Running Times

19.00 – 19.45 20.15 - 21.00 21.30 – 23.00

Sam Sparro Calvin Harris Mark Ronson

Running times for the rest of the line up to be confirmed. Times are subject to change.

	Mark Ronson, the Brit and Grammy award winning musician and producer, famed for his multi platinum selling album "Version" and for collaborating with Amy Winehouse on the massive hit "Valerie", will be performing live with his 17 piece band at The Rose Tree Jam on Friday 27th June 2008. There is a lot to say about Mark Ronson, Ex-Pat NYC based British musical auteur. Internationally renowned as one of the worlds finest DJs, favoured by the decadent fashion cognoscenti, the hip hop elite and anyone in general that likes to party, add to that list; uber-producer du jour, solo artist, band leader, loving father to a beautiful black border collie named Maude, label boss etc, all far too much for most hectic jet setting humans to fit into the everyday. You may be familiar perhaps with his version of Radiohead's 'Just' – the re-jigged, recorded and layered with added hip hop beats, soulful progression, funk ballast and vocals courtesy of Alex Greenwald of Phantom Planet that rocked the airwaves and dancefloors around the world. 'Just' was a catalyst in the conceptualisation and creation of 'Version' - a visionary new album that sees Mark taking on some of contemporary pop music's big hitters in a similar vein. Using his own unique re-interpretive style, Mark has set out to demonstrate pop voyeurism and experimentalism are not alien forms. 'Version' is a positive, never derivative, journey through the art of the song...with added horns thrown in for good measure. The album sees him joined by an array of singers; including the irrepressible musical talents of Dirt McGirt aka ODB (R.I.P) spitting verse on Britney's 'Toxic', Robbie Williams nailing The Charlatans' seminal 'Only One I Know' as if it was his own, in fact making it his own, and then there is his friend Lily Allen on a phenomenal interpolation of The Kaiser Chiefs 'Oh My God'. Here you'll also find a bustling funk-tified cover of The Jam's 'Pretty Green' sits alongside thunderous mixes of Ryan Adam's 'Amy', and Coldplay's 'God Put A Smile On My Face', both bringing crescendo and euphoria to the melancholy from which they were born. Elsewhere, Telecaster in hand, a la Steve Cropper he re-constructs a new version of Kanye West's 'Touch The Sky', reuniting it with it's original form courtesy of Curtis Mayfield's 'Moving On Up', before climaxing into Kings Of Leon's 'Pistols Of Fire', Kasabian's 'LSF' and The Smith's seminal 'Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before' also take a ride on the Ronson soultrain. "I never realised how much growing up in England affected my taste," he comments. "When I was younger I listened to those seminal hip hop records like late 80's/early 90's Def Jam catalogue and LL Cool J's, 'Mama Said Knock You Out', but Blur and the Wonder Stuff, and The Brand New Heavies were there, too. With my first album, I had all these people like Mos Def and M.O.P guesting. This time its not about that. Despite the big names, it's about the songs...The songs here are the guest stars." "I guess from a DJ stance I've always tried to skip genres and incorporate different styles, from rock down to hip hop. With 'Version' I've taken these songs that I love and turned them into Motown/Stax 70's versions. I keep the utmost respect and a ppreciation for the original songs I use. I'm just trying to find something in it, add something to the arrangement or change a groove. It's not like I'm thinking it's a shit song that I can make good, it's more like it's a great song and I'm now going to make it bounce." "I started DJing in '93 in downtown NY clubs, for whom-ever had five dollars. At some point, I got good and started to build a nice rep. That was just before hip-hop got really commercial, and then the fashion world decided hip-hop was zuper-cooo-el, so I milked that for a bit, I do a lot less of that now. Music is too important to me to be known eternally as that "celebrity DJ guy"... I do still love DJing and you can hear me most Fridays on my east village radio show and regularly with my boys at YOYO in London, one of the best clubs around." Mark released his own massively acclaimed, shamefully ignored and criminally unworked debut solo album 'Here Comes The Fuzz' in 2003 through Elektra Records, right before the label imploded. It included the worldwide smash single 'Ooh Wee', which featured Ghostface Killah & Nate Dogg's unique stylings, and saw him appear on Top Of The Pops (R.I.P). In the wake of the label/album's demise, it is as a producer where Mark has found his rhythm and sound. Few producers could boast as prolific a schedule over the past 12 months as Ronson, putting his own record aside now for just one minute – there's also the small matter of producing tracks on forthcoming new albums by Christina Aguilera, Robbie Williams, Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, Domino (the best female fronted dubby indie rock band you haven't heard yet), his Allido protégés Rhymefest & Daniel Merriweather amongst others, whilst previous production credits include scoring the soundtrack to Jay-Z's Fade To Black film, the final ODB studio recordings, high profile remixes of Air and Jiggaman's '99 Problems', plus work with Outkast, De La Soul, & M.O.P to name but a handful. In the mould of his hip hop luminaries, messyrs Carter & Coombs (Jay Z & Diddy), Ronson is also fast becoming a "BUSINESS MAN, not a business man". His label Allido Records, formed with partner Rich Kleiman, has just released 'Blue Collar', the debut album from Grammy winning Chi-town rap sensation Rhymefest, with Australian wunderkind Daniel Merriweather (That's him killing it on 'Stop Me', like Otis Redding on E, jamming with Johnny Marr and the Bar-Kay's) and the soundtrack to 'Half Nelson' ("a really good movie with Ryan Gosling") to follow in the next 12 months. He is the current face of DKNY but doesn't talk about that stuff at all. www.myspace.com/markronson
	Calvin Harris invented disco. No, Calvin Harris reinvented disco. He was Marks & Spencers' champion shelf-stacker two years running. He made his debut album fuelled by chicken breast fillets. He knows the whereabouts of Alex Kapranos' secret studio-hideaway-laboratory-home cuz it's quite near his own place in Dumfries. Calvin Harris's debut album, with the subtle title 'I Created Disco', cost 0p to record. He fashions future-disko using an ancient Amiga computer and is, right now, (literally) knocking together a stonking live set using MDF and 204 samples. "My live band's gonna be even more rocking than the tunes. I'll be singing, but only because no one else in Dumfries can sing. I've got an extremely limited range. But I will be wearing a top hat made from the skin of a tiger." Calvin Harris is one of those 'myspace sensations' you keep reading about. He was wildly popular amongst The Kids and on The Club Scene, a cult producer-slash-singer-slash-bedroom-knob-twiddler who can make the banging-est of pop-dance tunes out of bugger-all kit. The last time he spent any money on gear was three years ago, when he bought a voice processor for £200. "I'm not the kind of dude who buys Sound On Sound. I know if something sounds nice. If it does, I'll keep it. If not, I'll try and make it nice. You don't need to splash out on technology." Calvin Harris has big plans for summer 2007: a debut album, of course, and then a single called 'Colours' is about girls' clothes. "Chicks who don't wear colours annoy me because there are many wonderful colours in world – and those women who are not utilising them make me very upset. Although black and white does look good. But if you're gonna go out I wanna see someone in a big canary-yellow hoodie. And big baggy pink jeans." Calvin Harris's first release will be a limited edition 10-inch featuring the turbo-funky 'Acceptable In The 80s' and the robo-pop jitter of 'This Is The Industry'. What are they about? "The song titles say it all. My tunes aren't supposed to invoke deep thought within people; they're just to get you dancing. But musically it is for the brain – it's not music for stupid people. I take great pride in my productions. It's not knocked out in a few seconds." And if you can't track down a copy of 'Acceptable In The 80s' on 10-inch, don't worry. It'll be coming out properly as a single in March too. Calvin Harris will make you jump around like a silly-billy – the slamming likes of 'The Girls' and 'Merrymaking At My Place' (the latter soon to be found on a second 10-inch) will meet you on the dancefloor now. But if you let him, he might also make you cry. "I've made a lot of miserable tunes – I've got an album worth of depressing chords. I've not got any lyrics, like." Calvin Harris has his own label, FlyEye, and a manifesto, innit. "Disco disappeared, didn't it? Everyone got sick of it. Now I'm reviving it, with space goggles, or something." Calvin Harris only made some of this stuff up. www.myspace.com/calvinharristv
	Not only a brilliant, multifarious musician that writes, performs, produces and arranges all of his own material, Sam Sparro is one crazysexycool character as well. Raised in LA, Sam threw himself into singing at a young age, touring with a gospel group and writing music in his spare time. He has, therefore, developed an incredible voice that dips from bold and beautiful to low, sultry and slow. This guy has serious soul and certainly hasn't gone unnoticed from the likes of Radio 1 DJ's Jo Whiley, Annie Mac, Zane Lowe and Pete Tong who haven't stopped playing his debut single 'Black and Gold' which has gone on to reach No2 in the UK charts. Truly, one of a kind, there's nothing about Sam you won't like. Cool, creative and cutting edge, Sam Sparro is undoubtedly about to strike gold. Make sure you're there before the rush.
	'We're the PlayStation generation/Xboxed up on your CCTV/You can file us under hoodie or Asbo as you take away our identity', sings Natty on his song 'Coloured Souls'. The 24-year-old from North London has long since swapped his hoodie for dreadlocks and a thoughtful take on what it is to be young in the inner city today. Using sounds from around the world he sums up modern Britain with pinpoint accuracy. First single proper 'Cold Town' sets out his stall, a tense but catchy reggae groove that paints a picture of a 'too hot' capital in which immigrants move in around the corner and every Asian is a suspected terrorist. 'It's saying, why can't we just let this place be the melting pot that it is,' he explains. With a mother from Lesotho, the tiny kingdom that sits completely within the borders of South Africa, and an English father of Italian descent, Natty's intelligent words on racial issues have already led to involvement with Love Music Hate Racism. The campaigning organisation featured his song 'If I' alongside Bloc Party, Babyshambles and The Enemy on a compilation given away with the NME in October 2007. The folky ballad cheekily addresses the preconceptions of the typical indie fan: 'So I'll sing you this song out my pigeonhole/But you'll still probably call me reggae soul/And I'll be wondering is it my dreadlocks and skin tone/So I sing, how do I break the mould?' Break the mould he does, moving away from reggae to take in the clean West African guitar sound of 'Coloured Souls', gentle soulful pop on charming love song 'Stoned On You' and, on sparse lament 'Say Bye Bye', a devastating account of a child going through his parents' divorce. Playing guitar backed by a four-piece band of friends, not session musicians, he sings in a rough-edged voice that has genuine soul. Obvious Bob Marley comparisons seem less relevant when you learn that Natty featured samples of Simon And Garfunkel, Neil Young and Nas on the mixtape that became his early calling card, covered Afrorock hotshots Vampire Weekend during this February's iTunes Live concerts, and has booked indie acts such as Mr Hudson & The Library and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. at his successful Kentish Town club night Vibes And Pressure. Tours supporting Hard-Fi, Kate Nash and Adele have endeared him further to fans with broader tastes to match his own. 'I grew up listening to a lot of reggae, but also African music, Pink Floyd, Dylan, Neil Young and a whole heap of Motown.' The nickname admittedly has a Marley connection. As a 13-year-old he left a copy of Marley's 1974 album Natty Dread on a sunny windowsill at home, causing the vinyl to warp and sustaining much abuse from his mother in front of his delighted friends. His pals kept his embarrassment simmering by calling him Natty, and when he 'locksed up' at 16 the moniker stuck still stronger. 'Locks aren't just Rastafarian, they're African. They came about for me after a period of being bad, when it was time to start saying no to a few things. It's a spiritual thing, and it's about reminding myself where I come from.' If he has a reggae idol, it's mad genius Lee 'Scratch' Perry.' I supported him once at the Jazz Café and thought, where do I go from here? He travelled the same road I did, going from producer to performer.' For Natty is no newcomer, having worked in the music industry since finishing school and blagging his way into a job at premier league recording studio Sphere in Battersea. Ditching the guitar he learned to play at 10, for teenage years spent creating hip hop beats for rapping mates, his bedroom mastery of music production software Cubase gave him the confidence to earn a tryout, by convincing his potential employers he was a fully fledged studio engineer. 'Everyone passed through that place over four years, from Duran Duran to Mos Def,' he says. 'I ended up spending two months recording Razorlight's first album in Cornwall. That guy's got a reputation but he's one of the smartest dudes I know.' Natty only picked up his guitar again as he turned 18, beginning to write his own songs 'as a hobby'. Craig Dodds, a producer Natty worked with at Sphere heard his early demos and encouraged him to take things further. The two ended up working together and co-producing Natty's debut album with Jonny Dollar (Massive Attack). By day he was engineering for some of the biggest names in the indie music scene and by night this gave him the inspiration to nurture his own developing talent. The devout following from his open mic sessions captivated the well deserved attention from many labels, including Atlantic Records who had the same vision as Natty and supported his creativity. 'I wanted to start a vibe, a movement, and bring on a few musicians who should be better known. I wasn't interested in all these record companies saying, 'We're gonna turn you into a star'. That's for the people to decide.' A smart, thoughtful singer with integrity and a diverse sound ready for summer and beyond ¬ with or without assistance, it shouldn't take too long for the people to decide that Natty is a true star indeed.
	At a time where the marriage between dance and rock is neighboring inevitable, Cut Copy walk the line as pioneers of the new sound movement. Their 2008 return, In Ghost Colours delivers both timelessness and forward thinking as the trio embarks on the next phase of their acclaimed career. Haunted with machines of the past and sounds of the future, In Ghost Colours inhabits the space in time where trends are irrelevant and 1969 is as important as 2020. Both electronic and organic, Cut Copy have crafted a record filled with glorious sounds and moods, unabashed pop song structures with hooks and melodies for eons. Cut Copy's 2004 debut Bright Like Neon Love introduced the band as a dance-infused trio whose songs transcended the carbon copy pop makers of modern disco. Bright Like Neon Love produced two groundbreaking singles, "Going Nowhere" and "Saturdays," which boasted the vision of frontman/Cut Copy creator Dan Whitford and the talents of drummer Mitchell Scott and guitarist Tim Hoey. As the band evolved into an Australian Festival mainstay, they also toured globally with Franz Ferdinand in preparation for their follow up album. The songs that Cut Copy collected in the period following Bright Like Neon Love arrived as promising bones of a more assured, song-based follow up. This idea was something that appealed to Tim Goldsworthy, DFA's in-house producer, programming guru, synth mogul and eventual "muse" for In Ghost Colours. Goldsworthy was enlisted for the project after a series of conversations with the band (admitted DFA fans). The deal was further solidified when frontman Dan Whitford found that he and Goldsworthy shared an equal obsession with ELO's Time. When it was learned that Goldsworthy dropped out of school to follow My Bloody Valentine around England in the '80s and could pinpoint every pedal that was used for every sound on Loveless, the contract was signed in blood. The band traveled to New York in early 2007 to spend six weeks tracking In Ghost Colours at DFA's Plantain Studio in the West Village, geeking out on DFA's collection of vintage analogue equipment. Upon encountering Goldsworthy's unorthodox approach to recording, Whitford explains, "A lot of the time it was a matter of listening to where a track was at, then going over and picking up a random piece of gear, or messing around with pedals and filter, and seeing what you could get from it. Whether it ended up in the finished track or not, it was all a part of the process, and it was a fun and experimental one." The result is a more lyrical, guitar heavy work that pushes Cut Copy forward, while channeling their inner dancey soul. Their download-only single "Hearts On Fire" became the Number One record for 2007 on Australia's influential radio network JJJ, while the leak track "So Haunted" received tremendous alternative airplay on Australian radio and garnered praise from popular blogs like Pitchfork and Stereogum. The follow-up single "Lights and Music," which features hard-hitting remixes by Boys Noize and Superdiscount, is due for release in March. The progression from Bright Like Neon Love to In Ghost Colours is brazenly apparent from opening track "Feel The Love," an acoustic guitar led stomp of a space rock tune – instantly unforgettable with recognizable Cut Copy sheen. Where Bright Like Neon Love was charmingly vague and hazy, In Ghost Colours is to the point and efficient in its songcraft, with vocals much more apparent and Whitford's imprint all over every track. The record is sewn together with passages of plush dreamscapes between the straight out jams. The perfect world of Cut Copy comes from their influences of Sonic Youth, ELO, and Daft Punk, the band with whom Cut Copy received the privilege to tour in 2007. As In Ghost Colours is set to become the new club, car, and headphones anthem, Cut Copy are ready – guitars, synths, and microphones ablaze, with a 12-month world tour slated for mid-February through 2009. Their transition from past to present will undoubtedly be a favored one as the Melbourne boys head for the future, setting hearts on fire. Here's what others have to say: Cut Copy live offers genre-busting thrills! All-embracing grins! Multi-limbed dance action! Frankly, confusion never sounded so fun. Ben Perreau, Editor of NME.com Cut Copy's fusion of indie rock and trancey electro-pop will absolutely make the band Modular's most listened-to and respected outfit yet. XLR8R Imagine if the members of Daft Punk and INXS got stuck in an elevator with a four-track, and you'll have some idea of the low-rent, high-fidelity appeal of Cut Copy. Interview
	Leon Jean-Marie shouldn't be here. He should be stuck in a windowless studio someplace, producing another artist's record. He should be wrapped round a tree in Epping Forest in his AC Cobra kit car... Harmonising with a five-piece R&B group... Advising tourists on holiday hotspots for the coming season... Wasted in a doorway... Sitting in church... Dropping out in St Lucia... There were a lot of things that should have, could have, got in the way of Leon's emergence as one of the brightest musical talents for 2007. Handily, he bested them all. Luck, talent, some vibey connections and a brainload of brilliant music saw to that. Little wonder, mebbe, that his first release is two slabs of urgent future-funk, motoring beats, twanging riffs and vocals that Prince would swap his high heels for. We're gonna party like it's 2099. Hear Leon's limited edition seven-inch 'Scratch'/'Make It Right' and you'll hear a 24-year-old from far East London who mixes up Beck, Bill Withers, Nirvana, the aforesaid Minneapolis funk-munchkin and many more besides. A vocalist and electronic maestro who, having dreamt up his tunes in his home studio, is now working with some of the smartest producer-collaborators in the world. Gary Crowley on BBC London called it funk'n'roll. Can we call it Rock&B? Does unfinished album track 'Bring It On' really sound like The Steve Miller Band's 'Abracadabra' fed through a Noughties Brit-soul time machine. Have Island Records scooped a rare talent? Yes, yes, yes, yes... 'All the great hook-ups I've had, including my record deal, have been on a vibe,' says Leon. That is, little money changed hands, only mutual respect. In the two years before he signed his record deal, Leon had rare talents flocking to work with him. 'This person's heard it, and he's signed to... Now this person's heard it, and he's worked with... And now this person's passed it to this person...' Leon Jean-Marie's first involvement with music came aged 10, when his dad bought him a guitar, kindling an early love of Nirvana and Led Zeppelin. In his mid-teens he was part of a five-part R&B group called Syndicate. 'You know, five black guys, bit like Damage...' He laughs at the memory of his ultra-smoove former self. But Syndicate had recorded some demos in a top-flite London studio. In those windowless rooms full of kit Leon felt he'd found his calling. One of the owners of the studio spotted his enthusiasm and gave him as a job as runner. As he learnt his way round a mixing desk, Leon began experimenting with his own tunes, and immersing himself in the arcane world of music production. Thing is, at home Leon was also being told he was wasting his time. His mum and dad – like most of his family, they were born in St Lucia – are old-fashioned. And they're born again Christians. Leon's an occasional church-goer too, when he can. But whereas he sees his spirituality as enhancing his music, his dad's more rigid values meant he felt music was no job for his son. It was bound to end in disaster. He needed a proper job, and a degree. So Leon went to college, albeit to study Performing Arts, then landed a place at University. But he deferred his place and went to live back home. He had so many song ideas, 'I just wanted to dive into the industry'. He was a studio whiz and a gifted multi-instrumentalist, skilled on drums, bass and keyboards. But still his dad was having none of it. 'I was as stubborn as my dad,' he says guiltily. The barneys got so bad that Leon moved out, roaring off into the night in his trusty Fiat Punto. He lived in his car, at mates', semi-rough. It was a period of, he admits, drugs, sex and occasional depression. He can laugh about it now, but... 'There was one night I had sleep in this guy's porch. He was out raving and he forgot I was coming. He came in at dawn, off his head, literally stepped on me – he was screaming, I was screaming – he was thinking I was some sort of burglar. The funniest part was staying with a friend of mine – his parents went to Barbados for two months. It was a two-month house party. Being homeless didn't feel like a problem any more! My mates were out and out Essex boys, as chav as you could go. So there were some weird situations with girls...It started getting a bit worse when it was time to leave there. I headed to south London and saw the darker side of what London has to offer. The drugs thing became more of a problem – it got a bit excessive. I was kipping with people I didn't know. Mentally, I got a bit out of touch...' Throughout this period Leon had to put aside his music. He didn't even have a writing pad, far less any instruments or studio access. But ideas were fizzing up inside him. He was desperate to get them out. And to get himself out - 'It was like I was in the devil's belly. Then he spat me back out.' Finally, after eight months of not speaking to his parents, he went home: his dad had a cancer scare. Happily the test results were negative. But the traumatic experience reunited Leon and his dad. His dad still didn't think the music thing would work out. But he gave it his blessing. 'All the music I'd thought of while I was homeless was logged in the memory. 'Cause I was denied it for so long, it all spewed out...' With renewed focus and enthusiasm Leon got his act together (he barely drinks 'n' stuff now either; his wild times were already out of his system). More tunes spilled from him, like the ultra-catchy brass-driven 'She's Gonna Kill Me' and the tech-folk lament 'Beg'. Word of his talent spread. Mark Ronson got on the blower. This was some months before his work with Robbie Williams, Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen would make him one of 2006's most in-demand producers. Did Leon – who wasn't even signed at this point – want to come over and do some tunes? And on it rolled. After hiccups and humps and detours, Leon Jean-Marie was, finally, flying. Even his passion for building kit cars had to take a back seat. There were thumping great songs to get out of his head and down in the studio... And to perform on stage. 'The live thing's a work-in-progress,' says Leon. 'I want to blend technology and the raw, live aspect. I've seen all the tricks people have done on stage. If you can imagine having The Rolling Stones mixed with Kraftwerk – laptops and rawness, seamlessly integrated. Beck's last tour, with the puppets, came pretty close to what I want to do live. His band were playing on a dinner table. I'm working on stuff like that...' Leon Jean-Marie is in the palatial Swedish studio of Bloodshy, knocking out tunes for his album, due next summer. He's hunched over a desk in Mark Ronson's New York bijou hit factory, wondering which of his 30, 40 tracks should make the cut for his debut album... He's in The Bus Space, West London, bouncing ideas around with Gorillaz producers The Rural... He's sitting at home, sweating over his studio, working on his first full single release for early '07... He's still driving that AC Cobra, fast round the country lanes of Essex. But he's braking into corners now. He's overcome a lot of obstacles; Leon Jean-Marie ain't gonna prang out now.