Category: Music

Here’s some Detroit Techo from my old friend Oliver Dodd! Enjoy!

Sad news:

Acclaimed guitar player Les Paul died on Wednesday from complications of severe pneumonia at White Plains Hospital in New York. He was 94.

Born Lester William Polsfuss in Waukesha, Wisconsin on June 9, 1915, Paul was already performing publicly as a honky-tonk guitarist by the age of 13. He dropped out of high school at 17 to play in Sunny Joe Wolverton’s Radio Band in St. Louis. His first recordings were done in 1936, and in 1938, he moved to New York to begin his tenure on national radio with Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians.

Paul began constructing his own electric guitar in the late 1930s, and eventually created his own guitar in the 1940s, which would become the template for Gibson’s best-selling electric, the Les Paul model, which was introduced in 1952.

via Guitartist Les Paul Dies at 94.

Don’t tell me
It’s another likely story
Could’ve pinned it on you from the start
Well I’m new here
Doesn’t mean I have to answer
Silly questions or a shot in the dark

You know I’m a child
I keep this alive

It gets harder
I remember to remember
Waking up again all over again
If there’s an echo
Repeat days I’d likely let go
And be the changes we are noticing

When we’re running wild
We keep this alive

Still I wonder
Sights around us fade and underneath
The ground shakes, things fall apart
And no other than the voice of one another
Keeps us safely moving on in the dark

You know I’m a child
I keep this alive

Ohmygosh! This video is from Duran Duran’s very first television appearance!  It was from a show called Look Hear! on BBC Midlands. The show aired on March 10, 1981… the day before my 10th birthday!

Squeeeeeeeee!

La Roux is a British electropop synth duo consisting of writer and producer Ben Langmaid and singer and synth player Elly Jackson (daughter of Trudie Goodwin, the actress who played “Sergeant June Ackland” on the illustrious and long-running British police drama The Bill).

After struggling for a time, La Roux have suddenly become one of the hottest bands in the UK; their last two singles, “In For The Kill” and “Bulletproof” hit #2 and #1 on the British charts respectively.

If you liked Blancmange, Human League, Yazoo or Heaven 17, you’ll love La Roux! And for a limited time (jeez – do I sound like a shill or what?) you can download two free tracks from their website!

Just go to their site and look for the “free download” link at the bottom of the page. You’ll need to sign up for their email newsletter to get the tracks; it’s probably best to use a throwaway address for this, but be aware that the link to the free tracks will be sent to that address. Also, I dunno if it matters, but when the signup form asked for my country, I put “United Kingdom” (I was worried about possible “sorry, you can’t download this” licensing issues).

Give La Roux a try… they’re one of the best new bands out there!

You’ve probably heard the French band Nouvelle Vague before. Their music has been used in several TV shows and commercials including Sugar Rush, and a popular promo for the show L.A. Ink (which prominently featured Nouvelle Vague’s cover version of Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself”).

For what it’s worth, the band’s name is a clever play on words: it’s French for “New Wave”, and it represents their “Frenchness” and “artiness” (after the ’60s “new wave” of French cinema), the source of all their music (cover tunes of old punk and New Wave favorites), as well as their actual style of music (which is bossa-nova, which is Portuguese for… “new wave”).

Anyway, the band has a new album out. This one is simply called 3, and it features an awesome cover of the Violent Femme’s “Blister In The Sun” on it. It sounds like it would be great to play at parties! Have a listen and tell me what you think:

[audio:blister.mp3]

I won’t be posting much this weekend, so here’s a little music clip to keep you entertained. It’s Sting singing an acoustic version of “Message in a Bottle”. Recorded live during an Amnesty International benefit gig in London, it was featured in (as was perhaps the best musical performance of) the 1982 film The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball:

You know those songs you instantly fall in love with? That happened with me and Au Revoir Simone’s “Another Likely Story”, the lead track from their newest album Still Night, Still Light.

The band, whose name comes from a line in the film Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, formed in Brooklyn in 2003, and their music has been featured on Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, and a few other films and TV shows. For what it’s worth, film director David Lynch is a huge fan of the band (cite), and even had their tunes played at his wedding!

It’s easy to see why Lynch and others like the band so much: the gentle, airy electronic atmospheres the band creates are lush and inviting. It’s music that just sucks you in. It’s like these three girls have created their own fairy tale world (that’s not too twee) and we’re all welcomed to join them. Still Night, Still Light is its own universe, and although I don’t love it as much as I loved Emiliana Torrini’s Love In The Time of Science, this album comes close… very close.

I’ve had this tune on the iPod since I found it, always near the beginning or end of a playlist, so I could quickly find it. Listen to the lyrics closely… like The Cardigans, Au Revoir Simone might sound like a harmless pop band, but their lyrics are actually pretty dark:

[audio:au _revoir_simone.mp3]