The Boy
TheBoyLondon@gmail.com / ask me anything / comment
Die - Girls
Girls are a great little band from San Francisco and this is one of the stand-outs from their second record, ‘Father, Son, Holy Ghost’, which was one of my top three of last year.
This track shed the sun-bleached pop of Lust For Life and Honey Bunny that made them a success and veered into Led Zepellin and Muse territory. They pull it off surprisingly well and I had this as part of my DJ sets for weeks.
I saw them play The Forum last night and was convinced they would end on this, in that fairly common move to make the crowd go home thinking “Wow they can really rock!”. Maybe the singer would have crowd-surfed a little or kicked over a drum. Sadly it wasn’t in the set at all, hopefully next time.
Pass This On - The Knife
Cool song and lovely video. Thanks to Sheila for introducing me to this and Ollie for reminding me of it.
Runaway (full-length version) - Kanye West
I have a short list of artists that I love but have never seen play live: Bowie, The National, The XX… And Kanye West. But tonight, thanks to Jay-Z (and the O2) that list gets a little shorter.
Kanye and Jay-Z released an album together last year, ‘Watch The Throne’, and they’re touring it all over the world including five nights in London. As good as that album is, the really great news is that they’re playing a three hour mega-set crammed with Kanye and Jay-Z’s biggest hits. It really is huge, look at the set from last night.
So in the spirit of excess and retrospection I give you the Kanye-directed, 35-minute magnum opus promo clip for Runaway. Visually and sonically it’s pretty amazing stuff and I can’t wait to see it live.
Here’s a pretty ridiculous video of some American Apparel boys throwing some vinyl trick shots.
No, it doesn’t look like a helpful skill and, yes, maybe they could be focussing on getting a job but it’s still quite cool. It wouldn’t be the same with my lovely CDRs.
THE BOY - Club Fandango @ the Buffalo Bar - 01.05.12
While I write down every set I play I only scan those that make me particularly proud for some reason and they end up here and on Facebook. Sometimes I’m excited about who I’m DJing for or how good the setlist looks or a set entirely made from New York bands.
But this one got scanned because it was just an excellent night musically. It does look cool (thanks for helping Logan) but I’m mainly proud of the songs, effects and (in the latter-half) mixing. It’s so nice to drop an intro as recognisable as Beat It by Michael Jackson into the feedback and fuzz outro of 100% by Sonic Youth, then mix INXS, Prince and T.Rex tracks nicely one after the other.
Nights like this make me want to organise another live recording, I just need to figure out how
A Teenager In Love - The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
It was Rory’s birthday this week so this is for him, wishing you a very twee birthday! See you on Tuesday hopefully
Black Rainbow - St Vincent feat Andrew Bird (Une Soire de Poche #9)
This isn’t going to tear up any dancefloors anytime soon but St Vincent and Andrew Bird fans will get excited about it so this is for you guys! A very nice little collaboration.
I also recommend St Vincent’s spot on Jools Holland, an older, quirkier session I just found called DUMBO and of course her gig in the feminist bookstore.
Next set- Friday at 7pm will be my third slot at the members’ bar at the Royal Festival Hall. Little do they know, they’re getting another post-punk set. I must be doing something right, if you can figure out what please get in touch
Bank Holiday - Blur
“Ah Bank Holiday. What a great song. It really encapsulates the frustration of a Bank Holiday, doesn’t it? You wake up in the morning, you’ve got to read all the papers, the kids are running round, you’ve got to mow the lawn, wash the car, and you think ‘Bloody Bank Holiday!’.”
THE BOY - Club Fandango @ the Buffalo Bar - 24.04.12
Before I DJed last week I had read James Murphy’s 15 Songs That Saved My Life and so I started my set with two of them, by The Modern Lovers and The Fall. He made a good choice of songs, not too obscure, and the playlist is worth a listen.
Then later in my set it was fun to have a small electro slot with Erol Alkan’s Metronomy rework, Soulwax’s Sprawl II remix, LCD Soundsystem and Holy Ghost!
To finish it off I thought I’d use the cool lightning-bolt logo from James Murphy’s DFA records. For legal reasons I should state that I’m about as affiliated with DFA as I am the vatican ; )
Ryan Adams live from Abbey Road (2/2)
01:04 Oh My Sweet Carolina and
07:37 New York, New York (piano version)
Tonight I’m going to the Palladium Theatre, erstwhile home of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, to have my faith in Ryan Adams renewed! His last album rather passed me by but I’ve seen him light up a cavernous theatre before with just his tricoloured acoustic guitar and I think he’ll do the same tonight.
Some bands know their fan-favourites but stick to the recent material while others are kind and mix up their set between past and present. Like anyone else Ryan can be a difficult guy, but he definitely chooses fan-pleasing sets, look at his average 2012 setlist.
When I saw him last the audience were instructed to not take photographs, film or even drink while in the auditorium. I’ll let you know how many of these “Mariah” demands are still in place, I think they’re so silly. Lots of artists play quiet acoustic sets without having to nanny their audience into respectful silence, maybe he’s grown out of this.
Jack White live at Webster Hall, 27 April 2012
Jack White performed in New York on Friday night as part of a large credit card’s ‘Unstaged’ series and it was streamed live online. While it was nice to have it slightly interactive- there was an option to switch cameras- it was heavily pixelated and stuttering. Luckily the show has been put up online in full, in HD, without the problems on Friday.
It’s a great concert, with a setlist much like the London gig I was at last week- new material, White Stripes, Dead Weather and Raconteurs. I think he chose to do this as a way to assure the world that his tour will have all his great songs and, as he ends with Seven Nation Army, will rock just as hard as any White Stripes gig. Coming soon to a venue near you…
I Don’t Want Love - The Antlers (live at Webster Hall)
The Antlers, the band that made my favourite album of last year, ‘Burst Apart’, are playing Shepherd’s Bush Empire tonight. Here is a lovely version of its first track.
I’m pretty excited about tonight, it’s their biggest London gig so far. They’re one of those bands that I’m surprised aren’t more popular, let me know what you think
This is ‘Let’s Shake Hands’, the first 7” by The White Stripes from 1998, that I bought on Saturday during record store day, exciting huh?
People say you have to get there early because eBay flippers and supernerds buy up all the most precious vinyl right at the start, but I got to Rough Trade East around 3.30pm and found this!
Yes, the Jack White single had sold out, and the Ryan Adams, and Wilco, and the limited run White Stripes record. But they still had this non-limited, non-Record Store Day, reissue! Woohooooo! Who says the best of Record Store Day goes to those who get there painfully early or spend loads on eBay? Hmmm...
I Will Never Change - Benga
Very nice video that uses 960 pieces of vinyl to create a real-life waveform! It took seven full working days to get the vinyl ready, including cutting each individual piece, as well as hand labelling, numbering and finally polishing.
“To animate the wave form, we built it and then carefully removed each individual record. This had to be done very gently as any shift in the position of the sculpture would result in the failure of the animation and as we had to literally destroy each piece of vinyl to get it off, there was only one chance to get it right. Once the sculpture was finally built, the animation process took about 30 hours.”
A great use of analogue representing digital representing analogue. Very good idea, thanks to Ben for spotting this
