#196 – La La La

I’m fairly confident you’ll have heard the news that Snoop Dogg is no more: he is now Snoop Lion. Swapping one cool animal moniker for another cooler one (animal, that is), could it be that his music is taking a step in the same direction?

#175 – Rye Rye Plays A Special Engagement

I f*cking love Rye Rye. She is awesome… a mix of dirty rap, sex, feminity, B-more and she’s got a sense of humour about everything she does. On top of this her songs are always awesome. The list of people she’s worked with reads pretty well too, with MIA, Diplo and Sinden among some of the big names.

She recently (this week) played one of Noisey’s Special Engagements in Seattle which was livestreamed across the internet. In case you weren’t lucky enough to catch it, they kind people at Noisey have put up a video from the gig, which you can watch by clicking on the picture above.

#166 – Toy Play For Noisey

It’s funny how things work out. I went and saw Big Deal play in London back in November and made some notes so that I could do a quick write-up. That never happened, but I’ve still got them tucked away somewhere. Anyway, when I got an email telling me Toy – who were the second support that night – had done a video on Noisey.com I figured they were worth looking at again. Especially now that I’ve heard they’re being tipped for big things this year.

My main memory is the song ‘Left Myself Behind’ and their image (read: hair). They’ve got a real 70’s, Krautrock sound, experimenting with trippy sounding guitars and cool synths in the background.

#152 – Tom Vek On Noisey

Do you like Tom Vek? We do. Rather a lot, it should be said. His electronic garage-rock sound is exciting and superbly well crafted by an artist with, frankly, a prodigious talent. He did his best to avoid all kinds of attention for six years, only to pop back on the surface of the earth with last summer’s Leisure Seizure. It was good.

#139 – Woodkid

If you are a fan of the multi-talented Frenchman Woodkid (Yoann Lemoine to his parents) then you may be interested in learning that he’s going to be playing a show at the top of the Eiffel Tower on the 24th of January. You may also be interested in learning that you could be there. All you have to do is send these guys an email explaining why you should be there and you could win return trips from London to Paris, plus a night’s accommodation and tickets to the show for two people.

12 Days Of Christmas – 30th December

Here’s a slightly different one for you. Up until now it’s always been a song for each of the twelve days. Today, it’s a short film. If that doesn’t sound like your thing, then hold on. It’s actually pretty good. The film is called Rose Boy & Friends and I was lucky enough to be invited to see it at the Raindance Film Festival in London back in October. The name comes that kid who tried to give Megan Fox a rose (see here), and he is one of the ‘stars’ of the film. His name is Harvii (yes, really) and along with tattoo-man Steve, Mel C fan Danilo and a couple of other oddballs we get to see how the celeb-obsessed live. It’s on part funny, two parts weird and a whole lot of sad (of the boo-hoo and lame variety) on top of that. You’re never quite sure whether to laugh or cringe but in spite of that it is a pretty good watch.

Below we’ve got the first part of the film embedded and if you enjoy it then head over to Vice.com to see the second half.

#129 – Doc Martens Festival

So, you thought that because the summer had ended there wasn’t any more large-scale live music on? Well think again. Well, medium scale, at any rate. Dr Martins, the shoe makers, have been putting on some shows in their stores recently. If you’ve been to one of the shows in Liverpool, Cardiff or Leeds then lucky you. If not, I’m afraid you missed three pretty good bands. However, if you’re London-based you’ve got a couple more chances to see some of their choice bands. The Spitalfields store is hosting Wild Mercury Sound on Thursday and then you can catch Rolo Tomassi, British Sea Power and The Blackout at the London Barfly starting from the 20th of this month. Now then, having basically reiterated what’s on the poster above, here’s something you may not know. The way to get tickets is to go this this website and tell them about your first gig. Or favourite gig. Or just a good one. You can also pop along to the Wild Mercury Sound show and you might be lucky enough to win tickets to see them play at the Barfly.

#125 – Bass Drum Of Death

Here’s one for you. Harsh, thrashy, garage rock by a band with a lo fi sound, it’s Bass Drum Of Death. They’ve been featured on Vice.com’s Noisey, who have made a five video featurette on the band. It kicks off with a bit of an introduction and then has four live songs. If you’re a fan then it’s definitely for you. If you’re not, then you should head over and see what the fuss is about. Here are two songs that I reckon are worth listening to.

Bass Drum Of Death – Get Found [Buy]

#120 – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

The fantastically named Unknown Mortal Orchestra, from New Zealand via Portland, OR, are pretty fantastic. The song Ffunny Ffriends (listen below) made waves about a year ago for all the right reasons. It’s part trippy, part funky and part lo-fi. The vocals remind me a little of that crunchy, compressed sound that Foster The People use, and they are probably a good band to compare this UMO’s sound to. The eponymous debut album came out earlier this summer on Fat Possum, the record label of Yuck, who are massive fans. In a feature on Noisey, they come across as people who like the band a lot. (Watch the video and count the number of “likes”, seriously.)

#100 – Cymbals

I’ve been pretty lax in keeping on top of things recently, sorry about that. To make up for it though, here’s a good new band from London Town. They got together about a year ago and they make some pretty cool, pretty lo-fi and generally pretty music. It’s all very simple, guitar-based stuff and I’ve been enjoying it a fair bit over the last few days. The track we’ve featured below is available for free off their Bandcamp page, where you can stream the rest of the EP it came off called Unlearn. They also released an album back in May on a limited 12″ run. Sadly they don’t seem to have any copies left, although I’m pretty a sure a reissue will be in order in the not-too-distant future as they continue on their upward trend.