Friday,October28,2011 FILMSMUSICDVDs … · 2012-04-27 · Kal. Sam and Shaun from...

BIRDY: PeopleHelp The People.15-year-old Jasmine Van denBogaerde’s pure and silveryvoice is little short of perfectionon this stirring cover of CherryGhost’s original. The song’suniversal themes and poignantmelody make it perfect forsomeone yet to sit exams. 3.5BORN BLONDE: Radio Bliss. Amodern take on Britpop, with atwinkly backing track that livesup to its blissful title. 3.5CHER LLOYD FT. MIKEPOSNER: With Ur Love. A vastimprovement on her painfuland gimmicky debut, this iscutesy R&B with a fairlyaverage cameo from Posner. 3KELLY ROWLAND: Down ForWhatever. Another clubtasticdance track from the X Factorjudge, in which she explainsher undiscerning approach tosocialising. 3SEAN PAUL FT. ALEXISJORDAN – Got 2 Luv U: Thissynthy duet marks a decentcomeback from the Get Busyrapscallion, aided by Jordan’shoney-vocalled chorus. 3DOG IS DEAD – Hands Down:Youthful Indie pop in a similarilk to Bombay Bicycle Club –this is gentle and palatable, butis at times suspiciously similarto Keane’s Somewhere OnlyWe Know. 3ARCTIC MONKEYS – Suck ItAnd See: Alex Turner et alprovide their fans with whatthey expect on thisgently-paced number whichfeatures their trademarkjangling guitars and wrylydelivered lyrics. 3

KOOKY popster MeganWashington is a realmaverick.She’s Papua New Guinea’sonly chart star and usesKNITTING NEEDLES and CARKEYS as instruments.Her debut album I BelieveYou Liar was a smash inAustralia, selling truckloadsand topping the charts.It’s only just come out inthe US and is released hereon November 7 — but thathas meant she’s been stuckon the road.Megan, 25, said: “I don’treally live anywhere rightnow and I haven’t for almosttwo years, I’ve been back-packing with a keyboardwhich is a very inconvenientway to do it.“It doesn’t have the sameromance as jumping on atrain with an acoustic guitar.

I have to wheel this 35kgkeyboard around in a case.It doesn’t have the sameglamour.”Her unorthodox approachseeped into the recording onthe album’s big single HolyMoses.Megan said: “I recordedthe demo with my friend inLA and he had a little stu-dio in his house. He didn’thave a drum kit or any per-cussion, so we improvised.“He pulled the trash canin and I was knitting at thetime, so I used the needles,then started jangling his carkeys.“We redid it properly in astudio but it didn’t soundright, so I stuck with thatdemo — it gave the song itspersonality.”Now Megan is about toembark on her first UK tour.She’s at Edinburgh’s Elec-tric Circus on Tuesday and

then the following night atKing Tut’s in Glasgow.But it won’t be anostentatious affair — unlikeher spectacular videos.Bonkers Megan said: “Ihave a very, very deep loveof old Hollywood musicals.“I love the escapism andthe pure theatre — that artfor art’s sake mentality.“I’ve been waiting mywhole life for someone toput me in a musical.“So when I got to makevideos, I thought ‘I’ll makemy own musical’.

Luxury“They do feature dancingand a cast of extras butthat’s a luxury I can onlysustain on camera.“Ironically, the shows arehard to describe. It’s gro-tesquely real how things geton stage and often I disgustmyself, it’s kind of creepy.“For this particular tour, Ithink I’m going to get rid ofmy band for the middle ofthe set — and take the timeto stretch out. Before thatI’ve done shorter shows soI’ve had to power throughand bring the attention backto where it truly belongs,which is me.”Q Get tickets and pre-order thealbum at washingtonmusic.com.au

chris.sweeney@the-sun.co.uk

By ERIC MACKINNON

ALICE COOPER’S CV listsmovies, millions of albumsales and even penning anepisode of The Simpsons.But the shock rocker has oneburning ambition to realise beforehe hangs up his mic — treadingthe boards of BROADWAY.The 63-year-old rock icon isfloating the idea of taking his1975 classic Welcome To MyNightmare album and recentWelcome 2 My Nightmare follow-up to the theatre.Alice, who is set to haunt andthrill Glasgow’s SECC on Hallow-een with his legendary live

performance — littered with his‘normal’ props of guillotines,electric chairs and snakes — said:“I would like to see Welcome ToMy Nightmare parts one and twoas one Broadway show.“We could do all of WTMN asact one, an intermission and thenall of W2MN as act two, then doan encore with all the hits likeSchool’s Out. It would be bril-liant to do a month on Broadwaywith just that show.“You could have some of theseats rigged for shocks,smell-o-vision could attack all thesenses. I am sending this idea out

there because I think I’d need asponsor and someone to come inand really put it together.“I think you’d need somebodywho was experienced on Broad-way to tell us what’s doable andwhat’s not.“The only thing I’d insist iswe’d not water down any songs.“A lot of shows go onto Broad-way and suddenly become allorchestra. I’d insist there be arock band on stage.“The funny thing is I don’thave to play Alice. Somebody elsecould do that and I could directhim. I could still play Alice but

15 years from now somebody elsecould play the role.”The veteran shock-rocker iscurrently touring Welcome 2 MyNightmare, which boasts somesurprising guest artists includingpop-rapper Ke$ha.Alice explained: “I thought,‘let’s go back and pull in some ofthe themes from the originalalbum’.“At the same time I wanted towrite songs which would giveAlice a brand new nightmare.“We had to think about whatAlice’s nightmare would be 35years later?“I think disco would still be anightmare for Alice so we did areally cool disco song — and tech-nology would be a nightmare too.

Diva“I also thought if Alice wasgoing to meet the devil in hisnightmare who would that be?Originally I thought ChristopherLee would be great but it wouldmake Alice far more anxious ifthe devil was a pop diva.“That’s where Ke$ha came intothe picture. She did a great job.We wrote the song What BabyWants and it turned out one ofthe best songs on the album.”Alice reckons Ke$ha, along withLady GaGa, shows more ‘rock’tendencies than most rock bands.He said: “I met Lady GaGa andreally liked her a lot.“We got on very well and Ithink both her and Ke$ha are thetwo most rocking of all the girlsout there.“It’s interesting now in rock ‘n’roll that all the young guy bandsare wimpy and it is the girlbands with all the image. Every-body’s so PC right now.”Monday’s gig will be the firsttime Alice has spent Halloweenwith his Scottish fans — and hewants a night to remember.He added: “It’s going to be funon Halloween . . . there are a lot ofghosts in Glasgow.”

HOTHOTTRACKSTRACKSHOTTRACKS

NEWMUSIC

CLUBBING

BY JIMGELLATLY

LIGHTGUIDESWHO: Mark Cowan(guitar/vocals), Martin Murray(guitar), David Cowan(drums/vocals)WHERE: GlasgowFOR FANS OF: Jimmy EatWorld, Biffy Clyro, TwinAtlanticJIM SAYS: It’s funny how aname change can freshenthings up — but I supposeWe Hung Your Leader mightnot be the sort of monikerthat suggests superstarstatus.Somehow LightGuides

seems more palatable.It’s a couple of years since

this Glasgow pop-punk trioswitched, so it’s well andtruly confined to history.LightGuides was the name

of a We Hung Your Leadersong.Originally formed while at

school, brothers Mark andDavid and mate Martin havebeen crafting their art sincegraduating from uni.They followed their debut

mini-album with a bunch ofhigh-profile support slots,and secured a place on theT Break Stage for emergingacts at T In The Park in 2010.Now they are looking

beyond our borders.Signing to Oxford label

Alcopop! has certainly putthem in the shop windowdown south.Mark told me: “Alcopop!

approached us after we sent

out album demos in January.They signed us beforeseeing us live which wealways joke about, but Jackand Kev are the mostambitious and encouragingguys the band have everbeen involved with.“We’re very lucky to be

part of the Alcopop! family.“It’s home to some

amazing bands like JumpingShips, Stagecoach andJohnny Foreigner.”The latest LightGuides

mini-album Samba SambaSamba has been picking upsome great reviews.Inevitably compared to

Biffy, they add anotherdimension to Scotland’sdiverse rock scene.On one side of the coin

they can rock as hard asanyone, but they pull it backwith ease to lay down somebeautiful melodies.Currently planning a

special show in Glasgow forChristmas, plus someEuropean dates in the NewYear, and with more newmaterial in the pipeline, thefuture looks exceedinglybright for LightGuides.MORE: lightguidesmusic.co.ukQ Jim will be playing Light-Guides on In:Demand Uncut— Sunday 7-10pm on Clyde1, Forth One, Northsound 1,Radio Borders, Tay FM,West FM & West Sound FM.See jimgellatly.com

!PRESSURE @ The Arches,Glasgow, tonight: It’s techno

heaven as Loco Dice, below —resident at Ibiza’s notoriousDC10 — headlines the back arch,with local legends Slam warmingup behind the decks.In the front arch, Swedish label

Drumcode celebrates its 15th birth-day with founder Adam Beyer,Joseph Capriati and HarveyMcKay — and the Slam lads alsohead through to play a live set.It’s a high-octane weekend at the

venue — tomorrow night trancesuperstar Eddie Halliwell bringshis Ed-It live show to the stage.

$JACKHAMMER @ TheCaves, Edinburgh, tonight: A

double dose of heavyweight

techno and electro as veteransBilly Nasty and Radioactive Manjoin forces for a special Radio-Nasty show.Between them they’ve clocked

up almost four decades of influen-tial productions and DJ sets so it’ssure to go with a bang. Supportcomes from Wolfjazz and Keyte.

%HOW’S YOUR PARTY x VITA-MINS @ Sub Club, Glasgow,

tonight: Superb line-up of cutting-edge talent, with broken beatlegend Seiji and post-dubstepman-of-the-moment Objekt, not tomention hi-tech beats from LandoKal. Sam and Shaun from Vita-mins do the warm-up honours.

&HEAVY GOSSIP & ULTRA-GROOVE @ Green Room/

Below Stairs, Edinburgh,tomorrow: This haven for realhouse in the capital is going fromstrength to strength and thisHalloween ball should be a belter.Get your fancy dress on and

check out residents GarethSommerville and Nick Yuill, plusHarry Bennett, Jonathan Herd andthe Juicy DJs, playing the bestdeep house and disco grooves.

(ELEMENTS OF SOUL @Basura Blanca, Glasgow,

tonight: Ace house night cele-brates its third birthday in thissuper-cool Merchant City base-ment. Irish duo Fish Go Deep are

the guests, with StephenRodgers and NickFerrara warming up.Q Email your listingsto tom.churchill@the-sun.co.uk

FILMSMUSIC DVDsGAMES BOOKSCOMEDY

BYCHRIS

SWEENEY

BYTOM

CHURCHILL

ONES2WATCH

REGGAE lad Natty is justback from a US trip withZiggy Marley.He hits The Arches in

Glasgow on November 8and Edinburgh’s CabaretVoltaire the night after.Get info at nattymusic.

com

TEENAGE sensation JessHall hails from the unlikelyoutpost of Swindon, butwho cares — she hassome cracking pop tunes.First single Play Shy is a

total gem.Give it a listen now at

jesshallmusic.com

4 SFTW Friday, October 28, 2011