mp3: Black Albino
website: http://www.gargleblastrecords.com
I’ve had the Desert Hearts album Hotsy Totsy Nagasaki since last year and have completely failed to mention it. Feeling slightly guilty about that, above is a download link for their new single (temporarily free).
I’m lucky enough to be lucky enough to be watching videos at work again instead of actually having to do work. I am truly blessed. This time looks even more bovine than that previous, so without further ado, let’s skip into the marshes of popular culture once more.
1. Fergie - Glamorous
I have such little knowledge of Fergie that I could actually be 80, which is a shame in one way, but a relief in maybe a dozen others. All I know is that she contains lumps and that she also was in the Black-Eyed Peas, so defective food appears to be her “thing”. Here, she’s singing a song called Glamorous. She arrives at a “1994 Backyard Kegger” - an ominous start - where they all appear to be drinking out of paper cups, it’s dark and I think the idea, to us dims, is that they are poor. The fact this level of destitution also appears to include a large swimming pool - and enough facial reconstructive surgery to populate a school with the leftover bits - also evades them. Jennifer Lopez also said she was “Jenny from the block”, and I think this is Fergie’s version, but I can’t honestly be sure what’s happening, as she says she doesn’t care about the trappings of her fame, and then pushes them so far and obscenely into the TV screen while having a bright light shone in her face that you think David Cronenberg’s going to come in and make you vomit through your eyes while your fingers turn into your elbow. Oh, it has a rap in it, where the man is actually gagging as he raps, which is quite entertaining!
# Lifestyle so rich and famous,
Robin Leach will get jealous #,
he gaks. Who’s Robin Leach? Her plumber? They then say “If you ain’t got no money take your broke ass home”, which reminds me of Ricky Gervais laughing at disabled people. Fergie then spells Glamorous about 60 times and does it right every single time, so it wasn’t a totally wasted effort.
2. Pink - Leave Me Alone (I’m Lonely)
Pink And Her Paradoxes, what is she like? I hoped this was a cover of the only good Michael Jackson song of the last 20 years but nope, Pink did this all by herself, and much like you wouldn’t put all your kids’ pictures they bring back from school on the fridge, this one’s going to have phone numbers and a shopping list on the back of it by the end of the week. It’s a Song With Brackets which means it is Multi-layered and looks like Pink is essentially trying to dichotomise her feelings; she wants you to leave her alone but is also informing you of the possibility that she is also lonely. Do you see? She presents it as a title, but in the end, it’s the substance, the content, the text, if you will, with a con, that provides the key. This one is live from Wembley Arena and there’s cheering all the way through it, even though I think Pink is trying to make a very serious point. And yet she doesn’t seem too worried, which makes me wonder if she’s even in it to make a difference any more. I remember when she was going out and wanted to get this party started, but now, it’s all “leave me alone” and “I’m lonely”, “go away” and “come back”. I hate it when massive pop stars sell out to become humungous pop stars, it makes me feel empty. -er. Come back! Go away! Oh, I’m all confused now. Also, considering it’s supposed to be a live song, her voice sports so much Autotune, her face has sprouted piano keys.
3. The Sounds - Tony Da Beat
Uh-oh. I hate this.
Kind of weirdly empty, the sort of thing Goldfrapp people like, I think, to accompany their sunglasses. More like the feeling you get 15 mins after a bad wank, to be honest, and that includes the video.
4. James Morrison - Undiscovered
It’s just an endless tide of hate, this reviewing session, isn’t it? I don’t mean it to be, I honestly, honestly don’t. I love music! The Universal James Constant is at work here, or it was, but it seems that with global warming, the age-old natural balance of Jameses has somehow gone out of control. Someone has to make a stand or soon it’ll be Jameses as far as the eye can see. One dies - James Brown - but four arrive in his place - James Morrison, James Blunt, James Yorkston and, er, James. There are clearly too many Jameses in music at the moment, and this is one of the chief Jameses of the reason why. Why doesn’t he just go the full way and have a track where he says “Grande, Tall or Vente?” over some crockery clattering, so we don’t actually have to go to a coffee shop to hear him? He also looks a bit like a fish in a wig, which while not his fault, obviously, is disconcerting when he just appears on your screen begging for your cortical attention. His eyes are on the side of his head! But the music! The music! What about the video? Well, it goes like this. Bike. Wall. Wall. Wall. James. Hair. Wall. Rain. Man. Wall. Woman. Bridge. Briefcase. Wall. Hair. Bridge. Scarf. Wall. Wall. Wall. Teddy bear! Oh, a teddy bear! Oh. Wall. Wall. Man. Briefcase. House. Teeth. Woman. Wall. People. Wall. Teeth. Hair. Heart. Bridge. Wall. Wall. Wall. Wall. Wall. Wall. Wall. Wall. Wall. Wall. Wall.
5. Lucy Silvas - Sinking In
In which Abby from ER has a blonde wig and a few years after a car crash to recover then releases a single where she can’t hear the backing track properly so is asked to do as well as she can by watching the lights on the recording deck instead and sing around them. The video is on a white background with a man and there’s lots of cuts and jumps. Also, they’ve coloured her eyes in one of those special shades you don’t find in nature except maybe on horny geckos or maybe polonium. Oh, they used that effect in this video similar to those pictures you can buy on the weekly market for £2 of a composite picture of Obi-Wan’s face made up of thousands of details you didn’t notice in Star Wars cos they were boring like rocks on Tattooine, Han Solo’s waistcoat and a piece of cloth in the background in the weird alien bar. Is Lucy Silvas famous? How about now? ..How about now? There’s a man in this video who appears to be inspecting her back for acne, as far as I can tell, as she looks straight ahead. Nice to ask your doctor to be in your video, I suppose. Beats paying him. There’s a good bit where they play Scrabble, but as usual they didn’t realise this and instead let the song carry on to the end, where a minor chordy bit was added for variety and then the key change came in like a burglar in a noisy wheelchair. All of a sudden, the song wasn’t on any more and I went for a cup of tea.
mp3: Exits
website: http://www.aereogramme.co.uk
So tonight is the night. I haven’t had an Aereogramme show since July 2005, and even that was only a brief support slot. Plus tonight is my first taste of new Aereogramme: less screamy, an extra computer manipulator, and a lot more percussive, so I hear.
Just in case you’re clueless as to who or what the band are (even though I go on about them all the time), this is what I knocked out for the newspaper last week:
“There seems to be a growing notion that this dynamic Scottish rock quartet have undergone a change of direction in recent times. It may be true to an extent. While the band have traditionally attracted followers from the heavy music scene, and have enjoyed links to metal titans like Isis–last autumn saw the release of a collaborative mini-album as part of local distributor Konkurrent’s long-running In the Fishtank series–their brand new album My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go does away with much of the loud guitars and guttural screams, replacing them with layers of strings, piano and poignant lyrics. The flipside of the coin is that these elements were always a major part of Aereogramme’s make-up, only the moments of raw intimacy were always countered by furious eruptions of noise. With much of that direct aggression removed, the metal fans are left scratching their heads. For the rest of us still bewitched by their cinematic efforts–the album title is taken from The Exorcist novel, while many tracks take inspiration from celluloid moments–this is surely the out-of-town gig of the week.”
So I’ve stuck an mp3 online in tribute. Titled ‘Exits’, it’s one of the softest tracks on the album but it’s really nice. There were a couple of other tracks I immediately considered, but they were a tad too epic, and the band aren’t as progressive about sharing music online as I am, so I’d have felt a little guilty using the album’s cornerstone tracks on a blog. Still, ‘Exits’ is lovely and gives a good taster for where the band are at these days. And if you like it, there’s even better stuff on the album.
Oh, and despite my killer schedule lately, I managed to revamp their official site recently - nothing fancy, but it represents their new album artwork pretty well. So feel free to click on the link at the top and check it out. There aren’t many websites that let you kill off band members by clicking on their picture, but I think it’s a growing market. Course, I did all this after the band went out on tour, so they probably haven’t even remembered that they have an official website. There goes my chances of picking up all the free swag. Bah.
Buy.
mp3: Nothing To Be Done
no longer updated website: The Pastels
This always reminds me of someone at university, who will remain nameless, but was terribly self-conscious and cool-conscious the whole time I knew him, always making sure everyone knew what he was listening to, why he was listening to it and why it was important we knew why he was listening to it. So imagine my shock when finally getting round to listening to something he recommended that wasn’t Pearl Jam (The Daily Mail had caught on by this point - Grunge kids don’t have meals! They eat pizza!) or the Loveless-era drear of My Bloody Valentine, and it actually being good; I wasn’t sure what to do.
I only know a little about The Pastels, which is actually illegal in Glasgow and can result in being barred from Sleazy’s, but I think I can get away with it to an international audience.
What a sweet song. In a way, it’s almost too sweet, sickly mellow, as someone else I didn’t like from university, used to say. No, I didn’t like anyone much at university. 1993 was a funny year; we stayed in a flat with no radiators (which meant I walked about with a hot water bottle round my neck, like some elderly Flavor Flav), watched the crowds come and go to the Rangers games down the road, and had a direct view of the linedancers leaving the Grand Ol’ Opry across the road every Friday. My flatmate’s bedroom skylight looked directly onto a huge stone angel on the roof of the restaurant building opposite, which would cause all sorts of perturbation for the first few months when it was in the corner of your eye. This song whisks me back there immediately: so what you say, we go and get a beer?
Buy.
mp3: Live Set
web: The Vegas Valentinos
There has been much talk about the albums of this last year, and even though I’m probably not the most objective, or best person to review this, I am loathe to close the book on the music of 2006 without having something to say about the Vegas Valentinos Five and Dime Quartet.
The band is four guys out of New England who love rock, soul, blues, punk and anything to fall out of the hallowed halls of Stax or Sun Records. So it makes perfect sense that the 14 tracks were recorded in Memphis (at Sun), debuted at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame show and then premiered at Baltimore’s Night of 100 Elvises. It also makes perfect sense that despite a modern rock sound with heavy contemporary influences, the music harkens back to that familiar place.
The Five and Dime Quartet, as with all three previous efforts, is a jumping, energetic album, heavily sprinkled with tongue-in-cheek humor that translates beautifully to their live shows. From the open strains of “Springer” (an ode to the debauched television show) to “Games to Play” (a lament on a love grown cold) the VV’s give us their best, and you just have to love it. Even their covers of the Shods’ “The Zig”, and their ingenious medley of a Louis Prima and an Elvis song “Buena Sera/Kiss Me Quick” demonstrates their mastery of the musical medium.
Okay, so maybe I’m not the most objective reviewer here. After all, I am related to three of the four members of the band, and the bass player is well, Dad. However, this band is dynamic, and they can make the worst song a great song. Or at the very least make you laugh at it. They are a must-see live spectacle. You judge the quality of a band not only on its studio output, but most importantly on its live effort: this band has fun. They make good, often great music that is as much a joy to hear as it is for them to make it.
Above is a link to a live set you can find on their website.
I hope you like it.
