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Achtung Baby! (Epicentre Of Attention)

That’s A Chorus

Ever since Scott Dooley incessantly sung that line out of Scorch, I’ve been meaning to get Macromantics’ debut album (because I love Scott Dooley, so much more than I love you, but that’s for another time). Well, since that time, and also since she did that hilarious cover of Kriss Kross’ Jump on Like A Version the other week.

I certainly don’t need to be spending money on b-grade music, so I’m a touch concerned for a couple of reasons. First, Macromantics looks far too much like somebody’s mum. Like my mum. Not like someone who should be reeling off raps at a frenetic pace. Also, and this I think is a more technical reason, Macromantics has a more traditional hip-hop style than what I generally listen too. Meaning, she has no band, and so is missing the organic music sound that I like in hip-hop. And then there’s the lyrics, which seem at times to be rapping for the sake of rapping.

Still, I kinda like it all.

We Are TZU

I just got an email from the TZU mailing list:

TZU are back on tour ….We have been in the studio for the last month working hard on finishing this new ep for our up and coming tour … we are re-releasing ..Smiling At Strangers.. as a special double disc package dubbed ..Snarling At Strangers.., which includes bonus collectors edition art work, and a separate disc full of previously unreleased B-sides and video clips.

Aside from the spelling and grammar, that’s awesome. New material. Tour (coming here of course). And a re-release of one of my favourite albums of ever. That’s made my month.

Hip hop hooray!

Mister Bean

Last Wednesday something strange happened.

But the story starts well over a year ago, when I made a comment about cricket umpire Aleem Dar looking somewhat like Mr. Bean. In making the comment I linked to an image of Mr. Bean. And then I promptly forgot all about it.

Then, last Wednesday, a flood of people started searching Google images for Mr. Bean. Completely out of nowhere, I am getting hundreds upon hundreds of hits per day from Mr. Bean searches.

It gets weirder, and the nerds should be able to help me out here. When you click a result, Google images displays the image’s originating site, and another small info frame at the top of the browser window. When I click ‘return to image results’ from the referring URL, my site is not listed. Which, when you think about it, makes sense because I only linked to the image of Mr. Bean, I didn’t actually reference the image, therefore Google images won’t index it as an image on my site…

=/

Why Mr. Bean, and why now?

Bare Feet

Four years ago I heard Everyone Deserves Music, Bomb The World, Rock The Nation, and Pray For Grace by Michael Franti & Spearhead on the radio. I remember because I wrote them down. The other day I finally got around to doing something about that note. I got Spearhead’s Chocolate Supa Highway, Michael franti & Spearhead’s Stay Human and Everyone Deserves Music, and Michael Franti’s Songs From The Front Porch.

Michael Franti is fairly unclassifiable, but he’s somewhere between the thoughtful hippyness of John Butler and the passionate political hip-hop of The Herd. You could probably throw in a pinch of Bob Marley as well. I quite like it.

The Stay Human album is an outspoken and oft cringeworthy concept album, where most songs are interspersed with radio show segments. It’s all good chillout or fun (or both I guess) music, depending on what mood you’re in.

The Everyone Deserves Music album is my favourite. Check it out if you get the chance.

I read somewhere that Michael Franti once drew comparison between the people in the world who make shoes but can’t afford to wear them, and consumers who buy shoes but don’t make them. Now he walks everywhere barefoot. I was inspired (some of you may know that I wear thongs pretty much everywhere) and went to work barefoot yesterday. Now I have something stuck in my foot, and it hurts, and my mum told me off because of the ‘potential health problems’. I am so cool.

Triple J Noise Remix

Donkeys ago, Triple J ran a competition called Noise Remix, where a few good Aussie bands made their tracks available to remix by non-professional under twenty five year olds. The winners (and a fair few good efforts), were made available for download. Unfortunately all the tracks came with less than helpful tags, or not tags, and all jumbled up, making it hard to know what was what.

It’s taken me two years, but I’ve finally gotten around to organising mine, so I figured I’d make the whole lot, properly tagged, and nicely bundled, available for everyone else. There’s some absolute gems in there, so if you’re into either good music, or remixes, you’d do well to check it out.

Round one (seven tracks, moderately big). Remixed songs; Downsyde’s El Questrro, Silverchair’s Tuna In The Brine, and The Waifs’ London Still.

Round two (forty two tracks, ridiculously huge). Remixed songs; Architecture In Helsinki’s The owls Go, Bodyjar’s Underwater, The Sleepy Jackson’s Good Dancers, Resin Dogs’ Nice Mics, The Herd’s 77%, The Superjesus’ Shudder, and Magic Dirt’s Vulcanella.

Round three (three tracks, nice and small). Remixed songs; Frenzal Rhomb’s Looking Good, Infusion’s Dead Souls, and Brad Pace’s The Pigeon Song.

Tell your friends and all.

So Emotional

I’m hearing on the radio that Wolfmother are doing pretty well over in America. I’m not Wolfmother fan, but hey, that’s cool. American media is going a bit crazy over them, praising the eighties rock style and all that. At the same time, the same press has got nothing but slurs for The Killers.

On their second album, Sam’s Town, the Las Vegas party boys ditch their cheerfully fake Bowie moves and try to get heavy by copying Bruce Springsteen. Yes, that means glockenspiel solos. Yes, it means anthems about the road and looking for America and girls named Mary. No, it’s not a good move.

Why are the eighties okay for Wolfmother but not for The Killers (Why is Bowie okay for The Killers but Springsteen not okay? Anyway, don’t The Killers get to decide what’s okay for The Killers?)? Because The Killers are American. I have no idea why Americans are like this, but if you read American music press, an American artist has to be making music so indigestible only eight people listen to it, or it won’t get a positive comment. Even The Mountain Goats don’t have enough indie cred for the American press these days.

America is like my dad in front of the telly - half deaf, half blind, and completely tuned out.

In other amusing music news one liners, Matt Bellamy has been watching too much YouTube, and the emo / MySpace correlation is now the butt of jokes even in the news:

Guitarist Serge Pizzorno chimed in with some pithy wisdom, stating simply “These emo kids should get out more and try and have a good time.”

Myspace was unavailable for comment.

(Maybe we can conclude that America is just emo).

Come On Hollywood

I had something interesting on the tip of my tongue, but then I got the new Little Birdy album.

It’s pure pop genius. You can’t listen to the track Music and not think of good clean Britney (remember those days?). Describing it like that makes it sound terrible, but it’s not, I promise it’s not like Britney. It’s great. I still can’t get over Come On Come On, but the whole album is quality. Little Birdy sneak up on me - I don’t realise I like them so much ’til it dawns on me that I’ve been playing them non-stop for three weeks.

Also Cog’s The New Normal is pretty cool. And yes, I know that everyone knew that two years ago, but I’m pretty slow.