Bud Light Sensation x Aux.TV – BPM Thermometer
Commissioned by Bud Light Sensation in partnership with Aux.tv, the BPM Thermometer covers various styles of EDM, with coloured glowstick indicators and party fashion sensibilities. Click to expand.
Forza Horizon – 1000 Club and Design Director Interview
Forza Horizon bridges the gap between car simulator fanatics and EDM festival thrill chasers looking for the next rush. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect marriage of beats and speed, with a multi-channel soundtrack curated by the BBC’s Rob Da Bank, also the organizer of the wildly successful summer-fest Bestival. Tunes were picked for freshness and longevity and have that signature BBC flare like Skrillex’s remix of Avicii’s Levels, or Toronto’s very own Azari & III’s Reckless With Your Love or Scuba’s The Hope, (full tracklisting posted below).
Set in an immersive Colorado environment, the game lets you explore a massive map with various challenges for you to discover along the way with fun elements of car culture like the chance to discover roadsters in abandoned barns, drag racing hot spots, and one of my favourites, an abandoned factory.
While the game came out last fall, they’ve just released a significant free expansion pack called the 1000 Club that adds hundreds of new checklist style challenges to suck you back into the fun. Check out my interview below with Design Director, Ralph Fulton.
It’s interesting what you’ve done in creating an immersive arcade game versus the last iteration of Forza.
I will stop you last there, I wouldn’t call it arcade. It’s come up a lot. Is it an arcade racer, or a simulation racer? We see that as an outdated way of thinking. For us it’s important to see that in arcade games, cars are disposable, cars are weapons. There’s no incentive or reason to keep the little hatchback that you started out with in one of those. In this game, you get to drive a killer Viper which is a reasonably fast machine and then you get into a 95 Kia Cerato which is a sporty little front wheel drive car that is fun to drive but it’s not a super car. And then we give you some cool fast cars that you unlock. You can paint them however you’d like to, you can put more turbos on it, throw in a bigger engine, turn that Cerato into a super car mini monster if you want to.
That’s what Forza does, it allows you to keep the cars that speak to your personality, and then you can take that car all the way to the end if you want to. Ok, I don’t know if the Cerato will ever go head to head with the Hennessey Venom but you can certainly maintain. You don’t throw them away. You collect them, you love them, you share them with your friends and that’s really he difference.
Yes, there are things you love to do in arcade games that you can do in Horizon, like 360s, smash through fences, 180s and get points for all that stuff. And those are fun things to do, and we are letting you do all those things with the same physics that we put in Forza Motorsports 4, and the reason that’s important is because all that is based on real world research. We went and figured out what the flight-wheel mass and travel distances are because we want those cars to be the best interpretation in the virtual world. Horizon is the same way. It should be a new feeling for people that play arcade games. But you should notice that one car is totally different from the last one that you just drove. In the game you go from a 600+ horsepower Viper to the front wheel drive Cerato to a 70 Mustang Boss, to an all wheel drive Subaru STI Evo.
How is the appeal between gamers vs. simulator fans?
Some people ask, ‘why didn’t you make an open world simulator?’ Why do we have this party, skill points etc.? We never set out to make the worlds greatest simulation with Forza 4. We set out to make an immersive car experience that happens to take place on racing circuits.
In this case, Playground Games who developed this game for us with our knowledge, this is their dream game. WE told them to make dream cars on dream roads, at the world’s greatest car and music festival. They chose Colorado because that was a world that gave them the most diversity for roads and it’s conceivably a place where the festival might take place.
What is the Horizon Fest?
Imagine a huge summer music festival and the world’s greatest car festival, that’s what it is. Thousands of people come to celebrate cars, music and have fun drives. The spirit is having fun with your friends, not fierce competition. The music chosen for the game was curated by Rob Da Bank from the BBC. When it came to music, he looked at it from the point of view of what he would put on. It’s the same music you’d hear at a festival but it also has to be the right driving music. Adele doesn’t necessarily work. He also told us where to put the bathrooms would be laid out if safety marshals ever would allow something like this to happen, hahah.
Is there any actual partying in the game?
You don’t get out of the car and dance, party, drink and meet girls but we want you to think that’s what is happening around you. Although you do meet people in the game, there are lots of people around cars, so humans are new to the Forza franchise. It wouldn’t feel real without people.
Is Top Gear involved this time as in past Forza games?
No, but some of the lunacy those guys do was inspired by the game, as you get to do things like race against airplanes and do other stuff.
Did Forza Horizon emerge from Forza 4 as a ‘what do we do next’ concept or somewhere else?
Two years ago, we were all working on Forza 4, and we had this vision of the studio to be a world leader in automotive entertainment. Nobody has that, outside of Top Gear. If we just saw ourselves as guys who make a great racing simulator, then that’s all we’ll ever do. We wanted to bring more people into the fold. There are lots of people who may not be inspired by drag racing, certainly in the states, outside of NASCAAAAR (said with a southern twang). Forza’s not something that makes big news in the states, it’s a nichey sport but people love cars, going fast and playing arcade racers. We feel it’s our job to expand the definition of what Forza is. Forza isn’t just circuit-based track racing, this is where you come if you love cars. We started looking for another developer that would help tell our story in a unique voice, and that’s who Playground Games is. They love cars and they want more people to love cars. This is their interpretation of car passion. We think that’s great because now our fans don’t have to wait 2 years for a great Forza game, they get one year. It wont be a 2012, 13, 14 versions, every year it will be a different experiences but you know it will have that same Forza DNA.
Forza Horizon Soundtrack curated by BBC’s Rob Da Bank
Horizon Bass Arena
Levels (Skrillex Mix) — Avicii
Reckless (With Your Love) — Azari & III
Cinema (Skrillex Remix) — Benny Benassi
Blind Faith (feat. Liam Bailey) — Chase & Status
Hot Mess (feat Elly Jackson) (Duck Sauce Mix) — Chromeo
Encore — Digitalism
The Power (feat. Dizzee Rascal) — DJ Fresh
Silicone Lube — Feed Me
Lies (Alex Metric Remix) — Fenech-Soler
Icarus — Madeon
Show Me A Sign — Modestep
Lick The Rainbow — Mord Fustang
Remanence (Junior Remix) — Mr Magnetik
Me & You — Nero
Reaching Out (Fred Falke Remix) — Nero
Blue Monday — New Order
Language — Porter Robinson
Everyday (Netsky VIP Remix) — Rusko
Somebody to Love (Sigma Remix) — Rusko
The Hope — Scuba
Bass 4 — The Hacker
Illmerica (Extended Version) — Wolfgang Gartner
Horizon Pulse
Need You Now — Cut Copy
Awake — Electric Guest
Walking on a Dream — Empire of the Sun
Iron Deer Dream (Chad Valley Remix) — Fixers
Don’t Stop (Color on the Walls) — Foster The People
Hawaiian Air — Friendly Fires
Hurting Friendly Fires
No Love — Hooray for Earth
Over & Over — Hot Chip
Black, White and Blue — Ladyhawke
Let Me Go — Maverick Sabre
Paddling Out — Miike Snow
Life is Life (Yuksek Remix) — Noah and the Whale
Take A Walk — Passion Pit
1901 — Phoenix
Bom Bom — Sam and the Womp
Disparate Youth — Santigold
Spirit of the Night — Tesla Boy
Pelican — The Maccabees
Punching in a Dream — The Naked & Famous
Aroused — Tom Vek
Something Good Can Work (The Twelves Remix) — Two Door Cinema Club
Yeah Yeah — Willy Moon
Horizon Rocks
R U Mine — Arctic Monkeys
Lonely Boy — Black Keys
The Infected — Four Year Strong
Back of your Neck — Howler
Give It Up — LCD Soundsystem
Bring Em Down — Lostprophets
We Bring An Arsenal — Lostprophets
Teenager — Mona
Animal — Neon Trees
Wildfire, Smoke & Doom — Pulled Apart By Horses
Lazy Eye — Silversun Pickups
Surrender — The Duke Spirit
Away from Here — The Enemy
Had Enough — The Enemy
Hate To Say I Told You — The Hives
She Bangs The Drums — The Stone Roses
Rock n Roll Queen — The Subways
Motoring — TOY
Bug — Wavves
Farewell to the Fairground — White Lies
Bite My Tongue (feat. Oli Sykes) — You Me At Six
Get Away — Yuck
Viking traditions live on at Thorrablot in Toronto – BlogTO
Toronto’s Thorrablot is hosted annually by the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto (ICCT), a community group made up of Icelandic bloodliners and Canadian Icelandophiles. Our host for the evening was ICCT president Karen Wallington, hair stylist at Knot Just Dreads, of no Icelandic relation, but has visited the island over 16 times. The evening was started in true Thorrablot tradition with a mini concert by Lindy Vopnfjörð, followed by folk songs, and a Viking re-enactor.
Traditional foods were served like roast lamb, turkey, sugared potatoes and easily the most impressive dish for me, smoked lamb, which looked and tasted almost exactly like a typical deli smoked meat, except for the fatty connective pieces that held a decadent creamy texture. But the real pièce de résistance was the platter of exceptionally traditional foods, with thousand year old heritage cooked for pure winter survival rather than for enjoyment of taste.
Or maybe our tastes have just changed over the eons because mealy oats-based blood pudding (blóðmör) and liver sausage (lifrarpylsa) always seem to be a hard sell. Not to mention hrutspungar (ram’s testes soured in whey) that had a springy Chinese fish ball consistency but tasted like boiled chicken, sourness, with subtle iron undertones. Sheep’s head cheese (sviðasulta) gives you the option of eating a powerful smoked herring without the fear of scale, bones or fish, but there is still the fear, or joy, of potentially getting an eyeball in there too.
And then there’s the hákarl. Anyone who has a penchant for stinky, ripe cheese can identify with these chewy morsels of flesh – think of it as the Stinking Bishop of the meat world, whose smell is arguably more fearsome than its bite. Hákarl is made from the Greenland Shark – you know, the kind that have antifreeze running through their veins, which allow them to swim in subzero temperatures. Like the car fluid, it’s highly toxic. The Vikings used to bury it in the sand for months while the deadly fluids seeped out and the meat was readied by the ground it lay in.
Dessert specialties included sætsúpa, Icelandic compote or fruit soup; the decadent prunes and icing heavy vinarterta cake; mysuostur, a carmelized whey cheese, that reminded me of dulce de leche, with that unforgettable and highly addictive fermented tang; kleinur, little donut bowties; pönnokökur, or pancakes served with jam and skyr, the highly coveted calcium-rich Icelandic yogurt. The evening was accompanied by a silent auction and also a live auction hosted by Canadian fashion icon, Linda Lundstrum.
Canada’s Icelandic community was formed in 1874 when the first wave settled in Kinmount Ontario near Haliburton, lured by so many nations by the prospect of free land and a chance to start over anew. Toronto’s ICCT hosts many cultural film, theatre and music events. Fans of Björk, Sigur Rós, and Gus Gus are always welcome to check them out.
Additional Photos
Photos by Kat Rizza
TJFF J-DAR – Free Ticket CONTEST!
J-Dar. Do you have it? As a straight jewish male, I’d probably argue that my Gaydar is a bit more reliable. Being Jewish means you may share some common traits and physical features, (I have the curly devil’s locks) but a lot of people that I meet assume I’m some kind of african-american mix or who knows what else.
J-Dar is a very tricky thing, us Ashkenazi Semites are truly an invisible minority, and while you can also make assumptions in the film world, you can NEVER BE TOO SURE. Which is why the Toronto Jewish Film Fest (TJFF) in partnership with DDB, have created this technological wonder of a site that will help your mom, dad, and other jew loving friends determine which movies are jewish enough to show the kids, grand kids, and rest of the fam.
Or you can see what happens when you remove a good chunk of the Jewishness from a series like Star Wars. See what happens when you get rid of the J-Factor?
VS
You see, the differences are quite striking. Thus by the system we’re going by, Star Wars: Episode 1 should never be shown to young jewish children, or any children what so ever.
Or is it any wonder that every edition of Anne of Green Gables that I searched for got ein big fat gunish?
Are you curious? Want to win free tickets? Post the most jewish film you can find in the comments section and the winner with the highest percentile wins 2 tickets to Tuesday’s screening of Eran Barak’s documentary, Hunting Time at 8 pm at U of T’s Innis Theatre.
Here’s a brief description from the TJFF site. “When photographer Eran Barak moves into an apartment in Haifa, he spends his days observing the neighbourhood: three high-rise residential buildings under construction, forever changing the neighbourhood; a photograph of two eternally smiling teenagers killed in a car accident, taped to a small monument; an aging Nazi hunter looking for recognition. As he absorbs it all, these seemingly unrelated elements enter his apartment in the form of photographs that line his walls. Reminiscent of the work of Chris Marker, Barak’s Hunting Time is a poetic and moving meditation on memories and remembrance, history and documentation, reality and imagination.”
Cyzon – Into The Sun
Cyzon aka Anna Cyzon has been kicking it for a number of years now in Toronto’s entertainment and media arena. She just recently released this very Terry Richardson-esque music vid for her new single, Into The Sun.
In 2004 she competed on Canadian Idol which eventually landed her a gig on CTV’s eTalk and then MTV. She’s also been a contestant for Poland’s Eurovision in more recent years, and as an actor, she appeared in director Warren P. Sonoda’s Unrivaled. I actually had one of my early music video appearances in one of Warren’s first music videos for the anti-teeny bopper band Live On Release, in the vid for I’m Afraid Of Britney Spears. Go find it if you DARE!
Meet Strombo – CNN’s Newest Canadian Igloo-loving Leperchaun Host
With the freakshow that reality TV has become, I wouldn’t put it past Time-Warner to have done this on purpose.
GTA V box art & preview pics!!!
Even the illustrations seem higher gloss….. featuring lead characters Michael, Trevor and Franklin.
With a September release It’s still unclear whether this will be out on the next gen consoles… or will they make it for both systems?
How To Dress Well and Sky Ferreira hit up Wrongbar – BlogTO
How To Dress Well played an intimate performance for a rather crowd at Wrongbar on Wednesday night. Half were there for the ethereally voiced Tom Krell while the obvious throngs of teeny tiny pop tarts showed up to pay homage to their latest buzzy idol, Sky Ferreira. The Aussie codeine-trance-inducing-shoegazer-band High Highs was also in attendance. World of Posters Queen W. location must have made bank on fake IDs for the concert as there were a hell of a lot of youngsters that got in.
Dressed in a baggy, too big for his frame Grace Jones t-shirt that he tended to awkwardly ring his hands through in concentration (some of us stick our tongues out, others bite our nails) and flanked by an accompanying violinist/lap top jockey and a projection screen, How To Dress Well delivered about 40 minutes of soul-baring modern white boy R&B secrets and told us funny stories. Like the time just a few weeks ago when he was invited to Maxwell’s urban hang suite, er home studio, after his show where they ordered macaroni and cheese, popped mollies and listened to Juicy J for hours together, or the time he played Wrongbar in 2008 for the Big Primpin’ New Years party.
Also notable was a heart-wrenching a cappella ode to his brother titled “Blue” that somewhat echoed The Verve Pipe’s 90s hit “The Freshman” in tone and heart. Hearing the music without beats made me realize how much his style is entirely based on the production that surrounds it. This crooner could easily share the stage D’Angelo or R. Kelly given the right beats… and some clever special effects.
Sky Ferreira’s set made some of us wonder if she’d spent too long hanging out with Michael Jackson as a member of his Neverland posse. She can belt out a gamut of songs and styles jumping from guitar led country-blues ballads (“Ghost”), Runaways meets Garbage styled thrash & roll (“Can’t Say No”), to Solange-inspired songs (“Everything Is Embarrassing,” which shares Blood Orange as a producer and sounds almost identical to the Knowles hit “Losing You.” Embarrassing much?) — and has a voice beyond her years. But her black on bleached trailer trash Courtney Love via Pam Anderson look was a little off-putting.
Was she related to one of the Toddlers In Tiaras cast members, or did she just grow up real fast on gogo juice? I’m sure she will come into her own one day as she is incredibly gifted singer and an edgy manufactured pop starlet in the making, but maybe the Forever 21 spokesgirl should loosen her jeans up a bit, as she clung tightly to her safety bubble and relied mostly on flashing those sultry eyes of hers to capture our attention. It’s a decent trick, but she should have a few more up her super-skinny jeans by now.
Additional Photos
Photos by Alejandro Santiago
DigesTED – BY Alex Pardee x Kid Robot BLACK
From Kid Robot’s elite BLACK series…… the email update said it’s out now but the site says otherwise. Who can solve this Caramilk mystery?!
DigesTED BY Alex Pardee
$200
6-Inch Vinyl
Edition of 250
The gift that keeps on taking.
Lifelong friend or enemy? Every thing has a secret life. Behind the scenes, in the dark when no one’s watching, what do we know of even our best of friends? Waiting motives always reveal themselves, tearing through the mock exteriors that build trust and perfect traps.
This once cozy demon is having his day, powered by the horror of its prior owner and already onto its next victim. The veneer is stripped away to reveal the terrifying truth. Something wicked this way came – not through a hard knock on the door or from the corner of your eye, but freely accepted, as a gift, a trusted companion for cold nights and hot fears.
It’s not the dark that’s scary. It’s your friends in the dark you should be worried about.
A limited edition of 250 pieces. Each is hand numbered with the artist’s signature engrave on the base. Packaged in a display box and features high gloss details, blood red eyes, and an overwhelming sense of dread.
Congo Natty – UK Allstars – NEW TUNE
Junglists are you REAAAAADY?
Let’s all collectively shit our pants and exalt, YES, JAH!
The new “UK Allstars” track features Tenor Fly, Top Cat, General Levy, Tippa Irie, Sweetie Irie and Daddy Freddy, and it’s the first time all of these legends have been featured on the same tune. The full album is coming to your home soundsystems and telephonic devices on June 25th via Big Dada!
In case ya dun know (!) Congo Natty aka Rebel MC and his fam are responsible for pretty much single handedly keeping the grizzled old junglist soulja spirit alive through hundreds of old school jungle nights that persist across the globe every night of the week. The Congo Natty crew have not released a snippet since 2003 so I’m ecstatic that he’s finally coming back to bring something new to the conversation. Could jungle once again be the next big exciting thing on our musical radars? It’s rather unlikely to be yes, but it would be a phenomenal curveball if it were. I could go on for pages about what drum & bass and jungle mean to me, but this might not be the right place. Fuck, I’m seriously excited for this though, like no other album in years.
And from the label:
Jungle Revolution features the whole of the extended Congo Natty family and was mixed with Adrian Sherwood. Clearly showing this Rasta’s belief that Jungle is a re-boot of roots reggae for a new century, the record is full of blood and fire, the sternum-buzz of sub-bass, rapid fire drum breaks, sweet hooks, righteous anger and professions of religious fervour. It’s the kind of passionate, committed, raw and spiritual, beautiful record that doesn’t come along that often.
