II. Arts & Culture

Rock Band - Virtual Battle of the Bands
22nd July, 9.30pm, £5 (info)
Exactly what this game was created for - teams compete in a virtual battle of the bands to win some stupidly awesome prices - including Xbox 360 systems and copies of the (gaspingly overpriced) game. Apparently the tournament is also to include the original Guitar Hero games and a few from the Singstar series - expect to see me belting out something on Easy Mode at least once over the course of the evening.

One Man Star Wars
28th July, 8pm, £12 (info)
Canadian actor Charles Ross takes to the Waterfront Studio to solitarily act out the initial (read: only) Star Wars films - single-handedly playing all the characters, singing all the music, fighting all the battles - and condensing the entire trilogy into a single sitting. Pleasantly rescheduled out of the way of last weeks’ TwoStep - can’t wait!

Urban Market
26th July, All Day, Free (info)
The Urban Market extends the usual Saturday morning St. George’s Market to local artists, designers, musicians, photographers, puppeteers, jewellery makers, record labels as the “alternative” side of Belfast take hold for the day. Always worth a look!

Transcend Exhibition
26th July, 4pm, Free (info)
The exhibition - taking place in the Waterfront Foyer right after the Urban Market - places some of the finest work from internationally renowned graphic artists on display in the form of screenprints, paintings, skate decks, customized vinyl toys and video projections.

Transcend Live-Drawing
26th July, 6pm, Free (info)
Leading in from the exhibition opening, many of the artists on display who have travelled over for the launch will take to every surface in sight with sharpies, stencils and spray-paint - covering walls and windows with a blend of graphic brilliance. The amount of wall space we’ve managed to commission is nothing short of staggering - come watch these guys fill it!

SweetTalk
26th July, 8.30pm, £7 (info)
The evening then concludes with SweetTalk - a series of presentations from some leading national creative talents - including Gavin Strange, BrenB, Chris Judge, M&E (Matthew and Emelie) and Aidan Kelly. Expect overflowing amazement and inspiration.

In-between arriving back from OpenCoffee BBQ in Tipperary and getting this months’ TwoStep set up, I managed to pop into the launch of Add to Set - which exports the photography of local bloggers and Flickr users to the walls of the second floor on the Waterfront Hall. As well as myself, Phil Clare, Shauneen, Mark, John, and Alan all have photos up, which culminates into an excellent representation of our individual repertories.

I was as giddy as a schoolgirl seeing some of my photos - especially the few I genuinely like - in physical form. While Add to Set may have launched on Thursday, the photos will remain for the next month on the second floor foyer of The Waterfront. See if you can spot which are mine …

Typically when I write guides to upcoming festivals (apparently becoming quite the tradition), I try to skim through the stuff I’m not terribly interested in as to keep the information interesting and relevant. Drafting such an entry on the Trans Festival has been nye impossible due to the sheer amount of events that I want to recommend. Bear with me, we might be here a while …

I. Music

Fighting with Wire, Skruff & General Fiasco
16th July, 8pm, £3 (info)
Three of the most energetic, high-octane bands in Belfast that you haven’t a hope in seeing for £3 in a years time. You shouldn’t require any more convincing than that, frankly.

Pushborders, AJ Suzuki, Heliopause
17th July, 9.30pm, £5 (info)
TwoStep mixes it up somewhat with the downtrodden Heliopause, electro-poptastic AJ Suzuki and forceful indie stylings of Pushborders (ex- Red Sirus). Having supported Okkervil River and Elbow already, Pushborders are well on their way up.

Push Borders - The Garden State

Barrys Electric Workshop & Skibunny
18th July, 5pm, Free (info)
Listed this as I don’t think I’ve ever seen Barrys Electric Workshop live outside of his performance at Oh Yeah Computer last year, and it’s a freebie so why not?! I wonder how glitchy electronica and a heavy DJ set from Skibunny will go down at 5pm in the evening …

Money Back Guarantee
20th July, 8pm, £5 (info)
So you pay £5 in, enjoy the show, then get your £5 back and split it (or don’t) between the acts - including Cutaways and Paul Curry - depending on how much you enjoyed them. I missed this last year, it’ll be interesting to see if a direct financial incentive affects preformance.

Panama Kings & Robyn G. Sheils
25th July, 5pm, Free (info)
Good friends of Mucho Danke, Panama Kings are fast becoming one of my favorite local bands - the freebie NIMIC showcases give you a great reason to take my word for it and check ‘em out. Support also comes from Robyn G. Sheils.

Indie Takeaway
3rd August, 8pm, £4 (info)
Similar to Money Back Guarantee in its rethinking value for money when it comes to live shows, you’ll receive a “menu” listing all songs to be preformed on the night, enjoy the show, then request a custom-burnt CD of your favorite tracks. La Faro, Escape Act, John Shelly & The Creatures and The Good Fight all feature.

Nevermind Revisited
7th August, 8pm, £10 (info)
Following on from OK Computer, Nashville and Astral Nights, the Oh Yeah Building is now curating the next in its series of “Revisited” nights - Nirvana’s Nevermind. While I don’t like Nirvana - and especially Nevermind - these nights are always worth a look for the local musicians making the album tracks their own.

The Trans Festival finally officially launched this week - more excitingly with some of the first festival events I’ve had the pleasure to organize. Theres a TwoStep in there (easy enough) but theres also the live drawing, SweetTalk and ‘Add to Set’ - the Flickr exhibition I’m involved in. I’ll be writing about them all with more explicit detail as July approaches, but you’ll forgive some basic plugging in the interim.

TwoStep Presents Push Borders w/ AJ Suzuki + Heliopause
Thursday 17th July
The Limelight, 9.30pm, £5
http://www.transbelfast.com/trans08/gigs.php?i=59

Transcend (exhibition + live drawing)
Saturday 26th July
Waterfront Foyer, 4pm, Free
http://www.transbelfast.com/trans08/gigs.php?i=95

SweetTalk
Saturday 26th July
Waterfront Foyer, 8.30pm, £7
http://www.transbelfast.com/trans08/gigs.php?i=96

Add to Set
Thursday 17th July
Waterfront Hall Gallery, 7pm, Free
http://www.transbelfast.com/trans08/gigs.php?i=94

CandyCollective in association with TwoStep Presents (that’ll be me), The Rogues Gallery & Trans ‘08 proudly present a whole day of creative events culminating in a special edition of SweetTalk.

Saturday 26th July;
4-8pm - Waterfront Foyer
Exhibition launch & live-drawing (+ DJs)
w/ Gavin Strange, Klingatron, WASTE, Richt, Sums, Danleo, Filth + more tbc
Free

8.30pm - Waterfront Studio
Special Edition SweetTalk w/ Ben Drury (Mo’Wax Creative Director), Gavin Strange (JamFactory), M&E & more to be announced
£7 (available from Waterfront Box Office)

So starting with the exhibition launch (with most excitingly lots of the Xynthetic guys displaying) featuring screenprints, paintings, decks, custom vinyl figures and such - we’ll move into some live drawing for a while before the doors to SweetTalk, allowing you to check out the awesome & have a few beers. Then an absolutely belter lineup for the special edition SweetTalk itself, with Ben Drury, Gavin Strange and M&E all currently confirmed to be speaking. Absolutely amazing in my opinion, you’d be a fool to miss it! Something more official in the way of press and full confirmed details will be shared as soon as.

Oh, and check out the poster!