I've heard a bit of this, heard it whilst waiting for A...interesting choice. It all seems OK but unless you're a swing fan it's novelty only. It's great if you love swing and rock though. Eye of the tiger is something to behold.

True, I am a swing fan. If you aren't, a record full of swing music probably isn't going to light your lamp.

OK so Ween and possibly Em want to see The Darkness, is anyone up for The Xfm Winter Wonderland? On Sunday Dec 11, tickets £20. Brixton academy, get to see Hard-fi, Maximo Park and the Kaiser Chiefs (no it's alright Jon; I've got you down already).

Should be laugh.

People keep throwing fantastically good ideas at me today. First Jonnyboy's promise of top drawer totty at New Year and now this!

Put me down for one ticket s'il vous plait. Thank you please.

Actually, I would be up for that, but my exams are on the Monday and Tuesday afterwards, so I'll be cacking myself by that point.

Yes well unfortunately they sold out while I was asleep this morning, it took an hour. Bloody hell. I'm gonna keep an eye out for more stuff to do though.

some not entirely unreasonably priced tickets for sale on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1-XFM-WINTER-WONDERL...1QQcmdZViewItem

An excellent idea sir with just two small problems: 1. We don't have any sublight battle lasers and 2. We don't have any sublight battle lasers.

Seriously though:
1.This is a charity gig with the proceeds gining to Shelter and selling the tickets on eBay is not exactly moral and shouldn't be encouraged or John Kennedy will shout at you.

2.That ticket is for the Monday gig which didn't sell out in 5mins 'cos its on a Monday and isn't as good. (Bands are: Athlete (yawn), Morning Runner (who?), Go Team (good) and Supergrass) Could have bought tickets for that myself. Didn't want to.

well:

I'm fuzzy about those ebay tickets morals stuff. All the proceeds still go to Shelter. They don't get any less as a result of this.

I know they say "one shouldn't profit from charity" but you are paying and taking a (minimal) risk by taking the tickets. Like buying a raffel ticket - if you pay 5 bob but win a 12,000 car should you feel guilty? You profited out of a charity event after all.

I've never bought or sold tickets online so this is my strictly unbiased, non-defensive view. I might soon buy some Franz tickets for Nov 30th though.

Dan

I always thought the point was that if you sell ticket like that on ebay then someone might buy them, and not buy their own though a box office, hence charity gets less.

Of course if you can't buy tickets anymore then I agree, and just reading back through this post is see that is the case. so in fact this post is pointless. Except to say, "Yes, thats a good argument Dan."

Yeah but, no but, well...OK I don't quite accept the raffle argument; the incentive for entering the raffle, and hence donating, is the prize at the end, the incentive for donating here is the music. Though it is a hard thing to argue as I don't really care. I don't make the rules; you buy from eBay, Xfm DJs will shout at you until you donate some money.

And my second point certainly stands.

I win. One to nothing.

Ultimately these gigs are organised along the lines of "Venue for 30,000 people. Music for 30,000 people. Money from 30,000 people". If the ratio of all of that is 1:1:1 then all is perfect.

It's not like buying from Ebay means charities get less. You don't even save money. People who buy from ebay at £45/ticket would be really quite happy to buy from charities at £25/ticket if more were on sale.

So there are really two things to blame for this state of affairs:

1. Health and Safety laws.

2. Physics - which forbid the packing of infinite indie music fans into a finitely volumed stadium (although this has never actually been experimentaly verified).

Oh I quite agree; we should definitely get rid of physics to aid both music fans and charidee.

As for the argument above I just think that selling on the tickets is morally questionable for some reason I can't quite define. Something to do with profiting from a charity perhaps? But then the charity gets the money, the scalper gets more money and the muso gets the ticket. Everyone wins? I just don't know. I'd feel slightly uncomfortable. This may or may not stop me from buying it at more than face value, who can say. The fact remains that if you get found out Xfm DJs will frown at you.

If you're blaming physics, isn't it simpler just to blame Pete? That way you have someone specific to call and harangue about the inequities in a world where there aren't enough music tickets to go around and people are forced to buy them for beaucoup bucks on e-bay.

YES! Brilliant. Why did we not think of this before?

Pete, it's all your fault we can't see our favourite bands damn you. You and your Lava Houses with hinges of magic.

It's taken you all a long time to get round to what was blatantly apparent in the first place - everything is ultimately Pete's fault.

I've been privately (and sometimes publicly) blaming Pete for everything wrong with the world for years now. He just sits there in Manc land with his computer and his hammock and his kebabs and his late night poker games and mocks us all.

Well I have news for him...I have declared myself 'most powerful' so he'd better watch out. So there.

ELBOW live @ Brixton Academy, Fri 25 Nov 2005

So off I trotted to the veritable paradise that is Brixton to see one of my favourite bands Elbow. The Brixton Academy is a great venue, downstairs the crowd stand on a slope so everyone can see the band, great for us vertically-challenged types. We actually turned up a bit late so only saw about 3 minutes of the support band 'MEW' who sounded reasonable. Anthemic guitarry wailings. Maybe worth checking out.

The crowd waited with baited breath for the mighty Elbow to appear. Guy Garvey took the stage clutching a walking stick to rapturous applause, but I'll come to that later.

They started off with the beautiful 'Station Approach' which is the first track off the new album. They then followed up with Fallen Angel which kranged it up a notch or seven. A good mixture of all three albums followed, although obviously mainly the new one. 'Mexican Standoff' best track of the evening - builds up and builds up in a guitar smacking crescendo and the title track Leaders of the Free World was definitely a crowd pleaser.

The congregated hordes of fans were orchestrated in a chorus of 'Happy Birthday' to Guy Garvey's brother Marcus up in the circle.

The walking stick story: he kept leaning on it/brandishing it and eventually said to the crowd "Who thinks I need the stick?" - response, about six hands went up. "Who thinks I just like the stick?" - everyone's hands go up. Garvey: "Yeah I just like the stick". Well he says that but then he chucked it into the audience at the end.

They finished off with the excellent Forget Myself and left the crowd chanting for more.

9/10

Elbow for the uninitiated: They have three albums, all fantastic.

Asleep in the Back: highlights are New Born, Powder Blue.
Cast of Thousands: highlights are Fugitive Motel, Grace under Pressure, Ribcage
Leaders of the Free World: highlights are Mexican Standoff, Forget Myself

Go and buy them all now. Off you pop.

Bands what I reckon should be big this year:

Clap your hands say yeah - For some reason I can't get enough of this guy's discordant wailing, and neither should you.

Misty's Big Adventure - Delightfully strange; I doubt they'll hit the mainstream but they're great. Check out one of their vids

Wolfmother - Prog Rock is back, and it's Australian.

Morningwood - OK so they might not even break over here but they should - they obviously have a slightly juvenile sense of humour. www.wakeupwithwood.com to stream the album.

Guillemots - These guys remind me of Octopus - Came 5th in BBC's Sound of 06 Poll (Clap your Hands came 2nd). They can be quirky and catchy in one song and dreamy and haunting in the next. Quirky is better.

Decoration - Ok so I know nothing about these guys but I like this song

Anyone else got any tips? I may add more...

I promised to chat about Polly Paulusma some time ago.

I'm almost certain she won't be big this year, but she does have an album coming out so you never know.

Basically, she's a British folk singer with quite a wispy voice and an endearing occasional tendency to speak rather than sing the last word of a line.

If she does become better-known (a possibility I guess due to that annoying JCB song making folk popular), I'm sure the usual Katie Melua/Norah Jones comparisons will be made, but she's more interesting than them.

The main reason for this is not that she writes and records all her own tunes, but because her lyrics are good.

I mentioned ‘Over The Hill’ before in the Top Five thread, and this is probably my favourite song on her debut album (called Scissors In My Pocket). I think she recorded the album while she was still a student at Cambridge, which was a couple of years ago now.


Also been listening to Bettye Lavette – I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise. Quality soul music complete with filthy guitar sound.


I know it's not music, but can I suggest that everyone listen to the Ricky Gervais podcasts? Just sheer quality.

Ok some cool stuff from your mellow chillout indie/guitar man for 2006.

New Strokes album is out - First Impressions of Earth. Have only heard the single Juicebox and it appears they've all gone a bit kerrazy Mrs Fawlty. Hang on, just remembered that none of you lot like the Strokes.

Apparently Radiohead have got a new album out at some point in 2006 so expect more weird rantings and squealing.

Couple of new bands I like:

Blackbud - imagine Jeff Buckley singing Pablo Honey era Radiohead. Heartbeat is the only song I know so far. Pete you might like them.

Young Knives - very bonkers. Imagine Vic Reeves doing his 'club style' singing to a mixture of The Cure and Divine Comedy. Very catchy though.

Editors - ok not that new I know but if you havent checked them out already you should do hasta pronto. Ooh Munich

Oh sweet Jesus, I have not cried with laughter so much since the first run-through of Part Troll. Seriously, I add my endorsement to this.

Ricky Gervais Podcasts

The tears were streaming down my face and I was finding it hard to breathe. Karl Pilkington is a God.

I fear I am going to further alienate certain Badgermembers when I say I don't really find them that funny; I mean, they are certainly amusing and will cause me to smile when reminiscing but I'm sorry to say that they do not get a snigger when listening - not a patch on Bill Bailey's bizarrity which can get me curled up on the floor. And yes it is hard being such a curmudgeon.

I love complete pointlessness of the term "Podcast", makes me chuckle. Surely the existing term "download" would have sufficed, but those guys from marketing make the rules...

*Chris sulks, annoyed that he can't find the Dilbert cartoon he wants to insert, you know, there one where Dilbert getting transferred to Marketing and the place is all pillars and fountains and everyone's drunk... oh well*

Chris - i've been waiting for someone to say something like that. i was feeling very ignorant and 'uncool' not knowing exactly what the feck a podcast was supposed to be.

i thought may be it was some sort of streaming download from an ipod over bluetooth or something - that would make some sort of sense.

now i see i can just insert '(media file) download' where i see it. phew, i'll sleep better tonight.

The word podcast does have a point - it associates that kind of download with the iPod. Quite a good idea bearing in mind that the iPod is phenomenally popular.

The term podcast may not have a technical relevance and marketing people may be annoying, but that doesn't mean that they don't know what they are doing.

I know what they were doing, it just confused me (as it seems Dan aswell).

A while back (less common term now) there was such a thing as a "blogcast" excatly the same thing but specifically for audio diaries Now if "podcast" actually meant something about the content of the media, it would be worthwhile. However it doesn't and as such remains pointless. What IS a podcast? who knows?

Makes me laugh everytime I hear someone say it though and for that alone I love it.

Tartiflette's enquiry: "What IS a podcast? who knows?"

Rosie's response:

I would like to point out that this is an extremely square and - dare i say it - analy retentive posting scenario in terms of the time devoted to unearthing the meaning of a "Podcast".

However, I would like to express the belief that a Podcast is a marketing tool. It has been adopted because it plays on the success of the name Ipod. Therefore it sounds cool for the media to talk about to the vastly technically ignorant population. This population, which could not give two sh*ts about the definition or terminology, are suckers for all things related to being "hip", "street" and "cool" and so buy into it.

Perhaps also Ipod marketing has paid somebody a shed load of money to persuade the media to call it such in order to play on the afforementioned material weaknesses of the great British populus.

The End.

ahhhh sorry ploy of john ny, I didn't scroll up enough to read your response. If I had I would have saved myself quite a bit of typing.

Don't worry about it, the thing that actually made me laugh about your post being similar to mine was that some bloke you live with called Tart had already replied to my reply. Whatever you guys talk about, it plainly isn't Badgerfest - probably a good thing.

Also, have to say, I'm loving Tart's new avatar.

On an actual musical note; I have 3 tickets for The Darkness so anyone who has paid me for them can come on Wed 7th Feb.

I also bought Albums by Misty's Big Adventure, The Shins, Coheed & Cambria and Decoration. So far they're all good; C&C are as prog as expected and have improved to very good, Misty's album is completely bonkers and should be heard by all. Now.

I know I keep going on about Coheed & Cambria and it's unlikely that anyone else will really like their concept prog stylings but I just love the following: Their 3 albums so far have been tellinga sci-fi story also fleshed out by graphic novels. Apparently:



Come on. Does that not just make you want to listen to an album?

No?

Liking GORILLAZ a LOT lately. Demon Days is class.

Even if I do have the bit where Shaun Ryder goes 'It's Dare' stuck in my head.

Also, a bit random I know, but I'm liking 'Smiling' by The Beta Band which is the theme for the Crossbar Challenge on Soccer AM. Tenuous? Moi?

Panic! At The Disco - A Fever You Can't Sweat Out.

The songs have long titles, but this is a quality album. Check it.

William Shatner - Has Been

Genius.

I get the feeling I should like Panic at the Disco but I can't for the life of me remember any of their songs.

You'd get on well with Ian Camfield (Xfm DJ) who likes to plug 'The Shat' at every opportunity; he's had at least two William Shatner weeks.

I reccomend that you try Regina Spektor Jon (and everyone else) slightly off-beat but beautiful.

Ne Me Quitter Pas

Flowers

You can listen to her latest albums on the website...

Ooh ooh ooh. Have just bought the new Q and it appears several of my favourite popular beat combos are releasing new albums in the near future. Whether they will all be good remains to be seen but heres the rundown.

EMBRACE - 'This New Day' released MARCH 27th

YEAH YEAH YEAHS - 'Show Your Bones' released MARCH 27th

FLAMING LIPS - 'At War With The Mystics' released APRIL 3rd

THE STREETS - 'The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living' released APRIL 10th

SNOW PATROL - 'Eyes Open' released MAY 1st

Right where's my credit card...

Right you lot,

here is my once monthly post:

I am right now doing some exciting filing and listening to some geezer called ben harper on my PC. in my opinion not bad, especially a song called 'Diamonds on the inside'

And if this is someone that you all know and I have just made a statement along the lines of 'do you know they slice bread now', then please admonish me till a long time later.

that is all..

Meh

File him under singer/songwriter and get back to some proper ROCK.

Ignore Kingol. He just doesn't get music that's not turned up to 11. Ben Harper's good, my sister would most definitely approve.

Cheers Jonnyboy,

Okay kingol, try the song called 'touch from your lust', sort of hendrixy and a bit of reverby rebounding speaker action.

I don't have a link, and I wouldn't really know how to put one on here anyway, so i will put a fake link to encourage you to listen to it

NOT A LINK TO 'TOUCH FROM YOUR LUST' BY THE BOY HARPER

go on king, go on son!

Hey! Nobody puts Kingol in the corner!

I get music that's at 10 (did you even see my Regina Spektor post? Hmmm?), I just think it needs a good excuse to drop below; even if his girlfriend left him and he can only afford an acoustic guitar he should still try to knock it up another notch (bam!) or save up for electric.

Not a huge fan of Hendrix either...

Frankly though I have a problem with the whole male singy/song-writery gen-ere and the fact that he's done a duet with Jack 'I'm not at all like Blunt - I wasn't in the army' Johnson doesn't inspire confidence in me. However, if you are happy listening to music with all the character of a statue of John Major in one of his quiet moments, cast in concrete, on an overcast day then who am I to stop you?

Go back and listen to I Can Climb Mountains again and you'll see that you can have lyrical jiggery pokery and thrashing guitars in one delightful package. Remember; I'm always right when it comes to tunage...as long as there are guitars...and it's post '94...and it's really obscure...and slightly wierd...

I get the feeling I'm not convincing you of your wrongness in all this.

Ah yes, opinions, I remember them.

Yes well I thought IMHO went without saying, but I updated my sig just in case.

The mighty KULA SHAKER are back and recording some new songs.

They are playing a gig which hopefully should be a mix of old and new. Anyone fancy it?

King's College London
Wed, 12th April 2006
£15.00

I know no-one liked the second album but poo on you.

'Mighty' isn't the adjective I'd use. 'Lightweight' fits the bill. (Gosh, more opinions. This thread is really heating up).

(I just realised I used the word 'gosh' in that last sentence - not sure what's happening to me)

I'll take that as a no

Yes...no.

Its academic anyway because it looks like its sold out already.

Bumflaps.

I kinda have to agree with you both here; Kula Shaker were class but also a bit pants...a hard act to pull off, really. It will be interesting to see if Crispin has progressed from singing terrible Hindi.

Sam; the track ETM started with is Rock in Black by Go Home Productions (of course)..unfortunately he's releasing it on 7" so it's not on his website but it may be at some point...Back in Black mixed with We Will Rock You; class.

OK for fans of all things 70's Rock I give you Wolfmother. You will listen and enjoy.