30 Day Song Challenge - Day Thirty

And so we reach the end of the journey, with 'what was your favourite song this time last year?'

Had trouble with this, but flatmates suggested Gaga which reminded me that I was promoting this version of Telephone over her one to anyone who would stand still long enough. Enjoy.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Eighteen

A song you wish you heard on the radio.

I think the world would be a better place if everyone in the world heard the following on the radio EVERY DAY:



LAWL, not really. But seriously, I actually do think that. I spend most nights lying awake in bed wishing the lost art form of the disco odyssey would hurry up and make a triumphant comeback already.

Alternatively, it'd be pretty sweet to have a bit of Cancel the Astronauts on the airwaves.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Sixteen

A song you used to love but now hate.

This is more difficult than it has any right to be, I think because of my self-sabotaging definition of the word 'hate'. It's too strong an emotion to apply to songs I merely don't like anymore...

So here's one of the many pop songs that I bought the single of, but would never actively choose to listen to again. I'm not sure if I ever loved it, to be honest, but CD singles used to be 99p in those days. And actually I did start to hate it - not long after buying it as a matter of fact. I remember I set the CD on fire to see what would happen during a pyromania phase at about 14, which is noteworthy because I NEVER get rid of tapes or CDs, however embarrassing they might be.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Thirteen

A song that is a guilty pleasure, you say?

Presumably this is meant to be something you are embarrassed to like, but I like quite a lot of crap and don't have a huge amount of shame about the matter.

Still, I'm pretty sure this qualifies:

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Two

Today I'm required to post my least favourite song.

This is probably Mull of Kintyre by Wings, to be honest, but I blogged about that for Let's Get Lyrical not very long ago at all and it would be overkill to do it again.

I looked at some other people's hated tracks for inspiration, but they left me cold. One of my bezzies hates the nation's sweetheart, Cheryl Kerl - how could I possibly condone that?! Meanwhile a Google search for 'terrible songs' was shockingly unhelpful.

Then all of a sudden, I remembered the existence of Simply Red! I was a little bit sick in my mouth of course, but on recovering all I had to do was decide which of their songs was the worst. Which only took about 0.1 seconds in all honesty - for me, Fairground was the runaway winner. Of all the things that might inspire fear / hatred of Mick Hucknall, this video is the one that does it for me.

I hated it when it was released in 1995, when I was ten years old and its 4 weeks at number 1 seemed interminable (I listened to the radio a lot at that age, particularly the Top 40); and I don't like it any better now. Eurgh.

Iiiin West Philadelphia Born And Raised

You know Will Smith? The Fresh Prince? The only black lead in any of the fifty highest grossing films ever (unless you count Eddie Murphy in Shrek, which I wouldn’t – Donkey is a sidekick)? His career trajectory has been pretty astounding, hasn’t it? And now his kids are following suit, which is nice, but dear god his daughter’s debut single is annoying.

The song begins with the line “I whip my hair back and forth,” which is repeated 8 times or until young Willow gets distracted by something shiny. The verse goes:

“Hop up out the bed turn my swag on” -

I had to conduct not one, but two internet searches to find out what that meant. She’s not referring to ‘swag’ as in a sackful of loot stolen by a burglar in a book by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, or SWAG as in the elite unit of the Philippine Navy. She’s only ten, which lead me to surmise she didn’t mean the valance, either. No, according to urban dictionary, ‘swag’ refers to the way one carries oneself, eg “he got a killa swag.” I am going to be using that, sounding whiter than anyone ever thought possible of a white girl from Scotland.

“Pay no attention to them haters,” she continues, encouragingly.

What haters are these, one wonders. You’re ten years old, what have you been doing to accumulate haters? She explains:

“Because we whip em off.”

Get your mind out of the gutter, people, that can’t possibly mean what it sounds like. Maybe she literally has been whipping them with like a riding crop or something. Ouch. But then she elaborates,

“and we ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong,” which puts paid to the whip attack idea. She must know that assault is bad, hater or no hater. Or does she?

“So don’t tell me nothin’ / I’m just trying to have fun,” she says defensively.

Although that’s pretty standard kid chat, isn’t it.

Adult: Hello, small child! What are you up to?

Child: Nothin. Just trying to have fun, jeez, leave me alone already. You’re so embarrassing.

“So keep the party jumping,” Willow continues vaguely, perhaps referring to the time mom and dad got her a totally sweet bouncy castle for her birthday.

“So whats up? Yeah. / You know they don't know what to do / we turn our back and whip our hair…”

Sage advice for you there. If you got some haters all up in your grill, whip your hair back and forth. They won’t know what to do. To prove the point, Willow proceeds to whip her hair back and forth for about eight years, occasionally exhorting haters not to get her off her grind, until Jay-Z caves and gives her a record contract. Hopefully she will annoy him into writing her a proper song.

Kid Canaveral Album Launch

Last week I was one of the lucky ones who got to the launch of Kid Canaveral's debut album, Shouting At Wildlife - you may remember I reviewed that (in a manner of speaking) here.

The show was held in the Roxy, was very well attended, and was the sweatiest gig I've ever been to (and I am including punk gigs in the Barrowlands here). I went in with the intention of interviewing excited punters about their experience to make a totally sweet video, but by the end of it all everyone was melted and partially deaf due to the awesome power of RAWK inflicted by the PA system. So what I have instead is a recording of album opener 'Good Morning', which is of dubious sound quality and not entirely live as my camera was playing silly buggers and cut off the beginning.

Enjoy:

That Gig

Cancel the Astronauts are probably your new favourite band, and not just cause they make a lot of their music available to download for free off last.fm (although that works in their favour). But in addition to this, you see, their fast paced indie pop stylings are mixed with a sense of humour and some excellent dance moves. Braw.

"Anybody going to see Hot Chip tonight? .... Anybody get tickets to see Hot Chip tonight forgetting their own band was playing?!"


A squiggly photo taken on night mode as I didn't want to be the pranny distracting everybody concerned by taking photos with the flash when I was about a foot away from the band. And most other people in the room. The Wee Red Bar is not so much a clever name, it's more a very small bar that's been painted red.



Who or what are Babygod? Reactions on Saturday were mixed. Matt from the Astros introduced them as 'the best band in Scotland today'. Captain Tact pronounced them 'tantalisingly mediocre'. Personally, I spent a large chunk of the set trying to work out who they reminded me of. There was a whisper of early Manics in there, and a bit of Sons and Daughters, but that was as far as I got. Essentially they are a band of many parts, and opinion at this gig was divided on whether there's any point putting all those parts together in one place. This could be because they're so different from the other bands on the bill, which had a very jarring effect. The last song, Throw it on the Fire, was nice though.




Night mode picture of the drummer. The band are actually worth a watch for him alone - he's utterly fascinating.

"He looks surprised every time he hits the snare..."
- El Capitan








Kid Canaveral's first full length album is out this year, hooray! This is one of the tracks on there, although once again you must make allowances for the crappiness of my camera work and the low quality sound you get filming on a wee digital snapper.



They kicked off their set with the ridiculously catchy Good Morning (available as a free download here) and stomped their way through a set consisting almost entirely of other ridiculously catchy tunes, including Second Time Around, Couldn't Dance and Smash Hits, to name but three. It's getting on for six years since I first saw them in the students' union in St Andrews, but over that time they've constantly evolved their sound and they've yet to disappoint. Suck on that, Slipknot.