Music Snobbery

Peter Doherty Injects Fan: Best Fan Experience Ever!

This is making the rounds. From The Sun. I had to take down the photo, those Sun people are quick.

DRUG fiend Pete Doherty stoops to a shocking new low in pictures showing him injecting heroin into an unconscious fan.

The junkie Babyshambles singer, who has won the heart of supermodel Kate Moss, was snapped jabbing the pretty youngster as she lay in his squalid kitchen.

Other pictures seen by The Sun show the rocker — who faces drugs charges — injecting himself and being helped to take drugs by a girl using her hands to form a makeshift tourniquet.

Yet another sees Doherty, 27, smoke a “crack bowl”, his tattooed and blood-stained arms betraying his addiction.

That fan is going to have the best blog entry ever. That picture will make an awesome myspace icon. Better than my Damon Albarn experience.

OMG! I said "Hi!" to Pete and he shot me with heroin!!!!!!!! I just wanted an autograph and picture with my mobile phone, but he was soooooooo kewl! LOL!

Fastest 3 Minutes: Tapes 'N Tapes, DJ Shadow, Secret Machines and The Duke Spirit

Here are quick hit thoughts of the week...

• Comment from a cohort, "Wow, Sheena Easton and Chris Isaak posts. You're really appealing to the blogger fans." Yeah, I guess I should jump back into the "indie" music thing by talking about Tapes 'N Tapes. I haven't given them a complete listening to, but I'm getting worn out by all these bands who sound just like The Shins. You have Voxtrot, Film School and Band of Horses all coming into prominence now. With that said, I will see Tapes at Bowery and Horses at Maxwell's to see what they are like live for myself.
• I've been a big DJ Shadow fan since the beginning. I appreciate how he takes his time making albums. Waiting about six years in between releases. He's like the Stanley Kubrick of DJs, so his complete discography will be stellar rather than putting out something in a rush every other year. His yet-to-be titled third studio production will out later this summer and features Q-Tip and David Banner among his guests.
• Speaking on Q-Tip, it went un-noticed that A Tribe Called Quest have reunited and will play Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival on Sept 2-4. If there's ever a time Hip Hop needed them back together, it's now.
• Somebody asked me the other day, "What do you think of The Sounds?" My answer -- I can't endorse a band that's been on The View. That's not a joke, the show had Carson Daly as a guest and he could have any band he wanted on the show, and he picked The Sounds. This was about two years ago. I'm sure Starr Jones loved them.
• Now I wished I went to the Secret Machines show last night at Hiro. I passed to save the $31 and I've seen them four times already. By the time I found out that it was in the round, it was sold out. They played some of the new material last time I saw them. Also, I couldn't get out of work early to see their in-store at Virgin Megastore Union Square. Love the new album, in time I'll see how it compares to their debut. I'll say that "Lightening Blue Eyes" is a song you can listen to repeatedly and still enjoy. It's a more romantic effort from the trio.
• I saw The Duke Spirit back in the day at the Brixton Academy with Razorlight in 2004. What I said back then -- they sound like The Kills. I still think they do.
• Congrats goes out to my boys The Rakes. Capture/Release finally got a proper U.S. release last Tuesday. It only took a year to get a U.S. release.
• I can't get enough of this video making the rounds on the internet. It's the cursing public access preacher with the Parliament/Funkadelic music in the background. Make sure you add him to your myspace account. Quick funny story: a friend of a friend was a chauffer once and had drive George Clinton around for an hour so that he could smoke crack in the backseat.
• I was going to write a whole post about how Coachella could kiss my grits, but I went against it. I just find it pointless to stand in 100 degree heat to see bands play 7-8 songs in 35 minutes, then run to another stage to see somebody else from 50 yards away. Just because you can get all these bands in one place doesn't mean you should. Thanks to the festival, there's nothing worthy to see here in the New York this weekend.
• Final note. I got stopped by security at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square tonight. I had a bunch of Merle Haggard promo CDs in my bag and it set off the alarm. I only had 200 tourists pointing and staring at me. Thanks Merle.

Happy Birthday, Sheena Easton!

"My baby takes the morning train, he works from 9 to 5 and then, dah dah dah dah dah dah dah, to find me waitin' for him."

Clearly, she created the best song ever about the inside of a woman's vagina, "Sugar Walls." Then, she hooked up Prince for "U Got the Look." After that, she was gone...

I'm anxiously awaiting the later seasons of Miami Vice where she played Crockett's wife.

This is Sheena Easton today, who turns 47! Oh, dear Lord. See what happens when you win a Grammy for Best New Artist.

She looks like a drag queen. I think we found out what happen to Richey James from Manic Street Preachers. He disappeared and reappeared as Easton.

Chris Isaak: A Guilty Pleasure

Oh, laugh if you must. Chris Isaak is someone your mama would like, but I'll tell you what, "indie" rockers, the man is a fine singer. If I had a tenth of the charisma and style that Isaak has, I'd be a pretty popular man among the ladies. Ouuuwwwwwww!

Joking aside, I've been ruminating about my Top 5 guilty pleasures for a post. I had Biz Markie, the early work of The Corrs, Esquivel, Weird Al, 70s TV theme songs and the like floating around in the ether. I would put Chris Isaak at No. 1. When I was looking at the concert tours this summer, I saw that he was touring to promote his first greatest hits compilation out May 9th. You have to admit, for an artist who's cool, but not cool among the cool kids, he's amassed a pretty good body of work.

1. San Francisco Days 
2. Somebody's Crying 
3. Wicked Game 
4. Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing 
5. Let Me Down Easy 
6. Two Hearts 
7. King Without A Castle  (new song)
8. Only The Lonely 
9. Speak Of The Devil 
10. Blue Spanish Sky 
11. You Owe Me Some Kind Of Love 
12. Can't Do A Thing (To Stop Me) 
13. Let's Have A Party (new song)
14. Dancin' 
15. Blue Hotel 
16. Please 
17. I Want You To Want Me  (cover of the Cheap Trick song)
18. Forever Blue (Acoustic Version) 

He's one of those musicians who shot in prominence thanks to an unforgettable video, the Herb Ritts-direct "Wicked Game". Since then, he had two major hits, one due to Stanley Kubrick for using "Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing". The other, "Somebody's Crying," further showed his love for Roy Orbison.

Here's the deal why I like him -- I'm a fan of Rock-a-billy, 50s style, the whole package. I enjoy the graphics, the aura and the innocents. It just seemed like a fun time. Isaak taps into that perfectly. He's the crooner who can straddle that Sun Studios style, pop and country/western. His best album, The Baja Sessions, mixes that with Mexicali styles. It plays as perfect sundown music.

As far as the man himself, if you seen on talk shows, he's always a funny guest. He has a dry wit and awww shucks nature about him. He dabbles in acting with small roles in Silence of the Lambs, Twin Peaks and From the Earth to the Moon. His Showtime TV show was almost ahead of its time where he plays himself in fictionalized situations. All that, and probably can get any woman he wants. Damn him.

Anyway, give the man his props.

Secret Machines Video: Lightning Blue Eyes

Since I'm diligently working on MusicSnobbery.com 2.0, the posts are going to sparse for a few days. Thank God for You Tube! To celebrate the new Secret Machines album, Ten Silver Drops (stream it at AOL Music), check out the video for "Lightning Blue Eyes." Hey, that place looks familiar. It's Warsaw in Brooklyn. Can you see the old Polish lady serving the pierogies?

Howling Bells: Picking Up Where Garbage Left Off

Just before I get writing, I want to say how much a complete idiot I am. I'm working on the new MusicSnobbery.com and I've just discovered what a TypeList is all about. All this time I could have customized the left side bar. I blame the steady addiction of pop music on my ignorance.

Which leads us to the Howling Bells out of Australia. Imagine PJ Harvey as the lead singer of Garbage or Mazzy Star and you have what they are all about. Some of their songs off their self-titled debut album spans from sexy, guitar drenched rock songs to dissonant, spaced-out mood pieces. Holding this all together is lead singer Juanita Stein, who could be the freshest voice of the year. Learn the name, love the voice and surrender to the music.

Here's what the people at XFM had to say: Female protagonists of the alternative music variety are always going to add a certain something to a track and as long as guys and guitars are ten a penny that will probably continue. Juanita Stein’s mature and brooding vocals start off vulnerable, before she flips any preconceptions on their head, reflecting a sassiness that grows as the guitar riff becomes ever more striking until the strings almost howl with abandon, moulding the song into an overtly dramatic affair. Amazing and refreshing. 

As I beg for them to return to New York (they played Sin-e last October), they'll be criss-crossing Europe in May and June with Forward Russia!, Editors, Isobel Campbell and The Decemberists. You can sample their music at their official website or at myspace.

From the Video Vault: Belle & Sebastian, Todd Barry and Athlete

Harnessing the power of YouTube, I bring you these videos from my desktop, complete with crappy sound and shaky camera work.

Starting off with last March's Belle & Sebastian show at Nokia Theatre I have about 3 minutes of when Stuart picked a few ladies to join him in singing, "If You Find Yourself Caught in Love." My friend, Mitch, is in the center getting into it.

From the same show, I have comedian Todd Barry and cohorts performing a rousing rendition of Billy Joel's "Matter of Trust."

Now we go back to last November for some footage I took at the Athlete concert at the Apollo Hammersmith in London. This post plays like my vacation home movies, "Now this is me in front of the London Eye." This video is "Half-Light."

Here's "Westlife." Just look how everyone is just going nuts.

Finally, we have their best song, "You Got the Style." Check out that James Bond opening credits style back projection.