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!
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!
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 withCarl 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.
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.
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!
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.
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...
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.
As I travel around our funny old globe I'm constantly discovering all sorts of amazing music - fabulous regional rebendings of punk rock, hip hop, bonkers techno pop, hectic folk, doomy metal and all sorts of other amazing local business that we back home can scarcely imagine.
So how come the music that gets sold to us under the banner of World always ends up being either some drearily worthy yoghurt weaving Sting-alike, or every country's version of Peter Gabriel and not all the good stuff? You know, the music people actually enjoy.
In my own tiny little way I want to help introduce you to some of that good stuff. If you're up for it...
