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…

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday October 19th, 2009 at 8:00 am

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…
Continue reading »

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Saturday October 17th, 2009 at 2:27 pm

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.

Buy Ali Love MP3s at 7Digital

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Saturday October 17th, 2009 at 12:34 pm

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday October 12th, 2009 at 8:00 am

Poor old Akon, he’s always got summat on his mind. If it’s not accidentally dry-humping a child, physically throwing a teenager off a stage, or lying about his bad-assedness and his age, it’s something else.

“Something else” is currently illustrated in the lyrics to his latest smash hit, “Sexy Bitch” - a collabaration with Fronch deeshay David Guetta:

She’s nothing like a girl you’ve ever seen before
Nothing you can compare to your neighbourhood whore
I’m trying to find the words to describe this girl
Without being disrespectful…

Now, placing the girl in question above the local prostitute goes someway to showing how disrespectful Akon isn’t, but he’s clearly in a considerable tizzy over this matter. Just how can he describe this girl without being disrespectful? Let’s see if he manages it by skipping to the chorus:

Damn, you’s a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch
Damn, you’s a sexy bitch, damn, girl
Damn, you’s a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch
Damn, you’s a sexy bitch, damn, girl

Hmm. It’s a valiant effort, but some might think that referring to a lady as a bitch - albeit a sexy one - is, like, the least respectful way to describe her. I’m just putting that out there.

What’s interesting, though, is that if you take these lyrics from the mouth of Akon and place them in the mouth of an animated Australian tennis player, they somehow take on a certain charm. Watch:

So, if the lyrics sound OK coming from Graham up there, does that mean Akon succeeded in his attempt to not be disrespecful?

It’s a real conundrum, and one far too complicated for my male thoughtsicles to process. So I decided to ask some of The Womens. I emailed some real-life females and asked them for their opinion on Akon’s attempt to not be disrespectful, alongside a mark out of ten for “Not Being Disrespectful-ness”.

Continue reading »

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday October 8th, 2009 at 8:30 am

God knows what this number was about. “A juicy red apple is nice, but not every apple is red,” preached a pointdexter-y chap repeatedly over a breakbeat.

The piano breakdown still sounds great today though, with the vocal line “my juice is sweeter” at least providing some kind of dirtily tangible lyrical content.

Er, because that’s what you were after from rave music in 1992, wasn’t it?

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday October 6th, 2009 at 8:30 am

It’s a new month! This one’s called October. And with this Octoberishly-named month comes a bunch of new Levi’s Ones To Watch residencies, where you can go and see numerous acts of an up-and-coming nature in various Londontown hostelries.

The October batch of shows includes future stars/cabbies such as Citadels, Exlovers, Kurran And The Wolfnotes, Young Rebel Set, Turboweekend and presumed GCSE French flunkers, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool.

Also on board are Mirrors, whose “Look At Me” is playing in a YouTube embedded video near you. Like, really near you. Like, here:

Mirrors play Camden Barfly on October 15th alongside Young Rebel Set and Turboweekend. The first show is this Thursday 8th at The Macbeth and has Citadels, Dansette Junior and language remedials Ou Est Le Swimming Pool.

For the rest of the dates check out the Levi’s Ones To Watch official site. Tickets are available from TicketWeb and See Tickets.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday October 5th, 2009 at 8:30 am

You can find anything out on the internet these days. Anything. And when one is investigating an act one is unfamilar with it’s good practice to check out Wikipedia, wait 11 minutes for the artist’s MySpace page to load, and so on.

For once, with Bertie Blackman, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to wait and see if the information comes to me. I’ll pretend this is a fun “experiment” rather than a symptom of my laziness. Do you know anything about Bertie Blackman? Leave information in the comments.

All I know, thanks to YouTube’s geographical info, is that she’s considerably more popular in one country than any other:

Her - yes HER, OMG WEIRD, RIGHT? - song “Thump” is an urgent, immediate, quiet-loud, um, thump in the synapses. I loves it, I do.

There are a couple of remixes here, too. Not as good as the original though, which seems a novel happening these days.

Bertie Blackman - Thump (Duosseudo Mix)

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Bertie Blackman “Thump” (Wild Turkeys Remix)

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Saturday October 3rd, 2009 at 3:00 pm

I will never get tired of watching this scene.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday October 2nd, 2009 at 8:00 am

I can’t be ignored like a hangOVER
Coz everybeat I sound nang OVER
Half of them I don’t mad OVER
This bass will knock your gran OVER

The lesson here is, if you’ve got Granny coming over for Christmas dinner make sure you didn’t also invite JME. Things could get awkward.

Buy JME “Over Me” MP3 at Play.com

[via Fullygrown Grime]

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Wednesday September 30th, 2009 at 8:30 am