If any of you cool kids were around our dungeon on Division St around 2pm Saturday of Tramlines you will of no doubt witnessed the Hantu Flash Mob take over the road. They said we’d never do it. They said it was impossible. They said it was illegal. The city ambassador shouted at us… But we did it anyway! For those of you unfortunate enough to not have witnessed the takeover don’t worry your life is still worth living as we have photos and video footage from the beautiful day. Big shout out to Hair Kandi for sorting the models hair! Wether you missed it or not we have a date for you guys to put in your calendar- 18th September 2010. Just remember that.

Hantu Flash Mob Teaser Video HD

So for the second part of Hantu Tramlines we hosted our very own event… The guys over at Soyo and our very own crew here teamed up to bring Sheffield a day packed with great music, the best Artists and the finest garments…

The day started early around 2pm at Soyo with a nice casual feeling to get going, the team of doodlers now known as ‘Stars and Stripes’ set up in the Yo bar as the first act of the day Dan Williamson took to the stage. Dj Nick Pears and the main bar was full of stalls from jewelry to food and Hantu had our very own stall set up in the Yo bar, being entertained by Mute Art who were painting a board across from us. By night the bar was full to the brim and the place got well and truly ‘rowdy’. Steel City Rockers got the evening started with a bang, breakin’ for a good 20 minutes until (in the true spirit of jamming) Jack Athey and band replaced the dj’s sound with their own live break beats. This was a first for both the band and the breakers and the jam continued for another 10 minutes until the beat turned into ‘Anaesthetic’ the first of Jack Athey’s half hour set. Taking the stage after Jack were The Cartels followed by headliners Century Kids who always put on a lively show and brought the performances to an energetic finish. Also big shout out to Heebie Jeebies who played at 8pm on very short notice and Matt Cottrill/Nick Pears for putting together the days entertainment.

If you missed out you can catch Jack Athey at Soyo Live this monday (16/08/10)

For all all the pics Click Here

-THOMAS PHAM

Flatbush played the main stage on Sunday around 4.10 and I lucky enough to aqcuire a backstage pass to get some pictures of Steve, my favourite of those was with the ice cream. If you weren’t around the Hantu Workshop on Devonshire Street all weekend then you might have missed our Ice Cream offer, basically we had lots of blue Ice Cream and lots of happy customers!

If the main stages weren’t your sort of thing I’m sure you would have popped down to the World Stage at the Peace Gardens last weekend, this stage had a surprisingly awesome line-up including Macka B. Hosting all day Saturday was MC Nige (proud member of the Hantu Clan) always around at these community events he wasn’t going to let Sheffield down for Tramlines.

Another recent collab was between Hantu founder Angga, and Rolo Tomassi for their newly released single Party Wounds (link below), and at their performance for Tramlines outside the City Hall they were spotted wearing Hantu Collective garms…

As usual I’ve thrown up some flicks for your enjoyment, and I’ll pop a link for the whole album…
Also check out the Tramlines Youtube channel which il link, all the interviews with artists are being uploaded there as we speak

-THOMAS PHAM

TRAMLINES YOUTUBE PAGE

The Washington Pub

In association with Mixed In Sheffield, the curator, Liam ‘O Shea asked The Stars In Stripes to get involved with producing art on boards alongside to the DJ’s spinning music all day on the Saturday. We had a few newcomers to the live art scene, notably Hailey Evenett, Thomas Ball, Sarah Abbot and Louise Wheeler who all earned their stripes on that day, producing some interesting boards. It proved to be a fun day, with a BBQ on the go and plenty of drink on tap it worked out to be a pretty nice, chilled out event.

SOYO Vs. ARCADE HANTU

Arcade and Hantu hosted a night with SOYO bar for the Sunday of Tramlines, where there would be stalls, live bands and of course live artists present through out the whole day. Bands such as the Century Kids, Jack Athey and Heebie Jeebies caused a good stir with the crowd as well as having the live art section next door in the smaller Yo bar, for a more chilled out vibe inbetween watching bands. The artists who turned up on the day were a nice mix with the likes of Nick Deakin, Lord Bunn, Billy and Mute amongst some of the more interesting as well as having the same people from the previous Washington Pub event.We were pretty pleased that The Century Kids were wearing Hantu t-shirts whilst on stage, a small feat for us but pleasing all the same! For the live illustrators and artists, many a hangover was incurred from a whole day of drawing and drinking, but it was worth it.

Launching tomorrow night (Friday 23rd July) Article Magazine and Club Pony are taking over the Hantu section of Arcade. Don’t worry were not being kicked out, just moving into the front for the weekend. The Pop-Up Shop will be here until Monday 26th July, make the most of this one-off and find out what’s really going on during tramlines.

The shop will have loads of LTD Edition Tees and cool stuff… But I ain’t here to sell to you, I’m just here to tell you about a free party!

Starts at 19.00 til around 23.00

Arcade (Forum)

Club Pony Resident DJ’s

Discounts

Free nibbles and biscuits

It’ll be over before we know it so make the most of this weekend and get yourselves to this FREE party…

-THOMAS PHAM

This summer has already been pretty impressive and is only going to get better, with events such as Tramlines taking place in the Heart of the City, Sheffield seems to pull together to create a vibe unmatched by many big cities and I for one will be right in the middle of it all, taking flicks, blogging reviews, catching some rays and generally enjoying the ‘British Summer’.

So ramble over, one of the big summer events took place on Saturday; Sharow Vale Festival. The event was packed with community groups, food stalls and stages for the audience to gather and gaze all day, from 12-6. I lasted most of the day but the sun was just too much…

The Community Stage held various performances from dancing to singing and storytelling, and was being held down like a fort by a close friend of Hantu Collective’s MC Nige. He was rockin’ his ‘not straight’ pink monkey T by us, and asked if we could swap bottoms as mine would match better… I didn’t think it was the time or place Nige, being a community event and all. Sorry.

Some real talent was on display around the field, and another group dedicated to Sheffield and close to Hantu’s heart is Demolition Dance Crew… There were six of the crew present to give an energetic performance that lasted about 20 minutes, in that heat I was struggling not to faint for that time so major props to them! I know MC Nige loves this crew, throwing his heart to them as they left the stage…

Overall the day was well worth getting up for, all good vibes, good music and good people. I’d like to say a big thanks to everybody who got involved from organizing and running the event to standing and watching. Once again big shout out to DDC and MC Nige, I’ve put up my pics below and I’l throw some links up too…

NOT LONG TIL TRAMLINES SHEFFIELD!

MC NIGE
DEMOLITION DANCE CREW

Peace and love

-THOMAS PHAM

Give us some feedback and let us know what you think to these!

- GEO LAW

Nick’s T’s are selling fast so pop into the shop and grab either of the 2 bold designs before they’re gone (both available from XS-XL)

I modelled them for you but i strongly suggest you come and try them for yourself…

www.nickdeakin.com

-THOMAS PHAM

This year has been good for me, with plenty of commissioned work coming my way from editorial illustration to wall mural work etc. I decided to set up an exhibition in the heart of Sheffield pulling together some of our finest artistic talent such as Nick Deakin, Lord Bunn, Jonny Wan, Mute and Jane Faram all artists who are residents of Sheffield. I set up Child’s Play, which was a simple loose brief where the artists have to illustrate around the phrase Child’s Play itself.

My pieces were very fun to pull off as they reflect my views of a child’s imagination, the wild aspect of how destructive it can be in its own naive sense. One of my favourite pieces, “The Tinsley Towers” was my own personal play with a local reference to which many Sheffield folk will relate to, it’s also coincidentally a Hantu T-shirt design which we currently stock. Other pieces of work that have been submitted range from short little poems, to photographs and to painted montages of cultural memories.

The show is currently on at The Forum Bar on Devonshire street and runs from the 6th June to the 4th July.

TINSLEY TOWERS DESIGN – BUY IT HERE

Child's Play Exhibition Piece 03

Child's Play Exhibition Piece 02

Child's Play Exhibition Piece 01

Personally I’m not a fan of either, not into Mr Hudsons stuff and I don’t really favour the Auto-Tune style of Drake but he did give a good performance and it was his first time on stage in the UK. He opened with ‘Forever’ and played a good 35 minute set including hits ‘Bed Rock’ and ‘Best I Ever Had’ but kept interrupting the songs to show love for Lil Wayne who is in prison after pleading guilty to gun possession charges. It is confusing however that Jay-Z likes the 23 year old rapper seen as Drake uses Auto-Tune in all of his songs and Jay is the artist who dropped D.O.A. but thats a whole other conversation…

A good 10 minutes after Drake had left stage a countdown came onto the screens starting at 9.59… With 90 seconds left Drake was escorted down the side of the arena to the soundbox in the centre of the floor, accepting and giving another loud applause and then he took a seat to observe and I guess take notes on Jay’s performance.

Jay-Z cannot put on a bad show… He is now 40 years of age and has spent more than half of them in show business, the energy he gives and the way he narrates the night can be matched by none. At one point he waited 5 minutes for a girl to take a video recording of him replacing lyrics with her name. Jay played a solid 90 minutes not even leaving the stage for the typical ‘go and come back for an encore’ instead he just played through until about 11.20 when ‘Encore’ got the crowds loudest reception of the night.

Another crowd pleasing trick Jay pulled out was the ‘Roc-Wave’ basically a mexican wave where the audience throw up their ‘Rocafella Diamonds’.

In conclusion the concert was awesome… Although I’m not a fan of Drake I feel blessed to witness his first time on British soil, and as for Jay-Z well I’l happily pay the money to see him again no matter what age, as long as he’s still performing with the same effort and energy the crowds will be there.

I have thrown up some video’s (from Youtube not filmed by myself)

Jay-Z ‘Big Pimpin’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsXEcLoT2rs

Drake ‘Best I Ever Had’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQH4SOX5JAI

CANT WAIT FOR N.E.R.D. IN 2 WEEKS!

Make sure you drop in for that… Peace!

-THOMAS PHAM

Free cupcakes from Fancie! (sorry couldn’t wait any longer to type that) they were awesome and mini so you could have more than one!  Also the great guys from the salon were hooking us all up with free drinks all night, mojito’s, swanky cider, bud and even lemonade for the likes of myself…

The doors opened at 7 and Hantu resident Geo Law was creating another masterpiece live above the reception desk, the nights entertainment also included a catwalk with guys and girls modelling, all who get their hair cut at the salon. The night was narrated by Dave Crapper who was sporting a fine T-shirt from the Hantu Collective.

The highlight of my night (and jacks too) was hearing Theophilus London bouncing out of the speakers! Always said we’d get freaky if he came on whilst we were out, hopefully it wont be the last time.

Iv thrown up my flicks below, the proffesional ones are here, taken by Joe from Till Late http://uk.tilllate.com/en/photoalbum/overview/10258124#p1

Also some links to the people who helped out…

Head pieces by Imogen’s Imagination http://www.facebook.com/ImogensImaginationUK?ref=ts
Styling by Nathasha Lyons http://www.natashalyons.co.uk/

Big shout out to all the Hair Kandi team for putting the whole thing on… It was dope!

- THOMAS PHAM