Blog: My Chemical Toilet

There are plenty of World Cup albums and playlists knocking about, all with the same old nonsense with which you get bombarded every four years. I like a bit of "Vindaloo" as much as the next psychopath, but there are other countries, cultures and musics out there worth sampling before that unavoidable moment when you start necking the fizzy violence juice and screaming at foreigns on TV. So I made an unnecessarily lengthy playlist that would serve the hellishly noble purpose of supplying listeners with music they probably haven't heard before, but which they might (hopefully) [...]

Day three was all about imbibing a spot of Johannesburg's kultcha, in keeping with the spirit (arf!) of the Smirnoff Be There initiative to step outside of one's usual everyday experiences. Accordingly we visited Museum Africa in Newtown, where an exhibition called "Space: Currencies in Contemporary African Art" was taking place. It was reassuring to find that contemporary art in Johannesburg (as in London) can be totally impenetrable, and that the pieces are accompanied by equally bamboozling explanations: The exhibition title alludes to and embodies the two notions [...]

Note-y thing: Yes, I'm a bit behind on this diary thing. But let's pretend I'm not, huhkay? Day two of my Smirnoff trip to Johannesburg began with clear evidence that I'd enthusiastically filled out a breakfast order for room service the previous evening while slightly inebriated: I didn't manage to finish it all, or even half of it. Such delicious excess would be put into a fair amount of perspective later in the day when we took a trip to Soweto. *seriousface* [...]

One day into my blogger's trip to Johannesburg courtesy of Smirnoff , and I'm a shut-in. OK, not really. But it's pretty tempting not to leave a hotel room that: - Has a TV that greets you by name - Has a shower room with a window that lets you watch TV while you condition your locks (it even has a speaker in the bathroom) - Has a pool area and deck that makes you feel like you're in Entourage Oh yeah, and the staff smile [...]

Tomorrow, volcanic ash guffs permitting, I will be flying to Johannesburg in South Africa to check out something called Smirnoff Experience™ 'Mashup Street' . This particular happening will see South African band BLK JKS ( delighted, left ) collaborate with Tiesto in a sizeable aircraft hanger, alongside other cultural crossovers involving fashion, food, art and (who's sponsoring it again? Oh yes, Smirnoff ) drinks. It all promises to be rather exciting, and it's not often one gets the chance to say one is travelling to South Africa for a gig. Hopefully I'll be updating [...]

Sorry to say, the worldwide recession seems to have hit Brazil's tenuously musical pre-World Cup TV ads. Check out this effort which, despite featuring stroppy genius Robinho and being set to Beyonce's "Single Ladies", is puh-ritty budget: Lest we forget, in 2006 Ronaldinho and pals were part of this balletic masterpiece set in an airport: That's quite a drop in quality over the last four years. If the Brazilian Football Confederation's marketing department were a band, they would be The Killers :( [via Who Ate [...]

Sorry to say, the worldwide recession seems to have hit Brazil's tenuously musical pre-World Cup TV ads. Check out this effort which, despite featuring stroppy genius Robinho and being set to Beyonce's "Single Ladies", is puh-ritty budget: Lest we forget, four years ago Ronaldinho and pals were part of this balletic masterpiece set in an airport: That's quite a drop in quality over the last four years. If the Brazilian Football Confederation's marketing department were a band, they would be The Killers :( [via Who [...]

Why? Just because I think many Brits may have missed out on this golden shower of goodness...

A Look At Sade's "Babyfather" video

Sia Furler is probably still most recognisable to people in Blighty for her stint in Zero 7, when she lent some high-class emoting to several otherwise quite somnolent songs which you'll have heard used as dramatic shorthand in several TV shows over the last few years (see "Destiny" ). Those last few years, however, have also seen Sia release several very good albums, containing several very good songs, and yet she still seems to be very not a Proper Popstar as far as Most People are concerned. Basically, this needs to change. I mean, listenandlook [...]

Last week I got the opportunity to meet Jarvis Cocker, who, being a cosmopolitan type, is the "cultural ambassador" for Eurostar's new Culture Connect initiative . Culture Connect is all about encouraging you to use the proximity of cities like Paris and Brussels (or, er London, if you live over there) to get your fill of kultchah. Did you know that a Eurostar ticket can get you 2-for-1 entry to numerous artful places in The Abroads, like Cité de la musique or Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville [...]

Julian Casablancas covered Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark" during a show the other night, and it was caught on video. Well, the audio was. You can't see shit. There's something about that crossover of poignancy and fist-pumping exhilaration that makes it a perfect song for Jules to cover, I think - it's an emotional melange not too many light years away from what you'll find on his splendid album of last year, Phrazes For The Young . Listen to  "Out Of The Blue" for further evidence. [via [...]

Once upon a time, you were NOBODY unless you'd had a music video banned by Top Of The Pops. Here Robyn Wilder reports on an instance of the modern-day equivalent... YouTube has removed the video for MIA's new single, "Born Free", for being too violent. The verité-style nine-minute film bleakly depicts sinister US forces hunting down people with red hair, driving them out to the desert, then executing them in various unpleasant ways. It's NSFW (depending on who you W with, I suppose) and features - in addition to the [...]

Gang Starr frontman Guru has sadly passed away after losing his fight against cancer, and in doing so has left a farewell note sure to keep hip-hop conspiracy theorists stocked up with debate material for a good while to come. In it, Guru alludes pretty directly to his ongoing beefiness with former Gang Starr producer DJ Premier... I do not wish my ex-DJ to have anything to do with my name likeness, events tributes etc. connected in anyway to my situation including any [...]

While listening to Redlight 's "Your Reward Is Cheese" mix, I unwittingly came by a new method of rating music. With it blasting through my "cans" and the light in the room fading, I needed to turn on the lights. Rather than pause the music for 10 seconds, I unplugged the laptop and carried it with me to the lamp I needed to switch on. That says so much more than a thumbs-up, I think. Now look, this mix is forty minutes long. Which may lead you to thinkings akin to [...]

Caught this on one of the music channels the other day: The mind goes all a-boggle when it considers how many middle-aged INXS fans' mouths are currently frothing into Michael Hutchence cushion covers. The thing is, as a chartbound reappropriation of one of INXS's finest moments, it's not actually that bad. It's not going to appeal to anyone who owns a Kick t-shirt, obvs, but it recognises that there's no point trying to reinterpret or reproduce that riff - you might as well just nick it wholesale. Because [...]

I love music biopics, me. And while I enjoy the good ones, I extract virtually an equal amount of pleasure from the bad. One of my favourite bad ones is Hysteria , a 2001 VH1-produced TV film about Def Leppard. The Lepp have had a "colourful" history, and like many riffmongers from the last thirty years or so you can totally understand why people would want to turn their tale into a movie. It would probably be a shame if Hysteria remained the only biopic of Def Leppard, but [...]

Found this interesting article on VillageVoice.com . It's bascially an I.M chat with a stripper called Bubbles Burbujas in which she outlines what music does and doesn't work in strip clubs. For example: Weezer = crowdpleaser, since these days the guys who like Weezer are pretty much a part of our target audience. And by that I mean guys who were GIANT DORKS about 15 years ago and now have money. She also suggests that the bewilderingly long-lived popularity of mainstream rock bands such as [...]

Thoughts?