Get your best skanking gear out of the loft and dust down yer bovver boots because The Specials are definitely reforming. Well, I say definitely… what I mean is they’ve hinted at the fact that they might reform and like all the other times they’ve hinted, it probably won’t happen. Essentially the same thing though, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Singer Terry Hall said the band had been inspired to perform together again by recent reunions of bands such as the Pixies. Hall commented: “Because I saw Patti Smith do Horses, and I saw the Pixies reforming…you do it with dignity or don’t do it at all. We need to spend the summer rehearsing, I think it’s taken me 30 years to realise we could do it really well.”
Click over for a chaotic video of the band in their prime! [via ElectricRoulette]
I jumped in a taxi last night and noted that my cabbie was listening to “Silk FM”. What a great name for a radio station. Turns out that Silk FM is “soft adult contemporary music for Macclesfield and North East Cheshire”. Glamourous eh? Well, the first thing to hit me was some soul-y type thing that was so inoffensive that I forgot what it was whilst it was still playing. Madness. Then, the taxi air was filled with the wonky strains of ‘I’m Not In Love’ by 10cc. Bona fide!
[video: queen106]
Posted by
mofgimmers on
Monday March 31st, 2008 at
3:27 pm
Chuck Berry has had a colourful life. Arrested for sticking a pistol in the face of a man and making off with his car, even though the gun didn’t work. Having dalliances with young ladies (too young) and sticking CCTV cameras in ladies’ toilets so he can watch ‘em wee-wee. Yup. He’s a bit of a rogue. So, in the forthcoming Cadillac Records, the film about Chess Records, the mighty Mos Def is to take on the role of Chuck.
Mos will be starring alongside Beyonce who will be playing Etta James, which isn’t as good in terms of news. The film will also be starring Adrien Brody as Chess co-founder Leonard Chess, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters… and loads more who I haven’t heard of.
You may have read about the censorship of Be Your Own Pet’s new album at the hands of their record label Universal. Get Awkward has had three tracks removed, apparently due to references to knives and violence. I’m not the first person to point out the double standards at work here. Universal is the label that puts out material by Eminem, Jay-Z, 50 Cent and DMX, all of whom regularly have the “Parental Advisory” sticker slapped on them due to naughty language and violent imagery.
So why can they get away with it, while a bunch of young indie-rockers can’t?
When I compiled last week’s list of British women America has shunned over the years, someone in the office asked me if I really - as I stated in the article - fancied Shaznay Lewis. I answered “hell yes”. And look! Now she’s back, on a killer bassline/garage/UK garage/whatever-they-call-it-these-days dancefloor annihalator.
Good on the Wideboys, whoever they may be, for getting her to help them on this. It arrives at just the right time, with the welcome return of spring and light evenings and all that, and is almost certainly going to be huge. If you’re missing that hour of sleep from the weekend time change, this should wake you up. Check it out after the jump.
Jaz Cummins is a Senior Account Executive (and frequent blogger) at Shiny Red, a very Web 2.0-ish PR consultancy. The other week she went along to Camden’s Barfly to check out charmingly-monikored gypsy-punk types The Fighting Cocks. Here is what she thunk. How did you rate the venue?
Good n’ indie. Last time I went to the Barfly was during the Camden Crawl. It was much nicer than that time, what with it being a civilised Sunday evening.
What were the crowd like?
A mixture of hardcore Fighting Cocks groupies doing their duty of crazy dancing and crowd participation… and confused-looking people who’d never seen them before.
Hippyshopper reports:
What’s Madonna doing on the cover of Vanity Fair’s third annual Green issue (apart from suggestively clutching a replica Earth in fetish gear, that is)?
It seems most of the green community are asking the same question. Madonna’s carbon footprint has already been scrutinized in light of her association with Live Earth, and it seems she’s far from being a Thom Yorke: ‘carbon emissions from nine houses, a fleet of cars, a private jet and the Confessions tour’, claimed one tabloid, calling her a ‘climate-change catastrophe.’
According to other reports, Madonna leads the pack of the worst individual rock star polluters in the world.
For more environmental / ethical living news, check out Hippyshopper
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Friday March 28th, 2008 at
4:21 pm
It’s hard to believe that Rod Stewart was once one of the coolest men on the planet. Before the leopard skin jumpsuits, Rod was the Mod and, later, frontman to one of the greatest rock groups ever to grace an airwave in The Faces. Here are the boys tackling Bob Dylan’s ‘Wicked Messenger’ and making it sound like a hangover. Fantastic stuff! Now, go and buy The Faces entire back catalogue.
[video: odorono77]
Posted by
mofgimmers on
Friday March 28th, 2008 at
2:33 pm
This particular one-hit wonder has a particularly big place in my heart as it soundtracked my teens (and many subsequent delves into hallucinogens). ‘Girl At The Bus Stop‘ was a big indie hit in the mid-nineties, before My Drug Hell unfathomably sank without trace, leaving behind one of the most underrated debuts ever cut with This Is My Drug Hell. It was described as “pop perfection” at the time… and that still stands. Watch this great little Super 8 shot video and drop out.
[video: randyatlantis]
Posted by
mofgimmers on
Friday March 28th, 2008 at
2:18 pm
So often, charity and music collide to make a racket so horrendous that you actually wish ill on the needy. However, sometimes charity events get it completely right. One such event was the Teenage Cancer Trust who threw a big ol’ event with some major A-listers. Missed it? Don’t worry, there’s a DVD to help you catch up. The DVD features a selection of live exclusive performances from their Albert Hall Shows in 2006 & 2007 from artists like The Who, Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, The Cure, Kasabian, Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Bloc Party and Judas Priest. Not a bad list eh?
The DVD is jam-packed with performances that capture the spirit of this unique event, including one-off collaborations between Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller, and Razorlight and The Who’s Roger Daltrey. The DVD will be available from the Teenage Cancer Trust website (www.teenagecancertrust.org) immediately at a special preview price. It then goes on general sale from 14 April ’08. All profits from the sale of the DVD will go to Teenage Cancer Trust, helping them to continue to build specialist teenage cancer units within the NHS for young people with cancer. If that’s not enough, I’ve got some clips for you over the jump.
Get your best skanking gear out of the loft and dust down yer bovver boots because The Specials are definitely reforming. Well, I say definitely… what I mean is they’ve hinted at the fact that they might reform and like all the other times they’ve hinted, it probably won’t happen. Essentially the same thing though, I’m sure you’ll agree.
