Buttoned Down Disco

Live Review: Syd Barrett Madcap's Last Laugh at London Barbican - 10th May 2007

2007-05-11T12:13:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

What hasn't already been said about recently deceased reclusive guitar legend Syd Barrett? Probably really nothing noteworthy since about 1975, when Roger as his family call him completely packed in music and headed home to Cambridge. So, following his sad passing away last year, Joe Boyd has spent the past six months planning a tribute night that would really just concentrate on the guys music. This, after all is what made Syd a legend. His Pink Floyd were responsible for the birth of Psychedelia in it's most intense form. About as far away from the jangly US sunshine pop as you could get in '66, Syd married his echo slide effects and fuzzy noize to trance like organ twiddles and oil projections to mindblowing effect. Without Syd, there may have been no Rave, and god knows what Rod Stewart might have got away with..

The tribute show was put together at the London Barbican Centre, a very suitable venue as it was all seated and by miracle, the last minute tickets I managed to blag on the day were in the very front row bang in the middle. NICE! The people performing Syd songs were mainly made up from well known Syd devotees, Kevin Ayers, Damon Albarn, Andy Bell, Captain Sensible, Robyn Hitchcock and many others which will be reviewed in this piece.

The show opened with an interested accapella version of 'Bike' from Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, performed by Sense Of Sound Chior, which went down fairly well, although I'm surprised they didn't do 'Golden Hair' or something that would have allowed them to flex their wonderful harmonies. Captain Sensible fronted the house band for the evening, performing a really amazing version of 'Flaming' with Andy Bell, aka 'Oasis Bloke' on bass. Original projections from the early Floyd era were shown throughout the night, adding a great deal to an already generous show.

Kevin Ayers was there to show tribute to his old friend, slightly crowd shy but performing a moving version of a track written for Syd years ago, called 'Oh, Wot A Dream' which quite a few people seemed to sing along to. He also did a great version of 'Here I Go' as well, bringing quite a swing to it and even having a little dance. Cute. Damon Albarn came on and did a very touching little talk on Syd, inviting Syds's nephew onto the stage to say a few words about his uncle. What was hilarious though, was that Damon blatantly passed him some spliff before he took the mic which meant that his nephew was well cained and a little erm, 'overwhelmed'. Class. Damon performed 'Word Song' on a mini keyboard, bringing some excellent humour to the show and a genuinely good interpretation.

Robyn Hitchcock played a beautiful version of 'Terrapin' on acoustic guitar, and a not so great version of 'Gigolo Aunt' which frankly, would have been better of covered by The Bees. The Bees played an outstanding and downright funky version of 'Octopus', bringing their live bongos and feelgood vibes to the show. Chrissie Hynde played a nice take on 'Wouldn't You Miss Me?' and a great cover of 'Late Night' too, with some great slide guitar. Eager rumours that Roger and Nick were backstage were flying around too, oh my.

So, before the first interval Roger came on and did a really heartfelt talk on Syd, and sat down to perform and sing one of his own songs 'I Shall Be Moved' and it was just so beautiful. I was actually thinking that he might have written in especially for the show as I didn't recognise it, but maybe not. 'Pink Floyd!!' shouted a guy at the back, completely unsuitably, and when Roger replied with 'later' I figured he might come back with Nick and done 'Wish You Were Here'. Sadly not though, Pink Floyd were introduced to end the show but without Roger, and with MR FUCKING OASIS on bass. Good god. How wrong was that? Also, they covered 'Arnold Layne' which was just done without any soul, and Dave barely even sang the words. So, nice that they decided to appear, so sad that they obviously couldn't see fit to perform with Roger. That sucked. Big time.

Still, overall, a really really good and well put together evening, the visuals were ace, the various interpretations were mainly fantastic, and it was a touching tribute.

Thanks Joe. x

Classic Albums: Supergrass - I Should Coco

2007-03-07T10:46:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

'I'm not really entirely sure what would fill the criteria for 'classic album' as such. Many polls seem to focus on sales, or how much a particular album may have influenced a generation or whether a particular album was written in x key of melancholy from some tortured soul or other, but the classic albums you tend to find in top ten polls tend to lack one key ingredient. Fun.

Cue Supergrass, a band who burst onto the indie scene straight out of Oxford in 1994, a town previously famed for such illuminaires as Ride and Radiohead. The three members were pretty young at the time, Gaz Coombes the bands frontman and main songwriter being just 18. Danny Goffey the drummer just behind at 19, and Mickey Quinn being the wise old man at 24. A single called 'Caught By The Fuzz' came out in late '94, and people began to take notice. Essentially a punk / pop / thrash song about being nicked for smoking dope, it was about as far away as you could get from Dad Rock as you could get without nicking his car.

So lets fast forward to the album then, that's really the purpose of this review, to try and make your spring as mine was 12 years ago, thanks to this record. May 1995 was the release date, and I remember going into HMV the morning of release cos I had heard that the early pressings of the LP came with a limited 7" of a Hendrix cover - Stonefree. I asked the guy behind the till if the LP had been selling well so far, and I remember him going; 'Oh yeh, flying out the door' really sarcastically. Odd, as it went to number 1 that weekend. Obviously hadn't reached Maidstone then.

Right, music. Opener 'I'd Like To Know' pretty much sets the pace for most of Side One, with a youthful 'one, two, one two three four' before Danny's huge drum roll bring the tune crashing in. It's cute looking back now at how innocently simple Gaz's lyrics were.. "I like to wake up on a Saturday, say 'Hello you' - A cup of coffee and I smoke a cigaretta or two". At the time as well, the chord changes and melody were pretty out there, as well as each of the band members being just amazing at their instruments, in the same way that say Bloc Party are, but just on a totally happy trip rather than a despairing one. 'Mansize Rooster' was a track that a lot of people knew, kicking off famously with a drum beat stolen point blank from 'House Of Fun' by Madness, the song then takes a life of it's own and causing mass pogoing in indie clubs from here to god knows where. 'Alright' had already been hyped up by Gaz earlier in the year as a country meets disco song, which made absolutely no sense at all until you heard it. This was then released in July as the summers PROPER feelgood hit of the summer, I think that most of the cool kids were too blown away by this to even notice Blur vs Oasis..

Side two eases off a little bit with tracks like 'She's So Loose' which shows the bands influence by bands like Hendrix and Led Zep, but the difference with Supergrass though, was that they, whether they meant to or not, added such a unique take on their influences that the sound totally became their own. Gaz decides it would be funny to speed up the track 'We're Not Supposed To' to make it sound like they were singing on helium, and 'Time' and 'Sofa Of My Lethargy' are just beautiful, and would show the direction Supergrass were already planning on going in later in their musical career. The album closes with 'Time To Go', a kind of fitting end to a perfect album.

If you have forgotten how good this album is, go and re-visit it. If you have never heard it, risk the fiver. If you like the current wave of bands like Kaisers, Arctic Monkeys etc, go and listen to the original young fresh punk pop band and tell me you don't love that, as Dizzee Rascal would say...

Live Review: Long Blondes at London Astoria - 20th February 2007

2007-02-26T10:54:00.000Z

Author: Tom Mitchell

'I dunno. Watching in the Astoria, I thought 'cloying'. I thought 'Hello. There's something cloying about The Long Blondes.' And when I went home, I looked 'cloying' up in the dictionary to check if I were right. 'To cause distaste or disgust by supplying with too much of something originally pleasant, especially something rich or sweet; surfeit', it said.

And, goddammit, I think I was right.

Take the band's hair. Much has been made of lead singer Kate Jackson's glam look. And her barnet was looking supermodel-lovely on Monday night. A bit like Karen O's. All perfectly moulded fringe and glossy sheen. Dressed in shorts, tasty blouse and neck scarf (she was only missing a beret for full-on pretentious-art-student-look), she'd thrust out a hip and point up to the lighting rig, wiggle about, and still the hair would return to its original perfection. Quite amazing.

Fair enough, you might say, why can’t a girl take pride in her locks? But each one of the four members possessed interesting cuts: the bassist (accompanied by a wonderfully static cool/bored expression throughout) plucked with her Lego hair atop; the male guitarist’s pouted with a Rod Stewart head. The cutesy bow of the female guitarist and the solid fuzz of the drummer’s must have taken ages to position and groom so …. trendily.

I might be labouring the point about the hair, but it's symbolic of a greater monster. However much I enjoyed jumping about with the rest of the crowd to 'Lust in the Movies' (and I did), the Blonde's shtick, the whole package, is almost scarily considered, as if designed by some Sheffield Ministry of Cool. Take 'You Could Have Both'. It's a great song. Jackson manages to whine, sing and breathe its lyrics, often all at once. The new wave guitars manage to spread the contagion of dance to the whole Astoria. Great. But its lyrics check both Morrissey and Scott Walker and 'C C Baxter in Wilder's Apartment'. And the deliberate nature of this, a kind of cultural tick box exercise, turned my lager sour. It's the pickle in the proverbial burger.

The stage patter too. Before 'Once and Never Again' ("19? You're only 19 for God's sake! You don't need a boyfriend!'- sanctimonious big sis advice as annoying as a wet sock), Jackson purred 'anyone here 14? 15? 16? 17? 18? Well... this is for the nineteen year olds!' and launched into the number. Hmmm, I thought, Hmmm. How smug are you, young lady?

But, at moments, I did forget my prejudice. It may have been the £3.30 Red Stripe surging through my brain (again), but when 'Swallow Tattoo' was flung from the stage, I smiled and nodded my head and didn't mind even when the wash of teenagers exploded in stupid dance all about me. It's a great song. That urgent thrust of rhythm guitar is married beautifully to the desperate lyrics concerned with a dodgy tattoo. The song opens with 'Give me a good film noir and a bottle of gin, I'll be happy just to stay inside'. Yeah, great, and suddenly it's Debbie Harry on stage, singing the literate and witty (witerate?) words of our mate Jarvis or Morrissey. Trendy cultural references aren't crow-barred in and the song is all the better for it. I'm ignoring the echo of Moz's track 'A Swallow On My Neck' to make my argument neater. And the way Kate Jackson sang 'goodbye happiness, I hardly knew you' made not only my hair stand on end, I can tell you. It was as sultry as Marlene Dietrich smoking from a cigarette holder in your darkened bedroom (with a bit of mood lighting too).

And then I noticed The Long Blonde's sign. A kind of black and white ironic tribute to Tom Cruise's Cocktail logo, it was, and sunk under PURPLE lighting. Maybe it's because I don't read the NME and I don't understand (and even though 'only' mid-twenties, I was easily in the top quarter of age range down Astoria), but soon resentment at the group's calculated cool was jumping about my tummy once again.

The Brakes were the main support act and The Long Blondes could allow the influence of this supergroup (formed from members of British Sea Power, Electric Soft Parade and The Tenderfoot) to pervade future songwriting. The boys performed a spunky session with a few songs lasting less than thirty seconds. They reminded me of the Pixies - roaring guitars, bald lead singer, and impenetrable lyrics. I'm a sucker for a bit of Frank Black (and there's enough of him, alright), so they went down well. The Long Blondes could do with a bit more Brakey fun - rock for rock’s sake - and a bit less desire to be a better dressed Pulp.

And so I left the Astoria confused. (And not for the first time.) The Long Blondes do produce an effective line in new-wave rock with witerate lyrics. But can I ever find love for such a perfectly dressed/haired/referencing band? Can I ever really enjoy a group that have performed in Selfridges?

I'm not sure I can. It's all a bit too much. It's all a bit too... cloying.

Live Review: Jarvis at London Astoria - 17th February 2007

2007-02-19T14:24:00.000Z

Author: Tom Mitchell

'The Judie Dench of indie rock', says Jarvis, spitting the words out with disgust. "I'm not a middle-aged woman. I might be middle-aged. But I'm not a woman." And his angular body contorts as he strokes his flat chest to illustrate his lack of breasts.

Midway through his set at the Astoria, Jarvis found time to criticise The Daily Telegraph's review of a recent gig. And it was the comparison that offended. Outraged, was Jarv. And I could see why. Dame Dench doesn't spend much of Notes From A Scandal jumping about the frame with the abandon of a cider-drinking teenager. And when onstage at the National, Judy's bum doesn't provoke caterwauling. Jarvis's did.

Still, like Judy, our Jarvis has been around ever since I remember being alive and his impact has been such that even my Dad (number of albums owned - 1 - Dark Side of the Moon on cracked vinyl) was able to offer some comments. 'Northern Guy - showed off his bum, right?' said my Dad. 'Is he still going?'

The years have flashed by in an instant; it's ten of them since his Brit Awards stagecrash bumshow (he was nominated this year, but lost out to James Morrison - 'I was robbed', he said). But the passing of time hasn't rotten his caustic wit, nor his ability to polish off a hummable tune. Saturday's set was kicked off by 'Fat Children' - a frantic couple of minutes of punk guitar attack, sung with a palpable relish by Jarvis as he karate-chopped his way about stage - a bit like Vegas Elvis, but thinner and with longer hands. And these hands are still quite magical. It may have been the Red Stripe, but many a time I caught myself staring at their cutting of air.

'Black Magic' was another beauty. Its stop-start avalanche of drum/keyboard/guitar is well suited to live performance, and far more entrancing than listening to the album in your lounge as you stare at the internet. T-Rex-esque, it was, with a raucous bass that wobbled your eyeballs. Fab. And it even pricked my rhythmic swaying into a semi-dance.

Jarvis is an entertainer and he operates in the immediate. In 'Tonight' he instructs the listener to seize the day. This sentiment falling out of the lips of any other entertainer might seem trite. But not with Jarvis. Instead of frowning, I drank more Red Stripe to honour him.

There was almost as much joy to be had listening to his banter between songs as the music itself. Which sounds as if to say the music was rubbish, but it wasn't. Jarvis was just dead funny. From his opening gag about Sophie Ellis Baxter being found dead in a French flat (It was murder on Zidane's floor) to his awarding the crowd 'most inappropriate timing of balloon release', he had the crowd (strangely mixed between tubby thirty-year olds with interesting glasses and teeny NME readers) hooting. And I'm sure not many other entertainers would have responded with such good grace to the aforementioned escape of balloons the melancholic 'I Will Kill Again', but Jarv did. He even sat during this song, so it must be a sad one.

The ex-Relaxed Muscle man is better when avoiding such balladry, however. This was highlighted by the final encore of 'Paranoid' by Black Sabbath. It was sung with the venom of a rock-n-roller who'd been there, bought the t-shirt, and flashed the bum-bum. The was an appropriately rocking gesture with which to finish the gig.

I left found myself on Charing Cross Road, not thinking about the disappointing sub-Kate Bush support act Bat for Lashes, but wondering aloud when Cocker's next gig might be. My final words to my friend were that I wasn't gay, but Jarvis was lovely and delightful.

Buy his album. Go see him. He's back..

Live Review: Fi-lo Beddow at Brixton Jamm - 26th March 2005

2006-03-26T21:43:00.000Z

Author: Kate Milner

I have this feeling of deja-vu. Maybe it's the all-90s soundtrack. Maybe it's the venue that looks so like one of my teenage hangouts. Or maybe it's that this is the second time I'm watching Bluetones frontman Mark Morriss (aka Fi-lo Beddow) playing an acoustic solo gig in a pub in front of a handful of 20something Britpop survivors. Oh, and he uses some of the same jokes.

It's a cold Thursday in an obscure venue somewhere between Oval and Brixton. And Mark is in fine form. He's charming, self depreciating and scatters his set with remarks like "The other Bluetones wouldn't teach me their songs. They would tell me it was all jazz chords". He shakes his head ruefully. "When I hear those two words, I freak out".

His guitar playing really isn't that bad. But it's very cute that he keeps talking about it. In fact it's hard to get past the fact that Mark is just so darn lovable that the music is the least important thing about the set. But the music is actually pretty good.

He started off with one of the promised "Blue" songs – "Keep the Home Fires Burning". As a song, it translates well into the acoustic in a way that other songs wouldn't (Requests from the audience were met with answers like "I can't play that! It's a piano song." and "Do you have a saxophone?"). It was swiftly followed up by one of his solo songs – "Unwanted Friend" and then one of many covers.

"Do we have any Pixies fans in the audience. (yeahhh!) Oh well, sorry to all of you I'm playing it anyway...Gouge Away" ...which was actually a minor work of genius. It suited his voice remarkably well and he glossed over the incoherent mumbly bits pretty slickly. Next up was "Fountainhead" (another 'Tones number), more solo songs, more covers (Teenage Fanclub and some song called "Red Balloon"...disappointingly not the BDD classic "99 Red Balloons") and then...the request spot!

Now, with solo gigs, you have to be a bit sensitive. Singers aren't guitarists bless 'em and can't handle anything too tricky. Nevertheless, Mark was game to try anything shouted out to him.

"Oooh...'Cut Some Rug?' I'll play you the bit I know of that"

And he did. And a lovely intro it was too. Sadly he stopped before the vocal kicked in (playing and singing at the same time ?...not going to happen!). A particularly amusing rendition of "Autophilia" featured the audience on vocals, as Mark kept forgetting the words and had to be prompted. Round about the time he was trying to lip-read the line "it purrs just like a kitten" from Nathan, he gave up and refused to play the second verse.

Maybe I'm not selling this to you. But you have to understand that the whole thing was so modest and endearing that it was just fun and lovely. Mark doesn't know the words? Nathan'll sing instead! It'll be fine...

I shouted out for "Woman in love" because I knew he could play that and he granted my request over somebody else's because I was "technically louder". Go me!

He stayed on until his repertoire was exhausted, even chucking some Zepplin and a Keith Richards impression in along the way. The last song was "Harry Rag", an ode to the joys of smoking and then he was gone. Well, he stopped to pack up his guitar and have a chat first. And give us his setlist, complete with half-chewed cough sweet (we plan to create an army of Mark Morriss clones from the DNA). Really, no rock star pretensions here. And anyways, he turned up again half an hour later for a rather lovely DJ set. As the lights came up, he shook our hands and wished us a safe journey home.

He may not be the world's greatest guitarist but what does that matter when you have a little charm, and a lot of style?!

Happy Talk!

2006-02-07T13:16:00.000Z

Authour: R-dolly

Still without regular internet access... Not long now though, we move on the 17th Feb! Woo-hoo - can't wait!

Anyway in the meantime, come and chat with other Buttoned Down Disco-ers over on the messageboard until we're back and updating the blog!

Rx

Happy New Year!

2006-01-13T21:58:00.000Z

Author: R-dolly

Just a really quick note to say Happy 2006 and just to let everyone know this blog is not dead, although it may appear a little limp at the moment. This is because we are moving house and have very limited internet access, hence the lack of new entries. However, from late February onwards it will be make in action.

Until then, feel free to browse through the archives.

Enjoy!
Rx

p.s. Also, look out for a some very special Buttoned Down Discos in the Spring/Summer ;)

Album Review: Soulwax - Nite Versions

2005-10-10T18:35:00.000Z

Author: Peter Muscutt

Last year saw the release of Soulwax's third studio album, the criminally under-rated Any Minute Now (released in between band members David and Stephen's stints as DJs with the outfit 2 Many DJs). Taking a vastly electronic swing (for the better) it added a brand new edge to their quirky indie style. With that in mind, the Belgian band take this one stage further, and with synths and drum machines under each arm, release Nite Versions, part remix project, part B-sides compilation, which features re-workings of material from Any Minute Now. Taking their cue from the style of remixes from 1980s pop and disco records, the Dewaele brothers Stephen and David cue up the selections here as a DJ set, mixing the tracks together to ensure this flows neatly when you play it at Auntie Edna's 90th birthday party.

Or not.

Things kick off with a cover of the Daft Punk track Teachers, in which they list their own musical influences over a stop-start guitar backing using filtered vocals. A more mechanised remix of Miserable Girl follows, turning what was a so-so album track into a stomping, glam-rock-synth monster, complete with snare drums, whooshing chords and a building computerised rhythm. The previously released version of E-Talking may be familiar to some fans as it was released as a B-side - a great extended version featuring hand claps and a slower paced build up, leading to the inclusion of vocals by sometimes Soulwax collaborator Nancy Whang.

The overall feel of this album was one that it is very much a grower. At first glance, these re-workings may not appear to be anything special, but on further listening, there is a deceiving depth to the tracks, and the majority are improvements on the originals. The electronically-enhanced Accidents And Compliments especially sounds a million miles from its previous incarnation. Also included along the way is a new track, I Love Techno, which begins like some long-lost Pacman computer game theme, and clearly shows that Soulwax are no slouches when it comes to tinkering with synthesisers (they certainly do love techno as well, fans lucky enough to have seen them perform live may have noticed their tendency to segue into the Alter Ego dance track Rocker during E-Talking). As well as remixing Any Minute Now album tracks Compute, Slowdance and KracK (with a building keyboard melody that sounds suspiciously like Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk), the fantastic bootleg mix featuring the Lipps Inc disco track Funky Town is included, as well as the DFA remix of Another Excuse, as released on the NY Excuse single.

If you're a fan of Soulwax's excursions into the world of electronics or are eagerly awaiting the next 2 Many DJs album, then this release is pretty essential stuff for tearing up a dance floor, or enjoying in the comfort of your own home with your pipe and slippers (although they probably won't stay on for long before you give in and start grooving!).

Interview: Idlewild by Chris Spillane - 5th August 2005

2005-09-04T17:41:00.000Z

Author: Chris Spillane

In the depths of London's West End, Chris Spillane has a drink with Roddy Woomble, the front man of Scottish Indie rockers Idlewild. They discuss the band's flirtations with the charts, the student lifestyle, the Big Apple and why Green Day sound like Nickleback.

The recent crop of chart hits and pop success can be delegated to one of three main categories caused by various musical infections (barring the crazy frog which can be accredited to someone who should be extradited for hate crimes against humanity). The first of these is a seasonal problem known as Rip-offus Maximus: Whereby victims strap on their Fender Telecasters and play angular riffs until another new trend sets in. Acquired Overproduced Pop syndrome is second in the deadly trio of infections: Sufferers are subjected to a change in lifestyle, which requires them to collaborate with Guy Chambers (of Robbie Williams fame) and write songs about the pressures of fame and being misunderstood. Symptoms often include a sceptical addiction to something ridiculous like gardening and a flair for meaningless tattoos. The third and most serious is commonly known as Torchsongitis: this plagues victims an overbearing sense of sentimentality, usually with a string quartet harping along in the background. Symptoms include looking intently into the camera with teary eyes in your latest music video, while yet another girl walks out of your life and adds a few million to your bank balance in album sales.

The music industry is a fickle business. Some artists, like James Blunt can rise from obscurity and embrace the spotlight effortlessly. Whereas others can tour for years, putting their hearts and souls into their profession with little or no commercial success. Hopefully in the growing world of music downloads and MP3's the talents of harder working, possibly more deserving acts will be recognised. Please welcome on stage Caledonian folk-rock outfit, Idlewild. Front man Roddy Woomble, lead guitarist Rod Jones and drummer Colin Newton who form the backbone of Idlewild met on a window sill during a party in their halls at Edinburgh University in 1995 where Roddy was studying Photography. Within hours of meeting each other they decided to start a band from their collective appreciation of REM, Sonic Youth and Bob Dylan records. One E.P, four albums and a few hit singles later Idlewild are headlining one of several Grolsch Summerset gigs at the opulent outdoor venue Somerset House, London.

Backstage at Somerset house is just as impressive as the architecture surrounding it. Whilst following the tour manager to Idlewild's dressing room, a slim and softly spoken man appears with a red toothbrush and toothpaste in hand mumbling something about his teeth and walks off for a few minutes, baffled, the tour manager walks off as well and I’m left in the dressing room with Rod and Colin. Colin recently became a father and is in high spirits "Roddy's brushing his teeth, it must be a big interview! Are you ready to hear all about his philosophies and thoughts on life? Where you from?" "Yeah, York Uni." I reply, "Ah well, you're in the wrong business, you want a beer?" as he points to bands rider. I oblige by taking the biggest bottle of Grolsch on offer and talk about drumming until Roddy returns. On Roddy's return, personal hygiene restored, we take a seat by a window overlooking the Thames and in his rich Scottish accent, he opens the conversion "Chris, can you confirm, are there flies flying over there or am I seeing dots?" Behind me there several flies moving in a haphazard manner, dryly I confirm that they are in fact, flies.

Slightly to the left of the mainstream with skirmishes on the charts with singles Modern Way of Letting Go and American English, Idlewild have been moving slowly, but surely into one of Britain's most accomplished and matured bands. The group's fourth studio album entitled Warnings/Promises, sets the premise of the album with Roddy quoting "It summed up what the record is about with it's contradictions." Idlewild seem eager to leave their roots, in particular Roddy who appears to be defensive when talking about their previous records "We're interested in different kinds of music now, we're not interested in the punk rock as we did that as well as we could do and I'd think it be really boring if we did the same thing over and over again." Hearing this may be a disappointment to those who are fans of Idlewild's earlier records, including the quintessential 100 Broken Windows, yet the newer albums still contain the Idlewild of yore "We always reference our past records, there are moments which harp back to what came before and that will probably continue on the next record." Confidence is high in the Idlewild camp as he talks about his aspirations on their next record "We can really do anything now, we can make a really folky record or a really rocky record." Nonetheless anything should encompass slightly more eclectic tastes, maybe some funky house or a dash of eighties romantic-pop. Maybe not.

"I don't really pay attention to them" is Roddy's response to the topical rise of bands such as Razorlight and Kaiser Chiefs, dismissing them for bands he does like. "Malcolm Middleton's record is great and lot of American stuff like The Arcade Fire, but as far as Razorlight is concerned (hesitates) I like the Bloc Party record." Surprisingly Roddy is a fan of stoner rock especially AC/DC and the earlier Queens of the Stone Age records, which from listening to Warnings/Promises isn't clear, yet it's a topic he talks of at great length "Collectively we didn't want to play music like that, but we are capable of it...We do a lot of covers and jamming in our practice space. At the time last year when we were writing and recording the record, what we were interested in was kinda like vocal harmonies and a rootsy sound with acoustic guitars and that's just what Warnings/Promises is about. It was a year of our life and that's the kinda of sounds we wanted to make...It's not pigeon holed as the sound we will always make, but that's what a band is, they go through stages."

Another topic that Roddy talks of with great fondness is folk music, he speaks affectionately of Jackson C. Frank and a whole reel of other folk acts from 60's and 70's who I've never heard of or can decipher from his accent. His folk roots were something that he tried to deny growing up as can be seen on Hope is Important and 100 Broken Windows, yet on the last two records Idlewild have moved and matured into a band not dissimilar to REM. Their sound has become more rounded, more harmonious, maybe more suited for the stadium environment that they've recently been subjected to on recent tours with REM, U2 and Coldplay. It would be easy to assume that Idlewild have compromised their sound for popularity, however Roddy coolly denies these accusations "We're not a complicated band, we're not doing jazz chords as the song writing is like rock music. We do make very melodic music, but we certainly don't sit around tables thinking 'lets get this [record] as radio-friendly as possible', we want to make music like that...Obviously because the vocals are very clear and there's lots of harmonies, it does sound whatever you want to call it, radio friendly. "I suggest that they sound 'big', which Roddy counteracts angrily "No it's not big. It's not like Matchbox Twenty or something. That to me is really radio friendly. There's still a roughness to the way we approach song writing...You don't see much slickness in Warnings/Promises what with all the dirt between the songs."

"We write the songs and we put them out on records and we can't control anything beyond that, but some songs become what they mean to people. We just hope that they've made a connection." says Roddy as he explains how the song writing process operates in Idlewild and that no one aims to write songs hoping for an anthemic quality. Roddy explains that the cover to Warnings/Promises was cryptically "finding your own truth" and represented by a light shining beside a book, which could be the reason why Idlewild aren't more popular. In all probability the single buying public don't understand them or are put off by their intelligence, Roddy continues "Our songs are about things, but there not psuedo-intellectual or anything, they are rock songs." "Are they autobiographical?" I interject, he responds readily "Anything you do is going to be autobiographical, your interview will be autobiographical as you will put some of yourself into it. So, of course they are pretty self-intimate, but not about specific people. They are more kind of ideas about things rather than like 'she was my girlfriend, she was a bitch!' I've never really been interested in that kind of stuff...It's more suggestions about things I've thought that people can take onboard or ignore." The subtleties that lie within the band's lyrics could prove to be a stumbling block in their popularity as I discovered when talking about potential single Not just sometimes, but always "It's a song about the life cycle" stresses Roddy rather ambiguously.

Speaking of his home life Roddy is happy to discuss his love of art, particularly photography which his parents helped develop by building a dark room in their house, yet he reflects on his University days with a sense of melancholy. He dropped out in the second year of his Photography course due Idlewild's hectic tour schedule "You can't really go on tour and study, but I was happy to drop out to be honest...I didn't like being a student, I found it really like school. It was really depressing, it was like the guys at school who had gone and left home for the first time, they thought it was hilarious to puke in the sink. Luckily my course was full of a lot of older people and foreign students, which was quite interesting." He continues at length, identifying the problems he faced at university "I've never really been a student-pub kind of guy, even when I was there I was thinking I don't like this, there's something about this I don’t like." I suggest that this is part of growing up, causing Roddy to act and respond nervously "Yeah, well, erm, I think that is a generalisation because you can choose not to be part of that. I'm not saying I criticise people who do that, far from it and when you ask me about student life, I have to say I couldn't wait to get away from it."

After mixing Warnings/Promises in New York Roddy relocated to the Big Apple for eight months, the decision to move was fairly simple and was met with no ill-feeling by the rest of the band "We were in New York and I wanted to stay there for a while. Have you ever been to New York?" He asks, "I've never been." My reply is met by a shocked expression and suddenly he becomes a spokesman for New York tourism "It's just a great place, it's unlike any city in the world. It just brings you to life...The thing about New York is that it has elements of London in it, in it's own fashion, it's nicer to look at for a start, architecturally and the way it looks especially the Lower East side where I lived. It's hard to explain, obviously you've been to London then you have to go there and you could see it's so different. It sounds stupid me trying to explain it but it's one of these places you do need to go sometime in your life." Eventually the comforts of home won him over "But ultimately it's one of these cities that you can always go there and I found out that I was missing being surrounded by my friends, so I moved back to Scotland." Roddy compares the UK and USA with a sense of diplomacy "There are places in America that I definitely prefer to the UK, but then there's places in Scotland I infinitely prefer to America. I prefer New York to London, but I prefer the Scottish highlands to the whole of America."

"Everyone in New York is in a band. The area I lived in, everyone is a band or an artist or a writer, is a painter or works in the media. It's one of these places that's quite cool to live in for a while because you're constantly surrounded by creative people, but it can get a bit much as most of my friends in Scotland are school teachers or social workers." laughs Roddy as he describes the environment of New York. I suggest that to an outsider it seems very pretentious, "Not as pretentious as London" retorts Roddy "But I'm from Scotland and I didn't grow up in that environment so I can delve into it for one night and not be like that. I can kinda laugh at it almost...I've been to a few parties certainly where I've walked into and thought 'I'm getting out of there' because they're not the kind of people I want to be surrounded by." However, any air of conceitedness disperses when we discuss Idlewild's third place in the 'Best bands from Scotland ever' poll after Belle and Sebastian and perpetual Indie moaners Travis. "Just a bit of fun really, you can't put music in a competition. I love Belle and Sebastian anyway, I think they deserve it." I suggest that Travis are boring, Roddy agrees yet his diplomacy shines through once again "People like them, competitions are stupid and it's just fun right?"

Towards the end of the interview we talk about Live8 and Idlewild's absence from this event "We are one of these bands that exist on our own and we move at our own pace in our own world. All these new bands that are getting asked to do it are more on the radar and we're not on the radar." Roddy wasn't one of the three billion people believed to have watched Live8 as he doesn't own or watch TV. Surprised by this admission, conversation swiftly moves on and we discuss the merits of the music both on and off the radar with bands such as Wilco, Teenage Fanclub and Smog getting the Roddy Woomble seal of approval, but to add a hint of mystery he adds "There's loads of good stuff." Nonetheless more mainstream talents are met with a slight aversion and confusion by Roddy, as discovered when Allan Stewart (Guitar) and Gavin Fox (Bass) went to see Green Day "I can't offer an opinion because I've only heard that single that sounds like Nickleback!" Looking confused he starts to sing Boulevard of Broken Dreams to the tune of Wake Me Up When September Ends "It's an okay modern rock song but it's not that interesting."

As I leave with Grolsch in hand, Colin chases after me "Here, put your lager in this plastic cup before security confiscate it." Apparently fatherhood brings out the responsible side in someone, albeit alcohol related. About an hour later Idlewild appear on stage and play a storming set, effortlessly mixing old material with new thus elating just about everyone in Somerset House. From here it is easier to notice the transition that Idlewild has partaken, starting out as a shouty Scottish band with aspirations of breaking America to a melody driven five piece moving along at their pace. Idlewild have found their niche and will continue to develop and mature into one of the most respected bands around, maybe even knock Travis off the top of the Scottish music podium. Who knows. Where Warnings/Promises has been their Out Of Time, the next release could be their leap to the big time in the mould of their very own Automatic for the People. Where Warnings/Promises has been their Out Of Time, the next release could be their leap to the big time in the mould of their very own Automatic for the People.

Live Review: The Tears at Reading Festival - 27th August 2005

2005-09-03T21:38:00.000Z

Author: Kate Milner

The music is loud, the tent is packed and fans scream as they passionately surge towards their idol. It's like Suede at the height of their debut album fame. And then Babyshambles finish and it all starts to go wrong. Unlike everyone else here, we are here to see the Tears. We stood through the quite frankly disappointing Babyshambolic set (although I did enjoy their latest single "If You Were Shagging A Supermodel, You'd Be Famous Too") and then literally strolled to the barrier through a tent full of people rushing the opposite way. The Foo Fighters were about to start and the massive Second Stage suddenly looked very big indeed. And empty. This was not good.

Last time we saw the Tears, Bernard had pouted his way through the set because someone had thrown chewing gum at him, while Brett had repeatedly told the audience off for talking during the quiet bits. So we're assuming they are not the most tolerant band. And playing the headline slot on the Saturday to a literal four rows of people would probably not be on the agenda. Luckily, the tent starts to fill minutes before (well, minutes after) they're scheduled to come on. One suspects that their publicists ran around the campsite and VIP area offering free drugs and badges to anyone who came to the Second Stage NOW! When at last we can't see the back of the marquee, the stage darkens and the session musicians (well, they might as well be) come on. Followed by Bernard, barely acknowledging the audience (after all that trouble to get him one). Finally, when the screams of the Brett Anderson obsessive to my right become just too much, Brett strides on, looking ultracool in a black leather jacket and shades. Ah, and Bernard has one to match in tan. So much for hating each other - they've clearly been to Topman together sometime in the recent past.

The stage stays dark as Brett hugs his microphone. Informed by Brett Anderson Obsessive Woman (henceforth known as BAOW) that this was "Asylum", the band start slowly, backing Brett's minimalist vocals. Make no mistake, this was a show for the hardcore fans. Anyone else can sod off and watch the Foos. Oh wait, they have. From this intense beginning, they thankfully rip into "Lovers". Brett bounces around, Bernard does that head-shaking thing and there is much swaying and singing along. Everyone here appears to be Old Suede fans and approximately half of them know the Tears' songs. I suspect the Tears have made few new converts but the old diehard fans are still as diehard as ever (take a bow, BAOW). The next song, "Imperfection" threatens to send those diehard fans over the edge as they scream "I want you to play with my hair in the morning". Do they not realise that Brett isn't actually as sexy as he was 15 years ago? There's a reason he's not taking those shades off.

There's a poignant moment as Brett dedicates "The Ghost of You" to his recently deceased father. BAOW looks like she might cry. Darn it, so does Brett. The whole song drips with feeling and I'm given a stern look from Boy because he thinks I'm singing the wrong lyrics ("And it's hard to get by...from the Ghost of New Suede" - it's a "Head Music" thing). As it happens, I'm so moved by the whole thing that I'm not only singing the right words but even starting to well up a little. That might just be the dry ice stinging my eyes. Or the fact that it's so frigging cold I can see my breath (now that's not the dry ice). Throughout the gig, the security guards stand in a line, taking a breather after the Pete Doherty inspired frenzy and waiting for something to do. Around this point, some of them start to go home. Tears fans are quite happy to stand and just look at the pair of them doing their thing. Except when they play "Refugees" when...look! We have a Crowdsurfer! Probably just trying to get to the Main Stage...

During "Apollo 13", Brett succumbs to the screams of BAOW and jumps off the stage for a wander along the barrier. To the soundtrack of hundreds (well tens) of girls singing "I will FOLLOW you, FOLLOW you!" he walks around, seeming to care little about the fans reaching to stroke him. It's as if he's just done this too many times. Back up to the stage for a "Beautiful Pain" and then they're off. Bearing in mind what Brett said at the last gig - when he explained that the band are going to come back anyway, it's doesn't matter how much you shout - we don't overexert ourselves cheering. Imagine our surprise then when the roadies come on and the house lights - such as they are - come up. A set list (seized by BAOW wouldya believe it) reveals that they had a B-side, "Southern Rain" lined up as an encore but obviously chose not to use it.

This left a strange taste in the collective mouth. Was it our fault? Were we not a good audience? Or just not enough of us? There was a definite sense of going through the motions but with the Bernard 'n' Brett show, even the motions are entertaining enough. And the tension between them is still tangible. So often, bands reforming seems like a money-grabbing gimmick but with Anderson and Butler, you feel that they really care about it. So much so that playing to a half-empty tent upsets them enough to stop them coming back for an encore. Still, I'm glad they're back together. They compliment each other like cheese and pineapple - just not so interesting when you break them down into their constituent parts. It's just a pity that it doesn't seem to be making either of them, happy.

Album Review: Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft

2005-08-14T22:30:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

The sticker on the front of the lovely new SFA album has a few quotes on from various previous reviews ranging from 'Gorgeous' to 'Their most satisfying album to date', which is quite a big statement for a band on their seventh album in less than ten years. A lot of us will have grown up with the SFA, so if 'Fuzzy Logic' was the first night on the town whilst your parents were on holiday, this LP has to be a life defining stoned picnic on a beautiful summers day. No huge surprise that they roped in Sean O' Hagan from The High Llamas then, they are long time admirers of his ability to recreate the classic 'Pet Sounds' sound, this compliments the Furries sound incredibly well too.

'Love Kraft' opens with 'Zoom!', no not the Fat Larry's Band song, that was covered by The Boo Radley's years ago. No, SFA's 'Zoom!' is classic descending chord structures and Pink Floyd Fender Rhodes piano tinkles all the way, sounding absolutely gorgeous too. Hilarious lyrics in there too, classic SFA whimsy; 'Sold you a Dalmatian but the spots fell off, pooled them altogether as a hairy moth' - genius! 'Atomic Lust' carries on with a similar style to 'Zoom!' with a more psychedelic sound, not ones of the LP's stronger songs, but the night is young. 'The Horn' is absolutely gorgeous, a Dylanesque kind of waltz with plenty of 'la la la's'.

'Ohio Heat' is about as bright and breezy as it gets, like a kind of 'Love Street' re-written for the SFA sound. 'Lazer Beam' us the first single from the album, should have already hit the shops by the time you read this. This is without a doubt the albums most upbeat moment, features a kazoo and is classic SFA summer pop, a little like 'Play It Cool' or 'Golden Retreiver'. 'Oi Frango' is an instrumental which shuffles along brilliantly and really shows the High Llamas influence too with the Brazilian influences. 'Cabin Fever' finishes off an absolutely lovely LP, one which might slightly divide fans, there is little of the old skool wackiness of 'Radiator' or 'Guerilla', instead SFA have made a record that glides rather than soars and it sounds like it suits them. Bless their furry socks.

Classic Albums: The Beatles - Revolver

2005-08-01T23:50:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

When it came to picking which Beatles LP to review as a classic album, I was left in a bit of dilemma. Y'see, I was such a big Beatles fan between the ages of 12 and 14, that literally all I did between schooltime and bedtime was listen to The Beatles. I don't count the first five albums, as (in my personal opinion) all of them bar 'Hard Days Night' were pap. By the time I had reached 13 years of age, I had listened repeatedly to all of the Beatles LP's that mattered, and was patiently waiting for someone (Hi Dean!) to buy me 'Revolver' on tape.

The very first Beatles LP I had heard was 'Rubber Soul', the 1965 masterpiece where The Beatles simultaneously discovered acid and decided to pretend to be black soul men. Maybe they should have quit whilst they were ahead. 'Revolver' was released less than one year after 'Rubber Soul', so you'd think that it would be roughly the same (lets face it, they hadn't exactly broken any boundaries with the progression through their previous LP's). Well, you would be wrong. And here is how wrong;

Taxman: I have to admit that although I am not a huge fan of this Harrison ditty about being robbed of his dough, it does make a BRILLIANT opening for an LP, and also gave Weller a number one hit 14 years later with 'Start'. The cheeky blighter...

Eleanor Rigby: I'm sure that some people would cuss me for this, but this is just f*cking dreadful to me, McCartney in a thankfully rarely to be repeated moment of drivelling misery with awful string quartet backing. Nice idea, but no.

I'm Only Sleeping: A Lennon song. I'm not such a big fan of Lennon as a general rule, but he really does save this LP with his tracks, as McCartney was obviously suffering from, as my friend Max would say; 'Too many bongs and not enough burgers'. This track is just superb, we have backwards guitars, Lennon as his wistful best... (loving the yaaaawn 2.01 into the track) and some really, really nice harmonies, some of which we will hear later again on the LP. Thanks for this John, we won't mention 'The Ballad Of John & Yoko' in this blog, promise.

Love You Too: Oh my good gawd. Harrison let loose on the sitar was never going to be a good idea. It kind of works later in their career, but this just sounds up it's own arse to be honest. If anyone reading this can enlighten me as to why we got this track on the album, can they drop me a mail and let me know.

Here, There and Everywhere: McCartney comes good, with a pretty little song about a loved one. Actually reminds me of "Rubber Soul" in spirit, or even something like; "If I Fell" off 'Hard Days Night'. Nice one Paul, this is one of the LPs brighter moments, and makes it all the more interesting for it. Nice fingerclicks too.

Yellow Submarine: I don't really want to talk about this, it's just too upsetting for words.

She Said, She Said: This is just brilliant, like really nice summer psychedelia about a girl who is doing Johns head in. Nice organ drones triggering off the wah wah guitar too.

Good Day Sunshine: This song opens Side Two, and is one of those summer feelgood songs from McCartney. Great piano build up intro too.

Any Your Bird Can Sing: A bit like a more upbeat take on "She Said", but much more uplifting. This is probably one of the last songs of this vain that the band put out, and this was also covered by The Jam.

For No One: McCartney was to extend the theme of female loneliness on "Sgt. Peppers", but not before penning this little ditty. It's OK, but when one of the highlights is the French Horn solo you know it's time to move on.

Dr. Robert: Lennon back on the mic here with a sped up version of "Taxman". It's got B-side written all over it to be honest. One of my old friends DJs under the name 'Dr. Robert' but he also wears desert boots so we'll leave it at that.

I Want To Tell You: I like this one. I'm not sure who wrote it, but I think it might have been George. You can hear practically hear Syd and the boys squatting outside the door picking up tips on psych vocal fade outs.

Got To Get You Into My Life: Nice bit of Stax rip off from Paul, the only saving grace he has is that he has a good song to pull it off. Nice ending too.

Tomorrow Never Knows: The real genius of Revolver lies behinf this track. This track still sounds modern today, as exemplified by The Chemical Brothers when they re-wrote it as 'Setting Sun'. A great end to a middling, yet somehow classic status LP.

There are some good tracks on this LP, it just baffles me how it gets classic status though, as "The White Album" and "Rubber Soul" just seem so much more interesting to me. One for the wish list rather than a cash purchase then.

Live Review: Soulwax at London Wireless Festival - Thursday 30th June 2005

2005-07-31T23:03:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

Surprisingly, I had never actually seen Soulwax live before this gig, but had followed them around when they started out as 2manydjs, their dj side project which focused on mashing up electro, pop music and the odd bit of rock to dancefloor tearing effect. Soulwax were third down bill to Babyshambles and Kasabian at the final leg of the four day wireless festival and to be honest, with no disrespect to the organisers, the atmosphere when I arrived at about 6pm was pretty dead. However, huge tense rainclouds hovering over Hyde Park may well have been a factor, more about them later. I had been lucky enough to score some free tickets for this gig, so after meeting my friend and getting some drinks, it was just a case of waiting for Soulwax to come on at 6.30pm. Originally, I had got confused and thought that they were playing in the smaller xfm tent, but they actually were out on the outdoor main stage which was much better for a band with a sound as immense as Soulwax's.

They opened up with 'E Talking' and I couldn't resist getting down the front, as where it wasn't very busy the only people dancing were at the front. Soulwax looked great onstage, better than I imagined in fact. The first track was broken up with 'Rocker' by Alter Ego and it sounded AMAZING. 'Miserable Girl' followed and kept the crowd dancing, it was getting quite a lot busier by now as it became obvious that a lot of people must have decided to come down late. Text from my friends; 'BDD, we're in the Ladytron tent'. Oh well, would have been nice to see them as well, but Soulwax have got SO many anthems, I can't possibly leave now.

'Conversation Intercom' followed, we got all the other singles off the first LP too, 'Too Many DJ's' was cut into Daft Punk's 'Robot Rock' and then of course we got 'NY Excuse' at the end cut into Lipps Inc. I couldn't recommend seeing Soulwax enough, if you are a fan of the band, they give it their all live and their ability as DJ's really shines through too. Excellent stuff.

Classic Albums: Blur - Parklife

2005-07-31T13:14:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

For those of you who don't remember, April 1994 was a total musical wasteground. In all honesty, it had been coming for some time, the number of truly great new bands that had started up in that decade had so far only amounted to Suede, Manic Street Preachers, Saint Etienne, The Charlatans and Blur. All of these were British, as the american explosion of grunge had actually been carried over from the 80's, and other leaders of the indie scene like Pulp, Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine had all been around long enough to have legally driven a sinclair C5.

Blurs output in the early 90's had gone pretty much from fair to middling; 'Leisure' was their 1991 debut LP, whose most redeeming feature was probably the cover artwork and 1993's 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' had some great tracks on it, the anthemic 'Sunday, Sunday' and 'For Tomorrow' both being GREAT singles, but as an LP it was hardly going to set the world alight.

I think there was only about a month or so between the suicide of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and the release of 'Parklife' and I think that musically, and indeed socially, Blurs third LP marked a new beginning and a very exciting feeling as that summer began - the entire feel of the UK indie scene felt like it had been given a massive lift. There were a few other bands doing fairly well at the time, Elastica, Gene, Shed 7 and These Animal Men were making pretty heavy impressions on the 15 and 16 year olds at the time, but it was Blur, a little like Franz Ferdinand today, who stood out from the pack, with the unusual combination of songs, style, variety, intelligence and fun in pretty much everything they did.

The LP opens with 'Girls & Boys', which managed to unite clubbers, gays, indie kids, house heads, even a few die hard new romantics together, with their tongue-in-cheek ode to UK holidaymakers. The track still stands up very well today, when Erol played it out at one of the early Bodyrockers in 2002, it got as big a cheer as Miss Kitten, Dave Clarke, Moreplay and all the rest for sure. The band asked Pet Shop Boys to remix the track, which was a massively unusual thing for an indie band to do back then, with Ride and the like remaining firmly stuck in their wooly jumpers and Byrds LP's type vibe. 'Tracy Jacks' opens with one of Grahams 'Who' like power chords and has some really nice vocal harmonies as well. 'End Of The Century' is probably (in my opinion) one of the best songs of the 90's and was also the final single to be released of the LP. The song used to close Blur's live gigs at the time and has a really euphoric 'end of night' sort of vibe to it. 'Parklife', the title track features 'Quadrophenia's Phil Daniel with a running commentary on his fantasy day to day life. The whole LP has a very British theme to it, as shown on 'Bank Holiday', a one minute forty second punk type song dedicated to the UK bank holidays. "Bank holiday comes six times a year, Days of enjoyment to which everyone cheers, Bank holiday comes with a six pack of beer...then its back to work a.g.a.i.n."

'Badhead' is a beautiful song with Damon singing about the sadness of losing contact with friends and how people drift apart. There are some nice Roland horns on the chorus too, as Blur had clearly pushed themselves forward since 'Modern Life...'. Better production too. 'The Debt Collector' is an instrumental ditty, with a fairground/circus sort of vibe to it. 'Far Out' is a very short, dreamy Alex composition, and he sings on it too. To say that this track owes a lot to Pink Floyds Syd Barrett would be something of an understatement.

Side two kicks off with the lovely 'To The End', which is a kitsch, retro song with backing vocals sung on French by Laetitia Sadier. This was also a single off the LP, although a rather unusual single choice I think. 'London Loves' is London life through Damons eyes; "London loves - The way people just fall apart, London loves - The way you just don't stand a chance, London loves - The mystery of a speeding car". 'Trouble In The Message Centre' is the band back in XTC post punk mode, and this track is another conceptual story of being a manager in a mediocre environment. 'Clover Over Dover' is another lovely gentle song with some beautiful lyrics; "If that is the fact, Then in actual fact, I'm not where it's at and it's over." 'Magic America' is a track dedicated to America, presumably based on Blurs ill fated 1993 tour over there, which is where a lot of the ideas for 'Parklife' were spawned. 'Jubilee' is a track that I think should have been a single. Bizarrely, they did in fact perform the track live in 'Top Of The Pops' at the time, but was not released as a single. It tells a story of a teenage outcast unable to deal with day to day socialising. 'This Is A Low' is the LP's final proper track, and is by far the most beautiful in the LP. An ode to British life, it has some lovely guitar work and nice hammond in the chorus. The LP ends with 'Lot 105', a cheeky little ditty in a Blackpool pier stylee.

In short, no review could do this LP justice and mine has definitely not done so. No LP since 'Parklife' has had such a HUGE impact on the way that a generation thinks, the music they listen to, the clothes they wear, to date Blur remain completely untouched.

Live Review: Wireless Festival at London Hyde Park - Saturday 25th June 2005

2005-06-28T20:38:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

There really wasn't a lot of competition for me line up wise between the four dates that wireless had announced. The Saturday one that I am about to review boasted a line up including Death In Vegas, MIA, Mylo, Basement Jaxx, LCD Soundsystem, Roots Manuva, Vitalic and erm, The Mitchell Brothers. Just to get it into perspective, the other three dates were headlined by New Order, Keane and Kasabian respectively. I guess they were trying to cater for all tastes?

Once inside Hyde Park it became VERY apparent that a lot of people were just there to see Basement Jaxx and have a few beers despite the other bands that were playing rather than because of them, but I was on a mission to see Vitalic. So, a quick beer stop involving me asking for a pint and being given two small bottles of Carlsberg for six quid and I scuttled into thelittle xfm tent to catch the last of a band called Gram Rabbit, who had a very enthusiastic middle aged bearded keyboard player and a small army of fans (mainly Japanese) at the front, dressed in, yep, bunny ears. It was pretty cool actually, and about a BILLION times more interesting than The Mitchell Brothers over on the main stage. 'Ere mush, it's that geezer outThe Streets innit, come dahn man'. Yeh, like really.

Vitalic was onstage getting applauded even while he was soundchecking. There were obviously quite a few people who (like me) were really excited about hearing 'OK Cowboy' played out live. I first wigged out to Vitalic a few years ago now when a lot of DJ's on the electro scene were thrashing out 'La Rock' to riotous reactions, so it was good to see the fella put anLP out and then it getting a lot of good press. Vitalic is not an egotistical man though, he looked very modest whilst playing a mix of electro, appegiated synth lines, downright groundbreaking beats and neo industrial techno. The atmosphere was electric and it was probably one of the first gigs I have been to where I have been like; 'Feck, is that the end?' when he finished a 35 minute set.

To be honest, I wasn't really in the mood for Death In Vegas who, lets get real, haven't put out a good tune since 'Dirge' and that was only good cos of Dot Allison's vocals, so I skipped over to get some beers to caine before LCD Soundsystem and watch a bit of Lady Sovereign whilst waiting. I'm sure that the ironic chav thing was wasted there though, so I went to get some sweets and managed to find some liquorice buttons in exact BDD colours, which was pretty cool!

LCD Soundsystem came on to a pretty small audience, mainly due to the fact that a lot of people had squeezed into the Mylo tent early. They played a brilliant set, playing a sped up version of 'Daft Punk Is Playing In My House', James banging two tambourines hypnotically into a microphone, an ecstatic 'Disco Infiltrator' (big cheers all round) and then changing the words of'Losing My Edge', (I'm losing my edge, to Mylo..). LCD work really well as a live act, James often going over and doing a bit of random drumming, the set ended with a long climatic version of 'Yeah' and then they were off. Destined for bigger and better things eventually, I'm sure.

By the time we got to the Mylo tent it was already completely rammed, even though he wasn't on for another 40 minutes, so we queued patiently. And then not so patiently, and then we just lifted up the side of the tent and stormed in anyway, genius! Mylo was on within 5 minutes, the intro to 'Destroy Rock n Roll' belting out of the totally inadequate soundsystem. It was finewhen we were watching Vitalic down the front but squeezed at the back forMylo, the sound was REALLY crap. Managed to get towards the front in timefor 'Drop The Pressure', which is without a doubt his standout track, theatmosphere was wicked.

Basement Jaxx arrived on at 9.00pm and I was really looking forward tothem, even though the last LP was pants, Basement Jaxx had been one of my'moving to London' type bands around the time of 'Jump n Shout' etc comingout, so I was really psyched out about seeing them. It seems like I shouldhave made the effort back then though to be honest, the tracks mainly hada self indulgent kinda feel to them live, the cover of Kylie was just insulting, and middle aged blokes standing around doing lines of coke is not my idea of a good time. There were still some great moments though, 'Do Your Thang' is the most infectious slice of disco house you can imagine, 'Red Alert' still sounded funky as hell, and 'Jump n Shout' still made me grin.

So, the overall experience? Good. Still, glad I managed to blag FREE tickets for the Babyshambles wireless date this Thursday, let's put it like that.

Live Review: Hard-Fi at London Wireless Festival - Friday 24th June 2005

2005-06-28T08:41:00.000Z

Author: Claire Mackie

Hyde Park's Friday was an all-round mixed-bag. Characteristically wet, but just not as muddy as some other British summer festivals, the day offered a concoction of the unique and unconventional vs. the predictable and generic bands of the British music industry. Most notably, Hard-fi's performance was a highlight, excelling against other acts of the day. This predominantly owed to the bands ability to get the crowd going with an effective melting pot of dance, indie, electronica, punk, reggae, soul, and even jazz to make a poppy sound which seemed to embrace the whole of the audience packed into the buzzing tent.

These proud Staines lads did it all. They undoubtedly entertained but also seemed to deliver a message about the reality of life in working-class West London, punching their on-lookers with 'Does anyone 'ere 'av a sh*t job, I said does anyone 'ere have a shit job?' 'This song's for you.' Crowd-pleasing tracks included the The White Stripes 'Seven Nation Army' cover which differed from the original due to its eerily thuggish edge and their single 'Hard to beat' which seemed to please the street-chic expectations of punters. Whether the boys will follow in the footsteps of their evergreen street-savvy predecessors such as The Stone Roses or The Happy Mondays remains to be seen. What was clear however, was that their songs were enjoyed, their gritty message just may have been heard, and requests for a reprise filled the space as they made way for the next act, which made their performance in fact very hard to beat.

Classic Albums: ABC - The Lexicon Of Love

2005-05-01T17:17:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

The funny thing about the most classic albums is that they very often turn out to be by the most unlikely of bands. Take The Lexicon Of Love for example. Who would have thought that one of the most perfect pop albums of the 80s, and in fact beyond, would have come from a Sheffield quintet whose lead singer had a Bryan Ferry fixation, used to edit a fanzine called Modern Drugs and was partial to wearing gold lame suits?

That's exactly what the Yorkshire synth pioneers ABC did though, enlisting the talents of a pre-ZTT Records Trevor Horn, whose only claim to fame at this point was having been one half of The Buggles (whose one and only hit Video Killed The Radio went to number one in the charts) and having briefly thrown his lot in with prog rockers Yes. This was a collaboration that was to make both of their careers.

Preceded by three hit singles, Tears Are Not Enough, Poison Arrow and The Look Of Love, the album was released in June 1982 and crashed into the charts at number one, eventually hanging around for some fifty weeks. For a band that just nine months earlier were virtually unknown outside of their native Sheffield, this was quite an achievement, and one that wouldn't be repeated with subsequent releases. However, with an album as strong as Lexicon, and a pop legacy that endures to this day I don't suppose they're too upset. Duran Duran may have been the MTV darlings of the 80s, but very few albums still sound as fresh and relevant today as Lexicon, so let's take a closer look.

From the outset this album wears its' heart on its' sleeve, opening with a gradually building orchestral fanfare that gives way to the power funk of Show Me, giving us our first taste of bassist Mark Lickley's smooth, hypnotic style, and laying the foundation for much of the album. Understated, yet such a vital part of the ABC sound, this is a masterclass in how the bass can lift a song by being omnipresent yet never actually in your face. Pure genius. Show Me shows us exactly where this album is going, all big choruses, plinky-plonky synths and Martin Fry's cynical and incisive observations on love and relationships. Happy music, but very bitter lyrics and what a potent combination it is.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Poison Arrow. "Shoot that poison arrow through my heart" - ouch! This was the song that catapulted ABC into the public's consciousness, with a sing-a-long chorus that just wouldn't leave your head and a bassline so funky that you couldn't help but tap your foot. The real genius of this song, though, is the breakdown in the middle that takes us from this fluffy pop song into a discordant middle eight with Martin revealing to his girl "I thought you loved me, but it seems you don't care" to which she replies "I care enough to know I can never love you" - again, ouch! You feel for the guy, you really do.

Many Happy Returns continues the albums cinematic soundscape, the opening sounding like the intro to some cheesy 80s soap opera, which in many ways it was. More busy bass work drives along a clever lyric from Fry which somehow manages to rhyme "axis" with "fascist" and get away with it. Towards the end of this track, Fry really lets rip and you can hear the venom in his voice, and the evidence that he really could sing.

First single Tears Are Not Enough follows, sounding musically like an outtake from a James Brown album, but with Fry's falsetto getting its' first airing on the album. The production on this track (particularly on the remastered version) is superb, with each instrument occupying its' own little space, distinctly separate, but meshing together as a whole beautifully.

By the time we get to Valentine's Day, it's becoming obvious that ABC have found a formula and are sticking to it. However, far from being a problem, this gives the album a wonderful sense of continuity. Whereas on some albums the change from one song to the next can be quite jarring, here it is a smooth as Fry's voice, taking us by the hand and leading us through their funky-dancey tales of heartbreak and cynicism. The song builds to a bitter crescendo that rounds off what was back in 1982 the end of the first side of the album.

Side two (as was) kicks of with The Look Of Love (Part One), the second of three songs that will be forever
associated with 1982s pop sounds. If Motown had been invented in the 80s rather than the 60s, this is what it would sound like. In fact Fry went on to honour his obvious influence on this album a few years later with the superb When Smokey Sings, and you can imagine Mr Robinson crooning this track. The spoken bit in the middle also breaks the audio equivalent of cinema's fourth wall, with Fry referencing himself. Effective stuff.

Date Stamp is up next, with its' ringing cash registers faintly reminiscent of Pink Floyd's Money. This is a classy bass-driven song with Fry trading lines with a breathy, dreamy female singer, again giving us the happy upbeat tune with a cynical "love has no guarantee" message.

This brings us to the album's jewel in its' crown. All Of My Heart is quite possibly the best ballad ever written, giving us heartfelt lyrics sung with an emotion-filled voice, while managing to remain firmly on the right side of cheesy and trite. Strings accompany Fry's woeful tale of a friendship ruined by romance. This is the song that those of a certain age will always remember as the soundtrack to those school disco last dances where you could never quite get up the courage to ask that girl that you fancied to dance. Duran's Save A Prayer may be the best remembered ballad of the early 80s, but All Of My Heart was shot through with ten times the passion, ten times the heartache and ten times the regret. A Classic. Period.

Just as we're getting all dewey eyed, 4 Ever 2 Gether crashes out of the speakers with the album's conclusion that it might just be possible to find that romance that Fry has spent the rest of the album decrying, but you wouldn't bet your shirt on it. Hoping for the best but expecting the worst seems to be the order of the day as the song fades and we get a brief orchestral reprise of The Look Of Love to round off the album.

So, the Lexicon of Love - triple word score or rack full of vowels? Definitely the former, and one of the finest examples of a pop album that you're ever likely to come across. The fact that it regularly crops up in the myriad of "Top 100" album lists is testament to its' staying power. This is an album that deserves to be in your collection..

Live Review: Love at London Rocket - 27th March 2005

2005-04-20T19:01:00.000Z

Author: Karl Coppack

Just imagine that Mark Chapman hadn't gunned down John Lennon in December 1980. John might have returned safely home to the Dakota Building and phoned Paul up. "Paul," he might have said. "Ten years is too long. It's time to get the boys back together and into a studio. Oh, and Merry Christmas." Equally, in the seventies John Cleese might have decided to get back in touch with Connie Booth and agreed that rather than stop at twelve episodes of Fawlty Towers they should push on to a century or so.

Would you be happy with either of these scenarios? Of course, you might be curious. Who wouldn't enjoy the anticipation of a new Beatles album? However, if you have a nagging doubt about the possibility it might be due to worry that they might be really bad. They might taint their previous work and be pained by re-appraisals. No, there is a natural end to things. I never saw the Beatles live and I've now got the chance of meeting only half of them but, as Uncle Monty says, there can be no beauty without decay.

Certain things should be left where they are. Do you remember the Velvet Underground get together in 1993? Now I absolutely adore VU so I duly scurried along to the Wembley gig with Whistling Al McKenzie, whose pithy words you can read within these pages. I can now proudly tell my kids that I've seen Lou Reed sing Venus In Furs in the flesh. They wouldn't enjoy the story though, as I would tell them that it was one of the biggest anti-climaxes since Let It Be. I sat in the audience and tried to feel overawed but as Lou missed lines out and hurriedly tried to include them into the next line I could tell that the snake should have been forever slain rather than merely scotched. Leave it alone and its memory can't be tainted.

This brings me to the Love gig at the Le Beat festival over Easter 2005. I've seen them earlier at the Forum and knew two things that would affect tonight's performance. One, Arthur likes to put a show on so don't think about getting the last tube home and, two, expect a lot of guitar solos. The first proclamation is realised, as they don't take to the stage until gone eleven. Arthur has to fight his way through numerous guitarists including Rusty Squeezebox and Johnny Echols, who's making his comeback. Arthur grins at the crowd from behind his dark glasses, looking not unlike Hendrix's uncle and sets about us. He nods around the crowd and delivers the opening notes of "Alone Again Or." Johnny gives him a hand and we're all in. Singalongs are sadly lacking from gigs these days but as the crowd is nearer my age than the average of an NME reader I'm more than happy that this is the case.

The second song reveals one of the more sorrowful affairs about reuniting bands - the need to do a blues rockout for no reason within the middle of a perfectly good song. In this case we're "treated" to a painful succession of guitar solos which are showy rather than necessary. I find my eyes becoming less bright and shoulders are slumping quicker than Viv Nicholson's bank balance. I nod appreciatively but I'm waiting for the next song. Nearby, some anal cock tells Buttoned Down Rachel to "smile" and attempts to charm her by "being whacky." I can't enjoy any gig where there is someone near me who has an IQ score similar to the alcohol volume of his glass so it's an unhappy couple of minutes. Hmm... Less cocks, more favourites please Art.

It's a challenge he's more than up to. "A House Is Not A Motel" roars from the speakers and I marvel that two men in their sixties can make music like that. From then on we run through the majority of Forever Changes and the odd slice of gold such as My Little Red Book and Wonder People. In between songs Arthur talks extensively to the crowd. He is witty, he is sublime and we can't hear a single word he is saying. Not a solitary slovo. There's some new material too. "Everybody's Got To Live" segues into Instant Karma and the better Flesh Against My Skin (I think it's called) sears those in the front rows. Say what you like about Love - they can bloody play. After the tedious business of introducing the band (tedious but forgivable so we can marvel at Echols again) they're off into the night. I'm left standing, hoping against hope that they do Seven And Seven Is for an encore. They return with it and send me home happy.

Complaints? Well, I would have liked to hear the beautiful Andmoreagain, which demonstrates Arthur's adaptable vocal range, but this is a petty thing. If you haven't bought Forever Changes or Da Capo then I'm deeply jealous of you, as you've got a fascinating new experience to look forward to. Vive Le Beat!.

Music Feature: Exquisite by Karl Coppack

2005-04-14T00:12:00.000Z

Author: Karl Coppack

I wonder if you've ever sat down and thought about why you like certain things. Why you listen to certain types of music, watch films, eat certain foods as opposed to others, why you choose to imbibe or take powders and resins? The obvious answer would be that you are unique and certain things appeal and others don't. You follow your tastes and ignore others. Thomas Hobbes simplified this, unusually for a philosopher, when he said that we are geared towards pleasure and avoid pain. This has been giving me pause of late. I, like you, prefer to listen to my own music and as my age marches on without me I find myself unable to listen to the unfamiliar. Why? Because I know what I like and I haven't got time to think about "things that I may like." Well, that and I'm a miserable old scrote.

Some of my closest friends love Primal Scream. Good honest people who stand their rounds and have sensible opinions on Eamon Holmes. They have shook Screamadelica in my face and implored me to open my ears. I won't have it. Why not? Because it's "dance". My door is closed to that. It's just the way I am. Let's get this down to cases. My friend Whistling Al McKenzie, who infests these pages with his pithy take on modern life, tends to speak nothing but sense. He's addicted to it. I turn to him when I seek sage. We have an understanding on certain matters, as we've known each other since the egg. At the age of sixteen he lent me the first Velvet Underground album on cassette. I can picture it now. A red Polydor tape in a clunky box. He told me that this was the sort of album that would make me sit up and pay attention. To be honest he was probably just trying to get me away from my Style Council records but I trusted his words and took the tape home.

I was dumbstruck by what I found. The sheer, sheer, sheer beauty of Sunday Morning, the rambling twelve bar of Waiting For My Man, the sleaze of Run Run Run, the mystery of All Tomorrow's Parties, the pain of Heroin and the haunted voice of Nico from atop an isolated tower somewhere in Narnia. I was shocked to the core, to the blood of my blood. Something wanted to get into my marrow and I let it sweep through my hall. That, THAT, is an album. What was Al's response when I saw him the next day? He was disappointed in me. Disappointed that I hadn't come to college wearing wrap around sunglasses and leather trousers.

My laboured point is this. We were seventeen in 1986 when this took place. I'm now staring at my thirty seventh birthday and still love that album but were Al to scream at me to buy another album of the sort I would take my time and begrudgingly get around to listening to it, probably considering it to be "an Al album" that lives outside the Venn diagram of our tastes. Can or Trout Mask Replica, for example. I'm now at the age where I understand me a lot better. I don't need further moulding and have long gone past the stage where I run into the groove of a certain genre. I'm happy with my own rut. So what do I do? I buy re-issues or the entire back catalogue of a band that fits my psychological profile. For example, a few years ago I went to the Fleadh festival to see Neil Young. I marched around the tents to get out of the rain and chanced upon Teenage Fanclub. I was awestruck. The Smiths meet the Beach Boys so therefore very much me. In less than three weeks I bought every album. My CD collection increases by the week but my tastes haven't. Is that a sad blinkered viewpoint or just basic honesty? Maybe both. Nevertheless I'm happy with what I've got.

Do you know what ecstasy means? Let me tell you in a condescending manner. It's a Greek word that means "standing outside of yourself". The idea being that something is so fantastic that it can lift you out of yourself and take you to places where things make sense or the opposite. Certain parts of songs do that for me. You've got your own lists but this is my article not yours so I'll go for;

Lonesome Tonight - New Order - the gasp at the end
The solo from In My Life
Rock and Roll Suicide - Bowie - YOU'RE NOT ALONE!
The opening of the Pixies "Where Is My Mind"
Walk On The Wild Side's "alright!"
The intro to Love's Old Man, especially when the bass drops in.
The middle eight of Joy Transmission - "People like you find it eaaaaasy."
The bit in Seven Nation Army where he plays the riff and octave higher.
The "yeah" before the solo in Cinnamon Girl.
The intro of The Chills' Rolling Moon
Ooh Child by the Five Stairsteps
The middle eight of Pure Shores
Deep Forbidden Lake by Neil Young
Nimrod from the Elgar Variations
The backing vocals of Fool To Cry
The refrain of Atomic.

Sometimes you don't need the whole song, just a bit which makes your heart leap and you stand outside yourself. That is the mark of music's capability. They're mine. I suggest you find your own. Oh, and buy that Velvets album. Your future mightn't let you.

Album Review: Fischerspooner - Odyssey

2005-03-19T09:25:00.001Z

Author: Dollyrocker

Before I start this review, I had better warn you that my views on Fischerspooner are probably quite different from most other peoples, especially reviewers and snotty nosed indie kids. But I have a copy of their new LP and know the truth. THIS, is the most exciting LP that will be released this year, and I'm gonna tell you why. First though, let's travel back into the dark depths of time, to say, ooh, 2002.

I could have some facts slightly wrong here regarding dates and figures, but Fischerspooner recorded their self titled debut LP in about 1999 or 2000. In 2001, they signed a deal with Ministry Of Sound and got a heap of cash that they promptly spent on stage costumes and wigs. Around the same kinda time, Electroclash was kicking off and DJ Hell, Erol and Larry Tee and all that lot would have been treating unsuspecting clubbers to their 'would-have-been-should-have-been' a smash; 'Emerge'. Which is roughly where I came in. I can't remember where I first heard 'Emerge' although I think it might have just been at home when I got one of the original release singles on Hell's 'Gigolo' label. At the time, the music press were falling over themselves over the band, calling 'Emerge' the next step from Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' and New Order's 'Blue Monday'. All that was lies though, Fischerspooner were MUCH better than that. But, like all the best things in life, they weren't built to last. I think the whole thing climaxed in June 2002 with a show at The Bridge, a pretty big space in one of the arches under London Bridge. Now THIS is where it got mindblowing. Fisherspooner never wanted to be normal stars, they wanted to be REMEMBERED stars. The show they put on that night was out of this world, with glitter cannons, a wind machine, fake starts on 'Emerge', cross dressing dancers, it genuinely makes the hair stand up on my arms thinking about it. Like other things that weren't built to last, Pink Floyd at The Roundhouse in '66, Menswe@r at Madame Jo-Jo's in '95 etc, everyone in the building was totally blown away, no matter what they try and tell you in retrospect. Fischerspooner didn't sell many records, it wasn't a great album and people were still getting over The White Stripes (spit on the floor) and apart from an appearance with Kylie on TOTP dueting on her single; 'Come Into My World', they were soon to dissapear (almost) without trace. Oh, and they suffered breakdowns, nervous exhaustion, a lack of direction, debt and then got dropped by their label. It didn't personally matter to me, I had danced my arse off at their show, thrashed the LP to death and was given more joy in those short few months than most bands could give me in ten years and that they had the passion, creativity and most importantly, humour to survive. File alongside KLF and see what happens.

Soooo. Fischerspooner back in 2005 anyone? It's been a funny couple of years since they vanished, electroclash as it was known is deaddeaddead, and instead we have The Others and The Rakes. LCD Soundsystem are the saviours of dance music and Soulwax had a couple of good tracks on their new LP. Daft Punk release their most middling work to date and we have new acts doing very well like The Killers, The Bravery and Arctic Monkeys. Jesus, we REALLY need Fischerspooner back, you just don't know it yet.

Their new LP is called Odyssey. I think it's out in a couple of weeks, you'll have to check their site. HMV won't be heavily promoting this album and Fisherspooner aren't planning to come to the UK this year at the moment. So, we're stuck with the LP at home and in the clubs, there are worse places to be. The first track is also the first single to be released off the LP and is called 'Just Let Go', a pulsating bass driven stomper that is sure to set many dancefloors alight across the world and REALLY should be a smash hit too. Course it won't be though, not in this country anyway, not beery enough, too exciting...

So let's have a flick through the LP then, 'Cloud' has Casey in dreamy mode alongside a hypnotic beat and lovely sawtooth synths. Think Soft Cell, think Human League, think STYLE dammit! 'Never Win' is quite a departure from their last LP, the whole affair is less dark, more poppy, it really suits them too. Although it isn't really dancefloor, my fave track on the LP at the moment is 'A Kick In The Teeth' which combines beautiful harmonies, optimistic lyrics and excellent melody. It's like a weird cousin (in spirit) to 'Wuthering Heights' by Kate Bush. But with synths and beats. 'We Need A War' pops a few digs at his home country (USA), and bounces along nicely. 'Happy' would make a good single, although whether EMI will grant the band more than one chance at a smash hit remains to be seen. The LP's closer; 'Circle (Visions Creation New Sun) is awesome. Like, Edgar Froese playing the hits of King Crimson. Or not.

Whatever. This LP is mindglowing. Bring it into your world.

Album Review: Daft Punk - Human After All

2005-03-19T08:10:00.000Z

Author: Peter Muscutt

Daft Punk are a curious bunch, never letting their faces be seen in public or in magazine articles (save for a black and white photo on their debut album in 1996). Instead, they have adopted the ploy of dressing up like a cross between sci-fi astronauts and robots. It's ironic then, that their third 'proper' album (i.e. not counting live albums and remix projects) in nine years - great hit rate there, is titled Human After All. The album feels like a cross breed of the previous two albums, the funky house of 1996's debut Homework, blessed with the more digital and futuristic sounding Discovery from 2000. Human vocals are a definite no-no on the album, as are conventional sounding instruments, although the album does have a definite bent towards using the guitar, as is proudly stated on the album sleeve - 'all guitars by Daft Punk' - well done! Although the album has received a very mixed reception, it's true to say this is far from Daft Punk's best work, but at the same time, it's far from their worst (that honour has to go, at least in part, to their involvement on some of the woeful remixes on the Daft Club remixes CD released in 2003). Opening track Human After All sounds like a potential single, opening the album with a crisp beat (reminiscent of the intro from Electric Light Orchestra's Don't Bring Me Down) and the synthesised guitar riffs that signal that this IS a Daft Punk recording - it just sounds like them, which is an enviable position for any band to be in, having carved out their own niche. Although the track is undeniably repetitive, with the repeated refrain of 'we are human after all', but it never jars or grates. The Prime Time Of Your Life, while opening with a moody, synthesised riff and vocodered vocal, descends into the mire of 'not really knowing how to end a track' and falls victim to the trick of speeding a song up until it ends. Depending on your opinion, this is either genius or not, but it doesn't stand well with the rest of the track, and feels like a bit of a cop out.

First single Robot Rock is a fairly standard chunk of what Daft Punk do best, an infectious disco-funk riff (that once you've heard, will stick in your head for days!) that again, doesn't get on the nerves even though it sounds like they've recorded the main riff once, left the keyboards playing, and occasionally battered the 'drum fill' button. Steam Machine marks the first real point where the album falters - a rather irritating and forgettable melody, with a whispered vocal implying the title of the track over and over. This shaky track however is redeemed somewhat by the laidback groove of Make Love (not a cover the Oliver Cheatham track...) a relaxed affair with elegantly twanging guitars and a subtle rhythm. If ever a song was crying out for a vocal track, however, it's this one - some lyrics would have improved this cut no end (it's perhaps worth mentioning that for those agreeing with this statement, there is a bootleg mix floating around on the internet featuring long-forgotten bad boy Mark Morrison's Return Of The Mack shoehorned over it). Sadly, Make Love is the filling of a rather bland sandwich, as the dire The Brainwasher assaults the ears. With perhaps the most annoying vocal ever committed to tape by the group (think a mad uncle trying to be scary and a Dalek and you're not far off) twinned with a rolling, predictable techno backing, and it doesn't really enthral. A brief television-themed interlude follows with On/Off, with the duo flicking through the channels, before returning to work with Television Rules The Nation - a rather dark sounding diatribe against the power of television. Although it's a long way from stone cold classics like Around The World and One More Time, it's a more rock-infused track featuring that guitar 'By Daft Punk!' (don't forget to congratulate them on that, will you).

The first bars of next track Technologic do not offer much in the way of faith, an almost child-like voice ranting on in a similar way to the chorus of Harder Better Faster Stronger, before an almost electro-esque beat comes in, and the track kicks off, although it does sound similar in style to Television Rules The Nation, which we have just heard. The album closes (after a rather short 45-minutes) with the gentle sounding Emotion - maybe an elegy to how human the band have become, layers of filtered vocals building up until a slower-paced beat envelopes them. It's a nice enough close to an album, nothing grand or epic, although again, it does tend to sound rather repetitive. For lovers of previous Daft Punk efforts, this album will be essential listening, although to the more casual listener of dance music, it may well baffle and beg the question 'what's new?'. In fairness, not a lot, although the duo did record the ten tracks on offer here in a single six-week period in late 2004.

Due to this, it has the feel of a stop-gap project rather than a fully completed album, but fans will hope this isn't the last we hear of the band for another four year stretch. This is an album that grows on you, and after repeated listens, is one that fares well in the review stakes - although not deep or offering much on repeated listens, it's an easily accessible dance album that doesn't hide what it is. Daft Punk want us to believe that, after all this time in the music business, they are human after all. They may well be, but with the mechanical rhythms, trademark disco style and overuse of the voice synthesiser, the music most definitely is not..

Website Review: www.franzferdinand.org

2005-03-18T11:01:00.000Z

Author: Aurliea Wilson

As a devout fan of Franz Ferdinand I search them often on the web. A delightful website by the name www.franzferdinand.org is the greatest fan community ever! Franzferdinand.org is loved for many reasons such as the close link between site and the band and the fantastic person running all of it: Mr. Graham Searle combined with the most enthusiastic fans. FF.org has everything from articles to pictures to news to a fan forum, making it one of the most informative, user friendly and well established fansites on the net. On having the opportunity to interview the site maintainer, I asked Graham the following questions;

Auriliea: How much do you think people benefit from ff.org?

Graham: I'd love to say that people benefit a lot from the site, but to be humble about it, all a fansite does is collate a lot of information from a wealth of different sources and present it to the fan-base. I'm proud of what we've created, and to think that people use it as their first point of call for information on the band is amazing. I'd never have dreamt that would ever be the case when I first put pen to paper and jotted down the first few ideas for the site. I've benefited a huge amount from the site myself... It's certainly opened doors that otherwise would have been closed. I've written an article for NME about the band, I'm in daily communication with the band and their management, I've made so many new friends and important contacts. The only downside, if I could ever call it one, is that now I'm writing so much for so many people and I've got projects on the go everywhere that I'm just insanely busy 24/7. I'll never complain though, I'm having too much fun. Failing my degree, mind...

Auriliea: Any partner sites? Which brings me to my next question…

Graham: Not as such. I experimented with a joint news service with another FF fansite, but our writing styles differed so much that it just looked messy on the eye, and hard on the brain. I'm looking to work closely with a new website which is hosting a huge amount of FF images, photos and scans. Kris who runs that designed some of our new artwork, so we'll be looking to give both sites a common template so it's visually connected.

Auriliea: Any other sites you maintain other than ff.org?

Graham: None whatsoever. I was approached by the band to redesign the official website, and I was working with another band on the revamp of their site too. But neither really came to anything. I've often been tempted to branch out a little, but I couldn't dedicate the time to it if it was to rival FF.org for content and updates.

Auriliea: Why do you start a fan site? (ok maybe I know the answer to this one...)

Graham: The band just blew me away when I first saw them. I was waffling on about them to anyone who'd listen for ages, but noone paid any attention. Then FF released 'Darts Of Pleasure' and went on a wee tour. I got to see the band live a couple more times, and it cemented it in my mind that they were going to be huge, they had to be huge! I had a poke around the net to find websites for the band, the official one was terrible. I eventually found another fansite, but by then I'd already started working on a design of my own. I thought FF deserved a fansite that could provide everything I wanted to know about the band. Noone was doing it, so I set about doing it myself.

Auriliea: How did you start it and how long has it been up?

Graham:I started working on the site in December 2003, trying out designs and gathering images and audio and biographical content to flesh it out. I had some spare webspace on a site I'd managed for an Irish Record label so I "borrowed" some of that, and published what I'd designed to the internet in early January 2004. By the time it took us to buy "franzferdinand.org" as a name and purchase our own webspace, we went live on 12 January 2004, the same day 'Take Me Out' was released.

Auriliea: Who helps you?

Graham: I've had help along the way from people who've contributed news articles or who translated our content into French, Dutch and German - something I abandoned last Autumn - but on a general day-to-day basis, it's just me who runs it. From top to bottom I'm responsible for all new content and updates. There are special people who've been major helping hands along the way, my former housemate James for one, who did a lot of technical work behind the scenes early on. And of course everyone who's ever donated to our server fund to help us stay online, launch a new design or expand the site. I just hope I'm providing what people want to see. It's amazing to get e-mails from people in Chile, Taiwan, Africa, and so on, who have heard about the band and have turned to my site for information, and they crave more! My daily e-mail turnover is huge, and for all the times something goes awry or I stare at a list of jobs that need doing, the thought that someone, somewhere is looking at my website cheers me right up and motivates me to always make the site better, bigger, faster, and more entertaining. Some of the feedback and comments on the forum are great to read, if a little embarrassing at times. It's great to know you're admired!

There's a long list of why the orgsters love Graham and some love the site even more. I asked a few people about the site and this is what they had to say:

"This site encompasses everything from Franz Ferdinand information, to the new indie music scene, to fangirling, to art and writing, to general amusement. It is fasinating to see such a diverse group of people coming together cohesively through the music of Franz Ferdinand." -Erin

"I like the fact that it has a very well updated news section, I love the stylish layout, and just the feeling of being part of such a diverse and interesting community." -Elen

"Loads of people united by the love of Franz" -Sarah

There are many reasons as to why FF.org has such a cult following. The news is very regularly, The music is excellent and the people are fantastic, the variety never ceases to please. The site has had many acclaimes including 3fm's Website of the Month, and a nomination for the Digital Music Awards being among them. The site has attracted attention from all over the world, and rightly so, it is a encylopaedia of Franzy goodness, and makes the girls want to dance almost as much as the music does.

Site: www.franzferdinand.org

Forum: www.franzferdinand.org/forum

Webmaster: Graham
Staff: Josie, Erin, Lisette, Ryan

Album Review: Kaiser Chiefs - Employment

2005-03-16T11:00:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

Hot on the heels of The Killers and The Bravery comes Yorkshire's own Kaiser Chiefs, of which much has already been written about their plundering of the Britpop back catalogue, but who are still very worthy of the attention being granted them in the media.

Last year's infectious single I Predict A Riot placed the Kaiser's firmly on the musical map, thanks in no small part to Zane Lowe's endorsement, on whose show I first heard them several months ago, and the follow up Oh My God has seen them grace Top Of The Pops (though not the honour it was years ago, still an important promotional platform) and kick their way into the living rooms of the nation.

Their debut album Employment has now hit the racks, and it's put up or shut up time for the band as to whether they truly can claim to be in the same league as the aforementioned Las Vegas and New York natives.

Opening with Everyday I Love You Less And Less, the Kaiser's sound exactly how you'd imagine Dirt Wears White Sox era Adam & The Ants would have sounded if Vince Clark had joined them instead of forming Depeche Mode. Vocalist Ricky Wilson is at times very reminiscent of a young Stuart Goddard, and with the rest of the band joining in with harmonies straight from the Kings Of The Wild Frontier songbook it's like the early 80s never went away.

A strong hook in the chorus bodes well for the album as it gives way into I Predict A Riot, with its' vaguely Specials overtones and surely the only song in recent memory to use the word 'thee' in the lyrics. By now we're getting the picture that the Kaiser Chiefs are the successors to the witty British lyric throne that Blur have long since abdicated, after themselves succeeding Madness.

Modern Way follows, with Wilson giving his best monotone Gary Numan-esque delivery over a steady bass heartbeat before coming across all Damon Albarn in the chorus to great effect. In fact, this could have been a Blur track once upon a time, but Nick 'Peanut' Baines's electro-bleepy keyboards lift it above anything that Blur produced in their prime.

Joining the ranks of The Police, Bad Manners and Trio in the league of nonsensical song titles, Na Na Na Naa is an up-tempo romp that currently does the honours as their live set opener, and is the tune that Noel Gallagher should have written for Definitely Maybe instead of Digsy's Dinner, though Liam could never have conjured up the sense of fun that Wilson brings to the song.

You Can Have It All is what Madness would have sounded like performing one of their more introspective numbers with Terry Hall on vocals. It's one of a couple of fillers on the album, but does have its' merits.

Current single Oh My God wouldn't have sounded out of place on one of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' earlier albums, stomping its' way out of the speakers and all over your front room carpet, while Born To Be A Dancer's chorus is one of those that will lodge itself in your brain and declare squatter's rights, simultaneously coming across all pomp and melodrama while being reminiscent of Weezer's Buddy Holly in places.

Saturday Night sounds exactly like a song called Saturday Night should sound, big and brash and full of attitude - "we're going to hell anyway, let's travel first class". What Did I Ever Give To You is a return to Terry Hall territory, more Colourfield than Specials but none the worse for it.

The Adam & The Ants influence comes back with a vengeance in Time Honoured Tradition which conjures up images of young men in pirate outfits swigging ale from large tankards to the strains of Marco Pirroni's distinctive guitar sound.

The album runs out of steam slightly on the last two tracks, Caroline Yes and Team Mate, going out with a whimper rather than a bang. Both are decent tracks, but it would have been nice to go out in the blaze of glory of glory suggested by the rest of the album. Rather than riding off into the sunset, we're carted off in the back of a police van to Leeds gaol.

Overall, though, the Kaiser Chiefs have produced a debut album that they can be proud of, and while with this Employment they may not be in line for a big promotion just yet, they're a long way from their P45s.

Live Review: Electric Six at London Astoria - 10th March 2005

2005-03-13T14:38:00.000Z

Author: Becky Parkes

Hands up who remembers 'Gay Bar'? Despite a perfectly good pair of albums, it still remains the most famous (infamous?) song that Electric Six have churned out to date. Rather fitting, then, that the last night of their UK tour should be at the Astoria, home of G-A-Y bar.

Unfortunately I missed the support bands, so I can't tell you anything about them... but Electric Six were certainly on form. Opening well with some of their new material, the crowd were quite happily danced and pogo-ed along. Things started to liven up a little more once they got into some of their older stuff; 'Danger! High Voltage!' in particular, was well received, but the highlight had to be, predictably, 'Gay Bar'. As the band launched into what has become something of a signature tune, it's fair to say that everyone went a bit...mental. In a good way - the sort of mental that leaves you out of breath and with sore calves from leaping too high, rather than trampled and bruised. The energetic burst over with, the band slowed things down a little, before springing off again into 'Improper Dancing' with an extended interlude in the middle where the crowd had the somewhat dubious pleasure of being serenaded by Dick Valentine wearing nothing but his boxers.

The encore wasn't the best ever; however the performance of 'Devil Nights' went down well, as did the rendition of Queen's 'Radio Ga Ga' - cue hands in the air and clapping, with 'Dance Commander' to finish. All in all, a pretty good night out. Although the atmosphere wasn't as (ahem) electric as it can be at some more hyped gigs, there was a buzz and the crowd definitely left pleased and (probably) bounced-out.

Album Review: The Bravery - The Bravery

2005-03-07T10:37:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

Musically, it's all been done before. There's nothing new that can be done with the seven notes we have to play with so inevitably the old maxim of what goes around comes around rings true every so often, usually every other generation in terms of music fans.

In the last twelve months or so, it's been the turn of the eighties again, with bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Killers taking the earlier half of that decade as their inspiration and producing a pair of the better albums to grace the airwaves. Even The Strokes got in on the eighties act briefly with the synth-drenched Reptilla, but their New York City brethren The Bravery have succeeded in finally nailing everything that was great about the synthpop revolution of twenty years ago and have brought it kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.

Formed just a couple of years ago, the brainchild of singer, songwriter and producer Sam Endicott, The Bravery are completed by keyboard player John Conway (with whom Endicott first got together to 'electronicise' his songs), guitarist Michael Zakarin, drummer Anthony Burulcich and bassist Mike H. At their HQ on the corner of Mott and
Broome near Chinatown, the band have plotted their imminent global domination, handling everything themselves, from recording their upcoming debut album to designing all of their own artwork, and producing their own videos (check out the inventive clip for new single Honest Mistake).

Having topped the BBC News website's Sound of 2005 poll, and named as one of MTV's Artists To Watch the band are about to play a short UK tour before heading out on a co-headlining US tour with Ash to promote the 'Bravery' album (released on Island records in mid-March).

So, what's it like? Well take three parts Duran Duran, two parts Cure, a dash of U2, a hint of The Smiths and a splash of Depeche Mode, mix thoroughly and decant into a shot glass and you're there.

Honest Mistake opens with a synth line reminiscent of Blue Monday before taking off like a jet-powered bonus track from the first Duran album. Endicott's vocals sit somewhere between Robert Smith and Ian McCullough without sounding too much like either one of them, and have that certain charismatic something that great front men possess. Swollen Summer continues the Duran theme, sounding like a twice-removed cousin of Friends Of Mine and features a killer synth solo that gives way to a blistering guitar workout.

No Brakes begins like early U2 done to perfection, down to the driving New Years Days bass line and Edge-esque guitar work, before delivering an infectious chorus that the Cure would kill for. Robert Smith's influence is all over Hot Pursuit as well, the song being another example of the kind of killer tune the former Banshee used to produce when he had his pop hat on.

Tyrant is, on the surface, a by-numbers mid-tempo tune that manages to sound simultaneously like a dozen of songs that spring to the tip on your tongue and yet like manages to take these familiar elements and craft something with real depth that is quite brilliant in its' apparent simplicity.

No Ring On These Fingers is a slice of vintage Bunnymen, Endicott's delivery so reminiscent of Mac in places that you can almost see him standing on stage wearing an ankle length black coat and sporting a gravity defying hairdo, hands clasped firmly around the microphone stand.

Out Of Line's arpreggiated synth line drives this swaggering bastard son of The Damned's Grimly Fiendish, and has one of those choruses that will barricade itself inside your head and refuse to come out. This is one squatter that you won't mind hanging around for a while, though.

Hot Sunshiney Day and Public Service Announcement are pure summer songs. The former will surely be gracing a car ad before long, it's bouncy bass line extolling the virtues of the latest hatchback, while the latter ricochets around the inside of your skull, all busy bass and laid back vocals (complete with background "ooh ooh"s that will be with you for months) until you can't help but move your feet. I can feel the sun from here.

Debut single Unconditional is a melodious cacophony of driving bass and distorted guitars that conjures up the spirit of the late Billy McKenzie, both in vocal delivery and sentiment as Endicott sings "I've spent my whole life surrounded / And I've spent my whole life alone". Similarly paced Fearless is a hybrid of early Duran and Duchess-era Stranglers that kicks it's way out of the speakers, not caring who gets in the way.

Open Heart Surgery breaks out the acoustic guitars and echo chamber, delivering a hypnotic ballad in the vein of Death In Vegas's Scorpio Rising that is at once calming and haunting, and proves that there is real depth to the band.

On the strength of these twelve tracks, ten of which will make it into the final running order of the album and will hopefully retain the raw, live feel that these recordings have, The Bravery show great potential and will certainly give Franz Ferdinand and The Killers a run for their money.

Album Review: The Killers - Hot Fuss

2005-03-06T10:29:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

Hailing from Las Vegas, the Nevada city of sin previously responsible for such exports as Andre Agassi and Toni Basil (thanks for that one), The Killers burst onto the music scene last year with single Mr Brightside, a twisted study of jealousy that made me sit up and take notice. Along with Franz Ferdinand it seemed that guitar pop (for want of a better term) was becoming exciting again and here was a band that I needed to find out more about and more importantly hear more of.

Following their performance of "Somebody Told Me" on Jonathan Ross's show I was sold, and picked up the album.

To the sound of helicopters and radio noise, the opening riff to "Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine" is quickly followed by a gently galloping bassline that conjours up images of early Duran, an image further reinforced by the eighties sounding synth that provides the underpinning melodic backbone to the song. Singer and keyboard player Brandon Flowers' vocals are eerily reminiscent of the late Billy McKenzie, but shot through with a healthy dose of the Robert Smiths.

This hybrid vocal style is most effectively used on "Mr Brightside", which kicks off with a pseudo-Blink 182 riff but soon becomes a driving anthem to jealousy which was instrumental in the band picking up airplay and bringing them to the attention of the great British public.

"Smile Like You Mean It" takes the classic Cure pop blueprint and combines it with lyrics that would do Morrissey proud, and indeed the solo brings to mind Stephen Street's classic fretwork on Suedehead. All this is shot through with more eighties synth work and some of the crispest drum sounds that I've heard for a good while.

Candidate for most infectious chorus of the year, "Somebody Told Me" is next, its' rumbling bass line driving the song forward with the force of a juggernaught before "All These Things That I've Done" changes the pace, beginning with a lonely piano and sparse vocal, and building to a repeated refrain of "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier" in the middle of the song.

"Andy You're A Star" opens with a jarring, almost discordant riff that is quickly joined by a simple throbbing bass line and Flowers' melodically monotone vocals, all of which work together very effectively. In direct contrast, "On Top" gives us an early-Duran versus early-U2 concoction which sways along with an easy lilt and gives guitarist David Keuning a chance to be The Edge for four minutes, an opportunity he makes the most of in spectacular fashion.

"Change Your Mind" could be the product of a union between The Smiths and Depeche Mode, with its' delightfully twee keyboard riff sitting prettily atop an indie-by-numbers backing, but doesn't suffer at all for it. "Believe Me Natalie" is perhaps the track that most wears it's Smiths influences on its' sleeve, but manages to turn itself into a five minute epic rather than echoing the standard three minute Morrissey/Marr compositions of old.

"Midnight Show" again plunders the early U2 back catalogue, but again manages to infuse enough originality to
allow itself to wear the 'homage' badge rather than the 'thieving bastards' badge and delivers a sordid tale of murder, which along with "Jenny..." and the as yet unreleased "Leave The Bourbon On The Shelf" forms a trilogy of interconnected songs concerning the same real-life murder of a Vegas girl by her jealous boyfriend.

Album closer "Everything Will Be Alright" gives Flowers chance to distort his voice and really channel the spirit of Billy McKenzie for almost six minutes of hypnotic drums and synths, rounded out by a superbly restrained solo that leads into the song's fade out.

In short, "Hot Fuss" takes all of the finest ingredients from eighties pop music and combines them into a very palatable blend of nostalgia that seems right at home now, some twenty five years after that decade drew its' last breath..

Live Review: British Sea Power at Tunbridge Wells High Rocks - 11th February 2005

2005-03-02T09:59:00.000Z

Author: Matti Gregory

There are many ways a band can make a show difficult to review. It can be bland without distinguishing features to comment on. It can be impossible to pin down in a way people who weren't present can understand. But this is the first time I've struggled to review a gig because I'm lost for words. Because by the end of their set in a beautiful (and rather small) hall in the middle of nowhere, British Sea Power will make words irrelevant, along with such petty matters as life, possessions, and everything that isn't related to British Sea Power. Before the end they will convert a hundred cynical Libertines fans and contravene just about every health and safety law in existence, as well as put on one of the most memorable performances anyone watching can remember.

To a backdrop of stuffed magpies and ivy purloined from the surrounding environment, the five members of BSP (Yan, Hamilton, Noble, Eamon and Wood) summon up a noise that effortlessly switches from wistful to brutal, from melancholic melody to blitzkrieg post-punk. During the opening "Apologies To Insect Life" Yan will yelp about Russian literature and make sure everyone in the front row gets a good view of his gums while Noble threatens to bring the building down with a slicing guitar riff. New single "It Ended On An Oily Stage" is a better piece of '80s indie than most stuff actually from the '80s, and "The Scottish Wildlife Experience" threatens to instigate a small-scale Hillsborough Incident. But as good as they are throughout the set (and believe me, they are brilliant), a show can only be as good as it's ending. And what an ending it is tonight.

"Rock In A" is stretched out into a twenty minute epic that might become tiresome if ever recorded properly, but here the song is played with jaw-dropping intensity. But even the song is merely a background to the Sea Power boys' antics - Eamon strides through the crowd with a huge bass drum getting hugs from strangers and letting everybody bang out a rhythm with their hands, while Noble clambers onto the wooden roof beams and crawls like a sloth before dropping into the crowd, Hamilton breaks not only two bass strings but nearly his neck as he swings from a chandelier several feet above the floor and threatens to bring the whole thing down, Yan surfs through the crowd pretending variously to be Superman and Biggles and previously ordinary people are suddenly possessed to cover themselves in foliage and scream themselves horse.

As a certain famous individual almost once said: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some are British Sea Power.

Live Review: Rammsttein at Brixton Academy - 3rd February 2005

2005-03-01T20:08:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

If there's one band that can't be accused of doing things by halves, it's Rammstein. Taking the best bits from theatrical rock shows of the last few decades and putting their unique stamp on them, they've gained a formidable reputation as one of the most outrageous and entertaining live acts on the planet.

Tonight they've rolled into London town for the first of three sold out nights at Brixton Academy, a surprising choice of venue given that the rest of their UK tour is taking in the country's arenas and cattle-sheds, which are seemingly much better suited for the large scale spectacles that Rammstein are renowned for. It also raises the question of just how much of their full stage show they'll be allowed to use in the Academy, particularly as they had to cancel their gig at the Astoria a couple of years ago due to Camden Borough Council's concerns over the amount of pyrotechnics
that they wanted to use. As it turned out, our fears were unfounded, and this was to be quite a night.

After five minutes of doom-laden atmospheric music, the lights go down and five burly men in white shirts and black ties walk onto the stage, carrying baseball bats with lights attached to the ends. They begin goading the audience for a few moments until a blue light illuminates the curtain, silhouetting the stage set as the intro to"Reise Reise" begins. The five monkey-boys turn to look at the curtain and what lies beyond it with a sense of pantomime awe, for this is what a Rammstein show is all about, the spectacle, and over the next hundred minutes or so we're going to get just that.

The curtain falls, quickly bundled away by the suits, and Rammstein are here, tearing into the song with a ferocity and volume that can actually be felt through the floor. The set resembles a set from Alex Proyas's Dark City, and the band stand (or sit in the case of drummer Christoph Schneider stand) atop this structure, some twenty feet above stage level, clad in black leather.

Suddenly a door opens in the front of the set, and vocalist Till Lindemann walks slowly onto the stage, dressed head to toe in, what else, black. Half way through the song, guitarists Richard Kruspe-Bernstein and Paul Landers step onto lifts that owe a debt to KISS's classic 1970s stage shows and descend to stage level. They stand rigid at their mikes, as is the Rammstein way, delivering their solos and backing vocals (Lander's mike stand complete with a neat kickstand mechanism that allows it to lay flat on the floor until needed) before returning to the top of the set as the song finishes.

Without pause, Schneider begins the unmistakable drumming of "Links-2-3-4" as the five front-line members file out of the set door, marching into place. At this point my fears that playing a venue as small as the Academy might hinder the use of the band's pyrotechnics are laid to rest as a huge explosion heralds the song's buzzsaw guitar riff, and appears to take out the first five rows of the audience, spewing enough smoke into the air to render the band invisible for several seconds. The fervour and enthusiasm of the audience in shouting along with the song's militaristic refrain conjured up images of Nuremberg, with Lindemann rallying his troops, an image bolstered by keyboard player Christian "Flake" Lorenz being dressed like the long-lost seventh member of the Village People, complete with stormtrooper helmet, short lederhosen and knee-high socks.

"Keine Lust" follows, leading nicely into "Feuer Frei" during which we get our first taste of Rammstein's pyro. During the quiet middle section, facemasks are strapped onto Lindemann and his two guitarists and we are treated to the sight of them spewing thirty foot columns of flames over each other and the audience. As this is happening, from where we are standing the crowd is a sea of mobile phone screens, the audience recording this moment for posterity. We could feel the heat from our vantage point some fifty feet away so the audience at the front must have momentarily questioned the wisdom of being so close to three manic Germans with enough firepower to barbecue the first ten rows.

"Morgenstern" comes next, giving the audience chance to catch their breaths after the fiery face masks - it's one thing marvelling over them in the video, but to actually see, and feel, it live is quite another matter. The band
disappear off stage after the song, as Lindemann appears in the doorway dressed as a chef, carrying a knife the
size of which would do Michael Myers proud, and pushing a giant cauldron. In the absence of "Buch Dich" on this tour
and it's ejaculatory hi-jinks, it seems Rammstein have found a new way to torment Flake, who has a keyboard
strapped to the side of the cauldron and pops up and down throughout "Mein Teil" to play his parts. Being a
cauldron, and this being Rammstein, it's somewhat inevitable that fire will be involved at some point, and right
on cue Lindemann is handed a flamethrower and proceeds to engulf the cauldron, with Flake inside it, in wave after
wave of flames. As he hands the weapon back to a stagehand, Flake climbs out of the cauldron, his arms and legs
now on fire thanks to some strategically strapped fireworks and runs around the stage before exiting stage right.

Ballad "Stein um Stern" is served up as the dessert course to "Mein Teil"s main event, after which a small drum kit is placed at the front of the stage and Schneider descends via one of the lifts to take up his position alongside a new feature for this tour, acoustic guitars. "Los", with it's harmonica solo and Bavarian slap dancing courtesy of Flake is the sort of thing that only a band like Rammstein could get away with, and get away with it they do, with some style. I never thought I'd see the day that Rammstein would play acoustically but it just goes to show hat this is no one-trick band. Schneider remains at stage level for "Moskau" before returning to his lofty perch for "Du Reichts So Gut".

At the beginning of the song, Lindemann appears with his legendary fiery bow, whirling it around his head with wild abandon, and managing to actually set one of the monitors on fire, which judging from the horrified expression on the roadie who ran over to it with a fire blanket wasn't part of the show's plan. For the song's solo, guitarists Kruspe-Bernstein and Landers stand together with yet more fireworks strapped to their upper arms.

Rammstein's best known song "Du Hast" comes next, and spectacle wise would have been might impressive purely for the huge jets of fire at the front and rear of the stage that reached almost to the Academy's ceiling. That clearly wasn't impressive enough for Rammstein, however, so Lindemann is handed another bow and takes aim at a target high in the lighting rig. He shoots, and scores as four balls of fire go flying out along wires over the audience's heads. On a roll now, and into the final straight of the main set, "Sehnsucht" follows, accompanied by several huge explosions over Schneider's head in perfect synchronicity with his drumming.

Set closer "Amerika" sees Flake wheeling himself around the stage on a Segway vehicle, the two wheel scooter-type things previously best associated with Peter Gabriel, and managing to both steer and play keyboards without falling off the stage or mowing down his fellow band members. The song reached its climax and the Academy erupted
into a maelstrom of red, white and blue ticker tape blown out over the audience.

After a short interval, the band walked back onstage, and began the slow and powerful "Rammstein". Having since forsaken his fiery coat, Lindemann appeared through the door with what can only be described as two flamethrower
gauntlets which he fired up frequently throughout the song, almost setting the stage on fire towards the end when
he accidentally pulled the trigger whilst his arms were pointing downwards!

"Sonne" follows, complete with the return of the flame columns before the first encore wraps up with "Ich Will". Flake and Lindemann then took the stage alone for a run through "Ohne Dich, the singer resting his head on the keyboard players shoulder while he sang.

The fitting show finale was their superb cover of Depeche Mode's "Stripped", which turned a synth-pop classic into a huge riff-heavy, jarring industrial masterpiece. It was at this point that bassist Oliver Reidel finally got to have some fun. Up to now every other band member had had their moment of excess, whether it be with flamethrowers, fiery face masks, scooters or exploding drumsticks, but not Reidel. Now, though, he got to partake in Rammstein's unique form of crowd surfing, by climbing aboard a rubber dinghy and setting sail over the heads of the crowd. He navigated his boat almost to the back of the Academy, falling out twice but being helped instantly back into this boat, and providing one of the most amazing live spectacles that this writer has ever seen, bringing whole new meaning to audience participation.

Safely back on the stage, the band wrapped up "Stripped" and after thanking the audience in English, disappeared one by one through the stage door, leaving Flake alone to play his portable keyboard as he was hoisted up on a lift to the top of the set before disappearing down the back stairs as the house lights came up.

Ladies and gentlemen, the bar for theatrical rock performances has well and truly been raised.

Music Feature: Dressed To Sell - Single Packaging In Days Gone By by Richard Cosgrove

2005-02-19T09:16:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

Walk into any record shop these days to pick up the latest single by a band and chances are you'll be presented with the choice of maybe two or three different configurations of songs spread over a series of CDs. If you're lucky you might get a poster included that's been folded so many times in order to fit it into the CD case that the chances of it ever serving it's true purpose are slimmer than getting a word in edgeways with David Lee Roth. If you're really lucky, maybe you'll get a couple of miniature postcards, a Lilliputian calendar or some faux-Polaroids tucked into the jewel case.

Very occasionally you'll get a vinyl release to accompany the CD(s), but usually only in the case of up and coming indie bands that no-one has heard of yet, and quite probably never will (but for those few that do, the early fans can forever smugly ask "do you have the seven inch vinyl of so-and-so? No? Shame, I've got ten copies myself"). Even then the packaging will undoubtedly be plain and uninspiring, or in the case of dance music twelve inch vinyl releases, it's standard fare to get a plain white card sleeve with a sticker advertising the artist and track name and very little else. True, it does the job, but there's not the sense of excitement that there once was when a new single was released.

Back in the days before CDs (inconceivable to some of you, no doubt) there was much more creativity and imagination involved in the release of a new single, particularly in the rock music arena which I grew up in, where almost literally anything was possible. The advent of a new single wasn't just about what it would sound like, it was also about what it would look like, or what it would come packaged in.

There were, of course, your fairly standard seven and twelve inch picture bags, the next step up from which was the gatefold sleeve. Poison's Nothin' But A Good Time came in a particularly eye-catching lime green gatefold sleeve adorned with day-glo pictures of the chicks-with-dicks themselves. Great song, garish cover, but this was the realm of the hair band and gimmicks like this did sell additional copies of the singles. I regularly bought all of the limited editions of many a rock band, not with thoughts that they may one day become valuable and provide me with a nice little nest egg (a good job too, as it turns out), but for the sheer joy of having all these unusual releases.

Poster bags were another popular format, not only enticing us to buy additional copies of the single, but also giving us the means to plaster our walls with spandex-clad long-haired mascara-wearing men. Nice.

Picture discs offered a wide range of possibilities, and the marketing departments didn't disappoint. There were of course just the bog standard picture discs in seven or twelve inch format (or both occasionally) that would replicate the regular edition's artwork, some of which were particularly effective, like Iron Maiden's awesome artwork for Aces High, which gave you the opportunity to have twelve inches of Maiden mascot Eddie's face revolving forty five times a minute on your record player.

The Dog's D'Amour went one step further than this, combining the best of both worlds by having a gatefold sleeve into which the twelve inch pictures discs for their Satellite Kid and Trail Of Tears singles could be slotted. What made this stand out, however, was that each of the singles had a Tyla-drawn cartoon which when placed correctly into the gatefold sleeve enabled you to read the whole story.

One of the more interesting examples of the shaped picture disc was WASP's PMRC-baiting Animal (Fuck Like A Beast) which was cut into the shape of the bloodied buzz-saw codpiece modelled by Blackie Lawless on the cover of
the regular twelve inch. Guns'N'Roses had one of the best for my money, though. Their Paradise City release came as an eleven inch disc in the shape of a gun, complete with its' own holster shaped sleeve. A gold star to the bright spark who thought that one up.

Coloured vinyl was an occasional temptation, usually in some garish shade of green or pink (I'm looking at you again, Poison), although Bon Jovi managed to come across all patriotic for their Lay Your Hands On Me release which was available on no less than three separate seven inch coloured vinyls in red, white and blue. For good measure (and to ensure that my wallet was thoroughly cleaned out) they also released it on a shaped picture disc.

Other one-off novelties of the time included The Cult's Sun King which was housed in a black PVC hologram sleeve, and M's Pop Music which had a double groove meaning that when you dropped your needle onto the vinyl you never knew which of the two songs on it you were going to get, but the award for the most original and outrageous format of all time goes to Bay Area thrashers Vio-lence.

The band, known for their aggressive marketing, came up with the ultimate in offensive packaging, even managing to get the format banned from some record shops, when they decided to release their Eternal Nightmare single in a special 'vomit pack'. This was a clear plastic sleeve filled with vomit (actually vegetable soup and vinegar, but it still gave off enough of a vile aroma to induce the genuine article if you got too close, especially on hot days) into which the single could be inserted. Sadly for the band it did little to raise their profile, but it did guarantee them a place in the history of music marketing.

Sadly the days of interesting formats seem to have gone the way of 8-tracks, cassette singles and Michael Jackson's career, but consider this. With record companies having finally embraced the download market for singles, we may in a few years be mourning the loss of even the bland CD single format.

Band Feature: Muse

2005-02-16T22:03:00.000Z

Author: Peter Muscutt

'The Day I Sold Chris Wolstenholme Olive Oil' - Tales of Muse from the town of Teignmouth

People are often confused when I tell them I come from Teignmouth. 'Where's that?' they ask, a puzzled expression on their faces. 'It's in Devon' I reply. More blank faces. More scratching of heads. The money shot comes with: 'It's where the band Muse come from'. 'Ahh, right, got you!' they'll say. Yeah right, as if you could point it out on a map!

Coming from the same town as a now globally successful rock band affords the occasional tale about the less glamorous side of rock n' roll. The most visible member of the band in the Teignmouth area is bass player Chris Wolstenholme, who, unlike a number of famous people, obviously hasn't forgotten his roots back home, and can be seen wandering about town or in the supermarket when the group are not away recording or touring. In fact, when I used to live there, he was often seen inside the local Co-op, where I had my first meeting with him after he asked me (very politely I must add) where the olive oil was, then I had the privilege of serving him as well! That must have been around 1998/99, just as the band were starting to get noticed, and it was a major talking point the next day at college, I can tell you - especially interested was a guy called Andrew, who was the 'Official Muse Spokesman' at college, and could often be seen spouting the virtues of the band's debut EP, which he would play CONSTANTLY during our A-Level Art classes. It was quite funny to look back and realise that Andrew was actually the one with his finger on the pulse at that time, claiming Muse would be 'The Next Big Thing'. The only thing was, nobody believed him! To our shame, we all had Muse down as one of those groups that would do well, but certainly not be as big as they were destined to become. They'd maybe release a couple of EPs in local record stores and perhaps play a few decent local venues, but...we just thought they'd die out and eventually pack it in. How embarrassed we were when Andrew proudly came into college clutching a copy of Muse's debut album Showbiz, which soon took precedence over the EP he had been playing to death on the Art room's stereo. It's worth mentioning also that I did go and buy a copy of the band's first EP just to see what all the fuss was about, and recently sold it on auction site eBay for 180 quid, so...thanks to Andrew for that! I kick myself now when I think about the other six copies the record store had in, which would have probably sold for equally ludicrous sums of currency!

There are rumours of lead singer Matt Bellamy popping back to get another custom-made guitar picked up from Manson's Guitars in Exeter, but he seems to be very elusive - the only possible sighting we've had of young Matthew was by my mate Simon, who thinks he saw him get out of a car in Newton Abbot and go into Argos wearing some very scruffy clothes. He was in two minds about this though. If you're in Exeter it might be worth popping into Manson's and persuading the owner to let you have a look at his latest project! The last axe I saw in the workshop was a guitar (sorry, I'm crap with guitar models, as I am with most car models) with a cracked mirror effect, which worked most wonderfully on stage when the lights would catch it and reflect back into the audience.

But it's certainly Chris that we see back in Teignmouth most often (of drummer Dominic Howard, there has been no sightings by anyone I know). He's also the one we identified most with during our college days, seeing as myself and 'Official Muse Spokesman' Andrew were in the same class as his sister.

It was one (very drunken) New Year's Eve in a Teignmouth pub called The Devon Arms when his sister, who was working behind the bar at the time, received a call to say Chris' wife/partner had given birth to their baby, and we were all trying to listen into the call, shouting things like 'what have they named it?' - always trying to get some Muse related trivia!!

My last encounter with Mr Wolstenholme was at Tescos' this Christmas - it was a couple of days before Christmas Eve, and he was buying a very large quantity of Quality Street. In fact, he had about six boxes of the stuff in his basket. It was absolutely heaving in the store, and I was tempted to ask him if it was as busy as the band's recent London Earls Court gig they'd played only a few days previously! I'm never sure if he sort of recognises me when I see him around town - this time he kind of nodded to me as I looked over at him, and it always makes me wonder if Simon, my friend and old band-mate (when we were in a group called The Freak Travel City Kids, who, it must be said, did not really repeat Muse's run of good fortune and commercial success and fragmented around about mid-2003) managed to ever get Chris to have a look at our band's website. The story behind that particular tale was that Simon's cousin's half-sister's dog's best mate (who is really more a friend of a friend) knew Chris and his family, and Simon reckoned he could politely ask them if Chris wouldn't mind taking a look at our website, which contained all our lyrics and other various stuff. As I say, I'm not actually sure if he ever did see it, but I'd like to think so! I don't really know what Simon's motive for getting a member of Muse to look at a shoddily put-together website was, I think he was dreaming of an easy passage into the music business, but then again that's like asking the man who works on the turnstiles at Highbury if he can get you in the Arsenal squad! It's a documented fact that Muse didn't really think much of Teignmouth as a place to live, and I guess to be honest, it's not all that great (for the young 'uns, anyhow) but there are certainly worse places to spend your time.

So there you have it - olive oil, shopping for new guitars, drunken discoveries of new born babies with Muse bass players for a father and excessive purchasing of Christmas chocolates. It's not all rock n' roll after all...I guarantee, if you were to probe a bit further the inhabitants of this small coastal town, you'll find some have their own tales of Muse related incidents. For instance, my old hairdresser apparently used to play with Matt Bellamy when they were younger. But not in a dirty way...

Band Feature: Galaxie 500

2005-02-16T21:36:00.000Z

Author: Al McKenzie

Galaxie 500 formed in 1987 at Harvard College, when New Zealand-born Dean Wareham (vocals, guitars) and fellow undergrad Damon Krukowski (splendid drums) hooked up with Naomi Yang (their graphics advisor, then bassist). They named their band after a Ford car, and recorded their first single in early 1988 with Kramer at the production helm. 'Tugboat' demonstrates the band's distinctive sound right from the off. 'I don't wanna stay at your party/ I don't wanna talk to your friends,' wails Wareham, all fuggy petulance coated in layers of reverb; 'I don't wanna vote for your President/ I just wanna be your tugboat captain.' Hardly cutting edge stuff, but a graceful statement of intent nonetheless. The drums cascade as the guitar chimes a Shadowsy riff, while Yang's bass steadies this musical tugboat with its gentle murmur. In fact, if I had to choose an adjective to describe Galaxie 500's sound overall, 'gentle' would be the one I'd go for. I'm sure someone once described it (accurately) as 'shockingly gentle.' Try also 'wistful,' 'peaceful,' 'ethereal...' I'll try not to use any of them in this piece, but I can't promise...

1988's debut album 'Today' enforced the blueprint set down on 'Tugboat,' which also works poignantly as the closing track on the album. The typical Galaxie 500 song can best be defined as follows: high-pitched vocals, (usually Wareham's, sometimes Yang's), deeper backing vocals (Krukowski - often harmonic 60s style 'ums' and 'ahs'), three chords strummed delicately and slowly on electric guitar, drums doing much of the work (light as sea spray and almost jazzy, or pounding) and Naomi Yang never being afraid to play the high notes on her bass as melody rather than rhythm. The Hives it ain't - it sounded beautifully soporific and out of step even by most 1988 indie standards - but there usually comes that nice moment when Dean Wareham cranks up the guitar and splits the whole thing open with some distorted riffs. Most of the songs start as though no-one's told him it's not an acoustic guitar and he's actually got it plugged in, and then, as the song builds to a crescendo of sorts, as if he's suddenly realised it's cranked up to 11 and he's going for gold. There's also a distinct Velvets' feel; compare and contrast the lovely opener, 'Flowers,' with the VU's more melodic, poppy moments (Galaxie 500 later recorded 'White Light/White Heat' song 'Here She Comes Now' as a B-side). Perhaps the most striking song on 'Today' is one that breaks the Galaxie 500 mould, their cover of Jonathan Richman's 'Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste.' The stomping bass drums and the frenzied, fuzzy guitars fuse together insistently with the plaintive vocals to make this an intensely emotional listen: 'I could show you memories to rival Berlin in the 30s...And I could bleed/In sympathy with you.' Brutal, deranged, and very moving stuff, and the first Galaxie 500 track I ever heard, thanks to the great Peel (again). The band were soon winning admirers in the US and Europe, earning ringing endorsements from the likes of Thurston Moore. Meanwhile, across the way, another guitar band from Boston were making bigger waves with their much louder sonic assaults; led by Black Francis, they would become a seminal influence on rawk music while the Galaxies would remain less well known, but that's another story...

1989's follow up album 'On Fire' cemented the style laid down by its predecessor (and crucially, in a lovely orange cover, too). 'Decomposing Trees' is one of the band's key songs, with its 'Stairway to Heaven' like chord change and typically surreal, acid-flashed lyric: 'My toes can talk/And they're smiling at me/ Come down, they say/Not afraid any more.' Musically, the song evinces the same world weariness as Joy Division's 'Decades,' and the Galaxies would later cover that band's 'Ceremony.' Even better, they manage to flesh out their sound on this album; Wareham puts his guitar effects pedals to good use, and 'Trees' features the 'Baker Street'-style fiery sax playing of Ralph Carney. They spoil us with the following track; Naomi Yang takes the lead vocal on 'Another Day', an impossibly sad and beautiful song. Imagine Blur's 'This Is A Low' played by the Jesus and Mary Chain with Yoko Ono on vocals, and you're halfway there. I don't know about you, but I have to like a record which has the lyric 'I bought all the drinks/And I paid for your friends/Jesus can't you see?/I'm goin' round the bend.' ('Tell Me'), while 'When Will You Come Home?' namechecks Kojak. I saw them play live in Newcastle on the tail end of this album, and it was one of the top 3 gigs I've ever been to. For a three-piece, they managed to produce a fuller sound than most, probably because they used reverb better than anyone else to create density. It was as hypnotic an experience witnessing them live as it is listening to them on record.

Sadly, the story ended after 1990's 'This Is Our Music', ironically their sunniest offering yet. 'Fourth of July' was NME single of the week, if I remember rightly, with its half-spoken, half-sung witty lyrics about not belonging and things not going according to plan. How many bands would dare to start a song with the line 'I wrote a poem on a dog biscuit/And your dog refused to look at it?' They obviously love their TV shows and movies: 'Spook' was originally entitled 'Spock', explaining the weird line about having 'another eyelid', while the gorgeous 'Summertime' appears to reference David Lynch's 'Wild At Heart' ('Going to the movies/I found a shelter from the sun/Caught a gruesome story/About a couple on the run.'). They take us full circle by closing the album with the mysterious 'King of Spain', (an earlier version of which was their debut B-side to 'Tugboat,') and then it's all over. Dean still plays with Luna, (who played a song on John McEnroe's US TV chat show just the other week, trivia fans), played guitar on Mercury Rev's 'Car Wash Hair,' and performed a rendition of 'Sweet Child of Mine' at the funeral of his friend Robert W. Bingham, author of 'Pure Slaughter Value.' Damon and Naomi still record as Damon and Naomi. Would it be too much to hope for a reunion? Personally, it's hard to listen to 'Today' and 'On Fire' without reminiscing back to my first term at uni, when their floating, spaced out sounds acted as balm for the soul in many an 'incense' moment. Just the other day, I bought a CD copy of 'On Fire,' and it's the first album I've ever owned on both vinyl and CD simultaneously. Fantastically barmy sleeve notes by Kramer, too. I was going to print them out in full, but I'd rather you got your own copy. I digress...

Although never frequently-name checked, Galaxie 500 have influenced some contemporary groups. British Sea Power covered 'Tugboat' for a Rough Trade compilation, and you can hear echoes of their somnolent splendor in Mogwai and Low. Many of my peers deride them for being cheap Velvet Underground copyists who can't play songs with more than 3 chords, but they've missed the point: Galaxie 500 did what every band should set out to do - play together to work out the sound that suited them best - and they made it sound effortless and natural. And whereas the Velvets favoured drone as a form of attack, Galaxie 500 preferred to lull you; the Velvets are altogether darker and scabbier, while Galaxie's sound is stately and full of spaces and light.

Not an important band in the history of music, then, nor an especially original one, but certainly a crucial band in the hearts of many listeners, including mine (did I mention the nice orange cover?). If you've never heard them, then firstly, where have you been? And secondly, 'The Portable Galaxie 500' might be a good place to start. Or 'On Fire.' In fact, the whole damn lot. As those daft sleeve notes say: 'Come ride the fiery breeze of Galaxie 500!'

Album Review: Belle And Sebastian - Dear Catastrophy Waitress

2005-02-13T22:07:00.000Z

Author: Aurelia Wilson

1.Step Into My Office, Baby - Oooooh that beginning riff gets in you and you think 'Oh I'm gonna love this!' and you will! It's about sleeping 'with the boss's baby'. Not like any of us have done that? There's irony in it somehow. Rockstars working at offices and crushing on the boss's baby. So you like it eh? Well, do it again!

2. Dear Catastrophe Waitress - Starts off quite slow, like you are expecting an acoustic track but wait another few seconds; Dear Catastrophe Waitress is a random saying, nothing you'd hear everyday. It's a blend of drums and guitars and everything works.

3. If She Wants Me - This one is a dreamy catchy one. The little lick is so splendid and the lyrics are simply dandy. Stuart does some awesome vocals which add to the whole effect. The chorus gets in you and doesn't leave.

4. Piazza, New York Catcher - No doubt it is acoustic you aren't getting tricked like in Dear Catastrophe Waitress. It's telling a story about how their life and Piazza the New York catcher compares.

5. Asleep on a Sunbeam - So I'm nearly in the middle of the album and Oh My Gosh, it's a girl singing!! That was unpredicted. Sarah sings the song with help from Stuart. This is such a dandy song and it puts you in a happy mood. Everything feels light and airy kinda like summer. What's better than sleeping and summer? My joy is complete...

6. I'm A Cuckoo - Easily one of my favorites and easily cool. Funny lyrics and the whole instruments come together to make a light, airy peachy atmosphere for the song. It's a feeling I get like I'm flying on a sunny day. That's saying something.

7. You Don't Send Me - I have a weak spot for the use of trumpets in rock music. It gives the music a Soulful flavor (flavor is a word I don't use often). The versus including all the instruments and all sorts of vocals. I was so afraid the chorus would break up because it's drums and only drums but it keeps going and it finishes well.

8. Wrapped Up in Books - Normally I'd think the drums is what makes the song flow but the bass is what keeps it up. Again being normal I skip it; it's a great song don't get me wrong!!! It'll grow on you and give it time and it'll be golden. Bottom half though.

9. Lord Anthony - The beginning has a whimsical feeling. It's a fairy tale!! No, it's not but it's a quiet song but it builds up. Anthony is that kid who was always picked on and how he overcomes it all.

10. If You Find Yourself Caught In Love - The beginning is misleading; it's not a piano song. It's rather funny actually. It picks up about a minute in the song. Looking for love is so difficult; just as difficult as falling in love. The tune is so attractive! I rather enjoy the tempo leading up to the chorus.

11. Roy Walker - Oh this sounds like something you'd hear in the fifties; very retro but once the vocals start it gets updated. Music stops and it's snapping which is very circa 1950 music. You'll get immersed in the tempo and noises. Sounds during the vocal part; they aren't made by instruments but it's mash-up of all these noises; don't be afraid if you find yourself snapping along to it.

12. Stay Loose - I'm a sucker for Napoleon Dynamite and this sounds like Napoleon music. It's like an 80s techno meets indie jazzesque. Unique in fact.

Album Review: LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem

2005-02-02T22:14:00.000Z

Author: Matti Gregory

It's always been cool to arrive at the party late, so it should come as no surprise that NYC's premiere detached scenester of 2002, James Murphy, should finally bring out his debut LCD Soundsystem album three years late. Which is in some ways a shame, because if we'd got this back when Converse was compulsory and short hair a sin then it would have been, like, the best thing ever, man. But now that rock is being reclaimed by the geeks, and Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand are the hipster's choice, we get the opportunity to listen to 'LCD Soundsystem' objectively. And even taken out of its proper time and place, what a belter it is.

Effortlessly mixing the supposedly deceased genre of dance and cool-as-fuck indie, it's like the nights out at Trash you always read about (but never actually went to) brought to life in two handy compact discs. Disc One is the debut album proper, nine tracks of beats, fuzzed bass, manic yelping and, yes, those cowbells that made House Of Jealous Lovers the official floor-filler for indie discos everywhere. The brilliant rock-kid baiting 'Daft Punk Is Playing At My House' is the perfect start, with a rhythm that would get arthritic octogenarians dancing madly, and although 'Too Much Love' is a little too formulaic to really get the pulse racing, everything else here follows on in a manner purpose-built to give you the best rave you can ever have on your own. 'Movement' switches from staccato drum machines to full-on punk-funk freak out, 'Tribulations' is a bass monster coated with sugar-sweet synth, and 'Disco Infiltrator' manages to be so brilliant it can get away with having the phrase 'fo' sho' in the lyrics (that's 'fore sure', for those not up to date with your cod-MCisms), although this being James Murphy it's probably ironic. It all ends on the serene bliss-out of 'Great Release', one of the most dreamy dance tracks ever committed to CD.

Disc Two will be more familiar to most people, as it's a compilation of all the singles that made LCD Soundsystem a 'name' in the first place. The brilliantly witty 'Losing My Edge' is here, as is 'Beat Connection' and both mixes of 'Yeah', but unless you've had your head under a pillow since the end of 2001, no description is necessary here. Some magazines have described Murphy as the man who will save dance. If he does, this isn't the album that will. But it will bring members of the lager generation who haven't got over the superclub explosion yet and the indie kids who still haven't got over The Strokes yet together, and maybe even give them a sense of purpose again. And for that James, we thank you.

Live Review: The Tears at The Zodiac in Oxford - 14th December 2004

2005-02-01T21:35:00.000Z

Author: Silke

I remember reading an article quite a few years back which argued that rock's best partnerships always end in tears. From what I remember the article argued that the songwriting partnerships of the likes of Lennon and McCartney, Morrissey and Marr, Butler and Anderson, Townshend and Daltrey had all hit turbulent times at the height of their creativity, but that at the same time many of music's greatest songs had been penned within bitter rivalries.

At the time I agreed and now I can't help but smile at the statement that rock's best partnership always end "in tears", as Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler (the duo who co-founded Suede) have found a way back together and have formed The Tears.

When Bernard Butler quit Suede during the making of 'Dog Man Star' I was gutted. The album itself turned out to be my favourite album of all times for a long time to come, but things were never quite the same for me. As a big Suede fan I of course continued to be interested in their new material. But none of it really touched me the way their self-titled debut album and 'Dog Man Star' did. It was as if that volatile relationshop between Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler made the magic of Suede for me and when their working partnership ended the sparkle faded.

Needless to say when I heard that Brett and Bernard were reforming as the Tears I just couldn't believe it. It was as if time was turning back to the days of the ultimate Suede. It was just like a dream.

I actually thought I had missed out on tickets to their debut gig, thinking it was their London Heaven gig which was sold out before I was even near a computer. But then it was announced that they were actually going to play another gig (the true debut) in Oxford and I was glued to the computer screen and had my credit card at the ready. I managed to get tickets and couldn't believe my luck. The tickets never went on general sale and the venue (the cosy Zodiac) was small and intimate, so this felt like one of the most special gigs ever... and I was going to be part of it.

Arriving at the venue I kept thinking: 'This can't be real'. Even when I felt my heart skip a beat as Bernard and Brett walked on stage after the rest of their new band, I still had to pinch myself... to check it was actually happening: I was seeing Bernard and Brett reunited. During the gig I behaved like a giddy child. I was jumping up and down and screaming (until I lost my voice) and was completely in awe of what I was witnessing, a new band that I felt like I instantly knew really well. With no single or album released, their set was made up entirely of new songs and despite the fact that I was experiencing a brand new sound I sensed so much familiarity.

The opener was 'Brave New Century' and it rocked with wicked guitar riffs and vocal harmonies. After this amazing start to the gig Brett modestly asked the crowd whether it was alright. When the crowd cheered like crazy Brett grinned like a Cheshire cat at the reception (and continued to do so the whole gig â€“ maybe he couldn't believe what was happening either!). The gig continued with the catchy 'Refugees' which had guitar riffs that reminded me a little bit of Bernard's solo song 'Not Alone'.

I loved '2 Creatures' which felt a bit like the old 'Dog Man Star' material especially lyrically as it is about two people in love running away together. But my favourites of the night were probably Apollo 13' (a song that Brett announced as being "about a doomed relationship" and which had a great chorus and certainly great comeback single potential), 'Autograph' (which kind of sounded a bit like the Smiths and had a beautiful melody) and 'Imperfection' (which was the probably best example of Bernard new role of doing backing vocals). I wasn't all that keen on 'Beautiful Pain', maybe because it felt too 'A New Morning'-esque, but I was quite taken in by 'Fallen Idol' which Brett introduced by saying it was about Pete Townsend. In the middle of the song Brett got out a recorder-piano-thing which made me laugh so much.

One thing that was quite disconcerting though was the fact that Brett continually gesticulated at the sound guy to adjust his vocals, but I guess he was just keen to make sure the sound was just right.

The encore was the beautiful 'A Love As Strong as Death' and it felt like Brett and Bernard were trying to keep in tradition with their habit of ending their albums on a piano ballad (like 'Still Life' and 'The Next Life').

At the end of the gig Brett announced: "These are the only songs we've got, so we can't play any more really" and I was upset to see them leave as they had delivered a truly shining performance which made me so excited about hearing their new material. In 'Co-Star' Brett sang: "When we're together my co-star and me, the stars come out to shine". Let's hope that these co-stars don't give up on working together so that we can continue to see that sparkle.

Admittedly I have been a little bit worried about them splitting up again, especially as during the gig the two of them barely exchanged a single glance. But maybe they've just realised that some musicians are born to work together and that they don't need to be the best of friends to keep up a brilliant creative partnership. Let's hope so.

The set list:

Brave New Century
Refugees
Imperfection
2 Creatures
Autograph
Co-Star
Fallen Idol
Feels Like Monday
Beautiful Pain
Apollo 13
Lovers
A Love As Strong As Death

Classic Albums: Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes

2005-01-23T19:59:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

Back in 1992, the music world was being overrun by grunge, with Pearl Jam and Nirvana spearheading the Seattle radio invasion, and Madonna was showing us what she had for lunch via her, erm, artistic book subtly called 'Sex'. Boyz II Men were crooning about the "End Of The Road" and Whitney Houston was murdering Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" and trying to convince us she could act. Who would have thought, then, that from seemingly out of nowhere a fiesty redhead armed with nothing more than a piano and a suitcase full of angst would sweep some of us off our feet and make us fall completely in love with her debut album. (The Tori fans among you will be about to mention Y Kant Tori Read at this point, but in your heart you know that wasn't a true representation of what Myra Ellen Amos was, and is, all about.)

I count myself luckily enough to have accidentally stumbled across Tori Amos just as Little Earthquakes came out, thanks to, of all people, the old Hairy Cornflake himself, Dave Lee Travis who had been sent a promo copy of Winter which he promply fell in love with and played on his show. I distinctly remember hearing it and sitting bolt upright (it was a Sunday morning, following a heavy Saturday night, but all that was forgotten once the hypnotic melody began bleeding from the speakers), thinking "who is this?" and "this is beautiful".

I took myself off to my favourite record shop at the earliest opportunity (Selectadisc in Nottingham, as it happens) and snapped up the album. I rushed home and stuck the CD into my relatively new CD player, which had recently surped my turntable and sounded the death knell for my vinyl collection, and lay back on my bed to listen. From the opening line of 'Crucify' I was hooked - as an insecure teenager, Tori's first line, "every finger in the room is pointing at me", was a line that I could immediately identify with. While confident and outgoing to the rest of the world, I had always fought against an inherent shyness and this one line encompassed the paranoia that I had felt as a teenager. As Tori put it, "nothing I do is good enough for you". Crucify was a hymn to the disenfranchised of the world, to those who had never quite felt they were good enough, all placed on top of a simultaneously fragile and confident piano refrain.

'Girl' follows, its' haunting piano underpinned by some quite breathtaking yet subtle guitar work from Steve Caton (who actually joined Tori live from Boys For Pele onwards), acting as a springboard for a tale of submission and compromise in which we learn "she's been everybody else's girl, maybe someday she'll be her own". Another tale of insecurity in which the subject of the song desperately tries to fit in at the expense of her own identity. Another tune that spoke to my teenage insecurities. Though Tori was a fair way from being a teenager at this point, these songs were obviously sourced from her experiences of youth and the crushing insecurities and disappointments that it brings.

Next up is 'Silent All These Years', the breakthrough track in the UK. A gentle piano refrain underpinned with a subtle strings arrangement, this is a bitter song about a relationship breakup. "So you've found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts" is deftly followed up with "boy, you'd best hope that I bleed real soon". Nasty, very nasty, but then again, you can't deny her rage - Hell hath no fury and all that.

'Precious Things' is next, conjouring up images of playground vendettas and Catholic school angst - "so you can make me come, doesn't make you Jesus". It's a sorry tale of isolation and rejection, neatly summed up in the line "no-one told me, where the pretty girls are". Marginalised, isolated and alone, the teller of this particualr story is not a happy bunny, and not someone you'd want to meet in a dark alleyway.

In complete contrast, the aforementioned 'Winter' is a beautiful, haunting lullaby to the innocence of youth, a child's love song to their father. More than this, though, it's the realisation that we all have to someday break away from the security of our parents - "you must learn to stand up for yourself, 'cause I can't always be around". It's a reflective look back at the advice given many years previously but unheeded until now, as is often the case - "things change, my dear" is not only a sound piece of advice, but also a warning to be ready for life's rollercoaster of highs and lows. The coda of the song, though, "never change", implores our heroine to retain the qualities that make her who she is. In just shy of six minutes, Tori Amos manages to impart more wisdom that you could hope to be privy to in a lifetime. Listen and learn.

'Happy Phantom' brings some light relief, with a jaunty piano refrain accompanied by a smattering of percussion and slide guitar. Tori wonders "will I pay for who I've been", but this is a happy song, extolling the virtues of becoming a phantom and "chasing nuns out in the yard".

If 'Winter' was a tale of caution, 'China' is a tale of regret. This is a tale of two people separated by a great distance, and not necessarily a geographical one. This is that old familiar tale of being with someone who isn't really there. They may be there physically, but their mind is elsewhere, and may as well be in China. This song is the sad realisation that a relationship is drifting away. On the musical front, there is a beautiful and urgent vocal delivery that occurs three minutes into the song that is nothing short of breathtaking.

Leather' is a plea to be accepted, desperately searching for reasons why her paramour isn't interested in what she has to offer. "Look I'm standing naked before you", Tori informs us, before asking "oh God, why am I here?" and asking him to hand over her leather. A tale of opening up to the wrong person that we're all familiar with.

'Mother' is Tori's love letter to nervous first dates and prom nights. Hoping that the date will be wonderful but fearful that it will all up horribly, she sets off with butterflies in her stomach. "He's going to change my name", she hopes, but isn't quite sure and sets of with some trepidation. If this is all beginning to sound like a Cameron Crowe movie, then you're in the right ballpark. Little Earthquakes is all about awkward relationships and self-doubt and works wonderfully for it.

'Tear In Your Hand' is the other side of the fairy tale. "So you don't want to stay together anymore", we're told. Tori tells us that her ex's new love is just "pieces of me that you've never seen", echoing the confusion and bewilderment that accompanies being dumped by the love of your life. I could be everything she is, maybe, but then again, maybe it's time to wave goodbye."

Rarely can a pure acapella be so captivating as 'Me And A Gun', Tori's frank and emotional recollection of her real life rape. As she recounts her thoughts, you can't help but think what a dehumanising experience this must have been. I, thankfully, have no point of reference for this song, either from a personal or vicarious point of view, but I defy you to listen to this track and not come away in a seriously reflective state of mind.

The starkness of 'Me And A Gun' leads us into the title track, a haunting, mesmerising epic which is a metaphor for being on the outside, for being marginalised, for being torn apart by forces outside of our safe little lives. The force of these little earthquakes, Tori tells us against the rhythmic heartbeat of the drums, "doesn't take much to rip us into pieces." The song, and the album, pleads with us to "give me life, give me pain, give me myself again", and provides some emotional release for the journey that we've been on.

Little Earthquakes is possibly the most honest and moving album of the early 90s, perfect for a generation that was feeling increasingly isolated, and who was to soon lose one of its' heroes, Kurt Cobain, whose Smells Like Teen Spirit Tori regularly covered in her live sets. Not an instantly accessible album, but one that if you give it some time will work it's way under your skin and stay there, and you'll be eternally glad that it did.

Music Feature: Music Media - How Music Is Obtained by Aurliea Wilson

2005-01-17T20:05:00.000Z

Author: Aurliea Wilson

Remember way back when, the good old 8 track was the thing? It's ok neither do I. I wasn't around. Well, my parents have persuaded my musical taste and they aren't supportive of my new indie obsession. Anyways, there was 8-tracks, tape players, record players and more recently the portable CD player and even more recent the MP3 player, made popular by Apple's iPod.

Using my retro CD player to listen to the songs of many indie rock bands, I've learned to love my CD player, CD's and music much more respectively with the occasional 'oops, I dropped it on the floor again' mishaps. Compact Discs bring much more to the listener than MP3 players do. They bring album art, materialistic being of the songs and the presence of going to the music store to buy them. The downfalls of owning CDs, costly, space taking, CD player breaks and the worst one of all what do you do when the CD is scratched? Some can clean it while others cannot. It all evens out does it not?

The craze for Apple iPods is so...crazy, putting it simply. My major concern is 200 bucks for about 8000 songs I won't use. The are expensive and hold too much and don't serve the purpose they were made for, at least in my experience with those who do own the item. The iPod has become a status symbol. The question is "You have an iPod?" and not "Whats on your iPod?" A lot can be said about the person by their music. The new mini's are ripoffs. Less amount of songs for a more sum of money. What gives?

Many other MP3 players serve just as well as a purpose and yet are cheaper and stylish J the upsides are: all sorts of songs in your palm or pocket, more songs in less space, more portable, no cases to hold CDs. Tempting eh? It is many people have thought of purchasing these players. Mind you, most of these people don't own CD players. Again it's a status symbol that's not going to serve its rightful purpose.

I still love my CD player and will probably use it a lot more than my MP3 player yet, I still like to put it in my pocket and dance around with Franz Ferdinand playing.

Live Review: The Hidden Cameras at K4, Nürnberg - 12th December 2004

2005-01-06T22:24:00.000Z

Author: Eve Massacre

I had been listening to The Hidden Cameras' 'Mississauga Goddamn' album on repeat for the last couple of weeks. I love their 60s pop for the melancholic undertone in all their joyfulness, and of course for their lyrics - who else has ever written so poetically about gay sex and piss games? The seeming plainness and honesty of lines about secret fears (like "hunting hair to find emotional grace / I am scared you'll see my body and know that removing hair has taken over my life") combined with the easy approachable sing-along folk they play makes them irresistible.

I had read about their live shows with costumes and dancers and my expectations were a bit too high: there wasn't as much interaction with the audience as I wished for but it was pure enthusiastic 60s pop fun with simple infectious melodies spiced up by cello, violins, glockenspiel and tambourines, and they are really cute to watch: they have the coolest drummer in ages (10 out of 10 points for posing, lady!), the bald violin player hopped up and down grinning from one ear to another, the only rather static person in the band was the leader: Joel Gibb just stood there in front of them, sang and looked good and was serious while behind him the rest of the band had lots of fun. The 'show' parts with the whole band playing dead or all of them playing one song with eyes covered by a red cloth, well, those parts were a bit restrained but nice nevertheless. Not that I don't like what Joel Gibb is doing - especially as his voice and lyrics are The Hidden Cameras - but I caught myself wondering about what this band could do if it wasn't just one guy writing all the songs but as a real collective throwing their ideas together.

Album Review: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Self Titled

2005-01-05T21:41:00.000Z

Author: Aurliea Wilson

Peter Hayes: guitar/bass/keys/harmonica/vocals
Robert Turner: bass/guitar/keys/vocals
Nick Jago: drums/percussion

I give props to anyone who can play guitar and bass - not necessarily at the same time. I'm quite intrigued by that now. The three people who make up BRMC produced an indie rock album in 2001, the dawn of the new rock era.

1. Love Burns: Opens in a bar setting; the acoustic guitars are awesome.

2. Red Eyes and Tears: Cool riff and bass line. The vocals are haunting.

3. Whatever Happened to Our Rock and Roll [punk song]: My favorite off the whole album because its upbeat and some find it 'hardcore'.

4. Awake: it's a physcedelic mix of rock and other indie subgroups. I like the way the refrain is a different tempo than the verses.

5. White Palms: I like how the guitar makes a noise than seems like a drum would make creating a tempo and setting the beat. It sounds like a dark song.

6. As Sure As The Sun: I think this is a cool song title. The bass is highlited in the song yet the guitar kicks in at the right moments.

7. Rifles: The light tapping on the cymbals makes this song eerie. Although contrary to the verses the refrain is lightened up.

8. Too Real: Kind of folk and rock mix of instruments and vocals. In a word: calming

9. Spread Your Love: The bass has a cool lick played throughout the song. Spread Your Love Like A Fever.

10. Head Up High: I can't any other vocals except'Keep Your Head Up High' probably the only thing that needs to be said. A ballad of BRMC.

11. Salvation: The beginning is rather odd but it's a light note, a good note to end an album on.

Basically, ecceletic mix of all sorts of genres are complied into one album. From Pop Rock to Metal Everyone has something to love in this album.

Live Review: Yeah Yeah Yeahs at London Brixton Academy - 15th November 2004

2005-01-04T19:37:00.000Z

Author: Becky

The audience waited to catch a glimpse of the punk-fuelled Kazza 0 herself, during both the support acts (which were both pretty damn good), hoping to see a flash of aluminous pink, or a sighting of ripped fishnets. But, no, there was nothing, until...

The lady herself walked on, in a two-piece tweed suit! Miss O was followed then by Nick Zinner and Brian Chase, who were both going for the gothic look, all dressed in black, with heavy black make-up (well that was Nick anyway). The music starts, the drums kick in, and the guitar is officallly loving it, as Karen O starts to strip, removing the layers of tight conservative tweed to reveal, the kind of costume which would have blended in well in Wacko Jacko's 'Thriller' video. It's a skeleton body suit, with ribbons and tassles hanging off in all directions. She stomps around in her gem covered converse, pulling up her hood, hiding her paint streaked make-up. Even dressed as a grubby skeleton, she oozes sex appeal.

The tunes are played, the audience have a fantastic 'Date With The Night', while 'Pin' gets the whole crowd toe-tapping to the max, so that you feel like snogging the guy next to you with the 'I Love Karen O' T-shirt on. 'Maps' reveals a vulnerable side to the woman of madness, and the new tracks seem... interesting. We all want more, and as the crowd at the front get drenched with water from the security guards, they give us more.

The Karen O look-a-likes copy the orgasmic sounds, and the guys dribble with love for Miss O. It's a night to remember, a definate date with the night I'll never forget!

Live Review: The Futureheads at London ULU - 09th December 2004

2004-12-31T19:03:00.000Z

Author: Silke

The Futureheads are a quartet from Sunderland and consist of Barry Hyde, the band's frontman, and his bandmates Ross Millard, Jaff and Barry's younger brother, Dave. At their gig at ULU the four look like bookish and wholesome boys, dressed in a way that future mothers-in-laws would approve of: with ironed shirts buttoned up to the Adam's apple and tucked nicely into their trousers. The drummer even sports a tie and has a great posture - as my mother would've noticed - despite his furious drumming.

Altogether on first glance (if you didn't know who they were) you would expect to hear dull-as-dishwater prosaic ballads á la Coldplay and Keane. But The Futureheads are actually the perfect antidote to those bland and vapid bands, as they play XTC and The Gang of Four inspired punky and funky guitar-pop which also has edgy rhythms reminiscent of such greats as The Kinks and The Jam.

If you like The Futureheads' self-titled debut album you are absolutely going to love this band live. The jerkiness and giddiness of the album comes through even more in their passionate and quite funny live performance.

Essentially the gig at ULU was a manic romp through their bouncy album, with each song being short but fervent and fun flurries which all just seemed to end too soon. The quartet went from one highlight to the next, from the frenzied staccato rhythms of 'Le Garage', the buzzy 'A to B', to "He Knows" with its unruly beats and chorus of "oh-ohs" and the delicate melodies and harmony of "Decent Days and Nights". The fact that Barry doesn't try to tone down his Sunderland accent, his inimitable dancing (or shall I say convulsive moving of legs) and in-between-songs banter - such as when he announced they were not going to play "Hounds of Love" but instead East 17's "House of Love" and then launching into a 10 second rendition of it - make this band stand out as a must-see live band.

My favourite songs of the night were the two cover songs. Kate Bush's 'Hounds of Love' with its wonderful four-part harmonies, punchy guitar riffs and fun and the furious howls of "oh ohs" and the Paul Welleresque performance of "A Picture of Dorian Gray" (originally by London new wavers Television Personalities) were definite highlights of the show.

Once the encore of "Carnival Kids" and "Piece of Crap" (which Barry announced by saying that if they were playing to a rubbish crowd he would dedicate it to them) finished, I just wanted them to start all over again. Altogether this band can't be hyped enough. So here I go: These wholesome young Northern lads rock my world and I'm sure my mother would approve of them too..

Album Review: Stars - Set Yourself On Fire

2004-12-30T13:15:00.000Z

Author: Andrew Sykes

Stars are yet another band to come out of the eclectic Canadian collective that spawned KC Accidental, Broken Social Scene and Metric, the basic premise being that loads of art-school musicians (Do Say Make Think members, for example) get together in random little groups and make deliberately different music from their 'home' bands. When these beard-stroking, arch post-rock kids go pop, the results are astonishing.

Stars is based around the "he said, she said" vocal interplay of the fantastically named Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan. You can consider them the most pop end of the collective; there's precious little in the way of wigouts, krautrock clicks or any of that crap. They aim to take over the genre founded by later Pavement and Stephen Malkmus - the wry, witty pop song, mixing experimentation with clever lyrics and hook-laden choruses.

Opener Your Ex-Lover Is Dead is a tounge-in-cheek, heart-in-mouth description of the end of a relationship, set against horns and Death Cab-esque guitar lines. The whole thing has a vague resemblance to Fairy Tale Of New York; it catalogues love gone sour in the same offbeat way. In fact, the whole record is about relationships being destroyed, falling apart, or reminisced over. Check out The Big Fight; gentle Rhodes piano and a slow, gentle jazz feel allow Torquil and Amy's call-and-response vocals about the mundane facts of a breakup room to breathe: "There are bills here for you / that's cos nothing is free."

Ageless Beauty is a wall of guitar noise, reminiscent of Broken Social Scene's Almost Crimes, which progresses slowly and predictably, Amy's soft, Belinda Butcher vocals floating ethereally over the top, before a surprising, offbeat flurry of hypermelodic guitar noise signals the huge chorus to come crashing in while she joyfully proclaims "We will always be alive!" My Bloody Valentine homage it may be, but it's a damn good one.

What I'm Trying To Say comes across like the Postal Service aping Superchunk; bleepy keyboards and syncopated basslines track a bittersweet tale of love and heavy drug use with yet another killer chorus: "I am trying to say / what I'm trying to say / without having to say / I love you". Cheesy is never far away when you're trying to chronicle romantic entanglements, but the clever wit and dead-on observations will make you laugh (or cry) it off. Special mention must go to The First Five Times for being the best song ever about the first five times you have sex with someone - it's achingly true, heartrendingly funny and just plain genius. A bouncy acoustic riff drives Torquil through his reminiscing, before a buzzing bassline and heavy drums take us to a much darker place: "And every day / it's changed since then", sing Amy and Torquil together, in gloriously sad harmonies.

I could talk for hours about how great this album is. Every song is a small slice of pop perfection in its own right; witness swelling horns and soft organs on Sleep Tonight, driving, bouncy basslines and eighties synths on the hopelessly upbeat paen to love Set Yourself On Fire, or the rush of Pavement guitars that precedes an ode to longlost schooldays and Friend's Reunited-style meetings, Reunion. "I had six too many drinks last night, yes / and that's why I made you stay" sings Torquil, like it's the most romantic sentiment ever.

You need to hear this record. Seriously. It's moving, at turns both funny and bleak, and it's full of more great melodies and clever lyrics than most bands manage in an entire career. You owe it to your ears, your heart, and that little gooey bit in the centre of your brain that loves great pop music.

Album Review: Amusement Parks On Fire - Self Titled

2004-12-30T13:05:00.000Z

Author: Andrew Sykes

Hailing from that well-known hotbed of musical experimentation that is, uhm, Nottingham, and featuring ex-members of Wolves (Of Greece) and Punish The Atom, Amusement Parks On Fire have been labelled by that bastion of taste (yes, that's sarcasm) the NME as "new-gaze". Don't let memories of shaggy-haired white boys with too many FX pedals and no tunes put you off; APOF are a much more immediate project.

So, what do they actually sound like? Well, a lazy touchstone would be Kevin Shield's masterpiece Loveless, the same sea of churning guitars and muted drums rears its head here. Where the aforementioned classic was dreamy, ethereal and downright stoned, APOF moderate their wall of fuzzy guitar noise with some seriously huge riffs that cast your mind back to Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins.

The opener, 23 Jewels, is a soundscape of warm organ and feedback, violins twitching mournfully from speaker to speaker; as the track comes to a close, a wall of feedback suddenly segues into pounding, off-kilter drums as the boys unleash their guitar storm in the form of Venus In Cancer. If you listen carefully, it sounds like there's roughly ten guitars all screaming away at one monumental riff, while Mick Feerick yells "I haven't got time to ask / what you're here for!".

As Venus In Cancer dissolves into static and fractured noise, Eighty Eight's stop-start guitars stab out; a quick breath, and the track opens up the throttle. There's precious little in the way of silence on this record - like their live show, the boys obviously see any time where they're not playing as wasted.

The most hyperbolic of my ramblings have been retained for trying to describe the speaker-destroying, fist-pumping should-be anthem that is Venosa. Four minutes of pop genius filtered through impossibly huge sounding guitars, its FX riot doesn't let up for a second. The brief breakdown lures you into a false sense of security, as the boys draw guitar squiggles before the whipcrack of Mike's guitar pulls the chorus back in and spits you out, a huge smile on your face. Yes, it's that good.

The epic, eight minute Wiper showcases APOF's ability to manipulate a build-up; they seem to know the exact point at which they should step on those stompboxes and head straight for the centre of the sun. The Ramones Book is a pretty, piano led reminiscence which seems almost out of place, surrounded by hook-laden guitar anthems. That's not say it's a misstep. Its blissed-out vocals and utterly surrounding soundscape serve as a brief moment of respite before the destructive noise experiment that is Local Boy Makes God that closes the album.

For a debut, this record is astounding. APOF have a sound that's mature and yet ripe for exploitation - if they can produce something as fantastic as Venosa on their first outing, just imagine what they can do in the future. Let's do our bit and make sure, for once, a great new British band isn't criminally ignored.

Music Feature: "Spice Vs Sugar " - Chris Laing vs Karl Coppack

2004-12-19T21:59:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

In reaction to my good friend Karl Coppack's recent evaluation of the talents of Paul McCartney vs John Lennon (you see what I did there?), I thought I would add my 2ps worth. Before I kick off this article though, I would just like to state that this article is IN NO WAY trying to argue with Karls, erm, taste? It's just that I felt the record needed setting straight, and being in a priviliged position (your humble host), I have instantly beaten Karl down by adding a picture onto MY article, so ner! You see, the great thing about bands like The Beatles is that they inspire so much emotion, and there is nothing more interesting (to me) than listening to somebody else rant on about them Beatles. Personally, my love affair with The Beatles began at a very early age.

When I was about 4 years old, my mum had got very scratched, but playable copies of 'A Hard Days Night' and 'Rubber Soul' and I was absolutely fascinated by both of them. I didn't rate 'Hard Days Night' so highly, although you can't argue with 'If I Fell', but 'Rubber Soul' was a winner. Played 'Drive My Car' out last night actually, went down a treat. Even 'Rubber Soul' has it's duff tracks though, 'Girl' sounds dreadful to me, especially the sighs after each line of the chorus, cheesy as hell. Miserable too. 'What Goes On' is also bad, and 'Michelle' grates a bit, although it is kind of charming in it's own little way. Now the man truly responsible for getting me into The Beatles is my old man. Not that he did so by design you understand, it went like this; every Friday night he would pick me up from piano lessons at the sadly missed Medway School for Music (I was aged 11 by now) and the choice of tapes in the car on the way home (a half hour journey) was Kenny Rogers, Tammy Wynette, or 'The Beatles Ballads'. Now although 'Ballads' wasn't a great compilation, it did have some winners on; 'Hey Jude', 'The Fool On The Hill' and 'Let It Be'. (See what I did there?)

Now oddly enough, my dad actually phoned me halfway through me writing the second paragraph, and I mentioned the fact that I was writing a Beatles piece and he could take the credit for getting me into The Beatles, and I asked what his stance was on Lennon vs McCartney, and his response went like this; "I prefer McCartney I think, oh no hang on because although McCartney did go on to do more songs with Wings (I think he thinks Wings are still going!) Lennon did write 'Imagine' which was a huge hit". I can see my Dad's point, but nothing can divert from the fact that these words come from a man who wears 'I Love Greece' T-shirts and likes corned beef. Also, my Dad likes 'Help', the album. That aside, he did mention that when 'Help' was released, it was the first mainstream record that featured the duo taking it turns to sing 'behind' the main vocal part, which was kind of clever.

So, where are we going with this then? I think I will take a slightly different tactic to Karl, and basically count the stinkers on each LP from 'Pepper' onwards, and then the winner is the loser, if you follow. 85% of Beatles output pre-Pepper is pants anyway. (Sticks tongue out at Karl)

Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Right, lets think about the stinkers then, there aren't many on here, ooh hang on though, lets think about this. 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite' was one of John's, and is truly crap, although I like George Martin's work with the tape loops, at least I guess it was him. 'Within You Without You' was Harrison, and 'When I'm Sixty Four' was Pauls. I'm tempted to call 'Good Morning, Good Morning' a stinker as well, but I think that would be a little unfair, and I'll save that kind of behaviour for later.

Result: John 1, Paul 1

Magical Mystery Tour.

OK, McCartney really shouldn't have taken acid. Whereas someone like Syd Barrett was a transformed visionary a couple of tabs in, McCartney went off the rails totally, writing nonsense like 'Your Mother Should Know' and the dreadful 'Hello Goodbye' although the latter does have some nice vocal reverb. Ho hum.

Result: John 0, Paul 2.

The White Album.

Got this on the stereo now actually, 'Honey Pie' at the moment. Hmm. For dogs sake Paul, it's not looking good son. Stinkers left right and centre here, so lets go through them. 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' being the first one. What an insult to reggae man! The next one, 'Wild Honey Pie' is bad, but I don't know who wrote it, I think it's McCartney though, so thats two stinkers to Paul so far. Maybe it was the beard. Ooh hang on, 'The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill' is VERY bad, and that was John. Sick, sick little puppy. The next stinkers are from George and Ringo respectively, and then Paul storms back in with 'Why Don't We Do It In The Road' which is possibly the crappiest Beatles track ever. 'Birthday' is bad, but not as bad as 'Yer Blues', 'Honey Pie' sees McCartney face to face with barking dogs (they were returning his call) and 'Helter Skelter' is just horrible. John however, doesn't do himselves any favours, ending the LP with 'Revolution 9' (a 7 minute collage of scary noises) and the yukky 'Good Night'. Scores, George Dawes.

Result: John 4, Paul 6.

Abbey Road.

This is gonna be quick, there are only a couple of stinkers from the duo on this LP, one of which is the cheesy 'Come Together' from John, and the others are 'Maxwells Silver Hammer' and 'Her Majesty', both of which expose McCartney quite frankly, as a bit of a knob.

Result: John 1, Paul 2.

Let It Be.

OK, not my fave LP of theirs but has lots of fairly nice tracks on, although there is a stinker from each, Paul invites us down 'The Long And Winding Road' (f*ck Let It Be...Naked), Spector saved a sinking ship, and 'Get Back' should have been a non LP B side.

And so we have it, lets tot up the scores, John 6, and Paul a shocking 11! The problem is you see, is that by this method of evaluation, we discover that when McCartney wants to be, he can be a right bloody knob. Lennon however manages to pull off writing the odd dud, because they are rarely REALLY dud, they are normally a bit tongue in cheek. Shame really, because I don't think that Lennon wrote very many TOTAL classics, not like 'Hey Jude' (can we be friends again now Karl?) or 'Let It Be' (oh, never mind then) or 'Martha My Dear' or (I'll get me coat)..

Music Feature: "Sugar Vs Spice" - John Lennon vs Paul McCartney by Karl Coppack

2004-12-19T18:07:00.000Z

Author: Karl Coppack

Some years ago I saw a documentary about the greatest band in the world. Some women were assessing who their favourites were. Some claimed that Paul McCartney was their man as he's "seriously cute." Others pointed out that Lennon was much more lifelike thanks to his natural hard-edged cynicism. In general though they preferred the doe eyed minstrel to the bitter ball of anger. They didn't dislike John outright though. In fact, they argued that the two men were so opposite in character that it somehow added to the Beatles total ability. Beauty and suffering in musical terms. Abrasion and balm.

"Every time I see him leaving the room I think, "Mozart has just left the room."" Not my words. These are the words of Paul Gambucini. Me and Gambo don't agree on many things apart from Hey Jude being the single greatest song ever recorded and wholegrain mustard's easy superiority over its yellow brother and, I'm afraid to say, we don't agree here. Gambo often likes to bandy the word "genius" in his McCartney sentences. Sorry Paul but there have only been two geniuses and they are Shakespeare and Mozart. Sir James Paul McCartney does not make up a triumvirate. He's got God given talent but let's not go mad.

Aha! You've got my number! You're a John man, are you? Well, yes and well, no. You see, I disagree with woman above. I've never seen the Beatles thing as falling in between two camps. It doesn't work this way. Life doesn't. The lines are far too blurred for that. Look at the evidence. Soft and gentle McCartney is mainly responsible for Helter Skelter which out rocks Led Zep at their Roman orgiastic best while on the same album the singing like he's got salt in a gun wound Lennon recorded "Julia", the beautiful ballad Elliot Smith tried to re-write a hundred times. Well, okay, let's try to rate them against each other. This isn't the point of the Beatles - it was never a contest, but let us speculate. We can begin with their pre 1967 innings. Well quite.

You see, pre 1967 they worked as a team. Lennon and McCartney in its purest sense. Sitting opposite each other in hotel rooms, nipping off to write the middle eight of their mate's verse and chorus etc. Together they could knock out some gold. Do you really need me to provide you with evidence? Really? Fine. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I give you "Ticket To Ride." Three perfect minutes of awesome ability. This is clearly John's song but it's nothing without Paul's percussive layering. You can't give that to Ringo (you can give him "Rain" though - his finest hour) as it was McCartney who orchestrated it and the song couldn't get along without it. Mind you, the winklepicker fits on the other foot too. "I'll Follow The Sun" is archetypal Paul, beautiful, unobtrusive and simple but John's sharing of the chorus gives it its balls. They got on then and Christ can't you tell. Who's winning so far?

Well, clearly we are. Actually before we go any further can I "out" our editor. Next time you're at a Buttoned Down night why not go up to the man with the long fringe who is giving you the best tunes in all of the metropolis' postal districts and ask him why he dislikes "Girl" and "Eleanor Rigby". Go on. It'll take his mind off requests for Wham and Lene Lovitch. For believe it or not, young Chris doesn't rate them. You wouldn't credit it, would you? He looks so intelligent too. Go and ask him. You won't want to though, will you? Perhaps you're like me and want to take pity on him and don't want to be a party to such Flat Earth thinking. I mean, just listen to the things, will you? If you really think that the rest of us are admiring the Emperor's new clothes then kindly leave me to myself. Go on. You're not wanted. I digress.

So Paul 1 John 1 before Pepper.

Now, obviously Pepper is overrated but it's the Beatles for Christ sakes. The Beatles! The two gladiators meet and shake hands on the awesome "She's Leaving Home" and again on "A Day In The Life" but Paul lets down his fan club with "Fixing A Hole", "When I'm Sixty Four" and "Lovely Rita." John fouls the footpath too but not quite so much. Incidentally, clawing back to that "two parts of a whole" argument I bored you with earlier McCartney insists that a good example lies in the lyrics of "Getting Better" strikes their typical chords. Allow me.

Paul: I have to admit it's getting better. A little better all the time.
John: It couldn't get much worse.

John takes a lead for Strawberry Fields Forever alone. Also, the dull "Hello Goodbye" (McCartney) had the superb "I Am The Walrus" (Lennon) on the flip side. Adequate proof that they really did start to lose their mental faculties after Brian's death. I'm calling the rest of Magical Mystery Tour a draw as for Paul's awful "Your Mother Should Know" is followed by his exquisite "Fool On The Hill." They both worked on "Flying" which is comfortably the most underrated Beatles song ever.

Paul 1 John 2. Three albums to play.

Let's fly forward to November 1968 - the month of my birth. The lads have been to India, been silly, found the meaning of life, played acoustic guitars with Donovan and abandoned their razors. Now they're back and recorded The White Album. Imagine going to a record shop and buying that album on the day it was released. Let's be fair, amongst the beauty there are some absolute howlers. "Martha My Dear," "Ob Bla Di" and "Honey Pie" for Paul, "Revolution 9," and "Good Night" for Johnny Boy. George throws in "Savoy Truffle" (which Buttoned Down Chris likes! He's asking for it, isn't he?) to prove that he's still learning his craft but he's getting there. So who wins 1968? Lennon gives us "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", "Revolution", "Sexy Sadie", "I'm So Tired", "Dear Prudence" and "Cry Baby Cry". Imagine having written those songs in one calendar year. Prudence alone would have me resting on my laurels. So he's won this year, yeah? Paul donates the ludicrous "Rocky Racoon", the three mentioned above and the loathsome "Lady Madonna". How can he win?

He does.

By a mile.

A country one.

"Hey Jude."

It's the equivalent of a last minute goal, of an admired woman deciding not to go home with her boyfriend after all and asking about your toothbrush arrangements. As saves go this one is a doozy. It's perfect. It's the greatest song ever recorded. Gambo, I'm in your corner on this one. It's simple as all great music is. Anyone who can bang out a tune can play it. It begins like a ballad and ends as a gospel choir with Little Richard wailing over it. The fadeout is brilliantly innovative, as it was the first 7" single to go over seven minutes. DJs used to play it at seven minutes to the hour before the news so they could end their programmes could end that little earlier. And what a way to end your programme. Even Chris likes it!

Paul 2 John 2.

As Iggy says, "It's 1969 okay. There's war across the USA." There was war in the Beatle camp too. Apple was going tits up, Paul and John couldn't agree with each other's choice for manager, they both married very different women and they both worked on and released The Ballad Of John And Yoko. Times don't get much lower than that. I'm going to club "Abbey Road" and "Let It Be" together although the latter was released later a year later. Let's see how they get on. John gives us "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", "Don't Let Me Down" (another B side to an inferior song) and "Across The Universe" (which you might not like but you should try Bowie's version. Someone should call the Inquisition). Not much of a return but he was looking for a way out by now. Paul's good stuff includes "Oh! Darling," "The Long And Winding Road" and "Let It Be." Again, not much of a return. They were both matched by George this year too. "Here Comes The Sun," Something," and "For You Blue" would give him the year but we're not talking about him. That's for another time. No, you see in 1969 something great happened. Something wondrous that paid instant dividends. They started working together again. Just look at the results. "Two Of Us," "Sun King," "Because" (great on the Anthology and almost ruined by Annie Lennox. If you've still got the Inquisition on the phone you might like to tell them to hang on a moment) and "The End". This last one ends with their best couplet which sums up their last eight recording years.

"And in the end, the love you make, is equal to the love you take."

Shakespeare + Mozart.

This should have been their last word, the perfect farewell, the coup de grace but Paul, Paul!, ruins the whole thing by sticking a limp ballad of love to the FUCKING QUEEN at the end. I'm sorry Paul, I was going to call it a draw and make some lame point about how you can't rate one over the other but I'm giving John the nod just because of "Your Majesty". You just know that he snuck back into the studio when the others were on holiday and put it on at the end without telling anyone cause he's so bastard nice. That's too much honey, sunshine. You've lost this little contest because of it. Unforgiveable.

Final score: Paul 2 John 3 (after extra time in Studio No. 2, Abbey Road). Attendance, one man, an acoustic guitar and a bellyful of wine.

Live Review: Babyshambles at London Forum - 13th December 2004

2004-12-17T11:30:00.000Z

Author: Karl Coppack

"Do you know me? I don't think so."

These are perhaps the most telling lines in the whole Babyshambles canon. Who does know Pete Doherty? Is he the misunderstood genius of a thousand tunes and a special insight into human pain or just another wasted junkie with a passion for poetry and a glib tongue? Well, tonight Pete isn't telling. He's showing you instead.

That's if he shows up. For those who have witnessed him live before there's a familiar anxiety to the beginning of the night. Those who have chosen to turn up at the loosely termed "stage time" aren't too surprised to see an empty stage. At 9pm we expect Babyshambles but are only greeted with the support band. This doesn't augur well for the evening. Perhaps some of tonight's audience went to the famed Camden Barfly gig, Aberdeen's Lemon Tree or one of the other no show gigs. Worried looks are exchanged.

"Not again?"

Then he's on. Did we ever doubt him? He strolls on with such a familiarity that we might have all just appeared in his living room. He's scrubbed up too. The pork pie hat and the suit replace the usual semi-naked stage outfit. Maybe it's the same suit he wore in court recently. He plops his hat on the mike stand and begins.

"Thanks for turning up to the soundcheck. How much did you pay to get in? Twenty quid? Jesus!" He's on form already. "In Love With A Feeling" sees him flop around the stage in his loose limbed fashion. Occasionally he throws his arms around a band mate. He audibly tells Drew "I told you I'd get you to the big time." Yes, we've got him in a good mood.

It can always turn nasty though. The highlight to those new to the Shambles is the Libertines' "What Katie Did". He brings a child onto the stage for the reprise. The kid looks scared at first, (wouldn't you be?) but gamely joins in for the last line. The followers of the Albion cheer loudly. It's another Pete surprise. This time last year at a Libertines gig he brought a dwarf onto the same stage to sing a sea yarn called "Sally Brown". Earlier that night we'd sat through Chas and Dave. Say what you like about Pete, he'll always give you a show. The kid exits stage right and the band give the crowd what they want. They roar into the now top ten hit "Killamangiro". He's a chorus in when he stops the band dead and accuses someone of throwing a glass at the child. He sits back on the drum platform shaking his head. The whole crowd feels chastised. It's not for long though. He's on his feet and back again a minute later. He can only resist the mike for so long.

He can only end on one song. The ode to his mate and mentor "Wolfman". The man himself appears for the song, backed by thumping drums. Then they're away and into the night. We can only guess where.

We might not "know" Pete Doherty but we learn a lot about Babyshambles. They are not a Diet Libertines, just filling in until he and Carl make up. We may never see Pete and Carl dive from the same stage again but it's not to say that the rest of the Shambles are a mere "Pete Doherty Plus Three". True, they'll never have the same sense of camaraderie and passion as the Libertines but they exist comfortably in their own right. Even without the Libertines, this band would have made it. They're already England's primary band and they haven’t even got an album out yet. You don't get that from one man's charisma.

So who is Pete Doherty? He's a man with enormous talent, slightly misunderstood and not entirely reliable. He may not always turn up but once he has you know he's there. Surely that's enough for anyone.

So do we know him? I don't think so.

Album Review: Green Day - American Idiot

2004-12-07T22:05:00.000Z

Author: Becky Parkes

It seems like an age since Green Day last graced us with an original album, not made up of their previous hits or B-sides; whilst "International Superhits" was a good compilation of their singles, the original material on offer was a paltry two songs.

"American Idiot" reverts back to post-"Warning" Green Day, with fewer bizarre interludes. Whilst "Warning" was a strong album, it did seem to digress away from the true nature of Green Day, though it did spawn the fantastic "Minority". Opening with the title track, which everyone must have heard by now unless they have been dwelling in a box for the last few months, you realise that Green Day are indeed back on form. The second track may come as something of a surprise; split into five distinct sections, riff-packed catchy tunes are followed by slightly down-tempo, more introspective tunes before picking up and whizzing off at speed once again. The third track, "Holiday", is again a "classic" Green Day track, with pounding guitars and a melody that'll stick in your head as effectively as a radio jingle, though admittedly with far less irritation.

Without going into detail about every nuance of the CD, I think it's enough to say that although the album is a return to form as far as their style is concerned, lyrically Green Day have moved on. Whilst Billie Joe has previously penned lyrics about drugs and masturbation (especially if you hark back to "Dookie"), "American Idiot" moves on to a hatred for Bush's America, and brings back their subversive element. Structurally, this album is the most ambitious album they have yet produced, with two mini punk-operas in the form of "Jesus of Suburbia" and "Homecoming" forming the core of the album, and the album as a whole chronicling the year of a fictional character with a somewhat double personality. Green Day leap from genre to genre whilst maintaining their roots, from the poignant acoustic "Wake Me Up When September Ends" through to the punk aggression of "St Jimmy".

Personally, this is my favourite Green Day album yet- whilst progressive and ambitious, it maintains musically what they do best- punk rock you can mosh to. Here's hoping their live shows are as amazing as the album.

Music Feature: "The Best Cinematic Album In The World Ever?" by Peter Muscutt

2004-12-06T22:04:00.000Z

Authour: Peter Muscutt

Music Ripe For a Film Soundtrack!

Have you ever heard a song, a piece of music etc and wondered 'that would work well in a film?' OK, probably not. It's to my eternal shame that I have a Smart Playlist on my iPod (although there's only three - the others being 'Mash-ups', a 150-strong list of groovy bootleg cut-ups and remixes by DJs from the mash-up scene and 'The Best Mix', a highly unoriginal title for my favourite ever tracks) called 'Atmospheric Music'. This play-list is a collection of songs, that, although not widely known or that popular, still represent a peculiar charm, an eerie feeling, or just sound like they'd infinitely contribute to a particular type of scene in a film.

If I'm honest, it was a half-hearted attempt to write a book that made me put this list together. The book was (or should that be 'is' - I'm still convinced I'll write it one day) called 'Floor 15', and was about a crumbling council estate in some unnamed city just after a nuclear war has taken place in Britain (as it often does, dangerous things those nuclear weapons!). It was to have various chapters devoted to various strange characters, such as a woman who kept her stillborn foetus in a jar (which had psychic powers, naturally), an elderly lady who accidentally kills a young boy whilst trying to escape the war-torn estate, and an ever present gang of boys who pester a man known as The Storyteller for clues as to how the country got into the deserted, corpse-ridden state it now is. The music I was listening to at the time led me to think of it as some kind of 'soundtrack' to the book, and I'd like to share some of those songs with you now...Oh yes, and if the book ever gets finished, go and buy a copy! Call me nerdy if you like, but I even thought about which parts of my story these songs would suit - if you liked the soundtrack to 'Trainspotting', chances are you'll lap this up. Or not... see what you think!

The Cooper Temple Clause - Written Apology (from the album 'Kick Up The Fire and Let the Flames Break Loose')
An absolutely outstanding song that is just crying out to be in some movie, preferably at the end. In my story, I always imagined it to coincide with the ending, which involved the final remnants of the estate collapsing in the light of a fresh nuclear attack. I love the way it starts off quite dark and menacing, before exploding into some anguished rock song, then mutating into some alien techno ending, all spread over ten glorious minutes.

The Future Sound of London - First Death In The Family (from the album 'Dead Cities')
The FSOL have always made very cinematic pieces of music, albums with rarely any discernable start and end, with endless segues of music that you can lie back and imagine things to! This piece is another dark and surreal song, not really anything you could hum on the way to the shops, but damn fine for using in a story like mine.

Ultrasound - Happy Times Are Coming (from the album 'Everything Picture')
This group only made the one album to my knowledge, which is a shame, as they made some great atmospheric tracks like this eight-and-a-half-minute gloom-a-thon, which, being gloomy, would suit my story again. If I'm being honest, most of these songs included here are more like end credits music for a film - they seem to have some dramatic or optimistic quality that seems perfect for an ending.

Blur - Essex Dogs (from the album 'Blur')
If Blur ever wanted to release a song under a different name so nobody would know it was them, then this would edge it. A moody, paranoia filled trip through suburbia with Damon and the lads, depicting dogs jumping through sprinklers, Essex pubs, and the smell of puke and piss. Just the sort of grimy, eerie song that I thought would suit a film well. Rather than an ending, this would be better positioned at the start of a film - or in my story, a journey through the horrors of a bombed out country. It's a cheery story, this one I'm writing, isn't it?

Mansun - Special/Blown It (Delete as Appropriate) (from the album 'Six')
This isn't as depressing as some of the other songs on my list, and has a kind of bleak optimism, a sense of resignation (the line 'I've really blown it now... ' summing it up) but with a freedom to the whole thing - almost like 'I've made a mess of things but now I can start fresh'.

Suede - The Next Life (from the album 'Suede')
A very gentle, piano led ballad which is very minimal in it's arrangement. Brett Anderson's voice kind of caresses you in this one, like a hangover cure. This would work well in one of those scenes where a character needs to get some space and leaves home for some distant place. Not stereotyping those kind of films or anything.

Pulp - Deep Fried In Kelvin (from the single 'Lipgloss')
How this track was never even put on an album is perhaps the biggest crime Pulp ever committed. A fantastic ten minute ode to the joys (or not) of living on the infamous Kelvin housing estate in Sheffield. As this song is actually about a council estate, it makes it a dead cert for being included on the soundtrack of a story about one. As it is, this is beautifully apocalyptic, timeless, and scary.

Muse - Nishe (from the single 'Unintended')
Beautiful laid back track that sounds like it was recorded in some bedroom really late at night, like 3am or something. Would suit a night time scene in a film or story such as mine, and the fact that it's an instrumental swayed it for me! (Isn't all good film music instrumental?)

Suede - We Are The Pigs (from the album 'Dog Man Star')
Another Suede track, and one suitable for an opening track, playing over some credits at the start of a film (God, I am sounding a real nerd now). This track, full of soaring chords and interspersed with seedy sounding trumpets, is a real winner. It's just that little bit less commercial than something like 'Animal Nitrate' which would give it a bit more credibility in a film.

Kraftwerk - Mitternacht (from the album 'Autobahn')
Although it could be argued the entire 'Radioactivity' album could have been the soundtrack to some odd, experimental art film, this effort from Kraftwerk's fourth album shows how atmospheric they could be, even in 1974. All the feeling and sounds of a walk through a city at midnight are conveyed here, from dripping water, to echoing footsteps, whooshes of steam from factories and dark, descending chords bringing across the sense of a walk down some dark, deserted street.

Orbital - Transient (from the album 'The Blue Album')
Orbital hit their cinematic peak in 1996 with the amazing 'Insides' album, but this effort from their final studio album captures that film-music style one last time. Sounds like a piece of incidental music from some futuristic science fiction horror, which...hmm, didn't they record in the shape of the soundtrack to 'Event Horizon'? The original choice from the Hartnoll brothers was the full length, five-part, thirty minute version of 'The Box', but that would have been heavy going even for the most difficult of films!

The Orb - S.A.L.T. (from the album 'Orblivion')
Paranoia packed and apparently narrated by radio's very own Mark Radcliffe (I'm sure it's not), this is dark, wavering techno punctuated by some bloke going on about prophecies, strange marks on hands signalling the bar-coding of society, and an unhealthy obsession with the number 666. It picks up as it goes along, twisting from a meandering song you definitely shouldn't listen to when walking home late at night to a full blown techno overload.

Babylon Zoo - Is Your Soul For Sale? (from the album 'The Boy With The X-Ray Eyes')
OK, not the most fashionable band ever, but this track from the groups' first album is a worthy film-closer, and for some reason I keep imagining a small plane carrying survivors from a great fire away from the smouldering ashes of a ruined London. Maybe because of the line 'London town is burning, and the mice and men are running...'

Muse - The Gallery (from the single 'Bliss')
Quite experimental in that Muse haven't really ventured into the world of synthesisers and treated drum machine beats that often, but this veers nicely away from the rock guitar sound they do so well. Like the other track of theirs used here, 'Nishe', this is futuristic in sound, but still retains an eeriness associated with things like the end of the world or lots of death. Which my story would have in the truckload.

The Auteurs - School (from the album 'How I Learned To Love The Bootboys')
If you need any evidence that Luke Haines, lead singer in The Auteurs, can do film soundtracks, watch 'Christie Malry's Own Double Entry'. This is a frankly disturbing song gentle in stature, but with a sense of menace just bubbling underneath the surface.

Orbital - I Wish I Had Duck Feet (from the album 'Snivilisation')
There was a song they always used to play in Drama class at school, which was really, really frightening and had a woman singing in distorted vocals with the line 'what...is behind the curtain', and it used to freak me out completely. I had the same sort of feeling listening to this, another cinematic wonder from Orbital, which is all about freak shows. Yes, freaks, nuclear war, death, violence and general horror. If my story is going to be a film, methinks it will be an '18' rating!

So there you go, music lovers. If you like the sound of some of your favourite songs being in a film, why not start pestering the film makers to fork out the cash to use them? After all, its only by fluke that Godspeed You Black Emperor were used in '28 Days Later' - you know, the music that builds to a great crescendo as the lonely guy wanders around a deserted London... and that song rocks!

Classic Albums: Guns 'N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction

2004-12-05T10:55:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

Though it seems like a distant memory now, and to those in their teens maybe even a myth, once upon a time Guns 'n' Roses were not only the most dangerous band on the planet, but they made what is easily one of the best rock albums ever produced, the seminal Appetite For Destruction.

At the time, rock music's rising stars included the likes of Motley Crue, Ratt, Poison, Cinderella and a whole host of other bands whose main priority was to look good and play good time rock and roll music, in that order. To be in these bands the main criteria was that you could apply your eyeliner correctly and tease your hair just so. If you could play your instrument well (or at all in some cases) and sing then so much the better, but it wasn't the most essential quality needed.

Towards the end of 1986, however, Kerrang! magazine began to run small pieces about an LA band (weren't they all in those days?) who were taking the Sunset Strip by storm, selling out gigs and shifting copies of their debut EP Live ?!*@ Like A Suicide like there was no tomorrow. Unusually though, these were no pretty boys, they actually looked like they came from the street (which as it happens they really did, living together in a squat in Hollywood) and even more unusually they played their instruments like they knew what they were doing. The icing on the cake was their singer, W Axl Rose, whose vocals ricocheted from low growls to high pitched screams that Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson would have been proud of, all with the greatest of ease and with an authoritative tone that was missing from the rest of the pack.

After teasing the UK rock audience by releasing It's So Easy in June of 1987, and following it up with three nights at the Marquee (accompanied by the Star's claims that "a rock band even nastier than the Beastie Boys is heading to the UK"), the band's debut album Appetite For Destruction hit the shelves and thus began four years in which the rock world belonged to Guns 'n' Roses. But was it THAT good, really? Let's take a look.

Kicking off with Welcome To The Jungle, the LA quintet effectively laid out their stall for the next 60 minutes, asking us "You know where you are?" before informing us that "You're in the jungle, baby. You're gonna die." The staccato main riff conjours up the atmosphere of 1986 Los Angeles perfectly, and even before the world had become accustomed to the accompanying video, it was easy to image the boys swaggering down the Strip, whiskey bottles in hand, fags hanging from lips and groupies in tow.

It's So Easy's opening bassline, played by the bastard son of Sid Vicious, Duff McKagen, heralds one of the great attitude songs, all punk sensibilities and razor sharp observations. This, in short is the song that Nikki Sixx would love to have written, but would never have gotten away with with Vince Neil's crybaby vocals. In what might have been a foreshadowing of the perfectionism that would later tear the band apart, Axl tells us that "Nothin' seems to please me", and then delivers one of the great rock lyrics of our time, "I see you standing there, you think you're so cool, why don't you just, fuck off!". Couldn't have put it better myself.

Nightrain follows, borrowing heavily from Slash's surrogate father, Joe Perry of Aerosmith fame, and speeding along like, well, a night train. Guns' ode to chemicals contains more imaginative soloing that a whole rack of Poison albums and left many an air guitarist out of breath on the dancefloor back in the day.

The best way to describe Out To Get Me is to imagine an ACDC album played at 45rpm. (For those of you who don't know what a "45rpm" is, go ask your dad about those 12" black circular things he's got stashed in the attic.) "Some people got a chip on their shoulder, and some would say it was me", sings Axl, and never a truer word was committed to vinyl (amazingly this album is that old it came out before the advent of CD!).

Mr Brownstone is up next, all swagger and attitude. Those of you old enough might imagine the Hoffmeister bear
shuffling down the street to the sounds of Mr Brownstone. This is one of those songs that if you hear it in a club and it doesn't get your hips and shoulders moving then you're probably dead. Another ode to pharmaceutical stimulation, it seems ironic looking back now that Axl eventually threw Steven Adler out of the band for drug abuse when their whole image was originally based on being the pinnacle of the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll lifestyle.

The next track needs no introduction, and has graced everything from rock festivals to weddings in the 17 (count 'em!) years since it was released. Paradise City, along with Sweet Child O'Mine will remain Guns legacy to the world. Both were songs that while they fit firmly into the hard rock mould, had enough about them to cross over into the mainstream, and send Appetite into the stratospheric record sales company of Bon Jovi and Def Leppard. Back in the days before CDs when you had to turn the record over after the end of side one, this was exactly the kind of track that drew the first half to a satisfying close, yet left you wanting more.

My Michelle. A classic stop start guitar riff that segues into a fast and furious chorus. If there was a filler track on Appetite (and there isn't) then this would be it. On any other album of the era this would have been a standout track, but measured against the rest of Appetite, this is definitely the runt of the litter. That said, it's still a belter of a track, forcing itself out of the speakers with a nasty attitude, and in many ways the perfect start to side two of your old vinyl album. It's good, but just wait until you hear the rest of this side.

Think About You is an effective juxtaposition of loud, abrasive guitars with the first of two surprisingly tender lyrics on the album (well, tender when put against the grime and venom of much of the rest). "It was the best time I can remember, and the love we shared, is lovin' that'll last forever," Axl sings, and you actually believe him. Even urchins from the street need love and you get the feeling that this is the closest you're ever going to get to hearts and flowers from Guns.

What more can be said about the next track that hasn't already been said. This track is undoubtedly the most recognised Guns track, and a sure contender for the best loved rock track of the 80s. Sweet Child O'Mine is the song that almost never was. Slash has always maintained that he never wanted a ballad on the album, and right up to the last weeks of Appetite's gestation, this track wasn't even written. Fate intervened, however, and an impromptu jam session turned into Sweet Child, and the rest, as they say, is history. A timeless and classic intro riff that will forever define Guns 'n' Roses in the eyes of the world, but what a way to be defined.

Where to go from the triumph of Sweet Child? Well, how about the aural assault that is You're Crazy. Though redone to much better effect as an acoustic song on Lies, this was the perfect antidote to Sweet Child, rudely reminding you that Guns were a hard rock band. You want Foreigner, great. Just not here. Short, loud, abrasive. What more do you want?

My Way is more of the same, with Axl telling us "My way, your way, anything goes tonight." On the strength of this, you don't doubt him for a second. "Tied up, tied down or up against the wall," the choice is yours.

Appetite draws to a close with what can only be described as a cinematic rock experience. Rocket Queen is the kind of song that gets played over montages of debauched LA rock clubs in movies. Picture the scene. Our hero walks into the club, amid a writhing mass of scantily clad bodies. We pan past girls and boys with mascara and piercings, their faces illuminated by the pulsating light show, as this track plays, loudly. This is no throwaway song at then end of a album, this finishes off Appetite with both a bang and a final plea from Axl that "All I ever wanted was for you to know that I cared."

Classic album? Definitely. Listening to Appetite again as I write this review, it stands out as one of the few rock albums that has stood the test of time. While I still like Motley's Shout At The Devil, Ratt's Invasion Of Your Privacy, Cinderella's Night Songs and even Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet, Appetite has that attitude and certain "je ne sais quoi" that many of the 80s rock albums lacked. In short, if you like you guitars loud and your rock hard, this album deserves a place in your collection..

Classic Albums: Helen Love - Radio Hits

2004-12-05T05:16:00.000Z

Author: Silke

Sometimes a glum and miserable day (as we've been having of late here in London) can be cheered up in an instant by the most ridiculously simple thing. It can be the tiniest bit of news, a song on the radio, a call from someone and suddenly "hey ho" your "heart goes boom".

For me a wave of sweet and warm happiness overcame me when I heard the news that Helen Love - who I had thought to be one of the many groups from the early 1990s that hadn't stood the test of time - are due to release a new EP called "The Bubblegum Killers EP" in the New Year. The news immediately made me dig out Helen Love's first CD album Radio Hits and I was cheered up beyond believe listening to it. To be honest I had totally forgotten how peculiar and wonderfully kitsch and jolly it is!

For those of you unfamiliar with Helen Love, the group was formed in Cardiff in 1993 by Helen Love (vocals), Sheena (guitar), Roxy and Mark (Casio keyboards and drum machines) and the members are Wales's self-proclaimed biggest fans of the Ramones.

"Radio Hits" is a repackaging of all the Helen Love singles and EPs up to 1994 and thus a short but sweet, jovial introduction to their early lo-fi punk sounding trash-pop tunes.

I know it sounds cheesy but their music can only be described as The Ramones meet bubble gum pop: with supersonic punk guitar riffs, poppy and tacky keyboard jingles and drum machine beats and of course the shout-along punk grrll vocals. What I love about it most are their uniquely innocent, simple and silly teenage-like lyrics though.

For example in "Formula 1 Racing Girls" Helen sings "I bought these jeans to make you love me / I cut a hole so your hand would fit" and Riding Hi has probably the laziest lyric in the world: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, it's great to be alive".

"Joey Ramoney" and "Greatest Fan" are tributes to guitarist Sheena's favourite Ramone and it just says it as it is: "Sheena's in love with Joey Ramoney / Wants to be his one and only / Sheena's in love with Joey Ramoney". (Incidentally, Joey became a great supporter of the group).

Pure happiness weaves itself throughout the album and "Summer Pop Radio" and "Love; Kiss; Run; Sing; Shout; Jump!" both remind me of hanging out in the summer sun and being in love.

However, my favourite track on the album is "Punk Boy 1" as it is full of romanticism and sweetness. Helen sings "Do stars explode when he walks you home / On a cool and clear evening / D'you wanna put him on like your favourite song / Or never wanna hear him" and it sounds really stupid, but to this day I work on the very same principle when I meet a boy! Because if your heart doesn't go boom when he walks in a room, then he is quite clearly not a punk boy!

I reckon we should all remember this, and obviously listen to Helen Love and also remember (as she announces in Punk Boy 2) to "Stay young and beautiful, / 'Cos that's what you are / That's what you are!"

Music Event: A top ten singles of 2004 overview by Aurliea Wilson

2004-12-04T11:25:00.000Z

The year 2004 was a year of great debuts and great follow ups. I compiled a list of the top ten greatest singles of 2004.

1. Ride- The Vines
2. Walk Idiot Walk- The Hives
3. Can't Stand Me Now- The Libertines
4. Reptilia- The Strokes
5. Take Me Out- Franz Ferdinand
6. Somebody Told Me- The Killers
7. Slow Hands- Interpol
8. Our Time is Running Out- Muse
9. Float On- Modest Mouse
10 Great Heights- The Postal Service

Live Review: The Darkness at Brixton Academy - 23rd November 2004

2004-12-01T17:55:00.000Z

Author: Kate Milner

The Darkness are a stadium band. It's obvious, from the costumes to the enormous lighting rig to the pyrotechnics. Pity then that this show was incongruously set within the confines of Brixton Academy. And lucky thing too that very soon, they WILL be filling stadiums and if Justin closes his eyes and hopes hard enough, maybe he WILL turn into Freddie Mercury at Live Aid. After all, he seems to think he is already.

Anachronisms aside, the Darkness are a very entertaining band and it made for a memorable gig. After an averageish set from support The Answer (disappointingly not Ash in disguise, as rumoured), the lights darken and the band strut on, Justin wearing what can only be described as a leather/lycra bondage jumpsuit. With glitter. The pre-pubescent girls in the front row sigh and shriek which only reassures Mr Hawkins that he is in fact a sex god, something that most normal people would disagree with. But whatever the crowd at this gig is, it's probably not normal. In fact, the crowd is an unholy mix of 12year olds in Darkness t-shirts, middle aged men pogoing ferociously and families with kids. This is the ultimate "stadium gig" potent - under normal circumstances, who would take their kids to Brixton? On a school night? As I said, this is not normal.

Halfway through the first song ("Give it up") , it seems that the Darkness might just give us too much too soon. Justin solos then throws his plectrum into the crowd, he wiggles his arse, there are pyrotechnics (again on a stadium scale...a bit toasty when you're only 5 metres from the stage!!) and this all in the first three minutes. There's a fear that they'll burn out too soon but this fear proves unfounded. They bounce through song after song with equal amounts of passion. The first singalong song, "Growing on Me" provokes a roar of approval from the crowd and some people maybe even start thinking that Justin is starting to "grow on them"...is he actually quite sexy? Well, maybe for a man with bad teeth and hair. What he does possess in spades is charisma and this elevates him to the status of his icons, fellow jumpsuited, dentally challenged glamrock gods Bowie and the aforementioned Freddie.

Why all this fuss about Justin Hawkins? Well because he's one of an increasingly rare breed, Proper Rock Stars. He dances, dresses and probably brushes his teeth like a rock star. And that's what makes the show interesting. Of course, this is not to detract from the talent and style of the rest of the band...Dan Hawkins solos confidently and quite frankly rocks out. Probably a childhood dream of his, given his Thin Lizzy t-shirt. Frankie shows off his new poufier afro hair (with bandana...nice) and Ed drums. Well, that's what all good stadium bands need.

The gig itself is actually very good. What they have - apart from the image is The Songs. It's easy to forget, in this era of bland faux-indie acoustic type rock (stand up Keane, Snow Patrol, yes you there Coldplay...it's all your fault) that bands need Tunes and the Darkness have an entire set full of them. Songs that feel instantly familiar, as if you've known all your life (or maybe that's just because of my hubby insistently playing the album all year). "Friday Night", "Black Shuck" and "Love is only a feeling" all get warm responses. At one point, Justin disappears and reappears in a bacofoil trousers/little jacket combo and visor. Also with glitter (this time, with "Justin" stencilled on the arse. To match his tattoo). He strides to the front of the stage before asking the crowd "Do I look fat in this?". The little girls scream no and Justin asks if he should remove the jacket. Oblivious to our cries of "No! Put it away!" he does so and continues to monologue for the next few minutes about his growing beer belly before concluding that he "can't be arsed to go to the gym", not even for the sake of the fans and plays some more music. He clearly enjoys interacting with the audience, indulging in a little "follow the leader" singalong based around the main lyric of "Get Your Hands Off My Woman". He then hands the microphone to the crowd so that random audience members can try it...with varying results. Also notable was the introduction of Justin's "keytar" (chosen by audience vote over "geeboard"). Watching the Darkness is a little like a pantomime. Which is no bad thing.

The sound is a little disappointing, given the huge stack of Marshall amps a la the "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" video. Probably turned up to a little less than 11, in consideration of the younger people there. Despite this, it was a good tight RAWK sound and the vocals - as always- dominated. There were a couple of new songs which were fairly unmemorable but generally the gig highlights were the Ones Everyone Knows. Of course, when they left the stage for the first time there was one notable gap and it was to everybody's relief that they returned and broke into "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", Justin by now wearing a holographic jumpsuit with admiral detail and an admiral's hat. Clearly a man who likes to cover all his fashion bases. One blast of "Love on the Rocks" later and they're off again.

But not for long. Justin returns and - sitting at the keyboard- plays the opening chords of "Do They Know it's Christmas" before saying "And now for a real Christmas single!" and breaking into "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)" A little snide Justin, considering you're on the new Band Aid single. Maybe it's because he's still sulking about not being allowed to sing Bono's line. If it wasn't for that pesky Bono being there again... "Christmas Time" is delivered immaculately and poignantly and - as the band exit - giant glitter cannons release powerful showers of glitter into the arena, choking the front three rows and later being spotted as far away as Camberwell... A final overblown gesture from a band who are too big for Brixton. They deserve to be.

Live Review: Scissor Sisters at London Brixton Academy - 31st October 2004

2004-11-23T01:05:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

So, for the second time in two weeks I found myself at a Scissor Sisters gig, although I have to honest, I didn't go dressed as Leatherface to the Royal Albert Hall! I'm not alone in dressing up tonight, though, as a very impressive portion of the audience seem to have heeded the Scissor Sisters' call for this to be a costumed affair, and costumes there were of all shapes and sizes. As we walk down towards the Academy, we decide to stop off at the Goose for a quick drink and there in front of us is a scene straight out of Psycho. Literally. In what is easily the most original costume I've ever seen, this guy has his own private shower stall complete with white curtain draped around him - genius!

Inside the pub there were vampires, werewolves, Homer Simpson, Superman and Supergirl, a group of demonic nuns, and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, complete with sparkly ruby red slippers. We were definitely not in Kansas, Toto. Once inside the Academy itself there were more costumes, painted faces, and more more homemade scissors than you could shake a, well, homemade pair of scissors at.

As previously, Kiki and Herb are providing support, and somehow it seems perfect than on a night like tonight there is a transvestite torch singer and a deranged keyboard player entertaining the crowd. They depart the stage and we have the pleasure of a live DJ who knows just which musical buttons to push to keep the crowd at fever pitch.

As it's Halloween, the Scissor Sisters have gone that extra mile, and the lights go down to reveal a makeshift screen onto which we first get projected film of Jake Shears singing 'Bicycle Of The Devil' in a kimono before removing it to reveal some rather natty bondage gear to screams of encouragement from the audience. Following this we get a short horror movie called 'Wait Til Carol Comes' in which Carol Channing ends up
murdering Shears and Ana Matronic.

Cinematic interlude over, the band are suddenly silhouetted onto the curtain, which swiftly falls to reveal a special halloween set, complete with huge tombstones for each of the band. The band themselves are in full Halloween mode, dressed as characters from the Rocky Horror Show, with Shears cutting a particularly fine figure as Frank N further, lunging around the stage on impossibly high platforms.

Opening with 'Laura', the band play the same set as they did at the Royal Albert Hall, and are just as entertaining, but in a completely different way due to the wildly different feel of the venue and the nature of the evening. Where the Royal Albert Hall gig was all about pomp and music hall stylings, tonight is all about letting their hair down and reveling in the fact that they are throwing the best Halloween party in town with five thousand of their closest friends.

The unique nature of the evening aside, one of the Scissor Sisters' greatest strengths is the banter between Shears and Matronic which comes across like a conversation between great friends that we're all a part of. The ease with which they engage the audience and bring a sense of vaudeville to the proceedings ensures that the barrier between artist and audience is as minimal as possible.

As the show draws to a close after some ninety minutes, the sea of grins on the audience's faces is testimony to the fact that we've not only seen a great gig here tonight, but we've also been to a bloody good party, albeit one that ends far too soon and could easily have carried on until dawn. Here's hoping they come back next year so we can do it all over again.

Live Review: Modest Mouse at London Astoria -18th November 2004

2004-11-22T23:13:00.000Z

Author: Silke

Usually it's not too difficult to get rid of a spare ticket to a gig, because there's always a friend who wants to go as well. However, with a spare ticket available for Modest Mouse at the Astoria I encountered lots of "thanks, but no thanks", "modest mouse, who are they? Cheers, I'll pass sweetheart" from my friends and acquaintances. Nobody seemed interested enough in joining us.

Even outside the venue there were no ticketless fans only lots of rain and puddles. In the end I got a tenner for the ticket from a dodgy tout which annoyed me a lot as I hate touts, but as soon as I heard the first few Modest Mouse tracks I forgot all about it. The gig was truly phenomenal! At the risk of sounding smug, I can only say to all those of you who turned down the opportunity to join us in the Modest Mouse fun: YOU MISSED OUT!

For those of you whose reaction would've been similar to those of my philistine friends (i.e. "modest what? who the heck are they"), Modest Mouse are a mighty fine indie band from Issaquah (in the US state of Washington) and have been around since 1993 and came back with a bang this year with their album "Good News for People Who Love Bad News".

The gig started with a couple of slightly odd and confused minutes when the band came on stage to "get ready" with leading man Isaac Brock getting changed into a snazzy stripey boating jacket and white trousers in plain view (showing off his massive anchor tattoo on his back) whilst the rest of the band fiddled about with their pedals and instruments.

The band then launched into what can only be described as an amazingly eccentric and stirring set (mainly consisting of tracks from their latest album) with lots of crazy and eclectic instrument changes (including string bass, banjo, keyboards and various percussion implements).

Modest Mouse's frontman Brock stood stage-left (I guess determined not to be the "frontman") but he certainly led the rock 'n' roll mayhem which included highlights such as their latest single "Float On" with its highly contagious guitar line, the amazing banjo playing on Bukowski and the anthemic and fabulous "Trailer Trash" (from their 1997 album "Lonesome Crowded West") which had me dancing up a sweat and singing out loud.

Brock's between-song banter was completely unintelligible but it made me giggle and altogether the gig had an incredibly happy feel and showed off a more upbeat side of Modest Mouse. More frustrated, angry and morbid songs like "Bury Me With It" and "Dance Hall" were left off the set list. Instead, the very final encore, a rousing romp through the hopeful "The Good Times Are Killing Me" was just the perfect way to round off such a remarkable and uplifting gig for me! I loved it and if Modest Mouse are ever back in town I recommend that all of you who didn't get the chance (or refused the opportunity!!!) actually go and see them. You won't be disappointed.

Live Review: Har Mar Superstar at London Astoria -12th October 2004

2004-11-20T15:25:00.000Z

Author: Alexa Evans

Sliding, gyrating, sizzling, the man, the legend, Har Mar Superstar. Boy oh boy he did not disappoint. As he oozed on to the stage in a white suit featuring backless and frontless Christina Aguilera style chaps and a tight red vest we knew we were in for a treat.

An earlier sighting of the rare Bill Oddie in the upstairs bar had already made it an all-star gig but once Har Mar started to belt out the tunes that excitement had doubled. The combination of sultry tones with funked up beats and an awesome selection of dance moves confirmed Har Mar is not a gimmick. The man simply breathes sex, yeah on the street you wouldn't look twice but up on that stage with that aura, voice and moves he becomes a sex god! The room was full of panting women and envious boyfriends all lusting after one man and some even offering their women to him as a sacrificial 'if you won't snog me then have my girlfriend' type offering.

As he glided from "The Handler" to "Body Request" with those beautifully melodic tones you got the feeling that his latest album was a homage to early Motown greats such as the Jackson 5 and Stevie Wonder and he did not disgrace them one bit. He didn't falter a single note as he pranced around the stage and it was evident he was relishing in the fantastic atmosphere as much as the crowd were. When "DUI" started playing the crowd went mad and as far as the eye could see cracking dance moves were braking out as if the venue had just been stormed by a large group of Pan's People.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any better he left the stage to return wearing nothing but a pair of tight red hot pants and socks. There wasn't a dry flange in the house!

The highlight of the evening for me was Har Mar Superstar at his filthiest and most flirtatious performing his classics from the first album "Powerlunch" and "Ez-Pass" and the stage was covered in bras! Being a mere 5"4 I had a bit of trouble seeing the stage at times but the atmosphere more than made up for it. Sweaty dancing, singalong sleazy moments and the knowledge that at least half the crowd were gonna go home for some nookie (probably including Bill Oddie) made it a night to remember.

My First Gig: Pink Floyd

2004-11-19T06:34:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

I will always remember my first gig. Aged 14, that band ladies and gentlemen, were the Pink Floyd. Apart from for about 10 months between 1966 and 1967, I don't think that Pink Floyd had ever been cool. I wouldn't know what to blame it on, Nick Masons tache? The Wall? The almost complete lack of singles? Or maybe, it's because post Syd, they were not really interested in the concept of being pop stars. So if you look at what was happening in say; 1972, (Ziggy, T-Rex, Eno, Roxy etc etc) and then look at what the Floyd were doing at the same time (Nick Mason asking the studio engineer for apple pie without the crusts and inventing the future look for 118 118, Rick Wright sporting a fine array of hideous jumpers knitted by his nan complete with gravy stains, Dave Gilmour rewriting the rulebook of modern rock music whilst still being the only guitarist to fill Jimi Hendrix sadly missed shoes, and Roger Waters, ah yes here comes the good bit, bashing gongs to within an inch of their life in the ancient ruins of Pompeii, being the badest maddest 'rock star' not to touch drugs, cussing studio engineers and producers for 'not understanding music', write albums with 20 minute orchestral pieces and the putting an Essex cow, yes a real one! on the front cover, being the most well spoken frontman ever and still saying the F word every ten seconds, and INVENTING BLEEDIN' TECHNO!, it would be fairly unreasonable to even INSINUATE that Floyd were ever cool. So now we have that out of the way, lets fast forward to 1988.

My eldest brother Dean, a man of (mostly) sound musical taste had introduced me to Floyd earlier that year. 'Wish You Were Here' was the first I heard, then 'Meddle', and then I went carwashing at weekends until I had earned enough quids to walk the two mile hike into town to buy another Floyd album on tape. I think I had to cadge a lift to London Tower Records and beg my dad to buy me 'More', and I think I picked up 'Relics' for 2 quid from a secondhand shop. Other than that, it worked out that I had to wash three cars to listen to one album. Don't worry kids, this was before I was old enough to even THINK about girls.

'Early 15th birthday present Chris?' 'F*ck Yes'. 8th August 1988 then. Pink Floyd playing Wembley Stadium as a 'three piece' but with about 15 dreadfully uncool session musicians, mainly in mullets and chinos. No Roger Waters (he stormed about three years earlier after years of decaying relationships with, er everyone actually, and launched a very successful solo career). But hey, I'm 14, drinking beer on my brothers shoulders, watching (I wouldn't want to be held to this) Paul Young (christ!) and waiting for Floyd to come onstage and wheel out the classic Waters songbook. Wish You Were Here indeed.

I can't recall what they played and in what order, but I am positive that it opened with 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond', which in itself justifies the concept of stadium gigs. It was getting dark, lazers, sound, hippies, I'm getting shivers down my back even thinking about it, and thats in a GOOD way. A fair chunk of 'Dark Side Of The Moon' got aired, and the thrill of a real hospital bed flying over our heads from one end of the stadium to the other will live with me forever, soundtracked by the futuristic headf*ck of 'On The Run', (see I TOLD you Waters invented Techno!).

We got the inevitable new Waterless album, 'Dogs Of War' was truly dreadful, 'Learning To Fly' with Gilmour at his most lyrically imaginitive (NOT) was actually passable in that kind of 'everyone swing their arms' kind of way, and 'On The Turning Away' was kinda atmospheric (I think I was on my second beer now).

So there you have it, fast forward another six months to 1989 and I had discovered the Mary Chain, The Clash, The Mission et al, but that was my first gig, and I am actually very proud. Thanks Dean! .

Live Review: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds at London Brixton Academy - 12th November 2004

2004-11-16T09:58:00.000Z

Author: Greg James

Last night was for me a baptism of fire in the ways of Old Nick. A man who's been casting his narrow shadow across music for over twenty five years along with a band of spindly alien mad men. Old enough to have fathered most of the alternative rockers bouncing and whining their way across the airwaves, Nick Cave showed that it pays to respect your elders otherwise they might just come around with the devil and tear your face off.

There was no highlight because each song was one. The Bad Seeds attacked and tore apart every moment they were on stage with a mad-eyed bleeding intensity. This was real heavy music, the heat given off would make mullets fuse to leather jackets and spotty skins boil away in seconds. This was music fuelled by a spiritual fire, it scalds you when you get too close. A vibrant passion infused every note to the point where I was lost in a blinding fusion of blues, gospel, ballads, jazz and weeping piano laments - it was all blended so seamlessly it should be impossible that it happened.

But it did. It was more real and alive than most bands can dream of being. There were no breathers and no respite was given. Like the hardcore punk scene where the Bad Seeds were sown, this band were here to tell you something, to pass a feeling whether it be beautiful or ugly and they're not going to let you up until it's pumping through your veins. This was just a relentless outpouring of the kind of music which is born inside and has to get out of you otherwise it will kill you for trying to cage it. This was beauty, anger, sadness, love and hate all barely bound by words and sound.

There were two sets but neither trounced the other instead it was more like the overdose was followed by a full-on cardiac arrest. The raging gospel of the first set passed away leaving the mournful bitter ghosts of the second set to haunt us. In the end, the night closed with a ferocious take on The Mercy Seat as acoustic strumming erupted into a blasting militant funeral march which left me with a few tears in my eyes. When live music gets you that bad, you know it's not been a good night but one of the best. If this is what the brandy of the damned tastes like, I want more.

Music Feature: "What's Good?' by Whistling Al McKenzie

2004-11-15T19:29:00.000Z

Author: Whistling Al McKenzie

Funny how music becomes much more than the sum of its parts - even the music you love to hate. Recently, during my many idle moments in the workplace, I've found myself whistling horrors like 'Suicide Is Painless,' (apt under the circumstances), 'Nine To Five' (The Easton and The Parton), 'Chanson L'Amour,' and 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?' (none of my colleagues responded to that last one, ironically or otherwise). Yes, gentle, expectant reader, I know; you're telling me that my brain has been raddled by all those long office hours spent eavesdropping on endless conversations about diets and Wife Swap, and you're right. But then, the pain of hearing any of R Stewart's oeuvre is equalled only by the pain of making cuts on my fingers and putting them in a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, and I've never felt a sudden compulsion to do that during work time. No, the root of this odd behaviour lies in nostalgia, and those of us old enough to remember editions of TOTP featuring Jonathan King as a harmless joker suffer from the involuntary donning of rose-tinted spectacles more than most. For nostalgia, you see, is a virus. Caught from false memories, it attacks the brain from within, leaving it as weak and defenceless as a newborn; and just as the innocent and trusting tot has no natural resistance to measles, so the brain is vulnerable to spectacularly bad ideas - the idea that Boney M were a Good Thing, for example. If only a vaccine could be developed to protect the modern 30-something from the lasting damage inflicted by childhood bouts of Razzmatazz.

The one consolation when faced with this debilitating illness is knowing that today's smug juveniles will become tomorrow's fellow sufferers. Arguably, some of them already display alarming signs of the onset of Chronic Nostalgia - how else do you explain someone declaring that 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' is the greatest pop song ever? (I made a mistake there, confusing nostalgia with plain bad taste - it's so easy to do.) Whatever The Greatest Pop Song Ever is, it certainly ain't that, but neither is it any of the Woganesque fodder I've listed before. My point is, these vapid tunes from yesteryear have a habit of entering my head unbidden during moments of extreme stress or boredom or both, purely because they remind me of childhood, when life seemed simple yet wondrous, when you didn't have to worry about urban violence and the rising house prices, and Pleasant and Exciting Things were always around the corner. (He's just being nostalgic again; his childhood was actually filled with pain and fear. - Al's Stepdad) You could hardly accuse 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?' of being pleasant or exciting, (although I'm sure it was exciting for Roddy to have a wet dream about himself in public), but it's what you associate the music with that matters, not the music itself; whenever I hear that song, it reminds me of my 10 year old self giggling at a very silly Kenny Everett TV sketch, in which Sir Ken paraded around as Rod in his tight leopardskin kecks, his arse expanding to balloon-like proportions as he mimed the number. So the song has an effect on me - it doesn't mean I have to own or like the record, but the keyboardy-intro bit seems so much more whistleable these days than when I was 10, and I lay the blame for that fairly and squarely at the door of Ol' Mother Nostalgia.

Similar principles apply to the music we actually like, to the point where it's impossible to tell how good something really was. Were the Fabs that great? (Sgt Pepper certainly isn't.) Are they rated so highly for their melodic and lyrical craftsmanship, or because theirs was the first serious pop music in many listeners' lives, thereby gaining bonus nostalgia brownie points? Were they just the 1960s equivalent of Busted (at least in the beginning), and we're all too blinded by nostalgia to realise it? If I was the age I am now in 1969, would I dislike The Velvets as much as I dislike Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in 2004? Do I like them because they fit my image of 1960s coolness, and it's much easier to be nostalgic about an era you never actually lived through? I knew I was infected by the virus after watching Pop Idols with some friends; I went off on a rant about how contrived pop music has become, and how no-one rails versus the corporations anymore like the Sex Pistols did. They laughed at my naivety, arguing that the Pistols were as much a product of the industry as Will Gates is, and I could see their point, yet I still get hairs on the back of my neck from the opening riff to 'Pretty Vacant,' while I genuinely can't remember anything performed by S Cowell's brainchildren. As Burt Reynolds says in Boogie Nights, 'If it looks like shit and it tastes like shit, it is shit.'

Nostalgia isn't just about the personal, it's about the hype, and older music, the music we're nostalgic about, accrues more hype than current stuff does. How many times have we seen pop quizzes and Top 100s on Saturday night TV in the past few years? If I keep hearing that I should not only like, but love Elvis (I don't, messily disproving my theory re: nostalgia for eras you never lived through), then I might believe it eventually, maybe after the millionth soundbite. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be; it's now an industry, fed by the demand for cheap clip compilations on telly, by the Internet, by MP3, and by samples of Ye Olde Pop on modern hits. The really depressing thing is that despite having a greater diversity of music available to us than ever before, we seem happy to let the media dictate a categorisation of music into universally-perceived pantheons of 'good' and 'bad': should Rob Williams be voted into the UK Hall of Fame, or are The Blur more worthy of this honour? Does anyone with an IQ above 2 really care? Like that leopard-skinned arse swelling up to resemble a planet where Bet Lynch rules by fear, not everything is so easily classifiable. The lovely thing about true musical nostalgia is that it allows us to make our own minds up about what's in our Top Tens and what isn't, and to the youthful pop-pickers of today, I say this: In the kingdom of the Impressionable, the Hall of Fame is King.

Music Feature: From cassette decks to downloads - the home music revolution by Peter Muscutt

2004-11-14T19:15:00.000Z

Author: Peter Muscutt

I was watching a Peter Kay stand-up DVD the other day, and laughing to myself about one point he made which hit straight on the head something many, if not all, youngsters used to do in the privacy of their bedrooms (no, not THAT) I am of course, talking about listening to the Top 40 and taping all your favourite songs. Short of pocket money, kids across the land would have their C-90's ready, fingers poised over the 'pause' button to stop the recording just as the DJ began talking, of course, despite even years of practise, we could never quite manage this, and always ended up with the latest Shaggy hit with a snippet of dialogue along the lines of "Number eight this week"!

This method of capturing all the latest chart hits on cassette was a favourite of mine, as well as a friend, mainly as we were responsible at one time for purchasing new music for the weekly school disco, a scam which involved snaffling the crisp tenner given to us by the Youth Centre Manager (the intention being for us to buy some CD singles or even a compilation album), then going home and recording the Top 40 for free on a Sunday night!

No matter how much of a brave face the music industry puts on, home taping/recording/copying has always been, and always will be, a part of every day life. I can't remember exactly the day someone uttered the words 'don't worry about buying that, I'll do you a CD' (with reference to CD burning technology) but chances are it was from internet auction site eBay that one was purchased. Of course, the sale of obviously pirated chart albums would be hit on fairly hard, but the opening on eBay existed for bootlegs - another staple of the home taping movement.

Live recordings which otherwise would never see the light of day could be experienced by fans, meaning another side to their favourite artists could be heard. Sound quality varied between sounding like the entire affair was recorded on a Dictaphone inside a dustbin from the back of the venue (which, to be fair, it probably was) to professional sounding full length concerts recorded, presumably, from the sound mixing desks at various gigs. However unofficial these were, however much income the bands involved missed out on, I still saw these bootlegs as a promotional tool - if you heard a good bootleg of a live performance, surely this made you want to actually experience the bands live firsthand and pay for a ticket?

And of course, then came the biggie - the internet download trend. Sites soon began to pop up all over the place, with file sharing options available, and the most well known, including Kazaa, Napster et al meaning free access to practically any bands and songs were available to all with an internet account. It will never be easy to put a number on the amount of people who download music, but CacheLogic, a Cambridge based firm, estimated as many as three billion songs exchanging hands online each and every day. The firm also comment that the big myth that the music industry is winning its war on music piracy and file sharing is incorrect - file sharers are simply moving to different programs and networks. The impact on file sharing and illegal music downloads has not been huge, around about 100 million songs less in the time between January and June this year.

The introduction of official 'pay-per-listen' sites such as Apple's iTunes, and a redeveloped Napster website may have helped to lessen illicit downloads, however the census appears to be that as long as people can get music online for free, wherever possible, they will - despite a huge crackdown on the most prolific file sharers.

This development in the methods of obtaining music also hits on the physical appearance of our own music collections - in the 80s we had vinyl and cassettes (cassette singles are now officially a thing of the past, due to practically non existent sales, vinyl however, continues as the format of choice for DJs and collectors). With the advent of CDs in the mid-80s, music collections were redefined, many people choosing to update their shelves full of bulky 12" vinyl with the smaller, sleeker CD format. To say that CDs may one day become obsolete is a little sensationalist, much as when internet shopping became a part of everyday life and the death of the traditional high street was rumoured! Certainly music is constantly adapting and changing, with the introduction of MP3 players such as the iPod, and while in years to come we may be listening to machines the size of a garden pea capable of holding 450,000,000 tracks (OK, maybe I'm dreaming there - anyway, who has that many songs?!) there will still be a need for a convenient storage method for music - which, at the moment, CDs seem to do just fine.

Album Review: U2 - How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

2004-11-13T14:50:00.000Z

Author: Graeme Henderson

It's not cool to like U2. It's even worse to say they are your favourite band. It's almost the same as admitting that you like the new Destiny's Child track, or that Will Young isn't really that bad, is he? Meeting new people and learning how much they love obscure bands that you've never heard of means that when you confess your guilty pleasure you often end up an outcast. Not a real music fan. It's the worst kind of insult, and when the band in question has a new album out, it's not gonna get any better. Especially when said album turns out to be the best thing they have done in years.

"How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" (snappy title!) has no right to be as good as it is. Supergroups like U2 should not be releasing good albums twenty-odd years into their career, far less ones that rank up there with "The Joshua Tree" and "Achtung Baby". It goes against the grain. (Look at R.E.M.'s dire latest release.) Especially when the album rocks in a way most new guitar groups would sell their granny to achieve. Kicking off proceedings with lead-off single "Vertigo", Bono's voice holds up well after years of belting out impossibly hard-to-match choruses, but it is The Edge's guitar that makes the song, and the album as a whole. He's back to using his classic trademark minimalist sound, even more so than on previous album "All That You Can't Leave Behind". Some people argue that U2 are going through a mid-life crisis, trying to keep up with rock's young pretenders. It's safe to say that they have clearly been influenced by the rapid rise of Franz, The Killers, Razorlight et al, but equally true is that the big tunes and big ideas have never really gone anywhere.

Many people will pick up on the fact that "Vertigo" is loud and noisy and essentially un-U2, and this is wonderful. It's wonderful because U2 have never tried to appease their fans by giving them another "Joshua Tree", and no other band with such a huge following has had the guts to try out new ideas, to tear up the rulebook and stick two fingers to their critics because they just had to make that dance remix and they just had to tour with a giant revolving lemon. That's why people love them. They aren't afraid to be uncool, and that means that their fans aren't afraid to be uncool either. This kind of f*ck-you attitude is more punk than the majority of corporate bands who claim to be "punk". Bono has called this album "U2's first guitar record", and he's right. "Vertigo" isn't the only track to display this new approach - there are companion pieces elsewhere on the album - "Love and Peace or Else" and "All Because of You" immediately spring to mind, and both are going to sound immense in stadiums next year. If you've heard "Vertigo" - and let's face it, by now who hasn't - and like what you hear, you will love this album. But if you don't want loud, guitar heavy tracks (not that we're talking Metallica here), don't worry. The ballads are still here and out in force.

"City of Blinding Lights" is the song to make Chris Martin weep into his Fairtrade cornflakes, because he knows he'll never be this good. "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" is a slow-burner of the kind we've all seen on past U2 albums, but this isn't a bad thing by any means. "Original of the Species" is piano-led verses wedged between huge choruses, and you're going to hear it all over the radio in the next year. It's not all perfection though - "A Man and a Woman" sounds suspiciously like filler, and "One Step Closer" never really gets off the ground, but these are minor failings.

If you don't like U2, this album isn't going to convince you otherwise. If you can't stand Bono's preaching on AIDS and world debt, then songs like "Crumbs from Your Table", with its "where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die" refrain won't do much to endear him to your cold heart. And God help you if this is how you feel, because this album is going to be everywhere, as only new U2 material can be. By this time next year you will be begging for a break. But for those of us who admire Bono for being the ultimate pain in the ass, and who are happy to admit to being followers of the greatest band in the world, this is the best thing you'll hear this year. And next year too.

Album Review: Gravenhurst - Black Holes In The Sand

2004-11-12T09:50:00.000Z

Author: Matti Gregory

It sounds terrible - six tracks of gloomy semi-experimental folk including a Husker Du cover. Perfect, perhaps, for slitting your wrists open to, but not for any actual enjoyment on the part of the listener. But there must have been something which made techno label Warp snap up a singer-songwriter, and on "Black Holes In The Sand", technically an EP but an LP in all real respects, Gravenhurst (aka Bristolian Nick Talbot) shows what can only be described as an apocalyptic talent.

It's certainly dark from start to finish, consisting of atmospheric strumming and murder ballads (the aforementioned Husker Du song Diane in particular tells a story of a young girls rape and subsequent killing), all seemingly set in either a secluded 19th-century town (think The Village in mid-winter) or the middle of the Sahara desert, but Talbot's voice - a wonderful velvetine instrument - lifts all of the songs out of the melancholy and onto an ethereal level which lends each track a life of its own. "Still Water" is the most uplifting track, an arid ballad with minimal accompaniment, while the title track features backing from members of Black Forest/Black Sea adding their, well, black noise to a darkly beautiful song of guilt and regret.

It would be easy to spend several paragraphs talking about Gravenhurst's dark/dark layering of sounds and the ghostly melodies he employs throughout the record's 30 minutes, but it's easier to simply make it plain what a startlingly inventive addition to one of musics stalest genres this really is. Just don't listen to it if you're on your own.

Album Review: The Vines - Winning Days

2004-11-12T02:19:00.000Z

Author: Aurliea Wilson

The four Aussies that create The Vines released a new album this year called 'Winning Days' It's a psychedelic mix of folk songs and edgy rock. With the release of 'Ride' in late December 2003, a new follow up album buzz followed them to March. The follow-up album to their hyped up debut 'Highly Evolved' doesn't seem to cut it with some of the fans but true fans picked up the album. According to many people, this too is another sequel that doesn't live up to the original.

'Ride' - A simple guitar beat pushing the song along while Hamish performs an awesome drum solo toward the middle.

'Animal Machine' - A dark, maybe evil song. There was some speculation of this being the new single in the States, although it never happened. Fans feared it would be shot down for sounding too much like Nirvana.

'TV Pro' - A futuristic type of song. Lyrics are short and to the point which is a different style of Craig's. You can hear the distortion kicking in during the chorus.

'Autumn Shade II' - A sequel to the original on the debut. While the original is more indie rock, this contrarily is acoustic with bird calls at the end.

'Evil Town' - Another short song and one song I like to skip on the CD player because of the metal influences. Metal really isn't my thing.

'Winning Days' - One of the greatest Vines song recorded. It's too wonderful to describe in words.

'She's Got Something To Say To Me' - Sounds like a retro pop song. It's ok but it can drive you nuts. I hope The Vines never do something like this again.

'Rainfall' - In the dead of winter when all the weather is doing is raining, this song gives you confidence that you will see the sun again. The drum beat is subtle but really sets the tempo.

'Amnesia' - The drums start slowly then the guitar kicks in and the vocals begin. Remembering where your sanity is, is always a good thing.

'Sunchild' - An early demo, this song is another great one. A sweet guitar riff begins and the drums are accentuating it.

'F*ck The World' - Intriguing bass line and swearing everywhere. (Don't let the parents know you have this) Craig said he means it in a sarcastic way. Sure!

The Vines are truly a unique band but this album doesn't cut it unless you are a true fan and don't care. It's a good album and its really worth the money but I would suggest buying the debut first or the debut instead.

Music Event: Ant Lib 3 at London Hombres - 5th November 2004

2004-11-11T05:47:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

Those of us of a certain age still remember vividly a dashingly handsome young man with a white stripe across his face, dressed like a modern day pirate, crashing onto our Top Of The Pops screen and imploring us to "unplug the jukebox and do us all a favour". Backed by four of the coolest looking musicians, including two drummers, Adam and his Ants (along with Gary Numan's Tubeway Army) changed the way I looked at music. Before them I was aware of music, thanks to a musical father, but it consisted of either disco records, Queen (who were good but didn't set my world afire), or whatever happened to be on that week's TOTP.

Fast forward a quarter of a century, and we're gathered at Hombres in London for a celebration of Adam Ant's 50th birthday. Yeah, 50 - kinda makes you feel old doesn't it when your idols hit the big five-oh. Ant Lib had run two previous conventions, but this was the first one that I'd become aware of, so we rolled into the Smoke and joined 300 other Antpeople to pay tribute to the great man.

The day kicked off with a showing of the excellent documentary "The Madness of Prince Charming", which examined the illness that has plagued Adam Ant for his whole adult life - even at the height of his fame he suffered from depression, and has been fortunate enough to have people like Marco Pirroni stand by him over the years. Despite what The Sun might have you believe, Adam's not mad, just suffering from a condition that is more common than is popularly thought.

Next up was a 'best dressed' competition, won by (surprise, surprise) a handsome young man with a white strip across his face, dressed like a modern day pirate. To give him credit, though, he looked the part, and if there are any Ant tribute bands out there, he's your man.

Next up was the alternative comedian Gary Le Strange, whose great love of the whole new romantic scene came across in his comical, yet frighteningly accurate pastiches of classic tunes, simultaneously paying tribute to and taking the piss out of the likes of Numan, Ultravox, John Foxx and others from the new romantic scene. A 'best tattoo' competition followed, and then we were on to the highlight of the evening.

With no Adam or Marco in attendance (although they had sent some signed pictures and records along), the Ants were very ably represented by Terry Lee Miall and his band Magnificent Seven. Kicking off with a faithful rendition of Blitzkrieg Bop, dedicated to the late brothers Ramone, the band powered through a selection of classics from the era, including Teenage Kicks (dedicated to John Peel), I Fought The Law, Antmusic, God Save The Queen and a rousing version of Stand And Deliver. Watching Miall playing that most famous of drum lines brought back memories of playing the 7-inch to death on my record player way back when.

After they left the stage, we decamped briefly next door to Ben Crouch's Tavern for some food, which meant missing Madam And The Ants, who I was informed on our return were entertaining, and the rest of the evening was given over to a disco featuring the sounds of the era. While the masses danced I got the chance to talk to Miall and his mate Dave at the bar (who turned out to have been the bassist for The Macc Ladds for a while, and who I'd actually seen play a couple of times some fifteen years previously) about the early days of the Ants and punk in general, which made my day - to hear tales of the era I grew up with from a couple of guys who were actually there was awesome, and made this a day to remember.

All that remains to be said is "great party Adam, you missed a blinder!"

Album Review: Joss Stone - Mind, Body and Soul

2004-11-10T21:40:00.000Z

Author: Greg James

There are times when the hype is true. There are times when the forever chuntering media machine that raves about the latest personality vacuum as The Next Big Thing gets confused, a few circuits blow and it spits out some pure raw ability.

BUT Joss Stone is not The Next Big Thing though. She's better than that. She is HUGE! Her voice comes out through the speakers and you're hooked. It's that simple! You're thinking 'Smeg! This is a sixteen year old and she can sing like THAT!!*?!' After the jealousy and envy fades away, you're enjoying it as much as the next man, woman or indeterminate.

Yes, the album is very old school in it's trappings and style. Yes, 'You Had Me' would be a f*cking horrible nu-white soul karaoke cock-up in the grip of a lesser talent's vocal chords and yes, the album does sag round the middle a bit like those stupid baggy jeans 'young' people wear these days BUT that there young lass from Devon manages to hold it together the whole way through. The strength in her voice keeps you listening even through the duller songs, it keeps your finger away from that skip button and stops your examining the Return & Exchange bit on the back of the receipt.

This is not the same belting 'strength' as Anastacia here though. Miss Stone can soothe you with silken whispers and murmur sweet nothings with as much conviction as she can blast you through the stratosphere. Like all good music, she isn't a two-dimensional talent relying on props to hide her shortcomings behind an image. There are many aspects to her voice like a diamond. Each aspect gets its own moment when that moment is right and not before or after. Everything fits.

Even though this album is flawed, it is a flawed gem. The great choons give the good choons the support they need and it all leaves you with that desire to press repeat, lie back and catch a few more glimpses of heaven. More albums should be like this but they're not so buy several copies of this to make up for that fact. You know it makes sense.

My First Gig: 98° by Kate F

2004-11-09T20:08:00.000Z

Author: Kate F

Hello ladies and gentleman of good musical taste. I am ashamed to tell you that my first concert was 98°. I kind of like to think of them as the indier boyband; everyone else loved NSYNC or Backstreet Boys, and I loved my boys from Ohio. But even though my reasoning for liking them is beyond me now, it was at that first concert that I understood what a fantastic live show could do for you. You know what I mean... usually, the show will be more than halfway over, and suddenly the band begins to play the song you've been waiting for all night. At that moment, there's nowhere you'd rather be and nothing on your mind except the lyrics running through your head. Maybe it's the moment when the chorus kicks in, or the drums really take control; but I know we've all been there, had that moment of 'wow.' Sadly my first wow was hormone-induced and surrounded by hundreds of screaming girls, but it did the trick.

Musically, I've progressed. But emotionally, I'm still at the same place in many ways. It's a bit harder for me to lose myself at gigs then it used to be, I don't quite know why. Maybe they're not as new and exciting anymore, or I've just grown more cynical. Either way, it makes the moments when a band just 'gets you' even more amazing. One of my most perfect examples is Oasis at the Chicago Theatre 2002. All I can remember is a spotlight on Noel, and after he yelled at everyone for trying to sing along (as you do), the most gorgeous song I've ever heard live. It was the Noel Gallagher does Ryan Adams doing Liam Gallagher version, and although some people can't stand it, I was mesmerized. Every word sounded the different, and the meaning seemed personalized, like Noel was singing to every individual in the audience yet we were all together in awe. I can still picture exactly how I stood, how he looked, how it sounded, more than two years later. That's 'wow.'

I can't help but think this probably sounds horribly cliché. But maybe there's something in that. There are no words strong enough to put my point across, so I'm stuck using a word my six-year-old niece uses regularly. But if you've had a 'wow' moment, you know what I mean.

Now, I've been to gigs that I've genuinely enjoyed that lacked this extra touch. They are in no way disappointing or unsatisfying; but I don't think I'll remember them twenty years from now. I will however remember hearing the first chords of Boys Don't Cry and feeling shivers extremely abnormal for a warm summer's night. That is, after all, a feeling I'd never want to forget...

I just wish one of those memories wasn't my thirteen-year-old crushes singing 'The Hardest Thing'. Eh, at least I've progressed.

Single Review: Dizzee Rascal - Dream

2004-11-08T19:48:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

Finally we get a 'Hey Ya' for 2004. The kind of single that creeps up the charts and stays there for 20 weeks. The kind of single that I play three times out in one night and it gets a bigger cheer each time. When I first heard this record I listened to it literally a hundred times in a row and still couldn't remember how it went afterwards.

Basically, you need to make this record part of your life straight away. It's Christmas number one in a faraway land that doesn't exist. It's out this week. Here are the lyrics, enjoy;

I'm not gunna pull this off man without signing the dots
This is too sensible for me man
How u gunna have a dream come true?

I used to dream about crazy little things like fame,
In the days hanging round outside the off licence,
We used to run around the steets reckless with no shame,
Mainly up to no good the whole world would ask us,
And when the girls would walk by we would try to catch their eye,
And if they didnt show face we would act immature,
Had a thing for south and hackney girls since i was a kid,
A couple of west girls on my radar i was raw,
And i was dead sure that i knew it all,
The whole world got my attitude i nearly blew it all,
I find it a real big struggle gettin through ot all,
I swear i didn't wanna listen cos i sure didn't care,
Not knowing for reality that i'd have to prepare,
Cos money don't grow on no stick, well its rare,
Me and boy was still looking less and less the lick,
Plus i was growing up, life was looking as a scare

I like the talky talky happy talk,
Talk about things you like to do,
You got to have a dream,
If you don't have a dream,
How you gunna have a dream come true

I used to love music it was like my hidden hobbie,
But i couldn't get on on local radio back then,
So i went to north london and trot to tottenham to be precise,
And got some air time on heat fm,
And then it esculated i was getting ratings here and there,
And carried on untill eventually i was everywhere,
I started doing all the hot spots ministry ceasers palace p area taminin v,
I did the grim and the glam,
I done the poor and the posh,
I didnt hang around i wanted my money in a rush,
Mind frame in the studio at this stage,
No time to chat i didnt wanna n-gage,
I found myself a new hustle it was beautiful,
A none like the one before a bit more suitable,
The more challenging it got the more i thought it,
Made an album over 100,000 people bought it
Thank you

To all the youngers cotchin on the staires in the flats,
With the superstar sockalings they'll come in the making,
U can go far if you put your mind to it,
You're a star, dont wait to be told, just do it,
Try to keep school in your plans dont be worrying about your mans,
They'll be there in the end if they're real, if they aint,
Dont be making no effort to impress cos you'll find out where you are just do what you feel,
Young babymother i got your back aswell,
Young babyfathers hold it down for your girl,
I aint trying to preach but for what its worth,
Back is the next generation planet earth,
Big shout to the world cos i've been all around,
And when im gone im always thinking about my home town,
Im from the LDN theres no forgetting that,
And the big UK i stay reppin that

You love that
You tell me you dont love that

Album Review: The Futureheads - The Futureheads

2004-11-07T20:14:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

The Futureheads new LP isn't actually VERY new, it was released back in July this year, although HMV currently have it under the new releases section, presumably to attract from the countless 'Band Of Gold' style chrimbo compilations just so that they can prove that y'know, we're down with the kids guy...

Not that The Futureheads are what you could call especially hip mind, it's just that they have put out one of the most kickarse, instantly likeable debut LPs of all time. Think The Jams 'In The City' meets Supergrass 'I Should Coco', just without the suits / cheeky grins, delete as applicable.

I've been to see The Futureheads a couple of times since hearing their debut; not that I have actually seen them yet though. The first was at their London Garage show in August, where I was embarrassingly stuck outside unable to by a bleedin' ticket, and when a couple finally showed up I ended up handing them over to a weeping oriental girl. Crikey. The second time they pulled their show because their bassist had had their flat burgled, and who did they rope in as the replacement? Good ol' Pete Doherty. Gawd, is it only me that got the irony there?

Ok, album; opens up with 'Le Garage' which sounds like Rod, Jane and Freddy in a row with The Jam, and when that is compressed into less than two minutes, this is a good thing. 'Robot' quickly follows, a sly nod to XTC doesn't go missed. 'Decent Days and Nights' was a single, bit of an odd choice, like a distant cousin to Blurs 'Popscene'. Later on in the LP we get the gentle lullaby of 'Carnival Kids' which again, wouldn't sound out of place in 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' and then an ace cover 'Hounds Of Love' by Kate Bush.

This band really are a breath of excellent, treat yourself to this album rather than some of the more insepid releases around at the moment, lets hear it for happy indie. The cover may be grey, but the music is bubbling with colour.

Why I Love Coldcut by Dollyrocker

2004-11-05T22:36:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

I can't really think of a reason NOT to like Coldcut really. Oh, you haven't heard them? Fair enough, happens to the best of us. You see, like all the worlds greatest innovators, Coldcut didn't and don't feel the need to run around telling everyone how great they are, instead they invented sampling in the UK, made stars out of Yazz and Lisa Stansfield, made a single purely out of sounds from a rainforest being chopped down, were the first people to release an album with mulitmedia bonus disc allowing you to remix their tracks and play games, and founded the label everyone loves to love; Ninja Tune.

Who, when, where, how and why? Lets rewind back to 1987. Some of you (me included) were young, and some of you might not have even been born. It was a shameful year musically. KLF had put out their groundbreaking and illegal (hee hee!) LP; 1987: "What The Fucks Going On?", and Coldcut, a couple of hip hop freaks who wanted to push things out a bit, had released their debut single; 'Say Kids (What Time Is It?)'. Never before had Deacon Blue and Dire Straits sounded so ridiculous. No one had heard of The Stone Roses yet. Hip Hop was the garage punk of the 80s, and Coldcut were cooking up the funk.

Any of you who have regulary been to my clubnight; Buttoned Down Disco, would have almost certainly heard 'Say Kids..', it's the one with the 150% feelgood factor and the 'Jungle Book' sample. Put simply, it's one of the most brilliant tracks to have been released that decade, and they had plenty more like that.

'Smoke Dis One' featured Queen Latifah and brilliantly fused Hip Hop, Funk and Reggae, whilst making people think about political awareness and freedom. AND you can dance to it. After setting the scene for UK white hip hop, Coldcut went on to produce a number of up and coming stars, as well as being a stable influence in the hip-house movement of the late 80s.

When Coldcut bound back into the public spotlight in the mid 90s, it was with the excellent 'Let Us Play' album, working with Tortoise, Kid Koala and T-Power on the exciting 'More Beats and Pieces' single, a live recording which scratched and cut up everything from The Mohawks to Peter And The Wolf with a healthy slab of funk and hip hop. By now, Coldcut were breaking down new barriers with visual art, and had built their own VJ/DJ software VJamm, allowing the live recreation of whole audiovisual pieces. By now, Coldcut were jamming and scratching with live video, and the crowds lucky enough to witness the tour of them doing this were gobsmacked by it's effect.

At the end of the 90s, the BBCs 'Tomorrows World' invited Coldcut to create a song on the internet in under an hour. Using Rescroket virtual studio technology, the challenge was met by musicians 'jamming' together in realtime in London, San Franscisco, South Africa and Los Angeles.

In short, Coldcut are the daddies in many ways, and if it is to be believed that they have a new album in the pipeline, then they are soon to be blowing minds and dominating the music press all over again. In the meantime, check out some of their stuff from either 'Let Us Play' from 1997, or a compilation of their early stuff from the 80s, and find out why they have been such a huge influence over the years. Failing that, get yourself to one of my parties, where I will have Coldcut in my DJ box for at least the next 50 years. Bless 'em.

Album Review: The Postal Service - Give Up

2004-11-04T06:28:00.000Z

Author: Silke

I have to confess: I'm an addict. I recently created my own radio station on Yahoo LAUNCHcast Radio and I'm hooked. In case you've never heard of LAUNCHcast, the site lets you create your own radio station (you have to have a yahoo account) for which you have to rate artists, songs and albums. Basically you advise LAUNCHcast of the music you love and the music you simply can't stand and the system will produce a radio experience that includes music you adore as well as new music you might like based on your tastes.

The truth is I have become obsessed with it and have rated more than 5000 artists/tracks/albums which according to the site officially makes me an ADDICT. But the beauty of the radio station isn't just the fact that you can hear all your favourite tunes, but also that you get to discover new bands that other people who have similar tastes to you have rated highly. This is how I discovered The Postal Service.

I now have to confess again: I'm an addict. I'm absolutely captivated by the Postal Service's debut album "Give Up"; for the last eight days I have listened to nothing else. In my defence, the album is the most infectious and most exasperatingly addictive record I have heard in a long time.

The album is a collaboration between Ben Gibbard (from Death Cab For Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (from Figurine) and can only be described as a new wavey indie pop gem which makes me feel giddy and melancholic at once. It was created by Ben and Jimmy mailing tapes back and forth between their homes (hence the band name) and is full of wonderful details and background noises that you only catch after a few listens but which will absolutely hypnotise you.

It's hard to pick favourites on the album as it is the album as a whole that mesmerises me, but these are probably the highlights:

"The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" fuses the sound of funeral organs with what can only be described as slightly nervous, adolescent angsty beats and strings in a wonderful ballad full of heart break and loneliness.

"Such Great Heights" is a wonderful declaration of love with one of the most infectious openings I've heard in a long time.

"Sleeping In" is so catchy, sweet and mellow I almost want to hate it, but the vocals draw you in so much you can't help but fall in love with it.

"Nothing Better" has a dark bounciness that makes me quiver. I absolutely adore the lyrics of this duet which is the conversation of a couple breaking up and contemplating whether or not they're meant for each other.

"This Place Is A Prison" has a gloominess with almost whispered lyrics is simply delicious and the track has a breathtaking and intoxicating build up with a volcanic eruption of string and drum sounds.

"Brand New Colony"s main melody was put together from 1980s video game samples and simply makes me want to dance!

Altogether the whole album invites you into a dream of nostalgia and unrequited love with a melancholic indie pop sound which owes a lot to the early Cure and the camp electro pop of New Order, the Pet Shop Boys and Ultravox. I can but highly recommend it. A word of warning though: it is highly addictive!

Single Review: Destinys Child - Lose My Breath

2004-11-02T23:59:00.000Z

Author: Chris Butler

Destiny's child are managed by Music World Management. The group first started with two members which were La Tavia and Beyonce. They had started Destiny's Child in the early years of 1990, Kelly then joined Destiny's Child in 1992. It was in this year they entered the American talent contest Star Search. The odds were against them as they were pitched against acts nearly three times their age and being placed in the hip-hop category with only one rap song to perform, although they didn't win the girls put this as a turning point for what was to become Destiny's Child.

Texas divas Destiny's Child are back and "Lose My Breath" fully re-instates them as one of the biggest female vocal groups of all time. This track reunites Kelly, Michelle and Beyonce with the hit that many feel was absent from all of their solo projects. Heavy basslines and killer dark beats mashed with sexy fast paced vocals and an infectious hook create an innovating club anthem worthy of any DJ's record box. Fans will go crazy for this one...

Live Review: Scissor Sisters at London Brixton Academy - 31st October 2004

2004-11-02T23:17:00.000Z

Author: Becky Parkes

The Scissor Sisters need no introduction, and the atmosphere at their gigs is a tribute to their own particular brand of fun. Cheers from the front of the queue to anyone who arrived in fancy dress was a good indicator of the atmosphere for the whole night; everyone was in it together, and the only thing that mattered was the music. And, of course, the fancy dress.

The support band consisted of Kiki and Herb, clad as a pink sparkly cat and a dog in a dinner jacket respectively. They belted out their own unique takes on classics such as Tom Jones "Sex Bomb", and even "Smells Like Teen Spirit", as an excited crowd danced and sang along with them.

So now, onto the Scissor Sisters. They opened their set with a short film about playing Bloody Mary projected onto a backlit screen, to the amusement of all present, before launching into "Bicycling With The Devil", a rather appropriate opener for a Halloween gig. This was followed swiftly by "Laura", as the band appeared through clouds of steam dressed as the cast of "their favourite British film ever"; The Rocky Horror Show. Think Jake Shears as Dr Frank in uspenders and a basque, and Paddy Boom dressed in only tight gold pants as Rocky, you get the idea.

The band powered their way through a great set packed with classics from the album, plus a few extras, including a crowd-pleasing special performance of "Hot Patootie", complete with massacre of Eddie (Babydaddy). Other songs of note were "Filthy/Gorgeous", which had everyone bouncing along, and the moving rendition of "Mary"; cue the waving of lighters, glowing pumpkins, scythes, etc.

To bring a close to a hot and sweaty set of nearly two hours, what could have been better than "Music Is The Victim?" Heralded by a cry of "Is everyone ready to rock n' roll?!" by Jake, the Sisters were joined onstage by their suport band, two pairs of giant scissors, a yeti, a pumpkin, and of course, Death himself.

As well as the music, the Scissor Sisters entertain the crowd properly, rather than rushing straight into their next song as so many bands do. In between songs Ana and Jake kept the crowd amused with their usual wit, and praised the audience on their participation fancy-dress wise, all of which adds to the feeling that to this band, the fans really do matter. As a tired and danced-out crowd left the venue, I think it's safe to say that most of them would be thinking along similar lines; live, the Scissor Sisters are hard to match.

Album Review: Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak

2004-11-02T21:08:00.001Z

Author: Matti Gregory

It's difficult to talk about Kings of Leon without referring to them in the light of The Strokes. Kings had all the cool, the haircuts and riffs of their NYC compatriots, but a better biography. The story of their upbringing is so well known by now that there's no point in reprinting it, but it is rather ironic that the sons/nephews of a preacher in the Bible Belt would become some of the most renowned on-the-road party people since the Stones. Because this album, their second, is about all that. Specifically the mornings after.

And it's every bit as overpoweringly cool as you'd expect. First single "The Bucket" has all the riffs and the two-step drum beats we've come to expect after "Youth And Young Manhood", but with even less hanging around. Who needs choruses, after all? Elsewhere "Soft" deals with impotency, "Razz" has a delicious bassline and some lyrics that manage the difficult feat of being obscure and blatant at the same time. All of which is perfectly good, but it is difficult not to start comparing every tune to their counterparts on YAYM and "Is This It", such are the clear parallels between this and those two seminal works of the haircut and skin-tight jeans corner of the indie world.

But Kings have never tried to be original. It's all about the super-sharp guitar riffs ("Pistol of Fire" may well be Matthew Followill's best moment, even if it does still sound a bit much like "Spiral Staircase" off the first record), the almost unnecessarily sexy drawl that makes up the vocals, and, yes, the hair. Even without that beard.

So like "Room On Fire" (this isn't lazy journalism, promise), this is a record of evolution as opposed to revolution, a refining of a sound and a continuation of momentum. But like The Strokes, the Kings of Leon won't be able to pull the same trick three times and get away with it.

Live Review: You Am I at Perth Raffles Hotel - 11th October 2003

2004-11-02T18:52:00.000Z

Author: Dennis Fernandez

I wasn't going to see You Am I tonight. Last time I saw them was some two years ago, primarily to check out the support act I had heard a few loud whispers about, some upstart New York group whom were brought out to Australia on the back of one EP. "The Modern Age" or something. Anyway, I had decided before this gig that You Am I were a band whose best days were behind them. They looked old and tired. Their Pete Townshend histrionics, which use to kick like a Jack Daniels enema, now looked like going through the motions. And I thought that they had begun to look and sound (worryingly) more and more like The Black Crowes. The spark that the support band showed emphasised this disparity. It wasn't long after this gig that I left Perth (disillusioned with living in the world's most isolated city, but hey that's another story).

Shortly after this gig, someone somewhere decided that "rock'n'roll" (in its Keef and Mick incarnation) was cool again and that bands looked good with vintage t-shirts and designer jeans (flared or otherwise). To my amusement, some hack in the NME decided that Australian bands (so often neglected outside of their own country by the conservative music press) could be used and propped up for a few cheap headlines, at least until the next pre-conceived "movement" came along (I remember some laughably patronising label, "The Ayers Rock" revolution or something). thought, for all the shit flying about, at least You Am I would finally get some recognition. (I'm still waiting).

(Anyway I began to move more and more away from bands whose songs you could sing along to. I figured that the art of the three and a half minute pop song was lost. Pop music, was beginning to mean either some prepackaged product endorsed by a telephone viewer poll and a tabloid newspaper campaign, or a rip-off, throwback con endorsed by a tabloid music press campaign to stay solvent. And it was anything but pure. Give me ten minute squalls of guitar distortion, preferably with a violin and two drummers. And no lyrics, or maybe just unintelligible vocoder ramblings. Or something.)

I went to see You Am I tonight. Like the last time, the band themselves were not my primary focus. Like the band and most of the punters there, I went to pay my last respects to the Raffles Hotel, a famous suburban Perth drinking hole that most nights resemble the treacherous hive of scum and villainy from Star Wars where Luke meets Han Solo. Tonight the other half of the hotel is being used for line-dancing. Seriously. And a biker's conference is upstairs. Possibly. Like the few other pubs of cultural significance in Perth, it has been listed for demolition and to be replaced by riverside apartments. It is also the pub where a young Tim Rogers sat around and listened to stories of family upheaval and sun-soaked idealism, the night that Auntie Jenny won 35 dollars on a horse called "Heavy Heart" and watching the sun set over the river, providing a backdrop to many a bar room brawl straight out of"Blazing Saddles". Probably. This was the Wild West. The last frontier. Literally. The pub that inspired more than a couple of songs. We had both left Perth for our own reasons and tonight found ourselves back.

Tonight I remembered why I loved You Am I. And it didn't take a lot of complicated thinking, either. They play good songs. And some nights they play them bloody well. Like tonight. It's why you take a risk against your better thinking and go to a gig. For the chance that on the night, everything can come together and make sense. It may have been the fact that the band have a new "Best Of" compilation to promote. Or maybe being newly liberated from their major label split, they are ready to embrace impending "indiehood". Nah, I reckon their intentions were simpler. Tonight they were "doing it for the Cash" (recently departed Johnny that is) and for a pub that they personally had a lot of good times in, to share with people who felt the same. And retrace a few favorite songs at the same time.

The songs transcend the influences that the band themselves wear on their sleeves. And whilst bands with the "we don't give a fuck" attitude are as common as a cliche, there are few who can carry off the "we don't give a fuck but come and have a beer with us" attitude without coming across all hippy (aargh). I had made the I hope not-unforgivable mistake of judging them on age against youth, style over substance. Bitterness perhaps because I can't grow sideburns and think that lime collared shirt with the top button missing should be consigned to St Vincent De Paul. The Pete Townshend histrionics were still there, but when Rogers did that windmill thing on his guitar, this time it felt instinctive and not forced. For Fun. Definitely.

(It recalled for me one night at the also soon to be demolished Perth Entertainment Centre where in a support slot, the band pulled out all the stops in front of a bemused 10,000 people who were there to hear that "Wonderwall song". When Noel Gallagher gave them his kudos after his own band were blown away by their opening act night after night on an Australasian tour in the peak of Oasis pomp, it was one endorsement that the monobrow got right.)

Tonight I forgave You Am I. For whatever it was I held against them. Tonight I forgave them for pushing their ex-proteges the Vines (ex-proteges) ahead of their own interests. Tonight I forgave them for indirectly giving us the blandtastic crime against humanity known as Jet. Tonight I forgave them for not giving me another record as perfect as "Hourly Daily" (one of the few records on my shelf that I can play at a summer gathering that isn't at risk of getting thrown onto the barbie, next to the snaggers in the space where the shrimp would be if I knew what the fuck shrimp was. Mental note: A Silver Mt Zion should not soundtrack a game of backyard cricket). Tonight I forgave them for declaring that success for them meant having money for beer and being able to make records and being able to hit the road and perform their records to their friends around the country and see a wee bit of the world. And not global domination.

I wanted to shout out at anyone who had never heard You Am I's "Damage" or "Berlin Chair" or anyone of a number of the songs they played tonight with reckless vigour, this is perfect pop music! It's pop, but it ain't pop(ular). When "Tales from the Australian Underground Volume 2" is reviewed in CarelessTalkCostsLives volume fifteen, issue 10,"Tuesday" will be declared a lost treasure (but why should it be lost until then?).

I wanted to go out and bat for them. To anyone who says that there are enough Antipodean acts getting their fifteen minutes in the British media I'll say sift through that pre-packaged, patronising posturing and look deeper. To anyone who said they saw them supporting some "Band of the Week" Britpop chancers circa 1995 and they were crap, I'll say that the sound was bad. To anyone who says that the tickets to see them at some shithole Oz-themed bar in Shepherd's bush were sold out, I'll say that their (now departed from) record company took the easy option of getting rent money from guaranteed ex-pat punters than converting new followers. To those who say they missed the boat, I'll say I want off too.

But why should I make excuses for them? They don't care if they don't fit in. They never did. Tonight I remembered there was such thing as a vox/guitar/bass/drum rock'n'roll band, who postured because they were having fun and not because of pretense and that could make you want to punch the air (or kick a hole in the sky). Most of all, I felt like sharing them.

Live Review: Franz Ferdinand at London Brixton Academy - 28th October 2004

2004-11-01T06:40:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

This time last year Franz Ferdinand weren't even on the musical radar of the vast majority of people (myself included), yet in the space of twelve months they've become the darlings of the indie scene, charmed the summer festival circuit, bagged themselves the Mercury Music Prize for their outstanding debut album, and now find themselves headlining three sold out nights at London's Brixton Academy.

The first of tonight's two supports comes from Bob Log III, a multi-instrumentatlist in a jumpsuit and flight helmet who plays what can only be described as thrash accoustic guitar. We only caught the last four songs, but I suspect that was enough.

Next up are Franz labelmates The Kills, a boy/girl duo who are reminiscent of early PJ Harvey in both attitude and sound. The singer, a tall, thin cross between Polly Jean and a young Siouxsie stalks the stage with a commanding presence while the guitarist gives the crowd a constant thousand yard stare. The songs, while essentially walls of noise that Phil Spector would be proud of, also contain enough passion and emotion to keep the crowd's attention, and they manage to hold their own against now packed to the rafters Brixton Academy that is baying for the Franzie Boys. As soon as The Kills leave the stage a white curtain comes down with a picture of the arch-duke himself on it and you can literally feel the anticipation in the air.

The lights go down and the band are are silhouetted on the curtain in 'ready to rock' pose for a few seconds, teasing the roraring crowd, before the curtain drops and they launch into 'Michael'. The stripped down set and the band's smart attire conjour up images of 60s beat combos and guitarist Nicholas McCarthy in particular looks like he's just stepped off stage at Al's Diner and onto that of the Academy. In fact, so much of the media attention is focused on Alex Kapranos that the sheer enthusiasm and energy with which McCarthy worked the stage almost as a double act with Kapranos, switiching effortlessly between guitar and keyboards, came as a pleasant surpise. An honourable mention also to the ultra-tight rhythm section of drummer Paul Thomson and bassist Rob Hardy, who seemed content to let the other two monopolise the spotlight whileproviding a faultless backline for them.

'Tell Her Tonight' and 'Auf Achse' followed swiftly, keeping the crowd well and truly worked up, and then we get the first of three new songs. 'This Boy', which along with 'I'm Your Villain' and 'Your Diary', both delivered later in the set, suggest that Franz Ferdinand are no one album wonder, and that come the release of their second album next year, they'll either be stepping up to the London arena circuit or booking themselves in for a week at the Academy. All three feature huge hooks, and in 'I'm Your Villain' we get enough time changes to keep even the most ardent Rush fan happy.

The biggest response of the night comes, inevitably, for 'Take Me Out', which has the Brixton crowd pogoing like their life depended on it, and the band whirling around the stage like Taz on speed. The entire album gets an airing tonight, along with b-sides 'Van Tango', 'Love and Destroy', and encore opener 'Shopping For Blood' (complete with the aforementioned Bob Log III guesting on drums and beating them to within an inch of their lives).

New US single 'This Fire' closes the show, with the band in such high spirits that Kapranos and McCarthy even venture into the photographer's pit, grinning ear to ear, to get closer to the crowd, and then it's all over, the band linking hands for a curtain call as we make our way, satisfied and entertained, into the London night.

Band Feature: Pulp

2004-10-31T13:30:00.000Z

Author: Peter Muscutt

Overnight success in twelve years: Are Pulp one of the most resilient bands in pop?

PULP had it hard in the years before their breakthrough performance at the 1995 Glastonbury Festival, where headliners The Stone Roses dropped out, giving the Sheffield outfit their chance.

From their lowly beginnings in 1978, Pulp have possibly had more personnel changes than any other group in recent times - numerous bass players, drummers, and even a guy reading poetry have all passed through the doors since the late seventies. The Pulp we know and love today didn't come together until around 1994/95, with the fairly solid line up of gangly sex god Jarvis Cocker, keyboardist Candida Doyle, drummer Nick Banks, bass player Steve Mackey, guitarists Mark Webber and Russell Senior. Even this line up is no longer current, with Senior departing the band around 1996 to pursue a solo career with his own group, Venini. Since that time, another guitarist, Richard Hawley, who collaborated with Cocker on his Pulp side-project Relaxed Muscle, has been filling in during the meantime.

Pulp's first official release came in the distant past of 1981, when a surprisingly competent track, 'What Do You Say?' (possibly about puberty!) was released on an extremely rare LP of local bands. The first break for the band, after an appearance on John Peel's radio programme, came in 1983, when the youthful band issued their debut LP, 'It'. The meaning behind this title came from Cocker wishing to 'preach' his lyrics and music to the public, using a play on the band's name - 'Pulp-it', as if the album was indeed his pulpit to communicate his message. Of course, nothing really came of the album, apart from the sublime melodies of 'My Lighthouse' (an early single) and 'Blue Girls' a touching ode to the girls of Cocker's (presumably) school days.

Unperturbed by the lack of attention and failure to break into mega-stardom, Pulp continued nonetheless, with work, money and the ever present personnel problems plaguing the group. Without an album to work on, the band issued two EPs on the Fire record label: 'Little Girl With Blue Eyes' and 'Dogs Are Everywhere' (although not included on any albums, the EPs were released in 1994 as the 'Masters Of The Universe' compilation). Again, with no critical acclaim or sign of the millions rolling from the record sales, they relocated to an old warehouse to record their second album, 'Freaks', in 1987. The album was an audible step up from the debut effort, and was almost frightening in its subject matter - fairground freaks, vicious attacks from prejudiced meatheads, anorexic girls, and a twisted take on relationships.

Before the next album, 1992's 'Separations', there would be much change for Pulp. With drummer Nick Banks and bass player Steve Mackey now on board, writing began for the LP. An NME award for 'single of the week' for the track 'My Legendary Girlfriend' soon came along, and it seemed that things were looking up, although this optimism was swiftly brought crashing down when Pulp's record label delayed the release of the album from its original 1990 release date. With nigh on five years since Pulp's last album, it seemed to the music world as though the band were dead and buried. When the album did finally arrive, it was a dramatic change from the quiet acoustics and anguish-filled songs of the 1980s. This was Glam-Pulp, fusing the wry social comments of Cocker with electronics and the ushering in of new keyboards and MIDI sequencing, as well as a new drum machine for Nick Banks to contend with. It was the era of rave, and this new sound of the streets certainly rubbed off on a now London-based Cocker, and the material he and the band were writing. The album still holds up as one of Pulp's finest, with gems like the more electronic-oriented 'Death 2', 'Countdown (about waiting for fame to arrive)' and the eerie, surreal eight minute opus 'This House Is Condemned' (only the second song so far not to feature Cocker on lead vocals, the other being 'Fairground' on the 'Freaks' album).

Late 1992/early 1993 brought a new record label, the Gift outfit, which saw a number of standalone singles released before a new album proper. The singles, 'Babies', 'OU' and 'Razzmatazz' were again another step forward to the band sounding like the Pulp of nowadays, and were rewarded with the first signs of the music industry taking notice. 'Babies' remains a live favourite to the present day, and was kept in the tours the band performed to promote their breakthrough album, 'Different Class'. The quality of the songs Pulp were now recording was noticeable - even the B-sides of the time reeked of class; the sleazy epic 'Sheffield Sex City', the ambient, breathy 'Space' and the character based three-part story of 'Inside Susan'.

1993 also saw the first material from the band's new album, 'His N' Hers', with a single, 'Lipgloss'. Although missing out on a Top 40 position in the charts, that would soon be rectified by the chart placing of 'Do You Remember The First Time?' - an end of the evening anthem at student discos up and down the country, an uplifting ode to losing virginity and the jealousy of one man towards an ex-girlfriend's current squeeze. TV exposure greeted the release of 'His N' Hers', with appearances to promote the '...First Time' single, as well as other tracks from the record. It was perhaps this album which paved the way for 'Different Class' and Pulp's propulsion into superstardom. Many people around the time mistakenly believed that 'His N' Hers' was a debut release, such was their unfamiliarity with the band!

And then, to the success which had evaded the band since the early eighties. With the advent of Britpop, bands such as Blur, Oasis, Elastica and Sleeper were ushered into the music elite, and Pulp bustled in with them. With a richer, seemingly more intelligent subject matter to their songs than most of the crop, Pulp soon rose to the top of the Britpop scene, a shift noticed by Glastonbury helmer Michael Eavis, who was quick to snatch the band as last minute replacements for The Stone Roses at the 1995 festival. For those attending the festival, it was an almost spiritual experience hearing the band's killer anthem 'Common People' exploding out over the amassed thousands of music fans, an experience which would be captured forever when the live version was released as a B-side to the 'Mis Shapes' single later that year. From then on, nothing would be the same for Pulp ever again. With new found fame and popularity, the band unleashed the Britpop-era album 'Different Class' on the UK public. It was a perfect musical picture of Britain, from seedy back door affairs ('Pencil Skirt'), a call to arms for the misfits of the nation ('Mis Shapes'), early nineties rave culture ('Sorted For E's And Wizz'), and the after effects of late nights on the town (the superbly upbeat 'Monday Morning' and 'Bar Italia' - the soundtrack to a thousand hangovers).

Now that Pulp had hit their peak, it would prove hard for the band to live up to the pressures of expectation. Touring heavily to promote the 'Different Class' LP, a glut of reissues and compilations of the band's earlier tracks were released in numerous guises, one of the most comprehensive being 'Countdown 1992 - 1983' a double CD of early tracks and B-sides. The band's next project was to be 1997's 'comeback' single 'Help The Aged', a song that only Jarvis Cocker could have written about the perils of old age. It was the trailer for 1998's 'This Is Hardcore' album, a step back to the darker edge the band last showed on the 'Freaks' album - the track-listing, dominated by tales of pornography, self-doubt, fear and nostalgia didn't make easy listening, yet it was a side of Pulp we had not heard for many years. It was also enough for the band to make a return to the main stage of Glastonbury, and although not repeating the religious experience of three years' previously, was certainly a welcome return to UK soil.

From there on in, Pulp have remained fairly quiet, with only a smattering of singles from 'Hardcore' and 2001's 'We Love Life' album being released. 'We Love Life', while continuing with the themes Cocker was familiar with writing about from previous efforts - drugs, Sheffield and girls being murdered (!) seemed to lack something that previous albums had, the killer edge that made Cocker such a cutting edge lyricist and writer. It contained some classics, such as 'Bad Cover Version' (with an accompanying Band Aid style video with celebrity look-alikes), 'The Trees', a worthy contender to the title of 'concert closer' with 'Sunrise' and the meandering, wistful 'Wickerman'.

And so, at present, Pulp are on an extended break. After telling us on the sleeve of their greatest hits album that they will be back when they get to wherever it is they are going, we're left in limbo, wondering if there's still more to come from Sheffield's finest, or whether this is it - after a nigh on twenty five year journey, has Cocker finally said what he wants to say? Will 'Common People' remain the lasting legacy of the band that beat Britpop? Its hard to say what could lie in store, and a little unfair to say that the band are in decline, after all, bands have continued after hitting their peak - Pink Floyd managed it after climaxing with 'Dark Side of the Moon' just as Pulp have with 'Different Class' - it seems unlikely we'll see a return to that kind of spontaneous form when everything the group touched turned to gold, but fans will no doubt wait patiently for the next message the God of council estate chic (and wearing suit jackets over a bare chest - sorry Jarvis, couldn't resist that one!) has to tell us.

Band Feature: The Go! Team

2004-10-30T07:12:00.000Z

Author: Dollyrocker

It's not too often that a band comes along that equally confuses and excites the hell out of me, but when I heard The Go! Teams 'The Power Is On' single back in July, I had a warm glowing feeling that I hadn't felt since I heard Quickspace back in 1995, or maybe Beta Band when they put out 'The Patty Patty Sound' EP.

So who the hell are The Go! Team then? Well that's precisely what I thought when I first heard them, they almost sounded like they could have been Japanese (I think one of them is, thus my confusion), but in actual fact they are a bunch of fresh young fellows from sunny Brighton.

I guess that they must have sprung up in the last couple of years, as the date on their 'Junior Kickstart' EP is 2003, but their first LP 'Thunder, Lightning, Strike' has crept out over the last month or so (I think) and I have yet to have had time to actually go record shopping, but when I do, this LP will be first on my list.

So; the music, as I actually know very little about these guys, is like the kind of thing that Charlie Brown and the gang would have made if let loose on the schools music trolley. And trust me, this is a very, VERY good thing! 'The Power Is On' sounds like 'The Number Song' by DJ Shadow played on double speed with Japanese children shouting excitably about Hello Kitty into a mic that came free with a karaoke machine from Argos (and probably did). On the Junior Kickstart EP (get ebaying) we get the title track which sounds like a classic soundtrack from an imaginary 70's cult TV drama, with DOUBLE the energy of all the Strokes wannabes doing the rounds PUT TOGETHER! With harmonicas. The second track; 'Feelgood By Numbers' is just excellent, slightly reminiscent of Gorkys circa 1994, but with a much heavier summer breeze feel about, this is lazy summer music for any time of year. Put your body near the radiator, close your eyes and look at the lamp and PRETEND. The Go! Team would be proud. 'We Listen Everyday' is the EP's closer, and almost sound like an alternative royal anthem, rips off a line from 'Music Of The Night' from Andrew Lloyd Webber, although I don't think this was intentional, bless 'em.

In a music scene seemingly dominated by wannabes and hasbeens, I embrace this band with open arms. They play London Mean Fiddler on 20th November 2004, so go on, treat yourself. It's gonna be one hell of a ride...

Music DVD Review: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Tell Me What Rockers To Swallow

2004-10-29T20:12:00.000Z

Author: Matti Gregory

When Yeah Yeah Yeahs appeared on the scene back in 2002, riding of the NYC wave led by The Strokes, they were explosive. Their self-titled debut EP arguably outstripped "The Modern Age" as the most promising single to appear from the other side of the Atlantic, and they had a lead singer, Karen O, who had a penchant for thrift-store chic and screaming at the top of her lungs, a la Siouxsie Sioux. They were fresh, they were almost unbelievably cool, and they looked set to take the world by storm (if you'll excuse the cliché).

Since then, though, things have gone a bit quiet. Their debut album "Fever To Tell" failed to build on the initial hype, and now their first DVD looks set to explode the fuss over their live shows. Billed as the best frontwoman in modern rock, Karen O certainly packs a lot of energy - sprinting across the stage wearing a purple, high-cut dress for the opening "Y Control" and bashing into guitarist Nick Zinner, all the while going through the now well-rehearsed list of mildly obscene gestures involving the microphone. But she seems to have a necessity to spend the gap between songs throwing poses for the cameras and spitting water into the air, which would be fine were it not for the fact she takes ages about it. Some of the intros go on for minutes while Karen stops eating grapes and spitting them at the audience for long enough to sing. It makes it quite clear why we love The Strokes - they never hung about, never spent any longer than necessary to get ready for the next song, and never wasted our time.

To be fair, it is sometimes worth the wait. An explosive "Date With The Night" and an increasingly vulnerable "Maps" both wake the crowd up near the end, but most of the time the songs are too slight, partly due to Zinner's guitar regularly getting lost in the mix, to have any impact. A loosely hung together rendition of "Our Time" is the worst offender, never really getting going and lacking the drive necessary to lift the song into the jaw-dropping trash-rock it is on record.

The disappointment is compounded by two completely unrevealing tour documentaries (for want of a much better word - the crowd interviews consist of Americans telling you about how much they love the band until your teeth are ground to stumps out of irritation), a set of bonus songs (i.e. more slightly off-kilter live performances) and the realisation that the unreleased songs aimed at hardcore fans should probably have stayed unreleased. They do have that superb MTV Awards performance though.

This is all a bit harsh on the band really, who are more than capable of being incendiary both on- and off-stage, but it's that knowledge that just throws into sharp relief what a lacklustre performance this is. A real let down.

Live Review: The Soho Dolls at London Elbow Rooms - 28th October 2004

2004-10-29T19:56:00.000Z

Author: Tom Bailess

What a strange choice of venue! The Elbow Rooms is a pool hall/bar with the ambience of a Wetherspoons. The post-work crowd of men still wearing ties, and locals in tracksuits couldn't look more different to the sharply dressed boys and girls with complicated haircuts who have gathered here to check out two of London's most promising new acts: the Soho dolls and the Rocks. A tiny stage has been set up in the corner of the bar, awkwardly placed requiring the local pool players to squeeze though the crowd to get to the bar.

However there were few complaints from the locals at this intrusion when the Soho dolls took to the stage. Three sexy, small, girls in tight clothes dancing to loud music are most 30 something man's idea of perfect entertainment. We were soon being shoved around by sweaty men in suits trying to get a better look at bassist Patricia's knickers, which left little to the imagination under the bright stage lights.

Despite these inconveniences we did manage to enjoy their set and the dolls gripped the audience with their sexy electro-punk tunes. New single "Prince Harry" had the whole place bouncing along. Things got to fever pitch with the song "Strippa" when singer Maya and Patricia started sleazing things up stripper style, leading to a frenzy of camera flashes and men fumbling for their camera phones.

The front row for The Rocks couldn't have been more different: where there had been slightly older men with collared shirts there were now pretty, young indie girls with fashionable hair. Once the charismatic front man James emerged, you could almost smell the musk as the girls gripped their friends excitedly.

The Rocks put on a great show. James clambered over speakers and pool tables like a monkey, before ending up singing from the middle of the audience. Sarah stood statuesque and stunning, all the while plucking hard rock rhythms out from her guitar. Their vibrant, sing-a-long indie had everyone smiling. "Top of the pops!" declared James, obviously thrilled at the warm reception. Surely it is only a matter of time before either the Rocks or Soho dolls get a big hit. Both are distinctive and know how to arouse a crowd, something not many bands can get right.

Live Review: Pete Doherty at the London Brick Lane Festival 2004 - 12th September 2004

2004-10-29T19:05:00.000Z

Author: Jessica Cronin

As usual there was tension and the question that lingered on everyone's minds: 'will he show up?' which comes free with his gigs. For this crowd who seemed to be a mix of hardcore Libertine fans who managed to find out about the show, it was less tension and more boredom. The crowd suddenly broke into a loud and excitable applaud when Pete finally bothered to show up no less than an hour late, dressed in a suit, guitar across his back and a harmonica around his neck. The gig turned out to be the most polite gig with his involvement I have ever witnessed compared to the shambolic nights he serves fans with. People who were wise enough to arrive early mellowed out at the front, while everyone else was stood politely behind mingling with each other and singing along to their hero, bearing pity for the unfortunates who came too late to get in.

The collaboration of songs Pete worked through was an odd one, singing Libertine classics like What a Waster and Don't Look Back into the Sun with help from his mate Dot Alison. The crowd happily sung Shoop Shoop Shoop Delang Delang like a footie crowd singing their national anthem. Who would have thought that by the smile on Pete's face that the night before he was pleading that Libertine songs weren't good enough and refusing to sing nothing but Babyshambles songs. Unforgettably, he played the Beatles classic She Loves You with emphasis to Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! and doing it justice, I must say.

It was nice to see the troubled Libertine looking so healthy and a bonus, rather happy: banging his feet; doing an exotic dance and stripping off a little on request of the female half of the crowd (plus a few males). It was hard to say good bye when he gathered his instruments together with help of Jesus (James the guitar tech) and disappearing.

All in all, it was a pretty decent way to spend an afternoon.

Album Review: Hope of the States- The Lost Riots

2004-10-28T19:35:00.000Z

Author: Sara

The Chichester group have sprung from seemingly nowhere and were a hit over the festival season; their sparkling debut is beautiful. Enemies/friends is the first time we hear Herlihy's weary voice. Lines like Keep your friends close/ Your enemies won't matter in the end make everything sound (no pun intended) hopeful. It's a quirky, almost schizophrenic at times, but not the sort of thing you would devote complete attention to. That is on first listening, the second time around it becomes a clever mix of classical and pop/rock instruments with an typically indie voice. And it works. More up-tempo songs dotted around ensure that attention is not lost, Nehemiah is danceable to; The Red The White The Black The Blue should be loved by everyone.

Although it's quite lengthy, it is definitely worth a listen.

EP Review: Silence Is Sexy EP

2004-10-28T09:27:00.000Z

Author: Richard Cosgrove

London's Electroclash scene has been gathering momentum for a couple of years now, with the Ju Ju Babies leading the pack and the likes of Gene Serene and Fist Fuck Deluxe providing solid backup, but with the release of their debut EP, Silence Is Sexy have effortlessly elevated themselves to the top of the electroclash pops.

Silence Is Sexy consist of Sebastian and Tara, and while Sebastian may be the brains behind the band, writing the songs, playing the keyboards and coming across on stage like a teutonic sex god (for he hails from Germany, but has spent the last few years in London), it is the interaction between the two of them that elevates this band to the higher plateau of synth pop.

The sexual tension that is played out during their live shows, with each furtive glance, each nonchalant brush of the hand over the other's body, and the tightly choreographed, yet easily played out dance routines that they occasionally indulge in, make them compelling viewing in the way that Kraftwerk and London's own Greenhaus are not. The latter two may be great bands, and I speak as a fan of both, but entertaining on stage they are not.

All of this live entertainment, however, becomes insignificant when we turn to the matter of their debut eponymous EP, and how it sounds on your stereo at home without the visual accompanyment. Thankfully the five songs on offer here do stand up to aural scrutiny, kicking off with "In Electro, Baby", which comes creeping from the speakers like the bastard child of Visage and Sparks, both dark and brooding, and with a sense of theatre that comes from the interplay of Sebastian's smooth vocals and Tara's soulful and seductive backing.

Next up is "Glamour Boy", giving Tara the lead vocals over a scissor-kicking synth line and pounding Euro-disco beat. "They say he's just a nancy boy," Tara informs us as Sebastian plays gender games, proclaiming "boy, I like you" while also being Tara's "favourite toy", all the while exuding the nonchalance that is ever present in their live shows. "Pioneer Ten" follows and is reminiscent of Alphaville's finest work ("Big In Japan" was just the tip of their iceberg, an introduction to a wealth of synthisised treasures for those willing to dig a little deeper). A sprawling landscape of dreamy synths and superb vocals, this is one of those songs that gets better and better every time you hear it, revealing hidden depths on repeat listenings.

"King and Queen" is the most accessible track on the EP, complete with pulsing rhythms and a huge chorus full of pomp and majesty and will be the track that you'll return to again and again intially before you grow into "Pioneer Ten". The EP winds up with "Perfect Dream", conjouring up images of Depeche Mode covering Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" and is the EP's only so-so tune, which when you consider the quality of the other tracks is no criticism. After all, if you hit 100% with your first release, then where else to go?

Silence Is Sexy have laid the foundations for a killer first full album here, which with their flamboyant and entertaining live shows will guarantee them some serious media attention in the coming months.

Album Review: Various Artists - Disco Undead

2004-10-27T13:11:00.000Z

Author: Peter Muscutt

There's been a great interest in the soundtracks from zombie films recently. The brilliance of the zombie movie parody "Shaun Of The Dead" was reflected in its excellent soundtrack, a blend of contemporary artists such as Ash and The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, as well as older music interspersed with snippets of dialogue.

There was also a recent release for much of the unreleased library music from the classic "Dawn Of The Dead", which fans have been praying for since the release of the original movie soundtrack. Of course, there's plenty more obscure and bizarre soundtracks for the legion of obscure and bizarre zombie movies out there, and that is the subject matter of this release - an intriguing selection of twelve horror 'themes' reinterpreted by a veritable horde of modern electronic musicians. Its certainly not chart fodder, and to be fair the appeal of this release is probably going to be very limited, but for those curious enough to hunt this album down, you're in, for the most part, for a treat.

It's not essential to have heard the theme tunes that have been re-recorded here (to call them cover versions would be wrong, these really are reinterpretations), however it helps to listen to this CD in context. The opener, Orgue Electronique's "Le Notti Del Terrore", is full of thumping electronic drums and waves of eerie synthesiser that sound as if they were culled from the original theme tune (from Nights of Terror - presumably a Disney film). Gique lend a fantastic hand to the theme from the Lucio Fulci classic Zombie Flesh Eaters (here entitled Fulci's Rotting Children) which includes sampled dialogue from the film (a complete rip off of the 'when there's no more room in hell' speech from Dawn of the Dead!) and replaces the very 70s sounding keyboards with a cool, minimalist strip down.

It And My Computer (don't worry if you haven't heard of any of these bands, names don't matter when the music is this good) turn in a brash keyboard laden track, "Le Droit De Tuer" (a version of the theme tune from "The Exterminator") which comes complete with hissing and popping drums.

One of the finest tracks on this release, "The Pianist And The Reporter" by Bangkok Impact, is a DJ's dream, with a hypnotising drum pattern (imitating a speeded up human heart?) and an almost trance-like tune sprinkled with fat sounding synthesisers. It's hard to imagine this featuring on a horror film soundtrack, but as the title implies, this truly is 'undead disco'!

Another cult classic, Dario Argento's "Suspiria", receives the electronic treatment from Solenoid. Fitting in nicely with the style of other tracks on this album, it's a great track with hints of Orbital about it. The album follows the same template for the remainder of the tracks, although it does seem a bit of a cop out as we're treated to, amongst other things, an original track entitled "Cannibal Sluts" (charming!), and rethinks of themes from films like "The Thing" and "Assault On Precinct 13" - not very undead!

Whilst some of this album is rather forgettable, there are some absolute gems here that will undoubtedly appeal to collectors of rare film soundtracks or lovers of 1970s horror. A definite oddity, this one stands out most for it's originality and inventiveness. Give it a try, you might surprise yourself.

Album Review: Super Furry Animals - Songbook: Singles Vol. 1

2004-10-27T08:28:00.000Z

Author: Matti Gregory

It's easy to see why so little memorable music came out of the mid-90s. Everyone was so caught up in Cool Britannia and the rise of lad culture that bands started prioritising drinking and fashion above, say, writing good music (you know who you are, Menswear). So when Super Furry Animals signed to Creation Records in 1995 alongside Oasis, they must have seemed like a joke pushed too far, they wrote songs in Welsh, dressed like charity shop assistants, and some of them even had beards.

However, this collection of all 21 of their singles to date demonstrates that far from being Alan McGee's personal court jesters, they were actually a huge breath of fresh air in a rapidly stagnating musical climate. There's a relentlessly upbeat feel to everything here that makes you understand why Welsh has no word for "blue" - "Do Or Die" comes on with the energy of a teenager who's just got their first wah-wah pedal, "Play It Cool" is ludicrously sunny and when "The International Language Of Screaming's" sing along "la-la-la-la" chorus kicks in it's more than enough to persuade you that this would be the soundtrack to everybody's Summer were it not for the record label's oversight of releasing it in the middle of the Autumn.

If "Songbook" has a failing it's SFA's tendency to be a bit too over-the-top. Nearly every song has an absurd "epic" fade out that has a habit of making the sharpest of their tunes sound like Pink Floyd's wet dream, which isn't always a good thing, but such minor flaws are easily ignored when you're listening to a band that have the ability to both make you feel cheery on a cold and wet winter's day and convince you that you can sing along to a song called "Ysbeidiau Heulog".

In the year 2500, when scientists unearth a space capsule filled with 90s indie, they'll all think that SFA must have been the biggest band on the planet. And when you put this up against Oasis, it's pretty easy to see why.

Music Feature: "Why I think mix-taping is an art form" by Lori Daly

2004-10-26T14:56:00.000Z

Author: Lori Daly

I remember making my first one, I must have been 11 years old finishing up primary school and a girl called Annie started talking to me about Belly and Menswear and Britpop in general, using my I'm-a-glastonbury-brat credentials I made her a tape containing (if I remember rightly) St Etienne, Pulp, Blur, Urge Overkill, Kenickie, and Drugstore.

I don't remember doing it, I just remember getting feedback about it and glowing with pride, that I'd put these specific songs together for someone else in a specific order to show someone what I liked and why I liked it and why I thought they should like it too.

6 years later I met her in her the street of the town I'd long since moved away from and she came up and talked about the mix-tape.

After the first one I was hooked, I'd spent hours kneeling in front of my dads CD collection, with my meagre pile carried downstairs - I started by pulling out what albums I wanted and lying them out on the floor and then I'd put them in order of this would sound good next to that, invisible links, and I'd stop and stumble and stutter through making them.

At first they'd all sound the same - no variation in the genre and then there was that awful period where there would end being six or seven Manic Street Preachers songs on each tape I made.

I made them for new friends and boyfriends and friends who liked Boyzone, I made them as presents because I was selfish and wanted to give them something I enjoyed doing.

As I got older I made more and more tapes for myself - ones with themes and genre variation...

(70s 7's, Fey England, You ain't no rock n roll fun, Pull yourself together, This is Pop?, I don't want you - get out my head!!!) And with names. For parties and for new friends all over again. And suddenly for people halfway across the world.

It's all engulfing, though I no longer kneel in front of the CD collection, sit with scraps of paper and scribble down the odd song to stick on, pick one to start and let myself go from there.

I have no idea how other people make mix tapes or why or if they find it all engulfing but there is something of a thrill in finding the right song to go after the one before, making something that flows and has a collection of oddly connected brilliant sounding music.

Something you've spent hours and hours over to make just right for a friend - to tell them you give a f*ck, to tell them you love them, to tell them that your taste in music is better than theirs.

Mix-tapes are beautiful things, mix CDs are for losers - they don't take the time or the patience and care. They aren't as fragile nor as interesting.

So go and make one - tell someone your taste in music is better than theirs.

Live Review: The Libertines at Orlando Social - 22nd October 2004

2004-10-26T07:19:00.000Z

Author: Julie Zerbib

For a band in hyped turmoil, The Libertines put on a damn good show. As Carl, John, Gary, and replacement guitarist, Anthony Rossomando engaged in a feverish onstage battle of melodies, the crowd at The Social in Orlando can't seem to get enough. They cheer at the sound of familiar songs like "Don't Look Back Into The Sun", "Can't Stand Me Now" the new single, "What Became Of The Likely Lads", and the ever popular single from their freshman album, "What A Waster" which resonates in the minds of all, regarding ousted front man Pete Doherty.

Johns onstage banter provoked laughter at the front of the stage when he discussed the infamous Red Sox baseball game. "Who knew these Brits could talk baseball!" exclaimed one audience member. There was nothing more obscene in this scene than the time it took for the bands to get onstage. A good forty-five minutes spanned before The Libertines got onstage. Quite an eternity to wait for the epitome of what a band should be. For, that's what the Libertines are, whether it's their journey on the Albion, or their adventures in Arcadia. As far as being one of the best shows of the season, it was also the loudest. Adorned with a cowbell given to him by opening band, Radio 4, one fan couldn't contain himself and contributed to the onslaught of noise coming from the amps. This also caught the attention of Carl Barat who walked over to the front of the stage and shook his hand. The sparks kept flying as the lads got into the encore, playing "France" and "The Narcissist".

As this punk militia trudged on, the crowd acted as witness to an epiphany that despite watching a band dealing with so many problems, The Libs are the voice of a generation. The Libertines aren't just a band, they're a way of life, especially for those of us who are inspired by more than just their music.

Live Review: The Whyte Seeds at London Water Rats - 19th October 2004

2004-10-26T05:09:00.000Z

Author: Tom Bailess

The Whyte Seeds are a Swedish garage rock band, big in their native Sweden so it was a treat to see them in such a small venue. They have been compared to the Strokes but this is unfair - they have a much stronger 50's rock n roll influence in their music than the 70s rock which the Strokes strive so hard to emulate.

The singer belts out all the tracks from their last album with enthusiasm and the sharply-dressed boys and girls in the audience nod along with cool detachment. Tracks "Shallow Life", "So Alone"and new single "Lost My Love" get the best reception. At least half the audience are Swedish and the end of their set has people shouting for more - in Swedish. Overall, a lot of fun and a good turnout for a Tuesday night.

Support came from Vincent Vincent & the Villains, a shamlessly rockabilly group who could be Bill Haley and the Comets on crack. The two lead singers work well together; both have great voices and a commanding stage presence. Backed up by strong rhythm and bass, the band gripped the audience for the duration of their short set and complemented The Whyte Seeds well. They might be too quirky to get mainstream success but they certainly stand out from the crowd. Look out for their new single out at the moment.

Live Review: Dizzee Rascal at Leeds University - 23rd October 2004

2004-10-25T13:57:00.000Z

Author: Roger Taylor

Dizzie strays from the grime of London to the evening drizzle of Leeds to show us what all the fuss is about.

It seems that Dizzie Rascal can do no wrong, from winning the Mercury Music prize with his first offering; "'Boy In Da Corner" to following it up with the equally well received "Showtime" and all at the tender age of 19. Having seen him go down a storm at Leeds festival in August it was interesting to see if how the crowd would react on his own tour.

Dizzie got things going with the opening track from current album "Showtime" followed by a cross section of hits including "Fix Up Look Sharp", "I Love You" and "Dream" the current single getting the biggest response. One thing I noticed on this occasion was that half the time you can't tell what he's saying but that he has great stage presence and the fact that you can't tell what he is saying almost becomes irrelevant.

Overall all a good night with Dizzie able to keep the crowds attention all through the set which with some rap gigs can grate after a while. Dizzie finished with "Stand Up Tall" with the venue turning into a full on rave, something that I think Dizzie would be pleased with.

Music Feature: "A Fantasy Clubs Playlist - This Is Pop" by Lori Daly

2004-10-25T01:51:00.000Z

Author: Lori Daly

A couple of weeks ago I went to a pretty shoddy club night and everything they did, I thought I could do better. I'd paid a tenner to see over-rated badly mixed disco (at an electro techno night) from a DJ who couldn't tell when to work the crowd up..

So in my head I have been devising my own fantasy club night and have cobbled together what would pass for a fantasy setlist (well at least this week...)

You up for coming?

You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory - Johnny Thunders
Fade Into You - Mazzy Star
New Friend - The Concretes
Fisherman - The Congos
Nag, Nag, Nag - Cabaret Voltaire
Mongoloid - Devo
Change - Killing Joke
Losing My Edge - LCD Soundsystem
Pressure - Mylo
Short Skirts - Felix Da Housecat
Eisbar - Grauzone
La Roc 01 - Vitalic

Rock Show - Peaches
Lets Get Sick - Mu
I Still Don't Love You - White Trash
Shoplifting - The Slits
Tongue Tied - Erase Eratta
White Mice - The Mo-dettes
This Is Pop? - XTC
Collapsing New People - Fad Gadget
Human Fly - The Cramps
Fever - Pink Grease
I Hate Models - Neils Children
Psycho - The Sonics
Personality Crisis - New York Dolls
What a Waster - The Libertines
Good Weekend - Art Brut
Three Card Rhumba - Wire
Just Like Honey - Jesus and Mary Chain
Be My Baby - The Ronnettes
Is That All There Is? - Peggy Lee