Stuart Waterman

As my flatmate is moving out in March, I need to locate me a new one. I live in a rather nice place in N8 near Crouch End – details and photos below. You’d be sharing with me and me alone. The double bedroom up for grabs has an ensuite bathroom & shower!!1

As a thirtysomething year-old adult, I’m not really after a perma-partying party person. I also feel like I’ve paid my dues as far as sharing living space with full-on lunatoids like Eddie here.

What I’d ideally like is a considerate, stable, relatively grown-up, laidback-but-not-horizontal type (male/female/whatever) who has an awareness of basic hygeine and isn’t averse to washing dishes and using a hoover in a frenzied manner now and again 15 minutes before people come to visit.

Email me at waterman.stuart(at)gmail.com/call 07929 358 179 if you’d like to arrange a viewing. Please make some attempt to convince me you’re not a maniac when doing so.
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Available mid-March. £600 pcm excluding bills – council tax, electricity, water, phone line, internet, TV licence. Flat is all-electric – no gas central heating. Heating comes via Economy 7 heaters in lounge, kitchen, hallway and bedrooms (flat is pretty well-insulated).

Double bedroom with ensuite bathroom on 2nd floor of a modern, secure purpose-built block in London N8.

3 minutes’ walk to Hornsey train station: First Capital Connect southbound trains to Finsbury Park (5 minutes), Highbury & Islington (7 minutes), Old Street (15 minutes) and King’s Cross on the weekend (15 minutes).

7 minutes’ walk to Turnpike Lane tube station on Piccadilly Line, Zone 3. Buses to Camden, central London, Crouch End, Muswell Hill, Alexandra Palace, Tottenham, Leyton, etc.

15 minutes’ walk to Crouch End, 10 minutes’ walk to Wood Green high street which has Sainsbury’s, M&S, the usual high street suspects, cinema, etc. Corner shop/off licence nearby (and proper chip shop, too).

BEDROOM

Ensuite bathroom with toilet, shower, basin, towel heater.
Desk & wardrobe included; bed not included.

ENSUITE BATHROOM

Includes shower; toilet seat also goes down.

LOUNGE

Table & chairs, shelves, TV stand included.
TV, sofa, coffee table not included.

Sofa and coffee table on the right included.

Balcony off the lounge!

KITCHEN

Microwave included.
Also has dishwasher, washer/dryer, cooker (electric), fridge/freezer.
I own hardly any pots, pans, crockery etc and my flatmate will be taking his with him, so if you have loads of that kind of stuff there’s plenty of room for it.

HALLWAY

Including entryphone and small wardrobe for coats, hoover, etc.

That little snapshot up there is from Snoop Dogg’s new video, “Gangster Love” “Gangsta Luv”. It’s an odd moment – amongst all the usual lady-based booty-quaking and gyrationalisms, there’s Snoop in the back seat of his whip having noodles chopsticked into his mouth by an Asian “lovely”.

I suppose after a few years in the game you probably run out of ways to humourously objectify women, so it’s heartening to see Snoop and his video director switching things up a bit.

Kudos also for the moment when, while zipping along in a speedboat with another buttock-flaunting entourage, Snoop smacks two ladies on their badonkadonks – and knocks them overboard. Nary a raised eyebrow from Mr. Dogg, of course, despite said ladies’ almost certainly not living to shake their bumcakes again.

Snoop Dogg – Gangsta Luv on MUZU.

The first – and in all likelihood last – of My Chemical Toilet’s video tutorials shows how to teach yourself Calvin Harris’s awesome “You Used To Hold Me” on the stylophone.

“RATE AND SUBSCRIBE”

As revelations go, the above is about as surprising as waking up in the morning. But Karin Dreijer deserves credit for not giving up on that whole “I’m going to spook the bollocks out of you” vibe she’s been mining for a while, even if she is tipping over into self-parody.

Not that you’ll be thinking in such an analytical fashion when you see her with a big “V” on her face for no particular reason in the vid for “Stranger Than Kindness”. Nay, you’ll be doing your darndest not to shityapants.

Merry Halloween, everyone!*

*I know it’s not Halloween for a couple of days yet, but the chances of me getting time to post again before Saturday are, how you say, “slim to fuck-all”.

John-Scott Croly skipped along to Wimbledon’s Watershed to see Band Of Skulls (above) support some people called The London Punks t’other day week.

Hotly-tipped Southampton blues-rockers Band of Skulls were this show’s not-so-secret support act, squeezing in a quick one on their way back home for a well-earned weekend off. They blew the sweaty roof off the Watershed’s dank back room – not that any of the 20 or so glass-eyed punters noticed.

Without their own following, the trio had to make do with the headliners’ early crowd – a smattering of arm-folders and phone-fiddlers who steadfastly refused to be won over, seemingly out of some kind of fierce-yet-misguided loyalty to The London Punks.

To add insult to injury, I managed to piss off drummer Matt when we spoke briefly outside. Turned out he wasn’t too happy with my drunken admission to illegally downloading their album. Oops. All in all, a shit night for Band of Skulls – a shame really, because they were fucking splendid.

Around twenty minutes later the chin-strokers finally got what they wanted when unfortunately-monikered electro-skankers The London Punks ambled on to the stage. The (by now much denser) crowd were off their chops right from the get-go, but this time it was my turn to be nonplussed.

XFM-friendly debut single “Pretty Girl” was by far the best tune on the night, rattling along like The Faint’s contribution to a Madness remix album that (thankfully) exists only in my own twisted imagination. Other tracks showed promise but lacked substance; an impressively massive sound not quite masking the below-par tunes underneath.

The London Punks are busy talking up their big name connections – singer Nathan has previously released records on Basement Jaxx’s label Atlantic Jaxx, while guitarist Greg Wizard has worked with The Chemical Brothers and MIA. P’raps then it’s time to call in a few favours, because given a bit of help with some good old fashioned songwriting, these cats might just have their fifteen minutes yet.

Listen to Band Of Skulls at We7.com

Listen to The London Punks at We7.com

John-Scott Croly skipped along to Wimbledon’s Watershed to see Band Of Skulls (above) support some people called The London Punks t’other day week.

Hotly-tipped Southampton blues-rockers Band of Skulls were this show’s not-so-secret support act, squeezing in a quick one on their way back home for a well-earned weekend off. They blew the sweaty roof off the Watershed’s dank back room – not that any of the 20 or so glass-eyed punters noticed.

Without their own following, the trio had to make do with the headliners’ early crowd – a smattering of arm-folders and phone-fiddlers who steadfastly refused to be won over, seemingly out of some kind of fierce-yet-misguided loyalty to The London Punks.

To add insult to injury, I managed to piss off drummer Matt when we spoke briefly outside. Turned out he wasn’t too happy with my drunken admission to illegally downloading their album. Oops. All in all, a shit night for Band of Skulls – a shame really, because they were fucking splendid.

Around twenty minutes later the chin-strokers finally got what they wanted when unfortunately-monikered electro-skankers The London Punks ambled on to the stage. The (by now much denser) crowd were off their chops right from the get-go, but this time it was my turn to be nonplussed.

XFM-friendly debut single “Pretty Girl” was by far the best tune on the night, rattling along like The Faint’s contribution to a Madness remix album that (thankfully) exists only in my own twisted imagination. Other tracks showed promise but lacked substance; an impressively massive sound not quite masking the below-par tunes underneath.

The London Punks are busy talking up their big name connections – singer Nathan has previously released records on Basement Jaxx’s label Atlantic Jaxx, while guitarist Greg Wizard has worked with The Chemical Brothers and MIA. P’raps then it’s time to call in a few favours, because given a bit of help with some good old fashioned songwriting, these cats might just have their fifteen minutes yet.

Listen to Band Of Skulls at We7.com

Listen to The London Punks at We7.com

I’m not one for R&B ballads, really. They tend to be syrupy and over-emotive, which is obviously a generalisation but, you know, given the choice between a ballad and a club “banger” it’s the bangful one that wins me over 85% of the time.

However, like the very best pop songs, Brit soul type McLean’s “Broken” manages to transcend the genre with which it would be most closely associated. It’s a heartbroken, overwrought fist-clencher which, in a landscape of overproduced, autotuned pop spaff with half an eye on ringtone sales, actually makes you believe the singer is properly, hair-tearingly lovewrecked. Marvellous.

It also has a very interesting history, having first surfaced way back in 2006, when McLean went by the name of Digga (since changed because an American artist went by the same name). Unbeknownst to me, it became an online sensation, racking up millions of plays on YouTube and prompting, seemingly, everyone with a webcam to produce their own version.

The earliest versions of the song I can find are from 2007 – this one alone has over 2.8 millions plays at the time of writing:

Which isn’t bad for a song that has never actually been released. Apparently it was all over urban and pirate radio stations, and I think I read somewhere that it even got play on New York station Hot 97.

The real mark of success in the noughties, however, is how many deep n’ meaningful slideshows a song can soundtrack on video-sharing sites. “Broken” soundtracks bucketloads of the things. Here’s one featuring tears, blood-stained roses and Cupid shot dead by an arrow in the back:

While it’s reasonable to assume the song is about a guy getting dumped by his missus, listen carefully and you’ll hear a lyric that sounds suspiciously like “every day I wish it had been me that had died,” implying that he’s angry with his other half for popping her clogs. Which lends the song a whole other “level”.

Plus, if you scroll through the comments under the various versions on YouTube – not an activity you’d normally dream of undertaking, I know – you might encounter the odd claim that this darker interpretation of the lyrics is closely related to events in Digga’s own life.

Woah.

Sometime in 2008 a new version of the song surfaced, with plusher production, a key change and running a touch longer:

It was only a matter of time before remixes started hitting the netz. This one makes it a bit faster:

This one makes it faster still:

This one tools it up for “the clubs”:

And this one adds what the original most obviously lacked – a big bloody donk:

I wonder what Digga thought as he witnessed so many people fiddling with his track, bearing in mind he quite possibly hadn’t made a penny out of it yet.

Likewise with the cover versions that started to hit YouTube – there are loads of them, and while they vary in quality they all exist because, ultimately, people love the song.

This one’s very good, despite (or because of) being recorded in a hotel bathroom:

This one’s quite good:

And this one isn’t any good at all:

Then there are the “remixes” featuring big names – in other words, the original with a guest rap tacked on here and there.

Here’s one with a bit of Lil Wayne purloined from somewhere:

DJ Ironik manages to trash this version – but it did actually appear on his own album, so perhaps Digga made a few quid out of it:

While Tinchy Stryder is slightly more bearable on this rendition – another official remix:

Tinchy’s rap appears over the NEW new version of the song, which is where this interesting little tale ends. Sleek, effective and with none of the swears or references to “smoking weed” that appeared in the original, it also has a polished video – the result of it being released, finally, as a proper single (through US label Asylum, a subsidiary of Warner Music no less – release date TBC, but probably around the end of November) under the artist name McLean:

If just a fraction of the people who have loved this song on the internet pay to download it, it will be massive. Similarly, since he’s now recording an album with big-name producers, it’s pretty hard to see how McLean, Digga, or whatever he chooses to call himself, can fail.

For a bonus, here he is doing an acoustic version for the Beeb – you might be surprised at his speaking voice:

Look at that image, and listen to this song, and like me you might just come to the realisation that Kid Sister is surely destined to be a bona fide, proper, soon-to-be-sullied-by-a-guest-rap-from-Akon pop star.

Her songs are ravey enough for clubs but accessible enough for the pop charts, she’s collaborated with Kanye West already and she gets remixed by people so cool you haven’t heard of them. Although she has been “up and coming” for a while now, so let’s hope her moment hasn’t passed. Her album Ultraviolet is out in November.

While I’m being nice I’ll also apportion two and a half props to RCRD LBL, which not only showcases splendid music but is also the kind of site pilfering bloggers like me like a lot – they provide handy, easily-shareable wee widgets like that one up there.

Sounds simple, but it’s a notion that still escapes a lorra record companies…

Jack Daniel, despite being dead, still gets to have a birthday. Or rather his “product”, Jack Daniel’s Tennesee Whiskey, does. That Jane Bradley went along to see Brett Anderson, Carl Barat and Jon McClure perform at a special bash t’other week, and this is what she thunkabourrit.

The Jack Daniel’s Birthday Set is an exclusive sort of affair. Tickets for it can’t be bought; it’s competitions winners and media only. There’s only capacity for four hundred in the Village Underground vaults, so you’d assume some elitism about the kind of riff-riff they let wangle their way in. Luckily for me, not so.

Every September, the folks at Jack Daniel’s organise shindigs like these to celebrate the birthday of the Tennessee whiskey wizard. The calibre of the “rock royalty” performing varies; previous celebrations have included Patti Smith, Juliette Lewis and Frank Black.

Apparently I was to be treated to an assortment of sterling musicians across a spectrum of genres, but as soon as I heard Carl Barât’s name being bandied about, I started to get suspicious…

The New Silver Cornet Band, from Nashville, have an impressive biography between them and provided the backing for the three headline acts. With a combined age of at least a few hundred, these granddaddies of rock have worked with Elvis, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. And to open the show Wayne Carson, who wrote the much-covered “Always On My Mind”, performed it live for the first time ever. The sentimental Pet Shop Boys fangirl in me was swooning all over the show.

It didn’t take long for me to develop a whopper of a crush on Rosie Vanier, the leading lady of Rosie and the Goldbug, who played keyboards. Her voice is gorgeous, and for one so small in stature she has huge stage presence. In her frilly frock, cinch belt and glitter make-up, Rosie had far more charisma than Jon ‘the Rev’ McClure, the first of the headliners onstage.

With his Gallagher swagger and loutish arrogance, Jon McClure comes across like a cocky thug spoiling for a fight outside a takeaway at 2am on a Friday night. As a mouthy Northerner who has happily indulged in the occasional bar-brawl myself, I can’t judge him too harshly for this. He probably thinks it’s part of his charm. But without the talent to back it up, his droning voice and Bez-from-Happy-Mondays-ish bumbling around the stage just grated on my nerves.

Thankfully it wasn’t too long before Brett Anderson time. Many of my schoolgirl fantasies featured Brett’s razorblade cheekbones and shapely derriere, so I was eager to appraise whether the ravages of time and illegal substances had dampened this effect. Joy of joys, he’s definitely still got it.

Belting out the hits and pouting and posing just like he did in Suede’s heyday, it was like the last fifteen years had never happened. Although his flouncing diva-fit when the sound quality wavered made me cringe, he soon swallowed his strop for a storming rendition of “Trash” that made me nostalgic for 90s Britpop and the days of smooching floppy-fringed indie boys at rubbish Belle & Sebastian-themed discos.

I couldn’t tell you about Carl Barât’s performance, because the sight of his face and the sound of his voice make me feel physically sick, so I scurried outside to vomit and stayed there until he was safely offstage.

But many happy returns to Mr. Daniel, and I’m sure my sudden illness was nothing to do with my imbibing copious quantities of his whiskey.

This abruptly vomit-streaked review was brought to you by the marv Jane Bradley. Thank you Jane. Now have a Tums.

Interesting tactic from Ali Love’s PR folk here – sending out an email as if it’s actually FROM Ali Love. There was me thinking a nascent pop star was getting in touch to say hi, but nah, it’s just another email full of remixes.

Still, it got me to open the message and now I’m giving their “client” “coverage”, so job done really.

The email contained his new video “Diminishing Returns”, which you can see below. It’s all a bit dull (unlike the song, which is rather good) until Ali decides to don some chainmail. An underused accoutrement in music videos, the old chainmail.

Having said that, I am telling you now: if I see someone wearing chainmail in an east London bar, I’m emigrating.

Buy Ali Love MP3s at 7Digital