Here’s something rather good. Imagine a cross between Billie Holliday, a 60s Motown girl group and the coolest kid you ever knew at school and throw in the wickedest north London accent and a toy guitar. Wow.



The Chalets

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This is jingly-jangly exotic guitar electronica which sounds just brilliant. Listen for yourself…

The current single is what got me hooked, ‘Theme From Chalets’. To quote from their web site:

[it] begins with a twitching guitar, a shark in the water if you like, that explodes into a love/hate punch-up of flirting and seduction.

Who’s not going to love that?

One for the iPod

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I’ve just heard this on the radio and need to write it down somewhere or I’ll forget what it’s called…

The Fratellis – Creeping Up The Back Stairs

Such a cool tune! I love listening to 6Music – there’s always something good.

—**UPDATE**—

If you become a member at http://www.thefratellis.com/ you get to download an acoustic version of “Creeping Up The Backstairs” for free!

“Turned out nice again”

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I’m at work, listening to the (fabulous) Arctic Monkey’s on my iPod. Don’t you think there’s a touch of the >George Formby’s about the vocals?

Woo hoo

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When you live out in the sticks (i.e. not in London) and somebody cool comes to town to play a gig, you go.

The Guildhall in Southampton is normally host to unfunny, bigotted comics, like Roy Chubby Brown (why?), or a psychic, or, if you’re really lucky, a tribute band. But no, last night was great because just one mile away from my front door I got to go and see KT Tunstall!

Like a lot of people, the first time I saw her was on ‘Later’ with Jools Holland. She does this thing where she’ll come on stage alone, record a few “woo-hoos”, then she’ll record herself drumming the guitar whilst she’s playing back the “woo-hoos”, then she’ll record herself shaking a tambourine with the recording of the “woo-hoos” and drumming in the background… then she starts to sing (beautifully) over this freshly recorded backing track. The effect is mesmerising and very catchy.

[UPDATE - see for yourself! Go to http://www.kttunstall.com/tunes.php and click on the video link to "Black Horse & The Cherry Tree LIVE"]

Happy Mondays

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Music-wise, I am totally loving ‘Dare’ by the Gorillaz.

Hearing Shaun Ryder (formerly of Happy Mondays… or are they still together?) doing guest vocals takes me right back to the mid-90s – sneaking bottles of vodka into raves which were alcohol-free (they couldn’t risk selling booze with so many drugs about – I, however, had seen far too much Grange Hill as a child and stuck to ruining my liver).



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