Soundbytes: The blog of Michelle Dhillon

Wow, it seems like I keep being surprised at the moment, and not in a good way. First off, The White Stripes on Conan O Brien’s final Tonight show last Thursday. I saw a video of their performance of the incomparable We’re Going To Be Friends and have been left feeling confused. Why is Meg singing too?? Is it a farewell message (for us, as well as Conan)? Is Meg pregnant? Are they ever gonna play live or tour again? One thing’s for sure - there’s typical raw emotion in the final verse/chorus from Jack. Moving.

Secondly, the UK government has launched a new website for ticket touts, which is practically legitimising it in my eyes. Their argument is that they’re protecting fans from fake ticket scams by forcing ticket touts to key in genuine ticket numbers etc. Hmmm, nothing at all to do with the rich financial slice of cherry pie that eBay get every time tickets are re-sold on their site then eh? And at a whopping 12.5% booking fee that fans are gonna have to pay on top of overblown ticket prices, it looks like eBay may well still be the most affordable (even if slightly risky) option to gig-goers at the moment. Bloody buggers! The government are supposed to stamp out illegal activities, not take advantage themselves!!

For those of you who are interested in the great censorship/music piracy/file sharing debate, I just logged into my blog and found a spam comment I’d received from someone patrolling the internet on behalf of The Prodigy:

Hi michelle, On behalf of Cooking Vinyl Records, Take Me To The Hospital and The Prodigy, we would kindly ask you not to post copies of the “Invaders Must Die” album on your site (or any non-preview tracks from the artist’s new album - street date 23rd February). We do appreciate that you are fans of / are promoting The Prodigy, but the label and artist would greatly appreciate your co-operation in removing your links to the pirate files in question. Thank you for respecting the artist’s and label’s wishes and, if you / your readers want good quality, non-pirated, preview tracks, “Invaders Must Die” (the title track) is available for hosting / posting / sharing etc … .. AND “Omen” - release date 16th Feb - is currently available to stream / hyperlink (ONLY PLEASE) off the band’s MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/theprodigy … .. you can also view Prodigy videos at http://www.youtube.com/prodigychannel and, for info on “Invaders Must Die” and the band’s 2009 shows, check-out http://www.theprodigy.com … .. also, keep an eye on these official sources for details of further preview material and pre-release promotions. As you will appreciate, this e-mail is written on a without prejudice basis and, as such, all of our clients’ accumulated, worldwide rights and remedies remain strictly reserved : please excuse this required formality. With Thanks & Regards, WEB SHERIFF

I didn’t realise I wasn’t allowed to let you lot listen to tracks that have been sent to me for review. All I’m doing is allowing you lot to hear some material before it’s out, thereby promoting the actual release! The Prodigy had better be careful - they may just alienate me from their fanbase! And they’ve made one thing clear - they’re certainly in it for the money and are in no danger of doing a Radiohead and coming up with more innovative ways of distributing/selling music/making it more affordable for their fans in the current climate. How depressing

By the way WEB SHERIFF - you may want to invest in an email address that isn’t automatically classed as spam by Wordpress? Just a thought..

I’ve not posted for ages but there are good reasons/excuses - rockhaq is coming ever-closer to completion so I’ve had a fair bit to sort for it, I had to prepare a talk I was asked to give to journos at Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Broadcasting & Journalism, the snow put paid to some of the work I had planned and I didn’t get to see my first live gig of the year until this week!

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Frist things first though - the gig. I was sooo looking forward to this week’s NME Awards Tour show - not only was it my first real gig of 2009, it also signalled the live return of Friendly Fires to Notts! But disaster struck in the form of terrible quality sound, even worse than usual for Nottingham Rock City (do they have new/even worse speakers or wot?), which really peed me off to be frank. I knew Florence & The Machine must have been good having seen her/them before along with Friendly Fires, but it left me kind of unable to really judge White Lies and Glasvegas. There also seemed to be far too many old/dull people who weren’t ignited by the wicked calypso style vibes emanating from St. Albans’ finest, so not a great night musically. In fact, you could say it was a bit of a let-down.

Meanwhile, I gave my first ever proper grown-up style talk (called Journalism 2.0, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Online Media) to about 80-odd first-year print and broadcast journalism students on Thursday. The NME gig the night before left me feeling knackered and I made the stupid mistake of skipping breakfast and driving straight to Notts and then meeting Emma Hemmingway, who had a pretty in-depth chat with me about online journalism over a latte on NTU campus.

Then onto the lecture, which really was crazy. I still can’t believe I was asked to talk to all these young inquisitive minds in a massive theatre with an even bigger projector. Odd times. The worst thing was that I talked for a whole hour (20 mins more than I needed to) and by the time I got out, I was so shattered I zonked out in the ng studio and couldn’t move! Not good, I will never skip breakfast again. I’ve been asked back next term and have attracted work experience queries/more contributors, heaven knows why..

I was in two minds about catching Filthy Dukes supporting the Secret Machines at the Rescue Rooms last night, but Adrian Read from Polydor had a word with me on Friday and by the end I felt like the man from Del Monte (only without the tonnes of fruit). I woke up on Saturday in excruciating pain though! I was in two minds about going to the gig but the pain wore off and I thought - why not? Lucy and Alex M were covering Alkaline Trio at Rock City anyway so I thought I should lookafter my flock! Besides, I did want to check out Filthy Dukes, their recent press left me feeling very intrigued.

And what did I think? Bloody awesome! I’m so impressed with everything about these guys - they look nerdy and awkward, sound incredible and have killer tunes! I’m just gutted I didn’t know what more of them were called, but hopefully Adrian will sort me out a copy of their soon-to-be-released debut album Nonsense In The Dark. They’re coming back to Notts soon and playing headline dates all over the UK, so check em out suckers!

I could write loads about The Prodigy but I shouldn’t cos this post is already an essay. The first, and most bizarre, thing is that the marketing brains behind them seem to think their target audience visits the Autotrader website. I had a proper laugh when I saw the ad for their new album all over it on Friday! But back to the music - I’ve listened to both new album and the promo sampler and I’ve got to say that the version of Omen on the sampler is much better than the album version, but the album version would work so much better in a live arena. On the whole, Invaders Must Die is self-consciously a live album and from what I’ve heard so far, I’m pretty impressed. It really mixes every good thing the band have done over their 15 year history - Experience, Jilted and Fat of the Land. My review will be coming soon, but in the meantime, here’s some tracks from their new release(s) to keep you happy.

1. The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die (Invaders Must Die, 2009)
2. The Prodigy - Omen (Invaders Must Die, 2009)
3. The Prodigy - Thunder (Invaders Must Die, 2009)
4. The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die (Invaders Must Die album sampler, 2009)
5. The Prodigy -  Omen (Invaders Must Die album sampler, 2009)

Kraftwerk - Live

There’s been a fair bit going on of late so it’s best put together in a weekly roundup I reckon. First off, and maybe some might think it’s out of place, but Gary Barlow seems to be wanting to take on the might of Simon Cowell! According to various news sources, Barlow approached ITV with the highly original concept of finding the next big boyband via a hyped up reality show. They rejected for fear of offending Cowell and his cash-cow, The X Factor. But apparently the Beeb are in talks with Barlow about the show. I reckon Barlow actually might be in with a winner here, there’s been so much anti-Cowell press of late that it might be time for the worm to turn…

But we move on to sadder news. Ron Asheton, the guitarist for highly influential US rock act The Stooges, passed away on Tuesday. He was only 60. It left me thinking - why do the good always die young? It seems to happen to everyone - my dad, Rick Wright (the ‘Floyd), any number of other peeps, etc etc. But this didn’t last for long, because the next bit of news, that emerged on the same day, was even worse! Florian Schneider from Kraftwerk (group pictured) has officially decided to leave the band, bringing to an end the seminal 40-year partnership between him and Ralf Huetter. This news was like a dagger through my heart - I’ve never yet seen Kraftwerk live and the German electronic outfit are true musical pioneers, in every sense. God only knows what Ralf will do without him…

Thankfully there was a bit of idiocy later in the week that kept me amused. The much-touted Led Zeppelin reunion (of sorts) tour was back in the press again. Their manager Peter Mensch was quoted by BBC 6 Music confirming that the band would continue to record and tour without original frontman Robert Plant, as soon as they’d found a replacement singer. But, just a day later, he stormed:

Led Zeppelin are over! If you didn’t see them in 2007 [when they played a one-off reunion at London's O2 arena], you missed them. It’s done. I can’t be any clearer than that. They tried out a few singers, but no one worked out. That was it. The whole thing is completely over now. There are absolutely no plans for them to continue. Zero. Frankly, I wish everybody would stop talking about it.

 Hmm, is sheer insanity a prerequisite for being Led Zeppelin’s tour manager? Discuss…

Lastly, Mike Skinner, aka The Streets, has been forced to scrap the band’s planned US tour this year because of erm, lack of interest. He’s looking forward to making films apparently. Geezah!

What am I looking forward to:  the Kerrang! awards tour - roll on some sodding live music!

What impressed me this week: Slumdog Millionaire and it’s awesome soundtrack - there may be some tracks uploaded here next week from it. For now though, you’ll have to make do with one of the greatest albums ever made, Computer World by Kraftwerk.

1. Computer World (Kraftwerk Computer World, 1981)
2. Pocket Calculator  (Kraftwerk Computer World, 1981)
3. Numbers  (Kraftwerk Computer World, 1981)
4. Computer World…2  (Kraftwerk Computer World, 1981)
5. Computer Love  (Kraftwerk Computer World, 1981)
6. Home Computer  (Kraftwerk Computer World, 1981)
7. It’s More Fun To Compute  (Kraftwerk Computer World, 1981)

Death From Above 1979

So how’s the new year rollin’ for you lot? I’m busy working on lots of exciting new stuff, more details of which will follow soon I’ve been messin with the look of this blog so feel free to lemme know what you think, even if it isn’t nice, all feedback is good feedback & all that.

Soooo…the new playlist. I’m following all the dark electronica from last week with a brief history of the current dance-punk revival. We kick off with the classic House Of Jealous Lovers from one of the key early noughties revivalists of the genre, The Rapture. Hailing from New York, they largely found fame with the release of their second album Echoes in 2003. They may look and sound a bit girly, but the deep bassy house vibes of this track are spot-on and gave birth to a whole new re-emergence of the 70’s genre.

A few years later saw the antics of the utterly awesome and now defunct Canadian duo Death From Above 1979 (pictured) assaulting our eardrums. The members, Jesse F. Keeler on bass, synths, backing vocals and Sebastien Grainger on vocals and drums, added much more  of a heavy metal influence into the mix. In sum, they really took the baton of dance-punk and battered it with a metal pole until it was covered with bloody bruises. Just listen to the selection of tracks from their one and only album to see how innovative they were. I love Little Girl - it sounds like Led Zeppelin doing dance punk; flippin amazing!! Damn shame this band no longer exists, but both guys are involved in seperate new projects; Keeler in MSTRKRFT and Grainger in Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains.

There’s a nice circularity to this blog post - Before they went kaput, Death From Above 1979 became embroiled in a bizarre row with Death From Above Records in New York over their name. (The band were originally called Death From Above before the dispute forced them to add Grainger’s birth year onto their name as a suffix.) Death From Above Records also had a heavy involvement with The Rapture, producing their first two albums, and are generally accepted as the epicentre of the current dance-punk revival having acts like Hot Chip, Yacht and Hercules & Love Affair on their books.

It’s probably no surprise to learn that one of the founders of the label James Murphy went on to develop his own dance-punk act, the critically-acclaimed LCD Soundsystem. While their debut material was impressive, it wasn’t anywhere near as slick as most of the material on their second album, Sound Of Silver. Again, I had a hard time deciding which tracks to include, but then plumped for the first three. They’ve obviously brought a more disco-influenced vibe to the genre, but it’s all so unbelievably accomplished. Get Innocuous is amazing, Time To Get Away is more stripped down and flaunts Murphy’s shouty vocals while North American Scum is a scathing stab at…well, I really wouldn’t like to hazard a guess as to who that number may be about…

Full playlist:

1. The Rapture - House Of Jealous Lovers (from Echoes 2003)
2. Little Girl - Death From Above 1979 (from You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine 2004)
3. Romantic Rights - Death From Above 1979 (from You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine 2004)
4. Sexy Results - Death From Above 1979 (from You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine 2004)
5. Get Innocuous - LCD Soundsystem (from Sound Of Silver 2007)
6. Time To Get Away - LCD Soundsystem (from Sound Of Silver 2007)
7. North American Scum - LCD Soundsystem (from Sound Of Silver 2007)

I’m loving my new flash music player A LOT, so I’m going to update it with new choons as much as poss. I even went through some of my old music collection (yep, all three miles of it :p) in a frenzied bid to unearth the opening track, Orbital’s classic reworking of the theme tune to Doctor Who. It’s worth mentioning that the Hartnoll brothers, who decided to call it a day back in 2004, are reuniting to play a special one-off show at 2009’s Big Chill festival to mark the 20th anniversary of their groundbreaking debut album Chime - woo hoo! (Ian Brown - take note!)

Continuing the techno theme, I absolutely had to include Kraftwerk, the Godfathers of the genre. I plumped for a softer number thats got plenty of bleeps and blips in it, but isn’t as full-on as Orbital. I’m thinking about The Prodigy loads at the mo (probably cos I absolutely have to see them at Nottingham Arena in April) and can’t seem to get Music For The Jilted Generation out of my mind, especially Poison. Love the deep bass dub! I know Radiohead aren’t techno, but they are prog rock, and again, I wanted something older to show the doubters that they’ve ALWAYS been prog - it ain’t just a recent development, y’know! The atmospherics in Planet Telex are fantastic - even 14 years on.

Lastly, coining the term ‘uber-producer’ long before a hugely overrated tosspot called Mark Ronson (see my namecheck on wikipedia if you really want to know what I think!) appeared out of nowhere, the genius of Talvin Singh concludes this round of tunes. The buildup of tablas, drums, loops, samples and breakbeats on Vikram is colossal and shows just why he won the Mercury Music Prize back in 1999.

Anyway, the theme for the new playlist is the end of the year, so here’s a selection of weird, sci-fi stuff that I think marks the darkness of the year’s end and heralds the vision for a new dawn. Or some such claptrap. Enjoy!

Full playlist:

1. Orbital - Doctor? (from The Altogether, 2001)
2. Kraftwerk - The Model (from The Man-Machine, 1978)
3. The Prodigy - Poison (from Music For The Jilted Generation, 1994)
4. Radiohead - Planet Telex (from The Bends, 1995)
5. Talvin Singh - Vikram The Vampire (from OK, 1998)

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