JoFo in Soho

Johnny Foreigner at Madame JoJo's, 30/09/08

First of all, despite their name and hearing positive things about them in all the right places, I don't really get Dananananaykroyd, and seeing them did nothing to change that. Their levels of energy were pretty amazing and a couple of songs that locked into a noise section and then pushed and pushed it (twin drummers and all), persisting way past expectations, impressed. That was brief though and left looong sections where none of the multitude of ideas presented connected at all, not helped by frankly baffling between song banter. Perhaps if I'd been down at the front among the hug-outs I would have understood better?

Johnny Foreigner I definitely do get, in that their debut Waited Up Til it Was Light is one of my favourite albums of the year. I love its thrilling combination of Los Campesinos!-esque spiky boy/girl indie pop with twisty guitar noises straight from early Idlewild, and the way they their songs each hurtle through a vast maze of interconnecting ideas and hooks. Thing is that despite listening to the album a great deal, if you ask me what much of it means, or what most of the lyrics actually are, I'll be a bit stuck. In fact, ask me to even name half its songs on hearing, and I'll be a bit stuck. So I might not be best placed to talk about their show in a particularly authoritative way.

This fact made me stand out almost as much as my friend who had never heard of them, becuase Madame JoJo's was packed with fans prepped for every moment. A lot of people who on being told that "Cranes and Cranes and Cranes and Cranes" was next could produce its opening 'baba bababababa!' with no further prompting rather than scrambling to catch up. Who could be relied on to fill in lyrical gaps in non-album tracks as well as to catch crowdsurfing singer Alexei at the close. This is a band already inspiring remarkable loyalty, clearly.

The resultant atmosphere definitely helped the band but it's not hard to see why they've reached such a position. Some of the finer detail and dynamism of album versions was lost as songs become uniformly faster, louder, scrappier, but it was worth it for the power added, for the sight of Alexei wrestling every out there sound from his guitar and Kelly and him joyfully trading alternating lines and even words across stage. When they did they sometimes even resembled a beefed up version of The Delgados circa Domestiques, which can only be a good thing. And though fantastic current single "Salt, Pepa and Spinderella" no longer started in as itchy a state of suspense as on record, they raced through it to 'turn on the real drums!' and lit up the room more forcefully than I'd dreamed possible.

They even managed to keep the momentum going through ever lengthening gaps between songs as they fought technical problems and Alexei's admission that he is too unfit to play without gaps 'like a proper band'. New songs were as intruiging and exciting as old and seemingly everyone went away with a smile on their face. Even the people who repeatedly shouted for "Sometimes, in the Bullring" and didn't get it. At least I think they didn't.

Chartsengrafs 29/09/08 - Head while I'm driving

I missed last week, but honestly not much happened anyway. Kings of Leon presumably continue to baffle onlookers from their own country, having extended "Sex on Fire"'s run at the top to three weeks and added a fairly massive selling number one album. Oh and (next single?) "Use Somebody" is in at 29 too. I must have heard it as I heard the whole album at the weekend, but don't really remember much past general professional likableness.

"Disturbia"'s long life on music TV channels allows Rihanna to reach a peak at 3 after twelve weeks, at the expense of Pussycat Dolls. Biggest climber near the top is Iglu & Hartley, up to 5 and a total mess in far too knowing a way, like they thought for a long time about being this lazy.

James Morrison is 6 (bad luck, Scottish international footballer James Morrison), although "You Make It Real" is still behind "You Give Me Something" for top YouTube result on him. About right since it is basically the same song, except with added slickness. Which is about twentieth on the list of attributes that it needed more of. I never got "About You Now" as anything other than good but too safe, and "Girls" at 8 definitely isn't that, whacking great well known sample nonwithstanding. But they seem to run out of song just as they get into their stride, with that sample just taking up way too much space for how much at adds to the song. The top ten closes out with evidence of the horrors of a downloads based chart as someone singing Faith Hill's sub-Dion "There You'll Be" on The X Factor is enough to return it.

Will Young stalls at 13, down from a mere 10 last week. A shame because "Changes" is the first thing that I unreservedly like so far, doing a good job of easygoing soul with its strings and falsetto deployed for an actual reason beyong usually being in this kind of thing. You can't record an album as fanbase-losing as his last one, go away for years and only come back with this amd expect them to come back though. At 16, Kanye West's continuing bid to be the biggest pop star ever gives us "Love Lockdown"! I have read much but not listened to it til writing this so don't know any comparisons with live versions or uninished versions or whatever, and the first thing is to be a bit surprised by just how bare it is. Second thing, those drums! The autotuned vocals do leave a bit of a feeling of just hanging in there, waiting for the drums and bass to kick back in, but it's worth it. "Paper Planes" glides into the top twenty at 19 and is still on it's way up, maybe? Is Pineapple Express actually out yet? Don't know my films I don't care about very well.

At 26... OK, I know there's Bond traditions to uphold, but "Another Way to Die"? Could you get any more generic a title? Surely Jack White could have managed a "Quantum of Solace", and if he couldn't then Muse probably already wrote one. The intro to the song almost singlehandedly redeems it though, throwing all the best recognisable bits of White Stripes and Bond together and implausibly making it stick. The piano's good too, shame that Jack and Alicia shouting at each other seems such an afterthought.

At the bottom of the top forty there's two (??) entries by Jonas Brothers, still taking the McFly model, diluting it down and then selling it back to us. Plus all that purity stuff of course. Hopefully it won't get any further than this but I'm not optimistic. Ditto for DJ Ironik's follow up single at 35. Pink is at 38, we'll talk about that a lot more next week. And Elbow's "One Day Like This", having taken a week's break, pops back up at 39 just in time to get in the way of the release of its follow up.

In the albums, beyond the aforementioned Kings of Leon, there's entries in the top ten for Pussycat Dolls (with a large number of songs that were meant to be on Nicole's ill-fated solo album, apparently), Bette Midler (ah, Strictly Come Dancing, so much to anwer for), McFly (inconclusive as to whether a mere 8 is due to giving it away for free with the Daily Mail, their fanbase deserting them, or both) and Dave Gilmour. Live in Gdansk!
Katy Perry appearing on albums-oriented Later (watch and note Pete and Guy of Elbow nodding along politely) isn't enough to get her beyond 11.

Mobiles skwrking, mobiles chirping

Wasn't my idea and definitely not something I'd inflict on anyone other than close, similarly musically aligned friends, but Radiohead's "Idioteque" turns out to be a surprisingly great karaoke choice.

(I'm neglicting because I've been away every night, not because of actual neglect like usual. Hopefully to continue tomorrow with a gig by Johnny Foreigner, will report back on it if so!)

Play thoughts

Belatedly catching up on posts on Rocktimists (featuring a couple of much missed Stylus writers, among others), I was particularly interested by this one.

I instinctively wanted to disprove its comparison of the current positions in the video games market to thoughts on music compression, largely because I'm on different sides in each case (Nintendo and Elbow, in short). But the more I thought about it the more it seemed to fit. Is wanting more dynamic range and being able to hear little details in records really all that different from people getting fussed about framerate and polygons per second?

I tried to think that the first is a far more intrinsic part of music, but can that really be the case? Video games are different from the passive experience of watching TV/movies (even if you're playing Metal Gear Solid 4) but isn't the image with which you're interacting about as intrinsic as you can get?
On the other hand, is there a music equivalent to outdated games with comparatively basic graphics that remain fun to play? Production techniques can definitely lead songs to sound of a time (even if that time isn't their own). And early uses of synths, for example, don't do all that could be possible with improved technology, but listening to a song the primitive nature of the technology would hardly leap out in the same way as someone playing twenty-year-old games. I suppose if you go back to the earliest days of recorded music you would get to something similar, but there is no retro scene that I am aware of celebrating such recordings in the same way as Commodore 64 games. Which maybe proves something.


These kind of issues have been interesting me ever since getting back into video games a couple of years ago, and discovering an internet community on the likes of NeoGAF that is not dissimilar to the music one (except even more male, American and filled with in-jokes) and useful for finding the really good stuff out there.
One of the most striking differences is how bloody positive people tend to be. Hit your average music discussion and chances are high of finding biting dislike of whoever is being discussed, especially if they're popular. It's not like that doesn't happen with games but on the whole people seem to be much more likely to be actually happy with what's successful! To the point of developing strong loyalties to the multinational companies that provide it, no less.
I think the key thing here is the fact that an objective review is a lot less of an oxymoron when it comes to games. If a game just isn't fun then chances are it isn't fun to anyone else either. There are exceptions but given the level of effort required in making a game, a big budget really does make it likely to be better. You won't get everyone to agree on the merits of Shadow of the Colossus, much like you won't get everyone to agree on OK Computer, but you'll get much closer. The effects of this particular type of groupthink can be peculiar at times. Stylus never had to deal with anything compared to gaming sites getting crazed reactions to a review giving only 8.8/10. But every time I see a comments page full of genuine, deservedly positive replies it does make me a little happy.


Incidentally, while we've mentioned the subject of compression and video games, this is pretty amazing. Not in a good way.

Ten favourite moments on Los Campesinos!' We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Since even more than their debut, songs as a whole seem less important than the number of amazing, distinct hooks that they can cram into half an hour or so.

• "Miserabilia" - The heavily distorted, disgusted '...for a better understanding of my dietary requirements' leaping suddenly but appropriately into an off-kilter, violin led riff that feels like the onrushing waves of nausea hitting.
• 'Shout at the world because the world doesn't love you!' - So musically triumphant and uniting as to completely turn the sentiment around; yelling loud and clear that we don't need the love of the world.
• The amazing sounds behind the second verse of the title track, where the guitar sounds like it's methodically chopping the song into pieces with the reaciton of an adorably sad and confused little sigh (of violin? synth? It's beyond recognisable).
• When the violin comes in after 'I hope my heart goes first!' and everything is briefly beautiful, a wash of calm contemplation after the frenzy.
• "It's Never That Easy Though..." - the squelchy keyboard that takes the opening line 'This one time, I kissed a girl for class war' and turns it into a mischievous comic adventure. If there's one thing that raises this album more than anything else, it's their amazing knack for fitting musical punctuation marks to their lyrics in a way that magnifies the power of both.
• That perfectly executed stop and start at about a minute in that doesn't need to be there for any reason at all but knocks me sideways every time and makes the start of the following joyful whirling build up even better.
• "The End of the Asterisk" - 'Your parents, your disgusting parents'. Gareth's punk scowl is great, and all the more so for being relatively rarely used.
• "Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time" finally reaches an unambiguous, genuine positive sentiment and it immediately gets drowned in feedback and chopped off. Really affecting and still totally Los Campesinos!.
• "All Your Kayfabe Friends" - 'You asked if I'd be anyone from history/fact or fiction, dead or alive/I said I'd be Tony Cascarino, circa 1995' - destined to be their most quoted line ever, I guess, but it really is that amazing. Like the Breakfast Club line from the debut, but five times as bloodymindedly logic-free and with even better timing.
• The ending. I'm a sucker for songs suddenly cutting off (better than a fadeout every time), especially at the end of albums. As pleasurably disorientating as most other things here.

Chartsengrafs 15/09/08 - Soft lips are open

Welcome back, all. Things to note about the UK charts in my absence - now that downloads have all but completely taken over, they move very, very slowly. Not quite US-like Mariah Carey at number one for 200 weeks slowly, but certainly there's not going to be quite so much happening in any given week as used to be the case.

It's a rare week then this week as we see new entries on both the singles and album charts!

Straight in at number one on the singles are Kings of Leon, somehow. Their previous highest was a 13 for "Fans" which I have no memory of whatsoever. Follow up to "On Call", apparently. Having said quite a few times over the summer 'forget Jay-Z, what the hell are Kings of Leon doing headlining Glastonbury??' their new position is dismaying. As a result it's secretly disappointing that "Sex on Fire" completely fails to live up to its hilarious title and turns out to not bad, if not exactly setting anything alight (sorry). Certainly there seems to be a lot more to them than the likes of Jet, and a few comparisons seen elsewhere to "Dakota" (ie previously terrible band comes good for once) are equally as unfair on Kings of Leon as on "Dakota".

Removed from number one after 5 weeks is Katy Perry, who I am way too late to have much new to say about. I'll try anyway - if you try really hard to ignore the lyrics and keep the bile down, doesn't "I Kissed a Girl" sort of sound like The Bravery? From the ridiculous to the equally ridiculous, at number three is Cliff Richard, who missed his chance to carry on that number one every decade record that's obviously a great source of pride and publicity. He needed to go for it a couple of years back when he would only have needed to sell half as many copies, really. Pussycat Dolls and Rihanna follow at 4 and 5, and then lower down the top ten is horrorville. Take your pick from The Script, Kid Rock or Biffy Clyro-ironically-gone-Busted-ballad for biggest crime against music there (hint: it's still The Script).

What else? Flobots make it up into the top 20, probably more to come on them once I've heard more than the chorus on endless adverts (that is not helping their cause). Iglu & Hartly and McFly are new at 21 and 23 and at 25 Keane's silly big 80s pop moment "Spiralling" continues to follow Coldplay in demonstrating that giving away your single for free won't stop people paying 79p for it for months to come. Basshunter (he's sold 130,000 albums, you know) gets a third but rather lesser top 40 hit at 24, ditto for Flo Rida at 29.

At 33, watch your back cos Paul Rodgers has got Queen on this track; a Mercury win is enough to put Embrace Elbow's "One Day Like This" up to 36, three places higher than first time round; there's an end to 'Lowgold have had more top 40 hits than M.I.A.!' zings as "Paper Planes" gets to 37 on its way to bigger things; and Sonny J closes things out at 40.


In the albums, Metallica rush out late in the week to snatch the top spot from Glasvegas. It's a bit surprising - St. Anger was only number three. That was in part due to releasing alongside Hail to the Thief, but I still didn't think that they had quite such clout anymore. Especially when releasing an album with cover/title that surely shouldn't have made it past the inside cover of first year science exercise books. No other big new entries, but the aforementioned Mercury effect pushes The Seldom Seen Kid from 61 to 7, and past Asleep in the Back (and Basshunter) in lifetime sales.

Lowlands Day 3 (17/08/08)

Sunday's music starts off with a disappointing moment. Rushing back from a very necessary packing trip, we arrive at the (tiny) Lima tent just in time to hear the last two bars of Lykke Li's cover of Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa". Had been looking forward to that being the finale and highlight of her set, but alas no. There is still an enjoyably taunting "Complaint Department" although a couple of others fall into being a bit too loose and diffident, much like the album.

Next are a couple of bands that I know nothing of in advance. Pivot offer some interesting though slightly unengaging experimental electronica. Yeasayer go for psychadelic leaning rock that has some nice harmonies in places but occasionally veers into horrible falsetto/wah-wah boogie. They spend a surprising amount of their time on stage talking up the next band, MGMT.
They needn't have bothered, as MGMT are already clearly the hype band of the weekend, going as far the previous day as to fly over a plane with an advert for their set, and attracting a crowd thats packed even twenty-deep outside the sizeable India tent. They completely fail to do anything to justify this position, starting by arriving about fifteen minutes late. Announcing that they will play the whole of their album isn't a bad start (although they don't play it in order anyway), but within thirty seconds of a foolishly thrown out "Time to Pretend" it's clear that they intend to not only play the whole album but also replicate the gratingly horrible and compressed sound of it, only even more so. Every keyboard sound is a deafening scrape and the rest is barely better. I still think that they probably have some good songs, but it's not too easy to tell. I leave after two, not least because there are more important places to be...

...namely the Grolsch tent for Elbow! Good thing to get in there too, as after a weekend of (sometimes uncomfortably) sunny weather, a torrential downpour almost perfectly coincides with their set. Guy Garvey is quick to make light of the fact ("Consider yourself lucky, in Manchester it rains for 200 days a year") and it actually lends a bit of a communal huddle air to proceedings, especially once we reach the somewhat ironic climax of "One Day Like Today".

Before that is a set that's, well, as reliably fantastic as any Elbow set of the past few years - that I can't be more enthusiastic about it is more down to it being my tenth time seeing them than anything else. That and the slightly short set (no "The Fix" or "Grace Under Pressure") and slightly too high and far away stage, although Guy does everything in his power to overcome that short of actually climbing down, and that's only because he'd probably never make it back. He sings almost every heartfelt word leaning forward and physically reaching out in an attempt to connect that works remarkably well for its simplicity. Even on the rare occasion when he falters, voice straining and flirting with out of tune for a couple of verses of "Great Expectations", the warmth of feeling and beautifully soft pattering of piano easily carries him through.

Special mention as ever to "Newborn", the only track from their debut played, which remains just as gobsmacking in scale and power a tenth time as it did the first, and surely will a fiftieth.

How to follow that? Well, if there's one band who can match or better them musically for sheer beauty it's Sigur Rós. They begin with a massive "Svefn-G-Englar", building up to a bow on guitar frenzy that seems to almost swallow the whole tent in its depth of primordial, unnameable feeling, and everything that made them such an important band to me many years ago makes total sense again. A barely less epic "Glósóli" later and they play a (possibly new) song that I don't know, and things get really magical as it softly flutters and a brass band, dressed all in white, emerge to march in slow motion across the stage, a delightful visual that matches all the pomp of the music but also injects a touch of humour and a human element that doesn't always translate amid their towering music.

Next: Time to blow all that away with a thunderously crashing "Ný Batterí"! Holy crap. About half an hour gone and an hour left (they presumably insisted on the longest slot of the festival) and their set his been faultless and made me want to fall in love with them again, and yet... there's a reason why all that was needed. So getting out while they're ahead seems a good bet, and as I walk out to the sound of the opening chords of "Hoppipolla", the usual sinking feeling sets in and I feel like I've made the right choice. That one is more the assorted documentary soundtrackers of the UK's fault than theirs, but still the prospect of the goo of the last two albums is too much to face.

So instead I finish up Lowlands 2008 with The Dresden Dolls. Their edgy, witty and almost uncomfortably insightful Yes, Virginia... has crept up to become one of my favourite albums of recent years, so I'm rather excited to see them for the first time. And that excitement reaches fever pitch as they open in style with its frenzied "Sex Changes", keyboard and drums pounding in unison.

Their show in some ways gets no less impressive from there, from the sheer noise somewhow generated by only two people on in. Amanda Palmer wrings a huge range of sounds from her keyboard with furious, rapid fire succession, and Brian Viglione is equal parts drummer and mime, with comic and dramatic timing down perfectly. Of course, for that to work rather than being a distraction they need to have the songs to match... and that's where they fall down with a bizarrely misjudged setlist.

I know that there are always people who are there for the early stuff (see Sigur Rós review above) but failing to play any more songs from their second album at all is inexplicable. Their debut was full of potential, but it lacked a lot of the songwriting poise of the second and there's only so many of its overwrought issues songs (yay, self harm) that can be taken in one go. Only a blistering "Girl Anachronism" and "Coin Operated Boy", with its clockwork stop-start sections drawn out til they go through bizarre into funny and back again, are up to the job. The latter also gets a just about funny enough to work lyric change from 'I can even take him in the bath' to 'I can even fuck him in the ass', which says, er, something. Anyway, their wasted potential is a disappointing way to end, summed up no better than by a drawn out closing cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" that we are instructed to sing along to but no one knows the words to.

Yay!

Lowlands day 2 (16/08/08)

I really mean to start off Saturday with Laura Marling in one of the event's smaller tents. But in even more oppressive early afternoon heat than the previous day, sitting down in the shade seems a good idea. And then suddenly getting up again doesn't. Before you know it, it's an hour and a half later. Apparently she was good though.

NERD are playing the festival's enormous arena sized Alpha tent but it's still way too crowded to get in. Instead we take up stations at the somewhat smaller stage opposite, the closest to an outside stage there is. Can't tell you much about NERD despite the proximity as they get drowned out by soundchecking for Los Campesinos!, eagerly awaited by a small cadre of dedicated fans.

Gareth begins by thanking NERD for supporting them, later going on to attack a lengthy list of targets including the Sex Pistols (playing later; we should see No Age instead), British festivals (full of drunken idiots) and Belgium's rival Pukklepop (a popular one, this). Fortunately there's still enough manic energy and creativity left over for their songs. The power of the unique worldview invested in them comes through even more while watching various members of the band throwing themselves around and at each other, helped by the fact that with no second album songs yet essentially every song is a crowd favourite. It doesn't make for a perfect set quite. Gareth's female cointerpart Aleksandra is near inaudible for much of the set, giving "The International Tweecore Underground" in particular a weird one sided conversation feel. And when my friend complains after about not being able to tell the difference between many of their songs they have somehwat of a point at times. But when LC! team up a blistering "My Year in Lists" to a cathartic "Knee Deep at ATP" for a sub five minute double feature, or when a chaotic "We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives" coda coalesces behind Gareth as he theatrically checks his watch for the correct mid-August date, or they line up on upturned monitors for the final trimphant bellow of "Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks" there is nothing remotely like them. That's even before we get to the euphoric madness inspired by "You! Me! Dancing!"

British Sea Power were never likely to live up to that but disappoint a little nonetheless. Matters definitely aren't helped by the smallest crowd of the weekend, who aren't even roused by "Waving Flags", aside from a couple of people with (Spanish/pirate) flags of their own. But even beyond that, good but slightly airy songs come off as even airier and only "It Ended on an Oily Stage" comes close to moving. Maybe I missed the best bits by arriving halfway through.

A quick stop for food later (uitsmijter, a bread and fried egg/cheese combo that definitely beats British festival food) it's back to the huge tent for Franz Ferdinand.

They make for a slick and relaxed contrast to the overstretched band that I saw at Glastonbury and Ally Pally a few years ago. A carefully picked set shows off the best side of the mixed second album, and there are few moments of half-surprised memory along the lines of 'oh yeah, "Walk Away" is quite the fantastic drama, huh?'. They also trial quite a few of those long overdue new songs which are promising if not completely convincing.

What makes the set so much better than that quick overview makes it sound is just how on their side the crowd are. There's a celebratory atmosphere even before they become the only act I see to make a stab at (I presume) Dutch that goes beyond 'dank u well'. "Take Me Out" is of course welcomed with open arms, even the guitar part sung along to, but it goes well beyond that and makes an event of almost every song. Somehow even "This Fire" gets turned into a barnstorming finale whose chorus is still being sung well after the band has departed.

Rather different in feel but nearly as enjoyable are headliners Underworld (the other two days had Editors and Anouk if you're interested). It possibly helps to go into the show with virtually no knowledge of their material, as the slowly unfolding intricate rhythyms are all the more hypnotic with no idea where they are heading next. They're helped too by some excellent projections and some fantastic props, in the shape of blow up pillar things that are blown up and pushed over and around and look from a distance intriguingly like spotlights turned solid. And then after about an hour slips by gracefully, there's the inevitable conclusion of "Born Slippy" and the moment that it kicks in and the lights turn on and we all stand arms aloft, grinning broadly. It's the sort of moment that it would be difficult to get wrong at this point, but they make thoroughly sure they don't.

Lowlands Day 1 (15/08/08)

I had no idea til I came here to post and looked that it's been almost exactly a year since I last posted here. Weird stuff. <--- Was true when I started writing this. Anyway, starting things off with something that actually gives me quite a bit to say. Last weekend I was at Lowlands festival in the Netherlands.

Left home about 2pm on Thursday and, 3 train journeys and a coach ride with a bunch of drunken Irishmen later, arrived a bit before midnight. Not much worse than Glastonbury really, especially considering the lack of queuing and that my fantastic friend had set up a tent for us in prime position. Hooray!

Ways they do things differently than UK festivals I've been to - Rather than outside, near enough all the music is in tents of varying sizes, from cosy to enormous. Rather than starting at 12, things gradually get off to a start rather later, which coupled with a standard-to-early finish means seeing 7 bands a day is out of the question. On the other hand, rather than the usual UK policy of giving the interesting acts early slots that barely stretch to half an hour, just about everyone gets at least an hour. This is pulled off by having a really large number of stages in a small space, and there's some clever scheduling going on to make unwanted noise from other stages a rarity.

So, Friday, first day proper, starts off for us as late as 4pm, not a bad thing considering the stifling midday heat. To see - The National. Opener "Start a War" eases gradually into their world, where every word seems to come cloaked in unspoken regret or horror, and also introduces their excellent brass section, who really add something over the previous time I saw them. The interesting thing about The National live is that much of the time the emphasis of their sound is completely reversed from on record. Normally Matt Berninger's vocals are the focus, but live, it's much easier to appreciate the way that the rest of the band build up those tense, subtle backdrops. Even when he gets into full on mad pacing mode for "Mr. November", it's the fantastically agile drumming that stands out. Older songs than that don't get a look in and there's a disappointing lack of "Ada", but as a showcase for Boxer they couldn't do much better.

I've seen Hot Chip before. But that was a show supporting Athlete (!) in 2004 and it's fair to say that they're a slightly different band now. They no longer shake bananas and don't play anything at all from their debut, understandably. Their two uneven albums since have enough top material to make for a uniformly fantastic set and they blast through it in a determined effort to keep everyone on an unending high. It's two songs in when they switch seamlessly from a manic "Shake A Fist" into a burbling "And I Was a Boy From School" that it becomes clear just how fantastic they have got at what they do. Somehow the latter is played at twice the speed but remains every bit as haunting as ever while totally dancable. "Bendable Posable" is the unlikely biggest highlight, showcasing Joe Goddard's unique rapping skills and the most joyous random noises in a strong random noise field.
After the rush through every great song from the last too albums, they then go and show that they can make even (slightly) less glittering material shine with an energetic reworking of "No Fit State" that melds it with New Order's "Temptation". And it turns out that they haven't already played every great song because I have somehow completely forgotten that they still have "Ready for the Floor" up their sleeve! Best surprise of the weekend.
And even that isn't enough as they finally let up the pace and take full advantage of their accumulated power over the crowd to play a spot on cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U" and a similarly swaying "In the Privacy of Our Love". Still not sure this is the best direction for them to go in, but they sure earned it.

Santogold was meant to be next, but turning up almost half an hour late means that it's time to leave before she gets there. Oops.

We have to make sure that we get our place in plenty of time for The Flaming Lips. After all, if you're not within confetti cannon distance you'e going to miss out.
It's no surprise that when everything switches on and they launch into "Race for the Prize" with massive balloons bouncing everywhere, massed ranks of dancing teletubbies dancing, the aformentioned confetti, and the lights and the energy, it remains one of the most life-affirming gig experiences possible. I would almost go as far as recommending seeing them for that alone.
Thing is though, I last saw them five years ago and this is almost exactly the same show. Wayne now rolls around the crowd in his giant bubble for a bit before they begin, and they've acquired a massive green laser. But the only other real change is to the set list, and that has somehow got worse - "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" is a great addition but there are now uncomfortably long patches where the music comes nowhere near to matching the spectacle. No more "Lightning Strikes the Postman" or even "She Don't Use Jelly" either, although perhaps advocating them making even fewer changes is not the way to go. Still, a bit of a conflicted experience overall, though as I said has its share of brilliance.
See "Do You Realize??" here, where as an added bonus (??) you can see me blowing bubbles at 2:42.

Emmy The Great at Pure Groove

Earlier on I went to Pure Groove, a North London record store which has somehow previously escaped my attention, to see indie folkster Emmy The Great play a very cosy and rather beautiful instore gig. I managed to end up without much of a view (and stood next to Jeremy Warmsley) and she only played five songs, including an Adam Green cover. That was ok though because all were as wryly amusing as theu were pretty and her own songs were so despite all being new to me. And calling M.I.A. a bitch for refusing to guest on the song named after her was pretty funny too.

Head over to The Daily Growl for mp3s of a recent Xfm session including the aforementioned "MIA".

The Crimea - Requiem Aeternum

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There's not that much similarity musically between The Crimea and My Chemical Romance, I'll grant you, but they've long struck me as being a little bit emo nonetheless. Mainly it's thanks to singer Davey MacManus, with his breathless raw emoting of words that spill out of his head uncontrollably with a total absence of self-censorship: hilarious, awkward and despite his actual age often painfully teenage. Partly as a result, on debut Tragedy Rocks they were equal turns brilliant (joyful sort-of-hit single "Lottery Winners On Acid", the hallucinatory rant of "Opposite Ends") and really frustrating.

On their follow-up, Secrets Of The Witching Hour, he produces just as many bizarre and endearingly misguided lines ('Hell is a crowded room/Heaven's just got you/Naked on all fours' takes something to pull off so well) but this time nothing misses. The band have expanded their sound effectively, still resembling a more earthbound Soft Bulletin produced on next to no budget, but fitting in all kinds of effective arrangement tricks to give force and grandeur for MacManus to both revel in and poke holes in with his wry wit. And when they reach, however tentatively, for the emotions there's just enough depth that it really works this time, as "Requiem Aeternum" demonstrates.

Best of all, they gave away the album for free on their website in adavance of its release, and it's still there. This will be the way for more and more bands soon, I'm guessing, although it's just served as a pretty decent advocate of buying the real CD for me. Without its liner, I would have no idea that the ghostly female voice that drifts into "Requiem Aeternum" is one Amy May of Paris Motel, my favourite new band who I discovered coincedentally around the same time as being wowed by the song.

Okkervil River - John Allyn Smith Sails

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[spoiler warning: plot and/or ending details follow]

There aren't many songs that need one of those but it feels sort of appropriate here. If you haven't heard it yet, you're better off clicking the link before reading this. Go on! The element of surprise is a large part of what made this song such an amazing first time listen, though it stands up very well indeed to repeated album listenings.
But before we get to the spoilers, some background first. The Stage Names feels a bit of a reaction to Okkervil River's previous record, where they wrote an entire album around one song by someone else, the Black Sheep Boy of its title. This time, they limit themselves only to 50+ years of rock and roll history and archetype. Throughout, Will Sheff's really funny and perfectly fitting lyrics are steeped in allusions and references, from the add-one-on songs of "Plus Ones" (TVC16, 51 ways to leave your lover...) to meeting bitter declarations that 'you look your age/which is 37 by the way/and not 28'.
Then, at the end, we reach "John Allyn Smith Sails" as the frazzled rock anti-star of the album's very loose narrative crashes and burns completely. It starts off as a sad acoustic ditty, which is pretty excellent in its own right, and has to be to not just seem like a precursor, so that the big move can make its proper impact. It's timed to perfection, because you get just long enough to get a thrill of recognition from just the musical allusions to "Sloop John B" that creep in, before they launch head on into a ragged, cathartic cover of it. It's as if, after being soaked too long in rock legend, even the wish to escape can only make it past with the protective shield of a familiar song, and it's a terifically odd and affecting way to end an album.

Though, of course, it does rely to a certain extent on your knowledge of the song. Which got me thinking about other songs based around the album that contains the most famous version of "Sloop John B". I can't think of enough for the whole tracklisting of Pet Sounds yet but there are a few. Hello Saferide's excellent recent single takes an inversion of "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" as its starting point, and she has a new song based around her ideal person being the one who is just like "God Only Knows". Kaiser Chiefs' "Caroline, Yes!" doesn't really go much past the title. My favourite other one is Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's "Spanish Dance Troupe" which distills "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to its one line essence for a haunting closing mantra.
Am I missing anything obvious?

Chartsengrafs - We can work without the perks

It's a second week on the top for Timbaland, once again thanks to lack of other worthy challengers as much as any particular momentum of its own (see: Fergie back up to 3 again). That seems to be a bit a theme this year. But it's okay, because our unlikely new entry at number 5 is "With Every Heartbeat" by Kleerup featuring Robyn! That's twenty places higher than Annie ever got, just in case you're counting, and... well, actually we'll leave it there, because it seems like there's going to be even more to be excited about on that front next week. Although I will say that I listened to Robyn's previous top ten hit from 1998 "Show Me Love" the other day for the first time, and it's not an experience I'm too keen to repeat.
Newton Faulkner sneaks up to 7 in the brief moment he has before being made irrelevant by the 'James Blunt's new single isn't the worst thing ever' shocker, and the top ten is rounded off by the continuing advance of Plain White T's and their brand of sappy pleasantness.
Yves Larock at 13 is one of a dying breed of summer dance hits, with rises for Beyonce (17) and Amerie (21) somewhat less rare. A somewhat censored version of "Pussyole" at 22 leaves Dizzee Rascal still a way away from his only proper big hit but does see his album make a re-entry to the top forty at least. The Coral's moment has sadly well and truly passed at 25, and relief that the Simpsons theme is falling down is tempered by that fact that it's joined by "Spider Pig". What else do we have in the top forty? Er, Amy Winehouse, The Cribs and Graham Coxon teaming up with Paul Weller, in descending order of both positions and excellence.

In the albums, Paul Potts is still number one, holding off new entries from Newton Faulkner and Amy MacDonald. Prince's Ultimate at 6 won't be in nearly as many homes as Planet Earth, but also in fewer bins. Next week: The nation needs Kate Nash and doesn't want to wait.

Of Montreal at Scala (02/08/07)

First of all, the organisation/security at Scala has completely gone to shit and has put me off going there again (although there will always be exceptions). Having to queue outside for half an hour when turning up an hour after doors open, so that they can search every single person and then have them queue again for the understaffed box office to collect their tickets is stupid, and I was clearly far from the only one to completely miss Pull Tiger Tail's set as a result.

But that aside, it was a really enjoyable gig. I didn't know that much about what to expect but was taken right away, both by the fact that they kicked the set off with the awesome one-two of "Suffer For Fashion" and "Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider" and that they put on such a bizarrely extravagant show. There was a big glam rock thing going on with their (hilarious) outfits and Kevin Barnes' somewhat Bolanesque performance which was not something that I'd really thought of from the album before but makes sense now. And then on top of that were pretty cool projections and, oh yeah, the two guys in black lycra bodysuits with mirrorball faces running around, bursting balloons and crowdsurfing.
Music mainly came from Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? which was fine by me as I don't know much of the older stuff very well and its dense pile-up of melody and meaning has sneaked its way to a position as one of my very favourite albums of 2007. "She's A Rejector" was pleasingly manic and the sleazy funk of "Faberge Falls For Shuggie" was cool and funny in equal measure. The bravest move was playing the whole ten minute trip that is "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" but they pulled it off, going way beyond repetition to totally brainwashing groove and pairing it with the total contrast of "Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse".
There were a couple of enthuiastically met trips into their back catalogue too, including an inevitable encore of "Wraith Pinned To The Mist (And Other Games)" which was introduced as a song that they can no longer play in their own country, presumably referring to the whole Outback Steakhouse thing. It definitely served to increase my interest in finding out more about a band capable of great things.

Sooo much better than the single artwork

Amazing followup to the Hard-Fi record thing from over on Popjustice:



Yes, that's taken in Music And Video Exchange, and yes, we all know that's what most promos are for.

Oof

Started work at new job, excited but tired. Real updates to follow.

Chartsengrafs - I ain't got a motorboat

Kate Nash turns out to to be cruelly denied at the last. By 16 copies. Instead it's Timbaland who rises to number 1, becoming the first act to score two this year and matching last year's Nelly/Justin assisted duo of Timbaland produced chart toppers. "The Way I Are" still sounds the more reasonable of the two to be there too. Not much happening after that in the top ten bar Groove Armada's fine "Song 4 Mutya" making it up to 8. It feels like forever since everyone (ok, Popjustice) was first raving about this, but it's actually only just been released and doesn't seem to have suffered too much as a result. Oh and Mika is just below. Yay!

And Manic Street Preachers' placing of 10 with "Autumnsong" is a fairly useful gauge of the state of the market since the same 10,000 people buy all of their releases - it says things are doing a little better than when their last three (no.2) singles came out.

Newton Faulkner is new at 16 and the best words on him go to John Cunningham - 'I wouldn’t have thought robots could be such big Jack Johnson fans'. Although that doesn't mttnion that his voice kind of sounds like Johnny Borell at his worst. Rihanna's "Shut Up And Drive" goes to 18 on downloads despite the hordes still buying "Umbrella". That puts it one place ahead of Green Day doing the Simpsons theme. Green Day doing the Simpsons theme. That's where charting downloads gets us, people. Actually, I take that back, at least it isn't "Working Class Hero".

Plain White Ts were all over the radio in California, and now I get back just in time for the first rumblings of the same thing happening here with them at 26 well ahead of a physical release. Sort of pretty song, but does just make you wonder how Deat Cab For Cutie never managed to have a hit here. Meanwhile if anyone can explain what Take That's "Shine" is doing back in the charts at 29 I will be grateful. I'm half surprised not to see "Chasing Cars" there anywhere actually. And that's about it for singles, bar Yves Larock and Funeral For A Friend sneaking in at the very bottom of the forty.

Albums see Paul Potts still at the top and likely to be there for another week yet at least. Timbaland's steady rise takes him to 2, which is sort of a surprise - it's the type of album that usually tends to see strong steady sales, but nothing that high charting. Kings Of Leon at 4 is also a headscratcher, The Enemy see a fall from 2 to 9 and Garbage's Absolute Garbage at 11 turns out to be a greatest hits and not one of these crappy things.


Next week: Robyn! I don't even know what song, since I thought "With Every Heartbeat" and Music Week claims "Konichiwa Bitches", but still, Robyn!!

Paris Motel at Good Ship, Kilburn (26/07/07)

(Yeah, I finished the blog entry and got there in time for the support acts too)

First up, as featured today in one free paper's Glen Hansard-led feature on buskers, the unfortunately named Rod Thomas. Playing solo, he puts thoughts of Matchbox 20 to the back of our minds soon enough with some agreeable folk-pop, in Stephen Fretwell/Liam Frost style but constructed in the Final Fantasy style by recording bits of himself playing different instruments and looping them round and round. This has clear benefits in fleshing out his simple melodies, but eventually begins to feel a little constricting. Almost every song goes minimal keyboard melody-minimal electronic beat-handclaps-minimal strum before finally getting to the point, and there's not much freedom for them to breathe when tightly constrained by the lengths of loops. Ultimately, it feels like he's just not doing much with the cool technology that couldn't be replicated by even an average backing band.

Better by far still than Kaiko. Jetlag may have been lingering, and I don't usually go to gigs on my own, but the fact that there was absolutely nothing remarkable or interesting whatsoever about their trebly, vaguly post-punky indie proably still had something to do with my dozing off during their set.

No such risk with Paris Motel. The sinister fairytale crack and thud of "Mr. Splitfoot", magnified by proximity in cramped quarters, makes sure of that very quickly even before technical problems kick in and we're assaulted with feedback screeches. With Amy May tonight backed by 6 band members, including violin, clarinet and a new double bass player, the very crowded nature of the set up on the venue's tiny stage does have a large impact, both in a few such technical problems and that seeing the band here feels such a treat.

'We are the disasterous Paris Motel,' proclaims an elegant Amy May brightly as an introduction after those screeches, 'home to broken strings. And maybe broken bra straps too'. Gulp. A lot of eyes were surely following her as she regularly pulled up her strapless dress even before that point, though the band make for no shortage of other visuals. Their intense playing sometimes conjuring a bit of an Arcade Fire feel, especially apparent in the a capella group singing of "I Lost My Heart".

Later on there's sadly no "Static Song" but "071" is as sumptuous as on record and "Oh" even more bittersweet. A short set doesn't allow for too many new songs, but they are without exception great, especially "After Wanda" which winds its way through multiple dramatic turns with expertly handled ease. After which hearing a long delayed defintie release date for the album (September 26th) is music to the ears too.

no title

Hard-Fi's Stars Of CCTV definitely had one of the best album covers of recent years. A really striking image that (in the UK at least) was instantly recognisable but something that is so commonplace that you didn't normally give it any thought at all before presented in this different context. Which is probably the answer to why no-one thought of it earlier.

So how do they follow it up? Well, with something that's already got people writing dramatic articles about the death of the album cover:



Which is definitely a great idea, but it should have been even bolder - why bother with the band name or album title at all? They could always have gone for the better cop-out of putting them on a sticker. And the bright yellow colour, as part of what made the debut's cover so striking, has become representative of them to a certain extent as well. It seems like even when trying to remove image, they're just a little too brand-conscious to go the whole way.

Paris Motel - Static Song

One of the very best things about living in London is being able to look up a band's website for gigs at 5:30, see one, realise that it's today, and be able to go. And still have time to write the blog entry that you were looking it up for to boot.

So, I'll report back on Paris Motel live very soon, but for now this is about the 071 EP, especially one song on it, which is the best thing by a new band I've heard this year by far (lets not let the fact that it came out in 2005 and that the album is all new stuff get in the way here). It appeals to much the same bits of me that fell head-over-heels for Guillemots I guess - their eclecticism and tendency to drench songs in strings and do it well is pleasingly similar, though Amy May's songs assured, layered songs are not exactly cut from the same cloth.

"Static Song" is their (/her?) tender pop at its most romantic. It takes a simple recieved premise (that the infinite shifting disorder of an untuned TV screen is a bit like that of the universe) and retells it as a thing of fantastical wonder, slowly assembling its own glistening world along the way of xylophone and humming strings and May's enchanting voice. It's warm and thick with nostalgia but remains alive and urgent, like opening a dusty old book in front of a crackling fire and still being enthralled by the stories within.

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Chartsengrafs - Told you I'll be here forever

When I last did this near the start of June, "Umbrella" was number one. And, well, it still is. Its now in its tenth week on the top and is only the 6th song ever to have its run reach double figures. Now, it's a pretty great song and all, but that still says more about the slowdown of interest (and sales) in the singles chart than anything else. Kate Nash has been hanging around almost as long and goes back up to number two, it looks like her "Foundations", rather than anything newer, is going to block Rihanna from reaching an eleventh week. It still doesn't feel like a song by someone quite ready yet to be thrust into fame, but it'll do.
The Hoosiers go back up two to 8 and I realise that I still haven't heard "Worried About Ray". The video is what I expected (ie. annoyingly wacky) more so than the song, which sounds like a Britpop era band that I can't quite place covering "Happy Together". Enrique Iglesias is at 5 and I'm also wondering how I could have missed that his new single goes under the subtitle "The Ping Pong Song". Mark Ronson avec Lily Allen doing Kaiser Chiefs goes to 8. It's better than "Everybody's Changing" but not as good as "Nan, You're A Window Shopper". And people who say 'could care less' annoy the living shit out of me at 10.

Why does Amy Macdonald's Scottish accented voice make me think of Tim Booth? I'm confused. She's at 12, anyway, and not as bad as 'new Sandi Thom' tags suggest, even after reading the lyrics. Though that was still slightly ill-advised. Patrick Wolf's favourite Mika moves up to 14 with the much more than slightly ill-advised "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)", and Biffy Clyro follow at 18 with the latest product of their new exciting new Foo Fighters direction. No one's even seen High School Musical 2 yet, but they're still at 20.

Further down: Reverand & The Makers have been in the top forty for 11 weeks? R Kelly and Usher and Sunfreaks and Andrea Britton join them (that's two entries, not four) and The Thrills make a triumphant return at 40.

Over in the albums, The Enemy are removed from number one by Paul Potts, winner of Britain's Got Talent. Now, this is probably worth more than anything said band has ever done (although I like their album cover a lot actually) but that's no excuse to give the guy an album. It also makes me think that we're now at the end of July and still no sight of a follow up single for last year's X Factor winner Leona Lewis, someone who shouldn't really be a problem to market further. Cowell et al appear to have completely given up any pretense of being in it for building anyone's careers but their own.

Lisa Brown - What's That Sound?

I've been following Snowfight in the City Centre for nearly three years now, during much of which they've always seemed just on the brink of a much deserved breakthrough. So it's a real shame to find out that they've split up (in May, in fact - I haven't been following that closely obviously).

Here's their finest released moment to commemorate. Under their previous guise as Lisa Brown, it ties icy guitar blasts and heartfelt falsetto vocals to a 80s disco beat and silly backing vocals, with infectiously fun results that beat Delays' "Valentine" by a couple of months back at the end of 2005.

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Hello Saferide - San Francisco

I'm back! And sort of trying out a song a day format as it worked so well for Paraguay And Laos, although this will be much less strictly cotnrolled and lead to rambles about whole albums or other things as often as not. I should be making a couple of other changes too as you'll see soon.

This song followed me round on holiday, at least in my head. Every time I saw a sign of San Francisco this came into my head, not that suprisingly as it's from one of the albums that I've been listening to most for the past nine months or so and is a pretty fine song in its own right. The closing encore highlight the last time that I saw Ms. Norlin, it was given a massively energetic that rather suited it and the thrill of escape that it's all about.
Because there's nothing about San Francisco in it that you won't know without ever going there (Golden Gate? Alcatraz? Closest is 'the only place in North America not too destroyed by the government', which has got to be an ouch for Canada), since the from is always far more important than the to. San Francisco doesn't really have to be the destination, though it serves rather well, when the emphasis is always on escaping from the present surroundings to handclapping excitement.

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(my CD haul out in SF if anyone's interested:
Bargain bin:
Goldrush - Ozona
Goldrush - The Heart Is The Place
The Like - Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?
The Grates - Gravity Won't Get You High
The Beatles - Rubber Soul
Tori Amos - Under The Pink
Black Box Recorder - England Made Me
Kenickie - At The Club

Cinerama - Torino
Mae - The Everglow (a gift for someone)
The Lodger - Grown-Ups
Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
Rogue Wave - Descended Like Vultures
Puffy Amiyumi - Splurge
Polysics - Now Is The Time!
The Dresden Dolls - Live at the Roundhouse London DVD

I wish I could have spent more!)

Oops

I didn't actually mean for this to die when I started Paraguay And Laos.
But I will definitely be away for the next two weeks, with the proper excuse of being on holiday, and then after then have some non-Bluetones related ideas to work on alongside it. So, see you on July 23rd or so!

Finally

Tomorrow, I graduate! I'm looking forward to having the whole thing finished for good. Wearing a gown and stuff, not so much.

I'm not usually at all good at meeting new people so it was especially nice yesterday to talk to a friend of a friend of who I had lots to talk to about: he turns out to live two minutes away from me and to have had been to many of the same gigs in the last couple of years. Even nicer was that he recommended me a band called Paris Motel who are, judging by the songs on their myspace, fantastic. Beautiful, grandiose stuff and the album will hopefully be soon!

Also, since I've built up a few entries to make it worth a look now, it's time to link to my new blog project, Paraguay and Laos, in which I talk about every Bluetones song ever. 6 out of 111 in and I'm enjoying it a lot so far.

Field Day Festival

London's best gig promoters Eat Your Own Ears have really outdone themselves this time with the Field Day Festival:

1990'S
ABSENTEE
ADEM
ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT
BAT FOR LASHES
BATTLES
FRIDGE
GOODBOOKS
GRUFF RHYS
JAMES YORKSTON
LIARS
MYSTERY JETS
PULL TIGER TAIL
THE ALIENS
THE CONCRETES
THE EARLIES
VETIVER

All for the not unreasonable price of £22.50 a ticket. And if that isn't enough to get you down to Hackney in August, there's going to be Morris dancing too.

Chartsengrafs - It's raining more than ever

Right, now I've got this blog moving again, time to bring back the only regular feature that I 've yet kept up with any regularity. What have we missed? Well, back in 2004 before legal downloads were included to the charts, things hit a disasterous low in October when barely 20,000 sales were needed to reach the number one mark, and Manic Street Preachers came within spitting distance of making it there despite their song having no real reach beyond their fans at all. A few years on the positive effect of downloads seems to be dwindling a little and, yep, so close again. Plus album sales are dying too. Eek.



Sunday gone: No need to be downhearted for now though because "Umbrella" rules all for the fourth week running! Looking up the lyrics for my title here was an interesting one because I've not really paid much attention to them before and their tone really is rather at odds with the sound of the song. This is Rihanna's number one after a few near misses, and well deserved all round really. Number one album too, fending off an unlikely challenge from Biffy Clyro.
Second for a second week is Mutya Buena, doing the laid-back, famous sample soul thing to no great effect. Moving up to number 3 on full release is Calvin Harris, who likes them black girls and them asian girls and them big girls, albeit not enough to put them in the video.
When I did Gym Class Heroes for Jukebox ages ago I was rather disdaining, but somehow "Cupid's Chokehold" actually becomes less, rather than more annoying from more exposure. How do they do that? It's 4, anyway.
Amongst new entries and risers, Reverend & The Makers show just how haircut-indie-friendly the new charts are at 8, Enrique Iglesias manages to repel all those bad memories of his previous work and replace them with even worse ones at 12, The White Stripes continue making each lead single more barking mad at the last at 13, Bob Sinclar is 14, Unklejam 16, Kelly Rowland 18 and QOTSA 20.
The Chemical Brothers and Klaxons make early entries with "Do It Again" and "It's Not Over" at 25 and 28, at 32 The Zimmers make it to a second week striking a blow against agist music culture in a very similar fashion to Beth Ditto naked on the NME striking against size zero culture, and Ghosts are in at 25 for the benefit of people who didn't find out about Thriteen Senses' second album. Something called Cornell/Lisa Marie Experience is 37, apparently. And just to finish things off on a delightful note, WORST BAND EVER The Holloways edge in to the botton end with advance downloads for "Generator '07". Yes, that's a rerelease of their one before last single which was 30 in October.

Sunday coming:
At the moment, The White Stripes hold an unlikely lead on the singles front. So a fifth week for Rihanna, in other words. Enrique will move up to 3, Marillion just won't die and will probably make the top ten, with Maximo Park probably joining them. Koopa turn out not to be a bad dream that we all once had and are currently heading for a better place than Erasure and Kelly Clarkson's widely 'meh'ed new single.
In the albums, it's The Travelling Wilburys versus Bon Jovi! Welcome to June 2007, all.

Gig roundup - Travis, Pet Shop Boys

In the past two weeks I've been to two gigs at Hammersmith's reasonably large Apollo. Both were by bands with a dedicated following but their best days (in musical and success terms) some way behind them. One of them was kind of formative in my music taste, the other wasn't at all.

First up, Travis. In the wait before the inevitable encore, I jokingly guessed at what was to come: 'They're going to play three more songs, and not one of them will be "U16 Girls"'. It sort of made my evening that, on the second count, I was wrong. Fran Healy hammed up his implausible dirty old man role brilliantly and all laid into its increasingly incongruent strut with style and, gosh, had fun. It cemented what was clear throughout much of the gig, that ten years after they abandoned the dischordant rock of Good Feeling it's still when they sound most vital. Not just the songs from that album though (we were treated to another two earlier). It's thanks to unlikely guitar god Andy Dunlop is let loose that "Turn" and particularly "Writing To Reach You" reach through overfamiliarity. New songs, aside from the appallingly drippy "My Eyes", are loose enough to benefit similarly and prevent increasingly redundant lyrics from being a liablilty, which just leaves the empty stadium rock of "Sing" and "Side" as evidence of where things all went wrong. Hope that they'll learn too much from their live strengths isn't strong, but for the night, it was enough.

Travis, in a rather pleasing gesture to showmanship, began their show spotlighted, running through the crowd with the theme from Rocky playing. Pet Shop Boys beat this though, with some ingenious sleight of hand whereby Neil and Chris emerged from a neon lit frame, followed by... Neil and Chris. And Neil and Chris. One man in a fluorescent yellow anorak and baseball cap looks much like another from a distance, you see. This set the scene for definitely the best staged show I've ever seen, with fabulous projections and lighting and great work by the dancers throughout. The accusatory synth stabs of "Can You Forgive Her?" synched with angry flashes of white light, the thunder and lightning finale to "It's A Sin", the gold lamé cowboys dancing to a hilarious "Where The Streets Have No Name"... yeah, there were a lot of highlights.
And a very smartly chosen setlist, aside from packing in enough classic songs to make almost anyone jealous, was often tied into the staging. The icy blast of "Numb" giving way suddenly to the warm, red glow of "Se a vida é" was perfectly done, and it's a compliment that segueing M-I-N-I-M-A-L into S-H-O-PP-I-N-G seemed so obvious in retrospect.

Staging aside, the music was given a boost and a twist here and there to sound more bright and immediate than ever, and Neil Tennant was pitch perfect. A little too much if anything - a curiously limp "Rent" didn't really add anything to the record and was about the only moment to not quite come off. Almost all of the rest was fantastically celebratory in a way that only The Flaming Lips can nearly compare to out of any gigs that I have ever been to. During "Always On My Mind" the dancers popped up from behind giant cardboard cutouts of the boys' heads in a succession of silly hats to massive cheers, and it seemed the most logical thing ever, bursting way through irony and turning it into genuine feeling in much the same way as the song.

More YouTube awsomeness / Volta disappointment

Björk on Later last night, not just playing new songs but taking full advantage of the robed brass section to play "The Anchor Song"! Breathtaking stuff and probably my favourite song of hers ever.

An especially nice suprise as I find the new album Volta really rather disappointing. The fact that it's impossible to get to the CD without ruining the packaging wasn't a good start, but I still held hope. "Earth Intruders" is a really fine single, recalling earlier work more than innovating but with way too much relentless energy for that to matter.

Problem is, only the completely batshit electro-punk of "Declare Independence" is on the same level as "Earth Intruders". Of the other two Timbaland tracks, "Innocence" is much the same with diminishing returns and "Hope" is sort of interesting but somewhat muddled. Elsewhere, two songs have to be flat out discounted thanks to Antony Hegarty's unccessarily horrible bleating (ban on guest appearances NOW PLEASE). That leaves, well, not that much. "Wanderlust" and "Pneumonia" are pretty but coming from someone capable of the supernaturally gorgeous Vespertine, pretty doesn't seem so much.

I think the most disappointing thing is that it doesn't feel at all musically brave. Even though Medúlla only had a couple of flashes of genius it's individuality was impressive in itself and it did feel like it was stretched a little too far - if you only listened to it 100 times, it might all start to make sense! - while this one feels like just another Björk album. That's a first in itself, I suppose.

Anyway, back to watch the video again...

My gosh

The new version of Los Campesinos' "You! Me! Dancing!" is perfect. Possibly the single of last year except that it wasn't actually released as a single until now), it's been tightened up anywhere it needed to be tightened but more mostly left well alone and so sounds just as ridiculously gleeful as ever but with twice the punch. Yay!

Missed The Boat

It's no Shimura Curves on BBC Breakfast, but I was still a little taken aback to see a feature on Modest Mouse on Channel 4 news this evening. This was, of course, a somewhat belated reaction to Johnny Marr becoming a Brit at number one in the US album chart despite not being Rod Stewart.
Jon Snow's introduction, explaining how Marr had turned down a lucrative Smiths reunion to 'join obscure American band Modest Mouse and take them to the top' required either a mid-sentence jump across the Atlantic or an unusual reading of obscure to work, but the actual piece didn't go too badly. At least until they got to the name of the number one album being discussed. We Were Already Dead When The Ship Sank. Together with the total fluffiness of everything else, kind of makes you wonder why they bothered.

Quick update

Stylus does Eurovision 2007 - including some of my thoughts, though just on the performances as I didn't really get a chance to comment properly on the voting this year. Suffice to say that I wasn't too happy with how it went. Too many points for Serbia, Ukraine, UK and Ireland.

So then, non-music update

I spent yesterday at the MCM (Movie, Comic & Media) Expo at Edexcel. Much of the interest was nothing to do with anything on show but just looking at the other attendees:



and it was a nice enough day to sit outside and watch some swordfighting too:


This was one of five Links, I think, rivalled only by Sephiroth as the most popular. In common with other costumes some were much better than others, with the best ones showing an impressive level of dedication and attention to detail, but all were fun to see. The expo was not exactly my normal scene and a lot of the manga stuff especially passed completely over my head but it was still a lot of fun. And I got a T-shirt there too:



At home, rewatched the film Densha Otoko, as seemed appropriate. Still as sweet as ever and I can definitely relate a little to much of the story, if not quite to how the main character starts off. Fortunately.

Now with 5 x more "Slight Return"

xfm are dropping DJs entirely from 10am-4pm.

It seems a bit of an odd idea at first but on reading more it might actually make sense. When listenening to the radio outside of Xposure hours I've been listening to Virgin Xtreme (when not Radios 1 or 6) instead for a while and the fact that they have no DJ has never proven a problem. As far as slipping into the background goes, it actually helps, which may will be the reasoning behind the move (and most of music television?) Even though it would help if they sorted out the digital track display, it's already easy enough to look anything up online. The playlist remains by far the larger factor in why I choose as I do though. DJs as a prescence on music shows are sort of an inessential anyway - as many fond memories as I have of the Mark and Lard parts of their show on Radio 1 towards the end of their tenure, it was still the fact that they would play Belle And Sebastian or Elbow instead of Dido for another hour that was more important to making it the best show in the daytime schedule. That was down to them too, of course, but giving one person the duty of personally picking the music without having to do anything else actually sounds sort of good to me.

That isn't what xfm are doing, though, instead 'asking listeners to choose the non-stop tunes' (where non-stop means 'apart from for adverts'). I hope I'm not tempting fate by wondering how long til they call it Radio 2.0. But anyway, just how much freedom they're giving will be crucial. The ok request shows they run at the moment suggest that this will ideally be enough to prevent the drudgery of The Twang and The Fratellis and The View and The Enemy day in, day out, but not so much that they're replaced by "I Am The Resurrection" every half hour instead.

Hi

There are a lot of reasons why Delete As Appropriate has basically been dead this year.

A preceding year of reading so much of the amazing music writing out there and trying to keep up, increasingly feeling that it was a hopeless cause. Needing some time out to sort out some issues with myself, generally quite linked to the same sense of worthlessness. Getting back into video gaming for the first time since 1999, coincedentally (?) just before my music fandom really took over. Simply not getting as much time to listen to music as I'd like, even before that. A final year of my degree which turned out, through my own fault in part, to be the least fulfilling by far and sap my will to do anything constructive. Well, that is now over (I get my results tomorrow so wish me luck if you've happened to stumble across this) and things are definitely looking up for the future.

There is something else though - a creeping lack of excitement about almost any new music that's been nagging at me for a while. I wondered at moments if it was burnout from writing too much last year but, looking back, it was already setting in then. I think it's more to do with listening to the same music for 7 years now, or at least listening for the same things, and reaching for something new without really knowing where to look.
There are exceptions, of course. And they actually include some of the most obvious things that I'd expect to have been excited about - Patrick Wolf, Arctic Monkeys - as well as the not so much.
There's still hope then, but you might be thinking nonetheless that this doesn't sound like a very promising start for a return to music blogging. Well, it doesn't, and for the moment this is not going to be a music blog in the same sense as before as I talk about whatever else I want or need to as well. Don't worry, it's not going to turn into livejournal (there's a reason why I've never been able to keep one of those going long) and this post might stay as personal as it gets, but just a warning to anyone still out there. I really don't want to lose writing about music as an outlet though, and have really begun to miss it. Plus, you know, it would be nice not to waste all of the progress that I made last year in actually getting better at it. So I'm determined to find a way back in, and this, as well as another ideas that you might see more of soon, will be it.

Thanks for reading.

Chartsengrafs - Tomorrow is cancelled

Sunday gone: Kaiser Chiefs' physical release is enough to give them the first ever number one
by an alumni of Drowned In Sound records. Jeniferever unlikely to follow. The Kaisers' 38,000 sales are enough to put them comfortably but not enormously ahead of Mika, finally gone after five weeks at the top, and a second week for "Ruby" is unlikely.
Kelis and Cee-Lo jump to 3 with their CDs out, but Sophie Ellis-Bextor's are only enough to make 8. Take That are number 10, just like last week, but this time it's with "Shine", and The Fray continue their inexorable rise at 5. Not known if this was helped by their Radio 1 appearance, during which they played a cover of "Hips Don't Lie" that set amazing new standards in DEAR LORD HOW LONG DOES THIS GO ON FOR??. Actually, that might explain why Shakira's original is at 74!
Akon both falls to a place to 4 (the one with Snoop) and climbs a place to 7 (the one with Gwen).
To make things a bit less confusing, the Take That, Gwen Stefani and The Fray records are the ones that actually got released yesterday and will be sure a boost next time around.
As will The Gossip's "Standing In The Way Of Control", already an impressive 13, although there are some rules issues to be worked through there: they already released it as recently as the end of October on as many physical formats as are allowed, and some of those are still selling.
Beyonce's "Listen" jumps back from outside the top forty to 16; Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" makes a further leap up to 18 post-Brits with her album similarly returning to 1 an album chart otherwise lifeless bar The Fray entering at 4. And Explosions In The Sky at 58! Junior Jack's climber "Dare Me (Stupiddisco)" rounds out the top twenty, possibly thanks to being mistaken for Just Jack.
In download action Lily Allen moves to 23, Fergie to 27 and The Killers to 29. No such chance of advancing for The Magic Numbers (36) and Mumm-Ra (40). Fair enough in the latter case when Pull Tiger Tail are doing the same thing better, really. Not making the top forty
And in our now regular closing puzzle, The Fratellis' "Chelsea Dagger" is 34 this week, up another five places.

Sunday coming: Kaiser Chiefs will be number one in albums, but you already knew that, right? In singles, they're probably going to be deposed by Take That, just sparing us "How To Save A Life" at number one. Gwen/Akon should be top 5, The Gossip and Justin Timberlake a little further down. And we have out first actual big new download rules entry (no, Koopa don't count) as an anti-war song promoted at the weekend's demonstrations heads for the top 10. Ooh.
Further down in the top forty:
Cascada!
Cussh!
Pigeon Detectives!
The Horrors!
Idlewild! (which is, us, a surprise actually)
The Maccabees!
and CSS!

7 Days - The grammar of one finger

Patrick Wolf - "The Marriage"
Thanks to the awful quality of the leak I have I haven't been listening to the album much yet (that can wait til tomorrow!), instead falling in love with this bonus track from its iTunes release. Which is all about Patrick being in love too, as demonstrated through popping electronic noises and one of his warmest and sweetest vocals ever. Its entertaningly gauche lyrics are soon to be an essential reference for every messageboard 'Is Patrick gay??' debate ever, too.

Kepler - "Lighthouse"
This came from Ian, and a quick google reveals (aside from the astronomer) that they've broken up. It's a shame, because this is gorgeous. Running on only a slowly cycling guitar riff and the merest smears of strings, it concentrates everything on the singer, not that he needs more than similarly minimal input. There's a real tension present throughout, because it feels on the edge of launching into some kind of catharsis but never actually does. The atmosphere of overhanging doom that is created so effectively is a perfect fit to the lyrics, too - when it finishes on 'every day, my execution is stayed' the hint of futile relief present is heartbreaking.

Art Of Fighting - "Free You"
Continuing the slow and the sad, the new single by a band that I've previously talked about at length. This isn't as monumental as "Heart Translation" but is rather lovely nonetheless.
Thanks to Sheila for the tip-off on this one, available for free from Aussie radio station Triple J.

Goose - "Black Gloves"
I got their album because they impressed me so much at Eurosonic, and it's living up to expectation so far. This instrumental first track is actually the pick of the bunch, cramming all that they do best into two minutes: sleek bass, squelchy keyboards and a fast build into a brutally effective dancefloor monster.
{A different song on YouTube}

MIA - "Zirkus"
First, no, not that M.I.A.. No dots, see. Anyway, this is your Jukebox referral of the week. I totally said 'sinister undertones' too! But there's obviously no point in having it twice. Together with "Tanz Der Molecule", good enough that I have ordered the album of the same name from amazon.de. At least, I hope I have. I only studied German for two years and it was a while ago.

The Kissaway Trail - "Eloquence And Elixir"
If you were just a bit disappointed when Mew decided to coat their dreamy pop in lots and lots of prog then it's time to rejoice, because The Kissaway Trail do yearning and twinkling and grand at least as well as they did! They're Danish too, of course.
{A different song on YouTube}

I Was A Cub Scout - "I Hate Nightclubs"
Carries on exactly where their really promising electro-angst debut left off, really, bar the addition of just a smattering of guitar fuzz taking them further away from The Postal Service. That made it initially slightly underwhelming, but there are still few new bands making music so addictive.

Chartsengrafs - Am I too dirty?

Sunday gone: Let's start off with the campaign of the week to right invented wrongs and turn over the charts: "Roll With it" fails to even make the top 200, though the website hasn't changed yet to reflect this. Morrissey fans at least acknowledge their crushing failure.
Both would perhaps have been wise to choose weeks without sales being inflated by the Brit Awards, not that it would have helped that much. The effect isn't enough to change the very top of singles (or albums), where Mika still rules all, but it does send "Patience" 22-10 (putting it just ahead of Take That's follow-up!), "Chasing Cars" 23-12, "Rehab" 49-22 and "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" 39-33.
"When You Were Young", "Put Your Records On" and "Dani California" obviously weren't so well received, only the first even making the top seventy-five. Meanwhile RHCP's new piece of crap "Desecration Smile" does only a little better at 27, sitting alongside the similarly fully released Snow Patrol's "Open Your Eyes" (26) and The Feeling's "Rose" (38) in the 'maybe we should stop bleeding this album dry now' stakes.
Higher up Kaiser Chiefs are still 2, Akon moves to 3, The Gossip move top twenty and Omarion enters at 19. Never Forget.
I guess their Best British Breakthrough Artist award might be responsible for The Fratellis' "Chelsea Dagger" re-entering at 39, but there must be greater unholy forces at work to explain why that and their follow-up single have both been hanging around the edges of the top forty for weeks now. Also back from the undead: Razorlight's "America" at 34. More heartening news is that Towers Of London's "I'm A Rat", despite the best efforts of the press to turn a few days' worth of reality TV exposure into a career, stalls at 46. That's one place better than Blink 182 leftovers +44, and, brilliantly, two worse than Ch!pz. Remember the Pop! that didn't feature Hugh Grant? No? Well, that would be where they've gone wrong. It may be worth clicking that YouTube link just for the tags and description. Finally, anyone wondering about why Spice Girls Reunion rumours are taking hold now should note the position of Emma Bunton's new single, peaking at 60. 60!

Sunday coming: Kaiser Chiefs should manage number one in the singles. Amy Winehouse will be back on top in the albums. Also going up: The Fray, Kelis/Cee-Lo, Beyonce, Junior Jack and 27 year old former Spiller singer ((c) Metro) Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

7 Days - It's my party

New thing works like this: end each week with the seven songs that have most caught my ear during it.

2Raumwohnung - "Nimm Mich Mit"
Yummy German electropop with a gentle exterior eventually giving way to heartache - had me intrigued to hear more straight away and the more has delivered too! Their new single is on the Jukebox too. No-one else liked it as much :(

Snow Patrol - "One Night Is Not Enough"
Reviews of modern day Snow Patrol getting on my nerves? Obviously the perfect time to listen to the Snow Patrol of old before it was all big lovelorn anthems. Except that, hmm, this is in fact their biggest lovelorn anthem of all. There's a bit of extra bite to the guitar crunching in the chorus, and the chorus itself has a bit much venom, but really this is close to "Run" as makes no difference, right up to the spiralling guitar climax. That's no bad thing.

Los Campesinos! - "We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives"
Having long since fallen in love with their debut sort-of-single "You! Me! Dancing!", this was the week that this one started to make just as much sense. Sounding this fresh in the world of scrappy, dancey indie is no easy achievement, but they do it by being more fun than everyone else by a distance. The noisy false ending and listing of Halloween costumes is quite the winning combination. Also notable because of the weird coincedence of sharing an amusing lyrical reference with the title track to fellow hopefuls Lucky Soul's The Great Unwanted. They almost use it in the same way, in fact, with Lucky Soul having 'It's your party, you can die if you want to, die if you want to' to their 'It's your party but I'll die if I want to, die if I want to'. What are the chances?

Fall Out Boy - "Hum Hallelujah"
I just love that kind of thing in general actually, which is why my favourite song so far on the very surprisingly good Fall Out Boy album is the one with hook provided by Leonard Cohen via Jeff Buckley (via Shrek?).

Klaxons - "Totem On The Timeline"
The album is perhaps a little slim and the hype of course silly, but in a climate where imagination in mainstream guitar bands seems something to be frowned on, songs as energetically ridiculous as this ("In club 1830 I met Julius Ceasar...") are refreshing as well as exciting.

Grinderman - "No Pussy Blues"
Another Jukebox contender (except this time everyone else liked it even more). This is the first time I can remember that Nick Cave has not just sounded like someone to be admired and respected from a distance, but actually demanded attention NOW.

Bat For Lashes - "Moon & Moon"
See here.

Brit Awards 2007

I only made it back halfway through, hence no live coverage and the fact that I can't speak with much authority on the whole thing. But it was a bit of a weird one. As long as you realised that Cat Power, Bob Dylan and even Guillemots never had any chance at all, the set of winners was an unusually pleasing one that even had some minor surprises. Lily Allen going home empty handed could be predicted, but Snow Patrol too? Even The Fratellis winning Best Breakthrough can be seen as a lesser of two evils situation while The Kooks still exist.
But on the other hand, the ceremony itself was deadly dull. Russell Brand tried his best, and his Gallagher baiting was quite amusing, but nothing interesting happened, no one had anything interesting to say and the live performances I saw were all totally lacking in spark. The only consequence of being live for the first time in years was that the sound got annoyingly muffled every few minutes - ITV claimed afterwards that this was to cover swearing, but it didn't sound like it.
Now, getting rid of the duet performances of the past at least prevents something like Melua/Cullum's "The Lovecats" ever happening again, but uninspired runs through all the songs that everyone's already heard too many times doesn't seem a great alternative. And as the big finale Oasis sounded like shit even outside of the numerous underwater sections and didn't even play any big hits til after the TV cameras had left them.
So what was worth watching? Nelly Furtado at least seemed very excited as ever to win and got all but shoved off stage as a result, but the only real highlight was Arctic Monkeys continuing to adapt to success in their own unique way in their video acceptance speeches for their two awards. 'We're too busy rehearsing', sour expressions offset by appearance: