And now, an unordered list of tidbits from the past week or so.
Went to see 1984 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, which was truly excellent. A great adaptation with stunning performances, in a remarkable space. Have resolved to visit the theatre more often.
Gorillaz’ (Gorillaz’s? Gorillazes?) new album is very weird, as would be expected. Not sure I like it as much as the first two, but perhaps it will grow on me
Popped into Manchester MoSI (Museum of Science and Industry), seems to be very much under construction at the moment. All the cool space stuff I remember from my childhood has vanished, replaced by surprisingly amateurish promotional materials for the Chinese space programme. Exhibit displacement has also resulted in a lone ZX Spectrum with “Horace Goes Skiing” appearing in the Power Hall, amidst the hulking steam engines. Very surreal.
The intro/outro of “Eight Days a Week” is utterly brutal in Beatles Rock Band.
WittyLama has some amazing news, he is now “volunteer Wikipedian in Residence” for the British Museum! Read all about it on his blog
This is a lovely variation on Breakout in Flash. Takes a little while to pick up, but is spectacular once it does.
Space were a wonderfully eccentric band, according to Wikipedia they were once described as “Black Grape gone flamenco and sung by a man who can’t decide between cartoon Mexican, Ray Davies and Cypress Hill”. Despite this they were fairly successful, having a few big hits in the 90s, but sadly they seem to be largely forgotten these days. This cover definitely deserves to be remembered. Space – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
A couple of great covers by modern rock groups today. First “Word Up!”, one of the funkiest songs around. The original came out in 1986, but still sounds incredibly fresh today. Korn gave it their own touch on their Greatest Hits: Volume 1. Korn – Word Up!
Next is Placebo’s great cover of “Daddy Cool” by Boney M. This is from the special edition of Sleeping With Ghosts, which came with a whole bonus disc of Placebo cover versions. Placebo – Daddy Cool
Just finished reading The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, a collection edited by Richard Dawkins. Though I’m not too keen on his militant atheism, for once he manages to rein it in and concentrate on the excellent science writing. The extracts selected are all great choices; some from works I’ve read previously, some I wanted to read, and some I wasn’t aware of. The brief comments by Dawkins introducing each are also insightful, and help give valuable context. Best of all it was only £6, bargain!
Now this is a cover I have been trying to track down ever since I heard about it. Cherry Ghost are one of my favourite bands and I can’t wait for their new album. This was part of BBC Radio 1′s Live Lounge, where bands often do interesting covers. There’s even a few official compilation albums of them, but this doesn’t appear on any of them, which is a pity.
And now for another in my irregular series of cover version posts. This time featuring a song that’s very close to my heart: “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” by Vampire Weekend.
I bought Vampire Weekend’s album for maybe the most uncool reason possible: it was recommended on Countdown. Yes, the daytime game show, which I was watching at my grandparents’.
Actually that’s not strictly true. I had heard it before when a friend played it to me, and I absolutely loved it. But then much alcohol was consumed and I entirely forgot about this wonderful album. So a few months later when Jeff Stelling out of the blue mentioned it on Countdown, it came back to me. I grabbed it as soon as possible. It was only then I realised that one of their tracks (“A-Punk”) was the theme to the excellent Inbetweeners.
I genuinely think every track on the album is great, and it’s not very often I feel that way. But “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” is a particular favourite, partly because the lyrics remind me of a certain girl who I was very close to. That all ended quite bitterly, but of the songs reminding me of her, this one somehow always makes me feel positive. And of course it’s great musically too.
The first cover is a slightly unusual choice, since it ditches the lyrics I love so much entirely. Vampire Weekend have obviously been greatly inspired by African and African-influenced music, and this takes that one step further by replacing the lyrics with African chanting. I’m not sure if this can strictly be called a cover version, but it is absolutely great and extremely cheerful.
The Very Best (Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit) – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa:
I apologise for the technical quality of this picture. It was made in Facebook’s “Graffiti” application, using my laptop’s useless touchpad. Even so, it’s apparently the second most popular picture I’ve ever posted on b3ta. Hooray for maths jokes!
Whilst flicking through the TV schedules late at night, ITV2 threw out one of the most amazing titles I’ve ever seen. “Ghost Hunting With The Happy Mondays”
Ghost Hunting. With The Happy Mondays.
So I was just about to post this, and maybe some of the other ridiculous titles I’ve seen recently (e.g. “Pants Off Dance Off”, “100 Men Own My Breasts”). I decided to google the ghost hunting show first, and it turns out that “Ghost Hunting With X” is something of a phenomenon. Where X = “Girls Aloud”, “McFly”, “Coronation Street”, “Radio 1″, “Louis Walsh and Boyzone”, and strangest of all: “The Dingles” o_O
In this episode Yvette takes Lucy Pargeter (Chastity Dingle), Verity Rushworth (Donna Windsor-Dingle), Hayley Tamaddon (Delilah Dingle), Joseph Gilgun (Eli Dingle) and Mark Charnock (Marlon Dingle), to three of the reputedley most haunted locations in York, including the National Railway Museum.
Only four of the five members of Girls Aloud took part in the pilot episode of the show, which was set in North Wales. Nadine Coyle opted out of the show because she was too scared.
Exhibit displacement has also resulted in a lone ZX Spectrum with “Horace Goes Skiing” appearing in the Power Hall, amidst the hulking steam engines. Very surreal.
