Hacksaw's World of Music

If At First You Don't Succeed, Get Freakier

2011-01-17T01:01:00.009Z

For regular students of the early stages of the Eurovision Song Contest qualification period, there's one moment above any other that fills them with rapt anticipation - what the hell is Sasha Bognibov going to send in this year?! Every year this willowy gothic popster with a camp walk and a killer pout sends in a couple of songs to the Moldovan application process in the hope of finally being selected, but every year he sadly misses out... although when you hear his songs you might be able to understand why. (And be warned if you do venture to click on the links here, because some of them make uncomfortable listening!)

His first attempt back in 2008, the title of which we'll abreviate just so that we don't end up on any kind of register or internet watchlist, caused an immediate stir. In fact it was one of the most breathtaking debuts in Eurovision history. I Love The Girls... was a staggeringly dangerous love song to the female youth of Moldova. A wobbily, funereal techno ballad, punctuated by Sasha's ghostly falsetto, it instantly drew howls of derision from around the continent. But it's understated swing proved to be a proper earworm, and you only needed to hear it the once to have it tattooed permanantly on your internal jukebox. You just didn't want to be singing it absent-mindedly down the local Safeways.

Funnily enough it wasn't selected for the televised stages.

But that didn't put Sasha off, and the following year he had another stab with a couple more songs - the most interesting being Knocking On Julie's Heart. He even got a German friend to make a video of him strutting around the sights of Chisinau and moodily air-grabbing in ruined buildings while daubed in enough eyeliner to make The Cure blush. Julie was a slightly less controversial choice than his previous effort. A more traditional ballad with a proper arrangement and lots of angst, the boy Bognibov kept his now trademark high voice and over-annunciated English, but occasionally slipped into moments of growly goth-metal rap and even strayed occasionally into soprano territory. It was a curious oddity, but strangely likable - and certainly more accessable than his other entry that year, the more trancy but somewhat unsettling and eccentrically autotuned Fuck Me Once.

Funnily enough neither were selected for the televised stages.

For 2010's effort he went down a more sophisticated route, tapping a kind of piano bar goth swing groove with Do You Like My Sexy Lips. But despite having a hook nearly as infectious as his debut, its lyrical matter still managed to creep out music fans across the continent without them really even knowing why. While it was probably his most accessible stab at a slot on the big one, it still wasn't selected for the televised stages.

But as unsuccessful as his frequent attempts had been, he was beginning to gather a cult following. UK gossip site Popbitch has deemed him their favourite Moldovan and publish news of his every move, and the slightly more leftfield ESC fans (and yes, there is such a thing) have elevated him to almost godlike status. So the news that his relentless annual march to Eurovision ignominy had continued on to 2011 was met with much glee, and the song that he hoped would finally get him to experience his big day in the sun was strangely to revisit the themes that first brought him to our attention, albeit in a far beefier wrapper. Do You Know I Love A Girl? features for the first time some beefed up Rammstein-esque guitars and a full on band arrangement, only this time the girl in question is a year older.

Again there has been much indignation outside of Moldova about the song's subject matter, but strangely very little of the same hoo-haa back home. It could be that the customs and social politics of the country are so far removed from ours that his songs barely raise an eyebrow of dissent. Or perhaps he is too far down the musical foodchain for his countrymen to even notice he exists. But he doesn't seem to be having his windows bricked in the same way that anyone attempting such lyrics would over here. Indeed, despite some of the more unhinged sounding subject matter, there is an innocence and naivity running through his songs that make you want to grudgingly like him, despite your better judgement. He seems an intensly serious young man, so perhaps there's something in it that we just don't understand? Maybe it's intellectual beyond our ken? The product of a dark, superior humour. Or perhaps he's is just weird after all?

But this year the wider continent might just get the chance to experience his dubious concoctions. Rumour has it that the take up for this year's Moldovan Song For Europe competition is pretty low, and they're struggling to get enough half decent songs to fill up their semi-finals. So could we finally see our unlikely anti-hero on an international stage? It would certainly kick up a bit of a fuss now, wouldn't it!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

System Addict

2011-01-11T01:21:00.001Z

When I was doing a little spot of freelancing the other week I had the pleasure of sharing an office with a young chap who is obsessed with collecting old prog and glam rock records on vinyl and playing them at open deck nights. He's travelled around the world looking for rare slabs of black plastic, and likes to share his wares to his fellow workers. Obviously the quality is variable, and not to everyone's tastes, but it's always an interesting listen at the very least.

But there was one song that really struck a chord with me and I had to find out more. That song was called Carmen Brasilia, and the band was called Anarchic System. Now ordinarily you'd expect a band by that name to be some crusty Latin American anarcho punk band, but instead they were a moustachioed French glam rock band from the early 1970s. And what a dash they cut in their satin loons and fluffy feathered hairdos.

But despite their foppish period looks, they were more than just a comedy pop act. Indeed, they were among the earliest pioneers of the electronic music scene, being one of the first bands to popularise the Moog in mainland Europe. Indeed, their debut single was a curious vocal cover version of Popcorn, the instrumental Gershon Kingsley tune made famous by Hot Butter in 1972. Indeed, despite the latter version going on to be the 191st best selling French single of all time, and there being a huge dusting of similar sounding covers for the next few years, Anarchic System's version still shifted a respectable 700,000 copies across Europe, and attracted the attention of major labels the world over.

Their follow up was the tune that lured me to their singular sound, Carmen Brasilia. Dubbed The New Popcorn, it was clearly an attempt to cash in on the popularity of their first release, and shared similar themetic elements, but it had a unique edge all if its own. Based losely on the main theme from Bizet's opera Carmen, it was a marvel of descending plinky-plonk pop, and is a lost gem of the early glam era.

But despite their success in the field, they had heavier aspirations, and cited Uriah Heep, Warhorse and even Black Sabbath among their influences. Their rockier output never quite hit the public nerve in the same way that their earliest singles did, but they still soldiered on for six years until 1978, releasing three great albums, Pussycat C'est La Vie, Generation and the fabulously titled Sugar Baby Mission Space Recording and a string of fine singles. And while they may be remembered more for their slightly cheesy looks than their top tunes, they've got a body of work that is worth further investigation. And if you ever see any of their discs in an antiquarian record shop, snap 'em up quick. I know a young chap who will be forever in your debt if you do.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Bali Bali Hey!

2010-10-27T00:58:00.006+01:00

It's easy to be complacent about our position at the hub of the punk rock universe here in the Anglophile West. We Brits and them Americans constantly bicker over who invented it and who has the ideological ownership of it, while our near neighbours in Northern Europe actually do all the hard work in keeping it going - out side of it at least. So we might all be surprised to discover that probably the biggest and most vibrant punk rock scene on the whole planet is bubbling away quite nicely all of its own accord on the other side of the globe in the world's fourth most populous country - Indonesia.

And the true kings of that scene - and hence one of the biggest, most popular punk bands on the planet - are a trio of big-quiffed, tattoo-stained rock'n'roll kids called Superman Is Dead. Looking for every bit like a flick-knife wielding street gang from some unhinged South Pacific swingtime gangster flick, S.I.D. are one of those bands that make the cool girls swoon and the slick boys get their names carved into their skin. And heck do they rock.

Formed back in 1995 in the seaside town of Kuta in the south of Bali, the music blasting out of the stereos of the hipster tourists tweaked some primal punk button in three young lads called Boby Kool, Eka Rock and Jrx (although those may not be their birth names) who pretty soon melded what they heard into their own high octane, top fuel version of transatlantic punk, working very much to the post-Clash/Rancid blueprint, via NoFX and Social Distortion, while keeping their own intangiable Eastern feel permeating the proceedings.

After a couple of cracking lo-fi albums on a local inide label, they nudged the attention of the local wing of Sony-BMG, who swiftly signed them to a mutli-album deal, starting with the blistering Kuta Rock City in 2003. Each subsequent release has been a massive international hit right around South-East Asia. They've just started to make a first foray into the Western world of rock with a hefty and extraordinarily well-recieved tour of Australia, so who knows, if they keep up their rollercoaster momentum we could soon see them zig-zagging over towards the supposed family seat of punk rock'n'roll. Or maybe now their scene is so big that it's us who have to go out to pay them a visit.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Mule music

2010-10-13T18:53:00.001+01:00

Those of you who have taken rather a shine to the boy Joe McElderry's new career-defining single Ambitions may be surprised that it's already had a considerable track record long before last year's X-Factor winner got his tonsils around it. Indeed, before he'd even made his first nervous steps out of the house and onto his first auditions, it was well on its way to becoming one of the most popular songs in Norwegian chart history.

Its performers, Donkeyboy, had already been plugging their uplifting and sparkling brand of Scandi-pop around for a good four years before they were picked up by the label Warner Music - reputedly after an A&R man liked what he heard after he stumbled across them on MySpace. Their original take on Ambitions was released on 26 March 2009, and became an instant radio hit across the country. But despite a slow and gradual climb up the chart, by the time it finally made number one some 13 weeks later, it was selling by the trainload.

And there it stayed for the next 12 weeks, only replaced by the band's follow up Sometimes, making them the first act in Norwegian history to hold the top two chart slots. A number one album, Caught In A Life, soon followed, as did a European tour with A-Ha. Out of nowhere this unassuming little band from Drammen had become their nation's new pop darlings.

Their music is almost uncatagorisable - an amalgam of classic Scandinavian pop, eighties jangly guitar rock and an extraordinarily likeable while still slightly edgy contemporary feel. There's an almost evangelical joy to their live shows, and their wide-eyed innocence, married to their delicate but incredibly catchy tunes has been known to creep up on all but the most hardened music fans and sweep them off their feet. But take a look at their slightly odd videos and you'll see that there's some kind of substance behind the saccharin.

No wonder then that Simon Cowell knew he was on to a good thing and grabbed an option on the tune for his new young charge in a rare foray outside of his usual BMG back catalogue, giving the song a whole new lease of life. So perfect was the original that McElderry's version is a near note-for-note remake. Caught In A Life has just been released in the UK, possibly to quickly cash in on the smiling Geordie boy's almost certain success. Let's hope it ups their profile on these shores and they have a hit in their own right soon.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Moldovan turbo folk bonkersness

2010-09-29T22:11:00.002+01:00

There are those who claim that the root of rock'n'roll lay in the African songs and spirituals sung mournfully every day in the fields and on the ships to keep the spirits up. And while this may be true to some extent, another equally important musical root is frequently overlooked when it comes to chronicling the history of contemporary Western sounds - one that rises from the mountains and villages of central and South Eastern Europe - and that music is polka.

It's not fashionable to say it, but the simple boom-chit two-beat beloved of accordian-handed folkies and riotous Balkan weddings is surely every bit as much to blame for punk rock as any amount of delta blues. The speed, rhythm and pure bonkersness of the genre is infused through contemporary pop, but it's those out East who still do it the best, and Moldova's Doinita Gherman is about as bonkers as it comes.

Hailing from the capital Chisinau, she started life as a more traditional ethno-pop act before she saw the light and began to pile on the rock, while still staying true to her folky roots. The result is a 150mph punky stomp, that sees her breathlessly below out the words while jumping about like someone desperately trying to put out a carpet fire.

You think I'm exaggerating? The video for her song Batuta sees her dancing up trees, on motorway central reservations, footbridges and anywhere her feet will take her. One gets the feeling that this girl never stops, and gawd bless her for it!

But she hasn't forgotten the old days, and still dresses in a stylised and somewhat raunchy version of the traditional Moldovan farmgirl dress, and crowbars traditional rhythms and dances into the high speed insanity. Whether we'll ever get to see or hear the girl on these shoresis unclear, and indeed unlikely. She is perhaps a little too obscure, and indeed hardcore for even the keenest world music enthusiast, but she's all over the internet, so make a point of trying to track her down - it's what the world wide web is for, after all!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

The purest rock'n'roll from Gothenburg

2010-09-28T01:45:00.000+01:00

It's often the case that the biggest innovators, or even just the smartest, purest bands in their fields tend to get criminally overlooked. In some ways that's a good thing for we connoisseurs of the rock'n'roll, as we get to keep it sharp and unsullied by the taint of stardom. But on the other hand I'm quite sure that the bands themselves would like to be able to pay the rent without having to resort to a dreary day job.

But for all those briefly hip acts who forge a couple of quick hits before being consigned to the dustbin of uncoolness, there are a dozen who even crash and burn before they raise a murmor. And then there's those who plough on regardless, turning out disc after disc of fabulous stuff. Gothenburg's Sillverbullit are just that kind of band.

Formed in 1995, they were originally called Sillverbullet, until someone who already had a similar name went and had a moan. Indeed, they're known as Citizen Bird in America to cut down on potential lawsuits. But whatever name they happen to go by on any given day, they've consistently been chucking out three great albums and touring furiously, but to little commercial success - although they did manage to bag a gong for the best Swedish album of 2004 with their Arclight CD.

Unusually they've stuck with the same line-up right through their career, bound together by their howling dervish of a lead singer Simon Ohlsson. So fractious and unhinged can he get that he was once thrown out of a venue by security while the rest of the band played on.

But what do they sound like? A fantastically atmospheric high octane, ambient rock and roll onslaught, yet still capable of some devistatingly tender moments. Every song sounding like an extended intro, they hurl out the chunkiest riffs like they were playing the last song on Earth, sounding a little like the sixties would have if punk had happened in 1959. Or like Joy Division borrowed Can's metronome and upped sticks to Scandinavia. Swirling clouds of organ lap around the guitars like a filthy cloud of lust, while Ohlsson slurs out poems to human politics, smiting all the numbskulls and thoughtless haters as he goes.

They don't get out that often these days, but when they do it's incendiary. So if you spot the name when you trawl the listings make sure you get out and see them. Fellow Swedes like The Hives, The Hellacopters and Backyard Babies may have stolen some of their commercial thunder, but this Silverbullit can duke it out with the best of them, and would win a live play off hands down.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.
.

Ukraine's Housewife Superstar

2010-09-22T22:11:00.000+01:00

For those among you who enjoy a quick flutter I'd advise a tasty yet unlikely ante-post bet. The race isn't on until the second week in May, but if you get your money on early you may be on for some tasty returns. Oh yes pop fans, bet all you can afford on a Ukrainian win, because Verka Serdushka is having a go at Eurovision again.

You may remember her previous attempt back in Helsinki in 2007. A vision in silver, the song Dancing Lasha Tumbai came in a close second to Serbia's Harry Potter-alike balladeer Marija Šerifović. She may not have won, but the following Monday the watercoolers of Europe were alive nothing but talk of this bonkers tin-foil clad trannie with a big star on her head, like some turbofolk Edna Everage from space. And like her antipodean cousin she's become an enormous star in her home country and its associated empire.

The story goes back some 20 years when a teenaged performer called Andriy Danylko created the character of a larger-than-life middle aged railway ticket inspector from the sticks for a local comedy talent contest. His creation became an instant hit, and it wasn't long before Danylko had created a host of other characters and took the whole lot out on tour around the former Soviet republics, creating a massive stir.

Along the way he has put together nine albums of high octane East European oompah disco, plus the occasional collection of more laid back ambient tunes under his own name, but somewhere along the line it became clear that Eurovision was the logical international conclusion for his character's insanely bouncing storyline. It was feared that the character may be too much of a Ukrainian in joke, but those who didn't necessarily get the gag still enjoyed three manic minutes that turned the living rooms of Europe into a carnival of insane thrashing about.

But it nearly never happened. Questions were asked in the Ukranian parliament as to whether such a "grotesque and vulgar" artist should represent the country on an international stage. And their old grumpy uncles across the border were convinced the words 'Lasha Tumbai' - reputedly Mongolian for 'Whipped Cream' were actually the thinly veilled political dig 'Russia Goodbye'. Danylko claimed otherwise, but it was still enough to cause such a stir across that half of the continent that the song was already a massive international hit before that performance in the Finnish capital.

And now she's having another pop. She's only one of the 25 approved finalists as this point, but if the good people north of the Black Sea are still in on the joke and the ironics Eurovision fans of the West are out in force come May 15th, we could well be all back in Kiev come the spring of 2012 - and that would hardly be a bad thing, would it!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

The Authentic Decadents

2010-08-30T02:20:00.000+01:00

Whenever I find myself in a new country I always try to pick up some local sounds, and only having a brief time in Buenos Aires and not having the chance to either hear much radio or see anyone live, I had to resort to the suprisingly reliable method of picking a handful of albums based on the covers alone. So I was digging my way through the shelves in a little record store called The Cave in the pedestrianised shopping neighbourhood downtown when I spied a marvel - a dog in slick sportswear and killer shades mixing a couple of records on a pair of glittery decks. But it wasn't, as you may be thinking, a cartoon - it was a photo. So slightly cruel as it appeared, this was still an album that needed to be bought for the cover alone.

The disc was called Club Atletico Decadente by a massively populated act called Los Auténticos Decadentes. A quick flick to the back of the album displayed a rag tag gaggle of a dozen geezers, all in their thirties and upwards, and every one of them wearing the same kit as the poor pooch on the front of the cover. It didn't need to be any good with livery as cool as this, but what a treat it turned out to be.

The sounds on this collection were as lively as the picture of its creators suggested. A bonkers mix up of traditional Argentinian dance rhythms, pounding rock and roll with a little bit of sk punk thrown in for good measure, this would be what The Mighty Mighty Bosstones might have sounded like of they were all Boca Juniors fans with Diego Maradona tattoos - only with considerably more fluid hips.

There were slices of slinky Latino sounds that your mum could dance to, followed by pokey little punk tunes your little brother wouldn't be afraid to mosh to in public, and a bunch of other mutant hybrids that covered their local traditional musics like cumbia, merengue, canzonetta, murga and a whole bundle more that I'm not entirely sure how to spell.

They guy in The Cave insisted I ought to get their following album, Somos (El Vivo), as he reckoned it was much better - and I rather wish I did now, because these boys have got quite the track record.

It turns out that I'm stumbled across one of the country's most popular live acts. Formed right back in 1986, their first album came three years later, and featured their first hit Veni Raquel. As I was to later find out, their tunes have become ubiquitous on an Argentine night out, and have turned up in the background of practically every contemporary Argentinian movie that I've seen since I first picked up their album. They regularly sell out stadiums across Latin America, being perhaps surprisingly most popular in Mexico, where their anarchic dance tunes sit well within their own unhinged underground music scene.

I've since discovered that they've released ten albums in total, so I'm going to have to start picking my way through them all one by one. But which end should I start at? Now there hangs the dilemma! To my knowledge they've never made it over this side of the pond, which is a shame, because I reckon they're lively enough to clear up. They've fill that Ozomatli/Gogol Bordello/ Manu Chao-sized slot at the more worldsy tinged festivals a treat, and they've been going for so long now that it can only be a matter of time before we see them out this way - so keep 'em peeled for the Decadents!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

The Blue House

2010-08-27T00:53:00.000+01:00

We followers of Eurovision have to plough through a lot of dubious ballads and lowest common denominator pop in order to drege out one or two pure glistening gems every year. Now I'm sure that most of you will be saying "why even bother?" or "it's all different shades of the same kak!". But when those gems do come along, they're usually pretty special.

Rewind to Spain in 2008. We've mentioned their ground-breaking open application process that debut that year elsewhere in this blog. But one of the acts it uncovered to we strange few Europop fiends was very special indeed. In fact it only just missed out on making it to Belgrade by a few small percentage points. Let me introduce you to La Casa Azul.

Having a quick click and flick through the untold hapless flamenco pop tunes and wrist-slitting ballads, a song called La Revolucion Sexual exploded from the line up like a glass of sparkling pop juice on a hot day. One part Japanese club pop in the style of Pizzicato 5, one part knowing indie pop and a half dozen parts the spaces inbetween the greatest disco pop songs you ever heard, this thing stood out head and shoulders above the rest. Surely it was too good to even make the final selection - I couldn't be that lucky.

But it gathered a head of steam, and in a neck and neck battle came in a close third to a mawkish sailor ballad and a novelty reggaeton song about the recent Spanish elections. And when I finally saw the video I was blown sideways by the pure pop joy of it all.

The conceit of the act is that it's staffed by five beautiful androids from space. That had been the gag all along, from their first album, El Sonido Efervescente de La Casa Azul back in 2000. But as potential international fame drew nearer, the whole thing was finally revealed to be the work of just one man - a prematurely balding and unassuming producer chap called Guille Milkyway.

Indeed, this was perhaps to be the end of the android schtick, as in his very next video, a bizarre clip for the song Esta Noche Solo Cantan Para Mi, he apeared to kill them all off, leaving their lifeless bodies beneath a bush as an array of girls did some nice ice skating on white vinyl records. I told you it was an odd one, but a gem indeed.

He's been known to make to odd appearance on an English shore - the last time at an indie festival in a railway station in Derbyshire last summer - so keep an eye out for him, cos he's supposed to be a pure cracker live. Get some pop in your life and move on in to the blue house!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Like a bullet from Milan

2010-08-25T22:22:00.000+01:00

Once in a while you stumble across a gig that leaves you struggling to remember the last time you had anywhere near as much fun. I had one of those nights a couple of May's ago in a little back room in Moscow, watching a delightfully positive and insanely danceable bunch of Italian squat urchins called Kalashnikov.

I suppose their name was apt enough for the city - even more so as the preparations for the big military parade were going on all around town - and I'm sure the idea for this gig started out as some kind of crazy pipedream for the band. But a couple of flyers scattered around town led us check them out on the web, and we reckoned there might be a half decent night to be had. But it was one of those rare nights where all the ingredients gelled into one heck of a night.

The venue was a tiny little club called Vse Svoi, around the back of the city zoo. As we walked down the dark side street that harboured the venue, the yelps of excitable punk kids mixed in with the squeaks, barks and growls from the other side of the wall to make an exotic runway to the evening's entertainment. But we weren't expecting the place to be quite so tiny. Not much bigger than your granny's front room, and sporting a similar decor, the Vse Svoi was rammed from front to back with wide-eyed 19-year olds nodding their heads to some earnest local screamo band. Every time my other half bought a booze flavoured drink, a gaggle of nippers flocked around her asking if they could have a sip. This wasn't going to be like a normal gig, we could sense it.

And when the headliners from Milan finally took to the stage, we were proved correct. In keeping with their name, Kalashnikov imediately belted into some turbo-fuelled Russian-style jigs, sending the place universally bonkers. Singer Milena had every last one of them (and us) in the palm of her hand from the outset. Despite being the oldest people in the building by some 20 years, we were compelled to dance to their punchy romantic punk and skittish high-speed ska retreads - partly because the place was pakced like sardines and we had no option, but partly because our feet commanded it.

Kalashnikov@Moscow 2 May 09

Kalashnikov collective | MySpace Music Videos

But the the real lunacy began. A young lad down the front had falled totally for Milena's charms, guarding her from all other invaders, and seemingly offering to marry her on a song-by-song basis. Puj the guitarist was being passed above the heads of the now-steaming crowd, walking his feet along the ceiling, while Don's keyboards were falling off their plinth and knocking the PA into the crowd at the stroke of each minute. By now the crowd and band had become one pulsating entity, and the only way it was ever going to end was by exhaution, invasion or explosion. It turned out to be the latter, as the bass amp finally gave up after being at the brunt of its operator Nino's constant flinging of water into the crowd. It was an apt end to the amplified noise, but the crowd just kept on whooping and hollering for a good twenty minutes.

Rarely do you see a show where every last person in the room is going absolutely batchy dance-o. There wasn't even the little enclave of cool kids at the back of the room nodding with their arms folded - which is perhaps what we were expecting of a city like Moscow. Before leaving we shared our love of the night with Puj, who seemed like he'd just had the best night of his life. It wasn't far off for us either.

Kalashnikov @ Moscow (RUSSIA) May '09

Kalashnikov collective | MySpace Music Videos

It's always then a worry when you track such a band down in the real world. You fear that the energy of the night has addled your judgement of the quality of the actual music. But there's no such fear with Kalashnikov. When I finally found their site, I found each of their tunes to be throbbing with the same scratchy power and all-round loveliness as we witnessed in that tiny backroom in Moscow. Go find out for yourself, 'cos every last one of their songs is free to download. A top, top band that Kalashnikov!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Da Arabian MCs

2010-07-29T01:51:00.000+01:00

If any place on earth has earned a politically motivated rap act it's Palestine. And in DAM, Palestine have one of the finest examples on the planet. They've been going since 1998, when Tamer Nafer and his younger brother Suhell used to rap around the slums of Lod - a mixed town of Arabs and Jews around 15 miles outside of Jerusalem. The heard that a fella called Mahmoud Jreri had been writing rhymes, so they banded together and DAM was born.

Their tunes are a genius blend of classic western hip hop and Arabic melodies and percussion. But as laid back as that can sometimes sound their words are an entirely different matter. Steeped in the daily difficulties of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for once this really is music from the frontline, and their songs reflect their daily experiences. But they don't just rap about issues surrounding Palestinian freedom, but many of the other knock-on effects, like terrorism, drugs and women's rights.

Their debut collection of songs, the apt and emotive Stop Selling Drugs, was an instant local hit in 1998, but they first came to wider attention when the title song of their next collection, Min Irhabi? (Who's The Terrorist?) was downloaded over a million times globally from their website. the song's lyric dealt with the after effects of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, and Israel's heavy-handed response in dealing with it.

This opened the international doors for them, and since then they have toured extensively in America and right across Europe, principally on the back of their stunning album Dedication, a laid-back, low-slung selection of songs with biting rhymes, dark, intelligent humour and a brutally positive outlook, despite the privations them and their people might be suffering.

This month has seen them blow away the staid world music event WOMAD festival, and with any luck it's their breakthrough performance to garnering a wider audience in the UK. Dedication isn't an easy album to get a hold of, but it's certainly worth the effort of tracking it down. Here is a rap band who aren't bragging about girls and guns and ostentatious wealth, they're keeping it real in a way that most of the hip hop world could never even begin to understand. In their world the sinple act of speaking out or filming a video could get them into the kind of trouble that us in the regular West don't even have the capacity to understand. And for that alone they're one of the greatest bands on the planet.

What a stroke of luck that they sound fantastic too!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Deepest, darkest electro from Peru

2010-07-24T13:16:00.001+01:00

I just got a MySpace friend request from some girl from Peru. She didn't send a note, but it looked like she was part of a band. So I clicked about her profile and discovered that she's the new singer of a fantastic electro-techno band from Lima called SonoRadio, and I was hooked in seconds. Their squelchy, bouncy take on the European electroclash beats that are currently littering the lower regions of the charts were complimented perfectly by Amanda Veneno's breathlessly reedy and naive voice. It sounded familiar, yet completely from another planet.

I had to know more. Turns out SonoRadio formed back in 2004 as a slightly more traditional four-piece alt-pop act. They had guitars and regular song shapes, but were also instilled with a healthy slice of utter bonkersness that made them look a good prospect even back then. They played their first show two years later at the Bear Bar in Lima's up-and-coming Miraflores neighbourhood, causing an instant stir. The following year they were voted breakthrough band of 2007 by the local newspaper El Commercio, and their debut EP sold out immediately, earning them slots on both local TV and South American MTV.

Around this time they started to take a more electro turn and ditched the guitars and a couple of members to embark on a much more beatsy outlook. Now manned by singer Joy and sound demon Danny eM, although the VJ Xomatok joined the fold this year to make some cracking dynamic visuals to back up the pulsating uber-pop sounds.But then just as it was all about to take off, Joy left to see the world on a cruise, and Amanda Veneno was drafted in to add a whole new sultry flavour to the SonoRadio sound.

Anyone who's been to Peru will know that there's a lot more to their music scene than the endless panpipe bands that get sent over here to busk in the shopping centres of Europe. They've got an enormous fluro-techno scene - indeed I've been to some fabulous lung-draining raves up in the oxygen-lite heights of the Andes - and their metal scene is dark, violent and intense. But this is the first bit of pure and pounding pop that I've heard from this mountainous and exciting country - and I'm sure I've only just scratched the surface with SonoRadio.

So you see, when you get those random MySpace add requests from folks you've never heard of, at least give them the benefit of a quick look, because you never know what joys that may uncover.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

South-East European funk

2010-07-15T19:05:00.009+01:00

Whenever I spend any time abroad I always make sure I try and find the local punk scene and catch a show. However Oslo, despite its eighties heritage as one of the world capitals of gnarl, proved a tricky nut to crack on the underground scene. Gigs were few and far between over the two weeks we were there, and those that were featured major international touring bands asking for a minimum of 20 quid to get in. Not very punk rock at all.

So thank heavens we got to hear about a show by the a fabulously politicised bunch of new wave funkers from Macedonia called Bernays Propaganda at the historic Blitz squat on Pilestredet. But this being Oslo, it wasn't simply a case of just turning up and watching the band.

Blitz has long been on the European squat circuit, and I've seen many evocative pictures from down the years of a reassuringly crumbling building covered in grafitti and surrounded by baracades. Well it would appear that since those days someone has decorated, at it was the cleanest, most well kept squat that I've ever seen. Not that there's anything wrong with cleanliness of course, it's just not what we were expecting. Then there was the timing issues. Now I'm used to shows running on punk time, but this bordered on the silly. After arriving at 9pm, we were told to come back in an hour, and then when we did there was clearly no one but us and the residents there, so got asked to try a bit later. A little after eleven we returned, concerned that we'd miss the last tram if things dragged on any longer, and bless if Bernays themselves didn't see our plight, get up and go in to play - despite there being little more than three dozen people in the building.

But despite the sparse attendance and the cavernous backroom we were led to, it was quite a show. I was aware of drummer Dzanno and guitarist Vasko's previous band, the speedy hardcore thrashers FxPxOx, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this new outfit was an entirely different beast.

Cranking out the disco drumming and a deeply funking groove from the fresh-faced bassist Nenad, this was more reminiscent of old time British post new wave bands like Gang of Four, The Slits and The Pop Group. But that wasn't the best of it. Singer Kristina was an unsettling beast, prowling the front of the stage like a cadged cat, part vulnerable, part confrontational, looking every bit like a hollowed out Uma Thurman with a grudge. You were wary of catching her eye, just in case she caught you with a steely gaze and you melted in some kind of frightened rapture.

But this is not just unabashed turn-your-brain-off dancing. This is a band infused with anarchist ideals and deep human politics. Named after Freud's nephew, andinventor of modern propaganda Edward L Bernays, every beat means something. The labrynthine rhythms driving vital messages under your skin with every funky lick. This lot means business, winning your heart and your brain by moving your feet first.

With each new tune the dance notches cranked up, and before we knew it, every last person was dipping and diving in a hotch potch of difficult dancing styles, our feet infected by the chunking groove. It didn't really matter that we were crowded into the corner of what looked like a massive gym - that corner was the funkiest corner in the city, we were there to dance whether we liked it or not.

And we liked.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Heroes of Eurovision 2010: maNga

2010-06-29T01:16:00.000+01:00

Turkey have got a funny old track record in Eurovision. For years it seemed like they never quite got it - that their traditional rhythms sat poorly when pressed up against the pop of Western Europe. Of course at first it was mainly because our ears weren't yet accustomed to such exotic sounds. But in time they tried and failed with a brutal amalgam of the most obvious chunks of each continent's pop traditions without ever really getting a proper feel for what the contest was about.

But one day they stopped bothering what everyone else thought and just sent stuff that they liked - and that was when they started doing rather well. At first it was with the kind of Eastern turbo pop that peppered their home chart. But then after Sertab Erener's Everyway That I Can finally won the contest in 2003, they really started showing the rest of Europe what they were capable of.

No longer burdened with the perceived shame of being one of the oldest Eurovision stagers to never to win the thing, for their home contest they sent along a bunch of Rancid inspired ska punkers called Athena to grace the Istanbul stage. Despite being far from a traditional Eurovision song, they managed to come fourth.

Five contests later, after a fistful of moderately successful Turkish dance tunes, they sent along a band called Mor ve Ötesi, a cool power pop outfit whose song Deli rolled in at a very respectable seventh spot.

Someone obviously figured that the pop rock schtick was a good plan, as this year Turkish telly invited the recent winners of the Best European Act from the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, maNga.

Despite being cursed by a name whose lettering format probably seemed like a good idea when they started out, their powerful blend of Linkin Park style nu metal and more traditional Anatolian melodies seemed likie an odd choice for Eurovision. However, as experienced and consumate stadium performers they would surely be no strangers to performing on massive stage, so surely should be worth keeping an eye on.

As it turned out their tune, We Could Be The Same, turned out to be a belter - an easily singalongable chunk of a tune, with enough power to lure in the cool mums of Europe to the voting phone, but enough melody and easy pomp to win over the less rockist viewers. The boys clearly hit a nerve, and the song stormed its way into an unlikely, but highly welcome second place.

But they are no flash in the pan sensation - they've got a legacy of three cracking albums behind them as their nation's musical standard bearers.

Starting out playing covers of popular metal tunes in 2001, they first gained major public attention when they won a musical talent contest. This success attracted the attention of Sony Records who promptly signed them up and released their debut and self-titled album in 2004. Its raw, edgy fusion of rap rock and the earliest nu metal sounds proved an instant hit, and almost immediately went gold, selling upwards of 100,000 copies. The follow-up, maNga+, while not being as commercially successful, helped forge a more mature sound that paved the way for their third and most recent album, Şehr-i Hüzün.

Despite at first sounding like a regulation pop metal third-album workout, you'll soon get lost in its underlaying Eastern beats and underlying exoticism. What they lose in the raw snotty snarl of their debut, they more than make up for with a controlled power in this entirely Turkish-language collection.

If you liked their Eurovision tune, give some of their other stuff a go, as it's a pretty unusual slant on what can often be a very conservative musical genre. All three discs are crackers for sure!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Heroes of Eurovision 2010: Jessy Matador

2010-06-26T14:18:00.000+01:00

After years of sending a parade of willowy chanteuses warbling out much the same song each year to diminishing returns, the French suddenly shifted gear four years back and started actually thinking about who they sent to Eurovision. They finally twigged that as they were always going to be in the final, they could take a risk and start sending stuff that would show off some of the massive range of music that regularly litters their charts - some of the most cosmopolitan in Europe - rather than a succession of casting show runners up that the rest of the West has been sending of late.

Four years back they held one of the most unhinged finals in years and selected the fabulous Les Fatals Picards. 2008 saw the sublime Sebastian Tellier, singing one of the coolest (and some would say strangest) songs the contest has ever seen - and one of the few from the last few years of the show that you'll still hear in the outside world today. And last year, of course, saw the spinetingling chanson by the veteran torcher Patricia Kaas. But 2010 saw them surpass all of that and parade the explosively fantastic ball of fun that was Jessy Matador in front of the Saturday night TV viewers of Europe. And what a performance he gave.

It had been rumoured for a while that the French were going to go for something a little more uptempo this time round. Indeed, acts like big-name David Guetta and Christophe Willem had been mentioned under a few Gallic breaths for a while. But when Matador's name was announced, all but the most sussed shouted "Who?" They clearly hadn't heard his huge summer hit of 2008, Décalé Gwada - a gloriously shouty fusion of African, Carribean and urban French grooves - and something entirely new to Eurovision.

If his Eurotune was even half as good as that he'd either sail gloriously or crash spectacularly in the contest - but either way he'd be remembered.

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the early eighties, Jessy Kimbangi began his career as a dancer, before joining the group Les Cœurs Brisés (The Broken Hearts), and later starting up his own mob, La Sélésao. After getting signed to Wagram Records in early 2008, their album Afrikan New Style harboured three hits - all of the massive club faves, and every one blending as vast array of styles and flavours, from Zouk to Dancehall via Reggaeton and Hip-Hop to Coupé Décalé, while still forging out a very recognisable groove of their own.

Of course, when the song was announced, the traditionally rabidly conservative Eurovision fans were up in arms. Rumours that the song, Allez Ola Olé, was also to be the anthem for the French World Cup coverage insensed some even further, and after early rehearsals the odds on it coming last came in massively, as old-time fan boys who simply didn't get it bet the farm on it propping the table.

But how wrong could they be. It was never going to win the contest, as voters to the east of Poland and the south of Austria are famously uneager to vote for a singers of a darker hue. But enough people around the rest of Europe tapped into the happy-go-lucky insane aerobics of the performance to vote it into a respectable 12th place - a position the UK would be glad of in this day and age.

Furthermore, it subsequently went on to become an instant download hit across Europe and had hopefully set the Matador up for futher big things in the future. Take my advice - buy Jessy's tunes, bung them in the car, wind the windows down and play them at full volume as you cruise down your regional high street. You will get admiring glances for sure!

Now what the heck are the French going to send next year?

Tout Le Monde!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Heroes of Eurovision 2010: Peter Nalitch

2010-06-13T18:36:00.003+01:00

The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual carnival of all that's great and not so great in the world of pop from all corners of of the continent. But every year there's a small handful of songs by acts who don't look like they should really be there. Acts that you'd listen to in the real world, who sneak into your consciousness and end up becoming firm favourites for many years to come. The 2010 incarnation of the contest was no exception, with a small clump of crackers hidden among more deliberate Europop.

But no one had a rougher ride of it this year than Russia's sublime song contest candidate Peter Nalitch.

I first came across the man at this year's Russian national final. The show itself was a splendid confection, full of dark ballads, intense Slavic pop and of course those fabulous Babushkas. But smack in the middle of a thoroughly entertaining 25 song battle came Nalitch's morbid bamboozler Lost & Forgotten.

Instantly darkening the tone with its understated bar room, almost jazz tinged folk, I almost dashed to the loo, thinking it to be a handy mid-contest wee break. But suddenly, from out of nowhere as the chorus kicked in, burst a joyful hound's howl of a backing vocal, and I abated my trip to see where this curiosity was going.

Then came the middle bit - a weird call and response interlude between the guitarist (spoken) and the fella out front (sung in a plaintive falsetto) as he stared into an unseen photograph. And it was brilliant. By the time the song had built up to its last few bars of over-emotive plod-and-roll bombast I was hooked - standing on the sofa and singing along. That's the last we'll see of that, I thought. But I was so glad that we'd been given the chance to share it.

But then, at the climax of the voting came to pass, something weird happened. It won. By a street. And the crowd were going absolutely bonkers for it. There was more to this Nalitch fella than met the eye, and I had to find it out.

It turns out that the lad himself was something of a phenomenon in his home country. The nation's first true internet celebrity, his home made clip for his song Gitar - filmed by him and a few of his mates and sung in a quaintly clunky pigeon English - had gone absolutely bonkers on YouTube, propelling him to an unexpected fame. He was also something of an all round good guy, giving away any new songs to his fans via his website long before he released them commercially. He's also broadcast live gigs onto the net from his Moscow flat via Russia's RuTube broadcasting site.

So, the kind of interesting and thoughtful act that Eurovision fans would take to their hearts, you would think. Not on your nelly. A huge swathe of them just didn't get the wry, dark humour. Rather than seeing it as an intelligent and deadpan post-modern ballad, performed in the style of a late sixties degenerate intellectual student band, they just thought it was dull. "It must be a fix!", some bleated, assuming that it was some localised version of My Lovely Horse, chosen because the Russians didn't want to hold the contest again. "It's boring and depressing!" yet more chimed - and went on to boo their every performance on the big Oslo stage - especially when it was announced that it got through to the final.

But what do they know. Those of us who were lucky enough to get into the gig Nalitch and his chums played at the Russian party in Oslo witnessed a well-rounded band with a set load of intelligently funny songs, and some teary-eyed, sing-along Moscow ballads. Anyone who's visited Russia will have heard the older breed of this kind of stuff permanently pumping out of the collective radios in any market or shopping neighbourhood. It's fabulously, entertaining, brilliantly mawkish intellectual drinking songs, and you could do worse that to head off to his site and download anything you can find.

What do them fanboys know, eh?!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Generation XYZ

2010-04-30T16:16:00.001+01:00

I've just been rooting around my collection of vinyl albums to see if they were getting musty in a little visited corner of my from room. There I came across an album that at the time of buying was the greatest single musical artefact I'd ever owned. Actually I'd still rate it up in the top half dozen. That album was Get Action! by a little-known but majorly loved Japanese rock'n'roll band called Teengenerate. Prior to stepping into the late lamented Replay records back in the middle of 1995, in an underpass just off the Homeless Donut in the centre of Bristol, I didn't know the band even existed. But while flicking through the racks after some other band beginning with T who sadly elude me now, I was dazzled in my tracks by what I still reckon to be one the best record sleeves I've ever seen. That's it over to the right. Cracking, isn't it.

Four Japanese mop tops in tight jeans standing glued on front of a Yakuza movie poster? What isn't to like.

I've got a bad habit of buying an album for its cover alone - but have a pretty good hit rate. I figured and disc with a cover this good must surely belong to a right doosie of a band, but I wasn't prepared for the fabulous racket that belted through the stylus of my cheap old Matsui when I placed it gently onto the black shiny plastic.A stunning seventeen slabs of pounding garage punk noise hurtled off the record at me at breakneck speed - and every one of them under the magic three minute mark. Indeed, so quick were they all that I'd scarcely settled in my chair before I had to leap up and turn the record over (these were the old days, folks). After that I stayed on my feet and leap about a bit and kept turning and turning until I forgot which side I was listening to.

The sounds on Get Action! were fabulous. It's one of the most rustically recorded albums you'll ever hear. Each song sounds like it was laid down on selotape and rubbed with a musty brillo pad. The vocals, drums and scratchy guitars all merge into one, and sometimes you're not sure which bit is what. And then there's the lyrics. For the first few plays I assumed they were in Japanese, but soon it dand on me that no, this was English - but like no English I'd ever heard before. Indeed, the version of Shake, Rattle & Roll that closes the selection was so unhinged that it took me a couple of listens before I even realised what it was.

That was it, I had a new obsession. I swiftly ran out and got their next platter - the compilation Smash Hits!! It didn't have the same fantastic production values as my new favourite album, but it was still a cracker. There was even news of them coming to play in England - but they were so underground, by the time I found out where, it had already happened.

The following year, Fifi, Fink, Sammy and Shoe folded the band. But I guess the perfect teenaged rock and roll bands should burn bright and die quick, but I'm still dead miffed I never got to see them. Mind you, they've recently reformed for a couple of quick tours. It might not be the same now that they're creeky twenty-somethings, but I'm sure it'll still be a marvellous thing to behold!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Argentine Delights

2010-04-26T18:24:00.002+01:00

Towards the end of last summer, the community arts centre up the end of my road put on what it billed as a punk night, with a Camden style market and a barrage of great bands. I figured that must be worth the small trot up the lane, but unfortunately it was a little disappointing. The market turned out to be one t-shirt stall and a couple of charity leaflet tables, while the bands were mainly a sorry collection of MySpace-source Busted alikes, headlined by the ace Bristol old skool punk band The Bolsheviks - who'd already played a free show earlier that eve, so quite understandably prove to be much of a punter draw.

But smack in the middle of this disappointment was a short half hour of absolute pop beauty. I can only assume that they were either booked by mistake, or as favour to a friend, but Las Kellies from Buenos Aires were an absolute delight.

Four girls dressed up as tubes of toothpaste singing songs about flying to their sister's weddings and sitting up trees in a smashing popped up blend of The Slits, The Raincoats and The Go-Gos, they held the few shuffling gig goers in their thrawl from start to finish.

I had a quick chat with them after their show and they were equally great fun to talk to. It turned out they had decided to play their way around Europe, and were smack in the middle of the tour - which seems like just about the best kind of holiday imaginable! I immediately grabbed a copy of their then most recent disc, Kalimera, which saw the girls as demon ninjas on the cover, and have been playing it most weeks ever since. Their simple, happy-go-luck charm is properly addictive, and I reckon you might enjoy it too.

So go pay them an internet visit, buy one of their three fabulous albums, and try and convince them to get back over. You'd just love it if they did!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

The Riot is back on

2010-04-20T21:04:00.002+01:00

The Digital Hardcore has returned. Oh yes, Atari Teenage Riot have reformed with some new noise and a few short dates. The Berlin filthy techno merchants, who last saw the light of day at The Big Day Out festival in Australia a decade ago have enlisted Brooklyn rapper MC CX Kidtronik to fill out the noise, and I must admit I'm really rather excited.

I first heard the band on a mix tape sellotaped to front of the sadly missed Deadline magazine in the early 90s. In among all the dreary jingly jangly indie pop was an explosion of sparkling techno called Midi Junkies. I was hooked in five seconds. A month or so later they were due to play a tour in support of Sheep On Drugs, but by the time they were supposed to play my nearest gig hall the tour had been cancelled. One rumour suggested that one of Sheep On Drugs had nearly died after the show the night before. Another that their bus had simply broken down. Either way I was devistated.

I heard little more of the band for a couple of years until one night our old chum John Peel played what I thought at first was a quaintly serviceable Huggy Bear-alike tune, which quickly magnified into one of the most blisteringly banging spots of gnarly techno I'd ever heard. It was like happy hardcore plunged through an industrial grinder and I wanted to know more. Of course dear old Peely forgot to say who it was after it finished, and it took me another fortnight to discover who it was.

The song was Not Your Business, a new, gnarlier stance for the band - and I was hooked all over again.

I eventually got to see them a few times live, but as time went on it was clear things were self-destructing. All this ended with Carl Crack's brutal suicide less than a week before September 11th 2001.

After a disparate bundle of solo stuff from the surviving members I was expecting the band to remain an anarchic nostaligia - until this morning, when I was forwarded a link to their new single - the fabulously boinging nose of Activate. The band are actively encouraging us all to download an early mix of it by mentalist Dubstep producer The Builder, which I would advise that you do right here.

Rumour has it that key member, the disturbingly aluring Hanin Elias has decided not to get involved, leaving founder member Alec Empire and later-comer Nic Endo to take up the mantle. They're playing a bunch of dates across Europe in May, including Camden's Electric Ballroom on May 12th - although I might suggest hanging on until August for their appearance at the rather ace looking Berlin Festival. The shows will either be utterly fabulous, anxiously grumpy or completely horrific - but whichever way they'll be joyously, unpleasantly memorable.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Cocktail Credibility

2010-04-16T18:33:00.001+01:00

Punk rock is like a cross between an international cottage industry and the masons. Everyone helps everyone else out, and trade is often performed by like, with hardly a penny crossing hands. You play with a band you like the look of and the old reciprocal merch swapsies soon gets going. And once in a while there'll be a distro table there, run by a committed punk fan who just loves getting the stuff out there. The protocol there is, give them a bundle of yours and they'll give you a bundle of theirs - and that way you get your hands on all sorts of fabulous stuff you amy never of otherwise heard.

And that's how I first got my ears around Beng Beng Cocktail.

After an ace all dayer at the fabulous Sawyers in Kettering, we came home with a huge heap of punking stuff from around the globe from the Pumpin Records table in exchange for a few tawdry Hacksaw CDs. But the one that really drew me in was totally different to all the rest. There wasn't a drum, bass or distortion pedal to be heard. Instead three worldly sounding youths were strangling noises out of their acoustic guitars while spitting politics out in a gurgling and gallically mangled English. These kids meant business, and it was the kind of business that I liked.

Now usually when you give acoustic guitars to punkers they either go all agit prop busker, or quiet and introspective on a stool. But the Beng Beng boys are an entriely different proposition. Pure venom flicks out of every string strangling finger, while their larynx hurl out spatter gun flobs of verbal drool, fully diseased up with their barking ire.

They're kind of familiar, in that sort of black T-shirted hat wearing neo-skank punk that's been kicking about for a couple of years now, but at the same time utterly and refreshingly original. And best of all, they do the acoustic thing without ever being wanky, folky or resorting to reggae - and that can only be a good thing. I'd highly recommend getting your hands on their present album From The Bottle To The Swallow, and if they ever come round your way, get and see them. I know I certainly will!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Next Level Beats in Cape Town

2010-03-30T17:49:00.003+01:00

The interweb is a wonderful thing. Folks say it's fragmentalising culture and suching the oozy brains out of the masses. Me, I reckon it's a fabulous tool for plain finding stuff out. I'm sure you're the same. People are always dropping you emails with links to some YouTube vid saying "I've just found the funniest/best/weirdest thing in the world... you're going to love it!" Usually it's just a cat yawning like a man, or a dog throwing up after humping something, but once in a while it's something truly splendid.

So when I got a note telling me to check out this messed up slab of white South African trailer park rap by an act called Die Antwoord, I was intrigued. Hip hop is one of the few music genres that lends itself to regional accents, so I was curious to hear how those strangled Afrikaans vowels would bend themselves round some slick rhymes. I wasn't, however, prepared for this...

A gangly mohawked geezer with poor prison tattooes spat out staccato machine-gun syllables, interspersed with sharp and disturbing playground chants from a troublingly young and slightly freaky looking schoolie. And every once in a while, from the shadows, a strange goblin-like figure emerged. The song got stuck in my head immediately and I needed to know more!

The first thing I learned was that the goblin-guy wasn't in a suit - he was a real life geezer. The character billed as Solarize was actually a respected Cape Town artist called Leon Botha, who suffers from the premature aging disorder Progeria. I immediately felt bad for thinking weird of him - but then twigged that this was probably the reaction Die Antwoord were after. Make sure you check out some of his fab art after you finish reading this.

I tracked down a few more tracks and videos, including the enlightening Zef Side (Zef being a kind of South African equivilent of Redneck), complete with its mini-interview segments. But something didn't sit right. It all looked too well filmed, knowing and slightly acted...

This begged a dilemma. Here is a band who look ace, sound fantastic and have got a string of great tunes. But I was starting to think they were a completely made up arts project, or the viral teasers for some kind of South African hip hop Spinal Tap. These fears were further bolstered when I discovered lead rap man Ninja was actually one Watkin Tudor Jones, a man with a history of concept rap projects. Indeed, in one of his previous incarnations, Max Normal, he appeared to be a beardy art school hippie trying his hand at cool beats.

But then I got over myself and realised that it didn't really matter how this stuff got there and how authentic it may be - it sounded great and looked even better, and that's all that really matters I suppose. How is this any less authentic is this than a Californian rapper sleazing for his video in a Hummer full of oiled up bootyfied chicks in bikinis?

The video for Enter The Ninja immediately became a massive worldwide internet hit with YouTube views numbering in the millions, and free downloads of their album $O$ are numbering in the hugeness too. And it turns out that they may be part of a film, after all, as they're rumoured ton be coming to Europe and the US in the summer, with a camera crew in tow chronicling the whole thing. But then, I guess, that's all part of the mystique.

So, I'm not sure what the question actually is, but Die Antwoord are The Answer.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Eurovision 2010 - Here's What You Could Have Won

2010-03-19T20:43:00.008Z

As sure as Spring brings daffodils and little baby lambs, in some curious corners of society it also brings with it Eurovision fever. Unknown to most of you there have been a cavalcade of national finals around the continent since the crack of the year, and now, all bar the final tweaks and remixes, all 39 songs for this year's edition have been chosen.

But 2010 is a bit different. Universally accepted as the worst contest since the drab days of the mid 90s, this year sees a barrage of Disney ballads, mid-tempo plodders and Pop Idol karaoke. Even hardened Eurovision fans are admitting it all looks a bit dull. But if could have all been so different. In practically every national final (well, except ours, naturally) there was one or two stand out tunes that would have filled the contest with a little bit of joy, excitement or downright bewilderment.

So here's a brief trip through some of the best songs that never made it, and some of the freakazoid curiosities this year's line up is sadly missing. But be warned, it's for strong stomachs, so you might want to digest it all in a couple of visits. Madams et monseiurs, settle in for the Eurovision that should have been...

There may have been better national finals, but there certainly wasn't any more eventful events than the Moldova process. Over the period of a couple of months the choices of national broadcaster TRM managed to wind the population up so much with its final selections that there was protests on the streets of Chisinau.

Perennial non-qualifier Sasha Bobnibov tried his hand again with this slightly unsettling ditty...

And who wouldn't want this bonkers Halliwell-alike representing them in Oslo?...

But best of all was the man who nearly started a revolution all his own, the supermarket security guard superstar Pavel Turcu - although I'm not sure even he understood what all the fuss was about...

The Swedes have often been accused of thinking too hard about the contest, then sending the same thing every year. So what a shame they missed out on a two prime opportunities to do something just a little bit different this year.

There was the joyful Balkan hip hop option from Andra Generationen and Dogge Doggelito...

And on the other side of the coin, the understated and quietly stunning Pain of Salvation...

Hosts Norway also missed out on two amazing chances to send something a bit different from their usual schlager fare.

A reformed A1 (yes really!) must have stood a great chance of a top five finish had the good people of the Northlands deemed them worthy...

While Keep of Kalessin did what Norway do best and made a right old racket...

Lithuania are always prone to strangeness, but they surpassed their own high standards with these two beauties this year.

Gaudentas Janusas dealt us possible the oddest song of the year. Listening to the crowd's reaction we have to assume that he's either a well-known comedian out that way, or just bit unhinged...

Mariaana Seppern, on the other hand, shows that you can have all the right ingredients and still be a dozen shade of wrong. Be warned, mind, as this one is liable to stick in your brain for months...

Estonia probably had the best selection of the year, with not a single stinker among their ten tunes. This, of course, condemned whichever one of them actually got through to semi-final failure at the end of May, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the lot of them by clicking here. However, we rather took a shine to this pair.

Groundhog Day, and their stands-out-like-a-sore-thumb hands-in-the-air indie rock...

And the squeaky, wouldn't-want-her-round-your-house bonkersness of Iiris Vesnik...

Elsewhere around Europe, poor dear Michael Jackson still can't rest in his box - as this curious effort from Romania's Lucia Dumitrescu attests...

Malta's Glenn Vella, on the other hand, only appears to have listened to Thriller for the last 14 years...

There was also a refreshing batch of slightly rocky, punky and indiefied tunes scattered around the continent - none of which, of course, made it through to Oslo. And in most of these cases, that's a danged shame.

Croatia's Valungari offered up this gloriously singalong bit of ska-folk fusion. Nice chandelier, too...

Iceland appear to be having somewhat of a Tenpole Tudor revival. Just take a look at Hvanndalsbræður...

And whoever knew that the Greeks had so this kind of shouty bondage pop in them!...

We also loved the unlikely Albanian gloom fest of Bojken Lako and Banda Adriatica. Five and a half minutes of dark, rambling pomp, infused with weirdly folksy bits, it doesn't really get going till the last minute, but you'll be glad you sat out the journey...

Before we get on with the good stuff, I feel compelled to draw your attention to two of the worst performances I've ever seen in 40 odd years of following this funny old contest.

Constantinos Kontozis and Soul Throw obviously thought they were being kooky and fun, but they managed to have clutched at every 'I'm mad, me' straw in the barn of desperation, and nipped round to Nicosia central casting to cobble together a massive ragbag of wrong. Be warned, this is bad...

Meanwhile, closer to home, our very own Esme put in a vocal performance so poor you won't even feel sorry for her. What are the words again, love?...

Don't worry, we're on the home straight now. The real joy of Eurovision for the rank and file Saturday Night TV viewer is the freakazoid entries - the ones that have you shouting "Did you see that?!!!" at work on Monday morning - and we certainly missed out on a fair few gems this term.

Nick Egibyan's intro clip won't prepare you for his on stage persona in this gem from Armenia...

Latvia's final was full of curiosities, but we rather enjoyed this slightly creepy teenage stalker anthem from PeR...

This happy-go-lucky little ditty from Portugal's Seis Po'Meia Duzia would have defied explaination even back in the 70s...

Slovakia's opera rock amalgam by Pavol Remenár, Klára and Liquid Error is similarly uncategorisable, but is so good it makes your face hurt...

Their alphabetical neighbours from Slovenia had a much more gran-frightening slant on things with the frankly terrifying Zadnji Taxi...

Then there were a few tunes you probably wouldn't be too embarassed to actually admit liking in the real world.

It seemed like every country in Europe had their own car boot version of Lady Gaga in the finals this year. Most of them were scraggy pub singers in frightwigs and angular shoulders, but the best of them was Poland's Anna Cyzon, who managed to get a small slice of Stefani in there too...

Serbia missed a trick with this brilliantly chaotic number from Emina Jahovic...

While ancient Spanish rave head Chimo Bayo managed to get himself disqualfied before he even got going. But this belter would have gone down a storm among the forest of ballads we've got to sit through this year...

And we mustn't forget my new favourite band, Eläkeläiset, whose vodka-fuelled Humppa is the current soundtrack to my life...

But best of the bunch was this unassuming little outfit from Russia. Their final was packed full of gems, but this one stood head and shoulders above the rest. Had this got to Oslo it would have won by an all time record score and have been talked about for many years to come. It's quite possibly the most beautiful thing that I've ever see on a stage. So ladies and gentlemen, please accept your reward for making it all this way down this sorry list of songs, the utterly fantasic Buranovskiye Babushki...

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

A Right Bunch of Nancys

2010-03-04T14:14:00.002Z

A few years back we took a trip to Valencia for my birthday. It was a cracking place, but the week of our visit saw a dry desert of gigs. The only thing that looked halfway watchable was a New York Dolls show at a small club on the outskirts of the city. Cited as support on the massive posters slapped all over town were an act called Nancys Rubias, whose logo cheekily aped the lipstick scrawl style of the headliners. We figured they sounded fun already, but weren't prepared for the distinctly strange experience that they offered.

I always forget that stuff in Spain never kicks off until well late. It's all them blimmin' siestas that do it. So obvious we get there way too early. We saw a side door open and heard some muffled musical sounds coming out, so we thought we'd go in for a nose. There on stage were five glammed up characters looking every part like a bus queue outside a Mighty Boosh convention. The music was playing loud - a breathlessly daft Hi NRG electro version of Teenage Kicks - but no one on stage appeared to be doing anything, shy of the odd vocal intervention. Surely this lot couldn't be about to mime their way through a New York Dolls support?

Oh yes they can!

Sat around the street cafe outside before the doors officially opened, the band soon arrived, and were met with a collection of big hugs and slight smirks of derision. Were these local heroes or an unlikely national institution? It was difficult to tell. But by now we were busting to see how they went down live.

Eventually the venue opened and as it was still filling, the Nancys took to the stage. The glam outfits of before were clearly just their street wear as now the boards were awash with PVC, leopard skin and fishnets. A lanky frontman in high heels who looked like a slightly fey bricky pace the stage like a cat on two legs, flanked by a massive-haired guitarist looking every bit like Vince Noir and a peroxide blonde man-gal on keyboards. Hiding at the back was a short-haired leather-clad rock 'n' roll boy, but best of all was a Betty Page-alike in a swimsuit and tights sexily poised with a triangle! This was surely the best band in the world, and they hadn't even started playing yet.

And when they did start to play it wasn't entirely a let down. Disco-fused glam rock with massive electropop kicks and gloriously lisped sissy-boy vocals in the 1920s music hall tradition. And yes, it was almost entirely mimed. But somehow that made it better. Put this lot on the same support slot back home and they've have been bottled off in minutes, but here it made perfect, fabulously glamourous sense.

They struck some kind of curious chord deep in my head, so some months later I tried to tack them down and see what their story was. All I could find was their eponymous album on Amazon, which took eight months to finally arrive. On here on this shiny slab was every song they played that night in Valencia, in exactly the same order, sounding exactly the same. Fabulous. I almost wanted to know no more, but that nag kept on until somebody finally posted a potted history on Wikipedia.

It turns out they were somewhat of a pet project svengalied by the wife of front man Nancy Anorexica - the much older Alaska from the cult goth electro band Fangoria. And more surprising it transpired that they'd had a string of Spanish top ten hits. But there was tragedy too. Just before the release of their third album, the blonde of the band, Nancy Rubia himself, threw himself from a notorious suicide bridge behind the Royal Palace in Madrid. A sad end to a fascinating and truely unique band.

There's was a flame that burned brightly - albeit in a slightly different colour to usual - and snuffed quickly. But they left a gloriously beautiful sooty wick.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Metal Flowers In The Desert

2010-02-26T16:18:00.004Z

Wherever you go in the world you find the Metal. I've walked through Malaysian jungles and found kids living in stilt villages wearing Metallica t-shirts. A chum of mine ended up having the most frightening night of his life in a Maori Heavy Metal bar in New Zealand, and being a hairy beggar I regularly get similarly hirsute folks the planet over coming up to me, giving me a hug and shouting the bonding cry "Heavvvvvy Metaaaaaaaaaallllll!!!" at me like I'm a long lost brother.

So I shouldn't have been surprised to discover that Bahrain has a thriving metal scene. What I wasn't expecting was how darned unique and inventive it was. I stumbled across a fantastic band called THEE PROjECT during one of those massive MySpace click through sessions you do (well, I do), and I was immediately hooked. Not the formula widdly guitar solo hair-shaking pose for these boys. Neither the wedge-haired and angular-elbowed screemo that seems to be digesting the planet. No, these boys were thoughtful, original and quite entertainingly dark.

Swathed in woolly black balaclavas (which must be an effort enough in such a desert setting) and pounding out a fractured mix up of the stop-starty metal chunk favoured by Dillinger Escape Plan and their chums, with a dark punky alt edge, and occasional forays into reggae, folk and local folk musics, they claim, rather pleasingly, that they follow a three-point formula in their musical creation process...

"1. Make each song a different style than the previous.
2. Try to cover different genres of music.
3. Boost it up by making it head-banging friendly."

And they certainly succeed in their refreshing musical plan. Each song has a complete and distinct universe of its own, while still retaining an over-arching feel to the music that suggests it could only come from a single source. They've just released a blisteringly good new album called Thee Art of Mehyawa, that's packed with ace noise and a dark and wry sense of humour. I heartily suggest that you track it down like a dog and get it while you can.

While Bahrain is one of the more liberal of the Gulf states, it can still be classed as a conservative state by our fancy dan European standards. A loose mob of Metal fans calling themselves Bahraini Rockers have been trying to put on gigs, but their shows are frequently cancelled by the authorities, with stories of kids being turned away from the shows by security for wearing too much make up and what they call 'satanic t-shirts'. So it's a wonder that any kind of scene has managed to survive - let alone thrive in such an interesting and exciting way.

And THEE PROjECT are just the tip of the iceberg. More traditionally loud and doomy acts like The Mushroom Massacre, Motör Militia, Smouldering In Forgotten and the amazingly brutal Arabic-language Death metal mob Narjahanam are cropping up all over the island - and every one of them begs a listen. And when you find them, keep clicking through on their friends lists and see what other wonders you can uncover!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Armenia's Apricot Army

2010-02-21T17:30:00.004Z

Now there are many, who when the subject of Eurovision is raised, dismiss it with a cursory "Of course it's all political." What they are touting is usually the misguided and paranoid idea that nobody votes for the UK because everyone hates us, and there's some manner of fit up among all the other countries against us. Of course, they are wrong. The only reason nobody votes for us any more is because we send lazy-assed songs firmly rooted in the Eurovision of the past. However, in some instances Eurovision can claim to be a highly politicised beast - none the least out in the Caucasus.

Case in point is this year's Armenian entry, Apricot Stone by Eva Rivas. On the outset it sounds like nothing more sinister than a nostalgic ditty about the old days, the pretagonist's mother telling her how good life would be once she'd grown up - kind of like Ke Sera Sera with a skipbeat. But a little bit of delving will uncover all manner of mischief making.

For a start, take a look at that Armenian flag up in the top right corner. See the orange band at the bottom? That's not orange, that's apricot. The colour on the flag relates to the fruit considered to be the symbol of Armenian nationality. This thing goes back centuries, with Armenian generals going into war carrying banners and effigies made in the colour of the fruit, and the country's favourite folk instrument, the duduk (the very instrument that Eva's song begins with) is made from the wood of the tree. So perhaps the song is a call out to the diaspora of up to six million Armenians scattered around the globe in order to garner a few teary-eyed votes?

Maybe so, but some commentators are claiming yet more symbolism within the song's lyric. Some say that the mention of the fruit's stone refers to the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave within the borders of Azerbaijan. These two very different nations have been niggling about this neighbourhood ever since the Russians poked their noses 90 odd years back - but would they extend their beef to something as seemingly innocent as Eurovision? You better believe it, because these two have form.

Last year the Armenians had their singer from the previous year, Shirusho, read out their scores. But look carefully and you'll notice that both on the backdrop and on the back of the very clipboard that she kept cheekily flashing at the camera was a picture of the Tatik yev Papik momument in Nagorno-Karabakh - a symbol of Armenian nationality in that area.

Following that, it was reported that 43 Azeri residents were questioned by their Ministry of Security after it was found that they had made the very unpatriotic move of voting for Armenia in the 2009 competition in Moscow.

Obviously feelings are still running very strong between the two countries, and they're playing their local politics out in the living rooms of a hundred million viewers across the continent. And with Azerbaijan yet to choose their song in this year's contest, we suspect this one could run and run. Keep them peeled, 'cos that Saturday night at the end of May could prove to hold more political intrigue than the casual viewer could ever imagine!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

He's a One Man Band...

2010-02-12T16:00:00.008Z

Around the turn of the century I was editing an entertainment and lifestyle website for the student market. Most days I'd have a barrage of record company PRs calling me up and trying to sell me their latest big thing - which for the most part only proved to disappoint. But one midweek afternoon when one the few that I trusted to tell me if anything was any good or not - you know, really good - rang me to enthusuastically expouse the joys of one of his new charges, I thought it was time to pack up all this lark and get into plumbing.

"I got this act called Petit Vodo - you're going to love him!" Tell me more, I instructed. "Well, he's a French one-man band... but he's a lot better than I can make that sound. I'll send you a copy of the album." He wasn't wrong. Despite a description that held less promise than an old pair of damp socks, that album, Monom, rocked like a bastard.

Imagine the refuelled delta blues of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, without any of the ego or knowing irony, and steep it with an innocent gallic charm, some dynamite slide guitar and all kinds of bonkers-in-the-nut samples and you're part way there. "He's playing down Dingwalls with Gallon Drunk in a couple of weeks," explained my Vodo go between, "do you want to see him?" Heck yeah, I replied - if only to see if he could actually play any of this stuff live. Surely he had a band, or merely relied on overdubs and recording trickery on the album.

It would seem that he didn't.

Up in Camden, right by the canal, a tiny, unassuming man in spectacles and a flying helmet toddled speculatively onto the stage. With a massive guitar over his shoulder and a harmonica perched around his neck, he settled in behind the drumkit and started to play - everything. Strumming the open chords with his right hand and hammering the snare with his left, while hooting out all kinds of strangled vocalisms through his harmonica - and at the same time triggering scatter-shot sampled with his elbows. Once in a while he'd even take the stick and slide it up the fret like a bottleneck, while he still pounded out a beefy rhythm on the drums with his feet. The sounds he was making were glorious, unique and quite quite beautiful.

The partisan Gallon Drunk didn't seem too fussed by such a wonderful sideshow, serious souls that they were. But every now and again someone would walk into the room, stare hard at what was going on before them, and give that confused look that said "How the heck is HE making all THAT noise? On his own!!!"

The next album I got my hands on, Sixty-Nine Stereovox, held more of the same delights, and rarely left my stereo for a number years. Then for a while I kind of lost track of his exploits, until a recent websearch told me that he was still thriving, and still making his delectable swampy racket. Lately he's been accompanied by the glamorous Miss Caroline on drums, but it doesn't appear to have made him any less interesting or unhinged.

And you'll be pleased to hear that the good fellow is playing a few dates in the UK in March. So hunt him down like a dog and bathe in his magnificent otherness. You'll be pleased you did.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Music From The Top of the World

2010-02-04T13:57:00.006Z

One of the first things that you notice when travelling around India, apart from the oppressive humidity and the persistant smell of plasticine, is the music. Pumping out of practically every building and vehicle, the familiar playback style wafts along alleys and highways like a fragrant wind. Those slightly distorted and overdriven vocals so familiar from Bollywood movies soon become engrained in your consciousness, and inside days you'll find the pace of your walk has changed to match the skip of the music's beat.

It's pretty much the same wherever you go, but venture North and the musical landscape begins to make a few subtle changes. Travel up the country to Kashmir and more Arabic influences begin to appear. But once you pick your way through the mountain passes and enter the Himalayan region of Ladakh, you'll notice a sudden marked change. Gone are the pulsating skittish off beats of the dholaks and maddales. Instead a more organic, insistant skip of a rhythm takes over. Sing the phrase 'tummba-tiddily tummba-tiddily' to yourself gently under your breath and you'll get an idea of how it sounds.

And it's so happy too. Ladakh offers a stunning but bleak terrain, and many parts are completely cut off from the rest of the world in the long winter months. Rainfall is minimal, and as such the crops are spartan. And yet its people, predomenantly Buddist, and more akin to Tibetans than they are to any Indian nation, are some of the most cheerful I've ever met. So it's no surprise that their pop music is among the most whimsical and optimistic on the planet.

From what I could gather there are three main themes to the Ladakhi pop song: either a young soldier boy is stationed in the mountains and thinking of his girl back home in the village; a young girl walking around her village, seeing things that remind her of her soldier boy up in the mountains; or lastly the boy and the girl are together and thinking of their future and the landscape that they live in. And that's it. Every song sounds much the same as the last, and they all appear to be recorded not only in the same studio, but by the same plinky plonky keyboard, probably esconced in some chap's ad hoc studio in the capital Leh. But the music is so infectiously sweet that you'll find yourself longing to hear it for years after you visit the area.

The videos, too, are impossibly cute. Always filmed outside, and taking in the glorious scenery and unearthly light, the sweet-faced singers are always gently revelling in their surroundings, and dreaming of their loved ones as they're about their daily business. And you see them everywhere. Compilation discs of the lastest faves are played on tiny boxy screens in restaurants, bars, tourist offices and trinket shops. Ladaki pop is the heartbeat of the region, and the moment you begin to head South again, and the music pumping out of the massive, but always slightly damaged speakers on the buses shifts to more traditional Indan pop sounds, you feel like you're leaving behind an old friend.

There isn't a single Ladakhi pop act that I could recommend, they're all so reassuringly similar. Just listen to and watch some of the videos throughout this post, as they'll give you a flavour of the glorious sounds and images of a remarkable part of the world.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Spanish Democracy

2010-01-28T14:32:00.011Z

As a country that suffered the ravages of dictatorship for so long, it's nice to see the Spanish take to democracy so heartily - and nowhere is it more evident than their Eurovision selection process.

Three years ago, fed up with a string of poor to middling results, some genius at RTVE had the brainwave of opening their pre-selection contest up to the masses and not only allowing anyone to enter, but giving the whole world the opportunity to vote on them. No filtering or fine tuning - anyone could enter, from the most professional record-company endorsed act to the most lowly bedroom artist. Now that's the kind of democracy I like!

So they put out a call for songers across the land to display their wares on MySpace, not realising the mild controversy that would ensue. The plan was that punters would vote for their faves, and the top few would battle it out in a televised final. All very good, but it didn't take into account that fabulous human instinct for making things cheekily difficult. Inside days an unlikely contender raced to the top of the vote table. Antonio 'El Gato' González was an elderly man who had his croaky homespun warblings set to a bizarre mininal techno backing track for the song La Bicicletera. It was racing away into a huge lead when someone at the Spanish TV station noticed that a bulk its votes all came from the same few IP addresses. It subesquently had around 100,000 votes taken away from it, but still finished respectably well up the table.

This may have been good news for those hoping for a more traditional song, but their previous fears were soon doubled by one Rodolfo Chikilicuatre with his faux reggaeton stomper Baila el Chiki-Chiki. Chikilicuatre (local slang for good for nothing), was the comic creation of comedian David Fernández, a regular cast member on rival TV station LaSexta's late night show Buenafuente. With plenty of free publicity, and a groundswell of populist funtime opinion behind it, the song walked the final, and finished in 16th in Belgrade - still one of Spain's best results in some years.

The following year RTVE tried it all again, only this time in a much more complicated way. Once again, songs were submitted via MySpace. Of the 978 entries, only 455 were considered to be within the rule. These songs were then divided into genres. The top 5 songs in each of the ten categories then qualified for a protracted series of auditions and ever decreasing heats. Runaway leaders throughout the contest were a flamenco dance act called Melody y Los Vivancos with their difficult but exciting song Amante de la Luna. But despite tieing for the lead in the final with the severe-haired songstress Soraya and her more traditionally-Eurovision flavoured dance piece La Noche es Para Mí, they missed out on a trip to Moscow on a countback technicality.

Soraya eventually came 23rd out of 25th in the final.

So bless RTVE for their persistence - they're trying the whole thing again this year. Thankfully though the process is much simpler. This time, 480 songs were submitted, of which 319 were banged up onto the TV channel's website for a straight open vote - the top ten going on to fight out a gala final. But there was immediate controversy. Each viewer to the site could vote up to five times a day from the same email address. This led to accusations that those artists signed to big labels would benefit from dedicated PR departments flooding the table with votes sent from a string of specially created email addresses. But despite this, a surprise candidate flew to the top of the leaderboard inside 24 hours.

The song Soy Un Tsunami by a botox-powered old gal calling herself Pop Star Queen stormed to the head of the field. It was soon discovered though that the performer was in fact one Karmele Marchante, a presenter from another minority channel - this time TeleCinco - who wanted to pull a similar stunt to old Chiki Chiki two years before. Close checks were then made on the content of all the submitted songs, which saw Pop Star Queen disqualified, along with a few other popular tunes (sadly also including the rather ace La Fiesta del Fuego by old-skool Valencian rave head Chimo Bayo). This meant that the table was now topped by Coral Segovia and her formula Disney-esque ballad En una Vida - particularly ironic as it was Coral who was beaten into second place by Rodolfo Chikilicuatre two years since.

But that isn't the end of it. It would seem that the curious forces behind Pop Star Queen are attempting to rocket another hapless hopeful to unexpected stardom. This has seen the unlikely rise to glory of a surly looking body-builder called John Cobra, with his raspy piece of bedroom business Carol. Leaping from near the bottom of the table to a solid third place in a few short days, RTVE are bound to cobble up some reason to disqualify it, but I for one hopes he makes it - if only to see how the poor soul is going to perform it live on a big stage in front of a whole bunch of people.

But it's the lower reaches of the voting table that holds the most joy. Mainly populated by transvestites and old men hammering away on guitars, there are many splendours to behold, and I highly recommend a quick visit to the official site to sample some of them yourself. If for nothing else than to sample the glorious marvel that is SuperEddy...

With a week of voting still to go, almost anything could happen. Coral Segovia will probably win it, as there's a general feeling among Eurovision fandom that it's her turn. But I suspect that there'll still be some thrills and spills along the way - particularly as our old mate El Gato has suddenly started creeping up the charts again!

Y Viva España!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

The First Lady of French Pop

2010-01-25T15:10:00.007Z

When I first noticed that Europe's coolest first lady, Carla Bruni, was doing a stint on Jools Holland a few months back to promote her new album, I immediately assumed, as many of us must have, that it was some mere vanity project, existing only to boost the ego of a woman with impossible opportunity at her fingertips.

I didn't watch the show that night, but when, a couple of weeks back, I saw a massive pile of her album on sale for 99p by the checkout of my local hyper-discount record store, I reckoned it would be worth less than a quid of my money to see what horrors were inprinted on this shiny round disc. I rushed home, chucked it onto my stereo and prepared to giggle.

What I wasn't expecting was for it to be not only listenable, but a cracking little album. Bruni's breathy, minimalist style brings to mind the kind of husky teen ingenue that old rogues like Serge Gainsbourg used to get the best out of back in the day. Indeed, Bruni's backstory probably hindered sales of Comme Si de Rien n'Etait (translated as a somewhat knowing As If Nothing Happened) rather than encouraged them. But don't let her status as Sarkozy's missus, and her track record as an indulged heiress and lover of the powerful put you off, because it's a lovely album.

A little digging in the crates led me to discover that this is in fact her third album, her debut Quelqu'un M'a Dit being released some five years before she met the guvnor of France. This album is every bit as good as her more recent effort, Bruni's butterfly thin voice fluttering across gossamer thin melodies and brittle song structures. I was expecting something of far more bombast and bluster, but instead enjoy the floaty light brightness of her body of music work.

Her middle album, No Promises, was a little more poncey, putting to music the words of WB Yeats, Emily Dickinson, WH Auden and many more dusty old poets, and is currently trying to fit work on her fourth disc, including a collaboration with that old musical hack Lenny Kravitz, in between her civic duties and philanthropic doings. But as much as you try you can't knock her two albums of French language original songs. Seriously, if you see them going cheap somewhere give them a pop, as you may be pleasantly surprised.

And whatever you think of the woman personally, could you imagine what kind of album the other spouses of the leaders of the world would put out? Sarah Brown, get the singing lessons in - you've got three months to get the album out and help save your old man his job!

All pictures © of their respective owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Brutal Noise on Tenerife

2010-01-22T14:31:00.011Z

There's something about living on an island that turns its inhabitants a little batchy. Perhaps it's the isolation, perhaps it being cooped in with the same familiar faces day after day, or maybe it's just the sea air. But when that island is perched off the steamy coast of Western Sahara, has the world's third biggest volcano looming preganantly over it, and suffers the greasy footsteps of over five million tourists a year pacing (and puking on) it's pavements things are bound to be a little more unhinged than the workaday insanity of say an Anglesey or an Orkney.

So it came as no surprise to discover that the holiday isle of Tenerife is home to some of the most blisteringly unique rock and roll music on the globe.

I discovered it all quite by accident. I was having a peek around the fabulous Last FM website before a recent trip to Madrid to see if there were any gigs of note in town when we were there, when an entry for a band called Brutalizzed Kids caught my eye. Their gig was a week after our visit, but there was something about their album cover that lured me to find out a little more. A middle-aged gent, stripped to the waist with a wispy tache and dreadlocks piled up on his head and a world weary look on his face peered disapprovingly out of the screen. Whether he was a band member or just some bloke off the street I didn't know, but I rushed stright to their MySpace and was instantly struck by their fabulous shouty racket.

Their bombast is familiar, but still difficult to explain. Imagine the insistant industrial techno of Ministry or The Revolting Cocks fused with the sleazy Scandi rock and roll of Turbonegro or The Backyard Babies, sprinkled with the high tech energy of Pendulum and the filthy dirty basslines of someone like World Domination Enterprises from days gone by. And heavens I was hooked. The album Soy Muñeco has scarcely left my ears ever since - hit the link and buy the beggar, I implore you!

But then curiousity led me to wonder if they were an isolate incident, or if there was any similar noise on the island. Happily a quick MySpace trawl led me to loads more good stuff. Becerro are similarly noisy bunch, with a slightly more technofied edge, Ataud Vacante are old school punk with a sleazy edge,while 13 Motos are just a good old fashioned, nads out punk'n'roll act of the finest kind. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's plenty more - go search them out yourselves.

Every band is distinct, but all seem to share at least two members with the next. They say island life can be incestuous, but for me, this kind of cross-fertilization has led to some teriffically unique and brutal sounds. So next time your other half insists of dragging you to this holiday isle, ignore all the usual Brits-On-The-Piss sick in a basket bars and get yourself to the steamy clubs of Santa Cruz. Glorious treats await!

Pictures © Brutalizzed Kids.
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

A Fistful of Humppa

2010-01-21T14:30:00.020Z

I have a long held belief that the true roots of rock'n'roll don't actually lay in the blues and the older music of the Africas, but in the raucous folk stomps of Northern Europe. Listen to the early country recordings of Ralph Peer, who took to the mountains of the rural states of America in the twenties to log the sounds and music of the region. The songs he recorded of family groups and solo troubadors like The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and Fiddlin' John Carson had more to do with polka sounds of the Baltic and the wassails of Northern England than any kind of chain gang spiritual. It was those old country warblers and hillbilly cats that had such an influential effect on the early pioneers of rock'n'roll who came from the same neighbourhoods, and I fancy you can trace that polka element right through the ages to the simple hectic thrash of contemporary punk rock - simple tunes slammed out in boom-chit boom-chit time at a hectic speed.

Perhaps that's why I fell in love with the Finnish Humppa kings Eläkeläiset the second I heard them. And what's not to love? Five alt rockers on the dangerous fringes of middle age hammering out high octane retreads of popular songs as they sit around a table drinking raw vodka and acting disgracefully? They got me hooked and wanting to move to Finland and pester them outside their houses right off the bat.

Starting as an off-shoot of the old Finnish noisemongers Kumukameli, they soon became popular in their own right, and have since become inexplicably stadium huge across the German speaking nations and the former Soviets. And now they're about to embark on their biggest challenge yet - The Eurovision Song Contest.

This weekend sees them try their hand in the third Finnish semi-final in a national contest they are huge favourites to win. And if they make it to Oslo in May, and settle themselves in among the more traditional balladeers and Europop monkeys, I fancy that we've got an unexpected treat in store.

Any band who bury alocohol along their tour route, leaving clues on their website as to where to find it, or who offer fridge magnets, bottle openers, hip flasks and XXXXXL t-shirts for their stouter fans among their merch list deserve the love of Europe - even if it is only for three minutes on a Saturday night in May. If they can beat their main rival, the junior tango king Amadeus in their home selection contest, I can guarantee they'll be the ones you're all talking about at work the following Monday morning!

All hail the Humppa!

Pictures © Eläkeläiset.
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Kammermetal-Core - German Chamber Music Rawks!

2010-01-20T14:15:00.018Z

You can always guarantee finding something a bit odd in Berlin, and on a recent trip I stumbled across a gig that underlined that statement in big yellow marker pen. Chamber Metal, anyone?

Colombiaclub, an old US Forces cinema on the perimiter of the decaying Cold War landmark Tempelhof airport, was the glorious setting for a night of quite abject strangeness. Its faded 50s chic jarred nicely with the goth-tinged metalists in corsets and stove pipe hats that were mingling among the big-bellied rockers and excitable young nippers who made up the crowd in equal numbers. And the first band up only added to the already curious nature of the night..

Remember Twilight describe themselves as Kammermetal-core - Kammer meaning Chamber, as in Chamber Music. So it was a surprise to see that half of this mob looked like they could have been in any youth-fuelled metal band on the globe. But it was the addition of the more classically-brandished instruments that gave this mob its winning difference. Violins, cellos and a gangly, slightly self-conscious chap in a black skirt clutching an oboe mingled among the more trad black clad metalists - it all looked a bit incongruous, but it sounded flipping ace.

Next were Silent Poem. With a name like that I was expecting some withering goth-metal whimsy. But instead we were presented with another untraditional set up - this time drums, guitar, violin and a stick thin double bass. The jovial front boy oozed charisma, and their slick stompy sounds roped in genres as diverse as bar room jazz, celtic folk, ska punk and heads down and shake yer head metal noise. And the kids loved them, as a right old hootenanny kicked off down the front, with folk reels and headbanging colliding in a sea of thrown flowers. But all this was just the curious entree before the rich banquet that soon followed.

An old radiogram sat centre stage, wheezing out crackly sounds of the past, as a sketchy gent in white tie and tails crept on holding a candle lamp and began to dust the stage. One by one, Victorian gentlemen in tall hats and long coats marched purposefully onto the stage, the butler taking their vestments and easing them into their chairs. Once this drawn out but quaintly amusing ceremony had finished, six pale-faced characters stood before us - and there wasn't a single guitar between them. Double bass and cello flanked the wings, a hirsute ninja manned a hefty drumkit festooned with old lamps at the back, and two hollow-eyed dervishes tooted furiously on twin clarinets, while Bastille the butler skitted between them, straightening chairs, cleaning up and making the occasional proclamation.

Coppelius, it seems, are a high concept band. And that's before you even get to the music.

Steaming immediately into a barrage of power metal riffs sawn out on the big stringed things, their wind division piping out the melodies with a banshees wail, you suddenly realise you're among familiar company. Songs by megalithic metal monsters the calibre of Metallica, Maiden and Rammstein are given the chamber treatment, sounding for every bit like they should always have been played this way. And while all this is going on, a funny old master-and-servant soap opera is playing out between the band and their trusty manslave.

Down the front, the metal heads are doing windmills to clarinet solos, and love notes are being passed to the on stage retainer to be read out to the adoring masses. If I could speak better German this could all make perfect sense - but somehow I like the not knowing. Well it does add further to the air of oddness and curious mystery.

Two and a quarter hours later and they were still heaving out the noise. But somehow it had only seemed like twenty minutes had passed, we were that engrossed. I'm not sure if we'd stumbled across the iceberg tip of a movement, or an isolated incident, but this Chamber Metal business gave us one of the best nights out I've had in a long while - and is a scene, I sense, that needs some further exploration.

Pictures © Remember Twilight, Silent Poem, Coppelius.
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

The Funkiest Music in the World

2010-01-19T13:14:00.006Z

I remember a few years ago watching a cracking documentary about the isolated people of Bougainville called Our Island, Our Fight. The island was a near autonomous region at the eastern end of Papua New Guinea being plundered for minerals by the shady multi-national RTZ. The island's residents were rightly narked that their Island was being ripped to bits without them seeing any benefits from the trade, so they started to kick up a fuss - a move that led to a blockade that completely cut them off from the outside world.

The film showed the islanders' remarkable resourcefullness, and their make-do-and-mend attitude led to them creating some extraordinary organic machines. But as fascinating as all this was, it was the soundtrack that really got to me. From the opening scenes, a fabulous, funky twang underpinned the movie's events - and I just couldn't work out what was making it. It didn't quite sound like a stringed instrument, but it also wasn't a drum noise. It had me bamboozled, until one scene panned round to show a gang of men hammering away on the end of a stack of bamboo pipes with their shoes! Now I wasn't expecting that.

That sound had been kicking around in the back of my head ever since, until I randomly bought a job lot of albums in a cheap sale at an old dying record shop last week. I was churning my way through a rather interesting compilation album of international sounds called Island Blues, when all of a sudden that familiar and glorious thumppa-thumppa-thumppa-thumppa noise from Bougainville came belting out of my stereo.

Sure enough, it was a group from PNG called the Pynolasa Bamboo Band. I've tried to track some more of their stuff down on the internet, but alas to no avail. But I did get to find out a little more about this fantastic music. It turns out that it originated in The Solomon Islands, and started to shift to other neighbouring islands in the 1920s. Originally they hit the end of the pipes with coconut husks, but when American forces passed through in the war they suggested that their sandals might make better hitting paddles. And so it's gone on ever since. No contemporary instruments, no amplification, but such a glorious racket.

Have a look at a these few shaky YouTube clips, and you'll be hooked, I guarantee! Its organic rock'n'roll rattle is unarguably the funkiest music on the planet.

A bamboo band from Papua New Gunea

The Bougainville Boys in rehearsal

The Shortland Bambu Band from The Solomon Islands

A Solomon pipe band - just watch those kids hammer those pipes!

Map picture © Wikipedia.
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.

Pavel Turcu - Popstar For A Fortnight

2010-01-18T15:26:00.010Z

Fame can be such a fleeting mistress, as Pavel Turcu is just beginning to realise. The last couple of weeks saw him rise from total obscurity to become Moldova's most talked about celebrity, only to have the rug pulled out from beneath him by his country's national TV broadcaster before he even fledged his popstar wings.

It started in such an unlikely fashion. TRM, the Moldovan state broadcaster, launched an open application process that allowed anyone to send in a song in the hope of becoming their country's entry for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. As the tunes rolled in, TRM put them all up onto their website to let the world have a look at and to gauge each artist's popularity.

Among the early adopters was our hero, a supermarket security guard from Ungheni with a gloriously innocent and optimistic tune called Imn Eurovision - a hymn about everything that is great about that funny old contest. The song was sweet enough, but it was the picture that accompanied it that started up all the fuss. Pavel cut a slightly awkward swathe in his starched, shiny suit and bog brush hair. But he also exuded a kind of home-spun charm that struck a nerve in everyone who saw it.

In days our boy had his own Facebook fansite, and his clip was getting more views than all the other songs in the contest put together. By the end of the week, parody clips and funny pics based on the unsuspecting singer were cropping up all over the web - including the inevitable Hitler/Downfall movie skit. He was rapidly becoming such a star that local TV news programmes were clamouring to interview him. At first they were slightly mocking of his limited but likable talents. But in time they too had hitched a ride onto the Turcu bandwagon.

It was all beginning to look good for Pavel. He was hot favourite among the Eurovision crowd to be chosen to represent his nation in front of 300 million viewers at the contest in Oslo this coming May. He'd even been practicing his dance moves in a fabulous (and admittedly slightly amusing) video that he'd published on his shiny new website. All that stood in his way was TRM and their final shortlist.

At the close of applications last week, some 87 songs had been entered. The telly folks had to trim that down a more managable 25 for the national final, and with the press that Pavel had been getting it was almost inevitable that he'd get through. After all, with public phone voting making up only a third of the eventual result, they could surely risk putting him in - if only to bump up the ratings.

But alas no. Instead they cut out all of the more outsider entries, and presented a list of safe and somewhat lifeless tunes. Pavel's hopes had been dashed almost before they'd begun. But in that fortnight he'd become the man that a whole country had suddenly been talking about. An innocent party in the kind of ad hoc personality cult that this old internet thing can create at the drop of a hat.

In his many TV interviews it was clear that he didn't entirely understand why all this was happening to him. So let's hope that it doesn't change the poor lad, and that he either goes back to normal as quickly as possible, or becomes a star of such magnitude that he can thumb his nose at the visionless naysayers at TRM. Good luck Pavel Turcu - we loved you!

Pictures & videos © Pavel Turcu.