Why You Shouldn't See The Fratellis.

The Fratellis are playing two shows at the Mercury Lounge starting this evening. Both of these are sold out. We hope you have had the sense to stay away. But for those who are planning to go, we implore you to go to the front door, burn your ticket, and walk away. (However, you probably have will call tickets, so you'll have to burn the part of the list that has your name. This will certainly be more difficult, but think of the statement you'll be making). Here's why:

The lowest common denominator breaks America.
I should have seen this from the beginning; this is how you break the States. In a perfect world, you wouldn't be hearing about these 10th generation Libertines thieves after their first six months of existence. The Libertines never made the splash they deserved (this may have had something to do with never being able to make a full tour here with all of the members of the band). Even the fantastic 2nd generation (Arctic Monkeys, we'll stretch it so we can add The View) haven't done as well as they should.

Here's the formula: Take a pioneering and defining band. Suck all the intelligence and life from them; add some vague, nonsensical lyrics, usually about "chicks" or "partying" ("Buy us some shoes and maybe take us for cola/We'll get you there in some filthy big gondola," "Lay yourself down by the side of the bed/Oh you naughty girl, you know you tickle me red"—well, they rhyme, I'll give them that), and you're ready to go. America awaits.

Why does this keep happening? Why Oasis over Blur or Pulp? Why Humble Pie over Small Faces? Why U2 over Echo and the Bunnymen? It's time to stop this before it begins.

Their name is a pop-culture reference to something we loved once, while we were young.
The Goonies is, to me, and certainly to many others of my generation, one of the finest movies ever made. There's lost treasure, abandoned pirate ships, and Sloth. There are elaborate door opening mechanisms, forced fat kid dancing, and Corey Feldman. And, of course, you know who the villainous gang was: The Fratellis. (Sloth is actually a Fratelli too, and has the closest physical resemblance to the band).

This, clearly, was part of their marketing plan. Count on us—the music-buying public (ha! Kidding—you guys don't buy music!)—to come with a preconceived warm feeling towards these guys simply because they brand themselves with a once-fond experience. Please, don't let them capitalize on our collective memories.

Per capita, Scotland produces more good bands than any other nation on earth. Go and support them.
This is an established fact. How can anyone not love the land that brought us Stephen Pastel, Edwyn Collins, and the Bay City Rollers? Besides the aforementioned View, there's always a constant array of brilliantness there: Belle & Sebastian. Franz Ferdinand. Sons & Daughters. 1990s. Bricolage. Popup. Butcher Boy. Camera Obscura. The list goes on and on. And all this without having a real parliament!

The Fratellis don't support these bands, but you should.

And look at those guys! Do you really want to see them?
I mean, you're not doing your eyes any favors here.


...ok, Chelsea Dagger is an alright song. But that's it!

So What Have We Been Doing?

Before we get any further, I'd just like to say that we'll catch up with America's Next Top Model very soon. This is not a permanent break, so there's no reason to toss yourself out of that window.

As we were saying, the close proximity of South by Southwest and um...Canadian Music Week has brought quite a few bands to this city in the past few days. We've tried to see as much as we can, but as we age we find it harder and harder to bring out the ear trumpet in order to listen to the squawks of these children and their guitars.


(It's just like this, of course.)

On to the shows!

Emma Pollock

(photo from UberDrivel)

We started off with Emma Pollock, formerly of the very underrated Delgados. Jena Malone and her Bloodstains opened the show, including a weirdly unsettling older guy playing the guitar. The whole thing seemed a bit disingenuous, with Jena playing the part of kooky confessional songwriter (sort of like My First Cat Power). That made it hard to really listen, which is probably just as well, since we're not terribly into kooky confessional songwriters in the first place. Emma, accompanied by a pianist, wrapped it up nicely. It's clear that she was the real talent in the Delgados, and it'll be great to hear these pretty folk songs in their fleshed-out full band versions.

Emma Pollock - Limbs


The Pipettes


Next, The Pipettes. First of all, it's important to note that if you don't think that The Brunette One is the cutest, then maybe you should find somewhere else to go. Also, she has the best voice. You need to admit that, too.

They put on a fantastic show. All the great songs from We Are The Pipettes and a few others. They danced around, not entirely coordinated, sloppy but charming. It was 45 minutes (including the encore break) of what indie-glamorous girl-group pop should be. In a different era they would've been on Sarah. Oh, and Pull Shapes was brilliant.



The Pipettes - Judy


The Good, the Bad and the Queen

(These photos and The Pipettes photos were taken from Music Snobbery)

Now, The Good, the Bad and the Queen—the best show of all. Possibly the best show that I've seen since I moved here. Ignoring the terrible circus performers who opened the show (a third-rate Jim Rose Circus Sideshow), it was practically perfect once the band came on stage. Damon looking like a down-at-the-heels vaudevillian, Paul like a preening 60s East End gangster (and using the same bass he played in The Clash). They played the whole album in order, played an instrumental and one song with Syrian rapper Estan (who's really from Brixton, but we're not geography majors here) for the encore.

Whatever you think of the record (we think it's amazing), the songs really came to life live. There was new depth added and they brought a little more energy to it. They were ridiculously bass-heavy, but it's not a guitar band (must be why Simon Tong looked so bored). It's still mood music, but this time Albarn's paean to a depressed, broken England was strangely celebratory.

The Good, the Bad and the Queen - Herculean (live)




Pop Levi


Last, the Live From London show—The Holloways, Tunng, Pop Levi, and Winterkids, where I learned that my powers of prediction are usually right. I assumed Pop Levi would blow the rest off stage, that The Holloways would be fun but not amazing, and that the other two might be good, but probably wouldn't have much to offer me.

Pop Levi was, after a shaky minute and a half (where I thought they might actually be bad), were fantastic. They seem to think that in order to improve the songs live, they should be played for twice (almost three times, actually) as long as on the record. Bizarrely, they were right—once that druggy T. Rex/Velvet Underground groove got going, it was unstoppable. His vocal similarities to Marc Bolan were even more pronounced live (it's that almost-falsetto vibrato). It's hard to describe a band that sounds like this without resorting to Lester Bangs clichés, so I'll leave it at that. Just keep in mind that you're not really going to get this band without seeing them live.

As for the rest? The Holloways were a drunken good time, a band to enjoy in the moment, but that shouldn't be taken too seriously. Tunng is a Windham Hill group with electronics. (Apparently glitchy beats make Sounds of the Rainforest palatable to indie ears—I mean, come on. They used a rain stick! Unforgivable!). The Winterkids—well, their singer is ridiculous, they played that Tape It song that's alright, but not their best—The One That The Girl Sings (it might be called Who Am I Kidding?, though). They're a little too indebted to emo and alterna-pop-punk, but they're young, so give them some time and they may improve (yes, I'm in a giving mood today).

Pop Levi - Sugar Assault Me Now

The View Reschedule Tour

Some good news from The View this time. From NME:

The View have announced dates for their rescheduled tour of the US and Canada.
The tour will kick off in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 30 and continue until mid-May.
The Scottish indie rockers will promoting their debut album 'Hats Off To The Buskers', which is to be released Stateside on March 13.
The View cancelled their originally planned US tour back in February citing 'unforeseen visa issues and immigration trouble'.

Perhaps their network of 10-year-old drug dealers was less widespread than we thought? Here are the full tour dates:

APRIL
30 Cambridge, MA - TT The Bear's
MAY
01 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
02 Brooklyn, NY - Luna Lounge
04 Toronto, ON - Lee's Palace
06 Chicago, IL - Schubas Tavern
08 West Hollywood, CA - Troubadour
10 San Francisco, CA - Slim's
12 Vancouver, BC - The Plaza Club
13 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe
15 Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge

Eagle*Seagull in Paris

Remember Eagle*Seagull? They were the recipients of some blog buzz around this time last year, but they got lost in the shuffle for newer and newer bands (also, they haven't released anything in a while). Their Cure/Arcade Fire mesh should have pushed them along further than it did—this may change when a new record is out (sometime in 2007).

The fantastic French blog Blogotheque will occasionally host what they call Take Away Shows, or Concerts À Emporter, with Eagle*Seagull being the latest. They film the bands performing acoustically in public places, usually without warning anyone. It's a great idea, and these guys pull it off well. The actual songwriting is brought forth—which could clearly be a disaster for some people—and the songs benefit from these lower-key performances, without all their usual orchestral rigmarole on top of them. I'll put the mp4 files here, but you're not doing yourself any favors if you don't watch the videos.

Eagle*Seagull - Death Could Be At Your Door

Eagle*Seagull - Holy

Um...huh?

I have occasionally wondered what an "England Gay Marlow Lesbian Directory" would look like (having not had the time or the proclivities to write one myself)—only to find out that it would look exactly like this blog. Oh, live and learn, I suppose.

(Oh, by the way, the direct link takes you to an "adult" page, so you may not want to try it yourself.)

Pete and Carl, together in marriage.

It's been a while since we've mentioned our dear friend Peter Doherty around this place. So then, it looks like if he gets married (to Kate Moss), he wants Carl Barat to be his best man. Great news, right? Well, it would be if any reliable source was reporting it. Even the NME, bastion of responsible journalism, seems to have taken the story down from their website (the Google news link to this takes you to a blank page). From Gigwise, for what it's worth (it's all from the Daily Mirror in the first place, so you know how that is):

"In an interview with the Daily Mirror, Barat said: 'We had a heart to heart the other day and at the end of the conversation, Pete asked me to be his best man.'

He continued: 'I was shocked but delighted. I’m really touched that after all we've been through together we could finally put it all behind us and move on.'

It’s thought that the wedding will take place abroad this summer. Pete said in a previous interview that him and Kate are planning 'a special wedding somewhere miles from anywhere and anyone. But the fucking police have taken away my passport. We can’t wait, it’ll be beautiful.'

Close pal Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream also said the wedding 'might mean I have to drop out of a festival but I’d do that for Kate.'"

The View Are On Fire (and drugs)

Bad news for The View. From the BBC:

"The lead singer of chart-topping rock band The View has been fined £1,000 for possessing cocaine.

Kyle Falconer's conviction will make it "next to impossible" for the group to tour the US, his solicitor said. ...

Mr Boyle, who said the singer had not taken any of the substance, asked for an absolute discharge, as a conviction would make it hard for the singer to get a visa to tour North America.

He added that The View had turned down £1m for a jeans commercial and the launch of the band's hit album, Hats Off To The Buskers, had already been delayed in the US."

I'm hoping he just said that to get him off, but I'm afraid that it's probably true. The two Mercury Lounge shows they played were brilliant, and it would be a shame for the band to not be able to return. What's even worse is that the band forces children to deal drugs for them, like some sort of four-piece teenage Fagin. At least, that's what The Daily Record tells me:

"KIDS as young as 10 are being arrested in Scotland for dealing hard drugs including heroin and cocaine. ...

The figures come after Dundee band, the View postponed a trip to the US after singer Kyle Falconer was fined £1000 for cocaine possession. ...

Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency chief Graeme Pearson said: 'Kyle Falconer has an opportunity to put it behind him and choose whether he is going to be a drug abuser or a musician of note. But he can't be both.'"

Because the two are mutually exclusive, of course.

ANTM: We Are Tyrafied, part 2

(N.B.: Read part 1 first.)



We've finally made it to the real first episode. Our girls are standing out on Hollywood Boulevard, bring narrated by the depressingly dim Kathleen ("As we're walking we see this like motorcycle thing with like this big sign on the back of it..."). Jay Manuel (who's now billed as the "photo shoot creative director." Is this a step up or a step down?) arrives to squire them off to their first photo shoot.

And what a photo shoot it is! For the first time, politics enters ANTM's Ivory Tower of Art and Beauty—and, frankly, it's about time. It was irresponsible of them to go this far without acknowledging the cultural currents of our changing world. We are at war, people. Each model is assigned a different political viewpoint, and has an entire philosophy boiled down to a single, powerful image. (Take that Tocqueville!—you know, I might have opened Das Kapital if it had more pictures of hot sexy ladies.) This is what political science should look like (these represent pro-fur and anti-gun, of course):



Not only is there all of this, but the photos are taken by our own World Famous Fashion Photographer, Nigel Barker. Kathleen on Nigel: "I think every model wants to date Nigel Barker, because he's so tall!" They go off to get made up, and Renee mentions that she has more determination than the other girls, since she is a mother, and needs to provide for her son.



And so it goes. Nigel is disappointed in Sarah's performance, but I detect a note of jealousy in his criticisms. Clearly, he is a bit worried about the old-beyond-her-years (20 going on 26), hungry fashion photographer/model/(and as we later learn) actress. She's "done everything." The world is at her feet, so Nigel's envy should be forgiven. Who among us isn't jealous of her?

Their first competition is at Goodwill (in Silverlake, a short distance from our old LA home). They're joined by stylist Phillip Bloch, who goes on to explain that every minute Goodwill places someone who is vocationally challenged into a new job. (Vocationally Challenged seems to be a euphemism for Unemployed. Must we go this far? I mean, I know a lot of Vocationally Challenged people.) Jael is the winner of this one. Renee doesn't think it's fair, doesn't think Jael is being real, and wonders if she will take off her face and reveal her mask.

It's the first final judgment, and Tyra greets our Top Models with the bizarre honorific "Miss Ladies." All our judges are a little disappointed with the photo shoot results. From there on, it's standard boilerplate judging (we get a lot of Tyra's commenting on how she manages to pull through her difficult life and gets results, so they should too), although, thankfully, Twiggy seems to be a bit meaner this time. The final two are Jael and Kathleen; Jael is afraid to succeed, and Kathleen has "lost the map."



In the end, Jael does succeed, and gets some comforting words from Tyra, our thunder-thighed pirate queen. Kathleen leaves, but she too can take comfort from these words from Nigel: "Everybody loves a loser!"

ANTM: We Are Tyrafied, part 1

Bear with me—it's been a while since I've done one of these. This last season (or cycle) was a disaster. I could hardly bring myself to watch it, let alone think about it. I wanted nothing to do with that sinking ship. Firstly, there was that strike. Secondly, the over-the-top ridiculousness that had once been charming had hardened into something shrill and off-putting. Our Top Models were a sad bunch, and the judges weren't much better. It looked like the death knell for what had been the Greatest Show on Television. But count Tyra out at your peril, people.



So let's get started. This was a brilliant opening; I don't know what happened, but it's like they never left. After a brief beginning of Tyra self-love, we're dropped straight into Model Boot Camp. The two Jays are in charge (clearly on leave as the leaders of the lavender army), and they do some perfunctory berating as a preview for the main attraction. Tyra bursts in, "stepping" (I guess it's not feminine to call it stomping, or Stomp!ing), to the ecstatic glee of the girls. She spouts a few famous lines from war movies, finally acknowledging her similarities to Colonel Kilgore (they're both lunatics, mainly).

Since this is the first episode, it's extra long, and the first half is made up of turning the finalists into the chosen. We'll ignore most of the failures here (poor tattooed Micheline!), simply because the real Top Models we get are that amazing. Thanks to the editors, we get the major characters conveniently mapped out for us, and it's three that we're really concerned with here. First we have Sarah.



A bit vampiric (those teeth!), but probably the Mia Farrow-type that Tyra's been looking for. In a way she's like Elyse—except that she's not self-aware, clever, or as cute—with a dash of Lisa. She's a fashion photographer, is "20 going on 26" (I still can't figure out what that means, 26 is not the age where one gets wisdom beyond one's years, or, in fact, maturity), and has already done a Chanel show. In Cleveland. (Where all the new faces are breaking, of course.) In fact, we might as well already crown her the winner.

Next, Natasha (last name probably not Fatale).



How sad do you have to be to be a 21-year-old Eastern European without a modeling contract? (I mean, really. Where do they find these people?) Well, I'll explain—you have to be a mail order bride. It seems that, at the age of 18, she was sold to a 38-year-old in Dallas. All we can hope for is that she makes it to the episode where they bring a relative on and he's the one (although it will probably be her weird cousin from Brighton Beach or something). She's fantastic—I expect great things from her.

Finally, Jael (who looks a bit like that girl from 24).



Three reasons why she's important—first, she's biracial and thinks that we don't spend enough time thinking about our similarities. As humans. (Indeed we don't!) Second, she's an insanely emotional crybaby, and you need one of those on the show. Livens things up. Third, and most importantly, she's already got naked pictures up on the internet. (Yay! NSFW, of course.)

It almost doesn't need to be said, but since Tyra is suddenly pro...largesse (I know that's not what it means, but the real word would be sad), there are two plus-sized models on the show. We'll see how that works out. We all know how hard it is to change the fashion industry...

The Brianstorm Reaction

And of course, the brand-new Arctic Monkeys song was going to get people going. The general verdict? "It sounds like the Klaxons—same producer, you know..."

From the Guardian's unsigned blog:

"It's a good track too, even without a chorus, which - according to people who know Alex Needham - the rest of the songs on the album don't have either. Instead, it has a frenetic, ascending guitar duel which sounds like a cross between Telstar, Mogwai and the Monkeys' own When the Sun Goes Down. There's even a little bit of Klaxons in the melody too...producer, James Ford [&cetera, &cetera]..."

From Stereogum:

"...it's a fuzzier, more intense, post-Klaxons sound we're hearing from the Sheffield lads."

From I Predict A Riot (or, as I call it Je Prévois Une Émeute):

"J'entends dire de-ci de-là que le son de cette prochaine production sera à la fois plus lourd, plus brut et plus délicat... une sorte de mélange entre KLAXONS et THE SMITHS."

Finally, the well-informed critical minds of the Arctic Monkeys Forum:

"fucking thunder. that song was fucking thunder."

Indeed it is—the mp3 is here.