Tuesday 30 June 2009

Dada Life



Dada Life are Ollie Corneer and Stephan Engblom from Sweden, one of my Favourite Five music countries at the moment, along with France, Australia, Belgium and of course good ol' Blighty (still the dada-dy). Their album Just Do The Dada is out September 8th, so make sure you buy it

Dada Life - 'Lets Get Bleeped Tonight'

Dada Life - 'Don't Feed The Dada'

Sunday 28 June 2009

The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition

Saw these on the Glasto highlights last night and Miss SS loved it, so this is dedicated to her

Saturday 27 June 2009

Thanks a load to those lovely Japanese Popstar fellas for sending us this spanking new chart. Cheers lads

  1. The Japanese Popstars "We Just Are (Finalizer)" [Gung-Ho! Recordings]
  2. Sydney Samson - "Riverside" [White]
  3. NuFrequency "Passage Of Time (Freeform Five Mix)" [Rebirth]
  4. The Japanese Popstars "F19b (Droppin' Bombs)" [Gung-Ho! Recordings]
  5. Depeche Mode "Peace (The Japanese Popstars Mix)" [Mute]
  6. Loco & Jam "Medusa" [Rekluse]
  7. The Japanese Popstars "Face Melter" [Gung-Ho! Recordings]
  8. Brodinski 'Oblivion' [Turbo]
  9. Beyonce "Single Ladies (The Japanese Popstars Mix)" [RCA]
  10. Dance Area "AA 247 (Original Mix)" [Phantasy Sound]
  11. Tom Madicott "Ravor" [Gung-Ho Recordings]
  12. Zoo Brazil "Ten Inch Nails" [Gung-Ho! Recordings]
  13. The Japanese Popstars "The Rise Of Ulysses" [Gung-Ho! Recordings]
  14. Bertrand Dupart, Gwen "Lolita (Beatless Mix)" [Space Breaks]
  15. The Japanese Popstars "Catapult" [Gung-Ho! Recordings]
  16. Shinichi Osawa "Star Guitar (The Japanese Popstars Mix)" [Data]
  17. Ebony Bones "The Muzik (The Krays Mix)" [Sunday Best]
  18. A-Trak & Laidback Luke "Shake It Down"[Fools Gold]
  19. Fancy Beat "Funk In (Telespazio mix)" [Rebirth]
  20. Grand National "Cut By The Brakes (The Japanese Popstars Dub)" [Microrave]

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In the pub last night, talking music. Brother Stu put forward the notion that, if everyone stopped making music today, he would be happy with his back catalogue. He admitted that his knowledge of new music was getting increasingly limited, but didn't seem to be all that bothered.

For myself, it's all about the new. I have an obsession now with finding stuff that's totally fresh, that very few people have discovered. I trawl blogs and record label sites, like I used to pore through record shops, when there still were record shops. Every now and then I'll stumble across something that hits me in the gut and I'm buzzing for hours. Gut plays a big part in my appreciation of music. I've never been the sort of technically minded person that can admire production values (though I can pick out a Spector tunes at forty paces). I can't describe music very well, I barely know a 303 from an 808, but when I hear something I like it gives me a jolt and a rush of joy, that's quite similar to a mild drug rush. I get excited (you get excited too).

Here's a couple that have stoked me in the past few days. They all differ in style, but they share one constant and that is that they grabbed me first time and stayed with me.

Enjoy

Awesome New Republic - 'Birthday'

Awesome New Republic - 'Magic City'

DIM - 'Lyposuct (Set Rip)'

Paul Oakenfold - 'Perfecto Vegas (Teaser Mix)'

Friday 26 June 2009

"I truly hope he is memorialised as the '83 moonwalking, MTV owning, mesmerizing, unstoppable, invincible Michael Jackson."
John Mayer

Wednesday 24 June 2009

Love It Or Hate It


Reverend & The Makers - Silence Is Talking

We've got people looking around our house at the moment. All part of the fun of moving. It's not a great experience, having someone you don't know nosing around your house. Especially when you've got everything packed in boxes and everywhere is a bloody mess.

At the best of times, I'm what could be described as 'touchy'. Not in a tactile way either. More a 'What the fuck do you mean by that?' kind of deal. As I'm getting older, I'm becoming less tolerant and if you consider that, in my teens, I was known as Mr Intolerant, you can imagine where I am now. Strangers in my house 'hmm'ing and 'Oh, you've got that there'ing is testing my limited patience to the max. One bloke came round the other day and he was, shall we say, a bit portly. He was fat actually. Morbidly obese as opposed to Wholesomely obese. Now this isn't a problem to me - you can do what you want with your body, get really fat or get really thin, but don't come into my house, stinking and sweating and proceed to turn your piggy little nose up at my front room. He had one of those shrewish little wives, who didn't speak, but just giggled when he said something. I ended up showing him the kitchen and larder and asking him if he thought they were going to be BIG enough. No room was going to be substantial enough for this behemoth.

Get out of my house!

Everyone else has been really nice...

Sunday 21 June 2009

New Boys Noize

A big WORD UP to Saintwoods for the exclusive (for me anyway) on these. Two new Boys Noize tunes. Very excited about these. Can't wait for the new album, due in autumn

Boys Noize - 'Starter'

Boys Noize - 'Jeffer'

Hurts - Wonderful Life


I love the look and sound of this (is that the new Chris Lowe on keyboard?). What am I hearing in the chorus? Roxy Music? Savage Garden? I dunno, but I love it anyway. Check out Hurts at their Muhspace They're from Manchestah, dontcha know...

Saturday 20 June 2009

Strange the things you do, when you've got a spare minute. You're sitting there, possibly baby sitting the kids on a Saturday night, and you think ' I'm going to make a bicycle, for a fly'. And you get up, you find some pipe cleaner and you fashion an inch long cycle, lovingly painting the wheels with a thin topped paint brush, even making a seat for the fucker. Even making a stand for it, so that the fly doesn't tip over!

Only one problem - how do you make the fly stay on the bike?

Well, you're going to have to kill it, aren't you? Little bleeder is never going to sit still. You've made a mini bicycle for a fly, but the fly doesn't want to ride it. It's not even about whether he wants to or not, the fly has no concept of what a bike is. How could he possibly decide if he desires a bike, or if he'd rather eat a bit of pooh then secrete it on someone's food? He can't be expected to want or not want a bike at all, but you're still going to have to kill him, because now you've made the bike and you want to put a fly on the bike, probably with a pin or a bit of blue tac. It would all be waste of a Saturday night otherwise. You, alone in the house but for the sleeping children, sitting at the dining room table, scissors, pipe cleaners, tiny fucking bike. What was it all for?? Has your life come to this??

So the fly will die, on your whim, and nothing will change. You've got a dead fly, on a miniature bike, on your carpet and you've taken a picture of it and now you've posted it on a blog and told people that this is what you get up to on a Saturday night.

Friday 19 June 2009

SMD - Audacity Of Huge


Very possibly written about me...

Tuesday 16 June 2009

The Answering Machine - Obviously Cold



One for a sunny morning.

The album Another City, Another Story was out on June 15th, on Heist Or Hit Records

Monday 15 June 2009

Sunday 14 June 2009

Fukkk Off

I've noticed Fukkk Off a lot recently, on various blogs I peruse, but for some reason I've never really given him a go. Maybe it's the name. With a name like that you're either really sure of how good you are, or you're really bad and you hope the name might get you some undeserved attention. I thought it was some hardcore punk band when I first read it. Anyway, thankfully the former applies here. Fukkk Off, aka Bastain Heerhost, is very very good.

'Rave Is King' was a big tune last year, along with 'I'm A Freak' from the year before and the debut album Love Me Hate Me Kiss Me Kill Me lives up to the promise of these two tunes. It's the way we like it here at SS - DIRTY and LOWDOWN. Definitely going to be featuring in the Album Of The Year section (we won't be having one...I hate lists. 1. I can't ever remember anything well enough to compile a definitive list 2. This has just turned into a list, hasn't it...?)

FUKKK OFF - 'Love Me Hate Me Kiss Me Kill Me'

The album is on Coco Machete Records and is available for download at Beatport. Pop over to his myspace for a taste of the album

Cicada







Cicadas new album is out now on Critical Mass Records. We've got the video to the 'new' single 'Metropolis' and a nice remix the band have done of Paloma Faiths's ' Stone Cold Sober'. Their remix of Thirteen Senses 'Into the Fire' still rates, along side TWD's remix of 'Mr Brightside', as one of the best reworks of a song EVER. Check them out at their myspace



Paloma Faith - 'Stone Cold Sober (Cicada Remix)'

Friday 12 June 2009

White Lies 'Death' Crystal Castles Remix



Due for a re-release later this month

A House In The Country


Well we've managed to get a place in the country, replete with raised growing beds and a small orchard. Upping sticks, for the sticks. I've had a yearning for the Good Life (see picture) for a while now and it looks as if I'm about to get it. Expect some 'amusing', Alex James/Elisabeth Hurley(NO!) style country commentaries in the future. Or a last screaming post, as the axe murderers burst in and hack me-to-bi-t.........

I am obviously pro-hunt from this moment on - pip pip.

Do you think I should get some chickens? I'll name them Gaspard and Xavier.

On the subject of chickens, Dj Hell's (wha?) new album Teufelswerk is out now on Gigolo Records. It's a great slab of intelligent techno, split into two CDs - 'Night' and 'Day' with tracks featuring, amongst others, Diddy and Bryan Ferry. I've only just got my hands on it, but it's definatley on repeat In The Van at the moment. I'm posting the Bryan Ferry featured 'U Can Dance', 'cause we're all fans of the Fez (Uh?) and this is such a great use of his vocal style. You really can imagine him 'in a discotheque at dawn'. Probably with his bow tie hanging down and a stain on his shirt that could be vin rouge, could be lipstick or may be blood.

Loving these too -

I'm amazed that these haven't been banned. What with the 'PC GONE MAD!' world we ,live in. Me and the Better Half have been having a real good chuckle as she 'sucks on a Nigroid' to soothe her throat

Thursday 11 June 2009

Skill...



This is an oldy, but it's fucking ace, so 'ave it


For our friends at Shitboyfriend

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Sneaky Interview

Tom Young aka Run Riot has negotiated his way through the jasmine and vine strewn hanging baskets to take his place upon the comfy chair.



SS: You've got a steaming Radox bath ready. What's going on the stereo?


TOM: I hardly ever take baths but I reckon I would stick on Leftfield – Rhythm and Stealth.
There are some great atmospheric, chilled tracks on that album.


SS: The crowds a bit restless, what tune are you going to drop to get their attention?

TOM: If I were a DJ, it’s gotta be Warriors Dance by The Prodigy. BIG track!!


SS: It's your birthday and a very rich relative has told you to book any three acts you want. Who's playing at your house?

TOM: The Prodigy, Queens Of The Stone Age, Muse


SS: What's your first musical memory?

TOM: Hmmm....I used to dance around like an idiot to Michael Jackson when I was really young, that’ll do!


SS: The power's gone out at the club you're playing!!! What talent do you have that could stop the fractious crowd smashing the place up?

TOM: Nothing, I’d join the crowd...rock n roll!!


SS: Someone gives you a cinema for the night. What films are you going to show?

TOM: Lock, Stock..., The Matrix, Fight Club, 300, Anchorman


SS: Beatles or the Stones?

TOM: Neither... a lot of people pretend to like old bands to sound cool. Generally, there is very little music I like before the mid 80’s...of course there are lots of exceptions!


SS: What has Run Riot got coming up?

TOM: I’m playing a few festivals this summer. Headlining a couple which is a great privilege as I haven’t been around for long. A few remixes. I’ve also started work on my next EP planned for a September release with some big name remixes ;)

Thanks to Run Riot for withstanding that grilling. I thought he was going to crack there for a moment, but it was just some allergic reaction to the hanging vines. Kill to find out who those remixes are. The EP Charge is still available on I-Tunes, Amazon, Juno, Rhapsody, DJ Download and E Music

Tuesday 9 June 2009

Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work

The Week That Was...

So I've had a week without tinternet. I've got to say that I was like an amputee, feeling that missing limb, but unable to scratch it. You don't realise, until you're without it, just how much you take being 'honline' for granted. God bless the internet.

Anyway three things have happened during my week in the wilderness, that I just want to comment on briefly.

Number One - David 'Kung Fu' Carradine died, in suspicious circumstances in a Thai hotel. Was he giving it a bit of autoerotic asphyxiation? Who knows - but what a shitty way to go. Or at least what a really bad way to be found. Dead, tied up with shoelaces, in the bottom of a cupboard. "Under these circumstances we cannot be sure that he committed suicide but he may have died from masturbation." said one police officer. Funny, if it wasn't so sad. RIP Caine

Number Two - a doctor that performed abortions was shot dead by a pro-lifer...Go fucking figure

Number Three - The BNP won a couple of seats at the European Parliment. So way to go you mainstream politicians, so wrapped up in your greedy, self serving, out of touch lives that you let the bastards get a foothold. Even Mosely and his Blackshirts didn't manage to actually get anyone elected! I just hope that now they're in the mainstream, someone can take the opportunity to show them up for the vacuous fearmongers they really are. For a start, ask them how they're going to fill the hole in the economy they create, when they kick all the 'none indiginous' folk out. Is Nick Griffin really the poster boy for 'real' Britishness? I prefer John Lydon

How do you like your eggs, Nick?

Down with that sort of thing.

The Pet Shop Boys have got a new album out. Yes was released on 23rd March and is very good, if not a classic. Fair does to them for still knocking them out (so to speak) after twenty three years.. I've got a soft spot for PSB because they were a band that completely changed my taste in music. At sixteen, I was a denim jacketed rocker, into my Saxon and Slayer. I thought pop was...I can't even imagine what I thought pop was. If it didn't scream and have a guitar solo, I wasn't interested. Then, on the coach to Manchester, some ill advised visit to an art gallery with college, I was handed headphones and told to take a listen to this...

Pet Shop Boys - A Man Could Get Arrested

I did and it, as they say, totally blew me away. From the soaring synth, to the punchy beat, to the cut up vocals, I'd never heard anything like it. I was snared, like a gerbal up your...B-side to West End Girls.

Never looked back.

Pet Shop Boys - I Get Excited

Pet Shop Boys - The Way It Used To Be (Richard X remix)

Next week: My first experience of Danny la Rue...

Monday 8 June 2009

L-Vis 1990 - United Groove

And I'm back in the room...



Cheers Dave!

Thursday 4 June 2009

Simon is away...

...with tech probs (his Dragon 64 has overheated or something), so sporadic poster David here with some feelgood Sasquatch whimsy:



(it IS a visualation of Gladwells "Tipping Point" in one nice clip)

Start your very own dance party with Santogold "Unstoppable"