Rockists Night In: Set The Fire To The Third Knob

Methinks the lady doth protest too much

Those of you not yet middle-aged, criticise BBC Three while you still can! Really though, the channel’s future seems as safe as their schedules and as a result I don’t think Bennett needs to act quite so irate in her defensive stance. But then as a (not middle-aged) critic of BBC Three in general for some time now I would say that.

So how does the reality match up to Bennett’s insistence that the channel provides a ‘high quality mixed-genre schedule of innovative UK content featuring new UK talent’ to that all-important 16-34 yr olds audience? Tonight we have:

… read on …

Lily Allen vs the world part 3487

Apparently Alesha Harvey disapproves of Lily Allen’s bitching of other pop stars. But Alesha’s attitude may itself be a far bigger problem - this seemingly programmed attitude of goodwill to all (other pop stars regardless of their flaws) and reluctance to offend that makes the pop world a greyer place in the long run. Regardless of the quality of Allen’s own music and stardom, her decision to let people know exactly what she thinks of such-and-such is surely a refreshing tactic (if it can even be construed as such) that should perhaps even be encouraged among others in the game.

That said, the issue is clouded by Allen’s opinions being hardly radical and a whole-lotta-rockist, plus her reputation of being maybe a little TOO obnoxious in the flesh (like father like daughter). ‘Madonna should put it away now she’s had a couple of kids’ and ‘Kylie playing Glastonbury is a betrayal of the festival’s original values’ are stalwarts of boorish curmudgeons thrice Lily’s age and if she is to take a leaf out of Alesha’s book it should be more of the ’spice up the music more than anything else’ ilk rather than the stifling ‘if you can’t say something nice (bland) don’t say anything at all’ variety. Unfortunately I suspect you’re more likely to hear Alesha heaping praise upon the likes of James Morrison than MIA, because of her own disappointing tendency to tow the line and say what’s best for sales. It is a classic case of getting the balance right that neither have quite nailed yet.

Charlie & The Chocolate Factory

As A Tim Burton Event and even as a remake, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory feels a little TOO predictable and ‘robotic’ at times (Hollywood/ILM/Elfman etc. TOO well-oiled a machine now!) - the latter criticism ironic perhaps given the somewhat laboured ‘ahhh humanity’ scenes and dialogue scattered throughout. A sense of ‘going through the motions’ and ‘paying the bills’ pervaded much of the two hours. I don’t doubt Burton’s love and respect for Dahl’s works for one moment, but the question ‘why this, now?’ still intrigues. I probably would’ve enjoyed it more and it would’ve felt fresher if I hadn’t seen the original again on TV recently, but still…

The whole thing does feel irrevocably Burton’s World though - despite this being a re-adaptation of a text by a visionary with such a legendary style of his own. The parallels between Burton and Dahl in this respect are fun to explore and contrast in theory, but perhaps this ‘meeting of the minds’ didn’t quite live up to expectations purely because in the end the similarities seem too close. As well as the obvious shared affinity for childhood, both are fascinated by ‘the monster who just wants to be loved’. All well and cute, but could there not be something more interesting done with a ‘monster’ like Wonka beyond nudging them to the conclusion ‘families are great and should come first’? Even for a PG?

Of course Burton takes the risk of frustrating some fans every time he commits to a kids film. He confirms his position alongside Spielberg, Lucas and Jackson in terms of pushing the boundaries for how dark a PG can be. As it turns out, only one of the children’s fates feels truly disturbing even to an adult like myself (wonder if you can guess which one?!) - indeed it seemed to cause at least one toddler tears in the half-full cinema - I’ll never fathom why kids as young as 5 or so are brought along to ‘family’ films by the likes of Burton or Jackson though, given their penchant for the grotesque spectacle. Not that I believe in ‘protecting’ children from nightmare visions necessarily, but still the mind bogles…

The creepy images are matched in number by moral messages dished out by Depp (reliable as ever) as Wonka, Charlie and his family (save for the glorious but typecast Liz Smith as the senile granny) and director throughout - something that hadn’t seemed as apparent in Burton’s previous films, but then this is his most out-and-out kids flick yet and there’s a strong sense of an increased responsibility to teach lessons from him here, whilst cackling nerdily at the spoilt kids all the way. Again it’s not a case of disagreeing with these messages (esp. as most have not changed since the original film and indeed the book), just an indication of curiosity with regard to the way they are issued. Depp’s warped genius of a Wonka comes across just as scatter-brained and laissez-faire as Wilder’s all in all, though as talented and as game as he is, he lacks quite the same charisma and comic timing I feel.

It had some magical moments (Charlie’s Grandad plays a blinder – his general benevolence threatened by a child-like selfishness when it comes to the question of who should accompany Charlie to the factory, followed by ridiculous celebratory dance just perfectly poignant) but lacked that extra spark somehow - unless I’m just too jaded for so dated a tale (quite likely!). It’s odd to see a story like this retold today - I was too cynically bemused by the confusing ‘English people in Americaland’ aspect once again. I would’ve liked to see Depp’s Wonka become angry at Charlie like Wilder’s did – the all too real rage of a distressed adult at an innocent child more frightening a spectacle than many of the things conceived by either Burton or Dahl. The most interesting part in theory was the final 15 minutes where Burton takes the story beyond the original, though the outcome will not surprise anybody.

But Deep Roy is great fun and the all new Oompa-Loompa songs also stand up pretty well to the original ones. This is a fun soundtrack to compliment the original rather than baulk in it’s shadow or sneer at it from deceptive heights. I’m sure Burtonintended the film itself to do the same, and by and large he succeeds once again. I just hope he goes and does something completely and utterly different next. And of course, make sure you eat SOME chocolate just before you see the film or you’ll come out and blow £200 in Thorntons.

Forget everything I just said…

Sounds like a wet one…

When you’re not AT Glastonbury but feel as though you should be a curious conflict can develop in your mind as well as in the media. Radio 1, NME and other portals capitalise on the festival’s perpetual popularity excessively as if to justify their own existence further, their tone generally and irritatingly obsessive yet vacuous and trite and as giddy as the 16 year olds who messed up their GCSEasies and now head for The Rolling Fields Of Avalon (TM) to get inebriated on booze-injected pear-ade and possibly lose their virginity in a hedge by the toilets while The Zutons arse about on The Other Stage. This in mild contrast to what always seems a deeply cynical, schaudenfreude-tastic yet desperate effort by the Grown-Up News to report on the event, with just a hint of wry glee if a few spots of rain dog proceedings and send tents ‘floating’ and welly sales soaring.

Part of me remains that sanguine 16 year old about the whole thing, the other a jaded tosspot apparently pleased that other people are not necessarily having more fun than I am after all (surely this is not allowed). A conflict that seemingly can never be resolved.

But Glastonbury’s capricious meteorological issues aside, you cannot fail to have fun there. The only question is how much and whether it will match the probably unrealistic expectations in your head. So as I now imagine how nice it must be to hear ‘Teenage Kicks’ belted out defiantly and honourably by a withering Fergal and gang from the rain-lashed Pyramid stage, the Tor a distant, faded friend heralding you from afar, reminding you of the site’s unrelenting charm. You bastards, I wish I was there, again…

The ‘ain’t goin’ to Glasto’ mix…

For those of us not down at Worthy Farm this weekend who sort of wish we were, 30 seconds out of every minute.

Alvin Lucier ‘I Am Sitting In A Room’
Dru Hill ‘In MY Bed’
Samantha Fox ‘Love House’
Basement Jaxx ‘City People’
Lloyd Cole & The Commotions ‘Lost Weekend’
Shrek ‘Stay Home’
Radiohead ‘Pyramid Song’ (pyramid…misery…DYS?)
Death Cab For Cutie ‘We Laugh Indoors’
Vitalic ‘No Fun’
Underworld ‘Mmmm Skyscraper I Love You’
Joachim ‘Come Into My Kitchen’
St Etienne ‘Side Streets’
O.M.D. ‘Electricity’
The Futureheads ‘Decent Days And Nights (Max Tundra mix)’
The Housemartins ‘Me And The Farmer’ (a great song to turn you off the countryside)
Sean Paul ‘Concrete’
Daft Punk ‘Television Rules The Nation’
Slowdive ‘Beach Song’
Air ‘People In The City’
Yello ft Stina Nordenham ‘To The Sea’

THE FT TOP 25 ANIMALS- 9: Hedgehogs

I never really understood the porcine reference in the name as the little beasts have much more of the rodent about them than the darling/delicious pig (and indeed they are closely related to the mole and the shrew - but not the same as porcupines, alright?). That said, hedgehogs did experience their own dalliance with the culinary world courtesy of this legendary 80s meme
- alas (sorry, I mean, fortunately) said chips were flavoured of nothing more than pork fat. Still I can think of a few out there who probably harbour secret desires to sample the spiky variant, though they’d have to catch them first.

I never believed that hedgehogs were actually as fast as the pixelated wry blue show-off of gamelore but do recall an incident a few years back when staring out at the night sky from my back door one night I heard a rustling in the bushes and a dark blur racing out from the vegetation at an alarming pace, pursued by the neighbour’s cat (not Knuckles). Also impressive is their general noisiness as they forage around your garden (fortunately this does not extend to making a fox-esque cacophony at 3am) and their alleged ‘invulnerability’ when curled up into a ball, pointy bits out - though not quite tough enough for the deadliest predator of them all, SUV MAN. Hedgehog entrails spilled out all over the road in front of your house is not a pretty sight, so if they are to continue trying to cross busy roads at night I would not be adverse to powdering their diet of insects with crushed up steroids, just to boost their chances of making it from one kerb to the other in time. But it’s probably illegal. In the meantime we can only stand back and simultaneously deplore and admire their human-like willingness to dice with death in this way. Erm, hooray?

Great Pop Discovered Whilst On Holiday #1 (New Series)

Bikstok Røgsystem - ‘Cigar’

One of the great things about visiting other countries: lying in bed in the hotel room after midnight (in this instance I was in Stockholm) flicking through the selection of free cable channels on the TV provided. I count three or four music channels, Annie’s ‘Heartbeat’ and Bertine Zetlitz is are played on MTV Europe and the general vibe takes me back to MTV’s pan-continental incarnation that we used to receive in the UK before someone decided to segregate us from the rest of Europe by creating MTV UK & Ireland. This did as much harm as good and we lost as much as we gained if not more (those incessant gabba compilation adverts were annoying at the time but I’ve come to miss them since). Because Britain today would appear to have no place for the likes of Bikstok Røgsystem, a Danish pop-dancehall combo who entertained me greatly by cropping up on Swedish music television with their excellent new single ‘Cigar’. Very little information about them in English on the interweb it would seem but there is this with a link to the fabulous video therein which I urge you all to peruse.

The official website http://www.bikstok.dk is also worth a look for some lovely artwork and much fun to be had attempting to learn and translate ‘Cigar’s lyrics into English. Let the campaign for more of this sort of thing in our stagnant, somewhat lacking British music charts begin…

45 RPM

45 RPM

As in, 45 resolutions per minute. That’s roughly the number of them I seem to come up with every sixty seconds. Now the hangover has worn off it’s time to put one’s money where one’s booze-guzzling mouth is and actually start acting on them.

Diet-related ones tend to be among the more popular and practiced. The scary thing being that age seems to have forced me into thinking about doing the same. I’m not planning on an entirely alcohol-free month though. Resolutions should really be fun and about adding something not taking it away.

So rather than become a fully fledged alcoholic I am excited by the idea of trying to watch a lot more films this year. Inspired by many things including Pete’s list of films from 2003, many of which I still haven’t seen. So MY Resolution #1 is to watch at least three films in the cinema every month. The cheapest place I have found to do this is Peckham Multiplex (only ‘3!) so expect to find me there a lot more regularly from now on. I also only recently discovered the mysterious Renoir cinema in the equally mysterious Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury which in turn leads me to wonder if there shouldn’t be some sort of Publog-esque review of all French-sounding cinemas in London to accompany my challenge. The answer is, of course, no. But I will away and think of more interesting proposals for this month’s theme while you chatter away about your own resoultions in the comments box (please?)…

THE SQUARE TABLE 25 / KYLIE MINOGUE & THE SCISSOR SISTERS - “I Believe In You”

POP FACTOR: 760 CONTROVERSY RATING: 187

This one has it all!*
- Classy Cocktail Kylie but with added good song!
- Smooth and modish production
- Genuinely good lyrics (”I don’t believe I’d fall in love just topass the time”)
- Great whispering bits!
- Middle eight that gets the moves going on the office party dancefloor (as proven last Friday, cheers Ms Minogue)
- A proper ending, and quite an arch one too.

*except a good singer. Oh well. 8 (Tom Ewing)

One of the greatest singles of the year. Unlike a certain other single recently reviewed by the Square Table, this is immediate (without kitsch), fluid (without limpness), and permanent (without obnoxiousness). And the lyrics (”I don’t believe I’d love somebody just to pass the time / but I believe in you”) are great too. 10 + JOKER (Atnevon)

As opposed to her asensual dreams of late, Kylie has slipped back into the lush orgasmic universe with “I Believe In You.” A Moroder-synth-throb produced by Jake Shears and Babydaddy from the Scissor Sisters, this is a song dedicated to Pop religion: Kylie and the listener are willing to believe the dream. The endless repetition and the robotic synth beat are enchanting. It all feels remote and alluring at the same time. This is “I feel love” for the 21st century, a coke-filled fantasy you can’t escape. 8 (stevienixed)

So light perfect for day dreaming. Treads the space inbetween “Spinning Around” and “Slow” perfectly and although throughly constant in pace it never bores or drags. Could have been so easily spoilt by over complication but thankfully isn’t. Kylie has left the dancefloor people. 8 (Paul Thomas)

It feels Kylie-by-numbers from the word go, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Scissor Sisters turn in quite a decent string-laden tech-disco production complete with fiddles (so hot right now!) adorning the middle eight and ending nicely. Kylie’s breathy chorus almost operatic were only her voice capable of such grandeur (I’m quite glad it isn’t I think), but it’s well conceived, and concealed. It illustrates the difference between laziness and effortlessness pretty well, as despite the ‘knocked out sharpish’ feeling I can’t help but get from it, there are some sublime moments that strike me as as perfect as anything from the cream of her earlier work. 8 (SteveM)

K is for Kyle and K-hole and that’s just being redundant. This is what the girl in that old “Whipped Cream and Other Delights” album cover must have felt like: oily and beautiful and swimming in soft soft white. Not many songs make me want to turn on the iTunes visualizer to “watch along” but that’s exactly what this one did. Couldn’t be more vapid and dreamy and that’s just fine. But listen, could I just touch you? I mean, to make sure you’re real and stuff? 7 (forksclovetofu)

Like an old pair of shoes, new Kylie singles these days are pretty comfortable and reliable. She may misfire now and then, but we believe in her! The only complaint I have about this collaboration with the Scissor Sisters is that her voice overpowers the shiny synth hook in the chorus, when it should be the other way around. Otherwise, business as usual. 7 (Michael F. Gill)

We take Kylie for granted now, but who thought, nearly twenty years back when she had a hit with ‘I Should Be So Lucky’, that she had any chance of a long and successful music career? Anyway, this is another good single, sweet and pretty, with a slightly mournful almost-’80s electro beat (maybe that’s what made me think back to her ’80s stuff, though obviously she didn’t sound like this then), which doesn’t entirely match the very positive lyric. It’s a nice tune, and the production layering is very attractive. A drawback is that her voice doesn’t really get the expressiveness it reaches for in parts, but I don’t think that turns out to be very costly to the overall success. I dislike the silly noise on the ‘joker’s always smiling’ line (exactly the kind of moment of aural humour that Shadow Morton always got perfectly right), but otherwise I like this. 7 (Martin Skidmore)

The Product has been perfected over many years, but the visible seams and stiches on the music (and body) spoil the effect almost totally. Here, the [half-]track is merely an 80s pastiche that sound uncomfortably similar to New Order played at +16 (tightly sequenced bassline / nervous singing / vague melancholy / crap lyrics written on a napkin). It’s merely a langorous electronic backdrop for another identikit sexy video, the vocals slow and breathy to allow Kylie to sashay leggily around red-mouthed in shot without breaking her couplets. Despite a rather lovely arcing melody in the chorus (they’ve have around ten years to perfect pop kylie of course- a ludicrous amount of time), it’s as ersatz as the photoshopped girls in a glossy men’s mag. Summoning up enthusiasm for it is like trying to arouse yourself staring at the Girls Of FHM 2004. 3 (Derek Walmsley)