The summer of '79

1979 was, amongst others, the year Talking Heads recorded the ground-breaking and breath-taking Fear Of Music album with Brian Eno. One of the best known songs is Life During Wartime (as seen on Stop Making Sense) but I always really liked Electric Guitar - but you can't do that YouTube it seems.

The next best song was Here comes the Summer by the Undertones. Not covered by Moke, by the way - but still a nice song.

Also, Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division came out.

However, the year did not end there. Due to some mental arithmetic mixups I would have plugged Ash's Girl from Mars but that's on their '1977' album so I'm going to plunge straight ahead to the people who got LCD Soundsystem's panties in a bunch: Death From Above 1979.

Just drums and bass. Remove one and you get a frustrated drummer, or a frustrated bass player. A guitar player alone can pretend to be a singer-songwriter, but these guys have to stick together. And the raw energy they unleash by doing that, is, well just awesome!

They have a dearth of official videos but you can start with Pull Out. Go on with Black History Month and if you like that, just get the album!

Sadly, they released just one album but I hope that's enough to keep me going for another 30 years or so!

Late new years resolution

I will make more blog posts this year than my co-bloggers in total. So far I'm winning :-)

Stay tuned for the best of 30 years ago - 1979.

Civilization

Fairly recently (3 weeks, cough, cough) I went to my only festival of the year: festival deBeschaving. It was just outside of Utrecht so no hassle with tents and travel and stuff. I'll share my highlights here, I'll spare you the criticism of Pete Doherty, Kate Nash, et al.

First act we managed to catch was Get Cape.Wear Cape.Fly. (Yes, the interpunction is important!) Really nice laptoppy singer-songwriter stuff. I was particularly taken by War of the Worlds and I-Spy. His throaty voice and (slightly) critical lyrics make this a worthy addition to my shortish trophy room of singer-songwriters.

Next was the Dodos. Advertised as calm, folk, not a beat too many. What we got instead was postfolk: droning on, pulsating. Brilliant! Not entirely representative but still good is this video of Fools. It's really amazing how just a guitar, drums and an occasional shout into the microphone can absorb you. Their new album, Visiter, is good but it does not catch the feel of their live show.
For me this was really the highlight of the festival, but my ears hurt a little afterward.

We enjoyed the sun, Das Pop, Kaizers Orchestra (a lot but from a distance) and Oi Va Voi after that, but the final highlight for me is definitely Slagmalsklubben (I'm missing an a with a circle above it here, I'm sure!). Weird Teletubby-influenced Swedish electro, so-lame-they're-funny ramblings between songs but still, you can't go wrong with a song like Sponsored By Destiny. Oh yeah, and some blinking lights!

The final bus back home beckoned, so no Mogwai.

Transformers

I'm not writing much, I know. Sorry! My Internet is down most of the time, yadda yadda yadda. (The rest of the blog is down too, but I can't explain that away that easily!)

Robots in Disguise is, however, one band I think you should not miss out on!

The Sex Has Made Me Stupid was fabulous first time around - I could not stop listening to it. Even without the video, it's still pretty cool!

And for some strange reason I really, really, really like 'I live in Berlin' - Although my German girlfriend may have something to do with that! (She does not live in Berlin, nor is she a robot in disguise, and she's smarter than me!)

In the end, Motormark may have the final word, though! Everybody at the discotheque has made me stupid! Remember folks, Motormark let made you stupid first ;-) This version is by Stereo Total, but the original was better. Crystal Castles avant la lettre, but even more chaotic!

Maybe the next best thing!

Jack (Will and Grace) on playing blackjack: "Oh, no, all that "hit me, hit me" gets me excited for all the wrong reasons."

Anyway, here's a Hit Me (more like a Hit Machine?) that gets me excited for all the wrong reasons. The biggest surprise, probably, is that they're not even Scandinavian. They're from Amsterdam!

Hit Me TV - Maybe The Dancefloor

P.S. See if you can find the Blokgolf Remix. It might even help you through your exams, Euro 2008, etc. Here it is!

Most Boring Post! Nice music? Yes!

Glasvegas is nice. They make me think of Nancy Sinatra (by way of Jarvis) and JMAC.

Here's a (sorry for the indirection) link.

Enjoy!

Daddy's gone is nice as well, maybe I like it even better. Come to think of it, it's eight years almost to the day my little brother hanged himself so there might be some symbolism in that vid.

And since these guys look like rockabillies from 1980 (check the hairdos!) I am not going to embellish this post with still pictures.

They've not got the noisyness of A Place To Bury Strangers - Willem, is that next Monday? - but they're kind of human. I like humans! For breakfast; that is.

Death Cab For Cutie's Newborn

The new released album of DCFC is called ' Narrow Stairs'. There's no change of style since their last album 'Plans', but still every album of theirs is worth the attempt of listening and when the simple melodies open up, they won't leave your head. Hail to the thief, grab it!


Death Cab For Cuty - Narrow Stairs (album in mp3)

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