If I was a big pop mogul like Simon Cowell, well firstly I'd dye my skin orange and sport a flat top hair-cut, but then I'd also sack all Dads from bands. This might not seem like the kind of advice you'd need to employ too often but in the case of the Mystery Jets it seems to have worked wonders. Regarde...
With Dad:
Crusty. Without Dad:
Smooth. Their new single, 'Two Doors Down', is stupendous. The video is pure eighties camp. It's fun people, music can be fun! Dad's need not apply.
Faded pop star/ Former King Of Pop/ War criminal (delete as appropriate) Michael Jackson allegedly pulled out of a guest appearance on American Idol at the last minute (Yahoo Music)
Amy Winehouse will play Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party in Hyde Park. Unfortunately, Queen and Annie Lennox will also be there. Hasn't he suffered enough? (NME)
The youngest Hanson brother has impregnated a female, luckily it was his wife. Look how he's grown. The child is the FIFTH Hanson offspring...that's enough for a new band (People)
What happens when you write and record a song and someone else covers it and then they block it from being shown citing 'copyright laws'? Who cares? Er, Radiohead do actually. Perhaps Prince is a little embarrassed by his cover of 'Creep'? (Billboard)
I love Weezer. There, I've said it. Pinkerton is one of my favourite albums of all time so for me a new Weezer album is something to get mildly excited about. Their last one was pretty crap, but it's already looking good for their soon to be released sixth album, the third to be self-titled. Here's a picture (please note Rivers Cuomo's look, I think it's called 'gay country singer'):
The first single from the album is called 'Pork And Beans' and was written in response to the band's record company wanting them to record some hit singles, hence the Timbaland name-check. They've made a pretty amazing video for it too, one that features a host of youtube 'stars' such as the guy who gave us 'Chocolate Rain' and that hysterical (as in overly emotional) Britney-loving guy (is it a guy? It might not be...). Anyways, the video is great and the song is typical Weezer, i.e. not very innovative but somehow much greater then the sum of its parts. Rock on Garth!
Sigur Ros have released details of their forthcoming album which will be out on 24 June via XL (I know, ANOTHER band have signed with them!). The album is called...erm...this might not be right, "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust", which I'm reliably told translates as "thank you to the BBC for making us a shit load of cash by using our song over and over again". No, it doesn't really, it means "With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly". In keeping with XL's fondness for letting their artists experiment with release dates and formats you can download the first song 'Gobbledigook' from here
Not sure if this is the first single, or merely a teaser but it's a slight change in style, more acoustic and less overly epic then their previous stuff. I'm still waiting for their oft-delayed gabba album, but maybe that's just me...
The Mighty Boosh are holding their very first festival in Kent this summer and one of the acts that have just been added to the bill are American three-piece, White Denim. Having read about them in magazines with my eyes I decided to listen to them on the internet with my ears. It was an enjoyable experience, not least because you get the added bonus of a rather brilliant video. The song is called 'Let's Talk About It' and it starts off as ragged garage stomp- I know I thought of The Hives too- and then it slowly mutates into one extended prog coda that goes for about two minutes. There's an album coming out in July so by then we should be able to tell if they're more then just another retro(gressive) guitar band, but so far the signs are good.
Being a fairly sad individual meant that I spent Saturday night watching the shit-fest that is Eurovision. More and more irrelevent as the years go by, it still throws up some wonderfully appalling performances and spectacles not seen this side of gay pride. This year we had Andy 'don't refer to me as a singing bin man' Abrahams who pre-empted his imminent last place finish with a wonderful speech about how his song was 'too good' to win Eurovision...ahem. One performance included four singing brides- one of which was at least 65 years old- a washing line, a woman with apples on her dress and a singer who actually looked pretty amazing; thank you Bosnia for this feast for the eyes (perhaps not the ears). My personal favourite however came in the shape of France's lithsome sex pest, Sebastien Tellier whose entry was so good that it stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, if said thumb was rising out of a river of shit. Please watch this carefully, the highlights come thick and fast. The golf cart, the bearded ladies, the lack of socks, the helium, the general bemusement of the crowd, etc. Tellier eventually scored just over 40 points, about 200 points less then the winner, but who cares right? It's all rigged anyway. But for one night Tellier showed Europe who's boss when it comes to camp disco.
I recently saw Laura Marling at the Union Chapel in London and supporting her was a fellow named Johnny Flynn. Blonde of hair and ruddy of cheek, Flynn was surprisingly shy considering he's also a budding actor and all round 'hottie' (so says just about everyone on his youtube page). He has an album out on Monday called A Larum (I have no idea either), and if the couple of songs on t'internet are anything to go then it should definitely be worth a listen. The support slot with Marling was no accident, they both share a love for literate, spooky folk that flits between elegant and almost rollicking.
Below is the video for 'Tickle Me Pink'. I particularly like the fact that the original idea for the video was clearly to just have the puppet roaming the recesses of Flynn's mind until the record company decided we needed more shots of him in the flesh so now we have a slightly disingenuous 'party scene' with some of his mates dancing around in hoodies to the sound of fiddles and steel guitar.
EDIT: I have just read that Johnny Flynn is the half-brother of none other then musical maverick Jerome Flynn, as in Robson & Jerome. Music runs in the family clearly, i.e. the mother's side in this case.
