The Full Flex Express Tour is coming back to Canada in 2013 with 5 Canadian Dates

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​The Rolling Stone website broke the news that there will be another Full Flex Express tour set to tour across Canada in 2013. There are 5 Canadian tour stops this time around and they include:

Last year Skrillex brought some serious talent with him on this tour that included Diplo, Pretty Lights, KOAN Sound, Grimes, Tokimonsta, and Hundred Waters. Here are a few pics I found from their downtime in the train: ​

Pictures and Review from the IDentity Festival (Toronto, July 21st, 2012)

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Here are some pictures I took from the IDentity festival from Toronto on July 21st, 2012:

For $25 tickets this was an absolutely stacked lineup.

The festival took place at Echo Beach which was literally a beach.... Earlier in the day you could see people chilling out to the music while playing beach volleyball. Thankfully I spent most of my time at the secondary stage where it was paved. Call me a traditionalist but I prefer dancing on a hard surface.

Arty on the main stage. This was the second time seeing the young talent from Russia and I still believe that he is a much stronger producer than a DJ at the moment. So far his sets are usually his own tracks with a few Beatport top 100 mixed in. The people in attendance seemed to enjoy it though. ​

A Tribe Called Red on the Earmilk Stage.​

A Tribe Called Red performed in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd in a picturesque setting. Ottawa is proud of you guys.

Showtek​ performed on the "Rockstar Energy Drink' Stage. Once these guys showed up I spent the majority of the night here.

Showtek's set was plagued by technical difficulties which was no fault of theirs. The music cut out a few times, even during big build ups, but the Showtek brothers were total professionals as they managed to keep the crowd energy alive despite the challenges.

They played their recent hit collaborations including ​"Hell Yeah!" with Tiesto and "How We Do" with Hardwell but what got me moving the most was the hardstyle sound they used for the last 20 minutes of their set. I'm not quite ready to travel to Europe for a Defcon 1 festival but I do appreciate the no nonsense style that is hardstyle.

Excision​

​Excision provided nothing but the filthiest and dirtiest Dubstep beats of the night - perfect. Didn't spend that much time taking pictures because I was too busy jumping around.

Nero

Watching Nero live for the first time was the reason why I traveled to Toronto​ for the IDentity Festival. Having high expectations and seeing them exceeded in every way was very impressive. You felt as if Nero was taking you on a journey with equal attention paid to melody and intense drops that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Nero played mostly from their new album "Welcome To Reality" but changed it up in a few places by playing Skrillex' remix of "Promises" and recently released "Won't You (Be There)".

One of the best sets of 2012. Nero put on one hell of a show that night. ​

Bonus Pic: Here's a friendly Emazing Lights rep demonstrating what you can do with light gloves.

If you missed Nero at IDentity Festival, here's your chance to see them in Toronto and Montreal: ​

Showtek Accuses Flosstradamus of "stealing their tunes" over Twitter

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Flosstradamus latest hardstyle infused 'X' EP, which is available for free, has apparently landed them in hot water with Showtek accusing them over Twitter for stealing a sample from one of their tracks:

Flosstradamus responds: ​

Flosstradamus started retweeting fans with counter-arguments while receiving a lot of hate from the Hardstyle community which allegedly included two death threats: ​

I'm not at all an expert on this hot topic but while reading about this Twitter flare up it reminded me of a piece Kaskade wrote about the politics of Mash-ups which I found appropriate: ​

"The politicking of a mash up is nothing new. Hip Hop has been having this conversation since its inception. Sampling other people’s work comes with a price. And it makes sense on one hand - why wouldn’t you compensate someone who created something you’re using? A writer can’t just plagiarize another writer and call it inspiration. An artist can’t cut and paste other artwork and claim it as their own. Why would the rules in music be any different? Calling it a mash up, a tribute, a homage or a remix: does it even matter? 

I can tell you that it does. But the devil is in the details, and comes down to intent.

.....​When I bring them [Mash-ups] out, I’m certainly not claiming that they are my brainchild alone and in fact always always give credit to every artist involved." (Source: Kaskade's Tumblr)

​Maybe Headhunterz polite request is the most apt response of them all:

​Hopefully issues like this can be avoided in the future.