Yeah, I know this is oldish news but some people haven't taken advantage of this yet!!
After chatting my ass off on Saturday night at Bad Sneakers I realised a whole load of people haven't (a) heard off the mix (b) didn't know it was free or (c) didn't know who I was and therefore ignored me and looked at me strangely. The album is a mix album by Radioclit Myspace and Esau Mwamwaya aka The Very Best
"I want toy tin soldiers that can Push and shove, I want gunboy rovers that'll wreck this club" Lexicon Devil, 1978
The idea of this films makes me think the myth and legend of Darby Crash (originally born Paul Beahm Sept 26th 1958 - Dec 7th 1980) may now be tainted the way Hollywood likes to do things. I'm all for biopics and sometimes stories are important and need to be told to a mass audience that can learn something from peoples lives and how they affected the future. However, a film dedicated to a band who were around less than 3 years and whose audiences were made up of a small collective of people who regularly traveled from club to club and city to city in search escapism and something to live for cannot be do justice to the person they think they are doing justice to. Its true that without The Germs there would be no Nirvana, Melvins, Meat Puppets, Circle Jerks, Gorilla Biscuits and to some extent 70% of what was known through the 80's as Hardcore, but this cannot be grasped without being there at the time. The irony being that the film is called What We Do Is Secret, well not for much longer mate!
Below: The real Darby Crash (Lorna Doom in the background)
Don't get me wrong, everyone is entitled to form there own opinion, but this is mine and its difficult to accept that this film could be of use except for maybe rekindling the fame that Pat Smear and Lorna Doom once enjoyed whilst playing with The Germs and then later Nirvana and other bands. My advice is to listen to MIA by The Germs and then read Lexicon Devil: The fast times and short life of Darby Crash and The Germs. Buy their music not their image.
For further interest watch The Decline of Western Civilization, a documentary made in 1981 tracing the origins and lives of the kids involved LA punk scene.
Officially the lead track from their new album Merriweather Post Pavilion, the song is My Girls which was the first leaked track off the album. It was pretty obvious this was the lead track, but the more I listen to the album the more I hear subtle things which make other songs more exciting. For instance 'Summertime clothes' with its glam-rock beat and story telling lyrics in almost impossible to listen too without wanting to grab your skateboard and cruise around in the sunshine, if only it wasn't raining....
Here's the link to the video, this is the Hi Bandwidth version on Pitchfork which is great quality CLICK ME!!
According to The Guardian they sound like an African TV on the Radio...
They look like TV on the Radio's cousins from the sticks but Johannesburg's BLK JKS actually sound light years ahead with their bushwacker bass and calls to the wild. Having already featured in all the right magazines, from Blender to The Fader, now the middle class white dudes at The Guardian are even shedding their cord blazers and wearing wooden beads, whilst proposing they've been hip to Africa since Paul Simon's bizarre but somehow popular 1990 classic Rhythm of the Saints.
Rather than selling their soul to a major that would no doubt terrorize the very beds they sleep in for the rest of their natural lives, BLK JKS have stumbled nicely in the laps of Secretly Canadian. One of my favourite labels for the past 3 years, BLK JKS could do a lot worse than share their label umbrella with the likes of Anthony & the Johnsons and Jens Lekman.
Seeing as Obama is about to be inaugurated, and that the above image can be given a little credit for making that happen, let's have a look at our man Shepard Fairey talking about it on The Colbert Report the other night:
Let's not forget that it is dear, dear Tony that also brought the genius of Morph to our attention.
Any misty-eyed sentimentalists out there longing to have their very own Morph, pine no longer; you can get a Morph modelling kit made from - what else? - Plasticine, the very smell of childhood.
Woah! Ash appears to have been on something of a blog frenzy during my apathy...
So, to business. The balding bloke pictured above is none other than writer David Peace, and if you are paying attention, you will be hearing a lot about him over the course of this year. There are several reasons for this, of which more later; firstly, a little background info...
Mr Peace hails from Ossett, near Wakefield and is therefore well acquainted with the West Riding of Yorkshire, and this is reflected in his work. Having left England and headed east to teach, he ended up in Tokyo and found himself writing about Leeds and the era that he grew up in.
For those of you that have not read any of his stuff, it generally features a combination of real events given a fictional sheen - if only to protect the innocent - and not-so-innocent.
One of his most famous books, 'The Damned United', a dramatised account of Brian Clough's well documented 44 days in charge of Leeds has been adapted into a movie starring top werewolf and Tony Blair/Kenneth Williams impersonator Michael Sheen (soon to be seen adding Sir David Frost to his schtick in Richie Cunningham's adaptation of West End/Broadway smash 'Frost/Nixon'), who appears to be going for some sort of hardest-working-man-in-Hollywood award, if not an Oscar. Anyway, I digress slightly.
'The Damned United' kept it real and spent the summer filming up here in good old Leeds, giving a bunch of locals some dodgy seventies hairdos to stand in as LUFC's famously vicious "Dirty Leeds" squad of 1974 and is set for release in cinemas on March 27; however, it is not really my reason for mentioning Mr Peace in the first place.
An altogether gnarlier prospect than 'The Damned United', 'Red Riding' weaves together a bunch of real-life events from the region's recent history including the hunt for The Yorkshire Ripper, the fitting up and unjust imprisonment of Stefan Kiszko and the high levels of corruption of the high-ranking Police officers leading the hunt for the Ripper, as well as the scandal of Leeds Internaional Pool architect John Poulson and some brutal Se7en-style killings.
It should all make for some fine viewing, as the books are highly praised for their grit and intelligent, punchy style and it looks like these films will be the same. But here's the real point of all this; eagle-eyed viewers may get to see one of our favourite venues, the legendary Brudenell Social Club in a cameo in the '1983' film as a rather seedy journalist drinking den.
In typical Pulled Apart By Horses fashion, their debut single released almost two months ago has now got a video to go with it, which in terms of what videos are used for these days, its pretty pointless. However, its a fun video and anything to keep them in the limelight is good I guess. In further news their second release 'I punched a Lion in the throat' is being released a week on Monday on the 26th January by Too Pure Singles Club who are also releasing the first proper Bear Hands single too.
It's been almost two years now since the last Andrew Bird album and almost the same amount of time since he came to England to play live. Don't start getting a semi on though, his agent says he has no plans to come to the UK till late Summer. However, drop your pants this instant as his album is due out on Monday 2nd February through Bella Union in the UK. It comes as a 2CD Deluxe album or bog standard 1CD for normal everyday civilians who turn there nose up at paying an extra £4.00 for a cardboard slip case and some live tracks (oops!!).
For those who suffer from must have or know-it-all syndrome you can listen to the album in its entirety care of NPR who are some sort of interweb geeks.
Fingers crossed we won't be hearing Andrew Bird on any forthcoming Michael Palin BBC adverts this year. Here's a reminder of the song that they didn't ruin by playing 18,000 times a day before and after Eastenders.
I've been a curious follower of Animal Collective for some years now. I've promoted two of their shows and due to Avey Tare (aka Davey Porter) being ill at the first Panda Bear ended up doing most of his solo stuff instead and I was floored completely. Since then I've immersed myself in their music, yet nothing seems to capture that experience of seeing them and Panda Bear live, it was that breathtaking. However, this is the album a lot of people have been waiting for, although 80% of die hard fans will suggest that they are releasing material that is far too safe in comparison to say their live album Hollindagain or perhaps Here Comes the Indian. But I thoroughly enjoyed this and think it will find them new fans in places they wish they never had, does that make sense?
Pre order the CD now from Domino, the LP was released yesterday.
The kind people at Vice, Sandbag and the guys in Black Lips are giving their first track from their forthcoming album away completely free. The album is called 200 Million Thousand and is due out late February on Vice.
The release coincides with, as usual, a brain damagingly huge tour of the US and some key UK dates too. Don't worry if your city isn't below, they are heading back for a full UK tour in April and May.
15 Feb - London 16 Feb - Bristol 17 Feb - Glasgow 18 Feb - Manchester 19 Feb - Brighton
If you managed to get in to New Years Balls at The Faversham on Wednesday then I don't need to describe the carnage and mayhem that was dished out in huge quantities. Special thanks to Wintermute, Dinosaur Pile Up, These Monsters, Pulled Apart By Horses, Jonny Strangeways, Youth Attack, Bearded Slave and everyone who chipped in to help the radness.
Below, These Monsters taking you down to Chinatown
"Thow ya gunz in the air" the Faversham crowd enjoying a silent euphoric moment.
Finally if you enjoy wearing plaid flannel shirts, having no laces in your DM's and occasionally rocking some eyeliner here's Sonic Youth covering Nirvana for your download consumption.
