Rex The Dog - I can see you, Can you see me?

When you have a blog that has very few viewers one of the good things about it is that you can rant negatively about groups that most people like. Today is the turn of Soulwax. Soulwax seems to have been around for an increasingly annoying long length of time and because people keep waffling about them I have learned by osmosis a lot of unnecessary facts. They are from Belgium. They have a generic stodge rock indie band and they also DJ. Crikey! therein the genius lies they have a band and DJ! The reason I think i dislike them so much is because of a mix cd they released a few years ago that was everywhere and featured techno mixed with Dolly Parton etc. When music becomes like Carry On it is just wrong, ask Bentley Rhythm Ace. Nowadays they have fans that talk in hushed reverence of their greatness. For example I was at a Kraftwerk gig recently (Soulwax played also) and I met TWO people who said Soulwax were better. Everyone has a right to their opinion but sometimes.... they're wrong.

McClow

Heres a new video by Rex the Dog and I imagine it is something Soulwax would play in their DJ set but don't let that put you off.

Robert Wyatt - Sea Song

I often wondered what would be the perfect soundtrack for a global financial meltdown and I think I have the answer. Beleaguered financiers rejoice, listen to this Robert Wyatt song and pretend he's singing about the markets.

McClow

Panda Bear - Bros

The meaning of words change over time, it can happen. The latest word to cause vocabular (is that a word) puzzlement is AWARD. What i once understood an award to be was acknowledgment for doing something exceptional. This definition now seems rather quaint. Music awards are particularly insulting to the old definition. Consider the recent MTV awards who regurgitated all their awards to Britney. The Mercury Music Prize which to be honest was never really a bastion of greatness (I can even hardly bring myself to say their name but they once awarded ...Gomez) last week honoured lumpen stodge rockers elbow.

I see a pattern here, all you need to be awarded is to name your band using a completely boring 5 letter word. Mercury my new band is called LOUTH and I expect to be on the shortlist for next year NOW!!.

Heres a video by a band that should have won the Mercury, but thats going by the old definition.

McClow

Damn Shames - Fear of Assault

Fresh news from CERN and the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and niftiest particle accelerator. The boffins at the centre have decided to shift their forcus entirely from their original goal - finding out if Mickey Rooney is still alive and when he was born - and have instead set their sights on sucking musical shill Mark Ronson and all traces of his fetid output into a parallell universe whihc consists wholly of flaming hot pokers in the ass. This is great news for all humanity and of far better benefit than finding out how the big bang happened. The news, coupled with Adbusters telling hipsters that they are a useless piece of fecal matter clinging on grimly to the tattered converse of western civilisation - what you mean, you didn't her of this? jeez, you're just not with it - means than I've decided to play the damn shames, a trio of cheeky scamps from Edinburgh. This video is a load of old hyperactive nonsense but i bet kids today think its great. It makes me jsut wonder what's the hell is going on in their fevered little minds. Their other song, 'dancing in the aisles' is better but they don't have a video for it. Typical insolent young turks.

LES SAVY STREETFIGHTER

GREAT NEWS, GREAT NEWS for fans of Les Savy Fav and Streetfighter. Capcom have finally relented and have included Rufus the lead singer of Les Savy Fav as a playable character in the new Street Fighter game. Initially he was to be a hidden boss only unlockable by beating Bison with Dhalsim ( Impossible Capcom impossible!). Anyway to celebrate this epic cultural cross polinisation check out this video as Rufus whips Ken and also LSF with a very memorable live rendition of The Sweat Descends.

McClow

The Pharcyde - Drop

So they switched on the CERN collider/discombobulator/photocopier yesterday and the world didn't get sucked into a black hole, which was a bit of an anti-climax. I don't really know what this doohicky is supposed to do, but that doesn't stop me from telling people that it's somehting to do with creating a black hole so as to find out what excatly happened that dude at the end of the final episode of Quantum Leap when he lept but never found a body to leap into and he was trapped in some sort of time vortex. If we had all got sucked in to the black hole, the Pharcyde would presumbaly have been sucked in with us, so here is a vid which offers a unique dramatisation of that doomsday scenario. The hip-hop quartet are nobly fighting the sucking force of the gaping black hole while the world around them meets a fiery, sciencey demise. Shout out to all the CERN Collider fans locked up out there.



Silver Medalist

THE FALL - Mr Pharmacist

Mark E Smith: DETRITUS TV How are you doin'

Detritus TV: Not so good, tryin' to find backwards videos but cant find any only that feckin' coldplay one and i cant play that or no one will watch us again

Mark E Smith: Forget about backwards videos, they'll get you nowhere

Detritus TV: But what will i do

Mark E Smith: Come and see The Fall, were playing in Dublin tonight

Detritus TV: Brilliant!

Mark E Smith: But one condition you must play one of my videos

Detritus TV: A Fall video or one with those Mouse lads?

Mark E Smith: Play Mr Pharmacist and I want to be an honorary dreamweaver

Detritus TV: No Probs, Mr Smith you are a genius!

McClow

Cibo Matto - Sugar Water

"Ren a brack crat crosses mwy prath". This barmy Cibo Matto video was a staple of late night indie tv shows for many a year; the kind in which you'd get a weekly hour or so fix of vids and be happy with, and the kind the MTV and its cabal of noisey non-stop whirling irritantalikes killed dead. It's one of those vids that if you try to think about how they did it, it's like trying to debate the plot of Back To The Future, which leaves people upset, confused, angry and pining for a hoverboard. Apparently they all did it in one take, which doesn't help matters at all. This vid heartily contributed to the promotion of the still bouyant stereotype that all Japanese are a mad as a kettle of sushi. Backwards vids all this week i've just decided!



silver medalist

Krautweek - Kraftwerk

OK I accept this may not strictly be Krautrock ( my saver NEU! members were in an early incarnation) but what better way to end what has been one of the most successful Krautweeks ever than with Kraftwerk. This video is so dementedly out there that for safety reasons it has been split into two parts. Kraftwerk will be taking the autobahn to Wicklow next week and all detritus tv viewers should attend where you can impress all with your knowledge of Krautrock.

McClow

Krautweek - Kling Klang

Pardon me people but i got a little sidetracked and found myself listening to Sally Shapiro in the middle of Krautweek, a heinous crime punishable in olden times by long distance catapulting into the centre of the Black Forest. It was a bit of a classic Old Europe tussle between the sensuous syths of Italo and the Prussian vorsprung bass technique. Anyways just in case you thought Krautrock was the sole ownership of a coiterie of German merry pranksters, that its best works were preserved in aspic from the sixties/seventies and that the genre remains languishing on the slagheap along with romo and nu-metal, well fear not. Madcap modern day scouse reprobates Kling Kling enjoy their heavy krautrockish blowouts just as much as the next Damo Suzuki and here is one of their more thrilling sonic fuckspirals.



Silver Medalist

Krautweek - Faust

Midweek in Krautweek and now to present a video that will likely remain the highlight for all. When trawling through second hand vinyl stores the first Faust vinyl is one that I would love find, clear vinyl and this cool xray cover, check it out in this video as Faust present it to a Polar Bear over dinner. And if Faust can make this polar bear so happy think what they can do for you! Happy Krautweek.

McClow

Krautweek - Can

As Krautweek plows along with an untypical German inefficiency, let's take a moment to reflect on the origins of the genre. The term 'Krautrock' was first heard during World War II when the Allies were using a faulty code cracking machine (pre-Enigma yoke) and it incorrectly predicted that the Nazis would invade britain with a series of meandering, propulsive 'motorik' rhythms, riffs, and hooks. The attack never materialised, but it sparked the Brits to forumlate their own secret weapon, the jangly-pop ditty which took over the world in the sixties courtesy of The Beatles. The 'Krautrock' project eventually emerged out of Germany in the late sixties to much head-scratching. If only they'd got it out in time - it would have been as big a hit as Enola Gay.

Can are one of the early Krautrock pioneers and it members included a serious bevvy of outer limits experimentalists such as Holger Czukay and Damo Sazuki who took loads of drugs and wigged out for days on end playing music. This is one of the many delightful, cosmic, doolally, results. Oh, and they named themselves after a can.



Silver Medalist

Krautweek - NEU!

Wilcommen das ist Krautweek. Expect grosse didatic, motorik beats and healthy amounts of feedback. NEU! (yes it must be in capitals and have an exclamation mark) were one of the early purveyors in the Krautrock scene. After searching for ages I cant find any live videos or indeed any decent footage of the band at all so you will have to make do with a photoshoped fan made video but the song is so good you could just imagine your own video. Influence on Joy Division anyone? If you have some live footage of NEU! just lying around do send it in. Sadly Klaus Dinger the drummer in the band died this year so we dedicate this weeks videos to him.

McClow

Crystal Castles - Courtship Dating

Who knows when Alice Glass of Crystal Castles first got into chiptunes. Maybe it was that glitchy crescendo at the end of level 6 on Megaman or could have been while chasing a high score on Bubble Bobble. Its amazing how 8 bit core has been accepted, there was a time when if someone said they were programming their latest track from a Gameboy soundcard they would be labeled as a demented geek. Was a bit unsure of Crystal Castles but have to make a reappraisal after hearing this last single which is as addictive as Missile Command and would probably have made the perfect soundtrack to that game.

McClow

Let's Wrestle - I Won't Lie to You

Mc Clow is back from his wanderings in the Spanish Highlands. Lets Wrestle turned out to be great driving music and their sprightly, Modern Lovers inspired beats stopped me dozing at the wheel on many the occasion. The video features puking balloons which is as cool as it sounds. Something that isn't as cool as it sounds is seeing Bonde de Role live which i did last week. Now we all know CSS are rubbish but imagine an inept CSS cover band with a backing track robbed from Jive Bunny, music like that would make you want to drive into the nearest ditch.

McClow

Double XX Posse - Not Gonna Be Able to Do It

I'm off on holidays. Here's Double XX Posse to serande me on my journey.



Silver Medalist

Chuck Berry - You Can't Catch Me

I saw some school kids today and i thought of Chuck Berry. Not for his lust for jailbait, but for for the fact that he was, and remains to be the most juvenile rock and roll star the world has ever seen. His classic tunes are heavy with sexual frustration, bawdy puns, riffs like a coiled spring and in that helix possesess the the dreams and lusts of generations of horny young bucks. And he was rumbled for sticking hidden cameras in the women's changing rooms in his restaurant, a ruse which is probably the greatest you can ever imagine pulling off in the history of mankind. When you're a thirteen year old boy. Finally, he's also got a tune called 'My Ding-A-Ling'. Nuff said, the man is bone fide genius. To his credit, he has maintained that youthful joie de vivre and plays live to pay off his debts, even if his recent concert performances are like watching a talking Action Man but with the batteries slowly dying. He many have his monetary debtors, but we should be indebted to his firecrack tunage. Here he is in his pomp romping home with the Guitar Hero World Champioship of 1957.



silver medalist

Wild Beasts - The Devil's Crayon

I had this record and i put it somewhere and now i don't. Annoying. Especially because at the time it was one of the best albums i'd heard all year in what has been a fairly annus horibilis for music. Yet somehow i managed to avoid not losing shite like The Infidels album which sits there staring at me like a festering boil made of a thousand tiny daggers intermittently piercing by rectum. The video is farily perfunctory here but the tune is mighty. They're a bunch of lads from Leeds mercifully doing something slightly different with the laboured 'boys with guitars' formula. It helps that their lead vocalist sounds like Antony Hegarty but with cojones. Sometimes he does anyways. It's nothing at all like the new Oasis video which is like watching Noel curl one out on your chest after he injested the gatefold vinly cover of Sgt.Peppers and a dvd of the Magical Mystery Tour. Sorry.

Pivot - In The Blood

Batshit crazy video alert. Pivot are a trio of aussie dudes who make instrumental, krautrocky, noodly, slightly derivative but fairly decent tunes on Warp and have just released thier debut album which is grand. I'd imagine they'd be good to see live, as you could admire them flailing about during the bits of on stage multi-tasking wankery. I bet the bass player bangs on a drum and plays kazoo simultaneously while cooking a laptop in a george foreman grill. They just seem like that kind of band. No bad thing.



silver medalist

Toktok Vs Soffy O - Missy Queen's Gonna Die

Back in the nineties, the German satelite channels were pervceived as just a treasure trove of Benny Hill porn and badly dubbed episodes of Beverly Hills Bordello. But there was more. Honestly. They also hosted a couple of great music networks, notably Viva 1 and 2, which showcased pan-european tunes that you would never have heard way over this side of europe. This was before Ryanair so transporting bangers like Missy Queen's Gonna Die across boarders was costly as they had to have their own seat booked on the plane. It's a classic chunk of teutonic electro complete with nonsense ephemeral video and a huffy aryan ice madien on vocals.