Hello Sunshine

We bloody love Boys Noize and Fake Blood here at LIFB, so how happy do you think we were when we saw the new Boys Noize-produced Kano tune at #5 on the Hype top 10, closely followed by a housetastic, vocal-extending, remix of Fake Blood's 'I Think I Like It'? Very happy, that's how.

The Kano tune is a bit back-of-the-top-deck-of-the-number-94-ghetto, but has production crisper than the crack of ice in rum and coke. The EXTRA ADDED VOCAL ACTION! of what the extensively named Tommie Sunshine & Figure EC$TACY have done to 'I Think I Like It' steals the tune away from sweaty 3am dancefloor territory and places it right in the middle of a park full of the coolest people you know, playing hackey-sack and tossing frisbees, in vest tops and straw hats. Like the Marks and Spencers adverts done by American Apparel.

Elvis Costello at Birmingham Symphony Hall

A lot phrases concerning performance have connotations of handling or being handled - performers carry a tune, they hold the attention of the audience. I'd never considered the significance of this until last night as Elvis Costello nurtured a collection of songs, moulding them with an ease that belied the complexity of his performance.

Accompanied by three spotlights, six guitars and a truly exceptional hat (which only left his head to be lifted in response to applause), he picked from throughout his repertoire, not afraid to mangle crowd favourites along the way.

This mangling was most apparent in a violent re-working of 'Watching the Detectives', his first hit back in 1977, which ended in Costello picking out melody lines in the wrong key over a wash of crunching distorted acoustic guitar noise. There was a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, as 2000 middle-aged people heard one of their favourite songs as it might sound covered by Animal Collective. It was brilliant.

Most brilliant, however, was 'Slow Drag with Josephine', "how rock 'n' roll sounded in 1921". This trip to the past was provided by ragtime melodies, an un-amplified acoustic, and Costello, freed from the microphone, delivering the lines from the front of the stage. That something of that level of electrifying brilliance was a song from Costello's soon-released new album only highlights quality of his body of work as a whole.

Stories of having his Dad in the audience for fathers day, being unknown to American audiences when supporting Bob Dylan, and writing music with Paul McCartney ("that great Mersey-delta Bluesman") all added to the charm, but the most touching moment came with the first song request. As Costello returned for the encore someone in the stalls shouted for 'My Three Sons'. Without saying a word he took a step back, dropped the tuning on his guitar, and played it. This is an example of the connection with the audience that permeated the evening. Costello was a performer not only carrying a tune, but carrying the hearts of everyone in the Symphony Hall with him.

TBB #2 is Here!

Come and get it! The latest issue of Birmingham's premier collage-based magazine is here! TBB#2 - This Bourgeois Battalion is done, and this one's got big questions (are computer games art?), feminism (are high heels GOOD or BAD?), arts (investigation Created in Birmingham's shop in the Bullring), foreign parts (the music of Nantes), and MORE (much more).

You can see AND download it here.

And if you press 'Fullscreen' on the little reader below... well... it's pretty special.
TBB#2 - This Bourgeois Battalion

Electric Carnival in Digbeth

Amazing:

• Chase & Status
• Fatboy Slim (the first hour or so)
• Boys Noize
• Tiga opening with 'Shoes' and closing at 6am with the same song Boys Noize ended with last year: the 'My Moon My Man' remix
• 5:30am - a man dancing with TWAT written on his forehead in luminous paint
• Everybody friends, walking up the road back to Moor Street.

TBB #2

TBB #2 coming really soon!

Well Done Kele

'Tenderoni' - the debut single from Kele Okereke (usually found fronting Bloc Party) got its first play on Zane Lowe this week, and it's a banger. With the underground-going-overground sound of the opening synth, comparisons to Wiley's 'Rolex' will be inevitable, but this has the uplifting soul of the best of Bloc Party's material (i.e. not the 'oh no! what is happening in this paranoid world in which we live?!' stuff) rather than Wiley's playful aggression.

It sounds pretty ripe for a remix - maybe by someone with an uplifting vibe like A-Track, Boys Noize or Fake Blood (or even someone really amazing like Tony Lamezma) rather than the typical Dubstep house of representatives. Get on that please Kele. Ta. Album is out on June 22nd.

Tenderonibykeleokereke

Nantes Loves Electro Too

The guy in the sandwich shop said that the kids love house, but all we could find was an electro night - so we went to see if they like that too. Turns out we were right, the Bloody Beetroots show was packed full of lycées, roughly 16-18 year-olds from the city's colleges. This meant that not only was the bar empty, but the crowd inside the cavernous Halle de la Trocardière were bouncing off the walls.

The band are much heavier live than their plethora of remixes and last year's Roborama would suggest - they even re-brand themselves Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77 when they go on tour, adding a drummer to their line up. Adding to the surprise heaviness is the vaudeville of the Venom masks (the character from Spiderman, not some kind of poisoning facewear) the duo wear, as they flit between guitar, bass, synths and microphone.

Tunes from the album sounded like real hits, although they're played regularly at Custard Factory nights they're given new life live, with 'Cornelius', 'Butter', 'Warp' and 'House No. 84' (previously featured on this blog) going off. Add in a cover of the brooding 28 Days Later Theme, a melodramatic bit of Bach's Tocata and Fugue and the PHENOMENAL 'We Are From Venice' (see below) with live strings as a finale, the Beetroots managed to cement their place amongst the best live dance acts in the world.

Chatting at the end, Axwell, an 18-year-old lycéan, said "Justice, SebastiAn, Crookers... it is very exciting" - easy to say if you're 18, wearing Prada glasses and go to a posh secondary school but keep it real at Electro nights in the ghetto end of the Rezé - but that was no barrie to my realisation that as ropy as my French might be, the the only phrase I really needed to know was "j'aime Ed Banger".