The News Review:
- VH-1′s Documentary “NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell”…
- Daft Punk “Electroma” premiere
- Daft Punk’s Electroma
- Record doctor: Adrian Chiles | Music | Observer Music Monthly
- The record shop’s last spin
- Pig City: celebrating Brisbane’s musical heritage
VH-1′s Documentary “NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell”…
Broadway World – Jul 15, 2007
There was a city wide black out with major looting there was a serial killer on the loose and the Bronx was burning. Yet out of the chaos emerged one of the most creative times any city has ever encountered. Hip Hop was emerging from the South Bronx punk music was emerging from the lower eastside and disco was emerging from Queens and midtown Manhattan. Elaborate finely crafted graffiti art decorated the subway cars. Break-dancers danced in the streets. There was a huge sexual liberation with sex clubs and a burgeoning porn industry. In the beginning of the year the world was not paying attention and most of this activity existed in its own underground bubble.
Daft Punk “Electroma” premiere
Northwest Herald – Jul 15, 2007
“Despite all its pretentiousness the film’s downfall was the music – or rather the lack there of. The one thing that surely should have been stellar was what ultimately left the most die-hard member of Daft Punk’s army scanning the room to see who was equally as bored. The problem with the soundtrack of “Electroma” is that it features not one note courtesy of Daft Punk. And while it does contain music by Brian Eno Todd Rundgren and Curtis Mayfield getting anyone other than the groundbreaking French pair to supply the score seems like an intentionally obvious oversight. It’s like if The Monkeys supplied the music of “A Hard Days Night” or if Frankie Valli sung throughout “Viva Las Vegas. ” It’s just pointless. This isn’t the duo’s first attempt at filmmaking having released 1999′s “D.
Daft Punk’s Electroma
Guardian Unlimited – Jul 15, 2007
It should come as no surprise then that Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s directorial debut Daft Punk’s Electroma currently showing at selected cinemas nationwide before a DVD release in September is not an all-guns-blazing shoot-’em-up blockbuster. Rather it’s a provocative at times pretentious and laboured meditation upon technology’s omnipotence in the modern world and the equally prevalent theme of identity. It also features two robots walking through the salt flats of California… It also features two robots walking through the salt flats of California. For what seems like for ever. ‘It’s music for the eyes’ Bangalter explains of their ambitious project which contains no dialogue and only a sprinkling of music none of it from Daft Punk (look out for Todd Rundgren Brian Eno and Chopin). ‘We were fascinated by exploring ideas without text or even sub-text. ‘The plot as such features the two Daft Punk robots the super-sleek duo that surfaced at the time of the pair’s second album 2001′s Discovery in a forlorn voyage of self-discovery. We first meet them in their 1987 Ferrari 412 en route to a US town populated by robots. There the two visit an ominous building where they are treated to a human makeover.
Record doctor: Adrian Chiles | Music | Observer Music Monthly
Guardian Unlimited – Jul 15, 2007
‘What is Nena doing this morning?’ the host of BBC1′s The One Show asks about the woman whose ’99 Red Balloons’ is remembered less for the quality of the music than its singer’s unshaven underarms. Silently Chiles scans the acts in his iTunes library for other former stars whose current whereabouts are unknown. ‘Judie Tzuke’ he says. ‘Where the hell is she? And I was worried about Kate Bush for a while… ‘Whatever the nature of the lyrical content it is a far cry from Chiles’s teenage passions – sanitised stadium rock (Supertramp) and denim-clad blues (Led Zep). ‘John Bonham’s son Jason was in the year above me at primary school’ he says. ‘I was presenting Match of the Day and caught them playing live on Top of the Pops. The sheer energy! You could taste it. ‘ He puffs out his cheeks.
The record shop’s last spin
Telegraph.co.uk – Jul 15, 2007
It puts the periodic shopper off so their tastes remain stagnant they decide not to buy and walk out” says Godfroy. His view that it is the retailers not the consumers who are to blame for the decline in sales is supported by the evidence. The UK’s live music scene is more vibrant than it has been for years and festivals such as Glastonbury and Reading are selling out in record time. There is a growing consumption of music among teenagers and although touring is an increasingly important revenue stream for bands as recorded music sales dip music sales are still worth billions of pounds a year. Rough Trade aims to resolve this apparent disconnection. First the retailer will try to do away with the perception of the independent record store as elitist and male-dominated by offering nappy-changing facilities and putting on children’s events… Bands without distribution deals will be able to sell their music and a quarter of all merchandise will be vinyl sales of which are experiencing a revival. Rough Trade has form in introducing new artists. Its Notting Hill store opened in 1976 and was closely associated with the punk movement – particularly The Clash. In recent years it was instrumental in acquainting the UK with The White Stripes by recommending the band’s early singles to shoppers. The idea is that the store will be a scene-setter: “We would like to go back to the days when we had to kick kids out at close of business. There are no record shops where people hang out any more” Godfroy says. He points to the booming independent retail sector in the US and Canada as proof that Rough Trade’s vision can work.
Pig City: celebrating Brisbane’s musical heritage
abc.net.au – Jul 15, 2007
The Queensland Music Festival concert at the University of Queensland featured a bill comprising enduring Brisbane bands including the Ups and Downs the Riptides and the Pineapples from the Dawn of Time with the Saints and a memorable tribute to the Go-Betweens as the main attractions. Pig City the concert was actually inspired by Pig City: from the Saints to Savage Garden the book by Andrew Stafford. He started writing the book in 2000 after watching Savage Garden perform on a huge international stage to close the Sydney Olympic Games. The cloying Savage Garden were a world away from Andrew’s original Brisbane heroes the Saints and Andrew started wondering how the same city had produced both. “[Savage Garden] came from out in the boondocks as well – like the Saints had” commented Andrew referring to the bands’ Logan and Oxley origins “but Brisbane had gone from being a rebellious city to a middle class city much like any other Western metropolis in the world… Kev would take his guitar but didn’t have time to write songs so would just improvise lyrics to songs he already knew like Midnight Special giving rise to this rousing couplet:Let that midnight special shine a light on usLet that midnight special tell the system to get stuffed!The Saints and the Go-Betweens were the leading lights of that era. “They were the two pillars of music in late 70s Brisbane upon which – you could argue – all else was built” commented Andrew Stafford. “Although there were bands in Brisbane before that the absolute explosion of energy that came with the punk movement – which the Saints actually predated in a way – makes them the two bands on which everything else rests and they’re still the two bands with the biggest international reputations. Brisbane music writer and journalist Matt Connors agrees. “The interesting thing about both of those bands is they did it for themselves and they had to do the whole thing of moving from Brisbane to Sydney and then to London to find some success because things were so oppressive here when Joh was still in power. It was very hard for bands to be successful. The bands then were also operating in something of a vacuum; Brisbane was seen as a cultural backwater and there was very little music coming from overseas to inspire the young musicians.