Monthly Archives: October 2009

Why Dubai is an un-Sound City

Posted on by David Lloyd
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Kendal's finest. Apart from me.

Is it right that, in a week when a gay man gets beaten almost to death, a Liverpool music festival is about to prop up the tourist economy of a country which employs a special task force to ‘combat’ homosexuality and other ‘indecent acts’ from taking place in public. A country which sides with Nick Griffin’s stance – that  ‘to see two men kissing in public was ‘creepy’? And that this festival – and its line up (Echo & The Bunnymen, Doves and Super Furry Animals etc) does this all for money?

It’s great to see Liverpool Music Week packing in a selection box of goodies again this year.

They call this shindig The UK’s biggest indoor winter music festival. I guess 390 acts in 80 venues takes some beating. But here’s the thing – the festival’s highlights aren’t the paid-for big ticket items.  The really exciting stuff is – miraculously, and wonderfully – totally free.  The Wild Beasts, Field Music, The Bays, Maps and Grammatics. For zero pence.

Liverpool Sound City, likewise, had lots of great free stuff earlier in the year. But how do festivals like this support themselves? Well, in the case of Sound City, they take their show on the road, to franchise new territories. And that’s when you start to wonder…is there any such thing as a free launch?

Next month sees the people behind the phenomenally successful Sound City take their show on the road. To Dubai. The Emirate where money buys you anything. Except a conscience. Continue reading →

Whatever happened to Hallowe’en?

Posted on by David Lloyd
krispy-kreme-heart-doughnuts

Would you like sprinkles with your heart attack?

America’s given us loads of great stuff. The Wire, The Decemberists, The Chrysler Crossfire (OK, maybe not that), but after a week living out of motorway service stations I know what the next invasion is: Krispy Kreme Donuts.

What’s wrong with our Customs Officers? They claim to be vigilantly stopping highly addictive, life threatening narcotics getting onto the streets of Britain, yet not one single sniffer dog can spot a fucking huge pink iced ring with marshmallow blobs sprinkled all over it?

These babies have a street value of over £100 a kilo, and can render a man incapable of rational thought within half an hour. Continue reading →

Does Local News Need to Lie?

Posted on by David Lloyd
20090605061630!Little_Boots_iTunes_Live_2

Level Three of Tetris. It's a bastard.

So, last night, I had to go to Preston to review a Little Boots/Erik Hassle gig for a newspaper. I’ve never been convinced of the bedroom starlet’s merits (other than the fact she wears sequins awfully well, and knows her way around the knob marked ‘squelchy’ on her analogue synths). Anyway, I went with an open mind. And left fairly convinced  that, yup, there was a reason why – of all the Brit electro girls blazing a trail through the festival circuit and the Sunday supplements this year – Blackpool’s Boots didn’t manage to walk their way to a Mercury nomination.

Songs muddled their way along through a limited palette of soundscapes, and all this despite the fact that, at her disposal, Victoria had a keytar (you know, those 80s syths which like to dress up as guitars), electric pianos, banks of keyboards and a Tenori-On (a sequencer for people who prefer playing Pacman games to playing real music )

Frankly, it was game over.
Continue reading →

I Am The Resurrection?

Posted on by David Lloyd

LilyAllen1Is this not the most ridiculous piece of shit spin ever?

The plethiosaurs at BMI are claiming that 2009 is the most successful year ever for UK singles sales, with 117 million sold to date. And that’s even before those twats twins win X Factor.

I say no, no, no.

In their race to press release, The Official Charts Company show a cavalier attitude to Linnaean taxonomy that would make even Girls Aloud rush to their nomenclature classification textbooks (in an alternative multiverse). Continue reading →

Shangri-La, just outside Stoke

Posted on by David Lloyd
In Skye, no-one can hear the scree

In Skye, no-one can hear the scree

There was a programme on BBC last night – Horizon – which featured a clueless mathematician trying to find himself. In the process, he took three transatlantic flights, two flights to Germany and one to Sweden. And, after his travels, we (and he) were none the wiser.  That’s what’s called a non-event Horizon, I think. Travel didn’t broaden his mind, but it did make his carbon footprint the size of the Ross Ice Shelf. Continue reading →

A Tale of Two Cities

Posted on by David Lloyd
Someday, all Christmas lights will be like this

Someday, all Christmas lights will be like this

You know those Christmas lights in town? They’re back again. The one with the LED tableau of the little lad throwing a rock at a barman (or maybe it’s a snowball at a Wise Man, it’s hard to tell, m’lud, it was dark, and the tubes of LED aren’t that clear…)

Anyway, this year, there’s one that spans the road between the Beehive and that pimped up MacDonald’s proclaiming, in the best B&Q LED, ‘LIVERPOOL – CITY OF THE FUTURE’. Odd, when, on the next banner there’s a depiction of four lads frozen in time forty years ago, on a north London zebra crossing… Continue reading →

The Grimly Average Top Ten

Posted on by David Lloyd
...and very, very, unnecessary

...and very, very, unnecessary

You know the sort of band I mean. You hear a song on the radio. It passes by in 3.5 inconsequential minutes. You register who it was in a mixture of surprise and disinterest as you try to make sense of it all. These lot are still going? Why? Is it a peculiarly misplaced blue collar work ethic? A greedy inability to relinquish the reins? A foolhardy belief that they’re still relevant? D) all of the above? Continue reading →

The Caretaker at The Everyman

Posted on by David Lloyd
Jonathan Pryce, The Caretaker

Jonathan Pryce, The Caretaker

When the Everyman announced that their Autumn 09 season was to include a returning Jonathan Pryce tackling Pinter’s Caretaker, it was the first sign that, post 08, the city was taking big cultural leaps forward, and that all this talk of legacy might actually amount to something. Continue reading →

The Inside Story?

Posted on by David Lloyd
Sex - the same in any language, apparently

Sex - the same in any language, apparently

So, in all that talk about how Men’s Health is now Britain’s most successful men’s magazine, most of the discussion has been about what’s inside – when, really, mags like that are only bought on the strength of one thing – its cover lines. Get them right, and the mag practically leaps into your slimline trolley at Tesco Metro, alongside your Yakult and granola bars. And, whatever you think of its contents, Men’s Health does great cover.

But, interestingly, the editorial team at MH HQ don’t actually write the cover lines themselves.

Continue reading →