Each year, bands produce a plethora of Halloween material hoping that its holiday sparkle with spur some interest. Seeing as Halloween is one of our favorite holidays of the year, we’re a sucker for it all and love all the creepy videos and gloomy music we receive into our inbox during October. Here’s some of the best.
This video for the song ‘Midnight Monsters’ by the band Pinto and the Bean was filmed entirely on the iPhone 4 in band member Paul’s kitchen- and it came out shockingly well.
Number 12 on Crystal Castles’s second studio album titled Crystal Castles II (which was out in May 2010) is a cover of “Not in Love” by the 1980s new wave band Platinum Blonde. Ethan Kath sings the song on the album but the band have just released a reworking of the tune featuring Robert Smith, whom you might know from a little band called The Cure.
The band will be officially releasing the new single on December 6th along with acoustic demos of “Celestica” and “Suffocation” (also from Crystal Castles II) as b-sides.
Drew Athans’ Black Book is the sort of thing that no serious Blur fan and bootleg collector should be without. In what has clearly been a serious labour of love, Athans has gone about collecting every bootleg he can find, and as well as making them available via his excellent The Blur Live Audio Archive, he’s written and self published this in-depth history of Blur’s live performances, taking in everything from early appearances by the early incarnation of the band as Seymour to the comeback gigs played last year. The resulting volume is frequently insightful into Blur’s development, and is never less than fascinating.
October 5th saw KT releasing her Tiger Suit upon the world. The Fife singer’s 3rd LP (if you aren’t counting KT Tunstall’s Acoustic Extravaganza) has a lot of weight to bear: can Tunstall maintain the critical momentum that began with Eye to the Telescope and that she held on to with Drastic Fantastic, even if her 2nd record didn’t find favour with every reviewer?
In further pursuit of my goal of turning TMS into a Belle & Sebastian fansite, here’s the INTERNET VIDEO PROGRAMME that the band have been streaming on their home page for the last wee whiley. NOW WITH ADDED iPHONE DOWNLOADABILITY! I might give that a shot to see if I can get it on my iPod Classic.
Despite it’s online free-ness, I’m a little disappointed that this isn’t going to be appearing as a DVD bonus (like the DVD edition of The Life Pursuit). I love me some DVD bonus guff.
It’s a charming thing with some music, interviews and a bunch of shots of Glesgae looking improbably sunny. And a slightly poseurish opening statement about “what music can give us”. Never change, Belle & Sebastian!
The Graun has a great interview with Belle & Sebastian about forthcoming LP …Write About Love today. Obviously this is going to be one of THE MOST ANTICIPATED RECORDS of 2010. I mean, I am anticipating like a bastard over it, and believe you me, that’s a hell of a lot of anticipating.
“And it sort of worked in a way because it absolutely got what we wanted on the song – this nervy guy, and the girl [Norah Jones] knows exactly what she wants. And obviously she’s Miss Million Pounds, she’s duetted with fucking everybody.”
“Yes,” says Geddes. “She’s got a whole album of duets to prove it. You’re just another fucking notch on her duet post.”
As a teenager, without fail on a Sunday night I would be sitting beside my cassette recorder listening to Radio 1’s regular In Concert series. And, most likely, if it was a band I liked, then I’d be taping it (for archival purposes only, of course). One of my very favourite gigs was Blur’s 1999 performance of songs from their album 13.
