Under The Blacklight

Available now (click on the pic to buy it!):

Get this album or die with a hideously incomplete record collection...

Emily Haines

Emily Haines, simply a genius in a world where the word genius is overused to put the mundane up against the genuine article, like Emily is. Many will know her as the lead singer of Metric, the lucky and curious minority will of course know her as the creator of an amazing album called "Knives Don't Have Your Back". Listen to her, fall in love with her voice and her sweet, luscious playing of the piano and remember her when a moment in your life is in need of meaningful music...

www.emilyhaines.com

And I Bet You Thought I Was Just Being Paranoid Before...

Unbelievable...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7125895.stm

This is what disgusts the average man with a brain; a bloke kindly donates sperm to allow a lesbian couple to have a child and how is he thanked? By being butt-frigged by the CSA for child maintenance payments!!! Yes, seriously, even donating sperm is now used by the feminist nutcases (and apparently the complete bleeding morons at the CSA) as a way to run the males of this country even further into the ground. As far that whine by the CSA about legislation not being partnership based, the CSA as a government authority has the choice of how to, or even if to, interpret and/or apply that legislation.

Damnit, when are they going to get it all over with by rounding up all 30 million men in this country, force us all to wank into a cup and then shoot us once we're finished? It's not far away, I promise you!

A Snapshot Of What I Do On A Dull Monday Night

Well, it's Monday (alright, sorry I mentioned that tragic fact), but it will soon be Tuesday, so dry those tears dearie. Here's what I end up doing on a Monday night - writing to friends who are off having more fun than me in places like East Anglia (which for the Jade Goody worshipping morons reading this, ISN'T in Germany - if it was, they'd just send it back to us in a neatly wrapped parcel).

Instead of filtering what I wrote into a bloggy type write-up, I'll just paste the whole damned e-mail here that I sent to the Supreme Leader of Thunderfrogs blogspot:

Hiya "Supreme Leader Of The Thunderfrogs",

Hope you haven't got too much sand in your shoes down there! Anyhow, while you're off galavinting on the East Coast, I'm up here working mi balls off to bring us the best new sounds which you and others will undoubtedly claim to have heard of 15 years ago (thinking of the man who's CC'd into this e-mail Mr. Martin, King of the 'I heard it first' one-liner!!! lol)...an indie guru's job is a thankless one! lol

Here are my recommendedids:

http://www.plugawards.com

Go here, make your way to the voting section and listen to everything by pressing the twee dinky play button to the left of the artists' names. My personal highlights, apart from the obvious - Emily Haines (2 nominations - woo-hoo and a hearty hurrah!) and The Arcade Fire (37.4 nominations I think and justly deserved) are:

http://www.batforlashes.com/default.htm - sound really great and are that thing that is as rare as water in a waterless non-watering zone (or shit in a sandstorm) a British independant band with talent and appeal at the same time (they're from Brighton - so even though they're British, they're probably so desperate not to be that they drove as far south as they could and then set up a band) Go to their site and just listen damn it!!! lol

http://www.thewhiterabbits.com - now these Yankee boys are very interesting; almost like an American Coral (as in the band The Coral, not the stuff under the sea next to Australia).

Hope you enjoy - say hi to the nice people I met yesterday! Hope I see them all again soon. Oh, the Micra's back - shiny new left hand side on it and running sweetly, so you get to come home in your favourite matchbox.

In a bit Comrade,

Daniel

This is the life - Monday night, dossing around on the Internet, and finding the artistes who will hopefully be gracing my 2008 gigging schedule...roll on truckers!

Rilo Kiley Live At Manchester Academy 2; 25th November 2007

Well, it's rather late in it's coming, but my write-up to one of the best gigs of the year is here. Mi mate wrote it, so:

http://thunderfrogs.blogspot.com/2007/11/rilo-kiley-in-manchester-241107.html

I will merely add a setlist and say: "Wot e' said". Feckin' loved it. Jenny, I'll have your babies!

Setlist - Rilo Kiley - Live At The Manchester Academy # 2 - 25th November 2007

1. Close Call

2. It's A Hit

3. Breakin' Up

4. Dreamworld

5. Moneymaker

6. The Execution Of All Things

7. Ripchord

8. Under The Blacklight

9. Silver Lining

10. I Never

11. Give A Little Love

12. Pictures Of Success

13. Smoke Detector

14. 15

16. Does He Love You?

17. I Love L.A.

18. Portions For Foxes

Easily the highlight for me was Jenny Lewis' stunning rendition of 'Under The Blacklight.' I haven't heard a voice so pure, so free, so perfect in a very very very long time. She possesses incredible talent and displays that talent with a fair share of sweet sincerity in her delivery and a humbleness that is at odds with her assured talents on stage. I must add also, lest this become yet another 'I love Jenny Lewis' blog, that Blake Sennett, Pierre de Reeder and Jason Boesel on lead guitar, bass and percussion respectively are three genia without whom I suspect Jenny would be emotionally rather lost. You can see in their live work as well as on their studio albums/eps/etc's, the respect, the fondess and the love each has for the others. They were really well complemented by their stellar support bands, Grand Ole Party and Orenda Fink who joined Rilo Kiley throughout an amazing 18 song set, providing vocal harmonies, trumpets saxphones and god only knows what else, turning an already fulfilling Rilo Kiley live experience into a veritable cornucopia of Rilo Kileyastenics.

I have a friend, Martin (who will probably never read this on the grounds of always wishing to avoid technology, electricity, fire and so on), whom I was oh so kindly driving home from work in Manchester last week (we live in Bolton - send money and culture urgently please) and anyway, he was berating the sheer number of American and Canadian bands currently inhabiting the British indie-scene (yes, I know 'indie' - generic word but I'll be fucked if I can think of a better word to describe the scene), and he was claiming (I think!) that these cross-Atlantic cousins of ours were effectively blocking British talent from coming through, in much the same way all them foreign footie players block all the young English players from failing upwards at winning for England. Well, I disagree. I say to the USA and to Canada and to Brazil for that matter for Cansei de Ser Sexy alone, THANK YOU - OH GOD THANK YOU!!! There really would be bugger all to listen to without Americana-indie washing up on our cold and barren musical coast at the moment. Bands like Rilo Kiley, Tilly & The Wall, The Yeah Yeah Yeah's, The Shins, The Polyphonic Spree, The White Stripes, the marvellous Emily Haines and of course her band, Metric, Thee Silver Mount Zion and so on etc. writ large are really helping keep the scene alive right now (oh I forgot The Dears, and by Christ, The Arcade Fire!). While British indie sleeps, the great Americo-Indie lion can roar. And I like the sound of that cat's whiskers...

Once again, we love you Jenny Lewis, your heart and soul is a joy to hear on the stage. Blake, Pierre and Jason (thank you for the partial drumskin once again!), you're the best damned thing to happen to my ears in quite some time.