Iggy Pop has confirmed that the new album from The Stooges is complete, bringing about their first new material in 33 years. The Steve Albini produced album will be out in March 2007.
Talking about the new record, Iggy said: “The one thing that kind of amazes me is that it sounds like us. But it doesn’t sound quite like ‘Fun House’, ‘Raw Power’ or our first one. You put it on, and right away, you’d know, well, that’s them. There they go.”
Club Date: Live In Boston/Acoustic: Live In Newport
(Eagle Rock Entertainment)
If you’re not familiar with the Pixies, then stop reading this and don’t come back until you’ve at least got your grubby little paws on a copy of the ‘Death To The Pixies’ compilation, and listened to it repeatedly. Been there, done that, you say?
Good – then go and read about how this Boston quartet became one of the most influential alternative bands of the late 80’s/early 90s, arguably paving the way for Nirvana and their ilk with classic albums like ‘Doolittle’ and ‘Bossanova’. Having originally split in 1992, they reformed in 2004 for a hugely successful world tour; and these two DVDs catch the band at two performances in their native New England.
For such a revered band, there’s a refreshing lack of egotism or grandstanding from Black Francis and co on these performances; just a few snippets of endearingly amateurish between-song banter that lend the outdoors Newport performance a certain intimacy, and give the impression of a band playing for a couple of hundred close friends (as opposed to lucky fans) at the tiny Boston show.
There’s nothing amateurish about the music though. Sure, the Pixies were never the most accomplished of musicians, but that didn’t (and still doesn’t) stop songs like ‘Nimrod’s Son’, ‘Bone Machine’, ‘Wave Of Mutilation‘ and the more well-known ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’ sounding like the bonafide alt-rock classics that they are. The lengthy set-lists on both DVDs are guaranteed to keep most Pixies fans happy, and the sound and video quality is excellent throughout. There’s also a mini-documentary and a recording of an early 1986 performance on offer in the ‘Extras’ sections.
Many of the songs featured on ‘Acoustic: Live In Newport’ have never officially been recorded in an acoustic form, and hence this DVD will probably be of most interest to the seasoned Pixies aficionado. Nevertheless, ‘Club Date: Live In Boston’ serves as a fine document of a classic band who have managed to bury their creative differences and re-emerge sounding as great as ever. If you’ve managed to catch them live over the past couple of years, you’ll no doubt agree; and these DVDs are sure to bring back some fond memories.
Check www.pixiesmusic.com and www.ilovepixies.com for more info.
Recently un-retired Jay Z is set for a guest spot on the new Fall Out Boy album, Infinity On High, with the track Car Crash Hearts.
FOB’s Pete Wentz said “It’s so important to begin strong, and I don’t think you can start much stronger than this. This is a message recorded directly to our fans – it’s one of the few times on the record where we speak directly to them.
I think it’s amazing that Jay is having a conversation with our fans. Also, it’s a snapshot of where we are right now. And years from now, when I laying in some gutter somewhere, Jay-Z will still be on this record.”
Though apparently we aren’t to hold our breath waiting for Hov to wear eyeliner and scene hair. Yeah… right…
Drowned In Sound are hosting a gig for one night only at Oxford Street’s Metro Club tonight [November 22nd], with Snowden playing alongside This Et Al and RAT:ATT:AGG.
Atlanta’s Snowden, who have been compared favourably to The Cure, New Order and Ride, will be playing tracks from their debut, Anti-Anti. You can check out more info by clicking here.
Snowden will also be playing 2 more dates:
November
23rd – Southampton Unit 22
24th – Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
For me, Santa Cruz Skateboards have a pretty good track record: 30 years plus in the business, top grade wood and construction techniques, no flair.
Even when other companies were riding the wave of Chinese wood manufacturers, or dabbling with slim ply techniques, Santa Cruz went alone and produced one of the strongest boards to date – the Powerply. Needless to say, the innovation doesn’t stop there and it wasn’t long before the bulkier Powerply got replaced by the lighter and (believe it or not!) stronger Powerlyte boards. The secret to the strength is the layer of Teflon material applied to the top layer of the board – a technique that has since been copied by other companies.
I am always interested in trying a company’s product that tries something new with shape and build of a deck. It doesn’t always work, but judging by my past experience of riding SCS I couldn’t turn up a chance to ride a Powerlyte.
Off the bat, these boards have got pop and flex. They are also damn light so leaping over bins and things is no longer a problem. However, if you like lot of concave on your board, SCS might not be your best bet. Despite this Henning Braaten model having a B-52 of a nose, the tail is pretty shallow and short. This isn’t a worldly crisis or anything, but keep it in mind if you like a lot of space to move your feet about on the tailend of things.
Now, after an unfortunate failure at making a super dope ass trick (Hype!), my tail went skywards then downwards resulting in a heavy delam on the tail. Game over..? Nope. SCS boards have strong construction so a brisk knock back into place and that delam has yet to worry me again. Stoked.
Finally, the only weird thing with these Powerlyte boards is the Teflon material getting frayed at the edges when you scrape your board gripside. Just so you know, Teflon is a super tough and light material used in bullet proof jackets, frying pans etc so when your board has a little yellow fuzz around the rails, don’t fret.
Visit www.santacruzskateboards.com for a solution to the crap in your life.
8/10
Canadian trio Bedouin Soundclash released one of the finest records of 2005 in ‘Sounding A Mosaic’ – a fresh, addictive hybrid of dub, reggae, rock and ska influences, which spawned something of a radio staple in the single ‘When The Night Feels My Song’.
The band recently toured the UK as part of the Eastpak Antidote Tour – also featuring Gogol Bordello, Danko Jones and Disco Ensemble where Alex Gosman caught up with Jay Malinowski (vocals/guitar) and Eon Sinclair (bass) shortly before a show at London’s Brixton Academy.
How are you guys, and how’s the tour going so far?
Jay: It’s been great so far…this is the fifth date, and I think most of the shows have been sold out – or at least very close. Manchester last night was one of our best shows yet, and tonight we’re hoping we can beat the curse of London being more subdued than everywhere else! [laughs]
Really? Did you get that impression from when you played the Mean Fiddler back in January?
Jay: No, that was a good show, because our fans aren’t generally the type that just stand there and watch…but when we did a show with the Ordinary Boys [in late 2005] in Shepherds Bush, it really wasn’t a good show for us, their fans just weren’t getting into it.
This tour boasts a pretty varied bill, though – have the crowds on this tour been enjoying your sets?
Jay: Yeah, I think especially in the UK, where we’ve played a lot, there seems to be a lot of people coming out to see us play – we do have an advantage here, in that respect. But in genereal, we tend to be the odd band out! We recently toured with Flogging Molly in the States; playing shows in middle America to a bunch of kids that came to see Irish folk-punk music…and because we play reggae, we were up against some stiff odds. But we’ve become used to that, so it doesn’t bother us much.
It should help that I’ve only ever seen this tour advertised as ‘The Eastpak Antidote Tour’ – never as ‘Gogol Bordello plus support’!
Eon: Exactly – no one band is taking the other bands out on tour, each band has had to prove themselves every night. And that was how Eastpak wanted it.
You came over in January for your first proper UK headline tour, and then returned in August to headline the Carling stages at the Reading and Leeds festivals – what else have you been up to this year?
Jay: We toured Canada for a couple of weeks after Reading, then went to the States for about a month…we’ll be on this tour until the end of November, and then we’re gonna take s short break. We spent a lot of time in the States earlier this year too. We’re going to a lot of places for the first time, though – this tour will be our first trip to mainland Europe.
And what was the highlight of 2006 for you?
Jay: Probably winning a Juno award, which is the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy, for ‘Best New Group’ – that was a real benchmark for what we’ve achieved so far. Plus it’s something nice to give to our parents!
I’ve often heard people comparing your music to artists like The Clash, Bob Marley, and Sublime – but are there any others that you think helped make Bedouin Soundclash who you are today?
Eon: Well, Sublime weren’t really much of an influence…although The Clash and the Wailers definitely were. But the fact is that we’re into so much different music, that if I started listing bands, then I couldn’t stop – we draw influence from a lot of different areas.
Jay: I think those bands you mentioned are really just a starting point – it’s not like, with every record we do, we just go back and listen to Bob Marley and try to replicate his sound! We just try to take the best parts of the music we like and put them together in an original way.
So how did you guys originally discover dub, ska and reggae? I ask because people don’t generally think of Canada as a hotbed for that kind of music!
Eon: [laughs] Believe me, Canada isn’t a hotbed, period! But what a lot of people don’t know is that there’s actually a large West Indian population in Canada, so a lot of people do get exposed to that kind of music.
Jay: I got into reggae through listening to electronic and punk music – bands like The Clash, Massive Attack, Asian Dub Foundation – they all used elements of dub and reggae. It’s just where we fit in as people – we take that as our musical base, and add other influences to it. A lot of classic Jamaican reggae artists live around Montreal, or elsewhere in Canada – like Vernon Maytone, who collaborated with us on ‘Money Worries’ [track from ‘Sounding A Mosaic’]
Your next record, ‘Street Gospels’ is released next year – is there anything in particular that you’re doing differently to when you were recording ‘Sounding A Mosaic’?
Jay: I think the new record is far more focused, and more up-to-date than ‘Sounding A Mosaic’ – because we were playing those songs for about two years before we recorded them. So the newer songs are a lot fresher for us, because we’ve hardly played any of them live yet. But yeah, in general, it’s just gonna be a more focused record.
How did you guys and Side One Dummy Records discover each other?
Eon: We played the Toronto date of the Vans Warped Tour back in 2004, and our manager at the time had been involved with the Warped Tour and knew Kevin Lyman, the guy who runs it, and who is also involved with Side One Dummy. He saw our show and really enjoyed it, and from that moment on has been really supportive of us, and it’s all worked out really well.
What are your plans for the near future, after this tour ends?
Jay: Well, after we’re done in Europe, we’ll go home and start writing, to prepare for the last session of the new record. Then we’re gonna go to Japan in January, just for a few shows though, we won’t be doing any major tours early next year.
‘Sounding A Mosaic’ and new single ’12:59 Lullaby’ are out now on Side One Dummy; ‘Street Gospels’ is expected to be released around springtime next year.
Check www.bedouinsoundclash.com for more info.
Alex Gosman
[Bottom two photos by Dustin Rabin]
Covent Garden hosted a launch party for the collaboration between DC Shoes and New Era caps on Thursday 19th November at The Hospital.
Free liquor and canapes were served in the clinical, smokeless room where ltd edition decks hung from the walls until they were stolen and all the booze had run dry and DJ Goldie had left the crime scene…evidence below.
The King Blues will release their single Mr Music Man on November 27th on 3 track CD and download.
The CD will also feature a new track entitled If Genghis Khan Then Why Can’t I?, a new mix of the Mr Music Man demo and a video of the band are they successfully beat Status Quo’s record of most gigs in one day – playing in London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Glasgow and back to London in 24 hours!
You can check out the video right now on youtube:
Isle Of Wight’s The Bees are back on tour in preparation for their third album, which is due to be released in early 2007. The group are now heading out after having just completed a Highlands and Islands tour, roadtesting their new album Octopus.
November:
21st – Southsea Pier
22nd – London KCLSU
26th – Stoke Sugarmill
27th – Glasgow Oran Mor
28th – Hull The Welly Club
29th – Manchester Club Academy
Air will release their new album Pocket Symphony on March 5th next year, as their follow up to 2004’s Talkie Walkie. The album will feature 12 songs and includes artists such as Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon guesting.
The tracklisting is as follows:
1. Space maker
2. Once upon a time
3. Hell of a party
4. Napalm love
5. Mayfair song
6. Left bank
7. Photograph
8. Mer du Japon
9. Lost message
10. Somewhere between walking and sleeping
11. Redhead girl
12. Night sight