BOOMerang Kid

We (Sort Of) Wish You Well In Your Retirement…

2011-08-19T10:41:00.002+01:00

Of all the people in the world to age, get a bus pass and retire, I didn't think it'd be David Bowie. Then again, maybe this ability to be properly popstar fabulous and completely human is why he’s so awesome. At the risk of sounding a bit ballsy, if you’re yet to take a voyage to planet Bowie, do not let this talk of retirement put you off. You’ll learn that it’s impossible for Ziggy Stardust to ever return to Mars without a trace, his music is as relevant as ever.

Though I purport to be an expert on this music sort of thing, I admit I was a little late to the Bowie party. Make that – a lot late. This was no case of being held up by Tube signal failures, I was held up by 23 years of brain signal failures. Till last year (breathe), he was just the guy that sang “ch-ch-ch-changes”, often at one in the morning as I pranced about some indie club, the guy with chevrons for eyebrows that played the Goblin King in Labyrinth. Yep, last year, the legendary DAVID BOWIE meant nothing to me bar sticky dance floors and bricking it behind the couch, 6-year-old style. If you see yourself in this at all, it’s time to do something about it. Turn and face that strain.

My Bowie-piphany happened one fateful, unsuspecting day. While dodging the office mice, I hear this tight, hot rhythm section on the Q stereo, followed by an arresting, frightening vocal. The hectic guitar riffs sound better than Foo Fighters’ latest, the title track grows more dystopian than Joy Division, the lyrics – something about a European canon – are more spacy and insane than even Muse. I’m finally hearing Bowie’s 10^th album – Station To Station for the first time.

While editing the reissue review, I’m discovering that, long before juggling crystal balls surrounded by Jim Henson puppets, David Bowie recorded this album under the influence of red peppers, milk and cocaine exclusively. He has no recollection of how this LP came to being. Given the circumstances, he was out of his intergalactic mind. So much so he wasn’t even him, he had appointed himself the Thin White Duke. I wash down some M&S carrot crudités with chocolate Yazoo thinking, This behaviour is absolutely more rock’n’roll than Kurt Cobain, Rihanna and Marilyn Manson put together.

Over the next 40 minutes, I hear gut-wrenching ballads, delicious pop, heavy rock, foot-stomping funk, disco – all in an album of six songs. I cast aside my double-CD version of Lady Gaga’s one-and-a-half-hour, 22-track debut album, shrieking THIS IS AMAZING! Soon enough I’m telling everyone “DAVID BOWIE’S AMAZING! Also, check out this film Star Wars. I’d say – cult classic.” Don’t even get me started on the art, the hair, the outfits. Up until this moment in time, I’ve been seriously visually impaired. What am I saying? I’ve been blind.

Now converted, I’m all about the Bowie – Aladdin Sane, Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory, Young Americans… I realise there’s nothing stopping me from being Elton John, Mick Jagger and Lou Reed at once. Everything makes sense where it didn’t before (Mika, at least). Station To Station is one of the most exciting records I hear in 2010, and it landed in 1976. I can’t frickin’ wait for all the Bowie I’m yet to discover. There’s so much in the Bowie Canon of Amazing, I never need to worry about running out…

Or so I think until David Bowie’s biographer – Paul Trynka – nukes me with an A-bomb: Bowie’s off to sit in his armchair, watch Countdown and eat baked beans on toast till the end of days. And deservedly so – God only knows the guy’s influenced nearly everyone who’s succeeded him in the charts. He’s even influenced the people who influenced him. Well impressive. But here’s hoping he’ll do a Jay-Z, following this announcement with several albums, a global hit a la Empire State Of Mind, a Glastonbury headline slot and the biggest musical collaboration since Madonna kissed Britney.

As he once profoundly stated: “Time may change me/But I can’t trace time.” Check out these five tracks below and prepare to have your mind abducted by an artist who transcends time, space and cosmic universes…

1. Ashes To Ashes. Unfortunately once sampled by Samantha Mumba, this electro gem is felt all over Duran Duran, Hurts and La Roux’s In For The Kill. Bowie scored a Number 1 here with a single he described to NME as, “a popular nursery rhyme about space men becoming junkies.” How quaint.

2. Drive-In Saturday. A doo-wop, Christmas-y number about watching porn. Morrissey loves a bit of it, he even did his own version despite the fact Bowie’s no longer a vegetarian. I know – Morrissey actually liking something, it must be better than… well anything really.

3. Moonage Daydream. From Ziggy Stardust, this rock behemoth of a song really is quite mental. It’s merely one track on a concept album where the messiah is an alien who does a lot of drugs. One-hit-wonders Babylon Zoo may as well have called Spaceman – We Love You Bowie. This is four minutes and 35 seconds that form the blueprint for Lady Gaga’s career.

4. Oh You Pretty Things. One listen of the Beatles-y piano pop melody and Bowie’s falsetto and there you have it: the invention of Britpop. Indeed Blur, Pulp and, in turn, Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters, Wild Beasts and Muse owe their life to this classic from 1971’s Hunky Dory. Brett Anderson? You’ve got some explaining to do…

5. “Heroes”. Written by Bowie and Brian Eno, the title track from his so-called “Berlin era” was influenced heavily by Neu! Dark, brooding, experimental electronica, The Killers, LCD Soundsystem and New Order live between the synths.

Earth To Madonna – A Telecommunication

2011-08-10T12:37:00.002+01:00

…Hello Madonna … It's me... Downward dog once if you can hear me… You came to me in ’98 via MTV’s plays of Frozen… you had henna squiggles on your hands, crows bursting out your chest, and a winter coat that transformed you into a dog… You were on a beach playing some sort of contorted version of Twister by yourself… You never cracked a smile… Must’ve been all those puy lentils for breakfast…

I was mesmerised. I was scared shitless. You the Maleficent to my Sleeping Beauty, I pricked my finger on my plastic CD cover of Ray Of Light and fell into an eternal slumber, entrapped by your pop genius; your own brand of holistic mumbo jumbo communicated via Eastern hums and foreign tongues, which I have never mastered but attempted to with religious obsession… You led me to the discovery of hummus. In Sainsbury’s. It was amazing…

Ever since the Queen of Pop turned World of Witchdoctor, Madonna and I have had telepathic communicative ability. I knew it all along. Now I have proof. Just weeks ago I was reminiscing about how much I love Ray Of Light’s producer William Orbit. It started with the new Washed Out album, the opening ocean-skimming beats of which recalled in my erudite mind the work of, erm, All Saints. It may be a genre-defining, paradigm of the latest hipster movement, yes. But it’s so almost a carbon copy of 2000’s second biggest hit single Pure Shores, which Orbit produced for the Appleton sisters, Melanie Blatt and whatsherface. Had Danny Boyle yet to direct The Beach, this Washed Out song would be a soundtrack contender.

One trigger leads to another. I’m compiling playlists, lining up Blur’s 13 on repeat, whiling away office hours revisiting Ray Of Light and Orbit’s remix of Barber’s Adagio For Strings. Yes! Here I am! Going into William Orbit! All this replenished capacity for beach-friendly electronica and Karmic pop chanting has me feeling guilty about missing three weeks of Ashtanga yoga, fearful I no longer own a red Kabbalah ribbon (my piece of string got lost in the fell-down-a-loo incident of 2008). I go hunting in my stash of travel sewing kits for red thread but find maroon.

Regardless of my misplaced spirituality, Madonna must have intercepted my Orbital-y signals. Obviously, as the internet on Sunday claims that Madonna and Orbit may reunite on a new record. I know what you’re thinking – 2011’s Most Influential In Music list has got my name all over it. Yet, I’m not sure whether my telepathic tips were such a good idea. Madonna’s misinterpreted what the (Buddhist version of) hell I was doing.

Sitting in a vegan hippy joint in Camden, I consider my reaction. There are shots of wheatgrass for sale; invigorating, earthy, weird. Hemp and incense surrounds the dreadlocked, multi-coloured, knit-wearing community. They look a bit 1998. The days when Rabbi Madge was trying to repopularise the Star of David are behind us. Richard Dawkins is the new religion, the recession is anti-bottled water/pro-meat casseroles, and yoga’s something you do on a Wii Fit… in front of a telly. William Orbit-era Madonna, while once ahead of the game, now redolent of time and place. It’s not even “vintage”; it’s moth-eaten.

See, Madonna’s not like other women. She doesn’t need to do a spring revisit to the wardrobe and inspect yesteryear’s garments for potential trend comebacks. Madonna didn’t go sifting for shoulder-padded jackets when, in 2008, La Roux took a ride on the Tardis to the year 1987. Madonna isn’t today looking at Nirvana t-shirts in Urban Outfitters exclaiming, “Thank Goa, grunge is back in – I’ll dig out my Doc Martens and see if Shirley Manson wants to come round for tea.” No.

Madonna is about reinvention. She takes the great morsels of bygone eras (Marlene Dietrich, Andy Warhol, Abba…) and mutates them into something state-of-the-art, contemporary. What is Madonna if not the avant-garde pioneer of popular culture; the commercially viable Yoko Ono? What’s to say this re-partnering isn’t an instance of a revival we only have room for in our wildest dreams? Vanilla Ice, the Wispa, EastEnders’ Dirty Den, The (New) Cars… Next in line of awkward comebacks is Madonna, spinning Cream Ibiza Classics in the kitchen, scouring for RyanAir deals to Balearic seas. Just as coffee tables don’t need a second helping of the Sex book, the world can’t require more Madonna above a highway, braless and dancing convulsively, shaking her beaded Herbal Essences curls to trance beats. Not now. Not ever.

Madonna! Telekinesis me now. Stop gatecrashing my iTunes trips down memory lane. Time to get ahead of the curve again. “Madonna secures guest vocalists The XX and Warpaint. Inside the Haus of Gaga. Relocated to the set of The Dark Knight Rises.” This is the sort of Biblical headline I want to read. You have many reincarnations yet to explore. Here are some humble suggestions…

Madonna surfs “Chillwave”: If Washed Out also screamed William Orbit at you, bite the bullet and bag the new genre’s posterboy himself – Ernest Greene. Also dubbed Glo-Fi, the Chillwave movement offers the Donnie Darko superpower of time travel. Exist in 1980 and 2011 simultaneously and defy time and space. It’s like Polaroid gone digital. (New merchandise alert!).
Madonnicana: Bon Iver would like to invite you to a log cabin to toast some marshmallows and reminisce about your past loves. Herein lies potential for fashioning accessories out of wood, popularising bearskin caps (strictly faux) and becoming the first ever female popstar with a full beard. Beautiful Razor… coming to a future Twilight soundtrack.
M-androgyny: See if Prince wants a revolution, call Jack White, grab your Gibson Les Paul and Slash hat and start shredding Led Zeppelin IV. Alison Mosshart was Best Man at Kate Moss’s wedding and Lady Gaga looks like Al Pacino on her new single sleeve. You know what it feels like for a girl, time to know what it feels like for a rock God. Bender that gender.
Freakfolk Madonna: Join Animal Collective, MGMT, Twin Shadow and Ariel Pink and get your twee on. Fuse any sort of sound together (the more household objects/old Nintendo effects the better) in a psychedelic jam of newer age hippy proportions. Hunker down in Brooklyn, NY with the Hasids and wackos who gaze at their moccasins through non-prescription glasses.
Dubstep-onna: Burial, Four Tet, Magnetic Man and James Blake provide the urban sounds of nocturnal London, deserted tube stations and abandoned donner kebabs. It’s difficult to dance to, but who needs a leotard when you can seduce the masses at 138 beats per minute? Human nature, innit.

Expendable-ish

2010-08-11T15:12:00.000+01:00

The Expendables knows exactly what it is: pure action entertainment. As Jaz found out at last week's pre-release screening, the plot is somewhat… expendable. Certain scenes, however, notably the showstopping Willis/Schwarzenegger/Stallone face off (worth the price of entry alone), are borderline spoof but nevertheless hilarious. Beyond the exhilarating explosions and the sheer physical brute of supporting man Jason Statham is the unfathomable prospect of so much mega moviestar muscle on one screen. As entirely one dimensional as Dolph Lundgren’s acting, but nevertheless a thrilling ride: Space Cowboys on anabolic steroids.

Jaz

xx

Sex And The City 2 - Fashions Fade; Style Remains

2010-05-28T14:45:00.001+01:00

It may not have been Times Square but Jaz was certainly in a New York state of mind last night. Mind the schmaltz and cliché. You’ll have to if you go and see Sex And The City 2. Although momentarily enjoyable for any fan (especially a fan with tickets to the Leicester Square, London premiere and access to unlimited amounts of Moet champagne and strangely… Kinder Buenos?!), it’s safe to say that this sequel is almost a parody of the once forward-thinking, trend-defying US series.

It opens with a hoot of a gay wedding. Totally over the top it’s like a Graham Norton/Andrew Lloyd Webber version of Fiddler On The Roof ratcheted up to 11 on the camp-ometer. The sight of Liza Minnelli doing her own side-splitting rendition of Beyonce’s Single Ladies is inspired. By the look in Minnelli’s eyes it seems she can’t quite believe it herself. But really, that level of meshugge can’t be beat. And therein lies one of many problems. From then on, the gags just can’t match. The laugh is, in Samantha Jones terminology, too hard too soon.

More to the point, it may not be a surprise that ole wacky Liza is game for a giggle and some self-mockery. After all, she is starting to look just a tad short of a full shilling; let’s hope she wasn’t actually a consolation prize for the real Beyonce. But it is a colossal shock that the powerhouse core four are so willing to become slapstick versions of the sophisticated, multi-dimensional and downright inspirational personas that formerly ruled the small screen.

Take Miranda Hobbes: in order to become markedly more attractive and “fun” she must first give up the day job as a lawyer. Career women are boring and ugly? Now there’s something none of us ever want to face up to. Carrie Bradshaw: the eternal slave to fashion and “single girl” has by her own admission swapped clothes shopping for furniture investing since becoming Mrs John Preston. Snore? Charlotte York-Goldenblatt: gave up her career to make the perfect family and can’t even manage that without hiring a temptress for a nanny whom she’s convinced Harry may run off with. Risking infidelities for convenience? And Samantha Jones: she got old and spends every waking minute popping pills and swapping moisturizer for pureed yams to maintain her sex appeal. Nobody wants to screw a woman who looks… 50? Even Stanford and Anthony want to be together forever – obviously because all gay men just settle for the one gay man they know?

Are these not the mythical stereotypes Sex And The City so successfully busted and put to bed? Has Sex And The City come full circle? Sex Without The City perhaps. We thought those shoes had been filled by suburbia’s lackluster Desperate Housewives.

And speaking of suburbia, where is New York in all of this? The Big Apple always felt (alongside Manolo Blahnik) like the fifth lady. Similar to the four girls, however, the City has also been diminished to a substance-less pulp. And that’s when it’s even in sight. Most of this movie takes place in Abu Dhabi. Don’t be misled in thinking that a smart move to pay homage to the luxe brands that are starting to make a comeback now the worst of the recession has passed (SATC’s release may play a part in the timely opening of the new and excessive W1 palais du Louis Vuitton).

Regrettably as the girls appear over a desert sand dune, it’s like a TV appeal by Primark, not a mirage of majestic style. That Sex And The City-mimicking Debenhams advert that’s currently doing the rounds actually gives stylist Patricia Field more credit than she’s due in this case. Gone is the City and gone is the Fashion. And if you’re looking for the drinks, well this is Abu Dhabi. Apparently “the new Middle East” doesn’t do cosmopolitan (or the cocktail for that matter).

Michael Patrick King et al worked so hard to master the moments of the show. Now, you can’t help but feel the lack of care to maintain some of its dignity. Aidan Shaw – once great love of Carrie Bradshaw, now another mistake (albeit not a “Big” one). Once bidded one last fond farewell by Carrie outside a store with a baby in harness attached to his belly, he has become nothing more than a temptation for Carrie in a ridiculous Eastern fantasy set-up that’s less Casablanca, more Aladdin: Arabian Blue Nights, or, to quote Samantha, Lawrence Of My Labia. Yep, that was the best they could do.

If you ever wondered what happened to George W Bush-isms since Obama’s inauguration we now have the answer. I’m not one for the Politically Correct police but much of the situational comedy here was cut from the same cloth as G Dubs’ Administration. It’s uncomfortable to say the least when sex mad Samantha winds up encircled by traditional Arab men watching her scrounge around on the souk floor collecting the spilled condoms from her broken Birkin, while she tells them, in a voice once heroic and defiant, “fuck you”. Jests at women in burkhas eating french fries are an uneasy reminder of America’s often monochrome view of world affairs.

The moral of the story is don’t meddle with the programme we loved. Because we loved it, with every bone in our body. And as the girls took one last stroll down a Manhattan sidewalk in Season 6 it hurt. Some cried, some mourned, but the programme gave us memories to hold on to forever. Sadly these have now been spoiled by new plot twists and some over-egging of the pretzel. I’d like to say this sequel is a must for any fan but the spinning of the Sex And The City yarn is failing to convince. To call on an old classic piece of fashion advice: sometimes less is more.

Jaz xxx

We thought we were mad but then we met... Paloma

2010-05-06T16:19:00.002+01:00

"I don't really consider myself to be part of a 'thing'. It's not new that women can sing. It's a trend designed by record companies and the only similarity is that we all have the same genitals..." - Paloma Faith

Jaz came across the ultra glamorous Paloma in the least glamorous of locations... the basement below the stage of Glasgow's O2 Academy. We sat at what appeared to be an old school desk scrawled upon with indecipherable messages as Miss Faith considered her pet hates, success to date and slightly Fatal Attraction-esque obsession with one Paolo Nutini. This together with her style consciousness, awkward chuckling and self-criticism rendered her rather normal in the eyes of Jaz.

The thing is Paloma Faith is not as mental as we were hoping. Just a bit clumsy - which was clear as she made no less than three false starts on one song during that evening's set and struggled to balance an enormous feather carnival headdress atop her crown. All in all, however, the soulful songstress delivers a showstopping theatrical extravaganza, which includes a believable cover of Etta James' At Last, an attempt at The Beatles' You Never Give Me Your Money and a version of Paolo Nutini's No Other Way which suggests that a duet between these two Jools Holland favourites would probably be a good idea. The full Q interview is at: http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/05/interview_a_mad_half_hour_with.html

If you don't catch Paloma's critically acclaimed set at a festival in the next few months she'll be hitting the road again in the UK this winter so get booking now. For more of Jaz's photos of the gig head to our Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boomerangkid/sets/72157623545257353/

Jaz

xxx

Local Natives Monkey Around

2010-04-12T16:55:00.001+01:00

Last month Jaz hooked up with LA band Local Natives for some hummus and banter. Bearing in mind the guys had been on the road for about 4 months in total it was at times quite an odd conversation but entertaining nonetheless. Due to the extremely packed out nature of King Tut's that night, Jaz failed to get many photos from the front. The decision to pack up the Canon was made in prompt response to the first of many dousings of beer. Jaz is sceptical about the nutritional purposes of ale for hair nourishment but is resoundingly opposed to its effects on expensive electrical appliances.

"We played five cool barns in Iowa. That one was huge, octagonal and 120 years old. It was incredible." - Local Natives' Taylor Rice

For the full interview head over to Q's website: http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/04/interview_local_natives_monkey.html

Local Natives' album Gorilla Manor is out now and has seen them compared to Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend. Check out their harmonious single Airplanes as performed at Maida Vale for Radio 1...

Jaz x

P.S. Jaz has also been busy chattering away to Paloma Faith and Ellie Goulding. Coming to a screen near you very soon :)

Rebel Grrrl!!!

2010-03-22T13:20:00.001Z

Kate Nash LIVE!

Some weeks ago now Jaz was invited to Kate Nash's first gig in two years. As previously reported on BOOMerangKid, the once nerdy mockney rhymer has abandoned whatever it is that made her famous in the first place for a more rebellious image. And you can't help but wonder why. Like Lily Allen ditching prom dresses and trainers for Chanel - it doesn't matter how much elegance she feigns, we will never forget that she's actually a chav with a mouth on her like a schoolkid from South Park. It just doesn't convince. Never much of a fan of Kate Nash Mk I, Jaz is left a little unsure as to whether Kate Nash Mk II is a career killer or a vast improvement...

“I don’t know if I can still play but fuck it!” she shrieks to signal the start of a rather different set, featuring mostly unheard material. If her recent participation in a band called The Receeders isn’t enough of a giveaway, her abrasive yelping on new material from a forthcoming sophomore release confirms that it’s goodbye cutesy ditties, hello riot-grrrl punk. That would at least explain the bold ditching of floral prints for a monochrome bat-winged uniform together with Lego Man bob and lashing of Hollywood red lipstick. It just screams (or rather, shrills) Karen O – and, less fortunately at times, The Exorcist’s Linda Blair.

For the full rambunctious review, head over to The List magazine's website:
http://www.list.co.uk/article/24405-kate-nash/

For more pics from the gig get yourselves Flickr-ing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boomerangkid/sets/72157623453634765/

Jaz x x

In This Light And On This Tourbus

2010-03-19T14:04:00.003Z

Jaz has been a little lost at sea this past week continuing in our battle for worldwide media domination. It's a rollercoaster ride that's recently taken us to The Scottish Daily Mail of all places where everything is weighed according to the extent of damages to the truest symbol of morality - the British taxpayer. But finally we are getting the ball rolling once more. Don't kick a dog when it's down... it'll only rise to bite you in the arse. Or something like that.

"Chris generally hates music. He's pretty bored of it. I think he only likes the music he wants to create so he doesn't want to listen to other bands." - Russell Leetch, Editors

So Editors - the band who make Les Miserables look like a comedy - have yet to find the cure to their moroseness, then? Shame. We met with the Brummy foursome last week during their latest Academy tour. Their third album In This Light And On This Evening saw the group discover synths and bagged them another Number 1 record. Jaz is still incapable of listening to it with a straight face but the less said of that the better. We'll let the NME review do the talking there: http://www.nme.com/reviews/editors/10884

For the full interview head over to Q: http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/03/editors_interview_in_this_ligh.html

Jaz's photos are to be published by Editors (or their website designers) in the near future so for copyright reasons we will not direct you to them now. Suffice to say their appearance hasn't suffered as drastic a makeover as their music. Jaz also cannot post anything from In This Light And On This Evening (and not for copyright reasons). Here is Bullets - the highlight from their debut album:

Jaz x

Introducing... Lauren Pritchard

2010-03-12T14:55:00.001Z

The state of Tennessee has changed the face of country, rock'n'roll, the blues and soul music. It's little wonder then that Jackson-born Lauren Pritchard takes her influences from many a genre. The production on Stuck could get quite a few boots shaking in Camps Duffy and Adele, and with an old-before-her-time voice that sounds rasped by a bottle of Tennessee's finest Jack Daniels, the London-via-La La Land songstress has been able to scoop a deal with Island records.

That'll be why she's bagged a producer in Marcus Mumford (of M&S - the band, not the supermarket chain) and pinched Ed Harcourt's piano for country epic lead single When The Night Kills The Day... coming to a television finale of Grey's Anatomy/One Tree Hill/Other Hypersensitive US Sitcom soon. She may get journalists coining her as a Janis Joplin meets Karen Carpenter type but Jaz bets you never heard either of them remixed to dubstep delight. Hurry over to RCRDLBL asap to download the Stuck remix:

http://rcrdlbl.com/2010/03/11/premiere_lauren_pritchard_stuck_various_production_remix_

For more info on Pritchard including gig dates visit the mighty MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/laurenpritchardmusic

Jaz x

FLASH ah-ah, Saviours of the Universe! It's MGMT...

2010-03-10T10:51:00.001Z

Jaz got a sneak peak of MGMT's forthcoming second release Congratulations, which - following their splendiferously technicoloured Oracular Spectacular - is one of the most anticipated albums of this year. If you were hoping for more of the same with album number two you're in for a bit of a shock.

Kicking off with what sounds like the backdrop for a Middle-Eastern market place, new track Flash Delirium is still psychedelic except with more of a Beach Boys surf rock air - think Help Me Rhonda on acid... at an ELO concert. With one song on the album titled Brian Eno, it's safe to say that the New York duo have set their sights on out-experimenting the electro-ambient rock superproducer in terms of innovation. On creating the album which hits the UK on 12th April, Andrew Vanwyngarden has said: "It's so great to be around such amazing and unusual musical minds". Among other catalysts, we're sure...

Transcend space and time and join MGMT on a psychedelic spiral odyssey... Alternatively download the track for free at www.whoismgmt.com

Or if you're running low on iPod space you could just stare at this for a few minutes for similar sensational vibrations...

Jaz x

Re-made/Re-modelled

2010-03-09T13:25:00.000Z

"The M&S advert with At The River is unforgivable. I've lost count of the number of people who've told us they got married to that song and now watching their wedding's like seeing an ad for chilli con carne or ice cream and chocolate sauce." - Tom Findlay, Groove Armada

In case you've yet to hear us banging on about how marvellous it all is that Groove Armada have taken a leap into the night and rediscovered the '80s and Roxy Music, Jaz shall hammer the point home once more for your benefit. We met with Tom Findlay, one half of the Superstylin' duo, to bond over our mutual Manchester alumni status while discussing the dark times that influenced their bold redirection, the celebs they've been rubbing shoulders with ahead of Lovebox and the Sugababe who never took up their offer of a second date. Oh the tribulations of being a superstar DJ.

Check out the full interview: http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/03/interview_with_groove_armada_r.html

And why not listen to the Will Young featuring album closer History while you're at it:

Jaz x

Brighton Rock

2010-03-08T21:06:00.003Z

Grunge has found a new home far from Seattle, Washington, Steve Albini and Sub Pop records. Hence the nosebleed. Pearl Jam, Pixies, Nirvana, Sonic Youth... all artists lining the walls and dominating the vinyl collections of two noiseniks from Brighton: Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell, aka Blood Red Shoes. Just as well Nevermind never really goes out of mind, then. It's like the summer of 1991 all over again!

Now on album number two Fire Like This, which was released last Monday, this terrible twosome have been sneaking their way into Zane Lowe playlist territory (and strangely River Island's instore soundtrack; Jaz evidently took the wrong detour on a recent shopping spree). Here they are keeping it simple with the non mood-enhancing but nevertheless thrillingly raw Light It Up...

Jaz x

P.S. If the above is of interest, it may also be worth digging out your yellow smiley face hoodies for Courtney Love whose touring the UK with the "re-formed" Hole in the Spring. With Love as the only original member, it's not so much a re-formation as an attempt to take a leaf out of the Sugababes authoritative book in how to flog a dead horse...

Happy Sunday! Grovel Grovel...

2010-03-07T14:20:00.001Z

Jaz awoke to mild panic that we'd forgotten Mother's Day among all the past week's gig overload this morning. Alas, it's not til next week so we have some time for ample fishy preparation. But cue our apology to all you wonderful blogees for the slower week that's just passed. There is much to make up for it in store: Groove Armada, Mumford & Sons, Local Natives... In addition, Jaz was invited to watch Kate Nash's first gig in two years last night. The review is pending publication and will be with you very soon :) And if that wasn't enough, we'll be chatting to those cheery Editors blokes in Glasgow this week. If only time would stop for just five minutes...

On that note, we leave you with a modern classic: Stillness Is The Move by Dirty Projectors from last year's Bitte Orca. Absolutely sublime - even Beyonce's sister Solange is a fan...

Jaz x

Bonkers

2010-03-06T15:50:00.000Z

Jaz isn't big into demographics but suspects that there may be a trend emerging of shorter life expectancies among certain Western communities. How else to explain today's news that 24-year-old Dizzee Rascal has signed a book deal and will be relating his memoirs (thus far) via autobiography before he even gets a Number 1 album? This begs the question: when do we now qualify as ready for penning our 'life' history?

If, dreading a long arduous train journey, you went to the autobiography section of your nearest WH Smith ten years ago, you'd maybe be looking at Nelson Mandela, Audrey Hepburn, potentially moaning Morrissey. Don't get us wrong, it doesn't strictly have to do with age: what valuable tidbits can we really be learning from Lulu, for instance (besides the latest 2-for-1s from Morrisons)? But the former had substantial stories to tell and not just a fast buck to make. Much like Greatest Hits album, autobiographies no longer signal the swan song in a person's career. So, think before you breathe that sigh of relief as your eyes pass over the latest chapter in the Katie Price saga.

Sure, Dizzee has apparently had a difficult upbringing, but will that enrich our experience when grinding like muppets to hits such as Bonkers, Dirtee Cash and Dance Wiv Me? Next time we rap along to Holiday... I know you're really busy and I know you've got plans/But are you really too busy for a sun tan... knowledge of the fact that Dizzee once got stabbed on vacation in Cyprus is sure to get our summer juices flowing. Really Dizzee, could you not have just gone on Piers Morgan's Life Stories instead?

Jaz x

SOS: ABBA Returns (Sort of)

2010-03-05T16:33:00.000Z

Jaz doesn't believe in guilty pleasures: ELO, ABBA, the Bee Gees? We say, bring back Studio 54. But perhaps LA trio Music Go Music do feel slightly sheepish every time Donna Summer's Love To Love You Baby is spotted on their iPod by an unforgiving hip acquaintance. Otherwise why would they exist under the pretense of alter egos with names such as Kamer Maza and Gala Bell? What's wrong with Dave and Meredith? It's quite simple: Dave and Meredith are neither funky, nor groovy. But Kamer Maza... now that's foxy.

If the name Music Go Music wasn't indication enough, this collective are digging disco, baby. And good pastel-coloured, psychedelic, one-stop-voyage-to-heaven disco at that. The debut album Expressions will be arriving in April. Previous single Warm In The Shadows comes over all Blondie Atomic meets ABBA Voulez-vous. Go on, have a listen. We won't tell ;)

Now, where did we put that Afro wig...

Jaz x

Compare The Rabbit Dot Com

2010-03-04T21:54:00.002Z

Do you often find yourself mistaking some bands for certain others due to their ridiculously near-identical silly names? Have you been getting your Black Kids mixed up with your Black Lips, crossing your Howling Bells with your Broken Bells or swapping your MGMT for your N.E.R.D? If so, you are not alone. Jaz has become so infuriated by a particularly bad case of Multiple Bandname Disorder recently that we've felt it necessary to safeguard society from what's fast becoming a global epidemic: Bunny Flu.

"I in true Glaswegian fashion made the error of shooting my mouth off about a homegrown beardy Scottish collective called Frightened Rabbit only to stand bruised and bashful as six stylishly clad Brooklynites took centre stage under the nom de plume White Rabbits. Seriously, what the buck teeth is that all about?"

That's right. The suffix Rabbit is due to overcome the ampersand and quite possible the 'The' as most popular requirement for rockgroup christenings. To help you correctly distinguish between White Rabbits and Frightened Rabbit, Jaz has written a full rant-fueled guide over on Who's Jack: http://www.whosjack.org/?p=4543

Also useful are the following visual aids:-

Exhibit A: White Rabbits with Percussion Gun from second album It's Frightening...

Exhibit B: Frightened Rabbit with Swim Until You Can't See Land from third album (just released on Monday) The Winter Of Mixed Drinks...

Be safe...

Jaz x

My Beloved Monster And Me

2010-03-04T00:37:00.001Z

A brilliant day of Tweeting with Ellie Goulding, going out for sushi, catching Michael Cera and Steve Buscemi in a side-slapping movie (Year In Revolt) was this evening perfectly topped off with a soul-swelling experience watching Mumford & Sons play their biggest date ever. Does it get better than that?! Well, yes actually. Jaz can now share with you the one, the only... La GaGa! She came, she saw, she conquered...

Seriously, why debate the merits of introducing sex education in primary schools when you can escort your child to watch a former burlesque performer cavort around a Warhol-inspired backdrop of multi-coloured dildos singing lines like “Inject me… I like it rough… take a bite of my bad girl meat”? ‘What’s that mummy?’ is not a question easily avoided when you’re staring a 50-foot projection of a leather-clad gimp in the face.

... and she's in full review on Who's Jack: http://www.whosjack.org/?p=4496

Enjoy - we know we did!

xxx

P.S More from Mumford & Sons to come. And don't worry - we haven't forgotten about that Groove Armada interview... we were just too busy trying to catch a certain Marcus Mumford's eye.

Introducing Freelance Whales

2010-03-03T08:23:00.001Z

Is it a banjo? Is it a harmonium? Is it a glockenspiel? Apparently it's all three. As someone not quite old enough to remember the Medieval Times and thus not qualified to correctly distinguish such instruments, this is good news for Jaz. It's also good news for fans of that multi-instrumentalist Arcade Fire-esque anthemic aura. From Queens, New York and currently milling around the blogosphere quite nicely are five-piece Freelance Whales (what were they thinking... would there really have been something wrong with In-house Hippopotami?! ). With more hushed vocals than Arcade Fire's Win Butler, the sound is much gentler and slightly infused with a hint of Postal Service, The Shins and that other marine-titled outfit Noah And The Whale. Perfect for a Juno-type soundtrack or a Channel 4 documentary, their finger-picked folk will pluck at your heartstrings.

Single Generator Second Floor from debut album Weathervane is set to land in the UK on 22 March. It comes courtesy of the same people who gave us glorious first releases from the assured talents of White Lies and Mumford & Sons.

For more information head over to the mecca of MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/freelancewhales

Jaz x

Bring Back THE FACE!

2010-03-02T17:53:00.002Z

Jaz has had a long day coming down from the synonymously euphoric and energy-sapping experience of La GaGa last night - not to mention the interview also squeezed in beforehand with Groove Armada. But stumbling around the office-come-boudoir of BOOMeranKid HQ, we find material for a worthy post. Jaz has come across a relic of the past: a copy of once greatly adored and much missed glorious glossy, The Face. What was once a magazine of iconic covers and au courant material that would put i-D to shame is now but a distant memory. The publication's last appearance was in the spring of 2004. We say it's time to make a call to arms: Bring Back The Face! For starters, what other magazine does front and back covers?!

Jaz x

P.S. Jaw-dropping GaGa and legendary Groove Armada to come tomorrow :) But for now check out some cheekily snapped GaGa photos over on Flickr.

Ellie Goulding vs. Pete Paphides

2010-03-01T10:28:00.002Z

It's time we take a stand. This is war! Jaz is fed up of the often baffling and just plain wrong reviews given to new artists by apparent "head rock critic" of The Times, Pete Paphides. A few weks ago Jaz reported from the front line of the New To Q Sessions in Notting Hill where 14 acts took to the stage over the course of 5 days. Of those 14 acts, two outshone all others: Midlake (who are in no way a new band) and Ellie Goulding (who releases her debut album Lights today). Struggling with a throat infection, the songstress needed no gimmick, bravado or exaggerated persona to command the full attention of the suddenly dazzling, jaw-dropped room.

Unfairly dubbed as some sort of replacement Dido or this year's example of failed Little Boots promise, Paphides not only gave the release two pitiful stars, he completely misread the girl. If you want precocious and overly pre-meditative, you've got the wrong "Next Big Thing". With one cuckoo-ing of, "Don't need love, don't need friends/Just after success", that other One To Watch (who also performed for Q), Marina Diamandis makes it clear that she's the one that's ambitious to a fault.

But Jaz won't go down that route of comparison. Paphides' constant sizing up of Goulding and Diamandis is like trying to compare a romance novel with a horror movie: they are two completely different animals. And if you're familiar with Jaz's thoughts on Marina & The Diamonds, you can hazard a guess at whose release we're most compelled by. Let's just say, they saved the perfect antidote for last. Our sampler of Goulding's debut has been slowly climbing up our iTunes most played list over the past 6 months. With hushed vocals that have her compared to Bjork, and a brand of folktronica that has hints of even drum'n'bass, Goulding offers refreshing pop with a difference. Titled Lights, the album is, in fact, so light and sparkling it holds the power of levitation. Don't believe us? Check out Ellie's flying ability in Starry Eyed...

Jaz x

Ellie Goulding is currently on tour with Passion Pit and will headline her own shows in April.

Separated At Birth Update!

2010-02-28T23:18:00.004Z

For Jaz, Sundays signal an impending sense of melancholy, which has forever reached its climax at around 7pm when the theme music to the Antiques Roadshow kicks in. It has long been my ritual to avoid this death knell to the weekend like the plague by instead participating in some traditional Sunday perusing of the Bible (aka Sunday Times' Style Magazine). Scanning the perfectly designed pages and acerbic, wry commentary, I feel at one with its world and my mood turns positive and hopeful that one day my life will reflect such fabulousness.

Tonight, my leisurely flicking provides great comfort as I land on regular columnist Jessica Brinton's PLT page (People Like Them to the soon-to-be-conformed). Herein always lies a review of what's been going on in celebrity circles. It would appear that at one star-studded party recently was un-funny man James Corden, pictured with Andrew Flintoff "and friend". Immediately I react with genuine sympathy: Precisely Jessica! - these situations require tact and feigning ignorance is often better than mistaking one semi-famous cretin for another semi-famous cretin. Jessica must have suffered the same confusion that Jaz reported on Friday (http://boomerang-kid.blogspot.com/2010/02/separated-at-birth.html) post-viewing the latest episode of Skins, wherein the cameo appearance of Bez was most troubling due to his apparent relation as long lost twin to regular Skins actor John Bishop. Here pictured is either Bez or John Bishop. Who knows? The only sure thing is that Jessica and Jaz are on the same wavelength, which clearly makes Jaz eligible for employment at the Bible's HQ now, doesn't it?

Jaz x

GaGa or GA?

2010-02-28T12:11:00.003Z

It's the last day in February of a common year 2010, which indicates extremely poor research on the part of the Universal Pictures' marketing team behind new dross romcom, Leap Year. As Jaz's off-nights don't get any more exciting than soap-flicking and staring at wood-chipped walls, the film's trailer provides nil incentive to break that comparably gut-busting cycle. Tonight, however, Jaz has quite the pickle to prepare for and needs help from anyone with experience of trying to squeeze two entirely separate affairs into one hoodwinking, two-timing evening...

Several months ago Jaz attempted to secure a date with a certain up-and-comer who you may have heard of. The one they call Lady Gaga (or Stefani) is in Glasgow tomorrow but after a mere year in the limelight would not have time for press and shot us down. It was disappointing, yet in the grand scheme of things it's unlikely to be as dashing (depending on your levels of optimism) as spending a tenner going to see Leap Year. With their 13 years or so near the top of UK dance charts, however, the far humbler Groove Armada who also perform in Glasgow on Monday, were more than happy to accommodate a Jaz request for tea and biscuits.

Then, in typical fashionably-late style, Jaz is invited via e-mail this Friday past to watch her Gaga-ness. Despite prior rejection, Jaz throws aside any pride and self-respect and laps up the offer like a thick, tongue-waggling puppy dog. Now we must cover both GA and Gaga in approximately four hours. Already it's causing much anxiety: Jaz jump-starts this morning with a premonition of stumbling over mispronunciations of Groove Argaga, quoting "I'm a free bitch baby... shakin' that ass", and co-ordinating an outfit at once chillout sophisti-cat and bizarr-o Glamorama...

Stresses aside, Jaz is surprised to learn that Groove Armada's latest album is only just hitting the shops tomorrow. Our promo copy of Black Light has been on loop since December. And, before you ask, Jaz hasn't descended into tragic, middle-class, generically soundtracked dinner party territory. This really is a very exciting release. In fact, you won't even recognise the House-bestselling, advertisement-monopolising duo. This time they've swapped Mutya for Empire Of The Sun's Nick Littlemore, Will Young and Roxy Music's legendary Bryan Ferry. Think dark, think '80s, think... guitars?! One highlight is lead single and soulful spirit-lifter, I Won't Kneel. Enjoy the lie-in fishies...

Jaz x

Girl Gone Wild

2010-02-27T14:41:00.001Z

When Jaz notices a Lego-haired red-head in leggings and an inadequately long T-shirt at an event six months ago, it takes the best part of the entire evening to work out who she is. Is she someone from a previous job? Is she an old uni acquaintance? As The Cribs' Ryan Jarman enters clutching his girlfriend's waist, Jaz enquires dumbstruck: "It can't be?! The one that's so "bitt-a" cos she sucks too many lemons?! She used to be so smiley... and floral." It was a preview for what's to come in the world of Kate Nash. Goodbye cutesy cockney ditties about make-up, Hello minimal lyrics and riot-grrrl punk.

The as-yet-unreleased second album Crayon Full Of Colour is chronically titled but intriguingly produced by ex-Suede man Bernard Butler. Taken from it, the screechy razor-edged guitars and still screechier blood-stirring shrills of I Just Love You More owe less to her boyfriend's band and more to a certain collective from across the pond. The track is in the identical vein of the far superior be-bobbed, and Most Exalted Goddess of all things alternative, Karen O. Having heard little else of the album yet, Jaz is reluctant to comment overall but would suggest you just dig out last year's Yeah Yeah Yeahs' effort It's Blitz which was a no-brainer for our Best Of 2009 list and sets the standard probably far too high for such aspiring female art-rockers.

Jaz x

Separated At Birth

2010-02-26T17:58:00.002Z

Brit teen-drama-come-national-health-warning Skins has featured its fair share of brilliant guest roles over the past four years: Danny Dyer, Bill Bailey, Harry Enfield, Peter Capaldi, etc, etc. Last night saw Will Young cameo as a Jacko-worshipping ultra-peculiar school counsellor, illustrating what may have happened had the camp one never entered Pop Idol.

Most confusion, however, stemmed not from that, nor from Effy's sudden overnight diagnosis of psychotic depression, but from the fact that Effy and Freddie treat their friends Emily and Katie Fitch's father like they've never met him before. Granted, the two plastered love birds are always mashed, gurning, baked, chewing their faces off, toking marijuana and dropping acid 24/7 (but in a totally non-lethal, still-living-with-parents, going-to-school way), and Father Fitch looks like he's having a bit of an off day, it's hard to imagine they could treat him like they have no idea who he is. My constant bewilderment as to the sheer discourtesy of some youngsters in Bristol means the episode is completely lost on me. Seriously, how rude...

Slowly it becomes clear. Stand-up comedian John Bishop who plays Father Fitch (he's anything but a priest - or a Bishop - Jaz just doesn't recall his first name) is not this man. This man is ex-Happy Mondays baggy nutter Bez who has very few acting skills (or skills of any kind) but possesses an unnerving likeness to the man Bishop. Was this a cheap trick by Skins' producers to make the audience feel utterly off their heads too, or is Jaz just going completely b-a-n-a-n-a-s?

P.S. MTV is planning an Americanised version of Skins. *Yawn*

Jaz x

Hot Chip Off The Old Block

2010-02-26T11:24:00.002Z

Electro: at one end of the spectrum you have the funny-but-embarassing Euro-kitsch of tracks such as Bodyrockers' I Like The Way You Move (I like ze way you comb your h-airrr, etc.). Fortunately for those of us who can't listen to such nonsensical fare with a straight face, there are experimentalist maraca-shaking nerds who speak of monkeys with miniature cymbals...

That's right, Hot Chip have returned and continue to set the bar high for alt-dance indietronica with their fourth album One Life Stand. Jaz first came across these bespectacled eccentrics as relative unknowns supporting dominatrix-era Goldfrapp (then Queen of electro) in 2005. It was love at first blip (or bleep). For dancing synths à la William Orbit circa Barber's Adagio For Strings, and New Order-style dark romance with an uplifting sentiment, check out I Feel Better. Jaz best not inform you that this track is oddly reminiscent of Madonna's La Isla Bonita. Oops...

Jaz x

A Bunch Of Softies

2010-02-25T17:55:00.000Z

Jaz popped down to King Tut's Wah Wah Hut to interview San Diegans, The Soft Pack, for Q Magazine on a freezing Wednesday night. If anybody in Cyberspace knows some decent ice-breakers for approaching semi-esoteric raw post-punk bands who are battling with a bout of flu, send them on a postcard. Most of what Jaz knows about Los Angeles and punk-y scenes was gauged during a two week period working at Kerrang!'s Green Day special. That's to say, very little. And for reasons related to Green Day and not because that fortnight was spent debating the respective qualities of various now discontinued chocolate bars, e.g. Texan vs. Wagon Wheel.

Before they played a straight-to-the-point, short and punchy set comprised of material from their eponymous debut and their earlier album under a much-maligned previous bandname, The Muslims, the foursome revealed their affections for hip hop, Barry Manilow and Prince. When it comes to their own three-chord garage punk sound, though, their motives are completely non-political:

"We're all about simplicity. I think it's partly by necessity. I can't really do much musically, so it's gotta be simple." - Matt Lamkin

For the full interview, which includes analysis of many a California buzz band to listen out for, head on over to qthemusic.com: http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/02/interview_q_couch_potatoes_wit.html

All photos can be found on Jaz's Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boomerangkid/sets/72157623501146646/

I leave you with their ultra stripped-back video for C'Mon:

Jaz x

More Hoedown Than Ho...

2010-02-24T20:04:00.000Z

A few year's back Jaz was in an old motorised junkyard chugging around the small North Carolinian college town of Chapel Hill when the passenger with iPod discretion stopped scrolling at a moment-perfect soundtrack. Though unaware in that car, this song would later come to sum up my experience of spending a semester on exchange in Hicksville, USA: a bewildering, often bizarre but nonetheless weirdly endearing time. The nightmare scenario of suffering my own miniature version of Deliverance thankfully never came to pass.

The Gourds (the men responsible for said track) are from Texas, mainly play bluegrass, share one member with alt.countrymen Wilco, and have albums with titles which include, Cow Fish Fowl or Pig and Haymaker! With that in mind, consider what would happen if some farmer-tanned NASCAR enthusiast triple-dared them to rap along to a jam of his choice if they couldn't stay on the mechanical bull for ten seconds. Imagine what it would sound like were that rap to be gangsta ladykiller Snoop Dogg (then Snoop Doggy Dogg)'s second single, Gin & Juice. We're not in Long Beach anymore, Toto. Described by one commenting YouTube-r as "EPIC", it must be heard to be believed. Below is the full countrified apple pie version - bitchin' and "funky ass shit" included:

The Doggfather is currently awaiting a decision on whether he will ever be allowed re-entry to the UK following his outburst at Heathrow Airport four years ago. Let's hope it's a good outcome. Snoop Dogg topping the bill at T In The Park is definitely more enticing than today's news that Eminem will be 'doing a Jay-Z' in Scotland this summer.

Jaz x

Girls Who Are Boys Who Like Boys To Be Girls

2010-02-24T12:39:00.004Z

Don't be afraid to check out Girls. Not in the creepy standing on street corners eyeing lasses up and down at random way. Girls are boys. Four boys, who formed a band. And because they've called themselves Girls and are a 'Band' they are very difficult to locate on Google without various detours via Girls Aloud, Spice Girls, etc. Nevertheless they exist somewhere in San Francisco and, more accessibly, in cyberspace (http://www.matadorrecords.com/girls/index.html - Jaz does all the hard work for you). They also, shock horror, sound nothing like girls... more like boys, or Beach Boys to be precise. The buzz has certainly arrived in time for those recently released Buddy Holly overdubs.

Lo-fi, lush and garage-like, their fuzzy surfpop resides in their debut album, more accurately titled Album. Incidentally, lead singer Christopher Owens was once in another monosyllabic band called Curls but clearly that name was a little too misleading... And, not to forget, he also used to be a member of the Children Of God cult, so expect hippie love, peace and harmony.

Get totally stoked and watch the video for Lust For Life (not an Iggy Pop cover), which looks like a TV advert for Urban Outfitters:

Jaz x

Duff-Enders

2010-02-23T16:31:00.001Z

Oh my days!

"Bradley isn’t even awarded a valiant end. He looks neither that he’s really gone for the jump, nor that he’s dramatically slipped – merely that he sort of wobbles forward, like a prized belly-flopper hesitatingly diving into a swimming pool."

Read full EastEnders analysis and my thoughts on who should have killed Archie over at Who's Jack: http://www.whosjack.org/?p=4334

Also, in watching back the video notice how Bradley's hand is moving... live broadcasts, eh?

Jaz x

Wack Lyrical

2010-02-23T08:36:00.003Z

When it comes to lyrics I suppose expectation needs to be low if the group is called "Biffy Clyro". Does Biffy Clyro sound better than Cliffy Byro, or vice versa? Jaz doesn't fall even slightly harder on either one, which would suggest that it's potentially the world's worst bandname ever. Feel free to comment.

Biffy Clyro's fifth album Only Revolutions (yes, they do know English words) has taken them from the iPods of Scottish goths and Cathouse frequenters (that's the name of a metal/punk/alt club, not a stripper joint) to the listeners of Radio 1 and thereby the wider British subconscience. In fact, some critics have dubbed them Ayrshire's answer to the Foo Fighters and, while I think scrawny Simon Neil has some way to go to rival the onstage leonine prowess of Dave Grohl, musically the album is packed full of punchy choruses and hooks that demand only your best air guitar.

One thing really does set them back, however, and for this Jaz returns to the initial notion. When your name is Biffy Clyro, Christ alone knows what your lyrics are going to be like. One particular case in point is a track called Born On A Horse - not a promising start. The opening line: "I like to call it Aluminium/Cos there's an 'i' beteween the 'u' and 'm'." Yes Simon, a lot of us do call it Aluminyum... are you the pronounciaton police? "She's got eyes/Preposterous eyes"... well, horses and people do have eyes but how exactly can eyes be preposterous? Wouldn't it be more preposterous if one didn't have eyes? And the climax: "I've never had a lover who's my sister or my brother before." Thanks for clearing that up.

Either this is a narrative study of the slurred, malnourished and inbred members of small towns in Alabama or Simon Neil has been spending too many hours playing with his fridge poetry magnets. On the upside, it's very catchy...

Jaz x

P.S. The Soft Pack interview to come tomorrow!

Introducing Babe Shadow

2010-02-22T10:39:00.005Z

Imagine if HG Wells' Time Machine (or Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure) was, in fact, a preview of things to come. We could create all manner of impossible situations. Like travelling back 15 years to meet then-alive Jeff Buckley, only to transport him to the mid-1960s in order to record a rare unreleased duet with a Blonde On Blonde era Bob Dylan. If your mind is as partial to inner ramblings as mine, you have the same inkling as you glance upon the above picture. To our mutual surprise then this is actually a picture of Tom Cawte and David Thornley. Who, you say?

If their demo Sea Serpents is anything to go by, bedroom musicians Babe Shadow have been experimenting to delightful folksy effect since Buckley's passing - almost. Which is bloody fantastic if you're sick of hearing that the next sophisticated art collective hails from Brooklyn. Based in London they were discovered by the same people at Luv who found Florence Welch warbling in a club toilet cubicle (yes, really). Their folk-pop transcends the limits of the Northern Line borrowing instrumentals from the same worldly school as Vampire Weekend and is set for a late April release. Haunting vocals with a hint of the Marc Bolan quiver about them (or for the younger among you, a softer Nathan Willett - Cold War Kids), may go some way to explain their dark broody exterior. And that name, which is most likely a reference to T Rex and not something vacuously emo. But this is strictly for fans of Devendra Banhart / Noah & The Whale. Head to: http://www.myspace.com/babeshadowband

What's more, we at BOOMerang Kid are massive supporters of Florence & The Machine (in case you hadn't already gathered) whom Babe Shadow will be supporting on the eagerly anticipated UK leg of the Cosmic Love Tour (wink wink, nudge nudge Island Records). See the flame-haired harp-reinventing sorceress conjure up some ethereal magic and a helluva lot of howling crescendos (while potentially sacrificing some fluffy things onstage) at the following venues:

5th & 6th May - Edinburgh Corn Exchange
7th & 9th May - Blackpool Empress Ballroom
10th & 11th May - Wolverhampton Civic Theatre
13th, 14th, 15th May - London Hammersmith Apollo

Jaz x

Easy Like A Sunday Morning... Anywhere But Here

2010-02-21T10:57:00.000Z

Looking out the velux window this morning at the candy blue sunshine saturated sky I momentarily forget that last night the car's temperature gauge read -4°C post-Valentines Day (not the event - the movie, which was equally as torturous). I imagine a balmy breeze cooling my Havaianas-flopped feet before realising that I have, in fact, woken up to Glasg-Arctica once more.

Thank Zimbabwe (or, Hackney) for Tinashé then. The London via Africa troubadour charmed the socks off a Q crowd opening for Marina & The Diamonds a few weeks back with his suave demanour, butter-melting vocals and feet-shuffling guitar pop. I was in heaven... if heaven's a hammock on a white sandy beach in the middle of a turquoise diamond-and-pearl strewn ocean.

Jaz suggests you are promptly swept ashore by A-Liar: a jam that (without subtlety) reclaims Afrobeat roots back from Vampire Weekend's A-Punk while melding Arctic Monkeys' When The Sun Goes Down into pure reggae soul. Jack Peñate? Who needs 'im?

Also check out the drummer as he abandons his instrument in favour of the old hand clap. Love it.

Tinashé joins previously blogged about Tiffany Page on tour with the Noisettes. So if you're soon to watch Shingai Shoniwa do her rhythmic best make sure you get there early. Head to the mighty MySpace for more: http://www.myspace.com/tinashemusic.

Jaz x

Shock-ira

2010-02-20T18:04:00.006Z

Warning: This post contains career spoiler.

Spanish tennis wunderkind Rafael Nadal hasn't been in the best of form for nearly a year now. Weighed down by the most bulging guns and mighty physique ever seen in the sport, his poor knees have buckled putting a worrying doubt over his longevity and future grand slam success. But the puppy-dog-eyed trophy-chewing Rafa is changing his regime (and hopefully his metallic diet) in order to sport a leaner Nike clad look and regain his mojo. That's not all. Seeking to put less pressure on the knees, Nadal is learning how to focus more power on... the hips.

And who better to learn from than Colombia's answer to a human Boa Constrictor (and a yodeling one at that)... Shakira! Having released her album She Wolf last year she has now managed to bag the champion for new single Gypsy's music video, in which he (taking a leaf out of another dwindling player's book) plays the Anna Kournikova to her Enrique Iglesias. As she reveals "I'm a gypsy" the mystery behind that album's completely bewildering critical acclaim becomes clear. The hips don't lie but they have mystical hypnotic tendencies that apparently Rafa will be using at the net to eclipse Roger Federer as the greatest tennis player of the Open era. Presumably Twilight's Taylor Lautner was otherwise engaged (running around as a He Wolf most likely) but this is some way to kill two birds with one stone. Watch at your peril...

Jaz x

Secret Diary Of A Newspaper Intern: Part 5

2010-02-20T11:44:00.001Z

Last day and the dreaded bedsit is abandoned once and for all. There’s no love lost there. I take a punt on emailing the Editor-of-Everything. He agrees to meet. I spend the whole day “meeting” him by running around the entirety of News International attempting to pinpoint his location. I feel like Tom Hanks in Catch Me If You Can. All my leads are two seconds too late. I finally track him down to find that he isn’t actually Leonardo DiCaprio. Gutted.

In addition I secure meetings with a host of different desks in an act of spineless desperation. One matter defeats me. All week I have sought to uncover the Holy Grail. No matter who I ask nobody knows where The Bible is actually derived from. Not that bible. The Sunday Times’ most doted and fabulous supplement - Style Magazine. Forget the job hunt, I need to meet the Voice Of Reason, aka Mrs Mills. Like the Holy Grail, Style HQ remains the Divine’s best guarded secret, unconquerable by even Dan Brown. I’m totally devastated.

As I approach the finish line emergency strikes. It’s Fashion. Katy Perry and Sienna Miller will be pictured tomorrow wearing High-Top sneakers (it seems you can tell a lot about a woman's choice of man by the shoes she wears). Which High-Top sneakers remains unknown. I must find out against the clock. With blood, sweat and tears I Google like I’ve never Google’d before. Enraged I cry, why so many trainers Sienna – how many pairs can one girl own?! A close resemblance to Lanvin is suspected but I’m shot down. In a moment of pure inspiration I change my search words from “Sienna Miller, High Tops” to just “High Top, Purple, Grey, Black” and hit Search Image. Hey, presto! I win, I win!

I stop. Katy Perry. Bloody Katy Perry. She kissed a girl, she 'tamed' Russell Brand, she decided to buy High-Tops. Suddenly my problem. But time is up. The game is over. I take my final steps through Wapping with the feeling that no more of me could have been left there. It’s back to the long wait and my very own yet-to-triumph campaign. What’s dat? ETTA: Employ The Tea-Girl Already.

Jaz x

Incidentally the stroppy sleb mentioned in Part 4 is The Times Weekend cover star this morning ;)

Just Say Yes...

2010-02-19T20:09:00.003Z

Just say yes. Not to Snore Patrol, to Yeasayer. Jaz went backwards to go forwards on Wednesday night. Confused? So were we. Oran Mor, an old converted church in the heart of Glasgow University land, is difficult to navigate at the best of times with several floors, windy staircases and probably the odd secret passageway here and there. Brooklyn threesome Yeasayer, however, were there in earnest... somewhere.

Unprepared for a reconnaissance mission and without night vision goggles, Jaz feels about in the pitch black guided only by the dirge of 'Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel' (their words) in soundcheck. Eventually spotting the target, Jaz refuses to accommodate the "neat" suggestion of performing an interview travelling up and down inside an elevator for an hour due to past claustrophobic trauma of reliving Speed while trapped in a school lift for 45 minutes. As lead singer Chris Keating comments on Jaz's Scottish tones and informs that several formative years listening to rap resulted in his Method Man accent, Jaz gets ready for an evening of pseudo-geek hilarity.

Described by some journalists as the thinking man's pop band, bassist Ira Wolf Tuton (his middle name really is Wolf and he's not in Twilight) spends an hour theorising, analysing and criticising pretty much everything. But if you're looking for an explanation as to their name don't bother.

"If I had to do it again I'd probably pick AAAA and a bunch of exclamation marks. We're at the bottom of every list."

Playing a set to several hundred students who all look like they've walked straight out an MGMT/Empire Of The Sun video, Yeasayer's nonsensically infectious electro-psychedelic-indie-dance (to use my own ridiculous concoction) creates a hedonistic utopia of one-ness in the room. That is never more apparent than when a young war-painted jumping jack decides to share their stage and throw his own shapes. Why not?

For the full interview which is at once intellectual, irritating and downright amusing visit Q online: http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/02/interview_a_brief_history_of_t.html

Become a facebook fan to check out more pics: http://tinyurl.com/yhxcbhr

Yeasayer's new pop-fectious single O.N.E. has more Conga fever than you can shake a stick at:

Jaz x

Who Assassinated Franz Ferdinand?

2010-02-19T10:59:00.006Z

"Victoria Park after dark kissing on the wall trying not to fall/ Naive, young and not too clever, will it be this way forever?" As a Manchester University alumnus whose first year digs were in Victoria Park, I once asked a similar question. Middleton locals The Courteeners have written a barrel full of reflective odes to their city to make any honorary Manc's spine tingle for their soon-to-be-released second album Falcon. But one such song may get a slightly different bodily reaction from Alex Kapranos whose band Franz Ferdinand can be detected in You Overdid It Doll. The first single, which will no doubt enter the charts on Sunday, bears a striking resemblance to their Number 3 hit Take Me Out (1 minute 22 seconds in). Incidentally that song was all the rage in Victoria Park when Jaz was a young 'un...

And the Glaswegian's efforts:

Jaz x

Secret Diary Of A Newspaper Intern: Part 4

2010-02-19T09:39:00.002Z

Stealing away from the internet café opposite my bedsit where I’ve been typing up my interviews since 8am I wonder what I’m living off besides the sheer determination to succeed.

At News International, today’s world-altering task is to track down tweeds from a fancy dress shop in London. There is no campaign, bar the necessity to shoot one famous comedian wearing them on a bicycle tomorrow. Here’s a tip: don’t phone every fancy dress shop in London to source full Sherlock Holmes garb without sizes. It’s not Primark, unless you’re of the “one size fits all” school of shopping, and it pisses the salespeople off. It comes to light that the withholding of such info is due to the celebrity’s diva-like refusal to co-operate in the wearing of tweeds. If I told you this man once starred in a programme wherein he adopted several roles, including that of an elderly transvestite, I think you’d ask the same question as I: what’s a pair of Plus-4s and a tweed cap once cross-dressing’s been on your resumé?

In other news “Who dat?” really has gone global. It’s been used in a press conference by the New Orleans Saints. And to think I don’t even know what “touchdown” means. The commissioner is more than satisfied with my interviews. Does a job offer loom?

To be continued...

Jaz x

P.S. Yeasayer interview to come later today ;)

Secret Diary Of A Newspaper Intern: Part 3

2010-02-18T10:20:00.002Z

Wednesday: my favourite day of the week. It’s that perfect point of no return and when it’s over you know you’re on your way to weekend whimsy. My buckling body, however, is screaming for a chiropractor due to belatedly feeling the effect of Monday’s Waitrose Workout.

Three days have passed and still I can’t find a clean cup, nor detergent to sanitise a dirty cup, anywhere in the vicinity. So I take drastic action charmingly requesting the use of a paper one from the canteen. Either due to my sub-par flirting or some sort of eco-friendly policy (I’m sort of hoping the former), I incur a fee of 8 pence. Who owns this place? Ryanair?

In my ongoing task to enquire about the whereabouts of myriad celebs for upcoming interview requests I realise I have access to a database of contact numbers for people’s “people”. What happens at The Times stays at The Times. Except I could have a photographic memory and I can haphazardly e-mail myself some vital digits… Caleb Followill’s agent’s mobile number and the like. Strictly for emergencies only, of course.

My filming efforts yesterday have become the talk of the Times. Everywhere I go are whispers of “Who Dat?” and how it’s “gone global”. I’ve never been very sure about what that means. After some research I learn that a “global” is just an internal e-mail that is sent to an entire company. So I won’t be “going to Hollywood” anytime soon then? But wait. The editor-in-chief likes it and is “making it HUGE” according to one queuing Costa patron. How “HUGE” can it get, I wonder. Will I be joining the Oscars race for Best Director at the last minute? Get on your bike James Cameron, what’s 3D when you’ve got men in Jaeger speaking hip hop lingo?

Several “informed” book blurbs later and I overhear the planned Beauty special coming to fruition. The problem? A lack of interviewees. Eureka! My entrapment in unpaid internshipdom has an escape hatch. Pixie Lott. She croons, she twinkles, she performs for Q tonight. The Times want an interview because I convince them they want an interview. One minor detail: I don’t have an interview. How hard can it be? Granted she’s banned all press, but I’ve got my “won’t take no for an answer” face on. The same face, I may add, that Adrian Chiles contended with at Q’s David Gray gig as I slipped him a copy of my CV. Suffice to say, I still don’t work for the BBC. Unpromising precedents aside, if I don’t get an interview it’s pretty obvious what Pixie Lott’s beauty secret is: she’s practically prepubescent.

Finishing her set I spot my moment and secure victory. It’s hardly Watergate but it’s a start. What’s more I get two interviews for the price of one by bombarding the support act, Tiffany Page, as well. I am nothing if not persistent.

To be continued...

Incidentally, Tiffany Page with her kohl eyeliner, just-rolled-out-of-bed-looking-hot attitude and Fender in hand has been pipped as the UK's (much younger) answer to Chrissie Hynde. Here she is covering Muse's Supermassive Black Hole. She is currently supporting the Noisettes on tour strutting about stages all over Britain.

Jaz x

Rule BRITannia

2010-02-17T13:26:00.006Z

The Awards for me represent a moment in the mid-'90s when Britpop fleetingly ruled our world and you didn’t have to be Austin Powers to believe in cool Britannia. It was a time when Damon Albarn had tea and crumpets at Number 10, when tuning into Top Of The Pops to see Country House beat Roll With It to the top spot was socially acceptable (and possible), and when the Union Jack was celebrated and, in Geri Halliwell’s case, adorned. If Cheryl Cole strutted around Earls Court similarly attired tonight she’d likely be accused of backing Nick Griffin, or worse still, Gordon Brown...

Read the full minute-by-minute running commentary on Who's Jack http://www.whosjack.org/?p=4094

Jaz x

Tonight Jaz is catching up with New Yorkers Yeasayer. Stay tuned for the Q interview...

14th February: A Fine Day For Spooning

2010-02-16T15:00:00.006Z

"Our career's about small milestones. Little bursts of elation as opposed to, We've finally made it! I'm still thinking about my mortgage..." - Jim Eno, Spoon

As I escape the central Valentines afternoon bustle of Glasgow and hike up St Vincent Street to enter the legendary King Tut's Wah Wah Hut it dawns on me that I haven't been to this basement joint since my first ever live review of an unsigned act two years ago. A haunt that's currently celebrating its 20th year, it is renowned as a much adored launchpad for new acts in the industry, most famously housing Oasis the night they were discovered and signed. I climb the steps inscribed with all the names of now successful artists who once began here, and wonder why, seven albums in, the band Spoon (whom I'm meeting to interview) are dragging their equipment amid the chemical stench of the bar's industrial cleaner like some sort of pre-mania Beatles in a Hamburg nightclub.

Forget maximising profits, pushing "product" and building an electric fence between the fans and the act, Spoon work for pure satisfaction and they adore these venues. They want to see the faces in the crowd who are just as much a part of their show as the musicians themselves. No surprise then that as Britt Daniel adorns his guitar his first utterances to the audience are: "Is this barrier always here? It's ridiculous!"

What follows is a mature accomplished performance to reflect the 15 years he and Eno have been on the road together. Their consistency and simple sophistication as an in-tune cohort of instrumentalists, whether performing coveted favourites such as The Way We Get By or the new album's lead single Written In Reverse, is the direct result of a dogged approach to the art of rock'n'roll. They appreciate the wider commercial use of their material but they've seen the ugly side of a major label. Ultimately it really is the music that matters. Tonight in a venue where others dreamed of global domination, Spoon are just looking for that elusive moment to play for each and every one of you. Forget your individually cut roses and your Hallmark sentiments, that's real love on Valentines Day.

Read the full interview at: http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/02/interview_a_fine_day_for_spoon.html

Jaz x

P.S. Remember to tune into the 30th Anniversary of the BRIT Awards tonight...

Secret Diary Of A Newspaper Intern: Part 2

2010-02-16T11:31:00.002Z

Austere is the East End. As I make my way to Wapping for a second day of voluntary slave driving I imagine the hoi polloi of Dickensian London and wonder why people actually want to live round here. Notting Hill shabby chic is one thing. This is just plain shabby bleak.

On entry, I experience the “revolving door” which greets the workie who hasn’t pre-emptively arrived bearing caffeinated gifts. Before my derriere grazes the chair that I’ve had to claim from an absent designer in a different department, I return to the elevator to embark on a Costa run. I’ve yet to mention that the order comes from the editorial assistant. And not just any editorial assistant… this week’s temporary editorial assistant. Is this a new low?

Just as my jaw descends upon my very own cup of tea I am summoned by a multimedia journalist from the main paper. Not one sip! She proceeds to inform me about a burning topical issue for which we must campaign. It has something to do with the Superbowl. The brain, already affected by lack of liquid stimulant, wanders. I’ve never been one for campaigning. Moreover, I have never been one for the NFL. Having spent a semester of university abroad at UNC in North Carolina I will never get back those four hours I suffered in utter confusion amidst the ‘bleachers’ watching the university’s football team (the Tar Heels) lose a game – a result I could only confirm via crowd reaction.

Lo and behold, I now know that the New Orleans Saints (a team who subsequently win the Superbowl) are banned from using their catchphrase in the finals due to some pedantic copyright issue. The phrase “Who dat?” is literal gangsta for “Who’s that?” as in “Look at us, you pleb, we’ve arrived”.

I’m told it would be of great amusement if we compiled a video of ordinary stuck-up British folk repeating this slogan in a spirited manner. Cue standing outside Waitrose (a place soon to feature heavily in the story of my life) for the next two hours while I jostle with a video camera and mic in the constant drizzle and accost members of the public, who are too busy either disciplining unruly umbrellas, or (shock, horror) heading to Waitrose. Oh the glamour! Young, old, foreign, couples, joggers, janitors: all fall victim to my newfound directing skills. The morning’s one saving grace comes behalf of an old dumbfounded gentleman, whose doddery inquiry “Who dat… is that with a ‘d’ or a ‘t’?” is a personal highlight. Once satisfied that a suitable number had been hounded my partner and I return to the fort.

Now, when I came to The Times I imagined glimpsing (from afar) bursts of brilliance from famed political commentators such as David Aaronovitch, Hugo Rifkind, Daniel Finklestein, legendary cartoonist Peter Brookes, etc. I didn’t, however, foresee approaching them with sodden attire and frazzled bouffant to request that they unveil their inner Snoop Dogg direct to camera. Alas, it is felt that this will really give the ‘campaign’ video the edge. Once more it’s a task befitting a workie impervious to humiliation. The recording (edited after a late canteen lunch and viewable below), however, is quite hilarious but I fear the joke is on me, Ms Drowned Rat.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/us_sport/article7012708.ece

To be continued...

Jaz x

Ding Dong!

2010-02-15T23:39:00.005Z

Ring-A-Ding-Ding, a collaboration's a-coming. Watch out for American duo Broken Bells. They are: mogul producer and one half of Gnarls Barkley Danger Mouse (not to be confused with previously blogged about deadmau5, or for the nostalgic among you, the cartoon vermin equivalent of James Bond); and James Mercer, lead singer of The Shins', that band propelled to widespread recognition by alt. romcom Garden State. Don't be put off by any connotations of malfunctioning door buzzers or Sunday morning lie-ins disturbed by out-of-tune Edelweiss church chimes. The light melodic ambience of their eponymous debut will airlift you on a dreamy flight to a cloud cushioned somewhere between Frenchmen Air's Moon Safari and Eels' 1996 effort, Beautiful Freak. March is the month to get swept away by the full release.

Sweet dreams.

Jaz x

Secret Diary Of A Newspaper Intern: Part 1

2010-02-15T14:56:00.003Z

Following the previously recorded New To Q week, I embarked upon work experience at a newspaper that today reports about the atrocity of young people paying for internships. Considering I put myself up in Paddington for a week, funded five working days in London and wasn't reimbursed travel expenses, I think it's fair to suggest they look no further than their own HQ for that particular story's evidentiary support. Why "sign on" when you can pay to have a job? To The Times...

********************

My in-house days at Q Magazine are over (for now) and having had the briefest of respites following last week’s gigmania it’s back to the Secret Diary Of A Perma-intern (like Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, it’s a story about whoring just without the sex… or any form of remuneration). This week sees me offering my services to The Times. The need to locate a new internship is always the cause of some stress on the first morning. Therefore, I usually leave about two spare hours (really not an issue, fish are insomniacs). It’s the same for interviews. I figure if you can’t get airborne without setting aside a few extra hours to master the airport, you certainly can’t invade new potential employment territory. Despite my “residence” in a Paddington bedsit and my destination of Wapping, I require each second. The Hammersmith & Shitty line crawls around zone 1 taking 56 eternal minutes to travel 9 stops. In Japan, it probably takes less time to simulate flying around the world. I vouch never to live in an area of London only accessible by crap underground lines – Circle, District, Metropolitan included. It’s all about Northern and Jubilee (which just sounds so gleeful). Piccadilly is the unaffordable pipe dream. W1, sweetie darling.

It soon dawns on me why the Eastender is such a formidable character. If ever there is a time to unearth my inner Peggy Mitchell it is now, walking a mile away from Tower Hill through the depths of East Smithfield - Jack The Ripper territory: no cashpoints, fewer civilians, nothing except a petrol station for a pre-game caffeine fix, and, according to the reception area of News International, currently experiencing a UK Security Threat level of SEVERE. What happened to lunchtime in Topshop, espresso at Carluccios and luvvies galore? I’m a Westender, Get Me Out Of Here?!

Genuinely I feel quite honoured to be within this über journalist hothouse. It’s really the most “high brow” environment I’ve been exposed to yet (the newsroom at STV would argue otherwise). So imagine the reaction to my opening task: researching anti-cellulite creams. It’s imperative and pressing that I uncover those that can be bought in the UK, phone their PRs and get as many copies of each biked over like yesterday for testing (thankfully, not on me… though I wouldn’t put it beyond my remit). It’s hardly new intelligence on an Al Qaeda cell in Rotherham. Nevertheless, beautiful lady readers of The Times (and Gok Wan) need to know the truth once and for all. Does Bliss’s Fat Girl Slim trump the triply expensive La Prairie? Is sacrificing the kids’ after-school tennis lessons to clear the Space NK account worth it? Should Harley Street’s finest be shaking in their scrubs? As I blag several copies of Rodial’s overall body cocoon (over £100 a pop) I wonder, what possesses these women? Is it fair to think that maybe the fat busting effects result from a shrunken expenditure in the M&S desserts aisle as a direct consequence of spending such ludicrous amounts on moisturiser? Just a thought.

Post-lunch the books team employ me to write several blurbs about current favourites for the Saturday Review section. It needn’t matter that I haven’t read any of these books. My only instruction is to steer clear from the cover’s synopsis. To Amazon! (The website, not unfortunately the South American rainforest). Why amazon.com customers purchase items only to return to contribute, in some cases, a 1000 word ‘review’ is beyond me. Particularly where that item is a household appliance: “the suction on Dyson’s latest hoover model was beyond my expectations”, etc. Mockery aside, I thank you. Even, to my shame, The Picture Of Dorian Gray must be researched in this fashion. If movies like Beowulf teach us anything it’s that you just can’t trust a Hollywood “Now A Major Feature Film” version. The 16 such blurbs written over the course of the week have all since been published. Having forgotten my words, the level of apparent familiarity when re-reading them greatly surprises me.

One hour of the first day remains and the dreaded call arrives. There comes a time in every intern’s life when shame is redefined and nevertheless cast aside to be replaced by false enthusiasm. It’s the “give it to the workie” job – tasks they invent to make sure they’re getting their travel expenses’ worth out of you (or in my case a week's rations of toilet roll and central heating). In some circles (mainly American reality TV shows and psychology) they call this “character building”. I call it workplace abuse (there’s no excuse). Running in heels to photocopying shops in unknown parts of Holborn, transcribing hours of interviews on sticking keyboards for unrealistic deadlines, parading a farmer’s market for 8 hours advertising magazine subscription offers… I’ve done it all.

Here and now I must go to Waitrose (15 minute’s walk) to source £40’s of canned foods… alone… with just the two arms… in 45 minutes. As I fluster about traversing the aisles for a shopping list which includes tinned smoked oysters and a can of Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie (now’s probably a bad time to tell them I’m Kosher), I put to bed my childhood fantasy of one day competing on Dale Winton’s Supermarket Sweep. In case you wondered, it’s for a photoshoot. Yes, we The Times are shooting inanimate foodstuffs in tins. It’s not art; it’s “high brow” journalism.

And just in case you don't believe me here is one smidgeon of the spread. Mmm pork sausages...

To be continued...

Jaz x

The Misanthropic Review

2010-02-14T19:18:00.006Z

It’s the hottest ticket in town. A backstage haven bustling with the most current conversation, a flurry of tuxedoed and just-off-the-shoot mouth-wateringly handsome ushers serving Veuve from crystal flutes and Keira Knightley just within earshot pouting ferociously and poured over a Chanel limited edition French cigarette – skinny and long like its fumeuse. Damian Lewis brushes my shoulder signalling towards Knightley to take to the wings. She explodes into a full smile, retorts in Austen tongues and flirtatiously dabs a pear-drop of her eau de toilette on his collar bone. Show time! Or so I imagined.

Instead, I am ushered through to a not-so-exclusive staircase and corresponding corridor, frequently interrupted by misguided cloakroom seeking punters, and offered to stand among London’s self-professed elite drinking one glass (either now or at the interval – but strictly not both) of cava. Worse still, served by Vicky Pollard in oversized monochrome uniform. As she re-corks the cheap bottle with a now blasphemised Veuve Cliquot stopper, conversation of any kind and a cameo appearance by an understudy would appear too much to ask for. So I take to my seat while juggling cava, coat and paraphernalia to await scene.

The play itself? Remarkable. Brilliantly acted and incredibly accurate, it’s as though Molière peered through the looking glass into the future and wrote “How to make friends and bitch about them: a Brit’s guide to polite society”. Of course this is a modern remaking of a 17^th century commentary on the French aristocracy but the message is the same and the human condition has not changed. I find myself feeling quite the misanthrope; allergic to my own species. I recall the day someone told me what they really thought of me behind the prefix of, “I think you should know that so-and-so considers you [insert slew of insults]. Note: not my opinion”? And the time I witnessed a friend gushing over someone as they walked in 45 minutes late in plastic shoes by Vivienne Westwood, after just listening to their comments about her bad time keeping and awful dress sense. I remember the occasions when I was that person.

Yes, we, the audience, are all under attack. And, we’ve paid for the privilege. It is all grossly ironic; the play about the ills of our celebrity obsessed society and the psycophancy of modern age quietly mocking those believing this to be the unmissable ticket of the month. And, most won’t have noticed that The Misanthrope makes fun of their special “champagne” package. Molière would have been proud.

*******************************************************

The Misanthrope's run at London's Comedy Theatre ends on 13 March so catch it while you can (champagne packages include premiere seating, a glass of 'champagne' and a poster). Jaz has to get back to Spooning now. No, not the Valentines kind, the Texan rock'n'roller kind.

Jaz x

Roses Are Red, Chivalry's Dead

2010-02-14T00:21:00.006Z

John Mayer isn't known in the UK so much for his love-centric guitar odes as he is renowned for his serial romanticising of Hollywood A-listers. For any valentines out there planning on dusting off one of his many non-distinct albums (I'm hoping a great deal of dust has accumulated) in order to woo your loved one, think again. Not only did he recently play a Q show during which he offered to indiscriminately impregnate members of the audience, the penman of love themes such as Your Body Is A Wonderland (pass the sickbag) has just likened ex-squeeze Jessica Simpson to "sexual napalm". Wonderland... Napalm... Vietnam warfare. It's not sounding too gooey now, is it? Jaz never usually vindicates this but if you are so inclined we propose you stick to your Westlifes and Manilows for minimal controversy. Jaz will probably be airing old Oasis albums. Having yet to commemorate their split last year, Valentines Day is a perfect occasion to appreciate music that is heady but nonetheless utterly meaningless. If you do choose to fall into the romcom trap, watch a decent one. Wedding-related titles are usually safe (bar the exception of The Wedding Planner) - My Best Friend's Wedding and The Wedding Singer are Jaz favourites. See Adam Sandler doing J Gelis Band's Love Stinks:

Jaz x x x

Good Times Bad Times

2010-02-13T10:58:00.004Z

Unbeknown to anybody (because I haven't been given a byline) Jasper Fields has raised an eyebrow or two over toast and tea this morning among a quota of the Times reading nation - the quota that seek to be ahead of the game, not as far as Gordon Brown, Warren Buffett, Freddie Flintoff, or Sir Alan Bennett are concerned, but as regards the hottest new music infecting the nation. And to that I raise a somewhat bemused eyebrow.

There on page 15 of the supplementary Playlist magazine lies a column of suggested tunes and albums 'of the moment' to blow those Austin Reed socks off, if possible. The fruits of my free-of-charge labour during a week's work experience (soon to be reported) are here scanned (click for maximised readable view and Spotify away).

If I may add, my albums list has been intercepted in an act of some irony. Recommending Spoon's 7th LP Transference due to the fact that their wider recognition here in the UK remains baffling (it contains the type of sophisticated rock melodies that Eels' Mark "E" Everett should aim to still be producing), I have been trounced by an Erland And The Carnival fan. And for that reason I leave you with Got Nuffin' (buzzsaw guitar highlight with a hint of the Sonic Youth about it) to whet your appetite for my incoming Spoon interview. TEAM SPOON!

Happy Saturday, Jaz x

Space Invaders and Supernature

2010-02-12T14:09:00.003Z

All week I've felt like the White Rabbit... late late for a very important date. No press passes left for Jaz at the BRITs, guestlist for Vampire Weekend and GaGa both closed (the latter potentially the biggest blow of the year so far), invite to a VICE launch party in the wrong town, and extremely tardy arrival at Che Camille's fashion show last night once it was well and truly dried up. Not to mention there are still no paid jobs left anywhere in the industry no matter the amount of slaving done gratis or recent news that we are, in fact, out of the recession (excuse me for not whipping the victory bottle of Veuve out of fastfreeze and spraying it over my bran flakes). This morning I approached the stereo to hit play on Groove Armada's latest - Black Light (a glorious leap out of their comfort zone - Massive Attack take note please) - and literally to my shock sparks coursed through my blood and momentarily stopped time. Perhaps it was electricity's angry rebellion at my fashion faux pas of rubber-soled Uggs. More likely, it was divine intervention. "Jasper Fields", He said (via the British electro DJ duo), "This too shall pass". Thank you G-d! (Or Gandalf, I'm not sure). To make this already long story short, Jaz dodged death by electricity and is consequently on top of things. Keeping in the loop by the tips of his/her non-existent finger nails, Jaz is filling the calendar nicely full of music, fashion and cultural events to blabber to you tadpoles about. Attention must now be diverted to Operation Glastonbury, particularly as the latest headliners were confirmed this morning as MUSE. Move over U2. What use is "The Claw" (and Bono are you aware you pinched that from Jim Carrey's maligned Liar Liar?) when you're up against a falsetto-screeching guitar-shredding superbug from outer space...

Jaz x

P.S. Big fish kiss to Q Magazine for Twittering (or Tweeting?!) about us this morning!

Lotts of Pixie

2010-02-11T18:25:00.000Z

With the charm of a heyday-era Britney and the shimmying backing dancers of Winehouse (granted that’s probably the worst pedigree), she can carry a little forgetful tune but allegedly rates her legs as her best asset. Such honesty Britney could have used once...

And Pixie Lott told me honestly that she loves my spectacles last Wednesday. What a sweetheart. The interview will feature in The Times' Weekend beauty special in late February (links will be provided). In the meantime hop over to Who's Jack? to read the full Q The Music Club Live At Hard Rock Cafe London review:

http://www.whosjack.org/?p=4013

Jaz x

Fashion Met Music

2010-02-11T15:55:00.001Z

In honour of Sir Alexander McQueen...

Jaz x

Take cover!

2010-02-11T13:30:00.001Z

The XX are of the same school as Hot Chip and Four Tet. No really, they went to the same school. Something tells me the discos at Elliott Comprehensive in Wandsworth don't involve alcohol-free punch and Chesney Hawkes. We still can't get enough of last year's self-titled album, especially the cover Teardrops. Before you exhale an apathetic sigh, this is not yet another inferior Massive Attack remake (could someone tell me if anybody besides the cannabis community actually buys Newton Faulkner CDs?) it's a dark, broody, stripped down version of Womack And Womack's disco classic. You may recall it also being mashed up by Lovestation during those soon forgotten UK garage years. If not, we don't blame you. It was all about DJ Luck & MC Neat.

Jaz x

Lovecats Revisited?

2010-02-10T12:46:00.010Z

A little treat for all you Cure fans. Some of their earlier recordings have been uncovered. Before he became pained and heartbroken, Robert Smith went surfing and sang like Brian Wilson. Or not... While the electric-shock-haired one has continued to style himself in the same manner as he did 30 odd years ago edging ever nearer to an elderly Elizabeth Taylor lookalike (no disrespect to her Dameness), children who grew up with classics such as Friday I'm In Love, Just Like Heaven and Boys Don't Cry are now old enough to produce Close To Me-era Cure music so that he no longer has to (see 2008's 13th Cure release, 4:13 Dream). Meet The Drums, who switched their Floridian beaches for NYC tarmac but gorged themselves on '80s Manchester sounds only to concoct tunes about surfing despite having never owned a surfboard. Oh the contradictions!...

Jaz x

Jaz Looks Psychotic As A Big Piranha...

2010-02-09T23:31:00.006Z

What do you get when you cross a Hollyoaks-omnibus-accompanied Sunday brunch with a bloodthirsty creature of the underworld? A VAMPIRE WEEKEND! Joking aside, Columbia University's finest African music students are here touring their sophomore album Contra, which has quite ferociously split critics' opinion. Anybody who knows the value of a good cardigan and writes lyrics such as "In December drinking Horchata/I look psychotic in a balaclava" gets my vote. See Ezra Koenig and co at:

Birmingham O2 (10th)
Newcastle O2 (12th)
Glasgow Barrowlands (13th)
Edinburgh Picturehouse (14th)
London Brixton O2 (16th/17th)

Out of luck getting tickets? Otherwise suffering a week-long series of Valentines-related engagements? Settle for streaming the new album in full at: http://www.vampireweekend.com/

Jaz x

(Photo: Tim Soter)

It's Ch-ch-ch-Tuesday Folks!

2010-02-09T10:30:00.004Z

Did Mumford & Sons awaken your inner folkie with their newfound success last year? Are you rambling through forests making friends with woodland creatures and becoming "at one" with nature? Have you discovered a strange affection for bearded men? Or, do you just like a decent lyric and a shakey rustic vocal? North Carolinian trio, The Avett Brothers are ones to watch. Two brothers (with the surname Avett, funnily enough) and their big bass-wielding buddy are to release their major label debut with the help of Def Jam Records' founder, mogul producer and Rabbi chic Rick Rubin in late March. Grab your parka, it's "fuh fuh fuh freeezin'".

Jaz x

Outing Alison Goldfrapp

2010-02-08T15:53:00.002Z

Wanted: This Woman's Air-brusher for the crime of aiding and abetting a 43-year-old to maintain the guise of a woman 10 years younger.

New Goldfrapp album Head First will drop sometime mid-March. Jaz x

We Love Reinvention On A Monday Morning

2010-02-08T09:13:00.002Z

Once radio-friendly fodder among a constantly growing roster of female vocalists in the UK, Corinne Bailey Rae has awoken her inner Jeff Buckley. Move over Wino, there's a new tragic heroine in town. Hoorah!

Jaz x

Listen Up!

2010-02-07T16:56:00.002Z

Enjoy a Sunday chillout with I Remember from a Canadian about to take 2010 by storm under the alias deadmau5 (pronounced Dead Mouse). Questionable name, unquestionable tune-age...

Jaz x

The Morning After The Week Before

2010-02-07T15:57:00.008Z

As I spend all of Sunday in ecstasy watching TV from my bed - another failed attempt at a Grand Slam championship by Andy Murray and an edition of Dancing On Ice (a programme I traditionally find intolerable) - I rehydrate and extend my arm to intermittently scoff at the box of emergency cereal in my bedsit. In this state of inertia I wonder what I've learned. Some names may be worth remembering, most notably Ellie Goulding. Mainly I am Old To Q, and music is transcient. Although Marina & The Diamonds' Hollywood is still glued to my cerebellum, it won't stay there forever. And that's ok. Enjoy what you enjoy. Stop chasing the next bandwagon. The music will keep on playing on and on regardless. And, as for my inner grandma? There's life yet in the old bird... Jaz x

Night 5

2010-02-07T15:19:00.009Z

I wake up to Marina’s Hollywood doing forty laps around the vacuous swimming pool of my mind. It’s exactly the same relationship I had once with Kylie Minogue. Hate it. Can’t get it out of my head. It’s Saturday. I’m teetering towards death and averting mirrors. Just about managing to muster up some last lap adrenaline I contemplate three final acts: Liam Bailey of whom I’ve heard nothing, Daisy Dares You of whom I wish I’d heard nothing and Ellie Goulding of whom I’ve heard nothing besides.

Daisy Dares You… to suffer for half an hour of your life. MIEEOOOOW is what I think I hear (and see) as a feline just-pubescent Katie Price who looks like she’s been dragged through a bush backwards quite literally tears up the New To Q stage. The Ess-eeks gal can’t sing to save her arse, which, by the way, she doesn’t want you to touch according to one of her pop punk “song”s. She evidently, however, wants you to touch her developed bossom, which is very much on display (not that her “arse” isn’t). Kudos to Avril Lavigne who, despite her vile nature, isn’t tone deaf. Lionel Bart, would you call the copyright police? A minor has committed first degree ditty homicide. The victim is Who Will Buy?, killed via Oliver: The Mosh-ical remake.

Ellie Goulding is an entirely different animal and the most anticipated having already won this year’s Critics Choice BRIT award before the release of her debut (something only achieved thus far by Adele and Florence & The Machine). Hiding behind no name other than her own and suffering from laryngitis, she creates an ice cool electro disco to do away with the carefully produced Diana Vickers-meets-Dido hue of her record. Her dramatic eyes, doll-like voice and exerted mouth are reminiscent of Bjork… but Welsh and probably incapable of random violent outbursts. You never know though, it’s always the quiet ones…

By the way, still know nothing of Liam Bailey owing to... I was late.

Jaz x

Night 4

2010-02-07T14:44:00.009Z

5.10 am. I’ve gone and blown it. Why does alcohol do this to me? How did I think 5 cans was a good idea on an empty stomach? In what world did I convince myself that topping that off with “Shots!” of sambuca was recommended? Bollocks. I just about manage to get my arm into my glittery bolero, which I wear strategically to meld into the crowd for tonight’s Marina & The Sequins… sorry, Diamonds. I haven’t inherited any of those yet.

Check out my review of tonight on http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/02/day_4_marina_and_the_diamonds.html#post

If I could go further, I think Mar-ika would make the perfect "fag hag" pair. Also, if this girl does, in fact, not make a success of herself I’m sure all her “Oh My Gods” and “Obsessed”-ness would safely score her a career in the new West End production of Legally Blonde. Personally, I react to her like I react to celery. It’s completely unpalatable. But as I get home in time for Friday Night With Jonathan Ross and witness the nightmare that is Jedward I realise, love them or hate them, loathsome novelty acts are laughing all the way to the bank.

Jaz x

Night 3

2010-02-07T14:25:00.008Z

Day three: midway and Midlake. My body is holding but I feel the schlep of getting out of bed and approaching the kettle. It’s going to be a long morning. I’m excited by the prospect of a beardier woolly-jumpered crowd tonight. Less Fearne types (I don’t hate Fearne, that emotion I reserve for Miquita Oliver, who shunned me in an elevator last week).

Tonight’s more of an out with the new and in with the old type of vibe; temporary respite from the histrionics of the battling newbies. I couldn’t have asked for a more peaceful, ambient halfway-point break in this journey. Except I don’t take advantage. The mission is spiralling out of control. Death Con 4. Aka Red Stripe. Unlike cheap cat-piss pinot, Jamaica’s finest can be guzzled like lemonade, particularly when chilled, and so it is. All bets are off. I will recount what I can.

The Kissaway Trail: Postal Service-esque/Sigur Ros with added (non-David Attenborough) vocals and minus polar bear VT. The Tabernacle becomes my synagogue as the lead singer invokes the spirit of God, known to many as Death Cab mastermind extraordinaire Ben Gibbard. I see the misty fog gathering around the stage, the exhalations marked by frosty breaths of CO2. Mmmmm. The chiming bells and harmonising vocals which speak of “Doing it for your motherrrrr, doing it for your sisterrrrr, doing it for your brotherrrr” are just the right side of Arcade Fire seasonal festiveness.

Speaking of misty fog, Midlake inhabit the album sleeve of Led Zeppelin’s IV, not that they would be aware of this: they look like they appeared from those very woods where they were reared by bears, only to discover the beauty of music after making instruments out of trees. Beginning with Stairway To Heaven 2010, a man moulded to resemble Peter Jackson conjoined with John Bonham announces his presence with a Werther’s Original smile.

With enough hair for a second coming of Christ (multiplied by the presence of the abominable Magic Number’s frontman Romeo Stodart) and the spiritual sanctum of The Tabernacle reeling with dedicated fans enthralled in some sort of medieval sex ritual near the front of the stage, I am taken back to the ‘70s when bands could actually play and guitar solos weren’t purely masturbatory. This guitarist is not afraid to get the Led out, or the Floyd. A proper band. At times a little too Greensleeves/Knights of the Round Table/Flutewood Mac (unfortunately not my words), I wonder whether they realise their too late to audition as the Merry Men to Russell Crowe’s yet-to-be-seen Robin Hood. Shame. They even have a lovely Maid Marianne to join them onstage… twice. Unfortunately Monty Python’s Knights of Ni were not present for an intermissive comedy break. Following an Albatross-like closing, they return for an encore I Blame Coco could learn from.

It’s the best pop album of all time and it’s the only thing I’m listening to as I fall about my bedsit at approximately midnight: Rumours. Oh Daddy… If there’s been a fool around/ It’s got to be me. Mayday, Mayday!

Jaz x

Night 2

2010-02-07T14:10:00.004Z

I awake on day two, my cornflakes are dotted with the remainders of green neon etched into my brain but I think I’m in the clear. At Q the office stereo is playing a new record by Hurts – Savage Garden meets Duran Duran. If rumour is to be believed the Noughties were the time for revisting the ‘80s. We are now in mid-’90s revival territory. I sigh relief: one less band to take note of.

The clock chimes 6 and once more I Go West (Pet Shop Boys have plagued my mind since I spotted Neil Tennant in the crowd last night). Less attracted to the bar (admittedly due to sudden consideration for this gigathon’s budget) I enter to Alex Gardner, potentially spare member of The Script and hit factory Xenomania’s freshest product. Harmless enough, he probably still has pictures of the Sugababes adorning his walls – something he evidently practices his longing puppy dog-eyed breakdowns to in his bedroom. He fails, however, to set the world alight, apart from one noticeable dancing dad’s world – manager perhaps? I Blame Coco, on the other hand, uses her youthful 19 years to her advantage. Unlike her nepotistic nemesis (if the tabloids survive the recession) Lily Allen, Coco Sumner, daughter of Gordon Matthew Sumner aka Sting, hasn’t brought her “I’m already over this” attitude. In fact Sting-Spawn is rather endearing (though she’s slightly presumptuous with the encore): she sounds like Dad, looks like a hybrid of Mischa Barton and Dad (oddly with a transplant of Liam Gallagher’s hair), and appears to have raided Dad’s wardrobe for an oversized blazer (surely has-been Alexa Chung isn’t her muse). Most of all, however, her album demonstrates promise and as Plan B enters on special guest cue (incidentally contributing nothing except the prevention of a Police reunion publicity stunt), it’s clear she loves music. But don’t expect any “every little thing she does is magic… every breath you take” romantic tosh, she’s more concerned with her “party bag”, in which she keeps all her “fun”. I wonder what goodies line the insides of celebrity kids’ birthdays these days…

Headlining is Miike Snow, a band who long to mystify. First the dodgy spelling, then the lack of band member with said name and spelling, not to mention the moose yuletide branding – easily an advert for the Absolut Icebar or Val Thorens ski resort. They take to the stage in Phantom Of The Opera-cum-Michael “Halloween” Myers inspired masks. It dawns on me, maybe mastery of disguise is today’s Alternatives Against Manufactured Pop cause, and Delphic were ingeniously hiding behind the halogen. Whatever the reason, I have fallen down Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole (to speak of rabbits again) into a blue-drenched secret rave. The album, a stellar magical record, is stripped bare on Cult Logic to start and the production builds slowly. Climactic electronic quasi-jams following Sylvia see the crowd display their signature shapes in appreciation. Oddly, instead of rising further to Animal they layer off. Rather than being pulled into a euphoric vortex, the suction jams like Han Solo’s failed ignition of the Millennium Falcon. My mood jabs back and forth accordingly until I no longer feel rhythmically connected and my contortion-like dance moves (owed to my jewish non-athleticism) become increasingly more dyspraxic. As the ending instrumental seems to have no end in sight and nature calls, I remember that age-old adage about too much of a good thing and leave prematurely.

In other news, my mate Fearne Cotton was in sight. I say “mate” because she took my number in her BlackBerry at the Q Awards a few months ago. Don’t be afraid to call Fearne… Employ The Tea-Girl Already!

Jaz x

Night 1

2010-02-07T14:02:00.005Z

Alas, it begins. I’ve already missed the opening band (The Cheek) due to my pinot grigio distraction (this challenge requires pace). Ready to see a new band I have been listening in on, genuinely enjoy and am set to wave my Scottish flag to – Frightened Rabbit – I spot a crowd of American Apparel’d, clean-shaven Brooklynites approach the stage… “Give it up for White Rabbits!”. Give me strength! You’d think lapine nomenclature would be scarce among new rockers. Confusion aside, they serve up an ample slice of percussion-led indie verging on Kid A-era Radiohead with a good dose of musical chairs-styled instrument-swapping to measure and a cocktail drummer with energy to rival an entire jungle of Um Bongo characters.

To the main event: Delphic, which literally means “relating to Apollo (the Greek God of light)” – a very significant aside. Shrouded in darkness the trio approach the stage by way of torchlight, a moment I soon regretted not savouring. Most musicians, like humans, breathe oxygen. Delphic breathe halogen, and at the rate of an asthmatic. A migraine sufferer from the age of eight, I can take or leave pulsating darts of retina-burning white. Such was the power of this light display, however, it awakens my inner epileptic; I feel like I’m living between the musical staves of Underworld’s Born Slippy. Lager, lager, lager, lager, lager…. That, or I imagine this is what ELO meant by Blinded By The Lights. ‘Will there be a side of music with the Blackpool Illuminations tonight?’ was one question on my mind. The other, ‘Is Boots open late?’. To answer the former, Delphic are trying really hard to be Bloc Party, and who wants to be Bloc Party? Kele Okereke evokes the spirit of a mute cemetery attendant. At their Mancunian best, they’re New Order without Hooky’s winning basslines. It’s the same song looping over different light colours/rates, each one getting more and more aggressive, like the tracks on a speed metal album (probably, I don’t listen to speed metal). As blue lights turn to green, I feel alienated. If this and 3D cinema is the future of entertainment I am incompatible... like an old Acorn computer. Squinting with my arm shading my brow and committing the cardinal sin of sporting sunglasses indoors (it was an emergency), I’m ready to jump on the energy efficiency bandwagon. CUT THE LIGHTS! One hour later, vision impaired, more precious short-term memory neurons slaughtered and a sickbag on the list of things to include in case of necessity for my purse tomorrow night, I wonder whether Delphic’s assault on my optics has scuppered my campaign. I withstand breaking into Pulp’s Help The Aged. But really, help us. One day you’ll be older too.

Jaz x

New To Q Sessions: A 5 Day Marathon

2010-02-07T13:11:00.012Z

This was supposed to be recorded in real time. Unfortunately Jaz had to live in a bedsit with no internet access during the following events. Better late than never...

Five nights out on the trot, 14 artists, one venue: this is my quest. Mount Kilimanjaro isn’t in sight, Comic Relief haven’t been on the blower mistaking me for Gary Barlow’s cousin and I’m not yet experiencing the dizzy heights à la Cheryl Cole. No, I work under the auspices of no associated charity (aside from my own not-so-recession-proof ETTA: Employ The Tea-girl Already). I’m 23 and having a premature life crisis – staying in on Saturday nights with cocoa, mourning the completion of The X Factor and averaging a bedtime of 10.30. Reviving my inner jumping bean, however, isn’t the only motivation for my self-set New To Q Sessions-orientated challenge. I have an affliction worthy of many a philanthropist’s shrapnel. Whatever “It” is, I need to be on it. Treggings, Glee, the latest yoga/pilates hybrid – I must ride the wave of now. As I take up residence for the first night at Notting Hill’s Tabernacle where I shall worship at the altar of the latest signing I stop myself before sneering at the sea of Lyle Scotts with their side-gelled coifs. I am you (gender aside), and, I wonder, is your short-term memory as crippled as mine?

So there’s been the years of pre-exam crash revision, the relocations to three cities with complex transport systems, the constant conveyor belt of new faces/names met along the way and the brain cells bludgeoned familiarising myself with scores of office floors while slaving away at various internships… all pale in comparison to the damage caused by my bout of fingeronpulse-itus. In these www times filled by a constant release of “Next Big Thing”s who become passé the instant they’re announced as such, the briefest of cultural heart palpitations are undetectable and neurological breakdown is induced by the dreaded inquisition, “What’s on your iPod’s shuffle this week?”. Seriously: Marina & The Machine, Friendly Boots, The Big Black Kids, Broken Drums, Pixie Geldott… please make it stop! What does it even mean to be ‘new’ in music? Who qualifies for an NME cover? Next time I host a vintage throwback party, I’ll be toasting Daisy Lowe, remembering heady days of yore with all the classics from MGM.I.A. and those New York veterans Vampire Weekend, while screening Slumdog Millionaire and downing shots of wheatgrass. Florence, your dog’s had its day; time to get on your broomstick and fly away. La Roux, throw out your lemons, you can crack a smile now while nobody’s looking. I propose an indie social suicide pact. Until then, I shall squeeze the latest roster of up-and-comers into my shrinking skull.

Jaz x