Just Another Social Profile Really

Despite my disgust at not being able to download Chuck D’s No Meaning No, this, Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind), makes me feel a lot better. A group production by a bunch of friends (though they’re not from Newport),it makes me proud to be British. Come along now, sing along with me:

On the dance floor raving, pack of 16 Bensons
Someone fighting bouncers, turns out it’s Gavin Henson!

or

Newport, twinned with Guangxi Province in China
There’s no province finer

According to the press Newport State of Mind is one of them there ‘internet sensations’, with over 1 million views on YouTube and climbing. Then again, judging by the number of my mates who’ve sent it to me, and the number of times I’ve seen it, it’s probably only been watched by about 100 people.

Newport image by EG Focus on flickr

This isn’t available as a legal download. The world has gone mad. That is all.

Oh, Chuck D’s No Meaning No samples Jimi Hendrix’s Foxy Lady (the intro) as well as the rather fantastic Get Out My Life, Woman by The New Apocalypse, which has also been covered by a lot of other rather wonderful artists.

No by smlp.co.uk on flickr

I have a friend. He shall remain nameless, though I can share his nom de plume with you: Dr Kenneth T. Noisewater. And every so often the good Dr. shares with me the latest mix to emerge from what he calls the Phat Cave.

The most recent one of these, which you can enjoy here, included something that at first sounded like Lady Gaga: “surely not,” I thought, “even Dr Noisewater would never dream of using such overrated art-pop shite”. He had, but before you join me in shunning the man, please check out the video above.

You see he hadn’t actually used one of GaGa’s sub-Madonna rip-offs; no, he’d used a remix/cover of Poker Face starring hip-hop heroes Kanye West, Common & Kid Cudi. And it’s really rather splendid, if not a little naughty.

I probably shouldn’t say anymore, as the Dr. is a shy man, but I’ll leave you to enjoy the best (only decent?) thing to come out with Gaga’s name attached to it.

Poker by Oliver Duperray on flickr

Many moons ago, when I’d not been blogging all that long, I wrote about a Radiohead cover I’d heard on Gilles Peterson’s show. It was a cover version of Just by some hip young New Yorker by the name of Mark Ronson; I thought it was pretty good and predicted big things for the lad - just goes to show how little I know.

Because of the Ronson cover of Just I bought the album it was taken from - Exit Music, a whole collection of Radiohead tributes by a variety of artists, mostly from the left of centre side of 21st Century soul and, by & large, I was disappointed: they tended to be rather self-indulgent & flabby. However, recently, due to the, well, genius of iTunes’ Genius recommendation system, I’ve started listening to one of the tracks from the album - High & Dry by Pete Kuzma, featuring Bilal on vocals.

I know next to nothing about Pete Kuzma, other than that he used to work with Jazzy Jeff (good enough for me), or Bilal, apart from the fact that he’s worked with Common and was interviewed by Gilles recently (again, that’s good enough for me). Their version of High & Dry is, however, IMHO, stunningly good.

It starts with a blissed out R&B jam, with Bilal providing some stunning vocals, drops into a full on jazz breakdown, before coming back with some more space-age soul. It is, I think, and I realise that many may see this as sacrilige, better than Radiohead’s original. There, I’ve said it. And now I’m going to listen to it again.

High & Dry by Fouse Photography on flickr

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H.L. Mencken

In the run up to this year’s election David Cameron spent a lot of time talking about Big Society (or BS as some have taken to referring to it, apparently without any irony): it would, he claimed, be a new way of managing the relationship between the state & its citizens, with normal people being asked to step up and take on many of the burdens that had been handled by the state in the past. A lot was also made by the Tories of their adoption of new technologies, a charge I’ve already clearly expressed my views on.

Well, now Dave’s in charge and is starting to explain exactly what Big Society means and exactly how all this new interweb stuff is going to help bring it into being. And apparently it involves getting Facebook to create a minisite where citizens (or, one presumes, anyone with a Facebook account) will be able to make suggestions as to how the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition should cut the deficit and start to “put Britain back on its feet”™.

It would be rude to point out that this sounds a lot like the 10 Donwing Street Petition site that attracted so much derision under Labour, or that the sight of Cameron desperately trying to appear with-it by associating with Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg was rather like watching the proverbial Dad dancing at a disco, so instead I’ll concentrate on another aspect of Cameron’s supposed love-in with open democracy and social media, and that is how short-lived it’s been.

Earlier this week, after a tense week of stand-offs and supposed sightings, Raoul Moat died besides a river in Cumbria having shot his ex-girlfriend, her partner and a random policeman. Whilst it would be impossible not to feel immense sympathy for the families of the dead and wounded, there is also nothing wrong with feeling sad that this whole sorry mess (which probably could have been avoided) ended with another death.

I may not a believer, but I understand it’s meant to be Christian to forgive one’s enemies, and to feel sympathy for all God’s creatures. Well, not for committed Christian David Cameron apparently.

Cameron responded to a (ridiculous) question from a Tory back-bencher, who had asked him to give Zuckerberg a call and ask him to take down a (distasteful) page in memory of Moat by stating that he thought it was a very good idea (to have the page taken down) and couldn’t understand how anyone could have any sympathy for Moat. Facebook, I’m glad to say, said no but in case you can’t see what’s wrong with this whole scenario, I’ll try to keep it brief.

1) David wants us to tell him how to run the government, not just via Facebook but through a new Treasury website too. The same people will be able to do that as feel the need to commemorate on Facebook someone who was almost certainly a murderer. You can’t have it both ways Dave. Defend to the death their right to say it and all that.

Speech is free, even for idiots who think that the financial crisis can be solved by taxing Gypsies. What will you do when they say that the way to cut the deficit is to sack the police and legalise drugs (which you know they will)

2) I find it just as distasteful to see a PM playing to the hang ‘em & flog ‘em brigade as I do to hear of praise for a man so selfish he’d rather kill his girlfriend and her new partner than let them find happiness (not to mention the collective sickness of a nation who found that the whole thing made rather good prime-time viewing). Especially as the only good things (IMO) this government has done so far is roll back attacks on civil liberty and challenge the idea that locking up more people is always a good idea.

Because, at the end of the day, what we start to see here is that whilst democracy is a wonderful thing, it isn’t perfect: we might not always like what it says about us, and it becomes a cruel beast when the people executing it lose sight of compassion.

After all, if politicians had been giving the public everything they wanted for the last few decades the Guildford 4 & Birmingham 6 would probably be 10 graves, whilst there would be a lot of dead paediatricians, and there’s nothing to ‘like’ about that, whether on Facebook or in the real world.

In its ongoing bid to have more sub-brands than any other media owner, Absolute Radio recently launched a new niche-station, this time one tailor-made for those of us currently experiencing the dizzying pangs that come with realising nostalgia isn’t just something that happens to your parents: Absolute 90s. And, as part of the ongoing celebrations of the launch, they’re compiling a list of the Essential 90s Albums.

Now, anyone who has ever read this blog before (Hi Mum!) will know that I love a good list and so, taking Absolute 90s compilation of such a list as a challenge, I thought I’d have a go myself. And here, after much thought, is my 20 essential albums of the 90s. It was hard enough keeping it to 20 (and they’re likely to change) so they’re in no-order other than chronological. I’ll happily admit that it tends to skew towards British music & hip-hop, but it’s not my fault that most grunge was shite.

Anyway, for anyone that cares (Hi Mum!), here’s my 20 essential albums of the 90s.

• Public Enemy - Fear Of A Black Planet (1990): Proving that rap & politics made perfect bed-fellows, the decade got off to a storming start with Public Enemy’s magnum opus.
• Happy Mondays - Pills ‘n’ Thrills And Bellyaches (1990): Whilst baggy seems like an 80s phenomenon, it’s crowning glory was released in the 1st year of the decade. A sprawling epic, the likes of which they’d never make again.
• The Sundays - Reading, Writing & Arithmetic (1990): Whilst the 90s was the decade that indie conquered (in the form of Britpop), the fey, jangling type that had ruled the 80s alternative scene was lost along the way. Which is a shame when it’s as beautiful as the début by the laziest band in rock.
• Massive Attack - Blue Lines (1991): Era defining. Genre defining. Proof that the UK could do its own blend of hip-hop as well, if not better than the US. You need to own this.
• Primal Scream - Screamadelica (1991): Indie never-weres discover house music, and drugs, and get remixed to the hilt. Genius ensues and a generation of white boys learn to dance. Almost.
• Dr. Dre - The Chronic (1992): Ex-member of NWA drops his anti-drugs message and starts dropping caps, blunts & bitches. Utterly un-PC, utterly amazing and owning a sense of humour that so much of the crap that came in its wake would lack.
• blur - Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993): Having proved that indie could top the charts, blur decided to try to kill grunge. They failed (at this attempt) but shaped a very-British type of pop that would soon sweep the nation.
• Paul Weller - Wild Wood (1993): The greatest British musical chameleon since Bowie went home, realised that growing old in Surrey wasn’t so bad, and released one of the most beautiful albums of the decade.
• Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers) (1993): Brought rap back to its spiritual home in New York, and stripped it down to its basics. Wu-Tang Clan aint nutting ta f*ck wit’! Remember that.
• Oasis - Definitely Maybe (1994): Gave the British a band to believe in, even if the dream was to prove short-lived. Life-changing.
• Tricky - Maxinquaye (1995): Responsible for some of Massive Attack’s greatest rhymes, Tricky went solo, discovered Martina Topley-Bird, and created an album of paranoid beauty.
• Coldcut - Journeys By DJ: 70 Minutes Of Madness (1995): The greatest mix album of all time, this took eclectic to a new level. House, dub, jungle, hip-hop, Dr. Who. Impossible to explain.
• DJ Shadow - Endtroducing… (1996): Trip-hop was always dead before it was really alive, but DJ Shadow managed to make its obituary an amazing piece of work.
• Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go (1996): Despite originally claiming they’d split after one album, even the loss of their muse couldn’t stop them. Showed that 90s rock didn’t have to be brain-dead to sell millions.
• Radiohead - OK Computer (1997): The best album ever according to every music magazine under the sun. Not sure I agree with that, but it really is breath-taking in its ambition & execution. Made most other bands look like they minnows they were.
• Roni Size/Reprazent - New Forms (1997): Despite being doubly cursed, as a Mercury winner and that year’s choice of coffee table album, this was & is a fine catalogue of the only truly British music genre to emerge since the 1960s.
• Daft Punk - Homework (1997): French house. Never before or since would those words make so much sense together.
• Lauryn Hill - Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill (1998): Left the biggest hip-hop band in the world to release an album showing that R&B could be intelligent, and that soul still meant something.
• Presence - All Systems Gone (1999): Probably the least well-known album on this list, but also one of the best. Imagine that Massive Attack had grown up listening to house instead of hip-hop; this is what Blue Lines would have sounded like.

Now, the observant amongst you will have noticed that the list above only has 19 entries.So, I want you to make suggestions as to which album should fill that space and I’ll choose one of the suggestions and add it to the final list of the 20 Essential Albums Of The 90s.

I should probably warn you now that it’s very unlikely that I’ll add any album that had a picture of a baby chasing a dollar bill on the cover. Just thought I’d mention it.

Well, it really is turning into a rather wonderful summer here in Blighty, isn’t it?And so, to celebrate that fact, I thought I’d post a slice of summer gold and was going to do just that with D’Angelo’s cover of Roy Ayers’ Everybody Loves The Sunshine.

Until I remembered I’d already written about it.

Not to be put off, I thought that I’d share with you another slice of sunny magic from the same album that I discovered D’Angelo’s effort on, Mr Scruff’s Big Chill Classics. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present the sublime Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love by 70s funk-maestros Odyssey (who were also responsible for the ultimate cover of Lamont Dozier’s classic Going Back To My Roots).

There’s really not a lot to say about this as you really just ought to listen to it. But, in the interests of pretending that I can string coherent sentences together, I’ll just say this.

Listening to Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love will immediately make you feel like you’re sat on a balcony on a balmy Mediterranean island, that there’s a cool G&T on the table in front of you, that your skin still has that wonderful glow from a day loafing around under a blazing sun, that a night of pleasantly laid-back hedonism awaits you, and that tomorrow will almost certainly involve swimming pools, rosé wine, fresh seafood and mid-afternoon siestas.

Which can’t be bad.

Whilst it’s probably a manifestation of the reason that England are always shit in international tournaments, I have to say that I found most of the Germany-Spain semi-final rather dull. Yes Spain passed the ball amazingly well, but they seemed to spend most of the first half doing so in order to stop the Germans playing the attacking football that has lit-up this World Cup to date. I know that’s the idea, but as a neutral it rather sucks.

Add to that the depressing sight of Shearer, Lawrenson, Linkeker and Hansen having a licence fee funded holiday without providing any sort of insight in return, and it was really a rather soul destroying night. Until the credits rolled that is.

Because there then followed a marvellous semi-acoustic cover version of Curtis Mayfield’s 70s funk anthem Move On Up, with the whole thing given an African twist. As always, the name of the track wasn’t announced in the credits (they can do it in movies, why the hell can’t they do it with TV shows?) and so I despaired of finding out the name of the track, untill Twitter (in the shape of @JohnnyLaird) stepped in to save the day:

@ciaranj It’s Angelique Kidjo http://youtu.be/wtEkbYhtW3Q$

And, blow me, if he wasn’t right. Unfortunately the version on YouTube appears to be the official version, from her recent album Oyo, and therefore include the over-the-top wailings of honourary African Bono*, as well as the rather less annoying John Legend, as opposed to the far more haunting version played at the end of Match of the Day.

Even so, it’s still a belter of a cover. And whilst it’s hard to top perfection (and the original Curtis Mayfield version of Move On Up is about as close to musical perfection as you’re ever likely to find), Angelique Kidjo’s cover isn’t half bad.

UPDATE: Full props to Ahmed who left a link to the (much more satisfying) acoustic version that ended Match of the Day, which you can now see above in all its (2 minute) glory.

*What’s the difference between Bono & God? God doesn’t fly ’round the world in a private jet thinking he’s Bono.

Angelique on Facebook. Her official site.

Football in TV by dr. motte on flickr

It really has been far too long since I’ve found the time or inspiration to post, so it’s good that today I was made aware of something that some of my greatest loves: music (cover versions to, ahem, boot), marketing and my footwear of choice for most of my teens, DMs.

Apparently Dr Martens are 50 years old this year, and to celebrate half a century of gracing the feet of goths, punks, indie-kids, and every music tribe inbetween, they’ve asked a bunch of musicians to cover tracks by artists that really epitomise the spirit of the boots. The artists involved include Noisettes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club & the rather magnificent Cinematic Orchestra.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cinematic Orchestra, it’s the work of Jason Swinscoe, and they blend everything from jazz & trip-hop to movie soundtracks to make hauntingly gorgeous music. They’ve been responsible for some amazing work including To Build A Home, Ode To The Big Sea and the utterly awesome All Things To All Men (one of the best songs of the noughties, IMO).

For the Dr Martens project they’ve covered a Jeff Buckley track and it is, unsurprisingly, lovely. I don’t really know any of Buckley’s stuff beyond Hallelujah (used so beautifully in the West Wing), but this does make me want to go and get more, as well as making me want to pull on a pair of old 8-hole ox-bloods: if they were good enough for Damon…

The original Buckley version of Lilac Wine is below, and once you’re finished loving that, why not head over to the Dr Martens site and download a free MP3 of the Cinematic Orchestra cover.

I should add that I was sent the video by Unruly Media.

DM image by Timothy Tolle on flickr