iCast: Hard-Fi

HARD-FI: ROCKIN THE CITY PODCAST 23

ALL ABOARD...!
Hard Fi at Africa Express BBC PROMS with Medhi Haddab, Amadou and many other guest musicians take over Koko... Check it out!

We're delighted to announce the live return of HARD-FI later this month at the BBC Electric Proms.

The band will be playing at Koko as part of the Africa Express night on Wednesday 22nd October. The focus of the night the focus of this gig is to put African artists on global stage to show off their music in its purest form. Surprising collaborations will happen on the night - other artists performing include Reverend & The Makers, Natty, Baaba Maal, Toumani Diabate, The Aliens, Amadou and Mariam, Rachid Taha...and about 100 others! Please see the link below and click on it to purchase tickets today! http://www.bbc.co.uk/electricproms/2008/artists/africaexpress/ Also check out the new photos of the guys taken at the Cherry Lips Studio on their official website http://www.hard-fi.com/galleryNew.php Cheers.

25 Sep 2008

So we were sat in the pub the other day 'hard at work' on the next album when talk turned to women in rock - as it does - and the age old question.. 'Who is the coolest looking woman with a guitar?' The obvious ones came up Chrissie Hynde, PJ Harvey even a shout from Wolsey for Suzi Quatro. Steve chipped in with Kim Deal, The Slits and Kelly Johnson from Girlschool. I'm not sure about Kim Deal, yes she's been behind some great and influential music but does she look that great with a guitar? Not everybody does - I freely admit I don't look that great behind one, I think it's because i'm a bit too tall... Maybe I just haven't found the right axe yet!? However that did get me thinking about other bands coming out of that leftfield US scene D'Arcy Wretzky from Smashing Pumpkins, but did she just look hot and that's clouding my judgement? No she looked good, as did Melissa Auf Der Maur who came in after her from Hole (Steve had already made another worthy suggestion with Courtney Love) .
It wasn't that surprising since, not that long ago Kai thrust a grubby dvd of The Cramps live into my hand with a nudge and a wink, that he should make a great call with Poison Ivy Rorschach. A friend of ours chipped in that Patti Smith looked great when she slung on a Rickenbecker and that at Reading this year (on a more contemporary note) Charlotte from The Subways was having it. Speaking of Charlotte's - what about Charlotte Hatheley? The chick from Ash who went solo?

Then Ross came in with what looked like four aces... Vixen! Cool down boy!

I my honest opinion though you can't argue with Sister Rossetta Tharpe - check out the footage at this link..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeaBNAXfHfQ

Hang on for the solo at 1min 25s 

I first saw this at the Stax museum in Memphis when we were there earlier this year, it's a bit like your mum coming in with a Gibson SG and knocking out licks like she's been playing all her life... Seriously inspirational - who says the Devil has all the best tunes??

Let us know your thoughts and suggestions and stay tuned for our next late night discussion (they should be screened on BBC4 and hosted by Verity Sharp) which will either be 'What's the best biscuit for dunking in tea (rich tea of course)', 'Who's round is it?(not mine)' or 'Best tank in WWII?(surely the T-34!?)'

hasta luego!


Rich.


www.hard-fi.com
www.youtube.com/hardfiband
http://www.ilike.com/artist/Hard-Fi
http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/HARD-FI/24999265236
http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/HARD-FI-en-Espanol/17352909258

GQ Editor Dylan Jones, The Horrors' Faris Rotter and designer Peter Saville have selected some of the most iconic cover art of the last four decades to appear in Spin. A unique examination of the art of the record cover, Spin will open up an often forgotten side of the music industry, to explore the fascinating relationship between art, design and music. They chose an eclectic array of albums stretching across musical genres and through four decades, all designed or featuring artwork by alumni of University of the Arts London. All three judges also studied or taught at University's prestigious Colleges. Spin will give design fans and music lovers a rare opportunity to see the original artwork which inspired some of the most iconic records covers of our time. On show will be images that were re-interpreted for album covers, through to works specially commissioned to represent an album, alongside the albums themselves. Album covers in the show include the following musicians; Cream, Robert Plant, Uriah Heep, Madness, Adam & the Ants, The Clash, James, Chemical Brothers, HARD-FI, Lemon Jelly, The Gossip, Beth Orton and Adele. Date: 3 September - 3 October 2008 Times: Monday - Friday, 10am - 6pm, Saturday 11am - 4pm Venue: The Arts Gallery, University of the Arts London, 65 Davies Street, W1K 5DA

Blogging Whilst Logging! 

Hi everyone, how have you been ?
Thought I'd drop y'all a note to keep you in tabs of how it's rollin'. It's been a great summer for us, we've had time and space to breath, take stock, re-group (such as go on a jolly up to the Formula 1 of Europe in Valencia), renovate the studio and prepare ourselves to make the best effort towards making Hard-Fi 's 3rd Album. 

Festivals ! Have there been noticable sound volume restrictions? I ask, based on reports from Glastonbury and Reading.. ? rant ! discuss.
Whatever ... Fuji Rock is off the hook by the way.... the location inspires you and from everything the fesitval has to offer, it leaves you with no choice but to have a good time... I recommend ! But if you are really up for a ' no holds barred ' audience festival experience, then go to Korea for the Pentaport Festival, they really know how to enjoy themselves !
Back at home and to July, Guilfest was my highlight. What a great festival ! The line up was chokka with new and local bands, it has a pumping dance/chill vibe area, a moody rock tent, a presence of world vibes, and heavy blues and folk leanings (roots)... it was hard not to stumble across a gem. Anyway, i was armed with an AAA pass ( got connections now, see ?) and made efforts to be conveniently hanging around at backstage areas in order to say Hi to Mick, Tony and Leo from Carbon/Silicon, to meet the infamous Anton Newcombe a' la The Brian Jonestown Massacre and maybe(possibly) meet Debbie Harry and Blondie. With success too.. It was good be on the other side, I was star struck at Debbie ( I mean wow ! ), was in awe of Anton's unrepentant, unforgiving yet beautiful madness and was made up to see Phil and the Carbon/Silicon boys. ( and I also blagged some meal tickets from the production office in pretense of being with Dodgy's crew... see what I did there ? Ay ? )
Despite the inevitable, irreversible shell shock, excitement and double reverse drunken jet lag trauma caused by our trip far east, we picked ourselves up to attend an invitation to Valencia as guests of The Red Bull Racing Formula 1 Team for the Grand Prix of Europe . Ross is my hero for this. He made some friends one night at Paul Weller's book launch at the Paul Smith shop in Covent Garden.. and say know more... apart from ' bring your band, all good, we'll look after you ' . We spent saturday in Team Red Bull's garage and pit area for qualifying and then afterwards (at our complete surprise ) got taken on a 2 hour jaunt on the ' Victory Challenge ' Americas Cup yacht.. unbelievable ! a one off experience ! On Sunday we met David Coulthard, Mark Webber and the young ' hot stuff ' that is Sebastian Vettel prior to the race. Check for new photo additions on the website...
I won't mention the parties... whoa...
... Err, And yesterday, at Cherry Lips, we did a full stock check and compiled an inventory of all our equipment... back to reality ! Amps, guitars, mics, effects units, sound desks, leads, carpet.. blimey, right down to the last tea bag ! For insurance purposes you see ! The used teabags from Ross's famous podcast are valued at.... I'm sure you're not interested in that.. but it does remind me, time to put the kettle on !
And for an added titbit, I've got ' White Denim ' on my player right now... yes ! retro, but hard and fresh. And i've got my eye on a band called ' Zodiac N black ' too, heavy prog rock outfit from london.. in growing stages but oozing talent and potential... No one tells me what to fuckin listen to !

So.. err, where was I ? oh yeh, There's only love here, from us to you. X and if you want some, are fukin do ya

'Til next time.

Kai

Watch the Fi at Japan`s most famous Festival FUJI ROCK 2008!

Enjoy...

Alright everyone. I hope you are all very well. We have just got back from a flying visit to the far East so feeling a bit wrecked.

  Our first show was at the Fuji rocks festival. It took around 20 hours to get there door to door so by the time we arrived it was late, we were all a bit shagged and sick of the sight of each other. But nothing a beer or 2 wouldn't sort out. Me and Kai then went for a stroll around the festival sight. We saw all kinds of crazy shit. There was a massive robot dog built from an engine and 2 mateys electrocuting each other with what looked like thousands of volts. It was amazing. 

  We got up early the following day as we had an afternoon slot. It was probably the hottest point of the day. It was fucking hot and being a pasty Englishman I'm not at all used to high temperatures. I thought I was going to die onstage. But all was good, I made it to the end and the crowd were great. Thank you so much if you came along we had a great time.

 Then it was straight to the bus and off to the Pentaport Festival in South Korea. After half a nights sleep, a small punch up and a few hours of travelling we arrived. Amazingly the area of the festival was just like Dagenham. The festival site was a giant car park surrounded by factories and cranes. Here it was even hotter so look out for the pictures of us looking like drowned rats on stage. Again, we really, really enjoyed the show, the whole place was jumping up and down. It's the best thing going to the other side of the world and seeing people loving your music.

 Our work here was now done so it was back to the hotel for a shandy and maybe even a white wine spritzer. On the way home we had a stop over in Narita airport, Japan. Me and all the boys went out to find a restaurant in a nearby town and ended up in some karaoke bar with a load of airline staff. It was full of pilots and cabin crew all pissed out of their brains. Naturally we joined in and ripped the place up. Mine and Steve's rendition of "Born To Be Wild" was fucking top. It was a right laugh. Thankfully none of the pilots were seen flying our plane the next day.

 It's back to work on the album now and we'll keep you posted.

 Take it easy,

 Ross

WATCH HARD-FI TRANSFORM THEIR CHERRY LIPS STUDIO... ARE YOU READY TO SEE WOLSEY WHITE DOING SOME MAN WORK!?

CHECK THIS OUT! 

Hey Everyone,

Sorry it's been a while since my last blog but I've been locked in the studio writing some new material. Today was the first day of our rehearsals for Fuji Rock and Pentaport (in Japan and South Korea respectively if you didn't know) and we were trying out a couple of new numbers - hopefully we'll get them together in time to put 1 or 2 in the set. It was good to make a bit of noise again, especially now we're in the new improved 'deluxe' Cherry Lips. They'll be a podcast concerning it's makeover coming your way next week so ladies, if you want to see some pictures of the one and only Wolsey White in nothing but a tool belt and a hard hat keep a close eye out for it!

The last time I think I put a blog up was before we went to the States and I've been meaning for the last month or so to explain some of the pictures we put up on the site from that trip...

http://hard-fi.com/galleryNew.php

check 'Taking Care Of Business'

'Taking Care Of Business' was Elvis' motto.

Some are pretty self explanatory, such as us rehearsing with Carbon/Silicon. The rest are mostly in Memphis, looking round Gracelands, Steve and I on Beale Street, Sun Studios, at the Stax museum. The fella with us behind the mixing desk is John Fry and we are in his studio Ardent which is where a lot of the later Stax records were recorded as well as everyone from Led Zep and ZZ Top, REM, White Stripes etc. John is a lovely bloke who showed us round his studio telling us it's story and it's place in  Memphis' music history, he then took us over to the Stax museum and introduced us to the curator Tim Sampson who took us round explaining all the exhibits. Well worth a visit if you're in town.

The Riverside motel (there's also a picture of me and the owner Rat, his Mother opened the motel in 1944) is in Clarksdale, Mississippi. This was where many of the black artists who came to perform in town would stay and Rat, a true character, showed us the rooms where Sam Cooke used to stay, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner (who wrote 'Rocket 88' the first Rock n Roll song in the basement before recording it up the road in Sun) as well as many notable others. Before it was a motel it was a hospital and is where Bessie Smith died after a car accident in 1937. Loads and loads of atmosphere.

Clarksdale is on Highway 61, the blues highway and is also supposed to be the location of the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul, and it's also where Sam Cooke was born. I was heading down Highway 61 towards New Orleans - knockout, what a city. We made it there despite nearly being caught up in the rising flood waters of the Mississippi and it was well worth the drive. (Btw the Mississippi Delta isn't actually a delta, it's an alluvial flood plain, which funnily enough is what Staines is built on)

I fell in love with New Orleans, it's got to be one of the best cities in the States, still recovering from Katrina (one bar we went in had only just re-opened because until recently they couldn't get any staff - there just wasn't enough people around) it has a great spirit and I can't wait to go back. Since then I've been listening to loads of Professor Longhair, Dr John, Lloyd Price, Fats Domino, The Meters, with even the tracks I already knew taking on a whole new life having been to the city. Check out WWOZ a local community radio station, you can listen online at www.wwoz.org.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Japan and our first visit to Korea, look out for the podcast - we've a load more coming up including footage of our Staines 'homecoming' gig, our trip to the States, the LMHR carnival and I'm gonna take the camera to Fuji.

Easy now...

ATENCIÒN FANS DE HARD-FI!

Hemos creado una pàgina en Español especialmente para uds. Esperamos verte muy pronto!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/HARD-FI-en-Espanol/17352909258

Now, let us translate this!

Dear all, we have created a Spanish Facebook Page! So, If you want to practice your spanish come and join us! http://www.facebook.com/pages/HARD-FI-en-Espanol/17352909258 or Join us at the Universal Language Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/HARD-FI/24999265236

See you soon!