Entertainment

By Alex Lodge After a busy summer of dragging my carcass around various festival sites it's time to sit back and reflect on everything I've seen and heard. The main stage at any festival is sometimes great, though often hit and miss. The headliner draws a huge crowd and we all get to have a nice singalong and all that, but we all know that the smaller stages are where the real magic happens. Brand new bands like Jungle, busting...

By Charlotte Stringer, Style Editor at STYLIGHT.co.uk A London institution, the Notting Hill Carnival has developed a mixed reputation, however, revellers descend en masse year after year to enjoy the music, food and parade. If you’re heading to West London this bank holiday weekend, make sure you stand out by taking inspiration from these carnival looks… If you’re on your feet all day - dancing, walking, and just generally having a great bank holiday weekend - give your tired tootsies...

By Leanne Dempesy, fashion writer @leanneysbabble It might be coming up to the end of music festival season here in the UK for this year, but with there still a couple of big ones coming up this weekend (Creamfields and Reading/Leeds festival) I thought it might be a good time to talk about ‘real’ festival fashion. Now, don’t get me wrong; I love denim shorts, floral headbands and tassels as much as the next person but let’s be real; you’re...

By Jonathan Hatchman,music writer The August Bank Holiday weekend is almost upon us, once more, thus proving inevitable that thousands of people will descend upon Richfield Avenue in Reading, and Bramham Park in Leeds for three days of live music played across two of the nation's most popular music festivals. Featuring a lineup that hosts plenty of big names, including headliners Queens Of The Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys and Blink 182, as well as Paramore, Jake Bugg, Disclosure and more....

By Alex Lodge @alexlodgemusic  I could go on and on about racial stereotyping, drug references influencing children, overt sex references influencing children, the glorification of alcohol and guns, but I’m sure the outrage brigade will cover off all of these points soon enough. They don’t really bother me that much anyway as if they did I wouldn’t be able to listen to Mobb Deep ever again. What really bothers me about this heinous song / video combination is that it’s...

By Alex Lodge @alexlodgemusic  The image that always comes to mind when I think about Werkdiscs – the shadowy techno label run by Darren Cunningham - is the memory of his musical moniker Actress' show at St John's in Hackney last year. It was a fantastically claustrophobic and terrifying performance, during which he stalked the stage, hooded and fiercely mysterious, surveying the dancers before him swaying to the hypnotic whisper of his hissing beats. The Werkdiscs output is so dominated...

By Richard C Roberts I vividly recall the 2001 last night of the Proms. I remember the tears rolling down my 12-year-old cheeks as Leonard Slatkin conducted a devotional rendition of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings in memory of all those who had died a few days earlier in the terrorist attacks of 9/11 – it was almost certainly the first time I cried at a piece of music (though by no means the last). When set alongside the manifold...

By John S. Locke I first saw Robin Williams on ‘Happy Days’, the classic American TV sitcom when I was a wide-eyed kid – he was electric! He was like a comedy Elvis! He was a comedic whirlwind – he changed comedy completely from that point onwards. This lightning rod, who zapped out of the big telly box and lit up our small 1970′s North Walian living room, was a laughter bolt which energised, enthralled and entertained like none before him. He literally...

By Alex Lodge @alexlodgemusic Everyone loves a back-story with their music – it puts everything in context – and as back-stories go, there’s nothing better than a rags to riches, underdog-takes-the-prize back-story. In today’s world of the relentless digital information tsunami, pop music has become much more this type of package deal, which is why everything you read about Tahliah Barnett aka FKA Twigs debut full length LP1 (Young Turks) plays on the fact that she began her career as...