Working in a legend

Records we bought 2011

2012-01-29T11:51:00.000-08:00

Artist/Band - Album - Record label - City where it was bought

Spiritualized- Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (Dedicated) - Glasgow

Music From Twin Peaks (Jet O) - Paris

///TENSE\\\ - Memory+ (Desire Records) - Paris

Hans Edler - Jukebox Grafitti (Europe Record) - Gift

The Andrew Oldham Orchestra - The Rolling Stones Songbook (DECCA) Glasgow

Broadcast and The Soft Focus - Witch Cult of The Radio Age (WARP/Ghost Box) Paris

Thai Pop Spectactular (Sublime Frequencies) Glasgow

12" / LP

Talulah Gosh - Double live Gonzo 69 (53rd & 3rd, AGARR 8T) - Stockholm

The Slits - The Peel Session (Strange Fruit Records / BBC Records & Tapes) - Stockholm

The Smiths - The Peel Session (Strange Fruit Records / BBC Records & Tapes) - Paris

The Field Mice - Coastal (Sarah Records, 606) -Paris

Heavenly - Heavenly vs. Satan (Sarah Records, 603) - Paris

Bikini Kill - Reject All Amercian (Kill Rock Stars) - Paris

Bikini Kill - Pussy Whipped (Kill Rock Stars) - Paris

The Pastels - Suck on (Creations Records) - Orléans

Dolly Mixture - Remember This (For Us Records) - Glasgow

Chain & The Gang - Music is not for everyone (K Records) - Glasgow

The Slits - Cut (Island Records)- Glasgow

Nancy & Lee - The hits of Nancy & Lee (Reprise Records) - Glasgow

X-ray Spex - Germfree Adolescents (EMI Records) - Glasgow

Patrick Fitzgerald - Grubby Stories (Small Wonder Records) - Glasgow

The Beatles - Twist and Shout (Capitol Records/EMI) -Glasgow

Vivian Girls - Share The Joy (Polyvinyl) - Glasgow

Gang Of Four - To Hell With Poverty (EMI) Paris

Ramones - End Of The Century (Sire Records) Glasgow

Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (Voices Of Wonder) Glasgow

Jad Fair - I Like It When You Smile (Paperhouse) Orléans

Tristram Cary - It's Time For Tristram Cary (Trunk) Paris

Crass - Penis Envy (Crass Records) Paris

Electric Wizard - Black Masses (Rise Above) Paris

The Feelies - The Good Earth (Coyote) Orléans

Vic Godard & The Subway Sect - A Retrospective (1977-81) (Rough Trade) Paris

Muscle Of Joy - Muscle Of Joy LP (Waits Of Goodwill) Gift

Stereolab - Peng! (Too Pure) Paris

Olivier Messiaen - 3 Petites Liturgies (Erato) Paris

Wire - 154 (EMI) Paris

Siouxsie And The Banshees - The Scream (Polydor) Glasgow

Fad Goadget - Incontinent (Mute) Glasgow

Candlemass - Nightfall (Axis) Glasgow

Velocity Girl - Seven Seas (Heaven Records) - Gift

Confetti - Haberdasher EP (Heaven Records) - Gift

Blueboy - Bikini (Aquavinyle Records) -Gift

Bouquet - Before I die (Aquavinyle Records) - Gift

Talulah Gosh - Steaming train - Limited edition of 500, Record Store Day 2011 (Damaged Goods) - Glasgow

The Pastels - Comin' Through (Glass Records) - Stockholm

Brighter - Half-hearted (Sarah Records, 56) - Stockholm

Shop Assistants - All day long (Subway Organisation label) - Stockholm

Vivian Girls - I heard you say ( Polyvinyl Record CO.) - Glasgow

Golden Grrrls - New Pop (Nightschool Records) - London

Gummy Stumps - Gummy Srumps First EP (Watts of Godwill) - London

Shonen Knife - Sweet Christmas (Damnably) - Paris

Terror Bird - Outside (Nightschool Records) - London

Nancy Sinatra - Jackson (Distributed by disques Vogue) - Gift

The Rollin Stones - 2000 Light Years From Home (DECCA) - Orléans

Jacques Dutronc - Les Play Boys (disques Vogue) - GIft

Monks - Pretty Suzanne (Red Lounge Records) - Paris

Patrik Fitzgerald - Improve myself (Small Wonder Records) - Stockholm

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - Egyptian Reggae (Beserkley Records) - Paris

Elli et Jacno - Oh lá lá (CellulOid) - Gift

Josef K - It´s kinda funny (Postcard Records of Scotland) - Stockholm

Fuzzbox - What´s the point (WEA Records) - Orléans

Chain & The Gang - Privilege (K Records) - Glasgow

Chain & The Gang - Cry, Cry, Cry (K Records) - Glasgow

Patrik Fitzgerald - Backstreet Boys (Small Wonder Records) - Glasgow

Elliott Smith - Pretty (ugly before) (Suicide queers Records) - Paris

Elliott Smith - Division day (Suicide queers Records) - Paris

The Voice Of East Harlem -No, No, No/Right On, Be Free (Elektra) -Paris

Nico & The Invisible Girls - Procession (1/2 Records) - Glasgow

Josef K- Sorry For Laughing/Révélation (Postcard/Les Disques Du Crepuscule) -Paris

Jacno- Rectangle (Celluloid) - Paris

Jacques Dutronc - Un Disques Maxi (Disques Vogues) - Orléans

Orchestre National de Mauritanie - Kamlat/La Mone (Reissue Mississipi) - Paris

Minor Threat - Salad Day (Discord) - Glasgow

Divorce - Wet Bandit (Gravy Records) - Paris

Like you can see, not many record this year. Obviously it was a tough year for us, with a chronical lack of money.

But to be fair, it was either a really interresting years. Execpt for Golden Grrrls, Divorce and Muscule Of Joy (and the rest of Nightschool), not a lot of good records were out this years.

And most of stuffs I have been listening, outside of the Tasteles Squad (Death In June, Current 93, Derniere Volonte and Sol Invictus) been found in such wonderful blog like Toys & Technics, The Cottage Of Electric Hell, Holy Warbles (RIP), Ghost Capital.

So a lots of fucked up world music, weird pop librairies, DIY electronics, various radiophonics and a few early XX century/post-impressionist music. The side effect of digging too far into Trunks, Sublime Frequencies and Ghost Box.

Also lots of Tumblr music, stuffs like the beautiful retro cyber goth witchian ballad △AIMON, the Afro-American Stereolab-like Jet Age Of Tomorrow, the WH Uffie HVCCI GVCCI, the wizards of doom post Berlin School Silver Strains, the sick post rave †‡†'s Ghetto Ass Witch, the post-Dubstep ▲NGST (and most of Tundra's records actually), the space disco Moroder style Stalllengrad, some stuffs from ODDOT are also worth checking.

For the rest (after all, a year is looooong!) a massive rediscovery of Coil and Uncle Sleasy (RIP again, mate) and his moving last project, the slow, spiritual and touching The Threshold HouseBoys Choir. YM

I must say that Vivian Girls did a great year 2011. Their album Share The Joy is amazing! I saw them live once during the year in Glasgow and did a interview with Cassie Ramone (featured in the latest zine). As well they released the 7" I heard you say which include one of my fav songs I won´t be long. Otherwise I really enjoyed the Glasgow scene with bands like Gummy Stumps, Palms and Golden Grrrls. Nightschool Records have done some great releases as well. And not to forget, the great Ian Svenonius and the chain gang. DI

This list will be updated....

woopsi...

2011-09-13T04:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, yesterday I read a bit in issue 3 and I just noticed quite a few mistakes (not only spelling and grammar) but other things, for exampel; John B McKenna haven´t been living in Glasgow for the past three days, but for the past three years. I guess that´s obvious! So for the next issue I think we need someone with good eyes for mistakes. Anyone? Of course you will get a free issue! x

3 x Glasgow

2011-09-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

Gummy Stumps (featured in the latest issue of WIAL), just released a split vinyl with another Glasgow band. You can listen to the album here and as well, check out the Winning Sperm Party.

Three girls doing some kickass music! Just waiting for some recordings now. So for the moment, listen to this track

Golden Grrrls, a three piece band. 7" (pictured above) released on Night School Records (London). The drummer is amazing! Listen to them here (and don´t forget to buy the 7"!).

WIAL issue 3

2011-08-20T09:39:00.001-07:00

Working in a Legend issue 3 is dedicated to Glasgow and DIY. With a help from Colin Stewart, Rob Churm and Stereo café bar this issue was possible. Thank you guys, you rock!

This issue contain inteviews with Ghostbox, Vivian Girls, Gummy Stumps, Nightschool Records, Richie Wohlfiel and John B McKenna.

Artwork is by Rob Churm (cover and inside poster) and Colin Stewart (inside pictures).

You can pick up a copy for £1 at Monorail in Glasgow. And also they will be for sale in Paris France, Detroit US and Sweden. So if you are not able to pick one up in Glasgow, feel free to contact us; workinginalegend@googlemail.com and we can sort it out.

Thank you and keep up the good work! X

Outtake by Mistake: Interview with Michael Kasparis (Nightschool Rec/Please/The Lowest Form)

2011-08-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

Basically my mistake; I sent an old version of the interview to Diana who was in charge of the printing. See it as a complement/teaser to the print.

(...)

Do you think you will release some of your project (Please, The Lowest Form, your solo stuff) on your label or do you feel embarrassed by this kind of attitude?

Um, its a weird one. The Lowest Form probably not as we started our label to release stuff (LOW Recordings). One of my favourite things about doing a label is mouthing of about other people's music. It's the ultimate fandom. Even though I love my own music I can never tell anyone else how great it is. Please as a band are the worst self-promoters I've ever come across. So anything I'd write about a Please release is gonna sound really humble and it'll probably defeat the object. So I'll say "no" and probably release a please thing in a couple of months.

(...)

Over 10 years, I had the impression major labels (Warner, Universal, etc) signed/promoted less and less of rock-ish inspired act (even succeful act like Franz Ferdinand or Animal Collective) for more and more hip hop/R'nB group, leaving big indie labels acting as major (Mute, Rough Trade, Domino, 4AD) and label like yours or Upset The rhythm becoming the next indie.

Do you think it's a side-effect of 'illegal' downloading or because of rock scene is becoming a niche-market like jazz or classical can be?

Well firstly I don't really know what goes on in the charts really. I know that majors still sign rock acts and make money off them: kings of leon, glasvegas, vaccines etc. These acts still appeal to a demographic that buys things. The bigger indie labels act exactly in the same way as majors for the most part and it can be boiled down to trying to sell as many records as they can. UTR or NS aren't any different really, we're just releasing less popular music!! We'd all like to think that the indies care about the artists more than the "nasty majors" but who knows? I've met people who work for major labels that are lovely, enthusiastic people. I've met people who work for big indies or who run labels the size of night school who are absolute wankers. Personally I don't stigmatize anything because its on a major or whatever but I know people who do and that's totally understandable. To actually answer your question I think cd revenues are fucked because of downloads yes. This is a problem for the majors and big indies. I'm not going to be blowing any minds to suggest that the 'market' is splitting up like how you're suggesting. Majors will have to find new ways of making money because people just aren't consuming the most popular music the same way they were 15 years ago. The indie labels, like NS, are different because we produce things which a niche market desire and that shows no sign of stopping.

What are the chance of survival for small indie label in what becoming a collector market?

By their nature a lot of indie labels do small runs and if they're desirable then the price will go up, once you can't get them from the label. The collector's market is really volatile and not something indie labels themselves are particularly aggressive about, to my knowledge. I think as long as the industry exists in its current form there will always be collectors and ebayers picking at the remains. I'm not sure anyone will ever pay 1000s of pounds for an indie release from the last 10 years the way they do for 70s prog private presses or whatever. Maybe I'm wrong... If anyone buys the Outside single for a 1000 quid in 10 years I won't complain.

Do you have to turn to CDR (like Disaro or Phantasma Disques) and tape (like Night People) to be able to survive the cost and keep going?What is the financial strategy of Nightschool Records (the first release pay for the second, and etc)?

Its a balancing act. Certain things are more profitable for sure, like CDrs and tapes. It costs a lot money to release a 7" in relation to how much you can expect back. This is why the APPEAL comp will be a tape, to make the most money for charity. The "bottom line" for me and I'm sure a lot of other labels is that if you sell out you've recouped and you go towards paying for the next release. Personally I've stopped accounting for the first two releases as the initial costs were so numerous and large it just got depressing haha. I don't regret a bit of it tho. When I saw the finished 7"s and thought of the money and time and effort from me and Gina Baber, who helped with the screening and designed the Terror Bird sleeve, I realised it was all worth it a thousand times over. Sorry if that sounds cheese-ball!

Some years ago, I saw one of the first gig of Please before a Trans Am gig. By then, you were sounding like a cross between out-of-rhythm epic heavy metal (think Rhapsody rather than Iron Maiden) and crashing pop post punk (somewhat Fire Engines)

I always wander what was intentional in that and what was pure "luck"

Haha yeah, that was our third gig. When we started Keeby and I were into a lot of noise, underground metal and prog. Rowland was the sole voice preventing us from turning into Orthrelm or something. We weren't that confident in ourselves so we did stuff that was more, uh, numbskull or something. Instead of doing something interesting we'd just turn the guitars up and throw our hair about. We didn't have a real idea of what we wanted. I suppose we still don't but we've grown a balanced chemistry, if I can sound pretentious for a minute. We all like different things and now it feels what we do is a total convergence of what we all like. Personally I don't think there was anything 'intentional' about sounding like a cross between Rhapsody and Fire Engines (good god!) nor anything particularly 'lucky.' Unlucky maybe. My one thing I took from that show was that a member of a well-known noise-pop group really laid into us on a forum about the shirt I was wearing. I'd only lived in London for two years and that was the sort of attitude I had expected from the real trend-lord types. The guy said something like the music was like my shirt, gaudy and disgusting. I've never recovered from this and still judge all my dress and music decisions on what that one guy said on a forum in 2007.

(...)

Night School Records

2011-04-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

You should all visit our friend Michael´s label, Night School, and buy a copy of the cassette compilation, Appeal.

You will not only support a small run indie label, but also all the profit will go to the Japan red cross. So hurry up!

And if you live in London or by any chance is there the May 1st, you should go for the cassette launch. It´s an all day event with live music, bbq and beers. All for free! You can find more info at the home page.

xDi

Record store day 2011

2011-04-16T13:33:00.001-07:00

For this years record store day I was lucky to get hold of the Talulah Gosh 7" and Vivian Girls 7".

And I must say that the b-side I won´t be long, from the Vivian Girls 7", is seriously one of the best songs I ever heard. It´s just so, so perfect. The singing, the drums, the melody. Yes, everything. 2.03 minutes of perfection.

Visit; http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home and/or http://www.recordstoreday.co.uk/

And http://www.myspace.com/viviangirlsnyc for some good tunes.

And here you can find more info about the Talulah Gosh 7";

http://lastfm.se/music/Talulah+Gosh/Demo

x Di

Lots of news!

2011-03-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

We finally put out our second issue! We have interviews with Amelia Fletcher (Talulah Gosh/Heavenly/Marine Research/Tender Trap), Jeffrey Lewis (well, Jeffrey Lewis but also The Bundles), Marit Bergman and french blogger Pol Dodu (aka the Creation legend JC Brouchard).

You can find copy at Monorail (myspace, twitter, and website) but also in Stereo (twitter, website)

You will also be able to get it directly from us, paying by Paypal. Will £2, including postage.

(And also, I get my first review for my (witch housish) musical project, Marzip☭n!)

Annika Norlin, Säkert! och Hello Saferide

2011-02-15T06:27:00.000-08:00

Here´s an interview with Annika Norling aka Hello Saferide / Säkert! (her english project vs her swedish). Unfortunately this interview is only in swedish, but I think that an ambitious person have translate it, if you check the comments. Anyway, I think that Annika is one of the best musicians from Sweden and you all should listen to her music. Hopefully I can interview her for the zine one day.

Here is her blog for Sälert! and the Hello Saferide homepage

xDI

Hello Saferide, My Best Friend

2011-02-15T06:10:00.000-08:00

Säkert! - Dansa, fastän

2011-02-15T06:08:00.000-08:00

Records we bought 2010

2011-01-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

Cassette

A christmas gift for you from Phil Spector

Searching for young sould rebel by Dexy's Midnight Runners

Love bites by Buzzcocks

Wild things by Bush Tetras

Electric mainline by Spiritualized

Songs for the sad eyed girl by Biff Bang Pow!

River deep, mountain high by Ike and Tina Turner

Music for 18 musicians by Steve Reich

Taking tiger mountain (by strategy) by Brian Eno

Relics by Pink Floyd

Behind the iron curtain, Soviet-era rock and pop, compiled by Calvin Johnson

The Monkees (a compilation)

Goo by Sonic Youth

Rank by The Smiths

Louder than bombs by The Smiths

12"

Nina Hagen Band

Isvolt compilation

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra Mini Album

Movin' with Nancy by Nancy Sinatra

Songs to swim to by Monoganon

The best of Francoise Hardy by Francoise Hardy

Black Tambourine

Baby you´re just you by The Pastels

Save yourself by Make Up

Lazy Days by Marine Girls

Beach Party by Marine Girls

Sweep the desert by Swell Maps

A different kind of tension by Buzzcocks

Metro music by Martha and The Muffins

With The Beatles by The Beatles

Best of Beach Boys by Beach Boys

The Graduate OST by Simon & Garfunkel

Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel

Throughout the Ages by TITS / The seven sistered sea-secret of shh shh shh by Leopard Leg

Miniatures compilation

The Rutles by The Rutles

Flex Your Head (compilation)

Will anything happen by Shop Assistants

Here it comes by Shop Assistants

Music to climb the apple tree by by Beat Happening

Jamboree (with flexi disc) by Beat Happening

All the stuff and more by The Vaslines

We are very happy you came by Shonen Knife

The peel Sessions June Brides

Barbed Wire Kisses (b-sides and more) by The Jesus and Mary Chain

Vivian Girls by Vivian Girls

Everything Goes Wrong by Vivian Girls

Typical girls by The Slits

Touts va sauter by Elli & Jacno

Sonf of Sam by Elliott Smith

On the radio by The Concretes

Please Please Please by Shout Out Louds

The Comeback by Shout Out Louds

Speed Trials by Elliott Smith

Sounds showcase 2

Fight the power by Public Enemy

Excursions into "oh, a-oh" by Stereolab

Impossible things by Loopers

Our Frank by Morrissey

All you need is me by Morrissey

Rip it up by Orange Juice

I can't help myself by Orange Juice

Krsna moja crna goro by Branca

Sad se vidi, sad se zna by Grupa CD

Pijem da je zaboravim by Hasim Kucuk Hoki

Uzmi sve sto ti by Gvozden

The tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

Streets of your town by The Go-Betweens

Razorcuts/The Wolfhounds flexi from The Legend!

Bringing up baby by Talulah Gosh

Trance by Red Kross

600 000 bands by Felt Letters

New radio by Bikini Kill

Hedi's head by Kleenex

The last words by Animal World

Animal space by The Slits

Salad days by Minor Threat

Exhibit A by Pussycat Trash

How does it feel by Crass

Merry Crassmas by Crass

All systems go by Poison Girls

Bloody revolution by Crass / Persons unknown by Posion Girls

Reality asylum by Crass

Barbed wire halo by Annie Anxiety

Nagasaki nightmare by Crass

You win by Brilliant Colors / I lose by Girls Names

Familiar shapes and noises by Broadcast and The Focus Group

Town Topic Ep by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

One inch badge split series vol. 5

Theme From Shaft by Isaac Hayes

Like a rolling stone by Bob Dylan

Runaway by Del Shannon

Grands Boulevards by Yves Montand

A forest by The Cure

Spellbound by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Lovesick by Orange Juice

Striving for the lazy perfection by The Orchids

Walk into the world by Brilliant Colors

Where do you go to (my lovely)? by Peter Sarstedt

Toi, tu l'entends pas by Edith Piaf

Pourvu que ca dure by Sandie Shaw

Non, je ne regrette rien by Edith Piaf

(Just like) starting over by John Lennon

Je veux qu'il revienne by Francoise Hardy

C'est fab! by Francoise Hardy

Je t'aime...moi non plus by Serge Gainsbourg

Leader of the pack by The Shangri-Las

Poupée de cire poupée deson by France Gall

Itchycoo park by Small Faces

Beatles movie medley by The Beatles

Good vibrations by Beach Boys

The Model by Kraftwerk

Showroom dummies by Kraftwerk

Tour de France by Kraftwerk

The Passenger by Iggy Pop

Paranoid by Black Sabbath

You can call me Al by Paul Simon

Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners

Tryouts for the human race by Sparks

I feel love by Donna Summer

You think you're a man by Divine

A new England by Kirsty MacColl

Cassie by Melody Dog

You trip me up by The Jesus and Mary Chain

Some candy talking EP by The Jesus and Mary Chain

Room in your heart by The Rosehips

January 1989 by The Go Team

June 1989 by The Go Team

August 1989 by The Go Team

You trip me up (flexi) by The Shop Assistants

I'd rather be with you by The Shop Assistants

Mustard gas by Action Painting!

I don't wanna be friends with you by The Shop Assistants

My love will followme by Vivian Girls

Wild eyes by Vivian Girls

Mexican ghost (on a boat) hello? by La La Vasquez

Happy Hour by The Housemartins

California Girls by Beach Boys

Twinkle echo by Casiotone for the painfully alone

Singapore a-go-go (sublime frequencies compilation)

The solo recordings (the collection1 ) by Martha Argerich

Coals to Newcastle by Orange Juice

Everything and more by Dolly Mixture

After nature by Gülcher

Unboxed by Free Kitten

The enraged will inherit the earth (plus rarities) by McCarthy

Music for the amorphous body study centre by Stereolab

The very best of The Byrds by The Byrds

Et moi et moi et moi by Jacques Dutronc

The Rutles by The Rutles

VHS

Live by Black Flag

Thanks to Oxfam Music, Vinyl Hut (RIP), Monorail, Missing, Crocodisc, Monster Melodies, Gibert, Boulinier and various gigs

WIAL issue 2

2010-12-26T11:09:00.000-08:00

We are happy to say that the second issue of WIAL is finally here now. The issue contains interviews with Amelia Fletcher, Marit Bergman, Jeffrey Lewis and Pol Dodu/JC Brouchard.

We know that it have taking ages and we're sorry for that. But now it's here and if you want a copy, just contact us and we sort it out.

Tonight you belong to me

2010-12-15T04:44:00.000-08:00

2010-09-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

Dear everyone,

we're lazy. but we're working on it. slowly. we know. but one day soon.

in the meantime, read tobi vail's blog. it's fantastic.

Jigsaw #5 basically kind of says "fuck you" and "get away from me" and "we don't need you" and "we go with the kids yeah yeah yeah yeah" over and over and over again

Golden Grrrls, La La Vasquez, Brilliant Colors, 10/06/10, The 13th Note, Glasgow

2010-06-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

After getting Di at work at 9, having a drink, going from a vegan place to another, arriving to the 13th Note late and missed Red Heat, which is certainly really sad.

Boo-boo, life is not easy.

Well, anyway, we can start:

Golden Grrrls

To keep it short:

[ (cute Flipper + early Happy Flowers drones + acid-liquid Helios Creed guitars) x morbid Beat Happening ] + the-coolest-drummer-in-the-world-since-Tobi-Vail = Golden Grrrls.

For a longer development, you have to add an intensity of out-of-the-world hyper active kids lost in massive, hypnotic blocks of noise. With hesitant, yet poppy, small voices, an adorable Lo-Fi/DIY/cassette culture/amateurism edge and a between songs longer than the songs themself.

So, they are currently the best band in the world, shortly surpass by the "Jonathan Richman, frontman of a TVP composed of members of Pastels, Song For Children era" that are Boredom Boys.

For the rest, they are a fucking brilliant and cute band playing a pure panda & kitten music.

La La Vasquez

Oh! Raincoats' Odychape in a folky gothic Residents' Fingerprince mood!

Errr... No, that's the Next Big Thing of the DIY indie scene. Hello La La Vasquez.

What's better than 3 girls playing with a fake innocence? (Ok, Bikini Kill). But, also 3 girls on acid playing with a fake innocence.

When, on records, La La Vasquez give an absurd (from absurdity, not an other word for "shit") version of the Marine Girls, on stage, they give an almost-arid abstract version of it.

On the simple base drums + bass and eerie double vocals of an amateurish Shangri-Las, the guitar fly above and launch dive attacks of groups of notes, almost unrelated to the rest.

Which give:

La La Vasquez = Illyushin IL-2 on a scout girls fire camp.

OK, the fact that the drummer was sick to death during the gig didn't help, I guess.

But, at the end, I rather liked it. They got for them this weird practice of psych-vocal on thin and un-deep sound. They're really cool, honestly.

Hum, what else? Oh yeah, on their cover of Blue Monday, the Tchak-Tchak-Tchak of the beginning remplaced by a Paf-Paf-Paf of cymbals. That made me laugh a lot. But I'm really childish. (and I mean, REALLY)

Last thing, the drummer, before her gig was taking pictures with a one-time camera. That's make them even cooler.

Last trio of girls of the night *: Brilliant Colors

The Ramones is obviously the cliché of any band playing fast and noisy pop, so I guess I have to name-drop it in the case of Brillant Colors. So I drop it:

RAMONES

Well, honestly, despite the brillant "We've got 15 minutes left, let's do 14 songs!", they reminded me more of a punchy Amen Dunes because of the strange echo vocals and of the Sterling Morrison solos style, which is always a good thing.

And Shop Assistants.

They actually don't sound or even look like it, it just get stuck in my head: Shop Assistants. I really don't know why, maybe the semi-punk, fast pulsation, in-your-head -without the ordinary macho pose of it- feeling they give to all their song. And the girls vocal as well.

Once again, really good, feeling even a bit more professional than the others (OMG, a band who don't do any false starts!).

All those beautiful red and blurry pics by Di on her non-working mobile phone.

* Two things: 1) I know there's a guy in Golden Grrls 2) about the 3-girls bands: I am sure it's actually significant and that I could build a whole bullshit theory about that. But not now, I don't feel concentrate enough. You should ask Ian Svenonius, I'm sure he've got something to say about it.

The point is the 3-girls garage/indie pop group has emerge from those last errr, let's say 3 years as a real archetype (like, before that, the 4 skinny guys doing dance-punk or the 2 Vice-type guy + 1 part-time American Apparel model doing forgettable synth-pop) in the underground field. Or something like that.

That's remind me a discussion some years ago with a friend about what could come after the noisy post-whatever wave of 2005-2008 and we agreed about a wave of rather melodic and direct bands like the 80's C-86 style bands could have been after all the post-punk and industrial experiment. We wasn't that far with all those pop-punk band, finally.

And, yes,I've got some really interesting discussion with my friends.

Sweet child o'mine

2010-03-04T04:12:00.000-08:00

And some more Svenonius memorabilia

2010-03-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

(Having internet again is just magic)

Time for marxism entertainment, kids!

2010-03-01T14:31:00.000-08:00

He didn't wanted to be a Cheap God anymore, he wanted to be a Pastel

2010-01-28T05:02:00.001-08:00

Top 10

2010-01-22T14:19:00.000-08:00

First of all I have to say that making this list was really hard. I changed it a million of times. But I think I made up my mind quite well in the end. Even if there's still albums I would like to put on my top 10. But top 10 is 10 and you can't put more than 10 on it. So here we go, my list;

1. Håkan Hellström - Ett Kolikbarns Bekännelser (2005)

So here we go again, this Swedish guy with a strange name singing in Swedish. I know it's boring for you 'cause you will never understand it. But for me he is still the best. And when I started to make this list I wanted to put all of his albums on the top, but then I was thinking it would be quite boring so I limited myself to only one. And I just took the first one that came to my mind otherwise it would be too hard to decide (which I did with all the rest of the albums and songs, I'm terrible when it comes to choose something). This album include some of my absolutely fav songs; Jag har varit i alla städer (I've been to every city), which is the first song on the album and it's so powerful, Hurricane Gilbert, I most admit that I'm almost crying every time I hear it and I'm sure I'm not the only one with tears in my eyes, Dom kommer kliva på dig igen (They will stand on you again), En midsommarnattsdröm (A midsummer nights dream.) The album is just very touching and amazing. I don't know how to describe the feelings and how much I love Håkan and how important his music been in my life. I guess I just have to say thank you and go to the next one before I'm getting to sentimental. And I'm sure if you check in any Swedish music paper they will at least list one of his albums, I promise.

2. Belle & Sebastian - Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant (2000)

I still remember the first time I heard B&S. I was in high school and my friend lend me her copy of Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant 'cause she fought I looked depressed and needed something good to listen to. And it helped. And god only knows how much I love this album. I was listening to it everyday in school and survived. I was dancing on my own where no one could see me, I was feeling better 'cause I didn't looked like the dummies in the window and I was fighting in a war. It's just a brilliant album by a brilliant band (Jeepster period is still the best whatever my colleague says about Life pursuit (he thinks it's the best)).

3. Jens Lekman - Oh You're So Silent Jens (2005)

I'm not sure if I can call this an actual album since it's a collection of songs. But who cares? It's still amazing. I mean listen to Black cab, Julie, Maple leaves (7inch version), Pocketful of money, A man walks into the bar, A sweet summer's night on Hammer Hill, I saw her in the anti war demonstration. Listen to the whole album, listen to the cute melodies, the instruments, listen to his voice, the lyrics and you will smile, you will love it and you will feel happy (even if it sad as well). 'Cause that's Jens, happiness. Jens Lekman's music is beautiful and he even holds your hair when you're vomiting at the Christmas party. He is beautiful. And this album contains a mix of his best tracks ever.

4. Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - Twinkle Echo (2003)

The first song I ever heard by CFTPA was Jeane, if you're ever in Portland and I was still in high school (yes I was really young at 2000 and was growing up during the years and yes I discovered and still discover music 10 years after everyone else). And it hit me in the chest. I love this kind of music. And the sadness. Listen to Owen Ashwood and you will hear about yellow t-shirts in the summer, how it is to walk home slowly when the bus doesn't show, ice cream, The Smiths, loneliness and it's cute and lovely. And he could have been doing Postal Service's Such great heights. Maybe even a bit better.

5. Chain And The Gang - Down With Liberty, Up With Chains! (2009)

There's a group on facebook called "Everything Ian Svenonius touch is gold". I might even say; Ian Svenonius is gold. Play the a-side (and then the b-side of course) and read the introduction on the back; Chain and the gang says they're tired of liberty, tired of being free, they say "if this is 'freedom' then lock me up and throw away the key". Svenonius is talking about our life style, our society and our world today. Something highly current, something people are blind for surrendered with fast food, class struggle, environmental destruction, materialism etc. His songs contains all of this and much more. Listen to the songs Chain Gang theme (I see progress), What is a dollar?, Interview with Chain gang and Deathbed confession and you will hear it. It's more than simple songs, it's brilliant. Chain me and throw away the key, please!

6. The Pastels & Tenniscoats - Two Sunsets (2009)

First time I heard the songs from Two sunsets was live at Stereo in Glasgow (sept -09). And it just blowed me away. When we later bought a new turntable and could actually listen to the sign copy we own, it was just magic. The collaboration between the Glaswegian and the Japanese band is a perfect match. It's cute, gentle and lovely. It feels like The Pastels starts to grow up more and more and turn into something beautiful (even if I still love all the old songs). The b-side is with no doubt my fav side, starting with About you and contains songs like Mou mou rainbow and the sweet voices of Stephen, Katrina and Saya. This album is magic live and on record and a keeper in the record collection.

7. Stereolab - Chemical Chords (2008)

Stereolab is a quite "new" band for me (told you I discovered music 10 years after everyone else) and one of the first songs I every heard by them was Valley hi! The song was on one of the best compilation I ever got (thank you Ym!) and I have since then never been able to stop listen to it. (In fact I have to listen to it right now!) It's just such a perfect song. I mean just listen to it and if you don't get it, well then you're stupid. One day I will learn french so I can sing it. Anyway, the album is fantastic, but of course Valley hi! is the best one and make it worth to listen to it again and again and again. I mean just put it on and listen to the first song and you just get catch. It's just great to see that a band after like 20 years still can do a perfect song and a perfect album.

8. The Gentle Waves - Swansongs For You (2000)

This is in my opinion the best solo album by Isobel Campell. It reminds me of an early B&S. Sweet voice and heart breaking melodies. It's a quite short album. But it still contains so much. For the 36 min Campell invites you to listen, you just get the impression that she's a genius. My fav track is Loretta Young, it's an amazing song, followed by the last track on the album; There was magic, then...

This album is magic.

9. Le Tigre - Feminist Sweepstakes (2001)

Even if Le Tigre formed around 10 years after the first Riot Grrrls band in US they're still an important part of the movement. And even if they more or less split as a band they will always be inspiring and a band I will remember. I love the voice of Kathleen Hanna, the guitars and the lyrics. My fav track is without any doubts FYR. It's such a powerful song that always make you feel strong and like "fuck this shit".

10. Elliott Smith - Figure 8 (2000)

Elliott Smith is a musician I've been loving for a long time now. And even if Figure 8 isn't my fav album by him, it's still an album worth putting on the top. It's quite a typical sad album by Mr Smith, but still an amazing one. My fav track on the album is Son of Sam, just listen to the intro, it's worth to die for.

Extra album

Ok, I guess it's not really fair to make an "extra list" with albums. But I couldn't fit all of them on the top 10, so I just had to. There have been too much good music made during these years. So here we go, no specific order, just random and all of them in my heart;

Håkan Hellström - Det Är Så Jag Säger Det, Håkan Hellström - För Sent För Edelweiss, Håkan, Hellström - Nåt Gammalt, Nåt Nytt, Nåt Lånat, Nåt Blått, Håkan Hellström - Luften Bor I Mina Steg, Håkan Hellström - Känn Ingen Sorg För Mig Göteborg, Yann Tiersen - L'absente, The Coral - S/T, Mika Miko - CYSLABF, Mika Miko - 666, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Behind Music, Kings Of Convenience - Riot On Empty Street, José González - Veneer, Jens Lekman - When I said I Wanted To Be Your Dog, Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala, Hello Saferide - Introducing: Hello Saferide, Jeffrey Lewis - City & Eastern Songs, Jeffrey Lewis - 12 Crass Songs, Promise & The Monster - Transparent Knives, The Strokes - Is This It, Franz Ferdinand - S/T, Pens - Hey friend! What you doing, Säkert! - S/T, Frida Hyvönen - Until Death Comes, Broder Daniel - Cruel Town, Kimya Dawson - Remember That I Love You, Lucky Soul - The Great Unwanted, Patrick Wolf - Lycanthropy , Patrick Wolf - Wind In The Wire, Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope, Vivian Girls - S/T, The Aislers Set - How I Learned To Write Backwards, The Aislers Set - The Last Match, Beirut - The Flying Club Cup, Beirut - Gulag Orkestar, Arcade fire - Funeral, The Ark - We Are The Ark, The Ark - In Lust We Trust, Calvin Johnson - Before the Dream Faded, John Maus - Songs, Cat power - You Are Free, Bob Hund - Stenåldern Kan Börja, Camera Obscura - Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi, Sufjan Stevens - Illinois, Belle & Sebastian - Storytelling, Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress The Rosie Taylor Project - This City Draws Maps, Sun Kil Moon - Tiny Cities, Shout Out Louds - Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, Shout Out Louds - Our Ill Wills, Moneybrother - To Die Alone, The Microphones - The Glow Pt. 2, Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks, All Girl Summer Fun Band - S/T, Kaizers Orchestra - Ompa Til Du Dör, Final Fantasy - Has A Good Home, Grantura - In Dreams And Other Stories, Jeremy Jay - A Place Where We Could Go, Jeremy Jay - Airwalker, Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous, Sigur Rós - Takk, The Moldy Peaches - S/T, Partyline - Zombie Terrorist, Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band - Conor Oberst, Coldplay - Parachutes, The Concretes - In Colour, Taken By Trees - East Of Eden, Au Revoir Simone - The Bird Of Music, Butcher Boy - Profit In Your Poetry, Morrissey - You Are The Quarry, God Help The Girl - S/T, Martha Wainwright - S/T, Yo La Tengo - I'm Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass

Song:

Stereolab - Valley hi!

Well, guess I can't really say anything more about this song, everything is already too much.

Mainstream song:

I was about to choose Toploaders Dancing in the moonlight 'cause when it came out 2000 I loved it. But when I actually listen to it now, I was disappointed and it didn't hit me liked it used to. So instead I decided my mind for Beyoncés Crazy in love 'cause the sound is actually amazing. Followed by Britneys Pieces of me 'cause it's the best song Britney ever made.

But ok, some serious talk here; WHY must all this girls with succes ALWAYS have to make a music video that SUCKS? Like no clothes at all, some obscure "sexy dance" with shaking ass and I don't know what. And look at the guys in the video, like Beyoncés with Jay-z dressed in uglytoobighiphopclotheswithanuglycap. And just look at Beyoncé the first minutes in the video. Horrible dressed with red heels and a horrible "dance" that's not even "sexy". I mean come on girls, you can do better. Don't sell yourself like you already been doing. I mean you will anyway sell your records and people will still love you. Just skip the horrible industry and the "sexyness". It just piss me off that artist like Beyoncé just have to grap her ass, lick her fingers and touch her tits during the whole music video 'cause "that's the way it should be". I'm sure she was totally horny and willing to fuck everyone after making that video. Come on people, there's so many other ways to be sexy than the way you have to show it. I mean haven't we already been seeing that kind of stuff for more than 20 years? Please come up with something new. And before anyway will write any crapy comment to this I will just say; you suck and I'm not ugly and/or lesbian and my boyfriend ain't blind. Thank you.

The end of a decade duty

2009-12-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

OK, so even if technically, the end of the decade would be the 31st of December 2011 (we all know that), it's always a big fetishist fuzz when we turn from the 9 to the 0. And everybody launch improper top 10 (to 100) albumofthedecades covering the last ten years (in fact the last 9 years), often without any personalities (zzzzz The Kills, zzzzz Animal Collective, zzzzzz The Rakes, zzzzzzz The Cribs, zzzzz Vampire Weekend). It's funny how everybody love to celebrate a new year by organizing a burial.

And because we got personalities and we're surprisingly humble, let's drop our top 10 and our best-something-category-ofthelast9years. And if you think it's sucks, you're on our blog, show some respect and go fuck yourself. So let's start the nostalgic rock-critic exercise :

1) Is This It - The Strokes (2001)

Ok on that one I don't show any difference with anybody else, but well, would be like pretending that Nevermind The Bollock is a bad album.

Just remember, if you were, let say, 17 in 2001 and desperate to listen to rock and you only had the choice between Radiohead, Muse and Smashing Pumpkins.

Gosh, all my friends were into Radiohead.

Honestly, I was just living by The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, The Sex Pistols, The Buzzcocks, Einstürzende Neubauten and (errrr) Bauhaus. I couldn't admire, well, not even love a band under 35 of age (except Belle And Sebastian, of course, but for rock'n'roll action, B&S is not the best band ever). Which was quite embarrassing.

In those pre-internet days, the access of information seemed to have been trust by technoïd and post-rock trend, and for any little boy dreaming of clever energetic short songs, this period was hell on earth. And The Strokes came. They immediately intrigued me, first because they didn't seems to be fossil-came-to-life (like Thee Gun Elephant, for example) and they didn't had anything of this boring US indie like we had before (I never liked Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr, just a few songs by Pavement and Royal Trux were looking too dodgy for me then. And remember again, all those band by 2001 were about their 5fh albums, so not really young either).

The great stuff about Is This It, it draw a line. Not between cool and uncool people (well, ok a bit) but inside the rock nation: once again we could pretend once more that techniques, pretentious, covers, never-end gigs, all these things were un-necessary to write good songs. And that a good album never last more than 40 minutes. And we could say once more that The Doors and The Floyd were actual shit.

It seems a bit odd to write that today, after a decade of rediscovery of the immediately virtues but at this time in France, that was more than useful.

Well I will not write anything about the sexy-sm of the Strokes, all I could say is they had a incredible way to dress. Just by looking at them I could feel part of something who were then about to disappear: I could have long hair, tie, shirt, tight jeans and boots without feeling like a loser. I was part of something. It was like the pics of the VU or of the NYC punk I loved coming to life. Like breathing.

Like having somewhere some connections with people who didn't think "hummm yes, the 60's look good, but anyway it's DEAD. Now you need these stupid baggy jeans, these ugly hoods, and those horrible trainers. Do it or you're out."

Ok, end of the nostalgia sequence.

I haven't listen to it for quite long time now and the last time I did I was in a basement and my colleague upstairs started to play it and to scream on it (hello, Graham). And if it came out now I'm sure l would laugh at it. But Is This It just came at the right time and started something we're still on today. And today I feel like I'm a part of it.

2) Chat And Business - Ikara Colt (2002)

That's my actual number one. This time I don't have any nostalgia story about this one. Well one, I bought the album after reading an incredibly good interview of the singer. That's it.

Ikara Colt always been underrated I think, for reasons I never understood. But I think if Chat And Business was released one year later, everybody would have been in love with it. Because it just came a this moment of reconstruction of the new-indie UK scene, a bit before it became the Next Big Thing. So not a lot of people get a hook on it.

I did and I still do.

The thing about Ikara Colt is they sound like anybody else but sooo much better. Full of tension, aggression, like if they would collapse if they stop to play. But it always stay in balance between the HxC tension and the pop side. A great paranoid record which is actually the best The Fall album ever (anyway, apart from Live At the Which Trial and Dragnet, did Mark E Smith ever succeed to be something else than being an alcoholic? No. And don't say anything about Grotesque or Hex Induction Hour. No. Don't.). Feverish drums, minimalist guitars, post-punk bass and this great voice in between (well, no need to talk about the keyboards).

3) Black One- Sunn O))) (2005)

A lot later after Chat And Business and a lot after my mod period, my post-punk period, my goth period and my punk period.

I had to moved to England and I was feeling lonely and totally depressed. I was hardly speaking any English at all and was just staying in my (expensive) room, just living by night and by Soulseek.

Before Sunn O))), I never had a proper metal period if you except Burzum's Filosofen. I was feeling in need of something creeper, harder, weirder and more aggressive than what I could have been listening to before. I started to listen to a bit of noise, a bit of drone, a bit of grind, a bit of doom (anyway, I was mixing up).

I knew about Sunn O))) by some live review on internet and I had the Demo. But I couldn't go further, feeling a bit lost and illegitimate.

Well, so I came to Black One. Who was just so incredibly deep and dark that if I was listening to it loud enough it could calm my feeling, and even made me feel good.

Honestly, Black One is not a record or even music or sound, it's like a medication. In fact, actually like taking a warm bath and it's even sensual. Yes I mean it.

It's occupying your ears, surrendering your body and let yourself abandon your mind to daydream. And not even dark or painful. Just incredibly good.

I know it's suppose to be the black metal album of Sunn O))) and when you listen to it carefully, if you manage to stay awake to yourself, it's true, it's a black metal album. But it's so intense that it's manage to be quasi-magical.

The best was still to discover it's actually working even when you're not depress anymore.

(I can now write that Black One is my feel-good album of the decade, and how much it's beating Good Vibration and I'm finish with this review)

4) Dopethrone- Electric Wizard (2000)

More metal, yeah!!!!!

And still from the pharmacy wardrobe. Electric Wizard is my hangover band. Not only, but after a busy night drinking, nothing is like Electric Wizard. Or maybe a bit Acid King, but the Wizard is still the best.

Have you ever notice how much better all the stoner bands are the day after alcohol/drugs/whatever rather then during the action?

You can dance slowly, have vision of travel in dark tunnels at light-speed, hear echo of voice all along around you, and still think it's perfectly normal.

With Dopethrone, it's the same that all the post-Hawkwind trad but heavier. Like being crushed by a mountain, reaching a point where all you can notice in this amount of noisiness is the feeling of slow beating drums and some distorted echo of some of the most perfect riffs ever yelling in the bottom of the mix. The music is hiding behind this powerful vibrations offering itself just through its owns remains. You can't identify it: there's somewhere, moving slowly but quickly enough for disappear each time you start notice it behind the heavy curtain of distortion. And quickly you're just moving to shadow rhythm and musical ghost.

What's quantifiable in Dopethrone is just the noise, the rest is uncertain. You could have dream it, it would feel the same.

And for those who think I'm talking about shoegaze, it's no, it's heavier, noisier, louder, Sabbather and definitely better. Like a friend of mine said once about Skullflower: it's like MBV but ten time better.

Well, Electric Wizard it's ten time better than Skullflower. (And it's not like MBV, I agree on that.)

5) They Were Wrong So We Drowned- Liars (2004)

I never really get into the first album by the Liars, whose for me, was a lot of useless noise surrounding Mr Your On Fire Mr, We Live Ne Of Compton and This Dust Makes That Mud. So I didn't expect anything from the second. I read reviews who were talking of failure, comparing it to PiL's Flowers Of Romances, but I heard Broken Witch on a compilation and discover their There's Always Room On The Broom 10" with the design of the Einsturzende Neubauten's Strategy Gegein Architecture I, and it just caught me at once. I used to be a big fan of E.N., so I was feeling like having a special connection with these guys.

I absolutely loved the album: I had the impression to listen to a post-punk Sonic Youth, to a twee Throbbing Gristle and to a electro Einsturzende Neubauten IN THE SAME TIME. It's seemed that we were back in the dangerous edge of music again. From Broken Witch to Flow My Tears The Spider Said, I was just feeling like being in a forest at night eating magic mushroom and running naked while screaming children's song.

Certainly one of the warmer trance I ever feel from a record and it let me in a physical tiredness and a semi-consciousness state each time I listen to it.

6) Hand On Heads Side -Hands On Head (2007)

Certainly the tweest band of my top. And for people who don't think so, you're talking about people who were giving chocolate for their easter gig (DSP!/No Age) and cupcake for their 100th gig (KIT/Mika Miko/No Age).

Ok, for those who missed it, HoH is actually the whole Upset The Rhythm team. And UTR were from their Esquilax/Trencher 10'' to the Numbers' Now You Are This vinyl version, and if you except BARR, the best label in the world. And the best promoter in the world. Even BEFORE Chaos Vs Cosmos. Remember the Mika Miko/No Age/PRE/HoH/Look Look Dancing Boys at Barden's? Remember the stage invasion with the girls of LLDB at the end of Mika Miko? And the Psychic Ills/Coughs? The incredible mosh pit for Cough?

Oh my god, so brilliant.

After that, let's be honest, something went wrong. It actually started at their gigs, when it started to be the next big thing for designers of Shoredich, Vice Division.

Anyway, the HoH side is one of the best thing recorded in UK for... long (but you have to forget about the Sticks part). Imagine a whole panda army associate to XBXRX (without the Ian Svenonius/McKay complex of Vice Cooler -and the prog-noise one of Weasel Walter-) in an homage to Fire Engines. A pure genius nonsense barbedwire pop/perfect melody in a train disaster lead by bIG fLAME on a cute green and red 10''. For 15 min.

And it's sold out. And you missed it.

You just missed your life.

(I know, I saw No Age a lot.)

7) Franz Ferdinand- Franz Ferdinand (2004)

Usually, it's here I say I know THE Michael of the song. But because everybody know him, I have to write something else.

We are a few years after the Strokes hype and every band on the planet started to dig into the rock history in order to bring back some remains to fill their records and justify their contract. Gosh, what I loved these years!

Even if almost all these albums couldn't impress longer than one month, most of it always had one song above everything, the one you could kill for hearing. And the best was to see all those bands sounding totally different, playing with different corpses, offering to dig yourself into their favorite period. And Franz Ferdinand was the best one. And the last one. After them, what? Few bands in the mid-2000 London scene who gave us The Horrors (thanks for that, you could have kept it for yourself, you know), what else before the post-New Weird America? Test Icicles? Woooh-hoo...

I loved everything from Franz Ferdinand in the beginning, from their above-everything attitudes to the crazy reports of their gigs, to their dandies and to their elegant songs. They were (and in some way still are) my popular band I (love to) admit to love.

I have to say, and I'm stupidly a bit ashamed of that, but like lots of people they introduced me to 1) Orange Juice, 2) Josef K, 3) Fire Engines, 4) dancing. They could have done it for Glasgow as well, but that one it's finally thanks to The Pastels and Shop Assistants.

And about their first album... just perfect pop from begining to the end. And they bring indie pop to a new point, they actually allowed indie to go somewhere else, to the bright land of milk and honey and musical awards and big success.

Somewhere, where in fact, everything sucks. Thanks for have made Kaiser Chief and Bloc Party possible, guys. Hope you don't feel too guilty, Pandora.

8) Chemical Chords- Stereolab (2008)

In any top, you need to award an old, classic, big and used-to-be-influencial band. Usually, it's the moment for the rock-critic to remenber the existence of Sonic Youth.

For me, it will not be the middle-of-the-road NYC noise living dead legend but the Back From The 80's indie Dead turn German Free Design and mocked since the late 90's; Stereolab.

Yes, the french accent of Laetitia Saddier, yes the dusty museum of synth of Tim Gane, yes even the fake brazillian Sean Microdisney High Llamas O'Hagan, yes the 70's mid-class comfort drop in the 90's postmodernism, all that smell of dust and of frigidity nowadays, but fuck! Listen to Chemical Chords! It's the first album of Stereolab with just only SONGS!

It took for them almost 16 years to succed, but they did great and it's just perfect melodies everywhere. On every songs.

If Chemical Chords caugh the band in their usual retro-futurist exercice (which this time is deeper -they even go back to the fifties easy listening and beyond with their vintage machines) it also got some of the best string arrangement in an early 20 century mood mix with jazzy winds. And one of the best song ever since Family Fodder's Savoir Faire and Debie Harry and the Melody Dog 's Futuristic Lovers, Valley Hi! And the best reverse tape ever with Pop Molecule. Chemical Chord is almost coming from a haunted broken radio playing a dreamy and evenescent soft psychedelia. Asolutely brillant.

9) Ladybird -Shit and Shine (2007)

Let's say it straight, there is nothing in this record. Just a riff and its variations for 42 min. But what a riff. The best one, ever. Like Sister Ray cover by Mötörhead in a Neu! mood.

42 min of heavyness and loudness danceable as fuck, a warfare weapon for urban everyday life going straight to your head and to your nerves. A fantastic warrior jam making Hawkwind sound like a little bird. A fucking riot-starter space-boogie shot who make you ready for fight, for nights out, making you stand for everything. And making you scream powerful. And transforming you in a horrible barbarian deadless monster. WITH A FUCKING GIANT SWORD. IN A FUCKING HUGE CUSTOMISED CHOPPER. IN SPACE.

Lord Sidious, you're a fucking dead man! GNAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWW!

I also could have done a nice and polite review, comparing them to Steve Reich or to Charlemagne Palestine. WITH A FUCKING HUGE WALL OF AMPS.

Well, no, I couldn't.

10) The Glow Pt.2 -The Microphones (2001)

This last place was hard to decided as I feel I had thousand of bands and records to award. So, it goes to The Glow Pt. 2 but I feel in two weeks I would regret it. I could have put the Pastels/Tenniscoat but 2 months is too short in regard to a 10 years (yep, 9 years) top.

And since The Glow was released in 2001 and not in 1999 like I though at first and it's a true indie classic, I feel like I should put it, anyway.

The thing with it is even if I like it, I will not, weirdly enough, putting into my favorite records. So why I do it right now? Well, the thing is it's a true classic, in every meaning of the word. Even if you don't like The Velvet Underground And Nico, or Abbey Road, you still have to put them in a top 10 of the best albums ever. OK top 20, in the case of Abbey Road.

For a quite review, most of the songs are itself forgetable when the production is incredibly amazingly brillant, just like a lo-fi United State Of America recorded in the bathroom of the Dub Narcotic. And some of the melody sound just like a drawn, like if you had to complete it by yourself. Which is quite cute.

A great record. Really, I mean it, even if I don't like it that much. In fact 3/4 of my expanded top below got better songs, but no-one got this vision of an perfect experimental lo-fi pop production.

(and I already feel like I should have put The Galaxies' Incredibly Sensual Transmission Field Of The Tower Recording instead. Or Broken Voyage.)

Greatest Losers: Neils Children

So good losers that you don't even remenber them.
Remenber 2004, I Hate Models and Trying To Be Someone Else For Free? A lad wearing an Anarchy shirt copy and some make up around his left eye who made it in the NME Cool List before turning Duran-Duranesque Goth? His drummer somewhere between the emo kid and the emo kid? The never-end leaving bassist dance?
Get it?

I used to have a big crush on them (I mean, as a band, have you seen how they were looking like?). After Change/Return/Success I waited and waited for an album who was finally released this year after seeing the band changed after discovering dub, then changed to be goth then changed again to turn neo-Postcard and for finally being entierely rip-off by The Horrors.

After almost hundreds of 7'', they end-up disappering for what, 4 years? for finally lose (again) their bassist when the band tried to come back... Neils Children could have been one of the best band of the last (roughly) 7 years and just became the best english joke ever.

Anyway, don't sell your singles of them now, in 20 years, they would become the cultest band from the 2000's. If they don't lose their fans for their comeback. Come on, John, come on, Brandon, you can do it this time.

Best French Album: Vive La Vie- Klub Des Loosers (2005)

This album is followed by my usual french-only disclamer: anyway if you don't speak a good level of french (and I mean, it's not because you understand locals in Paris when you're asking for the Eiffel Tower that you speak french) you will just hear boring funky jazz samples and a guy with a louzy flow who's not even in rhythm.

Signed on the Air vanity label and ditched just after releasing this record, Klub des Loosers is the most darkest and mysantropist thing you can find in French hip-hop. Roughly it's like "everything sucks, I hate myself, I hate you, I hate everybody, and I will kill myself after killing you". But honestly it's write in some way its actually really funny to get pissed on it and shout the lyrics loud. Like TTC but with more guts and hatred.

From all the others (aka the english peoples), you still can try Sous Le Signe Du V feat. Air.

YO!

(Yeah, it's THE "Kelly Watches The Stars" Air)

Best Mainstream Song: SexyBack- Justin Timberlake (2006)

Let's be honest, this one is just here because, during this decade also the "Mainstream is cool, maaaan" trend appeared.

Well, usually, it's the "Well, pop is cool, man, not good to be elistist, maaaan" thing. Fucking hippies., And yes, you have to admit that you listen to MJ and Lady Gaga all day long. And that all the Prurient albums or the Frumpies stuff are just there to impress your friends.

Because it is so nice to be able to appreciate both noise and bad R&B, so nice to beeeee opeeeeeeen and not see the difference between pop (cool, melody, feel-good) and mainstream (shit, bad shit and worst shit).

When undeground is still fucking exciting, I don't want to bother with mainstream. Yes, I think ABBA got some fucking kick-ass good songs. And? So what? Do I have to spend my energy to promote ABBA? Does they really need me to put Gold in the chart each christmas? I don't think so. The problem with that attitude is the naivety to pretend that "it's just music".

No it's not. Because without all the networks of fanzines, scenes, blogs, mainstream can still rely on radio, magazine, TV, Murdoch website and look-like (Facebook, Myspace, ...). But do you think that Upset the Rhythm or Social Registry or PPM could afford to release records? No, not really.

And for those who think that Lady Gaga or Madonna (or Bono, but strangly, nobody wants to take his defend) can actually change things in this world from their place in mainstream, you're just fucking naive and you should actually try to believe in politics. At least, there is some hope to change something. You know, by collective action, by common fight, by organization, by strikes and demonstration, by this kind of stuff. You don't need to rely on the head of the entertainment, you need to rely on yourself and on your peers.

Well, you know what? Here we love soft toys and AK 47, we love cupcakes, sweets and feminism, we love birthday card, tea-party and Karl Marx. So come back to stalinism, fuck that trend, stay underground and invent your own entertainment. And if it happen that mainstream is producing sometimes good pop, I prefer to rather miss it than buy it.

Let's launch our backlash op on mainstream now!

No need to put the video here, you know where you have to go. And not even one word on why I think SexyBack is the best mainstream thing for years. (Actually since Cry Me A River)

Fuck you Justin.

Best Lyrics: Losing My Edge - LCD Soundsystem (2001)

Ah ah ah, James Murphy, the perfect fat-ass record seller.

The one who will always prefer Shoes to Big Star, the one who will never be able to go to sleep without watching closely his records collection (Germans imports! All the good techno cuts from Detroit from 86 and 87! And you can add to that the Sylvester records and all the Gainsbourg from the 60's.), the one who see all his friends achevied to a cult indie star status and who have to stay close to the stereo to vaguely stamp a pile of rare Beatles records all day long or the one who's talking shit with his colleague while he's burning DVD's on the computer of the shop. Or the one who's always listening to Harry Pussy horribly loud to scare customers. Or the one who still don't know how to make work a till after several years in the same shop. Or the one who's bitching about all his colleagues while he's reading The Guardian he bought on expenses of the shop.

Yeah sorry, I can't help it but I have to mix him up with my own memories of selling records.

Record collectors are always creepy alcoholic pathetic losers. And all their little lifes are just turning around music. And girls, but not that much.

So, when one is actually able to get up from a sticky floor (where he was lying for better watching the one quid cds) and when he's able to say something else than "Yeah, fanx, cherr, fanx, all the best", and go to a studio, he can just talk about his records and how he was the first one in NYC to listen to Daft Punk and how he saw all his friends sell their guitars for turntables and how it was affecting him.

It's maybe not glamorous, but when I heard this song and when I actually understood a bit of the lyrics, yes, I wanted to be one of them. I even droped my philosophy study for that. I always had crushes on losers, anyway.

And, finally, the expanded top:

BTW, I read a few weeks ago a french e-zine complaning "We're all agree, nothing happened those last 10 years, not even a single movement, few goods records, it's terrible..." and in the comment all the readers were fighting to put Radiohead as the Best Band Of The Last 10 Years. I actually went down in my comptuter and in my memory and in not even 20 minutes did this list with records who's worth more than a quick listening and could have actually done it in my 10 best records:

Animal Collective's Here Comes The Indians, The Aislers Set's How I Learned To Write Backward, All Girl Summer Fun Band's All Girl Summer Fun Band, ARE Weapons' ARE Weapons, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti's The Doldrums, Ascend's Ample Fire Within ,The Black Angels' Passover, The Blackfire Revelation's Gold And Guns On The 51, Belle And Sebastian's Fold your Hands, Blood On The Wall's Awesomer, Boris' Heavy Friends and Pink, Broadcast's Tender Buttons and Investigating the Witch Cults Of Radio Age, Bratmobiles' Girls Get Busy and Ladies, Womans & Girls, Butcher Boy's Profit In Your Poetry, Cause Co-Motion's It's Time, Chain & The Gang's Down With Liberty, Up With Chain, Christy And Emily's Queen's Head, Chrome Hoof's Pre-Emptive False Rapture, Circle's Forest, all the Clinic's album, Coughs' Fright Makes Right, Dan Deacon's Spiderman Of The Rings, Death Sentence: Panda's Puppy, Kitty Or Both and Insect Awaken, Deerhunter's Turn It Up, Faggot and Cryptogram, The 80's Matchbox B-Line Disaster's Horse Of The Dog, Electrolane's Axes and Power Out, Esquilax's Esquilax Side, Electric Wizard's Witchcraft Today, ESG's Step Off, Fat Truckers' The First Fat Truckers Album Is For Sale, Gang Gang Dance's God's Money, Gentle Waves' Swangsong For You, Ikara Colt's Modern Apprentice, Indian Jewelry's Invasive Exotics and Sangles Redux 2002-2005, Kaito's Band Red,Jeremy Jay's Slow Dance, Calvin Jonhson's Before The Dream Faded and What Was Me, KIT's Broken Voyage, Kites' Peace Trial and Hallucination Guillotine, Konono N°1's Congotronics, Kraftwerk's Tour De France (at last...), Ladytron's 604 and Light & Magic, Jens Lankman's Oh You're So Silent, Jens, Jeffrey Lewis' It's The One Who've Cracked That The Light Shines Through and 12 Crass Songs, The Libertines' The Libertines, Liars' Drum's Not Dead, Le Tigre's Feminist Sweepstakes, Samara Lubelski's Parallel Suns, John Maus' Songs, Melt Banana's Cell-Scapes, Mouthus' Saw A Halo, Slow Globes and Long Salt, NTX's We Are The Wild Beast, No-Neck Blues Band's Qvaris, No Age's Get Hurt, Mika Miko's CYSLABF, Om's Conference Of The Birds, Omar Souleyman's Highway To Hassake, Partyline's Zombie Terrorist, Pastels/Tenniscoats' Two Sunset, Pink And Brown's Shame Fantasy II, Pharaoh Overlord's #4, Pre's Epic Fits, Primal Scream's Evil Heat, Portishead' Third, Psychic Ills' Dins, Prurient's Black Vase. Raccoo-oo-oon's Is Night Peoples, Sian Alice Group's 59.59, Sleep's Dopesmoker, Spider And The Webs' Spider And The Webs, The Sunburned's Z, Sunn O))) Flight Of The Behemoth and Monolith And Dimension, The Swords' Age Of Winters, T.I.T.S.' Throughout The Age and Second Base, Trans Am's Sex Change, The Tower Recording's The Galaxies' Incredibly Sensual Transmission Field Of The Tower Recording, Trencher's Lips, Tv On The Radio's Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, Viki/Hair Police split CD, The Warlocks' Phoenix, Weird War's If You Can't Beat Em, Bite Them and Illuminated By The Light, Whirlwind Heat's Flamigos Honey, Wives' Erect The Youth Problem, Wolf Eyes' Burned Mind and Human Animals, XBXRX's Sixth In Sixes and Wars, Yellow Swans' Descension, Live During War Crimes 1 and 2 and At All End.

That's quite impressive, isn't it ? And lots are still missing and I didn't included some of them I talked about earlier (like LCD Soundsystem for example). And it's not to say anything about the reissue industry who went totally nuts those last years, from Another Sunny Day to Erkin Koray, and from Bobby Beausoleil to The Feelies (at last!) or the whole ESP-Disk back catalogue.

I don't know why, I feel like this time all established journalists will come and complain in their paper that they miss the old good 90's. Please, if you meet one, just punch him in the face and remind him to do his job. Like listening to his promo copies before selling it at MVE. Thanks.

Exciting stuff

2009-12-02T06:21:00.001-08:00

Dear people,

I'm sorry we're so lazy (you should actually see us right now half laying, half asleep at the library, which is like our second home). BUT, even though the lazyness is taking over we're still working on the second issue! Yesterday we made an exciting and amazing 3 hour interview with one of our fav musician. I guess, if you checked Ym's facebook you already know who. Otherwise if I say; Glasgow, cute and "twee", you can probably figure out who it is. Both of us think that the next issue will be totally smashing and wonderful! Hopefully you will see it before next year. And since the new year will be 2010, we will of course be doing some kind of list of music we loved and still love during the 10 past years. 10 years is a long period, so it will be difficult doing it. But we'll give it a try!

Well, guess this kind of post is the most common on this blog. Yes, we're lazy and yes we aware of it. Kisses

French Punk: Bérurier Noirs

2009-11-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

The thing is: Les Bérurier Noirs quickly gained a huge popularity with high-school students, those ones who wears long ugly dresses, have dreadlocks, who believe that anarchy means "smoking joints" and see Jim Morrison as the Greatest R'n'R Icon Of All The Time.

Anyway, Les Bérurier Noirs were much more than that. They gave to the far left wing a clear demonstration of autonomy (setting up concerts, labels, fanzine, giving to all the scene the aim to start) and an immortal chorus for anti-National Front demonstration: "La jeunesse emmerde le Front National" ("Youngster fuck The National Front", which is still much better than "If the kids are united...").

So for an overview, Les Béruriers Noirs were a dark-and-nihilist-Rudimentary Peny-lyrics-on-Cabaret Voltaire-sound, turned after a while into a Crass-meet-Crisis-meet-huge-success band.

The beginning of Les Bérurier Noirs is reaaaaalllllllly good. An absolutely amazing scary band sounding and looking like a homemade small guerrilla-unit band. A beat box called Dédé, some dry and minimalist riff and screaming of incredibly scary and aggressive lyrics: anti-psychiatrics ("I got a hole in my head/ thanks Mum, Dad! /Lobotomy, lobotomy"), sick and sordid tabloid tales, i/u/nsane manifestos haunted by death, nuclear war and fascist regimes.

Started as a duo (voice/guitars/beatbox), they quickly accepted anybody from saxophonists (Masto, ex-Lucrate Milk) to dancers, singers (something like 5 people to do a hooligan choir -including Helno, future Negresses Vertes), and a graphic designer. All that with the purpose to create a small force theatre (Ok, my translation sucks, do yours by yourself: "Petit theatre de force"), kind of street theatre (puppets, mask, dance, clowns and other hippy bullshit -you know, the stuff with iron balls and fire) mixed with class-war/anarchist politics vocabulary (they actually did a flyer calling the thievery of Dédé a “terrorist attack”) and punk rock gigs.

Of course it was something of an innocent quite post-modern carnival, but also revealed some of the ambitions of Bérurier Noir: Creating a cultural anarchist society through squat and punk culture. Something not far from Crass. So from the great ideological aim of autonomy and DIY, BxN start to deal with the myth of the "raïa" (something in between the extended band of mates and the punk community). Another French expression about those generations of punks (up to 1987, even after) is "punk à chien"; kind of pre-Grebo sub culture, made of dogs, bad beer, dodgy squats and lost kids on glue. Something not really glamorous. But honest. Bérurier Noir became the voice of this punk generation, against war, nuclear, far right, psychiatrics and, you know, all the stuff the punks fight against when they're not drunks.

And they started to sing of youth crew and unity. And quickly ONLY about that.

So, unfortunately, the late albums are highly unrecommended (from Souvent Fauché, Toujours Marteau, even if the half of the previous album -Abracadabroum- is... how to say that... bad.) Not only because of the lyrics, but also because of this horrible 80's heavy guitar sound. However some songs still works, like SOS, despite this close-to-stupid chorus (SOS, too many selfish on earth/SOS, War is madness... SOS, No soviet, neither US/SOS, no Islam, neither napalm/International SOS).

Just before completely becoming a French Joan Baez-with-patch-and-badge-and-dogs-and-spikes, and just at their zenith, they decided to commit suicide (read; to split) after some separation gigs. Finishing with a "Long life to free Rock"

The funniest thing is still the fact that they decided to stage a reformation (called "deformation") few years ago. And during their first gig, there started in the streets around an actual riot of punks Vs police.

Btw, on the BxN website, you can listen to all the albums/singles/tapes/compilation/flyer/.../ on streaming.

French Punk: Lucrate Milk

2009-11-04T05:25:00.000-08:00

Put away children and grandmothers, we're talking about eating poo here.

Ok, I started by saying “Lucrate Milk were/are largely despised in the rock circles of France”. Well actually, it’s not totally true. For something like 15 years, they were more forgotten than actually despised.

One thing is Lucrate Milk are one of the roots of Bérurier Noirs. I will talk about them later. And they are actually quite despised in rock circles (a bit like Crass in the UK).

The other thing is the album and 7” were actually unavailable and impossible to find for quite a long time.

Last thing: Lucrate Milk were quite a multimedia project. And the art side of the band (homemade short and deviant films in support for their music) is in the direct idea of what can be punk art. And that art side is what made them be rediscovered a few years ago.

Let’s take that a little earlier. We have seen, France didn’t have a proper punk band for quite long. But there did exist a real punk art.

I didn’t talk about it before ‘cause me ain’t no art student, matey, but there was a graphics band called Bazooka, doing some pre Gee Voucher’s Gee Voucher collage style. Don’t know that much about it, but they succeeded in being invited by the newspaper Libération (then closer to Class War that to the New Labour) to illustrate some articles. It ended up with “shocking” nihilistic humour drawings about paedophilia and concentration camp.

Ok, kind of what you expect from punk artists on acid.

I found Bazooka’s art nowadays quite… let’s say, old fashioned. You have to know well the politic climate of France during the 70’s to get all their stuff. Otherwise it’s look a bit “Look mum, shocking!!!!”

Anyway, those guys finished by gaining a cult following in the autonomy and graphics/design circles (you know the same kind of guy who, in London, works in Shoreditch in those fancy art design workshops, reading Vice and doing skate. You know what I’m talking about –hipster is the word, isn’t it? -)

BTW those guys from Bazooka are still doing some stuff on internet (Disclaimer: a really good level of French is necessary to understand everything)

Back to Lucrate, now.

So Lucrate Milk was a bit like Bazooka, doing design/art/graphics stuff. And punk music.

The Parisian punk scene of that time was totally transformed when you compare it to my first part.

First, some squats were now open and arty punk friendly, lots of peoples start to get into (UK) punk, often from the automony circles/situationist legacy. So there was a long tradition of disturbing/alternative happening/art/concept etc etc.

Punk bands now have some places to play, to discover other stuff, exchange ideas and members, finally creating a whole DIY network. And let’s be honest, Lucrate Milk were their best representant.

Started half as a joke (the musicians chose their instrument by taking the one they hated the most), without a guitar and with a German singer, taking inspiration from Teenage Jesus and The Jerks, opening for Einsturzende Neubauten and Sonic Youth, doing absurd arty b-movies with sex, violence and guts and making their live shows look like weird happenings, Lucrate Milk ended up half DIY arty show for freaks, half end-of-year spectacle for punks on glue.

I imagine you start to be suspicious about the music: if the story sounds amazing and the references are great, the music will be a horribly boring muzak.

BUT, for once, the music is as good as the story. Definitely one of the best post-punk band ever: Gang Of Four/Delta 5/Leeds style basslines with Malaria! singing meets Resident's keyboard and some kind of pre Death Sentence: Panda! feverish sax melodies. It’s absurd, short, violent, brilliant and funny, like your mate puking on himself.

After 3 years of that, two 7” and one album, they finished to disband and enter into legend.

Not yet, but some of them will end up in Bérurier Noirs, creating a little cult following which led to some reissues. The last of them, on Folklore de la Zone Mondiale, the post-Beru label (the very French Southern in that sense), is an integral with some bullshit remix (the remix CD is one of the most useless stuff I ever heard) and a DVD with lots of stupid stuff on it, like Bazooka could have done if those lazy fuckers have bought a camera instead of playing baby foot and smoking weed. And much of that DVD did a lot for the “rediscovery” of Lucrate Milk (right, so nobody know them, but it was worse before!). Bit of a shame, really, the music is still much better than some stoned jokes on videos. (Which is still funny to watch, though)

( it's a shame, I can't find the one with the famous poo-eating scene)

French Punk: Novö

2009-11-03T05:37:00.000-08:00

From 1978-1979, French punk started to transform thank to a heavy use of electronics, under the influence of Suicide, Kraftwerk, The Idiot and the disco (Alain Pacadis and Yves Adrien, from the first punk rock-critics, starts the same move a bit earlier, mostly because of Donna Summer, of Le Palace -the Parisian Studio 54- and the Warholian ideal of plastics). And a bit because of TG. Yes, Throbbing Gristle.

Actually all those bands (Mathematique Moderne, Ruth, Modern Guy, The Hypothetical Prophets, ...) created a real proper French version of electro-pop: Minimalist like The Normal/Silicon Teens or Fad Gadget, but lot more poppy, with often a feelingless, passionless voice singing about consummable items, dressed in strict grey costumes with clean haircuts. It seemed to come from a 70's dystopian sci-fi movie where only a robotic entertainement is exists, cynicly celebrating a consuming society. Although a heavy use of absurd and irony, they were deadly serious about themselves.

Oh, just think about the Talking Heads.

And for the music...If on paper, this scene (Les Jeunes Gens Modernes or Novö) seems exciting, on records, it's much more closer to Wendy Carlos with a Casio toy-synth without any classical training than a disco Throbbing Gristle. Honestly, it's just sounds like Soft Cell without a Nothern Soul influence or some Jacno groupies (who was anyway the Godfather of this scene).

If I quite like the whole idea of a generic and personality-free electro-elevator pop music, I think that post-modernity's got some limits, and that part of the Növo wave reached one of them : it’s actually really boring to listen to.

A few of them were actually beyond that: Taxi Girls, Artefact, and Kas Product. Apart from Kas Product, the two others seem to be a pure product of the 70's autonomious politics: influence of Debord, irony, use of symbolic images, of Burroughs, Ballard, Dick, (but also all the debate about western/pan European identity...and were actually a band, not two guys with a synth)

If Taxi Girls are certainly the best known outside France, they always seems to me largely over-rated. I always saw them like Bowie, fronting Kraftwerk. But the cold self-conscious clever opportunist part of Bowie with a lobotomized robotic band.

Honestly, it's quite bad of me to reduce them to those clichés: even if they sound like a FM-friendly comatose Doors without any energy, they still were from the few who took the rock action for truth. From vein-cutting on stage to heroin addiction and death-by-OD, it's pathetic, we agree, but still impressive.

If in France they're seen (and exported as) the French Joy Division, they were definitely the French working-class (and unstable) Talking Heads. Anyway I don't like any of them.

(After, the guy on guitar will produce Madonna. It’s true, it’s Mirwais)

And now the famous...

More cult and totally unknown, Artefact. Ok I don't like them either, but at least I highly respect them. To be quick, they're the band of the far-right junkie cyber-Christian writer Maurice Dantec (AKA The Worst Son Of Phillip K.Dick) before he turned far-right, Christian and writer, when he was just a teenage pot smoker and science fiction reader .

Artefact deserved much better. Imagine a electronic Pop Group doing Afro-beat or Suicide with a cold sense of krautfunk groove...

Ok I can't describe them: they were higly idiosyntratic, mixing influences, references and obession with a high sense of absurd, finishing by created something looking like a musical post-modern catalogue. From Situationist irony to consumer music, they were mixing disco with electronics avant-garde like nobody before them or after them, and especially NOT in the nineties.

All their stuff (one 12", one album, some demo) is now avalaible to download, which you should do right now.

Maybe because they were from Nancy (east of France) and far away from the center of the hype (Paris), Kas Product sound bit different from the other Novö bands, more complex and more straight forward. Darker, but better. When the rest were passionless and cold, Kas Product managed to bring back some energy and some passion in a retro-electronic music.

The sound is rich, quite distorted with some keyboard riff- more D.A.F than D.A.F. (and unfortunatly some fifties film noir pseudo-jazzy inspiration, which is not always a good idea). The voice took too much of Siouxsie, the same urgent high-pitched theatrical singing, the kind of ‘little girl scared by the Monster-Under-The-Bed’ feeling.

At the end of the day, the albums are actually suprisingly really good, mixing the voice of Siouxsie, the riffs of DAF, the ambiance of Wire’s 154 , the reverb of Suicide and a fest of French accents, with a close-to-the-rupture beatbox.

(OK, it’s actually terribly gothic records).

When the Novö scene were too busy looking at themselves like elegant heartless plastic dandies, Kas Product were quite busy inventing a cold, danceable and aggresive batcave sound that no-one ever really ripped off.

Quite fortunately, because, despite the fact that they’re really good, half of their songs are about to fall into caricature.

French Punk: Stinky Toys, Elli & Jacno, Marie & Les Garçons, Electric Callas

2009-11-02T04:44:00.000-08:00

Stinky Toys/Elli & Jacno

The other big piece of pride in French punk is Stinky Toys. Invited to play at the 100 Club, for the punk festival of McLaren, they gained a small cult following. I have to admit I never get into Stinky Toys: The music is fine (even if way too much mod revival), they're cute, but hell, no I can't. Apparently the reason for this cult following is their second album (known as the yellow one), that even our glorious corrector, redactor and man of taste (we're waiting for your article, Michael) admires.

The thing I can tell you about them is: they've got a terrible French accent, the music is alright, they sound like The Who of My Generation, Elli, the singer, is born in Montecasino and looks a bit like Francoise Hardy or France Gall (That should attract all the pervs of the indie community. Come on, you just love Yé-yé because they're cute).

(the language used on that track is still unidentified)

The driving force of the Stinky Toys was Jacno, guitarist who left them in the middle of 1978 to buy an EMS and start electronic music. The result is an album call Jacno and it's cute and kitsch. But really cute.

And after Elli came to him and started to sing with him on some other cute but kitsch but cute records. (OK, I really don't have a damn thing to say about them).

Oh yeah, in 1980, Eli & Jacno wrote a cute but kitsch song for a young girl called Lio, who after became really famous in France and in Japan. (Pervs, it's for you, check as well "Banana Split")

Well... well... well.

Ok, I really like Jacno, he is the perfect French dandy: elegant, funny, great looking, but... that's all, basically.

OK, next.

Marie & Les Garçons

Honestly, in the same kind of "upper-class student with a 60's obsession" I have to say I highly prefer the underrated Marie Et Les Garçons.

Born and raised in Lyon, they were a typical school band except that Marie was the drummer, not the singer and their influences were Nico, The Velvet Underground and The Modern Lovers. And they weren't able to play their instruments.

Actually they could have been called "The French Answer To Jonathan": they give the same feeling of cute love of life and have a great amateur teenage sound. Their songs all observe a great mod emergency circa 66, mixed with some lazy feedback psychedelia VU-type thing. The guitars are melodically abrupt, the solo's have 3 notes, the tempo is quick and the voices are out of tune. And the songs are all around 2 minutes long. And the lyrics have got a naïve feeling of fake lust, close to an early Pastels or a teenage Orange Juice.

Honestly, Marie & Les Garçons get nothing to be punk (a great Gang of Four/Postcard look as well), but everything to be one of the Cherry Red/RT'81girl bands (think Dolly Mixture with a guy singing in French). They would have been perfect to dance along to in your room, face to the mirror, all dressed in polka dots. They were purely genuine love.

(Ok, for the history, they did a 6-songs 12" with John Cale on Ze Records) Cherry Red or KRS or Rhino have to reissue that quickly.

And that's the myspace link.

Electric Callas

Also from Lyon and sharing some members with Marie Et Les Garçons, Electric Callas is the real great loser of the first wave.

Totally underrated and impossible to find, but you MUST check them out, Electric Callas is certainly the first French “punk” band to take a little further the rock’n’roll revival that French punk was at first. What will be called Novö after.

Taking a LOT from Young Americans period Bowie, mixing the feeling of the German trilogy, and adding a good dose of punk pioneers (Stooges and VU for short) with touching elegance, Electric Callas had a incredible sense of measure and balance between the whole dandy supercial stuff (great attitude, shitty music) and the rock’n’roll show (shitty attitude and great music). And they were for sure the first and last post punk-post glam band ever (no, you can’t say Pink Grease). One of the only bands for whom “plastic” would not be a insult but a quality.

Cold, but still incredibly danceable, they did just two 12”in 79 and 80 before disappearing. And those 12” are absolutely impossible to find. Few stuff remains of them (even on Youtube, the only thing is underlit footage with a deficient sound –see below-): one of the best covers of I Wanna Be your Dog on Le Rock d’Ici A L’Olympia, a live compilation (the rest is shit and the compilation became quite cult apparently, it's not really worth spending £30 just for one track), some other tracks on some other obscure compilations (Kill Me Two Time, Sex, 77) and those incredible 12”, W.S.B and Winner. Apparently few years ago, Seventeen (a French punk label) was supposed to release an anthology, but I never saw it.

(Shit, I can' find the youtube video anymore)

After, the leader, Jangil, went solo and is still doing music. Well, despite all the respect and love I have for Electric Callas, I have to say that I’m really not fond of it. Mostly down-tempo sleazy electro (think French Touch). They are certainly some amateurs, but… well. At least on the myspace (one of the best 90’s gif art myspace ever), you can listen to W.S.B and So Chic (from the Winner 12”) –a new version and even if the original is far better, that one is quite cool-

French Punk: Métal Urbain

2009-11-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, let's start with the most internationally well-known of the French punk stars: Métal Urbain (first 7inch of Rough Trade, that's cult, kids!).

Heavy distorted guitars playing mathematical riff on primitives beatbox rhythms. First electro-punk band ever. Nothing less than that. And according to the legend, they gave the aim to Steve Albini to create Big Black, and Jello Biafra is a huge fan. Cult, kids, I told you.

Ok, Steve Albini is a joke (and the baddest producer ever) and Jello Biafra quite an idiot.

Honestly, the problem is Metal Urbain had for singers something sounding like a drunk dog barking stupid lyrics (OK, non French speaker doesn't have this problem, still the barking is quite... hem.... embarrassing). Criticising a punk band by the barking of the singer is quite lousy, but, honestly it's the main problem of Metal Urbain (with the beatbox sounding out of rhythm and the quite common and unimaginative riffs). So commonly they were flirting with the really bad and the worst.

Still a few total cool songs such as Panik, Paris Maquis, Hysterie Connective, E 202 and Crève Salope (that one's got quite funky lyrics like 'Die bitch! You got blood in your cunt! You stink, you shit, you scream! A chainsaw in your face! You blow up, red all around!' Yeah, they certainly can pretend to be the first grindcore band ever)

The really funny thing about them is that they are actually widely respected in France as a French Sex Pistols and are actually seen as Situationist legatee. They're actually just bad and singing non-sense pseudo-anarchist shit.

After a while, Metal Urbain split to form two other bands, both underrated when you compare it to what they did before. On one side, half of the band (something like 2 guys) went to form Metal Boys, and the rest (something like 2 guys) went form Dr Mix And The Remix.

Yeah both names are shit. I don't know that much about Metal Boys, I heard 2 songs maybe. It's sounding a bit like a Japanese Telex (like a homemade Yellow Magic Orchestra, if you prefer). Well at least in my memory.

I do think Dr Mix And The Remix is better. The project was to cover some legendary R'n'R songs in an electro-punk style. Honestly, that sounds far better than anything by Metal Urbain. Imagine the J&MC guitar noise with the Big Black beatbox and some mechanic Lou Reed vocoder voice, in some Chrome noisescape... Really goooood. And fucking violent. The pre-industrial/noisy robotic rock cover of Sister Ray is an incredible blast. (here is just a 30 sec-clip, just put in a loop 22 times and you will have something sounding like the actual song)

After that, Metal Urbain decided to reform some years ago (well 2 guys with some professional) and finally committed an absolutely terrifying shit, produced by Jello in person. Don't buy, don't even download it, it just sucks. And it's not even funny. (Ok, the title is funny: J'irais chier dans ton vomi, roughly "I will shit in your vomit")

French Punk: Introduction

2009-10-31T08:44:00.000-07:00

Punk in France starts as a hipster joke, more or less.

In France, there are no bands, nothing musical (stop with the Yé-yé- it's mostly worthless horrible easy listening- in comparison Cliff Richard is good. And Magma sucks).

Nothing but rock-critics. Lots of them, actually. And like every rock-critic in the world, their only aim is to be more hipster than you.

It starts like this: Imagine a bunch of semi-writers on Quaaludes in a contest to be the new Huysmans, dreaming of Between The Buttons, dressing in fur coats and sun glasses, reading about mods (or better, used to be mods before mods, and hippies before hippies), idolizing The Velvet Underground and Nico and discovering The New York Dolls. It starts like that.

(Remember that and you will understand)

From that, their brains start to melt and mix Andy Warhol, David Bowie, black leather, heroin, NYC and writing. Quickly they discover the word PUNK and its use in the New-York underground, and spray it all around their articles... (actually all these guys -Patrick Eudeline, Philippe Garnier, Yves Adrien, Alain Pacadis and some others- wrote books about it and they all worth reading. Well actually, avoid Patrick Eudeline- he's got some writing skill but it's mostly conservative meaningless wanking. I mean, the others are also really wank-writing -think "fin de siecle" and "decadent"- but at least they try to say something.)

And because they didn't have so much to write about (between their review of the last trendy club they went to and their review of the underground cinema festival, organized by a friend), they started to write. In an incredibly beautiful & dandy posture, they started to write about music. Bands. Gigs.

(Yes they were rock-critics before that).

The thing was, in France, by this time, you didn't have that many bands that weren't in the sub-Pink Floyd/Magma/RIO/prog-folk. So they start to write about a few bands, all of them more or less revivalists (from Gene Vincent copyists to Pete Townsend copyists). Spraying in their article of splits of journal, of "OUR TIME IS UP" (in English and caps) and other "Dressed in Black Leather, somewhere between Scorpio Rising and Heinrich Himmler, he's taking his guitar like a mighty phallic machine gun...", they wrote about bands during one year before they got bored and started to go to disco clubs, dreaming about screwing Donna under Neon Lights.

So, the thing you have to keep in mind when you're talking punk in France, is, there were actually 2 scenes,both quite different: the first one, from 76 to 79, was actually a huge mix of different influences, and whatever the band did, they were punk.

You had a full range of music: from (terrible) bluesy ballads influenced bands (the really bad Asphalt Jungle of this horrible writer, Patrick Eudeline) to Novö post-punk Young American influenced (the amazing Electric Callas), and from the quite fine "girls-band & mods fantasies" made by upper middle class kids (Marie et les Garçons, Stinky Toys) to the kitschy Kraftwerk, and cute (Jacno, leader and guitarist of the Stinky Toys going solo with a VCS 3).

After punk became a common thing in England (so from 79 to 84), France started to get real punk bands. And real industrial bands. And real post-punk bands. And real new wave bands. And honestly, they were much better.

OK, two of them were much better. But all of the others were totally decent (apart from the new wave/synth-pop ones, but, I guess you expect that).

The really funny thing about that is, in France, not a lot of people really respect and like that second wave. Often seen as terrible, certainly by analogy with the English second wave of punk. But let's be serious, I'm not living in France any more, I can say it loud: most of the first wave stinks of the deadly self-conscious hipster and the pretentious arty trendy shit.

The point is most French rock people (especially rock-critics and the indie community) commonly despise bands such as Bérurier Noir, Lucrate Milk and others. And they're wrong.

Fireworks!

2009-10-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

We're not dead yet. Actually we're pretty much alive and working on the next issue of WIAL.

And for going with the amazing interview of Amelia Fletcher that Diana did, we were about to offer you the new digital and free single of Tender Trap. But, because I'm quite shity about upload and HTML code, you will have to get it yourself on the Fortuna Pop website.

(That's not a ramdom image I found on Google with Fireworks as key-word, that's the actual cover )

The first one, Fireworks, remind me a lot of The Aisler Set, wich is actually fair, considering that Aisler Set actually rip-off every band of Amelia Fletcher.

And, because Aisler Set is a good band, Tender Trap doing Aisler Set it's sounding like a Heavently spring pop song with some optimistic "Pap-pap-pap-pap-lalala" on the chorus in a 50's fashion with a big distored bassline. That's cute and touching.

I have to say I actually prefer the B-side (that's sound weird b-side for a digital single, isn't?), Grand National: it's more or less the same song with quiet-est backing vocal and the best rhythm in the galaxy: the famous Be My Baby/Just Like Honey "drum + tambourine", which give a good mod feeling to the song. And you can almost dance to it.

So anyway, go and download it: http://www.fortunapop.com/tender_trap_free_download.php

Paypal

2009-10-13T08:37:00.001-07:00

Dear everyone,

I just wanna inform you that "Working in a legend" now have a paypal account. For more information and/or if you fancy to get a copy of issue nr 1, please send us an email at; workinginalegend@gmail.com

xxx

Glasgow school

2009-10-06T06:12:00.000-07:00

Dear people of the world,

let me update you (since we're really bad to write for the moment);

the fanzine is in progress, even if we're lazy with the blog. I don't want to tell you all about it already now, but I think it will be totally smashing! On the way I have been in contact with some really nice and cute people, which I will thank later on when we finally having the next issue in our hands.

We're as well trying to organize things a bit better for the next issue, like opening a paypal account so you, who is interested actually can send us some money (only 2 pounds) and get a copy in return and do some more promotions. Hopefully we can sell some more copies at Mono here in Glasgow. But just to let you know, we probably still gonna be quite small, we don't have any plans to be the next evil emperor like in Star Wars. I basically just write this 'cause I'm excited about it and 'cause I love old school fanzines.

As well, Glasgow is like the best city ever and we have already been seeing some heroes like The Pastels, Edwyn Collins and Stuart Murdoch dancing to the music of Orange Juice. I guess we just have to do an 'Glasgow school'-issue next!

ps. Sorry about the pictures in the last post, of some reason I can't turn them right...

ps 2. keep an eye on the blog, soon we'll present some exciting articles by Ym.

The Pastels/Tenniscoats and Edwyn Collins & Teenage Fanclub live in Glasgow

2009-09-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

The Bears Grrr

2009-08-25T02:06:00.000-07:00

When I went to Berlin on holiday in June, I went to a party in a small flat and met a really cool band. The band is called 'The Bears Grrr'. They're 5 guys with the Big Bear on vocals. And I'm not only writing about them 'cause they liked my flyer I made for a friend's club; http://myspace.com/tweehouse. I'm writing about them 'cause I really like their music and I think more people should discover them.

So here you go, their myspace; http://www.myspace.com/thebearsgrrr

"Yes, they're locals"

2009-08-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

Dear 'working in a legend'-reader,

we're now located in Glasgow. And from today you can buy some copies of our zine at Mono. So hurry there to pick one up for only 2 pounds.

And for your information; Mono is like the coolest place ever and the recordshop is to die for (38 Notting Hill Gate is still forever in our heart). One day soon we have to try the vegan food (yes they're vegan!) from the café/bar and Glasgow is the most lovely city ever.

You can find more information about Mono here; http://www.monocafebar.com/

It's a good day for flying

2009-08-12T03:17:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

we're alive! Interviews, texts and new ideas for the next issue are in progress. So don't worry. We're just on holiday and travelling around and soon we're moving up to Glasgow. So the theme for this post will of course be;

Diana's top 5 travel-songs:

1. Belle & Sebastian - Seymour Stein

Every time I'm about to take the plane somewhere I'm always listening to this song. It helps me to relax a bit, since I'm terrible afraid of flying. To hear Stevie Jackson's calm voice about something he's missing and that he's on his way somewhere and the fact he is singing "it's a good day for flying" just make this song my obviously number 1 travel song.

2. Håkan Hellström - En vän med en bil (translated "a friend with a car")

Håkan Hellström is a swedish singer and one of my old times heroes. He followed me through my teenaged period and have since then not been able to leave me alone. Or me not been able to let him go. "A friend with a car" is the second song from his first album, "Känns ingen sorg för mig Göteborg" ( translated "Don't feel sad for me Gothenburg"). This song contains everything between freedom, on the way somewhere, you and your friends, happiness, neverending summer nights and music festivals. The perfect first song on your festival mix tape. To play loud and singing along in the car on the way to the freedom-feeling.

3. Beirut - Postcards from Italy

Postcard to a lover from someone far away. When you're missing something/someone you left at home. That's the feeling and the back side of being away.

4. The Pastels - Truck train tractor

When you're listening to this song is like you're on a train together with The Pastels. The sound of a train and Stephen's and the others 't-t-t-t-t-t'. There's so many things in the songs that just make you wanna be on the road, dancing and smiling.

5. Talulah Gosh - Steaming train

"I'm on a steaming train and I'm driving into your heart".

I guess that's all I can say about this song. I mean, even if the sound is so typical up-tempo-twee-talulah, the lyrics is in the same time quite sad.

It reminds me a bit of a friend that went out in Europe for an interrail one summer and before she left a guy she been dating for a while asked if they were a couple. Guess he wanted to be sure they were feeling the same and that she wouldn't meet other boys out in Europe. You see my point about it?

By Fanny Valentin

2009-07-24T03:22:00.000-07:00

Diana Malone Moves Home

2009-07-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

Dooooom. Dressed In Pink.

2009-07-08T03:46:00.000-07:00

Imagine a monster. Imagine Giorgio Moroder in a Rick Wakeman crisis with a Bontempi home studio. Imagine the Epicus Doomicus Metallicus of Candlemass influenced by Star Wars instead of every Heroic Fantasy tales with some laryngitic Attila Csihar on vocal. Imagine some quite vulgar glam women choir for the chorus.

Well, those things really happens. Not only in the mind of outter-the-extreme-limits-of-Good-Taste fan (yes, I genuinely like John Maus, Esquilax and Hans Edler).

Someone in Germany, in 1982, really recorded all these things. Together. In the same time. On the same record. In the same songs. Yes, a real band really sounded like that. And get signed. And recorded two albums. And even had a minor hit. Their name: Warning. And you should be. (And I should apologised for this one).

Since I download this, 2 months ago, I just spend my time try to get my "out-the-limits" friends into it. Kind of "I saw the bottom of bad deviant horrible taste and I want you to fall into it". This record blow my mind away. Because it's not amateur like The Shaggs, not weird pre-Lo Fi like Joe Meek or the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, it's not a music mokery like LAFMS, it's not challenging like Whitehouse or Prurient. No. It's professional. It's a real record truely, genuinely made to be pop. Even the great Lennon/McCartney Tijuana Style on Music For Pleasure (a easy listening instrumental cover album between the BBQ ambiance and the 70's porn soundtrack) is not that bad. Warning is the bottom, the worse of the worse; the "you can fail that much" record.

Even the cover got a great Turkish Star War feeling: some pink and blue halo in a stair where 2 sub-Imperial Guard stand.

Spoooooky. Yeah not really.

I said earlier they had a minor hit. Even the title got a cheap surrealism spirit: Why Can The Bodies Fly. Yeeeeees. That's good.

Honestly, it's certainly the only song from the album sounding more or less like a single . Well less than more, but still more than the rest of the album. A disco-glam sound on a sub-Sabbath riff, a Gary Glitter inspired-rhythm and some good guttural voice somewhere between Lordi and Rob Zombie. And a sub-Yes keyboard solo as well.

Yummy yummy yummy...

You understand now that the real question is not "how someone could have done that " but "how this thing could have been a hit " (even minor, it's still a hit).

Pastel Time (Again)

2009-07-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

After the mid-july 3 day heatwave, it's raining over London. Well, perfect weather for staying at home, eating homemade raisins bread with exotic jam and diving deep inside the music folder of my Portable Mighty Memory Machine. And I found that:

(yep it's a bad cap from my screen, couldn't find anywhere the original)

That is (drum roll)Entertaining Edwards, a bootleg cassette-only of demo and live and other rarities of The Pastels from 81/82. So, a poorly-recorded, not-so-well played (and of course not authorised) cassette of The Best Band In The World So Far. Yes, you want that. Well, I also dream every night of having that thing close to my C-86 cassette.

What's inside? The two first demos, a song from their first live ever, some great "Poor Me Boo Boo" 20-second track of Stephen and his guitar, their best song or so "I Like Painting" and even some truly innocent and naive and cute noise experimentations sounding like Delia Derbyshire remixing Le Forte Four. And some live introduction with the sexiest accent ever. Glasgow, my love.

Obvisously not the beginner stuff but perfect for a nerdy stupidly crazy fan like me. ("Oooh a test pressing of "I Am Alright With You" in a blank cover with the original Creation ad stick on for only £10").

By this time, The Pastels didn't had that much songs, and did like every band when it's come to make up their lake of creativity: COVERS. Yeah!

Lots of them: Modern Lovers ("Roadrunner" and its immortal punchline "Bye, Bye/Not Really") , Buzzcocks (a medley of two of them: Boredom and a really noisy I Love You, Big Dummy) , TV Personnalities (Part Time Punk with new lyrics), Troggs (Wild Thing), and among lots of VU cover, something I believe being of a cover of Sister Ray (unfortunatly less good than the live cover of Subway Sect/The Slits, but at least far better than the Joy Division one)

Yes, Sister Ray and Wild Thing. Yes, The Pastels was a really baaaaaadaaaaaass band.

Errhm well..

All that singing with the cutest childish duck voice ever.

And... And the Shangri-Las' Past Present Future. The best Shangri Las song singing by the best amateur band, that's something. That's the peak of this cassette. Incredibly... beyond I don't know what, but definitly beyond. (well I just notice than Tea Time Song is actually a semi-cover of Past Present Future)

Well actually, the real peak is another song. And I can't tell if it's a original or a cover: (Alone In The) Painbox.

Ok, I explain: on one side, we've got a almost perfect melody, obviously too perfect for the Pastels of this period. 2 verse, 2 chorus and... 1 bridge!

Do you imagine The Pastels putting a bridge in their song? No, I can't really. Or maybe around 85 or 86. Not in 82. 82 is the year of Song For Children. Heaven's Above and Tea Time Song. Not exactly the kind of with-a-bridge song.

But... On the other hand, the lyrics: "I am alone in the painbox/I wish you paint with me" and after, some great rhymes with "together" and "love forever" and some "pastels shades". Who else can dare to sing that except Stephen Pastel?

The best "staying in the whole day 'cause of the rain"-song

2009-07-06T10:35:00.001-07:00

Stoner summer

2009-07-02T13:01:00.000-07:00

YM's Top 5 Summer Songs

1) Kyuss - Green Machine

Ok, Kyuss: lonely town under summer sun; slow, heavy, desesparate. Sand, dust and no wind. How can be more summer than Kyuss?

2) Bardo Pond - Be a Fish

I saw once Invocation For My Brother Demon (officialy the only cool Kenneth Anger movie, kids) without the Mick Jagger soundtrack. Instead a slow, long and deep song remainding of Bardo Pond. So, Be a Fish...

End of the day. It still warm and the night begin. In a dirty and destroyed house, a bunch of mates, all of them high. And a fragile wall of noise, a voice close to the extinction flying above. That's Be a Fish.

(BTW, if anyone know about the soudtrack of this version of Invocation, give us a shout)

3) Acid King - Free

An unreachable Lorelei in Stahlhelm M35 riding a huge chopper in slow motion.

Think She-Devils on Wheels. Mighty girls cast as knight of Apocalypse on mighty bikes. (OK, the band of badass girls is a total cliché. But that cliché fucking rules!)

4) Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat

Commune house again. Everybody waisted again. Semi-improvised song, out of tune solo, distorded backing voice and the whole tape melt in excess. Summer end of night.

5) JJ Johnson - Theme From Cleopatra Jones

Quite the opposite of the other songs, classy, soft, well recorded, even danceable. And an other cliché: Cleopatra Jones.

A female James Bond from the ghetto, she's tough and funny, she's kicking drugs out and helping the kids to stay in the straight way. Yeah, she's in the police. But she's funky, she's riding a nice car and even say "Damned" to her superior. And that's pretty cool.

BTW, if for the summer you rather go to the beach with your parents and not with your friends to camp in the desert with loads of LSD, the two albums of the Marine Girls are totally perfect.

Maybe one of the best songs ever

2009-07-02T08:01:00.001-07:00

20 new copies and maybe some cupcakes and a kitten

2009-07-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

We are now proud to say that we have 20 more copies to give away of our kick ass-fanzine! Give us a shout at; workinginalegend@gmail.com if you fancy one (we're still working on the payment, but is still 1 pound/copy).

Summer

2009-06-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

Diana's top 5 summer songs:

Belle & Sebastian - A summer wasting

Beat Happening - Indian summer

Jens Lekman - A sweet summer's night on Hammer Hill

Castano Veloso - Alfomega

Talulah Gosh - Looking for a rainbow

For me summer have two different sides; one were you are outside in the park having a nice picnic with your friends, dancing, drinking beers, biking around the town, reading a book in the grass, taking a night swim and watching the sunset in the neverending summernights. And the other one is when you spend the days alone indoors, depressed and can't stand the heath. And I think these five songs show you both of the sides.

1. Issue Circle

2009-06-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

The first ten copy of the first issue (all gone now, some new are on the way);

The start of something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue

2009-06-15T04:37:00.000-07:00

Publishing the first note of a blog is always hard, dedicate to presention, ambition and all this things we don't really want to deal with.

We are former workers in a sub-famous Notting Hill-based second hand record shop (thereafter the name). Our wishes are to publish a fanzine in a old time way. With a help from a photocopy machine and Word instead of a typewriter (and many thanks to the library printer). We just want to answer all this questions who come to our mind when we listen to music, reading interviews, visiting a records shop. We want our fanzine to be open, dealing with our music mythology (from artist to record shop and independant labels economy). Nothing more, and certainly not something ambitious. We don't want to start something. Just write.

And this blog is just the web annex of this fanzine. To come... well we don't know yet. Certainly some articles, some videos, some pictures and some resources.