Most excellent to be back in the smoke for a knees-up with over 500 finely dressed loons and a splendid DJ line-up. Good to see many familiar faces and plenty of new ones too (greets to Lobsterdust, Dunproofin, Bush No.10 and Defunkto), all creating soundwaves for a jolly good cause – Camp Cando.

Major props to Jez, Matt, Sue and their combined squads for throwing such an excellent bash!

Check out Tim Radio Clash’s pictures of the event here.

Greetings to all – Hope you’re fine!

Couple of things to report – first off, if you didn’t know already, we (along with the rest of humanity) now have a page on FaceBook, so come and join in if you’re of a social networking persuasion – we’ll make it worth your while!

Secondly, a few Eric DJ shows here in the UK to plug:

Sat 1st Nov : Celebrity Murder Party @ A Secret Location, London
(with Dunproofin, Flying White Dots, Lobsterdust and many others)

Thu 6th Nov: with Radioactive Man @ Concorde 2, Brighton
(Guestlist competition! – RSVP quick if you’re wanting :)

Fri 7th Nov : with Brownstar live & other plebs @ Ocean Rooms, Brighton

Sat 8th Nov : Bust The Box @ The Volks, Brighton
(with ATT100 Bassline Monsters and the resident vegetables)

Full info as usual on the website…

That’s right! A veritable B-town mini tour and a class party in that London. More to come, so if there’s nothing near you let us know so we can sort one out for you!

Next up… another Hectic City mix! Oh yes!

Right, I’m off to put the heating on and make a cup of Earl Gray. Brr…

Hello folks,

Set times for Kendal Calling and Beachdown ahoy!

Kendal : We’re on 7pm Main Stage on Friday 1st August. (Before Beardyman and Dizzee Rascal :)

Beachdown : We’re on 3:45pm (ish) Second Stage on Saturday 23rd August.

All good! Sadly, due to the times of the sets and other restraints, we’re not going to be able to bring the super spanking video experience to either festival (aw!), but rest assured we’ll be making up for it in all manner of other “unplugged” crazyness – and, of course, we want you to be part of it (and you will!), so if you’re coming along, dig out your finest duds and get fresh for the weekend – we’re showing out…!

xEx

PS Making up for the lack of video at the above, Crumbs Chief made an excellent video for “Underground Hand” off 24 Hours – Shame we can’t show it on the big screen just yet… but here tis – Many, many thanks CC :)

Still reeling from the surprise snow shock on Sunday, so it feels rather unnatural to be thinking about the Summer, but that sun is getting warmer again, and there’s festivals on the horizon :)

Therefore pleased to announce our first two confirmed festival shows of the summer – Yay!

First up, on the 1st-3rd of August at Kendal Calling, up in the Lake District – Super Furry Animals, British Sea Power, Dizzee Rascal, Lowline, Howard Marks, DJ Yoda, Dan Vs Scroob, The Lovers, The Man Nick Frazer and us? (amongst others…) Now that’s what I call a fine weekend :) Someone should charge for seeing that… oh they have!

Second up, a considerable distance closer to home on August Bank Holiday weekend (22nd-25th) at Brighton’s brand spanking new Beachdown Festival – Stunning location up on the Downs, and we can get back to our own beds for a change – not that we well, mind… as there’s partying to be done and the company of De La Soul, Lightspeed Champion, The Hat and Roy Ayers amongst others. Delighted to see Brighton back on the festival map!

Set days and times as soon as we know! And more to come!… don’t touch that dial…

Thought it was time I started giving some props and footage of some happening shows, in words, pictures, video and whatever else comes to hand, particularly at the moment when it seems that all we’re doing is sitting in the studio playing with loops and munching Wasabi Peas. Yes, that is fun (and tasty too), but it’s good to get out of the house once in a while, no?…

Anyway, Dublin? The day before St.Patrick’s Day? A chance to pay tribute to the greatest snake-driver in the land? A guaranteed drink-fuelled party-hearty crowd? Oh, bring it on…

Behold the woderful Foggy Notions crew getting down to some Three Girl Bump Jump Inferno – Thanks to Leagues, Leah and their wonderful ensemble for being such cracking hosts. Don’t they look gorgeous?

“Fish In A Barrel” tune of the night : Chemical Brothers “Electronic Battle Weapon 8”
Surprise hit tune of the night : Hardfloor “Mahogany Roots”
Kleptones hit of the night : A new one – You’ll just have to come to a show and find out!

Big thanks to Brian Sweeney for the videos, and for taking most excellent care of us on the night. Biggest of thanks, as always, to everyone who came along and danced like possessed people, especially the bunch that I frugged with at the end to Arcade Fire – You guys were great :)

Till next time, E out x.

Greetings and salutations! It’s been a while, but we trust you’ve had a rather splendid year – it’s been a crazy one for us, as per usual. All that continual re-pointing of the old headsphere in every which way direction has been quite overwhelming. Our Eric has been out and about DJing here, there and everywhere, and we spent the summer having lots of fun growing a munster of a live show, which we’ve been taking out and around when the opportunities arise.

So, by way of a thank you to all the people that came out and saw us over the past year and a bit, and as a dangly carrot affair to the rest of you, we’d like to offer you Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be, a recording of our favourite show this past year, at Bestival in the Isle Of Wight. A rather crazy affair, as those of you who attended will be very aware. Suffice to say, I think we acquitted ourselves admirably, so we’re proud to present the evidence. Not just the traditional “live album” audio (i.e. just like the studio albums with more reverb and cheering… okay, so there’s some new tracks in there too ;-), but also a rather zingy video slideyshow (thanks, YouTube), and a gallery of photos (thanks, Flickr), both assembled from our good friend Bob’s rather excellent video camera work. Just think of it as the online equivalent of a box set, or deluxe edition bonus dvd and booklet. Or not. It’s up to you. There’ll be more similar shenanigans soon, though, so keep watching the skies in ’08.

Yes, we have been rather quiet this year, we know, but, as the above testifies, we haven’t been slack. It’s been very good to take a little time to get out and be part of the real world, and watch the rather marvellous way that it rotates. And boy, has the world been rotating this year, or what? Now, chock full of our experiences, we’re back in the studio for the winter, working on some new mixes, looking for a new station to host the radio show that Eric has been doing with his good ami Jim, and yes… working on a new album or two. So consider this the first salvo in a new run of K-fun. There’ll be plenty more over the coming seasons, and eybrow-raising stuff it will be too, we think.

Many thanks, by the way, to all of you who emailed to say hi, pass on good things, complement us on our style, or to tell us to pull our fingers out and get on with it. It’s very much appreciated, as always.

Well, That’s it for now. Is this an early Xmas present? Could be… If you like it, feel free to copy it and stuff it in unsuspecting people’s stockings – you never know what might happen.

“…There was so much space, so I cut me a piece, with some fine wine, it brought peace to my mind…” 

…can’t believe I’ve never used that as a title yet, but there you go…

Anyway, out of hibernation we come, blowing off the straw, mothballs and empty sandwich wrappers, to make a couple of announcements. And there’s lots more to come, oh yes.

First off, we’ve got a couple of festival shows confirmed this summer in the UK, so if you’re up for it…

Sunday 24th June – Glastonbury Festival, Pilton, UK – A double whammy of K-fun for The Big G – Firstly you can catch us at the end of your Saturday night / Sunday morning festivities in the Lost Vagueness Ballroom @ 5am for some banging old-time fun, then after a quick roll around in your tents, you can catch us at the Dance Village in The Pussy Parlure @ 12noon for a special Sunday Lunch-Out set, with some extra very special vocal guests (chuffed!) – watch this space for details of these guests and possibly a couple of extra secret shows over the weekend!!! :)

7th-9th Sept – Bestival, Isle Of Wight, UK – Honoured to be invited to participate in what is now established as the perfect endmark to the UK Festival season – And we’ve got one hell of a surprise for this one for you, more info nearer the time – Date / Time of show also TBC, as soon as we know!

Naturally, both these events are sold-out, but watch this space for more summer shenanegans both online and in real life as we get them confirmed :)

Second up, apologies for the irregularity (understatement) of the Hectic City podcasts, and many thanks to the people who mailed in to tell us how much they missed them – Sadly a few unavoidable circumstances got in the way, causing them to fall by the wayside – Bugger. They will be back though, just a little more intermittent than we originally planned.

However, as an added bonus, and to make up for the lack of HC, Eric is now participating in his own real live radio show, in partnership with his good friend and nemesis Jim of All Time Top 100. The show is called “Eric & Jim’s Look-In”, (after our favourite magazine from when we was small, innit), and  goes out every Thursday night on Radio Reverb 97.2FM, in Brighton (that’s where we live, in case you didn’t already know – keep up at the back!).

The show isn’t a DJ mix affair, more of a chance for us to play new releases and stuff we’ve found online at each other while blathering on about the cumulus of our lives and the detritus of other peoples’… you know the sort of thing.

So far it’s been a lot of fun, and we feel we’ve got used to the format a bit now, so if you’re interested, we’ve started podcasting the shows so everyone outside of our locality can have a listen (and there’s a backlog too!).

The blog for the show notes and links is http://ericandjim.blogspot.com/ and here is the feed for the podcast. Let us know what you think…

“…in the summertime, let it roll…”

We’re not ones to blow our own trumpets too often (curse that missing vertebra), but it’s damn, damn fine to find out that “24 Hours” has been voted one of the 10 best albums of this year by the good readers and forumites of The Big Chill website. Many, many thanks to everyone that voted for us – Yay!

Not only that, but we also get several mentions in the list of DJ gigs of the year, singling out my set at Mutation in Birmingham over the summer! – so eeeeextended thanks to the peeps at that one!

The full Big Chill Top 10 in alphabetical order:

Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
BiggaBush – BiggaBush in Dub
Bonobo – Days to Come
Gotan Project – Lunatico
Hot Chip – The Warning
Kleptones – 24 Hours
Laroca – Friends in Faraway Places
Nathan Fake – Drowning In a Sea of Love
Thom Yorke – The Eraser
Trentemoller – Last Resort

Honored to be in such exalted company, really!

You can see the full results for yourselves here.

OK – Trumpet back in case now.

Happy New Ear, y’all :)

First up, thanks for the feedback and suggestions to the first Hectic City Mixtape – got it fixed up now, although quite bugged to find I can only attach one piece of audio per post to the RSS2 feed – if anyone knows a way round this, I’d be eternally grateful if you’d let me know (even though I’ve not had time to do a dig around yet) – I’d really not have to post each slice of future episodes in a separate post – there are a couple of ideas for future HCs that would rely on that to function correctly, so here’s hoping there’s a way round it.

Anyway, in other K-related podcast news, Radio Clash have posted the second part of the wine fuelled chat we had during the Web 2.0 Summit last month – this time we deviate from the music to talk trannys, topography and transport, and there’s also an interview with A&D from Bootie – you can find it here. Also don’t forget I’m DJing for Radio Clash’s occasional club tomorrow night in London, and it’s free! Details are here.

Secondly, we’ve also released our first contribution to the podcasts over at A Swarm Of Angels (don’t know what ASOA is? read this first) – A departure for us, as not only does it contain all Creative Commons licenced tracks, but the intention is rather different – hence we’re referring to the mixes as “Moodcasts”. The idea is to slowly warm to the simultaneous development of the scripts, so rather than look for immediate, dominant sound, we’ve initially chosen tracks that are more gently suggestive, and will develop the themes and ideas over the series in tandem with received feedback and the work going on in other areas of the project. Check the initial K-cast for the first of the two scripts, “Glitch”, here.

 

As mentioned in a previous post, Tim (aka Instamatic, aka DJ No No) from Radio Clash and I conducted an interview following my session at the Web 2.0 Summit – Pleased to say that it’s now up on his site as part of Radio Clash episode 99 (K Bit starts 41m in, but take time to listen to the whole show if you can!).

We cover the usual range of bootlegging topics, and if we sound somewhat relaxed, it’s wholly due to the amount of wine we’d consumed at the Summit closing reception prior to the interview (although not as much as some folks…)! However, the relaxed situ did mean that there was a fair bit of talk about what may be happening next in K-Land too, so if you want the gen, head over and have a listen.

(Thanks as always to Tim for his exemplary podcasting and editing skills).

Oh and sorry about the picture. Applications for the (suddenly now vacant) post of Kleptones stylist welcome.