Scanners and Feist

Great beach video. I can’t get this tune out of my head. It’s by a band called the Scanners and the song is Lowlife.

Scanners, Lowlife.

I love this song by Feist – highlight of the album, I think. ‘When a mountain fills with light, it’s a volcano, it’s a volcano, it’s a volcano…’

Feist, Past in Present, Live on MSN.

Famous Five

A question is rattling round my brain – should celebrities be allowed to release music records? Jordan, Naomi Campbell, Chanelle (from Big Brother) – recent history is littered with the detritus of poorly conceived pop songs. So here are my famous 5. I still can’t decide.

01. Scarlet Johannson
This is the song that inspired this post. Falling Down is a Tom Waits cover. Apparently she’s done a whole album of his covers. An odd choice. And a freaking weird result. Is she just rubbish or is this deliberate?

So I had to have a look around and see if she really sings that badly or if it was for artistic effect. Here is her version of Summertime.

02. Coldplay – Violet Hill
OK tenuous, since Coldplay are an actual band. But I am including them because of the Chris-Gwyneth factor. And this is their new single – what do you think?

http://perezhilton.com/2008-04-29-new-coldplay

03. Juliette Lewis and the Licks – Sticky Honey
Crazy lady in a leotard and her tuneful friends make a video after waking up on the sofa finding a spontaneous drunken ebay purchase – a job lot of coloured light bulbs.

04. Keanu Reeves – Dogstar – Rain
Gun toting baddie bashing action hero wishing for a change in precipitation in surprisingly delicate manner.

05. William Shatner sings Common People
We all know The Shat has been dilly dallying in the music world for a while but I have never seen this before. Pulp does not work in an American accent.

Standing by Peaceful Waters

Lake Marie by John Prine: This is such a great song – one of my favourites of all time. ‘You know what blood looks like on a black and white video? Shadows. SHADOWS!’ This live version is not as good as the recording, but it’s all they’ve got on YouTube. You have to listen to the whole of the lyrics:

The World Ain’t Slowing Down by Ellis Paul. One to play loud while driving down a Californian highway.

The kids are alright

Kid Koala does magical things with vinyl and my favourites are drunk trumpet and i changed my mind. Here is on radio 6 doing drunk trumpet. Check the multi tasking.

Here’s kid carpet. Apparently he uses mainly kids toys to make his music. Some would say that’s a bad thing, but I quite like it.

And finally Reverend and the Makers He said he loves me, which I have had stuck in my brain for days.

Wicked wolves and terrifying turkeys

Happy Friday! And to celebrate the wonder of Friday afternoon here are some silly videos…

One of my favourite Mighty Boosh songs – Mod Wolves

You heard the man. Stop. Hammer time.

To end with – two absolute horrors. Eurovision is nearly upon us people. Set your cheese-o-meters to red alert…

Spain are entering this fantastically awful number. Worth watching for 20 seconds if you can handle it for that long.

And Ireland are going to make Eurovision history by being the first nation to enter a rubber turkey. That’s not a euphamism, it really is a rubber turkey.

Gangsters! and spring time bouncy happiness

Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot sing Bonnie and Clyde: this is amazing, for so many reasons.

Now bounce your way into spring with Goldfrapp’s new single, Happiness.

the dark side

bon weekend tout le monde! just finished some fierce hoovering listening to some mildly dark music, thought I’d share it with you…enjoy!

first up roni size reprazent – brown paper bag.
annoyingly I can’t embed it in the page – but click on the link to go to the youtube page…
and get ready for a spot of big box, little box
http://youtube.com/watch?v=b4n0iUtWEwY

are you brave enough to watch this?
aphex twin – soul eater

this is one of the best music videos ever made in my opinion
UNKLE – rabbit in the headlights
you have to watch it all the way to the end mind

and then finally a really cool video by Michel Ghondry – time lapse of a bloke driving across america – reminded me of david’s facebook update from the states.

Flaming lips

Hello! Sorry I’ve been a bit rubbish on this recently, I was on holiday and then flu stricken. But I have two quality songs today (on a Monday, oh dear, not really doing very well am I)

 

First up, the new Vanessa Paradis song – love it!

 

 

 

 

And second a lady called Jully Black who I’ve only just heard of. One word – FIERCE.

 

Tim’s picks, March 14th

I’m loving this song by Vampire Weekend – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa. And it mentions Peter Gabriel. This is a live version:

Also grooving to the new single by the Mystery Jets, featuring Laura Marling, called Young Love:

My tunes

I spent the last 10 days on the road with an old school friend. We listened to the music of our youth on the ‘Satellite Radio’ in the car and reminisced about our two most memorable musical memories…

I had my first proper snog (with a lovely Danish girl) to Chicago’s Hard to Say I’m Sorry

And my very first mix tape that my first girlfriend made me had Bread, Baby I’m a Want You as the first track.

Ahhhh…