photo credit: Olivia Mabrey
Owl City are a band is a person who’s music I do enjoy. I thought “Ocean Eyes” was a pretty interesting record, probably due to the fact that it sounds quite similar to some work from the excellent [The] Postal Service- a music projects by the musical masterminds Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello . Ke$ha is another musician I am into right now, despite the fact that she is firmly a marmite artist: you either love her, or hate her. But, what happens when you mix the two together? You get a pretty ace mashup- a form of audio explosion which always grabs me.
You can listen to and download the marvellous Tik Tok Vs. Hello Seattle here. It’s pretty funktastic. I can see myself building up my weekend with this, or winding down after a crazy night. It’s just one of those tracks.
Another pretty good mashup I’ve encountered is by Ha! Yes and it combines the legend (and Oxegen performer) Jay-Z, with his track Encore, alongside Black Kids and the 2008 track I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You. It’s given the title Not Gunna Encore and it sounds a little something like this.
Whilst you’re listening to the tunes, why not share a moment to declare your sadness to Bebo? If you were Irish and under the age of 25 in the past few years, you were probably on the social networking website, which is to close down as early as May. You can join the Facebook group (I know, the irony) and vent your opinions and distress, reliving the countless hours you spent online “Sharing the Luv”, doing pointless quizzes and adding drunken videos/clips from your school-days to your flashbox.
Boy, haven’t we grown up?
On a serious note, I think it is fantastic that the operation to separate Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf was successful today. The operation was to take approximately 20 hours, but it only took 14, as nearly twenty people worked on the babies. A fund was set-up for the children, to help cover the medical costs, and you can donate to “The Little Fighters’ Fund” at the Permanent TSB branch, Patrick Street, Co. Cork. The sort code is 99-07-03 and the account no is 16556196. With such great news, hopefully this acts as a pick-me-up for the nation.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go off to a gig that I’m being brought to. I’m heading along with my friend to Jedward. And, before the slagging begins, I’m not one of these überfans- we are merely bringing his younger family member to the show.
I hear they do a full 18 song set, including a cover of Jump by Van Halen. Oh, God.
Wish me luck.
You can follow me on Twitter to read written, 140 character updates of me being traumatised by the Grimes on-stage, if you like that sort of thing. To think I once acted on that same stage. *shudder*
Say hello to MGMT and their new album Congratulations: they’re hitting our shores on September 16th. The pre-sale is on now and ends tomorrow, with tickets on sale from €30 to €33. However, be warned, they didn’t get as good a review this year as they did the last time they played. Of course, I would go if I had tickets thrown my way, but I still think that nothing would beat the Oxegen 2008 gig. That was incredible.
Lil’ Wayne is serving a one-year jail sentence for gun crimes, and he has got a new job- keeping tabs on the inmates on suicide watch. More Alarmingly, the rapper apparently “…watches the crazy prisoners and makes sure they don’t kill themselves… [and he] likes the job even though they don’t pay him much”, says Antonia Johnson, a mother of one of Wayne’s children.
If you’re desperate to hear from him, check out his hand-written blogs (from in the prison) and check out the, er, cool countdown clock to track the time until release. Punishment has never been so fun.
If you’re going to the Blink-182 gig in The O2 later this year, you can select the set-list. As with the tradition of the band, well mostly Mark Hoppus, according to Shay (Friend and member of Dublin band, The OBCD, who played last night in The Mezz), the band are offering fans the chance to search through their back-catalog online, vote on and select which songs they want the group to play when they rock the capital in August. It’s a trend that some bands have started getting into, including Muse, Nickelback, Bowling for Soup and Biffy Clyro.
NME have released a mixtape again, and it’s got loads of tunes for your listening pleasure. It’s free and available for download here. It includes tracks from Magic Kids, Sleigh Bells, Envy, Small Black, JJ, The Smith Westerns, Ceberal Ballzy, Perfume Genius and many more.
It seems that toddlers are taking over.
30 days. That’s how long is left until The Babies hits cinemas in the United States. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, let me explain in so many words. It’s an eighty minute documentary movie, with very little or no dialogue, which is following four newborn babies in four different places on earth, over a period of twelve months. Still can’t grasp it? Well check out the video.
It’s being released on the weekend of Mothers Day (which is different in America), and is already getting some level of publicity, with USAToday talking about it. But, how much resonance can this sort of film give to people. Sure, I watched the trailer and smiled at it- everyone does, but then when I realised there are another seventy-something minutes of footage, I thought twice. After you understand and embrace the cultural differences which surround the babies’ lives, there’s not much more to it. You might as well stick a webcam on the child’s crib and get the occasional camera to follow it around; you’ll get the same thing- newborns being newborns. It’s Big Brother for infants, really. One thing is certain: there’ll be a lot of movie-going females “ahhh-ing” every ten seconds.
But, the baby madness doesn’t end there. Reports have confirmed that Look Who’s Talking, the 1980′s film in which John Travolta and Kirstie Alley are parents to a talking baby (voiced by Bruce Willis, of all things), is to be remade in a modern day version. Have we really lost the ability to write movies from scratch, or has the remake wagon gone spiralling out of control?
However, the worst baby news of all- an advert from the Superbowl is to become a movie.
If you watched the event, you may have seen the E-Trade commercial, which again has talking toddlers “being grown-ups”. A movie is to to be created about these babies on “a mission to make their way across the playground”. I know publicity-stunts when I see them, but I do have a funny feeling, seeing the way Hollywood is churning out junk, that this may very well actually happen. On a side note, the company was sued by Lindsay Lohan for the baby, called “Lindsay” in the advert, being referred to as a “milkaholic”. She feels that her “likeness, name, characterization, and personality’ without permission, violating her right of privacy” and she feels that her name invokes a “single-name” awareness, like Oprah or Cher, Madonna, etc.
Only in America.
. E+OE.