Inside Nokia Music

Long before the NME, Nick Grimshaw or Zane Lowe started sniffing around and putting their grubby mitts all over him, Darwin Deez was sat in a small Brooklyn bar called Pete’s Candy Store, waiting in line to share a few songs with the back room’s weekly open mic night crowd.

It’s April 2008. I’m in America with life-long friend Chris Taylor, at the start of a dream that we’d shared since we were kids to travel across the country. Three nights into our trip and we find ourselves in the Williamsburg neighbourhood of Brooklyn. As Chris wanted to play a few open mic nights while we were in the country, we sought one out at Pete’s Candy Store, and signed up. Our host was this guy who reminded me of Kurt Russell, and introduced Chris as ‘Chaz Taylor’, which broke the mellow vibe of the candle lit red room when ‘Mr Russell’ was corrected, much to the amusement of all in the room who later on went to dedicate songs to ‘Chaz’.

Everyone took their turn, everything was nice and everyone was pleasant with their appreciation of each other’s music; until Darwin Deez took to the tiny old fashioned theatre looking stage, which was now lit up like a dressing room mirror. Gently introducing himself with a soft, effeminate voice, he starts playing Deep Sea Divers. As soon as the opening lines leave his lips the room is transfixed, “You and I are deep sea divers on a task; little bubbles rising from your scuba mask”. What a wonderful picture to create, and delivered so delicately, but just as everyone settles into the idea of two underwater lovers, friends, or foes; Deez crushes our pretty little picture with his melancholic chorus of “You’re bringing me down, now I’m blue, now I’m in deeper too”. It felt like I was watching a revised incarnation of Prince, this guy was incredible. After just 3 songs played on an electric guitar strung with only 4 strings in his own invented, secret tuning (Deep Sea Divers, Radar Detector, and Constellations – ), the whole room is in love; everyone parting with $5 in exchange for a homemade 5 track Darwin Deez CD, straight from the man’s hands.

The night came to an end at Pete’s Candy Store and we were told of another open mic night a few blocks over at a bar called Matchless, where Darwin Deez was again waiting in line to steal the show. It seemed we were about to witness a whole new level of musical celebration rarely seen at your typical open mic night. Deez decided to demo a new song he’d been working on by plugging his iPod into a guitar amp and dancing his way through the track (he’s known to often do similar with custom pop mash-ups). I’m not just talking about a little bop either, it was a full on choreographed routine which also saw him behind the drum kit for a few bars. You had to be there to fully appreciate the raw showmanship that was taking place in front of next to nobody in two small Brooklyn bars on a Sunday night…but it kinda went something similar to this:

After he played, I bought him a pint and he came and sat with me and Chris in a booth, asking questions about Coldplay and Foals, talking enthusiastically about England and how he’d like to visit someday.

Darwin Deez ended up soundtracking our drunken first night in Philadelphia, our flight to Austin, our 8 hour Greyhound ride from San Francisco to L.A., and the sad return to England. We must have quoted Deez lyrics every hour of everyday for the rest of the trip, most often to remind each other that we were in fact “a radar detector”.

So, Darwin Deez faded into obscurity since April 2008, right? Well, not exactly. The very clever and insightful people at Lucky Number recently released Deez’s first 7” – the painfully catchy Constellations – on a limited run of 500 copies. And on top of that, he’s due to make his First UK appearances in March with 3 shows in London:

9th March 2010 – White heat @ Madam JoJo’s
11th March 2010 – XFM X:Posure @ The Barfly
13th March – Westminster Reference Library

When I fall in love with a new band or an artist that I know very few have heard of, I find myself stuck in a strange mode of selfishness. I want to keep what I’ve just found under wraps, to keep it exclusively mine. I want to have my moment with them; I don’t want the world to be exposed. I get that “she only has eyes for me, hands off my girl!” kind of teenage crush feeling. Well, it’s time to let my ‘girl’ grow. If you love someone, you’ll set them free. Go and fall in love with his infectious creation of – in his own words – “happy music for sad people / white music for black people”.

Enjoy Darwin Deez.

Duke Special’s Songs from the deep forest is available on Nokia Music

Here’s a lil clip of a release on Stones Throw Records featuring a homeless guy named Red discovered on the streets of San Francisco bussin’ out some pretty cool vocoder style vocals! There are a bunch of remixes of it on youtube also. Go checkum!

The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s are back today with Skeletons, the third single from one of 2009’s most blogged about albums, It’s Blitz!

Taking a different direction from the dance heavy feel of the first 2 singles, Skeletons is a return to their sweeter, softer sound. The singles b-side is the acoustic version of the song that featured on the Deluxe Edition of It’s Blitz!

Here’s the official music video, and if you haven’t seen the promotional shorts for the release of It’s Blitz!, they’re linked at the end as related videos and are worth a watch.

Skeletons as well as It’s Blitz! Deluxe Edition which features both tracks is available to download from the Nokia Music Store and is completely free to ‘Comes With Music’ subscribers.

Shortly after posting about Polysics in my most anticipated albums of 2009, the band put out a newsletter stating that Keyboard player Kayo would be leaving to “experience life outside the band”. The decision was apparently made a long time ago as it was stated in the newsletter that “Kayo made it a basic policy to not leave the band haphazardly. Even after the decision to graduate was made, she still participated in the recording of two albums as well as many live performances, some which took place abroad”.

Kayo, in my opinion, and that of several other fans I’m sure, is an integral dynamic of the band’s live performances. Standing still for most of the performance, she get’s the biggest response from the audience as the kooky one responsible for all the robotic vocoder gibberish and the sporadic pom-pom shaking outbursts.

Kayo “graduates” from Polysics following the show at the Budokan to take place on March 14, 2010, If you have a chance to catch them before this tragic and emotional day, do not hesitate as the band are understandably going on hiatus and I fear will never be the same again.

I Couldn’t find any crazy pom-pom footage, but here’s a Polysics performance that will give you glimpse into what we’re about to lose.

You’ll be sorely missed, Kayo Polysics.

Polysics are available to download from the Nokia Music Store and is completely free to ‘Comes With Music’ subscribers.

Tuesday 18th January

When I was about 9 years old, I made a remote control car. I used to dismantle electrical goods just to see what was inside. I had no intention of putting them back together or fixing some imagined problem. . .I just wanted to make low grade, and ultimately pretty shabby, toys out of them. To this end, I broke open two Walkmans (which I got in serious trouble for – my Mum rarely shared my radical ideas for product enhancement), took out their tiny motors and attached wheels to each one. Then I mounted them on a piece of balsa wood and ran tiny wires out of them – one to each hand, where I held an AA battery in each clammy, youthful paw. The resulting “car” would go forward when I touched the bare wires onto both batteries, and off to the side when I touched the wires to only one battery. It was great, and had only two major drawbacks. The wires were short, so I was often to be found running around the house after my bit of wood, bumping into furniture and generally making a nuisance of myself. They were also – as I mentioned – bare wires, which meant that every time I wanted the ‘car’ to move, I would burn my thumbs quite badly. 

Still, that piece of electrified balsa wood was at least 20% more ergonomically designed, and at least 50% safer than the flying coffin I am writing this in. 

There are 18 people on board this flight to Bremen, Germany. 18 businessmen. The sort of people who refer to each other only by their surnames and say things like “This is Hardacre from the Bristol office. People who upset him don’t stay alive for long”. I honestly, genuinely heard a man say this tonight. What with the turbulence, the single, seemingly overwhelmed steward, the businessmen and the tiny plane, I’ve been contemplating death over Europe quite a bit over the last couple of hours. 

The conclusion I’ve come to is this: if this plane should plunge into the ocean, at least I’ll die doing what I love. Hurtling towards the ground in a big metal tube, surrounded by dicks.

First gig tomorrow. Amsterdam. Let’s hope I make it.

Wednesday 19th January

Well, I made it. Got picked up at the airport by the guy who’s putting on this tour. He’s a man called Heiko, and without him, I (and the other musicians on this tour) would be lost. He’s booked the gigs and told us how to get there and what to expect. There are two other acts on the same circuit as me – a band called Outroads from Sheffield and a solo act called Astrid’s Farm from Hamburg. It looks like we’ll all get along, I think. 

Well, they didn’t seem instantly disgusted by my sarcasm and potty-mouth, anyway. That’s a good start.

Thomas (Astrid’s Farm) has a beaten up old Volvo, so we’ll be using that to get from gig to gig. First stop is Amsterdam.

I always thought it was just tourists that smoked themselves senseless in Amsterdam, and that regular Dutch folks kind of looked down on that sort of thing. Not so, apparently. The owner of the cafe/bar/bike rental shop that we are playing in tonight appears to be half-baked at 3.30pm, even managing to set fire to a tea-towel during our soundcheck. 

As it happens, the turn-out is pretty low tonight, which is no bad thing, as the three acts have a chance to suss each other out before the three week tour starts properly. I immediately get nervous. The other two acts are purely acoustic. Astrid’s Farm is a guy with a beautifully clear voice and a song-writing style that leans towards Paul McCartney. Outroads normally play as a six- or seven-piece, but for this tour they’re stripped down to two – a gravelly-voiced guitarist/singer named Geoff and a slide guitarist/harmonica player named Eddy. It’s a simple set-up, and they’re really very good. I, on the other hand, have an electric guitar, a synth, two midi-controllers, a laptop, three loopers and a sackful of cables. So. . .how is this going to work?

Thursday 20th January

Gig last night was OK, but not great. Think I need to rethink my approach to this tour before it starts properly. Resolve only to play the big electronica set when it’s appropriate. Need to come up with acoustic versions of some songs pretty cocking quickly. After the gig, as none of us particularly wanted to get wasted, we decided to head down to the red light district to see if we could make some quick money busking. Now. . .I’ve never busked. The idea scares me, frankly. Don’t particularly want to be that close to the people I’m playing to. . .what if they really don’t like it? Anyway, I was persuaded by Geoff and Eddy. They’ve done it before and are up for doing as much playing here as possible, which is a good attitude, so I think I’ll adopt it too. 

Turns out that busking is great fun. And a bit of a money-maker. We made more money in 40 minutes of busking to pot-heads than we did from the gig. We’ll be doing this again, I hope.

We were joined today by a lovely girl from Estonia called Katri. . .she’ll be documenting the tour for a blog, taking photos and filming us and generally capturing all of our disgusting habits for posterity. We should have lots of footage from this. Looking forward to making all my friends sit down and watch it interminably.

Today is a two gig day, both of which are in a beautiful Dutch city called Groningen. The one in a record shop in the daytime goes by pretty uneventfully. I try a couple of acoustic versions and a couple of semi-acoustic ones using two loop pedals. They seem to go down OK, so I’ll keep that in mind. Tonight’s show is in a club called Platformtheater. . .

Friday 21st January

Wake up late. Really late. We’ve got a gig in Germany tonight and we need to go back to the club and pick up our stuff. Dry mouth. Very dry mouth. Last night turned into a big party. We all played well I think. I did a full electronica set that seemed to go well. One small downer: after my normal set, they asked for another song (an ‘encore’, I believe it’s called). . .I wasn’t prepared, and did an ill-advised, just-guitar version of my song “Target”. Shouldn’t have, I don’t think. It wasn’t very good. Should have left them wanting more. Must remember that too. We all had a few tequilas after the show, then the owner asked for more music, so Outroads did another short set and I joined them onstage for a few. Sang the chorus of one of their songs – “Gravey” – with them. Brilliant fun. Sold a few CDs too. Then we sat up drinking until the small hours together. We all seem to get on really well. This tour’s shaping up nicely. 

In Schwanewede tonight. No idea where that is. I have no sense of direction, and I’m not about to start growing one now. Luckily, Eddy doesn’t seem to have one either, so I don’t feel so bad. Thomas and Geoff, on the other hand, seem to be able to find their way around without our help, so it’s fine. It also appears that Eddy and I share a love of bad puns and jokes that don’t really work. I think we’re going to start annoying the others soon. . .

Saturday 22nd January

Sweet. Baby. Jesus. I feel rough. I haven’t got out of bed all day and now it’s time to go to Hamburg for another gig. It’s 4.30pm. I feel like death. This tour is going to kill me. Last night was amazing. It was the first one that Heiko has been to, so he was quite keen to see how we were getting on (and whether he’d made a massive mistake booking us!). It was a strange venue. . .I think we’ll be playing a lot of strange venues on this tour. It seemed to be a high-class eating establishment, not too far from the flat that we’re staying in in Bremen. They’d put us in a beautiful room, and Heiko had made it look lovely with lights and decorations. I did a purely acoustic set this time, with lots of looping. I also managed to persuade Thomas to play guitar with me on one song (with no real rehearsal) and Eddy to play harmonica on another. They both did brilliantly, raising both songs to something much better than I could do on my own. Thomas and I both joined Outroads for “Gravey” again. We’re mixing and matching so much now that, by the end of the tour, we’re probably just going to be one big band.

Last night we all played the best gigs of the tour so far, and made a fair bit of money through CD sales and the hat that always seems to get passed around at gigs over here, so we decided to celebrate by getting a few beers and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label. That was a mistake. I feel awful now. We stayed up til 4am drinking. Do not drink a quarter bottle of Johnnie Walker after a couple of beers and two big glasses of red wine. I cannot stress this enough. You will hurt inside. Tonight we play in Hamburg and I can barely move my head. Not sure about this. Not sure about this at all.

Muse fans at Big Day Out 2010 in Sydney and Melbourne we’re treated to a cover of AC/DC’s Back In Black with and incredible Brian Johnson impersonation by Jet’s Nick Cester. According to Muse drummer Dom Howard in this video, AC/DC have never even played the Big Day Out, which in my opinion is a sad state of affairs for Australia’s greatest ever Rock band.

Muse and Jet are available to download from the Nokia Music Store and are completely free to ‘Comes With Music’ subscribers.

As an adolescent of the nineties, my musical taste is very much rooted in the bands from this era and so it came as a nice surprise today to learn that The Cranberries reunited and began touring again in November 2009 after a one-off unofficial reunion gig in January 2009 to celebrate singer Dolores O’Riordan “becoming an Honorary Patron of University Philosophical Society (Trinity College, Dublin)” according to wikipedia. A tour of North America and Europe will feature some of their classics, material from O’Riordans two solo albums Are You Listening? and No Baggage as well as some new compositions… It would seem as though we can expect a new album sometime in the near future.

The Cranberries and Delores O’Riordan are available to download from the Nokia Music Store and are completely free to ‘Comes With Music’ subscribers.

Got your attention? Well I have to appologise if you saw that title and got a little excited about a Breakage and Joker collabo track (I certainly  would) but alas, this aint that. What this is, is just a simple heads up of 2 remixes of some popular tracks that you may or may not be aware of that happen to be on our store. As you can expect from these Dubstep artists, these tracks are heavy! Enjoy!

Copy and paste these numbers into the title field of the search box at the top of your page to get the linky’s [Sorry, Internet Explorer only]

Sub Focus – Could this be real [Joker Remix] : OD2DI6920947-02

Sidney Samson Feat. Wizard Sleeve – Riverside (Lets Go!) [Breakage Remix] : OD2DI6893859-06

Here’s a taster of the original Sub Focus DnB track:

Having just featured a little piece on X factor, I thought I share some, um… thoughts

So I’m not a fan of X factor in the grand scheme of things but I’ll admit I do indulge in the audition phase for the sole purpose of observing the psychological behaviour of the competition hopefuls, and for the opportunity to see the overly confident yet completely delusional have their dreams come crashing back down to Earth, a little sinister I know, but it makes for great television.

Beyond this, I do also enjoy trying to pick the winner in the early stages of the game based on the group or individuals presence and personality, and to be fair, of all the seasons gone by, these have been easy choices straight of the bat, as a bit of clever video editing and focus on individuals tends to subconsciously influence us all.

Now considering X Factor, of all the winners to date there’s an obvious recurring theme, Steve Brookstein, Shayne Ward, Leona Lewis, Leon Jackson, Alexandra Burke, Joe McElderry, of which only 1 has managed a successful career (the jury’s still out on the last 2). For the most part this could be attributed to the lack of nurturing beyond the show buck stop, but I believe there’s more to it than that…

What ever happened to good old fashioned stage names for solo performers?… nothing, anyone smart enough is still using them, Lady Gaga… Stefani Germanotta couldn’t break into the industry until she invented a suprficial character, one that I’m still convinced she’ll kill-off to reveal herself as the performer she’s always wanted to be. Or how about Rihanna… as talented as she is, I doubt she’d have had the success she’s enjoyed if she was performing as Robyn Fenty, there’s power and influence in a name, I know this, you know this, the industry knows this, and even Homer Simpson knew this when he changed his name to Max Power, so why, year after year do they churn out the same formulaic photo shoot (you know, the one in the tunnel with the extraction fan in the background) and with the name/surname format? It’s almost as if it’s only about the viewers recognising the X Factor brand… but then I guess maybe the contestants are to blame for not bringing any originality to the show, perhaps they need to start bringing a name rather than just playing desperate putty for the molding.

Steve Brookstein, Shayne Ward, Leona Lewis, Leon Jackson, Alexandra Burke, and Joe McElderry, Rihanna, and Lady Gaga are all available to download from the Nokia Music Store and are completely free to ‘Comes With Music’ subscribers.