Archive for September 8, 2008

Noel Gallagher gets the shove

8 September 2008 at 9:21 pm · Filed under Music ·Tagged , , ,

On the off-chance that somebody reading here didn’t see this elsewhere ….

Last night during the Oasis set at the Virgin Festival in Toronto, a member of the audience jumped onstage and pushed Noel Gallagher down, before being grabbed by security.

Here’s the video (jump ahead to around 1:30 if you have ADD):

You can read more about it on Pitchfork (with snarky commentary) or StereoGum (whose report is mildly lighter on snark) or the NME (who really are no fun at all).  Apparently the band came back on after a five minute break to finish the set (minus a rumored guest appearance by Paul Weller), after which Noel was sent off to the hospital to be examined for a “suspected fractured rib and ligament damage”.  The assailant was arrested.

(tangentially related reminisces below the fold)

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Swinging Popsicle’s Change EP

8 September 2008 at 10:12 am · Filed under Music ·Tagged , , ,

Change E.P.

Change E.P.

I’ve written before about Swinging Popsicle, one of my favorite Japanese indie rock bands. The first thing I ever bought from them was the Change EP, and it’s still one of my favorites (my other fave is last year’s great Go on). Released in 2001, the band had already been around for a few years and had refined their songwriting somewhat, but still possessed a rawer, live sound that is a bit surprising compared to the more polished studio work they do today.

Lead-off track “Change” is a wonderful piece of noisy guitar pop, played at a frantic, almost punky pace. The next track, “Juliana”, alternates between minor-key acoustic verses and a pounding chorus. My favorite is track three, “Outerspace”, which marries distorted shoegazer guitars to a more traditional pop song structure. Mineko Fujishima’s vocals can be thin, but here it works in the song’s favor, offering a sweet counterpart to the charging, overamped guitar. The EP closes with “Falldown”, a nice mid-tempo ballad, slowing things down after the fast pace of the first three tracks.

“Juliana” and “Outerspace” are both streaming from their MySpace page, and you can buy the tracks from JapanFiles (I’ve also seen listings for an import CD that combines this single with the 60’s soul inspired “Orange”/”Toi” single – also available on JapanFiles – and two other songs I don’t know).

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