Coming from Houston and Illy, formerly of THE RIPOFF parties,  is a new project called TIGHTEN UP! TIGHTEN UP! is a broadcast site featuring work that encompasses Illy and Houston’s background to include dubstep, drum and bass and electro house.  If any of you have enjoyed the previous mixes from the dudes in the past, here is a teaser to set things off for TIGHTEN UP! Be on the look out for an official launch in December.

Download Tighten Up! Vol. 1 here.

Image Source: TIGHTEN UP!

Click on link to download.

YACHT “Psychic City” Joe Goddard Remix
White Lies “Death” BURNS Remix
Jay-Z ft. Kanye West, Adele “Never Chasing Pavement” Urban Noize Remix
Drake ft Lil Wayne, Eminem, Kanye West “Forever”

Music heads from all around Vancouver will be mourning on July 20th, when Richard’s on Richards closes it’s doors for the final time. The land has been bought and will be developed into, what else…a condo. The club, Richard’s on Richards has long been considered as Vancouver’s version of the Lower East Sides’ “CBGB” in New York. The venue has seen countless talents roll through and perform. I, myself am not sad as a photographer, cus really, let’s be real, the lighting sucked for photography, buuuuuuuut with that said as a music fan the venue had one of the best sounds in the city. The acoustics within the old building were beautiful and some of the best shows I’ve seen in this city were in Richard’s on Richards because of the close intimacy between the crowd and the stage. So…here are a collection of some of my favourite shots that I took in the venue.

Oh if you’re wondering, the owners are moving down to Seymour Street where the old A & B sound use to be, right across the street from BCIT. The last show at the venue will take place on July 20th and local band Five Alarm Funk.

Click on link to download.

Phoenix “1901″ RAC Maury Mix
White Lies “Death” Crystal Castles Remix
Au Revoir Simone “Another Likely Story” LehtMoJoe Remix

Click Link To Download.

Au Revoir Simone “Shadows” The Teenagers Remix
White Lies “Nothing To Give” M83 Remix
Lil’ Wayne ft. Kanye West, T.I. & Jay-Z “U Ain’t Neva Gottz Ask” Dem Joints Productions

Stream

I had the chance to chat with bassist/backing vocals Charles Cave from the black-clad British band, White Lies. Despite a bout of food poisoning before their Seattle show, they promised they’d be in tiptop shape for the Vancouver show and they kept that promise. The show was amazing. Check out DT’s Friendly Fires & White Lies Rock Vancouver for a review and photos.

You guys have been around for a while but mostly known out of Europe. How has it been breaking onto the scene in North America?

It is very exciting. It’s good for us because we’re really driven people. We love a good challenge and its very challenging trying to reach people from such a huge country. Every city is practically a different country in terms of the distances, like in Europe. It’s really cool for us. It’s very exciting to have the opportunity of really trying to win over people but at the same time it’s obviously very daunting and it’s become very apparent recently how much time and effort you have to spend out in the United States to really make any kind of ground, mainly because of the size. California itself is bigger than the United Kingdom. So that kind of puts it into perspective really. We’re having a great time. I think on a whole the audiences in the States are a lot more willing to give you a chance and give you the benefit of the doubt, your kind of innocent until proven guilty whereas in the U.K. it’s a lot more judgmental I find. People are ready to scrutinize you before they’ve given you a chance.

There’s been a lot of chatter in the press regarding the bands transition from Fear of Flying to White Lies. How are people taking it because it seems like they’re not sure what to think about it?

That band (Fear of Flying) was a real hobby for us. We really didn’t have much of a following. To 99.9 % of people who are into White Lies, they’ve never heard of our previous band. We were in lots of different bands, wasn’t just Fear of Flying, that’s kind of what we did in school. It’s funny, you guys out here reading U.K. Press, it kind of distorts it. Honestly, no one ever wrote about Fear of Flying when we were in that band, they’ve only written about it since we’ve been White Lies.

It’s good to clarify that because a lot of people who are reading these things will get the wrong impression. I mean even myself, I was reading these websites to get some background information and thinking, people are commenting a lot about this so I wonder why they would transition from Fear of Flying to White Lies if they had such a big following.

They think it must have been a big deal or something but genuinely it was a high school band. We played band nights at school and we did one tour in the U.K. with another band. It was very much an adolescent kind of thing. It’s been very much distorted by the U.K. press. They’re almost kind of trying to out-knowledge each other.

A lot of people seem to find your music morose or dark. Where does that darkness come from?

I don’t really find it like that. I think a lot of it is out of context. People really focus on the lyrics and that sort of thing and certainly the lyrics have dark elements to them but when they’re combined with the uplifting chord progressions in the music and instrumentation its really something very different. It’s strange. From the stage, looking at the faces in the crowd, none of them look at all depressed by what we’re doing. It’s very much of a euphoric kind of thing. There are elements of our music which are little bit dark but its mainly introspective, its not so much about obsessing with the negative, it’s about pointing out that the negative is there.

And that’s the whole point of the bands name, White Lies.

We’re certainly all quite emotional people and that obviously comes across in the music, but I don’t think in a negative way. We like to think a lot about things and that’s why the music is very thoughtful and provokes a lot of thought.

People will always have an opinion right?

That’s what I’ve always likes about art and music. It makes you think, well some of it does, and that’s my personal taste. That’s the way I like to express myself and that’s the kind of art I like to make and maybe it’s just not for everyone.

How has it been touring with Friendly Fires? They seem much more high energy than you guys. Everyone seems to be comparing you guys as polar opposites.

They’re very dance orientated, they’re very much about a party atmosphere. We get a long with them really well but our music is completely different. It’s a little bit hard for us because Friendly Fires are all about dancing; they want everyone to dance in the same way they dance if they were in a club kind of thing and with us, our music is not about that at all. If Friendly Fires play before us one night and everyone gets involved in dancing and then when we come on afterwards its kind of like they expect they’re going to do the same thing with us but they’re not, it’s not that kind of music. It’s a little bit of a strangely matched bill, but at the end of the day we love them as people so its great to be on tour with people that you like but yes, it is a mixed bill for the tour. I think we each have our good shows and bad shows so that’s just the way it is but it can be a little bit frustrating for us to feel as though we’re almost expected to perform in a similar way to them because that’s just not how we do it.

What’s ahead for White Lies?

We’re in America for two or three more weeks. Then we fly to Japan and then we’re doing a headline tour in the U.K. in May. We’ll be back in the States in the fall. To be honest, in short, it’s just touring, touring, touring until Christmas. We’re going to Australia, which is really exciting for us just because it’s just so far away; it feels like you’re going into a completely different world. We’re looking forward to coming back to the States and picking up some other Canadian and American festivals as well.

You guys seem like you’re going to be on the road for a while, how will that affect the writing process?

We don’t write on the road. It’s stressful but I think when it comes to writing again, we’ll have a lot to write about. We’re experiencing so much at quite a young age. When we talk to our friends back home who are in university and you kind of say ‘what have you been up to the last couple of months?’ they say they’ve been sitting at home writing essays and going out to the pub every night and we’ve been traveling the world, literally traveling everywhere there is in the world. It’s an amazing gift and opportunity and we never take it for granted. We do have to work hard but there are great rewards as well.

Seems like what you guys do requires a lot of energy!

It does, but you get used to it and get into the swing of it. After awhile you don’t need as much sleep and rest as you would normally but then when you have a week off, you’ll get home and you’ll suddenly feel so tired like everything catches up with you and you just want to sleep for a week.

Well I hope you guys feel better and that the food poisoning makes an early exit. Good luck at your next show! I look forward to seeing you guys live!

Thank-you!

On Wednesday April 8th, Vancouver was treated to some great music and no I’m not referring to Britney Spears, and the debacle that went down at that concert. I’m talking some good ass jams with UK artists White Lies and Friendly Fires, presented by Sealed with a Kiss.

White Lies took the stage at around 9:50 to a crowd that was amped to hear them rock out. They started their set with “Farewell to the Fairground”, which is their current single. I was actually a bit confused as to why they started off with this song as you would think this song would be perfect to end their set. That thought soon popped out of my head as they were giving it their all in the song and getting the crowd singing and jumping along. Next up was the third official single “To Lose My Life”, again the crowd went crazy singing along to the chorus. Throughout the whole set the band would constantly thank the audience for being so great, the venue was definitely intimate, and yes everyone was showing the band a lot of love and they were definitely feeding off of that vibe.

The whole set was nothing short of amazing. They in fact went on to perform their whole album for the audience in attendance and finished the night of with their second official single “Death”. Audience in attendance were also treated to the song “Nothing to Give”, which Harry McVeigh said was only the second time this song had been performed live and you can’t help but get chills with the haunting lyrics. On a side note something I noticed that was pretty damn cool was lead singer Harry McVeigh’s sneakers. He was rocking some custom Nikes in black with gold accents, with “White Lies” going across the back portion of the sneaker. You can get something similar on Nike iD’s website, but you can’t get the metallic gold, which was a pretty sick touch to the sneaker. See the pictures below to catch a glimpse of said sneaker. During the show there was a glitch that stalled the performance for a a brief moment as they adjusted the microphones for the drum set on stage, but like I mentioned the White Lies performance was nothing short of amazing. Definitely a must catch show when this hits your city. Full set list below.

Next up on the schedule was Friendly Fires. There was a flurry of activity on the stage as they changed over the stage setup from White Lies to Friendly Fires. Friendly Fires opting to not have their drummer perched up on the stage, but instead having the whole band perform tightly together to feed off of each others energy. The band took the stage shortly after 11pm, as lead singer Ed Macfarlane took the mic and recalled the great time he had in Vancouver back in October 28th when they opened for Lykke Li at the same venue. The band quickly started their set with the upbeat jam “Lovesick”, as the music was playing away singer Ed Macfarlane went into his signature dancing slash twitching slash gyrating. This is something worth seeing live as its hard to describe, a few notches above Elaine Benes (Seinfeld), it was pure comedy, but hey the man was passionate about the music and why the fuck not, the songs are great. From “Lovesick” the band went into fan favorite and second official single “Jump In The Pool” and had everybody wildin’ out, there was not a single body standing still in the venue as music infected everyone’s body to dance as well as singing along the chorus.

The next song is one of my personal favorites with its funk / disco influenced vibe, “Skeleton Boy”. The band was great at keeping an energetic pace throughout that never slowed down and kept folks in the house partying. To show how much love they had for the crowd, Ed Macfarlane would jump into the crowd and sing from the dance floor with the crowd surrounding him, it was quite simply, EPIC. Not to be out done, guitarist Edd Gibson jumped into the crowd with his guitar and ran up to the balcony and ran back and forth greeting fans and strumming away on the guitar. Keeping the crowd involved. Check. The band played their hearts out as they were drenched in sweat from head to toe, shirts soaked through, beads of sweat dropping on the crowd in the front including yours truly. The set would end the first single that launched the band on the scene, “Paris”, as the song ended the band left the stage only to return after a brief moment to play “Ex Lover” as their encore. For the gear heads out there, I noticed Ed Macfarlane playing on the Moog Little Phatty as well as wailing away on the Akai MPC500, personally just thought that was very cool.

The complete bill was fantastic, the performances would make up for any of the glitches and set up delays that happened during the show and I can definitely say fans left amazed and in a euphoric high, this wasn’t just no hunch. Fans tweeted how great the show was, one concert goer, identitykrysis tweeted us “I’m not coming down from that high for at least two days kind of epic!” and friends of mine at the show said the same and were still talking about it the next night. Do yourself a favor, when either one of these acts rolls through, make sure you grab a ticket and get ready to get witness a live performance that you’ll never forget.

We want to thank Sealed with a Kiss for allowing us to attend the show and get photos. Visit their website, www.sealedwithakisspresents.com, often as they are constantly bringing in some great talent.

Check out our photos below from the event and visit our Flickr page to check out photos from past concerts / events. Also if  you’re on Twitter, don’t forget to add us, @Killahbeez.

White Lies Set List:

• Farewell To The Fairground
• To Lose My Life
• E.S.T.
• From The Stars
• A Place To Hide
• Unfinished Business
• Fifty On Our Foreheads
• The Price Of Love
• Nothing To Give
• Death

Friendly Fires Set List:

• Lovesick
• Jump In The Pool
• Skeleton Boy
• In The Hospital
• White Diamonds
• Strobe
• Photobooth
• On Board
• Paris
• Encore —> Ex Lover

Some afternoon tracks to take you through…well the afternoon. Found a Bag Raiders remix of Cut Copy’s “Far Away” and the track is banging. Also in this drop is Phoenix’s “1901″, why does the band sound familiar, cus they recently were on Saturday Night Live and they effin’ killed it, definitely looking forward to their album dropping in May. We also have a demo track here from Leighton Meester, better known as Blair on Gossip Girl, she covered Awesome New Republic’s song “Birthday”, and I have to say it sounds pretty good, but then again it is a cover. Next is Keys n Krates, followers of the site know I have a lot of love for these dudes, live remixing I mean c’mon, that shit is hot, they just released a new track and its Aaliyah’s “One In a Million” remixed KnK’s way. And last but not least I’m checking out the Friendly Fires / White Lies concert tonight, so here’s a remix to set it off for others that are attending.

To download right-click and save as. For Mac users hit “Control+click”.

Cut Copy “Far Away” Bag Raiders Remix [MP3]
Phoenix “1901″ [MP3]
Leighton Meester “Birthday” [MP3]
Keys n Krates x Aaliyah “One In a Milli” Live Remix [MP3]
Friendly Fires “Skeleton Boy” Air France Remix [MP3]