Thankfully, I'm not badly afflicted with the asthma; my inhalers remain for the most part stowed away until my lungs start to disintegrate in winter. I blame the bout of pneumonia I got when I was a tot. Memorable because it was my only stay in hospital and my aunt gave me a magazine about Abba. See, I was into them waaaay before you... Back on topic. It was 22°C today and yesterday in London and this is not only welcome and amazing for many, many reasons, it reminded me that I need to have a soundtrack for [...]
The ballet is a 15th century invention which has meant very little to me other than strange stirrings as a youth when some tights-wearing dancer threatened to take someone's eye out with his manbits as he leapt about to Tchaikovsky. To paraphrase Moz, I had to say that ballet said nothing to me about my life so I settled for the cheap pop thrills that later lead to more complex pop thrills. Dance does not figure. Pet Shop Boys are no strangers to either cheap or complex pop thrills [...]
Every other day I read something about improving the quality of life by getting more sleep, imposing an electronic curfew and unplugging from social networks. Apart from the irony of finding this stuff at 4:30 a.m. while having a sneaky surf under the duvet, I can't help feeling that my quality of life would take a nose dive were I not able to a) happen upon lovely musical treats and b) let them orchestrate the internal movie of my life as I go about my business. Yes, I should probably be reading a book or something but I might [...]
In her satin tights, fighting for her rights. All is change. Revolutions in the Middle East (and Ireland); Charlie Sheen becomes a Twitter sensation ; and the days are getting longer. Yes, spring's a springin' so I decided to give this mix a perverse title to spite the sunlight. Ish. On listening to these tracks, I noticed how many of them are really songs rather than purely dance tracks. They sounded quite perfect on headphones under the duvet at night. So, it's a mix for snuggling as well as dancing to - my [...]
Basically shitloads of wonderful music apears every single day. How to work though it?* Oh look, Arcade Fire AND Blondie! Sometimes you learn to appreciate two separate acts via a rather well-done mashup. Here's the most electro track on Arcade Fire's album mushed up with Blondie's Heart Of Glass : Other times, a track is pushed your way when discussing Eurovision on Twitter (thanks Orn). [...]
Conor & Finn are two young jackapoo brothers. I was puppysitting for a week and just had to capture how bananas they go when they know they are going for a walk... Their owner did tell me how to do this properly, but where's the fun in that?
It's been two weeks since I 'leaked' one of the new tracks from Scritti Politti on YouTube. Scritti have a Best Of on the way later this month, and, thankfully, have recorded two new tracks to sweeten the deal. Prompted by an excited message on fansite Bibbly-o-Te k, I learned that Steve Wright played one of the new tracks, A Day Late And A Dollar Short, on BBC Radio 2. He cut it off 30 seconds before the end and he didn't say what it was. Apart from that, only a handful of people had [...]
Aidan, 24, very much enjoys the Keljet remix of Rolling In The Deep. Adele! Duck Sauce! Eric Prydz! Alexis Jordan via Freemasons! Pnau! Some random woman repeating a list of foodstuffs on a loop! It's Daddy or Chips?' first mix of 2011 and it's full on housey goodness. Tracklist Good Girl (Freemasons Club Mix) * Alexis Jordan The Truth (Chris Lake Remix) * Pnau Niton (The Reason) * Eric Prydz Hold On to Your Misery (DREAMTRAK DIAMOND SOUND Remix) * Cocknbullkid Satisfy [...]
Tennga, Georgia are a new seven-piece from Des Moines who Pitchfork have called 'the only reason to own an album with a ukelele'. Championed by Robert Plant, they... oh, I can't go on. No, it's that meme about the random fake album that's come back around on Facebook. Have a go! 1 - Go to wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2 - Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words [...]
What better way to start the year in blogging with a list of 100, mostly tech-related things we can expect to see a lot of over the next 12 months. And so many seem plausible: beer sommaliers, the rise of Facebook commerce (f-commerce), and - I love this - digital interventions. I eat this stuff up.
Strap yourselves in. Here are the best ten tracks of 2010 (apart from the ones I forgot). 10. It Is Not Meant To Be - Tame Impala In all honesty, I don't have a hope in hell... OMG sonic masterpiece from Australians (what is in the water there lately?). The album, Innerspeaker, is a magnificently coherent slice of psychedelic modern pop and this track manages to be sonically innovative while spelling out a few home truths. Well done [...]
Quick detour from the Top 50 to bring you a boogie detour. 2010 has been, well, ok I guess, for dance music but hardly a vintage year. That said, I suspect you will find much to wiggly your hips in Refudiate , this final mix of 2010. A few big names, a lot of big tracks and a healthy smattering of new stuff. And Owl City. Thank you all so much for letting me soundtrack some of your happy nights and brighter days! More and more to [...]
You're busy people, let's be brief - what have we learned this year about music? Pop ain't (remotely) dead. The injection of grime into the UK pop monster has been a very good thing indeed. Sorry Rihanna ('What's My Name' would have made no. 43 though) So here is the Daddy or Chips Top 50. I use the UK Top 40 as the base but I will occasionally foray into an album track, download or some other random thing if it's moved and grooved me enough. I listen [...]
I heartily supported the successful campaign to get Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name to the coveted UK Christmas No. 1 last year and it's business as usual this year. For me, it's less about being spiteful of Simon Cowell et al, and more about reintroducing a bit of unpredictability to the Christmas chart. 4'333 of "silence" is a delicious idea; mischievous, a bit pretentious and a lot counter-intuitive. The CATM people have selected five unusual and small charities that certainly won't mind whatever money and awareness comes their way, [...]
Sorry, no track to download here. It's my annual stats experiment. Apologies!!!! xx
You are a real person . Delightful as it is may be chased by busty spam ladies, if you are a human being, you are past the first hurdle. You are not a person, but you are a personable entity . I'm either genuinely interested in you (@guardian, @TheWordMagazine) or I'm keeping tabs on you. Either way, businesses on Twitter work best when operated by a person who actually understands Twitter. You *really* understand that it's a dialogue . Yes, Twitter can be part of your brand [...]
Brandon & Co reunite for their now annual Xmas track for charity. It's a heartwrenching video and quite a lovely track too. Oh, and watching it on this player here means that Starbucks will be making a donation to ProjectRED . (Thanks to ChartRigger for the heads up on this one.)
This can't be right, can it? Um, it possibly can... Oh, and before you ask, some of that time may be when I'm asleep (as evidenced by the occasion that I conked out with Don't Stop Believin' on loop). I swear, your honour...
Daddy or Chips?
Bison - Quill
Shinichi Osawa – Big Beach Mix 2012
Neutral Milk Hotel- Aeroplane Over the Sea
Mr Fogg - Eleven
