The Teenagers: "Love No" Video
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The French Kicks: "The Trial of the Century"
A lovely synth-driven tune from these NYC darlings
Substance Abuse: "Night On The Town"
As opposed to groups who either force change or resist it, the hip-hop group Substance Abuse embraces a natural progression. The trio creates earnest hip-hop music, combining equal measures of intelligence, clarity, innovation, and polish to evoke the unpretentious consciousness of the Golden Age era, while avoiding corny retro posturing. After gaining much acclaim for their collaboration with MF Doom on the infectious "Profitless Thoughts," Substance Abuse is ready to drop their long awaited full length, "Overproof," a term signifying "more than ample evidence" of S.A.'s eminent dopeness. Group members Eso Tre and Subz grew up together in Los Angeles, where they became hip-hop fans at an early age. In high school, the duo could often be found in the audience at the legendary Unity events that have since come to define the progressive LA hip-hop scene of the early 90?s. Inspired by those shows emphasis on positive expression through creative art, the friends began working on their own music. Substance Abuse's first release was a 1998 EP with Santa Barbara's mic.edu called Brand New Crime on Rocketship Records. The project received extensive college radio airplay and critical praise, and led to the filming of a video for the track ?Spontaneous Egos?, directed by independent filmmaker Jesse Felsot. The clip became a favorite of underground West Coast video shows and is currently available for viewing online at Sputnik7 (www.sputnik7.com). This was followed by the filming of the video for ?Night on the Town? featuring Kool Keith, which can be viewed at www.threshrecs.com Throughout the next year, Eso Tre and Subz bolstered their reputations as crowd movers with a series of performances sharing the stage with mic legends such as Souls of Mischief and Aceyalone. In turn, the group's lyrical prowess earned them a slot on Sway and Tech's Wake-Up Show, where they premiered the lead track from their debut single, "What the Fuck You Rhymin' For?" Finally, S.A. was named in URB magazine's Next 100 last year as a new group to watch. The name doesn?t have anything to do with getting faded,? explains MC Eso, who adds that their name is commonly misunderstood. ?Abuse is a word which correlates with excess, and we are excessively concerned with interjecting substance in the music.? Overproof includes contributions from Saafir, Kool Keith, Motion Man, Kutmasta Kurt, P.E.A.C.E., Rasco, Thes-One, and MF Doom.
Their first full-length CD, Datarock Datarock (Nettwerk Music Group June 12, ), takes the feel-good vibe of "Computer Camp Love," turns it up to 11, and blasts a power chord of throwback nostalgia that'll knock you straight out of your Reebok Pumps. Love letters to Laurie Anderson ("Laurie") and references to Close Encounters of the Third Kind ("Princess") are just the tip of the iceberg. The album's infectious first single, "Fa Fa Fa," pairs up dance-rock drums with funk-strummed guitars and a chorus that'll have you jonesing for the nearest copy of Talking Heads' 77. "Ugly Primadonna," meanwhile, is pure four/four Groovebox robotics and space age Casiotone melodies.†† On "I Will Always Remember You" (featuring Annie), Fredrik does his best Wayne Newton, verbally undressing you with his velvety pipes over a bed of freeze-dried strings before formally "sexing you down" on "Sex Me Up." But more so than any other track on the album, the opening "Bulldozer" perhaps best encapsulates the band's true modus operandi. Whereas Kraftwerk glorified the Trans-Europe Express and the Tour de France, Datarock prefer to sing the praises of a more proletarian method of transportation: the BMX. Which, according to the Fredrik and Ket-Ill, "is better than sex."
High School Record follows four awkward 17-year-olds as they struggle through their senior year. Like most high school students, they ride a continual wave of embarrassment: crappy after-school jobs, attempted sex in the science room, tinfoil shorts, guitar-strumming hippie teachers and brushes with the law. The only difference is that their moments of humiliation are all caught on tape - our gang of four are the subjects of a documentary shot by fellow classmates. A journey into narrative anarchy, High School Record is an engaging film partially improvised by its young cast. Written by Ben Wolfinsohn and based on his own high school experiences, HIGH SCHOOL RECORD is a painfully funny exploration of the teenage mind. High School Record is a follow up to Wolfinsohn's critically acclaimed music documentary Friends Forever.
Firefox 3 is coming to a computer near you, and Mozilla wants your help in breaking the record for most software downloads in a single day. Plus, Barack Obama goes on the offense against the online rumor mill, teenagers are bigger music thieves than you may think, and the many perils of being a prolific blogger.
Kate Nash, Hot Chip, Dengue Fever
On Crossfade TV this week, the Download Music crew recommends up-and-coming London pop artist Kate Nash, electro-pop quintet Hot Chip, and Cambodian-American indie-rock group Dengue Fever.
Fresh from the U.K cult success of their debut single 'Gravity's Rainbow' earlier this year, Klaxons (that's Jamie, Simon and James to their local Vicar) are now venturing Stateside with their offerings of post punk sensibilities with their deep love of Rave music described by Jaime as the most short lived genre of all time. It never even existed and classic Pop culture that sticks like knives out of their every chord change. Resulting in an instant mind bending, shoe stomping hit hailed as The most worthy indie dancefloor filler of the year NME Touching down in 2006 from a place undetermined to wrestle the hearts and minds of the nations music lovers from last year's seemingly all-pervading po-faced, post-punk moroseness. The band describes their sound as Josef K-meets-Baby D, with a twinkle in their eye, surely the first to mention those names in the same sentence. American audiences will immediately see the nod towards influential 90's bands such as Happy Mondays and Altern8. Definitions aside, what you hear is post punk psychedelic pop that meets pill popping dance music and it sure works. A trio with heads jam packed with ideas, ideas that layer influences and an imagination with genuine talent. Dazed & Confused Xan Valleys E.P lurches out demonically from a world of distortion and drummatic? madness, stuffing the peaks and breakdowns into moments of a sheer pop meltdown. If ever a band were all about the moment, all about Myspace as a progression of rave cultures underground communication, and all about creating a live experience every bit as exhilarating as their singles, this is the Klaxons signature sound. The opening track Gravity's Rainbow doesn't mess around as it welcomes and steers the listener into an eerie world of pumping psychedelia combined with melodic and romantic vocals blissfully taking you on a pleasantly trippy ride through their wondrous world and another dimension that is Xan Valleys. One listen to Atlantis To Interzone and the several miles of dots between those influences are quickly joined, where screaming sirens and samples straight out of a field in '89 give way to the punked out half-falsetto, half melodic breakneck vocals and drums. Klaxon, a French verb meaning to too certainly alludes to the raving mania of their audiences who frantically get down to the sounds with horns and whistles intact. But also the word's origin is actually a form of tribal drumming, Simon says used to communicate over long distances, pre amplification and telephones. Therefore, these London lads really are practicing the art of channelling a much loved yet equally forgotten musical era now reinvented and given back to us in the form of Klaxons.
Jaguar XK: A Jag to make you forget Aston Martin
The current Jaguar XK is 10 years old--enough! Here comes the new XK, hipper than anything Jag's made in decades and taking deadly aim at Coventry's fuddy-duddy image.
The 2006 Pontiac Solstice is a car for teenage girls with a love of cosmetics or midlife-crisis guys happy to get a budget boy-racer image without the performance to back it up. Those wanting a real roadster experience should look elsewhere.
When Harlan Carruthers, a charismatic cowboy who seems as if he would be much more at home in Monument Valley than in the San Fernando Valley, has a chance encounter with Tobe, a bored and restless suburban teenager, both of their lives are turned upside down. To Harlan, Tobe embodies all the purity and innocence impossible to find on the mean streets of L.A., while Tobe is drawn to Harlan's poetic charm and romantic spirit. Despite the obvious difference in their ages and backgrounds, the couple pursues their passionate furtive romance until it becomes apparent that Tobe is unprepared for the intensity of Harlan's love. Then, things take a sudden dangerous turn when Tobe discovers that Harlan is not at all what he appeared to be.
