We're back.... It's been well over a year... it's great to be filling out all the sticky academy's across england's green and pleasant... Manchester Cathedral was an incredible way to start the tour, a religious experience quite literally. Bits of the roof were crumbling off and coating our pedal boards, it was that loud. Tribes were first on, proffering anthems for a whole new generation of slackers, and doing a very fine job of warming the wintery Manc. crowds. If you haven't had a chance to listen to their songs, pay a visit to this place. Also we had Egyptian Hip Hop with us too....they played a frightening blend of Kraut rock rhythms and zoned out electronica, it was a really exciting set, a band that any hack would have a tough time pigeon holing...here it is.
Ok, tonight is Cambridge, i'm off for a wander. William.X
Jeremy Warmsley kept us very amused with music and conversation during many tours around the making dens period...here's what he's up to now. I think it's fantastic. X
Being spring time, i thought it might be an appropriate occasion to forage through the mounting piles of records and scraps of paper which are slowly devouring my flat, and compile something resembling a shortlist of music to listen to over the coming months. I am not the biggest fan of digitalizing ones music collection (the inclination to skip through entire LPs in search of the familiar is a somewhat irritating temptation), but there are equally few things nicer than listening to records whilst outdoors, or on the way to places. Without realising it, i find myself making sub-concious associations between songs and specific places which often only dawn on me when i re-visit them sometime later on in the future.
James, my housemate of two years, recently decided it was time not only to move out to the countryside for some fresh air, but also time to sadly part with a significant proportion of his belongings as a means of funding his new, minimalist life style in the New forest. A large jumble sale ensued (in our living room) and much to my delight, i stumbled across a section of his record collection healthily devoted to the work of art and fashion-shaman Malcolm Mclaren (may he rest in peace).
SOMETHING OLD Mclaren will of course first and foremost be remembered for leaving a skidmark on seventies pop music with the Sex pistols and the New York dolls. Fans of his will also be familiar with his 1983 LP Duck rock, credited by many as being one of the first records to introduce New York Hip Hop to the UK. But probably one of his far lesser known ventures was the music he composed in 1989 for the British Airways commercials, based on a classical piece called "the flower duet" from the french Lackme opera. "Aria on air" sounds like something off a record Enya never got round to making with Giorgio Moroder, and holds a firm place in my childhood memories. Does anyone remember the first pure moods casette released on virgin records back in about 1995? It had stuff like this on it, as well as Eno's "Another green world" and Angelo Badalamenti's "Theme from Twin Peaks". Fuck it, i can see a whole PURE MOODS post up here in the very near future.
Malcolm Mclaren, Aria on air
SOMETHING NEW Talking of songs sub-conciously attatching themselves to memories and places, here's a good recent example. "Excuses" is a beautiful, beautiful song by a band I know very little about, but discovered a couple of weeks ago whilst rambling about on the excellent Rough Trade blog. Much to my delight, my good friend Tom Henley put it on during breakfast whilst I was staying with him in Paris recently, and i can honestly say it barely came off for the duration of the week. I guess the song falls somewhere in the ballpark between Grizzly bear and the Shins, but the lead singers's boundless enthusiasm makes we want to believe that any similarities are entirely coincidental. I also love the way the guy manages to single-handedly conduct the entire choir and ensemble whilst effortlessley pulling off a pretty awesome berkeley-law student get-up.
Morning benders, Excuses (live session)
SOMETHING BORROWED I can't remember exactly when or precicely why i stopped Djing on a regular basis, although I'm almost 99% sure i had semi-decent reasons (i remember it being round the time that every new entry on the Hype machine sounded like either a re-working of Justice's "waters of Nazareth" or Switch's "champion sound" edit). But every now and then something like this surfaces. I get the itch again and before i know it, I'm burning off playlists with titles like "pre-watershed nostalgia-bombs" or "Gurn o'clock" or other equally disgustingly named things...
What I love about this song is how un-believably ahead of it's time it was. Either that or dance music hasn't really evolved much past 1979, which is a rather more curious notion. Listen to the nonchalance in the vocal delivery! listen to the filters on the drums! As a good friend of mine pointed out when he first played it to me, The singer sounds more like James Murphy than James Murphy does. SO if your getting all sweaty about ordering the new LCD record, WAIT! Order the first Moebius LP (if you can find it?), you might find everything you're looking for...
Moebius - light my fire (Doors cover)
SOMETHING BLUE The legendary and beautiful story of Daniel Johnston isn't an unfamilar one thanks to the movie which came out a few years back, but something which strikes me poignantly is the fact that his tale has been told in his own lifetime, which too often isn't the case. I find it amazing to think about how far music production has come in the past 25 years or so, yet hearing a recording like this of a kid singing his heart out into his tape recorder somehow questions whether the evolution of technology hasn't just taken us in a sideways trajectory.
There is a great documentary called It might get loud in which Jack white and The Edge compare songwriting and guitar sounds much to the amusement of Jimmy page. For all his affectations, Jack holds up a convincing argument as to how effects and technology often serve in creating walls between the performer and his audience, which in several cases i can think of, isn't a million miles from the truth. Disciples of monk-haired stand-up comedian Bill Bailey will be familiar with his sketch of a power failure at a U2 concert, revealing little more than a one finger riff beneath the epic layers of digital delay being triggered by a roadie somewhere behind a curtain at the back of the stage. You get the point.
And so to end, I'm going to leave you with the man himself, singing us out with "To go home" off of his self released cassette "The what of whom" from way back in 1982. Enjoy.
Seeing as im not a woman, i can't whole-heartly testify to this, but I reckon waiting for your record to come out is a lot like waiting for childbirth. In a sense, the fun bit (conceiving it) is done, those glorious and balmy nights are behind us. What now lies ahead is the final push before our third offspring is released out into the world, where it will go on to live a life of it's own.
July the 5th is set to be the big day, and providing all goes to plan, i can happily say that i don't think you'll be dissapointed with what we're getting ready for you to lay your hands on. For the first time, we will be simultaniously releasing a Heavy weight Gatefold 12 inch version of the record as well as your more traditional formats. I won't go too deep into the details so as not to spoil the suprise, but if you ARE a vinyl junkie rest assured, july 5th will be your day, and well worth the bus fare to your local record store. Once again we have been working alongside our favorite photographer Nacho Alegre on the sleeve (He shot the Twenty One cover), but this time commisoned the designers of Milan's Apartamento magazine to art direct the whole show. For those of you who've never picked up a copy, Apartamento frequently features sexy ladies like Chloe Sevigny or Kim Deal showing photgaphers round thier closets and giving guided tours of thier ridiculous shoe and/or guitar collections, and is well worth a read if a copy ever comes your way.
As i write, the boys and myself were supposed to have scattered ourselves to the furthest points of the northern hemisphere as a means to a modest vacation before the shitstorm of summer festivals (Tel Aviv, Cuba, NYC), but me being me, I must have spoken to soon. That said, I am suprisingly thankfull that it was mother nature who took it upon herself to draw our carbon emissions to a ten day hiatus for once, even if my chance to taste Havana in the final throws of communism may be lost foever : ( Long story short, we are however each making healthy progress on our holiday assignement for what it's worth. Given the sufficient time we seemed to have set aside to find an inspired choice for the "flash..." video, it was decided we would call off the search altogether and make one ourselves, comprised of four individual segments shot on our various provincial ecscursions.
I can only speak for myself, but lets just say there's been some frankly dangerous semi-nude lawn mowing sessions whilst filming my segments down here in darkest Dordogne. I'm not saying it's gonna be anything like as hardcore as that Girls video, but let me tell you, and tell you straight. This ain't no MICKEY MOUSE OPERATION.
Ok, so we've been on the road with the Arctic Monkeys all of two days. The first night took us to Milan (our first gig in Italia) and it was pleasant to be received so warmly. Now we are in Grenoble....which is where i always assumed a huge nuclear catastrophe had occurred, but as a local kindly pointed out, that was Chernoble. It's always a little frightening stepping onto a big tour, where you're a very small cog in a gigantic touring machine, but despite fears of turf wars between crew members and band rivalry, everything seems to be running very smoothly. As i write, the dying chords of Fluorescent Adolescent ring about the arena, and a final blast from the audience sings out. It's brilliant to be supporting a band whose songs we not only love, but whose lyrics we know off by heart, and to add to all this they are actually very friendly,down to earth folk. At this early stage in the tour there is very little to report,although one secret i feel compelled to share with you is this: "Kai's Lemon Delight" Before you're mind starts running wild with all manner of blasphemous images, Kai and an innocent lemon being the main protagonists, let me tell you that this secret isn't even mildly pornographic. Sorry. It's a drink. A very simple one....and you will love it. Splash two shots of disaronno in a glass, throw casually a handful of ice into the mellee, find to hand a sharp and servile knife and then cut a lemon in two. Grip this lemon firmly in one palm and squeeze. SQUEEZE like a women squeezes the hand of her beloved whilst in labour, SQUEEZE as if pushing through the crowd to the front of your favourite bands gig, SQUEEZE like you've had a difficult dinner of sea food at a soho restaurant and now find yourself in the lavatory. And then stir. This my dear cyber friends is "Kai's Lemon Delight" and its here for your enjoyment. Remember one or two will do the trick, get you feeling like the super heroes you really are.
So thats it for tour tales part 1. Obviously i've totally exaggerated and fabricated when it comes to painting a picture that could be described as anything near the truth, but thats creative license... and anyway, touring is a huge unstoppable cyclone of rumours, truths, noise and fast foods. I'll be back soon to fill the ether net with more non-sense that no-one needs apart from maybe myself, and until then....i wish you the sweetest of dreams. Kai's calling me from the liquor cabinet. William.X
Today i awoke to find bird shit on my window. It reminded me of the time a bird actually managed to land its spoonful of poop on my hand, and how my mother comforted me by saying it was lucky. This was years ago in some long-since concreted over park, i was around the 7 year mark and probably stood no taller than your very knees. Ever since this moment i've felt singled out, always looking over my shoulder or watching the skies, making sure that the crafty bird isn't hovering above me, waiting for the right moment to relax its tiny bowels and cover me in crap. The bird hasn't been quite as lucky since then either, never quite scoring a direct hit, but my life has been ghosted by the presence of bird shit, you'd only have to look on the roof of the mystery jet's van for the evidence. Whether its a sign of good luck or not though, i do feel lucky to be making a third record, and even if its not because of “luck” directly (good record label,charming managers and you kind people) i can't help feeling this haunting of bird mess dating back to that fateful day in the park has something to do with it.
Anyway, leaving birds and shit aside i want to give you a brief idea what exactly it is the mystery jets have been up to. We've been making our third record, in fact you could say we've nearly finished the thing, having recorded 11 or so songs. It's been committed to tape in a large spaceship of a building, in a sleepy suburb of west London and i think we all feel like we're making something good. I like to think of it as “21”'s older, bolder brother, though in reality there's nothing particularly brotherly about it.... it certainly isn't a christian rock record spouting creeds on the brotherhood of man. On production duties is Chris Thomas a very talented (and patient) fellow, whose virtually made more great albums than years he's lived. I'd never heard of him when Rough Trade suggested him as a producer at the start of the year, it was only when i wikipedia'd him that i realised i'd actually been listening to his records most of my musical life and that his name was in the small print on many of the cd's that live on my shelf. Add to this recipe a host of great engineers and a mysterious caretaker who leaves fresh pastries for us in the studio each morning (non-one has actually met him/her yet) and you might start to grasp what our summer/autumn has been all about. Obviously we've ventured out to play the odd festival, Benicassim and Field day being the most debauched of them all, but mainly the focus of our collective attentions has been on making music. “Widescreen” is my favourite word to describe the album as it stands so far, its a word that doesn't apply to all the tracks but definitely most, and i like the visual nature and sense of space the word has,it makes me think of endless Nevada desert-scapes and views from the cabin windows of aircraft. That's not to say we've made a gargantuan record of colossal emotion and epic proportion, but we're certainly trying. The third album seems to be the one where bands really define themselves, they know their processes of song-writing well enough to do it brilliantly but not too well for it to be boring. I think in a lot of ways we've made a record that bridges the gap between Making Dens and Twenty One. Some of the sonic textures of our new album remind me of what we attempted to do with our first, the wild arrangements and psychedelic sounds... yet the autobiographical nature that defined twenty one's lyrics is an element that's quite prevalent in this new album. I don't think it will give you a very good idea of how our album sounds if you were to take the lyrics of Two Doors Down and drop them over the top of Zoo Time, but you'd be getting warm...you might accidentally create a genre busting tune that unites yacht-rock with prog-rock as well. Anyway, i've made a mixtape for you all. It's a collection of songs that Chris Thomas has produced over the last 3 decades, some of them you may know, some you may not...the last track by the way, is an extremely guilty pleasure, more guilty than say chocolate or bondage. ENJOY!
Hey y'all. Sorry its been a while. Big post coming up later this week. In the meantime though, see what you think about this:
Im always suspicious when a new band like Hurts turns up completely unanounced and out of the blue. Especially when they look like burberry models yet appear to be able to write near perfect O.M.D style pop bombs like "Wonderful life". weird right? Actualy no. Turns out it was penned by the guy who wrote "wannabe". Theyre Good at quiffs though.
Next years THE XX?? or Next years JEDWARD?? you decide. X
