Well its that time again for another month of madness, with Off the Rails marching strongly on through the summer at Plug in Sheffield. As always, there's an international quality line up set to take control of the club and lead us all into the promised land!

Hollyoaks stars MAX & OB will be on the stage! KANYE WEST'S after tour DJ is playing the tunes! This is MASSIVE!!! Be at the coolest club night with two rooms of music from RnB to Bassline to Dance & Pop, plus new boyband BILLIAM performing their single LIVE!

New Orleans style Mardi Gras with free beads and masks. Lethal Cocktails. And discount in any fancy dress!

Sheffield has always been at the heart of the bassline scene. Whilst the country turned its back on UK Garage at the turn of the nineties there were certain hotspots that refused to let it die. Along with Birmingham and certain suburbs of the capital, the Steel City was representing week in week out for those who still loved their dance music infused with that little more bass alongside the vocals. People who didn't want to let their sound disappear, keeping alive the interest in bassline house.

Summertime, and the living is easy. Or so they say, but round at UG towers we scoff, laugh, and if we're feeling really brave / drunk, spit at them (not really, that'd be nasty). Yes, while other clubs go off on their hols, or shift down into second gear, UG keeps coming on strong with the finest line-up of filthy house music to hit Sheffield in...oooh, erm...well, in ages anyway.

It's that boy Slim Again! The new poster boy of UK House music, Bomb Squad records boss and general all round man about town is back in Sheffield. One of the biggest draws at Shuffle, the steel city's house cognoscenti love Mickey, and it's not hard to see why. One of the finest exponents of filth laden house music the country has ever seen, he's been building a career in a ridiculously short space of time, carving out his own niche in an oversaturated market. It was only 2005 when he burst onto the scene, three whirlwind years which show no sign of relenting for the boy yet.

On stage High School Musical stage show

Twisted Wheel's forthcoming tour support comes at the end of what has been a hugely successful year for the Oldham three-piece.

Sheffield has always been at the heart of the bassline scene. Whilst the country turned its back on UK Garage at the turn of the nineties there were certain hotspots that refused to let it die. Along with Birmingham and certain suburbs of the capital, the Steel City was representing week in week out for those who still loved their dance music infused with that little more bass alongside the vocals. People who didn't want to let their sound disappear, keeping alive the interest in bassline house.

 

Drawing on their disparate tastes, which ranged from Nirvana to Woody Guthrie, Motown singles to barbershop quartets, they honed a one-of-a-kind sound that incorporated all their influences around their shared point of reference: A deep, abiding love for creative music of all stripes.

Inspired by funk and soul artists such as Raul Midon and The Isley Brothers, the band has created a truly distinctive sound. With a down-to-earth feel and an air of simplicity, their music is the perfect soundtrack for any occasion. They are Bohemian Mods.

"The Big Apple's best-kept secret" - NME

"Jeffrey Lewis - Best Indie Album of 2002; like his drawings, his music is witty, animated and true." - New York Daily News

"Bizarre but brilliant. Jeffrey Lewis could well be [New York's] ace in the hole." - Uncut

Wiley is one of the original founders of what is now known as 'Grime' music. Traversing from the massive Pay As U Go Cartel to start up his own crew with the Roll Deep Entourage. His debut album 'Treddin On Thin Ice', released through XL, brought his unique "Eski beat" sound to the world and has cememnted him as one of the most innovative producers ever in British electronic music. Co-producer on the certified Silver selling 'In At The Deep End' LP from Roll Deep showed a versatility to not only his lyrical content but also his musical sound.

 

"1965, that was the year Vietnam hotted up," explains Jak Payne, guitarist with The Metros, the teenaged south London five-piece who count Squeeze, Ian Dury and the Beastie Boys among their biggest influences. We're sitting outside a pub near Oxford Circus, enjoying one of the few sunny afternoons of July. Jak and his songwriting partner, vocalist Saul Adamczewski,

Uprising is one heck of a rave. Thirteen years in the business and still going strong, they sure know how to party. A period of time that has seen some of the most intense lunacy known to mankind, a gleeful hedonistic appetite that would revile Hunter S Thompson and a brutal music policy which leaves no prisoners, it's no wonder the party continues to grab attention across the globe. And what exactly is their secret?

Plug hits the grand old age of three years this September! Since reopening in the former zero confinements, Plug has offered Sheffield and the North of England as a whole a brilliant party concept. There have been magnificent live performances; the vitriolic Prodigy show that sold out in three hours in May, the effusive Patti Smith delivering her coarse poetry, and the home grown talents of Jarvis Cocker and The Arctic Monkeys. All acts have benefited form that rare combination of grandiosity and intimacy that has defined Plug, making it an arena which delivers the wide ranging impart that marks out the best live performances without ever over-awing the crowds.

Swedish indie pop artist Lykke Li Zachrisson (better known as Lykke Li) grabbed the attention of bloggers the world over in the early 2000s with a handful of catchy and genuinely impressive retro-chic singles made available on her MySpace profile.

Iglu & Hartly are the Californian five piece whose unashamedly pop songs are laced with a wide variety of influences tailor made to induce dancing amongst the audience. The sound of frat parties exploding into the charts, their heady mix of 80s influenced snyth pop, new wave, Hip-Hop, disco and half sung half rapped vocals ensures a stunning rapport with the audience and party manifesto hurling from the off.

Jake Burns formed Stiff Little Fingers (the band's name was taken from a 1977 Vibrators lyric "If it wasn't for your stiff little fingers nobody would know you were dead"...) In 1978 after seeing the Clash play in his hometown Belfast, and the band released the classic Suspect Device and Alternative Ulster singles that year.

Found lurking in the creative laboratory known as the ‘deadmau5 disco den of despair and inequity' this creative ingenue runs the gamut of beats unlike any other. Since his inception deadmau5 has stormed our planet with chart topping action and playlists from the best of the best.

In keeping with the sound of his new album, "Slime & Reason," the show will built around a soundsystem feel, focussing more on electronics, dub and crashing beats than the live band sound he employed last time out. As he's shown recently at shows like the "iTunes London Live" festival, Rodney Smith has never enjoyed playing live more. The tour will be a whistle stop journey through fistfuls of classic Manuva tracks plus ample material from the new album.

There aren't many rock bands on this planet that wouldn't like to be regarded as unique. Of course, in these times of nostalgia and endlessly recycled ideas, very few actually deserve that description. Finland's Apocalyptica deserve it more than most.

The Saw Doctors are the latest in this strangely noble line...They are not loud or angry, or vigorously uncompromising. They have no image, message of "attitude"...