If you’re looking for some news-video manipulation that’s funkier than the the Gregory Brothers’ oft-annoying high-register hip-pop treatments, you’re in luck. Out of Kingston, Jamaica’s University of Technology comes marketing student Kevin-Sean Hamilton, who as DJ Powa created the tune and video for “Nobody Canna Cross It (Di Bus Can Swim)”, the most viral video to come out of that country.
Cut from a TVJ report on flooding from the Yallahs River in eastern Jamaica’s St. Thomas parish, “Nobody Canna Cross It” spotlights the declarations of river worker Clifton Brown, who Powa’s made into a folk hero with a sick backing track and some deft video editing. It’s a perfect example of the unique way that Jamaicans find humor in bad news—or as they say in patois, “tek serious mek laugh.”
Of course, both Brown and the song have their own Facebook pages, and thankfully, Kingston-based videographer Simon “Sno” Thompson (a.k.a. Yosef Imagination) is looking to set up a fundraiser to help build that bridge for the people of St. Thomas.
Eric Clapton at his grandmother’s house in Surrey, 1970
Eric Clapton explains some of the finer points of how he’s able to squeeze such amazing sounds out of his gee-tar, as Jack Bruce looks on. A four and a half minute master class on electric guitar.
This photo of Missing Persons’ frontwoman Dale Bozzio is from a 1980s issue of CREEM Magazine, but if you didn’t know that and I told you this was Gaga would you be able to tell the difference?
This is the first video by Fucked Up to be taken from their current album, the very highly acclaimed David Comes To Life. Sure, Fucked Up may have made some skits to accompany their music before (namely standing around in public places while their music plays in the background), but this is a real music video, with actors, a story, production values, the whole shebang. And as such it’s pretty damn unusual. To say the least. Presumably it ties in with the narrative of the album, which the band have described as being a rock opera. But don’t let that put you off. To quote Richard Metzger:
Two thumbs up. WAY UP.
A thing of intense beauty. And unexpected. Unexpected is hard to do these days!
Preparing my solo album, Tantric Machine, for its release in October (finally) and came across this tune which I had more or less forgotten about. It was recorded during the TM sessions late one night in a single take. I made up the lyrics as we went along. I think the song has a nice loose feel and is emotionally true to the moment it was created in - a night of wine, diddling the Muse and spewing the Devil’s music in a studio in Tribeca.
Hugh Pool twisted the knobs and played guitar and beer bottle. “GC” is an unmastered rough mix and will probably remain so.
Indulge me.
I was born in the darkness
I was born in God’s cunt
You can call it whatever you like
Whatever you want
I was born in the bathroom sink
I was 2 minutes old and I needed a drink
You make it your exit
Or is it your entrance?
I was born in the darkness
I was born in God’s ...
Kind of liked the starkness
But the entertainment sucked
Crepuscular walls surrounded my brain
The muffled silence of the Bardo Plains
Well, they turned on the lights and they lit up the flame
They painted my face and they changed my brain
Well, they turned on the lights and they lit up the flame
They painted my face and they gave me a name
The hideous night became my friend
I built the machines of Original Sin
Opened up my mouth and the moon fell out
It was silver, it was cold, it was perfectly round
I could feel the power in my body born
Like a cloud that contained an electrical storm
And in this place Shiva’s daughter
Washes her body in the bloody water
And in this place the Prodigal Son
Starts his engines and fires his guns
I was born in the darkness…
The bone, the muscle, the blood and the brain
Electrical sparks in the gene parade
I was born in the darkness…
Darling, make some room in your womb
I’m coming home”
Sometime Ariel Pink cohort, and an undoubted forefather of the chillwave phenomenon, John Maus has just released his new album We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves on the evergreen independent label Upset The Rhythm.
Isn’t it great when someone you really want to like is actually someone you really do like? Because if John Maus wasn’t as good as he actually is, I would be seriously pissed off that someone else had nicked my idea of doing for synth-pop what Portishead have done for spy soundtracks and torch songs. Even moreso than Ariel Pink, Nite Jewel or anyone else on the haunted-call-it-what-you-like-scene John Maus seriously ticks my boxes. For the uninitiated, it’s pretty simple. Maus takes synth-pop and squeezes it through a lo-fi, shoegazey filter until it comes out the other side dripping in an unreal atmosphere. Imagine OMD on 33rpm, or the soundtrack to a long forgotten 80s art film you saw on cable one night, multiply it to the power of a bongs-and-mushrooms trip, and you’re nearly there. It’s so spectral it’s as if you have dreamt it before. In fact maybe I didn’t invent this idea and it’s all just aural deja-vu.
Fans of Maus’ previous work won’t be disappointed with We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves. In it he retains all the core values of his last album, the officially awesome Love Is Real, but now the sound and the songs have had a wee tightening up. But don’t worry yourselves with thoughts of “sellout” - where before the lo-fi nature of the recordings created a dank haze the listener had to aurally peer through, this new, slightly more clean approach gives room for the individual parts to breath. Being able to distinguish them in the mix in no way detracts from their shimmering nature and actually adds to their power. There are less tracks than before, and the running time is just over half an hour. There is little over-indulgence here - and that is a very good thing. From the Upset The Rhythm website:
Pitiless Censors’ as an album displays a more delicate touch than its predecessors. “Hey Moon” is John’s first duet, performed with Molly Nilsson, who originally wrote the song. It’s a serene elegy that subtly weaves an impression of nocturnal loneliness and romantic dreams.
Closing track “Believer” is equally evocative with its bells, choral soaring and echoing sentiment. Of course, a John Maus album wouldn’t be a John Maus album without the same anthemic genius and dark humour that we’ve seen previously with songs like “Maniac” and “Rights For Gays” and this new album finds its succour in “Cop Killer”. The eerie waltz-time offspring of Body Count’s controversial 90s protest track, it is dystopian, bleak and ridiculous and, in short, classic Maus.
Unlike the last two albums, ‘Pitiless Censors’ looks towards the future in all its absurdity. It’s a record where promise takes the lead for the first time, providing a counterpoint to John’s default existential calling. The cover of “Pitiless Censors” depicts an airbrushed lighthouse, thrashed by wave after wave, bringing to mind Beckett’s quote “Unfathomable mind: now beacon, now sea.”
And one final thought - the slightly grandiloquent title undoubtedly has a proper explanation (Maus is a philosophy professor) but maybe it’s also a subconscious pitch to have his music featured in the work of Adam Curtis? It’s definitely worth a shot, as the two would go beautifully together.
Damon Albarn has written and will star in a new opera about a 16th Century alchemist, Doctor John Dee. Titled simply Dr. Dee: An English Opera, the production will premiere next month at the Manchester International Festival, running July 1-9.
Albarn played one of his compositions from new production, titled “Apple Carts,” on The Andrew Marr Show over the weekend. Simply gorgeous.
Here’s a lovely mixtape curated by Portishead for the I’ll Be Your Mirror music festival taking place July 23rd and 24th at the Alexandra Palace, London. Everyone featured on the mixtape will be playing the festival.
00.00 “...They Don’t Sleep Anymore on the Beach…” / Monheim - Godspeed You! Black Emperor
13.19 We Carry On - Portishead
19.44 A Cold Freezin’ Night - The Books
23.04 Gazzillion Ear - Doom
27.15 You Fucking People Make Me Sick - Swans
32.20 Yang Yang - Anika
35.11 Real Love - Factory Floor
42.32 Infinity Skull Cube - DD/MM/YYYY
45.51 Untilted - Helen Money
51.42 “Four Spirits In A Room” Excerpt - Alan Moore & Stephen O’Malley
56.50 Plaster Casts Of Everything - Liars
60.43 8 Steps To Perfection - Company Flow
65.23 Written On The Forehead - PJ Harvey
68.49 Arabic Emotions - The London Snorkeling Team
71.27 Wulfstan - BEAK>
77.28 When My Baby Comes - Grinderman
84.09 Paris Signals - S.C.U.M.
88.30 Lovers With Iraqis - Foot Village
92.18 Gratitude - Acoustic Ladyland
96.29 Violence - The Telescopes
100.01 Hannibal - Caribou
106.15 Walk In The Park - Beach House
The the former Kinks frontman and one of our greatest living pop songwriters and observers of working-class life, Ray Davies, turns 67 today!
Although stories have long been told about what a prick Davies is supposed to be in real life (especially those tales told by his estranged younger brother Dave Davies) I got a chance to meet him in the late 80s and he was super cool. He had to change a shot on the master of a music video he’d directed (I can’t recall for what, but it took place on a rooftop) and I was given the job at a video post house where I was working at the time. He was cheerful and friendly.
I was looking for just the right video—my first choice would have been a live “Shangri-La” or “This is Where I Belong” from the sixties or early seventies, but neither can be found on YouTube—and came across a clip I had not seen before of The Kinks performing on the Once More With Felix program hosted by American folk singer Julie Felix, in 1969.
Below, watch a terrific performance of “Picture Book,” from their classic album, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. This is one of those things that would have been lost to time—and the idiotic BBC policy of wiping their video masters to re-use the tapes!—had not a former BBC video engineer named Bob Pratt defied BBC policy and made his own copies of significant programs and event coverage.
Birthday bonus, a great “Days” from Pop Go The Sixties:
The Stones interviewed at the Sea Way Motel in Montréal for Canadian teen music show Like Young. April 22, 1965.
Jim McKenna (Montreal’s Dick Clark) is doing the interview. I love it when he asks Charlie whether he planned to go back into fashion design once his music career was over.
Anyone who thinks punk rock started with The Ramones or The Sex Pistols should take a look at this video. Watts and Wyman can barely conceal their disdain for the whole pop star thing. Keith is totally elsewhere, Jagger seems slightly bemused but mostly restless while Brian manages some bad boy charm as he actually takes the time to answer the questions.
. This is one of those things that would have been lost to time—and the idiotic BBC policy of wiping their video masters to re-use the tapes!—had not a former BBC video engineer named Bob Pratt defied BBC policy and made his own copies of significant programs and event coverage.