Live and direct.

Spent the weekend in Coventry filming DJs Ace and Vis annoying the caterers/barging into dressing rooms at 1Xtra Live. It's the first time the station have put on an event this size, and it seems to have been a massive success. The venue (Ricoh Arena) looked wicked and they got a properly A-list line-up including Akon, Chris Brown, Kelly Rowland, Lupe Fiasco and Estelle. Mavado dropped out a couple of weeks ago and was replaced by Wiley, which is sort of funny because he's notorious for not turning up to shows. You can see how surprised Ace & Vis are when they knock on his door in the video below.

The other "live" happening this week is Later...with Jools Holland, which will broadcast a live, half-hour show on Tuesday at 10.00pm and then the same half-hour, plus an additional pre-recorded half-hour on Fridays. Why? Arcane BBC scheduling protocol which means only repeats can be broadcast on late night tv. Odd. Still, it's fantastic news that the BBC has a truly live new music programme, however it's come about.

glastonbury crisis

from the front page of /music - "Emily Eavis: 'Mud Not Jay-Z To Blame For Fall In Glastonbury Numbers'".

Poor licence fee settlement forces BBC talent cutbacks.

Impartiality

In the spirit of fair play, a non-shambolic BBC performance from Cat Power.

One good use for your old vinyl

I sense I might be a bit slow off the mark with this one, but check out these highly inventive (and, in some cases, downright brilliant) 'Sleevefaces' on this Flickr group.

The idea is to place an album cover with a prominent face on it over your own face - and then fashion your body/clothes so the album cover continues to 'live' in the real world. That makes little sense, so just click the link to see what I mean. I might try with this album and I am particularly fond of Olivia for the inventive use of the gatefold...

Addendum: This whole idea really did strike a chord in my sleep deprived mind so I went home and me and my bloke created a couple of our own. If you spot Talk Talk's 'The Party's Over' and U2's 'War' then that's us :)

On A Roll

Radio 3's documentary 'Rolls, Records and the Return of Myra Hess' told the story of the player piano or pianola (or as some like to call it, 'the reproducing piano'. Though its presence in the middle class drawing rooms of the early 20th century ended with the advent of radio and the phonograph, it remains a unique instrument. No piece of hi-tech digitalia could ever reporduce the physical sensation of a skilled player's performance in quite the same way, and to think it's all done with paper, cogs, hammers and wheels seems almost unbelievable. The great Myra Hess commited a few performances to the roll, and the results (even on the radio) were remarkable, and to me anyway lifts the pianola out of the realm of antique curiosity to something much more important. Before the advent of sequencers, it could also handle material that couldn't be played by a human without suffering permanent physical and mental damage (see below!)

You can listen again till Saturday 2nd Feb.

Cat Power - Live on 6 Music

I was lucky enough to see Cat Power perform a memorable 6 Music Hub Session on Tuesday. I've long been a fan of her records but had never seen her live before, mainly because I'd heard too many stories about her unpredictability on stage (I did have ticket for one her shows years ago and she cancelled).

While Chan Marshall did show up, the session didn't go as smoothly as some I've seen. Accompanied by accoustic and slide guitars, she sounded great and began with her new spin on Hank Williams's Ramblin' Man. An apropriate title since her subsequent conversation with George Lamb meandered for ages.

Halfway through her second number, Song to Bobby, the band abruptly stopped playing as the electric guitar went dead. Chan didn't realise they were live, broke the cardinal daytime radio sin of letting fly an expletive, had a confab with her band about what they should do, and eventually played a different song.

To those listening live it might have sounded shambolic. Watching it in the flesh was a lot of fun.

You can listen to the session on the iPlayer (edited for decency I believe) and see some photos on the 6 Music website.

If you're unaware of Cat Power, this the video for Lived In Bars from her last album The Greatest, is a pretty good introduction.

And a couple more versions of Ramblin' Man, first the Hank Williams original on top of footage from a Buster Keaton movie:

And secondly the video for Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell's version:

Dozens of people have covered this classic. If you find more, post them below,