Hear the sixth track from the album Plastic Beach on the official Gorillaz Youtube page which features Gruff Rhys on the hook & De La Soul on the verse.
The album is out on March 5th here in Ireland and the 8th in other territories.
Pre-order from iTunes.
Here are some quick links to some things I wrote for Day and Night today:
Die Antwoord: South Africa’s rap-rave comedy crossover, R Kelly has 15 more episodes of Trapped in the Closet and The Five Best Mashups, Pick of the music blogs, the genius that is Selleck Waterfall Sandwich, if Wes Anderson directed Spiderman and Granny O’ Grimm’s Oscar message. Also, footballer Dion Dublin has made a musical instrument? Yup. Out.
Some, perhaps many of you will be aware that I write in the Irish Indo’s Day and Night magazine every Friday about web things: videos, music tips, sites, links and all good and funny stuff on the web. Well it all ends up on this blog every Friday and you via the magical tubes, you can read it too.
This week I pick my 20 (Ok, 21) favourite iPhone apps, bestow blog band status on Lonelady, Anders Ponders, Bon Iver’s Jazz band, and loads of other stuff. You can win Alicia Keys tickets if you’re into that. Ailbhe Malone is also writing a pop blog for the site so check that out too.
This video also features and is a must-see if you’re into music production or music in the slightest – How to recreate Smack My Bitch Up in Ableton.
The BBC’s annual poll of most-promising artists arrives around again with an air of inevitability and if you follow blogs and music closely, a sense of deja vu. The longlist was released today with 15 names (with 7 of them having featured here before) and is probably a fairly well-rounded new bands list. Already established artists like Marina and the Diamonds appear with more leftfield choices like Joy Orbison. For an alternative, try Neon Gold’s own list, of which I am digging Freelance Whales at the moment.
Here’s the list: More..»
For the last 30 days I like many other blokes, have been tentatively growing shoots of hair atop my upper lip in the vain hope of becoming more masculine and most importantly to raise funds and awareness for the Irish Cancer Society’s Action Prostate Cancer. Prostate cancer affects one in nine men in the UK and Ireland. The whole month has been defined by seeing other dudes on the street and mates with ginger, novelty, funny, binman and curled taches. It’s been a fun experience.
With thanks to 15 Movember donators, I have raised €275 so far but as today is the last day, if you have a spare fiver or tenner, please visit this link to donate by Laser or Card. It’s for a great cause. As it’s for charity, a picture of me with my mo and tickler is after the jump.
Donate to Movember and Action Prostate Cancer.
Here’s a song by Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head about facial hair (OK, it’s about beards but still the sentiment is there) to encourage you:
Fabulous interview from Hi-Fi Popcorn Bobby with Clues who play here next week. That interview also throws up this gem of a video which you really must watch right now.
In other news – Public Enemy are using Sellaband to raise $250,000 for their next album. I wrote about it here. Loads of other stuff over there including Death Mob Dublin, Google Wave explained, Jesus Christ (The Indie Band) and a bonkers Múm video.
Don’t forget, tomorrow as part of HWCH, I’ll be participating in panels and talks galore with brilliant people like Anthony from The Hype Machine, Sean from Drowned in Sound, UnaRocks and James Foley of Record of the Day. The Button Factory – 2pm.
Later that night – Banter hosted by Jim with myself and Una discussing blogs and DJing after between the HWCH bands from 10:45pm. RSVP here.
After the jump you’ll find the bands on my schedule for HWCH in case you don’t know what you’re looking for yourself. I’m in New York for CMJ next week so no updates til then. More..»
Before normal service resumes, a little bit of housekeeping..
Nialler9 won the Best Music Site at the Irish Web Awards 2009 on Saturday! Thanks to all who were involved be it in voting, judging, organising the thing (Mr. Mulley, Rick and co.) It’s the best goddamn web awards going. Sure where else would you get bags of crisps and rude t-shirts thrown into the audience? Great stuff. Full ist of winners here.
This weekend sees Hard Working Class Heroes kick off again and there are a number of things I’m involved in worthy of your time. As well as participating in the speed sessions in The Button Factory on Saturday from 10.30am – 1pm along with the people listed on the left here, there will be an interesting panels taking place in the same venue at 2pm. Media – Why The First, Last And Middle Words Are Online will take a look at the impact of online music coverage from MP3 blogs to music sites and how these websites affect bands. Chaired by Jim Carroll, the panel will consist of myself, Sean Adams (Drowned in Sound – the UK’s premier indie music site?), Anthony Volodkin (creator of The Hype Machine – seriously interesting dude), James Foley of the online music industry newsletter Record of The Day and Una Mullally (Unarocks, Sunday Tribune, Soundcheck) It’s a great mix of people so try and make it along if you can. (Free entry for anyone with a valid day / weekend wristband). More panels here.
Also later on that night at 8.30pm in The Twisted Pepper, myself and Una will be joining Jim once again for the 4th Banter discussion “Meet the new media cats” which will see us poking around in the Venn diagram between blogs, Twitter and the established media. Admission is FREE but please register your interest as capacity is limited. We’ll both be DJing in between the acts on the night in the venue there for HWCH. Playing in the venue are: Valerie Francis, Hunter-Gatherer, The Spook Of The Thirteenth Lock, Cities, Kyon, Yes Cadets, The Dying Seconds and The Holy Roman Army.
Finally, next week, I’ll be hitting CMJ in New York so expect some bits and pieces on that then.
Finally: here’s a Youtube audio of the excellent ‘Slow Life’, Grizzly Bear featuring Victoria of Beach House’s contribution to the New Moon Twilight soundtrack. A few more from Thom Yorke, Lykke Li and Bon Iver & St. Vincent after the jump.
There was a bit of interest about this on Twitter so I thought I’d put the details here. Taking place tonight is the debate run by the Internet Society and the Alternative Music Society: “Current Anti-Piracy Campaigns are Unsustainable and Unethical”. It happens in the the Debating Chamber in the Graduates Memorial Building (GMB) in Trinity College at 7p.m. It’s free in.
There will be 4 speakers including a member of Chewing on Tinfoil whose album was released on the New-York based label, Quote Unquote Records, a donation-based record label which releases all its music for free giving the option to donate to the band.
There’s a Q+A and an open forum after.
“Highly popular”
“Influential”
“Internet-related”
Just some of the words used to describe er… me, in an interview with Jemsite. Ava from the site contacted me about doing a quick interview about my blog which you can read here. Read the real reason I split from Jordan… Oops sorry, wrong script.
Read the interview: The Music Blogger that Could.
Despite what a short-sighted article in the Sunday Times over the weekend would have you believe, Twitter is much more than “a vanity project” for bloggers like myself. It’s where I (and many others) share and get links, recommendations, news and short bits that aren’t worth a full blog post. It’s where people make connections, share knowledge and all that good stuff that makes life a little bit better.
Sure, you could lazily focus on the mundane tweets that everyone emits, but that’s like thinking all music is moribund because you only listen to Spin FM or that all TV is trash because you only watch Big Brother. Graham Linehan addressed the newspaper Twitter syndrome last week.
In light of this, I thought it was worthwhile collating some of the more interesting tweets over the past week on the blog for those who don’t use Twitter and those missed it the first time. Of course, if you want more of this from me, you can follow me on Twitter. Just don’t do it boost my ego ;)
Let me know if you want more of these roundups.
