ANIMAL COLLECTIVE

as ‘Hyperfuzz’ put it on mess&noise;

“anyone who came to meredith to lose their shit to ‘my girls’ got a bit of a shock when animal collective wound up… they didn’t play it. kuro was right in saying that it was like one big techno build-up with no payoff for the pillpoppers to explode to. brothersport almost got there, but their set was an hour of reverb wash. i enjoyed it…”

I thought it just simmered and brewed along quite nicely..
Felt like the threat of ‘My Girls’ was hanging for the whole show, so everyone got caught out not really knowing their back-catalogue, but the visuals & the laaayers & laaayers of synths were just out of this world.. i think it was a bit disrespectful to a nice crowd not playing their big hit, but kinda respect them for leaving ‘My Girls’ for the ‘faithful’ who went to the Forum show.

Obviously free of pen & paper, camera, phone & concentration* by this time, I’ve got no idea what set they played; but I’m going by this guy =)

‘What Would I Want Sky’

‘Guys Eyes’

‘Summertime Clothes’

‘Who Could Win A Rabbit’

‘Fireworks’

‘Daily Routine’

‘Brothersport’

and for the sake of it, three it would’ve been great to have them play, & would probably have had the crowd raving about them for weeks

‘Bluish’

‘In The Flowers’

‘My Girls’

‘Angela’

‘Further Complications’

‘Fat Children’

‘Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time’

‘(Cunts Are Still) Running the World’

[live at Rock en Seine 2007]

Felt Jarvis enjoying the crowd & the occasion at Meredith, the riffs were real crisp & it was serious serious showmanship onstage and pure revelry on the ground.

‘Which Way To Go’

‘Get Up Morning’

‘Insufficient Funds’

‘Precious Rose’

In prime position Saturday night, straight after Jarvis, this was for Brandon &Ring to step. BOY THEY DID!!;

Common phrase by way of popular acclaim:

“Lorded it over Meredith” on Saturday night.

This is about an amazing thing that happened to 12,000 people in a field in country Victoria.  It happens every year, TWICE, and is as good a reason as any (say, none better) in looking forward to the Melbourne summer!

The following posts spell to myself a retrospective of the artists..

its all about about the music.  but this crowd, in this setup,
i challenge,  is far and away the best!!

The morning of Parklife i woke up to:

EELS -

‘The Look You Give That Guy’

Must surely be the breeziest riff on the radio at the current.
(video feat. Padma Lakshmi)

 
The album is:

‘Hombre Lobo’:

 4 of the “12 songs of desire” are out now,

‘Fresh Blood’

‘Prizefighter’

‘In My Dreams’

in the spirit
(maybe finally),
of

PARKLIFE 2009

CRYSTAL CASTLES 

‘Reckless’

‘Vanished’

‘Crimewave’ (vs. HEALTH)

’1991′

‘Untrust Us’ (feat. DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979)

‘Courtship Dating’

in the spirit of

PARKLIFE

next saturday

MSTRKRFT

‘Heartbreaker’ (feat. John Legend)

METRIC – ‘Monster Hospital’ (remix)

JUSTICE – ‘D.A.N.C.E.’ (remix)

‘Vuvuvu’

‘Bounce’

‘Street Justice’

‘Work On You’

more in the spirit of

PARKLIFE

this saturday

make way for the SOV!

LADY SOVEREIGN

‘Random’

’9 to 5′ (feat. The Ordinary Boys)

‘Love Me Or Hate Me’ (feat. Missy Elliott)

‘Those Were The Days’

‘I Got You Dancing’

‘So Human’

again in the spirit of

PARKLIFE

next saturday

METRONOMY

‘Heatbreaker’

‘End of You Too’

‘A Thing For Me’

‘My Heart Rate Rapid’

‘Trick Or Treatz’

‘You Could Easily Have Me’

in the spirit of 

PARKLIFE

 next Saturday.

THE RAPTURE

‘House Of Jealous Lovers’

‘Love Is All’

‘Get Myself Into It’

‘Whoo! Alright Yeah… Uh Huh’

‘No Sex For Ben’

the 12 studio album for

FLAMING LIPS -

‘Embryonic’

is a double album.
FEATURING:

‘Convinced of the Hex’

‘The Impluse’

&

‘Silver Trembling Hands’

BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW

- ‘Eating Us’

The sound can grow a bit tired
but TOBACCO & GRAVEFACE are pretty rad.

‘Twin of Myself’

‘Born On A Day The Sun Didn’t Rise’

‘Tooth Decay’

And some older stuff,
(for good measure)

 ’Zodiac Girls’

‘Dripy Eye’

‘Sun Lips’

‘Rollerdisco’

‘Forever Heavy’

news single

FUCK BUTTONS – ‘Surf Solar’

and just for good measure,
previous singles.

FUCK BUTTONS – ‘Colours Move’

FUCK BUTTONS – ‘Bright Tomorrow’

just had the urge to bring to your attention the remixing skills of kid cudi and the production skills of mr kanye west.

KID CUDI (Feat. KANYE WEST, COMMON, A-TRAK) ‘Make Her Say’

LADY GAGA – ‘Pokerface’ (The Cherrytree Sessions)

PATSY CLINE – ‘Strange’

the vocals get a bit tired on this one but the production’s great

KID CUDI – ‘She Came Along’

The first thing I heard when i woke up this morning was this song…  Breezee.

The embedd is disabled of course, but really do go and have a look at the video, psychedelic eye-candy (literally).

It’s directed by Petra Mrkyz & Jean-François Moriceau who produce amazing stuff.

&so;

‘Sing Sang Sung’

&so;

AIR

‘s 6th album (but really about their 9th), 
released in October.
Produced in their Paris setup they call “Atlas”. 

 The website is brilliant!

[img via Sterogum]

&also:

‘Do The Joy’

 
this video’s no Mrkyz & Moriceau, but sharing’s caring.

First time I heard Air was on a Sunday night around 3am on 3RRR FM. I had a red lamp in my room that gave the whole room a red glow. I pushed ‘record’ on my cassette recorder after the first few lines & replayed it over & over,

the song was;

‘How Does It Make You Feel’

Final of the Mercury’s:

LA ROUX
– ‘La Roux’

Their shows here in Australia have sold out so quickly that they’ve ALL been upgraded to larger venues!.. They’re one of the main acts I’m looking forward to at this year’s PARKLIFE FESTIVAL which has secured a bumper lineup, hope the crowd is the right mix & all that stuff.
(Again the labels are being stingy and forgetting the value of free promotion afforded via embedded videos, so just know it’s well with the clicks…)

‘Quicksand’

‘In For The Kill’

And then SKREAM holds the drop til 4:10, & rolls this rinsey remix out all over Radio 1… Maybe not as ‘traditional’ as CASPA’s remix of DEADMOU5 / KASKADE’s ‘I Remember’ of around about the same time, but that’s a good thing, Either way, they’re both topp shelf.

‘In for The Kill’ (SKREAM – ‘Let’s Get Ravey Mix’)

‘Bulletproof’

‘I’m Not Your Toy’

Elly’s voice sounds a bit odd in this one,
but there’s no official video just yet.
Personally I reckon they’ve gone for the LILY ALLEN fans with this choice as a single… So below that are the two I tend to think really should have been chosen instead, and, I guess still might be chosen as a fifth single.

‘Fascination’

‘Tigerlily’

‘Tigerlily’ is my favourite from the album, by far.
It’s probably personal to a degree; but the way the chorus goes down seems to amplify the intensity… and it’s just all mdma & frantic in a nice, subtle way…

Loads in the media billed the albums from LA ROUX & LITTLE BOOTS as some kinda ‘showdown of the electro-divas’ or something… It’s probably not very fair when they’re such different acts & different sounds, but it is kinda intuitive enough, & I guess the NME hit nail on the head saying Elly comes across as being much more ‘believable’ than Boots with her ‘posh innocence’  look & flashy toys. Both are at Parklife incidently.

So i reckon FLORENCE will win anyway, like it or not… I’d equally prefer any of the three I’ve touched on but this is why I’m not on the committee ya see… That & being a cheese-stealing Convict, aye..

KASABIAN – ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’

A few people I’ve spoken to had never mentioned Kasabian to me before until this album;  I reckon it fits in well with ‘Kasabian‘ & ‘Empire‘ as the next level…
That is to say, best path that they could’ve taken,.

Not much more to say about this,
the singles speak for themselves:

‘Fast Fuse’

warm-up single, before the album

‘Vlad The Impaler’

Now’s when it all starts to kick off.

faaaaarking massive first single.
video staring Noel Fielding

For some strange reason the clip has a shortened version of the song, bit odd, but the album version is GIANT.

‘Fire’

Must’ve been tough to choose which would be the lead single!, with quality like this…

‘Underdog’

‘Where Did All The Love Go?’

They went on the Oasis-stadium-super-tour straight after the album release.  Their youtube channel is really well done, loads of footage on tour, reminiscent of the ‘Familliar to Millions‘ extras from years back,. 

Lots of ‘making of’ and shots of the crowds and stuff..
I mean, check out the Heaton Park bit..

PLEASE ANNOUNCE THE FALLS!?

The first of my 3 standouts for the Mercury Prize this year is:

GLASVEGAS - ‘Glasvegas’

I have to plead poverty with Glasvegas… I never had much internet access in London, so when I saw them at Glasto I’d only heard ‘Daddy’s Gone’ and ‘Geraldine’ a couple of times on the radio. They were probably the most hyped ‘up-and-comers’ and it was impossible to get into the Queens Head tent for the Thursday show, so I saw them on the John Peel Stage the following day.  They looked super-cool with their James Dean chic and sounded pretty interesting with all the reverb, but not knowing many of the tunes in their set, I guess most of what was happening went straight over my head.

I rarely had the spare coin to buy albums either, but I bought ‘Glasvegas’ the day it came out in September at the hmv on Kensington High Street.  It was either that or THE STREETS ‘Everything is Borrowed’ and I’m not really sure why I chose ‘Glasvegas’. (Bought ‘Everything is Borrowed’ with my leftover £10er the following month, of course.)  But I took it home and played it straight away, and it blew me away.  Everything in its right place.  Alan McGee was blowing smoke, they were hanging around with Carl Barrat, James Allan’s accentuated Glasgow ‘twang’ made them by far the most interesting thing on the radio.

(all the videos have stingy ‘embedding disabled’, but you can follow the link, no probs)

‘Daddy’s Gone’

(Original)

‘Geraldine’

lead single.

 

‘Daddy’s Gone’

(Album)

 

& ‘Flowers and Football Tops’

‘It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry’

Mel met some crazy lady who offered to drive us to their Nottingham show and get us in backstage one night… I had work that day and the next, so we had some ‘blazing public row’ in the tube station at Waterloo about whether we’d make it in time and make it back at all, so we never made it to Edgware Road in time… Could wonder what might’ve happened if we went, but, so is the way it goes.

Kasabian & La Roux to come.

THE
2009
MERCURY
PRIZE

There’s the Brits, NME awards; Grammys. All that..
The Mercury Prize though? 
A celebration of the ‘Great Art of the Long Player’
A bit high-brow at times, but some great winners..
A great showcase..An Institution! No less.

Downloads, MTV, & commercial radio playlists..
Thom Yorke has declared the LP dead… 

But the album has, to me, by some freak of mathematics in the dimensions of the old vinyl record; turned out to be the perfect length in which to frame a picture of a time and place.. 

by definition, every great modern album is built around much much more than just a ‘timeless’ Single. 

Its a concept, an ‘era’, and a summary of a ‘phase’ in the life of a band/artist &/or a ‘scene’

This year the nominees are:
[in order of betting odds]

[3/1]*  Florence and the Machine – Lungs 
[9/2]    Bat for Lashes – Two Suns   
[6/1]    The Horrors – Primary Colours
[6/1]    Lisa Hannigan – Sea Sew
[13/1]  Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires
[10/1]  La Roux – La Roux
[10/1]  Kasabian – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
[15/1]  Speech Debelle – Speech Therapy
[16/1]  Glasvegas – Glasvegas
[25/1]  Sweet Billy Pilgrim – Twice Born Men
[33/1]  Led Bib – Sensible Shoes
[40/1]  The Invisible – The Invisible
[via wikipedia & olbg]

In the meantime-a little bit of Mercury’s past!:

Amy Winehouse!!

My fav. Mercury’s performance..still goosebumps territory; probably career-defining.  Keep in mind this is 2007, just after Back To Black takes off, (pardon), but just before it all starts to spiral a bit;
Lovely tune, perfect rendition:

 

The Streets:

Some priceless voxpops, 2004

 

Thom Yorke:

 Doing a solo performance of ‘Analyse’ from ‘The Eraser’ in 2006. Menacing azz:

 

PJ Harvey

Interview 2001,(“oh so overwhelmed”)!:

And then, again sounding/ looking amazing for her ‘Stories…’ win in 2001, great interview at the end

 

Pulp:

Beat Oasis to the prize in 1996:

 

& They say that live performances arent meant to influence the judge’s decisions, but:

Elbow’s

Glasto show surely marked the point at which they attracted enough attention to win last year’s award:


 

& Here’s Connor McNicholas (exNME editor)
talking about last years;
He could be talking about the NME in the start,
such is the sheer verbal-wank of it,
“Experts in our fields” ?????
He’s gone on to ‘Top Gear Magazine’ now?;
mostly gets the idea across here tho:

Its odd that nothing from Peter Doherty has ever been nominated… Not Libertines, not Babyshambles, & not even his brilliant solo album.. Kinda takes alot away from the awards to not nominate the most prolific & fascinating figure in British Music this decade…. but,My favourites in the shortlist are La Roux, Kasabian, and Glasvegas, so I’ll spell out the singles in the next 3 posts (mainly for my own reference,kinda thing) & you can make up your own mind. But I tend to think that La Roux might win to break the ‘guitar band’ deadlock of recent years,seeing the guardian/observer type’s covered, and Radio1 rinse as well…but florence is fav and i got no idea.

MOBY

gets a lot of stick for whatever reason, 
maybe his faith, his demeanour…but

‘Shot In The Back Of The Head’  

is all backwards guitars and synths collapsing in on eachother, all brooding brilliance.  And the video is directed by:

* David Lynch *

Its like, he makes a pact with the devil, to win the affections of the woman of his dreams…  Inevitably, on the bleak day that his dream is realised, the city is shrouded in darkness, he shakes in nervous fear at the horror that he’s signed up for…  The devil makes good on his promise, the man meets a violent death at the moment of embrace.  He’s lifted from the murky metropolis and left to float, hollow and faceless in the devil’s sky.  His lover tries to reach him, but when the devil is promised a soul it will be taken, and the man is left forever trapped in limbo, Soulless.

theres a new

THOM YORKE

solo tune about too… for a compilation album..
i have to admit i hadn’t heard of Mark Mulcahy, i have now!!

 Just when everybody thought “maybe

THE STROKES

might get around to recording their fourth album”

JULIAN CASABLANCAS

emerges from below ground with a new solo album??
verrrry good promo work.

+its produced by Jason Lador ??

PARIAH

 

‘VIVRE SA VIE‘

The new

‘Reverend and the Makers’

 album’s out soon, its called:

 ’A French Kiss in the Chaos’. 

produced by Jagz Kooner (Manic Street Preachers, Primal Scream etc. +sick remixer)

[img via: indymusic.wordpress]

1st single

 ’Silence is Talking’

I’ve enjoyed a bit of banter with the Rev on Twitter of late
[(1) (2) (3)], re: British Politics etc, so I’ll give the man one thing first of all;  He definitely sticks to his

 ’Instigate Debate‘

principles and earnestly gets about within arms reach of his fans; visiting their homes, or playing in carparks, giving out free tracks and all sorts of web-based stuff, all in spite of whatever his political foes might throw at him.  The LoveMusicHateRacism initiative is often still the first many young kids hear of the neo-fascist BNP, so that can only be a good thing;  and the Rev’s safe if he’s the NME’s readers goto man when it comes to fighting the power, i reckon…

Catch the Rev @JonMcClure on Twitter

Just heard this tune “Lalita” by

THE LOVE LANGUAGE:

They’re from Chapel Hill, North Carolina;
And this album is out now, i think…
Their stage setup/live show looks ace:

Something about the front man seems slightly awry,
like he’s a bit much when the rest are effortless?
But they just sounded really nice and sweet to the ear…
Gonna listen to ‘em for a while i reckon…

As a young kid, actually holding and owning a piece of music invokes a whole new understanding from the usual passive absorption leading up to that point. The first music I owned came in the form of two cassette tapes. I was about 5 or 6:

As a reward from my dear mum after being moderately well behaved on the weekly grocery tour, I got to choose two cassettes from the discount rack at the checkout, and so i chose ==>

 [AUDIO=http://www65.tok2.com/home2/band4band/Musicfiles/Los%20Lobos%20-%20La%20Bamba.mp3]
RICHIE VALENS -
La Bamba

[via mp3fusion.net]

  [AUDIO=http://www.moistworks.com/mp3/LittleRichard_RipItUpTake14.mp3]
 LITTLE RICHARD -
Rip It Up

[via moistworks.com]

I still know all of the words to La Bamba,
and i don’t speak a word of Spanish.

I started collecting these discounted ’best of…’ cassettes but it was these two in particular that i remember tearing round my room to as a young fella.  Its a question worth asking yourself, in terms of understanding your musical tastes and how you groove/rock out…

WHAT WAS THE FIRST

 RECORD YOU OWNED??