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28-07-2010 Wavves – King of the Beach

There could hardly be a more apt sounding death knell for lo-fi indie garage than Nathan Williams’ infantile pop farts. Both the genre and Wavves itself have been due a backlash for some time now.

27-07-2010 M.I.A. – /\/\ /\ Y /\

In another universe, parallel to ours but not too distant, Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam is the pivotal character in Pulp’s ‘Common People’.

27-07-2010 Sleigh Bells – Treats

Everyone seems to hear something different in the kind of piercing racket that only the pairing of a former hardcore guitarist and an ex-girl group singer could produce

27-07-2010 Devo – Something for Everybody

The album rolls back the years and sates Devo-addicts’ cravings for more of the same. The lack of artistic progression is inevitable. After all, de-evolution is real…

26-04-2010 The Black Keys – Brothers

There’s no reason why the soul or spirit of a recording studio should rub off on people who record there (…)

Jennie Livingston, Paris Is Burning

Dorian Corey sits relaxed in a dim lit room, pasting foundation into the cracks in his face. Green boas hang draped from walls and a stuffed owl perches moodily with its back to the camera as Corey discusses preparations for tonight’s drag ball. “They’re very intense affairs but I guess that’s what makes them fun,” purrs the veteran drag queen, applying make-up in a shaving mirror. “Like a good movie… if there’s no emotion you don’t enjoy it.”

AKPC_IDS += “1640,”;

Popularity: unranked [?]

Legends: Ella Fitzgerald, First Lady of Song

You want these documentaries about musicians who had huge lives to help fill in the gaps; to tell you exactly what it was you hear in their songs; for it to no longer be something abstract. Or perhaps you don’t, in which case you shouldn’t watch them.

AKPC_IDS += “1338,”;

Popularity: unranked [?]

Unsigned Noise

Send your work of genius through the ears of The Stool Pigeon to the address on the contact page. Please mark the envelope ‘Demo’.

Everybody’s trying to make some green singing the blues.

Celestial Sounds

The Olympus LS-10 is more than just a sexy dictaphone from out of space

R.E.M. / Waldbühne, Berlin

R.E.M. mercifully not automatic for the people in Berlin

Nissennenmondai / The Freebutt, Brighton

What in the blue blazes is this, I wondered? I was all set for a quiet Sunday night watching assorted friends go through their usual improvised performances (nods of acknowledgement here to Bad Orb, Little Creature and Vitamin B12), alongside, let’s be frank, a sparse hardcore of the more chin-stroking breed of music fan: us few who were neither still raving nor cripplingly hungover after Brighton’s legendarily hedonistic gay pride weekend. True, there were some mutterings about a Japanese band headlining, but I had no reason to suspect that the night would turn up anything as arse-shakingly tremendous as Nissennenmondai.

AKPC_IDS += “1330,”;

Popularity: 1% [?]

The Edge Festival / Various venues, Edinburgh

Re-branded Edinburgh festival fails to cut to the mustard

The Wildest Cats In Town / Pontin’s Holiday Village, Kessingland

When a young sprite that helps us put The Stool Pigeon together asked if I was going to any festivals this year, I said, “Yes, I’m going to a rocking little weekender on the Suffolk coast.”

AKPC_IDS += “1325,”;

Popularity: 1% [?]