Awesome Juno Song

Whatever your opinion of the movie, this clip of actors Ellen Page and Michael Cera ‘spontaneously’ composing a song in honour of director Jason Reitman is sheer awesomeness.

Saturday Afternoon Twee

The science fiction writer Larry Niven used to have a rule. Niven used to say (I’m paraphrasing), if you’re going to eat chocolate cake don’t waste those calories on inferior Leon confections, consume only the finest, creamiest, 80% cocoa Belgian sensation. Never waste calories. Niven called his rule his ‘Fuzzy Pink Law’ (after unsurprisingly, his wife), and it’s equally well applied to pop music. If you’re going to listen to pop, it should be fuzziest pinkest pop ever made. This is where Twee comes in. A later day descendent of Riot Grrrl and 1997, Sweedish alt pop, and pre-Britpop UK Indie, contemporary indie pop bands labelled ‘Twee’, share some things in common – Electropop or lowfi production, high pitched whisper soft or off kilter vocals, and a focus on sweet catchy melodies.

I’m sure there are bazillions, but the only Irish twee act I’m familiar with are Mark Cullen’s (Fixed Stars, Pony Club) briefly feted Bawl, though the band would likely have puked at the label. Elsewhere Twee is undergoing a revival of sorts, and recently indie darlings Los Campesinos (Interviewed in Analogue Issue 3) though not a twee band by any stretch of the imagination, released a single ‘International Tweecore‘ referencing and in part covering British Twee legends ‘Heavenly’ (not to be confused with the humourless but entertaining Operatic metal group of the same name).

A lot of stuff, has been mislabelled Twee, from Daniel Johnston’s outsider baroque folk pop, to post punk / proto-grunge acts like Beat Happenings (whose lead singer was involved in founding both Sub Pop, and my favourite label K-Records / K-Punk) or the Vaselines; but somewhere in between the Decemberists and Belle and Sebastian, between surf rock and anti-folk there’s twee, sparkling, unpretentious and unmistakable.

Tullycraft – How to Stuff a Wild Bikini

Indonesian Tweesters, Annemarie – Suicide on your Stereoset

The Besties – Prison Song

Toxic Friday

It’s Friday, and you know what that means. Absurdly brilliant Brittany Britney Spears cover day. Today we bring you, hit Spears club tune Toxic. Here’s one from Youtube yuke genius sweetafton23.

For bonus lolz, pop on over to Pop Culture Will Eat Itself for another Toxic cover, this time from Israeli solider and folk songstress Yael Naim.

I don’t care.

We’re all revving up for the festival season here in the anablog caverns. The vans been polished. Hats are being tried on, the jauntiness of angle perfected. Old sleeping bags are being unfurled and the empty crisp packets and other matter is being swept out of them. The tie dye arrived last night and the old tee-shirts of the years before are being vetted for credibility. Soon, soon, my friends. The elysian fields are calling, can you hear it?

Umm… Its actually quite away from the season. Months and months. Still tickets are being booked, holidays booked in work and camper vans are already nearly booked up. So some bastards excited.

I’m not, though. There are so many festivals this summer that its difficult to guage which ones to go for. If you haven’t got press passes that is. And lets face it, Bren’s never going to favour me with one of those. And so which ones? There’s the Electric Picnic, which is nearly always brilliant, but the defection of both Body & Soul and the Foggy Notions might leave it feeling flat. Both those teams are putting together there own events this year and with Latitude coming as well it might make for a busy summer. Oxygen can piss off if it thinks its getting a mention. Oh. Balls. Anyway, with big festivals on the continent like Roskilde being cheaper and boasting an unbelievable line up (Radiohead, Battles, Band of Horses, Chemical Brothers, Efterklang, My Bloody Valentine and SLAYER) Ireland might not get a look in at all. If I get a job that is. And they give me time off. And I’m not doing something else, like sleeping.

Le Loup The Loup

Spot the ginger.

During an interview with Le Loup’s Sam Simkoff last month he underlined the difference between their live show and their buzz album, “The Throne Of The Overlong Album Title“. The album is an exercise in self-control, the performance an exercise in going fucking bananas, he said, with a mite more eloquence. Last night’s Crawdaddy show spoke differently: It was an exercise in control also, but in this instance over the audience.

Providing an utterly rapturous, rhapsodic and religiously fervent show/sermon, Sam (dead ringer for Alexis Taylor, by the way) and his six bandmates could not be but gazed a with mouths agape. Channelling an energy I imagine Godspeed! You Black Emperor also base their live shows on, they reworked all their songs, and gave us a taster of new directions to come. Decidedly more post-rockish and less banjo-centric than on record, their songs swelled where before they induced shivers. To The Stars! To The Night! particularly benefitted from a renovation, and Outside The Car At The End Of The World’s funk jam rejig revealed an unexpected result of experimentation. They even had stage banter (including a bout of calling Simkoff “ginger!” when he mentioned his auburn roots). The perfect formula for the perfect festival hit, and the perfect reason to pick up the album and learn off the lyrics now.

www.myspace.com/leloupmusic
www.leloupmusic.com

Infomatics Video – Wake Up

Courtesty of Nialler 9, comes the new video from perhaps Ireland’s only decent hip hop act, Dublin’s smart, literate and grimy Infomatics. The boys have had a busy few months, backing up heavyweight acts like Ice-T and Nas, and their self released début album ‘Kill or Create’ is done and due sharpish. Nice one lads! Check out the video for ‘Wake up’, below.

Dead Flags Gig Tonight

A little late notice I know, but in the spirit of unfettered nepotism, I’d like to give you keen readers a heads up. My ol’ mate, the very lovely Mr. David Power is performing with his band ‘The Dead Flags‘, at Radio City in Dublin tonight. Admission is 9 squids, or a mere 7 if you print off the flyer below. If you make it Dave promises ‘a night of uplifting indie rock with overtly sexual and misogynistic lyrics…oh yeah!’

Trinity Ball line up as per Unarocks

Una Rocks claims to have the exclusive on the line up at the Trinity Ball this year. Una’s info says Mark Ronson, Vitalic, Lightspeed Champion, Boys Noize. I know four acts isn’t much to go by but come on!

Alright we’ll be set on the electro front with Vitalic and Boys Noize but then again it’s not quite Justice and Erol Alkan, is it?

Now imagine for a second we actually got to choose groundbreaking acts like Girl Talk or Simian Mobile Disco who would tear the place up…. When the Trinity Ball was actually ran by the students, we picked Public Enemy, Jeff Buckley, Prodigy and the Rapture to name but a few. Now instead we get the dodgy end of a package deal consisting of whoever is booked for Oxegen.

Shameless Promotions ‘R’ Us

Actually, the title of this should be ‘Shameless Promotions ‘R’ Me’. This charming young lady is djing at the Ham Sandwich record launch in The Globe tomorrow night (that’d be Friday the 22nd Feb). She’s very good, and has the dubious talent of being able to both work djing decks with one hand, and waving a pint of cheap beer precariously over her head with the other hand. She’s also my bezzie mate.

As the night waxes on, two options present themselves. Chloé (from Kill the DJ in Paris) is playing a set at Spy on South William St. Expect ambient techno, and, I hope, some very well dressed people. Otherwise, the superlative Cadence Weapon is playing at Shock in Tripod/Pod/Crawdaddy (I can’t keep up with the name changes. You know where it is. Harcourt St. Old Train Station.)

If you plan to be out and about, maybe we’ll see you? We can share a taxi home. It’ll be great.

The Dø – Debut Single Video

I’ve been following the untypable Duø for quite a while now. The Dø’s debut album ‘A Mouthful’ is a dazzlingly delicious if poorly balanced meal. A treat for fans of squeaky voiced diva’s everywhere, here’s the (rather dull) video for their (excellent) debut single ‘On My Shoulders’.

« Previous Page — Next Page »