Commercially Inviable artists Friends of the Stars, James Summerfield and World of Fox now have pages on Bandcamp.
You can listen to entire albums, download selected tracks and share with friends, all within the individual Bandcamp windows.
It’s what all the cool kids are doing, you know.
Well, yes….but that’s hardly the point.
We’re 3 weeks into the new series of Britains Got Talent and the whole world knows who Susan Boyle is following her 25 trillion You Tube hits, but the group that caught my attention last night was one cruelly treated by the judges, and given only scant airtime: The Synth Sisters
For those that missed it, The Synth Sisters are an all-female keyboard troupe who attempted to bontempi their way onto the bill of The Royal Variety Performance with a display of synchronised, instrumental music. By way of spectacle they occasionally engaged in some vaguely disinterested ‘one-hand-in-the-air’ keyboard moves, whilst not a single one of them looked up from their keyboards towards the audience. It was pretty piss-poor, but somehow compelling, and worth a place in the next round.
If you’ve seen the movie Donnie Darko, imagine what might have happened had when the members of Sparkle Magic hit their teenage years, lost interest and only stayed together in the regional entertainment business to please their parents. Talking of which, there is only one video online at the moment and it appears to have been uploaded by one of the Synth Moms, and it looks to have been recorded by pointing a video camera at the telly. Without the sound on.
When a better one appears online, and it will, I’ll post it here. In the meantime….behold:
You’d think we’d be bored of DONK! by now, but we’re not.
Strangely, and despite it’s simplicity and apparent dumbness, it just seems to be the gift that keeps on giving…
….and the prove that we’re correct on that point, new online is the rather fabulous DonkDJ.
In a nutshell, you upload the MP3 of your choice to DonkDJ and within minutes you are able download a donk remix MP3 of your song. It’s probably done by computers, or something, but it’s fair to say that the kids are going totally batshit for it, and it’s taking Twitter by storm.
Completely unable to resist the refected glory of a Friends of the Stars DONK remix, we sent off the song Dragonfly…
Listen: DragonDonk
Enjoy
There once was a time when the 45rpm vinyl single was king and as a consequence record labels used to put a lot of effort into the artwork that adorned their generic, factory sleeves.
Record Envelope is a website that is attempting to bring them all together and stick ‘em online in the one place, allowing the likes of you and I to gawp at them.
It is, as their banner suggests, a little library of factory sleeves, which is a nice thing.
So, if you’ve got a sleeve that’s not in their growing and lovingly displayed online collection then I’m sure they’d love to hear from you. I don’t know where they are based, but that hardly matters these days. Go rummage in yer singles box….
Epsiode 14 of the Friends of the Stars Podcast is here….
FOTS-POD#14 “Robson The Headless Thompson Gunner” follows the tried and tested Music + Swearing formula that has proven so successful in previous broadcasts. So successful has this been in fact that interweb subscribers to this rubbish now number more than 20..Who are you people? Seriously. Maybe you’d like to get in touch and ask Executive Producer Robson a question? Email info@friendsofthestars.co.uk with what’s on your mind.
This episode features music from Percy Sledge, The Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra whilst the boys disucss The Movies Of Stephen Seagal, Front Row on BBC Radio 4, Podcasting in the Nude and Whether of not the CIA listen to FOTS-POD.
LISTEN
TRACKLISTING
“Drifting Texas Sand” - Webb Pierce
“Keep and Open Mind” - Captain
“Back in Black” - EC/PC
“It Tears Me Up” - Percy Sledge
“Good Timin’” - The Beach Boys
“I Would Be In Love (Anyway)” - Frank Sinatra
“Step into Christmas” - Elton John
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This is from Nicky over there on the Digbeth is Good website….
In the raffle at Twestival on 12th Feb I was lucky enough to win a cover of a song of my choice by Friends of the Stars, which was kindly donated by member Craig Hamilton. I inevitably chose an Irish folk song - my favourite, Black Velvet Band.
But then I went and butchered the lyrics to reflect the recent Noise Abatement Order problems suffered by The Spotted Dog and The Rainbow, so the hairpiece is worn by a noisy colleen who gets a poor Digbeth barman into all sorts of trouble. Play it in the little playbox above or download a 128kbps version (5mb), which should be small enough for downloads. I’ll be burning a few CD’s for all the local pubs in good time for St Patrick’s Day.
I hope you like it, I think it’s beautifully done. If you hate it because you’re an ardent Dubliners fan and this amounts to sacrilege, I’m really very sorry. If it’s any consolation, my Dad’s going to kill me.
Here’s the credits:
Friends of the Stars - Black Velvet Band (Trad.)
Additional Lyrics by Nicky Getgood
Arrangement by Friends of the Stars
Recorded in Birmingham and Glasgow in Feb 2009 by Friends of the Stars
Anna Russell - Vocals
Campbell Docherty - Bass, Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals
Craig Hamiltion - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Piano kindly played by Rich Batsford
Episode 13 of the Friends of the Stars Podcast is an accidental Burns Night Special. Normally the mention of specific dates and events are avoided when the podcasts are recorded, and mainly because the finished article often takes an age to go online. However, and as you’ll hear, the date and time cat was allowed to go galloping out of the bag on this one..
As well as laying down the plans for 2009 at the allotment, Executive Producer Robson and Craig discuss The Myth of The Deep-Fried Mars Bar, How Hard It Is To Dig A Grave and Whether Or Not You Can Eat Heroin. As usual the idle talk features the occasional outburst of choice language and comes packaged with a selection of fine tunes, new and old, including a fantastic New Order cover by Laura Cantrell.
Enjoy!
TRACKLISTING:
She & Him - “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here”
Starland Vocal Band - “Afternoon Delight”
Laura Cantrell - “Love Vigilantes”
Merle Travis - “Fat Gal”
Jorge Ben- “Ponta De Lança Africana (Umbabaraumba)”
PJ Harvey - “When Under Ether”
Bruce Springsteen - “The Wrestler”
LISTEN:
The only telly show I genuinely love is The Bill. I think The Bill is ace, and whilst everyone is entitled to their opinion, and so on and so forth, anyone that says otherwise is a clart.
Anyway…This is note to tell y’all that Limmy’s Show is on the telly just now.
For those of you that don’t know, Limmy is (quote) an internet sensation (unquote). That sort of billing would normally mean he’d be fucking rubbish, but he’s not. Limmy is responsible for this, which by a considerable distance remains the best thing ever to be put up on the internet.
Aside from constructing swearing xylophones he’s also spent that last 3 or 4 years making and posting the occasional video on his site, and I guess this is why he’s now making telly. The online videos are often funny because they are strange and disturbing, videos like this one…
Limmy’s Show was only shown on BBC Scotland this week, but I believe it’s due to be repeated on BBC3 at some stage soon. If you’re desperate to watch it now you can see it on the BBC iPlayer. If you live outside the UK then then I’m not sure if the links will work…sorry about that…but at least you know, deep down in your heart, that none of your hard-earned money is going to Jeremy Clarkson.
When Friends of the Stars first started in 2000 (as Buick 6) there was none of this new fangled digital bollocks to record stuff on, you know. Well, ok, there was…but it was very expensive and had a strange science fiction-like feel to it. It certainly wasn’t to be trusted, I remember that much.
At the time, we recorded everything on a 4-track machine and the now defunct cassette tape was the medium of choice. Tapes aren’t made these days - there’s no call for them - but I still have around 300 of the things in a box that one day I’ll get around to digitizing. I just hope that day comes before they degrade and become unplayable.
Aside from using them as recording tools, tapes were also what record collecting freak boys lke me used as the primary tool in the wooing of chicks. I made tapes for a fair few girls, and sometimes they liked the tapes enough to go out with me for a bit. Happy days.
..all of which is why I was delighted to come across this slideshow of cassette tape inlay cards.
Here’s the first of a 5-part “Story of Donk” from VBS.TV
Not sure if there really is a need for subtitles when kids from Bolton speak, but nevertheless….
DONK!
