The Ting Tings recorded songs their label loved – so they ripped them up and started again. Are they tempting fate?
Muster what positive thoughts you can about the music industry, pool all good feeling, then draw a mental picture of a record label boss. You've still conjured a crook, I bet, if you're working from the same fund of stereotype and hearsay as me: the sleazeball with swindler's eyes, all hairy wrists and cross-Atlantic accent. These aren't, traditionally, figures of sympathy.
Well after an afternoon with the Ting Tings I want to find every record executive I can, and offer hugs. I want to tour the high-rises of Columbia and Sony BMG handing out blankets. Any A&R type or marketing whiz who has worked with Katie White and Jules de Martino, staunchly contrarian members of this two-piece Salford band, deserves at least a gentle squeeze of the shoulder. Because since scoring a giant hit for their label four years ago – the scrappy dance-rock anthem "That's Not My Name" as omnipresent a feature of 2008 as deathly financial bulletins, as Obama – the Ting Tings have been nothing but trouble.
There was the £100,000 video for "That's Not My Name" that the band didn't like and had scrapped. ("We looked vacant," says White.) There were the demo recordings they "lost" so that the label couldn't use them as bonus tracks on the first album, 2008's We Started Nothing. ("We're control freaks," says De Martino.) More recently they fought to have a piece of emailed-in fan art, imagining them both as putrid corpses, on the cover of a second album, Sounds from Nowheresville, out next month. Last year they slapped a freshly made video for the album's lead-off single, Hang It Up, on to YouTube months before its formal release. "That whole Vevo thing," says White, referring to the online streaming service most bands use to strategically premiere their vids, "is a pain in the arse."
Monday, January 30, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Childish Gambino
If we've learned anything from the musical exploits of Russell Crowe, Hugh Laurie, Keanu Reeves with Dogstar and even Juliette Lewis, it's that the actor-turned-music-hobbyist tends towards the trad. A life reciting other people's words, it seems, trains one to be unadventurous in other arts. So when Donald Glover– actor in the NBC comedy Community, comedian, model and scriptwriter for The Daily Show and 30 Rock – announces that he wants to "burn this place to the ground" and then fulfils the metaphor, it's a satisfying shock. Under his hip-hop alter ego Childish Gambino, Glover has been releasing free albums and mixtapes online since 2008, culminating in his highly acclaimed first official release, Camp. This showcase gig – truncated because "I've got to go do a radio show" – finds him running the gamut of urban styles from the pastoral hip-hop poetry of Roots Manuva to the dark murder rap of DMX and the R&B rave of Tinie Tempah.
His lyrics rarely stray from the classic lexicon of hustling rap (loose women, easy money, hate songs to haters, tales of poverty told by a self-made success), but they're delivered with a preacher's intensity and a vaguely nerdy excitement. He's wide-eyed at the bedroom action he's getting on the soulful Fire Fly and dorkishly obsessed with Japanese girls on doomy piano ballad LES; he's a macking McLovin, so charmingly geek-hop you half expect the stormtrooping horns of UCLA to prelude a guest rap by Darth Vader. But whether he's trying an accomplished hand at Daft Punk electro (Heartbeat), symphonic trip-pop (All the Shine, Hero), apocalyptic bashment (Bonfire), or mashing feverish rasta beats into Adele's Rolling in the Deep, he seems rapt in rap's possibilities. In Keanu Reeves terms, he's less dog, more star.
His lyrics rarely stray from the classic lexicon of hustling rap (loose women, easy money, hate songs to haters, tales of poverty told by a self-made success), but they're delivered with a preacher's intensity and a vaguely nerdy excitement. He's wide-eyed at the bedroom action he's getting on the soulful Fire Fly and dorkishly obsessed with Japanese girls on doomy piano ballad LES; he's a macking McLovin, so charmingly geek-hop you half expect the stormtrooping horns of UCLA to prelude a guest rap by Darth Vader. But whether he's trying an accomplished hand at Daft Punk electro (Heartbeat), symphonic trip-pop (All the Shine, Hero), apocalyptic bashment (Bonfire), or mashing feverish rasta beats into Adele's Rolling in the Deep, he seems rapt in rap's possibilities. In Keanu Reeves terms, he's less dog, more star.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Abba to release previously unheard song
Reissue of The Visitors to include first new song in 18 years. Warning: it includes the words 'twinkling star' in its title
For the first time in 18 years, Abba are giving us a new song. The Swedish pop group will release a previously unheard track, From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel, recorded in 1981.
The song will be included on the forthcoming reissue of The Visitors, due on 23 April. This was Abba's final studio album, including the singles One of Us and Head Over Heels. From a Twinkling Star … was intended for that record, but although the group recorded a "demo medley" version, they left the track on the studio floor.
Abba fans haven't had a treat like this since 1994, when they released a trove of previously unheard material on the Thank You for the Music box set. Despite years of rumours, Abba's leaders, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, have remained staunchly opposed to a reunion. "We would like people to remember us as we were," Ulvaeus said in 2008. "Young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition." They did not responded publicly to last year's suggestion by bandmate Agnetha Fältskog that the group "meet, chat about the old days and perhaps perform together".
The Visitors reissue will include one CD of bonus songs and a DVD of rare video, including footage of Abba on the BBC's The Late Late Breakfast Show.
For the first time in 18 years, Abba are giving us a new song. The Swedish pop group will release a previously unheard track, From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel, recorded in 1981.
The song will be included on the forthcoming reissue of The Visitors, due on 23 April. This was Abba's final studio album, including the singles One of Us and Head Over Heels. From a Twinkling Star … was intended for that record, but although the group recorded a "demo medley" version, they left the track on the studio floor.
Abba fans haven't had a treat like this since 1994, when they released a trove of previously unheard material on the Thank You for the Music box set. Despite years of rumours, Abba's leaders, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, have remained staunchly opposed to a reunion. "We would like people to remember us as we were," Ulvaeus said in 2008. "Young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition." They did not responded publicly to last year's suggestion by bandmate Agnetha Fältskog that the group "meet, chat about the old days and perhaps perform together".
The Visitors reissue will include one CD of bonus songs and a DVD of rare video, including footage of Abba on the BBC's The Late Late Breakfast Show.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Exhibition: William Sasnal in Munich's Haus der Kunst
The Haus der Kunst in Munich presents an exhibition on the works of Wilhelm Sasnal.
Tsunami Girl (2011)
From 03.02. 13/05/2012 to present the Haus der Kunst in Munich, an exhibition on the art of the Polish painter Wilhelm Sasnal. The exhibition gives an insight into Sasnal's work from 1999 to the present day and shows in addition to 60 paintings and a selection of his films.
Wilhelm Sasnal was born in 1972 in Tarnow (Poland) and was already making internationally through a series of solo exhibitions attention. He finds his subjects in everyday life and in the media. It reaches its imagery of portraits of his relatives and friends to become icons of pop culture, the news photo of a young girl in the rubble of the tsunami disaster in Japan to the chapters of Polish history as the Second World War, including the Holocaust. Like a pendulum swinging his images constantly between past and present, back and forth. Sasnal stylistically blends realism and romance with pop work with abstraction. Altogether his works occupy a passion for the history of painting and a conceptual discussion of the painting as a medium.
Wilhelm Sasnal selects from the mass of images in comic books, newspapers, television and the Internet which are otherwise easily overlooked, and creates a unique and very personal documentary of contemporary life.
Sasnal enjoyed his training at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. There he found the making of still life, deeds and restrictions on art history until the beginning of the 20th Century he was living far away "very technical" and "My life was completely different than what the pictures show, which I should refer, so I wanted to paint what was going on around me."
The years 2000/2001 were crucial for Wilhelm Sasnal: in Poland appeared to Art Spiegelman's graphic novel "Maus" and Claude Lanzmann's nine-hour documentary "Shoah" (1985) has been shown and Jan Tomasz Gross's book "Neighbours" (2001) came out. After the Poles had been seen exclusively as victims of the Nazis, these publications are now themed their involvement or participation in the atrocities. Wilhelm Sasnal found this necessity of changing perspective initially disturbing. In 2001 he painted five paintings after the comic book "Maus," Art Spiegelman in which the Nazis as cats, the Jews as mice, Poles as pigs, and represents the Americans as dogs.
Tsunami Girl (2011)
From 03.02. 13/05/2012 to present the Haus der Kunst in Munich, an exhibition on the art of the Polish painter Wilhelm Sasnal. The exhibition gives an insight into Sasnal's work from 1999 to the present day and shows in addition to 60 paintings and a selection of his films.
Wilhelm Sasnal was born in 1972 in Tarnow (Poland) and was already making internationally through a series of solo exhibitions attention. He finds his subjects in everyday life and in the media. It reaches its imagery of portraits of his relatives and friends to become icons of pop culture, the news photo of a young girl in the rubble of the tsunami disaster in Japan to the chapters of Polish history as the Second World War, including the Holocaust. Like a pendulum swinging his images constantly between past and present, back and forth. Sasnal stylistically blends realism and romance with pop work with abstraction. Altogether his works occupy a passion for the history of painting and a conceptual discussion of the painting as a medium.
Wilhelm Sasnal selects from the mass of images in comic books, newspapers, television and the Internet which are otherwise easily overlooked, and creates a unique and very personal documentary of contemporary life.
Sasnal enjoyed his training at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. There he found the making of still life, deeds and restrictions on art history until the beginning of the 20th Century he was living far away "very technical" and "My life was completely different than what the pictures show, which I should refer, so I wanted to paint what was going on around me."
The years 2000/2001 were crucial for Wilhelm Sasnal: in Poland appeared to Art Spiegelman's graphic novel "Maus" and Claude Lanzmann's nine-hour documentary "Shoah" (1985) has been shown and Jan Tomasz Gross's book "Neighbours" (2001) came out. After the Poles had been seen exclusively as victims of the Nazis, these publications are now themed their involvement or participation in the atrocities. Wilhelm Sasnal found this necessity of changing perspective initially disturbing. In 2001 he painted five paintings after the comic book "Maus," Art Spiegelman in which the Nazis as cats, the Jews as mice, Poles as pigs, and represents the Americans as dogs.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs I have been thrilled at this year's Melt, therefore led to his gig in Berlin on Thursday no way around. After the jacket on the latent crowded dressing room was packed, it went to the stage. Already the first beats thundered in every limb and announced that there would rain down in the next two hours on the present - a violent electrical storm.
The atmosphere bordered on ecstasy over long distances, in the "Household Goods" in a kind of friendly mosh pit boiling over. For me, it was during the entire concert with only a brief moment of silence in which I was able to Orlando Higginbottom more bad than good to capture on photo. Unfortunately, it is the costume that I would classify as a mixture between Triceratops and turtle, not really to bear. All in all a fantastic concert.
The atmosphere bordered on ecstasy over long distances, in the "Household Goods" in a kind of friendly mosh pit boiling over. For me, it was during the entire concert with only a brief moment of silence in which I was able to Orlando Higginbottom more bad than good to capture on photo. Unfortunately, it is the costume that I would classify as a mixture between Triceratops and turtle, not really to bear. All in all a fantastic concert.
Digression: Paul Kalkbrenner live in Munich 03:12
By a happy coincidence I was at the 3:12 live at the Fritz / Paul Kalkbrenner Set in Munich (Zenith) were invited and the first question posed to me: How can there a DJ / techno music producer to create 6,000 people to move to a place? And mind you, two evenings in a row ..
The answer gave me not only the spectacular light and stage show, but primarily the Kalkbrennerische sound.
IMG 0862 300x224 Digression: Paul Kalkbrenner live in Munich 03:12
Paul Kalkbrenner Zenith Munich
Paul Kalkbrenner it creates obvious like no other DJ during the performance needs of the masses to read (despite my confirmed Kurzichtigkeit Kalkbrenner, which means that he sometimes do not even know exactly how many people just are in the room ...) and his beats adapt to the prevailing mood.
Popout
Despite my affinity for distinctive guitar sounds of all kinds, I must confess that I am particularly the last third of Kalkbrenner sets has seriously convinced. The devotion with which his work takes Kalkbrenner is read in every beat and especially in his behavior on stage. There are
9 / 10 points.
PS: In all the adulation has gone down now that his brother Fritz Kalkbrenner has delivered a superb set. Chapeau!
The answer gave me not only the spectacular light and stage show, but primarily the Kalkbrennerische sound.
IMG 0862 300x224 Digression: Paul Kalkbrenner live in Munich 03:12
Paul Kalkbrenner Zenith Munich
Paul Kalkbrenner it creates obvious like no other DJ during the performance needs of the masses to read (despite my confirmed Kurzichtigkeit Kalkbrenner, which means that he sometimes do not even know exactly how many people just are in the room ...) and his beats adapt to the prevailing mood.
Popout
Despite my affinity for distinctive guitar sounds of all kinds, I must confess that I am particularly the last third of Kalkbrenner sets has seriously convinced. The devotion with which his work takes Kalkbrenner is read in every beat and especially in his behavior on stage. There are
9 / 10 points.
PS: In all the adulation has gone down now that his brother Fritz Kalkbrenner has delivered a superb set. Chapeau!
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