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Thursday, August 3, 2000 --- 08:58 p.m.
Will The Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up: it's supposed to be Christina Aguilera dissing back Eminem with a version of The Real Slim Shady with altered lyrics - and Dr Dre did... everything you idiot without Dre's beats yr as good as dead and of course yr song is on my nerves, yr song is on my nerves, yr kinda lucky cuz you got more fame than you deserve - but it seems in reality it just some scam put together by some radiostation or other. It's still pretty hilarious and lots funnier than that Eminem vs Britney remix a while back. I got the track off Napster but it's also available on this site. Sadly that guy sort of misses the point and takes it all seriously and rants humourlessly against Eminem.
J Mascis soloalbum released in october: I must admit that although I'm a big Dinosaur Jr I never bought his first solo-album, Martin & Me. Mostly because it was more of an acoustic affair and I think J. Mascis songs (and voice and guitarplaying) are more suitable for loud consumption. This one, called New Light, is supposed to be more like the old Dinosaur Jr we all know and love. But, let's face it, the last couple of Dinosaur Jr albums were sort of J. Mascis solo-albums already. His new moniker by the way is J. Mascis & the Fog and on this album he gets some help from Kevin Shields and Guided By Voices' Robert Pollard. I must say I'm really looking forward to it. What worries me a bit though is that I have never heard of any of the other bands on Ultimatum, his current label, except for Dogstar, and that's that crap band Keanu Reeves is in...
Friday, July 28, 2000 --- 12:10 p.m.
Oh, yes!! Shampoo - the original Daphne & Celeste and proclaimers of Girl Power long before the Spice Girls - are back with a new album!! Actually, I mentioned this already ages ago (scroll down to may 28th) but it's now official 'cause it's in the nme, like. Since they haven't got a recordcompany they will release their new album Absolute Shampoo via their shampoo.org.uk website and just like with the rest of their oeuvre most songs are written by the guys from St. Etienne. Anyway, to celebrate this great news I just played the Girl Power single very loud, twice, and played airguitar along to it and then I put the We Are Shampoo album on, also very loud, and embarrasingly I still knew all the words to Trouble.
Don't know how long it's been there, but I noticed there the 9th edition of British fanzine Quirk is online. You can download it (for free) as a pdf-file and it contains interviews with the Fighting Cocks, Ciccone, the Pocket Rockets and Venus In Furs and the usual reviews and ranting.
Tuesday, July 25, 2000 --- 11:15 a.m.
Some links I stole from the paper edition of CMJ New Music Monthly
* Donna's Domain: übergroupie Donna Anderson tells all. Check The Long And Short Of It: The Official Penis Chart for every bit of juicy information about your favourite Dokken, Skid Row or (ex-)Motley Crue drummer or bassplayer you probably never wanted to know.
* Backstreet Boys Fan Fiction Yellow Pages: links to 1133(!!) sites with Backstreet fanfiction. Scary, eh?
Monday, July 24, 2000 --- 06:03 p.m.
Some Frank Black news: his next official album Dog In The Sand will not be released until the end of January 2001. On some of the tracks Joey Santiago (ex-Pixies) plays guitar and there'll be a single a couple of weeks earlier. In the mean time he's got a track called Pray For The Girls on the soundtrack for the cartoonseries Powerpuff Girls. The album also includes songs by bis, Devo, Cornelius, Apples In Stereo, Shonen Knife and more. At the moment he has also got a internet-only album out collecting b-sides and bonustracks and such called Oddballs. There's some info supplied by Frank himself over at Emusic - where you can also download the titletrack for free as an mp3 - and he describes every song with one line beginning with trying to be... So Hate Me (off the bonus-cd that came free with Teenager Of The Year), You Never Heard About Me (b-side of Men In Black) ánd Everybody Got That Beat (off the bonus-cd that came free with Cult Of Ray) are trying to be Strummer; Announcement (another of the Men In Black b-sides) is trying to be Daltrey, etcetera...
I also noticed there's a new Fonda 500 album. It seems this band from Hull (they were discovered by the people from Salako) likes to keep itself busy because this year saw already the release of their (21-song) debutalbum 8-Track Sound System ánd a 7"-single called Eight Track with 3 new (as in: not on the album) tracks. Anyway, the new album is called The Autumn Winter Collection and features another dozen of songs. I haven't heard it yet, but I certainly will try to hunt down a copy because I'm really into their other stuff. They sound a bit like Cornelius nicking all the catchy bits from bands such as Grandaddy and the Super Furry Animals. There's not much in the way of songstructure just loads of beautiful melodies with occasional funny noisies (mostly farmanimals it seems). And they were even better live when I saw them earlier this year even though the singer was acting really strange; he seemed to be falling asleep most of time and couldn't sit up straight behind his keyboard. At the time I suspected drugs (Amsterdam + foreign people acting strange = usually drugs), but I was later told that he is diabetic and had a full litre of chocolatemilk a couple of hours before the gig and didn't realise how much sugar that contained...
Sunday, July 23, 2000 --- 08:34 p.m.
Spend the afternoon (while watching the last stage of the tour de france) making a mixtape for my brother who is going to New York for a couple of weeks in a few days. There's no hidden meaning in the songtitles and/or lyrics just lots of (cheesy) pop, some old-fashioned rock'n'roll, some modernistic, electronic sounds etcetera. There was some attention given to flow, but not more than picking an attention-grabbing opener on both sides and making sure a really upbeat song isn't followed by a very calm one. I always think it needs a couple of steps to do that. Putting Mazzy Star straight after Hirameka Hifi wouldn't have worked so I put something in between. Anyway, it was an afternoon well spend and this is the result.
Brigitte Bardot - Saint Tropez (from A Song For Eurotrash)
Cylob - Living In The 1980's
Belle & Sebastian - Winter Wooskie
Broadcast - Papercuts
Echoboy - Kit And Holly
Brassy - Work It Out
Sean Na Na - Princess And The Pony
Dixie Cups - People Say
Legowelt & Orgue Electronique - Infopop
Clinic - Distortions
Barcelona - Studio Hair Gel (Baxendale mix)
Katerine - Je Vous Emmerde (from Atomium 3003)
King Biscuit Time - A Little White
Lambchop - Up With People (Zero 7 Dub mix)
Sukia - The Dream Machine
Spearmint - Sweeping The Nation
Badly Drawn Boy - Stone In The Water
Mondo Crescendo - Check It On Out
Queens Of The Stoneage - The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret
Sleater Kinney - Leave You Behind
Noonday Underground - London
Hirameka Hifi - The Formalists
Txarly Brown + Business Class - Novosound Phonicsystem (from Poptics)
Mazzy Star - Cry Cry
Gnac - Armchair Thriller
Saturday, July 22, 2000 --- 05:55 p.m.
I must admit it's been a while since I contributed something to musicwebzine TheKindaMuzikYouLike. There are still some half-finished articles on my harddisc and a couple of times I've started preparing to record another realaudio radioshow, but not yet had the time to finish any of those. But they seem to be doing pretty well without me. Currently there's an interview with Jeff Mills, a labelprofile of Merge records, a short, sort of tour diary from Idlewild, lots of new music in realaudio in TheKindaRadioYouLike and reviews, of course.
Sheep-Zine is another Dutch musicwebzine that chose to publish in English. They too have got reviews, but also a list of the 100 best records of the last century, something about the Posies and Belle & Sebastian's Tigermilk. In their article about Napster Sheep-Zine go for the argument that music should be free and artists should seek for other means of creating revenues such as merchandising and giving concerts. A rubbish argument of course, because this assumes music is something that should be possible to be recreated live, whereas there are (and in musichistory, were) lots of artists who are better off hidden in the studio recording brilliant popsongs. Besides, touring is a profiting business for only a handful of bands. The Rolling Stones's, Bruce Springsteen's and Metallica's of this world. Most (American) bands that come to Europe get tour support from their record companies, because they see it as promotion to sell albums.
In the mean time, Americans seem to have some sort of a problem telling the difference between Denmark and the Netherlands. From FSOA:
After investigation into the deaths at the Roskilde Festival, Dutch police are the pointing the finger at Pearl Jam according to NME.com.
From Kickbright, about a split 7" the Fur Tips did together with the Marmoset:
They play quirky indie rock, guitars and blips from a circus sounding keyboard with boys and girls singing in a really heavy Danish accent.
You see, the Fur Tips are from the Netherlands and Roskilde is, of course, in Denmark. And no, that's not the same country.
Wednesday, July 19, 2000 --- 03:39 p.m.
Dance music is the new rock. The internet is the new MTV. Revolution, it's a brand new magazine that I found on the shelves of the American Bookstore here in Amsterdam the other day, and, as far as I know, it's the first proper, American magazine dedicated to dance music, you know house and techno and stuff. Have not had the time yet yo read it all extensively but at a first glance it looks a bit like (British) magazines like Muzik. There are pages with news at the beginning, there's some room for stuff on fashion and gadgets. In the interviews it seems rather eclectic in the artists it covers - Paul Van Dyk, Pete Tong, Thievery Corporation but also Kelis, Femi Kuti and Jurassic 5 for instance. Featurewise there's an article explaining the history of dance music graphically and a story on the 70's New York Disco scene. Compared to some of the other dancemusicmagazines the focus seems to be more on the music itself. I must admit I haven't seen Muzik or Mixmag recently, but there's always lots of stuff about parties and, especially this time of year, about having it large on Ibiza, but there's none of that in Revolution. As the quote on the cover I used above says there's also a lot of internetstuff. There's an article on ravewebzine Huge and all the other articles come with loads of links. There's even a feature where they've selected 13 dance-y tracks you can find to download on the net and you're supposed to burn them on a cd and they supply you with a cover with a tracklisting and such for this cd. Typically, their own website isn't much cop (yet?), although it seems you can get a free trial copy (but only if you live in the US I think). The main reason I bought the magazine is because it came with 2 free cd's but to be honest they both leave a lot to be desired. Judging on the basis of the first one - with watery, weak soulful house-y stuff from A:xus and R-Tyme - the Americans have a lot of catching up to do. And on the same disc LTJ Bukem proves jungle is dead as the proverbial dodo with an incredible weak r&b track called Sunrain. The other cd is a tad better, because a compilation from the Thievery Corporation's 18th Street Lounge label: some nice jungle-y bits, and triphop-ish, bossa nova and dubby things in a relaxed lounge-y atmosphere so to speak. What struck me most about the magazine though is the small amount of reviews. If you look at magazines like Muzik or Jockey Slut there's loads of them. With special corners where 12"'s in all kinds of specialised genres are reviewed, but here it's just a handful of album reviews and nothing more. So, it's pretty interesting to experience how the Americans handle this sort of thing but in the end I just don't belong to their target audience so I don't think I will be buying in regularly.
Friday, July 14, 2000 --- 10:23 a.m.
The State Of Independence: interview (by Keith Cameron) with Dick Green and Mark Bowen both formerly of Creation about their newest project, Wichita Recordings. First signings are American indiebands Bright Eyes and Her Space Holiday and Brave Captain, ie Martin Carr, ex-Boo Radleys.
Sunday, July 9, 2000 --- 09:44 a.m.
There were a lot of contenders for the title Single Of The Year So Far so I divided them into four different categories:
best pop-single:
Their most recent single was a cover of a Fishbone-song (U.G.L.Y) and their next one is gonna be a version of Alice Cooper's School's Out but as far as I'm concerned Daphne & Celeste will never top their Ooh, Stick You. Two twentysomethings pretending to be fifteen-year-old schoolgirls calling each other and everybody else names. That's about it. Musically it makes Terrorvision's Tequila sound like a Nick Cave murderballad. Mandy Moore with Candy only makes it unto a second place for a) being a second rate Jessica Simpson or a third rate Britney and b) having a songtitle that rhymes with her first name. Nu Generation also reaches for the top spot in vain with In Your Arms (Rescue Me) because a) being a Fatboy Slim ripoff and b) stealing a large portion of Aretha Franklin's Rescue Me. Still, both great popsongs. And finally I would like to mention Will I Ever by Alice Deejay in this category, just because.
best r&b-single:
Only a genius like Timbaland would think of building a r&b-track around a bubbling acidbleep. So, Aaliyah's Try Again is the obvious winner here. Runners up: Pink with Here You Go and Destiny's Child with Say May Name, that last one especially because of that bit just before the chorus where everything goes twice as fast all of a sudden. The consolation price for best male r&b single goes to TQ and Daily, mainly because of using the same sample as Biz Markie's Just A Friend (or something that sounds just like it anyway). And how could we forgot Sisqo's Thong Song??
best rap-single:
Easy. Because of that killer wobbly bassline - sounding like one of Warren G's g-funk bleeps has a severe case of diarrhea - plus those simple but effectif beats, shout-a-long chorus and conscious lyrics (see also: Jeru Tha Damaja's Ya Playin Yaself) it's Dead Prez and Hiphop. Bubbling under the mighty Eminem, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg, usually in somesort of combination, with The Real Slim Shady, Forget About Dre and Still D.R.E.
best indie-single:
As OP8 (together with Lisa Germano) they resorted to using a song written by the master himself - Lee Hazlewood - but with The Ballad Of Cable Hogue Calexico proved they could do it themselves just as good. A wonderful pseudo-Lee&Nancy duet with a ominous spagetthiwestern atmosphere with extra points for having a incomprehensible (and tuneless) moaning Française doing the Nancy-part and spooky lyrics. Honourable mentions for Sean Na Na who, with Princess And The Pony, wrote this year's best Elliott Smith-song, and Belle & Sebastian who, in Legal Man, tried to rework the musical Hair into a Northern Soul stomper.
Saturday, July 1, 2000 --- 07:09 p.m.
Some links for today:
* The Modesto Invasion: article in the San Fransisco Weekly about the city that gave us Grandaddy.
* another Les Savy Fav live-review
* Slim Shady World: apparently Slim's launching somesort of an animated web-cartoonseries. It will start somewhere mid July and will consist of 26 episodes. At least, that was what Davey D's newsletter said: my browser keeps crashing when I try to visit the site...
Friday, June 30, 2000 --- 09:04 a.m.
Oops, the real Slim Shady did it again: Britney meets Eminem in illegal remix. It's the Napster-hit of the moment and it's, well, not very good really. Someone has, rather amateurishly, put Em's rhymes - the clean version even, all the fuck's and other 'rude' words are removed - over the instrumental version of Britney's Oops I Did It Again. Funny to hear once, but nothing more. Maybe I've downloaded the wrong track, there are a couple of more Britney vs Eminem's on Napster. This is something done by DJ Gauffie, but there's also a My Name Is Crazy by DJ HiBass available. Anyway, while I was downloading said track somebody was downloading a file called 'journey_rothko' from my computer. It's a (fragment of a) song by Rothko - spacey English postrock - but I've got a feeling there's now a Journey-fan somewhere out there who thinks he's got a very rare track of his favourite band on his hands... You've gotta love Napster.
Thursday, June 29, 2000 --- 09:43 a.m.
Because of tonight's Netherlands v Italy semi-final I thought I try and find out what kind of bands our manager Frank Rijkaard is into at the moment. I remember from years ago when he was a guest at a radioprogramme where he played all his favourite music that he was very much into stuff like the Pixies, Frank Black and the Breeders. Sadly I got fed up with looking at all kinds of boring Euro2000-pages very soon and the only thing I had found out so far is that he's also a bit of a Morrissey/Smiths fan. His favourite songs are Half A Person and Bigmouth.
Q Crossword: too bad it's not the NME that has put his crossword online, because Q is a bit of an old people's musicmagazine. So clues like First name of Manic Wire (5) en Nick Heyward had 100 of them (7) I can solve - Nicky en Haircut of course - but I have no idea what to make of Jo Jo Gunne's only hit implored this thrice or many of the others.
Wednesday, June 28, 2000 --- 07:45 p.m.
Surreal moment in today's episode of Neighbours on the BBC:
Tad & Simone in the coffeeshop admiring their recent record-purchases (on vinyl even) and talking about music:
Tad: Oh man, I wish we got that Mogwai remixes album.
Simone: I know... Do they rule or what?
Tad: They rule!
I had to watch the rerun later in the afternoon just to be sure, but they really said it. Some scenes later they were playing the records they díd buy but that was bit disappointing, because rather generic techno nonsense; sounded vaguely like a cheap Prodigy-rip-off. Neighbours is simply thé coolest soap around. Remember, over the years they've already given us Kylie (and Danii) Minogue and Natalie Imbruglia. And ages ago there was a scene where one of the Pet Shop Boys walked into Ramsey Street being lost and getting directions from Madge. Only As The World Turns comes close because Lauryn Hill had a small part in it, somewhere at the time of the first Fugees album. As I recall she even sung some stuff on a couple of occasions but only the usual soppy soap-fodder, but still.
Monday, June 26, 2000 --- 10:52 p.m.
Spend most of the weekend in front of the teevee watching the Glastonbury festival on BBC2. As a bit of a musicsnob I never really understood the 'don't care what band is playing, we're here for the vibe, máááán'-attitude that seems to go with festivalaudiences. I rather go and see a paricular band in a club filled with people who also came down to see this particular band. But maybe that's got something to do with my experiences at Dutch festivals such as Pinkpop and Lowlands, who feature predominantely 'alternative rock'-acts: Korn and Moby, and sometimes something like 16 Horespower, but that's as eclectic as it gets. But Glastonbury really seems to have something for everyone. Over the weekend - on the couch in front of the teevee - I enjoyed bits of Ladysmith Black Mamboza, David Bowie (with a very curious hairdo), Elastica, Willie Nelson, Travis (still doing their version of Hit Me Baby One More Time; lovely!!), Bentley Rhythm Ace, Kelis (doing a godawful version of Smells Like Teen Spirit), the very glamorous Pet Shop Boys and much, much more. And, as Billy Bragg - one of the presenters - kept telling us: you can even go the whole weekend without seeing a band enjoying all the sideshow stuff (although most of it seemed to be a lot of hippie nonsense). And it was nice to see there were so few crowdsurfers. That would be absolutely unthinkable here in The Netherlands. There is some sort of natural law that whenever there is at least one guitar on stage there are hoards of people who think lying on top of other people putting their muddy, heavy boots in their faces is a good idea. Which, of course, it is absolutely not.
I've still got some stuff on video I haven't seen yet but I think Ozomatli must have been my highlight of the (teevee-coverage of the) festival. They manage to avoid all the cliches and pitfalls of the jamming funkrap genre by injecting a hefty dose of cuban and carribean flavour into their music. They looked like they were having an absolutely great time on the stage and that feeling certainly spilled over onto the audience. I have got their cd actually (bought it mainly because some guys from Jurassic 5 are involved) but haven't played it in a while because I didn't really know what to think of it at the time. Maybe I will get it now, now that it's summer and now that I've (at least partly) seen how they do it live.
But there was other interesting stuff on as well, also on BBC2 by the way. Saturday afternoon they repeated the documentary about John Peel that was shown originally as part of the John Peel Night a while ago. So I had seen it before, but I still find it enormously fascinating. As an amateur radiomaker myself
John Peel is one of my big inspirations. Sadly his weekly 30minute show on BBC World Service seems to have disappeared, but I try to tune in to his regular, three times a week Radio1 show via realaudio whenever I can. About the documentary: I really like hearing things like how he categorises all the stuff he listens to: everything he likes and wants to play on the radio - he has three shows a week and hardly ever plays the same song twice - gets an asterix. One asterix is 'might play on the radio', two is 'should play on the radio', three is 'will play on the radio' and 'sometimes I go overboard and put 5 asterix's down'. Famously, Teenage Kicks by the Undertones got an immense 28 asterix's....
Saturdaynight they aired a documentary called The Modern Antiquarian made by Julian Cope where he showed lots of prehistoric monuments around Britain; stonecircles and other mystical places. Sadly he gave not much explanation about the places he visited so I'm not much wiser about the how and why of all these neo-lithical monuments but he brought it all with loads of enthusiasm so maybe I should check out the book Julian Cope wrote on the subject. It all looked very interesting.
And of course a big-up to the Kindamuzik-massive - or whatever it is the kids say these days - for the plug...
Saturday, June 24, 2000 --- 02:14 p.m.
Everett True's Les Savy Fav live-review: sad to see that in Brighton only 30 people turned up as well. I thought the reason so few people were there when I saw them earlier this week was because it was not at all advertised or anything, but it seems to be a more fundamental problem. Must be frustating to come all the way over from the US to play for only a handful of people every night. So I urge you: go see them. They're in Europe for at least another couple of gigs. The schedule is on their homepage. They're certainly worth your money and Everett True thinks so as well (but says it all a bit more eloquent than I ever could).
Friday, June 23, 2000 --- 01:25 p.m.
There is a new edition of Underpop online with interviews with Figurine, Blonde Redhead, Broadcast and Kid 606 and more and about a 1000 reviews of singles and albums and gigs. One of the most interesting indie-pop e-zines around I think.
stopnapster.com: not associated with the Recording Industry Association of America, nor with any other major record label or industry trade group - or so the site claims anyway - but funded/run by a Californian rockband called the Tabloids; who play 'uptempo songs with a strong political bent, influenced by Joy Division, the Clash, and Elvis Costello' according to their own site. A rather premature protest because I've just checked and couldn't find any of The Tabloids' songs on Napster. It's probably a bit of a publicity stunt, then.
bis have revamped their website to celebrate the release of their new ep - although you might say there's not much to celebrate: as a big bis-fan I am a bit disappointed by Music For A Stranger World, the songs are just not as catchy as any of their earlier stuff, it sounds all darker and less poppy. Anyway they've now got a bis radiostation that plays bis-tunes 24 hours a day and when you subscribe to their mailinglist you can download an exclusive mp3-track called DJ that, as popsongs go, is a bit b-side material but at least got that punch that the tracks on their newest ep seem to miss.
And don't forget tonite is Simpson's night on BBC2 and after that they start with the coverage of the Glastonbury festival that will continue all over the weekend.
Wednesday, June 21, 2000 --- 09:30 p.m.
I'm all for artists being a bit crazy on stage to be entertaining but there is a danger that the jokey stagebehaviour overshadows the music. Les Savy Fav - who I saw last night; in a venue inside a large squatted building called the Kalenderpanden in Amsterdam-East, I had never been there before and it was quite an experience... - are not always on the right side of that fine line that seperates good and a tad 'out there' from a freakshow. The NME tipped Les Savy Fav - together with L/A/L and ...And They Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - as one of the American rockbands to watch this year, mainly because of singer Tim Harrington's insane behaviour during gigs. And they were not wrong. With the other three members of the band doing their Brainiac meets Jesus Lizard artschoolpunknoise thing - Les Savy Fav were formed at the Rhode Island School of Design, the same place where the Talking Heads formed - Tim, wearing a knitted blue wooly sweater and some very uncool, very red shorts, was all over the place. Usually somewhere in the audience stealing their beer or trying to throttle them with his microphonecord and when he was not harassing people he was refurnishing the place or messing with the stagelamps. The few times he wás on the stage he devided his time between lying on the floor screaming, skipping up and down screaming, throwing his shoes into the audience, doing stuff with his sampler while screaming and trying out the Dutch sentences he learned beforehand (not screaming but we still couldn't understand a word). But it was not a total GG Allin experience. In fact, songs such as We've Got Boxes and Wake Up (both downloadable from their homepage) really gain power with such an intense liveperformance. Anyway, it was a great liveshow and Les Savy Fav would probably be a great band even without the maniacal livetactics.
Opening acts were two dutch emo-bands. Feverdream has all the right ingredients: writhing (I had to look that word up; hope I use it right...) guitars, shouty vocals and aggressive bass- and drumwork plus the ability to make beautiful songs with it. To be honest, the mp3-fragments on their homepage sound a bit weak compared to their liveshow. They are probably one of the best Dutch live rockbands of the moment. The Lattitude are certainly not. More a mediocre halftempo punkrockband with a guitarist/singer with too much metal tendencies, a crap voice and even crappier songs. They had their moments when - just like any other emo-band - they sounded a bit like The Get Up Kids.
Pitchfork has a rather pissy review of the Delgados' The Great Eastern. I mean, I'm not one of those people who gets all upset when one of his favourite bands get a negative review but comparing something as beautiful as the Delgados' music to Steely Dan is just plain rude.
And finally for today (Netherlands v France is on), Daphne & Celeste will release their version of Alice Cooper's School's Out as a single. That's gotta be great. It's out in August. Yippie!!
Oh, and last weeks stuff is now here.
