OMG SPOTTED!

IN MANCHESTER: Jessica from Liberty X (look them up) in St. Anne's Square with her husband. "I think he plays cricket or rugby or something", says our spy.

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It was a graveyard smash

Here is the video for V V Brown’s ‘Crying Blood’. It does look a bit like a slightly cheap Solar Lounge tribute, but it is well worth watching anyway (the tune is amazing).



What do we know about V V Brown? Let’s have a look:

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::
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Not a lot, then.

Actually, we do know that she is playing at the very first Popjustice In The City showcase, on October 7 (along with Little Boots and the still-spectacularly brilliant Daggers).

More details will appear on their site nearer the date, but ‘things’ are ‘shaping up’ nicely.

There were a lot of links in this post, weren't there?

When worlds collide

Like indie music? Like dancing? Realise how utterly incompatible the two things are?

FEAR NOT!

2008’s finest ‘purveyors’ of twee guitar pop (Mystery Jets FYI) are coming to town this Friday (12th) to spin a few records at Clique, tentatively re-forging a link twixt indie and dance that was severed when they fell out over the whole ‘baggy’ thing.

Naturally, concerns have been expressed that this mixing of indie musicians and dancing could bring about the end of the planet, like with that big underground thing in Switzerland that everyone keeps going on about. But let’s not worry. Mystery Jets, despite the cardigan-wearing contingent of their fanbase, are basically not very indie, and in ‘Twenty One’ have released one of the year’s best pop albums.

We think the dance will be safe in their hands. Still not convinced? Let’s take a look at some evidence. Firstly, this:



Does that man look like he’s going to accidentally play ‘Paranoid Android’? No.

Now look at the Record of the Year-shaped Exhibit B:



Amazing. Proof that when indie and dance collide, it needn’t signal the apocalypse.

Clique, with special guests Mystery Jets, is on this Friday (12th) at the Mint Lounge, 10pm - 3am, £6/5 with flyer or NUS.

"And THAT'S for 'Magic Pie'"

At long last, Canada contributes something to popular culture.



Poor Noel.

PLEASE can someone do Bono next.

Thanks.

I can't take another second of this excuse for taste

REMEMBRANCE TUESDAY
Hands up who remembers Ghosts? Anyone?

‘Launching’ in 2007, the band were a hair’s width away from being quite good. With lightness of weight and jauntiness of lick, the band pitched up somewhere between Guillemots and the Hoosiers, but ended up falling between two stools, like a drunken old woman who’s turned up late to a party wearing someone else’s clothes.

Poor Ghosts :(

Anyway. This was very good.



It is a wonder Ghosts did not have more fans. Indeed, YouTube is now awash with them, like user UnderTheStars94, who surely speaks for all of this when he or she says “I love all the song in this album and i know all the lyrics im kidna adicted(?)^^”

Blue String Pudding Funk

Here is the bendy-bodied promo for DJ Mojave’s ’Township Funk’, a track currently tearing up MTV Dance (which is like a good version of MTV2). The dancing is amazing, but like all the best things in life, also quite terrifying at times.

The song, FYI, sounds like the Clangers getting pissed on strong cider and beating the shit out of each other in a bedsit.

(For more references and jokes as fresh and funny as that, feel free to click your way through the next 40-odd pages of ‘your very own’ hip young gunslinger).



Very good.

MEMO: WILL THIS DO?

One thing you could always rely on Slipknot for was entertainment. No matter how bad their singles got, they always comprised the sort of hook-filled lunacy that could bring a smile to even the most sullen of faces.

Sadly, one song that won’t be bothering the ridiculometer is their new single, ‘Psychosocial’, which commits the most cardinal of musical sins.

It is boring.

Play our ‘Psychosocial’ quiz! Does it sound like…

a) the soundtrack to a wrestling computer game circa 1998?
b) old men forgetting what to do but still trying to make money?
c) brown porridge sliding down a banister?
d) all of the above?

We’ll leave that for you to ponder. In the meantime, let’s remember the good old days.



That, quite frankly, was more like it. The best bit is when he says “I can’t stand a seagull to live in my robot face” (01.15), which are not the actual lyrics but should be.

Still a rock star

Popular ‘n’ bolshie singer Pink (pictured right) has got a new song out, which you may have heard when it leaked onto the internet about seven years ago. If not you’ll almost certainly have heard it on one of the many ‘music television’ stations that are hammering it 24/7.

What do we know about the song?

:: It is, in no uncertain terms, amazing.
:: It is Pink’s best song since ‘U + Ur Hand’ (which admittedly was only released two years ago but you can’t deny that she went off the boil a bit before that. In real terms it‘s Pink‘s first significantly brilliant single since ‘Just Like A Pill‘ in 2002).
:: It is about Alecia Moore’s split from her husband who did stuff with bikes or something.

That’s the introductions. What does it feature?

:: The year’s best use of stomping glam drums.
:: Approximately 30 choruses.
:: Delightfully frazzled, ‘I’m not coping with this very well, actually’ lyrics that convey the EXACT OPPOSITE to what they intend (an effect heightened by the subtle video).
:: Utterly amazing, stratospheric, chorus-rescuing synths that kick in during a chorus that doesn’t even need rescuing, just for 'good measure'.
:: Swearing!

Click the weird box below for the promo.



97%. Well done Pink.

The five best songs off the Bloc Party album

For anyone yet to receive the update, Bloc Party have released (in carefully-orchestrated, impromptu digital format) a totally non-rubbish new album.

Sadly there is nothing on there to rival ‘Flux’ or ‘Banquet’ but the songs that do feature are mostly excellent, flitting from almighty rackets that sound like the Chemical Brothers falling down the stairs at an art show to plaintiff pulsers that resemble Squarepusher having a little weep at the end of Eastenders.

Here are the five best.

1. Ion Square
2. Biko
3. Mercury
4. Halo
5. One Month Off

The End.

Leeds Festival 2008: The Definitive Review

"The guest area toilets were much nicer than the ones at V although there wasn't a Nandos and they were charging £7.50 for a burger and chips."

(Thanks to Holly C).

Evil Murmerings!

Shut up and shhhhh it's POP GOSSIP!!!!!!!

Which messianic indie star shocked fans at a show this weekend by referring to radio station bosses in very un-PC terms? The unraveled young man seems aggrieved that they won't play his records.

Who could it be?!!

Having heard the band in question, we should point out that far from being evidence of mental health issues, a refusal to play the shit they churn out is actually a reliable marker of soundmindedness.

Picture Quiz Answer

FYI here is the answer to our last picture quiz.

The Clik Clik were looking at ways to improve swimming provision, bringing them into line with councillors in Fylde, who are still considering ways in which swimming provision in the borough can be maintained and improved after 2008.

Since the question mark was thrown over the future of St Annes pool at the budget meeting in March the council has been exploring every opportunity to deliver swimming lessons and public swimming in ways that will not have a continuing financial burden on the council tax payers of the borough

In recent weeks the YMCA has been responsible for the day to day management of the two swimming pools at no extra cost to the council. This agreement has been necessary to ensure that staffing levels could be maintained through a period of uncertainty.

Swimming has suffered a national decline in popularity over a number of years and Fylde's pools have cost the authority around £930,000 per year to operate.

A number of options are currently under consideration. One of these involves the Fylde Coast YMCA and could provide a new pool facility on a new site. Another option would enable a local group to operate the existing Kirkham Baths as a community funded facility. A further option being considered is to mothball St Annes pool for the immediate future with the scope to reopen the facility if a suitable investor or operator could be found. However, at this point no financially viable offer has been made.

Coun Simon Renwick, Portfolio Holder for Culture and Tourism said: "We are leaving no stone unturned to find a cost effective way of providing a swimming service for the future in Fylde. We will work with any suitable organisation that can demonstrate that it can run the pool effectively.

"So far, no companies or groups have been willing to take on the pools without a hefty council subsidy and, with such poor grants from the Government, the Council doesn't have that level of subsidy; particularly taking into account a climate of rising costs and reduced attendances. The solutions we are exploring need to be sustainable and cannot expose the council to greater financial risk."

Nobody won so the prize rolls over.

POP GOSSIP: V Festival Special

We’ve been very busy working (‘drinking’) lately, so have missed out on some of the bigger ‘things’ from recent weeks.

Having thought long and hard about the best way in which to rectify this and fill the gaps, we’ve decided to just whack a load of hastily-written stuff up and hope nobody notices.

Starting…

… now…

… with POP GOSSIP from V Festival, which happened more recently than you think.

:: Nicola GA's hair is dyed an odd shade of orange and looks a bit uneven. It is fine from a distance but looks a bit odd up close.

:: Sarah Harding has a mouth on her like a sewer.

:: Amy Winehouse turned up late (SURPRISE) in a helicopter.

:: Dougie from Travis (a Scottish band from the 20th century, famous for having a male singer called Lisa and releasing that song about it pissing it down when you lie - Ed.) was very smiley and wearing a great coat.

:: Ditto Young Knives (a band from the year 2006, reasonably well-known for resembling Timmy Mallet dressed as a lecturer - Ed.) who looked very dapper indeed.

:: At V Festival, you are never more than 10ft away from a member of The Kooks. Eurgh.

:: The popstars this year looked mostly normal size.

:: The singer from the Hoosiers is not normal size but was very smiley.

So there you have it.

Coming Soon

Reviews of Girls Aloud (from the end of May) and Blondie (mid-July) live shows.

Just as soon as our reviewer gets her copy in.

HYG: always first with everything.

Where is Feat. Luciana when you need her?

For the thousands of you who could not imagine Alan Braxe‘s ‘Addicted‘ without the lyric “Dib dib dib dib / dab dab dab dab / dob dob dob dob”, here is ‘Nightwatcher’, featuring Killa Kella (isn’t he that beatboxer?) and jockey Kieron Fallon.

The video is very nice to look at and the bit where Kieron says “I’m the night stalker / I’m the day walker (etc)” is quite good, as sinisterly stunted hooks go.



Flobalob!

6.5/10

OMFUCKINGGOD!!!! SPOTTED!

IN TRAFFORD: Former Inspiral Carpet Clint Boon, DJing with some children at the Trafford Centre's swanky new Topshop.

Boon Army!