Tonight's TV
Don’t do anything tonight. There’s most likely a box/10 metre-wide screen in your living room that will provide all of the following entertainment for free.
Toast Of London returns for a second series tonight (10.35pm, C4) - with Clem Fandango in tow, obviously. Here’s a teaser below.
We also asked protagonist Steven Toast some pressing questions about thespian life in this Saturday’s Guide. Sadly, couldn’t be arsed to answer them - but his agent Jane Plough valiantly stepped in instead, divulging details of actorly life and namedropping the likes of Angela Rippon, Tim Pigott-Smith and Dan Snow.
Glue concludes tonight (10pm, E4) as we finally find out #whokilledcal, as E4’s determined Twitter hashtag would have it.
The latest spuriously-titled national identity-themed show Make Leicester British is on C4 at 9pm, whilst five-part Tony Jordan first world war drama The Passing Bells begins at 7pm on BBC1.
Last but in no way least, Micky Flanagan begins a banter-fuelled bike ride with mate Noel around France and Belgium in his Detour De France at 9pm on Sky1. How far round the route will their banter get them? Only time will tell.
Hookworms stream The Hum/ Röyksopp stream The Inevitable End
Hookworms are streaming their second album The Hum over at their label’s website ahead of its release on November 10th, with a beautifully designed player page courtesy of guitarist JW.
You can listen to On Leaving - the band’s latest release from their upcoming album - below.
Meanwhile, Röyksopp are streaming their last ever album over on Noisey, The Inevitable End, also out November 10th. It doesn’t spell the end for the duo, though - it’s just the album format the pair are moving away from rather than recorded sound itself.
Updated
New & Exclusive Nils Frahm Video
We’ve got a brand new exclusive video by Berlin-based electro-classical composer Nils Frahm for his track Hammers.
The video time-lapses 3 1/2 hours of gig set-up footage, showing what goes into the prep for his performances. Nils said:
When you guys come to see my show, then most of the days work is done already. After setting up my instruments I am ready to enjoy the performance as much as the people attending it. The setup takes many hours and while you do it, you must think at one point: “how would all that fiddling and tweaking look in fast forward?” Well, here is the answer.
Hammers is from Frahm’s 2013 album Spaces (available on www.erasedtapes.com) and he will embark on his second North American tour this year (see www.nilsfrahm.com for details).
Lunchtime Links
- Vulture have published a Jon Stewart New York Magazine interview from 1994, which covers Stewart’s excessive body hair, the brainpower of his MTV show viewers and late-night chat shows wars with Conan. You can watch some low quality footage of the latter on Stewart’s show that very year below.
- Also recently unearthed from the pop culture crypts is this late 80s mixtape by Kurt Cobain, brilliantly titled Montage of Heck.
- Aphex Twin apparently has an electronic musical prodigy for a son. In a recent interview, Richard James said that his six year-old has already published an album on Bandcamp (you can listen to some of his alleged handiwork below) and that his eight year-old is thoroughly unimpressed with his dad’s progress in the digital sphere - James said “i ask my eldest what he’s doing and he just gives me that look of aww gawd, explain to the old man face, classic.”
SNL Round-Up
More weekend happenings from across the pond now (they seem to be having a lot more fun than us over there :’( ), here’s what happened when Chris Rock took up hosting duties for this week’s edition of Saturday Night Live.
In his terrorism-themed opening monologue, Rock starts off by riffing on the Boston marathon bombing - to what sounds like quite a frosty crowd - before ripping into the arrogance of New York’s 9/11 memorial Freedom Tower and segueing into a rant about the cold commercialism that defines American culture. Which isn’t your usual SNL fare. If that isn’t enough evidence of Rock’s Messianic greatness, here’s Bim Adewunmi in last week’s Weekend Magazine on why the comedian is categorically the best ever.
Prince played a SNL record-breaking eight minute set. That we’re not allowed to watch in this country, so you’ll have to look at this old picture of Prince below instead. Told you it was more fun over there.
Finally, the show addressed Taylor Swift-mania by introducing us to Swiftamine, the cure for all that Taylor Swift-induced vertigo that’s been going around.
If you haven’t had enough of Taylor, or feel like the best way to make a fresh start in life is to draw a line under the hysteria by knowing everything there is to know ever, you can read this from the Music Blog last week, in which Michael Cragg selflessly digested every Taylor Swift thinkpiece so the nation didn’t have to.
Updated
Halloween Hangover
Without a doubt, the place to be this Halloween was Marilyn Manson’s show at the Roxy in LA, where he was joined by Johnny Depp on guitar and Die Antwoord’s Ninja on unhinged dancing and shouting (and whom Manson introduces onto the stage quite quaintly as “an extra special person from Africa, a wild country where they grow lions, tigers and bears. Oh my!”).
The supergroup performed Manson’s The Beautiful People, managing to transform what is already a bit of a racket into something aurally quite painful.
Another Halloween highlight was Manson’s ex-wife Dita Von Teese’s costume - every year she dresses up as a normal girl, but this year she went especially hard on the normcore.
Special mention must also go to Iggy Azalea for using Halloween as a chance to smack down various haters. Her and a friend dressed up as the leads from cop comedy White Chicks as a riposte to Snoop Dogg, who recently claimed Azalea looked like Marlon Wayans’ character in the film. The pair also brought Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles out of retirement for the soundtrack to their Instagram video of the night.
