Monday, September 25, 2006

Weekender : we believe that it's called al fresco

CHART OF DARKNESS: Going to try and start cutting these down in length now, as chart idiosyncracy only gets you so far. So, the Scissor Sisters remain supreme and take over both top spots as the Killers prove that Americana only gets you so far in Britain. Relatively. Janet Jackson has the next proper new entry, from an album that for some reason is called 20 Year Old, and she adds to her recent collection of hits you'll never remember in a few months time. Lil' Chris, of all people, is the highest download entry of ten in the top 75, even though we don't know anyone who remembers Rock School or him. Jet stay out of serious harm's reach at 23, the Zutons at 24 is only worth mentioning for the semi-disgusted way Lauren Laverne says the title on the TV advert, the Automatic run out of road at 25 and Keisha White, the soulstress whose singles get blanket music TV and Radio 2 play in lieu of anyone else noticing, limps to 63. Elton John's late follow-up to Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy is at 6 in the albums - it's back to basics, donchaknow - while DJ Shadow debuts outside the top 20 (24) for the first time, perhaps not uncoincidentally the first of his three sets not to be entirely comprised of obscure samples. Get Cape Wear Cape Fly makes a not unwelcome surprise top 30 debut, one ahead of the big budgeted Fergie, while Bonnie Prince Billy gives Will Oldham a Guinness Book debut (we think) at 70.

FREE MUSIC: At pencil sketch level Brazil could be said to be a musically diverse place, what with its main musical corner posts being samba, Sepultura, Astrud Gilberto and, um, MC Lord Magrao. Postal Blue prove they can do Belle & Sebastian-type indie too, the vocals sounding remarkably Murdochesque, plus more than a hint of June Brides jangle and Teenage Fanclub ambition. The World Doesn't Need You would fit perfectly onto our mythical C06.

HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Barbados-born, Edinburgh-raised Kat Flint, it's fair to say, likes a good typing session. Her extensive blog and lengthy self-descriptions on her corner of Murdochsound ("I write lyrics about junkyard prostitutes, life in the fearsome crowd and the fact that your lover is 72.8% water. I was told once that I'm pretty good on guitar "for a girl". I wasn't sure if that was a compliment. I am an active campaigner against teenage angst and histrionics in music") are one attraction, but by no means the main one. That'll be the indiscrimintaly intimate folk-pop, reminiscent of the Thea Gilmore end of nu-folk or a stripped back Julianne Regan, or kind of what you'd think KT Tunstall would sound like if all you knew was that she'd been on the periphery of the Fence Collective. We haven't got a clue what Channel 4's New Lyric Award is when it's at home, but she won it last year, which sounds good.

VISUAL REPRESENTATION: We mentioned Pancake Mountain, Washington-based children's cable access show with a much greater guest list than most children's shows, on here last July, but now we can all share in proof of its special kind of madness. A sheep interviews a bemused Ricky Wilson and saturnine Nick Hodgson, Metric's Emily Haines finds a tough crowd to crack and almost certainly the only broadcast of the sentence "one day on Pancake Mountain Captain Perfect didn't show up, so Billy Lunn of the Subways tried to fill in".

FALLING OFF A BLOG: As spotted by Keep Hope Inside, Kilroy's Chinos is run by the gutarist from Shake My Hand (nee Yossarian). It's beginning to sound like we're on comission from them, isn't it? Three posts old at the moment, but it's looking good already.

EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: SFX, which Google turns up very little about, was an attempt at launching a fortnightly music magazine on cassette in 1981 and doesn't seem to have made it past the end of 1982. Here's four of them ripe for the downloading. (Finder's credit: Indie mp3)

IN OTHER NEWS: Online magazines start up every day, but we must support them all just in case. So, Neu! Magazine interview worthwhile bands, as well as the Horrors, do reviews, link to free mp3s and all that jazz, and is in summary quite the diversion.

1 comment:

Ben said...

Cheers for passing on the link to Kilroy's Chinos, Simon - a good-looking blog.

Saw Shake My Hand last weekend with Los Campesinos!, BTW - not spectacular but not bad either.