This photograph led to Midnight Black Lipstick experimentation from the Ballad Girls!!
“Before I put another notch in my lipstick case, you better make sure you put me in my place.”
The wonderful Miss Lady Gaga for ‘Out Magazine’ out in September.
Chocolate rain, angels cry and shake their heads in shame! xx
I say The Cribs, but I mean Ross Jarman the drummer - who, although really sound and a total pleasure to chat to, isn’t Johnny Marr is he? Mind you he is chatty enough to fill the role with as equal amount of wisdom and here he is in this lovely black and white number ——————->
What I Learnt
Firstly, that next week he might go camping Amsterdam - is it warm there?
Secondly, that they hooked up with Johnny Marr after Gary met him at a BBQ at Stephen Malkus’ (Wide Ass Jeans - great song) house in Oregon, 2000 miles away. In England, they live an hour apart.
Thirdly, that title to their up coming album ‘Ignore the Ignorant’ (out Sept 6th) isn’t actually a comment on the BNP making it into the European parliament - although that event did help them make the decision to keep that title over others. According to Ross ignoring the ignorant is really just best practice in general.
And finally, I learnt that when he was younger he used to venture into Leeds independent record store Jumbo EVERY Saturday - I like the dedication and that also explains the Roses Edition to their album - which is limited to being sold by independent stores based in their home counties - Lancashire (Johnny), Yorkshire (Ryan and Ross) and Portland (Gary lives there now). With if you get special packaging, special videos (including that Brudenell Live DVD) and AND a half hour silent film of some of their proceedings created by the hands of Ryan himself. This is their ‘naive’ (according to Ross) little way of helping out the independent music scene at home. But don’t worry if you don’t live in any of those places because you can buy them online too - from those local record stores (make sense?). Everyone wins.
Free Shows
What is better, is that they are feeling a bit left out having played Leeds and Reading Festival for the last 6 years they are not on the 2009 line up. In a way its a blessing for the fan because instead of just throwing their toys out the pram and sulking or whatever another band might do, they’re playing FREE gigs in HMV’s that weekend in both Leeds and Reading. Oh me.
Camille
Our friend Chris Martin (no, not that one) at NME Radio has been throwing out a few top bands for us to check out. Here are his top 5, in his very own words. Thank you Chris!
Bombay Bicycle Club
Sometimes bands come along with pretensions of being the next to cross the audience boundaries, be loved by children and small animals and do arena tours, retiring at the age of 35. More often than not, they don’t pull it off because they sound like Keane or Starsailor and thus should be shot. But then sometimes a band comes along with such perfectly crafted indie tunes that you start to feel that there can’t be a soul alive that won’t like them. ‘Always Like This’ was Record of the Week for me back in April and on of the most beautifully subtle tracks released this year. Their brand of grand sweeping indie is as perfect as Interpol, but replaces the drowning misery with joyful hope.
Listen if you like: Larrikin Love, Maccabees, Arcade Fire
www.myspace.com/bombaybicycleclub
The Phenomenal Handclap Band
Multiple members, somewhere around the 10 person mark, could end up and bit like Slipknot (5 people making the sound, 4 others looking scary banging oil drums). These guys skip neatly past that to make a sound that builds on disparate influences. The result is, if not phenomenal, the really very good. Elements of LCD Soundsystem’s attitude to making dance music with a band are in there, although they are far from just another rehashing of punk-funk. Dance, funk, and classic rock are among the influences I can pick out and they create something that sounds different and fresh. It is possible to have hype over substance, I’m sure we’re all awaof shoddy journalists riding whatever wave that’s coming along as the next self fulfilling prophency. Putting it this way, one measure of how many people like the music and ignore the hype is how many emails I received along the line of “I really need to know who did that song”. “That song” is ’15-20′ and I’ve had more emails about it than any other song in the last year.
Listen if you like: CSS, Foreigner, !!!
www.myspace.com/phenomenalhandclap
Hairdresser On Fire
Every week I go through every single band that friend requests us at NME Radio’s myspace page and play out the best of them on the show. Using the public as a barometer, these are the one band to have tickled people’s interest most so far. They hail from Indonesia, and play brutal assaulting punk rock tinged with the same attitude and disdain that Courtney Love brought to Hole’s first two albums. I love them, and fingers crossed someone will be signing them for the UK soon.
Listen if you like: Mclusky, Dead Kennedys, Hole
www.myspace.com/wearehairdresser
The Joy Formidable
Most bands release an EP or two, or some singles until someone comes along and signs them for an album. Not The J oy Formidable, already they’ve self released a mini-album of musical gems called ‘A Balloon Called Moaning’/ What’s better is they’ve combined an enigmatic title with limited edition hand-printed artwork. Word spread about the project and it sold out before it was even released, probably helped by ‘Cradle’, ‘Austere’ and ‘Whirring’, rousing tracks that sound like what Editors were aspiring to achieve but didn’t really hit. Rousing, anthemic, touching, destructive, defiant and joyful. These guys are writing some of the best music in the UK at the moment.
Listen if you like: Placebo, The Jesus ad Mary Chain, Manic Street Preachers
www.myspace.com/thejoyformidable
Dinosaur Pile-Up
If you’ve listened to be at any stage of the last decade or so you may have heard me utter the words “this band are going to be huge” quite a lot. Sometimes it’s a statement of desire rather than belief, this time I think the desire and belief are matched. I remember saying that about Leeds band Mother Vulpine, who irritatingly split up about three months after I said it. No worries though, former Vulpine Matt Bigland has continued with Dinosaur Pile-Up and not since early Foo Fighters have we seen such consistency and stomping brilliance in rock music.
Last time we did Top 5 Records (in print!), Chapman Family and Pulled Apart By Horses were in there. So add these bands together with Danananakroyd (who incidentally DPU will be touring with this autumn - Ed) and is it possible we’re going to be seeing a punk and grunge inspired revival? I for one would be deliriously happy about that.
Listen if you like: Early Foo Fighters, Weezer, QOTSA
www.myspace.com/dinosaurpileup
www.twitter.com/christweets
From Gareth Pugh’s new show concept to Lanvin’s spectacle - everyone is talking catwalks. The very essence of showcasing one’s collection has evolved over the seasons. What was once a very simple display of the clothes to come has now changed in to an art exhibition. Gareth Pugh’s show in Paris was a video. A VIDEO. Nonetheless, he managed to pack a huge crowd. His creations were aptly suited to this new-age display of theatre mixed with fashion. one could say that the way in which Pugh portrayed his collection on screen could never have had the same effect had it been on the traditional Runway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EdTvRakTck&feature=related
Lanvin, Hermes and Dior all showcased their collections in uber spectacular ways.
It does leave me thinking though - does all of this outlandish exhibitions detract from the point of the shows or does this in effect make it more prolific?
The b list is stuff that we are listening to at the moment. A playlist.
This week we have mainly been listening to:
Wonderswan —> www.myspace.com/wonderswanband they are truly pop pavement and you can see them at Reading and Leeds festival on the Introducing Stage. Hurrah!
We have also been listening to a lot of the new album from The XX, imaginatively named: XX
The album looks like this:
Art rock meets chris issak. And it’s amazing! listen here: www.myspace.com/thexx
Amandine P…is one of Ballad Of’s favorite photographers! Check out her work at http://www.flickr.com/photos/funcoolfluo/
