Everything Old...

Well, after fifteen months of recording my musings, rants and rambles about music here, it's officially moving day. As some of you know, I decided to move my blog because I finally got one of my posts taken down by Blogger this past Monday. As irritating and frustrating as trying to set up my blog at its new location on Wordpress was, I felt it was something I had to do in order to keep some of my autonomy. And maybe make a bit of a statement in the process. I think there's enough of the new blog in place for me to direct readers and subscribers to it now. There may still be some bugs and glitches as I get familiar with it, and there will be a bit of me that misses this old design for ridiculously sentimental reasons, but I know that in the long run this will be the right decision. I haven't yet decided if I will just delete this blog entirely, or if I will let it lay here like a corpse until Blogger picks it clean. Either way, I know the best is yet to come, and I thank all those who pledged their support.

Please come and join me at http://condemnedtorocknroll.wordpress.com/...

Manics Announce Release For New Album and Tour

Well, the Manics have finally come out of Rockfield studio and officially announced the release date and details of their next album, Journal For Plague Lovers. They will be releasing the 13-track LP featuring Richey's unused lyrics on May 18, and it will apparently be available on CD, deluxe double CD, vinyl and download. In keeping with the effort to recall their masterpiece, The Holy Bible, Journal For Plague Lovers features cover art from Jenny Saville. Reading track names like Jackie Collins Existential Question Time, Me and Stephen Hawking, Pretension/Repulsion, and Virginia State Epileptic Colony has gotten me very excited, indeed. Although it still remains to be seen whether the music will do the words justice. Or even if the words live up to the memory. I can't wait to find out, though.

In honour of the album's release, the Manics are doing a small tour of the UK (at least considerably smaller than they did for Send Away The Tigers) as follows:

May
Mon 25th - Barrowlands, Glasgow
Tue 26th - Venue Cymru Arena, Llandudno
Thu 28th - Camden Roundhouse, London
Fri 29th - Camden Roundhouse, London
Sat 30th - Camden Roundhouse, London

June
Mon 1st - Civic Hall, Wolverhampton
Tue 2nd - Dome, Brighton
Thu 4th - Olympia, Dublin
Sat 6th - Ulster Hall, Belfast

Motown Junk (Johnny Boy Anniversary Mix) - Manic Street Preachers

Die in the Summertime (Demo) - Manic Street Preachers

They Finally Got Me: My First DMCA Takedown Notice

Well, after 15 months of no hassle, I've received my first DMCA takedown notice from Blogger. Of course, the offending post has already been taken down by Blogger, so it's more of a notice to tell you it's gone rather than a notice to tell you to take it down. The post that was deleted was a weekly mix from last August, long dead links and all. Even more bizarrely, this mix featured only cover versions and many of them were by artists that I've featured several times over. I know this because I took precautions several months ago and saved all of my previous posts to a Word document. At this point, all of these details aren't even important. The real issue is one that I've talked about ad nauseum before. It's frustrating because my own arguments and those of other intelligent people don't have any effect. It's the same reason I felt frustrated when I went to see RiP: A Remixer's Manifesto yesterday.

The Brett Gaylor documentary was fantastic, but it essentially said everything I've already been thinking and discussing with others for the past few years. According to the film, the Remixer's Manifesto is thus:

1. Culture always builds on the past.
2. The past always tries to control the future.
3. Our future is becoming less free.
4. To build free societies you must limit the control of the past.

There were some really brilliant juxtapositions in the film as Gaylor demonstrates his points (one of my favourites was how he traces the use and/or evolution of a traditional folk/blues song/hook, The Last Time, through The Rolling Stones, The Verve and ultimately to its use by Girl Talk - the point being only The Rolling Stones did the suing within this process despite the fact they weren't the original authors either). In the end, the process of the film is more important than its end product (Eno, anyone?), and the style of the documentary itself proves its point about remixing art and culture to provoke new ideas and enjoyment; without building on the past, progress is stifled and stagnant. Gaylor draws the battle lines clearly: you're either on the Copy Right or the Copy Left, you're either stuck in the past or looking to the future. He even put up his raw footage online to allow others to participate in an open source way. Oddly enough, Stanford law professor, Lawrence Lessig said things in the documentary that I wrote in that older post nearly verbatim, most particularly in the area of not being able to create in a vacuum and in his using the example of citations in essays and books. But neither of us owns the "right" to those thoughts.

With the advent of the Internet, the public domain has grown infinitely and beyond the conservative, stunted thinking of those in power. Trying to lock people up and shut them down will continue to be a futile exercise. I know I'm not doing anything wrong, yet having my own "intellectual property" deleted without my permission is legally sound because Google, a $31 billion company, owns Blogger, my current blog host. Talk about media control and strangle holds. How do you google Google? It's the philosophical question of the Noughties. What kind of information are you going to get about the company when they're the primary method for your search?

Here's the notice I received today:

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog infringes upon the copyrights of others. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.

The notice that we received from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the record companies it represents, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling Effects at http://www.chillingeffects.org. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Please note that it may take Chilling Effects up to several weeks to post the notice online at the link provided.

The IFPI is a trade association that represents over 1,400 major and independent record companies in the US and internationally who create, manufacture and distribute sound recordings (the "IFPI Represented Companies").

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. We are in the process of removing from our servers the links that allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. See http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=254 for more information about the DMCA, and see http://www.google.com/dmca.html for the process that Blogger requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

Blogger can reinstate these posts upon receipt of a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and 3) of the DMCA. For more information about the requirements of a counter notification and a link to a sample counter notification, see http://www.google.com/dmca.html#counter. Please note that repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel. If you have any other questions about this notification, please let us know.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

My favourite bit is the part "regardless of its merits."

I refuse to be intimidated (in many ways, what Blogger is doing is like someone breaking into your apartment and stealing your possessions - and it's not even like I'm keeping my door locked, so to speak), and I'm not going to sit back and let them slowly dismantle my free speech in the "public" domain. So, CTRR is moving house as soon as possible. I don't care how much work it will be to get this blog back up on my own and on my own terms. Bear with me while I plant my flag in the Copy Left. I'll keep you posted.

Don't Stop - Girl Talk

We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #58

I wanna dance with somebody. I'm dancing for my life. Everybody dance now. Everybody cut footloose.

This one's called What a Feeling.

Testcard Girl - White Rose Movement

Bonne Nouvelle - Birdy Nam Nam

Teknoir - Kindle

The Melting Moon - VHS or Beta

25 Seconds (Gary Numan and Ade Fenton Remix) - Mandy Kane

This Rhythm - Filthy Dukes

State of Alert - Radio 4

The Magnificent Romeo - 2 Many DJs

Ares (Villains Remix) - Bloc Party

20th Century Boy - T.Rex (Hoshina Anniversary Remix)

Switchblade - HEARTSREVOLUTION

Into the Galaxy - Midnight Juggernauts

I'm Not Alone - Calvin Harris

I Feel Love - Donna Summer

Boy (Extended Mix) - Book of Love

The DJ's Got a Gun (IAMX Remix) - Robots in Disguise

Turn It On - Ladytron

I Want Nothing - The Black Ghosts

Phantom Pt 2 (Soulwax Remix) - Justice

Extraball - Yuksek

Still Not There: 2009 SXSW

As last year, I will not be able to attend the music lover's paradise, South by Southwest, and will have to explore the roster of artists from the swivel chair in front of my laptop (if I spin around fast enough every so often, I can attempt to simulate the dizziness brought on by wanting to see so many bands at once). Once again, there are many bands and artists that I already know about and love performing in Austin, including Echo & the Bunnymen, Camera Obscura, The Blue Aeroplanes, Wild Beasts, Mother Mother, Calvin Harris, Bishi, Booka Shade, Boys Noize, Chairlift, The Guggenheim Grotto, Ladyhawke, Okkervil River, MSTRKRFT, New York Dolls, Slow Club, Peter, Bjorn and John, Radio 4, Descartes a Kant, Future of the Left, HEARTSREVOLUTION, Max Tundra, Peter Murphy, Titus Andronicus, Voxtrot, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Peter Broderick, The Duke Spirit, Fight Like Apes, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Shout Out Out Out Out, We Have Band, Primal Scream, Ra Ra Riot, The Twelves, We Should Be Dead, Asobi Seksu, Cut Off Your Hands, and Au Revoir Simone; however, I would rather explore some bands that I'm not familiar with and pass them on to you. After all, among my choices last year were The Indelicates and Bodies of Water, two bands that made it into my Top 40 Albums of 2008. Let's try to find some fantastic ones again, shall we? (As intriguing as they are, we are going to steer clear of Futomoto Satisfaction, a Japanese, all-female trombone band in bikinis - I'm sure you'll understand.)

Kamikaze Queens: Punk. Cabaret. Berlin. How could this band not attract my attention? For those of us who enjoy a spot of dark cabaret like Dresden Dolls, Nina Hagen and Lou Reed's aptly titled album Berlin, but also like the scrappy flavour of New York Dolls and The Ramones, Kamikaze Queens are a perfect fit.

MySpace: www.myspace.com/kamikazequeens

Voluptuous Panic - Kamikaze Queens

M.A.N.D.Y.: Also, from Berlin, electronic duo, M.A.N.D.Y. caught my ears. On the same Get Physical label as their friends Booka Shade, they produce clean, staccato soundscapes with a cool elegance and have produced tight, minimalistic remixes for the likes of Sugababes, Tiefschwarz, Roxy Music and The Knife and a compilation for Fabric. I hope that they soon release a debut of their own.

MySpace: www.myspace.com/getmandy

I Feel Space - Lindstrom (M.A.N.D.Y. Remix)

Parenthetical Girls: Portland, Oregon's Parenthetical Girls are one of those experimental, but accessible, chamber pop bands that I can't help but fall in love with. Having released their debut record three years ago, they have now released their sophomore effort, Entanglements, and they remind me of artists like Simon Bookish, who employ classical compositional theory to create a quirky, intellectually-satisfying pop music. They describe Entanglements as an "orchestral song cycle of grand sonic ambition [...] an eleven-song, linear narrative of ascendancy, adolescent sexuality, quantum mechanics, consent, and other moral ambiguities - all set to an elaborately orchestrated olio of Modern Classical and timeworn, traditional American pop forms." Any band who can inspire the use of "olio" is the band for me.

MySpace: www.myspace.com/parentheticalgirlsband

A Song For Ellie Greenwich - Parenthetical Girls

The Week That Was: If you thought that the description from Parenthetical Girls was impressive, take a look at this one from The Week That Was, the musical side project from Peter Brewis, the brother of School of Language's David Brewis: "The songs are the evidence in this particular mystery and the victims, perpetrators and onlookers raise questions with concerns familiar to us all. How do we deal with the fragments of information we receive through the television, radio, the internet? How do we balance the distrust we feel for mass media with our dependence on it? How does this relationship influence our hopes and actions in our real lives? And finally, what would happen if we decided not to deal with it anymore and switched off the information flow by throwing away our TVs, radios and newspapers? The anger, confusion and sorrow details the week of Peter’s own enforced switch off." What's even more brilliant is that the music effectively carries the narrative and lives up to the philisophical musings. All of this just proves that the Brewis brothers are just as powerful on their own as they are together.

MySpace: www.myspace.com/theweekthatwas

Learn to Learn - The Week That Was

Efterklang: This Danish "folktronica" band lives up to their fanciful name, which rings like magic in my ears (it actually means "remembrance" or "reverberation" in Danish); their music, too, lingers long after you've listened to it. There's something Sufjan Stevens-like about their sound, but there's also that ethereal Scandinavian influence blowing like wind chimes through it. Playful, atmospheric, and whimsical, Efterklang can shift from mincing glockenspiel to fuzzy, muted brass and turn their beautiful fantasy world upside down and inside out with infinite permutations. Flying too close to the clouds must sound like Efterklang.

MySpace: www.myspace.com/efterklang

Mirador - Efterklang

School of Seven Bells: Comprised of Benjamin Curtis of Secret Machines and identical twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, formerly of On! Air! Library!, School of Seven Bells is a dreamy, pulsing affair. The twins' vocals are mesmerizing and the musical backdrop is built from a skittering, fluid energy that breaks itself apart only to reassemble into self-healed tears of mercury. Drawing influences from various styles, including Eastern and Afrobeat flavours, School of Seven Bells is ranging through a musical palette with a true artist's abandon, producing astounding results.

MySpace: www.myspace.com/schoolofsevenbells

Half Asleep - School of Seven Bells

SXSW Web site: www.sxsw.com

A Post-Mortem on Patrick Wolf's Dead Meat: Music Video For Vulture

I happened to be strolling through MySpace rounds today and ended up on Patrick Wolf's MySpace. The latest profile photo was Wolf in what appears to be S&M gear, and his forthcoming single, Vulture, the first to be released from his upcoming album, was on the player. Okay, I admit I don't have time to keep tabs on every musician in a consistent fashion, so I didn't realize until today that Wolf's forthcoming album, Battle, is now split into two companion discs called The Bachelor and The Conqueror, respectively, with the former releasing this June and the latter dropping next year. I should probably keep up with these things since I've become an investor in the album (Wolf's team have found a way for non-UK residents to invest via Tribe Wolf InterNational [TWIN] - see here for details).

The S&M gear in the photograph was soon made clear to me as I read one of the blog posts, which read:

The video for Patrick Wolf’s new single ‘Vulture’ will be shown as a late night exclusive on MySpace UK this Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th March, 9pm-4am.

Deemed too provocative for even late night TV, MySpace are promoting the video as an exclusive post watershed in the late night hours, due to its graphic content.

Filmed in black & white, photographic style, it shows an enraptured, semi naked Patrick writhing in a full S&M, bondage outfit. The controversial scenes are intercut with those of Patrick as the leather clad ‘Vulture’ and as an unmasked icon. Inspired by experiences Patrick gained and suffered on the American leg of the 2007 'Magic Position' tour, the video perfectly depicts these experiences, which Patrick describes as ‘getting involved in some dodgy satanic sex games and exploring the many dark sides of Los Angeles.’

I duly waited until the time came to watch it, and I've embedded it above. I'm sure CTRR readers are mature enough to handle it at any time of the day. Especially since I find absolutely nothing shocking about it. This either says that I'm hugely desensitized to bondage gear and/or sexual fetishes, which may very well be true. Or this says that the hype building up the video was merely hype and a brilliant PR tactic to get people to watch it. After all, how can watershed time restrictions work online? This is not to say that the video wasn't creatively conceived and beautifully shot - the black and white photography and dramatic lighting produce a video worthy of any of Wolf's best. Wolf, who directed the video himself, has managed to incorporate an old-time glamour and German Expressionist style that is highly watchable. It's just no more shocking than the uncensored Girls on Film video from Duran Duran or Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire rolling all over each other while wearing g-strings in the video for Love's Sweet Exile.

The single itself points to yet another direction for Wolf, especially in light of the cheerful, gypsy energy of his last album, but it still makes sense within the context of his entire body of work. There were songs on his debut Lycanthropy that were much more graphic than Vulture and its connotations, and several of them employed esoteric noise and electronic elements to provide a shadowy side to the songs' narratives; The Childcatcher still gives me chills. And even his sophomore album, Wind in the Wires, had Tristan, a stomping electro beast that remains one of my favourites in the repertoire.

Wolf's strengths have always been connected to his ability to tell fantastic stories through eclectic sounds and his ever-evolving image. As I stated before, Wolf manages to balance between a fairytale-like innocence and a dangerous eroticism; he is a gambolling sprite one moment and a violent satyr the next. Perhaps the most startling thing about Vulture is how it wrenches us away from the mythical, escapist worlds that Wolf has built over the past few years and plunges us into a gritty reality, which, while no more disturbing than some of Wolf's fantasy scenarios, can be initially unsettling. Unlike previous compositions, Vulture is unrelenting in its modernity - there are no pastoral movements, gypsy reels or folk elements. It is all drum machines, squeals and electronic beeps and blips, but at the same time, Wolf's distinctive voice adds a sense of magic and mystery, and the brilliant vulture imagery carries this story and the music video. If anything, there's less darkness here than a camp sensibility - Wolf plays the part to the hilt in the video.

No matter which direction Patrick Wolf chooses to head in, you can rest assured it will be fresh and uncompromising. No matter the role, Wolf is his own master.

Vulture is released as a download and on 7" vinyl on April 20.

The Childcatcher - Patrick Wolf

The Tower - Patrick Wolf

The Jester is Always the One Running the Show: The New Royal Family's Triple B-Side

I stumbled across London-based, self-proclaimed "crap novelty punk" band The New Royal Family through the incestuous web of MySpace - it could have been through the Luxembourg page or The Melting Ice Caps or...I can't completely remember. At any rate, I'm glad I found them because they are punk in all its provocative and fancy dress glory; they retain that original spirit of punk that was provocative for provocation's sake and too difficult for irony to pin down and flatten. Featuring a revolving line-up of former members of bands like Gay Dad, The Boyfriends, Linus and Luxembourg (not to mention someone who used to drum for The Monochrome Set), the New Royal Family is now releasing a triple b-side to follow up their sold-out limited edition 7" Anyone Fancy a Chocolate Digestive?, and it continues the line of raucous, ludicrous (ludiraucous?) songs. There's a bit of the Art Brut spirit about them, and their jesting veneer, like all jesting veneers, covers the cleverness beneath.

This triple b-side (or at least the disc I have - the discs come with different, random track orders) kicks off with Scotland The Brave, a song that borrows heavily from The Damned's New Rose and early Adam and the Ants while David Barnett's sneering vocals deliver a slew of nonsensical, vaguely Scottish-related lyrics, including the line "Bonny Scotland where's your kilts?." The next track, That Girl Has Got It, starts off deceptively gentle and slow before launching into an appropriately speedier frenzy while the innuendo escalates - "That girl has got it in her hand/What's she going to do now?" to "That girl has got it in her mouth/What's she going to do now?." The disc concludes with The New Royal Family Rules Okay, which bops about in a Ramonesesque fashion and is my favourite track of the three. The chorus says "Rules are unspoken/Rules are meant to be broken," a lyric that sums up The New Royal Family quite nicely.

You can download the triple-track single for free here, but only for a limited time. And if you want them as a VERY limited CD single in a random variety of sleeves and running orders along with a free badge, you can purchase one for just £2 - email
davidstrangetrousers@googlemail.com to find out how. Above all, The New Royal Family are fun and they do as they please. I'd pick them over Elizabeth and her glorified welfare family any day.

New Royal Family MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thenewroyalfamily

The New Royal Family Rules Okay - The New Royal Family

Anyone Fancy a Chocolate Digestive? - The New Royal Family

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #57

As I did last year, I will attempt an Irish mix in honour of St. Patrick's Day. The issue is that I usually find that I don't have too much Irish music in my collection. And then I have to pad it with someone like Van Morrison, someone that I never listen to. Nonetheless, I feel like I managed to cobble together a pretty decent mix this year. It ranges from the old (Virgin Prunes, The Pogues, The Stars of Heaven, Whipping Boy) to the new (The Japanese Popstars, Fight Like Apes, The Guggenheim Grotto, Halves, One Day International) to somewhere in between (Ash, The Frank and Walters, JJ72). JJ72's frontman, Mark Greaney, even makes a second appearance with his new band Concerto For Constantine.

This one's called Emerald Audiophile.

B.C.T.T. - The Japanese Popstars

Twenty Tens - Virgin Prunes

Wasps - Concerto For Constantine

Kung Fu - Ash

Jake Summers - Fight Like Apes

Forget Romance, Let's Dance - We Should Be Dead

The Sunnyside of the Street - The Pogues

After All - The Frank and Walters

What Else Could You Do? - The Stars of Heaven

Fee Da Da Dee - The Guggenheim Grotto

Blinded - Whipping Boy

Pride (In the Name of Love) - U2

Glimmer - JJ72

Blown A Wish - My Bloody Valentine

Kansas (Yellow Brick Road Mix) - The Hedge Schools

Little Death - One Day International

Lille - Lisa Hannigan

A Bear in the Hermitage - Sunken Foal

Medals - Halves

Hands Swollen With Grace - Dakota Suite

The Beauty of Burning the Box of Beautiful Things: Michael Bracewell's Re-Make/Re-Model

I've read a fair amount of band/artist biographies with varying amounts of interest(oddly enough, as much as I love the band Pulp, their 400-page biography by Mark Sturdy was one of the hardest to conquer). I stumbled upon Michael Bracewell's 2007 biography of Roxy Music, Re-Make/Re-Model: Becoming Roxy Music, by accident while looking for other Michael Bracewell books. You see, I quite like Bracewell's ideas and style; I've read both England is Mine: Pop Life in Albion from Wilde to Goldie and When Surface Was Depth: Death by Cappuccino and Other Reflections on Music and Culture in the 1990's, which both gave me fascinating intertextual insights into popular culture from vastly different angles. The former probes various aspects of Englishness from arcadia to suburbia via John Betjeman, Lindsay Anderson films and The Cure while the latter discussed the atmosphere of the 90s, including a shift from irony to "authenticity" and the gentrification of the avant-garde, and explored topics from Britpop to Howard Devoto to the Millennium Dome to American pop group, Hanson. These earlier works point to Bracewell's intelligent wit and extensive research, aspects which definitely infuse Re-Make/Re-Model.

The key difference with Bracewell's take on Roxy Music's biography, or the band biography genre in general, is that he strictly focuses on the way the band came about; once the band gains a record deal and creates their self-titled first album, the book ends. By the way, this book is nearly 400 pages long. And I finished it in a few days. The difference between this book and that massive history of Pulp is the almost academic take on the ideas, art and socio-historical forces that shaped the band and their music. This book isn't about a meticulous chronology of singles, albums and gigs, power struggles, band member departures, and outrageous gossip. This book isn't about a band's personal relationships as such; it's more about the constellation of people and ideas that provided the perfect conditions to create such a unique band which took high and low art and married them with a camp aesthetic.

The book is divided into three main sections: Newcastle 1953-1968, Reading, Ipswich, Winchester 1964-1969, and London 1968-1972. In doing this, Bracewell can thoroughly discuss the milieus from which Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay and Brian Eno emerged, parallel them, and then join them up in the final section. Of course there are plenty of interviews with the band members themselves, but there are equal amounts, if not more, interviews with people who had contact with the band members, and in effect, "made" Roxy Music as much as Ferry, Mackay and Eno. In the Newcastle section, you learn about the Richard Hamilton-influenced art school concepts that surrounded Ferry and his fellow students, including Rita Donagh, who eventually ended up teaching at Reading University where Andy Mackay was studying English and Music. Hamilton and his postmodern pastiche, Pop Art ideas and Duchampian aesthetics become clear foundations for Roxy Music's borrowing from an eclectic, extensive palette for both their music and their image. But in addition to these high art philosophies, Ferry and his colleagues were equally exposed to Club A-Go-Go, a venue that held lunchtime dances for Newcastle's working class, and the social significance of mod clothing at Marcus Price.

The second section shows how ideas migrated and cross-pollinated between the art schools in Newcastle, Reading and Ipswich, taking in Andy Mackay and Brian Eno's pieces of the Roxy Music story. In the process, Bracewell emphasizes the similarities between Brian Eno's concern for process over product and the theories being practiced in both Newcastle and Reading. While Eno's new, postmodern attitude toward art almost got him kicked out of Winchester School of Art, it demonstrated a new way of approaching both art and music, thus creating unexpected art that wouldn't have occurred any other way. At the same time, at Reading, art students were being exposed to Armenian philosopher, Gurdjieff, who came up with the concept of "self re-membering," a philosophy that says you can create your own being. Through Hamilton's emphasis on Duchamp, the future members of Roxy Music and their milieu learned "art can be anything," and through Gurdjieff, they learned that "you can be anything"; the combination of these two ideologies took their subcultural activities to the mainstream and provided a foundation for what would eventually be termed "glam rock," a deliberately artificial construct. This is also the section of the book that introduces you to the Moodies, the Reading-based, pop art performance group that pre-figured punk, and the avant-garde "happenings" occurring in and around Reading, which are both elements that contributed to how Roxy Music ended up fusing the mass market appeal of pop and glamour with high art consciousness, and more practically, how Mackay came to meet Eno.

The final section of the book, which is likely where most biographers would start the bulk of their story, ties all the ends up in London, where all of Roxy Music's members finally converge in the midst of new, outrageous fashion from the likes of Ossie Clark, Antony Price, Pamla Motown, and Eno's then-girlfirend, Carol McNicholl; inventive, entrepreneurial hairstyling from Keith Wainwright; and decadent, poetic PR from post-graduate Romantic Literature student Simon Puxley. This steaming soup of embryonic ideas and creative businesses provided the perfect environment for the birth of Roxy Music. Interestingly enough, Roxy Music was initially perceived as emerging too fully-formed by music journalists and critics - to them, apparently Roxy Music hadn't paid their dues in previous music scenes like David Bowie. But if I learned anything from the book, it's how much went into creating the success and critical acclaim behind Roxy Music. They truly were the product of their postwar times and paid their dues in multiple, eclectic arenas outside of the music scene itself, making for one of the most interesting bands of all time.

In terms of writing talent and knowledge, Michael Bracewell is already heads above many other music writers (Morrissey has called him "the most adroitly gifted writer of our generation"); he writes the types of books I need to come back to again and again just to comprehend the full meaning and scope of what he places under the same umbrella. He's brilliant at unravelling pop culture's seemingly seamless tapestry and re-weaving it into a web you never would have expected. With his obvious knowledge of both pop culture and academic theory, he was the perfect biographer for this band, which represented both facets simultaneously. Not only did this book give me a fantastic insight into the people who made up Roxy Music and their music, but it made me think and learn. I fully acknowledge that most bands wouldn't warrant this kind of biography nor stand up with this kind of cerebral analysis; however, the fact that Roxy Music does makes them all the more significant a collection of true artists. In effect, Bracewell takes Eno's process over product philosophy and applies it to the band itself, showing that the process itself can be a work of art.

Re-Make/Re-Model - Roxy Music

Ladytron - Roxy Music

Secondhand Daylight #2: T.Rex's Electric Warrior

I've been a fan of T.Rex and Marc Bolan since the last year of high school. My introduction to T.Rex wasn't the most auspicious: I first heard T.Rex songs while sitting in the movie theatre watching Billy Elliot. I remembered the soundtrack long after the film itself. Since then, I had picked up T.Rex tracks here and there and several years ago, I purchased a rather comprehensive compilation album. However, I just never got around to buying any of the T.Rex or Tyrannosaurus Rex albums proper. Then just a few weeks back, while I was browsing in a used music store, I found Electric Warrior. Released in 1971, the Tony Visconti-produced Electric Warrior was the second album under the re-vamped T.Rex name and it's the one that took Marc Bolan into the mainstream with hits like Bang a Gong (Get It On) and Jeepster.

It's no secret that Marc Bolan wasn't the most original musician or songwriter in the world; he essentially adapted old rock 'n roll for a new audience and had the ability to create snappy pop songs rather quickly. In fact, he ambitiously managed to adapt and reinvent himself through several subcultures including mod and folk-psychedelia. However, this doesn't take into account the other side of Bolan's music. While I enjoy the energy, sexy swagger and fun of songs like Jeepster, Bang a Gong (Get It On) and The Motivator, my favourite song on Electric Warrior is Cosmic Dancer, a song that has haunted me ever since I first heard it over the opening credits of Billy Elliot.

There is something beautifully sad about it with its mournful, yet soaring, acoustic guitar and string arrangement and the distinctive, magical quaver of Bolan's voice. It's wistful and tragic, but the tragedy remains veiled and not immediately apparent - there's something in the music and Bolan's vocal performance that lead me there without the lyrics being particularly dark. And while I could read Bolan's own untimely death into the sound now, I didn't know anything about that when I first heard it all those years ago, yet I remember shivering with the emotion of the song in the movie theatre. There's something of the lonely outsider in the song as well with the lines "Is it strange to dance so soon?" and "Is it strange to dance so late?" - it's a similar alien, dream-like darkness to that of Bowie's Space Oddity. The womb and tomb become interchangable refuges of void and free-fall.

This inexplicable sadness finds its way into other tracks like Girl, which reads:

O God
High in your fields above earth
Come and be real for us
You with your mind
Oh yes you are
Beautifully fine

O Girl
Electric witch you are
Limp in society's ditch you are
Visually fine
Oh yes you are
But mentally dying

O boy
Just like a boat you are
Sunk but somehow you float you do
Mentally weak
Oh yes you are
But so much you speak

Or on Life's a Gas:

I could have loved you girl
Like a planet
I could have chained your heart
To a star
But it really doesn't matter at all
But it really doesn't matter at all
Life's a gas
I hope it's gonna to last

It seems that these songs, in strong contrast to the jaunty, brash sexuality and hedonistic party attitude of the majority of Bolan's hits, reflect an awareness of transience and deceptive surfaces. In many ways, it seems Bolan was waiting for the other shoe to drop; he had carefully crafted his image his entire life, and there was always a chance it would slip and he would drown in his own reflection. Ultimately, that did happen, but at least Bolan briefly recovered before his death. Maybe the reason Cosmic Dancer crawls into my brain so thoroughly is because of my life-long inherent sense of nothing lasting and the bittersweet romance and regret over that.

Electric Warrior can be seen as the genesis of glam rock, but Bolan's re-imagining of 50s rock 'n roll chord changes, blues and acoustic folk paired with his nonsensical, fantastical lyrics and unparalleled vocal style, and burnished with his flamboyant, glitter-pixie image, did indeed change rock music. As much as I will remember him for the dirty-sweet glamour, I will also feel kinship with his sweet sadness.

Cosmic Dancer - T.Rex

Life's a Gas - T.Rex

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #56

I realize St. David's Day was last weekend, but it's never too late for a Welsh mix tape. I've already explained my affinity for Wales and Welshness in the mix post last year. With perfect timing, the Comic Relief single featuring Rob Brydon and Ruth Jones from the brilliant Gavin & Stacey and Sir Tom Jones has just released - it's like Welsh overload (like a sugar rush, but it tastes more like cockles and leeks). I already ordered my copy from Amazon UK (curse international iTunes who won't let you purchase a download from another country). While I wait for it, I will watch the above video over and over again. And maybe that Comic Relief Robert Webb Flashdance performance...if you don't know what I mean, click here. Back to the Welsh theme, I would also recommend watching Rob Brydon's Identity Crisis, a documentary he made about being Welsh for the BBC last year (if you can't find it anywhere, I can upload it for you).

I'm featuring several of the same artists I did last year at this time, including McLusky, The Darling Buds, Gruff Rhys, Melys, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Tom Jones, Scritti Politti, Los Campesinos, and of course, the Manics. However, there are some new ones this time round with Helen Love, Hemme Fatale, The Hot Puppies, The Threatmantics, Sibrydion, Freur, Silver Gospel Runners, Sweet Baboo, Volenté and Cymbient. Also, as an extra special Welsh combo, James Dean Bradfield singing Ready For Drowning accompanied by John Cale. This one's called Bore Da.

Last Exit on Yesterday - Manic Street Preachers

Icarus Smicarus - Mclusky

Does Your Heart Go Booooooom - Helen Love

Extra Sexual Terrestrial - Hemme Fatale

King of England - The Hot Puppies

Sexbomb - Tom Jones and Mousse T.

You'll Need Those Fingers For Crossing - Los Campesinos!

Little Bird - Threatmantics

Desperados - Sibrydion

Shame On You - The Darling Buds

Happiness - Freur

Merched Yn Neud Gwallt Ei Gilydd - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

Skank Bloc Bologna - Scritti Politti

Gwn Mi Wn - Gruff Rhys

Would You Settle For Less - Silver Gospel Runners

Tom Waits Rip Off - Sweet Baboo

Ready For Drowning - James Dean Bradfield with John Cale

Right Before You - Volenté

Y Dŵr Yn Y Môr - Melys

Time Away With You - Cymbient

Barefoot and Stargazing: Pooma's Persuader and Kingsbury's Lie to Me

Shoegaze, or as it's also known, dreampop, is one of those genres that when done not so well, is pretty tedious and self-indulgent, but when done really well, can sound more like star gazing than shoegazing. Having said this, I will now introduce two bands who are doing more of the latter than the former: Finnish band Pooma and their debut album, Persuader, and Florida band Kingsbury and their new EP, Lie to Me. While both pieces are captivating, they come at the shoegaze genre from different ends of the spectrum and at different angles of the prism, so to speak.

Pooma's debut was produced and partly mixed by Gunnar Örn Tynes of the fantastic band Múm, and released in Finland last year. Unfortunately the band's Finnish record label was closed down very shortly after the release of the album, but you can still buy the entire album from iTunes if you visit their MySpace (link is provided at the end of the post). Persuader unfolds slowly to an intense beat by beginning with If May Starts Tomorrow, a song punctuated by fingers sliding against guitars strings and hypnotic female vocals. The song then crashes into a torrent of sound, thudding and misting around you like a waterfall. This is followed by Snow, which hums with crystalline strings and cymbals until you are buried in the cool aura of its epicentre. With faster rhythms and a more menancing tone, They Won't Come Back slinks along to a trip-hoppy beat before stripping down halfway through the song into a murmuring, static-filled wormhole; you come out into a fresh second half of the song with tribal rhythms and ethereal vocals. For the next track, Would You, vocals chant "You find it hard to breathe" until you are literally holding your breath in expectation of what happens next in the song; incidentally, it soars into twinkly dreamscapes and builds into an all-encompassing whorl of cloud.

January is a briefer track with subtle cracks of popping vinyl and otherworldly buzzing over simple piano chords; its simplicity is beautiful, and without any vocals, it takes on a brilliant enigmatic quality. Complex layers of sound come back for Through the Calm, which utilizes strings and glockenspiel-like accents to create a dark, undulating atmosphere that takes various unexpected twists and turns between dreamy and threatening; it is like a classical piece heard through an aural kaleidoscope. This blurs right into the title track of the record, a song which builds on the cacophony before disintegrating into a gentle, blissful rivulet of a tune; it takes yet another turn with a build to grandiose proportions with faster drums and dramatic brass. The mood shifts into a more placid one for The Shore, a track that slowly infuses your body like an incense, plying your brain with enchanting vocals. Two minutes before the conclusion of the song, you are woken with scattershot drums and an almost conquistador-like tone. Cool Inside comes down for a heartbeat of a rhythm and shimmers of reverb, an oasis for those sunburned by more abrasive music. The album ends with All Worked Out, the longest song on the record. It takes musicbox-like sounds and layers them over a rich backdrop of cello, creating a magnetic world of small wind storms and aurora borealis.



Kingsbury approaches shoegaze from a different side than Pooma; rather than create textures from shrouded vocals and dramatic symphonic shifts, Kingsbury anchors everything to a plaintive, graceful melodic line and creates a multi-faceted narrative with a rockier edge in the process. You can download the entire EP for free, along with two previous EPs and an album, at their Web site listed below.

EP instrumental opener, Ocarina Mountaintop, is majestic in its slow build of sonic layers with a foundation of piano; it emulates the mystical wistfulness and ancient flavour of the ocarina itself. Vocals come in for Back in the Orange Grove, a track that mimicks mournful wind in laden treetops; metallic knocks and echoes punctuate the ballad like distant thunder, or fists against the walls of a dream. The following track, As I See It, is a delicate tune of guitar arpeggios and hazy, breathy vocals, drifting along like parachutes of dandelion seed.

Bell tones open the next song, Armada, before abrupt pulses and scratches, along with what sounds like thousands of people running moistened fingers around the rims of wine glasses, consume it. The EP's title track moves into a more ominous tone as the narrator works through conflicting emotions about a lover; electric guitars slide and wail through the piece like pleading hands and eyes. It is a moody track that swings to a pendulum of self-induced hypnosis, trying to convince the self that everything will be okay if only the second person will say so. The EP concludes with Holy War a mesmerizing guitar-based track that weaves a mesmerizing spell as tightly-woven as a crusader's tapestry; the tension threatens to break every string until it unravels into a sea of feedback at the end.


Pooma's MySpace: www.myspace.com/poomamusic
Pooma's Web site: http://www.pooma.net/

Kingsbury's MySpace: www.myspace.com/kingsbury
Kingsbury Web site: http://kingsburymusic.net/

If May Starts Tomorrow - Pooma

Through the Calm - Pooma

Ocarina Mountaintop - Kingsbury

Holy War - Kingsbury

Spendthrift With Love: Polly Scattergood's Debut Album

After a series of three singles in the last three years, Essex-based Polly Scattergood will finally release her self-titled debut on March 9. She's got all the right quirks in all the right places: she has a perfectly archaic, romantic surname; her album cover image portrays her as an enigmatic, updated Alice in Wonderland; and best of all, her lyrics and music live up to the rest with their candid poetry and dark emotional depths. This album is an expertly crafted document of emotionally-battered mental fabric unravelling thread by golden thread. I can see the comparisons with Kate Bush and Bjork, but she feels refreshingly new and tragically romantic in a different way. This vulnerable record takes on Ophelia-like madness with fists full of flowers and clods of dirt as Scattergood strips her soul to its fractured core.

The album begins with I Hate the Way, a track which released last year as a single. The music hums and clicks lightly beneath Scattergood's captivating, breathy vocals; ominous electronic noises shiver and pulse through the track while she relates the haunting details of an emotionally abusive relationship. About two minutes into the song, electric guitars tear through and elevate the mournful, broken tone into a passionate, mad lucidity, culminating in "doo doo doo's" that are the narrator's answer to "My doctor said I've got to sing a happy tune," the haunting last line before the reverb-laden rap during the last minute of the song. Switching into third person briefly, Other Too Endless is a melodic ode to denial that periodically rumbles with the narrator's quavering emotions, miniature maelstroms threatening to capsize her. The following chorus is repeated several times throughout the track in an infinite spiral: "It can't be real/No, it can't be real/If I close my eyes, then maybe I won't feel/Another too endless/So do you think I should end this?" Backed by teardrops of piano, Untitled 27 opens with ephemeral snatches of "I miss you," "I'm lost," and "Where are you?," like the missives of childish spirits lost in their own static and unresponsive looking-glasses. Scattergood's vocals are ragged through lines like "suicidal tendencies drink creativity," and they reach dizzying heights of heartbreaking desperation as she cries "It hurts to be here."

The tone shifts with Please Don't Touch as broad strokes of acoustic guitar punctuate her staccato, child-like delivery. Hovering between whispers and coos, Scattergood delivers a whimsical, unpredictable performance, enhancing self-reflective lines like "feeling strange and looking rotten"; at the same time, she reveals her contemporary youth with references to "skinny jeans and Pick 'n Mix." The tempo comes back down for the piano-based I Am Strong, a track that delicately dances through a steady stream of reiterated self-declarations in ever-increasing whirls of misty vocals as she tries to shake the witch from her back and reconcile the conflicts in her self-perception.

Beginning with light airiness, Unforgiving Arms tells the story of a "typical writer" and the "typical sinner" who falls in love/hate with him. Unflinchingly self-flagellating, the narrator blames herself and her own personality flaws for the relationship problems. Despite the sweetly melodic phrasing and bouncy snares, the undercurrent is undeniably morbid as the narrator declares the futility of offering messy feelings to an emotional fortress: "He won't let me in/In case I crease his pages." The fragility and insecurity of the narrator surface again in Poem Song, where Scattergood peels back the scabs of mental wounds against a background of hesitant piano and vocals that rasp and sob with a controlled rage and frustration. More than three minutes into the song, a reprieve of violins comes in before Scattergood re-enters with an almost disturbing plea for reunion.

Austere synths and a drum machine take over for Bunny Club, a jet-black recounting of sleaze, which displays a brilliant schizophrenia as Scattergood's vocals slip easily between dirty breaths and innocent sunshine; she explodes the angel/whore dichotomy in a flurry of discordant, symphonic synthpop. Nitrogen Pink, another previously released single, is buzzing and whizzing with pent-up, squealing feelings that threaten to shatter all composure; it's like the narrator is spinning round and round with open arms, triumphantly welcoming the pain like bouquets dripping with blood-red flowers. Apparently, Scattergood wrote the song about a friend deteriorating with cancer. The record concludes with Breathe In Breathe Out, a serene piano ballad accented with bird twitters. It is a weary resignation after all the preceding catharsis as Scattergood's voice delicately falters with the lyric "Learn to breathe in/Learn to breathe out/I can't let you go...yet."

There is something truly magical about Scattergood's debut; it breaks your heart with the delicacy of a heart surgeon. She accomplishes a record akin to a diary of an eighteenth-century woman accused of hysterics and committed to Bedlam. And when you're finished listening, you emerge feeling purified by insanity. For Scattergood, the people she loves are the ones who are here today, gone tomorrow, leaving her naked and impoverished; her only crime is being a spendthrift with her love.

I Hate the Way - Polly Scattergood

I Am Strong - Polly Scattergood

Nitrogen Pink - Polly Scattergood

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #55

I watched the Brit Awards a couple of weeks ago, and the only part that made it worth it was the finale with Pet Shop Boys; although, I could have done without the appearance of Lady Ga Ga and Brandon Flowers (the former looked like a blue willow china stripper with a broken arm, and the latter looked like an owl murderer). Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe still exude that aloof cool that elevates the potentially tacky and disposably popular into a higher art form (if you have any doubts, read Michael Bracewell). Their tenth studio album, Yes, will release later this month, so there will likely be a review post then. I also need to say that I would love to have a coat like Neil Tennant's.

In honour of the Pet Shop Boys stellar performance, this week's mix will be a synthpop one, the third one since this blog began. And it opens with the excellence of Suburbia. This one's called Run With the Dogs Tonight.

Suburbia - Pet Shop Boys

Enola Gay - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

M.A.G.I.C. - The Sound of Arrows

Another Day - Strawberry Switchblade

Quiet Life - Japan

Send Me an Angel '89 (Dance Mix) - Real Life

Be Near Me (Munich Disco Mix)- ABC

Sub-Culture (12" version) - New Order

Jump For Joy - The Passions

Don't Go (12" version) - Yazoo

Underpass - John Foxx

The Magician - Secession

Fang - Los Electricos

Sanctuary - New Musik

Love Action (I Believe in Love) - The Human League

The Ballad of Sexor - Tiga

I Wanted to Tell Her - Ministry

The Rules I Broke - Tim Scott

Doot Doot - Freur

Venus - Indochine

Singularity or The Black Hit of Space #1: The Melting Ice Caps, Small Crew and The Indelicates

I realize that I've generally been in the habit of reviewing full albums (or at the very least a substantial amount of tracks from an artist) rather than just singles. There's a good reason for that: I don't like writing really short posts if I don't have to. Not to mention it's sometimes difficult to judge an artist by one or two songs. However, lately, I've come to the conclusion that some singles deserve a proper public airing, especially as they fill my inbox with aural euphoria, so I'm going to start a semi-regular series that showcases these singles independent of a full album review or in the absence of an album at all.

The Melting Ice Caps/The Soft Close-Ups - Like a Souvenir/Birthmark

I've posted about ex-Luxembourg vocalist David Shah's more recent work with The Melting Ice Caps before, and here's a bit more erudite brilliance with the free double a-side single shared with a duo project he's part of, The Soft Close-Ups. Like a Souvenir, The Melting Ice Caps' track, is a bittersweet ballad, which carefully treads the wire between the cynicism and sincerity mentioned in the lyrics; it is both wryly self-deprecating and painfully earnest, and features the genius lyric, "I was a card-carrying socialite/Til they made me carry a card." It ends in a spoken recitation that includes the verse:

Am I really going to die of embarrassment like a good Englishman,
walk all of this long or short path alone?
Or will I explode in a vulgar but mercifully brief display
while you gawp on aghast from the ground?

Morrissey would be proud. The other side of the single is The Soft Close-Ups' Birthmark, a jaunty guitar-based affair that showcases Shah's sublime vibrato in a slightly different context than heard in either Luxembourg or The Melting Ice Caps - less lush chamber pop, more jangly Marr guitars provided by the other half of The Soft Close-Ups, Aug Stone (who is also a member of H Bird). Though, taking a listen to the rest of the tracks available on the MySpace reveals a variance of style, including the use of poppy synths and sparse acoustic guitars, but all feature erudite lyrics and delicate melodies. The site also includes one of the best band descriptions ever: "This band that is not one. This anti-project, stunted like binary with the ones removed. We could be zeroes, just for a day."

Like a Souvenir - The Melting Ice Caps

Birthmark - The Soft Close-Ups

The Melting Ice Caps Web site: www.themeltingicecaps.co.uk

Small Crew - Kamikaze Girls and It's Not Too Late to Wait

Like The Melting Ice Caps' did with older single Selfish Bachelor, enigmatic English combo, Small Crew, has previously released free downloads (double a-side Boxing Day/Getting Up) through God is in the TV's Singles Club. Composed of Richard Adderley (The Boyfriends, New Royal Family) and Dan Edwards (The Lucas Group), Small Crew creates some truly beautiful shoegazey pop songs, and their latest single Kamikaze Girls/It's Not Too Late to Wait, just released for free download on the Small Crew MySpace, is no exception. The first side, Kamikaze Girls, is a shimmery elegy for urban life that wavers between Spector and Suede with a captivating vocal interplay between Edwards and Adderley's wife Annie. The flipside, It's Not Too Late to Wait, is a gentle, minimal arrangement between piano and guitar that allows the tender vocal to glide sweetly over bitter advice.

Kamikaze Girls - Small Crew

It's Not Too Late to Wait - Small Crew

The Indelicates - The Recession Song

As several of you will probably already know, I absolutely love The Indelicates. They're literate, self-aware, satirical, and provocative, and they can write a cracker of a song. I was alerted by Rol ahead of the official band e-newsletter about their latest free single, the very topical (and very hilarious) The Recession Song. It features Mikey Art Brut, Keith Totp, and Nicky Biscuit, and you can watch the wonderfully appropriate video here. A breathless, shouty ode to troubling times, The Recession Song cheerleads our way through economic disaster with the chipper chants "No Career! No Hope! No Fun! No Fashion!" and "Go recession! Go, go, recession!"; only The Indelicates could treat this topic with such delicious...ahem...indelicacy. You can also buy the t-shirt featured above here, or alternatively, grab a Tesco bag and punch holes through it. I'm sure The Indelicates would approve.

The Recession Song - The Indelicates

IAMX's Kingdom of Welcome Addiction Release Date and Tour

I usually don't do announcements for upcoming albums this far in advance, but I make exceptions for the ones I'm really excited about. In this case, it's IAMX's forthcoming third album, Kingdom of Welcome Addiction. It will be released worldwide on May 19, but if you pre-order directly from IAMX's shop, it will be shipped to you on May 6. Judging from the first free download track, Think of England, and from what I've gleaned through live YouTube videos, the tracks off the new album are just as fantastic as those off the first two albums - once I get my copy of the album, there will be a review.

I'll also include the tour dates that have been announced so far (of course none remotely close to me, but c'est la vie):

01/03 GAGARIN 205 / Athens, Greece
10/03 CONRAD SOHM / Dornbirn, Austria
11/03 WEEKENDER CLUB / Innsbruck, Austria
12/03 POSTHOF / Linz, Austria
13/03 GASOMETER / Vienna, Austria
14/03 KIFF / Aarau, Switzerland
16/03 MAGNOLIA CLUB / Milan, Italy
17/03 CIRCOLO DEGLI ARTISTI / Rome, Italy
18/03 BARRUMBA / Torino, Italy
19/03 LE GRILLEN / Colmar, France
21/03 AB BRUSSELS / Brussels, Belgium SOLD OUT
27/03 BELZIK FESTIVAL / Battice, Belgium
10/04 YENI MELEK / Istanbul, Turkey
14/04 ACADEMY 3 / Manchester, UK
15/04 STEREO / Glasgow, UK
16/04 CORPORATION / Sheffield, UK
18/04 TALKING HEADS / Southampton, UK
19/04 KOKO (14+) / London, UK
21/04 ROCKHAL / Luxembourg
22/04 LE LOCOMOTIVE / Paris, France
25/04 FESTSAAL KREUZBERG / Berlin, Germany
19/05 LOPPEN / Copenhagen, Denmark
20/05 JOHN DEE / Oslo, Norway
21/05 DEBASER / Stockholm, Sweden
22/05 NOSTURI / Helsinki, Finland
02/06 T.T THE BEAR'S / Boston, USA
04/06 BOWERY BALLROOM / New York City, USA
06/06 SUBTERRANEAN / Chicago, USA
09/06 SLIM'S / San Francisco, USA
12/06 EL REY THEATRE / Los Angeles, USA
21/06 BLACKFIELD FESTIVAL / Gelsenkirchen, Germany
17/07 JAROCIN FESTIVAL / Jarocin, Poland
26/07 BLACKCAVE FESTIVAL / Waregem, Belgium

Welcome addiction, indeed.

Your Joy is My Low - IAMX

Spit It Out (Live in Warsaw) - IAMX

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #54

It's been awhile since I've posted a cover versions mix (and I've felt a little harried this week with both the volunteering and freelance work), so here's my rather lazy attempt. I would like to mention the War Child Heroes album since it's being touted as "The Ultimate Covers Album." As per usual, War Child is releasing an album with proceeds going to benefit children affected by war, but this year the idea was to get musical "heroes" to pick artists from the younger generation to cover a song from their back catalogue. I may not like all the tracks on the album, but there are some rather excellent ones, including TV on the Radio covering David Bowie's "Heroes," Scissor Sisters covering Roxy Music's Do the Strand, Rufus Wainwright covering Brian Wilson's Wonderful and Song For Children, Hot Chip covering Joy Division's Transmission, and Peaches covering Iggy Pop's Search and Destroy. You can find out how to order the UK version and how to pre-order the North American versions on the War Child MySpace.

This mix has got a fair bit of 80s covering going on, but it also includes Camera Obscura's excellent version of the most famous ode to a spotlight and Devendra Banhart's stripped-down re-working of Oasis (he actually makes it relatively palatable with his Marc Bolanesque bleat). This one's called Re-Make/Re-Model.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody - David Byrne (Original: Whitney Houston)

Do the Strand - Scissor Sisters (Original: Roxy Music)

Wig Wam Bam - Gavin Friday (Original: Sweet)

Johnny and Mary - Placebo (Original: Robert Palmer)

Mama Told Me Not to Come - The Wolfgang Press (Original: Eric Burdon & the Animals)

West End Girls - We Have Band (Original: Pet Shop Boys)

Love Hangover - The Associates (Original: Diana Ross)

Relax - The Dandy Warhols (Original: Frankie Goes to Hollywood)

Only You - Freezepop (Original: Yazoo)

All Tomorrow's Parties - Japan (Original: The Velvet Underground & Nico)

Jump - Aztec Camera (Original: Van Halen)

Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken? - Sandie Shaw (Original: Lloyd Cole and the Commotions)

Jolene - Strawberry Switchblade (Original: Dolly Parton)

Das Model - The Cardigans (Original: Kraftwerk)

Womanizer - Ladyhawke (Original: Britney Spears)

Party Fears Two - Heaven 17 (Original: The Associates)

Super Trooper - Camera Obscura (Original: ABBA)

Hoppipolla - We Are Scientists (Original: Sigur Ros)

Playground Love - Phoenix (Original: Air)

Don't Look Back in Anger - Devendra Banhart (Original: Oasis)

My Debut Album

This comes from a meme that I read about on Rol's blog, which I read pretty regularly. Through a few steps of random choices, you end up with what would be your band name, album title and album cover art. Rol's turned out pretty decent and viable - mine...well, you can see for yourself above. Apparently, you're looking at the debut album, entitled An Exceptionally Good Liar, by a new band, Ali Murad Davudi, named after an Iranian professor who is presumed the probable victim of state execution. I'd like to think it would be a highly political album. Although, there are many bands out there that would have been better off following this formula. Should you still want to participate, follow the directions below.

What would your own album look like if you were in a band? Follow the directions below and find out...

Here are the rules:

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.


Here are a couple of semi-appropriate tracks (though not by Ali Murad Davudi). Feel free to let me know what your debut album would be.

Everything is Weird - Daisy Chainsaw

Formed a Band - Art Brut

Here's to Many More of Dissent: Morrissey's Years of Refusal

I wasn't hugely fond of Morrissey's last album, Ringleader of the Tormentors, nor was I terribly impressed by the That's How People Grow Up single that released last year as part of the latest Greatest Hits package. To be fair, Morrissey is one of those artists who have been around so long that it gets more and more difficult to make a grand impression while retaining the originality that drew fans to you in the first place. Nonetheless I always look forward to a new release from Morrissey and his latest, Years of Refusal, is no exception. My initial listen of the record made me quite happy if only for the fact it sounded very different from the slow-moving Ringleader of the Tormentors - in fact, Years of Refusal puts the savage passion of earlier, more youthful times back into Morrissey's repertoire.

Maybe it all comes down to which parts you love most about Morrissey; for me, it's the acrid wit and apt descriptions of kicking out against a world you don't fit into, and Years of Refusal bring those aspects back into the foreground with a vital rage and potency. Maybe my personality just gels better with this vituperative Morrissey than with a loved-up Morrissey (in some ways, I think Morrissey has always been there to make me feel better about my semi-autistic tendency to crave being alone). Now that I've had a few more listens of the latest record, I can temper some of my excitement with a little more perspective; I still greatly enjoy the album, but there are times when the lyrics aren't as witty as they could be or as witty as they have been in the past, and when wit is one of your biggest strengths, it can get disappointing. There are also times when the boundless energy seems to overtake the vocals in a clumsier way; it's kind of the same feel I got from Morrissey's performance of This Charming Man on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross a week ago - the delicate, nuanced touch of Marr was discarded for a ragged, bolshy dynamic that ruined the song for me.

The album opens with a blinder called Something is Squeezing My Skull, which sets the crashing-snare-buzzsaw-guitar tone that dominates the record. It also features some of the best lyrics on Years of Refusal, including "The motion of taxis excites me/When you peel it back and bite me," while resonating with my own feelings of skull-crushing stress and depression, being frantically opposed to being drugged out of existence for survival and for achieving the normalcy of others. I'm not quite as thrilled with the following two songs, Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed and Black Cloud, which tend to get a bit overblown musically and not very strong lyrically. The latter sounds a little Don't Fear the Reaperish at the beginning and has uninspired lines like "I can woo you/I can amuse you/but there is nothing I can do to make you mine."

However, the recently released single, I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris, breaks through the of the previous two tracks and absolutely soars. It has a delicacy not found on most of the songs on this album and allows Moz's voice to unfold in beautiful, mournful waves. This is followed by another strong track, All You Need is Me, which has, too, already released as a single, but as part of the Greatest Hits package last year - I, myself, hadn't been aware of it until I heard it on this album. It expresses a similar self-assured sentiment to The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get, and it is definitely a stand-out track with a gritty, romping guitar sound and a vocal dripping with sarcastic sneers and an arch sense of self-importance, not to mention great lyrics like "You roll your eyes up to the skies/Mock horrified/But you're still here/All you need is me" and "I was a small fat child in a welfare house/There was only one thing I ever dreamed about/and fate has just handed it to me." A Latin influence with flamenco guitar and mariachi trumpets (perhaps due to Morrissey's surreal mutual love affair with Mexico and Latinos) pervades the brisk When Last I Spoke to Carol. The narrative tells a story of a woman who gave up pretending and living, which ultimately are the same thing in this song. While the musical style can seem a bit jarring and bizarre in relation to the subject matter, it does exude a palpable air of anxious energy that emulates Carol's edging around the narrow ledge of her life in abrupt, rehearsed steps.

I'm still fairly underwhelmed by That's How People Grow Up, but the next two tracks make up for it and make the album for me. One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell begins with scattershot drums and roiling guitars that counter Morrissey's rich, smooth vocals perfectly. It is both sad and urgent in its depiction of mortality and passage of time. My absolutely favourite song on the album is It's Not Your Birthday Anymore, which feels like the more dramatic companion piece to Unhappy Birthday from the Smiths' days. It begins gently with small cymbal flourishes and a heartbeat of bass drum before exploding into dramatic chorus, showering the object of the vengeful sentiments in emotional shrapnel. The soft-loud-soft dynamics shiver through me, and when Morrissey reaches for those high notes, my heart crashes through my epiglottis; the intuitive shift in melody and tempo in the interlude with clarinets provides a musical respite, but continues the savagery verbally with the lyric "All of the gifts that they gave can't compare in any way/To the love I am now giving to you/Right here, right now on the floor." The unbridled vocal acrobatics that begin about a minute from the end are also refreshingly strange and un-Morrissey-like. On You Were Good In Your Time, Morrissey speaks to an unnamed washed-up idol with tenderness that blankets the subliminal abstract noise and muttering voices before the latter take over completely. One of the more disappointing, throwaway tracks is Sorry Doesn't Help, which most seem to agree would have been better off languishing as a forgotten b-side, but the record concludes with I'm Okay By Myself, another one of my favourite compositions. It begins with the familiar Moz wit with the sardonic first line: "Could this be an arm around my waist?...Well, surely the hand contains a knife." And with its driving guitars and desperate howls, this song closes the album in the same rollicking, self-affirming spirit that it opened with. No apologies for being "disturbing" and having a propensity for solitude.

Years of Refusal is a fantastic shot in the arm and reminds me that Morrissey can still create brilliant vitriol and fight with the energy he always had. Yes, I feel let down by some of the lyrics, but I'm not going to side with some of the recent criticism that claims this is a step backwards into some sort of adolescent petulance. These critics seem to assume that maturation equals mellowing out and resigning yourself to the pleasures and mentality of the status quo you rebelled against as a young person; that's not how all people grow up. I want to keep fighting as I age, and I don't think it's immature to want to remain apart from society's expectations. Like Johnny Rotten once said, "Anger is energy." I suppose I feel that I can get orchestral love songs anywhere, but there are few that I can turn to for reassurance that I'm not alone in wanting to be alone. And I think Morrissey effectively answers those critics of this album by the lines in Something is Squeezing My Skull: "I know by now you think I should have straightened myself out/Thank you. Drop dead."

All You Need Is Me - Morrissey

It's Not Your Birthday Anymore - Morrissey

It's Not Fair: Ticket Sales in an Online World

I was browsing around Ticketmaster Canada today as I'm wont to do on a fairly regular basis to see if by some miracle a band I want to see is actually coming to Winnipeg. Lo and behold, I discover that Bloc Party is coming in May. I immediately attempt to buy a ticket. (The blood is buzzing in my ears at this point as it usually does when I try to get tickets online.) Already in my heart, I'm fairly certain that I won't get floor seats - it's the Burton Cummings Theatre, a vaudevillean venue that generally sells out its floor in seconds. I still remember what one of my friends and I will forever call the "Franz Ferdinand Debacle"; despite both of us being on the Ticketmaster Web site at the same time trying to get tickets for the gig, which happened to be a double headliner with Death Cab For Cutie, we both got locked out of the site and all of the tickets were gone in a minute. We still largely blame overzealous Death Cab For Cutie fans and their pre-sale passwords for this. I maintain that this is not the only reason I hate Death Cab so much. Back to my current Bloc Party situation... Sadly, I am correct, and I resignedly settle for a seat in the first balcony. It's Bloc Party - I need to go. I'm satisified enough just to be going at all, but when I look online for information about this concert announcement, I'm rankled by what I discover. The official announcement appears to have occurred on January 14, and there was a pre-sale password.

Now, I understand that the world of ticket-buying has irrevocably changed since the advent of online sales. I accept that. However, what I refuse to accept is the fact I have to have a coronary every time a decent band comes to this city. There shouldn't be such a thing as some elite pre-sale that only those in-the-know have access to. I'm not cool enough to be in-the-know. Or the loop. I'm already a lot more obsessive and crazy than regular music fans when it comes to monitoring things like this, but I realize that it would be physically and mentally impossible for me to keep tabs on every band I love to see when they might decide to brave the trek to Winnipeg. Perhaps teenagers are more adept at this because they have more time and energy to devote to such pursuits, or because they don't have hundreds of bands to worry about. At any rate, it's inevitable that every time a band has a pre-sale, there will be either no good seats left or no seats at all. Winnipeg is generally pretty starved for good gigs, so when they come, there's a rabid scramble.

I'm old enough to remember the times of pre-online ticket sales and pre-pre-sale ticket sales. When I was a teenager and barely twenty or so, I would dutifully line up outside ticket sellers and try for the best seats possible from the agent. This is how I procured third row tickets for David Bowie. I also remember being able to get tickets by phone. This is how I ended up on the floor for Muse (albeit after leaping over a couple rows of seating when the lights went out in order to evade security).

I would also like to point out that this isn't a rant against ticket touts, which seems to be a growing problem all over the world (though, I've heard most about it in Britain) because I'm fairly certain the majority of people who bought up the good tickets for Bloc Party genuinely wanted to go. In the end, this is probably more of a rant against pre-sales and annoying venues. What I mean by annoying venues is the aspect of assigned seating. I am most happy at a venue that has no seating at all. To me the democratic way of concert-going is rush seating. That guarantees that you don't have to have a grand mal trying to get tickets first, and it ensures that the more committed the fan, the better the position in relation to the stage. If you have the motivation to arrive at the venue's doors an hour or four in advance, then you surely deserve a prime spot by the stage. I have operated this way many times - in fact, I've gotten used to this manner of doing things over the past couple of years. Perhaps that's why I get so enraged at a place like Burton Cummings. Although, in the past, before this ticket frenzy nonsense, I recall being up against the stage at the Burt for The Arcade Fire and for Muse. But pre-sales have obviously changed that. I may never set foot on the floor of the Burton Cummings ever again.

Additionally, I seem to forget that most of the bands and artists I like are considered relatively obscure, thus when I've gone to their shows, I got to go to tiny venues that were automatically rush seating. This is why I wish bands would get out here before they get too big (this is how I managed to see The Killers with a couple hundred other people and nearly have Brandon Flowers step on my hand with his loafers). I can't compete with the army of indie fans that can finagle their way to the best spots for shows. At least not online. When it comes to physically competing for spots at the stage, I have sharp elbows and a stealthy nature, and I can stand outside a venue for half a day in sub-zero weather easily. My only small consolation is that the people at the Burt seem to be adamant that the Bloc Party show will have strictly assigned seating; however, having been in this position several times at other shows, I have witnessed the tide of fans leaving their assigned floor seats to press the stage regardless of security or rules. And I will be trapped like an obese pigeon up in the first balcony.

I feel sorry for those people who aren't techno-savvy and think they can actually purchase concert tickets by phone. Or by standing in line somewhere. Those days are long gone. My fear is that the days of online ticket purchases will soon be out of sight for me as well.

One Month Off - Bloc Party

Atonement - Bloc Party