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Sunday, 07 September, 2008

PLANETNOTION TELEVISION!

CAMERA-FOLK AND FILM EDITORS WANTED!

Planet Notion is looking for guys and dolls to film and edit features for its new TV channel, PNTV. Accompanying Notion to artist interviews, gigs, fashion shows, festivals and international events, you will be skilled, passionate and full of ideas about how to produce shit-hot video content. Camera-folk will be experienced and ideally have their own equipment, or at least access to equipment, while editors must be able to turn projects around quickly, and with stylistic flare. If you can both film and edit content, we would especially like to hear from you! These casual, unpaid positions would be ideal for those looking to develop their showreels, and to get the chance to travel, film major artists and top events.

Please email lucy@musichqmedia.com if you’re interested in getting involved, cheers!

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Mike Monday

Bob Geldof may not like them, but it's a fact: Mondays aren’t that bad really. And who better to prove it than Mike Monday, whose co-owned label Playtime and new album 'Smorgasbord' are both causing quite a stir. The record's fresh approach to electronic music embodies the passion and enthusiasm of its author, not to mention his healthy sense of humour. And all that comes with a dash of humility, as we discuss the reaction to the new record. "It's been amazing. Recording it really showed me the difference between doing remixes and writing an album, it was really scary. I'm really pleased though that people have understood it. I'm not reinventing the wheel or doing anything particularly experimental, but in my humble opinion I didn't think it was possible to get so many genres next to each other. It's really energised me, enough to do the next one. It doesn't matter in terms of tempo, genre or style what you put next to each other - it's more a thing of tension and release, and when I realised that it was like the scales fell from my eyes. I've started the next one already!" His exploits haven't gone unnoticed the other side of the pond. "I'm off to San Francisco shortly, to headline an OM Records party. It's a San Francisco music conference, and on the Saturday night they're doing their big event. They said, "We really want to start using you for some of our international gigs," which is fantastic. I think it's because they've got the deep house thing covered; now they want to diversify. They want to push me as an artist which is weird, as I've never done anything for them before. There's five rooms on the night, and there I am at the top of the fucking bill!" Monday discerns America to be "just waking up to the "new" electronic sound. It's what I love about dance music at the moment – when we had the album launch for 'Smorgasbord' a lot of my friends said "what the fuck are you playing?" but I think the only way you can understand this music is to experience it in a club. I think we've got that amazing thing back, with dance music as the most forward thinking and experimental pop music. In the early 2000s it got really formulaic and boring, and no-one understood it. Now it's the guitar music that’s more boring, you’ve heard it all before." He's more prepared for the boom this time round. "The last time it happened I didn't really know my craft, but this time I feel more able to take advantage of it." Compare that to four years ago. "I said to Tom Mangan at the time, "are we on a sinking ship?", and it was more out of hope than special insight that I thought, "if we can cling on to the cliff then we can get it back." Now we've got a great situation with people being able to download music for not very much money, so you've got people in the Eastern European countries who can listen. Mind you, I'd hate to be someone new right now." Monday talks excitedly about not wanting to miss out on the new talent, saying "now that I’m in a position where I'm better known it's possible to look out for others. I think that's really important." He speaks of the constant need for new blood in dance music. "I listen to as much stuff that comes my way as I can, and the weekly radio show I do on Push FM helps." It also has a positive spin-off for the label. "The good thing about Playtime is that you get to meet the people you like, and become mates. It seems to have really taken off this summer, and I think that's because we were one of the first to go for the electronic sound that's in house music at the moment. I definitely want a future with radio, pushing the new blood. In order to avoid the rut it's really important for us to keep doing that, and I'm encouraging everyone to send me tracks." It's an approach that John Peel would concur with, and as Mike points out - "he went for the really weird stuff. But today's experimental is tomorrow's pop - just listen to the new Justin Timberlake album." Monday studied music to degree level at Oxford, making the National Youth Orchestra as a bassoonist, but he quickly bailed out, soon working with Andy Cocup as Beat Foundation. Part of a mid 90s penchant for epic house, the duo attracted the attention of Sasha and Digweed. They had an album deal with Virgin, but the project was abandoned as Cocup moved on to form Groove Armada. "In the long run for me that was the best thing that could have happened," says Mike. "If I'm honest Andy was probably the driving force, and while it was a difficult time I've become something like a Phoenix rising from the ashes. This time though it's just me, I don't have an engineer or anything - that way I have full control over the music." The Beat Foundation days gave Mike his new stage name. "As Andy started doing more stuff with Groove Armada, he was never in the studio, so I always had to save the work we'd been doing and would use filenames like "Georgia_Mike_Thursday" or something, so inevitably we got around to Mike_Monday, and then I was like "hey, that's a great name, like a good porn alias or something."" Humour is important in Monday's world, and is a natural part of his musical personality. When I ask if dance music could do with more humour his response is emphatic. "Oh absolutely. I think there are certain people doing it, people like Claude Von Stroke and Justin Martin, but I like to think that with Playtime we're very serious about being stupid. And when I say serious I mean committed, it doesn't mean you’re straight faced about the whole thing. In DJ sets there are times when you want to be humourous and light hearted, and times when you want to be dark and scary. It's about expressing different emotions." Mike has always had a solid reputation as a remixer. "I remember doing a mix of U2's 'City Of Blinding Lights' with Stretch as Paradise Soul, that was quite an intense experience. We got all the parts on a 250GB hard drive. You've got all these bits with Bono and The Edge and Bono's reading him the lyrics just before he sings them, so it was like eavesdropping on the whole recording process. U2 had a yes or no over the remix, and it was the longest few weeks I can remember. Eventually it was a yes - which was good, as I'd almost spent the money!" A busy close of year takes Mike on the road again, a five week stint in Australia. "I'm going there for five weeks, to see the in-laws and do an 11 date tour - so I can earn money and have a holiday. Before I leave I've got to sort out a lot of "back end" stuff, a few projects which aren’t necessarily under the name Mike Monday. I'm saying no to all remixes at the moment, and just recently turned down Moby which was difficult. I think it was the right thing to do though, as I really didn’t have the time!" MIKE MONDAY’S NEW ALBUM ‘ SMORGASBOARD ’ IS AVAILABLE NOW. CATCH HIM ON THE 4TH FRIDAY OF EVERY MONTH AT PLAYTIME @ THE EGG, LONDON WORDS: BEN HOGWOOD

tags: | mike monday | bob geldof | smorgasboard | egg | music | australia | u2 | paradise lights | more...

Beck

"MTV makes me want to smoke crack," sang Mr Hansen back in the early 90s. Slightly ironic then that his colourful, bonkers and heavily rotated videos ended up making him the poster boy for that very channel. On the eve of the release of his latest album, Beck talks puppets, bad TV commercials and major label experimentation. Beck's music, with its collage of many musical styles, almost nonsensical lyrics and arrangements incorporating samples, drum machines, live instrumentation and sound effects was among the most idiosyncratic of 90s alternative rock. His music couldn't be easily categorised but his experiments with different genres led to comparisons with Prince. When 'Loser' was released, a few critics labelled him and the single as novelties. In spite of being completely unique, Beck's music was totally 90s and a product of the media age. The founders of Bong Load Custom Records, Tom Rothrock and Bob Schnapf discovered Beck, signing him to their fledgling label. 'Loser', a collaboration between hip hop producer Carl Stephenson and Beck, created a sensation on alternative radio and MTV that led to a frenzied bidding war between labels to sign Beck. Eventually he chose Geffen Records, who offered him terms that included an allowance for the release of independent albums while under contract. In 1994, the official debut release of 'Mellow Gold', culled from sessions with Rothrock, Schnapf and Stephenson, and it's catchy, nihilistic chorus "soy un perdidor, I’m a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?" made Beck a mainstream smash success; it also led to his status as an icon for the slacker generation. When it came to recording the follow-up to 'Mellow Gold', he enlisted the Bong Load boys as producers and cut an album of moody, low-key acoustic numbers to showcase his songwriting, hoping to distance him from the 'Loser' stereotype. Eventually having a change of heart and shelving the album, Beck was introduced to the Dust Brothers, producers of the Beastie Boys' album 'Paul's Boutique', whose cut and paste, sample-heavy production suited Beck's vision of a more fun, accessible album. This resulted in 1996's 'Odelay' which could definitely put the one-hit wonder label to rest. 'Where It’s At' was the lead single with it's "I've got two turntables and a microphone" refrain. Within the year, 'Odelay' had been featured on best of year lists aplenty and was pretty much hailed as a classic of sorts. The Nigel Godrich-produced 'Mutations' followed in 1998. The album was recorded over two weeks, during which Beck recorded one song a day with the sessions producing 14 songs. This album was intended as something to tide fans over until the next proper album and was filled with folk and blues influences. 'Sing it Again' was written for Johnny Cash but Beck considered it "rubbish", Cash would go on to record 'Rowboat' (which originally appeared on 'Stereopathetic Soulmanure'). The official follow-up to 'Odelay' arrived in 1998 in the form of 'Midnite Vultures' - a kind of Beck doing Prince doing Beck cacophony. This saw a return to high energy performances and the live stage set for the tour included a red bed that descended from the ceiling for the song 'Debra' ("I wanna get with you and your sister, I think her name’s Debra"). With Godrich back at the helm, 2002's 'Sea Change' had one unifying theme - the stages following the end of a relationship. It became Beck's first top 10 album in the US and achieved Rolling Stone's rarely awarded five star rating. After the album's release, the tour featured the Flaming Lips as the opening and backing band. His sixth major label album 'Guero' was produced by the Dust Brothers and features a collaboration with Jack White - it marked a return to his 'Odelay'-era sound. 'Girl' was heavily played over the summer of 2004. The song seems to be about summer love but a closer listen to the lyrics reveals a darker side to the song.His latest album 'The Information' took three years to make and the talents of Nigel Godrich were again enlisted. It has been described as "quasi-hip hop." You're one of the few artists who can play such different styles of music and get away with it. "I know! It's really hard for me to commit, one way or the other. I see musicians who have a (band) name for one thing they do, and then when they do their breakbeat thing it's called something else, and when they do their rock band it’s another name, and when they do their electronic project, it's called something else. But I never really thought about it. I was just always creating and seeing what came out, and I don't think I ever realised that they'd be such a discrepancy. I'd forget because I got so involved in each thing I was doing. But in retrospect, it's all over the place, and I can imagine it being a little disconcerting." There is always a massive stylistic leap between your albums. "Yeah, and it gets harder and harder too, because there are albums in between there that don't get made. It’s difficult to put out albums on a more regular basis just because of the way the record company works and the way promotion is, so creatively there is a massive gulf, because there's also 40 or 50 songs that nobody's heard that I've done in between. There's a whole evolution from 'Midnite Vultures' to 'Sea Change' that’s never been released: guitar stuff, weird punk stuff. So it's really weird creatively, because you get 10 or 12 songs every two or three years, and you want those songs to work as a whole; like, it wouldn't make sense to put a hip hop song on 'Sea Change'. There were songs I left off that album, too - real raggedy blues stuff, some electronic noisy stuff. It just didn’t fit." Are you always eager to get back to recording? "I am. With 'Sea Change' I was planning to tour for just four or five months, but I ended up being out there for a while. And I took a few years before too. I kind of sat out a few years because I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do next. So many things were changing in music and in culture, so it just kind of seemed like a good time to step back. But I did have a backlog of ideas." Where do you see yourself in the music scene now? "I have no idea! I really don't see myself anywhere." How did the collaboration with Jack White on 'Guero' come about? "He played bass on 'Go It Alone'. I did that Grammys thing - he wanted me to write a little speech for him at the Grammys when they played it, so I did a little freeform poem. Later he just came down to the studio and said, "I wanna play bass!" We messed around for a couple of nights." Why did he play bass? "He plays drums, bass, piano... that’s the way I am in the studio too, and I'm always throwing people on different instruments. I was doing some recording last year and I had my keyboard player on percussion and guitar player on bass... kind of anything goes. You always find interesting things that way. Jack's a helluva bass player by the way." Do you like trying new stuff, like new recording techniques or instrumentation? "Well, every time you go in, it's like starting over. You don't know who did the other records. You're learning all over. It's some weird musician amnesia - or maybe the road wipes it out. You have to find it again. One thing is, I hadn't done much rapping in a while. I really wasn't sure I was going to do that anymore. For a couple of years, I thought I was done with that. It didn't really seem like I needed to do that. It wasn't really required of me. At first I didn't know what I wanted to do with it, because I didn't want to do something typical - like, I think times in the past it seemed like I was kind of making fun of rap a little bit. But it was more me making fun of myself, since I’m not technically a rapper, whatever that means. I'm not from the "Academy of Rapping." Do you find you have different audiences for your different styles of music - like do you have a "folk" audience for one album and a "hip hop" audience for another? "Definitely. You see them at the shows. We play a hip hop song and suddenly 25 people on the left jump up and put their hands in the air; then you play 'Lost Cause' or something and they're like, "I don’t know about this one." It's all over the place." How do you think you've had the luxury to experiment like that? Most major label artists don't have that freedom. "Just ignorance. Pure ignorance. Bit by bit I'm becoming aware of it, but in the past I was completely unaware that people would listen to my records and have some kind of idea of what I was and have a certain expectation. I was just seeing what came out, trying anything. The repercussions of what you put out and what people gravitate to in your music never registered at all. I never had that thing that many other bands have, where they have a real specific idea of what they are and what their sound is, and how they don't do certain things because their fans won't understand it. I didn't have that at all - I had the opposite. But if you have a wide range of taste, you’re just going to gravitate in all directions." Are there any other styles or genres you would like to explore? "I would love to do an electronic record. I’ve been calling up Richard James (aka Aphex Twin) for about six years now, trying to get him to do something with me. There’s just so much to see and do and try. And life goes by. The artists that I've really admired were film makers, and film makers are allowed to jump from genre to genre. So I identify with them more than with how a musician is supposed to behave artistically." Would you say your biggest stylistic leap was from 'Midnite Vultures' to 'Sea Change'? "Yeah. I did make some effort to bridge 'Sea Change' and 'Guero'. I remember talking to a friend of mine and he was saying, "you know, if there's some way you can channel (the vulnerability and emotion of 'Sea Change') into the next album..." And I told him I was going to do my best. It’s a difficult thing. Music with beats and hip hop elements is good time music, you know? So you start putting heavier concepts over it and it starts to get a little crooked and off-balance. But it was definitely something I wanted to try." Is that because you got some criticisms for 'Midnite Vultures'? "Oh yeah! I got reprimanded. I got sent to the principal’s office many times for that record. It got a good reaction in Europe, but I felt like I ran into a lot of confusion in the States. I thought of the whole thing as a satire - one of the titles I was thinking of for the album was 'Satiricon'. To me, it was like, if the world was going to end in 1999, which is what everyone was talking about at the time, what would the time capsule be? So I was riffing off all the stuff that was happening at the time. I wanted it to sound like Captain Beefheart produced by Puff Daddy. That was my grand concept. But I think people didn't get it." Are there any of your songs you got sick of hearing? "I hear a lot of bad TV commercials that try to sound like 'Where It's At'. That pretty much turned me off from using the electric piano for a lot of years. It's pretty much impossible to clear samples now. We had to stay away from samples as much as possible. The ones that we did use were just absolutely integral to the feeling or the rhythm of the song. But, back then, it was basically me writing chord changes and melodies and stuff, and then endless records being scratched and little sounds coming off the turntable. Now it's prohibitively difficult and expensive to justify your one weird little horn blare that happens for half of a second one time in a song and makes you give away 70% of the song and $50, 000. That’s where sampling has gone, and that’s why hip hop sounds the way it does now." After Beck's appearance at this year's V festival, he was forced to apologise to Radiohead after his stage marionettes allegedly trashed their hotel room. The marionettes are also featured in a film between the end of his performance and the encore. "Yeah, we apologised to Radiohead for that. But y'know - what can we do? They're puppets." It’s good to have Beck back. THE ALBUM ' THE INFORMATION' IS AVAILABLE NOW AND THE SINGLE ' CELL PHONE’S DEAD' WILL BE RELEASED ON OCTOBER 9TH . WORDS: LYNSEY HOSKINS PHOTOGRAPHY: AUTUMN DE WILD

tags: | bong load custom records | tom rothrock | beck | bob schnapf | loser | the information | more...

The Rapture

When The Rapture hit the scene in 2002 their percussion-heavy funked up dance sound was a shot in the arm to the indie world. The DFA produced 'Echoes' was a fashionistas' favourite and the single 'House of Jealous Lovers' gave trendy DJs across the country a rocking dance track to stir any dancefloor. Now four years later with Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand and a glut of other crunchy guitar groups referencing house music the American four-piece are back with a new album ('Pieces of the People we Love') and an evolved sound. When I speak to lead singer and guitarist Luke Jenner on the line from Brooklyn he's holding his two-month-old son "starting to figure it all out." After The Rapture's debut came out, it's widely acknowledged that Luke's depression and control freakery caused problems in the band and that touring was a pretty hellish experience. "Struggling to be happy is like the theme of my life," he told me. However in 2006 the new father seems content and willing to admit previous mistakes. Where he used to give one-word answers in interviews Luke is now astonishingly frank. "After 'Echoes' I was ill, I missed my wife and I was a really miserable bastard. I was a sad piece of crap and that was something I wanted to change with this record," Luke explained. "We took so long (with 'Pieces of ...') because we didn't want a bunch of songs about being on the road and being miserable." Though 'Echoes' was critically acclaimed it didn't sell as well as the band hoped and it felt like as much the work of producer du jour James Murphy (DFA/LCD Soundsystem) as The Rapture. "A lot of 'Echoes' was made out of arguing," he says "My whole thing was that I thought I could have done a better job on drums or production for example. This time I felt a responsibility to mind my own fucking business and worry about what I was doing." Luke grew up in San Diego with drummer Vito (Roccoforte, drums) getting into indie and joining bands after being inspired by Nirvana and Rocket from the Crypt. When they moved to New York they met Mattie (Safer, bass and vocals) and Gabriel (Andruzzi), who has only just joined the band proper. Though he played 'Echoes' live, 'Pieces of the People we Love' is the first time Gabe recorded with The Rapture playing "everything" including the sax solo on cracking recent single 'Get Myself into it' and (predictably) "a bank of cowbells." After the stress of touring their debut and problems in the group they took an "essential" year off. "British bands go way too fucking fast, there’s a real sense that the NME won't like you if you don't put an album out every week," Luke explains. When starting what could have been the "difficult second album" they hooked up with a familiar face from more turbulent times. Brit Paul Epworth had been the group's first sound engineer and while the band had been away he'd become a successful producer with The Rakes, The Futureheads and Bloc Party. For house-heads out there he's also behind the Phones' remixes gracing your vinyl. Despite meeting "lots of big time producers," the band chose Epworth and Ewan Pearson (house producer and remixer for The Chemical Brothers) to co-produce most of the record. "I don't care how good you are I want you to say 'I want to work with your band' and Paul and Ewan were just so excited to work on the record," says Luke. Another enthusiastic knob-twiddler was Dangermouse (Brian Burton) who had just finished Gorillaz' 'Demon Days' and was working on his Gnarls Barkley record ("He played us 'Crazy' and we were like 'Holy crap this is good'). The innovative producer made five tracks with The Rapture, two of which, including the slow burning Primal Scream-like 'Calling Me', feature on the LP. One of the best tracks on 'Pieces of the People we Love' is the Mattie sung 'WAYUH', likely to be the second UK single. It's a magnificent pop song with cowbells a-plenty and brilliant shout-along lyrics from the bassist who only sang on one track of the group's debut. This time around Matt is the main vocalist on five of the ten tracks. Luke explained - "We all just picked the songs we liked and the ones that suited the record. It works out nicely that it's split evenly, this band is a democracy." Elsewhere 'Don Gon Do It' is a funk workout with layered vocals inspired by meeting Timbaland (Missy Elliot, Aaliyah, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake) at his studios where he was mixing a track by r&b diva Brandy. It's clear from the new album that The Rapture's influences are far and wide. "We listen to everything. Vito is really into the new Christina Aguilera track. We are just filters for what we are into." While The Beatles are channelled on psychedelic final track 'Live in Sunshine', 'The Devil' was inspired by Daft Punk and it's clear The Rapture are heavily influenced by house music. "We see ourselves as the next logical step in the history of dance music. From Marshall Jefferson through Madchester, 'Blue Monday', 'Screamadelica', acid house and Daft Punk," Luke explains. He also has a dig at recent rock groups who get dance remixes to improve their credibility: "What makes us different from other indie bands is that our tracks aren't remixes. Being into dance music is who we are." An obvious stand out track is 'The Sound' which is both Notion's and Luke's favourite. It blends tight guitars, breakneck drumming and synthesiser trickery like The Prodigy, Stone Roses and Josh Wink on one anarchic stage. "It sounds like us live, capturing that energy. We were fucking sick of hearing how good we were live, there's more of a balance now." The Rapture are one of the best live acts around with an incredible energy and crisp sound and they're heading for a eight date tour of the UK this October. "The moment you hit the stage is such a high, I go bananas if I don't have it in my life," Luke explains in his laidback west coast accent. "We spend our time trying to move the crowd because that's part of dance music culture." The guitarist in particular is also looking forward to hitting this side of the Atlantic: "My mum was born in Bristol so one of my earliest memories is of Aero candy bars. The only reason I don't work in a bar is because the UK paid attention to the band first." Fans coming to the shows can still expect to hear the colossal 'House of Jealous Lovers.' "I look forward to playing that track live. Its piss poor when bands don't play their big songs. Like how Radiohead won't play 'Creep'," says Luke. The Rapture see themselves as a party band "like the B52's or Beastie Boys." The title of the new record also explains a lot about the band and gives something of a mission statement. "Pieces of the People we Love' comes from one of Matt's songs. He says it's like a really good night out where you see all of your friends and it's just really important in your life." Lynchpin of the band Luke now seems newly at ease: "With this record I did my best and I'm really happy with it." So The Rapture can now get back to their day job - being a party band filtering music from all genres and throwing it back out to the crowd as funky-hipindie- electro-rock (I think that just about sums it up). THE ALBUM ‘PIECES OF THE PEOPLE WE LOVE’ IS RELEASED ON VERTIGO ON SEPTEMBER 4TH. WORDS: TOM THOROGOOD

tags: | the rapture | dfa | death from above | music | indie | dance | remix | more...

OK Go

For a while now, there has been a significant lack of rock music about. The new wave of indie bands are sufficient I guess, but even their guitar based musings are starting to grind everyone down. Thankfully, back in March of this year, Chicago four-piece OK Go released their second album 'Oh No' - a collection of refreshingly rocking tracks. In a move away from the "nerdy pop opus" debut from the band, their second offering was based more around the "push and pull of the rhythm section, capturing the emotional feel of rock and roll" according to lead singer Damian Kulash. To give you some background info on the band, Damian Kulash (lead vocals) and Tim Nordwind (bass) met at summer camp when they were 11 and formed a band called The Greased Ferrets featured folding chairs played as drums. They then met Andy Ross (guitar/keyboards) in high school and Dan Konopka (drums) in college, but somehow didn't really become OK Go until 1999, even though they all believed that someday they'd play in a band together. Recorded in Sweden, the band's second album saw them working with producer Tore Johansson - a man who worked his magic on Franz Ferdinand's debut album, as well as producing many of The Cardigans' hits. Johansson's influence certainly had an effect on the sound of the second record, but Kulash isn't quite sure how to put his finger on how he went about this. On their first record, the band wrote about 60 songs before laying any tracks down, and when considering their second release, they decided to make an album with a clearer tone and some consistency throughout. Johansson was perfect for this and his work with the two aforementioned bands were fine examples of this. There’s a rougher grit to 'Oh No'. From the chaotic torrent of crashing guitars that launches 'Invincible', the anthemic lead track, to the acidic chorus of 'The House Wins', the album’s stinging final song, the album surges with electricity. "We wanted to make an album that sounds like our band, and not a heady, self-conscious studio project" says lead singer Damian Kulash. "Everyone tells us rock and roll is a shadow of itself - a sad old milk cow smiling at the farmer every morning. We still see a bucking bull smashing around the stable". Ask anyone about OK Go, and those in the know will immediately mention their somewhat unique and fantastic music videos. In fact, I am surprised it has taken me this long to start ranting on about them! The first single from 'Oh No', 'A Million Ways', was hugely successful largely down to the power of the Internet and word of their video spreading through sites like youtube (yes there's yet another band who have gained recognition through the world wide web). The video was shot in one take, and cost $10 - a budget that would make even the toughest of rap stars break down in tears. It featured the band members performing a routine in their back garden choreographed by Kulash’s sister Trish - even the camera it was filmed on was borrowed from a friend. The video was released without their label's consent or knowledge (very rock and roll) and soon became a phenomenon. If you check out the band's myspace page, you can see exactly how much of a phenomenon it was, with 125 videos of fan's own versions of the band's videos. Where did the idea come from? "It was intended as something for the live show. Rock shows can be a bit predicable, serious and heavy, and we wanted something fun where we could drop our instruments and break into dance. It would surprise people and make it memorable. The video is actually a practice tape, my sister helped me choreograph it in my back yard. The tape got onto the internet and the next thing I know it’s the most downloaded video in history!" explains Kulash. Not a bad way to spend $10 some might say! The video for second single 'Here It Goes Again' is equally as entertaining, but this time the band have upped the ante and have introduced treadmills to their videos - performing their routine on running treadmills. Seeing is believing my friends. With the increasing number of bands making the most of the internet, does the band feel that the internet is an important part of what they do "We spend a lot of time communicating to our fans through the internet. It's the only way to get people engaged in the community. We've got our myspace page and our guitarist keeps a blog, so we try to stay involved," explains Kulash. The band can also cut it live, with a tour of the UK earlier this year producing excellent reviews and gaining some more fans along the way. Personally encores are pretty pointless If you ask me, but with OK Go I think I would have to make an exception. For their encore, the band perform 'A Million Ways', not with their instruments, but with their infamous routine. To see it on film is one thing, but live and in person is something I would like to see. OK Go may not have had the commercial success that they deserve, but that's what's great about the band. With so many bands emerging now (I personally thought that might die down by now) catching the eye of the average music fan is important. Clor are the only band that have made me interested through interesting videos prior to Ok Go, and now they have disbanded, it seems that I have a worthy replacement. Some might say that it detracts from the music, but in this particular case, it seems to only enhance the already well written and performed music. Bring on the next video I say, and let’s all get involved with the routine. THE SINGLE ‘ HERE IT GOES AGAIN ’ WILL BE RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 25TH THROUGH ANGEL MUSIC WORDS: MATTHEW WHITE

tags: | ok go | music | band | rock | internet | youtube | here it goes again | video | more...

Kid Koala

Pictures of Kid Koala give the game away - he's a sensitive soul with an impish sense of humour that leaps out often unexpectedly. It's this thoroughly likeable personality that translates into his scratch music, and was all too evident on his 'Short Attention Span Theatre' tour of Europe three years back. For now though, Kid Koala - Vancouver-born Eric San - has gone back to basics, and can't wait to talk about his new album, 'Your Mum's Favorite DJ'. "It was super fun to make - we laughed a lot, even the mastering man. Humour is important to me, because there's not a lot of laughter in scratch music." Describing his approach to the recording, he says, "I wanted to go back to the sort of tapes I used to make, and so I went out and bought some reel to reel and did it on that. It's different from a computer because you only have 15 minutes for each side, and you just can't buy 200 reels of tape every day so you have to get it right early on. I went back to the old scratch tapes to see what I could do, and it was recorded relatively quickly - in three months I think. Some of these records I'd had for many years and tours. The recording I did without an advance, as I didn't want to be a burden to Ninja." It's not many artists that hold their record label in such high regard, yet Kid Koala is conscious that the last albums were expensive to produce, with their accompanying art material. "This time it's about photography rather than a comic book," he says. But does this mean his cult characters Grandmaphone and Megatron will be consigned to history? "These characters will be starring on their new website. The book with the last album ('Some Of My Best Friends Are DJs') was great but since 2001 we’ve had a nice collection of photos, so there's a mini photo essay with this one. One shot of the audience at a gig in Toronto has them all wearing Megatron masks!" The 'Short Attention' tour was a uniquely interactive experience for the fans. Audiences got to warm up with the wacky German singer Lederhosen Lucil, who wrote songs about dried apricots and trains amongst other things - Eric remembers it fondly. "I would know by the time she'd been on, how the audience reacted, as to how the whole evening was going to go. Some people didn't get her, but most people loved it." And then there was the bingo, with one card per ticket holder, devised by Kid Koala himself with the help of his characters. "I had no automatic generator, so had to cut and paste 200 cards myself, and I messed the order up so that if things went a certain way we could have, like, 16 winners!" He explodes with laughter, before continuing, "I was nervous I was going to have to give the decks away or something. After all, if you win bingo, you should win a prize, not public humiliation. We made them play stone-paper-scissors to see who won the top prize, but we were able to give some people consolation prizes." The tour clearly holds fond memories for the DJ. "It was the best show, just the vibe that we got from the audiences. Some cities didn't believe me when I said we wanted tables and chairs on the dancefloor. I wanted to do something different though, because when it's just a scratch turntable and nothing else your eyes just glaze over, so we tried to lift the format." However it's not a format he'll be revisiting - like many a good artist he continues to seek new ways of doing things. "We'd got up to eight turntables and three DJs on the tour, we had people eating in their seats while others were dancing. It was great fun at the time and to have the show on CD is brilliant, but now it seems like the people who were following the music early on have all had babies, and the kids coming to the show are more rowdy. I think the new tour will reflect that." Eric's friend Monkmus constructed movies featuring the Koala characters to accompany the live show, and these were aired in breaks while the DJs changed records. Likewise in between concerts, Eric relaxed with a pencil and paper. "My drawing started as a kind of babysitting thing. If I was acting up at a dinner table, people would hand me a napkin and a pen and I would lose myself for a good two hours. Now it's developed a bit, but not that much! You do it to relax on tour, as there's 10% performance, then 5% soundcheck, and then the rest just spent waiting around at the gates of a train station or something. It would be nice to have a four track recorder to take around with me but I guess that's kind of tricky!" Kid Koala, of course, is his mum's favourite DJ as the new album title suggests, though he's confessed in the past that she only really likes one of his tunes, the affectionate cover of 'Moon River'. It becomes clear that Eric grew up with Tchaikvosky, Louis Armstrong and the Beatles, but drew more and more from hip hop and comedy, the two becoming his primary influences. "De La Soul, they were big for me, and I'd listen to their albums four or five times in a row while I was doing my homework. At that time I was really drawn to hip hop, but then I got into Monty Python and loved it so much! I mean, I've listened to the parrot sketch more than 'Me, Myself & I', and I've studied Monty Python more than most Public Enemy. I've always loved sound effects and music, and how they go together, and these were really great experiences as I could just put my headphones on and escape. What was really funny was that I knew all these things on tape, so it was a real shock when I realised they were visual and saw them on screen. They're a huge influence for me. In fact I blame the British for any humour that's in my music!" Kid Koala comes across as an extremely modest person, a point borne out when he describes his talent for scratching as "more like a knack. It's a process, and I’m still growing, ever since I started at the age of 12. I'm extremely lucky, because I get to do a record, make a book, and these things feel very normal to me. I also get to have a house here in Montreal with a studio, and this one has air conditioning, which is very important as I'm melting in the heat right now!" KID KOALA’S ALBUM ‘ YOUR MOM’S FAVORITE DJ ’ IS OUT ON SEPTEMBER 18TH ON NINJA TUNE . KID KOALA PLAYS A ONE MAN SOLO SHOW AT CARGO ON SEPTEMBER 20TH . WORDS: BEN HOGWOOD

tags: | kid koala | your moms favorite dj | cargo | ninja tune | club | dance | dj | de la soul | more...

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