Libertines copyists. Dontcha just love ’em? I do! With 2008 only 9 days old it’s way too early for any ‘Best Of The Year’ lists, but I am almost certain that ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ by The Maccabees will still be on heavy rotation on my jukebox come December. I have been playing this wee song constantly for the past week and my enthusiasm for it shows no signs of stoppng. For me, The Maccabees have come from nowhere and somehow sneaked under my ‘Good Music Radar’. For a while now I have been of the mindset that ‘all new music is rubbish’, when of course it’s only rubbish if you don’t look out for it. Or should that be listen out for it? Anyway, by chance I was channel hopping over the festive period and caught the video for ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ on E4 or somewhere like that, and my love affair with The Maccabees began.
The singer clearly has the same Libertines bootlegs I’ve got. He has the sardonic vocals down to a tee and the combination of Spanish and electric guitars gives it the same feeling as ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’-era Pete ‘n’ Carl. Along with the scrubbed barre chords there’s a nifty understated solo that sticks in your head like all the best Paul McCartney songs and some wolf whistling behind the opening lines…..
Cradle me, cradle you
I’ll win your heart with a woo-hoo
It’s bloody magic. Go to The Maccabees website and you can even play the Toothpaste Kisses game. It’s nearly cost me my marriage I’ve been playing it that much. Who needs a Wii when there’s games like this out there for free? You can find the video on YouTube too although I’m not linking it here. I hate blogs that are full of YouTube videos and nothing else. (Lazy fuckers.)
Contrast & Compare!
Heres’s some Libertines demos from various sessions. Sardonic vocals? Check! Spanish/electric guitar combination? Check! Whistling? Sometimes! Check! Pete gets a lot of flak, but he cannae half write a half-finished song. I love him.
Albion (version 1)
The Good Old Days (A Carl Barat song)
Music When The Lights Go Out (Legs 11 demo session – the best version of this song that exists, I think)
Plain Or Pan 
Funny that…..I missed a lot of new music last year with my being in Canada for many months, and so watched a bit of MTV2 over Xmas/New Year to see if there was anything worth picking up on – and The Maccabees were about it. Great song, amazing video.
Is it OK to have a blog that’s full of You Tube videos simply as a brother/sister blog to something else?? Please say yes……
Course it is. Lazy fu…………
I saw the Maccabees live last year and they didn’t dissapoint. The Legs 11 version of Music When The Lights Go Out is my least favourite version of the song. I thought it was a joke when I first heard it, so self-indulgent nd over-produced (for a demo, for the libertines). I loved the rest of the session though, rivals the albums.
Yeah so how tired are you of hearing Toothpaste kisses now?
Because I reckon I can only hear it a few more times before I chuck the soundsystem out of the window
Will you re-upload “Music When the Lights Go Out”? It really is the best version of the song and I would appreciate it 🙂