Hailing from Thessaloniki, Greece, And.ID (aka Andreas Dimitriadis) has been entrenched in music his entire life. From the age of 10, he grew up ears-deep in his father’s record collection and began playing in bands, producing tracks, and creating film scores, and studying trumpet.

Nowadays, And.ID is known for his one-man ensemble of techno, house, jazz, and bossa nova music which he harnesses for Mobilee Records. Please enjoy the following interview I recorded with the gentleman in anticipation of his visit to the states:

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Important Venue change and giveaway update!

Right now UCLAradio.com and Incognito are happy to unleash 2 tickets to see Phil Hartnoll of Orbital perform at the “Green Door” located at 1429 Ivar Ave in Hollywood tomorrow night, Saturday, August 28th.

The giveaway has been pounced on! Congratulations to Ian B. and everyone for the interest and support. Don’t worry if you didn’t score, but head over to http://orbdj.eventbrite.com right now and pick up a ticket for tomorrow night’s show.

UCLAradio.com hooking you up with all kinds of good taste

Verdict: Takers is a star-studded, action packed movie sure to keep you on the edge of your seat!

Takers has a difficult task of taking the typical heist plot that we are all now familiar with and making it still interesting and unpredictable. The style and action that takes place throughout the film sets it apart from your average heist movie and makes this one worth watching!

The A-list cast, including Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Michael Ealy, Idris Elba, Chris Brown, T.I., and Hayden Christensen, delivers a dramatic portrayal of a group of ridiculously good looking bank robbers on their biggest job yet, when the police start to get involved.

Tension mounts throughout the movie as the gang’s biggest heist doesn’t go according to plan. The trouble, chaos, and fighting that ensues delivers dramatic fight scenes and shootings that will satiate the avid suspense seeker. All the eye candy will satiate everyone else…

If you like drama, action, suspense or Paul Walker – I recommend seeing TAKERS this Friday!

A Screen Gems presentation of a Rainforest Films production in association with Grand Hustle Films

Takers opens in theaters Friday, August 27th! For more info, go to: www.whoarethetakers.com

This post is really late but it’s because I’ve been working a lot and it’s summer. I might be a little rusty but here goes nothing. The first time I saw the Kings of Leon perform it was at KROQ’s Weenie Roast and it was shortly after Sex On Fire blew up. Since then I started to listen to the band more and more. So naturally I was happy to get another chance to see them perform at the same venue no less.

The Features
The Features was one of two opening bands for the Kings of Leon. They aren’t very well known here in America but they have done very well in the UK. They toured with Manchester Orchestra this Spring and I couldn’t wait to see them perform again. The band is very energetic and the crowd was into the songs. When they played ‘Lions’ the crowd got excited because it’s their most well-known song. Hopefully in the future this band will headline their own tour but until then I recommend checking them out. Especially if you’re a fan of Manchester Orchestra or Kings of Leon.

Built to Spill
Built to Spill was the second band to open for the Kings of Leon. By the time this band came out the crowd was too anxious to see the main band. They were interesting to listen to but I honestly was not paying much attention.

Kings of Leon
After the opening bands were done everyone was just anxious to see the Kings of Leon perform. They played some new songs and some old ones. For their encore they started off with Knocked Up. They of course played Sex On Fire which made everyone happy. I don’t know what it was about this show that didn’t do it for me. Usually at shows I get really excited when the opener comes out onstage but this time it was just fine. It was an okay show. I wouldn’t say it was amazing or exceptionally memorable but it was still good. I liked that they played a lot of songs from their older albums. In my mind this show isn’t as memorable as the countless other shows that I’ve been to. Maybe I was just having an off night or maybe it was the crowd. I love it when crowds are more into the songs than I am. It seemed to me that they only cared about hearing Sex On Fire and Use Somebody. This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t go to another Kings of Leon show. But hopefully next time they’ll play at a smaller more intimate venue. I’m sure other people thought this show was amazing and I’m just another person reviewing the same show using different words to describe it.

At Leimert Park under surveillance

This Saturday 8-14-10 from 10am to noon (pst) on URBAN ROOTS, SKEE – LO! We will  play old favorites plus new joints from SKEE -LO. We will discuss his career, his smash single I Wish, and his future Click on the headphones and listen in Peace, Deuce

UCLARadio.com will be giving away tickets to the advanced screening of Screen Gem’s upcoming, fun, new action film: TAKERS!

TAKERS takes you into the world of a notorious group of criminals who continue to baffle police by pulling off perfectly executed bank robberies.  They are in and out like clockwork, leaving no evidence behind and laying low between heists.  But when they attempt to pull off one last job with more money at stake than ever before, the crew may find their plans interrupted by a hardened detective who is hell-bent on solving the case.

An all-star cast consisting of Idris Elba (OBSESSED, THIS CHRISTMAS), T.I. (ATL, AMERICAN GANGSTER), Paul Walker (FAST & THE FURIOUS, INTO THE BLUE), Hayden Christensen (STAR WARS trilogy, LIFE AS A HOUSE), Michael Ealy (TV’s FlashForward, SEVEN POUNDS), Chris Brown (THIS CHRISTMAS, STOMP THE YARD) and Zoe Saldana (AVATAR, STAR TREK).

Listen to UCLARadio.com between now and August 24th for your chance to see the movie before everyone else! Some shows giving away tickets:

The Endless Summer – Wednesdays 4-6 PM

UCLA Radio News – Thursdays 4-6 PM

JokerPace Radio Hour – Saturday 12-2 PM

To listen: Click the black headphones at the top of this page!

Also, join our UCLARadio.com Facebook Giveaways group to find out more about our upcoming giveaways!

Do you want your music heard in front of over 80,000 people. Seriously…80,000. Well, I have a gig for you then.

5 of your very own UCLA students will be participating in Red Bull Flugtag this year down at Long Beach on August 21^st. For those of you who don’t know what flugtag is, it is an event where teams compete to build gigantic aircrafts and fly them off of a 30-ft tall pier into the water. Hoping it flies, or more realistically, just looks cool crashing. You’re judged on skit, flight and crowd participation. We’ll take care of the flight part, and most of the skit…but that’s where you come in.

We need a 30 sec- 1 min long clip of music that embodies UCLA. I’m not saying it needs to be a remix of the fight song by any means, but that could work. Maybe throw an 8 clap down. I don’t know. That’s why we need your help. Submit your ideas or piece to my email. If you’re picked we’ll hook you up with some type of reward…and you’ll get the chance to hear your piece in the crowd at Long Beach next month. Go now!

I heard that Lil Kim was coming to perform at the Key Club in Los Angeles and was really excited to attend her show. I loved her music since her first album Hardcore came out in 1996. Growing up, her music was bumped when I was just a little kid sitting in the backseat of my cousins’ car in Long Beach without any idea of what the lyrics really meant. Everyone ridiculed me for wanting to come see her, but other than Missy Elliot-Lil Kim was the only woman rapper that I grew up dancing to.

It was 10:30pm on Friday, when I finally walked into the Key Club on Sunset. The mood of the club was of course, stone-cold gangsta looks from thugs and hoochie mamas. I didn’t expect any less. The people and the atmosphere reminded me of my high school dances at Long Beach Poly, dark and urban. However, other than the urban folks, there was a large population of queers that reminded me of the ones I see on the second floor of Rage and a bunch of hipster-looking high school students throughout the club. There were a few middle-aged Caucasian men, which I didn’t think was typical but hey, lovers of hip hop were there in different shapes and sizes.

I came a little late because I thought that I would catch Lil Kim right before she started to perform. There was no one in line, only a crowd smoking cigarettes outside. When I entered, the places was not packed but there was some bumping to get through. From the door, I moved past a fully-stocked bar, a very crowded bottle service area with poles for a go-go dancer and moved down into the pit. I looked up and could see the VIP area that was on the second floor. This pale tattoo-ed guy who kept yelling “RIP” to “2pac”, “Biggie”, in a Royal Blunts jersey, I assume was the emcee because he just kept bumping his arm up to the music. I finally got myself situated in the crowd when another opening act came on. I forget his name but one of his songs that particularly caught my ear was about how “every man’s position should be from the backside”. Around 11:30pm, two women came onstage and one rapped by the name of ‘Big Girl’ impressed me. During their performance, they threw shirts labeled “I <3 me a BIG BITCH”. Lil Kim’s brother came on and announced that his sister was coming and the crowd grumbled in anticipation.

Finally at 12:15am, the Queen Bitch entered the venue and everyone started screaming. She was accompanied by two other ladies wearing veils. Lil Kim was under a white sheet and when the music started, she began to dance seductively underneath it and kept teasing the crowd until the dancing ladies finally showed her. There were lots of lights, but it was without a mistake, Lil Kim. She also had a pink veil and matching corset. The DJ set played all of her hits within the thirty minutes of her first set. Lil Kim and her back-up dancers finally ripped off their veils in unison but I was too short My friend who drove me that night and is an alien to the pop culture world asked, “Is she one of those Kardashian girls?” No, no but I knew what he meant from all the plastic surgery she had gotten. After the first set with her most popular hits: Magic Stick, the Jump Off, and How Many Licks, ended with an Indian-esque Bollywood song, I was too tired from standing in heels for almost three hours and had to leave. After she told us that she loved us, I decided to leave that night around 1am.

Lil Kim to me is a revolutionary for her rapping talents, radical song lyrics, and that once she was part of Biggie’s entourage. Yes, she went to jail for lying about her friend’s weapons charge, she’s had numerous plastic surgeries, and has probably the nastiest song lyrics, and is an official has-been because she was on Dancing with the Stars, but she’ll always have a special place in my heart. This is for you, Queen Bitch.

If you closed your eyes, you would’ve sworn it was James Taylor. It was the soothing vocals, intricate yet simple guitar fingering and then a lyric “your boyfriend is cute”. Wait, what? When you open your eyes you’d realize its not the original JT after all, it’s his son, Benjamin.

Tuesday night at the Largo was one of the most purely entertaining and enjoyable acoustic performances I have seen. Wrapping up his brief west coast tour with Katie Herzig, Ben took the stage looking like a true hippie: pants way to big for his long legs, a beanie and tinted sunglasses and stole the audiences’ hearts just minutes into his set. He was folky; he was poetic. He was sexual and downright hilarious. And he would show all of these traits in two songs or less.

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After a long time of passing up going to New Pornographers shows, mostly because of high ticket prices but also a subconscious fear that their tendency to write the same song over and over (with a handful of notable exceptions) might just make the show one long power pop opus, I finally made the commitment.  July 19, 2010 at the Music Box at the Henry Fonda.  Night One of Two.

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You still may not have heard about Francis Farewell Starlite, frontman of the vintage synth-pop group Francis and the Lights but like I said last time, you can be damn sure that the rest of the music industry has.

UCLA students were introduced to the man in the Ray Bans and black trench back in May as the group opened for Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros in Royce Hall. However, no, Edward Sharpe is not the only high profile group the guys have opened up for. Already in 2010, Francis has worked with hip-hop breakout artist of the year, Drake and this time Francis is coming through town in support of the indie experimental gods MGMT.

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July 1^st saw a host of new bands performing at The Echo on Sunset in LA. Openers Soft Healer, Dunes, and Crocodiles set the mood for headliners Dum Dum Girls.

Doors opened at 8:30, with first openers set to begin at 9:00, but before that many of the artists were hanging around the audience in the venue. Soft Healer started promptly on time, and played a short 20-minute set filled with psychedelic songs. Dunes were a bit mellower, with the lead singers mic turned down too low. Crocodiles were a variation from the thus far female-fronted theme of the night, the lead singer being the husband of Dee Dee, the lead singer, of the Dum Dum Girls. Crocodiles played about a 30-minute set, but it was filled with punk and rock influenced songs that got the crowd pumped up. Their stage presence encouraged the audience to dance and participate the whole time, and got everyone ready for the main act.

Headliners Dum Dum Girls took the stage at midnight, and after three openers the crowd was excited for their performance. They were very interactive with their audience, and were dancing around and making everyone else dance. They opened with a cover of the Rolling Stones and then proceeded to play songs off their recently released album “I Will Be,” which Pitchfork rated an 8.2. Highlights of the set included single “Jail-La-La” and equally popular “Everybody’s Out.” Their 60’s classic girl-group sound was eminent throughout the night and their punk-rock style guitar riffs and quick-paced bass lines incited exhilaration throughout the set. After their short but entertaining set, Dum Dum Girls returned for an encore before heading upstairs to the private section of the venue. For being so new, Dum Dum Girls knew how to take control of their audience and give them exactly what they wanted.

–DJ Aurora

Gogol Bordello has long been a favorite of mine, and ever since I first saw their show at Coachella in 2008 (on the main stage) I had wanted to see them again, preferably in a more intimate club setting. And their show did not disappoint my two and a half years of waiting. Even after the release of their 5 studio album, they were very aware and interactive with the crowd. Everything from crowd surfing (which should never get old for a performer) to relentlessly thanking the crowd for coming at the end of the show.
They were able to mix their new material (Trans-Continental Hustle, released April 27th) with almost all of their classics.
The show was extremely high energy for almost the entire set, especially for his first finale of Start Wearing Purple, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGY1BtNqCdM) watch this video to see what I’m talking about. Then the finale was a little more relaxed, but a perfect compliment for the super high energy show prior. The show ended with a great performance of Alcohol where EVERYONE was singing along at some point and contributed to the already great (albeit sweaty) crowd.
Overall the show was great, venue was a nice size for them, and the crowd consisted of a lot of loyal followers; all of which produced a fabulous night of music.
Set List:
Illumination
Ultimate
Wonderlust King
Companjera
Tribal Connection
Rebellious Love
Mishto
Coming Roungher
60 Revolutions
Break the Spell
Trans-Continental Hustle
Universe
Pala Tute
Start Wearing Purple
*Encore*
Punk Rock Parranda
Not a Crime
Sun is on my Side
Baro Foro
*slight break*
Alcohol

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Need new earphones?

Well, UCLARadio.com is giving away Sennheiser MX65 Earphones (retail value $49) as a part of Sennheiser’s Hear. I am. campaign. Together with College Music Journal, they are offering up and coming musicians and bands the opportunity to perform on stage at major music festivals, plus a chance at a 3-song demo and distribution through Universal Republic! Visit www.heariam.com to learn more about the contest!

Listen the following shows on UCLARadio.com between now and July 17th for your chance to win some earphones!

Totally Rad – Thursdays 6-8PM
UCLA Radio News – Tuesdays 4-6PM
Sweet Talk – Monday 6-8PM
JokerPace Radio Hour – Saturday 12-2PM
The Realist Show – Wednesday 8-10PM