Posts from February, 2007

Lord alone knows how much we love Drone. We've tried to convince you to love Drone as much as we do in the past, but we've only had words at our disposal, and they only have a limited impact. Now, if we could somehow use sounds and moving images…

But wait! We can! Even though we went doolally over Drone's album colourformoney when it was released - banging on about its warm pastoral electrofolk and the way the tunes never quite leave you once you've heard them like a right bunch of daft idiots - we've never been able to show you what Drone's music is like. Until now. We've got hold of a video to Drone track Hopscotch for you, and it's a doozy. Hopscotch does Boards Of Canada better than Boards Of Canada have done for the last couple of albums. It's soothing. It's mesmerising. It features a Roman centurion playing schoolyard games on an Open University set. Click the big button above and enjoy Hopscotch by Drone in all its wonderful glory. 

When it comes to spooky-looking boys with terrible hair who play demented indie music, The Horrors are close to the top of the list - so you'll be pleased to know they're doing signing sessions today, as this email we've just received is keen to tell us:

The Horrors have confirmed that they will be holding two 'Gloves' signing sessions today, the day of the single's release (Monday February 26).

Catch the band at Fives Records in Leigh-on-Sea by their hometown of Southend at 12.30pm, before they hot-foot it over to Rough Trade Records in Covent Garden, London for another signing session 5.30pm.

Both appearances are sure to be well attended so we suggest you get there early and form as orderly a queue as the situation will allow. There will be a few ultra limited pairs of Horrors leather gloves that aren't on sale anywhere to giveaway to some lucky fans randomly chosen at the instores, so come on down!

12.30pm - Fives Records
www.fives-records.co.uk
103 Broadway
Leigh on Sea
Essex
SS9 1PG

5.30pm - Rough Trade Records
www.roughtrade.com/site/instore.lasso
In the basement of the Slam City Skates shop
16 Neal's Yard
Covent Garden
London
WC2H 9DP

Free gloves? We've killed for less than that. Remember, though, that The Horrors will only be signing stuff and not actually playing any music at these instores. If you're lucky Samantha Morton might turn up to explode another alien out of her vagina, but don't come running to us if that doesn't happen either.

Charlotte Church turned 21 last week, and she celebrated it with the time-honoured Welsh tradition of possibly letting a fake-tanned rugby chickboy knock her up - according to reports, Charlotte Church is either pregnant or not pregnant.

Why does everyone think that Charlotte Church is pregnant? Simple really - Charlotte Church didn't mark her 21st birthday by downing a million alcopops, lurching out of a nightclub at 3am, showing her knickers to the paparazzi, starting a fight with a kebab shop and slurring selected verses of Crazy Chick while laying face down in a puddle of her own liquids like she usually does. So, all said, yes - Charlotte Church probably is pregnant.

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We all boast from time to time.

You know the score - little white lies on your CV that pitch you as having 'exceptional computer skills' when you actually mean you're quite good at playing Grand Theft Auto. Or describing yourself as 'average build' on a dating site when you're actually so fat you require planning permission to step outside.

None of us can hold a candle, however, to film director-type James Cameron: quite possibly the most self-aggrandising man on the planet. Cameron - who once proclaimed himself the King Of The World because he made a movie about a posh girl and a ladyboy trapped on a sinking ship - is now officially pushing aside all pretenders to the throne by blurting out his most ludicrous statement yet.

Something about finding Jesus's coffin.

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Now sit down, grab a paper bag if you need it and take several deep breaths; hecklerspray is the messenger of bad news today - the new, decade in the waiting, Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy has unsurprisingly been pushed back to some undecided point in time again. Probably 2036. 

So what’s the reason this time? Well, to be quite honest, we don’t really care much anymore. It's here today in fact that hecklerspray launches its own band Guns and Pansies. The band - made up entirely of hecklerspray staff - aims to write,  record and release two albums on the same day, replace Shawn with some bloke who wears a KFC bucket on his head, split up, get back together, throw hissy fits, make outrageously stupid demands and tour our as yet unnamed albums before Guns N' Roses release Chinese Democracy. We think we can do it. 

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In theory Saturday's Dancing On Ice was the first show where any of the contestants were potential winners - but that theory overlooked one huge issue; the issue of Lisa Scott-Lee being desperately unlikable to the actual point of madness.

Lisa Scott-Lee was knocked out of Dancing On Ice on Saturday despite getting a pretty good score of 23.5 for her routine to some old Santana song. Sure, Lisa had a wobble or two on the ice, and the routine was out of time with the music, but it probably wouldn't be too wide of the mark to suggest that Lisa Scott-Lee got voted off Dancing On Ice because her constant annoying stage school attention-seeking is just irritating beyond belief, not to mention the tossy little tantrum she threw during training when she couldn't do a little move properly. So it'll be back to selling 'accidental' nude pictures of herself to make a living, then.

But who's going to win this series of Dancing On Ice? As ever, here's part one of our Dancing On Ice betting odds - for Lee Sharpe, Emily Symons and Duncan James - with betting odds from Paddy Power…

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Stand up, sit down. Creased, Folded.

Folded:

• Kate Nash: Caroline’s a Victim (not really indicative of her other work, but an assured way in for the skinny jeans crowd)

• Soul Britannia (a decent series that finished last week on BBC4. Well worth catching on the inevitable repeat)

• E4 Music back on the mornin’ box (no more shots of Jo O’Meara sleeping. We’ve kept our cereal down for over two weeks now)

• A half (might just be the way to go. Not as geezer/govnor looking as a pint, plus you can drink it at an easier pace; for there’s no fear it’ll get all warm and gross in your sweaty palms before it’s down the gullet)

• M.A.S.K (the best cartoon theme tune ever? Maybe Cities of Gold? Maybe Dogtanian? Listen on YouTube and make up your own mind)

Creased:

• Girlie mags (no, not those, perv, the bastard celebrity ones. They get everywhere and you can’t help but pick them up to read on the crapper. We weren’t even sure Emmerdale was still going)

• Prison Break 2 on Five (slowly does it. Too slowly)

• A pint (unless you’re still a teenager, these bad boys cling to your gut like lard fajitas. Who gives a damn? Women, pal. Women)

• Joss Stone (the Devonshire Yank and her Devonshire Yank accent is nestling on just about everyone’s tits at the moment)

• Pancake Day [link NSFW and frankly terrifying] (pancakes are nice, so why only eat them once a year? What about Anchovy Day instead? That makes far more sense)

Canadian music is enough to strike fear into the hearts of most right-thinking people - yes Alanis, Celine, Bryan and Nickelback, we're referring explicitly to you hear - so imagine the night-terrors and panic attack that come with the prospect of listening to a Canadian hip-hop album.

And not just any Canadian hip-hop album, either - a Canadian hip-hop album made by the son of some Jehovah's Witnesses who can't seem to find one style of song that suits him. Against the odds, though, that album is Atlantic: Hymns For Disco by K-Os and we'll be jiggered if the bastard didn't win us over.

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Lily Allen and Lady Sovereign have a lot to disagree on at the best of times - who can happyslap a pensioner the fastest, who can sell the cheapest knock-off Burberry baseball caps, that sort of thing - but arguing over musical quality? Really?

Apparently Lady Sovereign - you know her, she's the UK hip-hop A Flock Of Seagulls - has been laying into loudmouth cod-reggae popstar Lily Allen because Lily Allen has got a famous dad and Lady Sovereign hasn't. And now in an astonishing return-salvo Lily Allen has responded furiously to Lady Sovereign's outburst, hitting back via her MySpace blog.

And to make matters worse we're reporting it as news. And we're sorry.

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Hecklerspray loves a good gig. In fact we’ve been to so many musical shenanigans that we can’t physically remember half the ones we’ve been to. Nearly every week, our inbox is rammed to capacity with the cool and not so cool bands begging us to come see them rock out on stage.

Of course we oblige to these requests and get given star-studded VVIP treatment. That’s Very Very Important Person. VIP is not good enough for us. Bus despite being treated like royalty, sometimes we like to get back to our dark and dingy indie roots and share the experience with all the other sweaty kids. We don’t like to stay in our royal box all the time. And what better occasion to do this with one of the UK’s most loved bands at the moment, Bloc Party? 

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