WIN A METALLICA SKATE DECK!!!

You know how rare they always say hens' teeth and rocking horse shit are? Well they're like the population of China compared to these ultra-exclusive Metallica skate decks. To tie in with the release of their new album 'Death Magnetic' which is out on September 12th we have one to give away to a lucky winner. It's shaped like a coffin a la the album's artwork and is pretty much the coolest thing we've ever had in the office. And we've got a signed Sugababes poster somewhere. Oh yes.

So answer the following Metallica question and email your answer to comp@wild-uk.com with the subject line 'METALLICA'. To make life easier please include your address so we can send you the deck if you win it.

What was the name of the infamous Metallica documentary released in 2004?

a) Seek And Destroy
b) Sad But True
c) Some Kind Of Monster

Entries must be in by September 30th to go into the draw for the skate deck. The winner will be notified by email. The judges decision is FINAL AS FUCK.

Reading 2008. Still feeling the effects.

Let's start by saying I had an absolute blast - highlights for me were Rage Against The Machine, Future Of The Left, Lethal Bizzle, Frank Turner, Tenacious D and Metallica. I was recommended to catch That Fucking Tank on the BBC Introducing Stage but either I misheard what time they were on or the stage times changed round but I missed them anyway. Next time.

Maybe it's because I'm in my 30s (EARLY 30s thank you) and was the perfect age for getting into Rage Against The Machine first time round but I was actually getting properly excited about seeing them for weeks before Reading this year. And believe me, that rarely happens to me these days so it was a delicious feeling to have again. And good christ they were just brilliant. Every song's intro caused me and my friends to look at each other and go "YESSSS!" as it all came flooding back and the best bit of the performance was the fact that they were so obviously LOVING every minute of being back in Rage Against The Machine. Don't get me wrong, Audioslave have some great tunes and Chris Cornell is an amazing vocalist but they don't even come close to the energy and chemistry in RATM. Also, let's thank god that maybe Tom Morello won't be doing any more of his Nightwatchman project. Oh dear me.

I'm not going to get into reviews and opinions on everything I enjoyed but I will say that Future of the Left continue to amaze me every time I see them live. Simply one of the best bands in the country at the minute.

I love Reading. I think this was my 13th and it still holds the magic and fun for me that it always has.

Public Enemy @ Brixton Academy May 30th

Holy good christ that was a show and a half. Public Enemy are the latest in the line of acts doing the 'Don't Look Back' thing whereby they choose one of their classic albums and play it in full from start to finish. And while I would have personally preferred to see PE doing 'Fear of a Black Planet' it was always going to be 'It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back' if it was going to be any of their back cat. And so it was.

But first, a nod to the warm up acts: Edan was aces, I only saw the last half of his set due to bastard traffic but what I saw was wicked and included him donning a wig and dedicating a tune to "all the old bitches out there, all the over 70s" and also performing a nifty scratch routine with a theramin.

Anti Pop Consortium were a bit too far out there for my tastes, a bit too much cleverer-than-thou beatmaking and flow but lacked the funk I crave in my hip hop. My mates who are big fans said that it blew them away though so who am I to opine on such things?

Kool Keith was... well, Kool Keith. He's mad as shit, wore a sparkly scarf which looked like it was made of tinsel and actually performed a load of songs rather than just turn up and ramble insanity at the crowd. So fair play.

The Bomb Squad played an hour of straight up dubstep tunes which I did quite enjoy as they were bass monsters and ripped the speakers apart but I still maintain that it was a bad choice of music to play as a warm up to Public Enemy as it's just so slow. They seemed to realise that the crowd weren't as into it as they had hoped because a couple of times Keith Shocklee stopped the music, came to the front and ranted at the crowd about this being "music for young people, it's the future" and how "it came from your fucking country, motherfuckers!" I think the mistake was to presume that simply because dubstep is really popular in the underground clubs in Hoxton and New York that it would be a good idea to play a full hour of it to a venue full of people who paid money to see Public Enemy perform an album that's twenty years old. But hey, I'm just being picky here as I think the set was good, just not suited for the crowd.

BUT ANYWAY.

If you know 'Nation of Millions' at all then you'll know that it has loads of live bits recorded from a Public Enemy performance at Brixton Academy in 1987 when they were over on the Def Jam tour opening up for Run DMC and the Beastie Boys (I think I'm correct in saying that Pop Will Eat Itself opened up the whole show and were booed offstage by the hardcore rap fans). And so, I did wonder if they would get Dave Pearce (yes, that Dave Pearce) to come onstage and recreate the opening introduction to the album but alas he must have been busy playing shit house records to idiots elsewhere.
We did get a big show intro though, Flav's voice booming out over the PA with lights and band members assembling onstage and as soon as the "LONDON, ENGLAND.... CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!" bit came through both Flav and Chuck literally bounced onto stage to the huge drum and bass apocalypse of 'Bring The Noise' and at this point, the crowd went apeshit. You've never seen so many 30-something white boys in clothes a size too big for them look so damn happy.
They ran through the whole album, the biggies of course like 'Rebel Without A Pause' and 'Don't Believe The Hype' but also included "filler" tracks like 'Show Em What You Got' and 'Terminator X To The Edge of Panic' (even though Terminator wasn't there any more and is still raising ostriches on a farm somewhere in the USA). It was all a real treat, each new track sounding fresh and HUGE - songs like 'She Watch Channel Zero' and 'Night of the Living Baseheads' are still stone cold classics and still imbued with all of the polemic and rage which they contained twenty years ago. Sure times have changed, people have found different things to rail against in their songs and artists have gone many different directions but the sheer fury in the lyrics and the beats on this album are still immense.

Once they finished the whole of the album we were treated to a mini Greatest Hits set before they had to stop for curfew so we had Welcome To The Terrordome, Fight The Power, Can't Truss It, Shut Em Down, By The Time I Get To Arizone, Son of a Bush, Public Enemy No 1, and possibly some more I've forgotten.

I came out of the venue sweating like a proverbial and grinning like a loon. Fucking brilliant.

Weezer - Pork And Beans video

No need for hyperbole here, we just love this video.

Reaction Sheet problems 21.05.08

A few people have been telling us that when they fill out their reaction sheets on the website it's not getting marked at complete when submitted and when you go back to look at it the comments are getting wiped. I will try and get it fixed ASAP so please bear with us!

Yoav @ Dingwalls, 23.04.08

Conventional. Uninspiring. Dull.

South African maverick Yoav is none of these things. In fact, he couldn't be further from them.

I caught him at Dingwalls in Camden last night: the venue was busy - bustling with eager fans and curious music aficionados alike. The nature of the acoustic guitar wielding singer's sound is awe inspiring; armed only with his guitar and a loop pedal he managed to forge deep, multi-textured soundscapes to accompany his expressive vocals. Imagine any and every sound and effect you can get out of a guitar - Yoav can do it. From tapping out syncopated layered beats on the wood to singing onto the strings creating an eerie echo, what the man does with his guitar boggles the mind.

Performing a contrasting set of beat-heavy bangers and more conventional melodic strummers, the South African effectively showed his versatility. Mid-set he unleashed single 'Club Thing' on the crowd, and as if some mysterious force had taken over their bodies every single soul started moving, entranced by the beat, singing the chorus. After performing killers 'Adore Adore', 'Beautiful Lie' and 'There Is Nobody' among a whole host of other songs, Yoav finished off his intense, atmospheric set to thunderous applause.

I think it's safe to say people liked it.

'Club Thing' is out on 28th April, be sure to peep it. Here's the man doing his thing with 'Beautiful Lie':

Website fixed!

Yes indeed. Thank the lord.

Website problems 17.03.08

Yep, we know that the reaction sheets are playing up at the minute. No cover art, no press blurb, just a blank page with some response boxes. Rest assured we're on the case and have people looking at why it's gone skewiff and hope to get it fixed ASAP.

In the meantime, please do the best you can and leave your reactions as normal as they still come through to us and get logged. Also, once you've filled in the response all the press release and artwork magically appear for some reason but we don't know why.

Thanking you for your patience.

Delays @ The Barfly, 12.03.08

If you've ever been to the Barfly in London then you know how much of a sweatbox it can be. If you haven't been, I'm sure you can sympathize by thinking of your own local venue and all the times you've squeezed in there to see a band who really should be playing a larger venue. And so it was with Delays - myself, Ian and Gemma from the Wild office went down to see the show and it was exactly what you'd want from Delays. With three albums of songs to choose from it was almost a Greatest Hits set, kicking off with 'Long Time Coming', blasting through new songs like 'Hooray' and 'Love Made Visible' with a fervour you rarely see these days and climaxing with a massive run through of 'Valentine' which sent the crowd into overdrive.

There was definitely a section of the crowd in from Southampton as Greg was joking about the football team and local landmarks to whoops and cheers. But the bulk of the audience seemed to be a cross section of very cute girls and very trendy looking indie boys who knew every word to every song.

They've just announced a load of dates for May where they're playing proper sized venues. You should go.

In the meantime, remind yourself how good 'Long Time Coming' is.

DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist, 13.03.08

I'll admit that I was very worried when I went into this gig as I had, erm, "obtained" an mp3 of the Hard Sell set that these two were performing in the States and I wasn't overly impressed. I'm a big fan of Brainfreeze and Product Placement, the two preceding shows they have put together (I went to see Product Placement at the Scala in fact when they did it, and it was blinding) but the new direction away from the old funk records didn't gel with me when I listened to it. So despite having spent £25 on a ticket as soon as they went on sale I was dubious as we actually got to the venue. Ian from our office was similarly nervous but we crossed our fingers that we'd be proven completely wrong and guess what? We were.

It was brilliant, loads more old school hip hop than I was expecting, a fantastic bit in the middle of the first set when they recreated loads of old De La Soul tracks using only the original records from which the samples were taken and plenty more to make this boy very happy. It was definitely more eclectic that either of its predecessors mixing more electro, indie (Bloc Party, Foo Fighters and Blur at one point!) and nearly venturing into drum & bass at one point.

Obviously the technicality of both DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist was amazing but even they seemed to have a couple of slip ups where their respective tunes went out of synch with each other and needed to be kicked and shoved a bit to bring it back. But I actually enjoyed that to be honest and seeing Shadow give a bit of a wry smile and a shrug of the shoulders proved that they weren't just playing off some DAT but it was a real-time performance and those couple of small blips demonstrated just how difficult the whole thing was and the fact that the rest of it went flawlessly is testament to their skills. Eight turntables, four mixers, a selection of guitar pedals and a couple of samplers are hard to keep on top of I would imagine.

And then to top it all they encored with a scratch version of Metallica's 'One' which lifted the roof off an already ecstatic Roundhouse.

So, definitely one for the geekier among us but an absolute treat to watch and listen to. I'm very glad I was wrong.

If you haven't heard the Brainfreeze mix yet then you owe it to yourself to do so as soon as you can. You can download the first part here.

Wild Top Ten of 2007

Just realised I didn't put this up at the end of last year when we all took a vote within the office on what were our favourite albums of 2007. The final decisions were compiled using painstaking mathematical formulae and fistfights.

1. The White Stripes - ‘Icky Thump’
=2. Arcade Fire - ‘Neon Bible’
=2. Interpol - ‘Our Love To Admire’
4. Future Of The Left - ‘Curses!’
5. Radiohead - ‘In Rainbows’
6. PJ Harvey - ‘White Chalk’
7. The Horrors - ‘Strange House’
8. Band Of Horses - ‘Cease To Begin’
9. LCD Soundsystem - ‘Sound Of Silver’
10. El-P - ‘I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead’

Feel free to tell us that we've missed out a classic but you'll be wrong.