Whopper Virgins and Beat Mining!

I've come across a couple of really interesting things recently which I thought I'd share with you.



The first is something I saw on the brilliant Creative Review blog, a wicked blog which is twined with the expensive but similarly named magazine. Check out the blog here, there's loads of great stuff to check out.
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/.



On Creative Review I saw this film (below) which made for strangely compelling but also pretty maddening and thought provoking viewing. It's basically about an advertising campaign taking the Burger King Whopper to some of the most obscure communities in the world, its quite interesting to see how these communiteis react to this strange food, especially looking at how they approach it, but it also left me with a srong distaste for how the film describes it, as a "cultural exchange", as if the Whopper burger was a ligitimate piece of western culture we should be inflicting on remote communities around the world or that the burger was the best cultural product America had to offer.

Ultimately why should any inuit from the tundra for example have to, or need to, taste a burger, surely there's a limit to the expansionist ideals of the fast food industry. Why should Burger King ever be allowed to infiltrate such pure and untouched communities as those featured in the film, in such an unabashed attempt to 'educate' people in the culture of fast food as if it was a lrgoitimate natural progression!!! This is cultural imperialsm at its most distasteful and Insidious. Check out the video and see what you think.







Now for something a little bit more heart warming. I heard this show on Radio 4 today and loved it, its basically a look at record collectors and beat mining, which is basically looking for tracks for specific, beats or riffs to use in the creation of new or reinvented music. Its a great documentary with some really interet people and tales from the record collecting world. It mentions Mr Scruff, DJ Shadow - who incedentally I found out has DJ'd with my manager at work - Cut Chemist and even Chas and Dave. If I ever have a life as interesting as these record junkies I'd be more than happy. Here's also a few tips to beat mining http://www.the-breaks.com/beats.php

Listen to the show here (there's only 7 days to listen to it)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hg8dq

Cheers
G x

March 25th Tracklisting and exciting news

Hello everyone,

Apologies for this being a wee bit late but below is the tracklisting for the last Escape From The Pigeon Hole show on the 25th, we've lost the weeks before, hence why the tracklistings have jumped from the 10th to the 25th. Lat weeks show was pretty scrappy with plenty of rambling from Jonny and me but the music was prety good and finally we worked out how to use the phone so we can now get people phoning in live on the show.

Also just a warning; the next show will be in about 3 weeks so don't both tuning in, as we are away from Cardiff for Easter. Also this week as mentioned in the show we found out to our suprise that the phenomenal Youngblood Brass Band are making their way to Cardiff of all places on May 7th, I'm so glad this is happening, its stunning news and is definitely something not to miss out on! If you can't make Cardiff check out some of their other dates.

They are playing the the Globe on Albany road and I'm pretty sure its going to be an in your face, full frontal, horny assault on the senses and definitely not something to miss.

Obviously they've been working on a new album for sometime now and I can't tell you how excited I am to see them play some new stuff. If you don't know Youngblood Brass Band, they are a 10 (ish)

brass band who play original, devestatingly infectious and mindblowing music, full of huge horn riffs and great lyrical hip hop style verse. Check out their website http://www.youngbloodbrassband.com/site/site_index.html to listen to their last album and download a few free tunes.

Here's the tracklisting for the March 25th show, and remember you can download the entire show, just look to the right of this page.

1. Tribe called Quest – The Hop
2. Midlake – Bandits
3. Tony Fox – (I got to) do it to it
4. Natural Self – The Crush
5. Patricia and Jimmy – Trust your Child
6. That Fucking Tank – Evening in Body Café
7. Leo Roy - Pound for Pound
8. Sigur ros - Inní mér syngur vitleysingur
9. Monkey Mafia – Make Jah Music
10. Quantic feat Spanky Wilson – Don’t Joke with the hungry Man
11. Jamie Woon – Wayfaring Stranger
12. Go! Team – Milk Crisis
13. Speedy J vs Grandmaster Flash
14. Gong Kibaya - Manuch Anguchi
15. Pierre bon Susan – Untitled
16. Beta Band – Lion Thief
17. Willie Hutch – Got to get over
18. Sufjan Stevens – Detroit lift up your weary head (rebuild, restore, reconsider)
19. Brakes – Comma, Comma, Full Stop
20. Mexican Institute of Sound – Escribeme Pronto
21. Brakes – Cheney
22. Black Umfolosi Choir – Bazali Bhetu
23. Beirut - Venice

Cheers guys

G xx

Summer...well almost

Evening campers

Another week gone, another week closer to a well deserved Easter break and it looks like the suns come out to play. It'll be time to head down the beach soon!

So hello to everyone reading this blog...thanks for coming. Do feel free to comment, or contact us in someway and let us know your thoughts about the show. You can get in contact with us over facebook of course, or the email address when we are on air is studio@xpressradio.co.uk so get involved.

Also check out this video for Fatboy Slim's 'Praise You'...



I hadn't seen it until the other day, but its pretty much genius, in fact Fatboy has a few cracking vids! I challenge you to tear your eyes away from this one, Definitely some moves I'll be taking to the Welsh Club floor.

Here's the tracklisting for March 17th
1. Mr Confuse - Lookout Weekend
2. Cat Power - Rockets
3. Gideon Conn - I want you around
4. DJ Shadow - Influx
5. Junior Walker and the Allstars - Shotgun
6. Jurassic 5 - Freedom
7. Toninho Horta - Aquelous Ooisas Todas
8. Blackalicous - The Sky is Falling
9. Jimmy Cliff - Wild World
10. Da Cruz - Sarah
11. Fionn Regan - Snowy Atlas Mountain
12. Flying Lotus - Camel
13. Peter Bjorn and John - Paris 2004
14. Cut Copy (Superdiscount remix) - Lights and Music
15. Tanya Winley - Vicous Rap
16. Eryka Badu - Certainly
17. This is the Kit - Come a Cropper
18. I cube feat Rza - Can You Deal With That?
19. Billie Holiday - I didn't know what time it was


Thanks to everyone who listened in!!
G xx

Last weeks show & Jon Kennedy

Hey guys
Can I recommend this guy Jon Kennedy. He's a DJ and producer from Stockport well worth looking up. He was playing in the basement in town last week and he put out a wicked set, hats off to him. He was previously on our old favorite Tru Thoughts Records, now on Grand Central with this excellent album Useless Wooden Toys.


Here's the music from the 10th march show, pretty late,
Good selection though:
1. Hocus Pocus- Onandon Part 2
2. Mr Ronz- Eskimo
3. Alice Russell- Seven Nation Army (Grant Phabao Remix)
4. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas- Heatwave
5. Pete Rock- We Good
6. Benjamin Zephaniah- Rong Radio Station
7. Souls of Mischief- 93 to Infinity
8. Life Without Buildings- The Leanover
9. Jazzanova- Bohemian Sunset
10. Beastie Boys- Shake Your Rump
11. Thom Yorke- Black Swan
12. Soul & Pimp Sessions- Suffocation
13. Yesterday's New Quintet- Sunrays
14. Gladys Knight & the Pips- It should've Been Me
15. Danca Do Daniel- Parabens
16. LCD Soundsystem- All My Friends
17. Ali Faka Toure with Ry Cooder- Soukora
18. Elbow- One Day Like This
19. Cinematic Orchestra feat. Roots Manuva- All Things to All Men

Great Selection. That last one's blinding.

Jonny

Aim & Herbaliser. What a Night

Listen Again, Worldwide Festival and Future Shorts

WOOOOO

Finally you can listen to our old shows whenever and wherever you like. Unfortunately they arn't in a snazzy little player (which is mainly why its taken me so long to get the shows up), I've given up on the player idea so now its just a simple link to the shows. Of course however the advantage now is that you can download the shows onto your computer and then listen to them whenever and wherever you like, perhaps on your mp3 player, on the bus, or in the car... Ideal!!

Simply move your mouse across to the right-hand panel and get downloading some of our past shows. It doesn't look snazzy but at least the shows are top quality *cough cough*. On the March the 3rd show make sure you skip the first 6 minutes, as we had a few technical troubles and I haven't had the chance to edit them out. So for now just skip forward 6 minutes.

Secondly: Giles Peterson is an amazing DJ and a encyclopedia of jazzy, funky, beats, breaks and hip hop.

Now if you've never heard of him or his radio 1 show I urge you to check out his show, you're sure to find loads of great music, I know I do. Its on 2am till 4am on wednesdays, but of course you can listen to it at more sociable hour via the listen again feature.

Now I'm talking about Giles Peterson because he has what looks like an absolutely sublime festival in Sete in the south of France, and its really quite cheap for a festival. Cheaper than glasto and with a lot better weather. Me and Jonny are considering hitching down there, going to the festival, then hitching back. If anyone fancies it do get in touch. Check out the website here...http://www.worldwidefestival.com/ and see what you think!

Lastly: I thought while I'm on a role I'd tell you about one of my favourite thursday night events; Future Shorts. Admittedly I haven't been for sometime now due to other commitments but I really, really love going. Its the last thursday of every month at the wonderful Chapter Arts Centre - undoubtedly the best place in Cardiff to watch cinema, both arthouse and commercial.

Future Shorts it's basically a short film label and they show loads of great shorts from around the world from music videos to really wierd documentaries about Sword fishing. Its really arty, playing loads of great little graphic and art films alongside mini stories and more. Its amazing and well worth checking out. They've released a DVD too which is well worth a look.

Below I've put a couple of videos just to whet your appetite, there's loads more to see on the Future Shorts YouTube page so take a look.

Last show and catch up on past and present events.

Evening All,

I haven't put a post on here for ages so I thought it about time I got my finger out and typed up a post. First of all i'd like to thank everyone who tuned in to our show on tuesday, we hope you enjoyed it.

It's thursday already, and this week seems to be rapidly slipping through my fingers. Tomorrow looks like its going to be a day chained to the library desk reading about the Cold War; should be fun. Jonny and I are heading to Mr Scruff on Saturday so a part of me is glad the week is rapidly disappearing.

Talking of gigs, Jonny and I, accompanied by Beth, Jake and Gosha (spelling questionable), went to GLAM on wednesday to catch Aim and The Herbaliser. They both played massive 2 hour sets, rammed with amazing tunes, beats, mixing and such like. Both Aim and The Herbaliser played some stonking tunes mixing up all sorts of funk and soul tunes with some heavy beats.

It was quality, quality show, but it would have been nice to have seen a few more people there to appreciate the music and have a good time.

Of course this didn't stop us from busting a groove. In fact I think it probably helped. I woke up today with extremely sore body parts from all the dancing. I honestly urge you to check Aim and The Herbaliser out, whether djing or playing their own stuff. Well worth it.

Anyway enough of my rambling here is tuesdays tracklisting

1. Willie Bobo (dorfmeister mix) - Spanish Grease
2. Bon Iver - The Wolves (Act 1 and 2)
3. DJ Format - We Know Something
4. Os Mutantes - A Minha Menina
5. Joe Tex - A Sweet Woman Like You
6. Aim - The Force Featuring Q n C
7. The Herbaliser - Mr. Holmes
8. The Isley's - Work To Do
9. TM Duke Feat Alice Russell - Knee Deep [Nostalgia 77 treatment]
10. Phoenix - (you can'tblame it on) Anybody
11. Lee Perry - Jungle Lion
12. Mr Scruff - Kalimba
13. Mr Scruff - Music Takes Me Up
14. Hot 8 Brass Band (Diesler remix) - Get Up
15. Kings Of Convenience - I'd rather dance with you
16. Chriss T-T - Preaching to the Converted
17. Pepe Camacho - La Tarara
18. Avalanches - Since I Left You
19. Fat Freddie's Drop - Pull The Catch
20. Midlake - Young Bride

Cheers guys, see you all next week
G x