The Very Good Agency

The Next Level

Get ready to party! No strangers to Australia, regular party-starters and mixtape masters, The Nextmen, are returning to our shores for a series of gigs across Australia and New Zealand in April and May. With their reputation of stomping live shows, pristine track selection and turntable tricks to boot, you can be sure they’ll have you waving your hands in the air like you just don’t care.

The Nextmen are UK song writing/producing hip hop DJ’s Dom Search (aka Dominic Betmead) and Brad Baloo (aka Brad Ellis). They’ve become known for their dope remixes and awesome two-man four-turntable live shows where the tunes range from hip hop to drum and bass, funk to breaks, reggae to soul and everything in between. As usual, they will be accompanied by an MC, and one of the UK’s finest at that in MC Wrec.

If you’ve ever listened to any of The Nextmen’s mix albums such as ‘Moving Amongst the Madness’, ‘Listen and Lose’ and ‘Not the Nextmen’, then you’ll be well aware of the kind of party atmosphere they’re going to bring. If you haven’t heard them before, do yourself a favour and get over to their myspace now and listen to their “Annie Mac Mini Mix”, a frenetic head-nodding mix of everything from Fat Freddys Drop to Jurassic 5 to Dizzee Rascal, including a couple of classic Nextmen remixes, that’ll give you a small taste of what to expect. Better yet, cop any of the albums above for a real good insight in to the Nextmen madness; all of their albums are sure to have you nodding your head in no time.

The Nextmen ft Zarif – Something Got You

Tickets to the Melbourne gig are a bargain at $20 presale, so pick one up today before they’re all gone, this will be a night filled of dancefloor killing bangers and tight rhymes from some of the best in the business, not to be missed!

The Nextmen on tour in April and May:
17th April – Coherent & Ink Bar Auckland
18th April – Summerset @ Basin Reserve Wellington
19th April – Groove is in the park Adelaide
23rd April – Transit Bar Canberra
24th April – Roxanne Parlour Melbourne,
25th April – Halo Hobart, Tasmania
26th April – Villa Perth, Western Australia
1st May – Oxford Art Factory Sydney
2nd May – Groovin’ The Moo Townsville
2nd May – Shifty Beats @ Empire Hotel Brisbane

You can check out more of The Nextmen at:

www.myspace.com/thenextmen

Cracked…

Tags: breakbeats, Funk, gigs, hip hop, Soul

Fat Freddy’s long awaited return to Australia!

New Zealand’s most talked about group, Fat Freddy’s Drop, are back in Australia this month kicking off their week long tour of sweet sweet dub reggae, roots, breakbeats & soul.

The tour starts in Melbourne tomorrow night at the ‘Palace Metro’ in St Kilda, our apologies for not posting this earlier for those who are in Melbourne and haven’t already heard, just take it easy tonight and then whooshtaaa! get up in there.

Fat Freddy’s Drop – The Nod (Live)

Fat Freddy’s Drop will play:

Thursday 19th – Palace Metro – Melbourne

Tickets: www.ticketmaster.com.au

Friday 20th – HQ – Adelaide

Tickets: www.venuetix.com.au venuetix outlets & B Sharp Records

Saturday 21st – Enmore Theatre – Sydney

Tickets: www.enmoretheartre.com.au, www.ticketek.com, 132 849 & ticketek outlets

Friday 27th – The Tivoli – Brisbane

Tickets: www.ticketek.com, 132 849, & Rockinghorse Records

Saturday 28th & Sunday 29th – The Great Northern – Byron Bay

Tickets: Hotel Great Northern, 02 6685 6454 & www.oztix.com.au.oztix.com.au ph 1300 762 545

If you haven’t seen any of their recent material you can See earlier article here.

You can check out more of Fat Freddy’s Drop at:

www.fatfreddysdrop.com

and for full tour info check out the dude’s who are bringing them at:

www.nicheproductions.com.au

…bs

Tags: Dub, Funk, gigs, New Zealand Artists, Reggae, Soul

Kiwis in Australia – Katchafire and Opensouls

Two of New Zealand’s best talents are hitting Australian shores in April again to show Australia the roots, reggae, funk, soul style that is bursting out of Aotearoa’s seams these days. New Zealand’s most successful reggae group Katchafire, and up and coming funk, soul, hip hop crossover group Opensouls will hit

Brisbane @ ‘The Arena April 2nd

Melbourne @ Queensbridge Hotel April 3rd

Sydney @ The Forum April 4th

With Katchafire regularly crossing the ditch over the past few years they are well known for putting on a great show which is usually largely filled by the millions of kiwi’s who have made the wee trip to live in Australia. Opensouls having been here less however will be sure to catch Australia’s attention with their smooth blend and energetic group performance to pave the way for many more shows to come.

Opensouls – Rise Up

With both of their first two albums placing in the US Billboard top ten, Katchafire have made world success which is very restricted to reggae normally. Starting out as a covers band (mainly of Bob Marley songs) around New Zealand pubs and clubs, they have come a long way to tour the world on a regular basis selling out shows and receiving rave reviews alike. Definitely one of the more ‘fun’ bands to see out of New Zealand, their light hearted show and mellow reggae beats make for a sweet boogie, and usually a room filled with good vibes and a smoke of some assortment. If you haven’t see them, it’ll be a great night out especially for reggae fans who don’t often get treated with international tours.

Katchafire – Colour me Life

You can check out more of these guys at:

www.katchafire.co.nz

www.opensouls.co.nz

…bs

Tags: Funk, gigs, hip hop, New Zealand Artists, Reggae, Soul

Pete Philly and Perquisite take some Q&A

Following a considerable amount of touring throughout Europe, Asia, and the world over the past two years, Very Good friends Pete Philly and Perquisite have finally taken a break to work on some solo projects in 2009, but don’t worry… they assure us that they will be back with another album in time for 2010 … ish. Having been nominated again for ‘best alternative group’ by 3FM in the Netherlands, and an Edison award for ‘best song’ in ‘Mystery Repeats’, they continue to produce quality ish like the new video for Q&A which was directed by ‘Nokia Trends Lab’ winner, Lucinda Sedoc, and was shot entirely by using a cell phone!

Check it out…

Pete Philly and Perquisite – Q&A

Aside from this, Pete is currently rehearsing for his lead role in ‘The Man From Nowhere’, a theatre play by Kasper Kapteijn, which premiers at the ‘Melkweg’ in Amsterdam April 15th. Perquisite on the other hand is creating the soundtrack for the upcoming Dutch film ‘Carmen Van Het Noorden’ which also stars Mc’s GMB, Duvel, Jiggy Dje, and Turk.

With a couple of shows in South Africa, and a couple in America coming up, probably one of the better known spots to play in the world is the ‘South by Southwest’ festival, where Pete and Perq will be playing March 18th right before Beyonce’s little sister Solange Knowles hits the stage… two of my fabourite artists playing consecutively… what a dream come true huh ??? yeah well maybe not, but Pete Philly and Perquisite will be sure to drop some heat anyway.

You can check out more of Pete Philly and Perquisite at:

www.petephillyandperquisite.com

www.myspace.com/petephillyandperquisite

…bs

Tags: Funk, hip hop, Music video, Soul

4 3 2 1 – the K-OS YES! countdown is over

Countdown is up people! K-OS (a.k.a Knowledge of Self) has finally released his fourth studio album entitled ‘YES!’. (can I get an amen people)

After 3 amazing albums to date (‘Exit’, ‘Joyful Rebellion’, Atlantis Hymns for Disco’), we can expect another mash up of every style and sound experimented with to date, and of course his own banging flavour that puts him on the top of so many playlists around the world. K-OS confesses on his official web-site “I’m a historical opportunist who’s grown up on everything from Dylan to Marley to KRS-One… I’ve never seen myself as just a hip hop artist”, well as far as I know, this may be the best way to describe him to newer appreciators of hip hop in reality, as this is what true hip hop is really all about.

Here’s a wee taste of the new album…

K-os – 4 3 2 1

Can’t wait to get my hands on this album, and thankfully now I don’t have to.

If you haven’t had the chance to check him out before, you can catch up at our previous articles.

Looking forward to hearing the remixes he has included in the album too, should have attracted some pretty interesting submissions knowing the fan base he has around the world i’m sure.

Good times people.

You can check out  more from K-os at:

www.k-osmusic.com

www.myspace.com/kos

…bs

Tags: Funk, hip hop, Soul