Mash-up

Mash-ups can be a little hit and miss. But this effort conflating some Bob Fosse dance moves to the hip-hop of 'Walk It Out' shows that can it can be an art form...and that there's still some life in the (now) old dog of creative democratisation.

Nu-Gazing?

As covered already in this blog, the previously maligned (in the UK at least) shoegazing sound has been making something of a comeback this year. With the likes of Asobi Seksu and Deerhunter (among others) sending a wash of feedbacked and fuzzed-out melodies our way, it's hard to deny there isn't something afoot.

It seems the Guardian have cottoned on to this and written a whole article on this straw in the wind. All in all it's not a bad read, but then they go and label this burgeoning scene 'Nu-Gazing'.

Yeah. Nu-gazing.

Have the Music Press listened to other people's ideas, imaginations and descriptions so often that they can't conjure original thoughts anymore?

Nu-Gazing.

It can serve a purpose to emulate the scientific descriptions of flora and fauna, indicating cross pollinations of genres and to give immediate indication of the music's DNA - see Heavy Metal, Hair Metal, Death Metal etc. But any Nu-(insert previously existing genre here) does a disservice to both genres. It robs the original of relevance and the newcomer of its originality (see Nu-Metal and Nu-Rave). Above all, it is just plain lazy.

It's kind of redundant anyway to put something as widescreen as music in to a draw as constraining as a one or two word description, even my fave yet for the genre (Dreampop) robs the sound of its depth and meatiness. But lets face it, we do it for the sake of expedience, a kind of short-hand script for something much, much larger.

If this new trend is substantial enough, it will have to be given a moniker. The Guardian throws a few other naff names about such as 'stargaze' and 'shoetronica', but they chose to lead with the woeful Nu-Gaze.

So, now that the Guardian has taken the lead and labeled it Nu-Gazing, does this make it official? Idolator doesn't think so. But I fear, in the UK at least, it's likely to stick - just as NME's complacent 'Nu-Rave' label stuck for the likes of The Klaxons.

Shame.

Should you smoke hash, drink booze and talk sex, religion and politics?

Anthony Bourdain: The Chefin' Ramone

Anthony Bourdain is up there with Nick Cave, Stephen Fry and James Ellroy as a regular on my fantasy dinner party of living greats.

He is a man after my own heart, whose undying passions include good food (naturally), good booze, rock n roll, literature, writing and travel. He is the punk-rocker of celebrity chefs. He is notrious for his love of what he calls 'nasty bits' - bladder and trotter and brains and guts. He even ate bugs off a windshield with Marky Ramone once.

His book Kitchen Confidential re-ignited my passion for cooking and reiterated the cowboy image of life in the kitchen that my chefin' mates talk of. His Les Halles Cookbook is an essential if you want to take your cooking above the basic Jamie Oliver whip-something-up-on-a-Sunday level. There you'll learn how to make proper stock, demi-glace and a raft of dishes that will take a whole weekend to make and have you sweating in your saute pan with their complexity. Anthony's tone throughout the book is that you're basically a shmuck and you have no fucking idea. He is the only chef I know of that has managed to get this attitude across in a Cookbook rather than expletitive-filled rants on the telly (and get away with it). It works though, in a drill-sergeant kinda way and it also provided me with the best recipe for a Steak Au Poivre et Frites you'll ever get anywhere.

I have recently discovered his new television series called 'No Reservations' on YouTube and I'm loving it. The show consists of 'Tony' travelling around the globe eating, drinking, philosphising and discovering (and quite often eating) some really weird shit - and he has John Spencer Blues Explosion doing the intro music.

Check below for a 'tube of Tony eating the beating heart of a cobra in Thailand .

Jailhouse Rock

These Phillipino prisoners have come up with a novel way of relieving the tedium of hard jail time. 1,500 jump suited prisoners (and one in drag) perform Thriller as the director of the prison films them and uploads to youtube. The whole series can be seen here.

It's...ah...surreal

Facebook could become the new Microsoft

Here I was thinking that Facebook was going to be the next Google. Duncan Riley puts across a decent argument that it could be the next Microsoft. Money Quote:

"Although Web Operating Systems lack wide user uptake to date, the amount of venture capital flooding into Web OS startups is a clear indicator that smart people believe that Web Operating Systems will eventually be a huge hit. Facebook knows this; what buying Parakey does is provide Facebook with a base from which it can not only become a Web OS provider, but leverage it’s user base to become THE Web OS provider."

If Facebook decides to float, they've got my money.

Luxury Sub

Keeping up the theme of hybrid vehicles, I couldn't go past this Luxury Sub concept. What better way to blow away all those tacky Russian oligarchs and their Super Yachts on the French Riviera? It has a surface-cruising capacity with plenty of deck-space for your bikini clad call-girls/models - yet at the flick of the switch you're in a sub-aquatic wonderworld.

They say money can't buy you happiness, but with the Seattle 1000 I'm sure you could sail right up beside it and give everyone else the finger.

Lily Watch: Lily's third nip

The adorable Lily Allen has just gone up even further in my already stratospheric estimations. Here she not only only declares, but reveals her third nipple on UK national television.

If she keeps this up, she'll fast-track to national treasure in no time.

They don't do nostalgia like they used to

I won't wax lyrical too long on this one, but allow me a moment of post-rave nostalgia. A few months back when I'd had a listen to LCD Soundsystem's 'Sound Of Silver' and then saw them live here in Amsterdam, there was one stand-out track.

While the hypnotic piano, New Order guitar riff and LCD beat are infectious, it was the lyrical content of 'All My Friends' that caught my viscera. Being a 32yo Aussie ex-rave kid that's been away from home too long and with friends scattered around the globe - I am a perfect target for Murphy's brand of melancholic nostalgia on this track.

From the opening lyric of "That's how it starts, we go back to your house" to when he lifts a little to "You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan and the next five years trying to be with your friends again" right on through to the carthartic crescendo of Murphy shouting "if I could see all my friends tonight", the track has me in the grips of an uncharacteristic wistfulness.

I very much live for the moment and my life is currently on a trajectory that doesn't lend to reminisces of times past, yet every time I listen to this track (a current release no less) I am taken back to the mid-nineties in Sydney and the people I shared those times with.

It conjures those 8am drives from the club back to Bondi via Rose Bay riffing on subjects and rattling around in the glove box for spare sunglasses for my mates; smoking a spliff with Johnno on the North Bondi rocks before diving in to the cleansing blue ocean - the only thing that could wash away the stale sweat and chemical residue of the night's excesses; going back to a stranger's place and discovering the most beautiful girl you've ever seen is actually interested in you and is so easy to talk to; when a mate puts a track on that so perfectly sums up the moment and the feeling among your crew that you get cheers, smiles and hugs all-round...

It gets lost in the telling, but the feeling and the memories are still there. And that for me is the genius of this track - those moments are gone and the people have moved on, yet you're so fucking glad that you were lucky enough to have had them. 'All My Friends'captures that essence.

Below is the shortened radio edit that was used for this beautiful video (replete with facepaint, lizards, mirrors and pyro pay-off) directed by MJZ's Tom Kuntz.

The good die young

I've always believed in books finding me, rather than the other way round. It's a little superstitious sure, yet it keeps happening that I finish a book only to have another jump to my attention without me seeking it out.

Just this week, I had just finished Truman Capote's superbly chilling 'In Cold Blood'. It's the kind of book that sits with you long after you've finished the last page and I was in no hurry to pick up another. Capote's non-fiction novel really makes you delve into the nature of violence and contemplate the indignity of death. In 'In Cold Blood', death was totally devoid of any romance pertaining to it.

The idealism that surrounds the early death of rock n roll stars stands in stark contrast to this. The 'too fast to live, too young to die' ethos that romanticises early death as almost something to aspire to, was a world away from the contemplations Capote had ushered upon me.

When my good friend Kimi passed on to me Deborah Curtis' 'Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division' I was a little aprehensive. Did I want to take on another book in which the major theme was (once again) death? The Joy Division/New Order story and catalogue have always held a huge interest for me and Ian Curtis is at the nucleus of that story. However, this is a rock bio with a different slant. It is Ian Curtis' story - as told by his wife. So it was decided that I would once again dance with death, although this time it would be to the beat of Joy Division's death-disco kick-drum (and all within the comforts of my oversized beanbag of course).

Here is a modern rock and roll hero that many an upcoming band claim as a massive influence. A hero whose death has been mourned and romantcisised as much as any other. I am only half-way through the book, but it seems from Deborah's perspective that Ian Curtis had always been seduced by the idea of an early death.

His heros were Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin - all died young at the peak of their careers, leaving a mythologised legacy behind them. Sure Bowie was a massive influence, but it was Bowie's obsession with death that fascinated him. Ian had always said that he wouldn't live past his early twenties. Deborah thought it was just a stage he was going through - a kind of dark and brooding posturing.

Maybe he always knew that everything in his life was too intense for him to withstand for a whole and complete lifetime. His lyrical content and performances certainly lend to this notion. You can see it in the performance below, where his dancing toward the end emulates the body spasms associated with the epilepsy that he suffered intensly from. In fact, they were so closely linked as to be inextricable. After every gig, Ian would sit up in his living room waiting for his inevitable post-gig fit. Maybe he felt and (thankfully for us) expressed a lifetime's worth of intensity and emotions in his very short life - to only be left spent, exhausted and hopeless. Where the only option left was one final and dramatic performance. Suicide.

While Ian as an icon and a legacy is undoubtedly romantic, can his early death be considered as a major reason for this? While most fans would probably believe so, from what I have glommed from Deborah's book, it left a terrible rupture in the lives of those close to him without a trace of the romantic rock n roll ideal.

Though it was his musical legacy that enabled his legend to attain its longevity and iconic status, you simply can't view this legacy without Ian's death looming large in the shadows.

Was Ian's death romantic? I suppose the only person who could answer that is the man himself.

Simpsons Avatar

If you haven't seen this simple yet genius piece of interactive marketing for the Simpsons Movie, you just have to go the Simpsons Movie site to create your own Simpsons avatar.

Hairybone Simpson.

Twike

Bicycles are the only way to get around Amsterdam - until you encounter rainfall of Biblical proportions, then it gets nasty. Rocking up to work with saturated jeans just isn't cool. It's a bad sensation.

After this morning's downpour, I'd had enough of my damp denim, so I trawled the web looking for some kind of solution that didn't include plastic pantaloons that conjure thoughts of clowns and John Wayne Gacy. And it seems I may have found a stylish alternative.

It looks hot with a kind of contemporary yet retro 80s-Bond-in-American-Apparel feel about it. It is environmentally friendly, has a respectable top speed and above all, provides shelter from summer deluges - leaving your jeans crisp and dry for the morning's meetings.

The name is also suitably ambiguous, like a cross between a young gay dude and a butchy lesbian.

Ladies and gents meet the Twike





Name: Twike ("TW"in b"IKE")
Abstract: human-powered/electric hybrid Light Electric Vehicle (LEV)
Max speed: 85 km/h (53 mph)
Range: 40 -140 kilometers (25–90 miles)
Price: 17.800 € - 32.200 €
Weight: 246 kg (542 lb) unladen
Battery: 3.3 kw/h nickel-cadmium or 6 kw/h nickel-hydride
Charge time: 1.5 to 3 hours
Steering: via single joystick
Country: Switzerland
Release date: 1986

Pete Doherty - The Comeback?

So the headline may be presumptuous - preposterous even to some, but when I caught a repeat of Jonathan Ross Live on Saturday night I saw a Pete Doherty that I hadn't caught sight of in some time.

When the Libertines first staggered on to the scene in London, music in England at the time was a bland and watery soup of over produced pop acts, Oasis wannabes and clapped out beat merchants. We needed a messiah...somebody to take us back to something real, exciting and from the gut. The Libertines fulfilled that role and staked their claim in UK rock n' roll history. Detractor or not, there was no denying the authenticity of the Libertine ethos. This was not posing and posturing or studied cool. This was visceral hedonism meets old-world-Englishness out on the edge of London's urban grot.

But the drugs took hold and it's a well worn story told many a time by tabloids and second rate rockumentaries. The whole notion of death and glory became deathly boring and Pete's music slipped into mediocrity. I still thought that he was one of the finest lyricists of his generation, but there was no escaping the fact that (apart from being Kate Moss' current squeeze) he was becoming redundant.

With this in mind I found Pete's performance (and subsequent interview) on Jonathan Ross something of a surprise. He was looking sharp, he's lost his drug-bloat and his eyes weren't rolling into the back of his head. The track "Lost Art of Murder" is also a definite return to form.

It's a bit early yet to claim it as a come back. We'll have to see how the next Babyshambles album turns out and whether (great or not) it can extend his appeal beyond his loyal fan base to a public who are only familiar with his tabloid caricature. Still...it's encouraging to say the least.



Part 2 of the interview continues here