Here's a bit of trivia...
The background music used by The Suitables during their performances is actually a real song! It's called The Robots, by Kraftwerk, who I will be seeing at Global Gathering in a few weeks! It'll be like Station Domination all over again...
xxx
I had the very lucky experience of talking to Ricky Wilson, lead singer of Kaiser Chiefs this week, and seeing Supergrass last night. Here are some of my highlights...
Ricky Wilson is a bit out of sorts. “It’s half nine,” he grumbles in his endearing Leeds accent “Which is pretty early in the morning for me.” As it turns out, Ricky’s just trying to make sense about where waking up before midday was in his rock star contract. “It doesn’t make any sense! We do these wonderful things; we make an album, we go on tour, we work really hard…and you know what our reward is? Getting up really early, and talking on the telephone to someone.” Wilson and I brainstorm some other interviewing options. Facebook? “I kind of like that, because you have to do everything in bullet points.” Skype? “Yeh see that’s good. But then I guess we both have to be awake still, don’t we?” Really, Ricky would prefer to have every journalist in the room with him. Slight problem, we’re about a 22 hour plane ride away from one another. There’s only one solution, isn’t there? The Kaiser Chiefs have to come to Australia again.
Supergrass @ The Forum, Oct 3:
Supergrass are one of those bands I’ve loved since I was a wee lad, but sort of got lost in the indie fabric as I reached gig-going age. That’s probably because they released the dreadfully introspective ‘Road To Rouen’, which was pretty much universally disliked by all of their fans. Credit to the boys then, because they’ve bounced back with ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, an absolute glam ripper of an album that makes Jack White look like a little girl who writes lame James Bond theme songs with Alicia Keys…oh wait. Anyway, I’ve never seen the Forum so packed in my entire life, with equal amounts of Brits and Aussies eager for a glimpse of the ‘90s most critically underrated band. Obviously somebody in touring thought Supergrass wouldn’t fill a bigger venue. Big mistake. The place is so crowded that you have to jostle for a view of frontman Gaz Coombes’ onstage antics amidst throngs of thirty-somethings madly pashing like they’re at their formal all over again.
Put simply, this band is explosive. So much so that I felt guilty about abandoning them for Coldplay at age 17. Gaz writhes about on stage like he’s got a snake in his boots, replete with ‘70s porn moustache, fedora and courtesy-fan-blown hair, he looks and sounds every inch the rock star. Ripping out ethereal guitar solos that make all the women around me lose consciousness for a few seconds, Gaz leads his merry men through a killer selection of old favourites like ‘Moving’, ‘Sun Hits The Sky’ and the delightfully misogynist-baiting ‘Mary’, which quite literally blows the roof off the place, and results in the first decent mosh pit I’ve seen on a Friday night in a very long time. Gaz has now recuited his entire family into the band, with brothers Rob and Charly filling out keys and second guitar respectively. The dynamic between them (and bass player Mick Quinn) is unbelievable, especially considering that they manage to get some pretty difficult harmonies dead-on (despite having walked off a plane in 35 degree heat a few hours prior).
There’s something immediately refreshing about seeing a rock band who don’t throw up disguises and personas but simply love to play live. Supergrass are testament to the fact that a great front man is only as good as his backing outfit, who, incidentally, are superb. Not one bum note or out-of-tune chorus the entire evening, and you know what that means? Professionalism, dammit. We should stop glorifying crappy guitar bands who can’t even get their shit together for forty minutes and remember Supergrass, who gave us ‘Caught By The Fuzz’ long before Amy Winehouse started smoking crack. Not many gigs have made me this happy. Supergrass, I’ll never forget thee….
The motto: Listen to good music. Bigpond won't be huge on it, but it'll make you smile
-Jonno
The FasterLouder website, which is on an inaugural quest to find the best festival in Australia, has announced an additional category. This is for 'Best Published Festival shot' for 2008. If you're a budding snapper, submit a published photograph taken at any Australian music festival in between the dates of August 2007 to August 2008. It must be a low-res image - 15cm wide at 72 DPI. The Photo must be sent as a jpeg saved in the following format:
NameofTheFestival_Dateofphoto_Nameofthepublication_Photographersname. Submissions meeting these requirements should be email to: festivalphotos@staff.fasterlouder.com.au
Judges include the legendary Tony Mott as well as reps from Rolling Stone, Drum Media, Fasterlouder and the Australian Centre of Photography. All submitted photographs will be posted on www.festivalawards.com.au. The top 5 photographs will be showcased at the official awards ceremony on October 15th, at the Oxford Art Factory in Sydney with Virgin Mobile presenting the award to the winner on the same evening.
Here is an awesome rooftop party in New York - for MINI. It was a pretty much un-branded event; apart from specially made MINI's which took guests to and from their hotels.
I took this from The Cool Hunter.
- JMAC
It's like saying "slightly pregnant", isn't it? If you're gonna get inked, GET FRIGGIN' INKED!!
Subtle-but-painful white-ink tattoos are the latest trend gaining momentum in Hollywood.
Actress Lindsay Lohan and supermodel Kate Moss have both gone under the needle and now sport designs which are barely visible on the skin.
Lohan's has the word "Breathe" inscribed on her wrist in white ink.
The 22-year-old Mean Girls star had the tattoo applied as a permanent reminder of her asthma attack on New Year's Eve in 2006.
White tattoos require a higher quality, thicker ink to be injected into the skin using a very sharp needle and the ink often needs to be applied several times because it is not absorbed into the skin as easily as black ink.
Although white ink is designed to stand out on its own, the it is prone to fading — especially when frequently exposed to sunlight.
Supermodel Kate Moss has a trail of white-ink hearts up the side of her body, according to Daily Mail.
Moss already has a collection of black-ink tattoos, which includes a small heart on her left hand, a crown on her left shoulder and an anchor on her wrist.
Keeping Up with the Kardashians reality TV star Khloe Kardashian has jumped on the white tattoo bandwagon too.
The youngest member of the Kardashian clan headed to a tattoo parlour
in July, en route to jail for her drink driving conviction, and had
"KK" inscribed on her wrist
No seriously dudes...
Miley Cyrus
Breakout
2 stars
by Jonno Seidler
We’ve already seen the disastrous consequences of what happens when a young Disney star takes the giant leap into the recording industry, thanks to the very public meltdown of former Mickey Mouseketeer Britney Spears. At a tender 16 years of age, Miley is at exactly the same spot Ms Spears was when she released Baby One More Time. But unlike her predecessor, Cyrus has already joined the fast-growing Purity movement; a creepy Christian cult where girls pledge to maintain their virginity until marriage…to their fathers. This would work if we hadn’t all seen a very naked Miley gracing the cover of Vanity Fair a few months ago, which stoked the fires not only in men, but women too, as one lesbian-feminist media tutor remarked “She’s taken a vow of abstinence? But damn, she’s hot!”
Yes, Miley Cyrus is kind of good looking. No, she is definitely not a good singer. When you have a debut record that’s bankrolled by one of the richest companies in the world, it’s always interesting to see what kind of tricks they pull out of the hat. In this case, Miley has a backing band who probably fuck virgins like her on their days off, like drummer Josh Freese who works with Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle and The Offspring and plays like an animal behind Cyrus’ weak singing. The trakcs themselves are pretty much godawful, even my eleven year old sister can’t stand them. This especially pertains to a huge metal take on Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, which is actually kind of entertaining until you realise which song is being massacred. Cyrus’ whining American twang is beyond irritating, it can only be compared with La La era Ashlee Simpson, who realised she couldn’t sing or keep her legs closed and got pregnant to a real musician.
The only real winners here are the shit-hot session band, who make loads of money playing the easiest recording gig of their lives.
So the greatest thing I read today in the news was about 'I'm-totally -about-to-kick-the-bucket' John McCain's choice for his Vice Presidential candidate. Sarah Palin is not only a woman, which totally re-vamps the female-in-office campaign precedent established by Hilldog Clinton, but also has a running sheet of notoriously bad shit which is almost as unfathomable as Malcolm X's. For one, she's got five kids, and one has downs syndrome. My cousin has this disease, and it's a fucking bitch on the family to deal with, even if it's your only child...so how can she manage all five and maintain a healthy marriage/lifestyle and be in the White House? Her 17 year old daughter is PREGGERS to her 18 year old senior high boyfriend, which kind of raises all these questions about teen pregnancy, abstinence and abortion that only American Parental groups give a shit about. But seriously, this woman's only other credential is that she is governor of Alaska. I didn't know Alaska even had the population to warrant a governor. More importantly, when McCain inevitably keels over and carks it, we are going to have a very loud, irresponsible mother running a country of 250 million people. That's a tad bigger than Alaska, folks. It's an interesting PR move in any case. Because that's the only reason I, my PR tutor and our whole class can fathom as the reason she got picked in the first place. Or maybe McCain is experiencing an onset of dementia. Hell, Bush has suffered from it since the day he assumed office.
Speaking as an original fan of Supergrass and a fellow Londoner, I too saw the band this weekend and they... read more
on Brit Pop isn't dead!