Much sniggering was sniggered when the world learned that Adam Schlesinger of Fountains Of Wayne, James Iha ex-of Smashing Pumpkins and Cheap Trick’s drummer Bun E. Carlos would be starting a new band with Taylor Hanson of, er, Hanson. Taylor Hanson is a grown man with four children, but to many he’ll always be the fourteen year-old who looked like a girl and made a few million dollars doing it.
Tinted Windows’ self-titled debut album came out last week, and “Kind Of A Girl” is the first single from it. As the retro video suggests, it’s inspired by late 70s/early 80s powerpop like The Cars and The Knack, and it’s a suitably catchy, disposable little blighter. Not sure it’s as good as “Where’s The Love”, though, which I will defend until my dying day.
I heard this on Mark Ronson’s Authentic Shit show the other day, which I never remember to listen to unless my flatmate reminds me of its existence.
Mikey Rocks is one of the Cool Kids, but this is the first time I’ve encountered the other two. Dude Royal and Hollywood Holt sound like they might be interesting ones to watch on a post-Kanye, h*pster r*p tip, though - Dude Royal’s “Vader Ganchos” is worth a listen here, and Hollywood Holt’s MySpace shows he doesn’t take himself too seriously.
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Thursday April 30th, 2009 at
10:27 am
Two footballers, playing for the same club, and the same country, outlandishly gifted, named Hoddle and Waddle. And they decide to release their single as Glenn and Chris?
I’ve never been able to work out if “Diamond Lights” is as bad as people think it is, mainly because whenever I see this footage I am transfixed by Chris Waddle’s… what would you call that? Moving? I mean, it’s not dancing. Not unless you mean the kind of dancing a drunk does with a lamp-post at four in the morning. And why is his left hand so lifeless? Did he sit on it backstage and send it to sleep?
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Wednesday April 29th, 2009 at
10:48 am
A new Passion Pit tune, “Moth’s Wings”, hit the internet the other day. If I was a delusional paranoid maniac I’d swear it exists purely to piss me off; my flat’s currently infested with moths eating my clothes, and my internet’s infested with Passion Pit eating my attention.
At the time of writing Passion Pit seem to appear in my RSS feeds more than any other act, and casting an eye over the “Top Artists” at music aggregator Elbo.ws you’ll see Passion Pit above Kanye West, Lady GaGa and Little Boots. How did this happen?
“Sleepyhead”, the first single to spring from the Chunk Of Change EP, was quite a lovely thing: a psychedelic collage of samples, sighs, synths and beats which sent music bloggers into paroxysms of ear lust.
That the EP from which it came was originally a mixtape for main guy Michael Angelakos’s college girlfriend added a youthfully romantic dimension to the release which lovelorn indie nerds were helpless to resist. Continue reading »
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Tuesday April 28th, 2009 at
4:11 pm
The latest Levi’s Ones To Watch show at east London’s hang-out du jour The Macbeth promised to be a bouncy, booty-shaking affair but fell somewhere short to these jaded earholes.
Newport’s The Binary Kids (left) were watched from the bar by similarly be-hatted chum Lady Sovereign, but their shriek-rap and pre-programmed beats just sounded like vaguely danceable teenage tantrums. BUT WHAT DO I KNOW - Basement Jaxx like them and are putting them on their new album, so unless they’re blood relatives the Jaxx must hear something in them. Continue reading »
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Monday April 27th, 2009 at
5:37 pm
The sun has been shining in smelly London town recently, which might not mean jack if you’re reading this from Miami or summink but to us Brits it feels like a birrova miracle.
It also makes songs like The Shoes/Primary 1′s springy “Ho Lord” sound like they were beamed down by Jebus himself to soundtrack our barbecues:
I dare say there might be a fair few old codgers out there who would maintain Oceanic’s Top 5 hit from 1991 never qualified as rave. After all, it probably soundtracked more Malibu regurgitations than it did warehouse parties. But it qualified as “chart rave”, at the very least.
I mean look at the evidence from this Top Of The Pops performance - you’ve got two nondescript blokes on keyboards (one of whom is sporting the requisite smelly ponytail), plinky synths, lyrics about “dream tripping” and being taken “higher”, two rather naff dancers and a middlingly attractive female singer. PLUS key changes. What else would you call it?
Keep an eye out for Loose Women‘s Jakki Jackie Brambles sounding all posh at the start, too:
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Wednesday April 22nd, 2009 at
10:30 am
