Come on now. Enough of this. Isn’t it time, after 12 long months, for the Ting Tings to stop giving it the wide-eyed, Noel-from-Hear’say, “we didn’t expect any of this it’s just amazing that it’s happened to us we were just ourselves and look what happened to little old us” act and get on with making their second album?
What are they grateful for and baffled by, anyway? Sony’s massive investment and subsequent meticulously orchestrated promo campaign? Or the simple fact that no one stopped them putting ‘Traffic Light’ on their debut?
It was around this time last year we wrote about the Ting Tings live before anyone else in the world had even written about them but after everyone who had already done it had done it. Go us.
Anyone wishing to soak up the last few drops of 2008’s Great Italo Goldrush should head to the Deaf Institute-based Now Wave tonight, where they’ve got Little Boots and Heartbreak dishing out ice cold electro upstairs from 10pm.
We saw Little Boots twice in the space of one weekend recently and she only got better between shows. From this, we can scientifically deduce that tonight’s set will be PROPERLY FUCKING AMAZING.
Let’s have a video of Little Boots and Heartbreak to celebrate.
That was them doing a cover of International Music System's ‘Dancing Therapy’. FYI.
Tickets for Now Wave featuring Little Boots and Heartbreak are available from Piccadilly Records, behind the bar at the Deaf Institute or, if you’re the lazy sort, on the door. You can now get more alerts and chatter like this on a shiny new Manchester club blog.
Kanye West, of number one human being fame, played in town on Monday. To call the show spectacular would be – and we really can’t be bothered thinking of a simile here – an understatement.
Here are the top seven bits of the gig:
:: The bit where a giant space monster with red eyes came on stage and ate Kanye West
:: The bit where Kanye West told a spaceship that he “just needed some pussy”
:: The bit where Kanye West played Stronger
:: The bit where Kanye West did this little ‘spinning-on-the-spot’ dance
:: The bit where Kanye West apologised for having ruined all other gigs for the rest of time by bringing the spectacular Glow In The Dark show to Manchester.
:: The bit where some giant balls with pictures of blow up dolls projected onto them descended from the ceiling towards Kanye West and he had a little natter with them
:: The bit where Kanye West played a 47-minute version of Love Lockdown to finish
We’ve got some photos of the gig, courtesy of our incredibly professional live snapper, that we’ll ‘whack up’ when we get a minute. We went to the show to review US sensation Santogold’s support slot. This is because we had a deep interest in checking out her live set and definitely not because we just wanted free tickets to go and see Kanye West. Have a look at the Santogold review.
We went to watch Beyoncé’s little sister Solange at Manchester’s glamorous the Ruby Lounge the other night. It was very good. It was a lot better than we thought it was going to be actually.
We reviewed said gig for the local paper, although they chopped the bit out where we said Sandcastle Disco was like “the sort of handbag heartbreak that Holland-Dozier-Holland would surely have crafted if they’d had access to Pro Tools”.
Here is Sandcastle Disco. It’s the sort of handbag heartbreak that Holland-Dozier-Holland would surely have crafted if they’d had access to Pro Tools.
Have you heard ‘Get Back’ by The Unstoppable Team? It is amazing. If songs were to be summed up on those little newspaper boards you see outside shops, this one would say
SPIKY STACCATO VERSES GIVE WAY TO SKY-SIZED MEGACHORUS IN INDIE EMCEEING THRILLER
The Unstoppable Team are a new band from Manchester, currently working their way around the city’s venues with their stylish fusion of streetsmart lyrics and arms aloft guitar pop. We’ve been in touch with the band and they tell us that they’re a bit fed up with the number of pay-to-play sharks circling the waters of unsignedville. So if you’re a promoter who is in to new music but not too keen on fucking new bands up the arse, hit them up via MySpace.
The band plays at Moho tomorrow (FRIDAY 21) night as part of that Aftershow thing. We’d be going down ourselves if it wasn’t for the fact we’ll be out of the country. Details here.
As we've already said, the new Girls Aloud album is amazing and generally filled with brilliant moments. But what are six of the best? These:
Song: The Promise Moment: “Are you watching me, baby?” Pros: beautiful, fragile, sung by Nicola Cons: bit needy
Song: Live In The Country Moment: the little dub bit where the drums drop out for a second Pros: amazing, sounds a bit like Pendulum Cons: involvement of Sarah Harding
Song: Fix Me UP Moment: the one where you realise it isn’t a shit song Pros: one more good song added to an album that was hardly lacking in them to begin with Cons: opportunity for tea break removed from listening experience
Song: Untouchable Moment: “Without any meaning / we’re just skin and bones / like beautiful robots dancing alone” Pros: amazing lyric, mentions robots Cons: N/A
Song: Miss You Bow Wow Moment: “I rememBERRRRRR” Pros: powerful singing, excitable expression of verb in habitual present tense Cons: hard to transcribe effectively
Song: Miss You Bow Wow Moment: “I’m so damn tired of your shadow breaking my heart in two oh baby” Pros: amazing lyric in amazing chorus, does justice to the feeling of having your soul torn in two on a daily basis by someone who isn’t even in your life any more. Cons: N/A .
There’s a chap round this way we’re quite fond of called Danny McFadden. He writes about clubbing and dance music for a variety things. You may have seen him in the Metro on your way to work. He was the one making the music sound exciting.
Danny also runs enigmatic ‘n’ amazing clubbing blog/website Northernights. Which is kind of like a successful and meaningful version of hyg with content on it. To ours and his delight the blog recently won the award for Best Arts and Culture Blog at the Manchester Blog Awards 2008.
Northernights is also nominated in the Best Blog category at this year’s Record of the Day awards. Voting – for those who ‘hold sway’ only – has closed but you can still do your bit by crossing your fingers and hoping that something Mancunian and non-shit wins the prize.
Oh, have a look at the Facebook group – now with added ‘Admins’.
We all know that James Bond themes are pretty good. Who could forget Duran Duran’s sexy espionage classic A View To A Kill, for example? Although it outraged watchdogs upon release, with famed fire safety elephant Welephant criticising the “wholly inappropriate” advice given out in the chorus, the song remains a smash.
What about the golden-lunged bellowings of Sir Shirley Bassey? It is safe to say the world would be fucked without her assurances on the permanence of diamonds.
It’s yesteryear classics such as these that merely underline the pointlessness of current Bond theme Another Way To Die. Jack White & Alicia Keys’ tune is a mess of directionless caterwauling and hopeless ‘riffery’. And then there’s that dodgy bit where Daniel Craig walks over the hill with a big gun. Basically it is shit.
Which is why one bright spark has had the idea of making sure no Bond theme is ever again handled by such sloppy fuckchurners as White and Keys. Instead, this Facebook group has got the idea of giving the next Bond theme to Keane. Which seems fairly reasonable to us. And Spiralling sounds a bit like ‘spying’ said with a mouthful of Cheerios so we’re already halfway there.
Admittedly the group only has two members at present, but still. Put joining it under ‘things that seem like a good idea when it’s the end of the week’.
All Hallows’ Eve may have been three nights ago but that does not mean it is too late for a banging digipop remix of John Carpenter’s famously plinky Halloween theme.
Lucky, then, that Leeds-based Head We Dance, who recently started a residency (the bloodily-titled Nailgun) at the city’s Cockpit venue, have released a spooksome mix beginning with said reswizzle.
You can get it at the band’s MySpace page, along with details of their upcoming single ‘The Human Touch’, which is out on November 24.
Very good. Now let’s have a ‘hilarious’ Halloween-based monster mash-up (MONSTER MASH UP DO YOU SEE HAHAA) and then all this can fuck off for another year.
hip young gunslinger is a blog that bangs on and on about amazing music. Our strict 'NO SHIT OR BORING TUNES' policy means the genre-net is cast pretty wide, but generally, if you can fuck, fight or flail wildly across a dancefloor to it, we'll cover it.
Most of the time we're too lazy to upload MP3s but if we do and you're some sort of record company 'employee' type who wants rid, just give us a shout.
