1 There's quite a good chance at some point in your life that you'll
get to play Father Christmas - which is an utterly incredible
experience. My three year old now thinks that I am Santa.

2 You get to inflict a lifetime's worth of musical/sporting/political
prejudices on innocent minds. Seven year old's favourite music is JLS,
but also Nancy Sinatra, The Shangri-las and Brian Jonestown Massacre.
Three year old constantly refers to dog poo as Tottenham.

3 You get to think young again - Model villages, steam train rides,
slides in swimming pools suddenly become perfectly acceptable again

4 You can pinch your child's scooter - A highlight of my week is when
I pick up my three year old from nursery each Wednesday. She always
wants to race daddy home on her scooter - what kind of father would
say no?

5 You are someone's hero - They will wise up in time, but for a few
years you get to be Superman, Einstein and Cesc Fabregas all rolled
into one

Yes, I know it's the summer and I should be out enjoying the sunshine,
but to be honest I feel that my time is best spent alone in my flat,
listening to some seriously  dark new music offerings.
 
You should be thankful - it saves you the effort and means you can go
to the park and do all those things that 'normal' people do in August
like having a picnic or sunbathing, safe in the knowledge that I've
found you some great new music to get you through the long, cold
winter ahead. 

OK, so I admit I have made a sole concession to the hot weather by
listening to the album Summer of Hate by deliriously, scuzzy, fuzzy,
f***ed up, lo-fi indie-rock duo Crocodiles. Hailing from San Diego,
they sound and look like The Jesus and Mary Chain with their cool
shades, big hair, drum machine, feedback, droney guitars and
death-obsessed lyrics.
 
Their recent single I Wanna Kill is one of the best things I've heard
all year - a deliriously dumb, druggy pop tune that mixes the sound of
Phil Spector (on a track called I Wanna Kill, that is somewhat ironic,
don't you think?) with Psychocandy/Darklands-era Mary Chain.
 
Just as you're thinking it can't get any better, they thrown in a
cheap, tinny organ solo that could have been half-inched from some
long-lost '60s pop song - simply brilliant. It make you want to grab a
girl, get high and drive an open-top car down the freeway and off a
cliff, while listening to the Shangri-Las on the tape deck. Yep - it's
that cool.
 
So, before you head out to the park, go and listen to Crocodiles. And
make it snappy.
 
Sorry.
 

 

There's more pics of great lost mobiles here http://www.techdigest.tv/2009/08/the_five_cooles.html

So, it finally happened, then.
I've reached that age when I prefer Noel Gallagher singing Oasis songs
than Liam.
All through my twenties, I said that I liked Liam belting out the
tracks, but after the band's recent iTunes gig at London's Roundhouse,
I've decided that's just not the case anymore.
In fact, I've drawn up my own, ahem, masterplan for the future of Oasis.
Sack Liam - he's a liability and a parody of himself. At the
Roundhouse show, he sauntered onstage in a fishtail parka (yawn) and
proceeded to heckle the crowd, swear during songs and, sometimes, not
even bother to sing his parts.
Spending most of the set acting like a surly teenager who couldn't
get his own way, he only seemed enthusiastic when he sang the songs
that he'd penned - namely Songbird and I'm Outta Time.
For the majority of the show, he sulked, used foul language and dissed
punters. Nothing was sacred - we got tiresome, childish rants about
skinny jeans, pointy shoes and, even, living in Camden.
It was left to his big brother Noel to save the night - dissing Liam
and coming into his own for superb semi-acoustic performances of The
Masterplan, Half The World Away and Don't Look Back In Anger - Oasis'
unsung hero, Gem Archer, playing mean electric guitar and expertly
taking the solos.
Acting like a moody brat is oh so 1994, Liam - we've all moved on
since then. You're in one of the best UK rock and roll bands of the
last 20 years, so, for god's sake, show that you care. Just as the
Britpop Oasis versus Blur battle comes back to haunt us, Liam has so
let the side down.
His band are, musically, better than they've ever been, but the
Roundhouse performance was tarnished by his sloppy, childish
behaviour. During My Big Mouth, he simply gave up singing and went to sit
on the drum riser, leaving Noel to take up the slack.
By the way, Noel, if you're reading this, dump Liam, take over the
band and become a professional Dadrock outfit in the vein of Weller
and his current musical cohorts. You may not be as rock and roll as
you were in the past, but at least you'll maintain some dignity and
some musical credibilty - and perform some professional shows.
Liam - sorry mate, you're outta time.

 

 
http://www.myspace.com/thedominostate
 
 
Firefly, the new single from The Domino State, is an old fashioned,
moody indie guitar anthem of epic proportions – the kind of song that
deserves to be heard in huge arenas all over the world.
PopJunkie's Sean Hannam spoke to the band about, err, geo-politics, the Cold War,
electronic circuitry and why they won't be the next Motley Crue.
 
Q:The new single Firefly – it’s a huge, epic rock song.
What’s it about? Is it a tale of hope, but also one of emotional
upheaval? Why the Firefly imagery?
 
A: It is a tale of hope, but also about emotional upheaval. Maybe with
a bit of paranoia thrown in for good measure. We like the idea that
the listener can interpret the song in that way - I am sure everyone
has a story or two that causes conflicting positive and negative
emotions. The imagery seems appropriate.
 
Q: Where does the band name come from?
 
A: There are five of us and none of us are backward in coming forward
with opinions, so we didn't have a name all of us could agree on for
ages. No-one can exactly remember where The Domino State came from -
it sort of appeared out of the ether and stuck, as - miracle of
miracles - all of us liked it. We Googled it afterwards and found out
that, apart from the geo-political meaning of a small satellite
country used as a pawn in the Cold War, it's also something to do with
electronic circuitry. The macro and the micro in one!
 
Q: Is the single representative of your debut album?
 
A: It does represent things to come with the album, but at the same
time there will be some diversity. Obviously, some songs sound more
like singles than others, and we hope the album holds a few surprises.
That's not to say that every other track on the album is doom metal,
though - only a couple of them.
 
Q: You’ve been playing festivals, including Glastonbury. How were
they? Did you see any fireflies?
 
A: The festivals have been fantastic. At Glasto we didn't see any
fireflies, despite the legal highs. All we saw was a dragon and an
evil wizard!
 
Q: What bands are you guys into?
 
A:We all listen to a lot of quite varied stuff, and we often don't
agree on things, but some examples of bands we all like are Ride, My
Bloody Valentine, The Cure and Arcade Fire.
 
Q: You opened for Coldplay at 02 – how was it playing an arena this
early on in your career? Your sound suits big venues, doesn’t it? Do
you aspire to be the next Coldplay or U2?
 
A: It was both nerve-wracking and incredibly exciting at the same
time. One of the best things about it was a couple of comments after
we'd played. A member of Coldplay said we sounded "massive" and our
sound engineer told us we totally pulled it off and looked natural up
there. It's a big place, and too much to take in really, but as a
taste of what's possible, it presents a pretty good target to aim for.
I don't know about being the next U2 or Coldplay, but we got a bit
carried away with the after-show hospitality, and the next morning was
a clear lesson that we certainly haven't got the stamina to be the
next Motley Crue.
 
Q: Can any of you play dominoes? And when was the last time you were
in a state?
 
A: We can play dominoes, but prefer travel scrabble on the tour bus.
We were in a state at Glastonbury after we played - watching Nick Cave
and drinking cider.

 For me Jack were probably the best kept secret of the mid 90s. Coming
on like a Divine Comedy (without the schoolboy humour) or My Life
Story (minus the camp) they made three great albums all of which
feature wonderfully dramatic songs soaked in strings.

 The first album Pioneer Soundtracks, from which the tune stems from,
delivers just one classic after another, but for me it is album two
that sets them apart from all their peers. The Jazz Age is an
astonishingly great album, in many ways every bit as good as the
artists (Scott Walker, Echo and The Bunnymen) whose sound Jack were
trying to replicate.

 Things dipped on the third album and they split up soon after with
lead singer Anthony Reynolds going solo and penning a book on Scott
Walker http://popjunkietv.com/2009/05/06/two-walker-brothers-biographies-imminent/
and a few other members ending up in the wonderful mid noughties band
The Boyfriends http://www.myspace.com/myboyfriendsback

 It is still quite incredible how overlooked they were and still are