This blog kills fascists.
The way The Smiths once covered their sleeves in 60s references, the way Wu-Tang Clan embraced the language and iconography of Shaolin, the way Oasis loved The Beatles, that’s the relationship Iceage has with xenophobia and white supremacy — it may not be the window, but it’s damn sure the drapes.
Song of the day – 437: Prinzhorn Dance School (+ 5 wonderful obscure old school ‘awkward pop’ videos)
Love the silences between the vocals. Sure, we’re talking Gla*o Babies.
Iceage – New Brigade (What’s Your Rupture?)
Iceage have the wisdom to be brief: what they evoke is too much to bear for too long.
Song of the day – 363: Supercluster (a love song to Athens GA, part one)
This sound is so glorious! It’s like if (early) B-52s and Pylon remained the best-known bands from Athens instead of … goddammit, what was that band’s name again? Coldplay?
Song of the day – 343: The Coathangers
Vice has them as, “The Black Lips with boobs”. Man, and they say the art of music criticism is dead.
Song of the day – 337: Au Pairs
Reassurance only comes about from belonging to the right cliques. I don’t mean that to sound too negative.
Gang Of Four @ Le Trabendo, Paris 18.03.11
There are no wanky digressions or lead fretwork clogging up the song with rock star dirge, just a well executed use of noise vs silence, skill vs sparse.
live recording of The Deadnotes + The Legend!
I was quite proud of my performance the other night at The Zoo.
5 Music Journalism Clichés Which Should Go Away Forever
1. “(INSERT FEMALE ROCK/POP MUSICIAN’S NAME HERE), THE BAD GIRL OF ROCK…” Description: Virtually every female musician who dyes her hair ‘punk’ colors and/or makes vaguely ‘rebellious’ (or quasi-feminist) pronouncements is saddled with this phrase in music reviews or featured interviews. This travesty of words has been going on since The Slits, and most notoriously [...]
Song of the day – 164: Armedalite Rifles
So some guy reads my piece on Australian garage bands and decides to contact me on Facebook, asking if I’d like to hear a CD of his band. I say, direct me to your music first, so he does. I give it a listen. I like it. It’s all spark and fire: rhythms like Captain [...]
Song of the day – 80: Flowers
From the first Earcom compilation (parent company, Fast Forward, you might know better for Gang Of Four, Mekons et al, with its motto of “difficult fun” and “mutant pop”). I don’t mind admitting I’d completely forgotten all about it – despite its leading line of “met a boy called Jerry/Whose dancing was a treat” – [...]
Song of the day – 78: Blurt
Man alive, this band were scary, and a riot to dance to, live. Blurt. Blurt. Blurt. Blurt means Blurt means Blurt means Blurt means. You can find more information here. Main man Ted Milton is still releasing fascinating stuff, last I listened (couple of years ago). Oh, and here’s something I wrote about a Blurt [...]
