Showing posts with label view monday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label view monday. Show all posts
Monday, 9 July 2007
Sunday, 1 July 2007
View Monday, in a post-Fopp malaise: Glastonbury special with added Mistys.
People are still going on about last weekend’s Glastonbury festival, and there’s nothing like jumping on a bandwagon a week late. So here we are. i can assure you that this first entry is the only time i will mention the word mud.
The only performance that i’ve seen from the abundant internet Glastonbury audio-visual material that looked particularly exciting is CSS, which is particularly good because of…balloons! Look! Balloons all over the stage! Oh and that they’re a great band. But still. Balloons! Check out also how it obviously takes three burly men to wade in and manhandle a petite and be-leotarded Lovefoxx from the adoring grasps of, ooh, half a dozen people? Obviously for her own safety. Three big blokes. With big hands. One small lady. Yes. Also, note the close up of her bum as well. But only because it’s got mud on it. No other reason. Nope.
Back a year (we think), this is the bard of Barking singing the greatest Billy Bragg song he never wrote. With the person who wrote it. We ought to do a post about Mr Bailey at some point. Remind me.
If you didn’t think we could get more self-indulgent, here’s that band my lover likes a lot. Just because she likes them and i love it when she’s happy.
More balloons! And two perpetual suns! And a dolphin! And a tiger! And several thousand other things! Those good ol’ boys from Oklahoma really do put some effort into it, and this was before Wayne decided to travel to gigs in a bloody massive inflatable ball. There’s a large chunk of the rest of this set online if you’re interested, which you probably ought to be.
And back in the real world – oh okay, away from the countryside then – this week saw the sudden yet unsurprising end to Fopp, making another big weapon in the music industry’s arsenal when arguing value for money doesn’t pay. (This of course being the same week that the music industry were furious that Prince would do anything as innovative and relatively selfless to his fans as give away his new album for nowt, although they seem to have ignored that the real reason to get mad is that in order to get your mitts on a copy you’d have to actually purchase the worst newspaper in Britain.) One thing that Fopp were good at – obviously not making much profit, or treating their employees with dignity and respect by actually paying them for their final month’s work – was in-store performances, and although they varied in quality they at least re-ignited in some way the notion that going out and buying records could be an experience and actually, whisper it, fun, rather than something you did in Tesco between choosing the shortest till to queue at and picking up some Tic Tacs. Here’s one of the in-store performances from Jim Noir, which as you’ll be able to tell is really rather badly out of synch. Bye Fopp, i’m sorry i didn’t buy that cheap reissue of After The Gold Rush as a way of saying farewell.
And finally, some added Misty’s Big Adventure, who this week at last saw the fruits of a video shoot for ‘Night Time Better Than The Day Time’…which came out as a single on Awkward Records in, uhm, 2004. You’ve got to hand it to director Marke Locke, he’s pretty nifty with the camera, and at least this use of his (generous) talent didn’t languish in a vault for evermore. Funny Times due soon too, thankfully.
The only performance that i’ve seen from the abundant internet Glastonbury audio-visual material that looked particularly exciting is CSS, which is particularly good because of…balloons! Look! Balloons all over the stage! Oh and that they’re a great band. But still. Balloons! Check out also how it obviously takes three burly men to wade in and manhandle a petite and be-leotarded Lovefoxx from the adoring grasps of, ooh, half a dozen people? Obviously for her own safety. Three big blokes. With big hands. One small lady. Yes. Also, note the close up of her bum as well. But only because it’s got mud on it. No other reason. Nope.
Back a year (we think), this is the bard of Barking singing the greatest Billy Bragg song he never wrote. With the person who wrote it. We ought to do a post about Mr Bailey at some point. Remind me.
If you didn’t think we could get more self-indulgent, here’s that band my lover likes a lot. Just because she likes them and i love it when she’s happy.
More balloons! And two perpetual suns! And a dolphin! And a tiger! And several thousand other things! Those good ol’ boys from Oklahoma really do put some effort into it, and this was before Wayne decided to travel to gigs in a bloody massive inflatable ball. There’s a large chunk of the rest of this set online if you’re interested, which you probably ought to be.
And back in the real world – oh okay, away from the countryside then – this week saw the sudden yet unsurprising end to Fopp, making another big weapon in the music industry’s arsenal when arguing value for money doesn’t pay. (This of course being the same week that the music industry were furious that Prince would do anything as innovative and relatively selfless to his fans as give away his new album for nowt, although they seem to have ignored that the real reason to get mad is that in order to get your mitts on a copy you’d have to actually purchase the worst newspaper in Britain.) One thing that Fopp were good at – obviously not making much profit, or treating their employees with dignity and respect by actually paying them for their final month’s work – was in-store performances, and although they varied in quality they at least re-ignited in some way the notion that going out and buying records could be an experience and actually, whisper it, fun, rather than something you did in Tesco between choosing the shortest till to queue at and picking up some Tic Tacs. Here’s one of the in-store performances from Jim Noir, which as you’ll be able to tell is really rather badly out of synch. Bye Fopp, i’m sorry i didn’t buy that cheap reissue of After The Gold Rush as a way of saying farewell.
And finally, some added Misty’s Big Adventure, who this week at last saw the fruits of a video shoot for ‘Night Time Better Than The Day Time’…which came out as a single on Awkward Records in, uhm, 2004. You’ve got to hand it to director Marke Locke, he’s pretty nifty with the camera, and at least this use of his (generous) talent didn’t languish in a vault for evermore. Funny Times due soon too, thankfully.
Sunday, 17 June 2007
View Monday: posted Sunday night so you get it on Monday. We ain’t feeling fashionable.
Hello. Wasn’t this simply delightful? Yes, yes i think it was.
My laptop’s thrown a wobbly and won’t let me get to stuff i’ve written for this blog, or a lot of songs for that matter, or the internet, so you’ll just have to watch some stuff again. Sorry.
Here’s a collision between two subjects that two of my personal favourite blogs have written about this week; Teenage Kicks wrote a commendable piece about grindcore, while Sweeping The Nation made me go all misty-eyed with Britpop nostalgia about mid-Nineties Radio 1, back when the station really was the nation’s favourite. (Really like the black and white Peelie footage.) You’ll notice of course that another annoying Chris was at the helm of Wonderful Radio 1’s breakfast show back then, and while the television programme that ultimately made him leave the station, TFI Friday, was often a monstrosity, anyone who puts Napalm Death on teatime Friday night Channel 4 isn’t doing everything wrong.
Meanwhile, it’s scary to think that something still as brutal and rarely-surpassed in the extreme rock scene as ‘Scum’ is twenty years old, but at least there have been many holding the heavy flame aloft. It’s often mentioned that they stamp on their fans’ heads, and of course there was the time that they chucked their own faeces at them as well. But under it all Dillinger Escape Plan are proof that math metal still carries the thrash heart pumping and bloodied in its tightened fist.
This’ll be the new single from Blood Red Shoes then, which – understandably, given the years they must have slugged it around Brighton’s narrow and ever-decreasing toilet circuit – is called ‘It’s Getting Boring By The Sea’.
Apparently Muse kicked it at Wembley this weekend, but did they destroy their instruments? That’s what i want to know. They may have been going since 1994 but when they hit their stride in 2000, i remember an interview where they winced revealing the bill for the amount of equipment they'd already completely obliterated, rocketing as it was into the tens of thousands. Nowadays i’d probably think it was a Who-copyist hollow statement of false showmanship, despite the strength of the songs, not to mention a waste of money and craftwork. But at the time i just thought: cool.
…and here’s what i think about every time someone mention’s buying Prince tickets, apart from the time i was lost and lonely and staring at a drawing of a unicorn in The Penthouse and suddenly, as it blasted through the speakers, i finally ‘got’ Purple Rain. But i can’t really embed that. Thankfully.
My laptop’s thrown a wobbly and won’t let me get to stuff i’ve written for this blog, or a lot of songs for that matter, or the internet, so you’ll just have to watch some stuff again. Sorry.
Here’s a collision between two subjects that two of my personal favourite blogs have written about this week; Teenage Kicks wrote a commendable piece about grindcore, while Sweeping The Nation made me go all misty-eyed with Britpop nostalgia about mid-Nineties Radio 1, back when the station really was the nation’s favourite. (Really like the black and white Peelie footage.) You’ll notice of course that another annoying Chris was at the helm of Wonderful Radio 1’s breakfast show back then, and while the television programme that ultimately made him leave the station, TFI Friday, was often a monstrosity, anyone who puts Napalm Death on teatime Friday night Channel 4 isn’t doing everything wrong.
Meanwhile, it’s scary to think that something still as brutal and rarely-surpassed in the extreme rock scene as ‘Scum’ is twenty years old, but at least there have been many holding the heavy flame aloft. It’s often mentioned that they stamp on their fans’ heads, and of course there was the time that they chucked their own faeces at them as well. But under it all Dillinger Escape Plan are proof that math metal still carries the thrash heart pumping and bloodied in its tightened fist.
This’ll be the new single from Blood Red Shoes then, which – understandably, given the years they must have slugged it around Brighton’s narrow and ever-decreasing toilet circuit – is called ‘It’s Getting Boring By The Sea’.
Apparently Muse kicked it at Wembley this weekend, but did they destroy their instruments? That’s what i want to know. They may have been going since 1994 but when they hit their stride in 2000, i remember an interview where they winced revealing the bill for the amount of equipment they'd already completely obliterated, rocketing as it was into the tens of thousands. Nowadays i’d probably think it was a Who-copyist hollow statement of false showmanship, despite the strength of the songs, not to mention a waste of money and craftwork. But at the time i just thought: cool.
…and here’s what i think about every time someone mention’s buying Prince tickets, apart from the time i was lost and lonely and staring at a drawing of a unicorn in The Penthouse and suddenly, as it blasted through the speakers, i finally ‘got’ Purple Rain. But i can’t really embed that. Thankfully.
Monday, 11 June 2007
View Monday: Stuart Murdoch interviews a hatstand and other stories.
Quite.
A bit of Hermeto Pascoal, evidently adored by them Avalanches. (No, not these Avalanches.)
Frank Sidebottom and famous pals doing justice to this lot. i've been waiting ages for an excuse to show this but now i realise i don't need one. However, tickets for Frank's gig at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club should be on sale by now, if you fancy it. There is yewchoob footage of another Frank doing 'How I Wrote Elastic Man' but frankly (arf) it's not as good.
The new Los Campesinos! single. Out last week. Buy it. Go on.
Finally (for now) something from fuggin' Ash, who apparently announced they've called it quits this weekend. i know it's like going to the wake of a childhood friend you've managed to avoid for six years - Free All Angels was the last time i ever considered them a properly exciting prospect - but the part of my pre-pubescent self still lingering inside, still finding immense joy in destroying floorboards to 'Jack Names The Planets' and still believing the act of burning 300 Westlife CDs to be an overtly political statement rather than an obtusely rockist one, is silently weeping, knowing that all things must pass.
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