Chartsengrafs (14/06/06)

Sunday just gone: She did it! With an impressively tiny difference in sales (48724 v 48538), Nelly Furtado took the top spot from Sandi Thom. She did to number one at the head of an all-new top 5 in the albums though, ahead of The Feeling, Ronan Keating, Paul Simon and Primal Scream. The last two were seperated by an even smaller margin of 32 copies.
Embrace went up to 3, with such a shedload of football songs ranging from bad to worse following that I can't even be bothered to list them. Although at 30, "Scotland Scotland Jason Scotland" by The Trinidad And Tobago Tartan Army possibly deserves a special mention of some kind though I have (sadly?) not heard it yet. What chance a top 20 place in the rather unlikely event (ie he isn't playing) of him scoring against England?
In what passes for chart normalcy, The Automatic somehow took their massive shouty chorus and not much else all the way to the 4, Morrissey (14) and Depeche Mode's (18) fanbases couldn't stop them getting crowded out of the top 10, Lordi (25) have missed their chance and Sugababes (32) and Duncan James (35) suffered shockingly bad results probably even worse than Ukraine's today. Hope Of The States fell down from a surprisingly promising midweek to bring up the rear at 39. Oh and The Kooks' increasingly annoying "Naive" (38) may at long last be on its way out!





Sunday just coming: Nelly Furtado looks pretty comfortable for a second week, with a bizarre number two for Bon Jovi making them the current nearest contenders. Extremely unlikely to last the week, though. Shakira for highest new-ish entry at 5, with Sham 69 (bleh), The Fratellis (double bleh), Dannii Minogue and Armand van Helden also going top 20.
Lower down in the top 40, we have Solu Music, Sergio Mendes and his Black Eyed Peas, T.I, and The Divine Comedy, still just about clinging on despite choosing a first single which is just about everything bad he's always accused of being.
Battle are just outside, next to download only entries for The Zutons and Muse, who maybe won't get quite such a Britney-sized hit next week then.
In the albums, Keane will take number one. But you didn't need midweeks to tell you that, right?

Vashti Bunyan / Emma Pollock / Adem / Final Fantasy / Chris Stills at Homefires (04/06/06)

Homefires has probably the most good-natured and welcoming atmosphere of any music event I've been to - taking place in a hall in central London which, complete with hanging paper banners and more paper circle stuck all over the wall, has somewhat of the feel of a school assembly about it, especially when everyone sits down cross-legged, apart from those who have come prepared with cushions and really relax. Being allowed to bring in food and water is as great as it is sadly novel, with just alcohol having to be purchased on site (from a wider variety than the Carling or else of most venues...) and some tasty looking food on offer too.

Chris Stills is first on and shows off an amazing voice which comes a lot closer to Jeff Buckley than any of his appointed successors that I can think of. Unfortunately he still lacks the songs to get much beyond mediocre folksy singer-songwriter stuff, except on a cover of "Rock The Casbah" so ridiculous it works.

Later on, Final Fantasy eventually turns up over half an hour late for his slot and seems audibly and visibly out of sorts for a while, not helped by having misplaced his belt, leaving him alternately pulling up his jeans and showing off his arse troughout. Choosing to start with "This Lamb Sells Condos" probably doesn't help either as even by He Poos Clouds' general standards it's absurdly ambitious and impossible to play solo with a violin, no matter how many clever effects pedals and playback devices he has within reach of his feet. His vocals are worryingly muted too, and the second song, "Hey Dad", which seems to be an extended version of "->", fares no better.
"The reason that I'm not saying much is that I'm filled with rage" says Owen Pallett, worringly calmly as anything, but things do pick up and watching him assemble (the word is really fitting in this case as he patiently records and plays back layer after layer) a perfect version of "This Is The Dream Of Win And Regine" is captivating. The rest of the set seems to further prove that Has A Good Home, while the weaker album of his two, is much better suited to a solo live show, although recording the backing shouts of "Many Lives -> 49 MP" through his violin and playing back the distorted results is winningly creepy.

While waiting for him to turn up, organiser and host Adem did an excellent and charming job of keeping the audience occupied, playing several warmly enveloping versions of his songs. In possibly the highlight of the whole day, he received a phone call from his mum during one of them, holding the phone up to the microphone for everyone to hear her responses to his perfectly dry mentions that he was going to be on at seven but was actually also on stage now. He returns later for his assigned slot with the Ellysian Quartet in tow, who add some nice arrangements to his songs, but without knowing any of them in advance, the same songs played on his own when he was put on the spot earlier seemed that much more magical.

The downside of the homely atmosphere seems to be various organisational and equipment problems, with ex-Delgado Emma Pollock's set having a complete false-start when none of the effects pedals on her sole present band member's piano work and they have to spend a good 20 minutes fixing matters. Her set is rather underwhelming, with even her vocals seeming a bit thin and not as gorgeous as expected, although things pick up towards the end and a couple of songs, including one called "The Optimist", suggest that hope shouldn't be abandoned yet. She promises that they'll all be "much louder" on record as well which is a good sign - more massive orchestration like Hate please! She also comments on being unable to play the guitar while standing up because she's "too wee" which is rather adorable.

Vashti Bunyan is too twee for words, whispering throughout her set and seeming a little embarassed to be back in front of a crowd and receiving so much love. While a little samey her gentle folk songs bring a smile are all short enough to not drag and her band is really excellent. "Diamond Day" is the inevitable highlight, questions about whether the hippy image can take being used by T-Mobile notwithstanding, and it's a fine end to a very enjoyable day.

Guillemots at Scala (30/05/06)

[my even more condensed review of this appeared on Planet Sound this week]!

I fall even more in love with Guillemots practically by the week at the moment. This show was presumably meant to be in promotion for their long-delayed album Through The Windowpane before it got moved back another month (Fyfe Dangerfield announces that they've just finally finished it before wryly suggesting that perhaps he'll destroy it all and start again) but instead they're still in the position of only having released a few singles.
It doesn't matter though because they have so many great songs and never, ever alienate or seem uninvolving or dull, even when showcasing two completely new songs as an encore. "Go Away" and "Sea Out", longstanding highlights of the live set, are as great as ever but aren't even on the album.
Even better, they have the ability to play everything differently each time so at the fifth viewing their older songs still seem fresh. Fyfe gets around problems with reproducing the recorded scale of "We're Here" by playing a solo acoustic version, "Trains To Brazil" gets a freaky white noise intro and "Made Up Love Song #43" is lovlier than ever in a wobbly music box form.
With four equally incredibly talented and enthusiastic band members, plus regular contributions from sax and one from (earlier pretty impressive in her own right) support act Joan As Policewoman there is always something to watch too, MC Lord Magrão's various typewriter/drill trickery and insistense on never playing his guitar in such a way that it sounds like a guitar particularly standing out.
They can already confidently play for over an hour and a half before concluding, in the second encore, with the hilariously enjoyable glam racket of "She's Evil" and never have a single moment that isn't fantastic - imagine what they'll be like a few years on!

Free Music notFriday

Things might get a bit off schedule here with Blogger being annoying recently and the World Cup on - yesterday evening was spent watching Poland v Ecuador and saying "No, really, almost all the games will be better than this" a lot. I'll try to stick to music around though so if you want to read more about that you should go here.

Sound Team have a touch of the shoegazers about them, creating dense, echoey washes of noise with songs ranging from tantalising glimpses beneath to more strident and dancey numbers - pretty impressive stuff which you can listen to a few examples of on Red Blondehead.

Next Monday sees the release of The Delgados' Complete Peel Sessions, which should not only offer some great different versions of their songs and provide an overview of their career and show just why they were one of the very best bands of recent years, but also showcases quite a few excellent covers - OneLouder have one of The Dead Kennedys' "California Über Alles" which sees them in excellent noisy form akin to their own debut Domestiques.
Emma Pollock's official site is still offering "Fortune", for those after a taste of where she'll go next. No word yet on other singer Alun Woodward.

And on the new covers front, two things for you. First and inevitably from live lounge, My Old Kentucky Blog have Nelly Furtado's version of the omnipresent "Crazy", which is really rather likable and not just because she needs to be supported against Sandi Thom this week.

Secondly, from GoodBooks who impressed so much at the Camden Crawl and have just signed to Columbia, an interesting version of Mystery Jets' You Can't Fool Me Dennis from the recent rerelease of said single. (click)

Chartsengrafs (07/06/06)

Sorry for the lateness, further caused by Blogger being down last night.

Sunday just gone: Sandi Thom climbed to number one. There isn’t really anything to say against her which hasn’t been said many many other places, really, not least in Popjustice's fabulously nasty piece. And since she actually sold more than the previous week it wasn’t even really by default thanks to the Gnarls Barkley deletion! Speaking of which there seem to still be plenty of copies left, and certainly enough last week to have kept them at two ahead of Keane who had to settle for equalling their best ever position. Infernal fell down a place before resorting to World Cup versions, Pink somehow made five, Ronan Keating and Kate Rusby 6 (yawn), Oakenfold and Brittany Murphy 7, and Nelly Furtado 8 on downloads alone. Woah! (sorry). Also surprising, Primal Scream’s second week in the top ten.
Just outside, Tony Christie’s laughable “(Is This The Way To) The World Cup” got to eleven with the worrying possibility that it will rise once the tournament's actually started. Full onslaught of World Cup songs coming up, but also making the top 40 last week were Stan Boardman (19… yikes) and Embrace (38 on downloads alone), alongside even more non-football related songs than Embrace’s by LeAnn Rimes (22), The Automatic (23; downloads), Michael Jackson (30), Loleatta Holloway (37) and Corinne Bailey Rae scraping in at 40. We seem to have had an awful lot of those recently, huh?

Sunday coming: Time for an unlikely saviour of pop, as Nelly Furtado is currently leading the way ahead of Sandi Thom - though by a painfully narrow margin. Embrace may also have a slight outside chance at climbing from 3 over the weekend like Tony Christie is doing already - now heading top 10! The Automatic will surprise everyone if they can hang on to a top 5 place, as will Hope Of The States if their return goes top 20 and doesn't fail completely. Morrissey's inevitable top 10 place will surprise no one, however.
Elsewhere in the top 20, Depeche Mode, Crazy Frog, Stan Boardman and Mariah Carey (what song is that?).
20-30: Duncan James, Baddiel & Skinner & Lightning Seeds (someone should probably put that one to rest soon), Sugababes underperforming badly and The Streets even more so. His single also raises something I've wondered for a while about downloads counting for the chart - I bought Guillemots' lovely version of "Never Went To Church" which is technically a B-side to his, does it count as a sale for The Streets or for no one?
30-40: Tonedef Allstars, Fightstar, Lordi (who can't really use late 6/6/6 release date as an excuse because I saw copies of it on sale on Monday!) and Talksport Allstars.

Guillemots - Through The Windowpane

Just a quick note to say that while I’m planning to wait til its release to listen myself (unless they put it off forever like Final Fantasy – current release date for his album next week but don’t hold out not much hope on that), Through The Windowpane has leaked. I’m sure some of you know how to find it much better than me anyway.

And since nowhere else seems to have it yet, here’s the tracklisting:

• “Little Bear”
• “Made Up Love Song #43”
• “Trains To Brazil”
• “Redwings”
• “A Samba In The Snowy Rain” (which was previously the first half of…)
• “Through The Windowpane”
• “If The World Ends”
• “We’re Here”
• “Blue Would Still Be Blue”
• “Annie, Why Wait?”
• “And If All…”
• “Sao Paolo” (all near twelve minutes of it, oh yes!)

On a totally unrelated note I’m just hearing Jim Noir’s “Eanie Meanie” on the radio and it’s very nice, but it’s practically “Ask Me How I Am” by Snow Patrol, isn’t it? Or is it just me?

Infernal

I've been pondering doing a post on all the appalling football songs around (and there are more than ever) but can't bring myself to listen to more than a little of any of them even for the purpose. Today my digital TV videos thing has added one which I hadn't heard of elsewhere and which almost defies belief to a degree that makes it worth mentioning though - "Paris To Berlin (World Cup Mix)"
In which Infernal's (Danish) singer, who appears to have only a passing acquaintance with the English language, never mind the football team, sings "From London to Berlin, with every game that we win, England will win the world cup" and a load of stuff about "Roo". Is someone really buying this stuff??

Hot Fuss

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I've been kind of busy but should be back in force next week.
But there's a couple of things I can direct you towards quickly. Number one, this guy, whose taste in music bar James Blunt, The Kooks, Orson etc. is actually weirdly close to mine as well as his name.
And number two, if you haven't gawped at it yet, the results of the recent poll for greatest album ever by NME.com and the Guiness Book Of British Hit Singles (hope I got that name right). Really, I don't know where to start.

Chartsengrafs (31/05/06)

Sunday just gone: Gnarls Barkley did indeed hold on at number one for a ninth week. Sandi Thom's rise to two was at least expected enough to not be shocking as well as depressing. Infernal STILL remained in the top 3, Primal Scream surprisingly failed to plummet during the week and ended up with their biggest hit ever (!) at 5 (I still haven't heard it though actually), The Ordinary Boys with Lady Sovereign hit 6 but may have both pissed off their fanbases in the process ("she's a chav!" "they're indie!"). Daz Sampson went up to 8 and The Feeling just about stuck around in the top 40.
Keane made number 15 on downloads alone, followed similarly and surprisingly by Pink at 19. Robbie Williams did indeed do pretty poorly but did manage to climb above The Futureheads (22 v 24). Taking Back Sunday got 36, just ahead of Oakenfold ft Brittany Murphy on downloads (is she someone famous? I think I missed something there...) The Darkness at 39 and again one entry each side of the 40/41 divide: this time it's on the rise Little Man Tate and less so Mystery Jets. The Spinto Band's 55 is actually quite the success, really. Meanwhile, what is that still at number 70? "Gold Digger"? Wow.

Sunday coming: Oh dear. After reading about the deletion of "Crazy" (although it's still within 37 copies of number one, their chances of catching up are now just about zero) I should have realised what was going to happen. Yes, Keane aren't quite the force that could be hoped when it comes to actual sales of CDs (one format at 3 quid only can't help) and so Sandi Thom is set to climb to the top. Pink is heading for the top 5 again, definitely beating her progress last album, and Ronan Keating is dragging Kate Rusby down with him within the top ten, alongside Oakenfold/Murphy. And, I hate to even mention it, but Tony Christie's unbelievably rubbish "(Is This The Way To) The World Cup?" (see what they did there?) is also heading for the top 40.
And for some less depressing news in the album chart... ah, Orson are going to be number one.

Eurovision!

As promised, some of my thoughts on it here, with more to come throughout the week.

News (29/05/06)

• Gnarls Barkley's 'chat-topper' "Crazy" deleted - there's a suggestion here and elsewhere that it will end its run at number one, or even ensure that it has never charted anywhere else, but aside from being readily available online, there are also still a lot of copies left out there in shops. (incedentally, today's bank holiday probably means a wait til Wednesday for midweeks, and I'm off seeing Guillemots for the fifth time in as many months tomorrow anyway)
• Gorky's Zygotic Mynci split.
• Sandi Thom's publicists deny PR tricks being responsible for her rise to success... well, that's the headline, but they don't appear to have actually really done anything of the sort but instead just gone "Ah, well, she's a home-grown talent and she's worked really hard you know. Let's not talk about details!"
• Essex FM bans James Blunt songs, manages to get itself loads of attention - presumably they've started playing one of the other five artists on their playlist twice as often now.

They've made it now!

Heard in Topshop today: Snowfight In The City Centre's "No Light Left". Slightly bewildering but a good sign for them, which is nice.

Heh (again)

PopMatters have a feature on less famous siblings of pop stars tagging along in their wake. Among their list of wannabes is... 'Daniel Bedingfield (brother of Natasha)'!

Free music Friday (26/05/06)

• Fans of Stars will already be aware of Amy Millan's fine voice: she's now taken up the popular pursuit of a country-based solo album to show it off on. "Honey From The Tombs" is out next week in Canada but will take til July to reach UK shores; you can get first single "Skinny Boy" for free on label Arts&Crafts' site now though.
  
  
• Boston's The Cinematic Underground have been around a while, it seems, but I've only just heard them and they do a rather good line in dramatic, melancholy indie with a sprinkling of experimentation (which owes a debt to Radiohead circa Talk Show Host). Listen to possibly their best moment:
  The Cinematic Underground - Carparks & Cubicles
  
  

In this week's covers section:

• Skatterbrain have The Pipettes taking on "I Think We're Alone Now", much to the dislike of some of their comments section.
• And regular readers will already be well aware of my total Guillemots worship, but please believe me when I say that their version of The Streets' new single "Never Went To Church" (as streamed by NME.com) is exceptionally beautiful, almost-as-wobbly-as-the-original singing notwithstanding.

Crap

I typed out a whole news post with comments and it somehow got deleted. So, er, just imagine me making fun of Red Hot Chili Peppers' plagiarism and the Evening Standard's coverage of James Blunt winning awards for selling lots or records here.

The internets win music

Just when you thought you'd never have to see another article about the internet-related rise of Arctic Monkeys again, various other stories have conspired to bring them back, at least in the Guardian today.
I admittedly didn't see the programme that sparked them off, largely because it indeed looked like it would be rubbish, but they seem to be making reasonable replies in general - MySpace being responsible for anyone's rise to fame is surely a complete red herring fallen for by sections of the media who don't really know what they are talking about and are trying to bluff their way through. It might be a useful tool for keeping people in touch with what you're doing (although it certainly wasn't the case for Arctic Monkeys) and offers a place to listen to music easily, but the bulk of people still have to be directed there from somewhere, be it elsewhere online or from Radio1, and most of what it does could equally be done on a well-maintained official site with forum.
Sandi Thom's story is obviously not to be taken at face value as well - even if you believe her manager Ian Brown (ha!) that she performed webcasts to large audiences created by word of mouth, had a friend of a friend set up the streaming and pay for bandwidth and was signed afterwards as a result of their success, one glance at the billboard posters for her single (''I wish I was a punk rocker broadcasting from a Tooting basement!") still suggests that she was signed more for having a highly marketable story than any great musical merit.
Lily Allen also makes an appearance - and it is pretty amazing that from never having heard of her all of, ooh, three weeks ago, it's now impossible to go anywhere online without seeing a mention. That's largely within music blogs which are 'read exclusively by other music bloggers' though, of course... it is still a bit disconcerting to not see mention of anywhere online promoting her other than MySpace, but it only takes a look at MIA to see how far internet hype can actually get you, I suppose.


On the other hand, easy as it is to agree with most of it, the whole article is about incorrect media reporting of acts' progress and features this:

'At the heart of this music revolution, declared The Money Programme, was a social networking website called MySpace. "With the boost from MySpace, the Arctic Monkeys proved yet again that successful bands can do without big record companies. They released their debut single and album on small independent label Domino. Both went straight to No 1."
Limited release
In fact the Monkeys' first release was a limited seven-inch vinyl single on Bang Bang Records. Domino, far from being the fledgling start-up operation, had already brought Franz Ferdinand to international prominence.'

Let's leave aside issues with the Domino part (fledgling start-up and small independent are in no way the same thing, and the latter isn't necessarily impossible while having successful bands). Yes, it's really awful when facts are bent and exaggerated to fit a story better than they should do. Like, uh, claiming something was a seven-inch vinyl single when just as many copies were released on CD, perhaps?

News (24/05/06)

• Madonna's crucifixion is, uh, 'part of an appeal to the audience to donate to Aids charities'.
• Elton John wins damages from Daily Mail but sees musical close after all of 39 shows.
• Prince, Kristen Bell are world's sexiest vegetarians.
• Pitchfork report on first listen to Thom Yorke solo album.
  

Chartsengrafs (24/05/06)

Sunday just gone: Gnarls' score reached 8. Infernal continued to rise to highest place yet at two, more through lack of competition than anything else, Christina Milian got to 4 with full release, which is lower than "Dip It Low", "AM To PM" and "When You Look At Me" managed. Can anyone else actually remember that last one? Busta Rhymes climbed to 6 with his first charting since ruining "Don't Cha", Sandi Thom was a disturbing 15 on downloads only, Angels And Airwaves 20 on full release. Elsewhere in the top 40: Primal Scream (23 on downloads, and it weirdly turns out, 'the most exciting single of the year', not Thom), The Feeling (28; downloads), Towers Of London (32), Nerina Pallot (37; downloads), The Ordinary Boys vs Lady Sovereign (38; downloads) and Eddie Thoenick and Kurd Maverick (39; who?).
In the albums RHCP became the first since Arctic Monkeys to do two successive weeks.

Sunday coming: RHCP to now make it three weeks, indeed. And - hooray! - Gnarls Barkley to make it nine and hold off Sandi Thom. Primal Scream heading top 5, which assures them of their biggest hit since 1997 and maybe ever, with Daz Sampson also heading into the top 5 despite the usual UK Eurovision failure. Top 10 places due for Matt Willis and The Feeling, which ought to be good news as I have one of these but annoyingly it still doesn't seem to be increasing in value at all (note also the usual 'guilty pleasure' crap).
Nerina Pallot's now going to climb to the top 15, with Pink somehow heading top 20 on downloads alone and The Futureheads looking a little folorn outside the top 20, though ahead of Robbie Williams (fully released and all! And indeed the only single being stocked in my local HMV this week).
Rounding off the top 40 are Jack Johnson, who must be selling almost no CD copies at all as he was just outside on downloads last week, and Keane who seem to be a popular bet to finally dethrone Gnarls Barkley next week when released fully. I would reckon against it and go for Embrace the week after. There will also be competition from Lordi (released on the Tuesday for 06/06/06, of course), though I would be surprised if that does anything more than make the lower reaches of the top 20.

Heh

Something Awful's David Thorpe takes on the music blogosphere - or at least a certain recently prominent section of it - with pretty amusing results.

News (23/05/06)

• Rap 'motivates a small number of children in a violent sub-culture.', apparently.
• Ricky Wilson run over.
• Jamie Hewlett 'designer of the year' for Gorillaz.
• Belle & Sebastian get together with others to record compilation for children.
• "Lordi's victory shows us that with hard work and belief in your own abilities even the greatest dreams come true," said Father Christmas."
• Babyshambles dropped.
• The Dears announce more details of new album Gang Of Losers.

Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family at Scala (22/05/06)

There's a pretty poor turnout at the Scala tonight - it never gets more than half full and despite the doors opening half an hour after the tickets claim there are still fewer than 10 people there. Even fewer manage our feat of somehow wandering past security and into Jeremy Warmsley's soundcheck (ps how hard is Jeremy to type correctly? Eep!) - fascinating.
Anyways, he plays mostly on his own with a bit of support from Tom Rogerson on keyboards tonight although full band sets are promised elsewhere soon, and it would be interesting to see the difference - his twisty constructions are full of interesting ideas and even a couple of great tunes but only rarely seem to fully take off for now.

We're here to see Bat For Lashes, and are slightly lucky it turns out, as they have cancelled shows in the last few days thanks to singer Natasha Khan's throat illness. Aside from a couple of coughs in between songs it doesn't show at all though - her voice sounds as rich and extraordinary as ever (somewhere between Cat Power and Bjork... ish) and she's visibly more confident than supporting My Latest Novel in March too, still speaking timidly but a little less terrified looking.
There is a certain potential for tweeness in their setup, not helped by the gold headbands and glittery facepaint sported by Khan and her two bandmates on violin, backing vocals, handclaps, bells and various unidentifiable weird things, but it evaporates with the yearning power of her voice and the way that they use silence so chillingly well, not so much leaving gaps in their songs as creating an inky blackness against which to set them. And in "What's A Girl?" they've now even written a twisted but definitely pop song to go alongside the mystery and magic elsewhere.
[listen to Bat For Lashes for yourself]

With Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family, the story is largely the same as in January - great choice of support, charming guy, technically excellent band, but all rather hamstrung by the fact that almost every single song sounds just like someone else. There's a couple of I Am Kloot numbers (not helped by his voice being a dead ringer for Johnny Bramwell's), the one which is practically Bright Eyes' "At The Bottom Of Everything", followed by the one which is practically Bright Eyes' "Lua", and an unamplified encore which sounds just like David Ford, all of them never exactly living up to the standard of those they resemble. Fortunately they do at least have one really great song in "The Mourners Of St. Pauls" which doesn't sound like anyone else... although it does crib a couple of lines from "(What A) Wonderful World", but we'll forgive that and mention that it comes out as a single next month and is actually worth checking out.

The Decemberists at Koko (19/05/06)

Radar Bros. look a little awkward in front of a clearly fairly disinterested crowd, and that's even before a glaring spotlight is suddenly turned on them mid-song, leading to a cry of "Oh no! The police have caught up with us!". A shame because while admittedly their sound (think Grandaddy with a lot of extra layers of noise) doesn't particularly lend itself to converting newcomers, at least a couple of the songs ("Shovelling Sons", the closer "Papillion") are really very good indeed.

They can't compare to The Decemberists though, who prove themselves once again one of the best lives band I've ever seen. Tonight doesn't quite match up to their astonishing show at ULU last Novemeber - it's at a bigger venue, violinist Petra Hayden isn't there, there's no "Mr. Blue Sky" and thanks to Club NME afterwards meaning a 10pm curfew there's no time for "The Mariner's Revenge Song" either, much to the distress of one guy who shouts out that he's travelled two hours just to see them play it.
Despite all of that though, they put most other bands to shame, playing everything with a stunning confidence and skill that allows them to play with changes and pauses everywhere without breaking the flow and ensures that just about every single song is a highlight. They make everything seem so easy you begin to wonder why not all bands sound this crisp, clear and perfect live (even "For My Own True Love (Lost At Sea)" sounds great!!) without losing any of the emotion in the songs at all. Of course it helps that there's a lot of inherant showmanship there to begin with, but it's still quite the feat and it's no wonder that Colin Meloy has the crowd in the palm of his hand throughout - he even gets us to excercise at one point, although not before a very funny shout of "speak for yourself!" when he suggests that we need to.
The ultimate trick comes during an encore of "The Chimbley Sweep", which mutates from the kind of bustling sea-shanty rock that The Coral would kill for into the the kind of dreamy psychedelia that, well, The Coral would also kill for, before Meloy points at each band member in turn and they exaggeratedly collapse to the floor. He then turns and with a simple gesture gets everyone on the entire floor and first balcony of Koko to sit down at once. It was awe-inspiring when they did the same at ULU but it's even more so tonight and the glee with which everyone jumps up as one once the song resumes pace is if anything even more exciting. Next stop, getting Brixton Academy to sit down?

The Shins at Koko (17/05/06)

Dungen's sheer dedication to recreating the excesses of seventies prog-rock is kind of inspiring - their hair is simply magnificent and they even bring out a flute numerous times - but while their ten minute epics are never boring (more than can be said for, ooh, Dead Meadow) but while technically great they lack immediacy and passion and so still don't make for an especially great live show. And there's a suspicion that if it wasn't for a longstanding love of Camel and similar I might find them just as irritating as Wolfmother.

The Shins also start rather umpromisingly - James Mercer stands to the side of the stage and is thoroughly undemonstrative, his shyness seeming to weigh down a lot of the early songs. They are helped by enthusiasic keyboardist Marty Crandall, who in contrast takes centre stage and clearly loves it. He begins by thanking us for coming despite the game (Champions League final) being on, a theme he returns to throughout with cries of "The Shins 1 - Evil 0!" and frequent enquiries about the score as well as a final dismissal of the entire Spanish nation on finding that Arsenal have lost, and goes on to ask about Madonna's gig at Koko before singing an amusingly ramshackle cover of "Justify My Love" "Borderline".
Either his confidence rubs off on Mercer or they just hit their stride, but by the end of the set they seem almost a different band, with "New Slang" and "Saint Simon" reliably brilliant and a couple of new songs almost their match. The third album is due in Autumn, they claim, and should be good on tonight's showing - new songs generally seem harder than those of Chutes Too Narrow but without the dusty coating of noise of most of the Oh, Inverted World material.
They return for an encore after the longest gap I've ever seen - the lights even come on a few times and just as it seems certain that they can't be coming back they do, finishing with a vital and triumphant "So Says I", for a clear second half victory.

Eurovision

As Finland's Lordi (imagine the above but with comedy white and blue Finland hat!) race away to win, time for a quick word on this year's (I've written a lot more for elsewhere which I will direct you towards when it's online) contest. The win actually seemed kind of inevitable from even before the contest, given the amount of coverage they got, but it was still great fun. There was a much wider variety of songs than last year's wall to wall Turkey/"Kiss Kiss" influences which led to better and, well, worse songs than ever, and the votes did go by a bit quicker thanks to not reading out every one although it did miss something, not least working out who actually gave France some points.

I should Koko

Apologies for the lack of updates this week, coursework mainly to blame, but I do have a couple of reviews of Koko ATP related gigs from this week coming soon - The Shins from Wednesday (good, not great, but worth missing Arsenal v Barcelona for especially as they lost anyway) and The Decemberists tonight which should hopefully be amazing again.

In the meantime, I appreciate that I am years behind here but I just recently got The Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat (which certainly seemed to polarise opinions at the time...) and really really love it, although I actually didn't think nearly as much of EP (the only other one I've heard) apart from the one celebrating Spitalfields Market.

News (16/05/06)

• Creative to sue Apple over iPod menu system ripping off their Zen one - blimey, I own one and presumed that it was the other way round, or that it was just the only logical way to arrange mp3 player menus.
• Pete Doherty bored of getting into trouble in the UK, decides to try Germany instead.
• Hard-Fi joined onstage by Paul Weller on second day of Brixton 5 - don't think that I missed out much by going the previous day there.
• The Coral gain extra member on keyboards, currently recording fifth album [Planet Sound]
  

Chartsengrafs (16/05/06)

Sunday just gone: Gnarls Barkley inevitably made it 7 weeks, with a sales figure of almost 43,000 - still far from low by current standards. LL Cool J/JLo jumped up to 2, Infernal and Beatfreakz swapped places at 3 and 4, Rihanna is still selling well at 5, Pet Shop Boys made 8 which is the best for a while but not by enough for it to mean much in terms of getting beyond an established fanbase, and complaining about The Kooks last week must have jinxed the chart because they climbed into the bloody top 10 again.
From 10-39, entries came from Daz Sampson, Boy Kill Boy, Christina Milian's downloads, The Upper Room, Busta Rhymes and Orson (both downloads again), Delays and Graham Coxon. And finally, Hot Chip and The Beautiful South, separated by the length of last week's Stylus Singles Jukebox, were only one place apart, but it couldn't be a more crucial one as they ended up at 40 and 41 respectively.

Sunday just coming: Gnarls Barkley look likely to get an eighth week at number one - first time since "Love Is All Around"! Christina Milian is climbing to be the closest challenger, followed by Busta Rhymes and Orson also in the top 20. Lower down there's the oh-so-eagerly awaited return of Sunblock, as well as Angels And Airwaves, Towers Of London who sadly haven't fucked off after all, The Sunshine Underground and rather surprising download-only entries for Primal Scream and Nerina Pallot (downloads really must be taking over). Plus a worrying downloads only entry for Sandi Thom, who somehow manages the feat of making Towers Of London not the worst act on this list.

Hard-Fi at Brixton Academy (14/05/06)

Professor Green (here acompanied by a DJ and a couple of other guys, one seemingly just for high notes, is signed to Mike Skinner's label, and includes a cover of When You Wasn't Famous (as well as one of So Sick) in his set. All the signs are that he is really, really bad, but the appalling sound that a first support act at Brixton's cavern gets makes it impossible to even be certain of that - his set is a near-constant bassy boom with absolutely unintelligable rapping bearly even audible over it and not much else going on.




Billy Bragg gets round this by playing with only an electric guitar, of course, and plays a set which is hugely impressive, constantly passionate and amusing throughout. Non-musical highlights inluding a distraught recounting of West Ham's FA Cup final woes and an apoplectic denouncing of the BNP's success in his home town. I have to admit to not being familiar enough with his stuff to name musical highlights, besides a surprsingly near full crowd singalong to A New England to finish, but there are plenty and a (rather clever) special discounted version of his greatest hits being leafleted certainly looks tempting.
The only downside is someone repeatedly shouting "Fuck off!" between songs, at one point even following this with a superhumanly moronic "We haven't come here to see you!". It would be easy to place them as a BNP supporter or similar but they don't even respond to the relevant parts of the set so maybe they just genuinely hate his music and are, erm, physically incapable of going out to the bar.

I rather expect to be underwhelmed by Hard-Fi - thanks to my girlfriend being a massive fan I have seen them a lot more times in the past 12 months than I would have chosen to myself and they have certainly not improved each time - but am actually very pleasantly surprised. Playing the first of an astonishing 5 nights here but after most of a UK tour, Richard Archer's voice is no stronger than ever but is carefully controlled, rather than stretched and made to fail completely by halfway through the set as previously seemed to be the norm, and only new songs suffer as a result, although "You And Me" is rather too close to "Gotta Reason" for comfort anyway.
Helped no end by a crowd who enthusiastically shout along to nearly everything (though are far from the drunken mob that might be expected, maybe it's just because it's a Sunday), the singles from Stars of CCTV and a few others that somehow actually haven't been released yet are blasted with energy and a new musical ability. They have even finally dropped their rambling, overfamiliar cover of "Seven Nation Army" in favour of a decent one of Big Audio Dynamite's "E=MC²", and never suffer more than a little from playing such a large venue with only one album's worth of material to call on. The fact that their popularity has grown so fast that they could easily be playing somewhere far bigger by now might have something to do with it, but so does the fact that there is not a single weak link bar the new songs, with even the awkward-on-record "Move On Now" shining in the encore, played solo by Archer with appropriately more than a hint of Billy Bragg about it.

The Avalanche

Just read a very interesting post on You Ain't No Picasso, expressing (shock) a lack of excitement for Sufjan Stevens' The Avalanche album and suggesting quite reasonably that this could be down to the sheer amount of stuff that he's put out recently.
The "but it's only outtakes!" view does seem sensible in some ways, but I would take further that the problem is the similarity of his music rather than the amount of it. I adored Illinois (it was second in my favourite albums of last year for a reason) but after getting into that quite late on and buying Michigan afterwards I found it very difficult to get that into an album which had quite so much in common. It's pretty much put me off being excited enough to expect anything more than occasional great songs, or even bothering to find enough else for overkill to be the problem for me.
I may be eating my words come the next album proper though, I guess.

News (12/05/06)

• Beach Boys counter-sued by collector accused of stealing their stuff. ''At their height, the Beach Boys' success rivalled that of the Beatles'' offer the BBC helpfully.
• Maybe it's part of getting their staff in the mode to go to watch Top Of The Pops.
• Björk releases another box-set - actually kind of tempting having only bought her Greatest Hits recently and not got round to buying the whole lot of albums.
• Elbow to release B-sides album - less tempting as I have them all but thoroughly recommended!
• The Cooper Temple Clause still going after all.

Free music Friday (12/05/06)

More free downloads available out there with varying degrees of legality.

I mentioned the forthcoming Pipettes album the other day, and a host of sites have tracks from it up now: Pardon My Freedom offer two, plus a review (in French!), and Skatterbrain have new single "Pull Shapes" plus pics of Rose, which is clearly what some people are after.

I also mentioned Anathallo last week, and Good Weather For Airstrikes offer a profile including some more songs to sample.

Stereogum offer Editors' cover of "Orange Crush", just to make sure that no-one at all need buy the Blood rerelease.

And finally, Some Velvet Blog has a couple of songs from the new album by the freakishly talented Smoosh.

Not so good stuff

Clor split :(

News (09/05/06)

• Chinese Democracy will be out this year, says Axl Rose. Sounds in no way familiar.
• Take That to release new album.
• The Pipettes' album details emerge (In brief: We Are The Pipettes, July 17th)
• TDK Cross Central has more names announced, all the good bands one one day (phew)
• Britney Spears gets to see that freakish sculpture thing of her.
• Alex Kapranos to release cookery book.

Chartsengrafs (09/05/06)

Sunday just gone: Gnarls Barkley made it 6 weeks at number one in singles (knocked off by Snow Patrol in albums), though selling a now merely quite high 50,000 copies. RHCP just about edged out Beatfreakz for 2, The Kooks were STILL at 11, Feeder were as midtable as ever at 12, and LL/JLo 15 on downloads. Outside the top 20, We Are Scientists, Michael Jackson, Panic! At The Disco, Goldfrapp, T-Pain, Captain and at 40, ¡Forward Russia! failed to even get the biggest hit of the week for a band with ! in their name. No sign of any ¡-weilding competitors though.

Sunday coming: 7 weeks and counting looks certain for Gnarls Barkley. LL Cool J will climb to 2, Pet Shop Boys will continue to make the top 10 on the basis of a huge fanbase a la Depeche Mode (although they're not yet quite as ignored generally). Daz Sampson will be just outside, ahead of a possible rise (or fall) when Eurovision is on TV next weekend, together with Boy Kill Boy. Outside the top 10 that is, not on Eurovision. The Upper Room's surprisingly not boring single, Delays, The Beautiful South and Graham Coxon round out the forthcoming top 40 entries. And Bat For Lashes' The Wizard is nowhere, being download-only, but is brilliant nonetheless.
In the albums Red Hot Chili Peppers are unsurprisingly heading for 1, Dirty Pretty Things for 3.

Meanwhile in other chart commentaries, James Masterton is excited about 'the fact that the release of the most exciting record of the year is just two weeks away.' It seems likely that he may mean Sandi Thom's. OH THE HORROR.

News (08/06/05)

• Grant McLennan of Go-Betweens dies.
• French fight for free copyrighted music downloads, or at least no hobbling DRM.
• In other music-related legal battle news, Apple beat Apple.
• The Sleepy Jackson to play UK tour, hopefully not be as godawful as when I saw them in 2004.
• Liverpool FC get Ian McCulloch to cover Ring Of Fire.
• People continuing to buy Dark Side Of The Moon.

Muse/Britney continued

Seems that I wasn't too uniquely perceptive in noticing the similarities between Muse's new single "Supermassive Black Hole" and Britney's "Do Something"... just about everyone on this fan forum noticed too, and one of them has even made a mix of the two songs together (bottom of the page) which is certainly briefly amusing.

Editors: Officially just taking the piss now

Just got an email including this:
"'Blood' will be the final single release from Editors' 'The Back Room' on June 19th. The single will be released on 2 new formats with brand new B-sides and artwork (both formats will be printed in a special metallic ink) from its original release in July 2005."

That makes 7 singles released from The Back Room: "Bullets", "Munich", "Blood", "Bullets", "Munich", "All Sparks", "Blood". Only the first of which was limited edition (presuming that "Blood" doesn't deservedly flop this time) didn't make the top 30.
I mean, no-one has to buy them, but has any other band even ever beaten this?

The Picture Show (07/05/06)

Yes, I haven't completely abandoned it. Click pics for videos as ever.


Another great video from an endearingly daft Japanese electro/pop/punk/indie/whatever group, who thanks to a support slot with Kaiser Chiefs might even get somewhere in the UK now.


This is the other, Irvine Welsh directed video, not the one which is getting all the music channel play that sounds like "Even Better Than The Real Thing". The video here is impressively creepy and that fits the song, Keane still hampered a little by dodgy lyrics but making a valiant attempt to take forward all the best bits of Hopes And Fears (the atmospheric electro ones) rather than just doing more identikit anthems.


A more straightforward song than most on their debut but pretty good nonetheless. The video sees them all very smartly dressed and getting married. To the same person.

Muse's new single

...sounds like Britney's Do Somethin'.

Popworld

I saw the new Popworld for the first time this morning (yeah, 10am is waay too early) and it was ok - liked Pet Shop Boys' performance with orange jumpsuit wearing and Bush/Blair-masked dancers, and it was even pretty funny in places but Alex Zane and Alexa Chung would surely be a much more comfortable fit if they weren't trying so hard to take the roles of the previous presenters - 'Alexa's big pink box' in particular fell totally flat and I'm sure that more of a change of style (while still not turning into cd:uk) would fit better than trying to replicate the past.

News (06/05/06)

• Fall Out Boy 'blasted' for 'liberal homosexual rally'.
• My Latest Novel tour in May.
• Bono gets to edit The Independent.
• Radiohead premiere more new material in Copenhagen. '4 Minute Warning was the most instantly memorable new song, a classic pop tune'... classic pop tune? 4 Minute Warning? Can it be?

Free music Friday

Highlighting some of the most interesting legal, or less so, music out there to be downloaded...

MyselfMyself offer downloads of all three new Radiohead songs played at Friends Of The Earth's recent Yorke and Greenwood-featuring event at Koko. A setlist including "How To Disappear Completely", "Pyramid Song" and "Gagging Order" doesn't quite sound worth the £55 asking price (what, no "True Love Waits"?) but mouthwatering nonetheless.

Anathallo don't quite have enough of a unique identity yet to be truly great but their album Floating World, positioned somewhere between the Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens in sound, is very enjoyable indeed. See for yourself as their myspace kindly has songs to download as well as listen to. "Hoodwink" is especially good. (thanks to Sweeping The Nation for the recommendation)

And, speaking of Sufjan, Pitchfork offer a new song from his forthcoming album of bits that didn't quite make it to Illinois (see Stereogum for another). It's not an idea which excites that much, to be honest, especially if it delays another proper album further, but this song does sound reliably grand.

Finally, on the ever enjoyable strange Live Lounge covers front, Van Tango has Goldfrapp's 'Oompa-Ska' version of The Ordinary Boys' "Boys Will Be Boys" (it's just above the Joss Stone pictures) and You Ain't No Picasso have We Are Scientists attempting to tackle Sigur Ros' "Hoppipolla". Words fail me.

Yahoo/Launch outdo themselves

A review of Captain's 'debut single' Broke? Easy enough mistake to make.
A review of Panic! At The Disco's 'debut single' But It's Better If You Do? Erm....

News (04/05/06)

• British albums accounted for almost half of UK album sales last year, most since 1998. This is apparently accounted for by the success of 'rock', which apparently doesn't include James Blunt, Robbie Williams or Scissor Sisters but does include Keane, Coldplay, KT Tunstall and Gorillaz. Weirdly and slightly worryingly this is just a KT Tunstall out from defining all the ones that I bought.
• New RHCP album leaks (2 hours? Like the last one wasn't way too long already); Flea gets very upset.
• Killers' next album 'one of the best albums of the past 20 years'. Right then.
  

Worth looking at

Goodhodgkins' analysis of Pitchfork's reviews, not least for the revelation that the band that they have reviewed the most times is KISS.

News (03/05/06)

• Warner and EMI merger off, for now at least.
• Muse now title album, it's out July 3rd and called Butterflies And Hurricanes 'Black Holes And Revelations'.
• David Bowie 'fed up with industry'.
• Britney pregnant again. (news from Drowned In Sound, no less)
• Liam Gallagher: Oasis 'not the biggest band in the world' shocker.
  

The Big Ask at Brixton Jamm (28/04/06)

Seeing Guillemots again and supporting a cause (Friends Of The Earth) without having to pay £55 for the honour like for their Yorke/Greenwood show was reason enough to head out to Brixton late at night (first band on at ten, though we didn't quite make it by then) and brave buses home at 2:30am, which turned out to be not as bad as expected anyway.

Walking in to Polar Bear's set midway through a very long droney experimental piece doesn't give a very good first impression but they turned out to have a very wide range of tricks up their sleeve, making their instrumental jazz (something I'm sure I'm not alone in knowing very little about) very approachable and enjoyable with complete with great playing and some cool electronic flourishes.

The Bellagios (featuring Guillemots' Aristazabal's boyfriend) slightly outstay their welcome in the end but their enthusiastic hip-hop, if somewhat indecipherable, is funky and dancable and great fun all round, especially with constant interaction between the four vocalists and between them and the audience



Somehwat surprisingly they seem to attract more of an audience than Guillemots - perhaps it's just coming on at gone 1am which is the problem. Whatever, they choose to play a slightly shortened (i.e. only 75 minutes!) set including large sections of potentially tiresome improvisation (it's that kind of night) and yet are almost as stunning as in their full glory at King's College a month ago.
Dropping most recent single We're Here to make room is actually a great move because they don't seem to have worked out how to play it yet, and they spread the improvised songs out, although Fyfe in particular has such an amazing gift for melody that there's almost no need. Only the squealing saxophone eventually becomes wearing, but they still have everyone on their side, playing more fantastic than ever versions of Trains To Brazil and Made Up Love Song #43, overdoing the usual pause in the middle of Who Left The Lights Off, Baby? to a ridiculous degree and once again showing why Sau Paolo needs to be released as soon as possible.





(usual thanks to Ada for photos)

Chartsengrafs (02/05/06)

Sunday just gone: Gnarls Barkley made it 5 weeks at number one and showed little sign of showing down, also indeed taking the album top spot. The Raconteurs were highest new or semi-new entry at 4 which is strangely better than The White Stripes have ever managed, also beating Dirty Pretty Things by one place and Snow Patrol by 3. Beatfreakz got beaten by the actual Michael Jackson (although on downloads, not for real), and Ultrabeat arrived at number 35, possibly through some kind of time-travelling wormhole. Sigur Rós crept to 44 ahead of a full Planet Earth-backed release this week. Arctic Monkeys non-eligible EP does seem to have avoided records to the extent that even the usual sources so far have no clue as to how many it actually sold.

Sunday coming: Gnarls Barkley still to be number one of course, at least in the singles (Snow Patrol to inevitably take his place in the albums) ahead of Red Hot Chili Peppers' latest attempt to make a video better than the associated single by the largest possible margin at 2. Beatfreakz and Feeder (what, still?) also heading for the top 10, Panic! At The Disco (not yet sounding as amazing as their last single), We Are Scientists and Goldfrapp (what, still?) for the top 40.

News (01/05/06)

• Glastonbury to attempt to expand even more.
• But Coachella might be ending, or at least moving.
• Will Young most popular UK artist of all time according to commercial radio listeners. Seriously, he's pretty good nowadays but is this a month late or what?
• Katie Melua gets a tulip named after her, as 'the people of The Netherlands love her'

The verdicts - Snow Patrol's 'Eyes Open'

A new regular feature looking at the range of opinions on a new album, starting with Snow Patrol's fourth. Because Metacritic doesn't read blogs. Or teletext, although I'm a bit too late to remember anything more than that they gave it 8/10, sadly.
It might be updated in a couple of weeks when there are more opinions out there too.




The Times goes for 4/5 but seems a little unsure - it says Eyes Open 'takes Final Straw and projects it on to a larger canvas' and as a result 'feels like a nerveless triumph.'
The NME give it a grudging 6/10, similarly bemoaning its '[tackling of] the familiar musical ground of 'Final Straw' with verve but little variety'.
And Observer Music Monthly (3/5) are even less generous: 'Big, bold, cleverly-executed, thoroughly hollow stuff'.

Meanwhile on the blogs, where generally speaking those bothering to comment on the full album are by definition those who enjoyed 'Final Straw,' the reaction is a little more positive but still not ecstatic.
Musicisnotdead reckon 'the more polished sound fits them well' and that they are now 'sounding like the soundtrack to a coming of age movie'.
The Razor Wire, meanwhile, suggests that while it 'surpasses Final Straw in terms of listenability [...] the band may have slightly dumbed down their sound in order to attract a legion of new listeners'.
And Good Weather For Airstrikes also cautiously celebrate its 'decidedly major-label feel, absolutely dripping in production flourishes', ending on the suggestion that 'Eyes Open sees Snow Patrol finally finding their niche as the UK's next great arena-rock band, somewhere in between Coldplay and Muse'.

Captain - Broke

I had no idea til I bought this (very good) single today that it was produced by Trevor Horn, surprised the fact hasn't got more attention.

Various excitements

After listening for the past week, I can say that Final Fantasy's new album (er, not technically out til the end of May or June depending on where you are) is every bit as brilliant as I'd hoped, as elaborate and strange as it is beautiful and sounding much fuller than last year's sometimes slightly throwaway debut. It even mentions Anne McCaffrey, too, whose books I once spent a lot of time reading and is not a name I imagined coming up in anything I listen to.
Head over to Good Hodgkins for a download of This Lamb Sells Condos so you can hear for yourself.
His website has finally reappeared too: Final Fantasy Eternal


Hot Chip's album also pretty much lives up to the potential of two very fine singles indeed, so hooray for them too.


Yet another Guillemots live review and some more actual features coming soon!

News (26/04/06)

• Home recording from digital radio is killing music. "When I see a device that permits customers to identify the specific tracks they want from a satellite broadcast, record them and library them for future use, I call that device an iPod" - gah. And library is a verb now?
• Sale of 'non-existant tickets' banned.
• Shayne Ward books arena tour for next year - blimey, that's optimistic (Yahoo's typos would have you believe that he's now selling tickets for shows in January 2006 which would be even more impressive and possibly no longer allowed)
• Okkervil River sign to EMI in the UK, rerelease last year's excellent album with inevitable bonus tracks.
• Seemingly daily festival line-up item - Truck line-up announced with mystery headliners that seem likely to be The Futureheads.

One last Camden Crawl post

...before I leave the whole thing alone for at least a year: Music Like Dirt have a really excellent summary of different opinions on it, including my own GoodBooks hyperbole.

Chartsengrafs (25/04/06)

As predicted last week, Gnarls Barkley stayed number one in the UK singles chart on Sunday, ahead of new physical releases from Rhianna (2), today's Stylus Singles Jukebox winner Infernal (4, not quite living up to midweek expectations) and Fall Out Boy (8, same as its much more memorable predecessor). The Kooks continued to perplex and go back up again, and the slightly easily confused Black Eyed Peas and Pussycat Dolls (that's Pussy Dolls to Patrick Wolf) songs were still stuck next to each other. The Flaming Lips, at 16, did indeed end up with their highest charting hit ever, albeit only by two places but Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1 was released in January so doesn't really count.

Next time will see Gnarls Barkley comfortably hang on to number one for a fifth week, as well as taking number one from Shayne Ward in the albums chart, which has not seen anyone manage two weeks in a row at number one since Arctic Monkeys in January/February. Although Corinne Bailey Rae did have two seperate weeks each side of David Gilmour.
Biggest new or semi-new entries in the singles come from The Raconteurs and Dirty Pretty Things (both currently heading for the top five but probably set to drop), with Red Hot Chili Peppers terrifyingly set for the top ten on downloads alone and Snow Patrol joining them based on the full range of formats. Sole non-guitar-based new entry near the top to be from, er, Chicane featuring Tom Jones.

News (25/04/06)

• Take That and Robbie Williams drag out the will he?/won't he?/does anyone care? saga still further.
• Some more details on the opera scored by (retiring, of course) Gorillaz.
• Does anyone really need another festival? Well, I guess it's good if you live in Orkney. And like Embrace.
• Similarly, this one sounds ace mainly not because of Clor, Absentee, GoodBooks and The Research, though that helps, but because it's so nearby.
• Muse's new single is called Supermassive Black Hole. That will be restrained, then.

News (24/04/06)

• Smashing Pumpkins reform, unwisely use light-grey text on a white background for their website.
• The Duke Spirit get their stuff stolen.
• Snoop Dogg to write novel.
• Novello award nominations as great as ever - Wires? Even though it came out well over a year ago? Coldplay for best song musically and lyrically?
• Maybe they should nominate Tony Christie's World Cup song next time.
• Fyfe Dangerfield seemingly only has one shirt. (ok that's not really news nor new but oh well)

shopping at Berwick Street's record shops today

I didn't find anything at all worth buying, which is about a first.
Or, at least, I saw a few cheap albums that I knew I'd like at least some of (Snow Patrol's first one, for instance) but didn't find anything which I was willing to give the place on my almost-full shelves to. I've now reached the strange point where the space that a CD will take up is often more of a concern than the couple of pounds it will cost, which somehow doesn't seem quite right.

News (22/04/06)

• cd:uk not over after all, just relegated to five.
• Sparklehorse to (finally) release another album, featuring Dangermouse among others
• Carl Barat: Pete wasn't sacked, we just told him not to turn up any more.

Yes, Guillemots again

But at least some of you must love them as much as me - head over to Sweeping The Nation for a friendly chat with Fyfe Dangerfield. Meanwhile as I don't think I mentioned it already, surprisingly enough, their album is called Through The Windowpane (the name of their usual set-opener) and released on June 12th, especially exciting as it's the same day as Hope Of The States' second album and, at last, the release of an exhaustive compilation of The Delgados' Peel Sessions. Also, Keane.

News (21/04/06)

• Doherty surely well into double figures by now.
• Mae, Coldplay, some other people, are very rich.
• They could even afford John Lennon's schoolbooks.
• Ooberman reform! Two days after I finally bought their last album, weirdly.
• Top Of The Pops in breach of licencing laws, possibly taste.

Dirty Pretty Things/Plan B/Captain/GoodBooks/Fields/New Rhodes at Camden Crawl (20/04/06)

So in the end I managed to see 3 of the bands that I recommended in my previous feature - the queue for The Pipettes was too long and Guillemots were scheduled at an inconvenient time at Koko, way too far away from most of the places I was going. And for secret (where secret means 'announced clearly on the programme') headliner I chose Dirty Pretty Things, a good move I think after reading about the queues for The Futureheads and no-one being able to see Supergrass unless they got there hours earlier.

Started off with New Rhodes at Colour, which was too small to actually provide a stage, and a decent start it was - they're a good if unspectacular live band and it turns out they do have a few more songs which match You've Given Me Something That I Can't Give Back for brisk pop goodness, The History Of Britain probably being the pick of them.



The next three all fall into the category of bands who I really liked the sounds of from a few tracks on their Myspace, and nicely demonstrate the variable success rate of such an approach. Fields, playing the rather larger Lock17, were the disappointment of the night - some impressively gigantic noisy climaxes to build up to but not enough songs to go with it and the icy electronic element of their sound on record almost completely drowned. Their two singers (one male, one female) singing everything in unison just seemed to give an impression of neither of them being confident enough in their own right too, and the two songs that I'd already heard (Song For The Fields and If You Fail, We All Fail) were both great but easily the highlights and played first and last as if they knew it full well themselves.



GoodBooks, on the other hand, were magnificent beyond a degree which could reasonably be expected - superficially probably most similar to The Futureheads but adding a scale and scope more reminiscent of Hope Of The States or British Sea Power at their best to a base of jerky post-punk and electronic beats. With almost every song instantly awe-inspiring, it will be a surprise if they are playing anywhere as small as the out-of-the-way Bullet Bar this time next year, World War One monster Paschendale (including a brief diversion into Billie Jean) probably the finest of a very fine bunch.



Captain, also playing the Bullet Bar, fell somewhere between the two. There was a certain similarity to Fields, not least in the male-female vocals, but aside from the occasionally icky and offputting loving look to each other that wasn't a problem as they had much more confidence. They had a lot more stronger songs too, with their glistening pop showing more than a hint of pleasing darkness live, although a 45-minute set still seemed slightly too long at this stage.



Plan B had to be admired simply for not totally losing a crowd largely waiting for Dirty Pretty Things, with a captivating mad-eyed intensity which lasted for the whole of his set. Not so sure on the music though, and his raps started to get a bit repetitive even in the space of under half an hour - I lost count of the number of 'and then I was 14!'s.



Dirty Pretty Things, finally, played much exactly the same set as last time that I saw them, to slightly diminishing effect, although that might have been something to do with the fact that my feet were killing me by this time.


Thanks to Ada for photos.

Mornington Crescent (part 7)

Part seven of a guide to fifty-something mostly new bands, tied loosely together by their prescence on the bill of this year's Camden Crawl. See the whole lot together here.



Website
Myspace
More of more of the same post-punk with nothing remarkable at all. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
Acoustic-guitar toting rapper, recently heard on xfm constructing a hypnotic track round samples of Radiohead's finest moment Pyramid Song, though I missed what the song was. More fascinating than outright enjoyable in general at the moment but might be worth keeping track of. Could be worse.



Website
Myspace
Just after The Pistolas we have The Rifles, who clearly want to be The Jam rather than Gang Of Four, but still don't bring anything much of interest to their attempts. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
Despite being named after the Rogers sisters in the band there's actually a guy in the band as well who does many of the vocals, which is a distracting start. Anyway, it's very competent but unremarkable garage rock. Forgotten them already.



Website
Myspace
See The OnOffs. Only with a bit more brass. Forgotten them aready.



Website
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They'd have to be bloody good to overcome a name like that, and they aren't really. Funky enough dance-punk but it's actually a bit too polite! Forgotten them already.



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Reforming veteran punks (who, er, recently played a gig at Selfridges department store) with a large hint of reggae who I had somehow not actually heard before. The cover of Heard It Through The Grapevine in particular is great fun. Worth checking out.



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More uninspiring post-punk with particularly nasty whiny vocals. This is starting to get a bit tiring, you know... Avoid.




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See recent live review. Or in short: great fun, especially live. Recommended listening.



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As with The Pistolas. Avoid.



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Leading light of UK rap, I couldn't really tell you if there's any better but his stuff is certainly sparky and almost always very funny. Favourite line has to be the one after he is asked for an autograph by a kid: "Mum, is this how you spell Lemar?" Worth checking out.



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Powerpop which made a bad first impression thanks to, er, individual vocals but soon begins to win over through sheer catchiness. Could be worse.



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Some rather lovely slow building indie which isn't quite ruined by overly angsty vocals. Reminds of The Veils, apart from the bits where they try to be the Arcade Fire, nothing quite takes off as it could though. Unless that's just the effect on listening to fifty bands. Could be worse.



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Holy shit, their first song on myspace has 141,000 plays! That's more than anyone else in this whole piece probably. They may or may not all have been thinking 'This sure sounds like the Top Of The Pops theme' (the old one, they may or may haven lost track of it now). Horribly overdramatic Led Zeppelin worship, here. Avoid.

Chartsengrafs (19/04/06)

Slightly delayed weekly look back (and forward) at the UK charts.

So, as predicted last week, Gnarls Barkley stayed number one on Sunday, with Shayne Ward at 2 barely making it past half their sales figure with No Promises, seemingly a song bolted together entirely from discarded bits of old Daniel Bedingfield ballads.
This week he's going to be comfortably number one in the album charts though, with sales that will be very high if not quite at an Arctic Monkeys level. So it does look like he may yet prove more of a viable career proposition than McManus or Brookstein, although surely only if he's given some songs which aren't utter shit.
Lower down Sunday's chart, Hard-Fi had the inevitable weekend tail-off to end up at 14, again, Jamie Foxxxxx only got to 16 and Lorraine recovered slightly to a still disappointing 29.
On pre-release downloads, Infernal made 34 (heading for 3 on full release), Fall Out Boy 26 (set to become another top ten hit, somehow) and Rihanna entered at 5, which is going to be turned into 2 this week, still behind the all-conquering Gnarls.
Finally, The Flaming Lips' Yeah Yeah Yeah Song looks set to make the top 20 and probably become their biggest hit ever. Not bad for over 20 years into their career.

I am the news (18/04/06)

(Yes, apologies for the title)

• Cliff Richard wants to keep getting royalties for a while yet.
• "One life with each other, sisters, brothers"best lyric ever ever.
• White Stripes sued by producer who 'was influential' in inventing their sound, have Coke ad leaked.
• V festival lineup additions - include The Dandy Warhols, Morning Runner, The Boy Least Likely To and Matt Willis. No sign of Fightstar yet though.
• And Bestival, the Isle Of Wight festival that isn't the Isle Of Wight Festival gets Scissor Sisters to add to Pet Shop Boys.
  
• Long Blondes finally sign record deal! With Rough Trade.

Charts tomorrow, thanks to the usual bank holiday delay.