A Mouth What Never Closes

The best episode of Top Of The Pops there will never be

2012-02-16T01:41:00.000-08:00

Too 'fessed*

2012-01-31T00:15:00.000-08:00

So, ummm, I've been lazy and not blogged.

But that's because I'm blogging (by proxy) elsewhere.

Here, in fact. At Popfessions. Which I set up with Laura and Lucy.

It has more regular "content" going up than here. Go. Go there. Leave me to die.

(*a bit like two-faced but trying to get "confessed" in there. It's shit. I know.)

ARSE-imedean viral*

2011-12-06T01:01:00.000-08:00

People got paid money to come up with, commission and make this "viral marketing campaign".

Astonishing.

*a ghastly play on "Archimedean spiral". Sorry.

Bird, bird, bird – the bird is award

2011-11-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

[sound of own trumpet being tunelessly tootled]

I won an award. An actual, real, proper, grown-up award. From Record Of The Day.

How precisely exciting.

EMI on the prize

2011-11-12T01:01:00.001-08:00

EMI has been bought. Again. I've written about it in The Guardian.

so-EYE-lone

2011-11-03T06:35:00.000-07:00

I'm teaching myself PhotoShop.

I turned this...

... into this...

Semi-amazing.

You are witnesses at the dawning of Tractor Chic.

2011-10-21T23:23:00.001-07:00

Lady Togaga

2011-10-15T23:29:00.001-07:00

It's one joke – but it's a good joke.

2011-10-07T03:49:00.001-07:00

The Phil Collins weather report.

It's "the new Rebecca Black".

2011-10-07T03:48:00.001-07:00

RiP

2011-10-06T04:03:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of stuff being written about Steve Jobs today. Here, for what they are worth, are my thoughts.

A Firma Hands shake

2011-08-13T09:36:00.001-07:00

I wrote this in this month's The Word magazine - the "warts 'n' all" tale of the 27 months Guy Hands and Terra Firma ran EMI.

Read it. It's about 8,000 words of intrigue and will blow at least one of your socks off.

The Draws Don't Work

2011-08-05T06:08:00.001-07:00

This sketch of Richard Ashcroft (which I found randomly on Google) will never not be funny.

Look at his right eye. Look at it.

An F word in your ear

2011-08-03T09:10:00.001-07:00

Spotted at the Nando's in Cork, perhaps the greatest example of graffiti I've seen in years.

It says: "Hello big fat baby. F word."

"F word"? Astonishing.

Once More With Apostrophe-ling

2011-07-16T07:28:00.001-07:00

Signs like this one upset me greatly.

How Deep Is Your Glove Puppet?

2011-07-15T11:24:00.001-07:00

This is this week's Greatest Album Cover Of All Time Bar None.

Picture this

2011-07-09T11:29:00.001-07:00

Here is this week's Greatest Website Of All Time.

Sex Pist-El-s

2011-07-06T03:57:00.000-07:00

As discovered by Alexis Petridis.

Spanish punk band cover the Sex Pistols.

Staggering.

There's something app-ening here but you don't know what it is, do you Mr Jones?

2011-07-03T00:51:00.001-07:00

I finally downloaded a blogging app.

That means I can blog "on the go" from my phone.

How modern.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

\m/

2011-07-01T01:16:00.000-07:00

(via The Word Magazine)

Space Eye-ddity

2011-06-30T09:58:00.001-07:00

I call this piece David Bowie Tribute (With Cakes & Glasses).

MDMAdale Farm*

2011-06-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

Watching the Chemical Brothers on the Glastonbury TV coverage, it "dawned on me" that they are the Amos Brearly & Mr Wilks of rave.

They are.

They really are.

(Tom and Ed from the Chemical Bothers)

(Mr Wilks and Amos Brearly from The Woolpack Inn)

(*pun pilfered from @mikepailthorpe on Twitter)

Achtung-bury

2011-06-24T02:06:00.000-07:00

U2 are playing Glastonbury tonight.

I pray their set is made up entirely of this. I'd actually reduce my hatred of them to 99.9% if they did this.

Glam-burger

2011-06-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

Never judge a book by its cover. Or a CD by its sleeve.

If you did, then you'd stop at the fact that the artwork here is 100% dreadful and you'd never find out that the music within is 85% amazing.

WMBLS

2011-06-17T01:56:00.000-07:00

This will never not be astonishing.

It is all explained here.

Go Your Owl Way*

2011-06-16T02:10:00.000-07:00

In the breathless race towards digital music, the plus side is we get speed and convenience and all of that. Yet the negative side means we could lose the 'disc artwork' forever.

How can we, as sentient beings, afford to lose things like this? Won't life be naught but a crude husk if such things disappear from our lives?

(*yes, I know this wasn't a Stevie Nicks song)

Oct-Grover*

2011-06-13T23:51:00.000-07:00

This, right here, is the best thing currently on the internet.

(*e.g. a bit like the U2 album October...)

Saxon fire

2011-06-13T00:24:00.000-07:00

I've been lazy and not blogged for ages.

But I recently did blog for another blog so I'm going to put a link to that blog on my blog.

This, then, is meta-blogging.

It's from the splendid My Band T-Shirt site and is, I suppose, about me trying to be cool in a Saxon T-shirt circa 1984. But mostly it's about me being a huge idiot.

Read on via this amazing internet link.

Tap-arazzi

2011-04-17T00:32:00.000-07:00

This new Lady Gaga album cover...

... reminds me simultaneously of this...

... and this...

(It was probably inspired by this from Alan Partridge.)

On a 'Friday'*

2011-03-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

Poor Rebecca Black. Her parents paid for her to record a single and then people who are quick to make wild, sweeping statements decided that her song, 'Friday', was "the worst song ever". Even though it clearly, objectively, isn't. But they said it was "the worst song ever" and therefore, according to Blogger/Facebook/Twitter Law it became The Worst Song Ever.

So people watched the video and, despite it not being The Worst Song Ever, said it was The Worst Song Ever and told all their friends they had found The Worst Song Ever. And by loudly repeating this, there could be no argument that this was anything other than The Worst Song Ever.

But it's not The Worst Song Ever. It's far from being The Worst Song Ever.

Here it is.

See. It's not The Worst Song Ever.

And if it really is The Worst Song Ever (it isn't), where does that leave this Radiohead song?

It's worse than 'Friday'. A lot worse.

Thanks, "The Internet".

(*On A Friday was what Radiohead were called before they were called Radiohead. Clever wording, cheers.)

iPad in full

2011-03-02T07:43:00.000-08:00

Just been leaked a picture of the new iPad.

Amazing scoop, folks.

Dancing on your rave

2011-02-14T05:13:00.001-08:00

The ‘rules of three’ law states that spotting more than two vaguely connected things at the same time results in the pinning down of a DEFINITE TREND.

So the latest Yell ad makes a hat trick for the argument that rave culture has now gone from iconoclastic movement, to being absorbed into the mainstream and finally spat out the other end as shrink-wrapped nostalgia.

The new Yellow Pages ad (watch it here) is the story of a middle-aged man dressing 15 years younger than he is searching out a rare 1992 trance mix of ‘Pulse & Thunder’ by DJ Day V Lately.

None of the record shops he goes to has it. Dejected, he returns home and his daughter finds a store on her mobile for him to try, They have it. Bingo! He asks to reserve it. And what’s his name? Day V Lately. Of course. A charming retread of the Eighties ad about J R Hartley and his fly fishing book (see here).

But something else is happening here, especially given that we are as far away from the first rush of Acid House now as it was from Dylan going electric.

The fact that Primal Scream are touring their 1991 album Screamdelica, just like the Don’t Look Back series did for classic albums, is a bit of a red herring in that Bobby Gillespie is a master retrophile, looking into the past so often he has ‘owl neck’. But it is happening so it’s part two of the trend.

The third piece comes in the form of the video for Chase & Status track ‘’Blind Faith’ (click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcVYBxHEry0) – a wonderfully evocative, ahem, trip back to the early, lawless days of late-Eighties raves in abandoned warehouses where their location was only revealed at the last minute, lest the police close it down.

Except this was late-2010 and their video was being filtered through someone else’s framework of nostalgia.

We’ve already had the 20th anniversary of Acid House features back in 2007 (Mixmag cover here).

Maybe, just in time for its quarter century next year, rave will make the cover of Mojo. With two smiley faces in the letters ‘O’.

Yawn to run

2011-02-06T07:03:00.000-08:00

As a child, I used to get really bad headaches from carsickness. Piercing one second, and TV static grey the next. The only thing, placebo that it was, that I found would stop it was to roll the backseat window down half an inch and have my fingers stick outside so they could “breathe” the speedy air as it whipped past.

I, of course, grew out of that and no longer get carsickness.

But the headaches have returned – tenfold. Except this time, I get them when I listen to a brace of acts that men (they are almost always men) of a certain age like.

Plus, if they are Gentlemen Of The Media, they like to insist that these acts are “important”. And “great”.

They are not great. Or important. They are wall-crackingly tedious. They are like eating cement by the handful. They are the limescale fuzzing up pop’s kettle.

They are forged in the crucible of The New Boring™ and they are the lifeless terrorists of tedium.

In no particular order of boringness, the leading grey lights of this scene include:
- The National
- The xx
- Vampire Weekend
- Arcade Fire (from Neon Bible onwards)
- Joanna Newsom
- Mumford & Sons
- pretty much everything Pitchfork likes
- absolutely everything Uncut magazine gives 5 stars to
- Pearl Jam (‘The Beatles Of The New Boring’)
- The Hold Steady (the ‘Bruce Springsteen Of The New Boring’)
- Smashing Pumpkins (‘The Freddie & The Dreamers Of The New Boring’)
- The National (again)
- The National (for a third time)

They really need to crack open the Cinzano.

The shock of the old

2011-01-15T02:37:00.001-08:00

The future as viewed through the prism of the past.

Clear an hour to watch this. It's amazing. In 1972, Orson Welles semi-narrates the Future Shock book – all about how the speed of technological change is so fast that we cannot get our heads around the fall out.

It opens with Welles clomping through an airport smoking a huge cigar. There is a LOT Of smoking in this. And "group marriages", the "quiet revolution" of gay marriage and "communes" as a reaction against "high-speed change".

There's lots of booming, portentous comments about "plastic", "instant culture" and so on. There's even a reference to "the age of the disposal body" and "modular bodies much as we build modular homes". Amazing.

Then there is a terrifying bit (in the plastic surgery section) hinting at "manipulating race" and skin colour.

It also contains lines like this one: "This quaint English village is a remnant of permanence in a future-shocked world."

And this: "A world in which noting endures – not even motherhood."

The future forecasts in the penultimate video are staggering. Pills to raise IQ and battery-packs BUILT INTO THE BODY to cure depression etc.

Click here for amazingness.

Songs in Beef-lat

2011-01-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

These are Beef Sheets.

It's a good job that I have definitely never put one of these stickers on the hand-driers in the gents at the House Of Commons about six years ago.

The Devil makes work for Cardle hands

2011-01-09T03:43:00.000-08:00

Hurrah for Matt Cardle. He won X Factor last year by wearing a hat, then not wearing a hat, having a bit of a beard, then holding a guitar, then not holding a guitar, singing songs written for pop ladies to show his polymorphous side and finally releasing a "h8r"-defying single (a cover of a song by a REAL band with guitars and beards, but no hats) that went to number 1 in the charts (no, fuck YOU, Rage Against The So-Called "Machine").

Except "demand" for all things Cardlesque did not outstrip supply. Despite the fact that 99% of singles sold in the UK (and Ireland) are digital, Matt's REAL single (a REAL cover of a REAL song by a REAL band from REAL Scotland) got the full bells-and-whistles "physical release".

Someone, it seems, didn't tell the fella operating the stamp in the factory to press the "stop" button when he clocked off for the Christmas holidays.

So now we have the rather embarrassing situation of, three weeks after it was released, unwanted singles piling up by the counter (in this instance the HMV in Cork) like so many Christmas puppies in bags lined with bricks.

There must be at least 1,000 unsold singles here. Sitting there like Jenga Of The Quixotic. Or a Totem Pole Of Misread Market Demand. Or maybe, just maybe, a future echo of the sarcophagus that will soon house his career.

Let's have another look at that pile of CDs.

Oh dear.

Are you looking at my Byrds?

2011-01-08T06:07:00.000-08:00

The Byrds doing 'I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better' on US TV in 1965.

This is, genuinely, where Top Of The Pops went wrong. They needed more dancers like this. Lots more.

Harmonies too tight to mention

2011-01-08T05:59:00.000-08:00

The Mamas & The Papas doing 'Somebody Groovy' at Monterey.

Quite incredible.

All we are saying is give niche a chance

2011-01-02T04:07:00.000-08:00

More tales from Cameron's (see previous posting).

The DVD department is really "super-serving" a niche here.

How soon is plough?

Genre, I'm Only Dancing / Fail-y's Comet

2011-01-02T03:44:00.000-08:00

Cameron's of Ballymena is kind of the Harrods of North Antrim (in the sense that it's a department store and has walls and stairs and carpets).

In the early-Nineties, it made a decent fist of running a record department and seemed to have a buyer who had more than a passing interest in the charts and music in general. It was also the era of multi-formatting and labels bending dealer price rules (tied to chart eligibility) by selling stores one CD single at the standard dealer price and then "giving" them several CDs "for free" so that the shops could sell them for £0.99 and, in theory, catapult an act way up The Hit Parade.

It worked for a while and Cameron's was one of the many independent music retailers round the UK that benefitted from this system. Then the hard times came and labels firstly stopped giving away so much music, then the industry was smacked round the head by Napster and, finally, CD singles became relics of an indulgent, carbon-footprint-be-damned past amid a breathless dash into downloading and streaming. This all chipped away at the foundations of little stores like Cameron's.

It's still going, however. Just about. Although it's moved upstairs and squeezed into an unwelcoming corner. Its days are surely numbered, but it's going out in a blaze of genre-specific glory. Maybe this is the final future as the 'target demographic' for the CDs on display here will be hugely loyal to their favourite acts and, more importantly, won't download the music illegally (as they don't know how/can't be bothered).

Here, then, is a final glimpse of what the provincial independent record shop might look like in the final minutes before the A-POP-calypse.

In semi-related news, I went to Dublin this week for the first time in over a decade.

I set off on a pilgrimage to Comet, the place that took pretty much all my money between 1990 and 1994 when Temple Bar was actually cool and arty (promise). Since the area became a stag weekend theme park, there was a dwindling need for a small record shop that stocked those hard-to-find singles that you could only get on mail order elsewhere.

Apparently in its dying days, all it was selling were "Corrs and Steps albums".

A sad and inglorious end for the first record shop that I truly loved (and the one I loved the most).

RIP Comet.

Eight prays a week

2010-11-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

That's a lot of praying, right there.

The Fab MP-3

2010-11-16T09:44:00.000-08:00

OK, it's happened. The Beatles have licensed their music for download (on iTunes initially).

Can we finally move on, please?

Saw-ven inch single*

2010-11-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

A genuinely wonderful piece of vinyl.

It's from here: http://deconrecords.com/2010/11/the-alchemist-oh-no-gangrene-sawblade-ep-in-stores-now

*yes, I know it's a 12", but that leaves less room for crowbarred puns

It's the new "GOLF SALE" sign

2010-11-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

There's a joke to be made here about "landing in the rough", but I really can't be arsed to go through with it.

Shit Joke Coming Up

2010-11-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

I suppose to make tea for this you'd need an Elektra kettle.

Music Journalism Is Dead

2010-11-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

A picture, the saying goes, paints a thousand words.

This picture goes one better and claims the final word.

(Image via Paul Greeno.)

For Fox sake

2010-10-28T05:17:00.000-07:00

There is nothing here that isn't staggering.

God Cave rock 'n' roll to us

2010-10-28T00:51:00.000-07:00

I've not been inside, but this just has to be the greatest club in the world. I mean, just look at it.

(It's in Amsterdam, in case you were wondering/wanted to go.)

Amazing music journalism coming up

2010-10-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

These two promo CDs (the top one an album and the bottom one a single) are about to be reviewed by me.

Here goes...

They are both "not shit".

The end.

Beg, Steal Or Sparrow

2010-10-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

In my mind, Phantom Band owned 2009.

In my mind, Sparrow & The Workshop own 2010.

This is their new single. I love every millimetre of them.

Phair use

2010-10-11T01:08:00.000-07:00

I love exactly 100% of everything about Liz Phair.

I've already paid – via Topspin – for a download of her Funstyle album. Now it's getting a CD release, it comes with her 'mythical' Girlysound demos from the early-1990s. This was, in my mind, A Good Thing. "I'll very much be buying that," I said. I did. I said that.

I didn't illegally download Girlysounds (even though I could have) as I'd rather the money went to her and the label. Now I get a chance to buy it legally and it's some sort of premium import on Amazon. And they want me to pay the guts of £30 for it. For two CDs. No special packaging. Nothing.

Now, and here's the thing, I love Liz Phair and I have disposable income and yet I think this is too much.

Somewhere here is a equation to be arrived at concerning price elasticity on the X axis versus the good will of the fan on the Y axis.

A design for lifelessness

2010-10-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

Music is amazing and exciting and aspirational and fizzing and amazing (again).

Then you see posters like this...

And record sleeves like this...

And then you cry. And you never stop crying.

Looking out for Linda

2010-10-07T01:39:00.000-07:00

Everything – everything – about this is amazing.

Extra points for having Terry Nutkins on drums.

Don’t Ping me down

2010-10-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. I’ve not put anything on here for ages. Over a year. I’ll have a pre-New Year resolution to put stuff on here more often.

Anyway, in a “do stuff and it might work” mood, I’ve been trying to get my bony head around Ping recently. It launched a few days before I went on holidays so I’ve only had a few weeks to try it out.

The interface (or what bellends call the “UI”) is very good and slick and Apple-y. As you’d expect. But the issue and the challenge is to remember that it exists.

A software update means you can now ‘Ping’ directly from within iTunes about tracks you like and even add little reviews. That’s all very good in a “push” sort of way and can be done in a click of a button as I play tracks in my iTunes library.

There are, as I see it, a number of major drawbacks in the “pull” side of things.

Firstly, I don’t use iTunes that much on my desktop. I do on my iPhone (and we’ll get to that in a minute), but not on my computer. I use Spotify for music playback on my laptop. But that’s because I pay for a premium Spotify subscription and probably feel I have to justify that £9.99 payment every month. I know I am in the minority here (i.e. pay for Spotify), but still there is a greater issue related to Spotify here.

The Facebook integration on Spotify is, really, what Ping should have had from the off. Except politics and egos and whatnot saw Facebook pull out and block Facebook Connect (even though it's on its API) just a Ping got out of the gates. It could all be patched up, but a spurned Apple is an unpredictable Apple. Just ask Google. And Microsoft. And the same can be said for Facebook. The two most headstrong digital companies fall out. I’ll not want to put a bet on who offers the olive branch here.

I know we live in amazing, interconnected, haptic times, but Ping is something that I have to remind myself is there (a bit like this blog – ahem). And it shouldn’t be something I have to remind myself is there. At all. It should be seamless. More than that, it should be sitting naturally at the end my fingertips. But it isn’t. I have to go to the Ping tab in iTunes and then when I open it, it doesn’t quite fit in the window and I have to really search for stuff and I really have to search for people to follow and it’s just such as drag.

It’s arguably too much of an effort to go in there and nose around. And it shouldn’t be. It should be a subconscious joy (like so much of the other parts of Apple’s famed ecosystem). Sure, I can push stuff I like that I’m playing on iTunes, but what good is that? If everyone else is just pushing stuff, is Ping then a massive digital landfill site that no one is going into to try and make sense of? Is everyone, as I am, simply ‘liking’ tracks but not having the energy to go in and see what everyone else is liking? Or finding new people to follow and, well, engage with?

Onto the iPhone “Ping thing”. Yes, it’s there via the iTunes app (and find the Ping section) on my phone. I can see what people I follow are doing. But I can’t “push” anything. Which makes it a partial experience. This is where the Apple ecosystem (currently) is failing to work. I’m more likely to see what others are doing on Ping when I’m on my iPhone but, as I can’t Ping tracks myself, I don’t engage in the way I should. It’s a social network of two devices (laptop and phone) and neither partial experience offers me a “full service”. They actually end up undermining each other.

I’m tying here. I really am. But every time I force myself to go into Ping, a little bit of my desire to go back is chipped away.

Really, it just seems like a huge effort to “engage” with Ping. Which is burningly ironic given that Apple, more than anyone, has done the most to take the effort and the faffing around out of digital music.

App-ster

2009-08-05T01:01:00.000-07:00

Spotify is brilliant.

iPhones are brilliant.

So what happens when they, like that intro to Hart To Hart but without the "moider", meet?

Very simply, an Everest Of Amazingness happens, that's what.

I've had the beta version of the Spotify app for over a week now (it's a review copy and still might not be approved by Apple). You can stream over Wi-Fi and it's as good as the streaming on your computer. But the thing that snaps your teeth off is the ability to cache songs and playlist (apparently up to a very convenient 3,333 tracks) for when you don't have a Wi-Fi connection.

Get ready - here comes my amazing "exclusive" review of the app.

It's easily as good as you've heard. The end.

Here are some nice pictures of it "in action" to look at.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

2009-05-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

Here is tomorrow today.

Google Wave looks astonishing.

Ready, Steady, Go

2009-05-30T01:58:00.001-07:00

I've been playing the Island 50 boxsets this week. There is one on folk rock and one on beardy rock. And then there is one on reggae (called War Ina Babylon).

Leafing through the sleeve notes, I noticed a shot of this album cover (it was an Island compilation from 1968). This has to be the most simple and, here's the trick, most joyful record covers in the world.

You just need to look at it to see that the world is not always a bad place. This album cover is Instant Happiness.

Back (crack and sac)

2009-05-25T02:55:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I blogged. I blame Twitter. Anyway, some random things to get the fingers typing again.

Speck Pistols
Speck Mountain's Some Sweet Relief is rapidly chasing Phantom Band's Checkmate Savage as my most-played album of the year. It's a lovely, lethargic mess of Mazzy Star, Throwing Muses and Cat Power. It is pretty much perfect.

So, fucking Specials
The Specials at Brixton Academy were possibly the tightest band I have ever seen live. I was, wonderfully, probably the youngest person there, but they played all the hits as you would want them to be played – not a single ounce of fat on them. Sure, Jerry Dammers wasn't there but I fear that in the euphoria of how brilliant they were he simply wasn't missed. Sad, I know, but there you go.

You don't have to be Madness to work here, but it helps
And in a seamless Two-Tone-related connection, the new album by Madness is as close to a concept masterpiece as you're ever likely to hear in an age of downloading tracks rather than albums. The Liberty Of Norton Folgate is the band's sprawling love letter to London (always their greatest muse) and pivots around the notion of Norton Folgate as a space where the normal rules do not apply and we can run wild – both physically and philosophically.

Digital watch
I had to review this book for the new issue of The Word. It's about how digital changed everything for the recorded music business. The first half is a pointless rehash of the era of the 'flamboyant' (i.e. annoying) label executive that is told better in Frederic Dannen's Hit Men. But the second half is a wonderful romp through Napster, Kazaa, iTunes and BitTorrent. Of course, as soon as it hit the shelves it was out of date due to the speed of change. Still, if you want to understand how and why digital changed the way you hear and discover music, get this book, rip out the first three chapters and start at chapter 4.

Plague For Today
In my heart, I gave up on the Manic Street Preachers when Everything Must Go came out. I was never into the Cult Of Richey, but they definitely lost direction when he went missing in 1995. The Holy Bible, of course, remains a shocking and astonishing work, made all the more head-spinning when you consider they were all around 25 when it came out. I was terrified when I heard that the band were going back to Richey's notes and lyrics for their new album. But Journal For Plague Lovers has revitalised my love for this band. It's really disquieting hearing them revisit the words, the sounds and the feeling of The Holy Bible – the album that has been both a milestone and a millstone for them. I've had it on a loop for the last week and it keeps revealing new (rotten) layers. It's the second best album they've ever done and that's, you know, good enough for now.

Stone Roses' rock bottom
If the Specials' gig made me feel like the youngest person in the room, the hoo-hah around the 20th anniversary of the The Stone Roses' debut album has made me feel like the oldest. It's not the greatest album ever. It's not even the greatest debut album ever. But it is good and I love it. It arrived when I was 17 and was a portal into several new worlds. I will always adore it as a 'facilitator'. But it has been reissued and repackaged so many times that it makes any right-thinking person queasy. Rarely has so little (there are only 11 tracks and a handful of associated b-sides) been diced, sliced and regurgitated so many times in the shameless pursuit of money. This was partly down to the band leaving Silvertone in a storm of acrimony and the label milking their cash cow before the public got bored. But this has lasted two decades and now Sony, the album's new custodian, has taken this to horrific new extremes (or lows). You can buy a box set of the album that looks very pretty but it costs £100. A hundred quid? The only "new" stuff is some (no doubt shonky) footage of 'Fools Gold' being recorded, some demos, an "unheard" (i.e. shit) track and a load of 'backwards' songs. Christ. You have to admire the desperation here. Still, you get some nice 'art prints' (i.e. postcards) with it.

Phew. My fingers hurt now. Can I stop typing?

Thanks.

Disco 1000

2009-05-25T02:04:00.000-07:00

Could this be the weediest cover version of all time?

For some reason it came up as 'recommended' on YouTube. It's Keane (a snore and a shrug of a band if ever there was one) in Sheffield doing a cover of Pulp's glamorama gem 'Disco 2000'.

Bands do covers for a variety of reasons (paying tribute to an act they love, rewiring a song in a new context, showing their fans how diverse their taste is). Keane bring to this all the enthusiasm a binman might bring to his morning shit.

It is literally pointless on every single level. The only redeeming feature it has is that it ends.

AC/DC = \m/

2009-04-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

The quality is a bit poor, but you'll get the idea.

I saw AC/DC at the O2 last night (this is how the show opened). They were the first band I ever loved. Indeed, Back In Black was the first album I ever bought. On cassette. For £3.99. From Caroline Music. In Cornmarket in Belfast. I remember it vividly.

The shop is long gone. AC/DC remain. As thrilling and as wonderful as when I first encountered them.

You never really get over your first true love, do you?

Off Your Boxmaster

2009-04-10T04:23:00.000-07:00

Billy Bob Thornton gives the most uncomfortable interview since the last uncomfortable interview you saw.

"Ground control to major gnome..."

2009-04-05T03:58:00.000-07:00

It does matter how many times I hear this song, it never fails to amaze.

It's a very early David Bowie song called 'The Laughing Gnome'. Oddly, Bowie doesn't play it live. Or talk about it. In fact, he's more likely to discuss THAT alleged Nazi salute at Victoria station in 1976 than he is to talk about this song.

In the early-1990s, the NME started a weekly campaign to get Bowie to re-release this single. Sadly, Bowie never responded.

Maybe now is the time to revive that campaign.

I once interviewed Tony Visconti (occasional Bowie producer). I have his e-mail address somewhere. I should drop him a line.

This must happen. The future of pop depends on it.

"You said I must eat so many lemons 'cos I am so TWITTER..."

2009-03-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

I literally love The Times. It gives me work.

Behold as I quack on about the crimes against language that are caused daily by celebrities on Twitter.

Blew Suede - Lose

2009-03-29T04:39:00.000-07:00

There are covers bands and then there are, well, I'm not sure.

I literally stumbled across this by complete accident yesterday. It's a Suede covers band called Love & Poison ("with all the love and poison of London" being a lyric from great b-side 'He's Dead'). They are astonishing. But not for the reasons they might think.

Just look at 'Brett Anderson'. Go on. Look at him.

Amazing.

Clock-sucker Blues

2009-03-29T01:11:00.000-07:00

Spring forward, fall back. That's the way to remember it.

Anyway, the clocks have gone forward. That means summer is coming.

To mark this occasion, here is the greatest clock-related song of all time. I saw Sparks twice last weekend. They did new album Exotic Creatures Of The Deep and Kimono My House in order on Friday and then switched Kimono... with Number 1 In Heaven on Saturday. And, of course, Number 1 In Heaven's centre piece is 'Beat The Clock'.

They really should have, in terms of timing, played it last night. It would have been more apposite. Never mind. Once again, Sparks are ahead of their time.

Sonic Of A Preacher Man

2009-03-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to explain what this clip is about.

Just watch it.

You'll see.

Channel Forde News

2009-03-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

The limp tornado that is my media-whoring continued today. I was on the Channel 4 News at lunchtime – LIVE – talking about Spandau Ballet reforming. I didn't swear. That was good.

And at least it proves that I can talk about other things beyond Spotify. Although I don't want to become the rent-a-quote mouth-horn for all things 'Spandau'. That's not a career. That's a death sentence.

Luke who's stalking

2009-03-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

This book – Bad Vibes: Britpop & My Part In Its Downfall – is wonderful. It's by Luke Haines of The Auteurs and is the dark memoirs of the time in the mid-1990s when Britpop ruled. Haines is the angry outsider, his nose pressed against the glass while the ego-party rages inside. But he's not aching to get in; he's sneering.

Read it to get a sense of the crack Britpop fell down through that's not included in John Harris's The Last Party or Alex James's A Bit Of A Blur.

Here are The Auteurs doing the brilliant 'Lenny Valentino' on smug jam-circle-jerk music show Later... With Jools Holland. But please don't hold that against them.

Ballet mena*

2009-03-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

More writing in the posh papers. This time it's about reformations and why bands do them (clue: ego and money).

This was originally held over from last week as The Stone Roses were rumoured to be reforming but then denied it. So the story got spiked. Spandau Ballet have no such integrity and are back, Back, BACK.

I never thought I would be glad to see the 'Spands' reform, but as it gave this article a news hook, took it off last Thursday's spike and put food on my table, I'm finding it difficult to be 100% opposed to the reunion. What have I become?

*I grew up near a town in Northern Ireland called Ballymena. This punning headline is somehow less 'hilarious' now I have to explain it.

Smack My Beach Up

2009-03-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

Summer is coming. The last three days in London have been glorious.

Time to play this. It's 'Beach Baby' by First Class. I love every note.

The European Audio Mountain

2009-03-22T05:03:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd ever see the day, but I genuinely fear that I have too many CDs. Far too many. I am on various mailing lists and, of course, I still buy CDs as well (yes I do, OK). But it is starting to get to the point where I have more CDs that I've not listened to yet than I have time to listen to them. And that's not accounting for the CDs that will come through the post from PRs and Amazon this week. Or Spotify. Or the radio. Or Fopp if I nip into town.

It's not that I'm not grateful (I am incredibly grateful), but even with more free time now than at any point in my entire working life, I'm still struggling to keep on top of the listening list. Of course, I could spend all day listening to new stuff and I'd break the CD mountain down reasonably quickly. But you cannot subject yourself to a Diet Of The New all the time as your brain naturally craves favourite albums as a nostalgic treat. So you have to mix and match the new with the familiar.

It has got to the point where I have built a CD Mountain Of Shame in the middle of my living room of all the CDs I need to listen to (if only once). There they sit, a constant and nagging reminder of what I have to get through, measuring out 70-minute listening sessions that stretch far into the future.

Still, it could be worse. I could have a real job.

Horrors show

2009-03-17T06:18:00.000-07:00

Some things we treat as a given like it raining on your day off or football being tedious.

In this folder was a sheet of paper with some words on it. They said, "Comedy goth band The Horrors are, and always will be, rubbish."

That sheet of paper has now been ripped up.

Here is their new single – 'Sea Within A Sea'. It's an eight-and-a-half-minute throbbing krautrock mini-masterpiece.

I never thought I'd live to see the day etc.

The Lack Of The Irish

2009-03-17T04:13:00.001-07:00

Today is St. Patrick's Day.

I hate St. Patrick's Day. Read why in The Times today.

Weekender 'Weekender'

2009-03-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

Flowered Up were "London's response to Baggy" and were never great. 'It's On' and 'Phobia' are OK (for the time), but all the pieces fell into place around 'Weekender'. It's a staggering, sprawling epic of a song which is basically about living for the hedonistic release of the weekend.

They made a wonderful, wonderful video to go with it and it's one of those rare occasions where the video amplifies the song (chiming perfectly with it) rather than subtracting/detracting from it. Watch it in all its glory here.

Part 1.

Part 2

Metablogging

2009-03-14T14:20:00.001-07:00

It's a blog about a blog, but my dear friend Mark has written a wonderful blog about music and the 1990s.

Mark is the great pulsating musical brain at the centre of the universe. He has the most perfect musical taste. If he doesn't know about it, it simply doesn't (or shouldn't) exist.

Diddy? He did.

2009-03-14T06:15:00.001-07:00

If you don't already, I urge you to follow Sean 'Diddy Doddy' Combs on Twitter. Below is only a taste of the incalculable delights he will send you electronically.

Dion another plane

2009-03-11T02:46:00.001-07:00

If you don't swoon your face off when you hear this, you have no heart. Or soul. Or pulse.

Just brilliant.

2009-03-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

Microdisney doing 'Town To Town'.

In case you were wondering, I picked the mighty Cathal Coughlan as the best person from Ireland ever in a piece in The Word.

Dana, International

2009-03-07T06:07:00.000-08:00

The post below has a link to Dustin the turkey competing for Eurovision. One of the judges was Dana who won the Eurovision in 1970 for Ireland. I was therefore prompted to dig out 'All Kinds Of Everything'. As a kid, I sort of hated the song as it was wheeled out every Eurovision. (I hate U2's 'New Year's Day' for similar reasons as it is inescapable on Irish radio on 1st January.) But listening to it now, its genius shines through with a blinding light.

Amazing. I think its true genius lies in the "things of the [sea / sky / night]" lyrical motif. That and "a snowflake or two".

Of course, Sinead O'Connor and Terry Hall did a pretty good cover of it too.

I really, really, really, really, really wanna Zig-&-Zag-AH

2009-03-07T05:44:00.000-08:00

(Disclaimer: they sing in this clip so it fits my general blog 'remit'.)

Anyway, back in the mists of time (the early-1990s), Irish broadcaster RTE was the launch pad for Zig & Zag before they went to Channel 4 in the UK to appear on The Big Breakfast. Their links between shows in the post-school slot were essential viewing. I used to run home a mile every day after school to see as much of them as I could. The shows themselves were rubbish, but the links were sublime.

As a pre-taster for St. Patrick's Day, watch this.

The (human) presenter was Ray D'Arcy and he was the second host, replacing Ian Dempsey (when the slot was known as Dempsey's Den, thereafter to be called The Den). Additional characters appeared over the years, such as the amazing Dustin the turkey. Nominally won one Christmas by Zag (the spotty one) in a game of golf, they didn't know the turkey was still alive and couldn't actually kill it. So they kept him on the show. Dustin was a Dublin-raised turkey and worked part time as a (no doubt cowboy) builder and his accent and phraseology were spot on. Dustin, of course, was later to almost win Eurovision for Ireland.

Sadly the mix was spoiled with the introduction of Socky (he appears at the end of this clip), but watching this some 15 years later just proves how brilliant the whole show was.

In this month's The Word, I have done a piece on the best and worst Irish people. Zig & Zag are very much in the best category.

My week as a media whore

2009-03-07T03:31:00.000-08:00

'Phew!'

I have been whoring my bony ass around 'the media' this week. On Wednesday I was on BBC Five Live talking about Spotify. The next morning I got a call from, wait for it, BBC Radio Ulster to talk that afternoon about Spotify again. I was interviewed by David Dunseith. That name will mean nothing to you if you did not grow up in Northern Ireland, but he is a genuine radio heavyweight at home and my mum listens sort-of-obsessively to him. So my appearance on his show was one of those rare moments where my mum actually 'got' what I do for a living. If I'm being invited to speak on Talk Back with David Dunseith, then that means I have 'arrived'. Fame is measured out with different tools by different people.

Immediately after the Radio Ulster interview, my cousin Malachy called me. He'd been listening in Belfast during his lunch break and nearly choked on his sandwich when I tipped up on the 'airwaves'. If I could be bothered I could make some sub-McLuhan point about 'global villages' here. But I gave up being an academic poseur almost a decade ago, so I won't.

Then on Thursday I got called by The Times to write a 'business piece' about the Michael Jackson shows in London. I had 30 minutes to write it and file it which was an enormous buzz. I have been a 'professional journalist' (hah) for over seven years now, but tended to write for monthly publications, so the 'deadline rush' was somewhat different and certainly not as immediate. Having just tasted the 'broadsheet life' in one 200-word piece, I can see the addictive appeal of working to those sorts of deadlines. But I can also see how a full-time job like that would send me to an early grave.

The upshot is that hopefully I will be doing more stuff for The Times. Which just convinces me that 'going' freelance in December was the best thing to happen to me in years. Like all good 'whores', simply being available means there is demand for you.

Also, major props to the mighty The Word (AKA 'The The Word The Magazine') who I also write for. I got the 'gig' at The Times after doing the Word podcast the other week with David Hepworth (one of my writing heroes, alongside Mark Ellen, as a music press-obsessed teen in Northern Ireland). The arts editor at The Times heard me on the podcast, thought I knew what I was talking about (*sound of own trumpet being tunelessly blown*) and so tracked me down to do the Michael Jackson piece for them.

Moments like that really make you take stock of 'the crazy journey of life'. If you had told the 18-year-old me that I would be interviewed BY David Hepworth and that would lead to me writing for The Times I would have laughed so hard my spine would have flown out of my mouth like a rattling lasso. Without getting all 'This Is Your Life' about it, stuff like that just doesn't happen to people from Martinstown. It really doesn't.

It's a cover app

2009-03-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

The Mentalists play 'Kids' by MGMT on their iPhones using just apps. This is precisely 265% better than it sounds.

It starts well

2009-03-05T06:36:00.001-08:00

and then he starts to sing.

Most amazing cover version ever. Perhaps not for the reasons he intended.

Take That And QWERTY

2009-03-05T03:21:00.000-08:00

Waste all day playing on this wonderful QWERTY drum machine Flash app.

Amazing.

The 'Eyes' have it

2009-03-05T00:24:00.000-08:00

The most amazing version of 'Bright Eyes' you will ever hear.

(Shamelessly stolen from the lovely Iain Baker.)

Donk-caster

2009-02-25T08:54:00.000-08:00

I have been vaguely aware of Donk, that mutant genre from the North-West of England, for a while. It was being sent links to the Blackout Crew videos last year that made me aware of it.

I've finally got around to watching this documentary (this, if you will, Donk-umentary) which is equal parts fascinating and terrifying.

It's fascinating because it appears to be a genuine working-class musical movement that is happening far beyond the eyes and ears of the London (middle-class) media.

It's terrifying because, well, the music sounds so bad. But that's what it's supposed to do. I'm not supposed to 'get' it. I'm supposed to think of it as "a load of old noise". So good on those in the Donk scene for actually driving a massive generational and musical wedge between them and me. If I, at the age of 36, was into Donk, it would kill it stone dead. It's all about opposition and torching the past. So I will utterly defend their right to make music that I just do not understand. More power to their collective elbow.

Anyway, the documentary is in five parts and I recommend you watch them all. It doesn't quite place Donk within any other musical movements (beyond saying it's a bit like rave), but there is still plenty to learn here.

What is perhaps most amazing is the average age of the kids who are into Donk. They're all about 14 and it's completely grabbed them. Also, the other striking thing is how homoerotic the whole scene is (shirtless Northern men on steroids, sweatily hugging their way through nights at the Wigan Pier). I doubt that's the intention of those in the scene, but it suggests the presence of a subtle little revolution from within.

Vive le Donk.

The Proof Is In The Pod-ding

2009-02-25T03:06:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am wittering on about 'the biz' on The Word podcast.

I didn't swear once in 45 minutes. A personal best.

Dagg-ing Your Scene

2009-02-24T08:49:00.000-08:00

New Zealander Fred Dagg is my new role model.

(I don't care that it's not music-related.)

As it app-ens

2009-02-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

In the same week that Kyte develops a 'raft' of artist-specific apps for Universal acts, a Pinch Media study finds that the average app sits on someone's iPhone for less than 30 days.

Apple now has 20,000 different apps available on its store. A lot of them are free, but equally a lot are paid for and Apple gets a 30% cut of all sales. Nice work considering people are dumping them more often than they are paying their mobile bills. The issue is no longer about storage space on devices (as was the gripe with first-generation iPods); it's now about furiously loading and de-loading ephemeral content (or 'iClutter' as we might have to start calling it). We're arguably back again to the days of the Ringtone Bonanza (circa 2000). This is great business for lots of people (BlackBerry is already in the apps 'game' and Nokia and Microsoft are launching their own stores soon) as customers are offloading apps quicker than you can sell them. Amazing repeat business. Who cares if someone uses your app once and deletes it as long as they pay for it upfront?

But. as with ringtones, we are in the honeymoon period for apps and perspective risks being lost here. There is a voracious appetite among consumers but this will invariably hit the buffers. And then what happens? The challenge for app developers is to create apps that actually have a shelf life. But consumers are slightly blinded here as, often, they don't get to test drive the app until they've downloaded it (and, in many cases, paid for it). They are starting to see apps as something they'll get bored of. And the more often this happens, the shorter the market potential of apps becomes. Of course you can download the 'lite' (and free) version of many apps to try them out, but it's not like the Ringtone Goldrush of a decade ago as the consumers knew (roughly) what they were getting upfront. Too many apps today require a leap of faith by consumers (unless they have used an app on a friend's iPhone). But the more often they get stung with shoddy and lifeless apps, the less likely they are to return and pay for more things.

Maybe I'm just cynical and have seen this honeymoon/divorce cycle happen too many times (and too regularly) in the past. At the moment, apps are getting away with murder as there is still the 'Wow!' factor around these little download. People are still drunk on optimism and so acquire them like they are going out of fashion. But fashion, as we all know, is seasonal and self-negating in the sense that autumn/winter pulls the rug from under the feet of spring/summer (and vice versa).

Still, if you've lost control of your mind and are a fan of the Presidents Of The United States Of America, you can download an app that lets you stream a load of their 'music' for a one-off fee.

So that's all right then, isn't it?

Distress You Up

2009-02-23T06:33:00.000-08:00

There is an exhibition of Madonna's clothes currently taking place at the Truman Brewery in East London.

Madonna is, of course, one of the biggest music icons (etc. etc. etc.) in the world, so I'm glad to see they have pulled together an exhibition that truly reflects her power, profile and importance.

Give your eyes the treat of a lifetime over here.

My personal favourites are:

- the Evita (I think) one

- the Ali G/video for 'Music' one

Amazingly unamazing.

Oh, why didn't he win X Factor?

2009-02-23T00:06:00.000-08:00

Because if he did, Eoghan 'Eggnog' Quigg would have been number 1 at Christmas with this masterful interpretation of 'Hallelujah'.

This has been leaked so I have no idea how long it will stay online for.

The 'scare the children' key change at 2.07 has to be heard to be believed.

(This clip was shamelessly lifted from Popjustice's Twitter feed.)

Radio-dread

2009-02-19T06:43:00.000-08:00

"This is a transmission from the BBC."

That's not my catchphrase, but I found myself today in an upstairs corner of HMV on Oxford Street having a BBC mic shoved in my face. I was there ostensibly as an 'industry expert' (expertise is clearly at an all-time low) to talk about Spotify.

I spluttered on about "changing business models", "new revenue streams", "lost demographics" and "the shift from ownership to access". Hopefully they edit it all into some sort of sense ahead of broadcast on The World Tonight on Radio 4 (possibly Friday night, but more likely next Monday night).

Crikey.

Pad-casting

2009-02-18T02:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to the offices of The Word to record a podcast with David Hepworth.

We talked about all manner of 'biz' issues (the recession's impact on live, new digital business models, 360 deals etc.) and it should be available to download next week.

I just hope they have some clever voice-changing software so that listeners can understand my accent which, for some reason, gets even more 'Norn Iron' on those rare occasions when I am being interviewed (as opposed to being the interviewer).

Bob; drillin'

2009-02-16T07:57:00.001-08:00

Well laziness can now be measured.

It's taken me SEVEN months to get around to drilling a hole in a wall to hang this picture.

My dad (a builder) would be utterly ashamed of me.

Tweet Jane

2009-02-16T05:53:00.000-08:00

Twitter – it's not just a platform for idiots to 'tweet' @stephenfry and @wossy to fool themselves into thinking that have an 'in' to CelebrityWorld.

No, it's another drain on your day too.

But, but, but good news comes in the shape of Twisten.fm (God, the names they come up for these things are awful).

It does two main things:

- it 'crawls' Twitter for 'tweets' about music

- it lets you post about the track you are listening to and, via technology or something like that, creates a short link to the track in question

It was developed by the people at GrooveShark and, when you post what you are listening to, the link hops to a player on GrooveShark.

It all appears legal and even has a sub-retailer strand (built around the notion of PAP4). If you click through and buy a track, a cut goes to the artist/label, a cut goes to the person who uploaded it and a cut goes to GrooveShark.

So that's all right, then. Or we hope so.

The reason music journalists get a bad press

2009-02-16T01:42:00.000-08:00

Here is a 'teaser' review of the new U2 album by Neil McCormick in The Telegraph.

To save you time reading it, I've done a synopsis. It goes like this.

- I am friends with Bono
- The new album is not out yet but I have heard it before you
- I am friends with Bono
- The new album is amazing
- I am friends with Bono
- It is the best U2 album ever
- I am friends with Bono
- It is probably the best album ever
- I am friends with Bono

Inexcusably disgusting.

Upsetting The Apple Chart

2009-02-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

I couldn't care less for most of the apps for the iPhone as far too many of them are games. And video games, like sport, bore me.

But this new app from the Official Charts Company is actually very, very good.

It has the usual things you'd expect (top 40 singles and top 40 albums updated every Sunday night), but it also has details of what new singles and albums are out this week.

But, and here's the science bit, when you click on a track, you can connect through to watch the video, go to the artist website or buy the track from iTunes.

You might think 'So what?', especially as so many apps today are trying to do so many things. But my response to that is to say that you should find your strengths and play to them.

Sometimes it's the simplest ideas that shine the brightest.

I have arrived*

2009-02-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

Goodness me.

I wrote an entire PhD back in 2001 about how the names of music journalists no longer mattered, only the titles. I even came up with a really pretentious title for an academic article all about my 'theory'.

Well, I've just found myself eating a humble pie baked out of my words with a big egg on the face of the foot I just shot myself in. On the Live Nation site for tickets for The Phantom Band, who I may have written about just a few times here, there is my name alongside a snippet from a review I wrote of their album.

(Click on the image to make it bigger.)

I really thought I'd never live to see the day. And now that I have, I really don't know if it's a good or a bad thing. Ho, and what's more, hum.

*I haven't arrived at all.

I’m Looking Through You

2009-02-15T02:44:00.000-08:00

This is a bit old, but it’s Paul McCartney extolling the virtues of ‘eye yoga’. Here’s what he had to say:

"When I was in India, there was a guy there at one of the hotels who taught you to do eye exercises – yoga exercises. The idea is that, in your eyes, it’s just muscles like anywhere else and that we don’t use them enough – we sit at computers, or watch telly all day, or read books etc. So you’re basically just using one set of muscles.”

Watch (hah) the video here:

Any excuse for a series of dreadful puns…

See Moon
A Hard Day’s Sight
Yoga Oh-No
Retina It Be
Mull Of Squint-eye-re
I Saw Her Standing Stare
Maybe Eye’m Amazed
Live & Let Eye
Give Ireland Back To The Iris

Lost & Found

2009-02-14T11:03:00.000-08:00

I'd never seen this before and would have actually died dead from death if I'd seen it at the time considering it was Sparks playing 'This Town...' on The White Room with Bernard Butler on guitar. Too many of my favourite things colliding for my 1995 mind to comprehend.

(Excuse the dire quality of the video recording.)