You're beautifuuul, you're beautifuuuuul, you're beautifuuuul it's truuue

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - Tommy C

"In recent year there's been a lot of pop acts singing about being beautiful or someone or something being beautiful
Now, I know this ain't a new thing but it just feels as if these people don't really know what beauty is
And by bandying it around so often it starts to lose all meaning and worth.
You see "beauty" and "beautiful" are powerful words.
It's more than just a physical thing.
It's more than just a nice pair of tits.
Bring the beat in and let me tell them what I think beauty is....

Now for me to get my definition of beauty across to you
I must request your attention for the immediate future
It won't take so long as to put you in a catatonic stupor
As I present my case study example: Tommy Cooper.
If you haven't heard of Tommy I'll do my best to explain.
Tommy Cooper was in the entertainment game
Every granddad in Britain can do a Tommy Cooper impression
With a selection of gags, hand movements and facial expressions
His uniform was a suit and a red fez hat
He would combine jokes and magic tricks just like that
He'd drift between the two with the most cackhanded transition
He was two part comedian and one part magician
Mistakes and mess-ups were a bit part of his show
Which were real and which were planned only he would know
If he messed up or a certain joke bombed
He would just start laughing at himself and soon the laughs would catch on
See Tommy gave no regard to class or race
His only goal was to put a smile on every single face
All his life Tommy lived to just make people laugh
Whether on stage or at home he would just be acting daft
...
On April 5th, 1984
The London Palladium was the scene of Tommy's show once more
It was a full house and he had the crowd eating out of his hand once more
Everything, as usual, seemed completely unplanned
And in what seemed like a finale Tommy dropped to the floor
Causing the room to erupt into laughter and rapturous applause
The curtain closed, lights went up and there was no encore
Everybody left their seats and headed for the door
Unbeknown to them they had witness Tommy Cooper's death
He had given his all until he had nothing left
Now please note that at the moment that this entertainer died
Even with a room full of people not one tear was cried
Much less, they rose to their feet and they laughed and clapped
Now tell me one fucking thing that's more beautiful than that...
'Cause I'm sure I can't think of one."

* Read more about Tommy Cooper here *
* Download more Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip: *
Thou Shalt Always Kill
The Magician's Assistant
* Visit their MySpace aqui *
* Find more of their lyrics here *

This city of ours

*** Cara Del Gato - This Town Ain't What It Used to Be ***

*** Emmy the Great - City Song ***

*** Antsy Pants - Big City ***

Blame Sheffield and Britney

Candy

(from Slow Down Tallahassee, 2007)

+

Electric Sun

Limbs

(from The Beautiful Light, 2008)

 

Contrary to what their name might suggest, Slow Down Tallahassee is a band from Sheffield, UK - influenced by uhm... "Britney Spears, Carrie, The Shangri-Las, The Breeders, Leonard Cohen, The Go-Gos, The Runaways, Madonna".

You better start thanking Britney.

España, mi amor!

The Fall - I'm going to Spain

In Berlin

Letters have no Arms is in Berlin today, hence the theme and tracks included. Over the next 4 weeks our journey will take us down to Portugal and Spain, where we'll attend the Benicassim festival. We'll be posting along the way, so stay tuned!

*

"There is thunder in Berlin
We fell down under a moving sky
When you walked into the room tonight
Lighting took hold of my heart for a while..."

Electrelane - In Berlin

    

I first discovered Tocotronic on Alternative Nation, sometime in the 90s, and remember thinking that if they sang in English, they'd be huge (well, huge in indie terms). I've loved them ever since. Here's one of their few songs with some English lyrics.

  

Tocotronic - Hi Freaks

Another MTV introduction here, and a big European hit in the 90s.

Die Fantastischen Vier - Die da

   

In Berlin I saw two men fuck in the dark corner of a basketball court.
Just a slight jangle of pocket change pulsing. 

Why? - The Hollows

 

A little folkier than the original:

*******************************

The Brooke, A Tiny Ocean:

"Jamie" (Weezer)

from the 'Roaring Nineties' compilation -

download it for free from cllct!

Bonnie Prince Billy:

"World`s Greatest" (R Kelly)
from his 2007 album "Ask Forgiveness"

Emmy the Great:

"Where Is My Mind?" (Pixies)

Existential Hero:

"If Winter Ends" (Bright Eyes)

from his cover album "Barely Covered" -

download it at cllct

Mallu Magalhaes:

"Folsom Prison Blues" (Johnny Cash)

The Magic Numbers:

"There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"

(The Smiths)

*******************************

In a world so full of things, where could one find Nothing?

The Shortwave Set - Harmonia (Replica Sun Machine, 2008)
Nils Folke Valdemar Sings - The Taking Off of Pants (Songs Until You Tell Me to Shut Up, 2006)
[download full album from his official website]
Les Enfant Bastard - U R My Fucking Sunshine U Cunt (Bambi, 2006)
[download full album from Umor Rex]
Your Heart Breaks - Torrey Pines ft. Kimya Dawson (Torrey Pines/The Rolling Clouds, 2008)

+ head over to It's Hard to Find a Friend to hear Via Audio and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin performing each other's songs together (and covering Nirvana's Heartshaped Box and Radiohead's Weird Fishes)
+ Foggy Ruins of Time has been added to our blog list. Make sure to check it out, especially if you liked our Collective Family posts

...on love and mystery and ignorance and knowledge

The Accidental - Knock Knock

The Accidental - Wolves

I first heard The Accidental in February, when Nothing But Green Lights featured the beautiful 'Illuminated Red'. I fell in love with the song, but (having downloaded it without taking the time to read the article) the band was a total mystery to me. They were suddenly there and I had never heard anything about them. I had no idea who they were or why they were so good. And I didn't really look it up at first, but I downloaded all the songs I could get my hands on and listened to them quite religiously for a couple of months. Recently I found out that the band is comprised of Stephen Cracknell (the man behind The Memory Band) , Sam Genders (member of my beloved Tunng), Hannah Caughlin (from The Bicycle Thieves) and singer-songwriter Liam Bailey. Thus the mystery was solved. With such an impressive line-up, how could they not be good? But somehow after I knew that I started comparing them to The Bicycle Thieves, and then Tunng - and of course both those bands I had loved for a much longer time and Tunng had released one of my favourite albums of 2007... So you see this was not a wise thing to do. 'Cause in the perfect mathematical equation in my head the result of Tunng + The Bicycle Thieves + The Memory Band equaled something more than The Accidental and I started feeling a little less in love with them. Of course I still think they're pretty damn good (otherwise I wouldn't have included them here) but after close inspection some of their magic is lost...

Tunng - Bullets (watch the beautiful video)
Tunng - Pioneers (Bloc Party Cover)
The Bicycle Thieves - Open City
The Bicycle Thieves - You Speak So Eloquently About Love

"I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy- I too crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. I hate to be love's executioner"

-> Irvin Yalom - 'Love's Executioner'

The Bear Post

Illustration by Jason Sho Green

'Bears are crazy. They'll bite your head if you're wearing a steak on it.'
-> Space Ghost

* Bearsuit - Itsuko Got Married *
* Seabear - Singing Arc *
* Panda Bear - Ponytail *
* Message to Bears - Plane Over Evening Sky *
* Golden Bear - Galaxy Queen *
* Grizzly Bear - While You Wait for the Others *
* The Bear Colony - Hospital Rooms Aren't for Lovers *
* 14 Iced Bears - Cut *

That's the end of the film. Now here's the meaning of life. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat...

from Kurt Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle':

"In the beginning God created Earth and he looked upon it in his cosmic loneliness. And God said: 'Let us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what we have done.' And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. 'What is the purpose of all this?', he asked politely. 'Everything must have a purpose?' asked God. 'Certainly' said man. 'Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this' said God. And he went away."

Today's picks:
The Chap - Carlos Walter Wendy Stanley
Computerization - MyBody [free at Cllct.Family]
The Ting Tings - Be the One
Orouni - A Greased and Golden Palm
Tiger Force - Syntax Error

"Cover My Ass!" or "Amongst the thousands of idioms, proverbs and cliches that come with the word 'cover' I went and picked this one"

Some covers I'm really enjoying at the moment:

• Lisa Li-Lund - Cry Me a River (Justin Timberlake Cover)
• Why? - Close to Me (The Cure Cover)
• Florence and The Machine - Galaxy of the Lost (Lightspeed Champion Cover)
• Maritime - Boy From School (Hot Chip Cover)
• Page France - Girl From the North Country(Bob Dylan Cover)
• Thos Henley - Bleeding Love (Leona Lewis Cover)
  
• The Watson Twins - Just Like Heaven (The Cure Cover)
• Helena Noguerra - Can't Get You Out of My Head (Kylie Minogue Cover)

And btw.
Little Fish vs. Big Fish = 15-0

Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now

So, first Eddie formed a band and got on Top of the Pops, before breaking from our kiss to turn up a pop song. He's now found time to get together with Dyan Valdes, formed 'Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now', to, according to their Myspace site, begin "correcting the mistakes of pop songs past."

Intriguing, non?

So far they've penned a (somewhat) belated reply to Mack Morrisson's classic 'Return of the Mack'*, contemplated Avril Lavigne's 'Girlfriend' and revisited a traditional English ballad. All three are brilliant late-Spring, Paris-strolling, hamster-petting, chorus-humming nuggets of pure pop!

Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now - G.I.R.L.F.R.E.N (You Know I’ve Got A)
Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now - Scarborough Faire
Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now - Hey it's Jimmy Mack

Oh, and apparently Eddie finally has moved to LA, as he's recording the upcoming album in Joshua Tree, California.


*Just kidding
Art Brut! Top of the Pops! Art Brut! Top of the Pops! Art Brut! Top of the Pops! Art Brut! Top of the Pops!

Binoculars, butterfly nets and tell-tale ...er... hearts

**photo taken by Steven, in Paris, 2007**

 

Some song lyrics that have put a smile upon my face during the past week…

Giant Bear – Devil On the Wall (If you like: folk)

“There was blood on your wrist
And a bible on your reading list”

Slow Club – Slow Club Summer Shakedown (If you like: The Lisps if they were British; handclaps; summer songs)

“I’m looking for someone with binoculars so I don’t have to get so close because that’s when the most casualties arise”

Bishop Allen – Butterfly Nets (If you like: sweet female vocals; butterflies in or out of your stomach)

“Still surprised to catch you every time…
Armed with this small butterfly net only
I will face the world alone and never be lonely”

cLOUDDEAD – Pop Song (If you like: Why? or Odd Nosdam; anticon; experimental hip-hop)

“How can I be your lover when you sport a head of rubber?
Sucker... you can't take applause to bed with you.
I've got my own blood and a decent depression line.
…And then we say "fuck" in our pop song.”

Kanye West – Homecoming ft. Chris Martin (If you like: Kanye West)

“I met this girl when I was three years old
And what I loved most she had so much soul
She said ‘excuse me little homie, I know you don’t know me but
My name is Wendy and I like to blow trees’ ”

Joan of Arc – A Tell-Tale Penis (If you like: literary references; Owls; weird relationships; melancholy)

“You can end things with your boyfriend
I'll quit chasing you around
But how long will the echo of the tell-tale penis sound?”

And speaking of tell-tale things, if you're a fan of Poe, be sure to watch the A-M-A-Z-I-N-G UPA 1953 animated short based on A Tell-Tale Heart! (or else, download and listen to the short story - yes, on mp3 because we're computer geeks)

I loved you in my dreams

"From those of us who are left behind:
you will be remembered,
you were the one I needed,
I loved you in my dreams."

Bret Easton Ellis - Lunar Park

Of Montreal - Miss Blonde, your Papa is failing
The Magnetic Fields - Papa was a Rodeo
Bright Eyes - Something Vague
The Microphones - I can't believe you actually died
The Unicorns - Ready to die
The Smiths - Asleep

Experiment #0361: Part 2 (The sound of one hand clapping)

Excepter - Entrance (Dept Dept, 2008)
Excepter - Kill People (Dept Dept, 2008)
[their first release on Animal Collective's Paw Tracks label]
[obviously for many of you out there I don't need to say more than this]
[but the thing is I'm not a fan of Animal Collective]
[however, judging from this album, I do appreciate their taste in music]


Cats in Paris - Foxes (Foxes/Terrapins, 2008)
[here's what they said:]
['we've all got shitloads of enthusiastic butterfly bubbles in our chests...and if science is anything to rely on, enthusiastic butterfly bubbles convert exothermically into awesome times and smiles']
[and they were right - awesome times and smiles, almost too many smiles, if you know what I mean]

Xiu Xiu - You Are pregnant You Are Dead (Women As Lovers, 2008)
['shoe shoe' are apparently named after the protagonist of Chinese film Tian Yu]
[I should see that]
[but I'm afraid of being disappointed]
[I mean, imagine a person Xiu Xiu!]
[he should be one of the most interesting men on Earth, non?]

Jonquil - Whistle Low (Lions, 2007)
Jonquil - The Weight of Lying on Your Back (Whistle Low, 2008)
[they claim to be influenced by red bricked buildings, nursery rhymes, mist, metal piping, the Romanian Taragot, Pedro Almodovar's films, Frida Kahlo, extreme dust, Buzz, the Baltic swing, drawings in biro and about a thousand other things that you can't possibly imagine how anyone could a) like at the same time b) combine and translate into music and c) retain in their memories for the time it takes to type into their myspace profile]
[but then again, they're from Oxford]

Buttonhead - Pyrenees Mountains (Weetabix Gygabite, 2007)
["bullets, wallets, moments, Dickens"]
["these were the four of the six NOT FOLK things that united the then deaf BUT NOT FOLK members of Buttonhead whilst raft-trapped aboard the bleeding cheeks of THE ANTIFOLKIEST OF ANTIFOLK Peckham, South East London"]
[I wonder what the other two NON-FOLK things were]
[anyway, they're offering their NON-FOLK demo Ep for free on myspace]
[now we all know that everyone who's giving anything for free is either very cool, very rich/famous (see: Radiohead, Coldplay) or very aware of the fact that they suck]
[well they're not famous and they don't suck one bit]
[plus they're NOT FOLK.]
[there. happy?]

Liars - It Fit When I Was a Kid Crystal Castles Remix (2007)
[Liars are probably only tagged as 'experimental' because no one can figure out exactly what they play]
[the fact that they shift their direction completely from album to album doesn't help either]
[I guess most experimental bands are thrown into that category for the same reason]
[it's much easier to do that than to try and describe exactly all the genres they combine]
[shit.]
[didn't I just devote two posts to experimental music?]

"There's a fire starting here" versus "There's nothing to fear"

Ladytron - Versus
*
From upcoming album Velocifero, which will be released on June 2nd. Pre-order it here.

The same thing we do every night, Pinky

*Death Cab for Cutie can talk about changing and experimenting on their new album until their tongues drop off 'cause all I hear is the same same same. A somewhat different (and worse) version of their old stuff. I mean really - you would've thought that after "Plans" they would have enough confidence (and funds) to take their music a step further. Instead it was one huge leap backwards. It's not so much that 'Narrow Stairs' is really bad. It's just that they're getting so boring.

(And this is the shortest song on the album)
Death Cab for Cutie - No Sunlight

*Then again, you'll be all "Who needs anything new?? Just stick with what you know!" after hearing the Guillemots new effort. Uhm, no - see, even the word "effort" in relation to this album sounds wrong. It would imply that they've actually tried to make some decent music and that just doesn't seem possible. 'Red', however, seemed to receive good reviews from an impressive/alarming number of music-lovers on the blogosphere. Rumor has it that this is what really happened:

indieboy77: so, what did you think of the Guillemots' new album? Have you heard it yet?
fuckmeimtwee: yes! I love it... I've only listened to it once but it sounds great! u?
indieboy77: what?! uhm...okaay. listen. what did it sound like?
fuckmeimtwee: huh?
indieboy77: well -
indieboy77: did it sound subtle and sweet and lo-fi?
indieboy77: ...or overproduced, clumsy, undecided about its genre, made-for-eurovision, confused and confusing?
fuckmeimtwee: what? it sounded like Guillemots - you know
fuckmeimtwee: melodical, more electronic influences than on the last one...
fuckmeimtwee: still sweet though
indieboy77: gosh.
indieboy77: i hate to break it to you, but that's a fake.
indieboy77: a lot of people downloaded it - it's a french dude called 'T'. Notice the accent
fuckmeimtwee: WHAT??? no waay! I did notice the accent; I thought it was weird but...
fuckmeimtwee: you sure?
indieboy77: I'm afraid so.. Wait, I'll send you the real thing.

* the girl not-so-cleverly disguised as 'fuckmeimtwee' listens to first song - is horrified - wishes she hadn't chatted with 'indieboy77' - goes back to T's album

T - Dancing Together (T)
T - Newcomer (T)

And because I don't actually like being a hater here are some 2008 songs I've been really enjoying this week:

Drew Danburry - Lynette I Love You (God bless Said the Gramophone!)
Cassettes Won't Listen - Freeze and Explode (Small-Time Machine)
Slow Club - When I Go (Waiting waiting waiting for an album!)

My grandmother bought me the full Jesus action figure set!

• TV On the Radio - Playhouses
• Tunng - Bricks
• Breathe Owl Breathe - Kids & Cats
• The Lisps - Red Balloon
• The Dresden Dolls - Coin-Operated Boy
• Basia Bulat - Snakes and Ladders
  
• The Deirdres - Ball in a Cup
  
• Thao Nguyen - Bag of Hammers
  
• Pizzicato Five - One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Barbie Dolls
• MIA - Paper Planes
  

And sometimes we play crispy Christian tea time with barbies, tea and toast
And my friend brings his talking version of God and a full Buddhist lego set.
Did you know that my grandmother bought me the full Jesus action figure set?

And when we play crispy Christian tea time I like to be the president.

And if you don't like my games you should definitely just run away,
Because otherwise you'll burn in flames
It's my world even if I'm insane

(The Robot Ate Me - Crispy Christian Tea Time)
And make sure to watch the amazing video for this song!