Jacko dead

Michael Jackson is dead. He never was LIM's musical cup of tea. I hated Thriller when it came out: after all the years of post-punk and 'new wave' American mass-produced pop-pap was obviously back in a big way, firstly with Jackson then with Madonna etc etc. He played in big part in the "MTV revolution" especially with the Thriller video, which again was Reagan- driven US music for the masses being exported with ease to Thatcher's UK, Europe and the rest of the world.
Jackson's eccentric behavio(u)r, Neverland home built especially with children in mind (ahem) and last but not least his desire to look like Diana Ross, but whiter, were all part of the Whacko-Jacko package, and after all he was finally proved 'innocent' of certain crimes.
But when all's said and done you have to hand it to him - he did some cracking pop songs and yes I secretly did like Don't Stop Til You Get Enough, Billie Jean and later Black or White and a few others.
In the year of Obama's "black revolution" the black man who wanted to become white passed away. RIP Michael Jackson.

The quiet man speaks

Official sites The Quiet Man and Metamatic have given details of the new John Foxx CD The Quiet Man which features some of the surreal, dream-like stories from the musician's on-going novel about London of the same name.
‘The origins of the novel are firmly cinematic,’ says Foxx. ‘I found an old grey suit in a charity shop in the 1970s. Over the years, I got some friends to wear the suit in various locations in London. I filmed them just walking or sitting in cafes or apartments. As I did this, The Quiet Man story began to emerge. It’s about London becoming overgrown, about the suit being alive somehow, and the way cities can alter us - and our memories. ‘It’s also about film’, he adds. ‘In the novel, The Quiet Man walks into the screen at one point. I think we all do this when we view a film, we enter into it. Participate. Travelling without moving. If that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.’
The Quiet Man CD will be issued on Monday 27th July and will be exclusive to the Foxx Official Shop at Townsend Records. This will be Foxx's 4th CD release this year.

The issue of the CD coincides with a new exhibition, DNA,which features images and narratives from the book alongside work by visual artists, film-makers, illustrators, Manga artists, graphic designers and musicians who have been inspired by the character and different aspects of Foxx's thirty-year career.



John Foxx: keeping it Quiet

Phil in Boots

The Human League's Philip Oakey has made a guest appearance on a track on Little Boots' new album Hands. The track, entitled Symmetry, was also performed live by the not-entirely-unlikely duo at a recent LB gig. It's a stomping track which fits in seamlessly with all the other frankly amazing songs in Blackpool-born Victoria Hesketh's debut. Close your eys and you can imagine a 1981-style Oakey singing it on TOTP.
"I'm a huge Human League fan and I just didn't think it would happen. When [singer] Phil Oakey said he would do it, I was like, 'Wow, incredible', because I'm just a massive fan".

Little Boots' electro-driven debut bears all the influences of greats such as The Human League, Pet Shop Boys, Heaven 17 et al yet the numerous references to Kylie by some critics are a little shallow and ill-founded. Hesketh writes all our own material and is a keyboard and techno wiz (witness her deftly using the Yamaha Tenori-on). A child of her time, and a very talented one at that. LIM says: Real new talent..at last!




Little Boots with Phil Oakey: together in electric dreams.






sources: BBC, Electronically Yours


Little Boots official

30 years of Pleasures

NME special this week:

K-Punk article on FACT magazine

New Nouvelle news

Well love em or hate em Nouvelle Vague are back with a new album of their off-beat versions of various punk and new wave songs, making this their third so far. The new album - appropriately entitled '3' - differs from the band's previous albums however in that it actually features the original singers on some of the songs - Ian McCulloch on the Bunnymen's All My Colours, Terry Hall on Our Lips Are Sealed and Martin Gore on Master & Servant among them.
Other songs covered include laid back versions of Gary Numan's Metal, Psychedelic Furs' Heaven, The Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen and Simple Minds' The American.
Nouvelle Vague, led by producer/arrangers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux and a revolving cast of chanteuses, embark on an extensive world tour this weeks rating in New York taking in much of Europe up until December.

NV on my space
NV offical site


Nouvelle Vague: il sont fous ces francais . .mais très aimables.