Being inappropriate with Dannii Minogue

I’m French. That means that before moving to the UK, I HAD NO IDEA WHO CHERYL COLE WAS. And of course, when I started studying the subject, I became kind of obsessed, like you all (don’t even try to deny it). Watching the X Factor, I was fascinated by this accent, so different from what I was expecting to come out of Cheryl’s mouth. I think I expected butterflies to come out actually. All this to say, that at first all my attention was on Cheryl instead of Dannii: MISTAKE.

This year, Cheryl Cole aka I-don’t-have-an-opinion-on-anything (HELLO: the guy asked “who did you prefer yesterday?”, that means you need to give a name, NOT say “Oh I liked them all”) was utterly boring and I started getting more interested in Dannii. I mean, Dannii’s life is such a great pop drama example: the failed sister of one of the biggest popstars ever. Failed? Let’s study the question a bit: the highlights of Danni’s music career were basically when Kylie had a shit year. Not so great. But Dannii was the trashy pop sister, she released songs in the 90s, that I’m pretty sure David Guetta is jealous of today. She was also involved in a lesbian stripper scandal = I love Dannii. And more importantly, DANNII GAVE US "I BEGIN TO WONDER", which is an amazing song. You can’t deny it, it’s a great song, check it out.

Don’t you just love how bad the video is? Drying her armpits with the hand-dryer, WTF? Wait! IT GETS BETTER! Today, Dannii clearly has a better stylist than Cheryl Cole (compare the hair and the dresses of this season of X Factor) but not in the noughties! Doing some research on Youtube recently, I found this hard-to-believe video of a live performance of “I Begin To Wonder” where pretty much EVERYTHING IS WRONG: Danni’s dancers, Dannii’s hair, Dannii’s shirt, Dannii's haaaaan noises, Dannii’s dirty looks to the camera etc. But you may say: horrendously short skirt and dirty looks – that’s what pop music is about. Huum, the only issue here is that THE AUDIENCE IS MADE MAINLY OF 8 YEARS OLD! Genius.

Stricken City: FIN

The rather wonderful Stricken City have made three announcements, two of which amount to 'yay' (new album called Losing Colour out on February 7th + gig at The Drop in Stoke Newington on February 10th: tickets here), and one of which amounts to big 'nay' (they're splitting up at this point).
Stricken City have been one of those bands that have accompanied me through my time in London, mixing seamlessly into the London cityscape along with the likes of fairly obvious candidates like The xx, Burial and The Streets. They touch on a kind of artschool nostalgia that really shone out on their last release 'Songs About People I Know', taking in post riot-grrl, post-punk and post-britpop all in one go. And now they are soon to be post-Stricken City. Sniff.
Their videos have always been rad, check them out - as has the attention to detail of their releases with their high production values (feathers with your 7" anyone?). They will be missed.

BUT DON'T BE DOWN. Get yourself to their final show, buy all the merch and left over vinyl and give them a warm sendoff!

Album sampler for Losing Colour:

Losing Colour LP Preview by {Stricken City}

The tigers and lions of Brooklyn

This summer, Lucy and I went to explore the jungle of Bushwick. If you’re reading this blog, you’re obviously one of the cool kids who know that Bushwick is the new Williamsburg. If you need an explanation: here is a fast one. Williamsburg has been the ‘cool’ neighbourhood of Brooklyn where most of the bands you loved in 2007 came from (Yeasayer, MGMT, Au Revoir Simone etc). Now, all the cool New-Yorkers are in Bushwick, which is further East in Brooklyn and where some of the dark alleys are as terrifying as the ones of Williamsburg 4 years ago. In the past 2 years, Bushwick has given us the Vivian Girls and many more.

But at 1234 Shoreditch, we realised that the Vivian Girls had become boring since that cool drummer made the best career move of 2010 and joined Best Coast – I mean, what a GREAT CAREER MOVE THERE! Anyway, so Lucy and I were in New York this summer and decided to see if there was anything good left in Bushwick. So, we went to one of Todd P shows. For the ignorant among you, Todd P is one of the best promoters of NYC, very DIY and the first on most of the bands, Upset the Rhythm style = I’m basically fucking jealous of him. After 10 minutes of walking into the middle of nowhere, slightly terrified (luckily by then, I had not heard the story of that guy from Bloc Party being attacked by a lion, otherwise, I would have really freaked out) and ended up on that dark street. Some hipsters hyenas with decked-shirts outside a warehouse: we were there. Weirdly, we got ID’d twice even though, as soon as we got in, one guy was smoking a massive spliff. Surely, if you don’t care about that, why would you care about underage drinking?

All the Bushwick fauna were there. That represents a pack of about 50 people. 2 supports acts played but I forgot about them, so I’m not going to talk about them ha! And about 20 min before the headliner band, the ginger tiger arrived: tattoos all out, little 60s dress, yep that’s the bassist of the Vivian Girls and we all know who is the hottest girl in the room = le tigre. A few minute after that, the blond lion turned-up: 2/3 of the Vivian Girls now in. All the little zebras and gazelles of the room started getting excited: old warehouse in the middle of nowhere in Bushwick, the new side-project of the singer of the Vivian Girls with some cats from Woods: it was meant to be good.
The Babies (that’s the band this post is about, I thought I should point that out) were on stage. It was of course too loud, all claws out but that’s what it’s all about. 3 minutes punk-songs are what you feed the jungle with. However, these guys are not just about the noise, they do have great melodies. On some of the tracks, the lion and one of the wild cats sang together and for some reason I REALLY LOVE it when 2 people sing on a punk song and their voices respond to each other. I think these guys are just starting, so some of their songs need more work but tracks like Breakin The Law and Meet Me In The City are fantastic songs.

The Babies on MySpace

The Babies are one of the first bands I wanted to book for the future Yeah Club! Nights (more about that soon) but Upset the Rhythm got there first, so because I’m not a hateful hyena, I’ll tell you that The Babies are playing on March 17th in London at CAMP and you can get your tickets on Upset the Rhythm website.

PS: I know I write overly long articles but you’ll just have to get used to it! Bisous.

The Babies - Meet Me In The City by frcmajeure

Compare and contrast - Koudlam vs. Japanese Precision Walking

I've been having a sweeeeet time today listening to Koudlam, 'The French Symphonic Composer' (apparently). So I decided to check out youtoob and for some further information and came across the video for his bwilliant tune 'See You All' which rather amazingly is just a video of a big massive fiiiiiight  - not so much Harry Hill but rather a kind of massive grown up violent version of the sort of thing that would happen at school when loads of kids would run in one direction at lunch time to watch a couple of tuff boyz push each other about a bit. Check it out below.

And so in a GCSE English 'compare and contracst' type of way I thought I might post a video of Japanese precision walking which I saw recently. Weirdly alluring.





Precision walking nightclasses are coming to a community centre or church hall near you SOON.

School Robot

On coming back from lunch I found this rather rad robot lying on the floor. I think it was drawn by one of the kids from the school next door. I'd like to point out the seamless join between elephant and machine here, the robot is literally hoovering up the spaghetti whilst at the breakfast bar. Or maybe it's a waiter. I'm not sure.

Shit Robot - Take Em Up (John Talabot Remix) by DFA Records

If It Makes You Appy...

If you're reading on after that horrendous pun, I salute you. In short, (and you'll be able to see what kind of dweeb I am here), I gave up my Blackberry this year because I was being bullied into getting an iPhone by certain friends. All in all, it's great. For games. And stuff like that. Crap for sending emails or doing any work, but GREAT FOR FUN. Which is largely what we spend our time doing, so sod it.

So here are my top 5 (groan) music apps of 2010:

1) Katy Perry Revenge

Let's get this one out of the way first with a telling anecdote. Oh yes, a telling anecdote. One of those. I promise you three sacks of gold and jewels that if you put this app in front of a Katy Perry hater (and God knows there are a lot of them), that within 10 minutes they'll be humming those damn tunes FOR THE NEXT 5 DAYS.

The premise is simple, as it plays like Rock Band or any of those timing based music games, and with this version you use your fingers and the screen as buttons. So on the tube you can look really cool.



Standout songs are:

'Waking up in Vegas', the Perry, Desmond Child (The guy's a fucking genius - Steve Tyler) and Andreas Carlsson (I wrote a few amazing Britney songs) effort. I'm not going to lie, my high score will beat yours.

'Teenage Dream' - total dreamboat of a song. This is the game-changer for the non-Perry-initiated. Play this and be converted, such is the unrelenting power of the chorus / lyric combo.

A word of warning, when you unlock new levels, pictures of a scantily clad Mrs Brand save themselves on your phone pictures album - not a great look when your girlfriend is looking for photos of that nice weekend break...

Waking Up in Vegas by Katy Perry

Get it on iTunes


2) Tunein Radio

Tunein Radio is a badboy of an app - the kind that makes you think 'yeah, that's why I got rid of the Blackberry'. Or 'if this had been around in 1348 and I'd been flashing it around I'd have been burnt as a witch'.



It lets you tune into any radio station you can think of. You can browse local radio stations, or go a bit further afield by browsing location (Chile's El Conquistador FM anyone?) or by language (nothing wrong with a bit of Nepalese on Acorab Radio!).

Get it here


3) Cassius - I <3> U So

I've got a mouth. You've got a mouth. This app gives you four more mouths! Set to the single from the sublime Rawkers EP this one's a blinder.



I Love U So by Cassius

Get it here


4) Record Makers

2010 has been the 10th Anniversary year for the label that has brought you Sebastian Tellier, Kavinsky, Acid Washed, Turzi and much more. To celebrate they put together this awesome little app that plays a bit like that game you used to play as a kid where you draw a head, fold the paper, give it to your friend, they draw the body without seeing the head, you do the legs and so on: combining elements of illustration.

The idea is you find the secret combination, and this enters you into a competition to win a trip to Paris. Nice. A sweet touch is that any combination you make can be saved to your phone to use as a background or however you fancy.



With illustration by Mrzyck and Moriceau, music (more blips really) by Mr Oizo and a bit of Tellier thrown in as well, it all points to being a massive winner.

Kavinsky - Nightcall (Robotaki Remix) by Robotaki

Get it here


5) Spotify

This app has given rise to the biggest change in the way I consume music over the last couple of years. A seismic change really when you think Spotify itself was first launched in late 2008. One of the reasons I got involved in the iPhone was the Spotify app (still not available on BBerry despite Daniel Ek initimating as such ages ago) - I like to be able to have music on the move, be able to stream, save for offline, and have no ads. Spotify also kindly give you a heads up on new releases - a Tron: Legacy, Daft Punk scored sampler was bowled out to Premium subscribers a week or two before full release. Nice.



To temper the enthusiasm, I should point out it's a tenner a month - a lot. Also, remember this incredible 'Information is Beautiful' visual that points out how much revenue artists get from Spotify. Converse to the cost of the montly subscription, that's not a lot. Bear in mind that the majors are not likely to make Spotify happen in the States (no launch for the moment), and these are still uncertain times for the streaming model.

And this is where the crunch lies - we currently all consume music in different ways. Revenues are down for the industry as a whole but options and choice is up. What the majors and major indies need to be doing is pulling together and getting behind the streaming Spotify and We7 models. While currently loss-making, it's surely in the industry's interests to keep this legal model alive to avoid a return en masse to illegal downloading.

If there is one thing the post-Napster years have proven it's that if we leave the majors to develop a sustainable legal platform themselves that the public gets behind, we'll be waiting a long time...

Derezzed by Daft Punk

Get it here