Basically, I review a bunch of emails Hadouken! have sent me

(Psst... happy birthday on Wednesday, Sinister!)

WATCH HADOUKEN! AT READING 2008 Blown away by Hadouken!'s 2008 Reading performance? Maybe you weren't one of the lucky ones who bought, blagged, stole or crashed the festival? Well now you can watch the full set by clicking below. ENJOY!

No. I didn't go to Reading. I don't want to go to Reading. Ever. (Much.) So I'm not going to watch it. Thanks for catering for my demographic.

0/10.

AERIALS LATEST - FESTIVAL TICKETS COMPETITION!

Here's what else is coming up only on Aerials

Competitions to win vinyl formats of Hadouken! singles
Competition to win signed and framed proofs of Hadouken! artwork
Competition to see Hadouken! at Bestival (sold out!)

If you're not a member of Aerials then click here to find out more and join!

In email view, you can't read it because the background is white. Thus rendering it useless. For reading, or forwarding. To yr friends. So when you win tickets to the festival, you have noone to go with. Sucks to be lonely.

0/10.

	ASK HADOUKEN! Amazing scenes! Hadouken! play Reading and Leeds festivals this weekend. To celebrate we're running a special competition where you'll be able to ask the band ANYTHING you want and the filmed answers will be available just for you lucky listers. All you need to do is email hadouken@atlanticrecords.co.uk - using the subject 'Ask Hadouken' - with the question you most want answered by the band. We'll pick the best ones, ask the questions and film the answers. Make sure you include your full name too so we can accredit the question to you. It's that simple! Get your thinking caps on to come up with the perfect question as this may be your only chance to get it answered!

Why? Like, unless you're 12 and you really love Hadouken!. That would be okay, I guess.

2/10.

HADOUKEN ADDED TO THE iTUNES FESTIVAL 2008 - APPLY FOR TICKETS NOW!

Hadouken! have joined the bill of the 2008 iTunes Festival taking place at London's Koko throughout July.

They will be performing on Thursday 3rd July with support coming to be announced shortly.

You can apply for tickets to the gig right now by heading to www.ituneslive.co.uk

Due to the intimate setting of the gig tickets will be hot property, so make sure you apply as soon as possible to be in with a chance of getting to the gig.

See you there!

NEW MERCH!

We've have added even more swag to the official online store for you to kit yourself out with and show everyone your true Hadouken! colours. You can see a selection of the new merch on sale below and click HERE to head to store to get yours today!

So the 'sending all-white emails thing' is a long-term issue. At least Hadouken! are offering you the opportunity to get beaten up for $25 and a bout of credit-card-fraud-enduced glandular fever. Plus, they've discovered how to HTML-format emails so you can get pictures in. Nice.

3/10.

Overall: 5/40. Like, 12.5% or something. Sucks, because I used to REALLY LIKE Hadouken!'s bastard pop exuberance.

a dissection of 'glamour' 'for' 'better'

Aren't they delightfully repugnant in their own Almost Cool Private School way? Don't they reek of post Test Icicles, bor(e)derline 'nu raaave' fatigue? Aren't they pretty?
Glamour For Better are a band. This is a shame, because their collective talent as a group of human beings is being really, really, unimaginably lovely to look at. This, in turn, means that live shows are clearly better than their countless (rubbish) albums and countless (rubbish) singles and countless (rubbish) EPs. Live, you can forget about the music and just watch the lead singer jump around. It's really brilliant.
I told the aforementioned lead singer that the band's music sounded like Test Icicles and he seemed grateful, or disinterested, or drunk. I couldn't quite tell. I don't think he sensed that 'sounded like' would have been followed by '..a bad parody of' if I was slightly less polite and was Okay with letting the conversation get both unpleasant and awkward. To say that they sound like a hilarious hybrid of Klaxons, Test Icicles, Foals, Lethal Bizzle, blah, blah like a 'Best Of '06' NME club mix seems far too easy - they incorporate elements of screamy year 8 Kerrang hardcore and techno/electro/pop/dance/Hadouken synths. It's like Trash Fashion. It's like Partyshank. It's basically like a lot of truly terrible music.
The cherry on the icing of the cake is the song, 'Shape Cutting Catalyst'. 'Ooh, fancy name. They must be clever and educated and intelligent. But the song is so fun and dancey! Oh, this band really has it all.' Music isn't usually irritating ; it's either pointless or out-of-tune or infuriating or just rubbish, but this gem of a 'tune' manages to Drive You Up The Wall. In between overedited vox effects, you hear words like 'blud' and 'bubble' and 'big up' and 'gyals'. It should be the anthem for the 'Hug A Hoody' campaign, playing in the background while David Cameron puts on 'bling' and 'talks hood' to 'the yout'. 'Give us your number, or not' half-raps the lead singer. I will, but promise not to make me come to your next gig. Please.

and the answer is...

Hello! I am here! I wrote something FTZ. Well, I wrote two things. You can vote on which is the least coherent. If like thirty people vote then I might give someone some of this Tesco's Dark Chocolate. It's not so nice. Sorry but I am going to be going Away again tomorrow, for a week. Fret not. I will zine hard.

The first thing I wrote was a review of the theme music for the BBC's coverage of the 2008 Olympics which are going on still, I think, in China.

It is bleepy. You do not hear it for very long so you cannot do the music journalist thing of re-listening to it forever until someone from the internet pops up to tell you what yr. opinion should be. It is better than some really old classical piece aimed to give the Sporting Event an elegant feel. It is typical of the BBC's animated children's television and sporting adverts of late. It sounds like Crystal Castles if one of Crystal Castles was called Jimmy. It is more suited to the Olympics than, to say, GCSE Bitesize revision game webiste thing adverts. Which you can never find when you go on the website. Which I will never go on again because my GCSEs are so over today, today I got y results, I even attained an A grade for my superfluous efforts in Latin. I did well like the British cyclists. I hope I am not feeling pride (please don't call me racist).


Then I wrote something about Mirah but Scout Niblett sort of butted into it as well because I was listening to Scout Niblett. This is Scout Niblett:

























She is fantastic. I might write something else about Mirah, like proper Reviews of her and all. Then she can go on the cover.

Mirah vs Scout Niblett

One could accuse both Mirah and Scout Niblett of sorcery. Scout Niblett has got it down. She even sings "thine" instead of the plain "yr.". Mirah's got something too, and I recall finding Body Below reminiscent of Gowns, Recommendations of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone (if female) and selected other moments as cold and yet as warmly majestic as Björk. Scout Niblett doesn't hold herself in so much. Hear "Baby Emma". She sings: "Do what you will, supposed outsiders of my soul". I am thinking of the three albums I have. Mirah's C'mon Miracle, Mirah's Advisory Committee and Scout Niblett's This Fool Can Die Now.

Mirah occupies more of the outsider role. Her name is less heavy than Ed Harcourt's. Ed went to school with my Latin teacher. I was the only person in my class to know who he was. Then, even I wouldn't've known Mirah. Maybe this ignorance caused my Latin teacher to run off to Australia with my old English teacher. Either way, he left, and I got an A in Latin. It's all worked out just fine. (An A in Latin is nearly a miracle). With album covers like Mirah's for these two albums (I had to Google-image-search them because Abby put them on to one disc for me, but don't worry because I told Mirah and Sony BMG about this and they were really cool) you can tell instantly that either she's wholly worthwhile and that you can listen to her with great pleasure - or that her music is cruddy and little. I think it is the former. Mirah 3 - 2 Prinzhorn Dance School. (Björk 19 - 17 The Fall).

Is that the very Prince himself I hear? Scout Niblett gets in all the right places, I mean, her album cover shouts "Devendra Banhart But With Awe Due". Her indie musicianship ties in perfectly with being photographed with Steve Gullick. In the pack of cards her dimensions are all askew and she STICKS OUT.

















Mirah - C'mon Miracle
10

















Mirah - Advisory Committee
7
(Picture of an unrelated advisory committee)



















Scout Niblett - This Fool Can Die Now
9

yo soy pedro, y soy un hipster

'Back' and stuff, our hotel was in the Cool bit of Barcelona with all the vintage shops and record stores and everyone was beautiful and I went to American Apparel because it was air conditioned and met a Hoxtonite who 'wanted to work in television' and 'used to be a model' and it was Thrilling. P.Rob asked me to do Another Week in PJ, which may or may not be fun but must be Done. Mirah hasn't replied yet. Where is Phil? Why do we have to get our results back tommorow?

Pah.

HEALTH hate free jazz and tribal funk

Last things before I go on a plane and maybe die, maybe ;

Health are the best band alive and words actually FAIL ME when I attempt to describe how painfully, brutally, enchantingly awesome they are (okay, words did not fail me this time but Yeah). Also, The Ring guy is lovely but not as lovely as BJ who made a joke about my book and it was brilliant and I want to marry him. John - 'BJ is quite beastly'. 'You' 'heard' 'it' 'here' 'first'.

It was raining and I got really soaked but it was fun and I ran to various train stations and bought a Low CD because it was cheap and pretended to look interested in Rough Trade. Incidentally, there was someone next to me who was doing an interview with someone and I am wondering if they were Famous or Good or Rubbish.

'Walk Like An Egyptian' is a really, really, really good song, as is 'All That She Wants' by Ace Of Base. They aren't even guilty pleasures, they're just Choons. Erdem's autumn/winter collection is beautiful. 'Piracy funds Terrorism' is stupendous. Luke Wright remains awesome, Ross Sutherland remains innovative and Panda Bear remains exceptional. Agyness Deyn is irrelevant and obsolete. I am, as well, but I didn't get voted 'Best Dressed' so it doesn't matter.

Here is Erykah Badu ;

GOODBYE. XX

becoming

since this Blog is becoming less of a Zine Blog and more of a look-see blog (totally cool), may I just say that you, as in, you, whoever is reading, as in, it could be someone else, couldn't it, need to love The Mountain Goats, already.

they're the band of what I will now refer to as The Erstwhile John Darnielle. if you do a google image search for him there's such a cute picture of him with a piglet.


















he's done a zine in the past and does this blog. the new album from The Mountain Goats is called 'Heretic Pride' and the first song is called 'Sax Rohmer #1', but they have quite a number of albums. the zine has the same name as the blog, and was printed, and he really is a great, great writer.

he's also really great at writing songs. not one of these casual, lame indie / folk singers who has to touch base with all the right reference points - he is powerful and exactly on point emotionally, just hear 'The Sunset Tree' and marvel, and I quite like The Mountain Goats in a similar way to that in which I like Xiu Xiu.

aside from him therefore being a total hero, I mentioned at the top that This Blog Lost Momentum and it is my fault so I am going to write something. I think I became a bit of an idiot and I've written some poems, but that was mainly for a competition, but I was so dashed when I remembered we needed a Serious Music Perspective and that we Can't Go Overboard On Poetry And Recipes, which is cool because, like, it's crap, anyway. maybe we should have a hitlist of things (bands) to promote.

'i grew up in colchester, where very little culture stirs'

Luke Wright, who is a brilliant poet and all-round good chap, and who is solely responsible for all the brilliant poetry at Latitude Festival. 'Laura Brown' is a poem of his that actually made me weep on the first listen, but I am a Stereotypical Girl so am I forgiven? Yes, yes I am. He is also in a very very good poetry collective called Aisle16, and has written a funny book with someone else called 'Who Writes This Crap?' which is like if V*CE was actually good at irony and sarcasm and was witty enough to write a rhyme like;

"Down in the parking lot the queues become unsettled
By the sort of folk who call The Darkness 'Heavy Metal'.
There’s trainee middle managers, the PR media type
Debt consolidating, administrating fans of Michael Stipe."
or
"But teenage girls were easy to impress.
Just paraphrase the Manics and their views on 'otherness'
and you'll get your greasy paw on many a nubile breast,
But alas,
Just like a teenage boy I knew it couldn't last,
And after years of avoiding my fellow man, I arrived at an impass -
University, a casanova's hell
Where all the other girly boys wrote poetry as well."

Other good things in spoken word are Dockers MC, who toured with Kate Nash time ago and probably outshone her in every way, John Hegley who does awesome deadpan beat poetry and is from Luton which is renowned for its stabbings and not its thriving poetry 'scene' (do 4 poets sitting in a bar discussing John Cooper Clarke count as a scene?) and Byron Vincent, a slam poet, who looks like he should be in a rubbish indie band but thankfully decided to be a poet who merely dabbles in Garageband-penned beats. Polar Bear is so, so, so brilliant, it's Quite Unnerving listening to his monotone raps because he spews some of the most fantastic and intelligent poetry ever, greatly introspective but completely unpretentious (unlike me right now) and quiet and shy and just, wow, but he should maybe not stick guitars under his raps because it sounds like The Streets, which is Bad. Seriuz.
In non-spoken word things, Lackthereof (Menomena's frontman's 'side project') is like Lycanthropy-era Patrick Wolf and it gives me great joy to type those words because 'lycanthropy-era patrick wolf' is the best kind of Patrick Wolf, all flighty and innovative and fierce and magical. Estupendo.