For years I'd been going to gigs in london and always saw Kraftwerk t-shirts about in music shops and in Camden Market but I never bothered to buy one. Last time I hit The Big Smoke I swear I went to every music shop in the world looking to finally pick up the blue Kraftwerk shirt that I'd always ignored and it was nowhere to be found, I was pretty pissed off. See what happens when I get pissed off? Camden Market burns down and Selectadisc becomes Sister Ray...
Here is 2 hours of pure Kraftwerk video, at least as pure as something on MTV2 120 Minutes can be:
You can watch the video in glorious full screen by clicking on the little rectangle at the bottom right then go to stage6.com and look for more music videos using their crappy search function.
20/02/2008
Kraftwerk video
19/11/2007
Mark E. Smith - video interview
Interviews with Mark E. Smith from The Fall are nearly always really terrible, especially video ones but this weird geeky dude from the U S of A has actually managed to do a really great interview with MES. It's in 4 parts all of which are embedded below to save your lazy asses from going to vbs.tv and searching for them.
Here are some great MES moments from the interview:
- on the Manchester bombing "I wrote a song about that...a year before it happened"
- on why he doesn't like football anymore "it's a bit like a Red Hot Chilli Peppers show"
- on the interview "I can't believe this fucking rubbish"
- on Bob Dylan "The Emperor of Grease"
- on Hitler "balls"
- on Talking Heads "they're the enemy"
- on Jack Black "what a fucking twat he is"
- on his nieces and nephews "when I walk in the room they hide behind the couch"
- on Pop Idol "I'm sorry"
- on Courtney Love "no wonder Kurt shot himself"
- on the interviewer "you should clean your teeth"
- on English musicians "they just want to play golf"
07/11/2007
Stephin Merritt - A Man of a Million Faces
Stephin Merritt is one of the great loves of my life, he has produced consistently incredible music for over 15 years. As well has his own name he has recorded under the monikers The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, Future Bible Heroes and The Gothic Archies, all of which are awesome (leave FBH till last though! :-s). People throw the word 'genius' around willy-nillily, I'm not one of those idiots, I reserve the term for dudes that kick some serious ass, if you like to listen to the saddest, catchiest, most perfectly formed pop songs on earth then Stephin is gonna open a can of whoop-ass on yo ass. Seriously, this guy is a genius, his music is a work of genius; when I met my girlfriend I made her a compilation of his music and labelled the cd "Stephin Merritt: Gay Genius", she listened to it and told me that she cried her eyes out all the way through and refuses to listen to him and always insists that I turn him off, thats the kind of genius we are dealing with!
He recently recorded a song called 'A Man of a Million Faces' in two days for NPR, from their site: "The challenge: Write and record a song — in two days. (We provide the studio and the inspiration.)". Go to NPR's website now to watch a 10 minute video of Stephin writing and recording the song from start to end, yessssssss.
To make sure your ears don't feel left out here's an MP3 for y'all too, back in my deepest, darkest, most disgusting pit of depression I cried more tears to this song that you have had hot dinners, get a box of tissues now y'hear?
MP3: The Magnetic Fields - Busby Berkeley Dreams
03/11/2007
Jens Lekman + Liars = lift music
There's something special about hearing great bands stripping their music down, especially when it is Liars and they are playing Be Quiet M. Heart Attack in a lift. They should make their album like this, I'd sell my hat for a Liars album where they just bash walls and play electric guitars without plugging them in! Pop over to blogotheque.net to watch the video...
...also singing in a lift for your pleasure is Jens Lekman with his uke, complete with a couple of ladies on strings, Jens would be great even if he was just scraping a plastic spoon against a polystyrene cup, he's the man! Get over to 3voor12.vpro.nl to watch him play A Higher Power and an awesome version of Do You Remember the Riots?
Going down?
15/10/2007
Big Black - Pigpile
Many, many, many, many moons ago I didn't get Big Black, then one day I was on the bus home from work and in a moment of madness put my iPod on shuffle, everyone knows this is the girls way to listen to music but I suppose I was feeling girlie that day. Just before Battlehill, Powder keg by The Fall (another band I didn't get) came on and suddenly I got them, when I got in I played the two albums of theirs that were on the shelf and loved them, I thought to myself "if I've suddenly got The Fall maybe I'll like Big Black as well now" and by golly it was true! If you don't believe me just check out this picture, not only am i wearing a hat thats three times too big for me but I'm proving my love for the band in the most classic of ways by sporting the "band t-shirt", I even have two of these now cause my guns out grew the first one and I got the next size up for Christmas last year off my lady.
So for about 3 years or something I searched ebay for a copy of the Pigpile VHS, I'd almost given up cause the odd ones that were listed were selling for about 40 quid a time and nobody in their right mind pays that for a VHS. Maybe all the other Big Black fans actually gave up cause I eventually got my copy for only twelve bucks, possibly the bargain of the century, or not. The thing is this video really sucks, seriously, its an embarrassment, I mean just look at this lame Myspace "me in the mirror" style photo I found in its room...
...oh, ok! I can't lie this video is amazing, unfortunately for you it's not getting any less rare so you'll probably never even get to see it, at least you may not get the satisfaction of actually finding a new friend that owns a video player, putting the tape in, rewinding it and praying that that it doesn't get chewed up. YouTube has pretty much everything including Pigpile but the problem with said site is that there are only two choices, small and bad quality or full screen and terrible quality.
Today is your lucky day cause over on stage6.divx.com some dude has uploaded the whole damned thing at pretty bloody good quality, much better than YouTube, still not as good as glorious VHS but wharrewwant?
Lock your kids in the bathroom for an hour and head over there NOW!
