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It's official now! EURO 2012 groups: http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/season=2012/draws/index.html Anyone want to take a wild guess as to who qualifies to the next round. I think Croatia could have had an easier draw - a group with actual world and euro champs + Italy which is never to be underestimated... Sigh. Toughest group imho is by far Group B - all killers no fillers. Four solid teams! What does the rest of you think?

Wait. Stop. Pop with a higher artistic value would be Florence And The Machine and stuff. Goa trance, Lady Gaga, Rammstein AND Pussycat Dolls in the same paragraph is just so wrong

There are already some really hard working people doing a lot of good work promoting new and upcoming talents. Just look at what guys like Imba and Basilisk are doing. Not to name Cronomi, Dimensional and Suntrip... DAT Records is giving the phrase blast from the past a whole new cosy meaning! There are probably others, but these come to mind when I think of promoting the style and giving some artists a way to express their creative output...

Ouch. That's gotta hurt mr. Ferguson... Biggest surprises of the group stage? APOEL and Basel. Although the entire group G is upside down... Last year's quarter finalists, Shakhtar are last, and the not so long ago very mighty Porto finished behind St. Petersburg's Zenit. Initially I found that very unlikely to happen. Dinamo Zagreb endured last night, what is its worst humiliation on a home field ever. I do not, in all my years, recall any team ever scoring 7 goals on the Maksimir stadium. Until last night, that is. Lyon was in desperate need of at least a four goal advantage AND a high victory from Real Madrid over Ajax, which was very unlikely to happen since Real has reserved its place among the top 16 ages ago. However, they showed true heart last night, and real sportsmanship, and smacked us so hard it knocked our clothes backwards, like those old kid rappers, Kris Kross. Bravo to Lyon, hats off - really! They ended the group phase with a +2 goal difference, and deservably overlapped Ajax. Not only that, but Dinamo conceded 22 goals in the group stage alone, a competition record no one would want to remember or reminisce about. I was also very surprised with the group A outcome. Bayern, who haven't convinced me with a single extraordinary match, except maybe with their home performance against Man. City are first, while Mancini's much hyped team are left with a bitter after taste, due to Napoli's surprise blitzkreig against Villareal last night. Napoli is a surprise as well, this is their record in the competition, and Cavani is a striker to keep an eye on! For me, at this point, it's either going to be Real Madrid, AC Milan or you-know-who. Arsenal has a great team, wonderful team work and strategy, but whenever I see you-know-what-team do their thing on the field, I give everyone else slim chances...

Another dedicated Creamcroper right here! They further propelled the V/A Black Rhino, V/A Air Born and Hux Flux twisted FX sound which I adooooooored in psy trance. All of their CDs are at least very good and incredibly detailed and psychedelic. As far as my psy collection goes, it is quite probably the label with the most obvious replay value. Due to a lack of standard melody-climax-build-break old school orientated structure, much of the label's output is very unpredictable and challenging. Not the kind of stuff which you will get immediately hooked to because you've just heard a killer lead, or a rabid acid line, but more elaborate and erratic, discordant patterns progressively arise and tease the listener throughout. I love it! Defnitely not a label for newcomers, but if you listen carefully, you will eventually be rewared ten fold. At least I was. The Process album is still light years ahead of most stuff coming out today!

OK, this whole site is pretty epic, in some incredibly bizzare way, but the show stealer of the day just must be: http://www.godhatessinners.com/showthread.php?228-10-Reasons-why-GOD-HATES-FINLAND Discuss, or whatever...

Good to hear that, welcome back Let's hope you'll stick around for a while this time. Have a good one!

Currently I am reading: An interesting, albeit not very challenging read. Very fun though. I kinda fell into some seventies mood lately, rewatching old classics by Martin Scorsese, Claude Chabrol, and been intensively listening to a lot of Tangerine Dream and Led Zeppelin... So this seemed like the appropriate pick for the occasion.

...radi...? You still up and around mate? For me, a proper, full blown modern classic is: Kiriyama- Reach Escape Velocity (2010) (Devils Mind Records) The album is quality through and through, beyond belief. Another release that pops up in my head is: Gus Till- Best Of The Rhino Years Vol. 2 (2007) (Sonic Dragon Records) Dense, groovy progressive cuts for the later hours of the night courtesy of one of the style's purveyors.

I am not much into d'n'b, but I was recommended the following album by a friend of mine as an absolute must, and as far as my interests and desires in electronic music go, he really nailed it: http://www.discogs.com/Phace-Psycho/release/972419 This whole album is ace!

Although this one has yet to leave me dissatisfied, and is to this day quite probably the finest piece of music from the eighties I have ever heard, if you have listened to either one of the two installations of Paap's "Vrs-Mbnt-Pcs" series, then you will know that those are galaxies away from "E2-E4". The first, despite the minimal tag, is a joie de vivre of peerless composition, harmony and blissful melody. It is loaded with zestful enthusiasm, celebrating great advancements in both technology and the ever growing interest in electronic music. Strong emphasis on rhythm. The latter, on the other hand are dim & grim, solitary excursions into amaranthine darkness, without beginning or end. Stripped of rhythmic structures, musical patterns or any hints of conventional electronic music maneuvers, Speedy J really made two albums I myself cannot compare to, well, anything... It may be due to my lack of interest in ambient music, but I have been a huge fan of his for about as long as I can walk, and I've never been given a recommendation of an album which I have found up to par with the two ambient albums he released. Really good stuff! P.S.: Certain Beyond All Reasonable Doubt... Nice suggestion, I had totally forgot about that one. Surgeon... Yummy!!!

Ah yes, another two points tucked under my belt... There was a time in my life when things just didn't go as I had planned. Necro was there for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5oHdLy4N1I

Croatia will deservably be attending next year's Euro. The performance against Turkey was confident and well pulled off. However, let's not go sky high yet, since we have to remember that we had to go through play offs for final tournament. Taking into consideration our group (F) realistically wasn't that hard to go through, I'd rather hold my breath and wait for some real challenges.

...Wait for it... I win: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAHFvWATAP0

Montenegro is THE surprise team of the bunch, as far as this round of qualifications go... Their success was almost as sudden and unpredictable as Schalke's participation in the last year's Champions League semi-finals. And Croatia... Lovely match, finally something ticked the players and inspired them to get their act together. A really important victoty, and one which should be remembered. Hey guys, check this goal out.... Always fun to see these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOfDdpGjtfo&feature=player_embedded

...and... Damn, I love myself, I really put some crazy classics up for ya!

That's the point of this thread. The good ol' "when hardcore was cool" rant. The old IST records sound like that because they are old, and like a lot of electronic music, remain confined within a certain time frame, attitude and vision of the party scene (a lot of large, dragon like decorations at parties, skulls, and other stuff reminiscent more of the metal scene than the rave mentality) and tickle certain emotions and memories in the hearts of a lot of the older ones. Same thing will happen with mr. Maassen's music, in a while, which by the way isn't hard techno. Hard techno would be: http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxX2Oa8DtEc http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC2d3wpnv9I

Yes I do, even though I haven't attended one of those since October 2010 in Turin, Italy. Funniest experience ever was June 2006, in Florence, also Italy. We got so wasted the night before that I caught myself falling asleep 16 times during the conference and then I had stopped counting... My head banged against the table twice, the other times I got awaken by the ecstatic voice of the original speaker. The most remarkable thing of it all is how I still managed to wrap everything up in one coherent story and get payed as well, sir

"The slavic night sound" Buhahahahaha!!!!! That is one epic punch line.

IST had its moments. Lenny Dee was a visionary, too bad his own vision got degenrated and drowned by a bunch of misunderstanding quasi-musicians, exposing us to the abominable derivatives of once flourishing hardcore sounds, as we unfortunately had to witness during the nineties. However, to keep things positive, my own pick out of their extensive release roster must be Zenith's epochal Flowers Of Intelligence and his dreamy hardcore trancer A Tear In Heart, as well as Manu Le Malin's "Memory EP" (perhaps the label's high point?), along with one of two Koenig Cylinders vinyls (does anyone spot that's where John Selway's career kicked off way before he took the techno world by surprise with his studio partner Christian Smith?) The Mescalinum United We Have Arrived tune is one of the finest pieces in my collection. Both the original and the AFX reworks are foundation stones for the whole hardcore-hard techno-industrial techno sound which would later further fully develop.... What a crazy, wip ass monster tune! God, I haven't played it in ages

I work as an interpreter: english and italian to croatian, croatian to english and italian, english to croatian and italian, italian and croatian to english... You get the point. I talk a lot. Really a lot. Love working with people, hate translating stuff like books and official documents though. Worked everwhere from construction to warehouses, financial institutions, promotion, advertisement, etc. etc. Currently abroad, in Strasbourg, trying to earn enough money to pay for a tourist guide course.

Bayern has a few players which are by now highly experienced, and are able to play on the highest level. They still have the backbone of the same team which lost the final to Inter Milan not so long ago... Plus Gomez seems on fire at the moment. I tend to agree with you about Man. City though. My opinion is that they can more or less reach the same level of success in the Champions League as Tottenham had reached the previous season. I think Arsenal hit their recent peak in the 2009/2010 season of the Champions League, as they played extraordinarily beautiful and organized footbal, but then unfortunately get sunk by the Barca submarine... They always fare well, but lack that last magic touch. I even think how they played in a more attractive manner last season than during the 2005/2006 season, when tragically losing the final to Barcelona... However, I think Fabregas is a player they still haven't adequately replaced in their team. We'll see though, Wagner is one cunning man!

I don't know why, but Bayern still doesn't quite convince me... They can do much better, and I wasn't gripped by their performance against Napoli. Had it been a tougher, more experienced team, I seriously doubt Bayern would leave the field with a positive score... As far as Man. City goes, I don't know about you Richpa, but I got the impression that it's yet another team bought by a rich sheik, and all of a sudden they're tossing paper bills around like they jumped out of a Chingy video... Let's hope they actually put some effort and constructive team work into the whole equation, rather than signing obnoxious paychecks! Manchester United have been on fire for years now, at the very top of european football for quite some time now, and as usual, I give them high chances. @ Richpa: a kaj je s Dinamom?

I watched Barcelona's match last night against Plzen, and although they were obviously no match for Guardiola's team, and the final score was appropriate, what strikes about Barcelona is their incessant technical superiority, exemplary team work, and a constant humble approach towards their adversaries which never fails to impress. Despite their rock solid quality, they never take anything for granted, and play ever match like it was the decisive one, which in football, in an odd way, every match is... So potent and above the rest, yet with a firm, down to earth grip on soccer. Oh yeah, and Messi with his 203 goals for Barcelona is the club's second all time striker, right behind the legendary Cesar Rodriguez, with 235 goals. Bare in mind that he is only 24 years old, and as hard as it is to imagine, he may still not be in his prime. To imagine that Barcelona also has players like Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Eric Abidal... Wow, seems like a dream team. For this year's Ballon d'Or, out of the 23 players nominated by FIFA and France Footbal, eight (8!!!) of them are from Barcelona, and Pep Guardiola is nominated for best coach. How do you beat that?

Hmmm... Pod's "The Vanguard EP" and Revelation's "Stairway To Heaven", both for 5 euro, near mint condition. The original X-101 album on Tresor for like 3.5 euro. The Dogma "Land Of Utopia" album, bought at the "The Best" club at Zagreb during their live act for like 13 euro. New and sealed. At the time only God himself knew how sought after it would become. Not being a good record at all, I actually gave away like two copies, and was utterly irritated with the stand which sold them inside the club. It made the club look like a fruit market. Oh, had I only known... We all had a copy, and we all got bored of the album, quickly. There is only one place where one puts albums he gets bored of. Probably a few more but the first three are my fave catches, both for the immense endurance they have, and for the fantastic musical value!