Quietly, calmly moving along from its Butlins residence this year's Bloc. relocates to the similarly newly rejuvenated London Pleasure Gardens way out east somewhere along the DLR. Exchanging Centre Stage and Crazy Horse for German deep-sea fishing vessel MS Stubnitz and the imposing scenic surrounds of derelict warehouses, this year's festivities sensibly snub the Sabbath, a day that's traditionally as limp as a waterlogged Minehead hotdog stuck in the seashore as far as most festivals are concerned. Thus Bloc. is to take place on Friday, 6th July and Saturday, 7th July, and our scattily selected highlights are ...

The Bee Gees were naturally heart-on-sleeve, but they had an even deeper emotional core in Robin Gibb. His death yesterday (20 May) at 62 reminds us of a great songwriting talent – who with his brothers could find a hook to crack any hardnut exterior – but also a singer whose quavering voice was the perfect vessel for open, fragile songs that admit big boys do cry after all. [...] Read more!

Hey, at least he’s having fun. Ultimate Classic Rock : Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses injured his leg in Moscow by falling off a table he was dancing on to celebrate the opening of his band’s European tour. “Can you say HemaToma?!,” the singer asked while posting a photo of the resulting, and rather gruesome bruise on his Twitter account. Well, we can define it with some help from Merriam Webster: “a mass of usually clotted blood that forms in a tissue, organ, or body space as a result of a broken blood vessel.” According to Komsomolskaya Pravda ...

Filed under: News GW Former Great White singer Jack Russell -who actually still performs with his own version of the band- was involved in a boat crash recently, which he detailed in his tour diary for our friends at Metal Sludge . Turns out, Russell and his wife were relaxing on their vessel when they were interrupted by a huge boom. A drunken sailor in a sailboat crashed right into the back of their boat. The sailboat operator caused minimal damage to Russell's boat. The same could not be said for his own vehicle, unfortunately. Serves him right for operating ...

If consistency were a ranked musical division, Joker would be one of the few acts capable of defending a championship belt. There are few contenders that have maintained their position with a signature style that remains equally as interesting on each new release. The Bristol producer is captain of the Kapsize label, which serves as the main vessel for producers like Ginz who have jointly designed an inspirational, trademark sound, coined as "Purple." Each Joker release is a highly anticipated one, and even though the newly released track " Skitta " has seen a lot of airtime as a dubplate, it's ...

If extra terrestrials landed in the UK they could be forgiven for believing that in the nineties people only took Screamadelica off the stereo to listen to Blur or Oasis. By contrast, touching down in Oslo’s Telenor Arena recently would have left a rather different impression of the decade’s music. Billed as We Love the ‘90s, the lineup included Haddaway, Culture Beat and “special guests” The Vengaboys, as well as quite a few more who whose charms failed to reach these shores. Among them was Captain Jack, a duo fronted by about a dozen different people and whose ...

I headed down to Bristol for Simple Things festival this bank holiday, and had a pretty good time. Having been stuck in a house for a few days with two poorly housemates, I was glad to get out and away from Nottingham for a couple of days; however I hadn't quite escaped their sickliness and managed to contract some sort of virus that made my legs feel like lead whilst being plagued by a horrible nauseous feeling, which didn't make for very good festival-going, but I did what I could. First of all, I'm going to start ...

Our good friends over at Absolutepunk are currently streaming Second To Last ‘s brand new EP, entitled Vessel , and can be heard here . This EP is a catchy mix of rock, punk, alternative and is truly a release to keep close for the summer time. Please head right here to listen to Second To Last’s Vessel and comment with your thoughts! The EP comes out on June 5 through the band’s own Hella Mad Records. For fans of: Title Fight, Man Overboard, The Wonder Years…

Second To Last’s new EP,  Vessel , is streaming in full here .  The band will be releasing the EP on June 5th via their own label, Hella Mad Records.

Today we are streaming *Second To Last (http://www.absolutepunk.net/secondtolast)*'s new EP, Vessel. You can listen to it on the band's AP.net profile (http://www.absolutepunk.net/secondtolast). The California-based pop-punk group is recommended for fans of The Wonder Years, Title Fight and Such...

Ever the hotbed for up and coming bluegrass bands, there’s a new Colorado string band to pull up on your radar screen – Head for the Hills . This quartet of high country pickers have made a splash around bluegrass circles in recent years, having recorded their debut at Billy Nershi’s Colorado studio with Drew Emmitt behind the boards producing, being selected as a SXSW Critic’s Pick Must-See by the Austin Statesmen and Colorado’s best bluegrass band two years running by Denver’s the Westword and getting invited to play their first Telluride Bluegrass Festival this summer. We ...

Dutch avant dance trio Nobody Beats The Drum returns to North America covering 12,000 miles in 8 weeks. Live dates: 05/12 Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia PA (Loaded Festival official after party) 05/17 The Hangout Festival, Gulf Shores AL 05/22 Cinespace, Los Angeles CA (Dim Mak Weekly) 05/23 Vessel, San Francisco CA (Dim Mak Weekly) 05/25 Celebrities, Vancouver BC (w/ Wolfgang Gartner) 05/26 Sasquatch Music Festival, Quincy WA 05/29 Belly Up, Aspen CO 06/01 Wakarusa Music Festival, Ozark AR 06/02 Wakarusa Music Festival, Ozark AR 06/15 Majestic Theatre, Madison ...

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Having previously written about the initial lineup and the release of weekend tickets, Bloc hit us with a fresh release of news today – We’ll go through this in 4 parts: 1. M.S. Stubnitz: 2,541 tonnes of ex-Communist nautical mayhem The Motor Ship Stubnitz is a deep-sea fishing vessel that belonged to the German Democratic Republic before the collapse of Communism. She is 80 metres in length and...

In what is possibly the best thing to happen to a festival since the invention of the tent, Bloc Festival have announced that this year's festival (held the 6th/7th July) will be joined by the M.S. Stubnitz, a converted deep sea fishing ship which organisers describe as "2,541 tonnes of ex-Communist nautical mayhem," the former German Democratic Republic vessel was acquired by Swiss artist Urs 'Blo' Blaser following the fall of the Berlin wall in 1992 and was converted into a floating dance venue. Organisers have also announced that joining the likes of Snoop Dogg, Orbital ...