Of course it rained. But just a few showers here and there. Not enough to dampen spirits at this incredibly chilled, family friendly festival. Latitude prides itself on being much more than a music festival (though Blondie were excellent Sunday night and Sigur Ros, were, er, atmospheric on Saturday night if you like that sort of thing). But to be honest much of my time was spent pond dipping and walking in the woods with my five year old son as well as admiring the coloured sheep - though sadly they weren’t available in blue and yellow this year. CLICK ON THE MAIN IMAGE TO SEE THE OTHERS

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday July 21st, 2008 at 12:45 pm

I was going to write this piece in a faux-valley girl blogger style, but what’s the point? Courtney Love’s rambling MySpace open letters are waaay beyond parody.
At the moment she’s accusing Ryan Adams of using $858,000 of her daughter’s money to produce his 2003 album Rock n’Roll, and boy does she want payback. Now, when Courtney discovered this little fiscal irregularity she was going through the statements for her TWENTY-NINE credit cards, so that gives you an idea of how she lost track.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday July 21st, 2008 at 12:35 pm

I might just leave a little pause here so you can get your head around that doozy of a headline.
SO. NME has a report of Kele Okereke’s account of what happened at the Summercase festival in Spain. The Bloc Party frontman has had no hesitation in accusing John Lydon and his associates of a race-related physical attack, which, if true, is obviously a) depressing, and b)… well, a)’s probably enough to be going on with.
Foals and Kaiser Chiefs were apparently on hand to break up the scuffle, with Foals singer Yannis Philippakis then doing his rock cred no harm at all by relating his subsequent handcuffing to the crowd at the following day’s Latitude festival.
The incident has since been reported to both Spanish and UK police.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday July 21st, 2008 at 11:51 am

- Uncut magazine reported from the, er, Uncut Arena at Latitude. Sebastien Tellier to the crowd: “You’re very nice people but so fat and ugly.”
- Some rather nice punter photos from Latitude thanks to Kill Ugly Pop
- The Telegraph was also at Latitude, where its writer was dismayed by The Mars Volta’s onstage patter

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday July 21st, 2008 at 10:30 am

We can pretend otherwise, but we all know that nowadays festival time is as much its own little fashion season as it is a period in which to enjoy music. And I don’t think I’m being sexist when I say that the gender most keen on festival fashion is the woman-shaped one.

So with that I’m going to round up some of the various festival-related fashion bits and bobs that my esteemed Shiny Media colleagues have covered in recent times.

This is going to be a bit like that scene in the clothes store in Pretty Woman! Fun times! *claps hands and jumps up and down*

Let’s start off with a very popular lady named Cath Kidston…

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday July 18th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

Imani Coppola is a name I’ve heard mentioned a lot, but I couldn’t rightly tell you whether I’ve heard anything she’s done - I don’t think she ever really made it big on this side of the pond.
Nowadays she’s one half of Little Jackie, the other half being a DJ/programmer type named Adam Pallin. I heard their single “The World Should Revolve Around Me” for the first time less than 24 hours ago, and I’m a bit obsessed with it.
“The World…” combines vintage soul, R&B, classic sunny “vibeyness” and amusing lyrics. The result is a level of upliftment that makes you wonder how it can be anything other than GARGANTUAN this summer.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday July 18th, 2008 at 10:18 am

MySpace’s impressive record of presenting you with opportunities to listen to albums before their release date continues…
Primal Scream’s Beautiful Future and CSS’s Donkey aren’t officially released until 21st July, but both are streaming right now at the bands’ respective MySpace pages.
It’s interesting, I probably wouldn’t have sought out the Scream’s new album, but when it’s so easy to give it a listen - as I am currently doing - it seems churlish not to. With CSS, I just need to learn how to say their album title without going all Charlie Chuck.
Both bands play this weekend’s Summercase festival in Spain, with CSS returning to the UK next month for the Carling Weekend and Bestival.
Visit Primal Scream’s MySpace
Visit CSS’s MySpace

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday July 18th, 2008 at 8:30 am

- Let’s get the weather out of the way:
Latitude: Looks like showers Friday and Saturday; sunny with cloudy spells Sunday. Temperature 18°C - 21°C
Lovebox: Er… rain. 19°C - 21°C
Glade: Similar to Latitude (hey, at least it won’t be as bad as last year… hopefully). 17°C - 20°C
[source: BBC Weather]

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday July 17th, 2008 at 12:13 pm

There are a lot of lovely things for the music lover to see and do at festivals, but there are also usually some eejits around to abuse your sensitive lugs. Drunken buskers who think they’re the new Pete Doherty. Some crew of religious nutters. Keane.
Well now you can take your own frickin’ music along, thank you very much, and you won’t need to worry about battery power because this wee box runs on MAGICAL SUNRAYS. Or solar power.
The pretty little Roberts solarDAB is the world’s first solar-powered DAB radio, and provides up to 27 hours of music juice.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday July 17th, 2008 at 11:12 am

Have you got that Feeling-soundtracked Toyota Auris ad out of your head yet? You know, the one with “Join With Us” playing over the top as the band “rock out” in a glove compartment? Me neither, which is a shame really, because the insanely popular drivetime residents are about to embark on a whole new brand-related publicity thingy.
In association with Intel® Centrino®, The Feeling are going to create a music video for their new single “from the drawing board to the small screen in just 24 hours”.
They’re going to be using Intel® technology to do it, of course, hence the brand alignment. I just hope all the people involvedare 100% focused, because get me within 1 metre of a laptop and my first instinct isn’t work but rather Facebook, Twitter, Hype Machine, YouTube, Cat Prin…

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday July 17th, 2008 at 9:54 am