OK, so now it’s 103 degrees so you’ll forgive me if I stay under canvas in VIP and neck a cool beer instead of hauling myself the quarter mile across this parched site to see Duffy.
Leafing through last week's edition of Entertainment Weekly during a quiet moment in the office, I came across a three-quarter page spread devoted to a new band called She & Him. The "Him" here is M Ward while -- and this is what piqued my curiousity -- the "She" is Zooey Deschanel, the American indie actress who made her rep in David Gordon Green's brilliant All The Real Girls.
It struck me, following on from Scarlett Johannson's album of Tom Waits' covers, that this is the second time in as many months an alt-Hollywood "It" Girl has made a record. Which, inevitably, led me to wonder why exactly the good ladies and gentlemen of the movie industry feel the need to divert their talents out of their immediate comfort zone and into the world of music.
The Raconteurs album is playing for the second time this morning, and I’ve just got round to reading the paperwork which arrived in my inbox with the download just before 9am. “Consolers Of The Lonely”, it notes, is “loud, bombastic and littered with changes of tempo.” Can’t argue with any of that.
A small recurring theme here these past few weeks has been the work of John ‘Speedo’ Reis, with the release of Rocket From The Crypt’s posthumous live album, “RIP” and the appearance of a new band called The Night Marchers on Myspace. Now, the Night Marchers album has arrived, and I reckon it may be the poppiest thing Reis has ever been involved with.
