December 14th, 2007 Justin
Guilty pleasure time!
I’ve been hearing more and more ELOish sounds about; I heard an indie tune on the radio that used a reminscent synth swirl, and of course, the fantastic ispydiamonds posted
Starlight a few weeks back. So it’s about time for a revival post…
This tune was what got me hooked in the first place, part of the brilliant “GTA: Vice City” soundtrack:
ELO - Four Little Diamonds
There’s little in games that can beat tooling around Vice City doing wheelies on a fast bike with that blasting. What a game ;)
Similarly uptempo, but a little better-known:
ELO - Don’t Bring Me Down
But the real gems (IMO) are on their “Time” concept album. As Wikipedia describes it –
The album tells the story of a man, circa 1981, who is taken away by time travelers to the late 21st Century. Once there, he marvels at the wonders that the future offers, but is also increasingly amazed to find that he longs for his own time (the past) and the woman he left behind because of his journey forward. Although he has been provided a robot woman, who obeys his every command without question, he quickly realizes that this is a poor substitute for his lost love: the robot companion can never love or be loved by him.
ELO - Twilight
I posted this back in May, but it’s
expired and it bears reposting, being just about the best track ever recorded
on the subject of sex with robots:
ELO - Yours Truly, 2095
Also, “Here Is The News” is cute — filled with samples from a supposedly late-21st-century news broadcast, but recorded in early-80’s Britain, it has a kind of “Blake’s Seven” dated scifi feel with talk of strikes in space and so on:
ELO - Here Is The News
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December 14th, 2007 dukelukem
I watching Liverpool on the telly the other night, they were playing Marseilles in the Champions League. I was in Marseilles for a Liverpool match a few years ago (the French team won 2-1) but i was blown away by the attitude of the fans, who were really friendly and incredibly noisy in the stadium. At halftime they played poppy French hip-hop and the whole stand jumped up and down, it was brilliant. There was one song that they were all really going nuts for and I asked someone what it was. He told me is was “Diam’s”
Diam’s is a classic tough lass from the suburbs with cropped hair and mad jewelstudded hoopy earrings…she looks well hard. She’s also gone up against Le Pen and Sarkozy in the papers. Definitely a bit of a character. I like the idea in this video as well.
France A Moi
The Video
DJ (the song they were playing in the stadium that time)
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December 10th, 2007 dukelukem
To prove my love of all things Daft Punk, check this. It’s a remix by Digitalism, who are the German Daft Punk, so the result is a kind of Daft Punk squared. I love the epic indie guitar riffing about two minutes in.
Daft Punk - Technologic (Digitalism Remix)
In other news - Burial has just had the ultimate kiss of death - the interview in the Guardian.
Since a creative collapse is now imminent, here’s a taste of his excellent Untrue album.
Burial - Raver
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December 9th, 2007 Justin
Myself and Wooder went to see Of Montreal last Saturday at the Button Factory.
What a fantastic gig! That was my concert of the year, hands down.
Their last Dublin show
was pretty good, but this was much better. The entire band were in attendance
this time around (last time they had to “borrow” a bassist), and they had the
luxury of the Button Factory’s stage, much bigger than the titchy Tripod one.
New set order, too — last time around, ‘The Past is a Grotesque Animal’ was
buried in the set’s middle, and a little out of place; while it’s a fantastic
song, it’s got such a different sound and tempo from all the rest of their
current tunes. This time, it was the opener, waking up the crowd with its
driving sound, and things felt a lot more coherent as a result.
Next tune similarly set the stage, this time for their humour; ‘My British Tour Diary’, which really is a tour diary of a UK tour:
Every single one of our London cabbies played
The most truly repellent techno music ever made
But they’ll drop you without hesitation
if you try changing the station
Of Montreal - My British Tour Diary
Anyway, awesome gig — every song from then on was brilliant, ending
with the glorious ‘She’s a Rejector’:
Of Montreal - She’s A Rejector
There were a couple of new songs played; “Our Last Summer of Independence”
sticks in my memory. (It didn’t sound great on first listen; could be a
grower though.)
The crowd were up for it, the venue was great, the band were well into it and
we got to check out some truly awesome costumes, particularly The Late B. P.
Helium’s new rather Christoper-Walkenesque getup. Afterwards, Kevin came down to the bar
and was still there, mobbed by adoring fans, when we left. He was well on
for a chat — Wooder got to give him a few Dublin tourism tips ;) A great night.
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December 1st, 2007 Justin
A yawn is a silent shout.
– G. K. Chesterton
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