Tomorrow's Guide today
Best day of the week tomorrow. Oh, you know why. This week, our cover’s taken on a distinctly Pinkish hue.
Couple of fine articles from tomorrow’s mag that you can read already:
Parks & Rec joker Aziz Ansari reckons it’s time to get serious.
And droll electro-popper Fryars reveals how to survive when your album’s stuck in record label limbo for four years.
That’s all from Guide Daily for this week. Hold on, we’re going home.
Deface the music
Thames & Hudson recently published a cool coffee table tome called Collector’s Edition, compiling some of the best music packaging and book design of recent years. Now they’ve recruited a bunch of big-name stars to scribble on the cover and are auctioning off these one-of-a-kind editions in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society.
Click here to enter the bidding for “cover bombs” perpetrated by Nick Cave, Wayne Coyne, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel and others.
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The Friday rock show (without Tommy Vance)
Noely G has unveiled the B-side to new single In The Heat Of The Moment, and in classic mid-90s Oasis style, it’s better than the A-side. Highlight? That skronking free jazz sax over the intro. Lowlight? Noel’s increasingly transatlantic singing voice.
At the other end of the cigarettes and alcohol scale, legendarily stern DC punks Fugazi have released their very first demo tape, recorded in 1988 when they were just 10 gigs old.
Residing somewhere between the two, here’s in invigorating blast of sleazy, snarling noise punk from Chicago band Meat Wave.
Unfortunately, I’m now going to ruin it for you by posting their band photo, which is about the least sleazy and snarling thing you’ll see this side of Children Of Need.
Guru tosh
Did you spend yesterday trawling every shop in the borough of Westminster trying to find a copy of The Relationship Guru board game? Well don’t worry, the BBC have put up a version on their website.
Sadly it doesn’t have all the questions but it does include my favourite: Men think women should…? a) Iron b) Smile more c) Always be happy. A lifetime’s worth of personal frustration and passive-aggressive misogyny condensed onto one quiz card.
Review Anything
Forgot to say earlier, it’s Review Anything day today. If there’s something you’ve made – a song, a game, a topical internet parody video – then tweet it to us @guideguardian or leave a link in the comments and we’ll get one of our notoriously hard-to-please critics to give it the once over. Because all publicity is good publicity, right?
It takes a lot to make a stew
It had to happen sooner or later: someone’s mashed-up Sesame Street with the viral video sensation of the moment to create Too Many Cookies. Nice idea, but they’ve missed a trick in terms of the execution (and the singing’s a bit wonky to boot).
In fact, the internet’s let me down here. I expected some better Too Many Cooks tributes than these.
Actually I spoke too soon, this chiptune cover is pretty good – as if that demonically catchy theme tune wasn’t haunting your dreams already.
(Piggy)Backseat Freestyle
Some more things that happened on American telly last night.
- Portlandia’s Fred Armiesen and Carrie Brownstein (now also once again of Sleater-Kinney) were on the Rachel Ray Show, which looks like the American version of Daily Brunch. It seems a bit more basic though, as they carefully explained how to make… a cheese toastie. Video here.
2. Jon Stewart was too embarrassed to plug his own film Rosewater on the Daily Show. So he made John Oliver do it instead.
3. And this weekend’s Saturday Night Live was trailed by Woody Harrelson giving a piggyback to Kendrick Lamar.
Perhaps he will perform his whole song from that vantage point, Leo Sayer style?
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Royals flush
Lorde was busy yesterday. First she was in the Radio 1 live lounge covering Jeremih’s Don’t Tell Em. (Is it me, or has the Live Lounge really upped its game recently? Coveting the drummer’s Cocteau Twins tee, too.)
Then she released her version of Bright Eyes’ Ladder Song, from the Mockingjay soundtrack. Never been a Conor Oberst fan, and this sounds typically insipid to me.
Much more fun is Stromae’s Meltdown, in which Lorde joins a motley crew of guest stars, also including Haim, Q-Tip and Pusha T. Now that is one formidable party posse.
"This film's been up my ass for the last five years…"
Morning all. Benedict Cumberbatch’s new film is called The Imitation Game, so MTV challenged him to imitate a bunch of other actors. Not sure his Michael Caine would pass the Steve Coogan test, but his Nicholson and McConaughey are OK, and he makes a decent fist of Walken in the end.
Here are some more of BC’s impressions:
Watch your back, Culshaw.
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