Playing with Daft Punk at my house!

Our disappointment at Santa failing to bring us a Girls Aloud Barbie might fade if someone were nice enough to buy us a set of Daft Punk: Real Action Heroes dolls.

Q: How cool does that look?
A: Extremely.

They are, apparently, very limited edition - probably on account of there being only a very limited amount of people who'll be daft enough able to fork out $152.99 for each one. For that money we hope they have removable helmets so you can see their little French faces.

» Posted by: Tim
»Talk on boards

Our new favourite band

So anyway, last night we went to see this great new band called Winterkids. They’re from Guildford and they’re bloody great. As is Guildford, but that's another story.

In fact, while we were stood in the (packed to the rafters) Water Rats watching them, we realised that the quirky English trail ‘blazed’ by Maximo Park, Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs last year has meant this will be the year we all go, ahem, Quinglish.

On their myspace page, ver 'Kids claim to play ‘electro art pop’, and breakneck anthems such as ‘Fed Up’ and ‘I’m Not Used To You’ certainly back up this wild claim.

Plus, the singer (not the lady pictured, she tickles the high-vories) has what our dad would have called Pete Shelley-esque 'charms', i.e. great charisma and fab hair.

We sidled up to their manager afterwards, who told us that the band are planning a single on a small (yet perfectly formed) independent very soon...

Naturally, we’ll let you know as soon as anything interesting happens…

» Posted by: Mike
»Talk on boards

Stroking McFly's crystal balls

Scene: The Slashmusic office a bit ago.

Ring! Ring!
Oh blimey, who's that?
Ring! Ring! Bloody ring!
If that's flaming McFly again tell them we're busy.
Hello! It's McFly here!
Oh Christ!

Anyway, McFly are lovely really and they only called to let us know what they're up to over this brave and, potentially, wonderful new year of 2006.

So, on reflection, good for them.

Tom told us his plans for the year go something like this: "I'm going to go back to the African village that the money from our 'All About You' single went to, and see how it's helped them. If we got the chance to make another Comic Relief single I'd love to have Ricky Gervais in the video. I love 'Extras', but I'm sure we won't get asked again..."

Later on in the year there is the McFly / Lindsay Lohan movie to look forward to... "The film will be out for the Easter holidays," Tom says. "I think it's gonna be big. Anything with Lindsay Lohan is gonna be big!

Then Danny grabbed the phone and told us: "A lot of the movie people in America are really liking us as a band now. We're hoping this movie will get our name out their and we'll bomb... shit, I didn't mean to say bomb. I meant to say we'll bomb them, as in impress them - take them by surprise.

"That's what my mum used to always say: 'Go on, bomb 'em!' But obviously we can't say that now! I'd love to be in an action movie with George Clooney. I'd like to be his partner - me and him in the NYPD. I always get in trouble because I'm the dumbass and he always tells me off! I'm gonna write the movie then ask George if he'll be in it..."

Of course, what we all really want to know about is a new McFly album. So we asked Harry and he insisted he's totally calm about the next record.

"I don't feel under massive pressure at all. We've been lucky to be number one with our first two albums, but wherever the next one goes in the charts we'll be happy. As long as we're still going really!

"Maybe the record company have expectations, but we just kind of ignore that and do what we want. We're not gonna record anything too controversial - it'll still be pop music!"

Slashmusic: as ever, the home of superior McFly-related tittle tattle.

» Posted by: Rob
»Talk on boards

2005: Our most bestest bits wot we liked...

As the end of 2005 is upon us, and we contemplate what we've done this year, whether we've been good boys and girls and thus deserving of lots of pressies from Santa, whether we'll have time among the family mayhem to watch the Christmas Corrie or whether we'll have to tape it etc etc, just one conclusion can be drawn.

And that is that we have had a bloody great 2005.

We've done millions of properly brilliant stuff this year, so much that our minds have been boggling at the sheer vastness of it all.

But we've managed sort through the amazingness, put our heads together and come up with the ten best things about Slashmusic this year.

So here they are! Huzzoinks!

1. taTu. We videoed the Russian fake lady gays chatting about all manner of gumph – and they were top. They gave us a new catchphrase – 'moral invalids' – but our favourite bit was when we had to explain to them what tantric sex was…

2. Gene Simmons. We interviewed the notorious Kiss frontman and got much more than we bargained for when he shared his amorous intentions towards BB6's Kinga and other celebrity 'lovelies'…

3. Gorillaz. The cheeky cartoon chappies are always good value, and no more so than when they're planning to Make Doherty History…

4. 100 Greatest Animals. We ruv ickle kittens. Especially ones in Elton John-style specs…

5. T4 On The Beach. We came, we saw, we monstered. It was hot, it was sweaty, and GM got sand in his nethers, but he did get a snog from Rachel Stevens…

6. V Festival. It was probably the sunniest weekend that Up North has ever seen, and we were there to soak up the lagerssphere and go kerr-azy to GLC…

7. GLC Talking of the tracksuited Welsh killers, you've not lived til you've seen Adam Hussein tell you about Dead Jeff…

8. The Hot Topic In particular, the hot topic where we asked people: "Who would you slap?" Pissed-up pensioners on the Kings Road captured forever for everyone's entertainment...

9. Charlotte Church. The perky popstrel might be horrible to other people but she was lovely to us…

10. Love Bites The first time we met ver Bites will always be dear to our hearts… blub!

Right, now we’re off to get leathered on The Nog and throw sprouts at the neighbours.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

» Posted by: Amy
»Talk on boards

What Christmas cards should be like...

We opened our post this morning with more than the usual sense of anticipation because, well, it's bloody Christmas, innit?

Anyway, among the other great cards - we particularly liked our Love Bites one - was the one pictured from our great showbiz mates in The Earlies.

Now, you see, not only did they design somethng cool for the cover, but they recorded a special song to put in the card, a version of 'Little Trooper', a track they played at every festival this summer.

And it's bloody great!

So, hurrah for The Earlies then. And a message to the rest of you. Consider the game raised...

» Posted by: Rob
»Talk on boards

A mad eyed dance on the bones of the old!

We sent Slashmusic's resident punk rock soul revolutionary John Robb to see The Pogues in Manchester and explain to us exactly what the point of them and the point of Christmas actually is...

Take it away, Mr R:

"...What is this thing called Christmas? Is it a merry time of year soundtracked by reality pop TV show winners singing their dull hearts out? Is it high streets stuffed full of tubby Santas glaring at the passer by? Is it office parties of amateur night virgins making their annual sorties into town to throw up on the pavement whilst wearing comedy hats?

Is it about sending out cards to people we can’t be bothered to speak to for the rest of the year? Or stuffing our faces full of food so horrible we normally avoid it like the black death? Is it really about dragging a half dead tree in your front room?

Why do we do this? Because it's traditional? Actually most of it isn't traditional at all. It's about as traditional as the Queen’s unloved Christmas speech.

We could lay into St Cliff and the Xmas record nicey nicey scum, but why bother when there's the boozy, toothless belch of the Pogues remembering that Christmas is really a drink and grog fuelled celebration of the winter solstice and not a poncey xmas card swapping, watching the pathetic Queen's speech next to a chopped down tree dragged into the front room pile of shite.

Some people claim Christmas has got some kind of religious connotation, that baby Jesus just happened to be born on the winter solstice! But we all know that was made up because the Christians couldn’t persuade the wild pagan folk to give up their bacchanalian, hooch-fuelled celebration of the last of the darkening days.

Which is where The Pogues come in, because the shambling, wrecked talismanic figure of Shane MacGowan slurring his way through ‘Fairytale Of New York' is about as close as anyone is ever going to get to the true spirit of Christmas.

Even in the plastic hangar of the Manchester Evening News Arena, the reformed Pogues combination of traditional Irish folk jammed up against a punk rock edge works like a dream.

There is something about this music that is quite magical, the very sound of it; like all the best ribald folk music from round the world, it sounds drunk and loopy, it staggers and swaggers around the room, wild and leery but played tight by the suited and booted band who look the business, who look like they've spent most of their lives in the last craggy pubs left standing in fluffed-up, wine bar Britain.

But it's MacGowan who madcaps the show. He might look a bit confused, and he does shuffle about like a man who has crammed ten of George Best's finest benders into one evening, but somehow he makes it to the microphone and repeats the between song banter from Pogues flute player (and master of ceremonies) Spider Stacey like he thought of it himself. Which maybe he did.

Somehow, after everything, he manages to dredge through his brain for all the genius words tohuge, anthemic Pogues songs pouring out of the PA like liquid Guinness into the stale corporate enormodrome. There is not a dry thigh in the house as the pale yellow, piss-like booze in a thousand plastic glasses is raised in celebration and flies all over the place. The mass army of Celtic shirts heave in jolly electric abandon and the gig becomes the best Christmas party of this or any other year.

In these days of machine-like bands plodding through their greatest hits in plastic arena world, it’s great to see the Pogues drunken raving somehow hang together and work.

Christmas should be just this, a no-holds-barred celebration of the new, a mad eyed dance on the bones of the old year and a supercharged rush of toothless optimism at the coming months.

Christmas should be the swapping of tales of misadventure from years gone by with battered old friends, and The Pogues are perfect for this kind of behaviour because they are the most battered old friends we have.

Midwinter 2005 and The Pogues' bells are still ringing out for Christmas time. That really is a reason to celebrate..."


» Posted by: Rob
»Talk on boards

Hard Fi Live! It's like London Calling or something!

We had a pair of Hard Fi tickets in a box marked 'Reader Prize!' (other contents included four Girls Aloud frisbees, two Madonna goodie-bags and a huge pile of unplayed Akon albums).

On Monday, we realised we had better do something with them, so we trawled through a huge list, pulled out Angela and Craig and packed them off saying we wanted a review of said pop show in return. And here it is!

"... It's a freezing cold Monday night the week before Christmas, and the front of the Astoria is covered by a 20ft projection of the ‘Stars of CCTV' album cover, the touts busy as ever beneath.

Inside, it's packed: a mixed crowd from the teeny kids who go and see every new band to the 30+ beer-suckers who are still in 'the know'.

Apparently, half of tonight's crowd is from the band's hometown of Staines, or so they say when singer Richard asks. Is this the first time anyone's ever lied and pretended they're from Staines? Probably.

Tonight is the end of the tour, Hard Fi's last gig of the year, and when they run on the place erupts. This is not 1979 - and, thankfully, HF aren't The Clash - but the comparisons will never be crushed as long as they launch headlong into songs like 'Middle Eastern Holiday' and thrash out thunderously propulsive sets that never pause for breath.

We loved the very decent cover of 'Seven Nation Army' and the one new song, ‘You and Me' (PLOT: boy meets girl, they fall in love, split up, but she's up the stick! Blimey etcetc!) gave us a taste of what's to come.

This crowd loved the 'Fi completely and there was no loss of momentum for the whole night - what the band lack in experience they made up with a shed load of cocky arrogance and enthusiasm.

The party atmosphere, including proper dancing and screaming, ran all the way from the front row to the back bar.

All this, and it's still just Monday night. Having said that, in this corner of London, we're all 'Living For The Weekend'..."

Hey! Nice tie-up. Thanks very much to Angela and Craig for that. Look out for lots more chances to get yourself on Slashmusic in the new year...

» Posted by: Rob
»Talk on boards

Doug-ing your own grave

Ding ding ding! Ring the controversy bell!

We spoke to Dougie Poynter of McFly recently, and asked him who he's tipping for the top in 2006. He was unsure about Son Of Dork's chances but what he had to say about the lovely Love Bites and their fellow women in rock was, quite frankly, appalling. Ladies, you have our permission to string him up by the balls.

Hi Dougie, Looking into next year, have you got any new bands that you'd tip for the top?

I guess Arctic Monkeys, The Killers and the Kaiser Chiefs.

They’re already quite big, aren’t they?

Yeah, well, their next records.

How about Son of Dork?

I dunno actually, I think it could go either way. I think it could either do massively well or massively not so well. But I hope that they do stay around, because there's not that many cool people in pop and we get kind of lonely now that all of our friends have broken up. We've got them to hang out with and we know they're not pretentious prick-heads.

How about Love Bites, because they're entwined with you a little bit. What do you think is going to happen with them?

I dunno and we're not entwined with them at all, let me just say that.

We weren't suggesting romantically.

I'd say we're not connected with them musically or anything like that. But they're nice girls, I dunno, I get in trouble every time I talk about this.

You don't see them as a female McFly then?

No. Are they even still around?

Are they still around? Do you not read Slashmusic? They're releasing a fantastic new single in the new year.

They're going to have another shot?

Hmm, you don't hold out much hope for it then?

No. I dunno, I just think girls with guitars...
Harry [shouting angrily in the background]: We inspire lots of our female fans to learn the guitar!
Dougie: You heard that? Yeah but I don't personally think it looks that cool.

You can't say that!

If you let me finish, I was about to say that whatshername, Katie Melua, she can pull it off.

She's not very rock, though.

Yeah but I don't think they can rock though.

Oh, good grief! Cheers then Dougie. What is he like?


» Posted by: Slashmusic
»Talk on boards

Actually, money can buy you love

The two surviving Beatles and the families of the two dead members have launched legal action against their record company EMI to get their hands on unpaid royalties rumoured to be worth in excess of £30m.

The dispute - which provoked this extremely rare public message from the normally silent Apple Corps - has already been going on for more than two years.

As of August 2005, The Beatles had sold 168.5 million albums in the USA alone.

Lisa Scott Lee, despite quite obviously being the greater talent, had sold 7. And not 7 million either.

Just seven. :(

» Posted by: Rob
»Talk on boards

A-ha'd act to follow

Did you know that A-ha's Magne Furuholmen was recently voted the 4th Sexiest Man In Norway? No, we didn't either, but he was.

Even though he is clearly mad.

Anyway, you may be aware that A-ha are - ha! - back! We knew they were, but, frankly, we don't think enough fuss has been made about it (despite them having written a track, 'Celice', for the movie version of The Da Vinci Code and, therefore, being responsible for propagating middlebrow banality). After all, they are still great.

This morning we are listening to their new album, 'Analogue'. At the moment we particularly like the brilliantly titled 'Cosy Prisons', but that's just us.

We like the idea of a cosy prison a lot. Somewhere you could lock the door and eat biscuits and watch telly and no on would bother you with any rubbish.

As a soundtrack to staring wistfully out of the window wondering why you're so much more sensitive than anyone else and when are they going to actually finish pulling down that bloody building across the way, it's unparalleled.

'BTW', if you're wondering who the good people of Norway consider even sexier than Magne, it's this lot.

» Posted by: Rob
»Talk on boards

Mistletoe and lion

Do you know what Sir Cliff Richard thinks about controversial box office-topper 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe'?

You could spend a lifetime wondering or you could...

let him tell you himself!

(Try not to laugh when the big lump of fake snow lands on his shoulder).


» Posted by: Slashmusic
»Talk on boards

Oasis! In Wales! Kill us now!

There’s nothing quite like seeing an exciting new band in a shed sized venue with just a handful of others, a lot of whom have turned up on the wrong night.

This was nothing like that.

Slashmusic were among the 80,000 people who spent part of last weekend packed into the cavernous Millennium Stadium in an icy Cardiff to watch Oasis - who, we’re led to believe, are one of the biggest bands ever - play alongside the also-quite-big Foo Fighters, relative whippersnappers Razorlight and someone else who might have been The Coral.

In fact, it must be a bit of a bugger being The Coral, who, after releasing four albums, are warming up for Razorlight who’ve only bothered to record one.

Guess that’s what having a Johnny Borrell in your band can do for your sales. Still, exactly ten amazing things happened inside the walls of the gigantic Welsh stadium. And they were:

1. The Coral: Which we missed. We were buying beer. It was something we had to consider very carefully, and the choice was made when we decided that The Coral made even The Zutons sound listenable, and that’s the kind of knowledge which would drive anyone to drink.

2. The beer: Both cheap and cold. A bit like our date.

3. Razorlight: Which we didn’t miss. We’d bought beer in bulk. The stage was transformed into a two bit Santa’s grotto for the aggravating-and-amazing-in-equal-parts Johnny Borrell, who quickly ditched the David Essex coat and got his kit off to bare the best pecs in indie and plough through the 'Up All Night' album, even though 'Somewhere Else' was the only tune with the bollocks to fill the stadium.

4. Johnny Borrell’s hair: A soggy cross between a sweaty Carol Thatcher and a windswept Justin Hawkins. Made us feel better about his impressive chest.

5. Foo Fighter’s lightshow: A bit Coldplay with its sweeping green laser nonsense, but it was nice to have something good to look at while an extremely rich man with great teeth, a very beautiful wife and lovely hair pretended to be angry for half an hour.

6. Cigarettes and Alcohol: Oasis came on and sung their songs, as you’d expect, sounding exactly like the records and with absolutely no moments of genius or surprise.

The highlight was, a little sadly, this twelve year old hit from their debut album. Could have done without Liam dedicating it to George Best though, that was so last week.

7. Noel Gallagher: When angry puppet Liam mumbled something about having to pop out for a bit, Noel took over and sung some of his songs. We don’t know where Liam went, but when he came back he had some shopping with him.

Not only is Noel all right when it comes to writing songs, it seems that he’s got a nice voice too - heavy, blokey and warm. Again, a bit like our date. Oh, hang on...

Anyway, people got excited when he sung old b-side 'Masterplan', and with good reason too: we’d not long since listened to 'Songbird', which Noel didn’t write or sing, and that was bloody horrible.

8. 80,000 people: That’s a lot of people. The sight of which, layered and tiered to the roof of the Millennium Stadium like a throbbing wedding cake made of charming Welsh folk, is rather an impressive sight.

9. The video editing: The real star of the show was the guy twiddling the knobs. Slicker than a well oiled Craig David.

10. Slashmusic’s very tall red-headed mate: Currently available to hire for such events and to stand in the centre of any crowd like a beaming beacon to guide you back from the bar like a great big ginger lighthouse.

What goes around comes around though (you know, karma and that), and of course there were ten equally awful things sent to ruin our Oasis experience.

1. The beer queues and cardboard beer holders: Carrying liquid around in a paper product is not a good idea.

2. People pissing in the sinks: Come on guys, the queues really aren’t that long.

3. Dave Grohl talking for a good five minutes: We can’t hear you. And what we can hear, we couldn't give a shit about.

4. Razorlight’s awful encore: They played all the hits, then came back and played all the shit.

5. Being hit on the head by two stray water bottles: What are the chances?

6. How bloody cold the stadium is: Turn something on!

7. The impenetrable Millennium Stadium: It might be easier rolling up hidden inside a mythical wooden horse than trying to negotiate the maze of gates and several hundred entrances.

8. 'Importance of Being Idle' and its ‘inspirational’ graphics: "It’s better to have loafed and lost than to never have loafed at all." Hilarious. Ahem.

9. Welsh people chanting ‘Mad for it!’: Not sounding quite right there lads.

10. Some bloody girl and her tambourine: Bringing her own instrument and dancing round like a pillock? No thanks.

On reflection, we enjoyed Oasis rather a lot. They didn’t excite us, or surprise us, but instead stood still and did what they’d been paid for.

They didn’t mess around in trying to make us buy their new album, and instead played a sturdy set of old hits and fan favourites. They didn’t try and charm us and they didn’t try and keep us any later than half ten.

And, frankly, what more can you ask than that?

» Posted by: Michael
»Talk on boards

PCD Xmas extravaganza!

Would you like some seasonal Pussycat Dolls 'shenanigans' to take your mind off the plummeting temperatures outside?

Of course you would!

Would you like said shenanigans to involve the 'Dolls themselves singing their very own version of 'Walking In A Winter Wonderland'?
We read your mind, didn't we?

Well wait no longer... just get yourself a nice cup of mulled wine and clicky here!

And there's more of that sort of thing here.


» Posted by: Slashmusic
»Talk on boards

X Factor pub singers come home...

So there we were, having some vodkas and tonic at the Gallery bar in north London, when in bowled X Factor dweebs Brenda and Journey South, accompanied by a tall slice of bodyguard-style beefcake.

Looking every bit the pub-singing 'diva', Brenda, complete with flat cap and skinny scarf, hogged the bar and chain smoked for the entire evening.

Surely those vocal chords are tortured enough, no?

Interestingly, our drinking buddy revealed that Brenda used to work in the finance department at his office, but: "She was much bigger then and didn't have nice hair." So now you know.

Anyway, now that Brenda looks more like a proper TV 'star', we watched with growing hilarity as those hapless twats 'Journey' and 'South' tiptoed around her all night like two gurning wanna... Oh.

On the plus side (for them), the bar staff refused to let any of them pay for their drinks, and offered the pub as a potential video setting. Nice try...

The entire X Factor posse is currently holed up in a house in West Hampstead (our money's on Cleve Road). In recent weeks, nosy neighbours have spotted Chico on the phone, Maria at the train station and Addictive Ladies in the local Sainsbury's.

Can life get any more exciting? Actually, we really hope it does.

» Posted by: Colleen
»Talk on boards

Brut-ally awful

It’s just as well that you can never judge a band by their support. Because, however much we like LCD Soundsystem - and we do - Art Brut were brain-gratingly, ear-abusingly, for-the-love-of-god-make-it-stop, awful at Brixton Academy this week.

Two songs in, and it’s hard to remember a time when we weren’t stood rooted to that same spot, surrounded by similarly slack-jawed onlookers, silenced by the utter waste of their lives.

Our beady eyes did espy three people going mental, but, let's face it, they probably slipped something naughty in their pop.

Anyway: the singer couldn't sing, and shouted something about giving himself a hand shandy. Ouch! He looked like a Netto-bought Tom-from-Keane with learning difficulties to boot.

The skinny guitarist on the other hand, had clearly neglected to spend any time with his instrument, instead spending lonely nights cuddled up to his hair-straighteners.

And the token girl looked like Lizzie Bardsley. Nyah.

However, if there was anyone who could show Art Brut how good a fat guy in a t-shirt could be, it was James Murphy. He’s hardly pop star material, but following Bardsley and that idiot-league Tom Keane-a-like, a portly chap doing a bizarre hokey-cokey was like a shiny new morning of musical brilliance.

LCD Soundsystem played 'On Repeat' and people started dancing. 'Disco Infiltrator' sounded a-may-zing live and people danced a bit more. No one took their coats off, but that’s a Wednesday for you. There should be a law against great big punky dance bands playing gigs mid-week, because we want to dance - it looks fun - but we also want to catch the last bus home, so we’re feeling kinda torn.

But even we couldn't help doing a shuffly-foot thing to 'Daft Punk Is Playing At My House', and we'd barely caught our breath when that was followed by 'Tribulations', which we continued to jig and wheeze our way through, and then again through the stampede of Movement, bellowed by a suddenly rather angry Mr. Murphy.

After that amazing segment, it seemed that LCD Soundsystem had not so much played their aces, but showed their hand, folded the poker table away and put on their scarves and hats. Which is what a lot of other folk seemed to be doing during endless techno yell-a-thon 'Yeah'. Way to stink out a finale chaps.

On the plus side, we got the last bus home knowing that we'd seen all the hits. Sets like this are The Future: rest of the pop world, Art Brut included, take note.

» Posted by: Michael
»Talk on boards

B quiet!

The campaign to make Plan B the future of everything™ began in earnest last night with his first proper headline show at London's Cargo. We were there of course (we will keep reminding you we were there from the beginning), as was a capacity crowd of the converted and curious.

Ben Drew and his drummer (who has a name but it escapes us for the moment) walked on stage as this amazing video played on the screen behind them.

Some spectacular displays of uncoolness then took place to the right of us, with one drunk man repeating
all his favourite rhymes to his friend, immediately after
they'd just been rapped:

Plan B: "All because I didn't wear a hat when I fucked a yat..."
Uncool man #1: "All because I didn't wear a hat when I fucked a yat!"
Uncool man #2: "Hur hur!"

Sigh.

They kept this up despite Ben (can we call him Ben? We have been there since the beginning...) demanding silence during his songs in an admirably aggressive manner. To a bunch of fools heckling West Ham United football chants he replied:

"Don't get drunk and come to my shows. Get drunk after. Now, you listen!"

So let that be a warning. You do want to listen though. And drinking is so over since the government got involved.

Nothing's certain in this world, but we have a good feeling Plan B's gonna make it and actually sell significant numbers of records. And if those records contain last night's new addition to the set, 'Where I'm From' - a no-punches-pulled diatribe against phoney gangsta posturing amongst Britain's youth - then Plan B will not just be great, he'll be important.

We can only hope. More Plan B stuff here. Not much that we haven't already told you about, but, as we might have mentioned, we were there from the start.

» Posted by: Tim
»Talk on boards

Live Bites

We’ve been to a fair few odd gigs in our time – Faithless playing a South African swimming pool and Metallica destroying a Parisian jazz club at lunchtime spring immediately to mind – but Love Bites playing a full set in a guitar showroom two floors up on a Soho sidestreet, in front of a group of dangerously overexcited pre-teens (and their parents) hyped up on an E-number-tastic buffet and the thrill of being out after dark, will, for ever, be one of our most cherished.

Displaying not a single iota of the seen-it-all-before cynicism so prevalent in pretty much every London gig ever, this audience of competition winners screamed with pleasure at the very idea of seeing Love Bites (we’d done the same thing ourselves earlier in the week, only with significantly deeper voices). When Dani, Nicki, Hannah and Aimee walked on, sporting their all-new “sexy” look (*faints*), the front row gazed at them with the kind of astonished awe that only the very young can manage to pull off convincingly.

This was almost certainly the first pop group they had ever seen 'live', and as the band ran head first into ‘Dancing With The Love Bites’ – still a brilliant track even without the synchronized fast-stepping we’ve grown to love – we couldn’t help but wonder what future pop dreams were being put in place.

New track ‘Pretty’ was gloriously ragged, while another potential album track, ‘Gip’, boiled over with a chewy anger, bolstered, as ever, by a classic Aimee riff so primal it should still be living in the trees and eating wasps.


Playing fast and loose with the theory of giving the audience what it wants – especially one already past its bedtime – the girls went straight for another newie, “So Full Of (It)” (we think they mean 'Shit', how rude) which was Love Bites in excelsis, a stomping great Dani-racket topped off with some astonishing screwed-up-face and guitar-bouncing from Nicki.

Pausing only for another plastic glass of warm pop and half a mini pork-pie, we got ‘Crash’ and the boot-girl dynamism of ‘Oi! Oi!’ (audience participation guaranteed there then) before the Bites calmed the rowdy throng with the righteous, arm-waving anthem, ‘In My Room’ (now featuring some alarmingly intricate harmonies).

Some confusion over what the last track would be meant ‘Teenage Party’ (starring Hannah’s amazing drums) and the next LB single ‘He’s Fit’ – out next Feb, Bites fans – were both flagged up as the last numbers. This meant the girls had to hide behind their backdrop while the encore penny clicked with the audience. After attempting our own audience-whipping-up exercises (shouting a bit), the girls returned for a crunching run-through of debut smash, ‘You Broke My Heart’. Cue hysteria and some impressive self-taught dance routines in the front row.

It was over. Goody bags appeared to even more screaming. We grabbed a handful of Twiglets and left. It was still only 7:30. Could this have been the greatest gig of all time?

» Posted by: Rob
»Talk on boards

Franz ascent to Big Boys league complete

You have to be a big band to fill London's Alexandra Palace – it’s an enormous space that feels like it's somehow not used to live music.

And after two songs, we think Franz Ferdinand have blown it. The show is too small, the sound too thin, the distant figures too far removed. Indeed there’s nothing wrong with 'Come On Home' that couldn’t be fixed by playing a venue half the size.

When they get to 'Do You Want To', we've all but given up. And then the curtain drops, literally. The drab backdrop falls away to reveal a vivid red stage set, the three screens spark into life and the light show kicks in. So do we want to? Um, actually, yes, we do and, at last, we’re actually getting to... er... do whatever it is!

They then thunder so relentlessly through their albums that we almost hope there isn’t another 2½ minute super-tight, knuckle-cracking rock monstrosity coming up. But there inevitably is.

We are steam-rollered with pleasure, but it’s 'Matinee' and 'Take Me Out' that inevitably remain the high points of the evening, the latter heralding an actual frenzy of motion while the cinema screens go ten shades of nuts.

A big hall. A very big sound. A very, very big band indeed. Hurrah!

» Posted by: Matt
»Talk on boards

Judas!

Last night we dodged the drizzle to go and see CocoRosie at London's Scala. We'd seen them before, you understand. Strange, beautiful folky songs played on harps and toy instruments - audience watching with hushed, beard-stroking reverence, that sort of thing.

Only last night - woah nelly! - CocoRosie stopped being art and became hiphop! And a few audience members got a bit upset.

Two beatboxers, a balletic body popper in a tutu, a female MC and another girl on percussion and 'strange movements' augmented the line up, causing one man near the back to yell "Where are CocoRosie then? Who the fuck are you?!"

Bianca, resplendent in an oversized Tupac t-shirt, drawled back "CocoRosie is in your imagination!" But despite the group playing several songs from recent album 'Noah's Ark' in pretty much the way they were recorded, another punter was still somewhat disturbed by the presence of other people on stage with his heroines.

"You're a fucking sham!" he yelled before being roundly booed (and possibly shoved a bit) by everybody else. But this caused all of us who didn't think CocoRosie were "a fucking sham", and were marvelling at how bloody ace they were actually, to start yelling and stamping our approval in such a way as to cause the whole place to go a bit nuts, culminating in the tutu-clad dancer pulling people from the crowd to twirl with, Sierra jumping onto a chair to rap (knocking her harp to the floor in the process - ah the symbolism!), an incredible display of beatboxing by a man who must have two throats and, get this, a cover version of Kevin Lyttle's soca soul smash 'Turn Me On'.

It was a-ma-zing. And the fact that several sensitive beardy types probably went home crying made it all the better.

Click here to see CocoRosie perform an exclusive song just for us...


» Posted by: Tim
»Talk on boards

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