Wednesday, August 31, 2005
10 Things We State About...
So, ummm, yeah. We're back! And we can only apologise for the complete lack of content over the last few weeks. In our defence we haven't, as is normally the case when updates are a bit thin on the ground, been staring blankly at our computer screen, waiting desperately for inspiration to strike, but have instead been out and about seeing a grand total of 47 shows at the Fringe, one of which lasted for 33 and a half hours, so we feel we can be cut a bit of slack.Anyway, it all finally came to an end last night, with Franz Ferdinand taking the final slot in our ever so slightly hectic calendar. To celebrate that event, and because we're too lazy to do a proper review, here's ten entirely true and in no-way made up facts about the four best dressed men in Glasgow, i.e. they own more than one suit:-
- When the real one is too busy, the role of Alex Kapranos is often played by consumer champion and talented game show host, Nicky Campbell.
- They reckon that it's quite acceptable to wear blazers outside of high school and sailing regattas. They are wrong.
- People called Michael never tire of being told that they dance like a beautiful dance whore.
- Or being pointed at during the song's chorus as they sit at the side of the club, softly weeping at this sudden and unexpected form of persecution.
- Nick's favourite TV programme is Big Cook, Little Cook.
- One of the band's favourite pastimes is to break wind in inappropriate locations. This is such an important part of their lives that they even felt the need to immortalise it in their debut single, Farts of Pleasure.
- They got together with the professed aim of making "music to make girls dance". With this in mind they immediately sunk all their money into paying top scientists to research this, the outcome being the all important finding that estrogen reacts only to high kicking angular art-rock and nothing else. Some have suggested that the top scientists time may have been better spent.
- Franz Ferdinand claim that they're named after the person who's assassination caused the start of the First World War. This is nonsense, that was Lieutenant Pigeon.
- Alex reckons that it's better on either holiday or in the dark of the matinee. Were he ever to go to an early afternoon performance while enjoying paid leave, it's quite likely that he would explode with pleasure.
- They're pretty damned good, especially given the fact that they're weegies.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Yeah, Yeah, We Know
Normal service will be resumed on Wednesday. Promise. In the meantime why not buy the new Girls Aloud single, which is rather good, the new Helen Love single, which we've not actually heard yet, but it is a new Helen Love single so there's a pretty good chance that it'll be something very special indeed. And, and, if that's not enough, why not kill some time with the Girls Aloud Paperdoll Game, which we've noticed thanks to the always ace No Rock and Roll Fun. It's one of the few occasions where Nicola can get first pick of the clothes.
See you next week.
music
See you next week.
music
Friday, August 12, 2005
Hello!
See. Told you we'd be rubbish this month.
Anyway, in between attempting to burn out rather than fade away, we have managed to catch a few snippets of pop news, even if our finger is so far away from the pulse right now that we're happily declaring everyone we come into contact with dead. First up was the news that The Magic Numbers stormed out of Top of the Pops in a big stroppy old huff after Richard Bacon described them as "a big fat melting pot". It was the "fat" comment which particularly hurt them as, as one of them, it doesn't really matter which, they all look the same, explained later: "We weren't too bothered about the 'pot' comment - we do all enjoy a smoke every now and then - but we did think about complaining about the 'melting' jibe until we had a look in the mirror and realised that, y'know what, it does look like our faces have melted".
Also catching our attention was the news that Marc Cohn was shot during an attempted car-jacking, mainly because when we heard it on the radio we misheard and thought it was actually Mark Owen who was being thrust back into the limelight in a somewhat unfortunate way. Of course, it wasn't. It was simply the bloke who sang Walking in Memphis who got in between a bullet and its desperate rush for freedom and not, perhaps fortunately, the pint sized popstar whose near hit Four Minute Warning will be the last thing you hear as you rush towards the safety of your nuclear bunker once World War III breaks out. Sadly we have to admit to ourselves that had it really been Mark Owen who was involved in this incident, it would have been unlikely to have received any news coverage beyond a mention in Heat magazine along the lines of "Spotted: Mark Owen covered in blood, slumped lifelessly across his Y-reg Ford Escort in the car park outside Waitrose, Manchester".
Hmm, that wasn't really worth waiting for, was it?
music mark owen magic numbers
Anyway, in between attempting to burn out rather than fade away, we have managed to catch a few snippets of pop news, even if our finger is so far away from the pulse right now that we're happily declaring everyone we come into contact with dead. First up was the news that The Magic Numbers stormed out of Top of the Pops in a big stroppy old huff after Richard Bacon described them as "a big fat melting pot". It was the "fat" comment which particularly hurt them as, as one of them, it doesn't really matter which, they all look the same, explained later: "We weren't too bothered about the 'pot' comment - we do all enjoy a smoke every now and then - but we did think about complaining about the 'melting' jibe until we had a look in the mirror and realised that, y'know what, it does look like our faces have melted".
Also catching our attention was the news that Marc Cohn was shot during an attempted car-jacking, mainly because when we heard it on the radio we misheard and thought it was actually Mark Owen who was being thrust back into the limelight in a somewhat unfortunate way. Of course, it wasn't. It was simply the bloke who sang Walking in Memphis who got in between a bullet and its desperate rush for freedom and not, perhaps fortunately, the pint sized popstar whose near hit Four Minute Warning will be the last thing you hear as you rush towards the safety of your nuclear bunker once World War III breaks out. Sadly we have to admit to ourselves that had it really been Mark Owen who was involved in this incident, it would have been unlikely to have received any news coverage beyond a mention in Heat magazine along the lines of "Spotted: Mark Owen covered in blood, slumped lifelessly across his Y-reg Ford Escort in the car park outside Waitrose, Manchester".
Hmm, that wasn't really worth waiting for, was it?
music mark owen magic numbers
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
10 Things We State About...
So, for reasons which cannot be understood by anyone who actually enjoys listening to music, James Blunt is at number one for the third week running with his distressingly bad single, Beautiful. There isn't actually ten things of interest about the badly coiffuered twat, so instead here are ten entirely true and in no way made up facts about something almost as bad, Acoustic Guitars:-- Despite almost rhyming, listening to an acoustic guitar is less enjoyable than listening to a crashing car.
- Guitar strings often break. This is worth remembering when attempting to garrot a particularly despised acoustic troubadour with his own instrument.
- The most satisfying noise an acoustic guitar can make is the "thwunk" you hear when smashing it across the guitarist's head.
- By putting your feet in the sound hole, acoustic guitars make great shoes.
- But the best thing to do with the sound hole is to block it up entirely, thus protecting the ears of all those around you.
- Girls! Never date an acoustic singer/songwriter. He'll only embarrass you by either a) writing a godawful love song to you while you're dating or b) write a godawful song about how miserable he is now that you've dumped him, most probably because he embarrassed you by writing a godawful love song about you.
- Acoustic guitars make great oversized novelty table-tennis bats, and tend to sound better afterwards as well.
- If you turn up at a party and there's someone in the corner, entertaining the crowd with a selection of 'classics' played upon an acoustic guitar, it's safe to say you've turned up to the wrong party.
- Thomas Edison 'invented' electricity because he was fed up being bored shitless with acoustic troubadours at every shindig he attended.
- Seriously, they're worse than bongo players.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Thoughts of the Pops
It's Tuesday! And it's also August which, thanks to the Edinburgh Fringe, is probably going to be a somewhat lax month - well, laxer anyway - here at TiaPL towers. Despite our best efforts to get some holiday cover it seems that no-one likes us, or at the very least wants to write for us, so instead we'll just have to do our very best to keep the site up to date and relevant over the next 30 days. Which probably means that there'll be nothing posted except for an embarasssed message in a fortnight's time apologising for the lack of updates, but never mind. Until then, here's what we learnt from this week's Top of the Pops:-- This week Fearne was joined by XFM DJ type, Christian O'Connell. Despite the fact he sounds like a cross between Jeremy Clarkson and Alan Partridge, he's been the first of the guest hosts to not only do a half way competent job, but also look like he actually wanted to be there.
- Oasis opened the show with The Importance of Being Idle. This isn't exactly what the showbiz industry calls kicking things off with a bang.
- You and Me, the new single by Uniting Nations, is esentially a cross between Freeloaders' So Much Love to Give and Out of Touch by Uniting Nations, making it one of the least original singles ever released.
- Still, nice clipboards.
- Keane have spent 64 weeks in the album chart with Hopes and Fears. Coincidentally enough, this is exactly how long listening to the bloody thing feels like.
- Michael Jackson was the first of tonight's retro 'treats'. He was doing Rockin' Robin as a small child - not the other way around we hasten to add - although he failed to state his position on whether, as biscuits go, it really was a whole lot of choc to bite or, indeed, whether it was choc-a-block, man.
- Natalie Imbruglia is Counting Down the Days. And, with this limping in to number 23, so are her record company to the day her contract expires.
- Summer of Rock n Roll by Twisted X ft Outlaw demonstrates exactly why 12 year old boys should never be allowed to make records.
- Christian O'Connel: "Last year Franz Ferdinand put Glasgow on the map". You'd have thought with them being quite busy with the whole pop star malarky they wouldn't have had time to work for the Ordanance Survey, wouldn't you?
- El Presidente are at number 30 with Without You. More drummers shold wear unsuitable dresses while pounding the skins.
- Rather than doing current single, Shame and Scandal, Madness gave us a ska-ed up - i.e. rubbish - version of The Kinks' Lola. Presumably tranvestitism is considered to be less corrupting to the nation's youth than incest.
- In an actually-showing-something-quite-good shocker, Adam and the Ants doing Antmusic was the second retro performance of the night. Who'd have thought that a man whose day to day job consisted of dressing up like a pirate using only his mother's clothes to achieve the look would have turned out to be a bit mad?
- Simon Webbe, out of Blue, has a new single. Lay Your Hands starts off sounding really good, but then turns to shit, conincidentally enough, at the exact point that Simon Webbe, out of Blue, starts singing.
- James
CBlunt is still at number one.
