infomachine

As regular readers know, I’m quite the fan of Orange Unsigned Act. However, this may all be about to change, as this week, somehow, this was kicked out

But, somehow, this was allowed to remain

I don’t understand. I really don’t. I presumed the Orange Unsigned Act was about whether or not you’re good, but this is clearly not the case. Tommy Reilly is still really good, but I just don’t understand why they’re kicking out good people and leaving crap people in. It doesn’t make sense.

It seems like the beautiful Amanda Palmer is, according to Roadrunner Records, too fat to be commercial.  They’ve told her that they wouldn’t release her new video for Leeds United unless they cut shots of her belly.  As you can imagine, she’s now looking for another label.  With some of the fat, ugly blokes of this label, it seems a little bit ironic.  Personally, I’d love to see a boycott of this scummy, woman-hating bunch of bastards, but I’d be surprised if anyone reading this blog liked any of their acts except Amanda Palmer and Dresden Dolls.

(From The F Word via Warren Ellis)

For anyone watching Orange Unsigned Act on Channel 4, you’ll already realise that Tommy Reilly is one of the best things ever.  For everyone else, check out his myspace.

(if you’ve got sense, you probably like Klaus Says Buy The Record, too).

Well, another week, another gig I expected to be mightily disappointed by, this time at The Duchess.  Unfortunately, as the early bird of my little group, I had the pleasure of seeing Wurlybird on my own.

Wurlybird (no website, it seems) were pretty weak.  With no drummer, they failed to gel for the vast majority of the set, being driven too much by a bassist who would have been fine in a rhythm section, but couldn’t carry it off on their own.  The singer was ok, but being hugely helped out by a great big swash of reverb, meaning she could have been singing just about anything.  The lead guitarist had the same problem as every other lead guitarist in a “not quite ready yet” band, that he thought he was a little bit better than he was.  But he did pull out a nice little bit of mandolin.

As the set went on, they slowly, slowly, slowly improved, getting a little bit more in sync with each other.  But then they played their final song: a cover of Ring of Fire.  And honest to God you’ve got be pretty good to pull that off as a cover, so it’s a bit of a shame that they didn’t pull it off.

Now some of you may be thinking by now that I didn’t like Wurlybird.  I mean, don’t get me wrong: they need a hell of a lot of practice and I’ll probably never see them again.  But Paris Commune were one of the single worst experiences of my life.  Led by some fake American accented idiot with a crap Mystery Jets haircut, Paris Commune couldn’t work out who they were failing to be.  Were they failing at being an arty, Dada-inspired, post-Tom Waits band, or were they failing to be the latest in a long line of shit Strokes / Kings of Leon clones?  In this case, both.  An accordion comes out, plays for a while, and then the song turns into a sub-Kings of Leon twang-along.  Then another mandolin comes out, and the guy playing this one makes the guy from Wurlybird look like a Peter Buck, just hammering it progressively more and more out of tune.  I wasted half an hour of my life on this, and the best thing about them is that their guitarist looks like Gilly from Hollyoaks.

And then onto my mate’s band (so, obviously, take the next section however you want).  I usually like to go and see my friends’ bands, especially those of this friend, and take the piss as much as humanly possible.  And I really wanted to do the same tonight.  But I couldn’t.  Because Alvin Purple are brilliant.  They sound like PJ Harvey crossed with Yeah Yeah Yeahs produced by Geoff Barrow from Portishead.  Which is exactly as good as it sounds.  The lead singer sounds like a jazzier PJ Harvey with a bit of Regina Spektor thrown in for good measure, playing some nice distorted synth for good measure, the guitarist drops some excellent Nick Zinner / Jonny Greenwood style guitar fed through god-knows-what effects, and the bassist and drummer, although clearly not part of the central creative team of the band, keep a good strong support for the top end.  The highlight for me was a song they played right near the end, where the guitarist ended it by sampling the singer’s voice on an effects pedal, and then scratching it in a full on trip-hop stylee.  Highly recommended, get out and see them if you can.

All of which, unfortunately, left Dark Captain Light Captain with a little bit too much to follow.  I can imagine they’d be excellent at a completely different venue with a completely different crowd, but just not tonight.  They’re excellent musicians (harmonicas, trumpets, keyboads, acoustics, etc), with good (but slightly samey) songs (at least until the industrial influenced stomper near the end), sounding a little bit like a cross between Magic Numbers and the most recent Radiohead stuff, but sounding most like about half of Arcade Fire.  I say about half, because the limited size of the band means that they can’t quite pull off the “great big swell” thing that Arcade Fire are so good at.  Of course, it may also be the sound at the Duchess, which isn’t great.  But, whoever’s fault it is, it all adds to another band not quite hitting the spot.

The Jeepers Peepers Club

Well that was fun.  Lola and myself decided to go out on Friday to see an exciting little burlesque troupe we’ve been hearing an awful lot about called The Jeepers Peepers Club.  They’re based in Newcastle, but have been starting to run nights in York recently, at The Junction.

After getting there a little bit on the early side, we had a couple of drinks while listening to the cheesecake rock n roll being played, and admired the transformation of The Junction into somewhat of a boudoir: table cloths, decorations, even a curtain around the stage.

At 9, the curtain opened as Sweetie Amour, dressed as a french maid, opened the proceedings.  After hyping the crowd for a bit, a job which she did brilliantly all evening, not once breaking from the french accent, she introduced Penny Whipworth, who performed an amusing skeleton themed striptease.  Penny’s act was pretty good, with regular “bone cracks” throughout, but I wasn’t entirely convinced by the routine.

The next act, however, completely blew me away.  Ava Loveless, who was apparently the new girl to the troupe, performed her Barbarella-esque “Saturn Rings” act, which consisted of her doing a striptease whilst hula hooping.  The climax was Ava managing to continue hula hooping whilst taking off her bra.  My own view is that this was the best thing I had ever seen, and it sounded like the audience agreed with me.

After a half hour break of more music, we were treated to Anna Fur Laxis‘ fish-based first act of the evening.  Managing to get off a sequined red dress, an Arabian princess outfit, and underwear in only a few minutes with the aid of some strategically placed hooks, Anna looks like she stepped directly out of a US pin-up poster.  That, combined with the suffocation based dance routine (to “Breathless”), she could easily be on stage with any of the top modern burlesque performers, so it’s a real pleasure to see her somewhere as small as The Junction.

Thankfully there’s more to come.  As soon as Anna’s finished, Chelsea Bangs comes on for her one performance of the evening, a Geisha-themed routine involving various oriental costumes, a parasol filled with rose petals, papers fans and throwing fortune cookies into the crowd.  Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite get the crowd behind her, as dazed as they were after Anna Fur Laxis’ performance, and as she only had the one performance of the evening it felt like she was a little bit wasted.

Certainly not wasted was Ava Loveless, who came on next with a brilliant “Hit The Road, Jack” routine based around her taking her clothes off to pack them in her suitcase.  A very simple routine, with the delicate twist at the end of her being covered in blood, having clearly murdered a man “what done her wrong”.  It probably requires a little bit of polish to get it as good as the Saturn Rings routine, but she’s hot enough to make up for it.

After the next break, we had another routine from Penny Whipworth.  Although she’s good, I was a little surprised that Penny had been chosen to be the second-to-last act on, given the comparative strength of Chelsea Bangs and Ava Loveless.  Her sweet-based routine, starting with an ice-cream inspired parasol and ending with pasties shaped like liquorice allsorts, was good, but I can’t see it as a second-to-last routine of the night.

Which certainly can’t be said for Anna Fur Laxis’ closing routine of the night.  She came on stage dressed as a member of the US Air Force, trapped behind enemy lines, and proceeded to strip down to her nipple tassles, at which point she commenced some tassle twirling that brought the house down: twirling both left, then both right, then both circling out, then both circling in.  The crowd was obviously aware of how difficult this is, as they were screaming at the top of their lungs.

After the obligatory final bow from all concerned, we had a little bit of a dance and headed off home.  It was a bit of a shame that the crowd was nowhere near as big as it should have been, but, even so, the Jeepers Peepers girls put on an excellent show, and a good night certainly appeared to be had by all.  So I hope to see you all there at the next one.

If, like me, you like porn, and if, like me, you like creating stuff, then you’ll love Belladonna’s guide to how to make your own porn.  And if you decide to make your own porn, let me know, and I’ll put it up on the site.

If you like M.I.A., if you like Tom Waits, or if you like the Wire, then you should check out M.I.A and Blaqstarr’s cover / mashup / whatever of Way Down In The Hole called Save Ur Soul.  The tune’s very much back on M.I.A.’s old-skool form, and the video cost less then $10 to make.

From M.I.A.’s myspace via PSFK

If you’re looking for a “thriller” this Halloween (cue: uprorious laughter), then you should check out this article by Violet Blue.  Don’t let your urge to wear a normal sexy costume like Supergirl take hold; be inspired to go beyond the traditional and be sexy zombie: the more decayed the better.  But remember, don’t bite off more than you can chew.

At least it’s better than this