When a band with a name like Dinosaur Pile-Up – who make songs what go RRRR, and tend to lark about in music videos like the one at the end of this very post – comes along, you sort of want to skip over and arks them a bunch of slightly silly, slightly fatuous interview questions.

You don’t really expect them to talk honestly about what a TOTAL BUM it is to get lumped in with a “scene”, or how they worry about selling records because they’ve just been evicted and are having to “bunk up” together (erk!).

Nevertheless, this is what happened when totally unbiased superfan Robyn Wilder twirled a strand of hair, cocked her head to one side, and breathlessly interrogated Dinosaur Pile-Up’s singer, Matt Bigland.

Hello Dinosaur Pile-Up! Where are you right now, and what are you doing?
In the van driving from Nottingham to Cambridge. The guys are watching a film, we’ve been going through the Scanners trilogy – even though two and three are terrible. But the first one is ACE.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Wednesday December 1st, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Last week I got the opportunity to meet Jarvis Cocker, who, being a cosmopolitan type, is the “cultural ambassador” for Eurostar’s new Culture Connect initiative.

Culture Connect is all about encouraging you to use the proximity of cities like Paris and Brussels (or, er London, if you live over there) to get your fill of kultchah. Did you know that a Eurostar ticket can get you 2-for-1 entry to numerous artful places in The Abroads, like Cit

Sometimes, readership, you read a Q&A with a popstar and get the distinct impression that, when it comes to the interview, “their heart’s not in it”.

Like, say, when the questions they’re asked are considerably longer than the answers they give.

Anyway, on a completely separate matter here’s Daisy of Daisy Dares You almost-fame (right, after losing a contact lens) answering some tricky teasers from this webalog.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday March 8th, 2010 at 8:30 am

Hey, she said it. But to be fair to her, Bertie was a tad tired at the time. BUT NOT TOO TIRED TO CHAT TO JANE BRADLEY FOR THIS HERE BLOGAZINESITE.

They talked about Bertie’s ARIA-winning album Secrets and Lies (which is vay good), crushes on Fronch pop stars and, um, “nanimals”. BEHOLDIFY:

I became a bit smitten with Bertie Blackman while I was interviewing her. Not only is she infuriatingly talented, she

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday December 14th, 2009 at 9:20 pm

Flamboyant Bella are going to divide opinion over the next few months. They’re under 21, they’re “big on MySpace” and they’re another one of those acts who pronounce “no” as “noi”. You knoi, like Penate and Nash? They also have quite a knack for writing exuberant pop music, and might cheer up people who were a bit sad when

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday June 5th, 2009 at 12:07 pm

Cheeky cockney hip-pop sparra Jack Allsopp is better known to you – unless you are his Mum – as Just Jack. He’s got a not-bad-at-all single called “Embers” out at the moment, and has just hopped on board the Road To V wagon to mentor the bands who won the fans’ vote, as they attempt to become the act to open this year’s V Festival.

Alex Pullin went along to chat to Just Jack sparra for My Chemical Toilet, and nattered with him about why he doesn’t think much of Twitter, why Elton John calls him “at totally random times” and whether he’d perform a duet with Susan Boyle.

Continue reading for proof that I am not a stinking dirty lying liar, won’t you?
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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday May 5th, 2009 at 3:58 pm

Orange unsignedAct continues to crush bands’ dreams for our entertainment every weekend, bless its little heart. I spoke to Alex Zane about the show, Burt Reynolds and his approach to to playing Scouting For Girls records.

Hello Alex Zane. In this day and age, do bands really need reality TV exposure and a record deal to be successful?
Well, TV is just a different medium for bands to exploit. Bands like Arctic Monkeys used MySpace to launch their careers, and with MySpace you can be presented with a band as you lie in bed hungover on a Sunday morning. Orange unsignedAct does that as well at the moment.

What acts are you a fan of on Orange UnsignedAct ? I quite like Glass Shark, we’ve played them on the office stereo recently.
Glass Shark are really nice guys and I thought their song was fantastic. They’re out of the competition now though – they had other stuff bubbling under already for them, and acts on the show have to remain completely unsigned. They chose that option rather than to continue with the TV show.
There’s a great guy called Tommy Riley, from Glasgow. He’s a singer-songwriter with a passion onstage you don’t tend to see much nowadays. He’s only about twenty years old but he swallows all the atmosphere in a room and spits it back out. I love Hip Parade as well, they’re a really good rock n’ roll band.
Jolly good. Now, Orange is clearly the best mobile phone network in the galaxy.
I’ve heard that too.

If you were to enjoy an Orange Wednesday, who would it be with and what film would you go to see?

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday November 27th, 2008 at 11:02 am