A trailer from what we can reasonably assume will be 2007’s grimmest DVD release - the film debut from Nocturno Culto from Norway’s Darkthrone. I saw a bit of the finished version where Culto’s in some sort of a snowy wood and the camera’s shooting from his POV, like some black metal version of Peep Show. For a bit I thought he was wearing really long pointy shoes, but turns out they were just skis. Never mind.
This, of course, is the best black metal video ever.
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by Louis Pattison on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 (No Comments)
Another unplanned month away from my favourite passtime, reading a couple of hundred blog posts a day. Still, it’s all good cos coming back to the source and spending a whole day gorging myself is some kind of paradise. I’ll forgoe the detailed guided tour for a few edited highlights.
Such as this stonking piece of satire which hits particularly close to home. I figure my three year old daughter is too young to follow the lyrics but she loves dancing to crunk, grime and hyphy beats. Old school hip hop doesn’t seem to move her. On the other hand my eight year old son most definitely does get the gist of what I play so I try to keep it clean while he’s around, though occasionally he bursts in unannounced while I’m playing, say, Too $hort and tells me ‘daddy, I don’t think you should let me hear this’. Thing is, he knows a few rude words but he also knows he’s not allowed to say them until he’s older and has a better grip on what’s appropriate and where. He knows the difference between what he sees on TV, what he hears in music, and what’s allowed at home. He learned early on when we explained that no matter how much he saw the Power Rangers blowing people up it wasn’t good practice for him to try and do it.
Some people still don’t get that, though, and this piece addresses them. I’ll quote the first paragraph to give you a taste, but the whole thing is worth reading, right down to the priceless comments, almost more funny than the piece itself.
Hip-hop lyrics are ruining our country’s youth.
Others have been arguing that for years, with the debate really heating up lately. But it wasn’t until earlier this week while reading my toddler son the lyrics to Young Jeezy’s song “Bury Me a G” as a bedtime story that I realized how true it is.
LOL.
On the other hand, variety is always a good thing and even the most dedicated fans of obscenity in music (like me) will have to admit there’s times when we need to chill and listen to something icky and fun, like when the kids are about. If this interview is to be believed it’s a realisation the god Ghostface Killah has come round to over the last few years, to the point where he’s promising his next album will be profanity free and child friendly. Scroll down to the bottom of this link and listen to the whole interview, most definitely worth 22 minutes of anyones time, the kind of articulate reflective interview I’d been led to believe big rap stars just didn’t give.
The tantilising talk of new Ghostface music is countered by the sobering reality that it’ll probably be at least another year before it’s ready to bootleg. If you’re in need of some good clean fun in the meantime you could do way worse than Pharoahe Monch’s new direction…as an Elvis impersonator. Here’s hoping it’ll get my daughter dancing. Sure, hyphy’s great but I reckon every toddler needs a little hip hop in their lives.
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by Ringo on Monday, May 28th, 2007 (No Comments)
I’m still trying to work out how to post these damn YouTube links, being a total butterbrain I seem to have deleted the email where our delightful publisher Chris Houghton explained how and now he seems to be too busy enjoying himself (fair play, it is the bank holiday weekend) to re-explain so this is a test. If all goes well you’ll see the new video by Eve below. It’s called ‘Tambourine’ and the song was produced by Swizz Beatz. It sounds like every other bloody Swizz Beatz production, but I like it so nerr nerr. If it doesn’t go well then you won’t see anything, I’ma keep trying ’till it works. Or until Chris gets back to me.
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by Ringo on Monday, May 28th, 2007 (1 Comment)
I wasn’t an extremely close friend of Jon Clee but when you live in a city as small as Cardiff you gradually get to know people who move in the same circles, or share similar interests or passions. If you’ve ever been to The Green Man festival, you sort of know of Jon, indirectly; it’s his designs that adorn their posters and flyers - bearded druids caught mid-transmogrification, stag antlers bursting from their heads, or strange, symmetrical collages that juxtapose rolling meadows and crashing waterfalls with teams of smock-clad scientists toiling away on radiophonic sound machines.
He made this great flyer for the show Plan B helped to promote with Cardiff’s Forecast last year.
Jon was a talented and extremely prolific artist and designer - a staggering proportion of the records, CDs, posters and flyers scattered through the city were decorated with his designs. In many ways it’s hard to think of the city’s independent music scene divorced from his telltale visual stamp. Jon also loved music for music’s sake: The Beach Boys and the Stones, but also The Make-Up, and Circle, and Titan, and plenty of obscure psychedelic things on vinyl with great names and amazing sleeves.
Jon was hit by a car on Saturday night on his way home. He hurt his head really badly and yesterday, he died. Cardiff is a smaller place for his passing. Rest in peace, Jon.
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by Louis Pattison on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 (10 Comments)
Natasha ft Clipse - So Sickhear here
Kick: Minimal like knuckles.
Louis: Does she not know any other notes?
Alex: “GO AND TELL MY MAMA SHE DON’T CARE COS I’M GROWN.”
AMP: I preferred the first note she was using.
Louis: If I was Simon Reynolds I’d draw a conceptual line between that and the one note guitar solo on The Buzzcocks’ ?Boredom?.
Alex: “You look so sick cos I’m lookin so fit” is great because she IS - and if any of you hate on her that’s exactly what she will say.
Louis: What sort of sickness are we talking here?
Kick: When you go this sparse, any little trick in the backdrop feels enormous. Like a close-up.Yeah, this is good, you cd do that kind of micro-dancing to it. Like just flexing yr hips or forearms.
Alex: She’s only 17! I love arrogant teenagers.
Louis: It’s quite surprising when that strings wash suddenly comes in. It’s what you least expect
AMP: Suprising in a bad way I think.
Alex: The middle 8 was pretty and star-spangled.
Kick: I’m glad they washed out again.
AMP: But now it’s gone i’m thinking of it fondly.
Louis: Yeah, this is really good.
AMP: Yes, it’s ace.
Louis: Well done Alex!
AMP: Yes. *pats alex*
Alex: Glad to be of service.
Louis: Round of applause for Alex everyone.
Kick: HE DIDN’T WRITE IT. (Did you?)
Napoleon III - This Is My Call To Armshear here
Kick: I never thought he soundedlike this..?
Alex: OH MY GOD STOP “SINGING” LIKE THAT.
Louis: It’s like a pen only costs about 50p?
Alex: The voice is fucking unforgivable.
Kick: I liked that dramatic pause.
Alex: THEN THE VOICE STARTED AGAIN.
Louis: Very strange horn bit that came in before. So many ideas. So few of them good.
Kick: Now some kind of, um organ, and, i don’t know, penny-whistle? Junk shop orchestra stuff? I wish rock stars wd stop dissing TV.
Louis: Maybe this would be entertaining live
Kick: WE GET IT. YOU DON’T WATCH TV. YOU STILL TURN UP ANY TIME THEY INVITE YOU THOUGH, DON’T YOU?
AMP: I must confess this isn’t my favourite track of his
Louis: An old man struggling with his shopping trolley of instruments.
AMP: That is an awesome description louis. Because it’s kind of true.
Alex: And seriously someone who sings like that AND THINKS IT’S OK TO PASS IT OFF AS ART needs to be beaten to death.
Louis: Hurrah, this month’s first death threat!
Kick: You SHOULD be singing ‘the TV is an invidious machine for brain control EXCEPT WHEN ME AND MY BAND ARE ON IT’.
Louis: I knew it would come from Alex.
Kick: I thought it was… not horrible, but…like big sideburns. That’s what it made me think of. BIG MUTTON-CHOPS.
Amy Winehouse - Back To Blackhear here
AMP: Can someone explain Amy Winehouse’s ?look’ to me? The hair, the tattoos..?
Louis: Sort of Romany gipsy dressed as pirate for Hallowe’en - plus SEXY!
Kick: There’s something quite cabaret about her - in a good way, like, smoky, dark, late, all that stuff…
AMP: But not so sexy now all thin. She should go back on the weed and chocolate diet methinks. Yes, I am being prescriptive about how women *should* look. I am such a misogynist!
Louis: But no ones knows what all these other chancers look like. You could criticise Peter Bjorn and John’s cardigans if you like, but I think they’ve had enough?
Kick: It’s pretty stately, isn’t it? And grand. Which is good.
Alex: I like pretty much all songs which do heartbreak with dignity.
Louis: So this is about being dumped for another girl and drowning your sorrows, yes?
AMP: I think I like her because she is crazy and alcoholic and…is she badly behaved? These things are all good.
Kick: It’s like a James Bond theme sung from the perspective of the Bond girl.
Kick: That said, I fucking hate James Bond, but it was intended as a compliment. Shirley Bassey > James Bond
Louis: I prefer Indiana Jones. He’s so… rugged.
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by kicking_k on Friday, May 18th, 2007 (No Comments)
Nice to see Domino are reissuing Young Marble Giant’s timeless Colossal Youth album from 1981. Especially as the reissue comes with a bonus CD incorporating the original Salad Days demo, a near-mythical tape I thought had been long lost in the mists of time; and a chance to hear the first unreleased YMGs songs in 25 years.
It’s just a shame they couldn’t have found someone who actually likes the band to write the sleeve notes. Seems odd. Surely, there would have been any number of contenders?
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by Everett True on Monday, May 14th, 2007 (No Comments)
Plan B is delighted to announce that the 7th Accelerator festival will be an expanded two day event at a new, 5000 capacity site in Stockholm. Previous years at the festival have included the likes of Sonic Youth, Joanna Newsom, Devandra Banhart, Silver Jews, LCD Soundsystem and Cat Power, and this is the third successive year that Plan B has been media partner.
Promoters Luger say, “It?s still going to be the one time of the year when we try to gather all of our favourite acts, and still keep an intimate feeling - but we felt it was time to do something different after six successful years.”
This year’s line-up is as follows:
Bright Eyes (US)
Brightblack Morning Light (US)
CSS (BRA)
Danielson (US)
Digitalism (DE)
Electrelane (UK)
Frida Hyvonen (SWE)
Gruff Rhys (UK)
Interpol (US)
Isis (US)
Jamie T (UK)
Jens Lekman (SWE)
Jose Gonzalez (SWE)
Junior Boys (CAN)
Maps (UK)
Menomena (US)
Modest Mouse (US)
O’Death (US)
Peter Bjorn and John (SWE)
Rufus Wainwright (US)
Studio (SWE)
Taken By Trees (SWE)
The Gossip (US)
The Hold Steady (US)
The Long Blondes (UK)
The Maccabees (UK)
The Presets (AUS)
The Sea and Cake (US)
Tokyo Police Club (CAN)
TV On The Radio (US)
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by Chris Houghton on Friday, May 4th, 2007 (4 Comments)
