Lucky to get a sneak preview of The Marseille Figs’ latest EP “Jumbo”, as my pre-order CD won’t be around for another week, though you can already buy downloads, and it is likely to feature on very heavy rotation on my MP3 to liven up my commutes.
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A nice and serendipitous link between my last two posts – Having written about ‘Guthrie2.0‘ Jonathan Mann, I stumbled across an older song of his, ‘Interesting Time’ on Blip.fm, and it could have been written for tomorrow’s Put People First G20 march and rally – a slice of pure Guthrism:
“Ours is an interesting time. We’re so close and yet so divided.
The framework has been provided, but we carry too much on our shoulders.
Yes and ours is an interesting time, when we’re running out of water,
and the world is getting hotter, but everyone I know seems colder.
Let’s move, brothers, move, and we’ll all move together,
through our interesting times, we’ll move towards a better future.
Let’s move, brothers, move.”
So have a listen, and I hope I’ll see you in the crowd tomorrow – or at least read your #g20rally tweets at www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk/twitterbuzz 
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Jonathan Mann is writing a two minute pop song every day, based on themes suggested by his friends and visitors to his website. He says he’s doing it to keep active and creative whilst he finds himself unemployed at a pretty tricky time to get work. What’s more surprising is that whatever the theme (Battlestar Galactica, LOLcats, Obama, a tour of his house) his tunes are for the most part fantastic, with utterly hummable melodies and witty couplets. Honest reflections on his life, surreal fantasies, and pithy political comment, showing him up as a very rounded, prolific, unpretentious and likeable person. (more…)
Comedy flash genii Doghorse and Eclectech have outdone themselves with this ludicrously catchy tune about the perils of your office PC. It’s promoting Not Safe For Work? - workSMART’s new interactive training thingy on Internet security. (more…)
This vid looks to have been up on their site for months now, but I only just noticed it after I found myself thinking a lot of Morgan Tsvangirai and the terrible challenges he and the MDC are facing over the next days, and humming through this namechecking song about bravery and devotion, so I went to check it out again.
By way of background – Back in the mists of the last decade, the greatest pop combo to play some of Oxford’s grottiest venues were the Holy Roman Empire. A formidable pop songwriting talent hitched to universally derided musical skills, but with a punky enough attitude not to care and the charisma to get them forgiven for a lot, HRE were lefty, internationalist, life-affirming, funny, and too clever by half. Many years on and Ste Fleming from HRE seems as though he may be on the verge of coming back (as Le Emu Tavern), with a new sound like the missing link between Morrissey and Phil Oakey that you never knew you needed. That would be a good thing. I’m only hoping this tribute vid to Morgan Tsvangirai doesn’t end up relevant in the same sad way as that of HRE’s old single Benazir Bhutto.
Rave advance reviews for the new album from the utterly remarkable Marseille Figs. The Dirty Canon sounds like a bigger, bolder and much more brashly produced version of their demo CD stuff, which I really loved. (more…)
Yes – this year’s Tolpuddle Festival has SOLD OUT of tickets for the camp site, which must put it on course for a record attendance.
I won’t be going. Mainly because of family committments, but officially I’m not going because I’m boycotting this year’s headliners, Chumbawamba, who I well & truly despise.
Mrs is a big fan, and because our musical tastes are fundamentally unreconcilable (and she would always win the argument) the relentless drone of Chumba’s self-righteous left-negativism used to befoul the flat’s atmosphere on a far too regular basis. Luckily now, Jnr’s musical tastes trump even hers, and we listen to nothing but “The Cat in The Hat” on autorepeat, which I think is a mercy of types.
Anyway, don’t let that stop you going – the wondrous Billy Bragg will be there, like the ravens in the Tower, and there’s Mark Thomas, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, and so much other stuff (and more than enough beer) to help you ignore the gaggle of oafish Prescott-dousers chanting “Can’t hear you, cos your mouth’s full of sh*t”, whilst failing to notice the turds in their own maw.
And hey, it might even be sunny!
