I remember when the 7/7 bombs went off in London in 2005 there was an incredulous reaction to a press release which went out assuring fans of R&B douchewad Omarion that, despite being in the city at the time, he was OK. That’s right - music star and probable millionaire Omarion wasn’t riding public transport in London at the point the explosions happened. “Phew,” the whole world failed to reply.
This little PR boo-boo came to mind as I read this article at Gigwise. The facts are these: there was a modest earthquake in Los Angeles. Black Kids were in the city recording a song at the time. Only one of the band felt the earth move a bit, even though the quake went on for 45 seconds.
This, somehow, has been spun into the headline: “Black Kids Have Lucky Escape In Los Angeles Earthquake”.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday July 31st, 2008 at 11:31 am

[images: Rex Features]

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday July 31st, 2008 at 10:33 am

Look at that simply darling snapshot. The video for “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, coming hot on the heels of M83′s “Kim & Jessie”, is another example of 80s teen movies’ enduring appeal for music promo directors.
It’s all here - lovely pink and pastel colours, denim, fresh-faced young Patrick Dempsey-a-like, goth stylings… Click over to check it out.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday July 31st, 2008 at 10:15 am

Have you heard about the busking bin man? He plays his guitar from within what the Americans call a “trash can” in Cambridge. His name is Charles Cavey, he’s a not-especially-tiny 5 ft 9 inches, and the venue he chooses to play probably still smells better than most London gig venues.
Our gallery takes a look at this lovable scamp who stinks of old chewing gum and flat pop - but wait, is there a hidden agenda at work?
***CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE THE REST OF THE GALLERY DO IT DO IT DO IT***

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Wednesday July 30th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

Anyone who follows this site’s Twitter feed might have noticed a couple of mentions of this song recently. I’ve fallen a bit in love with it, but figured I’d kind of missed the M83 boat so might not get a chance to write about it.
Hurrah, then, for the fact that they are now releasing a video for it. Hurrah also for the fact that the director has taken the distinctly youthful vibe of the song and applied it to said video, which is a curious little roller-skating high school drama.
For me it’s still all about the song though, which is woozy, melodic and almost makes me want to dig out some Curve and Ride records from 16 years ago. Check out the video over the page.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Wednesday July 30th, 2008 at 9:38 am

S’true - that oft-mooted Amy Winehouse Bond theme ain’t happening. Or if it is/has, it’s going to lie gathering dust in a recording studio while its creator dribbles her way around north London.
Understandably, the folk behind the forthcoming nonsensically-monikered film Quantum Of Solace have had quite enough waiting around for madam to get her act together. So instead they’ve turned to Alicia Keys and White Stripes’ Jack White to come up with summat.
An odd collabo, but the good news is that while Ms Keys will be bellowing away on the tune, Mr White is the one who wrote and produced it. So hopefully the theme - which goes by the suitably Bond-y name of “Another Way To Die” - shouldn’t just be an exercise in “powerful” lung-stretching.
[source: Starpulse]

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Wednesday July 30th, 2008 at 9:02 am

Readers of a certain vintage might remember the days when NME’s Brat Awards ran as a boozy, rambunctious alternative to the corporate Brit Awards. I’m not sure if NME still uses the “Brat” brand for their awards these days, which goes some way to showing how much more generic the event has become.
There are plenty of websites willing to snare the indie youth NME once had sole claim on, though - Drowned In Sound have been doing just that for a few years now. In true anti-corporate rock style they’ve just announced the nominees for their Pluto Award, which is acting as an alternative for - can you guess? - The Mercury Music Prize.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday July 29th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

Is it the nature of the blog format that leads people to use the medium to vent more negative feelings than positive? I suppose it’s natural to want to alert folk to bad experiences so that they can then avoid them; and perhaps there is something a little smug in papping on about the wonderful time you had.
I’m thinking about this stuff because I’ve just read a rather interesting blog post about Secret Garden Party, which took place at the weekend. It’s a good example of why event organisers need to be aware that anybody can get online and publish their views these days.
The writer at i am kat - her name’s Kat, unsurprisingly - had a right old miserable time at the festival. Now, I’d like to think that if she’d had a marvellous time she’d have written just as lengthy a post, but… well, it’s that human nature thing again, isn’t it?

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday July 29th, 2008 at 11:36 am

Chromeo have still not done anything to make me go off them, which is remarkable given how quickly I become bored of even music I like.
I mean, “Momma’s Boy” has some pretty disturbing, Oedipal lyrics, but I still can’t help loving it. And now it has a bloody amazing animated black & white video! Which you can see after the jump! When will the amazingness end? WHEN??

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday July 29th, 2008 at 11:00 am

Universal Music Group is a biiig record company. They have biiig recording artists. With biiig songs.
So you’d think that they’d be concentrating on getting some of these biiig bits and bobs onto their YouTube channel, wouldn’t you? Hmmyeah… does the picture give you a clue as to the latest video to hit their page?
Obviously I was going to embed the video here at this point, but it would appear this particular piece of audio-visual brilliance is just that little bit too amazing to be allowed to “go viral”. To see if you can handle it, click here.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday July 28th, 2008 at 10:30 am