The Young Punx

Infobox musical artist
Name = The Young Punx

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Origin = London, England
Genre = Electronic, Dance, House music, Breakbeat, Mashup
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Years_active = 2003–present
Label = MofoHifi, Avex, Ultra Records
URL = http://www.theyoungpunx.com
Current_members = Hal Ritson Cameron Saunders

The Young Punx are a UK based electronic dance music act whose eclectic and energetic style encompasses french house, nuskool breaks and drum and bass, mashed up with elements as diverse as 1980s pop music, hard rock, disco and glam rock.

Personnel

The Young Punx's music is created by producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Hal Ritson in collaboration with an eclectic collective of musicians, producers and singers including Italian electro producer Phonat, virtuoso guitarist Guthrie Govan, co-founder of the act Cameron Saunders and vocalists such as Yolanda Quartey of Massive Attack. In addition the talents of Nathan Taylor (ex-positiva, Medcab presents, Heavy Disco) have been drafted into the collective, and coupled with Hal Ritson's uncompromising ear for great party music, now form The Young Punx DJ duo.

Bootlegs, mash-ups and white labels

They initially came to prominence in 2003-2004 after releasing a string of white label bootleg dance records which drew attention by sampling unlikely source material such as 80s Madonna tracks (foreshadowing the trend for 80s pop sampling records in the following years), Heavy metal such as Motörhead's "The Ace of Spades" and pop culture trends such as "The Matrix" movies. "Got your number" - their tongue-in-cheek disco house bootleg of the iconic 118 118 (UK) TV adverts featuring music sampled from the "Rocky" theme gained widespread attention in late 2003 after BBC Radio 1 DJ Judge Jules played an mp3 of it on his show. Despite having only been created as a joke, the track became a UK clubland phenomenon. It was put at 25-1 odds to be Christmas Number One by William Hill bookmakers, featured in "The Sun" newspaper, signed to EMI and entered the UK Club Chart Top 10. However the full commercial release of the record was ultimately cancelled due to legal wrangles.

In 2005 The Young Punx produced a satirical remake of Mylo's "Destroy Rock & Roll" entitled "Destroy Celebrity Crap" which replaced the original's list of 1980s pop stars with a list of the main celebrities who were currently dominating the UK media in a lighthearted backlash against the dumbing down celebrity focus of the media. Distributed for free on mp3, the track received in excess of 20,000 downloads within one week after exposure in "Popbitch" newsletter.

Remixes

Building on their reputation as bootleg remixers, which lead to them being voted number 2 bootleg remixers of 2003 by listeners of BBC Radio One, The Young Punx have increasingly become one of the most in-demand remix artists in the UK. Some of their most well known mixes include "Hideaway" by De'lacy, "Stoned in Love" by Chicane and Tom Jones, "Come on get it on" by Studio B, "I like girls" by Hound Dogs and "Rocket (a natural gambler)" by Braund Reynolds along with tracks by the Scissor Sisters, Don Diablo, Ike and Tina Turner, The Similou, Krafty Kuts, Space Cowboy and Norman Cook's "Mighty Dub Katz". With a very strong following in Japan, in 2008, The Young Punx got to remix Step you, a #1-song by Japanese superstar Ayumi Hamasaki.

Original material

The Young Punx have released a number of original tracks commercially on vinyl, CD and mp3. 2005's "Young and Beautiful" was described by Fatboy Slim as "The most insane/catchy song I have heard all year". [http://www.mofohifi.com/mfh001/djfeedback.htm] . 2006's "Rockall" continued their trend for incorporating elements of popular culture into their work through sampling and re-editing the shipping forecast as read by BBC radio 4 announcer Alan Smith. In February 2007 their track "You've got to..." became the most podcasted track in the world (as measured by the podmusiccountdown.com chart for that week) when they released it onto the podsafe music network.

Their debut album "Your music is killing me" was released in 2007 - 2008 in the UK, Japan and USA, with further countries announced for later in 2008.

Live performance

In addition to performing as a DJ duo (including supporting Tiesto at the world's largest club, Privilege Ibiza), The Young Punx perform as a live band including guitarist Guthrie Govan and vocalist Tiffany Gore. They have performed at major international festivals including Glastonbury Festival (2007), Summer Sonic Festival (2007), Nano Mugen Festival (2008) and Blue Balls Festival (2008).

Working relationship with Han Hoogerbrugge

The Young Punx have developed an artistic partnership with Dutch digital artist Han Hoogerbrugge in which Hoogerbrugge has developed the visual identity for the band, record artwork and a number of animated videos. Built on a darkly comic cast of surreal hand drawn characters, later animated in flash and 3-D animated packages, Hoogerbrugge's distinctive creations act both as the main public identity for the band, and as an exhibited part of Hoogerbrugge's own portfolio.

External links

* [http://www.theyoungpunx.com www.theyoungpunx.com]
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* [http://www.ianroullier.com/interviews_and_features/youngpunx.htm Young Punx interview, IDJ magazine, May 2007]
* [http://ukevents.net/members/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9141 The Young Punx Album Review] at UKEvents.net
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:wnfwxqysldde~T1 The Young Punx biography] on allmusic.com