Far cry from the days when I would have to tape the Brit Awards because they were buried at 1 a.m....
Adorable gay icon Mika with Beth Ditto of the Gossip. She's a sex symbol in England, where the band is hugely popular.
Kylie still looks fierce, does Madonna better than Madonna. And she's battled breast cancer.
Marginally better than Rihanna's "duet" with Fall Out Boy at the MTV Video Music Awards last year, but still a little weak. Her voice just...wavers. It's a bit pitchy. The Klaxons sound great, though. And their "ella..ella...ella" vocals are super-cute.
Kaiser Chiefs, "Ruby." Not the greatest performance, but the Brits stage set-ups -- here a skyline of fake buildings springs up around the band -- trump ANYTHING U.S. awards shows do.
Tickets for Radiohead's May 14 St. Louis date at Riverportthe UMB Bank Pavilion Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre went on sale this morning. Who bought tickets? I know a fewpeoplegoingalready. Who else?
Relatedly: So, these shows in Maryland Heights are ripe for tailgating. What do you suppose a Radiohead tailgate entails? Sipping on wine and discussing Russian literature? I'm curious.
So, as anyone who's seen High Fidelity knows, offering to make a mix for someone is the ultimate romantic gesture -- if you're a certain type of music geek, that is. For the lovelorn or pining-after, placing a certain song at a certain juncture on a CD (or tape, or MP3 playlist, whatever) signifies hidden meanings and/or secret messages -- in hopes that your beloved (or crush) would magically hear and understand your deep feelings of looooove.
I don't have anyone to make a mix for this year (Gentlemen? Any takers?), but I did find this mix I made last year, for a DJ night. I have no idea why track 14 is on there, but the rest are pretty self-explanatory. And yes, I know some aren't romantic or love songs -- they're melancholy, "oh woe is me, love is gone and/or nonexistent!" songs. But I almost love those types of songs more. (What can I say? I grew up on the Smiths.)
What's your love/lust/lonely mix? Post in the comments.
1. Flock of Seagulls, "Space Age Love Song"
2. The Waterboys, "Fisherman's Blues"
3. Wilco featuring Billy Bragg, "California Stars"
4. R.E.M., "Near Wild Heaven"
5. Semisonic, "Singing In My Sleep"
6. Sloan, "Waterfalls" (Wings cover)
7. Matthew Sweet, "I've Been Waiting"
8. The Pipettes, "Your Kisses are Wasted on Me"
9. Jane Wiedlin, "Rush Hour"
10. Cyndi Lauper, "I Drove All Night"
11. Catherine Wheel, "I Want to Touch You"
12. The dB's, "Never Before and Never Again"
13. Keane, "Bend and Break"
14. The Knife, "Marble House"
Random excellent band of the day: The Whip, who hails from Manchester, England.
As expected, the co-ed band takes cues from New Order on the upcoming full-length, X Marks Destination -- especially in its turquoise-hued keyboard/throbbing bass interplay. But its songs contain more than a little hint of the Faint's squelchy goth-disco, Simian Mobile Disco's bubbly techno and tons of Gary Numan-style lost-in-space analog synths, while the vocals often resemble Spoon's Britt Daniel, especially on single "Sister Siam." Most important, the band makes sure to focus on songwriting on Destination, meaning that the Nintendo-electro and retro nods aren't kitschy, but complementary to solid pop hooks.
The video for this song is retro-fabulous, spoofing on Star Trek and cheesy '80s sci-fi special effects. It's also irresistible watching the band jam out to its own song.
The Whip, "Sister Siam":
File under: Danceable electro-pop beamed in from another planet, glowsticks in hand and ready to rave. The Whip is playing at SXSW, which should be good times all around.
On February 5, Hot Chip is releasing its third record, Made in the Dark. By far its finest work yet, the album manages to be danceable while appealing to those who don’t like dance music – mainly because of its nods to post-punk, British power-pop, cheesy top 40, old-school funk, new-school R&B, minimal techno, rave-y electro and more.
Hot Chip recorded Dark in various locations in its home base of London. The quintet self-produced/recorded tracks in guitarist/ percussionist Al Doyle and percussionist Felix Martin’s studio, holed up in vocalist/percussionist Joe Goddard’s bedroom (where it constructed much of 2006’s The Warning) -- and even entered a real studio with professional engineers, something it had never done before.
Vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist Alexis Taylor says the aim of this nomadic process was “not to let [Dark] sound like it’s all of one mood or of one acoustic space." Mission accomplished: The album works as a Friday-night warm-up, as fodder for a rock-music DJ and as something for funk/hip-hop DJs to slip into their sets.
Many of Dark's songs were already debuted at live shows -- which helped the recording process evolve.
"We wanted to make this album sound closer to our live sound," Taylor says. "[Usually] we write at the recording stage. With this album, we wanted to go against that, do something that would be unconventional for us – that actually is probably more conventional for most bands.”
Dark is unconventional for dance music, but distinctly Hot Chip, because it’s entirely thoughtful, from the carefully stitched-together music down to the emotional vocals.
Annie Zaleski:When you read about people who make music with keyboards and stuff, they don’t tend to use that word -- thoughtfulness. Alexis Taylor: Why would anyone want to make something that didn’t work for a long time – or maybe could be played in a very different context? Recently, we played a show in London, and two members of the band [Joe and Felix] weren’t around. We decided to play the show, and it wasn’t really about dancing at all. I was just speaking to someone last night who happened to be at that gig, and she was saying how she was really quite amazed by it. She was expecting one thing but got a completely different thing. I suppose that’s someone saying that the songs still stand up, even if they’re performed only with a keyboard or an electric guitar -- rather than a full band trying to make people throw their hands in the air or whatever.
As an artist, I bet it’s so gratifying. It’s like, “Oh right, totally. They get it!”
I’m not for a minute saying everyone gets it, but if people can see these different sides to us and appreciate that, then that’s the best thing really. If you’re trying to make music, you’d like people to be open-minded, and you’d like to be able to do very different things. If you’ve got anything of your own to say, it’s not like it could be a very narrow scope. That’s just how I feel anyway. I like to be able to make minimal, experimental music, and also make pop music, and also make music that’s hip-hop influenced and also make heavy-metal-influenced music. All different sounds are interesting to me. If you can get to the point where people still are interested in it – and they’re not just turning away as soon as you change your sound – it’s great.
The Batman-influenced video for Hot Chip, "Ready for the Floor":
Taylor says he was listening to a diverse selection of artists while making Dark – including Willie Nelson, Donnie Hathaway, Terry Riley and even R. Kelly. (The slow jam “Wrestlers” is a hilarious – and successful -- attempt at aping Kelly’s “I’m a Flirt.”)
How did these things influence your writing at all?
That’s just me talking about the things that come to mind for me; I’m sure for the others in the band, they were listening to completely different things. Joe is a big U.K. garage fan, and also [likes] house and techno music. We’re all interested in different polyrhythms and things and trying to set songs in an interesting context – not necessarily just leave them as they are when they’re first written. Sometimes a song is simpler in its original form, but we sort of take it and put it in a new context. I’ve listened to quite a lot of Black Sabbath over the last few years as well. Funkadelic -- the first Funkadelic album, I was going back to and listening a lot. I don’t think we were listening to these things and then consciously thinking about them. They’re just sort of in the background, you know? Listening to music for pleasure…
How did all the remixing influence the songwriting? Has it at all?
The remixing hasn’t directly influenced the songwriting, in my mind. But what has influenced it has been DJing. All of us put together this compilation album, DJ-Kicks [last year]. We did a lot of DJing around the release of that. Al and Felix found a particular area of dance music that they wanted to DJ, German minimal house and techno music, on the Traum label and Kompakt, things like that. There’s a lot of influence from those labels and that Cologne-based music scene coming into the rhythms on this record. Things like the track “Hold On” started out as a minimal-techno thing, but I guess by me singing over it, it kind of takes it into a slightly different place. And also, Joe was trying to make more of a disco groove, it’s kind of a battle between being disco and minimal house, and being a song with live distorted Fender Rhodes all over it as well. The DJing will have brought a minimal techno feel to the record in a way that we haven’t really explored before.
When people listen to the record, what do you want them to take from it?
I’d like them to be enthralled by it, and be confused by it, and disoriented by it, and be able to listen to what’s happening in the lyrics -- as well as how those are going against the music sometimes. I want people to find all the depth in it that we hope they’ll find in it, you know? I want them to have fun listening to it, but also there’s a lot to be found in the record, I think.
Remember when I posted earlier this week about new Futureheads music? Well, the UK group posted a full-length version of a new song, "The Beginning of the Twist," and it's EXCELLENT. Very reminiscent of the Clash, ca. "London Calling" and before, if you're into that era. All of the band's new songs sound a lot rawer and less calculated than the ones on the last album. Add 'em on MySpace and enjoy the song there.
-- Annie Zaleski
P.S. R.E.M. also posted a thirty-second snippet of first single "Supernatural Serious" on its homepage -- the song that was known as "Disguised" on last year's bootlegs -- and it's pretty jangly. But I figured everyone is tired of me talking about the band, so. Ahem.
Pete Doherty -- the UK's oft-arrested, drug-taking, sometimes-musician paparazzi magnet -- appears to have a YouTube account. Click here to see the Libertines and Babyshambles member's supposed profile. The videos are mainly of two (very, VERY) cute cats -- named Little Potatoes and Boadicea, apparently -- playing, with a few grainy performance videos and such thrown in.
As expected, though, weirdness/uncomfortable moments abound, including footage of what looks like a Vh1 special, with Rolling Stone writer Jenny Eliscu perhaps talking about Babyshambles. The "favorited" videos are more alarming: Among clips by the Smiths, the La's and Saint Etienne is a four-minute clip titled "Smoking Crack in Hell's Kitchen" and one called "Illegal drugs and how they got that way," from the History Channel. Yikes.
Hmm. My pal Kevin over at the LA Times has the complete Coachella 2008 lineup up on his Buzz Bands blog. The festival takes place April 25-27 in Indio, California. Here are links/highlights:
Friday:
Headliners are Jack Johnson, the Verve and the Raconteurs. Also of note: The Breeders, Madness, the National, Aesop Rock, Diplo, Minus the Bear, Dan Deacon, Cut Copy, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Battles, Rogue Wave. Entire list here.
Saturday:
Headliners are Portishead, Kraftwerk and Death Cab for Cutie. Others of note playing include Rilo Kiley, Hot Chip, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, Mark Ronson, M.I.A., St. Vincent, Carbon/Silicon, MGMT, Dwight Yoakam, New Young Pony Club and 120 days. Entire line-up here.
Sunday:
Headliners are Roger Waters, Love and Rockets and My Morning Jacket. Also of note are Spiritualized, Justice, Chromeo, Gogol Bordello, the Streets, Metric, Simian Mobile Disco, Dmitri from Paris, Holy Fuck, Black Mountain, Man Man, I'm From Barcelona, the Horrors, Sons & Daughters, Les Savy Fav. Full line-up here.
So apparently one needs to bring a bong, find an ecstasy dealer and bring a pair of comfy dancing shoes this year. Nothing there's going to make me head to the desert, but I'm curious as to the reaction to Love and Rockets (guh?), Roger Waters (double guh?), Kraftwerk, Portishead and the Verve.
While searching for cool X videos, I stumbled upon a YouTube user who had bootlegged a ton of shows in Minneapolis in the early 1980s. We're talking Super-8 footage of the Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Boomtown Rats, Husker Du (ca. 1980!), the Police, etc.
The following Gary Numan footage from 1980 particularly delighted me for a variety of reasons: his dancing, the elaborate lights and the fleet of synths. Viewing the grainy footage today really makes Numan (and this performance in particular) seem beamed in from outer space.
MP3: Lily Allen, "LDN"
Pint-sized Brit Lily Allen is my hero since she rocks sneakers as formalwear. Moreover, from the old-timey horns that start the song, to the breezy tempo -- incorporating hints of reggae and hip-hop -- "LDN" feels like a brilliant summer's day. Also has my favorite lines of the year: "There was a little old lady, who was walkin down the road / She was struggling with bags from Tesco / There were people from the city havin lunch in the park / I believe that it's called al fresco."
MP3: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "Berlin" Baby 81 was a welcome return to form for the garage sleaze-gazers, after the acoustic-leaning, shaky Howl. Big, loud, grungy guitars; pop hooks; and dive-bar sass abounded. Like "Berlin," whose call-to-arms chorus -- "Suicide squeeze, yeah, what happened to the revolution?" -- and cool-as-ice attitude smoked.
Courtesy of theage.com.au
Alright, still!
MP3: Bloc Party, "I Still Remember"
MP3: Bloc Party, "Secrets"
Bloc Party's A Weekend in the City wasn't as big a disappointment as it felt on first listen. Ballad "I Still Remember" is a perfect dreamy Britpop single, while B-Side "Secrets" is an intense, danceable, Smiths-punk gem.
MP3: The Cinematics, "Sunday Sun"
This Beck cover by these Scots has the majesty of Echo & the Bunnymen and the sweeping rock touches of Coldplay. Without the wussiness of the latter, and the dark shadows of the former.
A to Z patron saint Morrissey is currently embroiled in a defamation lawsuit against the NME over the weekly's recent cover story about him. In short, the story basically insinuates that the English crooner holds racist views, due to comments he made about immigration and the current state of England. (For a good background on what happened, check out this link.)
This harkens back to the early 1990s, when the NME also questioned whether he was a racist, thanks to his sporting of a Union Jack flag onstage -- the connotation being that Moz was standing up for/desiring an unadulterated England -- and imagery/lyrics on 1991's Your Arsenal (specifically "The National Front Disco"). Thanks to that blog link above, here's a link to that story.
The current saga is as complex and convoluted as a soap opera by this point. In a nutshell, it's turned into a he-said/he-said battle between the NME (and, as a corollary, its editor Conor McNicholas and writer of the story, Tim Jonze) and Morrissey's camp (mainly represented by Merck Mercuriadis, his manager).
The site true-to-you.net has been covering this extensively, with emails, letters, blog entries and other documents associated with the case; that's the best place to get further details.
From a journalistic standpoint, it's an interesting story; the main contention is how Morrissey's words were used in print -- more specifically, how they were potentially twisted and taken out of context. Questions asked apparently were changed or rephrased so they seemed more inflammatory when placed in a Q&A; other elements of what Moz said were ostensibly removed, as they didn't fit the picture the story was trying to paint.
This is something every writer struggles with: how to construct a narrative that's true to the interviewee's intent, without misrepresenting or misunderstanding said intent. A journalist is essentially acting as a sort of historian or documentarian, and can essentially create his or her own version of the truth -- or reality -- depending on what words and aspects of conversation he or she chooses to include in an article. Talk about pressure -- and power that's easily abused or misused, if not wielded carefully and with discretion.
Even more bizarre, the writer of the story, Tim Jonze, asked to have his byline taken off the piece (which means that the story credits read: "Interview -- Tim Jonze; Words -- NME") and then wrote his own blog post clearing up why: "The piece was very critical and NME decided to tone it down, something I didn't agree with. They showed me several rewritten versions, some of which were very soft on Morrissey, one that was quite critical. None had any of my points or arguments in them and none of them were written in my voice."
The comments in Jonze's blog post raise interesting points about how Morrissey's quotes were interpreted; namely, confusing Morrissey's discussion about immigration and the changing nature of England -- how it's becoming much more multi-cultural -- with a discussion about race. The two concepts aren't interchangeable; but judging from conversation among readers, some felt they were interpreted as such by either Jonze or the NME.
And so today, all of this culminated with Morrissey responding to the charges, with a blog post in the Guardian. The piece is 1800 words long and quite thorough; but here's my favorite part.
If Conor [McNicholas] can provoke bureaucratic outrage with this Morrissey interview, then he can whip up support for his righteous position as the morally-bound and armoured editor of his protected readership - even though, by remodelling my interview into a multiple horror, Conor has accidentally exposed himself as deceitful, malicious, intolerant and Morrissey-ist - all the ists and isms that he claims to oppose. Uniquely deprived of wisdom, Conor would be repulsed by my vast collection of world cinema films, by my adoration of James Baldwin, my love of Middle Eastern tunings, Kazem al-Saher, Lior Ashkenazi, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and he would be repulsed to recall a quote as printed in his magazine in or around August of this year wherein I said that my ambition was to play concerts in Iran.
My heart sank as Tim Jonze let slip the tell-all editorial directive behind this interview: "it's Conor's view that Morrissey thinks black people are OK ... but he wouldn't want one living next door to him." It was then that I realized the full extent of the setup, and I felt like Bob Hoskins in the final frame of The Long Good Friday as he sits in the back of the wrong getaway car realizing the extent of the conspiratorial slime that now trapped him.
During the interview Tim asked if I would support the Love Music Hate Racism campaign that the NME had just written about and my immediate response was a yes. I had shown my support previously by going to one of their first benefit gigs a few years ago and had met some of their organizers as well - as having signed their statement. Following the interview I asked my manager to get in touch with the NME and to pledge my further support to the campaign as I wanted there to be no ambiguity on where I stood on the subject. This was done in a clear and direct email to Conor McNicholas on the 5th of November which went ignored and last week we found out that it had never even been presented to anyone at the campaign as that would obviously not have suited what we now know to be the NME's agenda. I am pleased to say that we have now had direct dialogue with Love Music Hate Racism and all of our UK tour advertising in 2008 will carry their logo. We will also be providing space in the venues for them to voice and spread their important message, which I endorse.
I believe that's one giant zing. Wow.
In happier news, Morrissey is working on a new solo album that's due out sometime next year. Here are a few classics to tide you over -- including a Smiths song about hero worship/fallen idols/icky record company dealings.
