something to try at home...

hours of fun!
not sure it'd work that well with cds though...

Festive Frog-rock

Is this the most underrated Christmas song ever?



No scumbags, no maggots, no Radio 1 controversies here. Just good old Macca, Rupert the Bear and more frogs than a Frenchman’s Christmas dinner.

Although released in both 1984 and 1985 it never quite made it to the top of the sparkly Christmas number one tree but you don’t get much tougher competition that Geldof and his Band Aid chums, Wham’s Last Christmas and Shakin freaking Stevens!

Imagine a three year old Rory, still struggling to unravel the complexities of his new Transformer, being introduced to Paul McCartney for the first time. For all I knew back then he’d just won some tacky TV talent show and was riding on the coattails of Rupert’s fame (possibly the dullest kids character of all time?)

Anyway, I know a little more about Mr. McCartney now, apparently his group was quite popular for a time, but why don’t we hear more of this Christmas classic? Surely some festive DJ will answer my plea...

if it ain't stiff...

Last Friday I stumbled upon a repeat of BBC Four's documentary on Stiff Records. It was a great bit of telly and what's more, it was 90 minutes long...by the end I felt that I probably knew all I was ever going to need to know about the label, its disastrous tours, its constant flirtation with bankruptcy and its eclectic roster of hopefuls and hopeless cases (from Wreckless Eric to Madness to Lene Lovich to The Pogues to Elvis Costello to Jona Lewie to Ian Dury etc etc)

I even came away with a couple of things I never knew...1) Pete Waterman was a producer for Stiff and 2) Alvin Stardust released four singles on the label. Oh yes.

But stronger and stranger was the inescapable conclusion that the world was a very different place back then. Punk had changed the rules or at least hidden them somewhere, and there was still money in making singles. Could you imagine a record like this making number one these days?


Thought not.

Cheer up! It's nearly Christmas

Malcolm Middleton's attempt to get his catchy new single We're All Going To Die to the Christmas chart top spot takes him to Colin Murray's Radio 1 show on Monday.

Colin's website has a wonderful video of the former Arab Strapper recording a festive version of the song with sleigh bells and a children's choir at Maida Vale that you can watch here.

The official video is pretty good too:

The Wednesday biscuit #2

Today I clocked three esteemed members of the music team lifting the lid on an empty biscuit tin, only to walk away with a groan/hmmphf. Let's call that a grmpf.


I on the other hand was lucky enough to find half of what can only be described as a gingernut in disguise. An oblong shaped no-namer, not your regular round Griffin or Arnotts kind.
Hmmm. Were these biscuits bought from an off-licence?

Nonetheless this half of whatever it was, left quite an impression. My only piece of advice to the manufacturers would be to give this baked good an IDENTITY. Dress it up a little! Make people see that there's something worth being discovered...


Which, tenuously as ever, leads me to prog doom disco act Chrome Hoof. As part of BBC Introducing (BBC's new music initiative) they performed a special session at Maida Vale studios in North London last night, filmed for Gilles Peterson's show on Radio 1. And there is no mistaking them.


Loud, grinding and glam, this 10 piece work their magic with fabric (see below). Incorporating a wide variety of instruments, violin, bassoon, sax, trumpet, guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion to create their menacing racket. Try Pre-emptive False Rapture , released earlier this year for more of a taste, or catch them thundering away at these UK shows in the next week.

Even though it looks like it.... no humans were poked with giant light sabers during the taking of these photos.

Bemused sequined moment?....


Use the force.... the disco force.

i-Mix

From the 'what will they think of next?' dept comes a bit of software that allows you to use your i-Phone to control Pro-Tools. So poor overworked producers and remixers can literally phone in their performances from anywhere, thus avoiding having to deal with any performer egos or leave their, er, cribs.

Our new camera is wicked

Zaireeka moment

Anyone who’s had the pleasure of stumbling across Mr. Wayne Coyne and friends will know that there ain’t no party quite like a Flaming Lips party. Investigate a little further and you will realise that it’s not all balloons and Santa costumes, these Oklahoma gents have done some interesting things in their day; gigs at the zoo, boom box experiments, and a long awaited Christmas on Mars movie (which should finally debut at 2008’s South by Southwest festival) to name but a few.

Top of the list nevertheless must be 1997 album Zaireeka. How they convinced Warner Bros to release it in the first place is an achievement, but out it came, in full four disc glory, each of which to be played simultaneously on separate cd players to create the complete sound.

The album garnered promising reviews but was never going to be a commercial success, but what, I hear my inquisitive cosmic friends does it sound like? Well that’s the thing… a young upstart from Northern Ireland called Stephen McCauley has gotten himself a show on Radio Foyle (a mighty good it is too may I add). Being a fan of the odd experiment himself, the Electric Mainline presenter enlisted the help of Radio 1’s Rory McConnell, Radio Foyle’s Mark Patterson and Jane Bradfords (they’re big in Qatar) frontman Deci Gallen for a Zaireeka experiment of his own.

Stephen treats us to two of the albums eight tracks and its well worth braving it past the minor technical difficulties of whispering Rory McConnell in the introduction to hear the tracks in full glory.

Have a listen here...

A broadcasting first? He’ll be roving the streets of Derry in a giant balloon before we know it.

Stockhausen on Aphex Twin on Stockhausen

I randomly found an interesting article on Karlheinz Stockhausen from an old issue of The Wire. In 1995, Radio 3 sent the composer a package of tapes of music (by Aphex Twin, Scanner, Plasticman and Daniel Pemberton) and asked for his opinion.

These were artists he had supposedly influenced - the Radio 3 programme was called Advice To Clever Children - so it's very funny that he dismisses the four pieces and then recommends some of his own works which would be "very helpful".

I wish those musicians would not allow themselves any repetitions, and would go faster in developing their ideas or their findings, because I don't appreciate at all this permanent repetitive language. It is like someone who is stuttering all the time, and can't get words out of his mouth.

Fair play to The Wire, as they got responses to Stockhausen's suggestions from the "clever children". Full article (Q8). http://www.sinologic.com/newmusic/stockhausen.html

Einstein's Fiddle

If you've got a spare 15 minutes betwen now and next Sunday and a passing interest in the connections between music and physics and emotion (yeah, I know...) then this is so worth listening to...

The Brian Eno iPod

The ideal Christmas gift?

The Poetry of History

...is the title of a new Radio 4 series exploring, er, the links betwen poetry and historical events. Not the most obvious place to look for a top notch music documentary, but Sunday's episode was just that. Shakespeare scholar Jonatahan Bate talked to the mighty Linton Kwesi Johnson, whose fusion of dub (provided by Dennis Bovell) and poetry soundtracked The Brixton Riots of 1981.

Listening, I was taken back to my first exposure to LKJ, which was courtesy of Radio 3 (honest!) in the late 70s. Though I lived only 60 miles from Brixton, this dark, dread-filled sound laced with stories of police brutality, bereaved mothers and random, racially motivated violence felt like it was coming from another planet. It was one of those moments; though to paraphrase Morrisey this was music that said nothing to me about my life, it kind of fleshed out the TV coverage of burning police cars - this was like proper news from an alternative source. LKJ wasn't just talking about this stuff, he was living it. And the music...this was miles away from Bob bloody Marley; spacey, bassy and beautiful. I went out and bought the records, but it kind of felt like I shouldn't be; I felt they weren't meant for me. I always expected to be asked questions at the till ("Sorry lad, that's not for the likes of you. How's about the new Cure album?").

I sort of still feel like that. A couple of years ago I saw LKJ in a lift at Broadcasting House. I really wanted to tell him that nearly twenty years ago his words had somehow touched a white Grammar school boy living in Kent, but I somehow didn't quite have the guts.

And if I ever see him again, I still won't have them.

Tim Wheeler, a peacock and a black taxi.

Being a web monkey for the BBC can lead you to some very strange places. I once stood on a high stool for over an hour filming an Ash gig while simultaneously bracing myself against the tide of moshing teenagers who were crashing against me like the surf on the Atlantic coastline. I also spent a week driving around Northern Ireland with a crazy man called Nigel in a black taxi that looked like a cow!

This week though, from the comfort of my eighth floor London office I came in contact with a young Wisconsin songstress called Stephanie Dosen. Delving deeper it was easy to discover that fair Stephanie grew up on a peacock farm and played early songs to her pet swan and fox.

Dosen obviously felt this was all a little mundane and banal so she packed her bags and headed off to an abandoned dog food factory to record debut album ‘A Lily For The Spectre’, and spend a few months being haunted by those unfortunate enough to fall into the grain silos during the 1920’s. Maybe this goes some way to explaining why the poor girl is so pale… seriously Stephanie, go outside, the sun won’t hurt you.

All makes the whole ‘broke my leg, wrote some songs’ Kate Nash story sound a bit dull doesn’t it.

Anyway, if you’re wondering what peacocks, foxes and swans like to listen to you can check her out on BBC 2’s Later… at 11.35pm on Friday or equally on the ghost friendly website just after.

The Wednesday biscuit

Our magical self-replenishing office biscuit tin replenished itself (or did it?) with 'Nice' biscuits today. The plain sugar-crystal coated kind that spelled BORING to me as a kid, for a lack of patterns, colours, fillings etcetera. They also, funnily enough, remind me of Terry Donovan (Jason Donovan's dad) as he once had a hissy fit in a convenience store that my mum was babysitting for a friend because he wanted a packet of 'Nice biscuits' on their own... like this:


As opposed to having to 'fish' his Nice biscuits out of a variety pack like this:

A welcome reminder to us all that variety packs are for SCUM not D-grade celebrities.

Anyway, I digress. Today's Wednesday biscuit, as plain as it is.... made for a perfect accompaniment to Jaymay, aka 26 yr old New Yorker Jamie Seerman's debut album Autumn Fallin'. The obvious comparisions with Leslie, Regina et al. must be a little boring for her... So I turn to the 'Nice' biscuit as a way to describe her blood sweat and tears, her craft, her passion!

Music/biscuit compatibility: 8/10

Characteristics: Plain, slightly sugary but not sickly sweet.
Aftertaste: Pleasant yet disappears quite quickly.

Jaymay will be playing at the Whitechapel Gallery this Friday 30th of November as part of the 'Open City' residency which explores music related to a city, (hers being the Big Apple). She'll also be supporting Okkervil River in the UK soon.

It's Pete Tong all gone

Radio 1's Essential Mix has soundtracked the UK's Friday Night pre-clubbing, vodka and ironing for an astonishing 14 years. Each week, Pete Tong mixes up 2 hours of banging house, techno and trance. If you wanted a snapshot of what's happening in clubs across the country you could do a lot worse.

However, the dulcet tones of the host have rather irked the Tongless website. In fact, Tongless have taken such a dislike to our Pete that they've started recording their own doppelganger essential mixes - exact copies with identical tracklists.... only with no Tong. It's no small feat when you consider that 70% of the Essential Mix is made up of unreleased tunes and white labels. Talk about gratitude.

Feeling Guilty...

...about downloading music for nothing?

Here's two ways to restore your good karma.

(via Metafilter)

Skeletons In The Closet

At first glance this might be an entry in one of those 'worst album covers of all time' lists that litter the interweb, but no...it's weirder than that. One of these men is Billy Joel, then half of prog-metal organ/drums trio Attila. For the full grisly truth and more skeletons in closets, visit Metafilter.

The Angelic Organ of Evil

This recent Radio 4 documentary was one of the best things I've heard on the radio for ages (and one of the best titled programmes ever). It dealt with the strange story of the Glass Harmonica, an instrument that was actually outlawed in parts of Germany because it was considered dangerous to listen to. Benjamin Franklin invented it, Franz Mesmer used it to hypnotise people and Mozart even wrote a piece for it. it's got to be one of the weirdest (and least portable) instruments ever outside of Harry Partch's world. Sadly the doc isn't available to listen to online but there's tons of info at Wikipedia.

Anyway, here's a taster of what it can do. Spooky. Disclaimer - if you feel any ill effects after listening, don't sue us.

Underground, overground...

With interest in dubstep continuing to rise, some sort of mainstream cross-over was inevitable. Burial's debut (a mere 12 months old) made it into the Guardian's 1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die and rumour has it that this year's biggest anthem Benga and Coki's Night is getting a vocal version courtesy of Dizzee Rascal, which is sort of interesting in itself, given Dizzee's move from lurching E3 grime to a more hip-hop, US-facing sound.

Interesting then, that the latest example of the sound's mainstream potential was spotted by the Independent Online, a hitherto unsuspected voice "pon road". Even more interesting, that the latest embodiment of the Croydon sound is, er... Britney Spears. On Nov 9th, the Indy reviewed her album Blackout as:

"...a flimsy retread of tired, old-hat electro grooves that young trendies desperate to appear hip will doubtless call "dubstep".

With pleasing speed, 2 days later"young trendy" Prancehall identified Spear's track Freakout as this year's firin' dubstep anthem. He's joking, but you see the point: it's all there - the sparse, 2-step beats and now-ubiquitous bass wobble. See for yourself. Honestly, it's no wonder, some people give up altogether.

For dubstep of the, non-head shaving/custody wrangling variety, head to Mary Anne Hobbs' Breezeblock show. Everyone else: Spears is here.

Me and Mr Jones

One of the perks of working for BBC Music (apart from bumping into Melvyn Bragg in the lift or encountering someone dressed as Pudsey Bear in the gents toilet) is getting to hear stuff you'd never come across otherwise, and sometimes even having your precious muso-snob preconceptions overturned. Last week I found myself in the BBC Radio Theatre for a live broadcast of Radio 3's Jazz Line-Up. First on the bill was trumpeter Sean Jones. Mr Jones is a Lincoln Centre (er, sorry, Center) alumnus; from poking around his website I'd pegged him as one of those shiny, technically gifted, well dressed but kind of anonymous jazzers that roll off Wynton Marsalis' production line every couple of months. The music samples sounded polite, overproduced and sort of...dull. So I wasn't expecting much.

But sheesh, they were (to use proper jazz parlance), cookin'. Or even smokin'. And though to a Home Counties reared white middle aged baldie like myself the concept of 'cool' is a bit foreign, these guys definitely had something. And Mr Jones can really play the trumpet; loads of notes, sure, but all the right ones and in the right order...

We'll be putting some of that set on the Radio 3 site from Dec 3rd...but till then, here he blows...

818 State Constitution

Welcome to 818 State. This blog is run by four wizards who drive a magic bus powered by mountains of spaghetti . . . wait a minute . . . in fact, this is the blog of BBC Music Interactive, a team that has the privilege to sit at the hub of the BBC's world-beating music production teams, promote their work through www.bbc.co.uk/music and occasionally pitch in and help make some of it happen. Highlights from an ordinary week at BBC Music include a fascinating Pink Floyd documentary on Radio 2, Richard Hawley in 6 Music's hub, loads of Radio 3 broadcasts from the London Jazz Festival, an extended interview with Radiohead on Radio 1 , a typically eclectic line-up on Later featuring Manu Chao, Kano and James Blunt(!) and a fantastic new documentary series on Brazilian Music. Feeling a wee bit envious yet?

As well as peeling up the corner of the BBC's own music, um, doormat, we will also be offering you glimpses into all that's new, wonderful, weird, relevant or utterly pointless in the world of web music that we have the somewhat odd privilege of calling our second home. (Think of this as a slightly draughty holiday home in a picturesque part of the world which is struggling under the effects of rapid development brought on by an influx of nouveau-riche tourists. Or something.)














And we'll even occasionally indulge ourselves by ranting at indecent length about what's pressing our personal music buttons at the moment. (For me, it's all about Luíz Gonzaga after a screening of Brasil, Brasil at the Brazilian Embassy where a fabulous performance of one of his songs by a man in a funny T shirt on his front porch transported me from a very rainy Wednesday night in London to the arid north of Brazil . . . tune in on BBC Four tonight and you'll see what I mean.)

See you soon.