Beacuse it's Wednesday!

So here I am again a day delayed. Work is keeping me on my feet and networking has been at the forefront of my mind this week. So I am not going to visually stimulate you with fashion or great design but give a little advice on how to use networking properly!

Everyone is talking about how important networking is. I certainly do, and in my experience it helps to maintain and nurture relationships with people you meet.

Now social networking is not a new subject. But is facebook, Twitter, Myspace really a way to get ahead in business? Hmm I doubt it, so which online tools are there that can give you that chance to meet interesting people, or be invited to events that connects you to your desired industry? (apart from Hustleard of course ☺)

Starting off with ‘A small world’. I have been a member for a little while, and its purpose is to give people a chance to connect via events (social, business, and cultural), business ventures, and start nurturing relevant business relationships, that can assist you in you career endeavors.

Then there is LinkedIn. You don’t have an account yet? Get one! It is a business people directory. People have profiles, in which the main information provided is about people’s current and past jobs.

Xing is another business networking website… not as well established as LinkedIn but definitely worth a membership.

We all want to become successful, and sometimes it helps to meet people who can help you on your way. So fill your roladex with relevant contacts and get out there, business ain't that difficult.
It has helped me on numerous occasions to meet interesting people, or just simply to identify potential clients (some of which converted into paying business). The hardest part is to make sure you send them at least a Christmas card. So get networking!

Rapidshare handing over user data to record labels

Apparently Rapidshare are providing record labels with details of users accused of uploading pre-release albums to the site.

The labels can then take this IP address data to ISPs to identify the users - with one person already saying he’s been the subject of a police raid after uploading a copy of Metallica’s Death Magnetic to his Rapidshare account a day before its release.

It’s a sign that the music industry is taking the piracy threat posed by sites like Rapidshare seriously, rather than just focusing on P2P. Research indicates that particularly for pre-release leaks, file-hosting sites are increasingly important.

For this to really work though, the majors have to take a hard line stance against everyone, starting off with making examples out of the first few offenders. Whether or not this will work… only time will tell, but if they really do want to take on the world of music piracy, these are the steps that are needed to be taken and this is a starting point.

T-Birds’ Minimal Finest:

DJ KOZE. (Or was it Adolf Noise. maybe International Pony) Bit of a weird name I have to say… very nineties… and honestly the first time someone spoke to me about him I was bit baffled as I didn’t get the description of his sounds. He’s got a light, subtle but eccentric approach and feel, keeping his listeners on their toes. You can’t put his music into a box, so he works under three aliases’ to not confuse the world too much with all the genres he dabbles in. One could say it is a delirium of music.

This guy has it all, he knows music and none of his tracks sounds alike, on top of that he is a notoriously talented remixer. Even better, this guy is from the motherland, so I am happy to introduce:

Stefan Kozalla aka DJ Koze lives and works in Hamburg as a club DJ, musician (International PONY, Adolf Noise) and successful producer and KOMPAKT recording artist (Kompakt being a label to know, but we will get to that at later stage). Originally being part of German Hip-Hop Collective Fischmob, he really shines behind the decks. Although he experienced success with Fischmob he has always been interested in experimenting with other forms of electronic music from ambient to break beats to wild sound collages from a range of musical genres.
Under his aka Adolf Noise he has moved into a deeper electronic direction, with more abstract and unusual samples (including football commentary). These tunes have to a big extent nothing to do with the DJ Koze minimal genius. So when checking him out make sure you remember the right alias, or you might end up hearing some pensive relaxing sounds that will take you on a dream wave.

As i couldn't decide what to put on here, you should most definitely investigate yourself a little more...and enjoy with volume!

Kanye West - Amazin' (feat. Young Jeezy)

Eminem Uses Album Cover To Tease New "Relapse" Release

To hype the release of Eminem’s upcoming his new album "Relapse", the media savvy rapper Eminem has combined the modern self-inflicted leak with a very old school marketing tool, the album cover, and delivered the message to his 39,000 Twitter followers.

"This is getting very real," wrote Marshal Mathers aka Eminem accompanied by a link to a hidden Interscope web page displaying only the new cover which recreates his image using thousands of pills .This morning a new tweet states, "I'm with Angela Yee on Shade45 Thursday morning. Listen carefully." Shade 45 is a satellite hop hip station co-created with Enimem.

In the age of digital downloads, album covers have been relegated to postage stamp size graphics if visible at all. Many complain about the loss, while others have tried to reinvent it. For Eminem’s fans, what was once old is now new again.

Because it’s Wednesday:

So the fashion world is hitting me at the moment. Matthew Williamson’s designs for H&M are hitting the stores, and my friend will be having her debut show, both which is going to happen tomorrow. As I still think it is unfair for designers to launch any line so close before payday, I am very excited to see FAJ strutting down the catwalk.
FAJ, Fanny and Jess, two insane but lovely girls who have made it to their mission to conquer the fashion world. They both hibernated somewhere in East London for months in order to sow, cut, and staple their designs to what I shall be seeing tomorrow. They have ambition, and are avant-garde, but what I like most about it, is that they put the effort into the detail.

So here is a little taster:












Will I be wearing it? I’d love to (some of it I would like to think I’d be able to pull off). But as the story goes, these items are practically their portfolio. But I am in line to try and get my fingers on FAJ as soon as I can.

From a marketing and branding perspective, the name is great, the product loud and proud, the story most sale-able. All in all, great foundations to build on for the future FAJ Empire.

AQA launches premium mobile micro-blogging service

AQA is one of those SMS Q&A services where you text in questions and it texts you back the answers. But now it’s launched a new service called AQA2U, which lets anyone set up a Twitter-style news feed that sends out the persons thoughts as texts to subscribers at 25p a time, up to a maximum of £3.50 a month.

That’s right, it’s basically getting people to pay for content they could get for free from a Twitter feed. Or, as AQA puts it, “AQA2U is micro-blogging with a business model”.

Grime star Tinchy Stryder is already using the service. I have to ask though, will consumers really pay for this? Considering the majority of people don't really want to pay for music these days, and given that Tinchy tweets lots on Twitter already, what on earth will be in his AQA2U feeds worth paying for? I have been a champion of artists endorsing technology and embracing alternative revenue streams, however, I do have my doubts about this one, but stranger things have happened…

Tuesday's Tracks

This week's Tuesday's track is a massive one, and the video's even better. I'm feeling where Dizzie's going with his recent singles, he's going "Ard" with the UK sound party tracks, it's a good look!
Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers

Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow

Hey guys, I know you've all been waiting a good while for this video...so remember you watched it here first at Hustle 'Ard! x

T-Birds Minimal Finest:

Lucio Aquilina… even his name sounds promising, when it rolls off your tongue. This is sexy minimal house. It is almost sinfully good. This young Sicilian is one of my latest ‘most listened to’ artists.

‘He is one of the up-and-coming talents from the south of Italy that will most probably take over the older generation of Markantonio, Gaetano Parisio, Danilo Vigorito and Rino Cerrone, all of whom put Naples in the techno scene at the end of the previous century.’ (And this is a hefty but true statement)

Anyway, his influences don’t draw as much from that techno as from Britain’s Nathan Fake and James Holden.
This boy is currently signed to Cocoon and his biggest success to date the release of the twelve inches Magic M. This record included the amazing track My Cube (the one I keep listening to over and over again). This track was also chosen by M.A.N.D.Y. to be part of his mix for Fabric (number 38)
When listening to his tracks one can imagine how the melodies form in his mind are being translated into robust rhythms with a very strong minimal sound palette. His tracks are as fresh as they can get with a whiff of childlike enthusiasm one gets when producing a track.
His production skills are as good as his dj skills and sometimes I ask myself what came first for this boy…?

Who cares, Enjoy with Volume!!

Flashback Fridays

In making up for missing last week i thought I'd bring two genres of music that were huge in the 80's.

Firstly, New Wave from Adam And The Ants - Prince Charming


Then onto Funk with Rick James - Give It To Me Baby

Because it’s Wednesday:

I somewhat operate on one day delay this week...That's what a bank holiday does to me. So this is meant for Wednesday.

So last week Wednesday I met up with my friend for some good old free gallery opening drinks.
We ended up in a gallery space, which happened to be the very first gallery I ever visited in London. The entrance consisted of a massive white wall with clean type saying “ A little piece of Mind”.




Walking further into the exhibition we ended up in a massive white room with a ridiculously long list of names of famous artist printed on the wall. On the far wall hung a massive quilt (or duvet in my eyes) and next to it a nice piece of graphic design pattern.





It turned out to be a private auction for this quilt, which was designed through contributions by each and every single designer mentioned on the wall. And honestly it wasn’t that impressive even though contributors were Vivienne Westwood, Stella McCartney and Swarovski.

We stayed for the auction (and some more cocktails) mingled with the PR lady who organized the event and finally chatted to the man who ended up spending nearly 10k on a duvet.

Got new business contacts, had a good hangover and saw the most expensive duvet ever. So all in all successful.

Here is the graphic pattern which I really would like to have on my living room wall:


Forgive the quality of the images, but they were taken on a phone :)

Michael's a Ledge!

Whether you love him of hate him there is no mistaking,Michael Jackson is a living legend. Currently we're led to believe that he is going through some financial troubles which almost led to the sale of pretty much all his goods yesterday at an auction house in America, but there's no doubt the man will be performing a bunch on shows at the O2 Arena in London this summer. Personally I’m a massive fan and the man's a natural entertainer, I mean I’d go to the show just to see him put his hip out or something. But if the performance is anything like the clip below, those that got hold of tickets will not be disappointed.

T-Bird’s Minimal finest:

A day delayed, here is this weeks minimal finest(but it was a bank holiday). So hope you all had a good weekend.

This weeks’ sound bite is one of my personal favorites. Shlomi Aber, one of Israel's most noted DJ's and producers in the field of minimal techno, Shlomi Aber's star has been constantly on the rise since releasing his 2006 breakthrough hit - the catchy and melodic 'Sea Of Sand', produced together with Guy Gerber (another well noted Israeli artist) and released on Cocoon Records. Aber has cemented his success with releases for Ovum, and London's progressive house imprint Renaissance. The best thing about Aber, is that he is one of the most versatile Dj’s around. Not limiting him to a genre, he once said; that he founded his Label BeAsOne because he couldn’t find enough music that he was really into. His trademark, are stripped back deep techno beats, which he translates into house, and dubstep beats.
No surprise this man is one of the most touted up and coming talents that emerged in today’s scene. His production skills are as good as his dj skills and experiencing him live is absolutely exhilarating. He has gained the respect from names such as Sven Vath, Pete Tong, Danny Tenaglia, and Tiefschwarz.

I found this extract on a website a while ago after seeing him live I have to say it is the best description of his music there is:
“His musical inspirations cannot be defined by one genre, as they draw upon jazz and funk, house and minimal, in addition to acid and techno, all of which contribute to the unique sound and style that Shlomi has slowly been grooming over the last few years. Shlomi’s sets are full with warm and unique sounds that makes you feel like you are going back to the better days of music, it was something I cant define just by one word, If I must I will call it something between house and techno”

Enjoy with volume!

Shady's Back

Eminem is officially back, with his first video release from the forthcoming album “Relapse”. To be honest it’s nothing particularly new in the sense that Em’s getting at a bunch of people in the industry with some kiddie pop rhymes. As usual the single’s a joke ting more like ringtone rap than anything else but I do hope the album has a lot more credible content, because the guy is undoubtedly a hip-hop legend.

Beacuse it's Wednesday!

So I was thinking a lot (too much) about what to put in my Wednesday posts. I will write about artists, maybe designers (in branding and fashion) or any other random events I sometimes attend. I do not have an immense repertoire of blogs, websites that I visit on a daily basis in order to “know it all”, so I can write about it. One can never know it all, and in my opinion, many blogs have become a way to show off, how much time one can waste online… or don’t you agree that posting 5-6 posts per day is excessive and shows a lack of interaction with the real world.(?)
So you will be hearing from me twice a week. That is enough time to give an insight to what I like and do in the other 167 hours per week, hustling’ard in real life :).


Because it’s Wednesday!
Michael Liebowitz is an Architect, lover of good design, and holds a range of important positions. He is founder of a company called Spaceship, board member of SoDA (Society of Digital Agencies), leads seminars across the globe on creativity and innovation and on digital engagement, and is a frequent juror on creative awards such as the Cannes Lions, Clio Awards and the D&AD.
So all in all, this makes me dizzy enough to respect this guy for his dedications to the creative world… and kind of makes me jealous. But I still have time to be a big shot.
So he published a collection of quirky hotel door hangers, which he inherited from his granddad. I think this I s a great way of showing simple and effective design. Almost like international sign-language. My favorites are the ones with less copy. They make sense and prove that our brains pick up on simple icons to understand a message. We all know what it means without needing to describe what it is. This is the simple basis of all successful branding design.







“ They are also a metaphor. As an entrepreneur, I’m constantly working out when to open doors and when not to, when to clean up and when to leave people be. But more than that, what does “Do not disturb’ really mean? It means, “Rest in piece”.





There are plenty more... but these are some of my favourites. Enough for today and back to the real world.

T-Bird’s Minimal Finest

So the music industry is in a bad place at the moment. Record sales do not increase revenue and artist’s royalties are diminishing. All this is due to the digitization of sales and music consumption. This in return has opened the floodgates for many genres to promote themselves and become as popular as the most recent signings to the likes of Warner or EMI. So what are we looking at? Minimal, Dubstep, Various Electro artists, that have grown due to a loyal crowd of listeners who expect the music evolution to continue. (Surely there are the talented indie bands, but I shall not mention those)



My first recommendation will go to one of my favorite labels: Border Community.
This label includes some of the most pertinent artists in the minimal house/techno scene, lead by James Holden, Nathan Fake and Jake Fairly (aka Fairmont). These guys have been about for a while and produced a series of mind-blowing tracks with simple melodies and genius execution. There are 13 artists on the label at the moment; a worldwide mix but all with the same passion for perfectly composed tunes. Here a few sound bites you should check out, I will be revisiting more of the artists at later stage. These guys could be the electronic version of factory records of the new millennium with their consideration for clean design, which is instantly recognizable when seeing album covers.
This week’s playlist includes tracks from this label, check them out and enjoy with volume:
Nathan Fake - The sky is blue (also check out the James Holden Remix)
Fairmont – Gazebo
James Holden – Horizons (its quiet Trance-y but still good track)

Flashback Fridays

I thought i'd bring a mixture of UKG tunes to the table this week.

Firstly an uplifting track by Wookie with Battle

Next, one of the biggest UKG tunes that used to get everyone dancing (those under 18 dances where jokes, everyone trying their best on the dance floor)!

Then finally a tune that every MC wanted to jump on. Phanz, remember 31 Flavour's when Mega Man & Romeo murdered this tune!!!! Those were the days...

The Tate Modern 2

When the Tate Modern opened in 2000, visitor numbers were expected to be 1.8 million a year at tops. Almost a decade on, the figure is 4.6 million. Even though Tate Modern's home, the former Bankside power station, is a huge, the sheer number of people visiting throughout the year has made an expansion the obvious evolution.

Today, the London Borough of Southwark approved plans for Tate Modern 2, an 11-storey, brick-clad pyramid – of sorts – designed by Herzog and de Meuron, the Swiss architects who transformed the redundant power station across the Thames from Wren's St Paul's Cathedral nearly a decade ago.

The extension, a dramatic origami-like unfolding of brick and glass, may yet take some while to open. The total cost is expected to be £215m and, currently, there is a shortfall of some £145m to contend with. Of the £50m granted by central government, £10m has already been spent on the details of the planning process.
TM2 has already been redesigned. First revealed in 2006, the original design was for a Mad Max-style glass ziggurat. Thought of as a bit too showy, this has since been adjusted to a current design which, clad in brick, pays homage of sorts to the great brick mass of Bankside. A redesign was also necessary to enable the Tate to make use of the three vast oil tanks lurking under the building; these massive spaces are to be used for performances, galleries and offices. They will be some of the most unexpected interiors in London, reached by ramps winding down from an entrance in the side of the Turbine Hall in TM1. Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, suggests a completion date of 2013 or 2014

The new building will rise in tiers, some solid, others perforated, up 11 floors of galleries, culminating in a 150-seat restaurant on the 10th floor and a public viewing gallery on the 11th. As with a ziggurat, the floors get smaller as the building goes up. In stark contrast to the voluminous horizontal spread of TM1, it is a vertical stack. Ramps, spiral stairs and eight lifts will link the various floors and levels. The column-free gallery space inside will increase Tate Modern's ability to display artworks by some 65%.

TM2 will be a hugely popular attraction without doubt. If the design is well crafted and as dramatic as it could be, it will prove itself a happily eccentric addition to the London skyline. And to have a tower dedicated to art and creative expression rather than another construction reminding us of our fickle financial service industry will definitely be a breath of fresh air.

Source: The Gaurdian

Reading & Leeds 2009

If you didn't already know the Reading and Leeds festival is one of the summer mainstays of the UK festival period. The festival has two sites, as the name would suggest... in Reading and Leeds, with the acts performing at both over the duration of the weekend

This year's line up is SERIOUS!