FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
‘Beats Rhymes & Life’ a film about A Tribe Called Quest
08.31.2011
10:05 am
Topics:
Tags:


 
This looks great - a documentary about one of the greatest hip-hop bands of all time, featuring interviews with all the key players and some of the biggest names in the rap game. It also looks like it gets pretty hairy as the animosity between Q-Tip and Phife Dawg spills out onto the screen. The film is directed by the actor Michael Rapaport and has been opening in selected theatres around the US over the last couple of weeks - for more information on exactly when and where it is playing check out the Beats Rhymes & Life website. Here’s the trailer:
 

 
After the jump, some classic clips of ATCQ live on TV from the 90s, including “Oh My God” on Late Night, “1nce Again” live on Conan O’Brien, “Can I Kick It?” from MTV Unplugged and “Scenario” live with Busta Rhymes…

READ ON
Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
08.31.2011
10:05 am
|
‘Thunderbolt, Lightning, Arpeggio’ : Bjork’s magical ‘Biophilia’ show reviewed
07.04.2011
08:28 am
Topics:
Tags:


 
Some live shows are great, some live shows are awesome, and then there are the live shows that are so good they feel like genuine magickal occurrences - a culmination of sound, vision, venue, performance and atmosphere. Bjork’s Biophilia, which is currently making its international debut with a sold out run at the Manchester International Festival, is definitely one of those. Clichéd terms like “elf-like” have haunted Bjork for years, but when an artist can pull together a show that is this all consuming, this transformative and powerful, there is definitely some truth to those clichés. 

Everything about this show is unique. On a baking hot July afternoon we are ushered into a blacked out, cavernous Victorian warehouse space - in the middle sits a round stage, flanked by instruments, and overhead hangs a neat circle of 8 large screens. At one corner of the stage sits a pipe organ, a harpsichord and new instrument called a “gameleste” (a cross between a gamelan and a celeste). These instruments have been programmed to play themselves, a fact which is relayed to the audience by webcams projecting live onto the screens. In another corner sits a huge, manually operated music box, amplified through two very large gramophone trumpets, and beside it stands two new, purposely built, pendulum operated harps, The thudding bass line for the opening track “Thunderbolt” is provided by a large Tesla coil, which spits sparks of electricity over the crowd’s heads.

Still obsessed with the sounds and textures of modern electronica, Bjork underpins all this bizarre musical automata with sub-bass and electronic drums, played live by percussionist Manu Delago and music director Matt Robertson. Plucked chamber music collides with sliced-and-diced breakbeats, booming 808 bass lines accompany delicate organ pieces. It’s a perfect combination of the past and the future (and which is which is hard to tell). The sound world Bjork has created for this show is extraordinary, but it is the choir that really tips this performance over into something otherworldly. Featuring 26 female Icelandic singers, moments of harmony and discordance float from the stage that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Quite simply, this is a new kind of sacred music.
 

 
The much-trumpeted visuals are gorgeous. Animated cells sing and coo while spitting out cuddly-looking viruses. Mushrooms grow and expand in stop-motion, a seal carcass is consumed by underwater worms and starfish, and we zoom through veins and arteries while triggering musical notation á la Audiosurf. Bjork has taken a bit of flack for her use of an iPad in Biophilia, but if this is what the actual apps look like, well that’s fine with me. We keep returning to images of the solar system, of galaxies floating in space. There seems to be a theme of circular motion and symmetry here, a music of the spheres if you will, but for Bjork this works on a microbiological scale, as well as the cosmological. At one point she informs us that the rate at which our fingernails grow is the same as the Mid Altantic Ridge drifts. It’s psychedelic without being druggy. In fact, with the heat, the darkness and the spectacle, this is a show where no extra stimulus is needed.

The music itself is largely new and very good too, but there are some classics from her back catalogue thrown in (namely “Unravel”, “A Hidden Place” and a gorgeous choral version of “Isobel”). The new songs are each prefaced by a voice-over by natural historian David Attenborough, which manages the trick of both commenting on the music and unifying it. The show ends with a rousing, triumphant version of “Earth Intruders”, Bjork in a massive orange wig flanked by the choir who are wearing matching gold and blue tunics. We seem to be inundated with crazily-dressed lady pop at this point in time, but we shouldn’t forget that Bjork is a true pioneer of this, and on this showing she still does it the best. Biophilia is set to tour later this year, and I urge anyone with an interest in music to go to a show - it really is that good. 2011 is only half over but I seriously doubt I’ll see another show to equal it. There is no footage of Biophilia yet, as the audience had been asked not to take pictures or make video recordings of the performance. It is a mark of the kind of respect the crowd has for Bjork that they comply to this request - well for the most part , anyway.

Here is the audience’s reaction to Bjork’s Biophilia after the opening night on Thursday June 30th:
 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
07.04.2011
08:28 am
|
Fucked Up - the best live band in the world deliver the single of the year?
05.13.2011
09:23 am
Topics:
Tags:


 
Fucked Up are the best live band in the world right now. And you can take that to the fucking bank. Last night I saw them again, playing in Manchester, and even though I dithered about going all day, the second they launched in to their first song I knew I had made the right decision. Even the old ex-punks and the hard rock daddies agreed, showing their appreciation with beer-bellied body slams and hardcore dance moves they hadn’t busted in 20 years.

Fucked Up are a band who inspire genuine devotion in their fans, a reaction that goes much deeper than than simply liking the music and thinking they are pretty cool. They connect with their audience at a primal level. Singer Pink Eyes spends about 85% of the show in the crowd doling out as many sweaty bear hugs as he can manage. Their moshpits are intense but friendly and positive. They don’t hector their crowd or treat them like idiots, and they don’t use macho posturing to prove any kind of credentials. They are inclusive. You don’t come away from their show feeling weak and inadequate because some guy is over compensating for his white-bred privilege. If, as Richard stated the other day, Henry Rollins is the punk rock Charles Manson then Pink Eyes is the punk rock Santa Claus. And I’d rather get a present than get stabbed. 

Matador are currently gearing up to the release of the next Fucked Up album David Comes to Life on June 7th (US, June 8th UK) with four digital releases available to buy or download for free at 192 kbps. David Comes To Life is a 78 minute rock opera set in 80s Thatcherite Britain and if these tracks are anything to go by this album is going to be really good - “The Other Shoe” is already a very strong contender for single of the year.

Fucked Up - “The Other Shoe” Download here
 

 
Fucked Up - “A Little Death” Download here
 

 
Fucked Up - “Ship Of Fools” Download here
 

 
Fucked Up - “Queen Of Hearts” Download here
 

 

 

For more info on David Comes To Life visit davidcomestolife.com, or check out the Matador Records blog. I have to be honest with you guys - I haven’t been genuinely excited by a rock band in about, ooh, at least a decade. More. But Fucked Up are making me fall in love with rock music all over again. If you ever get the chance to see their shows, do it!

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
05.13.2011
09:23 am
|
Rastamouse to appear live at this year’s Glastonbury Festival
04.20.2011
11:20 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Yes! Feelgood British TV sensation Rastamouse is to appear live, with bandmates Scratchy and Zoomer of the Easy Crew,  at this year’s Gastonbury Festival. From the festival’s website:

Rastamouse, the reggae-playing, crime-fighting mouse who’s become something of a phenomenon since hitting TV screens at the beginning of this year, will make his worldwide live debut at this year’s Festival, with a daily performance alongside his Easy Crew.

I’m guessing they will be performing the single “Ice Popp”. Yes, the show has been so popular that they have released a single. Here’s the video, and you can buy “Ice Popp” here.  
 
Rastamouse and The Easy Crew ft Toots, Gladstone & Ice Popp - “Ice Popp”
 

 
Previously on DM:
New BBC TV kids show Rastamouse

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
04.20.2011
11:20 am
|
Bee & Flower: Live tonight at the Zebulon, Brooklyn
04.14.2011
11:08 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
If you like your folkish Americana with a large twist of David Lynch, then Bee & Flower should be right up your deserted stretch of backwoods road. It’s maybe hard to push boundaries in this particular genre, but then I guess that that’s not really the point. It’s more about atmosphere and quality songwriting, and those are things that Bee & Flower have in spades.

The group was formed at the start of the century by the multi-talented Dana Schechter, who up til then had been playing in Michael Gira’s post-Swans group Angels of Light. Since then she has gone on to collaborate with a veritable who’s who of alt-Americana, including members of Sparklehorse, Calexico and The Bad Seeds, not to mention having string arrangements supplied by Jim “Foetus” Thirwell. If a collab list like that doesn’t pique your interest, then truly I fear for your soul. If you’re after more tangible evidence, however, here’s some music:

Bee & Flower - “I Know Your Name”
 

 
Bee & Flower - “Homeland”
 

 
Bee & Flower - “Green Glasses”
 

 

Although Bee & Flower formed in Brooklyn, Schechter now resides in Berlin where the last couple of B&F albums were recorded (2007’s Last Sight Of Land and the upcoming Suspension). Tonight however she and the band will be back in Brooklyn for a one-off, free gig at the Zebulon (258 Wythe Ave) along with four other acts. They will also be giving away copies of their 7” single “Dust & Sparks” to 3 lucky people to help celebrate Record Store Day.

Yes, I said the show is free (the favored price of the next generation) so if you are around be sure to check it out. If you’re not lucky enough to live in Brooklyn or New York, here is a live video of B&F in Berlin from 2007.

Bee & Flower - “Don’t Say Don’t Worry”
 

 

For more info on Bee & Flower, this is their official website, and here is band’s tumblr.

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
04.14.2011
11:08 am
|
LCD Soundsystem’s last ever gig in full
04.03.2011
04:29 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
At a time when the shelf life of bands can be stretched way past the point of credibility, it’s a great statement to just stop. Last night LCD Soundsystem, one of the actual bands shaping the “post-Nirvana era,” bowed out with their final ever live show at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

They may have divided opinion with their recorded work, but one thing is for sure, they were a really great live act. One of the best modern live acts, in fact, an asset that took them out of the realm of hipper-than-thou and into the mainstream. I think I saw them four times in total, and they got better and better (as did their records). For their last show they are on mighty form, and this is recommended viewing for both fans and fence-sitters alike:
 

 
Thanks Teamy!

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
04.03.2011
04:29 pm
|
Pigbag reform for one-off London show
03.22.2011
07:00 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Seminal post-punk disco-afro-funk act Pigbag have reformed for a special one-off gig on Saturday at London’s Jazz Café. Best known for their smash hit “Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag”, the band were signed to the seminal Y Records in the 80s, and had other minor hits with “Dr Heckle and Mr Jive” and “Sunny Day”. From the press release:

The new line-up features original members Chris Lee on trumpet (who’s also played with the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl), Ollie Moore on saxes (Neneh Cherry, The Abyssinians) and drummer Kofi Adu (Osibisa, Mulato Astatke). New converts are the renowned jazz trombonist Annie Whitehead (Dr John), bassist Mark Jay Smith (Hardware, Infinite Wheel) Jessica Lauren on keys (Tom Browne, Juliet Roberts), percussionist Godwin Awala (Kush, Nana Tsiboe) and guitarist Ed Riches (Omar). This talented new line-up has been writing fresh material that fuses joyful African sounds and charged funk beats with punchy hooklines and surreal arrangements.

Perhaps a bit overlooked in the annals of punk-funk (not as cool as Public Image or the Specials, sampled by some dodgy acts) they were excellent and had a very distinctive horn-and-percussion-driven sound and atmosphere. “Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag” still retains its power to pack a dance floor and inspire a wordless singalong almost 30 years later. Here’s the band performing their signature tune on Top Of The Pops at the dawn of 1983:
 

 
More PIgbag - “Sunny Day”:
 

 
Pigbag - “Getting Up”
 

 
Pigbag recently re-issued their back catalog on two CDs (Volume 1: Dr Heckle & Mr Jive and Volume 2: Lend An Ear + Pigbag Live) through Fire records. For more info on the March 26th Jazz Café gig, go here.

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
03.22.2011
07:00 am
|
Sandals full of dogshit: Channel 4’s ‘The Word’ ft L7, Hole, Stereolab, Snoop vs Emu & more
03.20.2011
10:06 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
More Nineties nostalgia to round out the weekend. Growing up as a kid in that decade I was subjected to huge ignominies in the name of yoof TV. “Yoof TV” was the British expression for television programs made by people in their thirties and forties for people in their teens and early twenties, trying hard to represent the energy and anarchy that being young supposedly represented. YEAH!  Like down wiv ver kids anthat?! Yoof!! Energy!!! Rissspekt!!!! YOU KNOWORIMEAN?! It was baaad (meaning just bad). MTV built an entire channel around it, but the biggest, smelliest turd lurking at the bottom of the yoof barrel was undoubtedly The Word.

The Word was Channel 4’s first stab at a concept called “post-pub” television, and as the name would suggest it had a rowdy, boozy, “anything goes!” atmosphere, though I think the show’s primary audience were still too young to go to the pub. Launched in 1990, it was presented by the annoying Manc Terry Christian with a rotating cast of inept co-hosts, most famous of which was probably the ex-model/whatever Amanda De Cadanet. She lives in LA now, and you can have her. Fans of River Phoenix, watch this clip and prepare to have all your romantic illusions about the best and/or best looking actor of his generation (and his crappy band Aleka’s Attic) shattered.
 
image
 
The show certainly was ground-breaking, paving the way for reality tv and the general circus-of-humiliation we now take for granted on the goggle box. One popular feature was called “The Hopefuls” where people would do anything (literally anything) to get on TV. Giving a homeless person a toe-job, drinking a pint of puke, licking an obese man’s bellybutton sweat, yeah these crazy yoofs will do ANYTHING man! Like putting on a pair of sandals filled with dog shit?! Yeah they’re so desperate it’s KERRAZY!

There were moments of genuine unscripted tension too. The best of the co-hosts, Mark Lamarr (currently a dj for BBC Radio 6) famously took issue with Shabba Ranks over his homophobia. Oliver Reed was secretly filmed getting drunk in the dressing room (a very classy move by the producers). The British riot grrrl group Huggy Bear and their fans were forcibly removed from the studio for protesting over a segment about a couple of porn star twins, and funniest of all was an altercation between Snoop Dogg (then just emerging with Doggy Style) and the British kids TV host Rod Hull’s puppet Emu, which had a reputation for violently attacking guests.
 

 
There’s a piece on the Guardian’s website by The Word’s creator Charlie Parsons called “How The Word changed televisiion for ever” that would be funny if it were not so depressingly true.

The show provided a glimpse of the future of television – some would argue a horrifying one. No longer could celebrities be treated with total reverence, as on The Des O’Connor Show or Wogan. Five-minute videotaped pieces tackled subjects that would these days be given whole series on ITV – dog plastic surgery, fat farms, child beauty pageants.

Yet, while Parsons only mentions it in passing at the start of the piece, 20 years later The Word does have one lasting positive legacy - the live music. Sure, they went for what was then currently popular, but this ensured a diverse range of bands and lead to the television debuts of both Nirvana and Oasis (Nirvana’s spot including the infamous moment when Kurt declared that Courntey Love was “the best fuck in the world”). The tone may have been jarring (see the fluffy bra podium dancers gyrating to Stereolab’s kraut-punk!) but the energy was real. This was one of the very few places on TV you could see bands whose shows you had only read about, and if you were lucky they gave good show too - like L7’s Donita Sparks dropping her pants. Charlie Parsons, speaking as someone who WAS a lonely teenager in a bedroom at the time, THIS is why we watched your towering pile of faeces of a show. Not for “The Hopefuls”, not for the interviews, the wackiness, the innuendo, the edginess, the supposed rule breaking, the sticking-it-to-the-man-down-wiv-yoof-culcha-yah - we watched your show for THIS: 

L7 - “Pretend We’re Dead” live on The Word
 

 
After the jump: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Hole, Stereolab, Blur, Daisy Chainsaw, Pop Will Eat Itself with Fun-Da-Mental & Huggy Bear

READ ON
Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
03.20.2011
10:06 pm
|
Goblin play live in the UK tonight & tomorrow
02.24.2011
11:00 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Yes, that’s THE Goblin, Italian prog supremos and soundtrack authors of Suspiria, Dawn Of The Dead, Tenebrae, Deep Red and more. Not only will this be the first time the band have played in Scotland and the North-West, but this will be their first shows in the UK featuring founder member Claudio Simonetti.

I know, right?! I haven’t been as excited about a gig in years!

OK, I know this is only relevant to readers in the UK, but amazingly there are tickets left for both shows (why haven’t they sold out?), so if you live in Newcastle/Gateshead or Glasgow, there’s still time to catch the band in action. I’ve had my ticket for ages - it wasn’t cheap but it wasn’t extortionate (£22 inc booking fee - it’s cheaper in Gateshead) and this is GOBLIN we’re talking about here. Beloved of horror afficianados, prog rock fans, electronica and dance artists, break spotters, goths, metal-heads, sleuths, zombie hunters and Black Forest headmistresses alike.
 
 image
 
Tonight Goblin play at The Sage in Gateshead, with support from Warm Digits.

Tomorrow they play The Arches in Glasgow, as part of the city’s Film & Music Festival, with a special occult-cinema manifestation from the band OV.

Tickets are available directly from the venues (follow the links above) or from Ticketmaser (here’s links to The Sage and The Arches).
If you don’t go, here is what you are missing:
 
Goblin - “Tenebrae” live in Paris 2009
 

 
Goblin - “Suspiria” live in London 2009
 

 
Goblin - “Profondo Rosso” aka “Deep Red” live in Paris 2009
 

 
Previously on DM:

Vee & Simonetti: Italian Disco So Mysterioso

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
02.24.2011
11:00 am
|
Arthur’s Landing: ‘Love Dancing’
01.23.2011
01:20 pm
Topics:
Tags:


 
Loose Joints’ “Is It All Over My Face” is a classic of forward thinking disco from 1979. A collaboration between avant-garde musician Arthur Russell and DJ Steve D’Acquisto, and remixed to another level by Paradise Garage’s Larry Levan, it’s a staple of disco clubs and the gay/drag ballroom scene (see Paris Is Burning below). Arthur Russell died in 1992, but there has been a huge resurgence of interest in his music in the last decade and quite a cult has grown around him. Always open to re-interpreting his own music (with recurring melodies and themes in a lot of his work), a new generation have taken his baton and run with it.

Arthur’s Landing is a group of musicians based in New York City, some of whom played on Russell’s original recordings, who come together to play his compositions. They have just released an album on the UK’s Strut label, and tomorrow night sees the US launch party in New York (details further down). Here is one of their slow, hypnotic versions of “Is It All Over My Face”, now given the song’s original title of “Love Dancing”. This version does not appear on the album, and is perfect Sunday afternoon listening material:
 

 

Band member Steven Hall told Dangerous Minds about the beginnings of the group:

“It was originally just a bunch of friends getting together to play Arthur’s songs for pleasure. Steve D’Acquisto heard us play and wanted to record us live, so he produced several days of recordings in a huge studio (Excello) in Brooklyn many years ago. Nothing happened for years and in the meantime Arthur’s music became more and more popular.

After I put the band on MySpace, then Facebook, we got a tremendous response and started playing gigs—we found a ready-made audience who already liked us because they loved the material. So we didnt have to “pay our dues” in the traditional showbiz sense, although ironically we have been playing these songs for more than thirty years. Now suddenly we are getting a lot of attention. This makes us feel good because we enjoy sharing this amazing music!”

More Arthur Russell and Arthur’s Landing after the jump.

READ ON
Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
01.23.2011
01:20 pm
|
Page 2 of 2  < 1 2