Wax:On Leeds 24/1/09

Remember how Steven Gerrard is a big thug who got arrested after beating up a guy up in a club? The guy he beat up is called Marcus McGee (nice alliterative name) and he’s a DJ.

The fight started after Marcus was left in charge of a card thing while the regular DJ took a break. In the inimitable words of the Sun: “Marcus was left in charge of a card which allowed the music to be changed - and Gerrard is said to have asked for a different tune. But he refused to hand over the card, saying he could not alter the music policy.”

This disappointed Steven and his chums, so they decided to make their feelings felt through the medium of dance. And punching.

.

But ignoring the fact that the DJs job seemed to simply be looking after a magical card which controlled the music, what I really want to know is what song the guy was playing. Which song was it that so enraged Stevie G that he had to resort to letting his fists do the talking, potentially destroying the career he has worked so hard for in the process?

I would happily kill a stranger if it meant I never had to hear ‘Take A Bow’ by Rihanna again. I would maim a passer-by if the master tapes of Peter Kay’s version of ‘Amarillo’ would be destroyed and I would even go so far as to give a vicious Chinese burn to an acquaintance to ensure that all past and future recordings by Usher would never again rape my poor sobbing external acoustic meatus (one for all you doctors out there).

Anyways, Wax:On happened last week and as far as I know none of the DJs were beaten up by professional footballers. The Waxy crew played a strong team with Mylo and Sinden up front, Matt Walsh storming up and down the wing and Doorly in the holding position.

Despite the team being strong on paper there are no easy games in this competition and it was all to play for. At the end of the day the boys literally have to pull it out of the hat and give 110% week in week out and that’s a big ask. Obviously it’s always hard to come here and get a result, y’know?

So Mylo. You’d be surprised, for a big lad he’s good with his feet. When he came on it was still early doors but all eyes were on him. Probably because everyone’s getting a bit sick of waiting for him to release a new album. Allegedly he’s working on it, but I reckon he’s probably quite happy getting paid loads of money for fairly uninspiring DJ sets.

Sinden is an absolute hero. Definitely the man of the match. He stepped up after Mylo and played a glorious mix of fidget, dubstep, electro and all sorts that left the Wax:On crowd all weak at the knees like Stan Collymore in a busy carpark. He did a Fabriclive mix CD recently which you should definitely get as it’s awesome. Also, if you haven’t already, you should get your hands on the Machines Don’t Care album. It came out last year and it was a collaborative effort between Sinden, Hervé, Trevor Loveys, Affie Yusef, Toddla T, Fake Blood, Detboi & Drop The Lime. Unsurprisingly, given that dream team, it was one of the strongest records of the last twelve months.

After Sinden had done his magic, Doorly stepped up to the plate and sent everyone home with a smile on their face. He’s good isn’t he? Vintage summer signing from the Wax:On bosses.

One more thing though. I just saw the line up for the next Wax:On on 28th February and it made me do a little bit of wee in my pants. Yes. Headlining will be the incredible Hervé, who about 9 people witnessed tearing Bad Robot a new one back in October (tickets were £5 but no one went. Whoops). Also playing are Fake Blood, Jack Beats, DIM and Beardyman. Wow. I’m already quite excited about this one.

New Year's Eve in Leeds

Wax:On & Metropolis - LUU
Bad Sneakers presents New Year’s Balls - The Faversham
Brighton Beach - Leeds Town Hall

I miss the good old days when the turning of the year would be marked by a Quality Street assortment of nutcases hollering about how the world was going to end. I loved seeing their little embarrassed faces on January 1st as they crawled sheepishly (can sheep crawl?) out of their bunkers into a world which still existed.

Remember the Millennium bug? It was supposed to cause a worldwide catastrophe, with planes dropping out of the sky, nuclear weapons firing of their own accord, and Jesus rising from the grave like a sort of Godzilla-King Kong-T Rex hybrid to wreak revenge on the world which spurned him.

In 2012 the crazies will have sufficiently got over their embarrassment to have another go at the whole ‘the end of the world is nigh’ thing. Some New Age guys (those bastions of good sense) have decided that 2012 will herald either a year of great spiritual transformation or, alternately, an apocalypse.

Now surely that’s something you need to be quite sure about. You can’t march around saying “Huzzah! A magical year of emotional transformation is upon us! In 2012 we shall transcend the physical limitations imposed on us by earthly attachments and become as one with the god-head! … or … we might all die.” Like the small print on a cosmic personal loan advert.

If anything is going to provoke an apocalypse in 2009 it is the film ‘Dead Man Running’. Starring Danny ‘fackin’ Dyer and 50 ‘the worst human ever’ Cent and financed in part by Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole, Dyer’s character has to get the Fiddster a hundred grand in 24 hours. The only chance it has is if it somehow flips over into that noble category ‘so bad it’s good’. It may be too early to tell, but I’ve got a feeling this film could be the one to perform the unprecedented ‘it’s so bad it’s good, but actually, it’s worse than that so it flips back into bad again’. The potential effects of this happening could be more catastrophic than if they had entrusted the safe running of the Large Hadron Collider to Lindsay Lohan.

A lot of people hate New Year’s Eve. It’s the whole ‘mandatory fun’ thing, the idea that everyone is here to have fun together and if you aren’t having fun in this particular place on this particular night then there must be something incurably wrong with you. If that rings a bell with you and you don’t want to get a reputation as a grumpy old git but you really can’t be arsed with the whole “ooh look, the date just changed” thing, you should peer pressure your less discerning friends into going to one of these events, where only a token gesture will be made towards the demise of 2008.

First up is the shindig taking place in our beloved (to an appropriate extent) Student’s Union. Last year Wax:On and Metropolis took over with the help of Annie Mac, Pendulum, Speakerjunk and a bunch of other reprobates then promptly broadcast most of the ensuing silliness on Radio 1. There’s no Radio 1 this year, but that’s probably a good thing. Like inviting your Mum to the losing of your virginity, the presence of the BBC was a bit off-putting, looking over your shoulder, saying things like “Ooh, is that what you young people are into now? We didn’t do it like that in my day” “Make sure you clean that up afterwards” and “Ah yes, your Dad and I used to like that one”. You banish them to the corner of the room, but you still know they’re there and you can never manage to fully lose yourself in the moment.

Anyways, Wax:On and Metropolis will each have a room in the union this NYE. Wax:On’s performing seals will be Erol Alkan, the Plump DJs, Leeds boy Paul Woolford and more. Metropolis have got, among others, Marky, Hype and Shy FX. That’s a pretty solid line up.

In the last year or two dubstep has risen from peculiar new sub-genre to heavyweight club filler. Both Wax:On and Metropolis have hopped eagerly onto this particular bandwagon and at New Year’s there will be a dubstep room (the flyers call it an arena but I think this probably pushing it a bit, bearing in mind that it’s probably going to be Mine). They’ve lined up the legendary (a nicer way of saying ‘a bit old’) Mary Anne Hobbs, Caspa, Hatcha, Youngsta and a few more DJs whose stage names all end with -a.

If you like your music direct from the source rather than relayed by a disinterested looking chap pressing play on a CD then you might want to consider welcoming in the year of natural fibres (I’m not kidding) at the Faversham where Bad Sneakers will be stepping up to offer forth their New Year’s Balls. They’ve got Pulled Apart By Horses, Dinosaur Pile Up, Wintermute and These Monsters playing live.

I’ve never heard of any of these bands before, and I doubt I’m the only one. HOWEVER! Bad Sneakers have an outstanding pedigree for picking out amazing acts just before they strike it big. In 2005 their New Year’s gig featured a slot from the Sunshine Underground. They’ve also put on ‘before they were massive’ shows by Klaxons, Hot Chip, Arctic Monkeys and more. It seems they are entirely to be trusted.

In Ecuador on New Year’s people wear yellow underwear and carry suitcases, in order to attract ‘positive energy’ and ensure that during the next year they will go on the journey of their dreams. In the Philippines they wear clothes with circular patterns to attract money and, peculiarly, they jump up and down to make them grow taller in the coming year. I suggest that you do all these things this December, and what better place to do them than in Leeds town hall?

Brighton Beach are holding the party there with DJs playing Indie, Britpop, 60s Soul, Motown and R'n'B (but not the shitty type with Usher). Also, in the basement of the building is a room which was a jail in olden times. This room will be lit with psychedelic oil wheels (I don’t know what these are) and 60s slide projections (hopefully there will be no slides of my grandparents holiday to Bournemouth or everyone might just kill themselves with boredom). Sounds kinda kooky.

Tickets are available from ticket shops. Here’s to an apocalypse-free 2009.

Wax:On Leeds 25/10/0

"Big Beats are the best, get high all the time"

- The Big Beat Manifesto

The man who would become Fatboy Slim was born Quentin Leo Cook on July 1963. Now Quentin is obviously a very dorky name, so the big beat pioneer did the obvious thing and changed it. To Norman. Whoops.

Wax:On appears to have recovered from its brief flirtation with skinny jeans, Mission and Sundays. It sidled back into the forgiving embrace of the union like a guilty husband who had a bit too much fun on a business trip. In the place of empty promises and supermarket flowers it attempted to appease poor Stylus with a Halloween fancy dress special. And jolly good it was too. It was very cute that many of the acts on the line up seemed to have been booked because they have vaguely Halloweeny names (Disco Bloodbath, Fake Blood, the Bloody Beetroots), but they missed a trick by not getting Skream involved.

The heavily hyped Japanese Popstars are an elusive bunch. So elusive in fact, that they completely failed to show up. The Plump DJs and the Bloody Beetroots were the big headliners in the main room, and performed admirably, but for many the main draw of the night was to be found lower down the bill and tucked away in room 2.

The no show by the Jappy Pops (as they're apparently known in Derry) lead many to abandon Stylus in favour of Mine, and we were welcomed with open arms by Wax:On's newest superstar resident DJ, Mr Martin Doorly esq. He’s a guy who really knows what he’s doing. You’d be happily dancing along and then all of a sudden he’d nonchalantly slip in something like ‘Breathe’ by The Prodigy, that Caspa mix of ’Where’s My Money’ or ‘Never Be Alone’ as if it’s no big thing. And obviously it is. Predictably, everyone lost their minds. Magnificent.

How good is Mine by the way? The answer? Very very good. I love it in there! It's all cool and tunnel shaped and there are nice sofas if you want a little rest. Perfect.

When the first Fake Blood remixes started to surface on them internets about a year ago they got a lot of knickers very twisted. Not only were the tracks all unbelievably strong, but this Mr. Blood chap was keeping his identity a closely guarded secret. Word got out that it was a side project by an established act, rather than just some guy (like Burial), and names started getting tossed about willy nilly.

A lot of people were really totally sure it was a new alias of Norman Cook, others had been told by a bloke who knows a guy that it was Armand Van Helden, someone told me it was a super group made up of Tiesto, Diplo, Banksy, Batman and Lord Lucan. What a fuss. Then everyone found out that it was Theo Keating (DJ Touche) all along. When he started DJing as Fake Blood, Keating didn't bother with a mask or any silliness like that, and his secret identity was forever compromised. Obviously his set was ace, he played nice bassy tunes that had the crowd in Mine bouncing very happily along. He gave it 110% and, fair play to the boy, at the end of the day that's all we can ask.

But enough of the things of the past! Let us leave them bouncing on their spacehoppers with Timmy Mallett and look instead to the glorious future, to a time of hovercars, teleportation and armies of eager subservient robots to cater to our every whim.

In November Wax:On is filling the union with a smorgasbord of tasty treats to tantalise even the tricksiest tastebuds. Annie Mac is helming this bejewelled behemoth, spoiling us with everyone's favourite Teutonic twosome in the form of Digitalism, lovely retro Ladyhawke and one of the most impressively bearded men to ever squelch a bassline, the Don Corleone of fidget house, Switch. The deliciously voluptuous line up also includes DJ Zinc, Brodinski, Plastician, Digital Mystikz and the effervescent Doorly. I, for one, am already moist with excitement.

Hail Xenu