Year: 2008

Hard-to-find, Most downloaded tracks

Tonight Matthew I’m going to be Pete Docherty

Craig McAllister

toothpaste-kisses.gifLibertines 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.

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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)

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entire show

Missed Scotch Mist? It’s all here…

Craig McAllister
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Radiohead‘s webcast for ‘In Rainbows’ aired on New Year’s Eve and it was bloody magic. Believe it or not, I actually have some sort of social life so I didn’t watch it as it happened. Last night was spent poking about the ‘net to find a video download that I could watch. You can get it here if you want.

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This morning was spent extracting the audio part of the video so that I could make a CD for the car. This caused me no amount of pain and a lot of trial and error. Don’t ask me how I did it cos even I don’t really know, but here’s the audio only broadcast. It sounds excellent. Of course. With the exception of ‘Faust Arp’ which was recorded outside somewhere, and ‘Nude’ (which they didn’t play) the band recorded the entire album (in a slightly different running order to the album) in a basement studio somewhere. It’s a fly-on-the-wall look/listen at how Radiohead do their thang. If you have a spare hour sometime you really should click on the link at the top of this post and watch it. Otherwise, get yourself the music-only soundtrack. It sounds great through headphones. What are you waiting for?

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