It's Good To Talkshow, Taxicab Classics, Video
Aw, lookathis. Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald & The Roots. In sailors’ caps. With two drummers. Doing 70s taxicab classic, “Ride Like The Wind”. S’nice!
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That little snapshot up there is from Snoop Dogg’s new video, “Gangster Love” “Gangsta Luv”. It’s an odd moment - amongst all the usual lady-based booty-quaking and gyrationalisms, there’s Snoop in the back seat of his whip having noodles chopsticked into his mouth by an Asian “lovely”.
I suppose after a few years in the game you probably run out of ways to humourously objectify women, so it’s heartening to see Snoop and his video director switching things up a bit.
Kudos also for the moment when, while zipping along in a speedboat with another buttock-flaunting entourage, Snoop smacks two ladies on their badonkadonks - and knocks them overboard. Nary a raised eyebrow from Mr. Dogg, of course, despite said ladies’ almost certainly not living to shake their bumcakes again.
Snoop Dogg - Gangsta Luv on MUZU.
The first - and in all likelihood last - of My Chemical Toilet’s video tutorials shows how to teach yourself Calvin Harris’s awesome “You Used To Hold Me” on the stylophone.
“RATE AND SUBSCRIBE”
My Chemical Toilet’s roving review machine John-Scott Croly went to check out some up-and-comers on the latest Levi’s Ones To Watch Tour, so he did.
The band selector for the Levi’s OnesToWatch tour (for argument’s sake let’s call her Jean) is seemingly able to predict with unerring accuracy the bands that will be soundtracking our iPod commercials and adorning our NME-reading teenage relatives’ bedrooms walls twelve months down the line. Given the name and premise of the tour, this surely makes her very good at her job.
Of course I’m fully aware that in all likelihood each tour’s band roster is carefully selected by a team, nay, committee of achingly hip cultural Nostradamuses - but it’s fair to say that whoever these people are, they’re getting something right.
Previous acts to play on the Never-Ending Tour of Denim-Endorsed Musical Foresight™ have included White Lies, Passion Pit, Dananananaykroyd, Black Lips and The Temper Trap. And whether you care for these bands or not, their subsequent success is indie-sputable.
So it was with a curious ear I ventured down the steps of legendary Soho haunt The Borderline. I’d barely heard even whisperings about any of the bands on bill. A friend at the NME had only heard of one of them. Would this night’s show be a non-stop cavalcade of clever clairvoyance, or had Jean been headhunted by the Wrangler Corporation for their forthcoming ‘Next Big Thing’ tour? Well, chuffing well read on and you’ll find out.
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Video, Your New Favourite Weirdo
As revelations go, the above is about as surprising as waking up in the morning. But Karin Dreijer deserves credit for not giving up on that whole “I’m going to spook the bollocks out of you” vibe she’s been mining for a while, even if she is tipping over into self-parody.
Not that you’ll be thinking in such an analytical fashion when you see her with a big “V” on her face for no particular reason in the vid for “Stranger Than Kindness”. Nay, you’ll be doing your darndest not to shityapants.
Merry Halloween, everyone!*
*I know it’s not Halloween for a couple of days yet, but the chances of me getting time to post again before Saturday are, how you say, “slim to fuck-all”.
John-Scott Croly skipped along to Wimbledon’s Watershed to see Band Of Skulls (above) support some people called The London Punks t’other day week.
Hotly-tipped Southampton blues-rockers Band of Skulls were this show’s not-so-secret support act, squeezing in a quick one on their way back home for a well-earned weekend off. They blew the sweaty roof off the Watershed’s dank back room - not that any of the 20 or so glass-eyed punters noticed.
Without their own following, the trio had to make do with the headliners’ early crowd - a smattering of arm-folders and phone-fiddlers who steadfastly refused to be won over, seemingly out of some kind of fierce-yet-misguided loyalty to The London Punks.
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I’m not one for R&B ballads, really. They tend to be syrupy and over-emotive, which is obviously a generalisation but, you know, given the choice between a ballad and a club “banger” it’s the bangful one that wins me over 85% of the time.
However, like the very best pop songs, Brit soul type McLean’s “Broken” manages to transcend the genre with which it would be most closely associated. It’s a heartbroken, overwrought fist-clencher which, in a landscape of overproduced, autotuned pop spaff with half an eye on ringtone sales, actually makes you believe the singer is properly, hair-tearingly lovewrecked. Marvellous.
It also has a very interesting history, having first surfaced way back in 2006, when McLean went by the name of Digga (since changed because an American artist went by the same name). Unbeknownst to me, it became an online sensation, racking up millions of plays on YouTube and prompting, seemingly, everyone with a webcam to produce their own version.
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Digital Love/Hate/Indifference, Up-And-Coming Acts
Look at that image, and listen to this song, and like me you might just come to the realisation that Kid Sister is surely destined to be a bona fide, proper, soon-to-be-sullied-by-a-guest-rap-from-Akon pop star.
Her songs are ravey enough for clubs but accessible enough for the pop charts, she’s collaborated with Kanye West already and she gets remixed by people so cool you haven’t heard of them. Although she has been “up and coming” for a while now, so let’s hope her moment hasn’t passed. Her album Ultraviolet is out in November.
While I’m being nice I’ll also apportion two and a half props to RCRD LBL, which not only showcases splendid music but is also the kind of site pilfering bloggers like me like a lot - they provide handy, easily-shareable wee widgets like that one up there.
Sounds simple, but it’s a notion that still escapes a lorra record companies…
Jack Daniel, despite being dead, still gets to have a birthday. Or rather his “product”, Jack Daniel’s Tennesee Whiskey, does. That Jane Bradley went along to see Brett Anderson, Carl Barat and Jon McClure perform at a special bash t’other week, and this is what she thunkabourrit.
The Jack Daniel’s Birthday Set is an exclusive sort of affair. Tickets for it can’t be bought; it’s competitions winners and media only. There’s only capacity for four hundred in the Village Underground vaults, so you’d assume some elitism about the kind of riff-riff they let wangle their way in. Luckily for me, not so.
Every September, the folks at Jack Daniel’s organise shindigs like these to celebrate the birthday of the Tennessee whiskey wizard. The calibre of the “rock royalty” performing varies; previous celebrations have included Patti Smith, Juliette Lewis and Frank Black.
Apparently I was to be treated to an assortment of sterling musicians across a spectrum of genres, but as soon as I heard Carl Barât’s name being bandied about, I started to get suspicious…
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Interesting tactic from Ali Love’s PR folk here - sending out an email as if it’s actually FROM Ali Love. There was me thinking a nascent pop star was getting in touch to say hi, but nah, it’s just another email full of remixes.
Still, it got me to open the message and now I’m giving their “client” “coverage”, so job done really.
The email contained his new video “Diminishing Returns”, which you can see below. It’s all a bit dull (unlike the song, which is rather good) until Ali decides to don some chainmail. An underused accoutrement in music videos, the old chainmail.
Having said that, I am telling you now: if I see someone wearing chainmail in an east London bar, I’m emigrating.
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