When I think ‘Italian’, I visualise an oversized giant of a man squeezed into an unnecessarily tight tux singing incomprehensible opera, the Colosseum, my scary (Italian) driving instructor who once hit me with a pencil for pressing the accelerator when I should have been pressing the brake and finally, munching on dough balls at Pizza Express.

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Every June sees the annual music, film and interactive festival NXNE takeover venues around downtown Toronto. This year the sun came out to shine on the 17th event with over 300,000 people enjoying the fun (110,000 of them filling Dundas Square over 4 days to see bands like Fucked Up, Descendents, DD/MM/YYY, Cults, Devo, Digable Planets and The Pharcyde). Team Fused headed out to check out the action, catch some rays on a boat, take in some bands and films and enjoy the Toronto way of life. CONTINUE READING THIS POST >

While Kasabian’s visit to Wolves doesn’t strictly represent a homecoming, there’s a heightened sense of expectancy in the sold-out Civic for the rock ‘n’ rollers from Leicester. There’s a lot of love in the build-up to the band’s intro and even more as they rattle through their hits; the reaction is the type reserved for bands returning to their hometown or, in Kasabian’s case (despite being Midlanders of the ‘East’ variety), bands that have transcended their origins to become a band of the people – wherever the hell they play. CONTINUE READING THIS POST >

Bear with me on this one, I *am* going somewhere with this. When I ran a bar me and my best friend who also worked there started messing around with the drinks. Necessity may be the mother of invention but boredom is the absentee father. Soft drink served in bars are what is called ‘post-mix’, which basically means what I delivered to the pub is a thick syrup base which contains all the e-numbers colouring, flavour and caffeine, this is then dispensed through the taps mixed with fizzy water. Now we worked out that if you could dismantle the machine you could reap the warm thick syrup by angling a shot glass under on of the valves. As I sad we were bored. We dubbed the mixture ‘Cracksi’ it was an acquired taste but got us through some hard shifts with the nervous paranoid energy I’ve only really seen from really good cheap Speed.
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With only three albums in tow but already additional party remix versions by music colleagues and overly busy worldwide tours, it is no surprise Bloc Party have become a party icon. Hype does not build steadily for no apparent reason. In an era where internet leaks, instant review blogging and twitter-esque word of mouth abound, it is hard to turn a blind eye to ‘express’ popularity without feeling a tinkle of curiosity.

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