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Customer Review: The year of the 60’s
1964 for whatever reason was the year that seemed special to me defining thje 60’s and this compilation is very good. I think a lot of good albums also came out this year, and I have seen that 1964 year on them.
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Featuring 40 pop high-quality karaoke favorites from the last year or so, this is a great compilation for everyone as Disc 1 features all female songs and Disc 2 features all male songs. [DISC 1] 01. SMILE (Lily Allen) 02. HUNG UP (Madonna) 03. STICKWITU (The Pussycat Dolls) 04. I WISH I WAS A PUNK ROCKER (Sandi Thom) 05. CAN’T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD (Kylie Minogue) 06. FROM PARIS TO BERLIN (Infernal) 07. RED DRESS (The Sugababes) 08. SWAY (The Pussycat Dolls) 09. BECAUSE OF YOU (Kelly Clarkson) 10. COOL (Gwen Stefani) 11. CRAZY CHICK (Charlotte Church) 12. SUDDENLY I SEE (KT Tunstall) 13. BEEP (The Pussycat Dolls) 14. PUT YOUR RECORDS ON (Corinne Bailey Rae) 15. SORRY (Madonna) 16. FAME (Irene Cara) 17. GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN (Cyndi Lauper) 18. I THINK WE’RE ALONE NOW (Tiffany) 19. DANCING QUEEN (Abba) 20. I WILL SURVIVE (Gloria Gaynor) [DISC 2] 01. IS THIS THE WAY TO AMARILLO (Tony Christie) 02. BAD DAY (Daniel Powter) 03. VALERIE (The Zutons) 04. NO TOMORROW (Orson) 05. I DON’T FEEL LIKE DANCIN’ (The Scissor Sisters) 06. YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL (James Blunt) 07. FREE LOOP (Daniel Powter) 08. THAT’S MY GOAL (Shayne Ward) 09. YOU RAISE ME UP (Westlife) 10. CRAZY (Gnarls Barkley) 11. ROCK DJ (Robbie Williams) 12. OBVIOUSLY (McFly) 13. SPEED OF SOUND (Coldplay) 14. ALL TIME LOVE (Will Young) 15. BETTER TOGETHER (Jack Johnson) 16. STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU (Stealers Wheel) 17. DON’T STOP ME NOW (Queen) 18. DELILAH (Tom Jones) 19. HELP! (The Beatles) 20. BUILD ME UP BUTTERCUP (The Foundations)
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Top of the Pops 1979

Settling the Pop Score: Pop Texts and Identity Politics (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series)
Customer Review: Review from a UK reader
Certainly pathbreaking, although at times difficult to grasp, Settling the Pop Score is truly interdisciplinary and at the cutting end of music research. Stan Hawkins addresses irony and humour in an entertaining way, and his chapters on Morrissey and the Pet Shop Boys gave me a new insight into these pop stars. This book also deals with Madonna’s music and argues convincingly for why we need to take her music as seriously as her looks.
If you are a music or cultural studies enthusiast, this book is informative, although you’ll probably have to muster up a good deal of concentration to read parts of it preferably on a quiet evening before you’ve had one too many drinks!

Customer Review: Scholarly but entertaining!
There is a shortage in books dealing with pop music that approach the subject in a scholarly way. Stan Hawkins’ Settling the Pop Score was one of the few books that was invaluable to me when taking my masters degree in popular music studies at a UK university. The book approaches the analysis of various artists, Madonna, Prince, Pet Shop Boys, Morrissey and Annie Lennox in a fascinating and intelligent manner. Building on a range of theoretical premises, which are clearly outlined in the first chapter, the author proceeds to apply them in his readings of these various mainstream pop artists. So, the question is, does Hawkins settle the pop score? Well, this is difficult to answer. But one thing is certain, he offered me a way of thinking about music and musicology in a way that goes far beyond the everyday writings of so many music journalists. As well as music students, this book should be of use to students and enthusiasts from other fields.

The show took place in Saint Petersburg Fl on 11-10-08. The day started off with driving from Plant City to St. Pete. It was about a 45 min drive, there wasn’t really any traffic so that was a plus. We got to the venue around 6:30 pm. The venue is called Jannus Landing. Its an out door venue. I had the pleasure of speaking with Raam from Hypernova. He was a very down to earth and cool guy. We talked for about 20 mins. We were talking about the show from the night before in Orlando Fl at the House of Blues to how the band formed and other stories of life on the road. That show from the night before went well for HyperNova, but not so well for The Sisters though.

Hypernova is a band that is from Iran. The line up is Raam on vocals, Kodi on guitar, Jamshid on bass and of course Kodi on drums. The band took the stage at about 8pm. They played for about 45 mins. Their sound is kind of hard to compare to other bands. The vocals though are very similer to Ian Curtis (Joy Division), the music during some songs reminded me of old Cure, and others sounded like TV on the Radio. HyperNova fucking rocked St. Pete, They gave 100%. Their set list included these songs Fairytales, America Dream and also Universal. The crowd was into them and everyone was having a good time.

Here’s the video for “Fairy Tales,” which is a wicked good song:

Important Links:
Hypernova Official Site
Hypernova MySpace Page

- Keath (MySpace)

School of Seven Bells

Alley and Claudia are twins; Benjamin used to be in The Secret Machines with his brother, Brandon; and you guys recently toured with Blonde Redhead, which features the Pace twins, Amodeo and Simone. What’s with all the sibling band love?

Benjamin: It's a coincidence, really. Or, maybe we were programmed by aliens to make this cold and cruel world of the music business a friendlier, more familial place?

Can you describe for us the experience of playing your first show together?

Benjamin: We never had this climactic moment of a first show, where everything seemed to suddenly make sense. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we've been involved with a few other projects before this one, so the mystery isn't really there. I'm sure that we just thought that we had a lot of work to do to get where we are now.

Is there anyone you’re particularly excited about seeing at CMJ this year?

Benjamin: TOBACCO was one, for sure. Actually, it seems like the Ghostly showcase is going to be the most exciting for us. We're excited to see Michna play, and I think we can actually get into that one.

If you could go back and write an original soundtrack to any film, what would it be?

Benjamin: Probably The Seventh Seal, by Ingmar Bergman. Or maybe Groundhog Day. The music in that film is really the only thing that dates it. You can tell they tried to make the humor a lot lighter than it really is with this really dopey keyboard music, but with some sort of really tense and eerie soundtrack, it would be a totally different experience. Same for It's Pat the movie.

Your music is so often described as “dreamy.” Do you actually remember any of your dreams, and if so, is your songwriting influenced by them at all?

Alley: I actually remember the majority of my dreams, mainly the lucid ones. Those are kind of like meters for my mental state at the time. What I chose to do or manifest in my dreams is an indicator of my confidence in "awake" life.

Ghostly and Spectral Sound have a pretty diverse stable of musicians. Do you have any favorite labelmates?

Benjamin: We couldn't choose. Dabrye and Matthew Dear seem to be the foundation of the label's roster in our minds, and they're really at the very top in both of their respective fields. You can't really do what they do any better. Michna is really exciting, too. He and The Sight Below both seem to be headed in interesting directions. Maybe one day we'll have a Ghostly picnic, and we'll finally get to know everybody.

London thoroughbred brother and sister duo Joe Gideon & The Shark are a sight and sound to behold.

Joe Gideon pounds bass and guitar whilst narrating his autobiographical tales of misadventure, and little sister Viva (The Shark) drives the whole thing along with glorious drums and piano and 8-track (often, incomprehensibly, all at the same time).

Meandering through soundscapes that take in beat-fuelled rifforama, voodoo-injected grooves and melodious beauty, their sound is both comfortably spacious and foot-stompingly intense. And highly original.

Viva’s artistry is gracious and almost gymnastic, evidently a trait learned from her days as a ribbon-twirling athlete (a rhythmic gymnast to be precise) who represented the UK in the Barcelona Olympics. (Incidentally, Viva got the ribbons out once more when starring in the video for Archie Bronson Outfit’s Dead Funny). Gideon was not around to witness his sister’s glory, instead he was on the opposite side of the globe on the jury panel judging Miss Bolivia.

In a roundabout way, this microcosmically befits the picture painted by the band.

Formerly to be seen in the ‘dread-fuelled’ Bikini Atoll (Bella Union, and produced by Steve Albini), Joe Gideon and the Shark have discarded the darkness and have walked into the light. This light is in part provided by Gideon’s humorous and fantastical monologues which hook you in to their world. A Joe Gideon and the Shark record thus provides and indie rock classic and a talking book all for the price of one.

Barely a year old, this band has already gained the respect of their contemporaries by being invited to play with the like of The Duke Spirit, John & Jehn, Archie Bronson Outfit, Scout Niblett and Sons & Daughters.

Their “DOL” single is set for UK release 1st December 2008.

Joe Gideon & The Shark have now been asked by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds to provide main support on their UK November 2008 tour dates:

Nov 25th: Manchester Apollo w/ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nov 26th: Edinburgh Corn Exchange w/ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nov 27th: Sheffield Academy w/ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nov 29th: London Troxy w/ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

“One of the best live acts we’ve seen all year” - Time Out

“It’s rough, ragged, blues in its veins. It’s dark, atmospheric, oddball and surreal; it’s on your doorstep and in your airspace, alien yet talking the same language about the same ol’ trials and tribulations of a life lived” - Drowned in Sound

Joe Gideon & The Shark MySpace

“Yes, I was that guy,” says a kid in a tight polo shirt. “That’s what he said.”

“Seriously?” says his pal. This is a depressing concept. “Graveyard Girl” is a deeply weird and sad song about a teenager with mood swings. The only man in the song is Death. Death, we’re told, is “her boyfriend.”

“You have to listen through the French accent.”

Almost nothing that Gonzalez said or sang was comprehensible, but that isn’t important to the sound or act of M83. His whispered, Jacques Chirac-thick vocals are a relatively new addition to the band’s electronic drone. The old songs, the ones that predate 2005’s Before the Dawn Heals Us, begin with some simple figure, no more than four or five notes, played rapidly and hypnotically one of Gonzalez’s synthesizers. The piling-on starts. Sometimes it’s a distorted guitar that comes in, sometimes it’s another synth pattern, sometimes it’s a context-free movie soundtrack (always a voice sounding terrified, breathing heavily, like the guy who says “It’s in the trees!” at the start of “Hounds of Love”).

Either you’re hypnotized or you’re not. The heavy crowd at The Black Cat split into the hypnotized and the mildly amused, with the former gaining more and more recruits as the night went on. The band killed it on “Teen Angst,” a silver bullet of song from that 2005 record that stacks drums on synths on drums on husky female vocals. When it ended, a voice near the front of the stage started to crack. “Oh, god!” People near him laughed. “Oh, god, oh my god!” It was good, yeah, but that good? Meg Ryan in a diner good?

M83 are noisy enough and repetitive enough to sound like a post-rock band, and they’re French, so you could call them Frogwai and probably get away with it. Listened to at length, in a dark club, in a neighborhood where people come to concerts in order to not dance, it starts to sound more recognizable. It’s goth for people with a sense of decorum. When the band works into a long song like “Couleurs,” they can watch the front rows’ low-impact dance—Nod your head! Buckle your knees! Bend your waist slightly! —pick up speed and spread around the room. The pop songs from the band’s new record Saturdays=Youth sound like classic Cure singles, and the Black Cat dances to them the way it dances to “Just Like Heaven” when it cues up on the club’s frequent 80s nights.

M83 were preceded by School of Seven Bells, an NPR-ready band finally reveal what would have happened if the twin ghost girls from The Shining spent their adolescence listening to Psychocandy. Benjamin Curtis (he of Secret Machines) anchors this band, and sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza do everything hauntingly—play guitar, play the synthesizer, harmonize dark lyrics. They played a short set longer on drone than songs, but it worked, and it complemented M83 perfectly. No one could have liked one band and disliked the other. This isn’t an exciting niche, or a new one, but if the world must contain indie goth it should always be so melodic.

Leonard Cohen review, O2 Arena, London - 14 November 2008

Have you ever seen Annie Hall? If yes, then you’ll recall the scene where Alvy dates a music journalist played by Shelley Duvall and they emerge from a Stones concert, Duvall’s character rhapsodising about how the gig was ‘transplendent’. Well before you go any further, I should confess: that was me, after witnessing the legend that is Leonard Cohen in London.

After a hellish journey from Oxford to London and then to North Greenwich, we found ourselves slightly late, hungry and cranky. Now anyone who knows me will testify to my horrendous hunger grumps. So it’s no mean feat that three hours later, I was in seventh heaven. Like Leonard advised, we forgot the past and were transported to another place by a performance which is best described as sublime.

Dressed in a pin-striped suit and rakishly tilted fedora, Cohen looked ice cool. He and his band gave the appearance of a thirties era group of gangsters, their iconic appearance matched in panache by a set in which it was clear Cohen meant every word of his poetic and mystical lyrics. A magnificent “Hallelujah” was a case in point.

The laughter lines around his eyes may have belied his 73 years, but the way he skipped on and offstage, teasing us with yet another encore, hinted that he took a youthful glee in the pleasure he generated in the adoring crowd. Cohen acknowledged his absence from the touring circuit with his usual charm and a humorous eloquence: ‘It’s been a long time’, he admitted, following this with a wry, ‘fifteen years, I was just a kid with a crazy dream’.

This self-awareness and gentle humour inflected Cohen’s every gesture with a disarming humility and grace, which was evident in the generous relationship he shared with his band. Collaborator and singer in her own right Sharon Robertson was given solo duties on “Anthem”, showcasing a seemingly effortless and creamy, fulsome voice. Cohen also afforded backing vocalists The Webb Sisters a spot, with Hattie on harp adding an angelic quality to harmonies evocative of Alison Krauss or the Carter Family. Cohen stood back in the shadows for their stints, literally taking his hat off to them and holding it to his heart in a respectful and gentlemanly manner which indicated he was as beguiled by their performances as the rest of us.

Cohen’s entire band were nothing short of flawless, and in the cavernous and corporate space that is the O2 the entire audience were drawn like magnets to the stage, spellbound by a set both flawless and utterly soulful - we could have been in an intimate and cosy jazz bar, such was the way Cohen held us in the palm of his hands. He’s a legend without even trying: dapper and iconic, his words and his philosophy get right to the heart of the human condition.

Given his advanced years and godfather like status in the annals of music, never more have lines such as ‘I was born like this, I had no choice/I was born with the gift of a golden voice’ and ‘I ache in the places I used to play’ seemed more pertinent and moving. It was an inescapable fact that we were in the presence of a true legend on Friday night and there was thankfully no sense of it being underwhelming, as so often the case with such feted figures - I feel genuinely honoured to have witnessed the man himself. Cohen proved an inspiring and elegant presence whose lyrics are an honest and, I would argue, necessary soundtrack to the revolutions of life in all it’s permutations. As he recited some of his poetry, I reflected that his words give no trite answers, but great comfort and hope.

I’ve never understood why people find the work of this wonderful man depressing; I see hope more than anything else in lyrics like ‘There is a crack, a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in’. A rousing rendition of “Democracy” in the encore sums this up - both timely in the wake of the American Democrats victory as well as impassioned, it stirred the whole audience up irrespective of nationality. The beauty of Cohen’s songs are that they implore us to strive beyond the mundane towards a spiritual otherness much, much greater than the physical, whilst still embodying a deeply sensual quality. Seeing him live really encapsulated this power- as I looked around my companions I saw the same rapt expression in their eyes accompanied with a irresistible urge to sway and move in time with the movement of the music, mouthing the words to classics like “So Long Marianne” and “The Tower of Song” as if motivated by a deep collective unconscious.

Cohen’s performance was both gracious and professional; his deliciously rumbly voice has acquired an even greater patina of wisdom as he’s aged which made some tracks seem like sermons from a great sage. Highlights for me were the elegiac and tragical “The Partisan”, “In My Secret Life” and of course, “Hallelujah”, which moved me to tears - I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.

A septuagenarian who still has the capacity to totally seduce both men and women with his song, he is truly a very special individual whom I still keep pinching myself to believe I’ve seen! What most impressed itself on me was how at peace with himself Cohen seemed; he joked that he’d explored the philosophy of religions and tried ‘prozac, effexor … ‘ and all number of medications, but found that ‘cheerfulness kept breaking through’!

He may have been talked into doing this tour, but he genuinely seemed to be enjoying it and in the unlikely event that any remaining dates are not already sold out, I would urge you to get along to a gig, whatever it takes (yes, even if that means leaving the country - he’s that good). Seeing Leonard Cohen was a life-defining experience and I don’t care how much hyperbole I’ve employed in this review - I will never forget the three hours of magic he gave to me.

Transplendent, just transplendent.

Leonard Cohen on amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

Leonard Cohen Official Website

By: Lindsey Davis

Monday, November 17
Castanets @ Hi-Dive
Pale Young Gentlemen @ Larimer Lounge
Talk To Angels @ Walnut Room

Tuesday, November 18
The Australian Pink Floyd Show @ Paramount Theatre
Danava @ Larimer Lounge
Grampall Jookabox @ Hi-Dive
Gription @ Fox Theatre
Hellogoodbye @ Marquis Theater

Wednesday, November 19
Darker My Love @ Larimer Lounge
Deadmau5 @ Fox Theatre
Old Crow Medicine Show @ Ogden Theater
Vic Chesnutt/Elf Power @ Hi-Dive

Thursday, November 20
Ben Kenney @ Walnut Room
Black Market Empire @ Bluebird Theater
Holly Golightly @ Larimer Lounge
Ian Harper @ Marquis Theater
Juno What?! @ Fox Theatre
Lordi @ Gothic Theatre
Old Crow Medicine Show @ Boulder Theater
The Sisters of Mercy @ Ogden Theater
Taun Taun @ Hi-Dive

Friday, November 21
Cat-A-Tac @ Larimer Lounge
Coldplay @ Pepsi Center
Dredg @ Bluebird Theater
The Foot @ Walnut Room
Hazel Miller @ Soiled Dove
Kan'nal @ Fox Theatre
Mason Jennings @ Boulder Theater
Moonspeed @ Hi-Dive
Mudvayne @ Fillmore Auditorium
Roe @ Marquis Theater
Synthetic Elements Video Release @ Gothic Theatre

Saturday, November 22
Dead Confederate @ Larimer Lounge
The Dropskots @ Marquis Theater
Faultline @ Bluebird Theater
Matt Morris @ Walnut Room
Murs @ Fox Theatre
Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers @ Gothic Theatre
Tech N9ne @ Fillmore Auditorium

Sunday, November 23
Asleep At The Wheel @ Fox Theatre
BigTime Entertainment Show @ Hi-Dive
Drowning Pool @ Marquis Theater
Jeremy Enigk @ Larimer Lounge

Schedule appears courtesy of Mystik Spiral.