I’m not going to do any of that “blah blah everyone likes TV On The Radio nowadays I liked them before they were born, etc” nonsense. Because, to be honest, I have never liked TV On The Radio. I’ve always found them to have trouble incorporating the “tunes” part of music-making into their work.
Until, that is, their new album Dear Science. It is quite brilliant, and will almost certainly be near the top of many end-of-year lists. It’s an actual album that sounds great from start to finish. As - cringe - “a body of work”.
Their recent performance on Later with Jools Holland seems to have won them a lot of new fans, and if you haven’t checked out their new stuff you might want to remedy that by watching “Dancing Choose” after the jump.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday October 13th, 2008 at 10:30 am

Weird, isn’t it, how channels get the rights to cover music festivals, but then choose to air them weeks after the fact and in the wee hours. On a weeknight. Is this because they can’t sell advertising around music festivals? I dunno.
The Lovebox London Weekender, Groove Armada’s very own festival (now there’s a way to guarantee headline status), took place the best part of a month back now. Featured artists included Goldfrapp, The Flaming Lips, Manu Chao, Lethal Bizzle, Young Knives and, of course, the Armada themselves.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday August 22nd, 2008 at 11:00 am

Orange unsignedAct, the competition with the curious approach to capitalisation, flung open its doors to unsigned acts last week - and has already been deluged with over 1,000 entries from bands keen to make their mark in the filthy, disgusting, soul-destroying music industry.
Supported by Sony Ericsson, Orange unsignedAct allows bands to upload their music to the contest’s website before the billions of hopefuls are whittled down to a mere fifty. These lucky souls will then sing and dance before a panel of judges, to feature barefoot seductress Jo Whiley, cheese enthusiast Alex James and The Man’s Simon Gavin. I think this is the bit where the TV coverage may begin, because it provides the best opportunity for ritual humiliation.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Wednesday August 20th, 2008 at 9:00 am

A growing part of the Glastonbury vibe these days is the BBC’s coverage, which spans an impressive number of channels - this year there will be coverage on BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 as well as Radio 1, Radio 2 and 6 Music.
With such familiarity comes a pretty predictable set of things to expect, however. Here is your non-cut-out-and-keep card to mark as and when they appear as you watch from your sofa/bed/prison cell. If you get them all, make sure you come back and leave a comment saying “HOUSE!”. Or “BOLLOCKS!”. Either’s good.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday June 27th, 2008 at 11:00 am

Isle of Wight festival this weekend, folks (sponsored by BT, remember!). And amongst all the festivals littering the summer calendar, this one has some pretty extensive coverage for those not lucky enough to be attending.
ITV2 will be broadcasting from the festival on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night from 11pm to midnight, with a highlights show the following week on Thursday 19th at 11.40pm.
With a bill including Sex Pistols, Kaiser Chiefs, The Police, Iggy Pop, N.E.R.D and The Kooks, there should be plenty of decent footage to feast your eyes and ears on.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday June 12th, 2008 at 12:37 pm

Blimey. Never mind Glastonbury - for pop kidz, Weston-Super-Mare on Sunday 20th July looks like the place to be this summer. T4 On The Beach, already playing host to Adele, Pigeon Detectives, Lightspeed Champion, Robyn, The Feeling and many more, has added yet more top acts to its bill.
Those acts are: Guillemots, Feeder, Duffy, Alphabeat and The Ting Tings. If you added up the highest chart placings of all those acts, you’d get… *gets out calculator*… about… *shakes calculator*… something like… *throws calculator out of window*… well, not a very high number. Which is good. As far, like, how successful they’ve been. You remember how charts work, yeah? The lower the number the better.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Wednesday June 11th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

I’m sure these seaside roadshow affairs never used to have the quality of bill they do nowadays. The weekend just gone saw Madonna, Nelly, Usher, The Kooks and loads more line up for Radio 1’s One Big Weekend, and now comes news of some frankly spiffing new acts for T4 On The Beach.
Joining Robyn, Sc*uting F*r G*rls, The Feeling, Lightspeed Champion and The H**siers on the bill are…

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday May 15th, 2008 at 10:06 am

I miss Popworld. It was great hangover telly - music, silly humour, attractive popstars. All it needed was the ability to serve me a strawberry milkshake and it would have been perfect. Since it was axed Sunday mornings (or early afternoons) have been a bit lightweight on the old music front, apart from the odd live concert from Timberlake and the like. And don’t get me started on Hollyoaks.
Well, music fans might be in for something of a treateroo from this weekend, because that’s when Nokia Green Room hits our screens. It’s on T4 at a pleasingly post-morning time-slot - 2.20pm, to be precise. Find out what it’s all about after the jump.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday April 3rd, 2008 at 10:17 am

Catchy post title, eh? God bless corporate sponsorship. I remember the days when it would have been “Best New Band At The Brats”, you know. Anyway.
2008’s Shockwaves NME Awards take place tomorrow night, providing a notional alternative to The Brits’ cosy choices of who’s moving and shaking this music world of ours. And while people are always going to whine about NME’s take on things, and the narrow outlook of its readership, it does at least allow the next generation of, well, Brits winners a chance to justify the hype that’s been spewed out on their behalf over the last year or so.
Clearly Arctic Monkeys are going to drunkenly stumble off with most of the gongs, so I’m going to look at the nominees for Best New Band supported by BBC Radio 1, previous winners of which have included such established sorts as the aforementioned Monkeys and superstar dullards Coldplay. And don’t worry, the terrifyingly dangerous young man above isn’t nominated for anything.
Click through for literally everything you need to know about the nominees…

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday February 26th, 2008 at 5:27 pm

How’s this for a mash-up of past and present? Some soul has uploaded three whole hours of gen-u-ine MTV from 1983 for your enjoyment / amusement / boredom onto Google Video. This is from the days when MTV had actual presenters (or “VJs”), and showed actual music videos rather than The Hills 24/7. Kansas! Huey Lewis! Awkward links! Lousy commercials! It’s all right here.
Anyway, if you have an hour and a half to spare - and who doesn’t? - check out the first half below. You can see the second half here, if the novelty hasn’t worn off after ninety minutes.

[via Torr]

Posted by mofgimmers on Friday February 1st, 2008 at 12:06 pm