Joe's Big Toe

Check out a few pho­tos from the Kispál és a Borz gig from Day –1, Sziget 2010

Some of you may remem­ber that we have already brought you one review of Easy Star All-Stars this year, but just in case you haven’t had chance to read it, or have for­got­ten, here’s a quick recap.
Easy Star All-Stars are a New York reg­gae band who spe­cial­ise in cov­ers of fam­ous rock albums. So far, they’ve released “Dub Side of the Moon”, a reg­gae ver­sion of Pink Floyd’s epic Dark Side of the Moon, still widely acknow­ledged as one of their best. Their ver­sion of Money has bub­bling and cough­ing instead …

Both of the first two bands we’re review­ing from Szi­get Fest­ival are for­eign — Kispál és a Borz were Hun­garian, Ska-P are Span­ish. As with Kispál, this meant that a lot of the pat­ter and banter was lost on me, unfor­tu­nately. Ska-P are a very polit­ic­ally vocal band, and this is reflec­ted in their per­form­ance — the set ran the gamut from their pro-drug hit “Can­nabis”, to their anti-Zionist “Inti­fada”, and covered animal rights as well, with rather graphic imagery to really bring their point home; the two screens either …

Kispál és a Borz, fre­quently referred to as just Kispál (pro­nounced kish­pal) were Hungary’s largest altern­at­ive rock band, foun­ded just before the fall of com­mun­ism in Hun­gary in the country’s fifth largest city, Pécs (pro­nounced paytch), which rep­res­ents a hot­bed of cul­tural and artistic activ­ity within Hun­gary. Their per­form­ance on Day –1 at Szi­get is per­haps even more hotly anti­cip­ated within Hun­gary than the rest of the fest­ival, not least because the band are split­ting up, and this is to be their final con­cert.
Over the course of the day, people …

While I was at Tram­lines, some­thing happened which made me think long and hard about the role of secur­ity at an event. What are they really there for? I came up with a few the­or­ies. The first idea I mulled over was that they’re just there to be bas­tards to us all, and to make the gig a little bit worse for every­one going. I think a lot of people would agree with me on that one. There’s a legal oblig­a­tion to provide secur­ity at events, so their jobs are …

There’s been a lot of talk in and around Shef­field about Tram­lines this year. The free fest­ival began last year, attract­ing over 35,000 people, and returned this year big­ger and bet­ter than before, with an estim­ated foot­fall of 60,000 on the Sat­urday alone. The fest­ival is spread out over fifty or so dif­fer­ent ven­ues across the town centre, with Devon­shire Green, a 9000 square metre area in the city, home to the main stage, with a capa­city of 8,000 people. Head­liners this year included Mys­tery Jets, Echo & The Bunnymen, …

With less than two weeks to go until the start of the fest­ival, we bring you this week’s Spot­light On: Szi­get 2010, focus­sing on the Israeli psy­che­delic trance group, Infec­ted Mush­room. The band star­ted out with only two mem­bers, Erez Eisen (I.Zen) and Amit Dudevani (Dudev) in 1998 in north­ern Israel. Since then, they have been joined by three oth­ers to form the most recent line-up, that used for “Legend of the Black Shawarma”.
Their first for­ays into the world of music together were made in 1998, and they looked to …

Click here to hear some of the main reas­ons we’re excited about Szi­get — a first for JBT — an art­icle with a soundtrack!
Szi­get is a music fest­ival held annu­ally in Bud­apest, Hun­gary. Szi­get lit­er­ally means island (and is pro­nounce “see-get”), and it’s called that because it’s held on an island in the middle of the Danube. Its first incarn­a­tion was as a mainly student-run fest­ival in 1993, and the second, in 1994, was a Wood­stock re-union fest­ival in Europe. Dur­ing the four years since its incep­tion, they must have …

This week’s Spot­light on: Szi­get will be focus­sing on the massive UK dance act, Faith­less. Formed in 1995 by Sis­ter Bliss, she recruited Maxi Jazz, Jamie Catto and Rollo Arm­strong to join her. The four­some released Salva Mea later on that year. They have released six albums of ori­ginal mater­ial, Rev­er­ence, Sunday 8PM, Out­ro­spect­ive, No Roots, To All New Arrivals and The Dance. They describe their sound as a blend of trip-hop and techno, and they have undoubtedly influ­enced thou­sands and thou­sands of today’s dance acts.
The suc­cess­ful artist Dido, is Rollo …

There exists today a tri­angle of inex­tric­ably linked Latin metal bands. Two of the corners are Sepul­tura and Soulfly. The third is Ill Niño. Ill Niño is named for the Pacific weather dis­turb­ance, El Niño, which has a huge influ­ence on South Amer­ica, with the “El” changed to “Ill”, to reflect the blend of lan­guages and cul­tures the band incor­por­ates, and to dis­tin­guish them­selves from another band with the “El Niño” moniker.
The band was foun­ded in 1998 in New Jer­sey, although they did not release their debut album, Revolu­tion Revolución …