate Mark to join us was to buy a day's wristband. This resulted in all of us queuing for over an hour to guarantee our entry with security guards discouraging those with wristbands that they would not get in. The support band, Art vs. Science, an Australian band were awful tho...

In case you've never heard of Vitalic , think somewhere between Justice, Daft Punk and Etienne de Crecy with a pure electronic sound. We were a little late on the bandwagon with Vitalic's latest album, Flashmob really exciting us. Coalition on Brighton's beachfront was a good venue though the early performance time of 9:15pm to 10:30pm was moaned about by a few who didn't have to work the next day. Pascal Arbez, the guy behind Vitalic came on to the stage with his ready setup of laptop, sequencer and other technical gadgets. His set started off quite ordinary with only a couple of monster tunes to spice things up. The diversity of sounds was preferred by a section of the crowd, where as the pure dance-heads like myself and Kerry were used to the techno rhytmns. The second half had a lot more of the throbbing, hands-in-the-air classics like Flashmob to really rock the place. There were a couple of places where he made a mistake like miscounting the right point fo...

The last couple of times we saw Massive Attack were slightly disappointing. Although they deserve huge arenas being the legends they are, their recent past output had Robert '3D' del Naja fully at the controls using his almost whispery voice getting lost within a huge moody soundtrack. I hadn't heard any of their new album, Heligoland as it has only just been released plus after 100th Window not really repeating the winning formula of Mezzanine I hadn't made an effort to preview it. Unfortunately Kerry couldn't join me for the gig so Kev stood in. The band set up consisted of two drum kits, the guitar player who looked like Derek Acorah who's been around since Mezzanine, a keyboardist looking like Heston Blumenthol, a bassist and the vocalists of 3D, Daddy G (can you believe he's 50 years old!), Horace Andy and a couple of ladies, one to do the Shara Nelson songs and the other, recent addtion, Martina Topley-Bird who was the previous support act. No ...

What a night at Soulwaxmas! First of all I must thank my amazing missus, Kerry for getting me some excellent gifts this year. I must be one of the most difficult people to buy for but she's done it again and again. Presents awarded this year were: Charlie Brooker 's new book, The hell of it all; Star Trek on Blu-Ray ; a B+W kasemann polarizing filter (an inspired idea) and Nikon SB900 flash (thanks Kev for the technical advice). I'm a lucky, lucky boy. I tired the filter down at the seafront taking some photos, and although it was raining I was rewarded with a rainbow behind me. The evening started with a quick buffet and friends (thanks again Kerry) before the mini-bus up to Brixton Academy . An 8 seater with a return journey worked out at £250 (about £35 with 7 of us). So much better than the thought of waiting on a cold platform and multi-taxis. Shame we had to put up with some dull Radio 2 sounds. Amazingly, even after turning up 15 minutes late we arrive in Brixto...

Last night, it seemed that no one under the age of 25 had heard or experienced the excellence and majesty that is The Bays at the Concorde 2 (why they bother keeping the number I'll never know). It was a bit of a late for a band as the line-up had some very experimental warm-up acts including Fidgital (great name but the violin and hip-hop starty-stoppy act wasn't my bag), Puncture Kit (I don't remember seeing them stage but apparently use a bicycle as a bass drum. Wouldn't the spokes get in the way?) and new favourite Brighton DJ for us, Natural Self . Most of the crowd waiting the Bays were enjoying the DJ who I could only describe as using those moody, breakbeat, tech-step (I have just created a new music genre?) rhythms and sounds that perhaps DJ Shadow or UNKLE used to use. I see he's done his own hip hop album taking on himself to do rap vocals. Checking out his Myspace page and the featured tunes are not the dance pace we experienced so a tiny bit disappoi...