Gigtastic

So it's been a while since I've seen my friend Alex's band "My Heroine" do a proper gig, partly because I seen them rehearse a few times and partly because a couple of gigs I'd been planning on going to had been cancelled for various reasons. In fact, the last time I saw them at a gig was back in June, when I "borrowed" someone's Mohawk hat, but that's another story.


I really love live music, but am incredibly lazy when it comes to organising myself to go and see and band, so the fact that these guys are my friends gives me the added incentive to get my lazy arse off of the sofa and go to see them. The drawback of the gig was that it was in Chelmsford (I felt like I was cheating on Kent), but the fact that the girls are so awesome more than made up for it. Their set list seems to be growing all the time and even in the few months since I last saw them they've really stepped up their game when it comes to their stage presence. 


Admittedly, I'm slightly biased, but I really think that there will be big things on the horizon for them in 2012.


Oh and I finished the night by practising a new card trick and blowing some people's minds. I've really got back into card tricks lately, no idea why.  

Suddenly I See

So this week I was treated to an incredible music experience - seeing KT Tunstall live in The Union chapel in Islington. 


It was incredible for two reasons: 1) She was absolutely amazing, and 2) the venue was gorgeous. If you've never heard of it (and let's face it, if you live outside of The big smoke, why would you have?) it a converted church, where the altar has become the stage and the pews are the audience. The acoustics are outstanding and the atmosphere is almost indescribable. If you ever get the chance, definitely go and see something there.


The first of the support acts was Rozi Plain, whose folk music wasn't entirely to my personal taste. She won me over however with her borderline-aspergers asides between songs. I saw her afterwards being completely normal, so I can only assume her whole stage personality is an act. If so, hilarious. She was followed by a guy called Sam Lewis who was a bit more my speed. Some nice chilled accoustic stuff.


Then KT Tunstall came on. Her set was brilliant and she's clearly one of the most talented musicians in the industry. Switching between the guitar and (occasionally the piano), she made incredible sounds with her loop-peddle, which she overlaid on top of each other to form a cacophony of awesome. She even did a song acapella with no microphone and we could still hear her at the back. Brilliant.


Oh, and she did a version of "The Black Horse and The Cherry Tree" which mixed with The White Stripe's "Seven Nation Army". If you can find that on YouTube, check it out.   

Step into the groove

I’m somewhat worried by the way that the “Step Reunion” documentary has completely sucked me in.

I was too old to be a fan when they first came out (and let’s face it, their music was pretty crap), but it’s impossible to have been alive in the late nineties and early noughties without being aware of just how massive a cultural phenomenon they were.

Well it seems that they’re still going to be singing the same old mediocre generic pop, except now there’s an added element of nostalgia to it all. Maybe they’ll even let Lee sing some lines.

All in all, I can’t say that they don’t make music like that anymore because they clearly do.

Oh and Lisa Scott Lee seems to have some weird face stuff going on now. Just saying.

It's the end of the world as we know it

Forget the riots in London, forget the fact that mother nature is turning on us, and forget the fact that the world economy is in turmoil. The true sign that we're facing the end of days came yesterday when Cher Lloyd got to number one.


I'm not going to run through all my problems with her song again, but it's here if you're interested. All I'll say that it's a sad day for British music and I'm sure that it's one of the portents of the apocalypse. Call Sam and Dean Winchester, call Buffy, hell I'd settle for someone calling Torchwood if it's stop this madness.


Yeats once asked: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" 

Evidently the answer is Cher Lloyd.  

Swagger Jagger

Whilst I stand by my defence of “current” music a few weeks ago, every so often a song comes along that is so soul crushingly awful, it drains all goodwill that you hold towards the current generation of musicians.

And so we have “Swagger Jagger”, the first single from X-Factor “star” Cher Lloyd. And when I say X-Factor it’s the predictable and dull Simon Cowell sponsored “talent contest” and not the comic book about either the original X-men, the government sponsored mutant team or the mutant detective agency (depending on which decade you were reading X-Factor in).

So we have Cher Lloyd, looking like Cheryl Cole on crystal meth, “singing” along to the tune of “Oh my darling Clementine” – just like Huckleberry Hound. And believe me, you’d prefer to hear the blue Hanna-Barbera dog singing off-key rather than listen to this drivel. She makes Rebecca Black look like Alicia Keys.

Oh, and I’m aware of my over use of speech marks, but I think they’re legitimate in reference to her “singing”, her being a “star” and X-Factor being a “talent contest”.

I don’t like to throw the word around in jest, but after hearing this, I felt like my ears had been raped.