Graffiti

Spotted this today, on a postbox just off Berkeley Square and it made me laugh. Poor old Fat Pete.

Cabbage Patch Hucknall

Sitting here watching Later.... and Simply Red are on. He's not looking any better these days, in fact its pretty frightening. His face looks like its sliding off.

He looks a bit like a bitter aged cabbage patch kid. A discarded doll placed in cupboard for decades with only a bucket of cocaine to sustain it. Only to emerge like some bizarre moth to blight the world with Robert Palmer-esque turgid pop and get on everyones tits.

Mick Hucknall

Kate Nash has just done her turn, and for all the hype surrounding her, it was pretty dull actually, bit like an angry humourless female Mike Skinner. Some song about being pissed off and rowing with your other half at a party. And she looks like one of the girls from school who thought she was great but was just a nob. Back to myspace please.

The Cribs are on too, who I listened to being interviewed the other night on the radio, and looked exactly as I expected. I'm liking em though, the single Mens Needs is good, great hook and poppy. They kind of play a bit jerkily, but not like the hoards of angular bands we see so much of, kind of awkward almost., like they can't quite keep up. Wakefield's White Stripes? Perhaps just cause one of em resembles Jack White. Got my vote though.

Patti Smith is on, acting like some bonkers aunt who crops up at weddings. Interesting but a bit scary.

Quick flick to 4 and Transmission, can't watch this for too long or Laverne will force me to destroy the TV. Still, its the Happy Mondays, and it surprisingly it actually sounds quite good. Noisy and more akin to their first two albums. Surprisingly it would appear they are the best thing on the box this evening. The kids are struggling to dance to it, which must be a good sign.

Next on 4 Rufus Wainwright but I can't be bothered to write about that. Unless he's dead good.
PS - he was pretty good, as it goes.

Football Focus

Footy season is pretty much over now, FA Cup tomorrow heralds the official arrival of summer, at least in my eyes.

I'll miss footy focus which is often a hotbed of musical surprise and inspiration. Just a couple of weeks ago I was lazing about reading the paper and taking in the opinions of Gary et al, and not paying very much attention to a somewhat earnest Tony Adams mulling the state of the England team, and clearly trying to position himself as much more of a thinker than viewers might have previously considered (they'd put him in a nice park and shot him from high angles), when rolling over the top came the dulcet tones of Sarah Cracknell.

Its always good to hear a bit of unexpected wistful pop, especially when provided by Saint Etienne. I believe it was Just a Little Overcome from Sound of Water. Adams' thoughtful contemplation of the state of the national side, accompanied with the dreamy synths really worked, and cheered me up no end. A few years ago when Electronica was in its heyday, they obviously had some spod down there doing the music for Football Focus, and 'last weeks goals' would be flying into the net soundtracked by Plaid and all manner of quality Warp tunes. Worth the licence fee alone, and certainly beats ITV's cliched and irritating use of the likes of U2 for their coverage.

The only other TV moment that has surpassed this in recent times was very special indeed. Vegging on the sofa one Friday eve, pondering the curry options during Hollyoaks, when what comes floating from the televisual device but the maudlin tones of Boards of Canada. Amazing. Such beauty, juxtaposed with such dross. Quite a combination. I think it was used as a backing track for OB walking out after a particularly bad argument with Max. I keep watching but no more BOC yet.

Getting Focused

Browsing through a Saturday magazine last week I was confronted by a Ford advert, entitled.... 'Own The Road... Unplugged!'. It features a fresh faced young acoustic type by the name of Ben Griffiths. Ben who? "Well, I'm a singer/songwriter from Brighton and I'm starting out, which means loads of gigs, so I need a decent car as much as a good guitar" reads the ad.

More important than a decent guitar and a nice shiny car, is something glaringly obvious in its ommission. Decent songs?

Now, how many budding musical types just starting out can really afford a new car? Never mind one that costs £13,000. Promoters at these acoustic nights tend to not pay very much, if anything at all. So Ben, what do you really do? Rob banks on the way to the gig? Work in a call centre in Hove? People smuggling? No, that would require a Galaxy.

Also of some irritation on his myspace site, is the statement that his is the "Soundtrack to the Ford radio and press adverts". Soundtrack to a press ad? I must be missing out on some new technology.

Come on Ben, get a shit white van and get on the road proper with some crusty guitar tech. Sack the job off and lose the Ford ads, embrace the rock ethic, get out there, get your electric guitar out and some effects pedals and crank the distortion up.

Even better, write a song dissing Ford, or talking about the problems with the central locking not working. Or some kind of eco-rock anthem about electric cars, something interesting and rebellious. Or you might end up being the next James Blunt, and no-one wants that.

Got to get a nu pair of shooz

The latest ad campaign for Jaguar fell onto our television screens a few weeks ago, soundtracked with the track Collarbone by Fujiya and Miyagi.


F&M aren't a couple of Japanese electro types but a three piece from Brighton who knock out electronicy-krautrock stuff, and they've got a good line in non-sensical ramblings that float along over the top of low-slung basslines. Lyrics remind me of Karl Hyde from Underworld at times (ie: lyrically it doesn't make much sense), with ramblings about pixelated jazz mags, and on closer inspection an obsession with broken bones and injuries - wonder if one of them was particularly injury prone? Works great on the motorway, and we had a few trips last year with this keeping us going. It maybe gets a little samey when played end to end, but a very promising first record, and distanced from the rest of this new rave nonsense that is kicking about. I first heard Ankle Injuries on the radio, and got the album soon after, subsequently discovering a 7" I had bought by them about a year before kicking about in my collection.

The advert is pretty standard car ad fare as it goes, sexy looking car, good looking people, dark and moody so the Jag's lines look sleek and its all jolly fashionable. Meanwhile F&M's track grooves away in the background adding to the atmosphere and reinforcing the message. The key vocal in the track that emerges at the end of the ad is 'got to get a new pair of shoes'. A not so hidden message that we all need to buy a nice shiny £40,000 car so we can be very good looking and live a successful and beautiful life too. Where's the showroom?

Another 7" in my collection, and another with a shoe reference is Nu Shooz - I can't wait. A downtempo number from the 80's which might have worked just as well for Jaguar. Its quirky, poppy, and the lyric is 'on message'. However, as I followed this train of thought I found this site - celebrating 20 years of the 'song that wouldn't die'.

On viewing the site, stick with the Fujiya and Miyagi, and I'll be putting those ropey 7s on ebay, and dispensing with any further smart arse thoughts on this matter.

(Superstar DJs) Here we go

This site intends to pass comment on the music that is out there every day, being consumed all day by the unsuspecting and passive public.

Likewise I might attend the odd gig and maybe stick that on here, or if a decent album or similar passes my way I might pass ill-informed and misguided comment on those too.

Mostly, it is intended to be about the everyday stuff that pops up and causes some kind of reaction. Some band doing a Candy Flip-style cover of The Smiths (on the O.C. a couple of weeks back - made me get The Smiths on the iPod again), or a weird remix overheard on a pirate station that you can't find again (this week as I was driving home late one night - could have been a Young Knives remix).

That's the intention anyway. Might all turn out completely different.