Stereo

The Vibrators have been around for 30-odd years (!!!). That’s freaking long for a band to survive. I think it’s really cool this commercial uses this track for its soundtrack. Love the commercial, love this track as well.

Now I feel ashamed I’ve never heard of The Vibrators the band except for the real vibrate thingie, all shapes and sizes.

Download: The Vibrators - Baby Baby (MP3 format)

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Pretty cool commercial promoting safe sex by the French. Gotta love those flying-dick birds. There’s a gay ad too if you’re into that (follow the link here, or go directly here).

Anyone know the soundtrack to this commercial? Got it. Get it here.

WARNING: Not safe for work, unless cartoon nudity or sex scenes are okay for you.

The nominees for this year’s Mercury Prize, or otherwise known as the only award I can remember that actually has good rock/indie bands/musicians (though limited to the Brits only) as winners, has been revealed.

Past winners of Mercury Prize include Antony and the Johnsons (2005), Franz Ferdinand (2004), Badly Drawn Boy (2000, love the album), Gomez (1998), Pulp (1996), Portishead (1995), Suede (1993, insanely infectious) and Primal Scream (the first Mercury Prize winner in 1992 for the album Screamadelica). Not impressed? Take a look at the previous nominees list, including Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, Snow Patrol (!), The Darkness, Radiohead, David Bowie, Elbow, Goldfrapp, Super Furry Animals, Manic Street Preachers, Chemical Brothers, Blur, Stereophonics, Catatonia, The Verve, Oasis, Supergrass, etc. You get me point.

I have to admit I have never heard most of the names for this year’s list, but further readings show some familiarity.

Artic Monkeys, Muse and Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) need no introductions. The rest of the dozen includes Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Editors, Guillemots, Richard Hawley, Hot Chip, Zoe Rahman, Lou Rhodes, Scritti Politti and Sway. Who?

Mark Lanegan used to be the lead singer of Screaming Trees, part of the whole Seattle grunge era in the 1990s. Isobel Campbell is formerly from Belle & Sebastian, a favourite to some. Richard Hawley used to tour with the band Pulp (whose Jarvis Cocker once famously protested Wacko Jacko on stage during 1996’s Brit Awards).

Those are the names I know, or least heard of. The early favourite to take the award is of course Artic Monkeys. But I would fancy Thom Yorke to win it (Radiohead were nominated several times). But most likely neither of them will walk home with the award. We’ll see. The winner will be announced 5th September, 2006.

Mercury Prize 2006 Nominees:

• Artic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
• Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Ballad Of The Broken Seas
• Editors, The Back Room
• Guillemots, Through The Windowpane
• Richard Hawley, Coles Corner
• Hot Chip, The Warning
• Muse, Black Holes And Revelations
• Zoe Rahman, Melting Pot
• Lou Rhodes, Beloved One
• Scritti Politti, White Bread, Black Beer
• Sway, This Is My Demo
• Thom Yorke, The Eraser

Visit BBC’s Mercury Prize page or the official site for more readings and reviews and pictures and stuff.

I haven’t been able to login to my extra webspace for the past week or more. Bruce, you better get working on it So, no downloads for the time being.

Anyhow, here’s a video of James Iha (and the Pumpkins of course) singing Blew Away, live. It’s one of the better Iha-written tracks for the Smashing Pumpkins, though in this video he can’t sing for shit. Still, a Pumpkins track is never shit to me. Go James!

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This is too fun not to post up. You’ve probably seen it if you’re a WP user. This is David Hasselhoff at his best, well to zee Germans by the way. He’s on par with Sexy Rexy of Empire, if not sexier. Girls, get your panties out for The Hoff…

Update 13 July 2006: The song’s actually a remake by umm… I have no idea. Added the lyrics in case you want to sing this to the girls.

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I’m a news junkie, well music news that is. Particularly if it involves The Smashing Pumpkins.

If you don’t already know, Billy “I live in Courtney Love’s mansion” Corgan is planning for a Pumpkins comeback and is on the process of writing/recording songs.

So to keep track of the band’s progress, which I hope a progress that goes all the way to a real comeback, I did this. It basically grabs all the Pumpkins related news from three major news feeds, Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Simple stuff, nothing biggie.

Besides the Pumpkins you can also read news related to Radiohead. Radiohead is coming out with an album pretty soon and the man Thom Yorke is about to release a solo album. So, expect alot of news from them.

If Pumpkins and Radiohead don’t interest you, you can simply do a search on anything you want to read about. Just type in some keywords in the search box and voila.

Be smart. Read some news here.

Finally, an announcement of a worthy gig in the heart of Kuala Lumpur itself. About time too for youse hungry rock headbanging bloodsuckers.

Indie rock geeksters, We Are Scientists will be playing at Zouk KL, 9th August 2006. Ticket is priced at MYR 60. More details here or here.

Image from wearescientists.com

If that’s not enough or mainstream rock is more for youse, then youse’ll be pleased to hear the revamped INXS, with Rock Star: INXS winner J.D. Fortune, will be playing at the Stadium Negara on 18th August 2006. No ticket pricing information available yet.

Two gigs in the month of August! Anyone wanna go for We Are Scientists with me?

Update 10 July 2006: A We Are Scientists WordPress-powered weblog can be found here, What’s the Word? Good stuff. If you’re wondering the sounds of W.A.S., head over to their official website and stream the whole album! Really good stuff.

Update 8 August 2006: Durian Runtuh. I won 2 tix for the gig. Problem is, who’s going with me? Click here to download 3 tracks by WAS.

Heard this track played over the radio the other night. It has been ages since I last heard of it. I love older tracks. I love this track. It brings back so many memories. Enjoy the Dummies.

Download: Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm (MP3 format)

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