Still a real London day out, and always fun to piss on people’s houses in Notting Hill.
Latest Blogs
31-08-2010 A short photo essay from Carnival by Jodi Burian
12-08-2010 Free Drum Cunt Download
Help yourself to a ‘refix’ of M.I.A.’s ‘XXXO’.
10-08-2010 Stockists please
We’re on the hunt for more places to stock the paper, as ever…
09-08-2010 Stop David Gray from covering Burial’s Archangel
Pigeon writer Cyrus Shahrad has started a campaign.
06-08-2010 Norwegian Would: An adventure in disconnection at Slottsfjell festival
Slottsfjell may not be the most remote festival in the world, but for an outsider at least, to attend this event is to experience a dreamlike bubble.
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The Stool Pigeon at by:Larm
by:Larm is the annual Scandinavian music biz showdown. It takes place in a load of different venues across Oslo and features about a zillion bands.
If you're going, allow us to instantly sort out your Thursday evening. In a nutshell, forget everything else and come to this. You'll shit your pants.
The Stool Pigeon presents:
by:Larm, 18th February 2010
Samfunnssalen, Oslo
20:30 ALTAAR — www.myspace.com/altaarnorway
21:30 Chrome Hill — www.myspace.com/chromehill
22:30 Oh No Ono (DK) — www.myspace.com/ohnoono
23:30 Manhattan Skyline — www.myspace.com/manhattanbitches
00:30 Ungdomskulen — www.myspace.com/ungdomskulen
Popularity: unranked [?]
Fifth anniversary, 25th issue out now
Our 25th issue has just rolled off the press. Five long years and they keep on coming. Check your regular stockist or visit our our updated stockists page to find out where you can pick up a copy.
For now, here’s your tasting menu…
JOHN LYDON: Limited Edition
Battle of Britten: THESE NEW PURITANS
Don't Look Back: THE TEMPTATIONS AND FOUR TOPS
Figure of Speech: LAURA MARLING
Partners In Chime: BROKEN BELLS
LONELADY: Against The Grain
GONJASUFI: Desert Storm
LIGHTNING BOLT: Heavy Weather
Weird Science: YEASAYER
IKONIKA: 8-Bit Operation
Playing The Field: OWEN PALLETT
Tropical Storm: ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT
Giving Static: FACTORY FLOOR
Sea Change: BEACH HOUSE
Also featuring interviews with... The Sticks, Emika, SBTRKT, Pantha Du Prince, Caitlin Rose, Bitches, Toro Y Moi, Nedry, Arabrot, Spectrals, Oh No Ono, Jonquil, Besnard Lakes, Veronica Falls, Summer Camp, and Puerto Muerto.
And there's more: Nine full pages of comics, including... Charlie Parker Handyman, Rocky's History Will Absolve Lars Ulrich, Twatty Bear, Channel Zero, Kanye West in Talk To The Mouth, Gollum plays Country & Western.
Okay, finally: Feeling Peckish! George and his Johnson! The British Art Resistance! Miss Prudence Trog! David Essexorcist! Mental Marvin's Horrorscopes! Son of Dave! Celebrity Barber! Freaks! Court Circular! Billy Childish Poetry Column! Miss Prudence Trog! Rocky's classic hip hop covers! Mispelled album titles! And other idiotic mistakes!
Popularity: 1% [?]
Guardian blog on The Stool Pigeon
He's a lovely chap, that Michael Hann at The Guardian. And a ginger brethren to our own editor, Phil. It's like a secret masonic society.
Have a looky here for a most kind blog he wrote about us turning 5.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Updated stockists list
Loads of new places for the coming issue. It's out next week in London, rest of the UK the week after. Oh yes indeed.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Jay Reatard dead at 29
Really shocking and really gutting to hear about the death of Jay. Much loved by this newspaper, not least for giving us a diamond interview, which we ran in our summer 2008 issue. Here it is again:
Jay Reatard done in two minutes, if you had to watch him fuck
Words by Alex Marshall
If you've heard any of Jay Reatard's music, you can probably guess what the 28-year-old's like in person. On record, his garage pop songs are brilliant, all sing-along choruses and noisy hooks, pretty much every one done within two minutes. Live, he's even better. At a recent London show, he and two pick-up musicians knocked out 10 songs in 10 minutes, heads down, Flying Vs in hand, without even a pause to say hello.
It turns out he's just as quick when he talks. Sitting in a north London pub, he gets through the 15 questions I intended to ask in four minutes, talking at speed, drumming his hands on the table obsessively until he's handed a Bloody Mary to stir instead. In the 20 minutes our chat lasts, he gets through a ridiculous 72 questions. Assuming I talk for a quarter of our time, that's 12 seconds an answer.
He's got plenty of explanations for this. "I always feel like I'm racing against time, and losing," he says at one point. Later: "I like to save time, I like to save other people's."
When talking about his childhood, he says his hyperactivity meant he had to wear a helmet and leash so his parents could stop him "freaking out, running around like a maniac and hitting [his] head".
"I was always impatient and nothing could happen fast enough," he explains.
All of which is interesting stuff, but it doesn't make for the best interview. Thankfully, question 51 comes along, and he chooses to break a habit and ramble for a bit.
"My inspiration definitely comes from a dark place," he says. "If I'm in a good state in my life, I'm pretty uncreative. But usually when something bad happens, there's this explosion of creativity. You don't want to feel terrible - you don't want to wake up depressed - but that inspires you. So it becomes what you kinda do - create situations to bum yourself out. I don't want to be enlightened anytime soon."
Your music's not depressed though, I say.
"I know, but I'm trying to get something positive out of it."
I ask him for a few examples of bumming himself out, expecting him to talk about a recent gig in Toronto when he punched an audience member in the face. Instead, he gives a potted life history.
Reatard, real name Jay Lindsay, was born in 1980 in Tennessee. He grew up in a farming community until he was eight and moved to Memphis. There, he took the opportunity to become a delinquent: "I set fields on fire, a few cars, and I tried to do our house a couple of times. I was never interested in taking people's things, just making them disappear."
He only got arrested once, spending three nights in jail after lamping a guy, and started playing the guitar aged 13 when he found an acoustic in a closet. But he didn't start writing songs until he discovered punk: "That was way later on," he says, "when I was, like, 14."
By 15, he'd befriended the local punk band, and they put out his first single. Reatard jacked in school, having already had to re-sit two years. He quickly put out two albums as The Reatards: Grown Up Fucked Up and Teenage Hate. Then, just as quickly, starting branching out from punk, forming a fistful of bands including - fatefully - The Lost Sounds with his then girlfriend. They lasted a few albums before splitting on the ferry from France to Britain. She made him finish the tour, then stole all his gear and locked him out of the house.
Reatard's been dining out on that relationship disaster for the last couple of years and it's the raw material behind his brilliant Blood Visions album. But today he's facing the slight problem that everything's going swimmingly for him. He's just signed to Matador who are putting out six singles of his this year; he's selling out venues; and people are literally handing him Bloody Marys each time he asks. So, what will he do for inspiration now?
"I'm letting the past catch up with me," he says. "I'm thinking a lot about the terrible things I've done to people. Writing at the moment's kinda like going to a priest."
That was his response to question 71, and yet another quick, to-the-point answer. It gets me thinking. Does he ever slow down? I mean, has he ever even written a slow song?
"I record them all the time," he laughs. "I just don't let people hear them. It's not a part of me I want to share. It's not that I'm insecure; it's like if someone doesn't want to let you into their bedroom to watch them fuck their wife. It's not that they're insecure about their wife, or about fucking their wife, it's just they don't want you to be part of that. If you were going to see me fuck, I'd want it to go fast - be over with in two minutes flat."
Popularity: unranked [?]
The Stool Pigeon wins an award
Yup, we were voted 'Free Music Magazine of The Year' at last night's ROTD Awards. Second time we've won this. Thanks to those who voted, and to the good people at Record Of The Day.
Big ups to the extended massive! And by that I mean... The Quietus, who work in the same building as us and whose two editors (John Doran and Luke Tuner) are major contributors to The Pigeon. They rightly took the best website gong. John from The Quietus also won best live reviewer, and Kev Kharas, who wrote this issue's xx cover story, won best blog for his and his pals' No Pain In Pop site. Kev's Omar Souleyman piece for The Stool Pigeon was also shortlisted for best feature. And so indeed it should have been.
All in all, an excellent night for the Maury Road powerhouse of independent music journalism and publishing. We're chuffed. And our corner of the room definitely heckled the best.
Best heckle of the night goes to Pigeon Mickey...
Miranda Sawyer, while giving a (highly deserved) prize to music snapper Kevin Cummins: "You should all go and buy his book."
Pigeon Mickey: "I bet you didn't buy your bloody copy!"
Good on you, Mickey.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Issue 24 out and about… right now
And here's a list of many delights you'll chance upon in the issue...
THE XX: Crosses To Bear
Cloud Canine: SNOOP DOGG
JULIAN CASABLANCAS: Speak, Memory
Hex Appeal: THE FLAMING LIPS
VAMPIRE WEEKEND: Ivy Fatigue
Blood Love: BIRDMAN
Bad Hare Day: SUFJAN STEVENS
LIGHTNING BOLT: Heavy Weather
Comparing Notes with MUSIC GO MUSIC
COLD CAVE: Brisky Business
WARPAINT: Brush With Fate
Time's New Romans: ESPERS
You Terrible Cult: ELECTRIC WIZARD
KURT VILE: Foul Language
COMANECHI: Double Trouble
Also featuring interviews with... Lawrence Arabia, Black Cobra, Cooly G, Dam-Funk, Githead, Matias Aguayo, Francois Marry, FunkinEven, My Tiger My Timing, Gyratory Sustem, Savious, Laura Gibson, Von Haze, Get Back Guinozzi, Darkstar, Drumcunt, Sisters Of Transistors, A Grave With No Name, Bo Ningen, Tickley Feather, For A Minor Reflection, and Taxi Taxi
And free inside too: Justin Timberlake's World Of Terror! Ain't No Party Like A Communist Party! Feeling Peckish! The British Art Resistance! Digi Tel! Mental Marvin's Horrorscopes! Son of Dave! Celebrity Barber! Eavis and Butthead! Freaks! Court Circular! Billy Childish Poetry Column! Miss Prudence Trog! Indie Dave! Rocky's classic hip hop covers! A story that falls off the bottom of the page! And other schoolboy errors!
Popularity: 1% [?]
