Oh, right, we’ve got a blog on this site, yes. Probably about time we wrote some words in it.

 

Barely midway through and already this month Baudrillard has left the building, Bush has banned careless talk about polar bears, and a mechanic from the west of England has had sex with 30 cars, two motorboats and a jetski. Here at Spannered such grand announcements are rather thin on the ground, though we would like to extend a warm welcome to two new contributors — Judith Evans, who looks into the Iggulden brothers' recent publishing phenomenon, and Lady Chatterley, who visits the Tate Modern to find out if you really can polish a turd. Remember, if you’re interested in contributing to Spannered, we’d love to hear from you.

 

Audio mixes and fixes

Some great new mixes have found their way to us over the last week or so, and we’ve taken the opportunity to dig out some old ones too. First up, to accompany Spannered’s interview with Steve Taylor and Laszlo Beckett, the Hand on the Plow label has pasted together a dope 12-minute megamix — Jive Bunny-style — to give Spannered readers an earful of their catalogue to date. We’re also rather honoured that techno superstar Surgeon has taken time to lock himself away and curl out an exclusive set for the site, that we happen to think is one of his best ever (yeah yeah, we would say that). For those of you wanting something a little less cerebral, we unreservedly recommend you check Gary Weasel’s Marinade a la Tete mix — a 40-minute cab ride through Stupidsville, spanning Wevie Stonder to Derek & Clive. After a little rummaging about in the bowels of the Musicalbear server we’ve also unearthed a cracking pair of dancehall-rich mixes from London’s Heatwave crew, re-hosted here and here, along with a crucial 50-minutes of apocalyptic rhythms from maverick mixer-upper-of-records DJ /rupture.

If, like us, you’re soaked to the skin and struggling for air under the rising tide of podcasts, mixes and other freebie audio presently bubbling out of the web, head across to Wayne&Wax, where Wayne kindly pulls together his current recommendations into one handy list, should you wish to pimp up your ‘pod or whatever. We’re honoured he saw fit to include Spannered in the roll call, and will be PayPalling him ten pounds shortly. We’re also pleased as punch to announce that the next Oddcast will take the form of a 'Bristol special', chock full of exclusives and other goodies from city artists. The selection is being lovingly crafted with the help of Punksi from Bashout — if you’re a resident of Bristol and would like to submit a track for consideration, get in touch!

 

Okay, we know it’s not very down with the kids, but we’ve disabled the ability to hotlink directly to multimedia content on our servers — the simple reason being that much of it is connected to an interview, review or feature, and we’d rather people appreciated the site’s audio and video in context. If you're after an MP3 just visit the appropriate page on the site and you’ll find a glaringly obvious download link in the top right corner. So please don’t host Spannered’s mixes elsewhere, as there’s really no need. Alright? Good.

 

The Brazilian connection

Spannered is currently running on a London/São Paulo axis, which is why you may have noticed some articles cropping up in both English and Portuguese. Over time we hope you’ll be seeing a fair bit of Brazilian content dotted around the site. This month we’re pleased to host a gallery of photos from downtown São Paulo, shot by Brazilian photographer Nayana Fernandez. Speaking of which, we feel compelled to mention this inspired design clash that came about through a recent Brazil-Argentina footy match… That's right, nob gags get plenty of mileage the world over.

 

Back in the UK, electronic music fans deserve a swift kick in the arse if they haven't purchased a ticket to the Bloc Weekend. Curated under the watchful eyes of the Baselogic crew, the event, taking place on the 23-25 March is the best line-up you’re likely to see anywhere in Britain all year, and will no doubt have the staff at Pontins in Hemsby curled up in foetal positions under heaps of rave detritus. If you haven't got a ticket, head over to their site to see who’s playing — and then weep like a big baby, cos it's totally sold out. Check back for Spannered’s review of the ensuing carnage.

And Finally...

 

What blog post would be complete without a YouTube clip or three?

 

Laters.